Hi! Call me Vince, Lupine, or Blackbird. Pronouns are he/him/his.
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@livingdeadsilence <- roleplay sideblog
This is my creative writing and personal blog. I'll mainly be posting/reblogging:
My own writing (main genres and themes: modern/urban fantasy, horror, sci-fi, character studies, angst, fluff, hurt/comfort)
Personal posts (block the "journal" tag if you don't want to see them)
My friends' writing and art
Other writing and art that resonates with me
Writing/editing/publishing advice
Prompts, inspiration, and references
…But I'll also occasionally post and reblog fandom content, mutual aid posts, and other non-writing content. If there is something specific you would like me to tag, please send me an ask!
Below the cut is a quick rundown of my main OCs who I put through The Horrors and some of my main/current interests.
My OCs:
Lou (he/him): Human writer/author/editor. He's one of my oldest OCs (been writing variations of him for like thirteen years) and I love putting him through the wringer in all kinds of AUs; thankfully his boundless determination and capacity for fierce loyalty help him get through it. [Desktop bio] [Mobile bio] [Tag]
Francis (he/him): Lou's big brother and Dan's twin. Human singer/songwriter/musician/video game streamer. Just as old as Lou for me, and their stories are often tightly intertwined. *Smacks his shoulder* This little guy can fit so much anxiety in him. [Desktop bio] [Mobile bio] [Tag]
Dan (he/him): Lou's other big brother and Francis's twin. Human hitman/artist. Was created to be an evil foil for Francis but then he got too much depth and now I like him too much to make him irredeemable so he gets to be Complicated and Repressed. [Desktop bio] [Mobile bio] [Tag]
Samael/Sam (he/sol): Started out as an evil shadow fiend possessing warlock!Lou in a homebrew D&D 5e game, eventually morphed into the son of Lathander and also is the Literal Fucking Sun. He got an unplanned villain redemption arc so he doesn't want to end the world anymore but he does still love chaos and being a massive pain in the ass. Sometimes sol and Lou kiss. [Full ref page: TK] [Tag: TK]
Lily (she/her): Werewolf OC who's even older than Lou and has gone through even more changes than him. Kind of a Robin Hood-esque figure with a strong sense of justice and is a total badass…but even badasses need to cry and be held sometimes, much to her chagrin. She's boisterous, loves fiercely, and hates to give up. [Full ref page: TK] [Tag: TK]
Pepper (they/them): Dhampir/born vampire OC who's also gone through a lot of changes in recent years. Lily's best friend and eventually her partner (in romance and in crime). Not-so-secretly a huge nerd and sweetheart, but equally as strong in their convictions and willing to fight for them as Lily. [Full ref page: TK] [Tag: TK]
Aster (he/they): Started as a D&D 5e character, a "dhampir" hexblade warlock who was resurrected from death as a child. He ambiently drains the life force out of others, often uncontrollably, unless he does his mysterious patron's (the Benefactor) bidding. They seek to do good and prevent their "condition" from causing mass harm or death. In the process, he grapples with having "come back wrong." [Full ref page: TK] [Tag: TK]
Zephyr (he/him): My very first D&D 5e character who blossomed into a full-blown OC; a harpy glamour bard who travels the world seeking his missing lover, Armand. He also loves and seeks out new experiences and strives to live life to the fullest after escaping a sheltered and abusive upbringing. In some AUs he's also put alongside Aster, where his bubbly and warm personality contrast their colder outlook. [Full ref page: TK] [Tag: TK]
Guy (he/him): Started as a semi-recurring ally NPC in the same homebrew game I ran with Sam (during Sam's antagonist era). Then he became my tiefling arcane archer fighter/paladin PC in my friend's D&D 5e campaign and *then* I started growing brain worms about him as the emergent story of the campaign changed him. A bounty hunter who appears aloof, carefree, and untethered, who comes to realize that he loves his friends and strives to make up for the damage his lack of commitment has wrought. [Full ref page: TK] [Tag: TK]
Westlin/Wes (he/him): Started as a D&D 5e PC I never got to use, who I then repurposed into my seldarine dark elf lore bard in BG3. His main motto is "kindness pays" and he has a passion for studying arcane magic. His BG3 story is still ongoing because I play video games at a snail's pace. In some AUs he is a drider instead, which is very funny given that he's an arachnophobe. [Full ref page: TK] [Tag: TK]
What I'm into lately (i.e.: what I might post about when I'm not writing original stuff, list subject to change):
Limbus Company
Path to Nowhere
Octopath Traveler
Ace Attorney
Dexter
The Blood of Youth
The works of Stephen King
Classic horror films
Classic literature
Greek mythology
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
TTRPGs of all kinds, especially indie and solo RPGs lately
When he was badly hurt he had this instinct for solitude. To him, there was something private about death—so that, if he had to die, he tried to get a chance of doing it by himself.
—T. H. White, The Ill-Made Knight, in The Once and Future King
You're afraid to write because you care too much about your craft. Not because you suck.
You want it to be perfect. Worthy. You're scared it won't be good enough. But the thing is, everything you write is worthy if you write it with heart.
That fear doesn't make you a fraud, or lazy. It makes you a perfectionist who doesn't write as much as they should because their fear is choking them. Your writing will never be perfect—nothing ever is.
So stop waiting for the perfect moment and go pour your heart out. Unleash your wild—and slightly disturbing—imagination onto those pages. Go create magic that only you can make.
GO WRITE THE THING YOU KEEP THINKING ABOUT DAY AND NIGHT. And make sure you write it for yourself before anyone else!
Special thanks to @ssiggss for drawing the silly idea I had with Philia and her well-intentioned fathers 😅 really, how could no one want to play with her? What happened?? She put on her best smile!!
You know what fantasy writing needs? Working class wizards.
A crew of enchanters maintaining the perpetual flames that run the turbines that generate electricity, covered in ash and grime and stinking of hot chilies and rare mushrooms used for the enchantments
A wizard specializing in construction, casting feather fall on every worker, and enchanting every hammer to drive nails in straight, animating the living clay that makes up the core of the crane
An elderly wizard and her apprentice who transmute fragile broken objects. From furniture, to rotten wood beams, to delicate jewelry
A battle magician, trained with only a few rudimentary spells to solve a shortage of trained wizards on the front who uses his healing spells to help folks around town
Wizarding shops where cheery little mages enchant wooden blocks to be hammered into the sides of homes. Hammer this into the attic and it will scare off termites, toss this in the fire and clean your chimney, throw this in the air and all dust in the room gets sucked up
Wizard loggers who transmute cut trees into solid, square beams, reducing waste, and casting spells to speed up regrowth. The forest, they know, will not be too harsh on them if the lost tree’s children may grow in its place
Wizard farmers who grow their crops in arcane sigils to increase yield, or produce healthier fruit
Factory wizards who control a dozen little constructs that keep machines cleaned and operational, who cast armor to protect the hands of workers, and who, when the factory strikes for better wages, freeze the machines in place to ensure their bosses can’t bring anyone new in.
Construction wizards to turn back time to root out wood worm and strengthen old buildings.
A wizard tailors who transmutes cloth into fully made clothes without seems and leaving behind no scraps
A wizard who works in public transit, timing out teleports with detailed schedules, time magic, and enchanted communications, sending dozens of people to far away cities for a day or work or leisure
A team of wizard gardeners tend to trees grown far outside their native range, and ideal climate, encircled with runes and fed potions to grow none the less
A wizard sits in their office in the aqueduct, re-casting the spells that allow its precious water to flow to the city uphill
A wizard fisher casts water repelling spells on the sailors and the stairs, keeps the hoist on the anchor from rusting, casts balls of heat that keep everyone warm below decks. Their real job is to herd fish together so they can be caught in single huge nets, and keep them cold as the boat returns to land.
There are so many possibilities outside of “stodgy academic who wears ugly robes” and “Very good holy man who helps everyone and the fact they’ve never had a job is never brought up” and “evil wizard toiling away on great evils in his evil tower in the evil country.”
I love you, folks in my phone / online who create ocs and love and obsess and are passionate about their ocs ♡
even if you're not loud about it, even if you don't get a lot of visibility. even if you don't think your oc is good enough, if you're good enough. even if you worry your oc is too much like someone elses oc, or a canon character. even if you can't / don't draw or write or make content for your ocs. even if you're always making new ocs, or revamping your ocs, or they're a constant wip.
even if you think this post isn't about you - it is, if you have ocs and care about them.
Writing is an act of sustained attention. It's an act of meditation—a beautiful marriage of action and imagination.
People often describe focus as a light switch — on or off. For people with ADHD, sustained attention is like... a flickering lamp.
You sit down with the intention to write, only to — flicker — now you're on your phone and then, — flicker — a random memory, something cringe from 10 years ago, and now you can't sit still, so let's move to another spot — rinse and repeat. Nothing gets done.
But you're a writer. It's who you are. Even while you sit back, paralyzed by executive dysfunction, it's all you can think about. I've been there, done that.
How'd I overcome my own ADHD? I'll tell you how.
For years, I thought I was lazy.
I'd sit down to write and then I'd immediately feel my braincells ping-pong between 5 billion unrelated thoughts. Or I wouldn't think about anything at all (thanks dissociation).
But it turns out:
We're not lazy; far from it. If you have ADHD, depression, autism, etc, then your brain is fundamentally different from neurotypical brains.
It's like trying to run The Mile in high school, except your teacher made you put on weighted shoes. Then when you finish last, you shrug and go, "oh, I must be bad at this."
But that's not true!
Our brains are hijacking us. And if that's the case, then how do we overcome it?
Why "locking in" is so hard with ADHD (or any mental illness)
ADHD, depression, and even autism disrupt executive functions that writing relies on: task initiation, working memory, sustained attention, concentration. When your brain already struggles with holding a thought, then any distraction—whether a sound, memory, or a notification—will absolutely derail us. We're hanging by a thread. The slightest weight can snap it.
And I'm not just saying only people with ADHD experience this. People with autism, depression, and schizophrenia can experience this. Neurotypicals too. Even George R. R. Martin and Stephen King suffer from executive dysfunction from time to time. Nobody is perfectly productive all the time.
Let's focus on executive dysfunction (the inability to initiate tasks).
If it's hard to start things, then make it stupid easy to start.
Instead of aiming for an epic 500k saga, aim for something super simple.
Start with:
→ open the document (yes, just open it)
take a break, then:
→ write one messy sentence (that's it. super easy.)
another break, then:
→ set a timer for 5 minutes (only 5)
Done. For the rest of the day.
Tomorrow, push yourself an extra minute.
You don't need to build up rock-solid discipline right now. We're just bypassing the initial friction.
Doing hard things will rewire your brain to do them again with less friction the next time. This is scientifically proven.
Of course, if you have ADHD/Depression/Autism, it might never be 100% easy every single day. You'll have good days, and you'll have bad days, but with consistency and habit, things do get easier.
Use every tool at your disposal
Use timers, task lists, visual cues, Stimuwrite 2, freewriting, accountability buddies, etc. These aren't cheats; they're tools. Don't guilt yourself for using them.
A 10-minute freewriting sprint can accomplish more for an ADHD brain than an hour of trying to "push through".
Your brain is different. So work different! Work with your brain, not against it!
Bonus tips
Give your body something to do: fidget, chew gum, rock back and forth, take a break to pace, or just take a walk. Movement can regulate your nervous system.
Set a reminder to look away from your screen every 20 minutes.
Change your position every 45.
A regulated body creates a focused, happy mind.
Use reward loops. Such as:
– a special playlist only for writing
– a snack you only eat during sessions
– a point system for completed sections (like Focus Friend by Hank Green)
You don't have to bribe yourself, that often doesn't work. Just give your brain a little boost.
And lastly, let your focus be nonlinear.
You're a human—not a machine. Don't work like a machine.
Some days you'll write in long bursts. Others, you'll work in chaotic four-minute increments. That's okay. Instead of forcing the same amount of productivity everyday, just plan around your natural rhythms. Work with yourself. And if one day, you're really not feeling it, then don't force yourself to.
Did this post help you? I'm glad. If you're struggling with executive dysfunction, I offer feedback and encouragement for writers like you.
