Someone: hey, if youâre a writer, why donât I ever see you writing?
Me, a writer whoâs been daydreaming about three characters, two unwritten chapters, some scraps of dialogue, and a partial plot that still needs to be heated up in the microwave before itâs usable:
major themes â life & death | love & fear | humanity | sacrifice | obsession | devotion | duty
âč synopsis
Things werenât always this bleak. Itâs what they tell themselves, huddled over lamplight and pressed against each other. It wasnât always this bad, right? Right? The sea (if it could even be called that) didnât rise up to meet ships. It didnât gobble down cities. It didnât thrum with malice and something far too alive to be just briny waves.
It wasnât always like this, right?
For Pitchpullers like Alys, it doesnât matter. She makes her living venturing into the darkest part of the waves and gathering the chunks of saltstone that blossom there. Itâs dangerous work, certainly, but what isnât dangerous about the caverns in which she lives? What doesnât involve risk? Bad things happen on the Pitch. Everyone knows that. But to say the waves come aliveâŠ
She doesnât believe it until it happens to her. Stranded, sheâs forced to accept whatever help comes â and that help comes with a price. Indebted to a woman whoâs name she doesnât even know, Alys must now do the impossible. Go to the surface, where only the maddest of Pullers venture, and bring back a vial of bottled sunlight. Only then will the waves recede. Only then will people stop dying.Â
Itâs dangerous work. She hates that only makes her want it more.
âč characters
alys â the weary captain. circumstance led her to the pitch, but it was her choice to fall in. she wishes she could regret it.Â
valencia â the broken heir. they had all they needed and still managed to stumble. it haunts them to this day.
quickpenny â the clever gunner. thereâs little she loves more than the smell of gunpowder and brine. thereâs little she hates more than blood.Â
nastja â the sourtounged engineer. the pitch is scary, but sheâs scarier. at least⊠she hopes she is.
blue â the gentle doctor. sweetness is her shield and kindness is her sword. on the pitch, itâs as good as any weapon.
petra â the silent navigator. she picks out the false constellations in the caverns above. she does what she can to keep her past a secret. itâs enough.
Hello everyone! I thought a re-introduction was in order, given Iâve gained quite a few new followers and because, I donât know, I feel different than the girl who made the last one.Â
WIP PAGE // CHARACTERS PAGE
About the Author:Â
I love writing, even if itâs constantly kicking my ass
I love romance and horrorÂ
I love cats
I love men
I love video games
I love clothes
I do not love writing when it is kicking my ass
I do not love living in the midwest
I do not love how expensive clothes are
I do not love competition
My name is Carmen (23, white, bisexual, cis), I write almost entirely about the transformative power of love. I have a lot of projects in the works, some being worked on more consistently than others:Â
My Heart is a Concert is my main project, about a husband and wife reuniting years after heâs presumed dead. Main Themes: love, family, coming to terms with your own actions; warnings for some general action in act ii + iii
The Rot is one of two I am slowly plotting and outlining. This is about a priest, a witch, a disease, and the Church. Main Themes: forbidden love, growth of power, kind people; warnings for disease, death, and one racy love scene
I am also writing an as yet unnamed Gothic Video Game using Choice of Gamesâ code. You play as a witch investigating the mysterious and gruesome killings in a seaside town. Main Themes: character choice, magic, mystery, murder; warnings for violence, murder scenes, player-activated love scenes (you have the option to skip & avoid altogether)
A Shadow Over Hedwig Hill is what happens when I want more women in Lovecraftian pulp noir. Two sisters go out to rescue the third, and get caught up in the strange town of Hedwig Hill. Main Themes: cults, Lovecraftian horror, detectives, family, love; warnings for cult practices, some horror, a few love scenes, and genre-consistent violence
Last but not least there is my unnamed Crime Drama Series, three books about two private investigators, a journalist, and a secretary. Main Themes: crime, corruption, relationships, mystery;Â warnings for violence, murder, corrupt officials, and more than one love scene
Besides those projects, I also have a podcast, Sudden Dashes! It is a writing podcast, and I am currently working through a series on my writing process. If you have the ability, please give it a listen!Â
SPOTIFY // FACEBOOKÂ
Besides all the writing I do, I also love to imagine my future, make playlists for my characters and stories, and play a lot of video games (mutuals can ask for my PSN handle! I play Destiny 2 and Far Cry 5 but am good at neither). I watch a ton of movies (mostly horror and period pieces), some tv (Iâm getting through Schittâs Creek right now), and sometimes I go for long walks but itâs really humid here!Â
Please feel free to interact and ask questions about my stories and characters!Â
Her laugh is the first thing he hears, piercing through the dark nothingness like a lightning bold, bright and full of joy.
The sudden sound startles him and he opens his eyes, finding himself in the middle of the forest. It isnât a forest like he knows it, not the familiar woods of his childhood home. Itâs a different kind of forest, ancient, magical. Beautiful. With trees so tall and old that he feels incredibly small and lost wandering between them.
Again, the sound of a girl laughing catches his attention. He shifts his head, looking around to find the source of the sound, but canât find it. Itâs like itâs everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
In the distance he sees something shimmer, a flash of light shining between the trees. He walks towards it, pushing past the trees and bushes until suddenly, he stands at the edge of a clearing.
Before him lies a wide field of cornflowers, beautiful and glowing in the light of a setting sun. Never before had he seen a place that looked so peaceful.
And then he notices her.
A young girl, dancing around the field, only accompanied by the sound of her laughter filling the air. She doesnât seem to mind the absence of music, spinning around as if sheâs without a worry in the world.
The girl looks just as bright as her laugh. She is graceful, her flowy white dress fluttering around her as she dances, her hair flowing down her shoulders like golden silk. The top of her head is graced with a crown of brightly blooming wildflowers that suits her perfectly. It looks like sheâs made to wear a crown.
She seems so full of joy that he canât help but to walk towards her.
When she notices him, she stops to dance and smiles. He stares back at her, unable to move, stunned by a pair of glowing amber eyes that seem to look directly into his soul.
Then the girl opens her arms in a welcoming gesture. âCome closer!â she says, reaching out to him. âDance with me!â
He hesitates, but only for a moment, then he steps closer and takes her offered hands. The girl laughs again, spinning him around and around and he laughs too, infected by her happiness. They dance until he feels dizzy. He doesnât stop. Doesnât ever want to stop.
But then the roar of thunder shakes the clearing. He stops, startled, and looks up to the sky, watching it turn pitch black. He looks back at the girl, but she is gone. He looks around, hectically, but she is nowhere to be seen. Heâs alone at the clearing, now gray and lifeless, all flowers withered.
Suddenly, a loud scream cuts through the air. The scream of a girl, a frightened, desperate sound that gives him chills- and he starts to run. Back into the forest, forward to where that horrible sound came from.
The forest, now looking dark and menacing, seems to try and hold him back, sharp branches cutting into his arms and legs as he runs. The scream has long merged into the sound of someone whimpering. It seems to be all around him as he makes his way through the steadily growing darkness.
Then he sees her, nothing more than a flash of gold and white, a few feet ahead of him. While earlier the forest seemed to hold him back, for her it seems to open up, the branches in front of her moving aside on their own, building a path.
âWait!â he calls, but she doesnât listen. So he chases after her, along the way that opens up before her, staying close behind. The path leads them to what looks like the remains of an old market place. In the middle of it, there was a gigantic tree, bigger like everything he has ever seen, bigger even as the other trees in the strange old forest.
An odd feeling overcomes him, an overwhelming sense of awe and fear, mixed with something that almost feels like familiarity. The girl is a few feet away from him, right in front of the tree.
When he comes closer, he finds her cowering on the forest floor, her hands covering her face. The flower crown on her head, once shining in the brightest colors, is now withering, the limp petals falling down around her cowering form like rain. She has her back turned to him, rocking back and forth as if to comfort herself, mumbling something in a language he doesnât know. Her sobs break his heart, so he reaches out, trying to comfort her.
Before his hand touches her, she reaches out over her shoulder in a quick motion, closing her slender fingers around his wrist, holding it in a strong grip. She is no longer trembling. He is frozen in place and for a moment neither of them moves.
âWhy?â she suddenly speaks. âWhy do you do this?â Her voice sounds strange; sad and tired and hoarse. The girlâs grip on his wrist tightens, he tries to shake her hand off but fails. âWhy do you haunt me?â she screams.
Then, just as sudden as she held on to him, she lets him go. He stumbles back, a hand around his hurting wrist, and watches in bewilderment as the girl slowly stands up and turns around to face him. What he sees scares him.
She has changed. Her eyes are red and swollen from crying, the warmth in them completely vanished. Her pretty features are twisted in a horrid expression. Wild. Mad.
She is covered in dirt, her white dress stained and ripped, her feet muddy. Her arms are covered with little red cuts, her blonde hair colored almost gray with dust, making her look a lot older than she actually is. On top of her head, she wears a crown of thorns.
He gasps in shock, taking another step back. The girl grins, a horrifying grimace, and tilts her head. Though she looks in his direction, it seems like she is staring right through him.Â
She doesnât notice him in her madness, only sees whatever it was that seems to torture her mind. Then she screams- a wicked sound- and dashes forward.
He barely has time to react before she attacks him, tackling him to the ground. They fight, she claws at him as if to try to tear through his skin.Â
Panicked, he tries to free himself from her attack, finally managing to get her off of him. He tries to escape but she holds him back, gripping one of his ankles and pulling him back down.
He looks around, desperate, for something that can help him to knock her out and escape. His eyes fall on something flashing in the distance, something that wasnât there before, a golden knife pushed into the forest floor.Â
He pushes her off once again, kicking her in the process, and starts to run towards the knife.
The girl cries out, both in pain and desperation, and chases after him. She too has noticed the knife. He is almost there, but in the moment he reaches out to grab it, she catches up with him and yanks him back, the force throwing him to the ground.
He wants to move but canât, his body disobeying him. All he can do is watch in horror as the girl plucks the golden knife out of the earthâs grip, examining it before turning towards him ever so slowly.Â
When she darts forward, like a wild animal about to slay its prey, he knows that there is no escape. He was still frozen in place. Helpless. Terrified.
The last thing he sees is the girl leaning over him, eyes watery and wide with madness, the knife raised with both hands. Blood is dripping from the thorn crown on her head onto his face.
As the knife sinks down and into his chest, he wakes up with a scream.
.
This dream (or should I say nightmare?) both Henry and Aiden (and even their mom) sometimes had as a child. No one quite knows why. The dream always varies a bit, sometimes it goes a little bit different. The version I wrote down I imagine to be the very first time Aiden has said dream.
I hope you enjoyed it, let me know if you have questions! ^^
Tirnaeia plunges into chaos at the return of the God King.
Three Sisters saw
Their Brother lost in the dark
and though His death grieved Them
there was no other way.
But King Teha will return.
And His match will come
brightly burning, from the sea.
KAIA PAVAT
The braziers set a soft blue glow about the room. The shadows flickered as Kaia stood in the centre of the room, arms raised as one handmaid strapped delicate gold bracelets to his forearms and biceps. Another combed through his dark curls, neatening them as best she could, while a third lathered his exposed upper body in an oil that smelled of sea salt. He was well used to the smell of sea salt; from his window, he could see the ocean. As he glanced over, a shoal of silver fish glimmered past as the light of the distant sun caught on their scales. His eyes were outlined, painted with charcoal and powdered coral, while one of the handmaids approached with his crown. It was a heavy, uncomfortable thing; made with gold and intertwined like flames and smoke, showing seven points studded with seashells and colourful pebbles. The pebbles were old, the shells were new. They better fit their underwater home. The crown was one of the few treasures they had kept from the old days.
LORREN JATâANA
Lorren was sure that he and Zeta were made to find each other. This tragedy had brought them where they were meant to be; together. And so he took the boy with the crescent moon home. He let him sleep in Drakonâs old cradle. He liked to trace his fingertips along his birthmark, wondering if the boy had been left just for him. He soon found himself pondering baby names like a brooding woman. He wasnât afraid of it, like he might have expected. Watching the little one sleep and coo and sip at warm milk made his heart swell unbearably in his chest, made him feel that he had a greater purpose than to simply be a mage. He had another life at his fingertips, one to nurture and attend with the greatest love he could. Â Words couldnât describe that feeling that came over him when he held the little one in his arms, and decided to name him Zeta. He had not felt whole in all his life. He felt a need to be better if only for him, though at times, he found that truly impossible.
One time I was cooking with a girl and we were both bilingual but we didnât have a language in common so we were just sitting by the fire doing prep work quietly and I was peeling little garlic cloves to mince and she put her hand on my arm to stop me and demonstrated how youâre supposed to press on the clove with the flat side of your knife to break the shell off all at once to peel it and I was like oh! And I imitated her and she nodded in approval and we went back to quietly peeling and mincing the garlic and I donât want to be hyperbolic but in that moment I was like wow I truly understand the universal thread of human love and connection inherent in our souls or whatever
One of my favorite parts of Lord of the Rings is how the history of the environments always echoes whatâs happening in the story.
Most sequences in Lotr are like: âthe heroes enter a location that is ruined/fading/dead. Then the heroes do something that makes the locationâs lost history come to life again, if only for a moment.â
Like the most obvious example of this is Moria. The heroes walk into Balinâs tomb and read the story of what happened thereâ the dwarves hearing drums in the deep, barricading the door, and being attacked by goblins.
Then immediately after the heroes hear drums in the deep, barricade the door, and have to survive an onslaught of goblins, just as the dwarves did.
The other really obvious example is Mount Doom: Sam tries to get Frodo to let go of the Ring, and Frodo refusesâ echoing how Elrond tried to get Isildur to let go of the Ring, and Isildur refused.
But there are more subtle versions of this too-- like Iâve already talked a lot about how much I love this part of Weathertop. Weathertop was once a magnificent old watch-tower that was used by ancient kings, and long ago the ancient kings even used to battle over who owned it. Then the Northern Kingdom fell, and the watchtower fell into ruins and was forgotten.
But then Aragorn (a king in exile) and the Nazgul (who were âgreat kings of menâ) return to Weathertopâ and itâs like an echo of the battles that used to happen there. This watchtower fell into ruin and lost its royal identity, the Nazgul fell into ruin and lost their identities, and Aragorn turned from kingship and chose a life of anonymityâ so itâs like!!!!!!!! The kings are as faded as weathertop itself!! It drives me wild
(also: unrelated but I love this shot where Aragorn is a dark silhouette and the Ringwraiths are bright white silhouettes, itâs just nice)
Another example is Amon Hen and the Argonath. This land used to belong to Gondor,â but itâs broken, overgrown, in ruins, and gradually fading away.
And this is the place where Boromir diesâ the place that symbolizes his countryâs death.
But itâs also the place where film!Aragorn finally decides to accept his responsibliity to Gondorâwhen he realizes that Gondor/mankind has worth, even if itâs faded and in ruins and ultimately doomed.
Or thereâs Helmâs Deep in the Two Towers, where the history of Helmâs Deep as a fortress that canât be taken is repeatedly tied to the heroâs efforts to save it. The heroes find courage by reminding themselves of the fortressâs history. (âThe horn of Helm Hammerhand shall sound in the deepâ one last time!â)
Or the way Frodo making the choice to take the Ring to Mordor, leaving his home behind, ties into the history of Rivendellâ to the way elves are preparing to leave their home behind. Or the way the elvesâ grief at how Lothlorien is doomed to fade away ties to the heroesâ grief at the death of Gandalf.Â
Idk! Itâs like every scene! And sometimes the characters themselves are aware they might relive the pastâ and it it fills them with hope (Helmâs Deep) or dread (Moria, Mount Doom.)Â But sometimes itâs subtle, to the point where the characters themselves might not realize itâs happening. And i just think thatâs neat
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