OwlSandwich

Wren | He/They | 36 | Autistic | 🏳️‍⚧️ | A light dusting of CPTSD | UK based | Asks and Tags welcome!

[owlsandwich]

Writeblr Intro

Updated 7 August 2024

Links to where you can find each project are below. For gay vampire romance, see Burning the Darkness, and for multiple POV fantasy, see The Mechanics of Magic.

Some key facts first:

Genre - Fantasy

Audience - Adult

Reccuring elements - magic, neurodivergent characters, queer characters 🏳️‍🌈

I'm Wren, I'm 35 and from the UK. I am also autistic and my rainbow credentials are that I'm a trans guy, grey-ace, and somehow also pretty gay 😉

My characters tend to be neurodivergent, with many of them being ADHD or autistic, even if the fantasy world doesn't have a term for it. I also like to write about trauma and healing through found family and connections with others.

I currently have two ongoing projects.

Project 1:

The Mechanics of Magic (read it here)

Multiple POV fantasy novel. Tag: themechanicsofmagic

Two decades after the slaughter of Ardveld’s royal family, Matthew could almost forget he’d ever been the crown prince. His survival a secret from all but his closest friend, the expectations of his birth have been consigned to history.

A job. A family. He thought he’d moved on.

But when his eighteen-year-old son Alex is arrested and taken to the palace, Matthew realizes his past has caught up with him.

Meanwhile, novice mage, delivery driver, and part-time thief Roy is looking for answers. A simple break-in takes a sinister turn when he stumbles across a weapon imbued with destructive magic and glowing with the sigil of Ardveld’s deceased royalty.

Across the city, a string of strange magic attacks prompts an investigation by Ardveld’s newly appointed Head of Magical Affairs, Tamara. What she discovers threatens to reveal the truth about Ardveld’s takeover, and will determine the future of the survivors.

The Mechanics of Magic is a multiple-pov fantasy novel set in an original world where magic exists openly alongside early internet-level technology.

The book follows the surviving prince of a deposed magical royal family (who has been living in secret for two decades) trying to rescue his son from the government whilst uncovering the truth about his family's murder.

Mechanics was my first book. It can stand alone, but I am now working on the sequel as there is much more to explore with these characters and their journey.

I am currently working through the edited manuscript that I've received back from my editor, and will be posting each chapter here as I go under the tag themechanicsofmagic

Project 2:

Burning the Darkness (AO3: Darkness At The Heart Of My Love)

18+ gay vampire romance exploring themes of discovering you're queer, and what it means to be a monster.

Currently being edited into an ebook, but the old version will always be available on AO3.

Read it on AO3 here or grab the edited book version here!

A Lightborn manifests once a century. Oren’s light magic is powerful enough to wipe out the court and devastate vampire society, but money and connections can thwart any threat. Killed before they even know they have been betrayed, the Lightborn has become little more than a monster from Julian's bedtime stories.

A monster that seems nothing like the gentle young man now destined to die.

~

The surprise attack by the vampire’s feral army should have killed Oren. Instead, he wakes up, bloodied and weak in the lair of his enemy.

It is surely no act of benevolence. Julian is the son of the Master of the Court. A night creature, whose sharp teeth at Oren’s throat leave him changed - transformed into the very monster he was born to destroy.

They are bound together, but Oren's magic is only growing stronger. He resists control, even as he slips further into hunger, and Julian’s father is close to figuring out the truth. Time is running out, and Oren’s existence threatens to tip the delicate balance of power at court into a battle that will devour them both.

My second book! It has an 18+ rating for some explicit content.

[pb-dot]

Happy WBW! It wouldn't be the first WBW of Pride Month if I didn't make it 🌈. Talk to me about queer existence in your world, or specific cities/towns/etc.

Happy WBW, and don't mind if I do!

So, all four protagonists in Thereafter are queer. There's actually a pretty funny Open/Private Casual/Extra split there (Michael is Private Casual, Alicia Open Casual, Felipe Open Extra, Lex Open Extra.) Anyway, they come from a world that basically is our own, so there's pros and cons, victories and terrifying pendulum swingbacks there, we've all been there (as we have no choice.)

As for Thereafter, the city houses thousands of cultures, but let's concentrate on a couple that we've dealt with a little at least. The Steppefolk are very practical about gender and sexuality, and largely don't differentiate between straight or queer couples. Tentmates, i.e a couple that share a tent and (implied) intimacy as differentiated from a Hearthmate or what we'd call a friend or acquaintance, are Tentmates, and who and what they are doesn't matter so much. Generally, Steppefolk do not have the idea of a "family" as a standalone unit, as children generally are raised communally and the tribe as a whole are viewed as a stable superstructure of relationships that people may leave or enter as consensus allows. There exists what on earth would be a reactionary movement (although among the Steppefolk it is more revisionist) mostly following the teachings and ideas of The Nameless Speaker, a historical figure whose attempts at introducing a more nuclear-like family structure created so much strife and was crushed so thoroughly for it that his name is no longer known.

The Molekin are simultaneously very chill about sexuality and incredibly unchill about reproduction, or rather legacy. It is important to a molekin to be able to trace their family line as far back as possible, with the Fall of the Lightlord, Michael's childhood adventure, considered a bit of a "minimum respectable point." That said, adoption is very common among the molekin, and any couple that shows the ability to are generally trusted to raise a child. Adoption is, admittedly, a bit of a necessity for the molekin, as life in the Great Cave can be dangerous, and Molekin are notoriously frail in a number of ways, as well as molekin pups developing rather slowly. As such, a Molekin lineage is often more a question of what traditions and culture is passed down than actual biological ties.

Aurol, being somewhat of a renaissance europe-like world, isn't possessing the most abundant chill when it comes to queerness. The Magus College, on the other hand, actively don't give a shit. As long as one submits ones work, cites properly, and doesn't blow up too many things in the process, the college accepts all. This has inevitably drawn a non-insignificant amount of queer people, and while having a degree from the College isn't exactly carte blanch to live as you please in Aurol, both authorities and locals alike hesitate to tell a certified Wizard their business, as that is an act with a very real possibility of causing collateral damage. As such "Magus Boy/Magus Girl" or the more gender neutral "grad" has become Aurol shorthand for "probably queer but nobody's gonna do nothing about it."

[luna-azzurra]

Stages of writing a novel: (1) this is a great idea (2) this is a good idea (3) this is an idea (4) what even is this (5) i have made a terrible mistake (6) okay there's something here (7) this is actually good (8) this is too good, something is wrong (9) wait did i accidentally write something real (10) close laptop. do not think about it for three days. open laptop. start over from stage 4.

[deathlonging]

how it feels to work on yr stupid writing & enjoy it

[owlsandwich]

Caterpillar forming its chrysalis!

[owlsandwich]

My caterpillars are starting their transformation!

[mayomkun]

A little tribute after finishing Watership Down

[slashermary]

told my roommate dracula was an epistolary novel because it’s made up of letters and she was like. of course it’s made of letters it’s a book

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

[owlsandwich]

[lovelymimic]

The Murder Victims Killer would come to be known for their calling card; a dead body left at the scene of each murder.

[redstonedust]

pet peeve is when you look up fashion references from a specific era and you keep getting modern day '[era]-inspired' fashion like NO i want authenticity damn it. i can see your 2020 photo quality and your 2020 hair and your 2020 makeup. youre not fooling me.

[bincliff]

hello i'm a historical fashion researcher and i have a lot of experience looking up things! this is a very widely experienced irritation and you're definitely not alone in this, but i am here to share everything i know!

so, ways to get around this:

turn off AI results. they're literally nonsense to us

don't use pinterest because the sources/provenance is often hard to trace

a standard internet search can be okay, but museum collections are the top tier (list of collections below this list)

instead of broad terms like victorian, regency, tudor, renaissance etc. try using the decade you're looking for. if you're not sure of what decade it is but have a vague image in your head, look on the fashion history timeline and just jump around until you find it. but even changing to e.g. 19th century will give better results than victorian

including terms like womenswear/menswear, daywear, formal wear, evening wear, court dress should increase the value of your search too

including "fashion plates" in your search can give you a nice impression of the intended silhouettes of the era. some of these might be a little stylised but will show you what was considered in vogue

for pre-fashion plate eras or things like makeup and styling, you'll have to look at portraiture or manuscripts. these are harder to actually find what you're looking for, but searching museum collections and limiting results to specific date ranges will be your friend

when looking at art, do bear in mind sometimes artists would paint fabric extra flow-y to show off their skills. it might not have been exactly like that in terms of fabric weight or drape. so, a pinch of salt required!

if you find something on image search where the provenance is dubious, reverse image search and you might find a source! i've been able to trace random pinterest images to real sources, but this does take a lot of time and effort and is often not worth the headache

some online resources and museum collections:

fashion history timeline is an invaluable resource if you're trying to get a feel for everything and should be your first port of call. it'll also link to good examples

the met has a vast number of extant examples of clothing, as well as fashion plates

costume institute fashion plates is a subcollection of the met for fashion plates (1800s-1922)

v&a also has many extant garments, fashion plates, and incredible articles on clothing and aesthetics. read the details of the objects because they'll often reveal a lot about the piece

lacma is good for C19th-20th pieces

nypl digital collection for photographs

national portrait gallery or similar for portraiture, or literally any museum in your country that has historical art

national museums scotland can be useful situationally but might be oddly specific

stout style history is a great collection for finding image references for fat people wearing historical clothes. survival bias of a lot of museum pieces tends towards smaller clothing that couldn't be repurposed, but this aims to counter that. it's not sortable, but is still a really nice resource

wikimedia commons is surprisingly handy! and the images, if you should need to link/repost them, are public domain

auction websites sound like a funny one to recommend. some won't have mannequins and some will. just look up historical garment auctions and you'll find some!

anyway, i hope this has been a good place to start for anyone interested! there are probably some i've missed because there are so many museums across the world and i don't know about all of them or can't remember them. but these are the ones i've used the most! (my specialisation/jobs i've had to research for have only really been in western fashion, so my resources reflect that)

[battery-enthusiast]

im the fakest idgafer youll ever meet. im so chalant. i care more than i can put into words

[ceruleanheaven]

honestly given my parents whole [gestures vaguely] i am actually incredibly well adjusted

[owlsandwich]

This might be the best flower photo I've taken!

[owlsandwich]

This keeps going round and round in my head, so going to have a vent to figure it out.

I was recently given the option to stand in some local elections happening next year, but I'm going to have to turn it down. Not because of the work itself, but because of the amount of abuse that I would receive.

I live in a right wing area. The candidate that I supported in our latest elections is a palatable, upper-middle class lady, who works hard in various volunteer roles to protect our local nature and waterways. I was still called an awful person for helping her campaign because 'all politicians are the same'.

Imagine the kind of things people would say to me, as a visibly queer, autistic trans person. I worry for the safety of not only myself, but my young family. Perhaps if I didn't have children I'd be brave enough to fight, but I'm just so tired and afraid.

The wash of relief I feel about turning this opportunity down is countered by my grief and anger that this is what our democracy has come to.

I think this whole situation has brought it home to me that with the recent election results, our government's latest transphobic guidance, and the rise of Reform UK, I no longer feel welcome in my country. There's no future here and no hope, which means I now need to start planning to uproot my family and leave.

I'm just so tired.

[owlsandwich]

[uncleakes]

Pls enjoy this ugly old ass picture of Canach. Kinda fitting since we're on Castora.