PARAMAY

the official blog of the paramay challenge

[acircusfullofdemons]

MaDD Events/Challenges

I get too nostalgic sometimes lmao 🥲 if you remember any of these then...uhm...I guess we're the senior citizens of the Daydreaming Community! Part of me wants to make something like these again, but the logistics are too much to think about right now.

PARADAY

Paraday was created by @sunshinemadd (and possibly @maladaptive-dreamer ?) and was a one-day event in which a MaDDer let their para(s) "run" their blog. Throughout the day, the MaDDer would make posts, answer questions, etc. as if their para(s) were doing it instead of them. It was also common for some to make whole blogs for their paras, which were called "parabogs". As someone who participated in both, I can safely say that all of it was just RPing as your paras lol.

Unfortunately, the creator has since deactivated and finding posts pertaining to the event is hard. So far, I've only been able to find this post pertaining to it, which includes tips on how to go about it. I also found this doc that organizes all/most of(?) the participants (including me!)

From my memory this was very short lived, around Feb-Mar of 2019 I believe.

PARAMAY

Started by @madd-utopia [source], Paramay is a monthly challenge that's supposed to mimick Inktober, inspired by Paraday. It was supposed to allow MaDDers to share info about their paras through art, writing, moodboards, etc. Paramay was hosted on the blog @paramay-challenge and ran from 2019-2021.

SEPARATEMPER

Like Paramay, Separatemper was a monthly challenge that let MaDDers share info about their paras thanks to a prompt list. Despite the similarities, the Separatember creator wasn't aware of Paramay until after the fact [source]. I wasn't able to find who started it, as the original Separatember blog has since been deactivated. That one ran from 2019-possible 2020?

There is another Separatember blog, @separatember, which is run by @daydreaming-memories. It was more of a general prompt blog than solely for Separatember, however, and never got the chance to do an official prompt list before becoming inactive. It ran from 2021-2022.

[paramay-challenge]

PARAMAY CHALLENGE 2021

☆ What is the Paramay Challenge?

A challenge that will be running for the entirety of May for persons with MaDD (or IDD) to draw, write, post, and share things about their paras, parames, and paracosms.

☆ Who is allowed to participate?

Anyone who has a para and is comfortable with sharing.

☆ What is allowed?

Anything is acceptable as a fill for the Paramay prompts whether its done as art, doodles, edits, moodboards, written snippets, poems, infodumps, anything you feel like.

☆ Remember to make sure to tag your work with #paramay or #paramay-challenge or just @paramay-challenge

2020 Prompts

Para + Intro

Para + Family

Para + Childhood

Para + Home

Para + Goal

Para + Best Friend(s)

Para + Work

Para + Flora

Para + Treasure

Para + Color

Para + Success

Para + Safety

Para + Creation

Para + Explore

Para + Comfort

Para + Archetype

Para + Extreme

Para + Mask

Para + Ruins

Para + Book

Para + Fear

Para + Adrift

Para + Reverse

Para + Skill

Para + Mentor

Para + Hobby

Para + Significant Other 

Para + Luck

Para + Planet

Para + Legacy

[sweet-dreams-are-madd-of-this]

⬛ 01: Para + Intro:

Keep reading

[madd-believer]

Kaitlyn & Partners in Crime

Kaitlyn’s best friend is Illumination “Lumi” Prochazka; they’ve been best friends since kindergarten. Lumi has the power to absorb others’ abilities just by watching them, but only abilities that would actually be physically possible for someone of her size/stature. So she can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound, but she can temporarily become an Olympic-level gymnast just by watching one (although not if she’s just watching a video).

Lumi prefers to be more in the background, though, so she mainly uses her power to function as an omniglot and work in the role of royal translator. She also did a lot of the editing on their group’s videos back when they were teens, and still does sometimes when Kaitlyn puts out streams.

Kaitlyn’s kind of aware of how self-absorbed she can be so a lot of times she worries that she’s not giving Lumi enough attention. But she does her best. One of her kids is actually named after Lumi, although they call her Lulu because Illumination is a big name for a baby.

[milkshakekitty]

@paramay-challenge I'm late again ahhh

Day 2: Para+Element

Ness is most in her element when she's tinkering with machines or computers, probably because machines are one of the few things she really understands. They're more simple than humans and they never talk back when she tells them about her problems. She finds it oddly therapeutic to repair broken things, and she also likes inventing. She has a one-track mind at times, and often hyperfixates on her projects until they're done. Once Ness built a tiny functional robot in a single afternoon. His name is Sparky, and he's by far her favorite creation, often helping her with simple tasks.

What is she messing with now? Idk I don't even think she knows

[rzcver-paracosm]

This is my squad of paras who have gotten kicked out of Home Depots in 3 different states. (Washington, Georgia, and North Dakota) From left to right- Ava Douglas, Ona Espar, Sunny Espar, Nick Nuquq. Please excuse their collective disregard for looking decent, they share 2 brain cells and Sunny’s usually using them to do math. Ona masterminds most of their stupid ideas, Ava enthusiastically joins in, Nick makes the plots a little smarter, and Sunny tries to convince them to do something normal before relenting and simply making sure nobody ends up in the ER. She usually succeeds. Nick and the twins’s parents are friends, so they’ve been friends for a while. In first grade someone tried to cut Ava in line for the last chicken nuggets at lunch, so Ona kicked him in the shins and the two of them have been inseparable ever since. Some of their best/ worst ideas are as follows:

The incident in which a thing of applesauce was hurled across the lunchroom

The time they made homemade explosives for New Year’s Eve and got in a whole lot of trouble

The ongoing insertion of bad Texan accents into normal conversations

Reading parts of the Communist Manifesto out loud in Russian accents of varying quality

Pretending to be the FBI in 5th grade and completely destroying the peaceful atmosphere of the library

Ona and Sunny having conversations in Morse code while they’re supposed to be doing other things

There’s more, but that’s just off the top of my head.

@paramay-challenge​

[amateur-madder]

Paramay Day 2: Para+Element

This is Apollo from my Maximum ride paracosm who is 98% human 2% avian. He's very similar to Kat(I mean really similar) but is way more laidback and not really one to take charge making him her second in command. Like Kat he is also bi with an eboy aesthetic (expect a lot of bi characters)

[ccaeles]

( paramay + day 3: partners in crime ) tagging: @paramay-challenge

→ CIELLE GRAY & LOANE FARREN

⊱⋅ ──────────── ⋅⊰

THEME SONG;; that's so us - allie x

⊱⋅ ──────────── ⋅⊰

They share one braincell but neither of them use it. They met when Cielle saved Loane from a Medusa look-alike and now they can't live without each other. Please don't leave them unsupervised more than three minutes, they're going to set the whole place in flame, please.

[kitphobic]

paramay day 3 // partners in crime

mk, if we're talking from a literal sense, most of my main paras are delinquents - probably bc i have never committed a crime in my liFE ( okay i accidentally committed theft one time but that's, heh, irrelevant ) - so i could've used anyone else w/ my parame bUt it's gotta be her gf ( sam ) for this one because,, i yearn for that content even irl apparently. partners in crime and also actual partners >> best trope, 10/10. daydreaming about them together lifts my mood so easily ( explains why 99% of my daydreams r about them at this point ) and i just love them sm 🥺 too bad sam isn't real and i'm not my idealized self and, according to science, never will be hAHa... ha.. welp. one can only hope 😔👌 ( imagine secretly thinking you'll wake up one day and you'll be your parame 🤭........ can relate oops )

i also made this chibi drawing of sparrow~

- riis @kitzdreamz

[kitphobic]

paramay day 2 // para + element

sparrow's classical element would have to be air! :>

about three years ago i actually created an au for my original paracosm where my paras had different elemental powers and it's remained my favourite au since! i think they're pretty neat. when i was really invested in it i remember feeling really content when it was windy outside bc i felt more connected to parame lmao,, i don't really daydream much about that au anymore tho 😔

okay. i had NO idea how to convey that her "" element "" would be air through a moodboard?! 💀 ig i just opted with clouds because why the heck not. recently i remade my original paras on lily story so i also decide to include that. it's probably my favourite dress up game tbh- it's got a decent amount of options!

i've also realized that i maybe haven't really explained enough about my paracosms so it's probably(?) confusing when i ramble, oops. i planned to explain things through my first few posts but then paramay happened sooo,, idk now xD just be patient with my guys-

- riis @kitzdreamz

[kitphobic]

paramay day 1 //

okay, i have no idea how to make those aesthetic moodboards but this was an attempt. ( it includes one of my favourite photos 😳 the bottom right ). not to be narcissistic BUt i'm dedicating paramay to my parame!! heck yea. i'm 2 lazy to write an actual introduction oops

- riis @kitzdreamz

[tales-from-the-waiting-room]

Para: Berri Starling Frost | Time Lord

Para: TJ Sawyer | Human

Paramay Day 3 - Partners In Crime

I didn’t know what to do for today, so I tried my hand at moodboards.

Now technically this is cheating, because Berri isn’t actually my para, but rather my partner’s paraself 😂 But our cosms are so intertwined, we have so many AUs and RPs where we share a cosm, and we have almost the same fictional paras, that I think this counts.

I picked this over any other pairing in my cosm because (well, aside from adoring my partner, go figure) I like the thematic parallels between Berri and TJ- most notably, fire. Fire is a big part of TJ’s story; both literal fire (she nearly burnt to death during an important battle) and figurative fire (sunlight, gun fire, portals and hardlight tech, and most importantly- a prototype Bootstrap device the likes of the one on the Borealis embedded in her chest, which ALSO almost killed her at one point!). And Berri can bend fire!! She has Will (yes, like the Will from Fable!) and has had firebender training. 

(i’m not giving out that much info about berri because i don’t know how much exactly is within the comfort limit)

On top of fire though, there’s of course the theme of space, time travel, etc; that’s pretty self explanatory- Berri’s a Time Lord, TJ can teleport between universes and moments in time (though it’s usually by accident). 

It’s really wild when we (they?) get together, because we’re basically very feral children with little sense of self-preservation. And most of our parental figures aren’t that much better. So yes!! Plenty of crimes.

go check out my darling’s para account and send asks >:) @wlcm-hme​ @razberri-nebula​

[maladaptivelysurviving]

Day 2: Elements

I know i didn’t do day 1, but. A lot of my main paracosm has to do with the elements, as you can see.

—

Alticia is a land favored by the goddess, or so her people believe. But surely it is the truth, surely that marvelous power is not the work of mortal hands–it could be neither the result of infernal contracts, nor the work of heretic alchemy. To possess such great command over nature itself is no mere parlor trick. The High Seeker says the goddess chooses–and they say she’s quite particular–four individuals worthy of her power. One each to command fire and stone, water and ice, flora and healing, wind and storms. 

They say Queen Galatea found the stone of Hiricine as a young girl, when she ventured out into a storm against her mother’s pleas and returned to her fretful guardian with her drenched hair shining in the sun, against a clear blue sky. 

She was young, but loved her fair country, and as its princess she would travel it often. She would call forth great maelstroms to end miserable droughts or douse raging fires. Every captain would clamor to have her aboard–she would summon mighty winds to fill their sails and calm any storms at sea. And when more pressing matters did not require her attention, she would summon tendrils of lightning and dancing sparks to entertain. Perhaps the goddess hadn’t intended for that last one, but if you don’t tell her, then neither will I.

What of the other stones, then? Where were they?

Often several generations pass with no stone-bearers to be seen. And one can’t blame them for secrecy, as there are all sorts of foul people who’d have that power for themselves. But throughout time’s winding path, it seems there is truly no pattern to the goddess’s choices. Queen Galatea was an oddity, so seldom did the Altician royal family enjoy the goddess’ blessing over the years. The stones found their way to knights, farmers, mercenaries, bandits, all the way to nobles, to peddlers, to dancers and artisans and servants. There are even records that claim people of House Fenrir’s lands, across Alticia’s western border, have received these divine gifts from time to time. Though that sounds ridiculous nowadays.

If Queen Galatea still lived, if we knew where any of the stones were, if Alticia could yet call itself a halidom rather than a pile of rubble and ash, perhaps then I could ask you to believe me. But I watched Fenran soldiers cut down the queen, and her husband too, and I can only imagine what happened to their children and the stones along with them. Perhaps they sit now in prison cells deep in Lord Fenrir’s lands, forced to use their powers to his vile ends. Or perhaps they live, and hide, and hope that no one will know what great powers they hold. 

Little Annalise, though she was the oldest at 13, always with the stone of Zurande round her neck, always making little statues of ice of anyone she met, or of the cats that would roam the gardens, or of flowers for her mother on the solstice. She would be Oracle one day, everyone knew–including her–and I daresay she was well-prepared. For all her whimsy, she was attentive in every dull prayer or meeting, and kind as could be. How often she would find a wounded animal and beg her sister to heal it.

Tyresius usually obliged, of course. No one could stand to see Princess Annalise with a frown for very long, not even her siblings, for all their good-natured teasing. The stone of Morosa could heal cuts, bruises, even broken bones–though the 10-year-old princess hadn’t quite developed such skills yet, at least not with human subjects. She could never sit still in lessons, and was by far the most wild of the children, but her royal parents took it in stride. They started combat training early for her, at her ceaseless insistence (Tyresius knew General Metilea was going easy on her; she didn’t care).

Prince Erasthenes, on the other hand, had to be all but dragged to the training grounds. The mere sight of blood upset him, and when the stone of Magnell leapt like a spark from a fire to his feet, he hesitated for awhile before gingerly plucking it from the ground as though it might erupt at any moment. Even after he’d had it awhile, he had to be coaxed and cajoled into using it. His twin sister Annalise was always gentle with him–if the flames grew too high–if, because they never did–she could always put them out.

The royal family only had three children. Perhaps it is selfish of me to commit my daughter to these pages, but the queen and king treated her as kindly as if she were their own, as did their children. I would be remiss to ignore their kindness toward us. Irathabel was only a year younger than Tyresius–the two of them were especially close. As soon as she could read, Irathabel never went without a book, and often the princess was the only one who could tear her from the pages, if only for a moment. I will not dwell on what became of her, and I am grateful that I do not know. But I fear that if I do not mourn her here, she will be forgotten. Perhaps these words are heresy, but I cannot see how these children’s deaths were part of the goddess’ plan. Had she chosen them to be martyrs? I am no clergyman, I cannot say. I am a keeper of histories, and so I can only say what has happened in the past.

Never before had the goddess seen fit to give all four stones to bearers in the same family. There exist few accounts of multiple bearers except in truly dire times, as they would seldom cross paths under normal circumstances. It was said that the bearers were often so unalike as a means to facilitate peace between the goddess’ children. After all, from the mightiest queen to the lowly beggar, every creature on this continent is hers. Even the vile Lord Fenrir who spurns her teachings. Though I fear what he would do with holy power in hand. If they were all meant to perish on the day Alticia fell, why grant them such power? Perhaps it is merely wishful thinking from a grief-addled father, but I hope that they live still, by her divine grace, by some miracle. If not, I wonder if the goddess herself died with them.

It pains me to recall even the most joyous memories. I know that, most likely, they are all long dead. Like the queen and king, and so many guards and servants and commoners and nobles, all cut down for daring to live on the Goddess’ blessed land. But as long as people live and remember, Alticia may yet rise from the ashes. 

–From the notes of Keeper Mayven

[boulevard-of-broken-daydreams]

Paramay Day 2: Para + Element

For Rosa’s element I chose Earth because she loves nature and animals and just being outside in general. Idk how to draw so here’s a moodboard.

You can also follow her @rosalinta-bella​ !

And thank you to @paramay-challenge​ !

[daydreamerunlimited]

paramay day 2: element

(click for quality!)

oigshshshshjsjsjd this prompt got me thinking abt atla lmao

i was Gonna do a sick action pose. then i downgraded to a normal fullbody. then i downgraded again to a bustshshshjdjd

its a little sloppy cus i was running out of drawing juice but i had lotsa fun doing it!

anyway i rlly associate modie with fire! theyre rlly moody and a bit of a handful, plus their auras sparky and crackly and made of warm colors like fire, though its more like electricity

they cant actually make fire BUT they can make their aura rlly hot to burn ppl during fights!

@paramay-challenge

[madd-believer]

Kaitlyn & Fire

Fire is such an obvious choice for Kaitlyn that I was actually trying to find a periodic element that could work instead. They can control fire, they’re a fire sign, and their siren surname literally means fire-dancer.

But out of any collection of ‘classical’ elements, Kaitlyn embodies fire, chaotic and passionate.

[wainwrightjakobshammerlock]

paramay day 2: para + elements!

i once tried diverting focus from my paraself by creating an ensemble of unique paras based off of the 4 elements (and the fifth element…. clockwork).

however, it didn’t work. i unified the storylines as always and it was surprisingly better than I expected… it was a nuanced story, but the ending was very unsatisfying and anticlimactic (because i had no idea how to end it otherwise) - in the end, the element crew died, the corruption having eaten what was left of them.

i don’t even remember the crew’s names anymore… except for the air master, arch, and water master, abe.

on the pic, from left to right is arch, the earth master, the fire master and the clockwork master. abe is the one holding the picture - he managed to survive due to his defragmentator blood. may their imprints live on forever in dreams, i really would want to return to them someday.

@paramay-challenge