scoutdrafted @scoutdrafted - Tumblr Blog

Has this ever happened to you?

Have you ever met someone in the streets and felt like you know them... no, like they’re merely a forgotten friend? Have you ever watched the elements obey your wishes? What about something not quite elemental, but still somehow part of that order? Have you felt like you are being watched? Do you think the government has taken a sudden interest in your actions? Have you joined a new school club? Or have you rekindled relationships with people you haven’t spoken to in years?

If so, we may have answers. We may know what you are.

Aurora Hearts is both a story and a universe for many stories. While at this point it’s pretty detailed (after all, it’s 2 1/2 years in the making!), this post is a brief overview of what both the mainline WIP and the setting have in store if you choose to engage!

GENRE: Urban fantasy/paranormal. New adult. Magical girl inspired, but not necessarily magical girl.

SETTING: An alternate Earth. The main story takes place in the years 2019 and 2020, while side stories and fancontent currently spans from the 19th century into the near future.

FEATURES: A magic system that straddles the classifications of soft and hard, a world without COVID cause I don’t want to write about that, representation in many fields that is usually written by someone in that category (ie, queer characters by queer authors, disabled characters by disabled authors, worldbuilding specific to a location written by locals, etc).

What’s the main story?

The original work Aurora Hearts is written by me, Tabby (scoutdrafted) and was the starting point of what’s become in many ways a collaborative project.

PLOT: When 25 year old Marise Gaumont visits her online BFF Ainsley for the first time, she’s not expecting to get kidnapped and dragged to a secret government military base. She’s especially not expecting Ainsley to be the one doing the kidnapping. She’s especially especially not expecting to be conscripted into an ancient force that is (supposedly) keeping America safe from a supernatural threat.

Thrust into the Defense Company of the United States, Marise can’t help but find their recruitment practices... and basically everything else they do... reprehensible. When it’s revealed that two more of her friends are on the recruitment docket, she makes it her goal to free herself and her loved ones from the Company’s evil grasp. However, there’s two obstacles determined to block her way at any cost. One is the stoic and uptight Director Agnor, who was assigned to keep an eye on her.

The second? Her friends themselves.

FORMAT: AH WILL NEVER BE TRADITIONALLY PUBLISHED, and is available online at its own dedicated website. The story is written similarly to a novel but in an episodic format. One episode is about an hour’s worth of content, with 6-8 episodes making up an Act (roughly the size of a novel) and four acts making a season. There are three seasons planned.

Ideally, AH updates weekly. We are currently on a hiatus while I focus on school and refill the backlog, but our community is still active.

What’s the universe?

The coolest thing about the universe is that it’s really become quite accidentally collaborative. We have a Discord community and there are members from several countries, many of whom have created their own local versions of the Defense Company (the magic governing organization), their own characters, and their own rules and variations for the universe. We even have some people writing their own stories in the universe! While the general universe rules are too long to overview here, you are invited to come join us at our Discord server and hear all about it there! :D

Where can I find you?

aurorahearts.net and https://discord.gg/wKYHvTdPqV

#wip intro #magical girl #writeblr #writer community #writing community #aurora hearts

wildswrites

— sleeping giant; a wip introduction. genre. dark adventure fantasy. setting. eira, the new capital city of ollapia. audience. new adult. series. book 1 of ‘to move a mountain’. pitch. ash princess meets stag’s run. triggers: child abuse, kidnapping, sexual abuse, dubious consent, manipulation, gore, death.

summary.

sunshine and games and swirling pink fabric gave way to a darkness deeper than you had ever known, grime beneath your fingers and a cold so fierce it made a home in your bones, all too happy in its mission to make sure that you would never ever be free. you were little then, too little to realize how quickly this could become forever, too little to understand all that you had lost and the people that you would never see again. daddy’s long and playful stories, mommy’s glittering eyes, a best friend whose little hand fit into yours so perfectly - all lost to the sands of time. but loss was not the worst to come from that cell - no, not by far.

this story isn’t about what is worst, though. this story is about what comes after - bright lights and rough hands and freedom, too many people talking at once. health checks and supplements and lessons, a bid to return to normal life - as if you could ever be normal again. parties and dancing and a title that you never asked for, never even thought to dream of. and expectations, fragments of a life that you don’t remember. they say there is magic in your veins, that it fills you up and will tear you apart if you can’t figure out how to use it. but if it is supposed to burn the way that they say it will, how come you can’t feel it?

characters.

antonia. lady. princess. 24. found in darkness.

you are rescued, you are free, you come home to a kingdom that was never yours, a kingdom that you don’t remember. they call you a lady, they dress you up in pretty things and show you around. they are kind to you, a kindness that you can’t quite stomach after years of living without, and they do not mind that you are odd, that you are softspoken, that you have hard lines and hard edges and hard stops. your handmaiden ties a fresh stretch of fabric around your eyes every morning and no one ever pushes, no one asks what you are so afraid of seeing. that’s good, because how can someone be afraid of sunshine?

mac. sunday. sister. 22. taffeta and burlap.

you are a problem child, made obedient with sharp words and no hesitance towards a thorough lashing. you were raised up outside of your home, away from your family, long gone, long dead you’re sure but you try to hope. everything about you is an attempt towards hope, actually. every soft edge where life should have made you hard, every gentle tone where life should have made you sharp, every opening where life should have made you closed doors and a turned back. though they have made you obedient, they cannot force you to be angry, they cannot force you to be cruel. this is what they cannot take from you.

cecil. prince. son. 26. hold your tongue.

you are a golden child to every single person in the realm besides the one person who you wish the most would love you. it is your father, a furious gaze, a raised hand and a mouthful of swears, venom searing into your skin, scars where no one could ever hope to see. you return to your quarters and you are glad that there is no one to see you cry in the same moment that you wish desperately to be held. your father has intentions that make you sick to your stomach, intentions he does not hesitate to share and you go along with them - what else are you supposed to do? the prodigal son, the golden boy. the coward.

rowena. guard. weapon. 26. bottled rage.

you are young, and you are angry, and he will use that anger until he bleeds you dry; you will thank him for it. there is no one who understands you the way that he does, and sometimes that knowledge buries down beneath your skin and it hurts there, far from where you can confront it, make it visible, make it known. you don’t have a bed of your own anymore, you know. you don’t remember the last time that you had a bed of your own actually and isn’t that a strange little fact? you lay beneath his sheets and you want him to hold you. in the same breath you want to be alone, and when he leaves you are shaking and don’t understand why.

kip. brother. dragon. 27. ever haunted.

you are fire and ice, rage, energy, you lay in waiting and dream of the way you will tear them all limb from bloody limb. you are a mountain of regrets trapped in a flimsy human skin but human is not all that you are, and there is another form you can take. this other form, vicious and violent and painful it may be is more than capable of holding onto your rage, keeping it there tucked away, there incapable of fluttering away or dying out before you might use it. it stays close to your heart, hot and cold in alternate and that is good, that is the best part of scales and claws and wings. it hurts, but it steadies, and you need that the most.

honour. guard. right hand. 23. born in service.

you are smart, you are dutiful, you want nothing more than to please the man who saw your potential the moment that you were born. he took you away from a life of poverty, a life of fighting tooth and nail to survive and he gave you this. the problem, of course, is that you had no idea what exactly this would entail, and now you’re made to suffer the consequences of a choice that a newborn baby could never have made. when he raises his hand you thank him and it burns your tongue, acid in your throat so why can’t you stop? why can’t you fight back? and why are you afraid of the person that you would become if you learned how?

wip tag | wip page | character page

#oooooooh #this is FASCINATING stuff

wordfather

me, managing to write one (1) coherent sentence:

photochoco

Jackpot

photochoco

This is getting kind of ridiculous.

There are two five leaves in there somewhere

photochoco

I lost count

humunanunga

This is the lucky clover bouquet. Reblog for seven days of good luck!

buttnekkidblackgirl

Y’all laugh but I actually end up doing pretty well once I go to work

caspercryptid

I genuinely think the best thing you can do to improve your craft is to try out different styles, and I think this applies to both literary and visual arts.

When I was in an IB program art class they told me to pick individual artists, try to copy their stuff, and then try to create a work in that style. I learned more from doing that than in years of trying to sketch and develop my own, and I could keep the parts of it I liked. Years later and my sketch style has some elements of Faile and Tim Burton, but it's neither. (Better to copy professional artists than amateurs, on the record, and don't post your copies! Just use them for practice)

There's something called the pastiche that applies to both writing and art— a work that imitates the style of another. Fanfiction can be good about this— a lot of fanfiction seeks to imitate the style or tone of the source media (avengers fanfic being quippy and full of one-liners is an example of this) but imitating genre can be another way to do this. For me, and maybe for some other people, it's hard to sit down and go. What do I write? How do I improve my craft? Writing prompts can help but they don't work for everyone, and anyway they're practice in plot and character, not in style. For practice in style, read a lot of work in one genre or another, or by a particular author, and see if you can identify the way that text is working. Noir novels are in the first person, for instance. Doing this can help you think about the load-bearing parts of your work

Anyway, food for thought, thanks and goodnight ✌️

asher-writes

Okay, I can’t think of anything else to add to the server so!

This is a server for writers!

Each writer can have their own channel for their WIP, where they can post things to do with their WIP, any updates they might have, or mood boards and such, for other writers to interact with and comment on.

https://discord.gg/9HxhJyUz

It’s a community discord, so people can tell me what more they want added, I just started with the very basics to get it up and running. If something’s broken, sorry, first time using yagpdb!

Tagging people who replied on/reblogged that post in case you are wanting to join:

@tc-doherty

@ilaurenttis

@ameliahcrowley

@winterandwords

@sergeantnarwhalwrites

@pathsofoak

@lunartyphoon

@lilyhargrave

@shadedrose01

@strawberrieswriting

@italiangothicwriteblr

@did-i-do-this-write

@pailettehazel

@emelkae

heartsofbeskar

doesnt my job understand i have a blooming fanfiction writing career to work on

raevenlywrites

Happy WBW! If someone from our world got randomly teleported into one of yours, what would be the first thing they would notice that tells them they're not in our universe anymore?

Depends on if they wind up on Mortalside or Otherside. In Mortalside, it would take a while. Very much of that world is like our own; you could theoretically wake up in your own bed and go about your own life and never know, provided all the right things were teleported. It would take someone mentioning something odd in passing, like wards or weres, for you to even notice. Unless you happen to wander into Lowtown, and see things like "Aura boost blend" on the coffee menu. And even then.... Eh? I might not bat an eye at it.

But if you wake up in Otherside, everything will be More. More bright, more loud, more flavorful, more colorful. Even if you wound up in somewhere like Lavinia, one of the major Faery cities, you'd still just Feel It.

Then someone would teleport on the streets or try to sell you an enchanted rose and the jig would be up :P

#oooh this is the kind of world that draws me in #love this

gender-haver

If you’re trans, tell me why in the tags. Wrong/non serious answers only.

#being the only girl in the family was too much pressure so I made a decision to switch to part time

tsukithewolf

“Hey I love your story! Is it okay if I draw-“

YES. PLEASE, GOD, YES, DRAW IT. DRAW IT AND SHOW ME. I WILL BEG YOU FOR IT.

murderlight

#dear fic writer moots #do you feel this way too? #🥺

nana i feel like this was not intended for me bc you’ve seen the frothing insanity that takes hold of me 😳but, yes. and i’m not alone.

it’s a universal truth: fic writers will go apeshit for fanart based on their fics. they just do. i could be on my deathbed and if someone showed me art from a scene in my fic i’d backflip into the wall and knock my ass out