#alternativeforensicscientist

[raevenlywrites]

Happy STS! in Foxes and Fate, are there any cool biology/genetic/ecology facts that you've integrated into the story with regards to magic? or your worldbuilding?

Magic use prolongs the life of the user! It’s not a well known fact (people know they live longer they just don’t know why) so I don’t get a lot of chance to talk about it in text :P

[incandescent-creativity]

Hey! Happy Storyteller Saturday! Please tell me some curious fact or odd afterthought or cool snippet or badass tidbit of worldbuilding that you're super happy about!

I read something the other day like “you know how every culture has a ‘welcome to the world, little baby!’ ritual?” and now I’m thinking about the different LORE races and babies, so

How the Different LORE Races Welcome Babies

Humans are pretty similar to what we know now. Celebrate birthdays every year, it’s tradition that family and friends gather a week after the birth to give gifts and support the new family.

Demons and elves are actually very similar. Because they are both so long lived (elves for hundreds of years, and demons are immortal unless killed), new children aren’t really common, and are therefore a big deal. 

Whole communities gather around a mother right before her birth. Elves will pass the child around to be held by everybody, and demons chant the child’s name out through the crowds as soon as the mother announces it.

Merfolk have two different rituals, since there are two different tribes of Mer: coastal and open-ocean.

Coastal Mer bring the mother up to the surface to give birth, so the child can breathe both air and water in its first moments. Most of the group travels with her, and they stay up all night under the child’s first moon.

Open Ocean Mer are more independent. When a mother knows she is pregnant, she takes two or three of her closest friends (usually including the mate) and strikes out on a journey to find a whale. It can take a long time to find one, but once they do, they spend time bonding with the whale so she can lay on it to give birth.

Dwarves have a huge culture around giving unique, hand-crafted gifts to the new family, mother and child both. It’s sort of like the baby shower thing that we have, but very competitive and showy. 

Thanks for asking!

[livvywrites]

Happy Storyteller Saturday! What's a bit of worldbuilding you really like and think is super cool but that doesn't necessarily make it into the drafts of TMQ or TPB? Go on and ramble about cool worldbuilding stuff! (I love the attention to details in your work and it always amazes me how well the story flows and how real the worlds feel)

aaaah thats so sweet of you to say ❤️ i’m so glad you like my worldbuilding!!! i’ve spent a lot of time on this WIP lol xD

also im so sorry it took me so long to answer this question!! i had it sitting in my drafts while i figured out what i wanted to put in it!!

—

there’s quite a bit of worldbuilding that i haven’t gotten to use! i’ve been keeping it in my back pocket, though! some of it will definitely be used in the future, some of it i’m not sure, and some of it i’ve just been doing because i love wbing. (and also would love to write more for eldora!!)

anyway!!!

let’s see,,,

first some worldbuilding pieces that i had,,, forgotten about?? they were buried in my highly UNorganized notes, and i only recently re-discovered them! so pls enjoy some little worldbuilding details i’m going to be incorporating back into the wip :D

Eldora has three moons!! Because of ~magic~ though (aka i’m having a hard time researching how three moons would affect the world), only one of them interacts with the tides.

The largest moon is known as Chaos’s Eyes, and it affects the tides. Legend says that Chaos can look through the moon to see Eldora’s surface, and that he can use it as a focus to cast spells.

The smaller two moons are known as the Twins of Fortune. It’s said that one of them effects good luck, the other bad—though no one can agree which is which. However, they say if both moons are full; good luck will bless Eldora. If both are new, however, there will be widespread bad luck.

While the names and shapes of constellations differ, the brightest star in the sky is known worldwide as Hope’s Star. People use it for navigation, much like our own north star, but it’s also a popular wishing star. Though, they say that wishing only works at certain times. The star will occasionally change colors? though no one is exactly sure why.

now!! onto your. actual question, which is worldbuilding that hasn’t made it into the main story yet! g r a n t e d some of the worldbuilding im most psyched about is. v spoilery BUT. that doesn’t mean i don’t have other things to share~

how ‘bout future worldbuilding??? there’s like. a ton of stuff that i had planned out when this idea was still supposed to take place over multiple lifetimes instead of just one??? so i had some technology & world events planned that didn’t quite make it, but that i still love!

One thing I was super excited about was the communications crystal, usually called a comcryst. It’s a crystal that fits in the palm of your hand. I usually pictured them as orblike, with a sort of clear-ish appearance when they weren’t in use, and glowing blue when they were. It was originally developed for long distance communication---hence the name---by projecting a 2-D holographic visual. Eventually, the technology adapted, and became capable of doing things akin to our laptops/cellphones with it’s own sort of ‘internet.’

There was a big historical event called the ‘Continental Split.’ Eldora is currently one very large continent. Far, far into the future, though, the continents split in half, and become Northern Eldora & Southern Eldora. Why it happened... I had a few different ideas? In one of the oldest versions of Metanoia, when it wasn’t called that at all, and focused on six completely different main characters, it happened because of a terrible war, or maybe just brewing war, between the North & the South, so the gods just decided to separate them.

Related to the Continental Split--- The six previous main characters were a lot of fun! They were originally five facets of Life plus a Reaper. Back then, instead of each god having an element, Life was made up of five elements, and was technically five different gods. I decided that was. A little too much & ended up cutting it, but! In this version of Metanoia, Life had ended up falling a little too in love with their creation, and ended up bound to mortal bodies, reincarnating over and over again. Sometimes they remembered who they were, sometimes they didn’t. Death sent one of his Reapers to watch over them, to make sure they didn’t do anything terrible by accident, but also so that he could be assured of their safety/continued existence.

Hope’s Fall / Nightmare’s Rise. This one is actually still going to happen? I’m still working out where on the timeline it falls--currently I’m thinking sometime between The Martyr Queen & Pirate’s Bane! Fear & Hope have always been like, two sides of the same coin, a la Chaos & Order. But, Fate corrupts Fear & she becomes the Nightmare, causing her to turn against the other gods. This was supposed to be her big distraction for the gods while she used Kai’os to enact her plans, but Alinora. Kind of got in the way of that. I’m working on a short story set during this time--I’m hoping to have it finished by my birthday, as a sort of present to myself, as it’s one of my favorite events :D

[bootyfoal]

So there it is. Part two of the sketches of Aurora, Character from @alternativeforensicscientist WIP Anthology of Echoes. These are still sketches, but I already went really deep into detail with some of the tattoos. I am really proud of the endproduct, considering that I am still really new at this digital art stuff. You can really see the progress comparing to the part one of sketches of Aurora. My favorite is the handtattoo, I am just really satisfied with the details on that one. Hope I got it right again. :) 

[druzydabbles]

Happy Storyteller Saturday! What colours do you associate with some of your characters? Do those correlate with their favourite colours?

Storyteller Saturday! Ooh, this is a fun one, because I’ve been using these colours for the bingo card tokens on character bingos!

So colours are incredibly important to me. I dunno if it’s because I’m an artist, or because I really like symbolism in my works? But it’s great fun! I’ve always loved colours and I always immediately associate certain colours with certain characters~

I normally have one major colour (italicized one) for each character, so if I only could use one, it’d be that one, but usually I have three to five, and they’re very specific:

Celestine: Dark, deep blue; maroon; light, greyish blue; gold.

Dione: Pale, fern green; vivid, leaf green; black; dark, reddish brown.

Phoenix: Red. Any red. Red. And also all the other colours of fire.

Colin: I’m actually still kinda figuring his out! Beige; deep, chestnut brown; dark, pale blue?

As for favourite colours:

Celestine’s is maroon, Dione’s is... uh. I dunno, probably dark, pine green probably? Phoenix’s is obviously red, and Colin likes all colours but I think he likes blue best~

Thanks for the question!

[pens-swords-stuff]

Hello! Happy STS! You're one of the first writeblrs I started following here on Tumblr, so I wanted to ask you abut your favourite aspect of the creative process when it comes to writing. What do you enjoy the most? Planning, outlining, worldbuilding, action scenes? And what kind of writing comes easier to you, fanfic or original works or other formats (short stories, poetry, etc)?

I definitely enjoy the pre-writing phase the most! You know, where you’re not formally outlining necessarily, but you have a solid concept, the potential is limitless, and you’re just really excited about literally everything.

My absolute favorite memories of being in the writing process are just talking for hours with @decantae just endlessly discussing headcanons and ideas, and seeing everything magically fall into place and fitting together.

When it comes to actually writing... Well, that’s actually really difficult for me! I do love rereading something that I wrote though, and being proud of it (for at least a little while!).

Anyone who’s ever asked me for advice on writing action scenes know that I am absolutely terrible at it, and although I want to get better, I really dread it. I’m actually also quite bad at worldbuilding.

As for the kind of writing that comes easily to me... Traditionally I’m more of a novel-length writer in terms of the stories I want to tell. I want to tell epic, complex stories that are full of interesting characters and their relationships, intricate plots, something that will keep someone up until 6am to read through 100k+ words...

But most of the writing I’ve been gravitating toward recently are little ficlets and drabbles that focus on one moment or one scene. I started writing these as practice for character development to help me figure out characters more, and I just have really taken to them! (I think a huge part of the reason is that I’m terrified and intimidated by writing a big story, but it works because there’s less commitment.) And it’s gotten to the point where some WIPs of mine are becoming a collection of individual scenes rather than a continuous, uninterrupted narrative. It also helps me get at least some writing done, as opposed to none so I’ve been really liking it. 

The downside is that my writing style has become too suited to these one moment scenes and that it doesn’t really translate well to normal novel writing... That’s something I need to work on.

I don’t have very many ideas, so original fiction is something I really struggle with sometimes. If I don’t have an idea I believe in, I can’t write, ya know? But because I write with partners, it’s really easy for me to piggyback off of their wonderful ideas and help develop it further.

Writing fanfiction isn’t something I do very often — mostly because I’m very hesitant to write with canon characters. I often go crazy trying to figure out if I’m portraying them correctly or not. That being said, I do love writing OC fics with my favorite characters put into worlds and settings that I adore for a select few fandoms (notably Harry Potter, since two of my WIPs are in the Potterverse).

Storyteller Saturday: Come ask me about my writing!

[tenacious-scripturient]

Hello! Happy Storyteller Saturday! What kind of 'main' emotion/personality trait would you associate 2ith some of your main characters and why?

happy sts, and thanks for the ask! this is a tough one, but i think i got it.

EASTON - ambitious

ARYIA - repressed (emotionally, among other things)

WYATT - optimistic

VRENHT - thoughtful

CAELYM - prideful

FEVIRA - vengeful

[the-ravens-requiem]

Hello! Happy STS! I wanted to ask you abut your creative process! Do you plan a lot when it comes to your WIPs (outlining, rough drafts, bullet points, etc)? Or do you just write and see where it takes you (and if you do, which aspects do you invest a lot of time and attention in (worldbuilding, character development, character arches, action scenes,dialogue, etc)?

Thanks!

My creative process is kind of a mess, not going to lie. I generally have a basic idea at first and then usually narrow it down into a sentence summary or bullet points, then work off of that.

After that, I'm definitely a pantser. Lots of details get created just by letting my cursed hands type and dialogue happens to flow more naturally when I let it be 'character-dictated,' in a way. This results in a very rough draft, which I then refine and edit at least two or three times.

When I'm making that first rough draft, I definitely focus on character development. I generally write basic dialogue out here as well, and basic actions.

Something kinda wierd I do: If I feel like I'm on a roll and don't want to describe setting or a more complicated action in the moment, I leave myself a note in all capital letters and brackets so it looks very different from the text around it. [LIKE THIS]

I do this because I don't want to break my work flow, which is the number one reason why I don't finish something! I have a short attention span, so hammering out what I came to type really helps, and then when I go back I can add in all the stuff I wanted to originally but didn't have enough patience for. When I've filled in all my bracket notes, I consider my first rough draft finished.