After the terrible night in the shadowlands when she almost killed Wyll, Rakha has gotten used to spending her restless nights tied up.
There are many innocents in camp these days, after all, innocents the dark beast in her head would very much like to see dead. Aylin. Isobel. Arabella. But even those closest to her are no longer safe. So her nights in Rivington are spent curled up on a patch of straw in a broken farmhouse, with her hands bound behind her back.
Most nights are, thankfully, quiet except for the turmoil inside her own mind. That has not changed. When she closes her eyes, the same dreams recur, images of brutalized bodies, gore, and violence.
Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood.
Tonight, though... is different.
"Naughty, naughty, naughty, little Master..."
She's dreaming, certainly, for her hands are suddenly unbound and it is stone, not straw, beneath her body. But it is a strange kind of dream; it feels real as life, and though the smell of blood is intense, there are none of the usual visions of bodies and death, just Sceleritas's mocking voice in her ear and a cavernous room she doesn't recognize.
She has seen many broken temples before - Selune's, Lathander's, Shar's - and so she has no trouble identifying this as another such place. The walls are stone like the floor, and lined with ornately carved columns; the ceiling, stone too, is high and vaulted above her. Braziers line the walls, the ramps all around her leading down to the central platform where she has awoken. And yet somehow it is still monstrously dark, shadows shifting in all directions.
"Where am I?" she tries to say, but her tongue is frozen in her mouth. She can't speak, can only look around wildly with puzzlement and fear.
"You have disobeyed your Father's wishes one time too many," Sceleritas hisses with fiendish glee, his voice full of cruel laughter. She pushes herself to her knees, then unsteadily to her feet, fruitlessly looking for the little goblin among those twisting shadows. "For she who fights with monsters should look to it that she herself becomes a monster..."
Light spills across the scene. An enormous carving of a skull circled in droplets of blood has awoken, its eyes glowing with red flame. For a moment Rakha thinks it the symbol of Myrkul, the god Ketheric followed, but no - it is something darker, something familiar in a way Myrkul's symbol never was.
"When you gaze long enough into the abyss," Sceleritas keens, "the abyss also gazes into you..."
Rakha's neck prickles. She turns - and a bolt of pain shoots through her head as she realizes she is not alone.
Orin lies stretched in casual repose along the long, low altar at the center of the room. In her hand she holds the same knife she used to threaten Ketheric, which she is cradling lovingly, like a beloved child. Her fingers dance along its edge, raising lines of blood on the pads of her fingertips.
Her head turns, her eyes meeting Rakha's, and the ache redoubles on itself as the beast roars with pain and fury in Rakha's mind.
"Another will embrace what you have rejected," Sceleritas croons coldly. Orin moves in a single lithe twist of her body up onto her feet, pointing the dagger directly at Rakha's heart.
"And that other will be your death..."
Orin's body spasms, her neck cracking backwards, her body suddenly writhing into a horrible, grotesque transformation.
The Slayer. Rakha knows this word instinctively as she takes in this new, monstrous form. She feels, strangely, no fear, but her throat is dry and the ache in her skull is nearly blinding. Orin stares at her, the enormous mandibles of her new form twitching hungrily, the claws of all four arms flexing with the urge to rip and tear and devour...
And then Sceleritas speaks again, and though his voice is as low as ever, the words sound like a thunderclap.
"But your Father loves you dearly..." he hisses. "You may reinherit yourself yet..."
Father? Rakha thinks wildly, and then grunts as Orin's clawed foot sinks into her stomach, knocking her backwards onto her rear.
The beast in her head begins to white out her vision, the rage at being attacked mixing with the desire to destroy. Kill her. Kill Orin.
"Slaughter your line..." Sceleritas whispers gleefully, as if he can hear the beast's rage - and perhaps he can, after all. "Become the last of your name..."
The Slayer's face presses mere inches from Rakha's jaw. The sharp mandible caresses her throat, tracing the warm line of the artery under her jaw. The thundering headache swells to a crescendo and Rakha's vision fades out, and Sceleritas's mocking whisper follows her into the dark.
"Lord Bhaal shall have but one Chosen..."
-----
She wakes with a start, sweat-drenched, still tied in her bedroll. Her arms ache from the uncomfortable position, but she barely notices. Her mind is racing, her heart thundering, her breath so shallow she threatens to pass out again at any moment.
She remembers. She remembers everything.
Narrator: Memories flood back. Snatches of your story, written in the blood of a thousand victims. Years spent in worship of Bhaal, leading his savage congregation in prayer, sacrifice, and slaughter. You were their master, and he was yours. A cruel master. A dread lord. A devoted Father. All is as you feared. You are a spawn of Bhaal. His heir. His scion.
Every inch of her skin prickles with terror. This, then, is the source of the beast in her head, the source of the bloodthirst and the madness, the source of the hunger for the death of every person she has ever known. She is a Bhaalspawn; like Aylin, she is the child of a god, but her father is a bloodsoaked avatar of mindless destruction.
She is a monster. The knowledge drips through her like acid.
And yet... there is a strange calm that follows it as her breathing starts to slow. For along with the horror of the knowledge comes the certainty that after all, there is a reason for how she acts. There is a cause for her madness, a name that may be put to it. She is not simply an animal bereft of all hope.
Her body goes rigid with the effort to breathe, her eyes squeezing shut, her gaze turning inward.
Tense up. That may be what you were, but it is not who you are.
Narrator: And yet you know you will never be free of your Urge if you don't confront your past. You are not the last of your name, not yet. There is another - the abomination wrapped in flesh you saw in the colony. Orin. It's time for a family reunion - but be wary of your confessors. Will friend turn to foe, knowing what you are?
hiii sorry to bother you!! I was just wondering how you grew your acc and got traction on ur posts when u first made ur account? <3
Aww, you're not a bother at all! I always love getting asks, so this is nothing.
I know I'm not supposed to be on here, but... I've always wanted someone to ask me this so I got a little excited LOL. I really hope this helps, and feel free to send in any specific questions if I'm unclear about anything because I know for a FACT that I've probably missed some stuff.
Disclaimer: this is just how I did it during an interest boom as someone who doesn't write long fics... obviously, it's different for everyone and there's no wrong way to have or run a writing blog esp. since viewership has changed <3
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I think I should start off with saying... one of the main ways I gained traction was by writing and posting my own prompts. Daily.
I actually wanted to start a blog specifically because I'm bad at coming up with my own ideas... but when I was just starting out, I figured it would be really difficult to get anon requests (and especially those that were in tune with what I wanted to write) if I didn't actually have any content out... so I personally worked SUPER hard at just posting a handful of my own drabbles every couple days in order to get the material flowing and the repertoire established with or without any interaction/response.
I think... this and this were two of my first posts? Nothing too complex obviously, but both being unrelated to requests.
It's also important to note that posting pieces specifically is what I did and DO believe keeps the influx of followers steady. Sure, you can be the funniest person on earth and have banger reblogs, but as someone very picky about the blogs I follow and the content I see on my dash, I have found there always needs to be some flow of writing and/or serious content discussion... even if it's just a think piece... for people to really, truly care about talking to you.
It's very likely that you'll have less people following you specifically to interact if all your posts are non-writing related reblogs of things. It is possible to get followers by just supporting authors that way, but you'll never have people banging on your door to chat unless you make stuff of your own and post it somewhat consistently.
For me, I had a couple of regular anons at less numbers, but I wasn't getting all that many consistently til I had about 800-1000+.
I also... worked really hard at ONLY posting writing related things... even if it was hard or I hated the prompt LOL... and I even kept personal posts kept to a minimum for the longest time. I'm still recovering from that LOL.
But... I think it really helped that I started out writing smut first? People LOVE smut... and it doesn't even have to be that long (or good) to get attention, so that definitely helped me.
...Let's see. Another thing that I think I was benefitted by was having a good URL and an easy to navigate, DISTINCT theme (my theme was a meme for like four months LOL).
I've always refused to lean on those fancy, term-coded ones because I find them rather..................... access-unfriendly, but being recognizable is SO important as I ALWAYS notice people in my inbox when their urls are cool or their themes standout, even if they don't actually write.
And though it's not required, I also think it's easier to find moots that way, too (esp if it's your main).
(And if someone you like follows you, make sure to say hi or send an ask off anon!!)
ALSO, I think it's super important to set up a masterlist the second you have content out and to either put it either as or on your pinned post. Back when there were more blogs and I read content more regularly, I literally wouldn't go through blogs if it wasn't easy to find ALL of their work... and I'm sure theres a few people who remember this, but for the longest time, my pinned post was literally just "masterlist."
A masterlist is what proves to people that you have work you want to share and that it's worth looking at!!!
But to continue, and I say this not just as an author, but as someone who's been on tumblr since 2011.... all that shit about tagging posts with 5 billion things? That's mumbo jumbo tbh. Your posts may end up more places... but no where that important because tumblr only tracks the first five tags.
"____ x reader" is really the MAIN thing I worried about... and I always made sure it was the FIRST tag I put. I kept all my personal thoughts TIL AFTER I established where I wanted the post to be found.
As an example, when I first started, I would tags pieces: "bakugo x reader, bakugou x reader, bakugo, katsuki bakugo x reader, katsuki bakugou x reader" and that's IT.
These days, you can probably get away with even less than that as the tags are a fucking mess and no one important really looks at them.
And mainly... I think I was just patient. I definitely got asks at first but... it took me MONTHS to get anywhere close to where I'm at now... and even then, I think I've lost a lot of regulars due to inconsistent posting.
The thing about this all though, is that... running a blog is a different experience for everyone, and frankly, SHOULD REMAIN DIFFERENT. I know my views are very biased based on how I interact on tumblr... but that's what makes the community stronger, you know? Coming together.
SO, TL;DR: post content DAILY, be identifiable, tag well, and HAVE PATIENCE... and you should be fine. I'm sure there will come a day when you reflect back and miss being a smaller blog.
Sweet pea: Does your wedding have a ‘theme’ or a color scheme that you try to adhere to? If so, what is it?, Rose: Which one of you did the most planning for the wedding? And!! Daffodil: What do you and your F/O’s wedding rings look like? For you, Connor and Chloe!!!
EEEEEEEE THANK YOU BUDDU!!!!
Sweet pea: Does your wedding have a ‘theme’ or a color scheme that you try to adhere to? If so, what is it?
We had a blue and white colour scheme! Blue is the favourite colour of all three of us so it was nice to stick to 🥰
Rose: Which one of you did the most planning for the wedding?
Chloe did! Connor and I helped, obviously, but Chloe took the lead with the planning and organising as she'd had ideas in her head for her dream wedding for years 🥰🥰
Daffodil: What do you and your F/O’s wedding rings look like?
We have platinum bands, and the rings have a moissanite stone in the centre surrounded by a ring of smaller sapphires!
