#flightglyph

[sidhewrites]

no excuses: before the beginning

No Excuses ! || Accepting

BEFORE THE BEGINNING — three sentences (or more) about something that happened before the plot of my current project

Misery and horror wafted up from her mother’s workshop. Delicious, mouth-watering horror. Bee paused to take it in, to sate the bit of hunger in her gut, before continuing her trek up from the nursery. It was a secluded part of the world, safe from any accidents or overenthusiastic experiments, but boring. And dark. Nothing but shadows to eat down there, and the occasional waft of pain as a soul got lost on its way down and down and down.

One of her limbs carried an approximation of a sketch pad – vellum bound in bone – and charcoal contained in plenty others. Slowly, the form consolidated into something resembling a girl – four limbs, one head, two eyes, one mouth. It wasn’t a stable shape to hold, wouldn’t last more than a few hours at best. But it would allow the human souls to look at her without too much terror. Today’s art lesson was hands. Human hands, beautifully elegant in their construction – tendon and bone, flesh and keratin that could be painted for aesthetic effect. One day, she thought, looking at her own skeletal hands, one day she might be able to do the same herself.

[sidhewrites]

🖊 for bee!

It’s Loving my OCs Hour || Accepting!

Here’s a whole bunch of character facts for ya!

Bee is vegan, in a sense. She doesn’t eat human food, but when she has to eat in front of other people, she prefers seeds and leafy greens. Sunflower seeds are her favorite. However, her usual food consists of incorporeal things – shadows which are tasteless but filling – and human emotion. Envy and greed are the most nutritious, but she likes joy best. However, it’s not something she enjoys doing unless the human knows about it beforehand – and it’s not something she can exactly bring up around most living humans. So shadows and sunflower seeds it is.

Bee always wears gloves around other people. Her body may be some form of flesh and blood, but her hands are nothing but bone. If she focuses, she can conjure up a weak glamour to make them look normal, but it doesn’t stop from the devastating effect taht comes with touching people. While she can touch and interact with otherwise incorporeal beings and objects, touching living, organic beings unprotected causes them to rot and decay in seconds, becoming nothing more but dust, bone, and ash. It’s a gruesome sight that may be normal to her, but it’s not something humans should be exposed to – and not something she would ever wish on anyone. She also has the ability to hypnotize people through direct eye contact. She doesn’t like doing it, but it helps when her aunt’s antics get out of control. She can also sense others’ strong emotions, but tries to keep this ability suppressed in order to avoid invading anyone’s privacy.

She has a pet Kthiklehtretlcozshthi (Kthik or Kit for short), a fell shapeshifter. It’s default form may be a half-decomposed animal that vaguely resembles something fox- or cat-like, but it enjoys taking the shape of floating eyeballs (up to five), a swarm of bats (up to twenty), and a miniature human skull that sits in her pocket and occasionally screams. Fortunately, it has yet to figure out how to turn invisible.

[sidhewrites]

gimme those spoilers! x)

Vague Spoilers Below! || Accepting!

What if we take Merveaux City ... and WARP IT SOMEWHERE ELSE??

[sidhewrites]

Spoiler!

Vague Spoilers Below! || Accepting!

Local (?) zombie doesn’t want to be a religious icon. Becomes one anyway.

[sidhewrites]

:D Good luck on your sprint! If all your characters were put in a Battle Royale type situation, who would be the first to die? Who would be the last one standing?

Thank youuu! 

Honestly, Borya would die in an instant. He’s a deer in Glittering Queen that’s been cursed into human form but still retains most of his deer instincts, including freeze in the face of danger. 

Coriander, at least, knows to run away. As for who will last longest – Princess Mor (Glittering Queen) or Bee Blythe are going to be left last, since they’re both eldritch eldergods stuffed into mortal bodies, though La Maitresse (Lady of Ashes) comes very close to winning, seeing as she’s the demon empress with a literal army of mooks at her disposal. 

Then again the only thing keeping Chryseis (Glittering Queen, or possibly Hoarfrost Crown) from essentially Thanos-Snapping the entirety of life on earth is pure apathy and a wish to be left alone. She’s incredibly powerful, and can turn anything to dust, but she’s old and tired and just want to sulk in her deepwoods hovel instead. But I think if she actually had to defend her life, she’d take out those who want to fight and go back to her herbal teas and tonics.

[sidhewrites]

what is something about fairies you want to see represented more often? and also, what is something about fairies you're tired of seeing? any tropes or cliches about fairies you want to see gone or used more often?

hmmmmMMm I’m omitting the disney-esque fairies which aren’t inherently bad and not part of the literature I actively seek out to read. Let’s go with some Fair Folk fairies instead:

Honestly, I’m tired of them being portrayed as either Tolkeinesque elves or all chaotic neutral all the time, or both, in a lot of YA fiction. I love the trope to bits, , and I’d really love to see them as more nonhumans in every sense of the word, but I’d also like more true neutral or even benevolent fairies that definitely existed in literature. 

I died for the fae in Margaret Robertson’s An Enchantment of Ravens and how it dealt with their inability to feel human emotions and how they didn’t mind reciprocity or even outright gifting things to the humans they like. It’s something a lot of fantasy writers don’t address -- that the fair folk aren’t human, even if they look it, and we can’t forget that. 

Holly Black’s Cruel Prince series on the other hand, has a lot of great fae with nonhuman appearances and species diversity, but with a lot of humanistic emotions. I love seeing hobs and pigsies and other non-fairy faeries and they just aren’t utilized enough in fiction. I also think changelings as a concept aren’t dealt with properly, and fairy changelings end up being depicted as too normal when the lore states they’re sickly and screaming and Strange -- and while I know there’s a lot of discussion about whether or not it was a depiction neutral-atypical behaviors in people (Eg mutism, autism, etc etc) -- I do think it can be utilized in a way that doesn’t harm anyone. Moreover -- the humans in a faerie world are usually chosen for their beauty and good behavior. It does some funny stuff to a person’s personality and I have yet to see it depicted in a way that, in my opinion, blends the original lore and modern understanding of human psyche and behaviors AND inhumanistic fae in a clever and compelling way.

I would also really like more with Smallfolk rather than just fae and fairies and fair folk. Let them live in mushrooms and sleep on flower petals! Let them ride corgis into battle! There’s a few childrens/young readers’ books with some great smallfolk premises I remember reading, but not enough YA and adult novels for my liking.

[sidhewrites]

flightglyph replied to your photoset “Hi! Someone told me last night the best way to get started in the...”

Hello! :D All those projects sound really awesome! Can't wait to hear more about each of them! (And, fairies are honestly awesome.)

hi there! thank you so much honestly, I can’t wait to chat with you too!