I vaguely remember that I got tagged for this one or two years back already but I recently got tagged by @ettawritesnstudies again and I love it and some things changed sooo :D
These are mostly applicable to LDOO and Dream’s Shadow because while Hope Beyond has a lot of these themes, too, it’s not epic fantasy, not an actual novel, and has much less of a plot than the other stories :)
You know you’re in a Siarven novel if:
it’s set in another world (or several)
HOPEPUNK
an important theme is “the power of love, friendship, and kindness”
platonic love!!!!!!!!
despite that it’s still dark epic fantasy with a surprising amount of (body) horror
morally grey characters
trauma and angst for everyone! :)
--> everyone needs a therapist afterwards, and also a hug
there’s at least one child POV main character
--> galaxy brain meme: we don’t need tragic backstories if the WIP is the tragic backstory
it’s at least a trilogy and the scope escalates with every book
--> there’s either a time skip between books or the plot takes place over 10+ years (so they grow up!! :D)
there’s magic and it has Consequences™
--> oh you didn’t choose this? #oops :3c
there’s at least one aro-ace main character
slow burn!! pining!!!
someone does art as a coping mechanism
badass characters abound, but soft characters do, too. sometimes they’re the same person
betrayal and complex character motives
complicated family relationships
--> they’re either really close or they fight all the time
Found family!!! the obvious answer
overly complicated/thought-out worldbuilding including parts that won’t be relevant for any subplot ever
there are always dragons and cats
also other beasties: there are cute beasties & distinctly Not Cute ones
nature and trees abound
there was an apocalypse, either recently or in the past
speaking of subplots: too many (pov) characters / subplots
there are distinctly non-human entities that like/try to meddle
religion/culture are important themes
stories within stories!!! also MUSIC!!!!
(looming?) war and the complexities that brings
foreshadowing, re-framing, and plot twists >:3
any character might die. or something worse might happen to them
bittersweet ending
:)
this list started out really short and then in typical Jana fashion it escalated very badly XD #oops
(also the last few mean points are not hope beyond relevant. XD felt like I had to mention that again xD)
I’m tagging @fynniana @romenna @kittensartswriting @raiswanson @paper-shield-and-wooden-sword @madmoonink @andtheotherwriter @tundra-tiger @corishadowfang @fatal-blow @yearlyaquariace @lynnafred @wilde-writing @cirianne @pheita @eluari @adorhauer @albatris if you want to/haven’t already (or want to do it again in case it last came by a year ago XD)
Hii, first of all congrats on getting to so many followers! <3 I reeaaally love your moodboards/aesthetics so how could I say no to your giveaway?? :D My current WIP is "Like Dragons of Old" (tagged LDOO), that would be awesome <3 (unless I'm too late/you already have too many requests, of course!)
Don’t worry, the give away will last at least a few more days. To be honest, I’m not quite satisfied with the outcome, but I hope you like it anyway.
hiya! i see that you have three wips that youre working on? if i could get a one/three sentence description of all three thatd be great :D (one or three, your choice. or maybe both! up to you.)
First of all I swear I’m not ignoring you, tumblr keeps forgetting to tell me that I got asks and I also wasn’t online for almost two weeks (except a bit on my phone and I have no idea how to answer asks on there??) but yeah I accidentally looked in here and ?!?!?! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH I’M SO SORRY, AND THANKS FOR ASKING :’D <333
Thank you so much for being interested in my dumb wips ;W; I also just noticed you sent me another asks weeks ago, AHHH I will answer that after this one x’D I am so sorry, thank you for bearing with me skdfjhskdf
ANYWAYS
Yesss, I have 3 wips! :D <333
The first and oldest one is called Dream’s Shadow (it went through a few title changes though) and the current horrible/dumb tagline is “boy’s should’ve-been-fatal-but-somehow-wasn’t accident drags him and his 2 sisters into an ancient conflict that could change the future of everyone forever”.
It’s dark epic fantasy, set in another world, but also hopepunk (so while it gets dark and there’s some (eye) body horror and monsters and stuff the tone isn’t bleak and hopeless and all that...) . It’s set in another world and is the first in a series where the scope escalates with every book (this one has a fairly small scope, “saving Ben” more or less :D)
Basically Ben (16) is in a coma, wakes as a ghost a few days later and needs to find out how to get back, if he even can, or wants to, and nobody knows what happened including him. His little sister Ava (8) has to keep their dysfunctional family together in his absence, she feels like she’s failing, and she can also see gods (well, entities...) in her dreams now, which is never a good sign. Their other sister, Elinor (14) gets involved in all of it, too, but explaining all that is a bit complicated. XD If you’re interested in the worldbuilding and more about that, though, I recently made a comic sans power point! :D
I also finished the 3rd draft a few weeks ago and it’s now going through some editing and then I will probably actually start betaing?? which is insane?????? I’ve been rewriting that thing off and on since NaNo 2014, what the heck, we’re actually getting somewhere now?! (It has basically nothing in common with draft 1 except 2 names and 2 plot points at this point. XD)
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My second WIP is Like Dragons of Old!
A feral, winged orphan girl and a librarian's daughter are raised by an immortal and a phoenix in chicken form among the towering stacks of a sentient, endless library. Shenangians, adventures, and heartbreak ensue.
It’s also set in another world, also dark epic fantasy, and a trilogy (heh, I can’t do short things...) and also hopepunk because that’s very important <3 It takes place over ~10 years (every book will) so the main characters grow up over the course of the story and it ends when they’re in their ~40s :D It’s basically a slow burn with the main problem that over the course of the trilogy Timbre and Selandri end up getting separated and meet again, years later, as leaders on different sides of a pretty huge conflict :’D I love my babies so much ahhh The first one is still very lighthearted though. For the most part. :3
(It also has a comic sans thingy here)
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The third WIP is called Hope Beyond
It’s a bit different from the other two, because it’s a multimedia story and has 3 different POVs in 3 different styles each that will start to overlap as the characters develop and grow closer.
There’s Alia, who’s basically a child (... it’s complicated), who has limited perspective comic panels as her chapters (so it’s very much how she sees the world, with a ton of magical creatures, magical realism style), then there’s Morgan, her older adoptive sister (who planned on being a book-hoarding crazy cat lady and is 30, she has 3rd person novel narration) and Phaedra, a one-legged war veteran who’s their next door neighbour (who keeps a diary for therapy).
Basically the story is the 3 of them working through their various traumas and grief and rage together, helping each other cope, and growing as people. So, very much a found family story :D I don’t even know how to describe the plot because the setup explanation alone always escalated very badly, buuut I have an intro post for it here <3
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Soooo.... thank you so much for asking, I’m sorry this escalated so badly (it always does lmao) and that I only responded now :’D
WIP: Like Dragons of Old
Characters: Timbre, Selandri
POV: Selandri
1749 words. Rest and Tags below the cut! :3
In which Selandri and Timbre explore the Observatory, find beautiful books, and Timbre starts humming, which opens up so many new possibilities—
The fourth floor held storybooks.
Selandri’s eyes widened as she saw them—there were more tables in here, more comfy areas to sit, too. Some of the books had pages filled with nothing but beautifully rendered illustrations. Some had more text and less images. Selandri was entranced from the beginning—the pictures seemed to be alive, and they were beautiful.
After she’d stared for lengths at the cover of one of these books she suddenly felt Timbre standing directly behind her, looking over her shoulder, her head so close that Selandri inadvertently held her breath before realizing how stupid that was.
“Can you teach me how to read them?”, Timbre asked quietly.
Selandri hesitated. “I— I could try”, she said uncertainly. “But I’m… not really very good at it. Like. At all?—But I will try!” Her heart was suddenly beating a lot faster than it had before, and she wasn’t entirely sure why, so she tried to distract herself by staring at the book cover in front of them. It was beautiful, made from dark leather and adorned with the finely drawn head of a stag, looking at them with bright, knowing eyes. Underneath it was the title, written in a far more flowing version of the script her parents had tried their best to teach her… except suddenly, none of the symbols seemed familiar in the least. Both the title and the drawing were done in golden ink, and the drawing was so much more appealing than the writing. Except that Timbre wanted to know.
So Selandri took a deep breath and tried to make her thoughts stop spinning around her in circles. “Uhm, do you see this symbol? It—it means…” She couldn’t even remember the name of the stupid thing. “…I’m sorry. I… didn’t really spend much time trying to learn it, you know? It kind of… nah. Just not my type of thing.” She looked off to the side, feeling something she couldn’t even properly name, like a knot in her stomach, only fluttery. And weird. “Now I kind of wish I had, though. Because then I could teach you…”
Timbre smiled. “It’s fine”, she said. Her voice was so gentle! “I… I think I’ll just ask the Observer.”
For a while they just stood there, each lost to their own thoughts. Selandri felt herself staring at the art again and again, and after a while the strange knot left, replaced by something that could only be yearning. One day I will draw like that, she promised herself, and Timbre can write the text. We will make the best team!
And then Timbre started to make a strange sound, and the world… changed.
The air was suddenly alight with colours, shifting, pulsing, dancing around them in the most beautiful patterns, and Selandri inadvertently found herself holding her breath, transfixed.
The words were out before she could really stop herself: “What are you doing?”
Timbre stopped. The colours went out.
It felt as if all the weights in the world had been lifted for a moment, only to come crashing down again, converging on her. She realized that she’d tilted her head back, even lifted her hands as if to grab for the colours, only now it felt childish and stupid.
“Uhh, humming?”, she heard Timbre ask, her voice careful, a bit confused, coming as if through a fog. “It’s a song my guardians—my parents—used to sing to me when I was small…”
And then Selandri noticed the tears in Timbre’s eyes, and the fog left, and then she was already hugging the other girl, even as Timbre continued to speak, slowly, painfully. “They— they sang it for me when … when everything changed, too…”
After a moment, Timbre finally hugged her back, and when they finally broke apart, they were both a bit flustered, and Timbre eyed her in a curiously skittish way, with an uncertain smile on her lips, looking away when Selandri met her eyes. It should’ve been awkward, but it wasn’t even that. Selandri couldn’t even say what it was, exactly. Through some kind of forbidden magic, though, she did hear herself speak, though, even if everything else about this situation felt both exhilarating and weird at the same time.
“Can you… can you sing it to me? The song? Like… now? I … I don’t think I’ve—” She broke off, feeling strangely off-kilter, weird in her own skin. Uncertain. “I think… I think I’ve never heard music before. And— there were—” She broke off again, but then her eyes found Timbre’s.
“There were?”, Timbre repeated. There was something wild about her eyes, something that made Selandri’s heart race.
“Colours”, she whispered. “Colours, Timbre. I saw colours when you were humming. But how…
I must have noticed them before, right? Or maybe they were so diffuse… no-one ever makes music here. No-one ever sings. Can you sing for me?”
Timbre hesitated, looking away. Selandri suddenly felt very self-conscious. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask, if your parents…”
“No, it’s not that… it’s just. The song… it’s not in our language? It’s the Cinnrié… a healing song. To help you calm down, to help you sleep, to heal your fears and nightmares… I— I’m afraid of speaking it here? I don’t know the costs. Or the… what they’d do to me if they heard.” She looked around nervously.
Selandri felt strangely disappointed, and she couldn’t even say why. She really wanted to ask what exactly Timbre was talking about, but at the same time it felt like something private. So she just sighed, wistfully.
“I get it… but maybe you can sing it without lyrics? I just— it was so beautiful…”
Timbre brightened. “I can do that! I think the magic is in the words, not in the song itself.”
And then she sat down on the ground, cross-legged, with Selandri following her, and when Timbre started humming, the colours returned, brighter and more beautiful than the last time, building and building until Timbre was singing, but without words. Her voice was so pure and beautiful that Selandri wanted to start crying, but then she would’ve heard less, so she forced the sobs down and just let the colours and the sounds wash over her.
She didn’t notice when she started describing them out loud, their positions and brightness and beauty.
When Timbre finally stopped, she had to use her sleeve to wipe off her tears before being able to see her. Her friend looked pale and shaky and somehow other, but she was smiling, a smile so wide and sad and sweet that it made Selandri’s heart ache.
“That— we have to do that again”, Timbre whispered after a moment, her voice rough with emotions Selandri couldn’t even place.
She nodded. “Yes, we do…”, she said, and her voice was almost as shaky as Timbre’s.
“I— I could feel them”, Timbre said. “I can’t really remember them… but… sort of? We have to find out if the same sound always connects to the same colour, and how the brightness and everything changes. But… I think…”
Selandri grinned, sniffing. Her eyes felt puffy and raw and she’d never been happier in her entire life. “I… if I can somehow help you with this… you sing so beautifully. Everything—so beautiful.” She looked at her in admiration. “How do you do it?”, she asked.
“What? Sing? I… open my mouth, and then sounds come out.” Timbre grinned at her, but there was something fragile about that grin, about her eyes, something Selandri couldn’t place. Still, she laughed. “No”, she said, echoing Timbre’s grin, “I mean, like… how do you make it so the sounds work? I— I bet I could learn to sing, too. But… I don’t know if I could do it that perfectly. That they fit together like a puzzle, with that… precision?”
Timbre looked away. When she finally spoke again she sounded sad, and Selandri wanted to take back every word instantly, only it was too late. “I—I don’t even know how I can remember. Maybe because it’s seared into my mind, because I replayed it over and over again so I would never forget, back in the woods?
I was supposed to become Cintu. Like my… my parents. A Singer.”
Oh. Capital S Singer. Suddenly things clicked into place. Magic. Cinnrié… songs. Singing. She’d learned about them before, about the people who could weave magic with their voices by paying a terrible price.
Selandri felt herself growing very still. “You— you were… oh…”
“My ancestors… they were very good with sounds. With recreating them perfectly. My family, specifically. It’s been so long but I still remember their tales as if it were yesterday. My guardians, they were a Singer and a Speaker. My, uh, father played the violin to accompany my … mother?—my mother, when she was singing. Her voice was incredible. But— you need a voice like that, to become a Singer. It’s the first thing I ever remember. Their music. Her singing. They… I don’t know if they, uh, healed my body after I’d gotten born so I could do it, too, or if it would have been natural anyways. Cintu are— were chosen at birth.”
Selandri just stared at her, at the back of her head, the soft small leaves, the stitched-together back of her tunic. The wings. Timbre refused to turn, refused to look.
“I—I am sorry”, Selandri finally said. “I’m sorry that this… that we don’t let you use the Cinnrié. That my—that everyone hates it so much.”
Timbre laughed, and finally turned back around. It was a small, sad laugh. “It’s not your fault. And they’re right.
Without the Cinnrié, my people would still… but no. They wouldn’t still be alive. They would’ve died anyways. Just differently. But I would be dead, too. With my parents. Without the Aunae, every living thing back there would be dead. The trees and plants, too.”
They stared at each other wordlessly, neither knowing how to break this suddenly heavy silence.
“Let’s go see the other floors”, Selandri finally said, speaking the first thing that came to her mind.
Timbre nodded courtly, and then they left the beautiful book behind.
Only now did Selandri notice that Timbre hadn’t even been able to see those colours.
But maybe one day I can sing, too. Then I can sing to her how the colours would look. Then we could sing colours together.
WIP: Like Dragons of Old
Characters: Selandri, Timbre
just a (very rough) sketch thing, cause after NaNoWriMo and inktober I really, really need to paint again ( ˘ ³˘)♥
It’s very much noch finished, but yesterday I didn’t feel like writing so ... have two smol queer babbies :’3 AKA Selandri (grinning) and Timbre (shy). Timbre can only see values of black/grey/white so Selandri’s flower crown ended up being a tad more aggressively non-matching in color, which Selandri doesn’t mind at all :D
I can’t believe I haven’t written anything for them in a year aahhhhh
also, one day I will finish it with proper lighting and all that, I promise
LDOO Taglist (please tell me if you want on/off) :) I will probably post a few more things for them this december, so please also tell me if you don’t want to be tagged for that <3
Happy STS! Which of your characters gets most homesick and why? Do they get homesick for a person or a place? How do they react when they get to go home again? Have a good day :)
Hi! :D Thank you for the ask! … oh no, I have so many older ones left to answer, I’m so sorry XD
I’ll do this for Selandri and Timbre from Like Dragons of Old, because there it fits the best. <3
Selandri’s the daughter of two Librarians, which means that she’s never left the Library in her entire life, until the day Timbre comes. Up to that point, everything’s been really boring and she hates reading and learning (what her parents want her to do, being Librarian and all that) so 1) getting to see the sky and the stars for the very first time, and 2) getting a playmate are the best things that could’ve happened to her.
Even growing up and leaving, she never misses the Library itself; rather, she tries her very best to get away as far as she can, for as long as she can. Her home is Timbre, and Timbre alone, and when they’re first separated halfway through book one, she definitely misses her very much ;w; (not even to speak about all the things happening after book one ahahaha)
Timbre has many homes, but her True home becomes the Library, and the Observer, and Onii… and, most of all, Selandri. Before then, she lived in a place that’s now only known as the Grey Continent, or maybe the Lost Continent; and for a while that was her home, until the Observer saved her from that fate.
Sometimes she still dreams of that time, that place, and when she wakes up she’s screaming, or crying, or both. But those dreams come fewer and fewer. So Timbre’s definitely homesick a lot of the time, especially after waking up, especially during the first half of the first book.
And when things finally escalate, and she and Selandri get dragged apart, she’s homesick after a person, and things will never be the same again.
As to “how do they react when they get to go home again”, that’s very much spoiler territory, and part of what happens in book 3 XD Especially since they’ve both changed, and grown, and aged, and where two teenagers lost each other now stand two middle-aged women, world-weary, each wearing their own “crown”… of ancient, opposing sides. And each of them has changed in ways that go much further than the visual.
So I guess Timbre and Selandri are both homesick for a person and place in the past, one that was lost ages ago.
This got kinda dark x’D
I guess that’s because I’m currently writing Ben chapters, and he’s in a very dark, lyrical mood. XD
hi hello i saw dragons and immediately came running lol :) for STS, what are some of the best (non-spoilery) shenanigans Onii has got up to?
Hello, and thank you so much for asking!! :D Happy STS! (Also hehehhee I am Very Glad that our collective love for dragons pulls us all together XD)
Hmmmmm, I have mapped out far less of this than I want to, but this is what Onii was up to when she met the Observer xD She’s a phoenix in chicken form, but she can decide what kind of bird she wants to reincarnate as, she just generally prefers to look like a chicken ;D
Basically, she’s always been a very chaotic free soul who did not care about the opinions of others but did care about the welfare of animals (the “dumb cousins”)... so she did not particularly like certain rituals involving their sacrifice :’)
Basically, when the Observer found her, she was busy pretending to be a sacrifical animal (switching between different forms of birds, depending on which one was specifically wanted at that moment, but always returning to chickens) and then, upon being sacrificed by them, her remains would burst into flames, setting everything in her vicinity on fire, and she would be reborn among the ashes.
She did this a few times until people in that region stopped sacrificing any kind of bird, and some strange legends surrounding birds are still told there. They’re still very careful when it comes to bird, too!
Onii is very happy with herself xD
This image inspired me to create her, specifically ;D Up to that point, I’d already decided that I wanted to have chickens in LDOO, running around in the Library, but I didn’t have a specific character yet.... until I found that ;D I love her so much, but I really have to invent some nice shenanigans for her!
