Words spoken across the sea, across a life time, to a former self and at the precipice of change. Astrea couldn't remember every day spent with the pirate, but that conversation engraved her memory and settled to stay — haunting her during moments of indecision, easing her through loneliness, through loss, lifting a match to her magic when she needed it most.
"Am I a fool to trust you?" Yes, he'd told her then. Perhaps, she'd wondered since. And now, where would she be without it?
Elijah belongs to @bloodlessheirbyjacques // happy belated birthday teehee
words courtesy of @isherwoodj and @akindofmagictoo <3 tagging you back and also @faelanvance @pinespittinink @baroquesse @revenancy @the-void-writes @calicoy and anyone else who feels like it <3 to you i bestow the words ASH, ACHE, CLEAR, COLD.
RAISE // bloodhounds
...she’d been considering a possibility, one that emerged this past year with the slow, solemn recognition that accompanied all dreadful truths, and one that had been sufficiently judged with rejection, reluctance, and compromises. It’s not what I think. It couldn’t be that. It must be something similar. But Neve was raised to untangle puzzles, and how could she ignore the thousand knotted strings that wove together Rowan? She couldn’t. Not when she watched him share stories across the dinner table, not when they surrendered low-toned secrets around a fire-pit or a dawn-crested balcony or in the silent embrace of the pilot’s deck, and certainly not now, as she plucked through the tattered wires of his detached prosthetic. Rowan told a great many truths, and all of them were shadows. Pieces missing, unmentioned, momentous.
Rowan spoke suddenly. “What're you thinking?”
TALL // bloodhounds
Tulan smiled, and it was almost warm. “Look how you’ve grown, Nevelyn.”
When tears burned in her eyes, it felt wrong and overwhelming, and Neve retreated back into her arms. She still didn’t know what to think, but she felt, felt, felt, the bittersweet weight of old memories and a stolen future, the drawn-and-quartered quandary of a man devoted to violence who had loved her like a daughter.
“I never thought you’d end up so tall. That surprised me.”
It hurt to be present, but she had nowhere else to be. Meeting Tulan’s gaze still proved too challenging, so Neve stared at the table and wrangled her thoughts into words.
LOW // the inherited haunting of trystan song
“The universe fucking hates me today,” I say, mostly to myself.
Magdalena still graces me with an answer. “Don’t be rude, Trystan.” She wears a yellow dress and sunhat, coiled hair a black cloud beneath it. A cigarette fits between her fingers, nails perfectly manicured and nighttime blue. They’re always a different color. She bores quickly. I’m hoping I can bore her out of a conversation, since I already have a catastrophe planned.
Magdalena lowers her designer sunglasses and glimpses me over. “You look terrible.”
ROYAL // the inherited haunting of trystan song
“Is that a soda in there?”
“No. It’s a high nutrient fruit juice, made with–”
“Great. Hand it to me.”
He does without looking and continues sifting through the fridge drawers. I don’t catch any of his unintelligible mutters. I don’t try to. I’m already knocking back my first shot of Crown Royal and get straight to work on the second and third. Chasing it with high nutrient fruit juice isn’t as satisfying as Dr. Pepper, but it does make it interesting.
OVER // twice-dead scavengers
The evening before the triplets left, House Finch held a grand celebration. All twenty-seven Finches attended; not counting the married-in spouses and step children, who were never counted, and not counting Tatum, whose presence was no longer expected or desired anywhere near the Finch doorstep. Only special occasions brought the entire esteemed and estranged family together at one table. A special occasion to pry for information, confront old rivalries, and to discreetly glimpse over Grandmother Ruvilka and assess if she was anywhere closer to death.
Tonight, the conclusion didn’t waver from the previous decades. Grandmother remained at the head of the table and deathless.
RUGGED // twice-dead scavengers
Bright pain erupted in her shoulder, scathing and rendering her blind. Geneviere dreaded losing her other arm, released a short, husky shriek at the thought, but the knife was a quick dart and not a rugged hacking. The phantom tore the blade free of her trapezius. Geneviere collapsed forward. Blood wept down her arm, mixing with sweat and ink.
Several strides away, the mist collected into the distinctive shape of a person, hunched on their heels and watching her, this time with a voice.
“You’re the weakest,” the phantom said, tone hushed like dawn and roiled deep by storm, “because the others don’t care about you.”
“Ouch,” Geneviere mumbled. Mostly because of the stab wound.
hi! 😆🔥🎶 for whichever character is on your mind! :v
Oooo I'm gonna do Patrick Marcellus for this one. I don't talk about my interdimensional immortal serial killer enough. Brief tldr for Patrick is he was a serial killer in the steampunk themed city of Razias, and when he was put to death for his crimes an eldritch monstrosity gifted him with immortality so that he could serve that monstrosity as part of its cult and help it destroy the universe. His favorite murder weapon is an axe.
Patrick, when he's in a stable state of mind, is actually extremely charming and has a very warm, welcome laugh. It does turn into something much more unhinged when he's in murder mode though.
He's not very hot-headed, which is a great strength when he has to work with people like Silas Fairburn (the leader of the cult Patrick is a part of) who has a horrible temper that gets him into trouble.
Psycho by Eddie Noack for sure. It really nails Patrick's off-kilter vibes and that disquieting air of innocence he has about him.
happy storyteller saturday Jess <3 reading all your character interactions is so fantastic, i've got a shine for Krieve hehe. How have the Hour of Magic characters developed over the story? How have they changed throughout your drafts and new ideas? And what are your favorite things about them :o (or least favorite if they give you trouble!)
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! Thank you for the ask!! ❤️❤️❤️ GHJDFGGHKJDSFG I am so happy to hear that!!! Krieve is my secret favorite of favorites. This story is eventually a romance, so obviously I am very fond of him and I am hugely relieved others like him fkajdshfdslafsdf.
So the BIGGEST change to the characters is my decision to put immortal characters in the story. My original draft merely implied that anyone who tried to make themselves immortal during the Hour of Magic only extended their life by an hour, since that's how long...the hour of magic lasted lmao.
But then as the story developed and the more I wanted to include more long-lasting consequences of the Hour, I decided that adding in characters who were alive a century ago during the hour was too fun of a narrative toy to pass up. With the various cultures in the setting, I could have different reactions to that immortality to further show off the world. For example, Crestwall had a brutal inquisition where they tossed anyone "confirmed" immortal to the bottom of the ocean. :') One character from Magnolia skips the boring philosophical angst that comes with pondering immortality and just lives a hedonistic, beautiful life (though he's constantly big mad the Hour came when he was in his mid-thirties instead of his more "sexy" twenties)!
Another one of these immortal characters is Jaisse's mom, the queen of Correlaine, which then had HUUUUUUUGE implications for Jaisse's character and basically reworked her entire motivation! Now Jaisse isn't just doing The Plot Stuff because she's the main character and needs to be active, but now everything she does is in the vain hope that her immortal mom will simply remember her after Jaisse dies. ;A;
As far as my favorite thing about my characters, it's how they interact with each other! A lot of them have external and internal motivations that contradict each other, so they have to navigate interacting with others in a careful (sometimes very comical!) way. Jaisse and Krieve both have the external motivation to get along with one another since that is what their respective sovereign needs them to do. But holy shit, (at the beginning) can they not STAND one another! Salma and Fahad come from a land that prioritizes progress and technology, but they both really like Captain Godric, a man very much with both feet firmly centered in a world from a century ago (like most people from Crestwall).
Thank you for letting me ramble!!! I went on way too long but ahhhhh I just love this story so much and I am so, so thankful for these questions!!!! I am truly humbled by your interest!
hi TC!! it's midnight and technically saturday!! you've got so many neat projects, which have been some of your favorite to work on? Are there any character types or themes you gravitate toward? Also, if you were a griffon, what would your feathers and fur look like :0
@muddshadow
Hello, thank you!!
Favorite projects!
Let's see. One of my favorite projects to work on is Second Chances, which has immense personal meaning to me. But I'm always a little worried if I let other people read it, they'll just to think I'm a complete freak ahahahaha
I really like Laero because I love the characters! Sometimes working on that one in the past actually has made me cry though, because the main character struggles with depression in a way that hits very close to home. Unfortunately, as much as I love the characters the story needs a ton of work which I have not worked up the strength to do yet, but I have always wanted to make the story work and I will do it someday.
I really like Coyote Song even though it's incredibly pretentious, basically unreadable, and possibly even unsalvageable? But I had so much fun writing it at the time even though it's bad.
I also generally find Miracles very fun to work on :3
Character types and themes!
I love fairy tales. Fairy tale tropes, set ups, and themes show up in my work all the time. I especially love selkies and swan maidens and Beauty and the Beast, so my work involves a lot of shapeshifters. But there's generally just fairy tale references everywhere in everything that I write. Also, I love storytelling in general and so very often my characters will spend time in stories telling legends and fairy tales and ghost stories to each other because that's such a human thing to me and I just love including it. (Also when they do, the stories usually end up having something to do with the plot literally or symbolically~)
As for character types, I think I have four that I love the most.
I love to write women who are incredibly ambitious and ruthless and manipulative. I love to write women who are very practical and have low emotionality. I love to write men who are soft and sweet and maybe a little stupid. I love to write men and women (but mostly men) who are incredibly dramatic and theatrical and who are just really having a good time all the time. Bonus round: characters who are dumb and emo.
Me as a gryphon!
I see you're out here asking the important questions!!! I'm small, loud, and gregarious so I feel like realistically I would probably be some kind of crow/black cat gryphon. But if we want to go with the standard raptor/big cat set up and I could pick anything, I would go with a laughing falcon and a snow leopard~
I have a very talented friend who actually made me a little stuffed version of this and she's super cute!
The fur spots are hard to see in photos but they are there. If I can go really crazy, I wouldn't mind matching my avatar and being pink. ^__^
🥝 Share a scene where a character fails at something
(Thriving: Rebirth)
Warren turned his head around to see as much of Thrive's face as possible. "You doin' alright back there, buddy?"
Though he could only see him out of the corner of his eye, he knew a suppressed grin when he saw one. "I'm fine, Warren."
Warren took his hand and looped his arm around his shoulders, making sure to make as much contact as possible. "Okay. Wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable."
He smiled, and Thrive mouthed something vaguely threatening directly into his face, which caused him to laugh out loud.
"Stop tormenting the only person in this vehicle who could rip you apart on the molecular level, idiot," Guetry snapped. "Also you're gonna make me sick with your cutesy bullshit."
"Hey," Warren said, absently brushing his thumb across Thrive's knuckles, "this 'cutesy bullshit' got us through the invasion of the Milky Way, and it's gonna get us through whatever remains of this monster war, thank you very much. Wouldn't you rather make the most of the light moments while we still have them before the shit really hits the fan and we all die in an admittedly glorious battle?"
Guetry spared a glance back at him, then locked eyes with Varussa. "You're right."
"Yeah," Warren said, turning to Thrive. "So we were about to make out, if I remember correctly."
Thrive shook his head. "You're very much misremembering."
I love seeing memes of characters 😂👌 isaac has to teach me a move or two with seduction
lmao i have a LOT of character memes for hometown here. honestly idk why everyone likes isaac, he’s a bitter sarcastic idiot who really would benefit from being bitchslapped a couple of times tbh
