aspiring everything-er. musings, art, and writing. I use tumblr to procrastinate so I’m probably online. ask and tag game friendly, might take a minute to get to them though!
hey there, I'm vollzz. she/her, in my twenties. I was an avid tumblr user waaaay back in the day and have since happily returned! I'm here mainly for my writing, and a little bit for art - I have so many ideas bouncing around in my head constantly that I need somewhere to write them all down! always happy to read/write/share ideas, bounce things off one another, or just chat :)
// my interests
I mostly read fantasy (of all kinds), and that's what I write as well. my favorite novels are circe by madeline miller and lolita by vladimir nabokov (there's something particularly gripping to me about extraordinarily sad subject matter written using beautiful prose).
// my main wip is Blackflame, a medieval fantasy that I’m nearly done drafting. You may like it if you enjoy thievery, various deities running amok, shadowy blessings, and the journey to rediscovering one’s self worth. Ask to be added to the tag list if you’d like!
I'm no stranger to fanfiction, though the vast majority of it was written in said olden days and will stay lost to time. My most recent work, a chaptered fic exploring the tragedy of yura and eleonora from elden ring, can be found on my ao3.
// new-ish secondary wip is vampire church, an urban futuristic sci-if/low fantasy with, you guessed it, three vampires that live/preach in a church. Don’t have much for this yet beyond setting, characters, and some vignettes. Vibes: grandiose gothic church, spooky dark city alleyways, delivering impassioned sermons you care not about. There’s a tag list for this now too!
Hello! I am Ainah .(pronounced as I - nah) I have been writing for 7-8, maybe more-ish years, writing mostly little scenarios with made up characters and little poems made with too much emotions that I'm too embarrassed to unearth from its grave.
Other than writing, I (can barely) draw for fun. I try to read physical books as often as I can, but I'm more drawn to webnovels and fanfictions.
I doubt I'll be that active, since I'm used to lurking but I am open to asks and tag games. You can also bombard me about your works or wips! ( ╹▽╹ )
What I Write
• High Fantasy - My most beloved subgenre under fantasy, to be honest. And at the same time, the most pain in the ass to write for. I have an ongoing love/hate relationship with worldbuilding.
• Urban Fantasy - My second favorite subgenre under fantasy. Although, I tend to accompany it with a tidbit of paranormal stuff. Urban fantasy is easier to write for but the reason why it's under high fantasy is probably because that there are times where I feel restricted with the setting.
• Paranormal/Supernatural - Due to the fandom I first started writing for (*cough* creepypasta *cough*), I am intimately entwined with the unnatural and the unexplainable.
• Romance - I write Romance whenever I want to write something but don't feel like writing anything that involves worldbuilding, the unordinary, and the like. I tend to write a bunch of Romance Comedy, unless I want some little bit of tragedy.
My WIPs
I have too many WIPs, so I'll just list down some of the few that I've worked on. A few of them are big projects, and many that are standalones. Currently, I'm deciding on which of them gets my undivided attention. Most of them will be on Wattpad, I'm not sure if the others will get that privilege. Listed in no particular order;
The Pantheons - A series of books that follows Lia, the daughter of the late Goddess of Life, and the people she met as she journeys through a world where humans can become Gods.
Monachopsis - A short story between two women returning to their old hometown to attend a reunion turned funeral. Where Hannah is brutally reminded of her hopeless crush of one named Tessa, and Tessa is trying to hold back from spreading the dirty misdeeds about the recently deceased to be seen as respectful among her peers.
Seven Realms - A series of books about the Seven Realms that surround Earth. Each book are distantly connected to one another and can be read without the others. Featuring, a Realm hidden away from Humans, a Realm where the Sun died and is overrun with Shadows, a Realm where everything is alive and will kill you and many more.
The Consequences of A Star's Descent - A series(?) of books about a young girl from the modern world waking up in the body of the Duke's youngest daughter, Ilanora Delphinium, and her adventures with the God inside the star she had woken up with.
Not a Match (Nor Made in Hell) - A flamboyant Demon and his recently turned Demon servant traverse the depths of hell to usurp Lucifer, all for the sake of eating a plate of pancakes.
Welcome to Wakefield - Where Millie wants to live a slice-of-life romance and her best friend, Nate, wants a ghost hunting achievement for his college admission paper.
Hand in Hand - A short story about the conversation between a grown man waiting for his wife and a translucent teenage girl, both waiting under an abandoned bus stop for the rain to stop.
The Untitled Series - A trilogy. The three times someone found out the truth about the reason why no one can remember the person that saved them or someone close to them.
happy to be back y’all. thanks so much for all of the tags, @worldofthraeia and @daughter-of-inklings :)
aaaand here’s a short snippet from Blackflame - a real huge moment in the first arc. I was going to share Lucas and Calliope’s first kiss but honestly I really feel like I need to rewrite that scene entirely, and I’m feeling chaotic about sharing spoilers so we get an, erm, interesting kiss between Eves and Calliope instead:
——
Calliope felt naked under the ferocity of the dark golden eyes. Eves sounded nearly starved as they rasped, “I have a residence nearby. You will accompany me there.” Their hands forcefully grabbed onto the back of Calliope’s shirt and her hair, arching her back to pull her tightly into their chest.
This was not part of the script - the fearful exclamation escaped before Calliope could quell it. “W-what?”
Eves’ face hovered terrifyingly close to hers. “You will stay with me. Show me your loyalty.”
“For how long?” Where was Lucas? Eves could whisk her away to this unknown place at any moment. She needed to distract them enough to stay here a minute longer, to let Calliope grab the dagger at her side while Eves was too engrossed.
“As long as it takes,” they uttered in a strangled tone, before crushing their mouth to hers.
Now. Lucas or no Lucas, Calliope needed to strike. She stifled the vomit that welled in her throat, the burning electricity coursing through her body, and willed her arm to reach down to the dagger at her thigh. She fisted her hand on the hilt and drove it with all her might into Eves’ ribcage.
——
(don’t worry, Eves fans {me}, you don’t actually think they’d go down that easily, right?)
I’ll go ahead and super gently tag @fleurtygurl @ink-flavored and @awleeofficial !
——
adding the blackflame tag list here to “sneakily” announce my return to tumblr: (btw thank you to the new tag list friends!):
hi! gonna queue up tag game catchups and whatnot tonight :) don’t have a ton of new writing to share, so instead have this wip of Eves doing… something? lol
i love you foils i love you gothic doubles i love you clones i love you alter egos i love you twins and false identities and shadow selves and reflections and ghosts and eidola and puppets and masks and
Not new to tumblr, but new to writeblr - so here's a quick introduction. :)
I am Valentin, 21, he/they. I will soon start the final semester of my bachelors in Environmental Science, and I am hoping to find more time to write for fun again in the upcoming academic year! I've been writing since I was a kid - mostly fanfiction, YA contemporary, and fantasy.
My current WIP is an as of yet nameless adult High Fantasy story about two trans men - the runaway heir to an isolated kingdom, and the soldier-turned-healer who once trained to be his guard - aiming to save the world from a king who has been driven to senseless obsession and cruelty by the misuse of ancient magic - and falling in love in the process.
I am looking forward to meeting others writers on here! :) My asks and inbox are open & I cannot wait to share my world building, characters, plot brainstorming - and hopefully actual writing excerpts once I get to it!
👩💻 share a snippet that you worked on for a long time or struggled with
Haha well, seeing as this is a wip, I am still struggling with it, but here's part of a scene where I need to balance Cal/Dev's convo and James'/Lydia's convo while they all dance:
“Have you had much time to tour the city?”
“Hardly,” Dev snorted, moving around her right side. “My research is quite intensive. I can’t afford to dally.”
She expected as much—Dev never seemed to be one for dallying, anyway.
As she switched partners, she caught scraps of James’ conversation nearby.
“Yes, I have visited upwards of thirty groves a week in my line of work,” he said proudly as Lydia nodded along. “One might say that I clearly grasp our research efforts—”
Cal rolled her eyes and turned back to Dev, remembering to keep her questions casual. “So, you haven’t had the pleasure of visiting the spirit gardens yet?”
To Cal’s surprise, he stiffened at the question.
“Of course I have,” he said. “For research purposes.”
been thinking a lot about calliope and eves, particularly eves and the long-winded period of growth they go through over the course of the story. here’s an excerpt in which eves has managed to steal calliope away from lucas. they’ve been treating her well, of course, and keeping her in a nice room in their personal home (she didn’t know they even had one!). of course, calliope is deeply mistrustful of them, and this really irks eves.
when I write dialogue for eves in scenes like this, I’m always thinking about how, at least at this point in the story, they’re still struggling to grasp the concept that they’ve driven someone away from them, that someone doesn’t want to be with them. because until now, that’s always been an impossibility - eves is irresistible, anyone and everyone wishes they could get their hands on them (and the other way around too lol). it runs so deep that they mistake calliope moving on with lucas for her simply wanting a physical change for a little bit. to eves, calliope is always theirs, and anything else is a momentary distraction before she comes crawling back. obviously eves doesn’t completely change their worldview at the drop of a hat, but in this scene I think we see the first time it really starts to click for them, that they’re not this infallible being that can do whatever they want with no consequences. we also see a little, teeny glimmer into the touchy subject of their alluring powers and consent. they’re very much aware of that.
oh and ofc gotta put the disclaimer that this is still a rough draft. but any and all feedback is welcome (even if you really didn’t like it!)
scene is under the cut, it’s ~700 words.
The absence of the sun made it impossible to accurately judge the passage of time, so instead Calliope used each new meal to mark the hours. After her third refused meal she finally succumbed to the allure of the bed, garnering a few hours of surprisingly serene sleep before waking to the sound of wood gently moving across the floor.
Seated in a chair a few feet from Calliope’s side of the bed was Lucas, one leg crossed over the other, chin resting on the knuckles of his right hand.
An exclamation of shocked relief began its emergence from Calliope, only to instantly turn to anger as she recognized the godlike tilt of the head, the unyielding stare.
“Are you out of your mind?” Calliope clutched the blankets fearfully over her body, willing the rage that filled her limbs to calm while she evaluated this new development. When the deity finally spoke, it was with Lucas’ stolen voice. Each word felt like a new wound ripping into Calliope’s chest.
“To go from such elation to naught but vitriol… Were it not directed at me, I would find it fascinating.” When Calliope did not respond, they leaned forward and spoke with newfound solemnity in their tone. “Is this what your fleeting desire has rested on, Calliope? Would adopting this form be enough for you?”
It was all Calliope could do to stop her mouth from going agape with incredulity.
“Eves, you can’t be serious. Are you so obsessed with yourself that you can’t comprehend the idea that I don’t want to be with you? Do you seriously believe this has to do with how you look?” The deity’s response was hindered by Calliope’s rising voice, “And don’t say another godsdamned thing to me until you look like yourself again!”
Eves blinked Lucas’ eyes thrice, staring daggers at Calliope, frustrated with the turn of conversation. With a heavy, closed-mouth sigh their features slowly morphed back into the curves and angles of their true visage. They were silent for some time; the golden eyes, which had swiftly darted downwards, burned holes into the floorboards in front of where they sat.
“I find it challenging to believe that you have been able to throw away our years of partnership over a boy who is nothing more than a cheap imitation of me. I understand that from your perspective I may have faults, and-” The graceful fingers of their left hand curled into the talons of a frustrated fist against the chair’s wooden arm when Calliope interjected.
“How is it so hard for you to believe that I grew up, made a friend, and came to realize that you took advantage of me for the last three years-” Eves’ head snapped upwards to meet Calliope.
“I did not, nor have I ever, taken advantage of you.” The voice, though quiet, was akin to a snarl - the tone they usually reserved for speaking of Greylin. Calliope saw her exhaled breath leave her nose in an icy cloud. “My power does not conjure desire from nothing, it merely amplifies that which is already there.” It took a moment for Calliope to realize what they’d meant, and as she shook her head she blinked back tears that began to prick the corners of her eyes.
“I’m not talking about that, Eves. I was nineteen with nowhere to turn when I met you in that alley. You were a beautiful deity that saved me from the brink of death and promised me love. And I did love you Eves, more than anything. But do you really think it’s fair to be angry with me for being miserable with you? I didn’t realize it until I had someone else to talk to, but…” Calliope drew in a shaking, frigid breath. “How could you expect me to be happy when I rarely saw you, when you refused to let me have friends, when you talked openly about relationships with your other Lovers even though you knew it hurt me?”
Silence.
Eves inhaled deeply, staring at Calliope’s watery eyes with a distant expression.
“Perhaps one day you may understand, Calliope, why I have become this way.” It was a sunken mutter that she strained to understand.
Blood tasted sweetest at the precipice between life and death. When the certainty rushes in, the fear, the knowledge of being a small, small sheep in a big starving world. A human at their most vibrant. And you are taking everything. A small, small wolf with teeth freshly sprouted from bloodied gums.
Rue knew nothing but this when he first awakened—whispered in his ear in the dark of a trashed apartment.
He crawled from the bloodied patch on the floor, a shadow of him, before. Before something. He didn't know what either. Just that it was blood, it was dried, it was his. It clung to his neck in flakes. Pulling at his skin. Rue needed it gone, needed it clean, needed it replaced with something fresh and not his.
The tap sputtered to life, and red swirled down the plug hole; Rue did not realise that he had not turned on the light. That he stumbled from room to room with knowledge of where he was and where he should be.
Rue glanced at his reflection, and caught the unnatural glow of his eyes. White. Like a cat caught in headlights. But the whispers, the whispers. They said fresh blood little wolf, before you realise that you've shed your fleece.
And Rue paused for a moment. Thought. His knuckles bone white around the edges of the porcelain sink.
Dread curled beneath his still heart. The whispers cooed. Rue had fallen, somehow, into a realm of monstrosities. Rue's chest heaved out of unconscious habit, but the breath on his lips was stagnant. He could taste it, the lack. The way he could taste the ash of a cigarette and the smoke from a fire. Each pull was redundant, so Rue stilled, and he looked in the mirror as if he belonged in a museum. Merely a capturing of essence. Not something alive.
Not something alive.
The next breath was harsh, but it did not ache. Not like Rue knew it should have. But what did Rue know, truly?
Rue knew that he was a dead thing. Knew that he hungered, and the voices, the voices. They were everywhere, but the clearest and softest called him child with the reverence of a parent. Eat, it told him.
So he left. Ran down stairs, didn't think about white eyes and the stillness of his chest. Just about the blood pounding in the streets, and the precipice he had promised someone he would never cross.
this is definitely a cliche but i love when a suave villain gets progressively more physically fucked up in the final act. they may be brilliant and they may be ruthless but more than that they’re willing to get their hands dirty, and not just with other people’s blood. they’re dragging themself forward one-handed through hell, allowing their own body to be destroyed so that, one way or another, they don’t have to live in a world where they’ve lost. that’s what i like
Hey, I've just found it in the 'dead darlings' folder while editing Gifts of Fate.
Context: Gulling telling Lissan (POV) about his ex
WC: 290
CW: -
Days of Dusk taglist (please message me to +/-): @acertainmoshke @another-white-void @cee-grice @cljordan-imperium @elshells @poetinprose
Later that night, Lissan sneaked into the kitchen, navigating the familiar rooms easily without a lamp. Master Varré was snoring across the wall from his room, and sleep was unlikely to come. He found Gullin wrapped in the blanket, sitting right in front of the hearth, staring at the embers. He used to share the third room with Ianim for the last two weeks, and Lissan could imagine it felt awfully empty this night.
“What do you want to know?” Lissan startled. Gullin watched him with hooded eyes, a small smile playing on his lips. “You were watching us like you were trying to figure something out. Just ask?”
Well, since he offered…
“It’s you and Ianim, I’m trying to understand what’s between you two.”
Gullin’s smile grew briefly, before his expression became wistful.
“Nothing more than friendship.”
“How come?”
He threw his head back, as if he was going to laugh. He didn’t.
“He’s an enlisted, I’m a senior officer. It’s against regulations.” On a second thought Lissan could see why there were rules against it, but in the case of these two…
“There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”
“I suppose. The other half is that outside the Army, he’s the Prince Successor, and I have nothing to my name.”
“Does it really matter that much?” It might have been a naive question, but Lissan simply wanted him to keep talking. It was better than listening to the Nameless’s chatter.
“What matters is that he’s convinced that it does.” Gullin straightened up and looked Lissan in the eye, his pupils large, his irises almost black in the low light. “We work better as friends.”
“You still love him though.”
Gullin smiled again.
“How could I not?”
“Must you torment me?”
“I must.” She felt vindictive, like a spark at the back of her throat.
“You must think I am of stone,” he finally uttered. “To pass you in these halls, day in and day out, and pretend like I feel nothing for you.” Venom invaded those final words. She flinched.
“You the tortured and I the torturer? I don’t remember inviting your company every night.”
“To be kind to you is a crime?”
“It is.”
“I’ll admit it then. I am repugnant, truly.” He stepped closer. She stepped backwards until her back was against the wall, but he pursued. “I wish I could say I lust for you – if only it was so shallow as lust. Like man craves faith, I crave you.”
Thank you both, @worldofthraeia and @scribe-cas for the tag! I hadn't gotten a chance to do either, so I'll do both here in one go.
I'll be using The Lost Princess because it has 42k+ words to its name, and... apparently never runs out of word variety.
My words: glisten, linger, hope, stare, shimmer, light, shake, and awe.
glisten:
She’d been wrapped and bundled up in a cloak made of the very stars, small bits of stardust glistening as they caught the sunlight.
linger:
Her fingers brushed over the ornate oval engraved in the center, gaze lingering on the illustration of an old castle in disrepair, overgrown and overtaken by flowers. She sighed wistfully, hugging the book to her chest.
hope:
“Yes,” he let out a shaky breath of a laugh, “A ring. That I hope you’ll accept. I wasn’t sure which of my proposals you might accept, so I prepared for both.”
stare:
The foxes simply stared at him, measuring his reaction.
shimmer:
No clotting or lumps, it coated the glass when she swirled it around, shimmering as though she’d cut out a piece of the starry night sky and contained it in a bottle.
light:
Though, there was a certain comfort in the weight of the blade in her hands; not too light to be struck away in a single blow, but not as heavy as to deter movement.
shake:
Thalion moved his wing closer, extending the outer extremity towards the child as if a hand stretched out to be shaken.
awe:
The boy who looked at her in the same way that people wandered at the night sky, drunk with awe.
Gently tagging: @elean0rarose, @thesoftestofpetals , @fayeiswritingwriting , @desastreus , @vollzz , @macabremoons, and anyone else who sees this and wants to participate! Here's an open invite. :>
Your words (if you accept) are: preach, flaunt, fur, quaint, and practical.
chapter 6 of my elden ring fic Diverging Paths of Heart is live on my ao3! Yura and Eleonora, after some tough beats trying to get a job in Stormveil, set their sights on something new.
a teeny snippet from the beginning of it~
“So,” Rom began, drink in hand and behind firmly planted in a seat, “tell me about yourself, Eleonora.”
He’d taken them to a small tavern situated within the outskirts of the castle grounds - Eleonora hoped that Yura had paid enough attention to the route given that she had little clue where they were.
“There’s not too much to tell, really.” She took a sip from her glass of water. “I grew up in the Land of Reeds, like Yura. Not too long ago I was…”
Eleonora bit her lip. She had been exiled, though that wasn’t something she wanted to readily admit to strangers, any allegiance to Yura notwithstanding.
“Eleonora’s been having trouble remembering the time before her arrival. The fog seems to have interfered greatly,” Yura cut in.
Rom eyed each of them in turn with an inquisitive tilt of the head. After taking a lengthy swig he pursed his lips before addressing Eleonora. “All well, though it’s fine if you’re just being humble. Let me tell you,” he pointed at Yura, “the things I’ve seen him-“
oh hell yeah ajslkdfjkdsa ok there are so many im gonna lose it... BUT I will share, I suppose, a WIP that I got the chance to read some more from for a recent secret story swap!
@vollzz's WIP Blackflame is such a delight--it's got pretty much everything I love to read about! Fantasy, intrigue, complex romance/relational dynamics, HEISTS..... it's just *chef's kiss* beautiful. I highly recommend!
👵🏼Who is your oldest (or oldest soul) main character?
This one's easy--it's Kesh!
she's "like, sixty." <3
🗯️What do you think is the most divisive or controversial aspect to your WIP?
So I decided to answer this one for The Marking Blood because it is something that has been on my mind the whole time I've been drafting it...
Anyways see below the cut for... controversy ig lol
I feel so bad saying this but it's so clear to me that if this story ever gets Out There somehow, Sylah is going to cause me a lot of problems. LOL. Like, she's the central protagonist of a story that already explores some darker themes/dynamics, and she's... not a good person. She's really not. She is obsessive, controlling, rigid, and harsh.
I am personally of the belief that protagonists do not have to be good people to be interesting and enjoyable protags. Sylah is, to me, one of the most entertaining characters I've ever written. I love her to bits. Her story and her internal struggles are so compelling to me.
There is a lot about Sylah that will be heavily (and possibly uncomfortably) relatable to some members of a certain demographic--she's the oldest child of emotionally neglectful & abusive parents. She didn't have any examples in her family of healthy interpersonal relationships. She is anxious. The Worst Case Scenario is on repeat in her head at all times. From a young age, all of her actions have dire consequences. She has to keep her sisters safe. She has to be in control.
So of course she drives away her One True Love. She's fucking mean! Everyone with an opinion that diverges from hers is juvenile and unreasonable, and they don't understand that if they don't listen to her, then bad things will happen. So she makes people listen to her. Her middle sister hates her for it! And rightly so!
The point of The Marking Blood is that, when you do what you can to survive an abusive childhood, the unfortunate truth is that these survival strategies will, at some point, stop serving you in your adult life. At worst, they'll cause you to hurt the people you love. And it is truly awful, and it's not your fault that this is how you learned to relate to others. But it is your responsibility to acknowledge this and work towards being a better friend, partner, sibling, whatever.
This is what Sylah has to learn. But it takes her a while! Because that's what the fucking book is about lol. And there are a lot of people who will not relate to her, and there will be readers who will be repulsed by the way she interacts with her family, or with her ex-girlfriend. And that's fine! But I am acknowledging that Sylah is not like. easy to approach, as a protagonist.
But for readers who will see parts of themselves in Sylah, I hope her journey, her arc, is able to inspire some reflection and hope.
