Author/Reader/Artist

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ - 28 - disabled and sleepy - he/him Currently reading: Between reads :( The Secret of Life / TSoA 2024

[vsaintsin]

Writeblr Re-Intro

Yo! I'm V Saintsin. Or V or Vin or Saintsin or whatever you want to call me that sounds right on your tongue. I'm a self-proclaimed Social Media fumbler who got a late start to the party and has never quite figured it out. I hate how hipster and edgy it sounds to say "I'm bad at social media" but like I used to work with some people who actually managed the social media accounts for the business we worked for and there were rules and whatnot and damn, I think online media is just not my medium. That being said, here I am! Hah

I'm an author and general mess who's hoping to be the miracle man (somebody who makes a living writing silly little stories). I do use a pseudonym but please hear me out when I say I didn't realize how edgy it sounds, it just has some sentimental value to my personal life. I'm so sorry that I sound like I'm in my emo phase HAHA

About me -

He/Him Transguy from the American Midwest (arguably the south, depending on who you talk to, but the older people still say "Sodi-pop" and "ope").

I'm dysautonomic, bendy, permanently sleepy, and a survivor of Crappy Doctors Who Suck At Doctoring.

I like DnD, Pathfinder, Baldur's Gate 3, Cyberpunk, Dragon Age, and other things in that vein.

I do make art of my stories and characters (Tablet is currently not working so I'm in a dry spell).

My writing background is predominantly ancient, dusty RPs from as far back as the foopets days and fanfic writing on Quizilla - I am an old and wizened elder of the net.

My formal education was music performance and behavioral neuroscience, I don't really know how I got where I am.

This is not my first rodeo with tumblr but it is the first time I have anything to SAY instead of just lurking.

In the event of malfunction, you can put me outside for 5 minutes and I'll probably factory reset.

My existence as I know it hinges on a massive number of sticky notes plastered throughout my room.

What I'm lookin' for -

Idk, whatever? I'm down for most things. Did you write it? Cool, let me see. I'm not too bent on genre or anything, just fascinated by the art of storytelling.

A bit tentative with fanfiction but that's just because if it's not a fandom I'm familiar with I am rather clueless about what the hell is going on and if it's a fandom I am familiar with I HUNT DOWN THE DEEP LORE.

I like art a whole lot, including fanart. Also art advice, love seeing things from different perspectives and learning something new.

Mutuals, really, for any reason. Building better connections on here, getting to know people. I am hideously bad at this but I try.

What I write -

Science Fiction with heavy subjects that matter to me - trigger warnings on a story-by-story basis.

High Fantasy (eventually books I think?) characters and their backgrounds for DnD and Pathfinder - I have been tempted to share these to help people get ideas or just for free use?

Things that I delete because I have crippling imposter syndrome and publishing makes me nauseous (doin' it tho).

Stories that I hope will make people feel less alone or that people could relate to, stories that I wish I had when life was worse and I was reaching out for anything I could find to keep me afloat, stories that try to be critical of things that SUCK in a way that's any helpful.

Lots of curse words and cussing (that's just how people talk 'round here), dubious science, things that I hope might make you cry but in a good way though.

Character-Driven stories that revolve more around the development of the person and less around the plot itself if that makes sense.

I've put blurb things below for my primary project/series which features a grumpy, queer, 37-year old chain smoking Frenchman and his misadventures with life and love and unbridled rage. If any of that sounds cool stick around and hang out? (This part is a plug bc I did a thing and I'm proud of it) And if my books sounds interesting the first one is 99 cents on Kindle and you just need a phone and a free app to read it!

THE SECRET OF LIFE (Published) - Sci-Fi/Psychological Thriller, Bi M Lead, Lovers to Enemies, AI but the oldschool cool kind not the real world thing that's stealing our future

Carlisle-Trystan Antoinette is a mercenary on a hard road, navigating life and death itself in an infinite cycle started by powers above his understanding. He has one mission - warn The Dianican Space Station of the coming threat and put a stop to a war that would encapsulate the whole of the Sol System before it can ever begin. Unfortunately for Carlisle, reality is a tenuous thing, made up only by our understanding of it. At least, according to his Psychiatrist, who tells him that there is no war, that he was never a mercenary, and that what Carlisle is experiencing is a severe but manageable psychotic break. Stripped of his combat enhancements, his bio monitor, and everything he's every known, Carlisle has a decision to make. Does he give in to the thoughts and memories, so real that he can almost taste them, or does he live a life of comfort and ease, returning to a husband and daughter that he left behind?

TWs: Domestic and War Violence, suicide, rape, medical trauma, grief, drug use

THE SILENCE OF ANGELS (Due 2024, TSoL 2) - Betrayal and Rage, Learning how to love again slow-burn romantic subplot, Learning how to Dad, A general inability for any one thing to just go right

(Quick Rough Blurb that offers no spoilers for TSoL) Making connections isn't easy for somebody who's accustomed to burning bridges. Isolation has always been Carlisle's mantra for surviving his life. Playing a role comes second nature, pretending to be the man that everyone else wants to see in him. When an old friend is murdered Carlisle finds himself as the primary suspect with all evidence pointing to him so clearly that even he calls to question what he is capable of. Unwilling to believe that he could commit such a heinous crime, Carlisle sets off to find the truth of his friend's death - was Carlisle framed or does he truly have the capacity to bring such harm upon those he loves? Old and new bonds will be tested, faith broken, and the future of everyone called into question as lines are drawn and sides are picked.

TWs: Violence, mentions of SA, graphic character death, more grief, more death

I don't know what else to say... Later!

[so-many-ocs]

“everyone is going to hate it” someone will love it. someone will reach out to you and tell you it changed their life. someone will hold it close and treasure it forever in a way you can’t even understand. keep going

[vsaintsin]

I think the primary reason that I think practices like "cancelling" somebody don't work is that you can't be an activist without believing that a human can change...

I mean, if you don't think anyone can change, what's the advocacy for? What's the protest and outcry for? To hear the sound of your own voice? To hear your views echo back at you and feel some vindication that you are pure and good? The core of advocacy is to change people's minds. Let them learn. Let them grow. This doesn't mean you have to forgive people - forgiveness is yours to give at your discretion - but you can withhold forgiveness without weaponizing it.

Leave eternal damnation for gods lesser than yourself.

[prophetic-writer]

I might never be a notable writer and I might never get a huge book deal and my books might never get turned into movies but who cares? I've found absolute paradise sitting on my porch in the rain weaving words together and feeling the cool wind of an august storm on my face. No failure could ever take this sort of joy away from me.

[vsaintsin]

I have been told (as if it was a fact) by two separate people (who are close to me, and should know me better than this) that because the (fictional) contents of the first book I published include the MC considering the subject of his own faith that I, a real (as in not fictional) person, am also having a crisis of faith. What followed (despite me protesting that my faith does not align with the one of the fictional character at all) was detailed instructions as to how I should correct this issue.

You know, when I considered that the periodic religious subject matter in the book might be controversial to some people, I'm not sure this is what I meant?

[vsaintsin]

Hi! I found you from this post about how sterilization of media is a deterrent to society. https://www.tumblr.com/vsaintsin/749607325281681408/ive-read-some-things-that-deal-in?source=share

(Great take btw)

I was wondering what the book you're referencing is? I am curious to read it. Thank you!!

Hey, Thanks!

The book in question is A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Something about it scratches the right itches in my brain.

It’s 814 pages of controversial because of some of the contents. I don’t have a strong enough memory to recall all the trigger warnings, but if you sometimes need them, DO look them up for this book.

I have an essay’s worth of thoughts on this book that I won’t plug here. One thing I can say for certain is that whether you love or hate this book, it’s an experience, and for that I consider it a success.

At the end of the day one of the things I think is important to remember is that this book has helped some men. It has given them a way to say “I know this, this is me. I experienced this. I was there.”

Aspects of this book have left an impact on me heavy enough to influence my own writing. Maybe not in obvious ways, but at least in the way I approach certain concepts.

It does start slow. It takes its time, similar to a Stephen King book, to get you to where it needs you in order for the journey to matter.

[prophetic-writer]

Writing is all fun and games until you have to describe a room.

[vsaintsin]

Every time I get through a first draft I go back and realize I have not, in fact, described a single room. The setting simply appears in my brain and I am often oblivious to the fact that I have to tell people that it exists.

And I do mean Every. Single. Time. Without fail.

On a related note, I also have forgotten to describe what people look like in almost every case. Visual info does not register in my brain, apparently.

[vsaintsin]

Pushing off the release of Book Two because a quarter of it went missing out of nowhere was definitely a set back that was overwhelming, but I'm absolutely relieved to say that I finished rewriting everything that went missing and I can finally finish working through edits and revisions and all the guts of this thing.

God save these fingers, they are going to fall right off.

[geiser]

no lie i genuinely believe brands are so behind the pleather movement bc they can just buy cheap plastic sell it as expensive 'vegan leather' and be ready for you to return in a couple years to buy another 'vegan peeta approved™ leather jacket' bc they last like 5 minutes compared to the way leather lasts decades all the while you can pat yourself and coorporate's back for being sutainable all the while pvc (what some fake leather products are made of) has been labeled the single most environmentally damaging type of plastic and while there are non pvc fake leathers such as pu leather... its not like thats much better producing plastic pollutes and the second your pleather clothes start to breakdown (which happens much faster than you think) theyll wound up on landfills for at least a 100 years...

[starcrossed-sky]

also they love love LOVE to try and sell you "plant-based leather" that you then look at the details and it's "45% cactus" or whatever and there's no mention of what the rest of it is

it's plastic.

it's always plastic.

[sea-salted-wolverine]

Let me tell you a story.

50 years ago or so a cow died. It died in a slaughterhouse after a life on a cattle ranch. It was butchered in a meat packing plant, and it's body was sent off to a grocery store where it then became an overdone steak or a dry hamburger or maybe dog food. It was the 70s and people had only recently realized that you could put food in things that were not jello. Cut them some slack.

But its skin went to a tannery. And that skin was processed in the hide and then leather. That leather was bought by a clothing company who made jackets out of it, long leather dusters for working men and ranchhands. Cowboy shit.

The dead cow that is now a leather jacket is not technically waterproof because if you stand out in the rain for 6 hours water will eventually work its way through the seams at the shoulders. But its pretty damn waterproof. It keeps off the rain and the snow and the dust and the mud and the brambles and it doesn't melt if it catches a spark. So 50 years ago a man bought one and he wore it pretty much until he died and his wife shoved it in a closet. Decades of use, from the deserts in the southwest to the arctic, because it turns out that cowboys are wildly adaptable.

Anyway, I pulled grandad's jacket out of the closet a while back and there is nothing wrong with that coat. It does have some distinctly non-modern vibes, but more importantly it is cool as hell and looks almost new. I have seen faux distressed leather that looks worse.

The cow is still dead. There will be another cow that dies tomorrow for the same reason. But there's no market for leather these days. Its skin won't be a garment that lasts 50 years. Its gonna rot in a pile with all the others. Someone will sell a "vintage" cowboycore Americana aesthetic dark academia plastic peice of shit that will be garbage in a year. And then they'll sell another one.

[rhysintherain]

That cow, that became a leather coat?

It's probably also a saddle that another cowboy is still riding.

And several belts. Probably some wallets, several gloves, some riding tack.

Nobody who doesn't work with leather understands how much material you get from one cow. I have sides (like 1/4 of a cow) that I've been making things out of for years and there's still lots left in my materials stash.

Once that coat is too worn out to wear, there will still be lots of the leather that's still good. Someone who can't afford to buy hides will probably make smaller things from those pieces (that's how I started working with leather).

Even when every piece of that hide is completely unusable, it will decompose like it was originally going to, and shed no microplastic particles. A synthetic alternative lasts a fraction as long and sheds microplastics for its entire life.

You also can't use that synthetic leather for many of the things you'd use real leather for. It's not fire resistant, so welders can't use it to protect them from sparks. it doesn't have the tensile strength of real leather, so you can make equestrian tack out of it. It doesn't provide any abrasion resistance, so you can't make motorcycle leathers from it. It can't be used for protective equipment in sports like archery, because it would disintegrate under normal use.

Synthetic leather can only be used in place of real leather in fashion and upholstery applications, and it's not very good at either. It requires hundreds of times more material for the same applications due to its short lifespan, and it produces plastic pollution constantly.

There's literally no good argument for replacing real leather with synthetic alternatives. Even if you want to go the animal rights route, how many marine and aquatic ecosystems are you willing to sacrifice for the life of a few cows? Are you even saving cows, when we use them for so many other industries? Does a domesticated animal have more right to life than the wild species impacted by synthetic leather production?

In the long run, it's just not worth it.

[patricia-taxxon]

ive found that partially treated mental illness can sometimes look to uninvolved onlookers like faked mental illness.

[patricia-taxxon]

"someone who really has pOCD would be disgusted and horrified at their intrusive thoughts" or maybe i'm in therapy & am going by the books, being radically ambivalent to my intrusive thoughts instead of wasting energy mentally washing my paws of sin. i'm not going to perform my rock bottom for you for the sake of being believed.

[elamimax]

"I won't perform my rock bottom for you for the sake of being believed" is going straight into my permanent storage holy shit

[swirly-potato]

Dear Tumblr,

Today I finished my novel. I don't mean that I got the first draft done. I mean that I, recently sixteen, finished the novel that I've been working on for as long as I can remember. I did it.

I am very happy and I just wanted to share it with all the weird little freaks that inspired me to put my blorbos down on paper. I don't care if nobody sees this. I did it. I am a writer. I finished my book.

Love,

Avi

[vsaintsin]

Congrats!

[daisywords]

so many "how many books have you read this year" polls with no "idk I don't keep track" option. like maybe the rest of y'all are keeping a careful list but what if I am just a silly goose

[incandescent-creativity]

Do you ever write a sentence and then realize “Nah, that’s too self aware for you” and backspace a bunch of times.

[incandescent-creativity]

[ad-wills]

[themightyhumanbroom]

My average writing experience:

"Alright I think I'm almost done actually-"

*Google doc grows second health bar and a choir starts singing in latin*

[sourdough-seal]

one time a professor asked me if i’d ever wanted to write anything “more important” than romance. and i said no. i was put on this earth to write about sad people kissing. and if another writer ever came up to me and said they wanted to write 400 pages containing nothing but a character baking a single loaf of bread each day, then i would tell them to do that. people don't write something because it's important. they write about something and that is what makes it important

[vsaintsin]

Writing at 5 am and running on no sleep will have you (me, one) googling dumb things like "Query - definition" because all of the sudden, it looks wrong in a sentence and you no longer trust your knowledge of the English language.