a writing sideblog, for posts about the writing process, reading, and maybe even publishing. who knows? i work primarily in contemporary fantasy, but i'm also into science fiction, horror, and genre erotica. he/him ā¢ 18+ please ā¢ i follow from werewolfhooligan
i've seen other people do these recently and didn't realize this was something people did here, so i'm sort of excited to introduce myself!
i'm caspian rhys, i'm 28, and my pronouns are he/him! i'm a writer and artist who reserves all of my brain power for original stories, and everything else is a godless stream-of-consciousness landscape of text-lingo word vomit. i refuse to stop.
the genres that i most like to work in are contemporary fantasy and horror, trying to balance plot and a character focus. more often than not my stories involve themes of mental illness, personhood and morality, gender and sexuality, family (close interpersonal relationships of all sorts, really), romance, and horrible violence. almost all of my work includes explicit sexual content, so this blog will be 18+. sorry.
wips include (stars for which ones are the most active atm lol):
a wolf's tooth for revenge, a revenge quest novel about a pod of werewolves (a sub-group of a larger pack) on a cross-country road trip to kill the alpha of a rival pack ā
devil dogs, a book about a werewolf biker gang + a father-son werewolf-hunting duo with a freak christian lean ā [WIP INTRO][WIP INTRO 2]
fixed, a book about an underground werewolf fight ring. as in the werewolves are fighting of their own volition, but the betting is illegal and also they're werewolves so it's not like they can register to do this legally.
the daring fiasco and the safety of the realm, about magical scientists who happen to be cat people, feat. secrecy and betrayal
what wolves can't eat, about the world's first werewolves, or wolves given human form by the moon herself, who go on to become menaces to society and need to be celestially punished
the hopeful, about a vampire hunter going undercover as a turn-ee hopeful to see what the FUCK is going on in this fucking city lately, and needing to commit hardcore to the bit
i'll be posting wip excerpts for that sweet validation with their individual wip tags, which are most often an abbreviation of their title. #awtfr for wolf's tooth and #tdfsr for fiasco, for instance
writinglittlebeasts is a side blog! my primary blog is @werewolfhooligan, so if that url crops up in any replies, it's me, lol
i am super down to answer asks at any time or be tagged in tag games, it might just take me a while to respond (sorry)
current fixation: devil dogs, a story wherein a werewolf and the fledgeling werewolf hunter who let him live sixteen years ago reunite and blood gets Everywhere.
side quests: resident evil or one piece fanfiction lmao
A questionable holy man, a '90s metalhead ghost and a skeptic gun-for-hire travel across the country fulfilling uncanny missions given to them on an old, pink flip phone.
SUMMARY: The world is a minutely-designed machine, giant and endless, that runs and breaks and gets fixed and runs again in a relatively smooth routine. Sometimes though, anomalies with no known solutions appear: lingering spirits, stretching doorways to other planes, uncanny creatures that challenge the limits of our beliefs, and everything in between.
To reconcile these anomalies is Father Mateo Santiago's Holy Mission, which he's guided through by an old, pink flip phone he simply can't get rid of. He takes out its battery, smashes it, throws it out of a moving car, drives over it, yet every single time, it materializes back into his possession, sending him tasks and directions he can't help but think are divine. Together with a vengeful ghost he promises to help and a morally-defective hustler he can't shake off, Mateo chases the messenger on the other side in the hopes he could hand in his resignation from a job he's never asked for, though the road is long, challenging, and full of perils he can't even begin to reason into reality.
CHARACTERS:
Mateo Santiago: A priest God never paid. Literally, so he gets by on what he calls "a social experiment in human kindness", though he's not as gullible as he'd like people to think he is. He more often than not sides with the anomalies as opposed to the humans claiming to be terrorized by them, and while he calls his mission holy, the physical and mental sickness he suffers from whenever he ignores the phone drive him more than any faith he may or may not have.
Billie Quinn: Once stuck as a haunting echo, the more she helps with the Holy Flip Phone cases, the more she regains the shape of her former self. She considers her soul being bound to Mateo's bible to be punishment for all the violence she caused in her ghostly rage, and her imprisonment as his partner makes her desperate to find her remains quickly and pass over, though the phone has other plans for her.
Jude Bellamy: Markets himself as the world's best errand boy. You pay him, he does it, whether it's your grocery shopping or icing your enemies. He considers himself a consequence of people's actions and is happy to provide for whichever side, but can't wrap his mind around the supernatural being more than a fairytale until he becomes unexplainably intrigued by Mateo and his weird mission.
Nora/Cora: Wherever there's an anomaly, there's also a friendly face. Whether she's Nora the sweet Waitress, Cora the sharp Librarian, Maura the snarky Tattoo Artist, or any other variation of herself, she's a beacon of safety and aid should she be needed in the Holy Mission of the week. But who is she outside of her given role? Are they sisters? Clones? And where does she go when the case is closed?
Andrey Roman: Trained in the art of hunting Evil since he was a kid as a family affair spanning generations, he now finds himself alone, far away from home, and a member of a hunter group that isn't quite a fan of his origin or superior skills. Once he runs into Mateo & Quinn and learns of their less-than-conventional methods and unlikely partnership, his unshakeable belief that anomalies must be eradicated is pushed to its limits.
The Narrator: Our guide through the tale of Mateo's journey, its context, subtext, morals and lessons. He's the bridge between our viewing pleasure and Mateo's trials, though his initial objectivity and omnipotence slowly dissipate the deeper we go into the story, where his origin grows more and more questionable. Is he simply just a storyteller, or is he part of the tale himself?
MORE INFO:
The Inspiration: Nostalgic and quite sad at Supernatural's wasted potential (it's a great show when it wants to be, don't get me wrong, but we're on tumblr, most of us are bearing the scars of what it was like when it was bad lol), I wanted to come up with something that could scratch that itch the early seasons did, but in a way that would stretch the limits of what that kind of world could offer - and obviously embracing the gay, duh. This whole story started out as an AU of Metanoia, but quickly evolved into its own thing that's slowly consuming me, and I love letting it fry my brain on a daily basis.
The Intentions of Form & Storytelling: This story is meant to be quirky in all the right ways. If parts of it feel better written as a theatre play, that's what they're gonna be. Some bits I'd love to turn into a graphic novel. Some bits could be upside down, mirrored, incomplete, tangled up. This is a playground where I'm not just allowed to experiment with my weirdest, darkest, most reality-stretching thoughts, but I'm encouraged to. My grand vision is to make this into a TV series eventually, where (the universe willing) I could bring back "fillers", 24-episode seasons, longer story arcs spanning several episodes for some of the more complicated cases, and where we can play around with form, style, and do things we've always wanted to do, but couldn't. Sky is the limit here.
IT IS MY BIRTHDAY. I AM 29. FEELING VERY JONATHAN LARSON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL TICK TICK BOOM ABOUT POTENTIALLY TURNING 30 WITHOUT EVER HAVING FINISHED A PROJECT, SO THIS IS GONNA BE MY YEAR. THE YEAR I FINISH DEVIL DOGS. WE'RE DOING IT FOR REAL THIS TIME
Wolventraum, a fantasy novella written by me entirely, including edits, including cover, including formatting and associated temporary mental breakdowns!
COMING SOON TO ONLINE STORES EXCEPT AMAZON BECAUSE FUCK THAT COMPANY
Professional monster hunter Reaper needs to get to Marthburg for a spot of medical treatment. But instead of the kingdomās capital, they find a ruin. A thrall ambush on the road was just the beginning. The vampires have started an offensive to conquer humanity.
In the ruined city, Reaper finds a diary and its echo: the ghost Vivi, who has a final wish Reaper is willing to fulfil. They arenāt alone, either. Their best friend and fellow monster hunter Lucie joins them despite her reservations about the village of werewolves theyāre headed towards.
Little do they know they're about to forge the bonds that will put an end to the vampire threat.
With Vivi and her werewolf husband at their side, Reaper and Lucie take the fight to the vampires, and to the traitors in their own ranks.
Sometimes I wish life was less full of bullshit so I could make more time for the marketing side, but alas, it is what it is. It's currently awaiting manual approval by tolino media. I will yell in another post when it's officially out. The site was wigging out on me so I couldn't set a pre-order period, but hey, Digitalisierung and all that.
Also if you hear distant screaming: I somehow in all my edits missed a single typo IN THE BLURB don't mind me while I crumble to dust from shame. Bring me a steamroller and flatten me into 2D.
It is a very deliberate decision to not put it on amazon, even if that theoretically means fewer sales. I'd rather try to stick to my moral and ethical prinicples, thank you.
rest assured there will be YELLING and edits to my pinned post when this firstborn book baby gets approved. no clue how long that'll take but hey, after all the Formatting Fuckery it was a painless process.
I am so proud of you in a unremotely condescending way. Ahhh!! The cover looks awesome. The blurb is hooking. Its perfect. Consider me a happy fan already. I can't wait to dive in and read about your Vamp.
[1] forces himself to one knee beside the body of his [captain], his eyes trained not on the man's face but the tips of his fingers. The flesh itself is pale, bloodless, but a mesmerizing stratum of darker pinprick holes decorate the fingerpads where [burrowing insects] have eaten it away. There are like patterns across much of the [captain]'s head and neck, but these are much deeper, and in fact much of his face is altogether gone. He seems to sag where he meets the ground and come to points on his horizon, like a mountain range.
"Don't kneel there for very long," [2] calls from some distance away. When [1] looks, he isn't looking back. He's foregone smoking to smother his nose and mouth with the end of his sleeve, casting his gaze from a body on his left to a body on his right and back again. "They're cursed-- all of them. The stink is oozing from the corpses."
"A little respect!" [1] snaps, drawing [2]'s lethargic attention. "They are my friends!"
[2] holds his eye for a long moment. He adjusts his weight onto his back foot. "I apologize," he says, in the same tone of voice that he says everything, "but this is the curse you carry."
got a comment on a fic today that was just... So kind . i love writing impactful pornography and i love when my fellow horndogs take a moment to appreciate the line level prose
Calling all Questers and Pirates! Add these fantastic titles to your summer TBR.
The Last Best Quest Ever by F.T. Lukens coming 5/26
AND
A Prince Among Thieves by Katie Abdou 6/16
DA RULES: find an excerpt from your wip that suits the provided prompt
and my prompt from pearls is "nobody talk to me"
from devil dogs:
The pressure of anticipation bleeds out of Ramsey all at once. He had expected something insightful. This is just the oldest trick in the book.
"Why would I need help?" Ramsey asks, and he watches Deacon's smile thin.
"I'm not trying to insinuate you're weak, or stupid; nothing like that," Deacon says.
"Why would you be? Why would I need help?"
The wolves across the parking lot have sagged, turned away. They abandon the conversation.
"Randall, I'm not judging you. You're hurting. I've just seen it before, and I can't mind my own business. Please, just consider it."
"Consider what?"
Deacon stifles a sigh for as long as he can, but it erupts from his mouth and rolls like a peal of thunder. "I'm not going to hold this against you," he says finally, and he steps off of the curb. "It was nice seeing you, Randall."
and bc i haven't been paying a huge amount of attention to the dash recently, idk who is and isn't active rn, so i'm gonna tag whoever happens to be reading this š«µ if you'd like. and @ribbonemoji
I am so tired of short-attention-span, trim-the-fat culture.
All writing advice these days is for how to write like Chuck Palahniuk. "Cut 'think', cut 'feel', cut 'wonder' - only action, only pushing forward, show and move and move and move." What if I could emulate this style, and still don't want to? What if I want to write like Henry James, with three paragraphs of introspective musings between each dialogue line?
The music advice is, "make it shortform, make it Tik-Tok compatible, make it punchy, hit the refrain as soon as possible." What if I want that 10-minute prog rock piece? What if I want that symphony? What if I want it slow and luxurious and lazy?
Movies. Series. Poetry. Bodies. Everything is "trimmed trimmed trimmed trimmed, stripped bare, you have three seconds to win me over, make it airport chic." I don't want to win you over, then, I guess.
I want the fat left it.
I want the pleasure and the indolence and the indulgence.
Fuck this art-advice that's always "your art needs Ozempic."
āIām sorry I wasnāt there.ā Eli knelt down beside him. āFirst Gomez was on to me for texting in class. I finally escaped and then Keith walked up and I couldnāt get away, heās such a blabbermouthā¦ā
āKeith? Guitar Keith?ā Dean cursed his own blabbermouth.
Eli smiled. āDonāt start.ā He took Isaacās hands in his. Isaac tried to squirm away, brow furrowed, but Eli gripped him tighter. āIt was one date.ā
āIt was two.ā His gaze transfixed on Eliās hands as they began to hum and glow in gold. āHe still likes you.ā
āSo what if he does?ā
STATUS: drafting.
POV: third person limited between four characters, present tense.
WARNINGS: human experimentation, homophobia, sexism, death and murder, suicide and suicidal thoughts + more.
SUMMARY.
damian sakamoto died and had it not been for his ghost walking around the streets of london, being able to stumble upon someone that in his life he had once called a friend, no one would've noticed. his life would've just become a statistic to be studied and an unsolved mystery.
but with this second chance, he'll do everything that he can to ensure that he's given justice. but it's hard when one's memory isn't all that it could be. it's just a good thing that he has friends who hide away in dark corners, those who are able to unearth the secrets of his death. even if it means burning a family's legacy in the process.
