BEEZLE an interior illustration for Otherland: River of Blue Fire by Tad Williams

when character a is barely conscious and being princess carried by character b and when b goes to put them down a whimpers and fists their hand into the fabric of their shirt and b goes shhh shh shh and takes their hand in theirs while gently cradling their head oughhhhhh oughhhhh………….

More unicorns. These are fun to draw. :)

it sucks so bad that 'lightning magic' in every media is just some pathetic little strands of electricity. i wanna see some LIGHTNING. show me a magic setting where lightning magic lights up a room like the sun, and the bolt is only visible as an afterimage burned into your vision. I wanna see someone cast lightning and have the thunder rattling the room and shaking everyone to their core. i want lightning magic to be a split second blast of so much power it leaves everyone's senses reeling. c'mon guys don't you know what real lightning looks like? we can be doing so much better than this.

I agree with this but I'm always far more upset when plant magic is incredibly weak or used exclusively for healing. Like... Have you ever seen what a tree can do to a rock? What plants over the course of a millennium can do to an area? Or what some plants can do when they grow on a living thing? Now imagine you could do all those things in an instant, anywhere you wanted. Imaging growing an oak tree in someone's chest. Imagine growing new trees that are very resistant to fire suddenly to block an enemy spell. Imagine filling the air with pollen so thick it causes the enemy forces to suffocate. Plant magic should be the scariest magic in any setting and instead it appears gets limited to "oh, I can't hurt anyone. I must defend and heal those I care about." No. Rip off that guy's limbs with strangle vines before he even gets a chance to attack your friends.

idk if others already know about this but anyone writing a story on another world, this is fun to play around with!

WIP Tag Game

I was tagged by @nrivanwrites!! And seeing as how I'm currently procrastinating on To Consume, I'll be answering for that one :)

1. What’s the first part of your WIP that you created?

I have to write chronologically, so technically the first scene I wrote was the opening chapter, with Alya and her mother driving to their new home... however, I'd say the first scene I had conceptualized in my head was the, erm, confrontation between Alya and Matthias.

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

I associate this WIP most heavily with Ptolemaea by Ethel Cain (which is associated with the aforementioned confrontation), so... probably a snippet from that song, specifically the part where Ethel breaks down and starts screaming. Let's not give people any doubt about what kind of show this would be, huh?

3. What are your favorite characters that you made? Why?

The whole cast is quite dear, but I'm really loving how Kass is turning out this draft! She's gotten a bit more... weird, which has been really fun to play with. Also having her just be fascinated with the supernatural and morbid stuff going on gives her an excuse to get wrapped up in the plot that's independent of Alya, which is so important for a love interest.

4. What other pieces of media do you think your fanbase would share?

I just finished reading My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna Van Veen, and was shocked by how similar it was to To Consume! So fans of sapphic gothic horror will also love that one. I do also feel like fans of Mike Flanagan's Midnight Mass will like the religious horror aspects, since both works take place in a rather isolated Catholic community.

5. What has been your biggest struggle with your WIP?

Just, letting myself get unapologetically gross with this one. Leaning into the gothic horror tropes when my instinct would be to shy away. In the first draft, I was still writing this as a Young Adult novel, but the more I get into it the more I think that it's probably going to end up as an Adult novel instead. Figuring out that shift in tone has been difficult.

6. Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

Kass lives on a farm, so there are quite a few animals around! The girls are going to sacrifice a chicken in a few chapters. Hogs may or may not eat someone, and that someone may or may not be already dead. Also there's a hallucination of a wolf wearing the pelt of a lamb that may or may not be a version of God! It's fun times all around!

7. How do your characters travel/get around?

Alya mostly walks, but sometimes her mom drives her places.

8. What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

I'm... about a third of the way through, maybe a little less? I'm on chapter 9, Alya is sitting in her Morality class and is about to have a very bad time.

9. What aspects (tropes, maybe?) You think will draw your audience in?

The gothic horror, the cannibalism, the blasphemy, the cannibalism as blasphemy, the religious horror, the violence of it, the queerness, the absolute Catholicism of it all.

10. What are your hopes for your WIP?

I would love to get this one to critique partners this year, and then to beta readers either late this year or early next!

Tagging @cwritesfiction @sodaliteskull @sleepyowlwrites @roselinbooks @dilly-dahlying aaaaaaand anyone else who wants to answer!!!

Untitled [man and tar], Paris, France, Lee Miller, circa 1930

acrostic ; tag game

tagged by @sodaliteskull for the word RETROGRADE. I'm going to be blowing the dust off the current The Last Lorinean draft in the hopes that it will inspire me to dive back in.

R: "Running is as good as guilty."

E: "Every time I move myself, I have to rest in a state where I can hardly think, let alone spare magic."

T: The lacing on my dress came out uneven, but I could not be bothered to fix it, not even smoothing out the fly-aways in my braid before leaving my room to go downstairs for breakfast.

R: "Rather than filling a magical void, we seem to leak magic everywhere."

O: One felt more right than the others, almost warmer as my skin passed across its edge.

G: Gasping for breath, I wrenched myself out of bed and stumbled to the hall, plotting the quickest path through the Home to reach fresh air.

R: Regret and love all in one glance.

A: Again, I felt her thoughts pressing against mine in their grief.

D: Different faces every time, perhaps because of the sympathy in the worker’s eyes when I asked them for more water, my own voice unfamiliar to me.

E: Even in that word of nothingness, cold clawed its way into my chest and forbade me from speaking.

I'm tagging @souverian-are-we @thebrownleathernotebook and @theink-stainedfolk and your word is WEFT