I Do Not Consider Any Fantasy Worldbuilding Complete Before You Cannot Tell Me Something About

I do not consider any fantasy worldbuilding complete before you cannot tell me something about

the culture’s sense of humour, with examples of popular jokes,

popular literature VS classic literature,

what children learn in school (especially history, maths, biology),

the common grammar mistakes your conlang’s native speakers make,

the culture’s cuisine, with recipes,

toy production,

the embarassing old songs people sing when they are really drunk, but would not admit knowing while sober.

Writing Advice

You don't need to feel guilty when something prevents you from writing. It's okay to find it frustrating, angering, or sad. Sometimes different kinds of grief can put creativity on hold and other times they fuel it. The most important thing is remembering that you will find your way back to writing when it's possible for you.

my friends r so talented. rb if ur friends are talented

Would you mind telling me a little bit about Catalina?

LOL I am finishing up her playlist right now. Great timing, friend!

Catalina is my mc, Daron's, best friend (even though it takes Daron the whole book to realize it). She's the daughter of a mistress, which pretty much equates to a duchess, and her mother is also the headmistress of the school all my characters attend. While Daron keeps a professional relationship with her mother and barely interacts with her brother, Catalina contrasts her by being very close with her mother and her little sister. Because of her relationship with her family, she serves as a mother figure in her friend group.

Catalina is an incredibly strong witch, but she has trouble believing it because Kelsee has been out to get her for years. Their families have been fighting for more power in their clan for generations, but Catalina's mother was over it and decided to run a school instead. Kelsee saw this as a bid for power and bullied Catalina into doubting herself and made their classmates believe it too, but don't worry, Catalina realizes her strength.

From the start of my writing, I intended for Catalina to have ambitions other than succeeding her mother as mistress--she thinks she suits a smaller lifestyle better--but I just added in an arc for her recently where she is put in a leadership position and learns that she is good at it. In the end, she decided she really does want to be mistress and lead with Daron, who has one of the highest positions of power in their country.

Catalina's the kind of person who always knows what to say so I gave her some of the best dialogue. A friend once told me that I have a kind smile, and I thought that was the nicest thing anyone's said to me so I wanted to immortalize it. In my first draft, Catalina already had a similar line so of course I gave it to her to say to Daron. She also says this line that was rated the best line in my wip from a poll I made: "We cannot be perfect. We can only be better."

Like other witches of the Herbneivorous Clan, Catalina's powers include being able to grow plants, tell their properties by touching them, and being able to eat poison. She's eaten so much that her blood's actually poisonous, but it's not much of a threat because she's typically calm and grounded.

Thanks for asking! That's Catalina.

Yes but also the discussion around how annoying skibidi toilet is is important! It’s not just technology that is changing kids’ behaviors, it’s the media they are consuming. Other than the obvious overstimulation problems we see, media like skibidi toilet is not teaching kids anything, and when your job is to help them with writing you can see they need now more than ever media to teach them language/phonics. Skibidi toilet is the opposite of that.

Also it is annoying when you have to hear it every day.

i think we should care more about how the parents of gen alpha are giving them technology addiction to the point they throw tantrums when its taken away than how annoying skibidi toilet is

Snippet Sunday

look. i tried to make this snip shorter. i really did. but we kind of need all the context for this to make sense. so have all the context! here's Vy and Jules(?) having a super fun conversation in Spark Signature:

cw: possession, self-harm, blood

There was a time when Jules’s apartment felt more like a home than Vy’s own. When they’d make the drive from the Othello Academy down to Rainier Beach, it was never with the looming dread of having to face people who only cared for them out of obligation—out of love for somebody else. When they went home with Jules, they weren’t going home to Erik and Minh; they were going home to no one.

At that time, more than anything else, that was what Vy had needed.

Jules’s apartment now is nothing like home and everything like a cage. And, in spite of Vy’s wishes, it’s anything but empty.

Jules paces the kitchen, running his hands along the countertops, over his arms, through his hair. His voice—a low, constant murmur—fills the air like haze, clinging to every surface and making Vy’s hair stand on end. He doesn’t even seem to hear the door open, doesn’t see Vy at all. Not until they’re standing across the bar from him, a world and an island and a foot-and-a-half away. He blinks—slow, catlike. “…Vy?”

The surreality, the incongruence, the wrongness of it all dries Vy’s mouth, coats their tongue in sand. But they have to say something, do something. “You, uh… you okay?”

“Fine.” He crosses his arms; his hand wraps around the flexed muscle of his biceps and he flinches. A moment of hesitation; he props his hip against the bar instead, tail lashing. “You’ve been out for a long time.”

“Just. You know. Working.” What is wrong with him? Does he know where Vy’s been, that Vy knows? Sure, Vy came back to tell him, to ask him what the fuck he thought he was doing, but that’d been when Vy thought they’d have the upper hand, the first shot, not that Jules would be lurking around the apartment, all—

“You smell… strange.”

Okay, what the actual fuck? “I… took the maglev?”

“No. Strange like blood, strange like…” His nostrils flare. His wings twitch. Not that nervous twitch, that Jules twitch. This feels… preparatory. Predatory. “What did you see?”

The answer comes out like thinking, like breathing. They couldn’t hold it in if they tried. “You.” It hangs in the air between them, a ghost of what Vy’d witnessed, what Jules had done. When he says nothing, they continue: “That person—Dr. Poole—what happened? What’d you do?”

“Nothing.” It’s not a word; it’s a hiss. A baring of teeth. “Nothing they didn’t deserve.”

It’s not him. It’s not him, but it’s fierce and feral and familiar. It’s bloodstained lips on a holoscreen, eyes like frozen blood glaring across a pub table.

Vy’s never believed in possession; people, once dead, were content to stay that way. But, before Jules, they’d never heard of Sparks lingering after separating from their bodies, either.

Jules found the Ether by accident; who’s to say nobody in the Ether noticed? What would stop someone from using him to hitch a ride back to the material plane?

“Jules, if you can hear me?” Vy edges away from the counter, back towards the door. “I need you to come back, now.”

“What did you see, exactly?” Not-Jules slinks around the kitchen counter, into striking range. “It’s easy to… misinterpret a situation, isn’t it?”

“Totally. So easy.” Their combats scuff over the entryway’s mat. “You know, that’s… probably it. I just misunderstood. Silly me! I’ll just…” their fingers search for the button, the door’s interior release, “head back out. See what else I can find today—”

“No. This is more important.” Claws click across the vinyl stone floor. “We need to clear this up. We wouldn’t want the wrong information getting—”

Vy’s hand finds the button. The door hisses open behind them.

Not-Jules stops. “Vy.” They tilt their head, a razorblade smile splitting their lips. “Don’t run from me.”

Vy stumbles back, through the door into the hallway. The stairwell’s enclosed; if they go that way, they’ll have nowhere to run. The elevator can be stopped remotely; it’s even worse. They turn and sprint towards the end of the hall—the fire escape.

“Vy!” They glance over their shoulder; Not-Jules stands in the hallway, claws digging into their own forearms. Blood wells in their wake, flowing and glowing and crackling.

Hemomancer. Not-Jules is a hemomancer.

“Don’t fucking run from me.”

Spark Signature taglist (ask to be added or removed): @leah-yasmin-writes, @unrepentantcheeseaddict, @ceph-the-ghost-writer, @mundanemoongirl