New on the blog: why I write fiction of beauty, danger, and transformation, what ties my stories together, and why I keep returning to queer, atmospheric, emotionally charged fiction. www.aspenrayne.com/post/why-i-w...
#WritingCommunity #BookSky #AmWriting #AspenBlogs
Book 6 is Maurea. A runaway exile, once the daughter of a powerful sea-born family. She was raised for civic duty, wanted to become a soldier, lost a forbidden love,a dn fled under disgrace. Now she survives as a mercenary, hiding her real identity and living in physical decline.
Book 5 is Advsended, aer is a sky performer and musician, faous for aerial shows and stories across the empure. Ae lives for performance, for being watched, for being adored. But everything changes when aer fragmented memories are replaced with violent ones. Ones that are aer own.
Book 4 is Thalen, also an engineer like Veyr, but that is as far was their similarities go. He watched aether destroy people and their lives. He works outside the systems of Swordbreak, repairing broken systems the empire would prefer remain broken and people they would prefer remained broken.
Book 3 is Elanir, an elf and the oldest of the troupe. He was born before the sundering and remembers a time when the gods were active and cared. Before the sundering, he was a network-builder, a public speaker. He was and still is an open worshipper of Amoril (the goddess of love and connection)
Book 2 is about Veyr. A heartless fallen genius. He does not care what his experiments do to others. If he can prove he is better than the other engineers he will. One day he pushes it too far. Killing a good portion of his team and his sister, the only person who ever cared about him.
Book 1 is all about Fira. A military deserter turned small town medic. They are comfortable where they are. They have a reputation in the village for being able to stop fights before they happen. They are damn good at it and proud. The story begins just when they are finally happy with life.
#AprilAdventure #Redspinet
This is going to be the first time everyone hears about the future characters in this series because talking about only one with this question should be a crime.
Redspinet is a 7 book series about 6 different main characters who join up in the final book.
#AntagonistApril #Redspinet
The first antagonist Veyr meets is Warden Adrien Thorne. He's the first major face of Coldstone's power, and he immediately lets Veyr (and the the other prisoners) know exactly what they're in for.
#AprilWorldbuilders #Redspinet
Swordbreak gets its water from the lake it was built around. It has a lake port, so it makes sense that the city draws on that water for transport, industry, and everyday use.
Coldstone gets water imported in. For staff. The prisoners drink local aether laden water.
#WIPSnips #Redspinet
Veyr and his sister/auditor arguing over the danger of pushing systems to the edge.
I love their dynamic. If only it didn't end.
No timeline right now. And the gothic tragedy has two, the protagonist and the love interest, the fantasy has 3 ish. The protagonist, the love interest, and his bff (four if you count the barista next door and she thinks you should)
systems, and harsh administrative secrecy. It’s not a civic government at all, it’s a command structure built for containment, forced labor, punishment, and disappearance.
For the prison he spends most of the book in: its local government is basically Warden Adrien Thorne acting as the empire in miniature. Coldstone belongs to the Xopis Empire, but inside its walls Thorne is the real ruling authority, backed by guards, overseers, mine supervisors, surveillance...
industrial authority, so the government feels less personal and more like a hierarchy of systems built to maintain order, extract value, and keep the empire functioning. It is bureaucratic, authoritarian, and deeply tied to control, especially where Aether, labor, and punishment are concerned.
...
#AprilWorldbuilders #Redspinet
If we're talking the city that Veyr grew up in, not the prison he spends the book in:
The local government is imperial, under the sovereign Delemmak Gadlinion. In practice, that rule seems to flow through ministries, regulators, auditors, prison wardens, and...
for 700 years. Here's hoping the newest batch is better.
but Aspen you just say killing them is protected by the godpiece. And you are absolutely right. You have to kill them correctly. The god of war can't be killed with an act of war. The goddess of nature and life can't be killed with anything natural.
Hopefully they don't succeed but they have...
but you can also just try to cast an aether heavy spell on them. No one knows why but the godpiece will protect the holder.)
step 2: figure out which god it is. Also easy, typically you can tell by looking at the target and seeing how they react to different things.
step 3: kill them...
#AntagonistApril #Redspinet
Named? No. Intentionally.
But organized? Oh yes.
They interact in a number of ways, step one is get their target to reveal their godpiece. They might not even know they have it yet. But it's easy enough to trigger. (Easiest way is by trying to kill them with aether...
#AprilAdventure #Redspinet
Each book is in a different place, but the one I'm working on starts starts in Swordbreak, but specifically, it starts in the Arclight Conduit Facility, where Veyr works as head engineer, inside a city that runs on refined Aether (solid magic).
#WIPSnips #Veylshade I apparently hardly even mention beaches, so y'all are getting a sneak peek into a future editing project and a side story I wrote for it about one of my favorite characters that isn't the main character and even then it's about underwater life and not really a beach.
falls in love with his cat, who isn't actually a cat and is in fact just cursed to be one. Together they work to break the curse and free martin from his ex (the one who cursed him)
I write specfic. So both fantasy and scifi and oftentimes horror.
One is a gothic tragedy romance about a painter who was left at the altar and accepts an invitation to an artists residency. Turns out the house is alive and haunted.
The other is about a trans gay disabled witch in provo, utah who
Over an aro/ace flag, Melody doesn't know how to be a person, does know how to lockpick, quiet until asked about a special interest, helps Lyra cheat at chess Over a pansexual flag, Lyra legally dead, thinks the Halloween section is house decor, just wants to kiss her girlfriend in peace, will cry if you make her step in a puddle. Over a nonbinary flag Oriel also legally dead, a literal angel, bad at pretending to be a person, commits so many crimes. Over a Sapphic flag, Annie confused but accepting, so ready to steal a car, small but will happily throw the first punch, shoulder everyone cries on.
Melody and Lyra share a body, until Lyra is kidnapped. Melody's entire existence is news to Annie (Lyra's girlfriend) and the existence of angels--especially one willing to kill and steal--is news to everyone. Surely a 3,000 mi road trip together will be fine.
#ChaosPit #A #F #LGBT #Q
Avarice's Wake, A completely loyal, accurate, innocent and pure* Cinderella retelling.
#ChaosPit
#WIP final edits
#Adult
#SciFi
#Dystopia
#DarkRomance
#LGBTQ
*If you squint while actively forgetting what the Cinderella Story is.
AITA?
So...I (19F) ate my dad’s corpse—which was meant for my brother (22M) to eat so he could gain dad’s shapeshifting powers and secure his place as king. It’s not my fault he didn’t eat it fast enough! Now there's a civil war and all of my siblings are trying to eat me. AITA? #chaospit #F #A #W
Still #chaosPit and still memeing the #wip, because what if academia mattered? Like, really mattered. Like, “a bad take could undo reality” levels of mattering. Anyway, it's about seven overeducated idiots with depression. #amWriting
clara-paints Follow starting an artist residency tomorrow in the middle of nowhere because apparently my post-breakup coping mechanism is “accepting suspicious invitations from strangers” now #artist residency #post breakup behavior #this is either healing or a cry for help #free housing is free housing #trying not to think too hard about the phrasing 14,382 notes Oldest replies first brushrot Follow Girl what do you mean suspicious? clara-paints I mean I did not apply to it, they found me somehow, and the email said the estate had “been waiting a long time for someone like you,” which is probably normal rich people nonsense houseofmirth That is the least normal sentence I have ever read lacrimosa-lesbian You are going to get haunted clara-paints Counter point, free room and board clara-paints Follow made it to the residency. stopped at a gas station on the way and asked for directions to the manor and everyone in the building started acting like I had asked where they keep the live bodies #residency posting #small town vibes are rancid #trying to be normal about this #it was probably just local gossip #probably 27,044 notes clara-paints Follow bad news: I think the house is haunted worse news: the haunting is beautiful #residency posting 88,531 notes Oldest replies first yuri-beam Follow HELLO???? clara-paints before everyone gets excited I did not say she was a ghost yuri-beam you said “the haunting is beautiful” clara-paints that could mean many things fungalrealness it means lesbianism in a haunted wig cathedralriot op saw one tragic woman in a hallway and folded immediately clara-paints you people are projecting
#chaospit #thecolorsthathaunt #romance #gothic #tragedy
POV: you open tumblr and a woman is liveblogging her descent into gothic lesbian problems
r/relationships u/DeadRose I think my situationship is dead, from 1890-something, and tied to an evil house. Advice? I’m 29F, she’s... complicated. I’m staying at a remote manor for an art residency after a bad breakup. There’s this woman, Suzette, who appears and disappears randomly, knows the house better than anyone, and keeps telling me I need to leave. The problem is: she is beautiful she is sad I have a terrible history with sad beautiful women the house seems jealous I’ve also found historical records suggesting she may have died there under suspicious circumstances. How do I tell whether this is romance, haunting, or a red flag so large it has become load-bearing?
#chaospit #colorsthathaunt #romance #gothic #tragedy
if your toxic yuri doesn’t include haunted architecture, what are we even doing here