spread of multiple RPGs printed on colored sheets of paper
literally brewing together five RPGs to build out the remaining half of my characters for #RazingBabel who have not yet been revealed to me
featuring DREAM APART, BALIKBAYAN, TRAVELING THE PLANES OF DESIRE, FAR FROM HOME, MINIMUS
I have a character in #RazingBabel who has been kind of opaque to me but I know he’s an academic and so I’m doing a playthrough of LIBRARIAN’S APPRENTICE to both flesh him out and also the library setting and I’m already digging it, spoiler but the librarian is anima (whose identity has evolved)
1,333 words in appx. 1hr #amwriting #RazingBabel
anamnesis play with lubanko tarot running through the pentacles arc
doing a run-through for a character in #RazingBabel who’s been more opaque to me
falling tower
*CACKLE OF DELIGHT* I didn’t know that this is how lubanko represents the tower when I said it’s calling to me for #RazingBabel
lubanko tarot front
A fully-illustrated 78-card tarot deck exploring the surreal, the intense, the queer, and the divine.
omg I forgot how many great decks I have. but the lubanko deck is calling to me for #RazingBabel
1,790 words #amwriting #RazingBabel also HELL FUCKIN YEA LANDING THE ENDING OF THIS SCENE… it went somewhere I wasn’t fully expecting but Y’ALL… THE LINGUISTIC PLAY HERE… 🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻
notes and alphasmart neo2
I found a cafe with cute decor (they have a fake tree INSIDE THE CAFE!!!!) AND with sensory-friendly lighting so I’m not going to be fuckin wired all night (except from the boba)
WE GOT SKETCH
WE GOT KEYBOARD
LET’S FUCKIN GOOOOOOOOO #amwriting #RazingBabel
I sat down at the library, pulled out my alphasmart, started typing, and by the time I looked up again the library was closing in 4 min and I’d been writing for two hours straight
2,400 words today. they’re such terrible words *beams* in the “I hope they make people feel terrible” way #RazingBabel
wordcount today: 2,187 #amwriting #RazingBabel
notes
I wish trying to outline weren’t so abstract & 4D chess for me, but the knot structure of storytelling I’m thinking of does help, I realized this particular character is the same as the string that forms the first structure of the eternal knot that the rest of the story weaves through #RazingBabel
“_Flames bloom into red lotuses_,” you recite. Even in the diffuse light filtering through the window, your silhouette is regal, every line of your elegant turban crisp, your profile commanding as you slant your head back to acknowledge this one. Motes of dust drift through the afternoon light, the golden rays limning your lashes, threading light into the lustrous black of your beard. You touch your left hand to your chin, bringing the chain of enameled red lotuses around that wrist to gleam in the light. The hitch in this one’s breath—the twitch of the curl of your mustache is sign enough to this one that noticing such a response has brought a smile to your lips. “It’s been so very long,” you continue. “Her Highness has been keeping you busy, I take it.” “Indeed,” this one replies with a sigh. “More than you could ever imagine.” “I never imagine the Empress,” you say. You turn, your cape swirling in your wake, and flash a wicked grin. “I only imagine you, beloved.” Oh, how this one can remain calm in every circumstance, except this one: when you play coy, disarming with your smile, rousing with your teasing words. “Let’s take a walk,” this one says, tamping down on the flush rising in this one’s cheeks. “This one has brought a gift for you.” “Oh? Yet your presence is enough present for me already,” you say, eyes glittering. Lowering this gaze so as to break the intensity of yours, this one turns, feathers rippling in the current of the movement. “Come.” “If you insist.”
The barracks some description blah blah entering a building The interior of the whatever you all an individual barrack building is sparse, utilitarian—a stark contrast to the opulence within the palace. Bunk beds or whatever the inside of a barrack actually looks like. Light filters in through a single window. Motes of light dance within the beams, limning your silhouette. Even with your back to this one, this one could not mistake you for anyone else: the broad set of your shoulders; the crisp lines of your turban; the contemplative energy that cascades off you in slow waves. You turn, just enough for the light to catch on your heavy lashes, to glint on the curls of your moustache and beard, to linger on the crest of your cheekbone, your skin a warm and rich teak, your core just as strong. “It’s been a while,” you say, your voice soft and deep as some sexy masculine force of nature idk. “Her Highness must be keeping you busy.” This one sighs. Shuts the door on the too-fresh memories of Thy cruelty; focuses intently on your presence, on here, on now. “An understatement.” beat “Would you like to go on a walk?”
I am fascinated by how I totally forgot that I started prosifying my storyboards (left screenshot) before rewriting it (right screenshot) and yet some things remain the same #RazingBabel
I walked in to a new local AANHPI-owned romance bookshop and asked for their spiciest, kinkiest fantasy novel by an author of color, and they did not have an adequate recommendation. I may rest assured that #RazingBabel will fill a niche
it took me two hours to write 250 words as proof of concept (also the below QRT should probably read talmud not torah) #RazingBabel
bsky.app/profile/s.qi...
my #RazingBabel playlist has officially passed 1,000 songs. you can trace my various musical fixations over like ohhhh my god like four fucking years or something via this playlist lmfaooo open.spotify.com/playlist/00E...
good lord, this manuscript is already 11,000 words long and barely anything has happened #RazingBabel
“Hey,” you say. You pause, your gaze lowered, your lashes a dark veil as you take a deep breath, then continue. “I… I am so often the protector that no one ever thinks to protect me. Everyone assumes I’m invulnerable, that I can fend for myself. So… thank you. Truly. For thinking of me.” This time, I take the lead, kissing you gently, tenderly, pressing my forehead to yours, touching my nose to yours as we breathe together, hold each other, ground each other. The crescent rims of your eyes water. As one tear rolls down your cheek, then another, I kiss them away, salt telling truth on my tongue. “As if I could ever not think of you,” I murmur. You chuckle, ruefully, your lashes glimmering as you blink away any lingering tears. “Don’t let the Empress know your devotion is divided, beloved.”
the duality of drafting (this part is one of my favorites, the banger of today. also, this is a m/m scene between a paladin monk and a warrior soldier) #RazingBabel #amwriting
You turn, just enough for the light to catch on your heavy lashes, to glint on the curls of your moustache and beard, to linger on the crest of your cheekbone, your skin a warm and rich teak, your core just as strong. “It’s been a while,” you say, your voice soft and deep as some sexy masculine force of nature idk. “Her Highness must be keeping you busy.” This one sighs. Shuts the door on the too-fresh memories of Thy cruelty; focuses intently on your presence, on here, on now. “An understatement.” beat “Would you like to go on a walk?”
the writing process #RazingBabel
I can’t wait to have a book out there that has the phrase “Thine ass” in it #RazingBabel
outline and diagram
the problem with writing is I’ll write for an hour and it looks like this. I’ve been thinking more & more spatially and less & less in prose and it feels like such a fucking chore to translate spatiality to prose
#RazingBabel
Every day the loneliness is a hunger that eats me hollow, gnaws me from throat to gut, from gut to cunt, until the core of me is an ache so profound it throbs through the bell chamber of my ribs, pulsing heavier and darker than a gong. In the past, I would fill this chasm in me until I displaced my soul from my body; in the past, I would numb every sensation until wakefulness and unconsciousness melded together, the boundary between them dissolved into one unfeeling half-life.
write what you know #AmWriting #RazingBabel
#RazingBabel is kind of like if pratchett’s GOING POSTAL were about linguistic hegemony
haven’t done any writing yet today, but I DID come up with a phonetic semaphore notation for US english, plus a way to hack it using a five-stroke method for writing chinese and a bopomofo cipher for mandarin, because Worldbuilding #RazingBabel
To be Thy refuge is the most transcendental pleasure of all. Perhaps others would find the carnality of this ritual most enticing— and in that, there is no shame. Blessèd is the Land, filled with beauty and delights; blessèd are we to experience the pleasures of this life, the reminders that the blood within us all is part of the same divinity, shared by all under Heaven. For fire _is_ life, burning within all that consumes energy, creates energy; and the flame that pleasure kindles within _sustains_ life: cleanses away the overgrown, the dead; awakens buried seeds; makes room for the germination of new growth.
maybe my favorite bit of the weird mixture of buddhist and christian overtones in the latest chapter I wrote. like, how much can I emulate lofty religious voice, while saying the opposite of what they usually preach #RazingBabel
so I just typed up what I wrote and this flogging scene alone is 4,000 words long… I don’t think #RazingBabel is going to be a novella… I mean I kind of figured it would probably be novel length but this is like. confirmation. Oh Dear
chapter two drafted: 24 frames storyboarded; 20 pages written; intensity of color of page increases with intensity/heat of scene #RazingBabel
