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framing this lovingly on the blog/compromising public diary/amateur archive as the single best thing anyone has ever said to me

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personal guideline for writing nyx's bloodline eapecially re: divine interventions is that they're all dickish in essence, they're primordials who don't care too deeply for the finer intricacies of human interaction, but they do care. a lot. they rarely know how to express it, they'll do it the worst anyone's ever done it, but there's undeniably more love in the most tactless of their interactions and attempts to fix or correct one another than the most civil exchanges zagreus could have with his father. which is incredibly compelling to me.

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i really should blab more about morpheus and phobetor from Divine Interventions because they are so fun to me and have been my little darlings for the past 3 years. but i don't have the spoons except to giggle over how they're a couple bratty precocious 17 year olds who hate zagreus for fucking up their house and experiencing the magic of friendship with their parent. they work in customer service together. they're codependent (... joke. it's one-sided). did i mention they're brats. i don't need to say more, the fic is right there and they're in it for like 15 minutes of screentime (and spend every second being dicks)

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sighing to myself getting ready to scrap my brat ocs if Canon Oneiroi happen in hades 2

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literal magic to discover the depths of care and love you could hold for a character that you didn't think you had the capacity for before you sat down and decided to write them

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so apparently "unstable 17yo develops major beef with a benign washed up 20something" has been a pattern in my writing as of late and i truly have no idea where this came from

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it's a very real struggle to write fictional siblings who call each other "bro" or "sis" in english when the source material is from a culture with normalized terms for your siblings that everyone uses casually (to the point that omitting it is blatantly disrespectful or at best extremely awkward)

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started this dunmeshi fic by zeroing in on a dysfunctional brotherhood, ended up in tears over an uncle who's an immortal child and his nephew who is also an immortal child

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torn between wanting to write fic about thistle and delgal at different points in their lives (thistle as older brother/caretaker, them being the same age, then eventually delgal grows old while his elf sibling is still teeny) and the toudens + yaad figuring out a meal he'd be willing to eat post-canon. lots of gold to be mined from a story that alternates between both concepts... hm!

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Thinking of being a little more active on this blog as I've been getting back into a writing swing lately. I'm more comfortable posting on my main and frequently forget this blog exists but will probs reblog those posts on here too for archiving

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Baby's first article! This was supposed to be for ASAW and Valentine's Day but came out a bit late as I had to rewrite my entire first draft.

Take a look for one Filipino's personal experience as an aromantic person. 💚

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Chapter 4! With the help of his guide, Zagreus traverses new territory towards the clearest exit. However, complications arise when the way out proves itself more harrowing than expected.

can’t believe all it took for me to write and finish a chapter for the first time in literal years was to string together a plot for a hades fanfic where zagreus and hypnos inconvenience each other to literal death while the entire underworld trips balls. at one point it’s just queer eye but afterlife edition. zagreus gets kidnapped by a bunch of children who try to drink his blood. it’s a Time

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Concept, because I'm incapable of leaving two individual fixations alone: Mighty Nein retelling of Hands of the Emperor, with Caduceus as the main protagonist and Essek as the Emperor (one who was chosen by the Luxon). I've been craving Dunamantea for a while so this works for me. The rest of the M9 can fill in the roles of the palace staff... but also could be the Red Company? We'll see. It'll be interesting to rewrite this story with a stronger focus on spirituality rather than culture.

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Chapter 3! Zag finally gets some answers from a mysterious new godly acquaintance. Meanwhile, Hypnos submits a report.

can’t believe all it took for me to write and finish a chapter for the first time in literal years was to string together a plot for a hades fanfic where zagreus and hypnos inconvenience each other to literal death while the entire underworld trips balls. at one point it’s just queer eye but afterlife edition. zagreus gets kidnapped by a bunch of children who try to drink his blood. it’s a Time

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Short Story: Ascension

If you'd like read a short fantasy story about feeding eldritch gods and saving beloved friends from being fed to said gods, check out Ascension at All Worlds Wayfarer.

Summary: Left with no choice, Sernix has spent their life serving a corrupt system that robs the common people of their wealth and dignity under the guise of religious blessing. However, when they end up befriending Marsi, a sylvi who is set to be used for his magical properties in order to further the goals of their deranged Monarch, Sernix is torn between survival and loyalty to their friend.

“Ascension! Thus far, no one’s told me what this Ascension actually entails. Rumor has it that you have something to do with it.”

“I have a contract with your monarch. Let’s leave it at that.”

“So cryptic,” Sernix sighed dramatically. “If only I were privy to your dark secrets.”

It includes the following:

The care, feeding, and worship of unknowable horrors

religious rituals but make it extra weird because there’s also body-melding involved

focus on queerplatonic/companionate relationships (can be read as found family, though there’s specifically discussion in there about it being a QPR type of thing)

nonbinary and asexual/aromantic protagonists

pixies and the shitty caste system they uphold

content warnings: mentions/discussions of slavery and unethical experimentation, religious indoctrination, dehumanization, arophobia/aphobia, body horror, capitalism

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Pretty excited for my short story to be published next week! :D It’s nothing huge but it is my first time to experience this kind of thing. It’s a 5k fantasy piece about the struggle between choosing loyalty and survival when a friend is set to be sacrificed for a supposedly “greater cause”, and it centers on the development of a companionate relationship between three individuals trapped in an unjust system.

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marea is an… interesting character