sirenscrawlings

[sirenscrawlings]

it's crazy arguing with your parents as a fully grown adult because it's like i can't talk about childhood without sounding like a bitter insane asshole but those experiences literally shaped the person i am and i don't understand why they just get to dismiss it all and make me look cruel for being maladjusted when they played a massive part in making me this way

[sirenscrawlings]

I’m noticing an increase in new fic writers on AO3 who…uh…mayy not know how to format their fics correctly..so here is a quick and VERY important tip

Using a random fic of mine as example..

The left example: ✅✅✅

The right example: ❌❌❌

Idk how many times I’ve read a good fic summary and been so excited to read before clicking on it and being met with an ugly wall of text. When I see a huge text brick with zero full line breaks my eyes blur and I just siiiigh bc either I click out immediately or I grin and bear it…it’s insufferable!

If a new character speaks, you need a line break. If you notice a paragraph is becoming too large, go ahead and make a line break and/or maybe reconfigure the paragraph to flow better. I’m not a pro writer or even a huge fic writer but…please…ty…

[sirenscrawlings]

I have neither the time nor the energy to write, but please know that I am thinking about writing constantly.

[sirenscrawlings]

The Truths of Things

[Owlcatober 2024 - Prompt 1: Teatime - @owlcatober]

Words: 736; Characters: Camellia Gwerm

She had never much cared for tea.

As much a staple of the nobility as it was, she should, by all accounts, have loved it—at least, as a symbol of status. It had distinctions between its differences in quality much as class itself did—upper to lower, noble to peasant—and boasted of pedigree and rarity much the same. It, supposedly, had subtleties in its aromas and tastes that told truths down to the very nature of its soil and seed and pampered care, of the nuance that only the most sophisticated of palates could discern; in a way, like telling the difference between something real and of a pretender—of something or someone truly noble, blood as blue as fresh tartare, or of someone merely hiding behind a gilded mask.

Perhaps that was the reason. It could very well have been the flavor: too delicate for her sharpened tongue, too earthy like the dirt her porcelain fingers refused to be soiled by, too floral; a reminder of the namesake she'd long despised. It could have been any of these excuses, but they, ultimately, did not matter. What did, was that she had never had a taste for it to begin with, and, in her mind, it was because she had not been born with it. She never could have been. A gilded mask, no matter how fine, no matter how opulent and wealthy and rich, was only ever in the end a lie.

Camellia Gwerm hated tea.

And the man beneath her reeked of it.

It was all the excuse she'd needed when he'd approached her, all dazzling smile above his shining armor, itself decorated with wrought flowers and leaves. Desperation and relief had radiated from him upon spotting her, all alone in that quiet corner of Drezen she'd come to find solace in, much like the wretched stench of tea that suffused his very presence and threatened to wrinkle her nose. She'd needed no other reason to settle for him, and getting him alone had been a trivial matter as always for even as nobles were nobles, men were men.

He'd said his name for naught use to her at all and when she'd given him her own, a demure giggle, and an innocent question asking about the design of his armor, his fate had been sealed.

Men, would always be, men.

It didn't matter if they came from some long pedigree of merchants who'd made their wealth off of vaunted teas from far off Casmaron—"Lovely at this time of year at our sah-ray", which she'd gathered to mean some sort of villa. It didn't matter if they were so wealthy and wanted for naught that it seemed they could very well bathe in the swill. Men were men, it was only a simple task of getting them talking about themselves for long enough that they would soon find themselves on their backs, chest straddled by her supple thighs, and idiotic, naive grins on their faces.

Her nose finally did wrinkle, then. The mustiness of the old, forgotten basement only seemed to make his stench worse, and the thought of a bath—preciously rare, hot, clean water—soiled and tainted with leaves filled her with disgust. Dried. Musky. Old leaves from the dirt. That's what tea really was, and every noble, every so-called 'refined palate,' was merely lying to themselves in mutual harmony about it.

And just as tea was merely leaves, so too was this man merely meat.

She would've breathed a sigh of relief as that wretched floral stench gave way immediately to the dominance of fear and blood, but her exhilaration, as always, triumphed over all else. How swiftly she'd pulled the stiletto from her boot, and how even swifter still she'd brought it forth and down that he hadn't had time to scream. Only now as the life and light left his eyes did they become colored by shock and then terror in realization—twas a delight she always savored with glee. And, only then, did he possibly see in his final moments what was her true sultry smile, and hear her true husky, ravenous laugh.

Camellia Gwerm hated tea.

She hated pretending even more.

The gilded mask fell away. Tea was leaves, but meat was meat, blood was blood, and she was Camellia Gwerm, whose tongue had not been made to savor the taste of anything delicate.

[sirenscrawlings]

It Started With the Death of a God

It started with the death of a god.

As did many other things, besides. He took an entire age with him, after all; or, well, two, if you count the one that never came to pass. Even prophecy itself went along with, lost in whatever hole he failed to crawl out of to save himself. Yet, contrary to his very nature, the god of humanity's death was perhaps the most selfless of his acts.

For when Aroden failed to return on that fated day, his absence showered his people with a gift that shook the very world. When sages speak of the Age of the Lost Omens, they do so of the tides, of the storms, of the very earth tearing itself asunder with a glee unto violence. The birth of the Eye of Abendego yielded a wailing cry yet unceasing, its winds more kin to the Maelstrom than what Golarion had ever known before. Poor Lirgen and Yamasa were hewn from the coast and dragged gurgling into the drowning depths, joined by Deng and countless villages along the Sphinx, Asp, and Crook.

Yet none of them speak of what boon was given upon the dawn of that new age, the only true gift the so-called God of Humanity gave his people. Rare is it, that a god gives their followers what all sentient beings strive for, even without knowing; and fewer still, do the gods and their mortal ken speak with the reverence it aught be showered with.

Freedom.

Self-Determination.

Liberation.

Only in death are a god's followers finally freed, and so it was on that fated day that humanity finally knew the feeling of their shoulders free of the burden of prophecy. Aroden's yoke sloughed from their necks. Their wrists ached with the phantom memory of his manacles. They turned and snarled at one another just as they laughed and embraced. Fate fell into their own hands, yet what is Fate but Freedom from having to choose one's course in life, and Freedom but Fated to have to choose? Was it fate that humanity would turn to bloodshed when given freedom, or was it freedom itself that fated conflict?

A digression, of course, but also an explanation. They had always loved mortals, humans and all of their contradictions most especially so.

And so it was that, with the death of a god, so too came with it the asking of a question.

"I need not remind you of your place here, as 'honored guest.' Such is a title I can relieve you of much faster than I deigned to give it", they received in response, the crimson lips that delivered it twisted into undisguised contempt as the silver eyes above it conveyed a rage unhindered by their lack of iris or pupil.

It was accompanied by a pressure within the chamber, sudden and growing, and the moonlight cast from the celestial body hanging just above the tower seemed even to brighten. The smile upon it looked deeper, menacing in its glee.

They could only chuckle.

"My Lady, your assumptions wound me so! I had trusted our relationship better, that you would know and trust that I would not make such a request lightly, alas...! I seek only a single soul, and for nothing... untoward, I assure you. I would even request it be of your choosing."

.

.

.

"I seek only what is nature to all sentient beings, My Lady. Something that you, patron to midwives and mothers alike, should know well enough. I seek only an heir."

[sirenscrawlings]

This is permission to be imperfect.