#Storyteller Saturday

[elkieselkiewrites]

I'm too late to sign up for this week, but I'm always open for all of these every week (not just from the-write-collective!)

Anyone can send me an ask about any of my writing, it's always welcome!

Sign-up Post for Asks the Week of 1/19-1/25

Asks will be sent by me, at some point on the day of, depending on when I work.

Worlbuilding Wednesday

Blorbo Blursday

Storyteller Saturday

Random ask on no particular day

Asks are non-perishable goods, so answer them when you like. Sign-ups close Sunday at 11:59PM. Please specify in the tags which you would like to receive.

[albatris]

storyteller saturday!

I remember when this was a big thing on writeblr, but it seems to have died down a lot so

reblog this post if you'd like STS asks about your story and characters! send an ask back to the people who send an ask to you.... and look through the notes and pick some people to send asks to as well!

you can ask anything you like! how someone came up with their ideas, how their characters would fare in a haunted house, what kinds of symbolism is present in their work... get creative! get silly if you'd like!

I'll be reblogging this post every saturday and sending out asks to people who share it :]

[risingshards]

Storyteller Saturday Challenge: Wordart promotion!

Happy STS! I had a silly idea for a challenge this week, (I hope I can describe it in a way that makes sense lol) to try and pitch your book/WIP/series with Wordart! Finding a bunch of buzzy short descriptive words thrown into wordarts goofy wording is a fun way to describe your story!

I use https://www.makewordart.com/ !

An example of mine here:

Tagging my writing ask crew instead of sending this to all the inboxes lol: @toribookworm22 @orphanheirs @magiccarpetman @agirlandherquill @writingamongther0ses

Feel free to take part even if not tagged!

[ashen-crest]

Happy Storyteller Saturday!

Very curious to see your thoughts in the tags on why your process works for you! I want to refine my draft 0/draft 1 process myself.

[mxxnlightwriting]

Happy STS #1

Since I don't know who does this ask game and I don't want to bother people who don't, I'm posting my question this way and you're free to reblog it with your answer for all your WIPs or just one. Ramble as much as you'd like. Be as succinct as you want.

The question this week is...

If you could only choose one emoji to describe your WIP(s), which one would it be?

I'll reply to this answer myself in a bit (and I'll also answer everyone's asks in my inbox!).

[dragonfelling]

STS time! tell me about a sedentary lifeform in your world! (plants, fungi, etc)

One of the most prominent plants in Anemoi culturally is the Popflower. It is used not only in bouquets, but also as dyes and ink that reacts to magic use. It is also used in medicine for those who suffer from specific and rare ailments that have to do with their magic turning on their body similar to an autoimmune disorder. The roots are used as a pungent food and the petals are also used for seasoning.

Popflowers glowing on a dark night, releasing seed pods as they are disturbed by an Inland wyvern eating a Pop drake

These pods can only grow in areas of high concentrations of magic. The only place they've been found growing is the mountains of Anemoi where a God was felled and fertilized the silty soil with his blood. It is hard to notice unless you lay within them, but popflowers radiate a bit of heat. This is enough to warm the mountains throughout the winter when north Anemoi hovers around 5c-0c

The popflower does not have an elaborate root system. It has a main tap root that is poor at sucking up water, but specialized towards sapping magic from the earth and just keeping it in place durring storms. Due to heavy and consistent Anemoian rains, they end up sapping most of their water needs through their petals and the rest through smaller roots by the surface.

Popdrake being held delicately in someones hand.

Popflowers are the backbone to the survival of two other species, including the pop drake and the inland wyvern.

Popdrakes are small and hyper specialized to only eat popflowers. they came about at the same time as popflowers emerging from the mountains. They live among them, using their spines to blend in among the flowers. They give birth to live young who are independent from their mothers from their first moments.

They are often caught en-masse by humans to sell during festivals, skewered and either candied or roasted. they are extremely spicy due to a concentration of the same compounds that give popflowers their distinct flavour and moderate spice.

This spice does not deter the Inland wyvern however. These wyverns are actually a type of fish and are related to every other wyvern. Wyvern have the same skin/scale and lung systems as I Peshka, where as they can breathe air and water through a gill system in their throat. They mainly eat these popdrakes. They will stand still for hours, waiting for a popdrake to move. When one does, they will bend down to gobble it up in one quick movement. Their crests and throats glow due to the magic of the flowers being passed down the food chain reacting with what was once regular luminescence.

[marlowethelibrarian]

Writeblr Shop Talk Ask Game! Pt 2

🎓 -How do you like to receive your critique?

📝- Have you beta'd for someone before? Did you like the experience and would you do it again?

🧭- Has someone beta'd for you before? How did you find that experience?

🤩 - Talk about a writer whose style you admire and why.

🛠️- What's a weakness you'd like to improve in your writing?

👌- What's something about your writing style you enjoy?

🏁-Looking back at the first thing you've written/posted, how have you improved since then?

🌓- Show us a snippet of a before and an after between drafts! What did you change and why?

🤯-Tell us about a comment you've received about your work that you still think about sometimes

🎨-How would you describe your own writing style?

🗃️- What do your outlines look like? How often do you stick to them?

🌲- Gardener or architect, or somewhere in between? What's your process?

[did-i-do-this-write]

Storyteller Saturday

Happy STS everyone!! Who wants to chat about writing on this lovely weekend?

My inbox is open! And you can reblog this post for a question about your writing! :D

[draconesmundi]

I just got here from storyteller saturday ask and then this blog so can you elaborate on dragons being crocodile relatives?

HAPPY STORYTELLER SATURDAY

So crocodiles are part of a bigger group called pseudosuchians, which include things like armoured Desmatosaurus, leggy creatures like Saltoposuchus, shark tailed swimmers like Dakosaurus, beaked herbivores like Shuvosaurus... Pseudosuchians aren't often talked about so I was really happy when the little herbivorous Simosuchus had a spotlight on Prehistoric Planet!

Pseudosuchians are my favourite animals, all of them. And dragons are my favourite fictional animals, so basically I made draconic pseudosuchians. They have the same skeletal details and body plan, with a few fantastical elements...

Dracomorpha, the dragon group, split apart from crocodylomorpha back in the Jurassic. Dragons have overlapping scales rather than discrete osteoderms, and also have fleshy projections (fins, frills, wattles, barbels). They have horns, but so did some prehistoric crocodiles so that's nothing new. Many dragons have osteoderm rods on their shoulders and flanks supporting a membrane of skin, but so did some prehistoric reptiles. Dragons are venomous while crocodiles are not, and dragons fly using magical adipose tissue to generate a magic field, while most crocodiles cannot do this.

Many dragons are semi-aquatic and launch themselves into flight with a strong tail-propelled leap...

[physalian]

Storyteller Saturday! | Out-of-context quotes

Share some out-of-context quotes from a work of your chosing! Funny, badass, witty, quippy, sexy, romantic, etc.

Tagging @positivelyruined @mxxnlightwriting @topazadine @theitcharchives @sarah-sandwich-writes and hello there new friend @finchmomentwrites

—

From Eternal Night of the Northern Sky

“It’s the transient nature of what we are.” “Transient? You’re immortal.” “And nothing else is. We don’t get to go peacefully in our sleep. We don’t get to see the twilight closing in after a long and fulfilling life. When we die, it’s fast, violent, and unpredictable.” ... “Nothing is permanent when you live forever. Nothing is yours. This room won’t be mine forever. My clothes won’t last forever. Love doesn’t last forever. So… So when someone becomes your friend or your ally or your confidant, your lover, your partner, it’s always only for now. And I’m not old enough to appreciate the beauty in fragility yet.”

From Tell Me How Long

“You want to shock the world into saving our oceans, showing every little girl out there that mermaids exist and are dying because of human intervention is a way to go about it, one we shouldn’t squander so lightly. People don’t give a shit about shrimp and coral and even Nemo, but show them Ariel’s got cancer and the humanitarian outrage does the work for us.” “Or they end up in zoos." “Do not underestimate the power of legions of pissed off little girls. Or theater kids and Disney nuts.”

From Eternal Night's TBD sequel

"And then what, Madeira? What if they refuse?” ... “You’ll slaughter us all? You need our numbers. You need Tanarang’s position on the map. You don’t have the forces to blockade us and you can’t starve us out. You can’t kill us all and start over because you need soldiers with experience that you can trust." ... “We will always be at a disadvantage against the living masses. They can throw tens of thousands of conscripts at our gates and overwhelm us with sheer weight. We don’t have foot soldiers. We have, at most, a thousand vampires in all the North, and every single body counts. Tanarang has ninety-one who’ve taken the oath and eight Aeskerat under our protection, and we’re telling you no. So then what, Grandsire?” 

Don't be shy! Anyone can tag and add on.

[creators-club]

Welcome to the Storyteller Saturday event. Please refer to the project we did 'Meet the Character / Project' for everyone's talking point, if it is a day where you are encouraged to send asks about characters.

How to participate: : : Send an ask to a fellow writer starting with "Happy STS" and ask about their storytelling.

Please tag @bardic-tales after you make your post or answer a question, so I can upload it both to @creators-club and @bardic-tales. For any additional questions, how to join, or info, please see our guidelines post for the club. Thank you.

Today's questions are static since I don't know how often I'm going to be on Tumblr today and under the cut. Please feel free to answer one or all of them.

The questions are beneath the cut.

🌟 WIP Themes Questions:

What inspired the core theme of your WIP?

How does your WIP explore the balance between light and darkness?

What personal values or experiences influenced the themes in your WIP?

How did you choose the title of your WIP, and what does it symbolize?

Which character arc best represents your WIP's central theme?

✍️ Writing Questions:

What’s your favorite trope to read and write, and why?

How do you approach writing complex character relationships?

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced while writing this story?

Do you prefer outlining your WIP in advance or letting it develop organically?

How do you stay motivated when tackling emotionally intense scenes?

🧝 OC (Original Character) Questions:

Which of your characters would you get along with best in real life?

If you could spend a day with any of your characters, who would it be and why?

Which character is most misunderstood, and how would you defend them?

Who was the hardest character to write, and what made it challenging?

Which character would you trust with a dangerous secret?

📖 Share Snippets (Excerpt Questions):

Share a line or excerpt that reveals a character’s deepest fear.

What’s a favorite dialogue exchange you’ve written?

Share a scene where a character’s true nature is revealed.

Post an excerpt that showcases your WIP’s central conflict.

Share a snippet that highlights a moment of vulnerability or intimacy.

💡 Fact Questions:

What’s an angst headcanon that isn’t explicitly shown in your story?

What’s a little-known fact about your main character’s past?

Do you have any secret backstories or plot twists you haven’t revealed yet?

What inspired your character’s name, and does it have a deeper meaning?

What’s a detail about your world-building that you love but rarely mention?

@bardic-tales @megandaisy9 @watermeezer @littleshopofchaos

@kricketbee

@themaradwrites @pinkevilwriter

@serenofroses @asirensrage @aalinaaaaaa @goldenlilium-ocs @glbettwrites

@wyked-ao3 @badscientist @thebadphilosopher @andromedalestrange

@fantastictrashpolice @seastarblue @happypup-kitcat24 @chickensarentcheap @allaboutmagic

@ryns-ramblings @kathaliabloodyrose @riemmetric @andromedaexists @kckramer

@tales-from-nocturnaliss @pastelpinkhobbies @idonthaveapenname @the-bar-sinister @rosesonkittens

@bloodred2023 @kanobarlowe @aquixoticwrites @new-royston-cursebreakers

@rosemirmir @salmonandfox @fablesandfragments @paganmindidnothingwrong @elshells

@viscerawrites @ellowynthenotking @dawsonskyelar @greenapplespider

@edupunkn00b @the-duke-of-nuts @exclawshou @karkkidoeswriting @meerawrites

@theglitchywriterboi @mayarab @memento-morianon @mrsmungus

@pebblesfromtheshore @noooimcastiel @the-nexverse @vesanal

[multi-lefaiye]

here's a silly storyteller saturday one. top five eden hotboy moments. interpret this however you wish......

happy storyteller smonday!!!! i am answering this. not late at all, fuck you, i'm exactly on time /silly

anyway. i choose to interpret this as iconic eden moments, to me. for now, i'm just gonna do campaign eden, rather than bg3/sunbringer's song eden, bc i am so sleepy <3

before i do. tagging the eden fanclub (silly): @invaderskoodge @skitzo-kero @anexor @vacantgodling @chaieyestea

@astral-runic @paradoxspir1t @moonflowerrss @void-botanist @drawnecromancy

@kk7-rbs (if any of y'all don't wanna be tagged in these specifically just lmk)

Top Five Campaign-Specific Eden Hot-Boy Moments, in no particular order

In a sailing competition/race, he used his eldritch blasts to blast holes through another team's sails, slowing them down dramatically and helping his team to pull ahead. As he did, he made eye contact with the captain (who'd recently embarrassed Eden in front of everyone), winked, and saluted as they sailed away.

Upon finding a riddle with instructions for a binding ritual, Eden managed to deduce that the ritual required a sacrifice of blood, flesh, bone, and spirit. He decided to take it very, very literally, using a blade to cut off part of his tail and break off part of his horn. (This is why one of his horns has a crack in it, and why he has a scar on his tail! Both grew back, but the scars remain.)

When helping his friend associate Hyndrol with the same ritual, he decided not to waste time explaining it to her and instead asked her, "Which of your fingers are you least attached to?" Fully prepared to cut it off for her if she wasn't going to immediately do so herself.

One time he allowed a monster to bite down *hard* on his arm and fuck him up, entirely so he could then use Hellish Rebuke to burn the shit out of it, because he was cornered and pretty much out of options.

Feeling a bit pissy with the rest of the party, Eden decided to go make a new associate and struck up a conversation with the surliest, angstiest-looking bitch with the WORST vibes he could find at the local tavern, determined to convince him to join Eden for the day. And it worked, and now he and James are besties.

[albatris]

Happy STS! You mentioned an OP moment yesterday - want to share? Or give some details? 👀👀👀 - @trixierosewrites

hehehe :3c thanks for the ask!

tw for blood and gore

Without looking up, Nat tossed an arm out in the approaching threat’s direction and drove the Garble through it. Then out the end of it. Then into the guard’s abdomen. He felt the pierce, the snap, the warmth inside. Felt the slick pulse of organs and blood and flesh, slippery and writhing. Tasted it, in the exact same way the Garble tasted the blood that was currently singing in Nat’s own mouth. The guard sputtered and gasped, still fumbling with his weapon, even as the life cascaded out of him in thick lashes of red.

His heart was still beating, though. His muscles were still twitching. His voice was trying to squirm its way out of his throat. A twinge of irritation tugged through Nat—the human was too loud, too close. The human had gotten in the way.

So he gave the Garble the gentlest nudge, and the weight of the guard’s body vanished from the ground as the force of it threw him clear across the room. Nat felt, with only a sliver of the fascination it probably deserved, the grim wet thud as the body collided with solid concrete and broke open in every direction at once. Skin burst. Bones split. Organs erupted across the walls and floor.

No, that won’t do, Nat thought, vaguely annoyed by the force of his own power. All that warmth. All those nutrients. Leaking across the slate, wasted. Going cold. He placed his fingertips softly on the ground and called the warmth towards him.

The warmth obeyed.

aka Nat hurls a guy across a room so hard the guy explodes and then nat absorbs him

at the end of book one Nat goes on a bloodthirsty rampage and monster modes out, he uses his blood as a weapon, he grows giant fangs and talons, grows extra eyes, body covered in spikes of bone jutting out through his skin...... someone chops one of his arms off and he just sticks it straight back on no problem 👍

the other OP moment happens at the end of book three when Nat confronts the vampires who turned him at long last n essentially forces them to their knees and makes them address him as god haha

[bardic-tales]

happy sts!

gimme a sad snippet :( of anything really.

and then gimme a happy one bc I’m gonna need something to console myself with :)

<3

Happy STS, Star. Thanks for the ask, and I hope you are having a wonderful day.

I have been thinking A LOT on Bianca's final moments before she is reborn like a phoenix four months after this scene.

Sad Scene:

Content Warning: Blood, graphic injury, death or near-death experience, grief, intense emotions, loss, violence.

[. . .]

And then, the earth split open. Bianca fell. Her body crashed to the ground with a heavy thud. Blood pooled around her. A river of crimson stained the snowy, cracked earth beneath her. The battlefield went silent, like the deadly stillness before a tornado. There, amidst the desolation, lay Bianca. Her skin marred by the brutal force of Cloud's final strike. Her wings, once so majestic and powerful, now lay crumbled against the ground. Dark feathers scattered around her like fallen leaves. Her breath slowed, becoming shallow as she stared out lifelessly.

[. . .]

Sephiroth stood in the distance. His expression unreadable. For a moment, the world itself seemed to hold its breath, waiting for the One-Winged Angel's next move. The pain was visceral. The agony in his chest threatened to suffocate him. But, even as the world seemed to collapse around him, Sephiroth moved, slowly at first but soon darted so quickly he had became a blur. He had to get to her. How dare they! The thoughts echoed in his head.

[. . .]

"I will make you suffer for this. You have no idea what you've done." As the very skies darkened above him, he summoned the raw power of his being: Masamune. He was an avatar of wrath: a god incarnate, ready to take vengeance. He would never forgive him for taking her from him.

Happy Scene:

And here is a snippet of an upcoming work I'm writing featuring hot chocolate and holiday cheer. I try to make them embody the Sunshine x Grump shipping trope here.

[. . .]

Sephiroth's gaze returned to the fire. His expression thoughtful. "Cheefulness is foreign to me."

"That's okay," Bianca said, as she leaned her head against his bare shoulder. "We have time. I'll teach you."

His wing shifted slightly, curling inward as if to shield her from the outside world. It was a protective gesture and one that made her feel as though nothing could touch them: at least for the moment.

They sat there like that for a long time. The silence between them stretched with unspoken understanding. Her heart swelled with affection, as it most often did in moments like this. They were rare, but they were precious and a reminder that even in the midst of chaos and destruction that there was room for something softer.

His voice was the first to break the stillness. "You've given me something I didn't know I needed."

"What's that?"

He turned his bright cyan gaze to her. For a brief moment the weight of his usual stoicism lifted. "A reason to remember the world, rather than despise it."

Bianca gasped, but she managed a small, wry smile. "Hot chocolate does that to people."

"Perhaps."

Thank you for the ask, @seastarblue. This ask was brought by the @creators-club.

tagging some fellow mutuals: @themaradwrites @littleshopofchaos @serenofroses @megandaisy9 @watermeezer

@nightingaleflow @prehistoric-creatures @creativechaosqueen @chickensarentcheap

[winterandwords]

Happy STS! what is Brett's favorite way to get high?

Aaaaahhh thank you for the amazing ask!! 💜

Brett's ideal drug recipe is...

MDMA to start with for an ecstatic, soaring high and a few hours of "holy shit, yay for empathogens, everything feels amazing LET'S GOOOO!". This is where the most questionable decisions happen.

Then magic mushrooms (when the MDMA starts to wear off) for the "everything is connected and I can see the centre of the universe" vibes. This is where the obsessive thinking happens, which does nothing to reduce to likelihood of questionable decisions.

Finally, very strong weed for a long sleep, carrying the remaining shroom-ness into psychedelic dreams.

Vodka may happen at any or all points of the session and the whole experience may be repeated the next day.

[incandescent-creativity]

Happy STS! Tell me about your favorite antagonist that you've written please!!

May I introduce you to DR. BARBARA AGAU, the first truly original* character I ever made!

* ie, not based off someone I knew irl

Dr. Agau runs Agau Laboratories, the company that stepped up in the early 2030s when the majority of the Amazon rainforest burned. She promised the world that her Spark of Life Experimental Project (SOLE Project) could have produced a modified synthetic human capable of saving said rainforest.

20 years and some failed clones later, the SOLE Project did succeed. The rainforest is mostly lost by the time “Experiment One” proves stable, so Dr. Agau pivots to raising One (aka Beth) to fight the other results of climate crisis. Storms, floods, ice cap degeneration, cleaning waterways, you name it — she is brainwashing Beth to be powerful and, more importantly, obedient.

As you may have guessed, Beth is the book’s protagonist. She runs away from home the labs she was raised in and spends the rest of the time evading Dr. Agau’s attempts to get her back.

She’s my favorite because of the aforementioned status as my first OC ever, and also because her narration is stupid easy to write. Just think of the most ruthless course of action, dress it up in cold formal language, and you’ve got it!