#kaiusvnoir

[revenantlore]

Hi, hello, or as the brilliant and psychotic Jason Dean once said, greetings and salutations. You can address me as Raven, Kaius, or Rev, or Klaus if you’re a particular sleepy potato. I like neon flashy things almost as much as I like decrepit graveyards. Also dinosaurs.

As the banner suggests, I am elbow-deep in more WIPs than I know what to do with, and many of them contain vampires and jackasses [affectionate].

While I am trying to focus on no more than one or two at a time this year, chances are my attention will stray away from that goal and I will end up with even more WIPs than the year began with.

Here are my main projects right now … there are many more, but these are the ones I am focusing on at present :

a struggling alcoholic raised by his adoptive mothers is kicked out of the house when one of them decides to open an in-home daycare and needs all the space she can get. jobless and desperate, he moves in with his estranged father, soon to discover this reconnection was a terrible and life-threatening mistake.

more here

an elaborate liar named java is frequently teetering on the precipice of danger and poor decisions until he finds himself on a promising path of self-improvement while living with his brother … just to veer off that path the moment he meets a charming facade named colt and lands himself in a world of drugs and deception.

more here

there’s a new drug in town and it’s turning users into bloodthirsty vampires that crave the neon substance and its supernatural side effects. a detective and his android partner—both on and off duty, though unofficially—set out to end this endemic while trying and failing to dodge noxiglow’s temptations

more here

[sarandipitywrites]

😊 & ☂️

hi, Kaius!

(this is from the WIP excerpts ask game if anyone wants to send or receive asks about their projects)

these are... longer than a line each lol.

😊(share a happy line):

When Lienzo emerged from the closet, it was in a neat white tunic, snug dark breeches, cozy stockings, and knee-high leather boots. And the scarlet coat, of course. The face staring back through the mirror bit his lip against a giddy smile. The coat had looked nice on the hook, but on him? The thick material padded out his shoulders and tucked at the waist before draping inconspicuously over his hips. Combined with the slimming breeches, he looked almost... "If you didn't know any better, you might think I belonged in this place." He pulled the ratty tie from his hair, shaking his braids out before piling them back atop his head and securing them with a forest green ribbon he'd found in the closet. "Ugh, I wish I could see it. The very moment I'm out of this statue, you're giving me that fashion show. I'm going to make you try on everything in that closet." Lienzo fussed with the collar, turning it down, up, down again. "I don't know, Aisha. Gold chiffon's not really my style." "Everything."

☂️ (share your favorite description of an object):

A metal bangle, brighter and shinier than silver, glinted in the light of the wall sconces. Three crystals, clouded as a breath on a winter's morning, studded the thickest part of the piece. At first he thought it a trick of the light, but as he stared at them, the smoke within the gems stirred and shifted. "Put it on before you leave the city's gates, and do not remove it until you have exited the forest. It will keep the untethered at bay." Lienzo's eyes widened. The fire turned to ash in his lungs. "Wait, I've read about this, this is—" "Spirit quartz, yes." The beast swallowed with an audible click. It wrapped a hand around his — large and callused and impossibly warm — and pushed the bangle towards him. "Safe journey, Lienzo." Spirit quartz was rare as dragon's teeth, and even more valuable. A manmade substance, only able to be crafted from the fresh cremains of an Artist. Between the fact that only ten percent of the population had any Artistic potential and the taboo against dividing funerary ashes— "I... I'll leave it for you. At the edge of the forest."

thank you for the ask! 💜

[i-can-even-burn-salad]

🎶 share a happy moment. ANY happy moment. You must have ONE.

Thank you for the ask! From this ask game.

There's possibly more than one, but I'll pick this.

In the dim light of the rising sun that fell through the cracks in the shutter, Finnian watched Eilis breathe. With her arm wrapped around his waist and her head on his chest, she was fast asleep. Sleeping on the ground in the forest, buried under as many blankets as he could carry, he would never have dreamed of getting to wake up with her in his arms every day. When she started to stir, Finnian closed his eyes, pretending to still be asleep. Eilis tried to rise, but his arm draped across her back prevented her from doing so. As she wriggled to get out from under it, he held her tighter, and she dropped down on his chest with a huff. “I know you’re awake. If you keep me from feeding the goats, the black one will skewer you,” she threatened.

[raiswanson]

Head’s Up, Seven Up!

got bopped by @kaiusvnoir and you all know the drill! Drop seven lines on the spot!!

Have a fresh set of words from Eye!

As soon as she’d calmed I shoved her to the ground and pinned her with my knee, snatching the rope and tying it around myself in an impromptu harness as fast as I could. The moment I tied it off I lunged for the waking cat and pinned her again.

“You’re going to carry her the whole way up?” Thuem called uneasily, making me scoff.

“Would you rather I tie the rope to her? Are you offering to untie her once she’s at the top?” I asked.

“Ah,” he replied dryly. “Carry on then.”

Snorting, I went back to ignoring him and made sure the lynx was well secured in my arms.

It’s been a hot minute since I did a tag game so I’ll just drop the Eye tag list for now lol

@ren-c-leyn @lady-redshield-writes @thehollowbetween @tundra-tiger

[indecentpause]

Blue, gray, and pink 🖤

Thank you!!

Blue: What’s more important to you: characters or plot?

Characters, definitely! A lot of my work is pretty light on plot compared to most writers I think, there's enough to tell a bit of a story and get you through to the end but almost all of my stories are primarily vehicles to explore characters and their interactions.

Grey: What’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?

To be completely honest, I can't think of one? I think some writing advice can be good, but it has a place and time, and most of it is for people writing commercial fiction, which is great! But that's not what I'm writing. But I want to give you some kind of answer, so, one piece of critique advice I always follow, unless asked to do otherwise by the writer, is that I don't give negative feedback. Like, instead of "I feel like X and Y don't interact enough, which is unfortunate because they are supposed to be love interests," I'd say, "I love how X interacts with Y in this chapter! I'd love to see more of that, especially since they are love interests."

Pink: Which of your characters would become your best friend?

OH MAN I could easily see myself being friends with Pascal and Dona, and Meara and any of his friends. But I'd probably get along best with Josselin, he's the same amount of nerdy and awkward and we like a lot of the same things. :)

[pinespittinink]

Rosehip & lemongrass

Rosehip answered here!

Lemongrass: Favorite genre to read?

High fantasy, forever and always. Put me in a rich secondary world with fantastical elements and I'll be set--bonus if it's got a romantic element. That said, there's so much within sff that I just absolutely adore.

[pluttskutt]

Bubble gum pink & brick red

Thank you for the ask! :D

Bubblegum Pink: If you could only write one genre for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Fantasy, hands down. It's such a versatile genre and one I enjoy writing very much. Even in wips where I think "realistic, no fantasy" I feel that twitch to make it magical in some way.

Brick Red: Which character gets the happiest ending?

This is a hard one! In my fantasy series, my characters are going through it and it's a huge spoiler to say why but I think Natalie does. She waited a long time and does get what she wants in the end.

[ellegraewriter]

12 & 26 for writing wrapped

Hello! Thank you for sending some ✨

12. Any unexpected hiccups disrupt your writing this year?

I've had several this year, which included an unexpected project that took too long to write, an expected project that I am struggling to finish, and for a while, I had to manage two jobs which cut down my writing time tremendously, but I am now back in the groove of it!

26. Participate in any writing challenges, daily exercises, etc?

I did! The only major one was NaNoWriMo, but I want to participate in more writing challenges in the future! As for daily exercises, besides my usual writing, I didn't do anything different.

Current Ask Game: The Writing Wrapped

[writingmoth]

Salmon & Barbie

salmon answered here!

BARBIE - What differences would there be if your WIP became a movie?

i think a lot of small scenes of rowan in the forest would be cut and the presence of the beast/monster would be greater to make the movie more action-like. i ramble a lot in my narrative and i dont think i use as many action scenes as a movie would prefer/like? so the script would be tighter/more focused, i think.

thank you for the ask!!!

[angsty-prompt-hole]

😷 😆 🌸 pickle please

Pickle doesn't really get cranky when he's sick, but he's SO overdramatic about it, but only if it's not something serious. He's more subdued if it's serious, but if it's just a cold or something he acts like it's the end of the world.

I mentioned this in another post, but Pickle's laugh is pretty normal unless you make him laugh really hard. There's a chance that if you make him laugh super hard he starts wheezing uncontrollably and it sounds like a honking goose.

He'd be stunned to get flowers from anyone, honestly. He wouldn't know how to react.

[astorythatwritesitself]

🛏️ 🐈

Cat: Does your setting have any folklore or superstition?

Yes! ... i'm still building most of it though xD

They mostly trace back to light, though, and lanterns feature in a lot of them - instead of breaking a bottle of alcohol against a new ship, for example, there is great ceremony in lighting its first lantern; particularly if you can get embers or (even more rarely) enchanted lights that will supposedly never go out from the temples. There's also a heavy emphasis on grace and beauty - I imagine some pregnancy superstitions/traditions would have a focus on diet alterations in the desire to impart those traits on the kid, y'know lol.

Bed: What do your OCs dream of?

Getting the usual 'jumblefuck' out of the way...

Elena doesn't recall her dreams very often, as it goes. The striking ones are usually stress dreams, either getting lost in her own home or trying to leave town and it kind of becomes a maze.

Elora's more striking dreams are... mundane? (and often kinda horny lol) Sometimes just A Day Out or otherwise doing things, often with Elena - though, often, the other party doesn't look like Elena, but she knows it's supposed to be her. (She also often dreams of drowning, but like. That's to be expected.)

Aaron's dreams are avant garde arthouse material - surreal as shit, there's definitely a narrative structure sometimes, often lushly visual and downright tactile... and nine times out of ten, evaporate within the first five minutes of waking up. (The bits he does remember often make their way into his art, though - not that it gets shown off much, since it technically qualifies as... moderately heretical...)

Yami's dreams fall into one of two categories: The End of The World As We Know It, or... reading. Seriously. Lots of dreams just involve libraries or bookstores and finding continuations of some of her favorite stories.

[enchanted-lightning-aes]

🍓

hi there, kaius! thanks for dropping by my inbox!

lemme just say since i found you on my dash, you've got a sense of intrigue surrounding you. and i've enjoyed it more since i followed you. you're pretty cool to me and i'm glad for discovering ya. :3

send me a 🍓 and ill compliment u!

[did-i-do-this-write]

46%

Oooo, this is a super fun one! Thank you so much! 🤗 I think I'm going to answer this one for multiple characters 😆

46%. How does your character feel about animals? Would they want any pets? What animals are their favorite?

All the faction loves animals, even if they are a little aloof about it (*cough* Shaun and Sky). All seven of them are dog people, and Reese, Matt, and Nic are also cat people. They don't get traditional pets throughout the story, but Shaun and Nate do get some animal companions of their own 👀. They all tend to gravitate towards animals that are associated with their elements. It comes with the territory haha.

This ask motivated me to write 151 words for Home is Where Your Light Shines Brightest.

Experiment Total: 58,208

[inscrutable-shadow]

Scales for the dragon asks

Scales: share a snippet that describes something. (can be a person, a place, a feeling, etc.) [dragon ask meme]

This is from the Archfey's introduction scene in some vampire smut I haven't finished yet XD

A low, sonorous hum reverberated through the clearing, loud enough for Thanatos to feel it in his bones. He shut his eyes briefly as it swept through him with the wind, and when he opened them again, all of the villagers were cowering on the ground prostrate before an imposing twenty-foot tall figure with the horns of some sort of strange deer.

He was instantly captivated by this figure, they had the appearance of some sort of fey, but several of the details didn't match up at all. He'd never heard of a fey this size, first of all, and if they had horns, which only the oldest and most powerful did, they are usually akin to deer or elk horns, but never in this shape or colour. They certainly had a fey's otherworldly beauty, and he found himself staring rather mawkishly before bringing himself back to focus. 

"Why do you defile this place?" a voice boomed, echoing from everywhere at once. It was at the same time masculine and feminine, harsh and gentle, cold and warm. There was no doubt in Thanatos' mind that it belonged to the fae, though their lips had not moved.

Thanks for the ask!

[oh-no-another-idea]

22, 24, and 26 for fynn

Thanks for the ask, friend!

22. do they sleep well at night?

Fynn sleeps well enough, no severe traumatic experience for him to look back at. He has been separated from his family though, so I suppose he'd sleep a little better if the house were less quiet :(

24. do they have any creative hobbies? (art, writing, music, etc)

Not much time for them, I'm afraid. He's a mechanic though, he likes fixing things with his hands, so I bet he'd like a bit of painting, or working with clay, if he got the opportunity

26. how do they move? are they clumsy? light on their feet? do they use mobility aids?

He's not the most graceful, and he's a bit gawky due to his skinniness. He sometimes resembles a great stork, I'd say. Ungainly

An OC ask game!

[maguayans]

Magician, ace of cups

Hey, Kaius!👋 I hope you're well today. Thanks for the asks.😊

01. THE MAGICIAN: SPARK OF MAGIC (What inspired you to write your novel?)

I’m inspired by a lot of things: mythologies, folk stories, dreams, real-life stories from elders and friends, movie and book scenes, and words and phrases. Also, I really, really want to tell a story.🤩

22. ACE OF CUPS: SELF-CARE (How do you practice self-care as an author?)

I dedicate days to doing something else besides writing—reading, watching a movie, staring at the ceiling, going outside, etc.😅

💌#AUTHORTAROTCHALLENGE QUESTIONS