#scarvenartist

[tsfennec]

A lynx gryphon, inspired by @scarvenartist's Ganrok. :D

[fictionadventurer]

I can't believe we've known about @scarvenartist's Shapeshifter Stories for this long, and still haven't made "What animal would your/your OC's/your blorbo's firstform be?" the new personality quiz.

You can consider what animal fits their personality, but you also get to consider what hereditary forms fit their entire family, and which one they'd inherit. The analytical possibilities are endless!

[lady-merian]

#72

thanks! This was a particularly fun one. A picture of @scarvenartist’s Kiro from 2019.

I did a little fiddling with the clothes but other than that it’s basically an attempt at a straight up copy. I wanted to practice the hands and expression in particular. The original seemed like his face really was resting on his hand and being moved by it. I tried out the hand position with two of my characters next. The practice sort of paid off as far as hands go, though I should have taken more time over their poses in general and I will be continuing to fiddle with them

Send me a number, explanation here

[isfjmel-phleg]

Happy Birthday, Elystan! Have you read any good books recently? (Or, alternatively--anything you really disliked?)

Elystan: I was reading a brilliant book, a translation from the Rurakravian, before I came to school--Flight of Fantasy by Mrs. Ioannova. But Her Majesty took it away and hid it, and it took me months to find it and slip it into my valise for the journey to school. I finished it on the train while she was sleeping. I've never read another book that has whirled in my head as much as this one. The hero is clever but he's an idiot but he's tragic but he's horrible and I spent half of the book wanting to argue with him and the other half wanting to be him if I grow up. And then--I don't know if you've read Flight of Fantasy, lots of people haven't because it's daunting if you're an inexperienced reader, but I'm going to spoil the ending for you anyway--it just ends! Unresolved! Apparently there are more volumes, but no one has translated them yet. I wish I know Mrs. Ioannova's address so I could coax some answers out of her, but I don't know if she reads Coregean or even if she's still alive. I suppose I'll just have to learn Rurakravian for myself then. How difficult can it be?

Another book I've read recently was the Duchess of Arclis's new novel. Don't tell Delclis. Or do. I don't care. He could use a shock. She may have been a rubbish monarch, but she's quite an amusing author. I was roaring with laughter the whole time. It's called A Woman of Great Importance, and it's about a lady artist starving in an attic or something who ends up having to impersonate a society woman and has so much fun doing it that she decides to make a profession of impersonating wealthy people--they engage her to do it so they can take a holiday from their lives in peace--and of course it leads to misadventures. Quite entertaining.

And yes, I did read something that I want to obliterate from the earth. Her Majesty very kindly purchased me one of those trifiling little schoolboy magazines to read on the train, as if I were eight years old, and I had to read it in front of her or I wouldn't have heard the end of it, and the very first story was exceptional stupid even by these magazines' standards. Some drivel about some self-righteous prigs of prefects at a school forcing a boy who has a doctor's note for a bad heart to play rugball for the school anyway, because anyone who has such a note is just shamming so they can slack off. They convince him to do this by applying their swagger-sticks to him until he admits the note is a forgery, and then he has to play, and the school wins the match, which is of course the only desirable thing that can ever happen. There were more school stories in the magazine, and they were all more or less like that. If this is what the other boys here are reading, it explains a lot about them.

[It's my OC Elystan's birthday, ask him anything!]

[lover-of-the-starkindler]

👗 Merry Christmas!!!!

[bookshelf-in-progress]

2 and 9 for the writing asks?

2. Describe your wip/one of your wips in the format of “___ + ___ =___”

Victorian England + 1850s American politics + pro life debates + glowing people = Shadowstruck

9. What’s a story you’d love to write but haven’t even started yet?

I'd love to write the portal fantasy culture shock romance of Lily Between Worlds, but I've yet to write a word of an actual draft.

Also, over the past day, I keep seeing things that make me want to read/write my retelling of "King Thrushbeard" set during the Great Depression.

[valiantarcher]

Tagged by @scarvenartist to explain why I picked my URL - thank you!

So, the short answer is that it's been a general username for me for a while and it was natural to carry it over to Tumblr when I came here.

The slightly longer answer is that it originally came about because I was looking for a new username for a site because my old default had already been taken. I wasn't coming up with anything but a sister (being much clever at these sorts of things than me) suggested it as a reference to a fictional character I'm fond of, and I haven't looked back.

Tagging @morfinwen, @wanderingwolpertinger, @theworldiswhispering, @aceofstars16, and @stingrayextraordinaire, if they so desire!

[talesofsorrowandofruin]

4 and 10 for the end of year writing asks!

Thanks! :D

4. what is your favourite line you wrote this year?: This paragraph from Silver Glass:

Because in this case Yo-han really didn't believe that justice was best served by publicly revealing the murderer's identity. Because sometimes murder victims weren't really victims at all. Because there were some criminals who the law couldn't or wouldn't touch, and the only way their victims could get justice was to take matters into their own hands.

10. which character(s) turned out differently from what you had planned? how so?: Davit and Gwladys. Originally Davit was working with Dzovig from the start, Çelik Bey was the intended murder victim, and Gwladys got killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then I started writing, and Gwladys turned into Rachael 2.0.

[urban-hart]

A song you associate with Caspar!

okay i was. way overcomplicating this ask set ^^' so I'm FINALLY just gonna answer

'Fool for Love' by Lord Huron! definitely has Caspar's vibe. doesn't match his story part-for-part, but it's the bit about trying! the vibe of just drifting into oblivion in the end *throws hands* how else can i say it other than THE VIBES??

character theme song ask

[tsfennec]

Stylized version of @scarvenartist's Kiro and Nezka in their shifted forms, loosely inspired by the descriptions of Nezka seeing his forms while traveling in the Nothing.

[fictionadventurer]

Book asks - The Monster-Blood Tattoo series by D.M. Cornish?

added to TBR | on my TBR | couldn’t finish it | did not enjoy | it was OK | liked it | loved it | favorite | not interested

I had to think a while on this one. My initial reaction was no, because I tend not to mix well with things with "monster" in the title. Looking up the series made it sound very intriguing, but the magic system might edge just a bit beyond what I'm comfortable with, so I'm not sure I'll seek it out.

[lady-merian]

The fully finished Cazda sketch for @scarvenartist. Rough sketch under the cut

Edit the second:

I tweaked it and think I got a bit of that character back

[isfjmel-phleg]

Happy birthday, Amarantha! (If I may wish you happy birthday a day late!) Can you tell me something about your current art project(s)?

Amarantha: Thank you very much! To be honest, I haven't had much time to make art lately, since I'm in the middle of a project for Her Majesty, but whenever I've had a spare moment, I've been sketching mostly art of stories I've read recently. Farewell to Phelep Farrowmere made an impression on me, but I didn't like the illustrations at all. They were hideous and disproportionate and the illustrator apparently had no awareness that the hero was only about thirteen or fourteen years old and not forty-five. So I thought I'd draw some ones that better fitted my mental image. I'm not satisfied with all of them, but the one of Phelep finally speaking to Saprina didn't turn out too badly. I wouldn't mind showing it to somebody, but only one of my friends would know what it was and I'm not speaking to him right now.

[iminlovewithpercyjackson]

I had to tell you--I had a dream the other night that there was a sequel to TGM, and I got to see an advance showing of it, and it was largely awesome, except that one notable character was glaringly absent, and Dream Me was like, ohhhh no, iminlovewithpercyjackson is going to be so incredibly disappointed that Miles Teller isn't in it. 😬😬😬 Anyway--join the list of mutuals who've wandered into my dreams! 😂

oh my gosh that is absolutely hilarious i love that 😂😂

no way they would ever make another movie without him, not after the shoulder shimmy scene 😏

i do need another sequel though.....

honored to join the list 😂

[bookshelf-in-progress]

1, 8, 13 and 15 for the end of year writing asks?

what was your writing-highlight this year? what made it special and how will you reflect on it next year?

"The True Story" was definitely the highlight. After two years of struggling and failing to write an epistolary fantasy, and more years of failing to write anything longer than about 5,000 words, to write a 10,000-word epistolary fantasy in just over three days was close to a miracle.

I had fun writing original characters! I got to make use of the Imaginary Book Recs! I got the closest I'll ever come to writing Cardinal's Map! I just let myself have fun and somehow it managed to come together in a story that mostly works and that accomplishes what I wanted it to do. It was amazing on a lot of different levels. I'm going to look back on it--and the wonderful feedback--very fondly.

8. what are three things you’re looking forward to next year?

Writing more retellings. I'd specifically like to finish either my "Tattercoats" or "Twelve Huntsmen" retelling as a slightly-longer work, but there are also some shorter stories I'm looking forward to exploring.

Trying to write slightly longer work, ideally an original story.

Writing something that's been edited. I'd like to try using beta readers again instead of just posting lightly-edited first drafts.

13. how did you change as a writer? did you learn anything new? started to plan instead of pants? share your wisdom!

My Inklings Challenge experience--especially with "The True Story"--make me reevaluate my writing habits. I learned that while I need to have a rough idea of the kind of story I'm telling and what ending I'm aiming for, it works better if I don't know everything. The story takes a more natural shape if I let the details that pop up during drafting determine the direction the story goes.

While writing the stories I posted at the end of December, I further developed this insight into three related maxims.

The story starts at the beginning. No matter what cool ideas you have for the overall work, the story unspools in a sequence of words beginning from the first scene, so you have to sink into that scene and let the story flow from there.

Develop the meta after you write. Getting too deep into the the characters and themes during the brainstorming process makes it very difficult to translate that to words on the page. Writing first and then digging deeper into the meta makes the process work much better.

The beautiful story that exists in your head should be the inspiration, not the goal. The words you write on the page are never going to be able to capture the layered emotions of your daydream. Instead, use that daydream as motivation to start writing, and then get excited about the (similar but not the same) story that exists on the page.

15. time for shameless self-promotion! answer with a piece of writing you want others to see/read!

Even though it's an unfinished piece of fiction, I'm still fond of my Anne of Green Gables meets fairy tales Island verse, and "The Sylph in the Storm" was built out of one of my favorite pieces of it, so I'll give it a shout-out here.

[talesofsorrowandofruin]

👑 and ⌛for the WIP asks!

Thanks! :D I'll do this for Like Snow on Hungry Graves:

👑 - Are there rulers? A government? Who calls all the shots?: Yep! There are three main kingdoms: Vakaryan, Sui (based on Tang-dynasty China) and Çarisar (based on the Ottoman Empire, with elements of the Seljuk and Mongol Empires). So far only Vakaryan has got much attention, and I haven't figured out how the other kingdoms work.

Vakaryan (Rusudan's home): Is ruled by Queen Khvareshan. Her oldest child and heir is Princess Ketevan, which means the kingdom is basically doomed as soon as Ketevan takes over. But Rusudan is more-or-less ruling behind the scenes because she has information on everyone, is extorting money from everyone, and can influence government decisions if she wants to. She also hates Ketevan, so there's a decent chance she'll stage a coup and make herself queen as soon as Khvareshan dies.

Sui: Is ruled by an emperor. Who happens to be Konstantine's father, and is also the worst. Seriously, he sets his own son up for murder.

Çarisar: Is ruled by an emperor, who happens to be Hariye's grandfather.

⌛ - What time period does it take place in? Does it combine periods?: It's set in a fantasy world loosely inspired by several different time period. Sui is based on Tang-dynasty China (618–907), Vakaryan is based on 13th-century Georgia, and Çarisar is based on a mixture of the Mongol Empire (1206–1294*), Seljuk Empire (1037-1194) and Ottoman Empire (1299–1922**).

*disputed; if you consider the Yuan dynasty a continuation of the Mongol Empire, then it didn't fall until 1368. And if you count the Northern Yuan dynasty, then it didn't fall until 1635.

**no, that's not a typo. The Ottoman empire really did last that long.