#sorry this got so long but sjhdsbfj

[cee-grice]

Hello! I'm getting caught up on all your amazing asks here... But here's my pre-emptive Ask for Storytelling Saturday for next week:

Describe your WIP in bullet points so my ADHD brain gets it quickly!

hey hey Belle!! oh man, I also have to clean out my inbox, it's getting a bit embarrassing haha... I know you said this is a pre-emptive STS ask, but!.. I saw it and got excited lol, so you're getting it answered Now

so! my current WIP, When White Crows Cry, described in bullet points:

(this is gonna be long)

it's a science fantasy?? only instead of robots and space we have chemistry and pathology lol

also dark academia vibes

set in a secondary world reminiscent of 19th century-esque europe, only with modern advancements in science

the magic system is science-based - essentially, if you wanna manipulate the fabric of reality, you gotta. understand said fabric of reality

so, to cast a believable illusion you need to perfectly understand color and light and depth and all that (so you gotta be a kickass realism artist lol)

or, to change a glass ball into a gold one, you gotta understand the molecular composition of each material and know how to manipulate it so it would change forms

there's one tiny teensy issue with magic, though - it is a limited resource ahaha

ANYWAY that's the gist of it

main character - Quil, an exceptional transmutation mage who got exiled some years ago for performing human transmutation (very bad very taboo)

(he, of course, continues doing human transmutation)

(despite the Trauma)

the second most important character - Endra, who has this nasty magical parasite slowly eating away at his body and mind, and his only hope at a cure is... human transmutation

you can see where this is going

anyway so that's the Past timeline - Quil trying to figure out what's going on with Endra's body and finding a way to fix it

(this is also the Romance timeline lol)

we also have the Present timeline

and that starts with Quil getting revived a year after his death in the country he'd gotten exiled from

:0!

(that's literally the first chapter so it's not a spoiler lol)

anyway he gets offered a Deal - help his ex-mentor with her project that could potentially save magic, and in exchange he'd get amnesty

the issue? he really, really hates his ex-mentor

and he would have really, really preferred to stay dead

this whole magic dying thing is Not his problem, either lol

counter issue? the project concerns the same magic parasite that Endra had (has?), so it could put him in danger, and Quil quite literally would die again before he let that happen, so.

he agrees

(so that he could sabotage it lol)

but also! Quil doesn't know what happened with Endra post his death, so that's something he works on figuring out as well

(he gets far more questions than answers. where IS this guy)

anywayyy that's the gist of the story

now for the lightning round

this would be for you if any of this intrigues you:

highly questionable academic and medical ethics

characters forsaking morality to get what they want and losing sight of what truly matters

So Much Interpersonal Drama

no physical fights - a Lot of verbal fights

dealing with the horrors of resurrection

dealing with the horrors of facing your loved ones after they'd mourned you for a year

a cast of eccentric scientists

an obsessive, codependent queer romance between people who don't know how the other looks like

a lot of fucked up queer characters in general

an incredibly spiteful trans protagonist who just wants to be left the fuck alone but everyone insists on dragging him into their shit, so instead he's gonna Make them leave him alone

everyone wanting you to live apart from You

magic biology! magic chemistry! magic science! nerd shit!

anyway oof idk if this helps but omggg is it hard to explain a fantasy story quickly ahaha....

(this is the general tag for this wip so u can check out more stuff about it that's explained in a more cohesive manner lol)