#theivorytowercrumbles

[sky-ham]

old wip revived due to this and the kink club AU fic Prey Drive by @theivorytowercrumbles which has not left my browser tabs

[coricatchthorne]

This week, as I prepare to start sharing my own writing in the new year, I want to reflect on works I've read this year that have inspired me!

First up is Scales of Seduction by Rien Gray @theivorytowercrumbles

Gorgeous, beautifully crafted, and scorching hot, this sapphic romance between a trans butch basilisk and feral femme Medusa got under my skin.

The lush prose and historical specificity reminded me of reading Mary Renault's Alexander the Great series; I felt deeply, sensually grounded in the ancient Greek setting. But magic runs deep through this story, elevating its themes of transness and monstrosity to mythic heights.

Light spoilers below so I can talk about the themes I dug most, though I'll aim to avoid too many specifics.

I'm a sucker for ordeals, and this book is full of them. Petra, the basilisk who we accompany on this journey, has endured many past ordeals out of necessity, but the ordeals we see her navigate in this story are chosen, each bringing her closer to her truest self. The ordeal of surgical transition; the ordeal of reaching Medusa (via a delicious and thoughtfully designed series of trials that literally strip Petra of nearly everything, preparing her for the possibility of renewal); and finally, the ordeal of intimacy, which she and Medusa share.

Medusa has survived by removing herself from the world and guarding herself from those who cannot bear her existence; Petra has survived by physically and emotionally armoring and reshaping herself to fit into that same, hostile world. The way these two characters clash and connect is raw and deeply queer. It's also violent, in a way I found deeply life affirming and hot as hell. I adore kink as a tool to engage with, transform, and even heal trauma and the kinky sex in this story does this expertly. It feels deeply rooted in these serpentine women and the lives they've lived. Eroticizing our own traumas as a way of claiming them is also one of my Favorite Things, and I wanted to cheer every time our leads transformed a tragedy from their pasts into intensely specific, erotic and powerful sex. The dirty talk is top tier, the scenes are creative and varied, and it builds into a bond I found believable and beautiful.

I've read and enjoyed a few of Rien's works before, and this one really bowled me over. I've gotta get into more of their catalogue!

Link: Scales of Seduction on itch.io

[nihilnovisubsole]

Because of your latest post: not sure if you’ve answered this before, but how does someone even entertain the idea of writing for the game dev industry? Did you start out on indie games or just write before and show them your work? Since it’s such a subjective field etc

if i have, it bears repeating! here's a rough timeline of what i did. never discount the value of luck and the kindness of friends

2016: i was doing a random freelance transcription job when i saw @theivorytowercrumbles post about writing for voltage. they reblogged the studio's open casting call for new writers. since it was so lenient - no experience, fanfic samples allowed - i applied. they hired me for their new project, but let me go after a trial period, citing that the tone of my writing was a bad fit for that game. i foundered for a while after that. i don't take rejection well. i started dangerous crowns to try to make money from writing some other way.

2017: one of voltage's producers reached out to me and said they'd started another project that i was a good fit for. she felt letting me go was a mistake and wanted to snap me back up. i said yes, i mean, are you kidding? so i started on reiner's route.

2018-2019: i kept at it. i took on diego's route. it occurred to me that i wasn't making very much money, but i liked my coworkers, and i was building my portfolio, so who cared? i also finished dangerous crowns, and a handful of people bought it, but certainly not enough to support myself or anything.

early 2020: between the pay and creative differences with voltage's team, it started to sink in that i needed to find other work. i applied to the few open game writer jobs i could find, but with only mobile romance in my portfolio, i got nowhere. i threw in dangerous crowns samples. i tried to network on twitter. i still never made it to the interview phase. i foundered for a while again.

late 2020: the voltage writers went on strike. i gave a statement to a journalist that one of obsidian's narrative designers noticed. we became acquaintances over it. another old friend of mine threw me a life raft in the form of a different contract, better paying, on a non-romance indie game. i took it gladly. i added a twine game to my portfolio, too. i kept applying. i got a few interviews, but something still didn't click.

2021: i finally accepted that i needed formal help. i did a portfolio workshop. i got resume coaching. the coach passed my name to a writer on the company of heroes team. they liked me! they also paid me more money than i'd ever seen in my life. at the same time, obsidian advertised a narrative job opening. i applied on a lark and let my ND pal know i was doing so. why not, right? college-new-vegas-fan me would want me to. they rejected me, but not before i passed their writing test and two interviews. i had nothing to lose at that point, so i told my ND pal that i was bummed. she gave me a golden piece of advice: "you came really close. try again."

2022: obsidian had another narrative opening. i threw myself at it. i was now going to annoy them into hiring me. since i was a known quantity from applying six months before, they had no qualms about interviewing me again. this time, it worked out, and i've been there ever since.

what's the common denominator here? i met people who thought i was all right and gave me a hand up when i needed it. the standard advice is to work with a community of your peers instead of trying to get your heroes to senpai-notice you. it's not that they don't care - they just have their own thing going on, and your peers could be the heroes of tomorrow if the right project comes along. i also found the portfolio was the end-all-be-all when it came to job hunting. i went through a grieving process with that! i'm not afraid to admit it. i wish studios had held my degree or dangerous crowns in higher regard, but i just had to make games in a wider variety of genres, and that was that.

one caveat: narrative is a really saturated field right now. a lot of people want to write, and there aren't many openings. it's not uncommon for big studios to get hundreds of applicants. larian probably got over a thousand for the job they posted recently. i feel awful saying that, because i don't want to discourage you, but i'd feel worse if i didn't let you know what you were getting into. if it's something you want, you should try! keep an open mind about the random projects you may find. you never know where they'll take you.

[bossuary]

WIP Wednesday - A Day Late

I was tagged by @jkateel (and I think @runawaydragons, too).

Who shall I tag? Hmm, maybe.... @theivorytowercrumbles and @finnglas (no pressure).

***

The excerpt below is from Ch. 2 of Papercuts, a Rookanis fic.

Evariste Mercar has a couple of consequential secrets that he's keeping from everyone. It's already difficult, hiding a part of himself from the people he's working so closely with. Probably best not to pursue any of the thousands of non-Chantry thoughts about Lucanis, right?

Right. Absolutely.

***

Bellara fiddled thoughtfully with her piece of chalk, then suddenly pointed it at the board.

“At that bar, the girl behind the counter seemed scared. But, like she didn’t want to show it,” she said. 

Not an uncommon interaction for Evariste. He and Neve nodded grimly.

“Well, I’m human, a mage, and old enough to be her dad,” he explained. ”In Minrathous, acting tough is one way for someone like her to survive an encounter with someone like me.”

“You’re what?”

Lucanis cut across the conversation, staring at Evariste as if he’d grown a second nose.

Fuck.

Affecting a confused look, Evarsite turned to him. He felt the story of himself develop a hole; one that was going to be slow to close. A single other person in the room knew his real age, and it wasn’t the guy who made it his literal business to know things like that.

“I’m…old?” he said, looking around at the group as if this news was equally aged.

Bellara shrugged in an I guess? gesture. Davrin could not be bothered to have an opinion. Neve rolled her eyes.

“How old?” Lucanis set down the winged stiletto he’d been polishing.

“Forty-four, I think. Orphan, remember? Hard to be exact,” Evariste said, casually. He hoped some light taunting might distract Lucanis, “You didn’t know? The gray hair usually gives it away.”

Whatever gods Evariste no longer prayed to, they were sitting with Lucanis on this one. His face went on an expedition, pulled between confusion and irritation. 

“Lots of people have gray hair. Taash has gray hair!” he argued.

Davrin huffed, smiling to himself as he made notes on the map. “Taash doesn’t make that sound when they get out of a chair, though.”

Evariste threw up his hands.

“That was one time. I fought an archdemon,” he objected. “Lucanis, is this…are you alright?”

Across the table, Lucanis wasn’t brooding, exactly, but his expression promised that this revelation would have a long shelf-life.

“I’m fine,” he murmured, with a nod.

“Well, let’s move on before I become so decrepit that I have to be carried to bed.”

[lauren-ce]

My beautiful physical copy of Rien Gray's excellent (and incredibly gay) The Scales of Seduction just arrived! @theivorytowercrumbles even signed it in a wonderfully bold and iridescent gold!

I put it on one of my gay shelves :3

[kitguts]

MAMA I found the most puppy-coded vi fan art EVER. Look at it please please please please pl

https://www.tumblr.com/sky-ham/774558337812561920/old-wip-revived-due-to-this-and-the-kink-club-au

oh lord prey drive is one of the hottest fics i've ever read this is fabulous

[hpowellsmith]

absolutely adored Love Kills Twice by Rien Gray aka @theivorytowercrumbles (50% off at Smashwords until 9th March) - thriller F/NBi revenge romance in which a woman hires an (extremely hot) assassin against her abusive husband not knowing that he hired them against her too, 10/10 no notes other than that I would very much enjoy quite a few of Campbell's outfits (as well as their physique tbh)

[arthoure]

@theivorytowercrumbles

Honestly, most of the time I feel like I'm kicking significantly little ass, and certainly not as much as I should be. You know how it is -- the weird, weird self-worth work in an industry with incredibly high bars where nothing is ever quite finished and nobody is ever enough. But I'm trying to keep regular moments where I recognize things I should be proud of, instead of just glossing over them, and it helps!

[ladzwriting]

Omg @theivorytowercrumbles

Medusa’s Skull - Nearly finished, come see it in Denver at the Oddities & Curiosities Expo next month! ForgottenBoneyard.com

[ladzwriting]

THIS OR THAT

thanks for the tag @authoralexharvey!!

Historical or Futuristic

Futuristic is a playground I'm still collecting sand for the sand box for and I'm still having too much fun digging around in the historical garden

Opening Chapter or Closing Chapter

Every time I think I'm getting better at openings, something needs to get removed or added

Light + fluffy or Dark + gritty

Light + fluffy is for other people to write, alas

Animal companion or Found Family

A bunch of assholes forced to work together and come to something like care and tenderness is my catnip

Hard magic system or AND Soft magic system

So many of my magic systems have rules, but the depiction is more in the way that like in the real world we know that physics has rule but not all of us are physicists if that makes sense

One project at a time or Always juggling 2+

It's zero or 2+ here because I get easily bored (it's the ADHD)

Fantasy or Sci-Fi

See answer for futuristic - there's a lot I want to do with fantasy and I'm still not "done" yet so even my sci-fi is going to feel more fantasy

Character Description or Setting Description

Being a fromsoft and gothic girlie (gender ambivalent), I really loved it when the setting feels like a character, even if it has the least agency of anything in a story

First Draft or Final Draft

Fuck drafting, I hate it so much. I don't feel like I know what I'm doing until the first revision at the earliest and even then, it's tenuous at best

Love Triangle in Everything or No Romantic Arcs

I caveat with I like relationships in progress. I like seeing them strengthen or fall apart because of the tensions in a story. The how they got there feels far too discrete for me to satisfied as a creative.

Constant Sandstorm or Constant Rainstorm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6120QOlsfU

Tagging: @ghostpoetics @aninkwellofnectar @theivorytowercrumbles @jonphaedrus

[the-stray-liger]

https://www.tumblr.com/theivorytowercrumbles/733577560352489472

Those are AI generated!

[elfabianaco]

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(vía F&O Fabforgottennobility)

[aresmarked]

🌹 :)

"I know birds prefer their food whole, little wing, but I think you've bitten off more than you can swallow."

[anneapocalypse]

🌹!

She had not bothered to get a good look at the name of the inn the night before, but now in the light of day she saw the sign, adorned with the crude image of an ocean wave, and emblazoned with the words The Salty Breeze, which Briala thought to be rather a bold name, considering they were still a good ways out from the sea.

[ladzwriting]

@theivorytowercrumbles

of course you have a full suit of armour both marking you as the romantic ideal of masculinity and obscuring your body so completely that your sex loses importance when signifying your gender and class. and pronouns

[xuunies]

commission for @theivorytowercrumbles of their OC, Ensi !!