#wbitd

[bloomingdarkgarden]

WIP Wednesday

Chapter 37 | What Bloomed in the Darkgarden

A hiss down the dark of the corridor. The sound assumed that the lord of this realm was aware of his visitors and less than pleased to receive them. “I’m sure you're rather busy brooding the night away so I’ll be sure not to take up too much of your time,” Elain implored curtly, smoothing her skirts. A heartbeat passed, and then a monstrous tirade of shadows poured into the decrepit room, choking out the elusive moonlight. The space was swallowed in ebony power as darkness roiled over every visible crevice, over both Elain and Vassa, growling with mirth all the while. The menacing display seemed to last an instant and an eternity all at once. “You must be very brave to seek me out,” Koschei crooned, reeling himself back inwards across the space. “Or very foolish.” Vassa seemed to be holding her breath. Elain merely straightened in her seat. “You will not be the first nor the last to call me such a thing,” she muttered in turn, searching for his formless eyes in the dark. “Now if you are quite finished-” Elain batted away the last of his primordial shadows as if they were errant insects. “I had hoped we might speak civilly.” The darkness flickered with delight at her indifference. “Do I strike you as a civil sort of being?” His voice as ancient and cruel as the night was dark. Elain narrowed her eyes across the space, seeing everything and nothing, as she always would. “You strike me as a male who has been left too long to sulk about.”

[somethingimworkingon]

How to save your brain from being eaten by AI (maybe): keep a sketchbook

At the beginning of May I started bookmarking photographers who are using AI in interesting ways, to add to my Instagram collection of digital art references (#artdirectionneversleeps). Later that month I did my own first experiments using NightCafe to visualise ideas for a client. It was entertaining and frustrating, partly because of my lack of prompt skills, and partly because the "styles" you could apply to your "artwork" looked exactly like bad fantasy art from the 1980s.

However, by June, photographers I was working with were using Midjourney to conceptualise setups – still with a bit of that tacky SciFi book cover feel, but it was proving genuinely useful to talk about how sets might be designed, for instance. By July, I was seeing film directors use AI for pitching storyboards, and my lovely students at Condé Nast College of Fashion and Design using it for presentation mock-ups.

That's just three months. From AI being a "what?" to becoming a completely logical, natural part of the image-making process, for at least some parts of the creative industries. The speed of change is head-spinning. And this is just the beginning.

Meanwhile, also in May, I was teaching at CNC on a really fun module about Brand Identity Design. Part of this involved the students keeping a sketchbook, to explore and develop their ideas. One of my lectures was about WHY people keep sketchbooks, and I illustrated several points with quotes from designers, architects and artists, and pages from my own sketchbooks from waaaaay back in the day.

Because WBITD, when I was an art student, I kept sketchbooks constantly. Not only was it a course requirement, for me it was also a way to stave off boredom and depression: it's hard to think negative thoughts when your brain is absorbed in analysing the curves of a hand or a coffee cup or a flower. When my best friend and I used to Interrail around Italy, I would draw our cafe tables and the local streets, and we'd get rewarded with extra drinks and desserts by kindly waiters.

Somewhere around the mid 90s I gave up sketching, partly because life got more hectic, and partly because smartphones got invented. When Emma and I started the BID course this summer, it had been a very long time indeed since I cracked open a sketchbook. And, erm, even though I did buy one – a lovely, spiral-bound, hard covered book with wonderful heavyweight paper, from Seawhite of Brighton – it took me another few months to start using it.

Two things pushed me into finally starting: firstly, it's #drawugst and I thought I should try a drawing a day, every day, during August. I started on Tuesday, August 1st, with a graphite pencil sketch of my aloe plant. I did it in semi-darkness, around 9pm, and my hand-eye coordination felt a but rusty, but following the heavy curves of the plant was satisfying.

On Wednesday I drew fallen agapanthus blossoms, playing with coloured marker pens (of which I have a ridiculously huge collection, almost never used). This was a reminder of the importance of not trying to control the end result while you're sketching. Because you just can't.

Yesterday evening I scribbled our messy after-dinner table. I used the graphite pencil, a Koh-I-Noor Hardtmuth charcoal pencil, and an Edding 1225 calligraphy pen – and blackberries. The fruit, not the redundant communication device. Blackberry juice is a fabulous art material – it gives this beautiful purple inky result, and it's such a pleasure to smear all over the paper. I'd picked the berries earlier this evening on Wormwood Scrubs, just to add to the satisfaction of the whole experience. (And this morning I made almond milk smoothies with the rest of them.)

The other thing which made me finally restart a sketchbook after all this time is AI. I can see that it is just going to get bigger, more powerful, and more indispensable in my industry. I'm not going to worry about losing my job to a bot (I don't have "a job", anyhow), but I am concerned about what it will do to our creativity.

When you use one tool extensively it starts to train your brain, you develop habits and shortcuts. It's one thing to have tricks for making the most of Photoshop, or to have routines when you set up an InDesign document. But when you're trying to generate ideas you need to keep an open mind. To look at things from different angles. To look again, look harder. Try wacky ideas. Draw with your food. Stick things onto the pages. Doodle. Take a line for a walk. Write notes to self. Be creative. Be messy. Be human.

[bloomingdarkgarden]

wbitd what can i say

me when the devastating fanfic I chose to read is actually devastating

[kworkinnovations]

https://instagram.com/p/B4SUM-wBItd/

[bloomingdarkgarden]

EHONEY OH MY GOD. I want to kick myself for putting off What Bloomed in the Darkgarden for weeks. Now, I'm halfway into it AND WHAT A BREATHTAKING JOURNEY IT IS. Thank you for sharing your vision of Elain's beautiful, fragile rage. For Azriel's DELICIOUS and SEDUCTIVE adoration of our lovely seer. Honestly, ACOTAR 6 cannot compare at this point. And if I have to share my most favorite parts, I'm afraid I'd have to highlight the entire thing. I sincerely cannot choose one. (But if held at gunpoint, I would say it was the entire Elriel scene in the Umbrie after Starfall.) As I read every word further into the story, I feel as if I'm peering into the heart and soul of you---and I want to embrace what I see. I feel as if I have been given a gift that I do not deserve, but one that I cherish nonetheless. I love you, dearest author, I love you.

wow.

You captured what's been hard for me to iterate regarding wbitd, anon. And that's this:

No one in this life knows me like my darkgarden readers. You all are getting the innermost chamber. And when you see it, and connect with it, and embrace it, as you said- I feel held. Like perhaps after 33 years of utter silence, my quiet inner world is worth sharing.

This is an exceptionally vulnerable and deeply personal story. There is so much of my heart in the prose. And people feel that, for whatever reason. Each of you are cutting me open and looking at the garden of my spirit, which is a terrifying process to undergo.

So thank you for seeing what is within me, and encouraging it to keep blooming. I love you anon, and all the rest of my beautiful readers- my honeybees, to the moon and back.

We are one hive, creating the eden of this story.

🌙🪻🌿

[bloomingdarkgarden]

What time do you usually post the next chapter? I usually get an email update at like 2am lol. I live in CST.

So I update 1-2x weekly but am hopeless at keeping a schedule concrete. However they always come regardless. You get those notifications because I often end up posting around midnight Pacific Standard, editing into the dark night like some kind of haunted wuthering heights character wretching this story from my innards/ heart over cheap red wine and dark academia classical music.

Lol on that note ch. 19 will be up by tomorrow 9am pm PST yall.

[bloomingdarkgarden]

editing the newest WBITD chapter took me 12+ hours the last two days and many weeks to write. I've been wondering why it's been so laborsome. Anyway tonight i put it in word count just to see... just to see and

holy mother of god what have i done.

'your text might contain writing issues' 💀💀💀 lolforever no shit it contains half of the metaphysical universe probably too whoops.

no one can come here and say they aren't being fed.

[bloomingdarkgarden]

answering this in a separate post so I could keep your email to myself. But wow. I'm totally floored by this one @lunaatthezoo These are very affecting words and I can't say what it means to hear them. There is a level of vulnerability in wbitd that I can't entirely name, but my readers seem to feel it. This story has been born from the softest and truest place within me and it is terrifying to share that part of one's self with the world/ open internet. Particularly in a notoriously unkind community. I am very moved that anyone is affected by my prose. I'm laying myself bare with this thing. My readers can feel that, seemingly, and it is you all are making a garden of whatever is within me. The real MVPS are those of you supporting this while its still in progress, honestly. You are the ones I will remember long after its done, who took the time to send things like this, who inspired the journey to be flushed to completion, who encouraged the words to be pried free when I was scared to share them, who believed this story was worth telling. Who read it and didn't just close the browser, but reached out. On the hardest days, you all keep a pen in my hand. So thank you for being here, and making the effort to share the details of why it struck home for you. I may be the one writing, but without you all, I would have no ink. 1. I would die to hear those songs. 2. The drunken archeron dinner scene is arguably my favorite in the story, thank god someone enjoyed it lol. 3. I absolutely will take you as my editor, first pick. I've been planning to get to that a wee bit closer to the finish line. Who writes a full-length fanfic novel with no betas? ehoney. Every spare hour I have is spent writing the damn thing, and I'm still sort of randomly adding bits to earlier chapters here and there. But soon, I'd love to enlist your services. 4. Pregnant and boring had me loling- you are creating life, which is the least boring thing ever. All my love.

[bloomingdarkgarden]

I went to reread a favorite fic of mine by another author whom I also highly respect, and found that they had deleted all their works and their tumblr. I adored their writing and am so sad that they are gone; I don’t even have a way to let them know how much I loved their work (aside from the comments I had left on their now deleted work 😭).

So I just wanted to take this time to let you know how much I love and adore your works as well- literally the first thing I did after I realized theirs were gone was to make sure yours were still up. Your writings are some of my favorites in the fandom (and I have reread WBITD alone about 5 times now, I love it so much), and I just wanted to make sure you knew how much your work means to some of us. 🌸🌿

Ohhh my lovely,

Thank you for sharing your words, and encouragement. Authors disappearing can be jarring. I want to speak to this and give my personal thoughts/ insight as a writer rather than a reader on this subject 🩷✍️

Writing is... incredibly vulnerable.

Writing for free even more so. Spending days/weeks/months crafting a story exposes a part of you that your readers can't truly know. Readers can spend 20 minutes reading something that took you 45 hours to draft. There's so much toil unseen.

AO3 is the wild west of the internet, comparatively speaking. An open platform where your work can be loved by strangers, but also stolen, plagiarized, bounded and sold illegally, critically torn apart- all of it without recourse. Sometimes all it takes is a shift in your confidence and suddenly you are not proud of what you've given away for free, or feel too vulnerable to let it exist there to be pilfered by anonymous strangers. Not to mention this fandom is brutally toxic- people rip apart art, opinion, and creative ideas with venom. Creators are not safe in this fandom. That's the raw truth.

Legitimately all of my favorite authors (from my previous fandom which was hugely popular) have removed their work from AO3. There are a myriad of reasons why, ranging from getting published to getting doxxed to getting plagiarized. I myself have not reached that point yet, but who knows. I've been on Tumblr in some form since 2014 and don't see that changing ✨ though I may be inactive for bouts.

It is a hard truth to swallow- but fanfiction is a gift that's on borrowed time. It is created at the expense of our weird, naked souls. It can be tucked back into the author's safekeeping as needed, often simply to protect our mental wellbeing.

Even if it's the weirdest, horniest, or silliest shit imaginable, the truth remains the same-

to write is to bleed.

[bloomingdarkgarden]

my girl knows i love my Fitzgerald. That brilliant drunk asshole. the Gatsby references in WBITD are bout to come in strong. xoxoxo @sunlightsage

[bloomingdarkgarden]

Hi queen/king/monarch! I was wondering if What Bloomed in the Dark Garden is finished / when it will be? I’d like to hold off until I can read it front to back, ideally, but if you’re taking a break I totally get it! Either way, I’m very very excited to read it. The bits I’ve seen look incredible.

queenkingmonarch is now my favorite ehoney title. Great questions! WBITD is a work in progress, about 70% complete. I update regularly and write + edit this story weekly on the back end, which my readers can't see ✨✍️ though it is happening relentlessly nonetheless. My posting times used to be weekly, but have become more delayed because the fic sort of exploded and there is a very high level of expectation... so I try to take a while to really edit each installment now. People are like binding it and recording it and shit so new chapters just make me sweat bullets and I spend more time scrutinizing them than I used to. It's funny, I have devotedly written this thing without stopping over the past 18 months which is sort of insane as far as fic writing goes. Writing one singular story for that long is very, very challenging, but this thing has become my strange, beautiful demon and I'm hellbent on seeing her through properly. My updates lately have been massive (21k was my last, which is like 5 normal chapters), so when I serve, I serve. Join anytime! Or wait until the end, I'm not sure when that will be. At this point I'm guessing it will be finished by New Year. We're in the final stage of the saga. And BOY is the drama going to unfurl.

[bloomingdarkgarden]

which one of you called WBITD a revelation on reddit come out so i can kiss you.

anyway my moodiness has waned Ima finish these visuals and update before the weekend.

[bloomingdarkgarden]

Ahhhh I just finished chapter 37 of dark garden - can’t wait for more and hope it goes beyond 42.

I also wanted to say you are a marvelous writer/author I think you’ve put SJM and many others to shame and should continue and embrace your talents and own storylines - they would be killer!!! You have such a way with storytelling i feel as tho i understand and like the characters so much better than the books. I can’t believe you said you haven’t written before!

Im living for this story I don’t think I will like whatever book SJM comes out with next as much as this. No hate on her or anyone just being honest.

Hope Elriel gets the long overdue lovemaking they deserve lol!!

a) thank you enormously for these gracious compliments, im smiling.

b) i had 0 experience with creative writing when i started this thing so watching it explode in popularity has been a wild ride. It was like, oh shit people like my weird dark poetic words, oh shit a lot of people like this, oh shit it has to be good now lol. Admittedly it takes me longer to update because I somehow gained a massive audience (WBITD usually gains 2k hits just in the first 24 hours I post and many more thereafter) so there's a very high level of expectation, which can be terrifying for me as someone who has never done this before. I've undertaken crazy shit for this story. I've stared at the walls until 4am thinking about where to take Elain's journey. I once spent 20 hours making 1 map. I toiled and studied medieval crusade battles, greek oracles, so many things. I cannot even believe i wrote this thing. Who writes nothing their entire life and then makes a 900 page novel fully flushed with deep slow burn romance, mystic plot, lore, war conflict, a shit ton of botany, i don't even know what? ehoney.

c) it will probably be more like 45 chapters and Elain and Az are gonna get everything they deserve and then some mark my words.

[bloomingdarkgarden]

One glance at the vibes and I'm dead. The nature sounds?? Are you kidding me?? What taste @deathsweetblossoms ❤️‍🔥

This is the acotar medicine I've needed for a while.

Very honored my Elain inspired some of this. You read my work before most other people and helped give me the confidence to really flesh out WBITD before I really knew what I was doing. I have never forgotten. Thank you my lovely sister witch for making the world more mythical.

I'm about to play this unabashedly in the fire engine in the morning can't wait for the boys to murder me.

Flower Face: an Elain Archeron playlist

This is my love letter to Elain Archeron, my interpretation of what she sounds like were she to exist as music. Consider this more as an experience and less a list of songs with lyrics that relate to Elain. @elainarcheronweek

My Elain is made up in part of deeply personal headcanons, plus versions of her in works by @bloomingdarkgarden (What Bloomed in the Dark Garden) and @thefangirlofhp (sillage). She is Danielle De Barbarac, a quiet girl with a rich internal world and a heart capable of feeling every emotion ten fold. She has one foot in The Dreaming world of the mystics, and one foot in her rapidly evolving life in Velaris. She wants to be seen for who she is and loved for who she is, gardening-scarred hands and all. She quietly yearns for someone she can't have, never once sharing her woes with any of her sisters. She brings things to life and values learning, creation, travel. This is a musical journey that represents my interpretation of Elain's soul, her internal world, her life in Velaris, her hopes for the future. (It is Elriel leaning, as a disclaimer, because ... I simply cannot help it.) I started off the journey with nature sounds, because Elain is so deeply tied to the land in my mind, and with lush, atmospheric music representing how she presents to the world. As the list goes on, we go deeper and more secrets are revealed until the songs become almost entirely instrumental (moody and brooding in nature to represent an emotional landscape). There are songs in different languages or without words entirely, to represent her displacement into an unfamiliar land, in a changed body, and the uprooting of her ingrained beliefs about that land and the creatures living there; about her integration into the Night Court and her insistence that she belongs. It ends with her prayer to The Mother.

SONGLIST

(Sometimes I will include my decisions for including certain pieces. Other times, I hope you can glean your own meaning <;3) PART I

(nature sounds)

I often imagine Elain waking up at sunrise, before the rest of the city, and just imbibing the land, the birds, the flowers. Noticing things other's don't notice. Seeking solace among nature.

James Newton Howard - A Hidden Life (instrumental)

Mariee Sioux - Wild Eyes tiny darling ghost holder you our soft spirit breather... you plant your burderns way deep down in

Wickerbird - Llewellyn sleep, interred within old Avalon

A song that evokes visions, dreams, prophecy, distant lands

AURORA - Under the Water under the water, we can't breathe we can't breathe under the water, we die hearts will dream again lungs will breathe in feet won't fail you now arms won't let you down

This song has been on my Elain playlist since the start. I always reminds me of her journey into the cauldron, the terror and grief that befell her afterward, and learning how to keep going despite everything.

Flower Face - Cornflower Blue i wanna lay on the kitchen floor with you i wanna do all the things that lovers do bruised on your face like a watercolour bloom moonlight paints your skin cornflower blue

Elain develops feelings for a quiet Shadowsinger...

Steven Price - Ophelia (instrumental) Jean Luc Lenoir - The Mermaid's Croon (instrumental)

"The quiet dreamer"

Ane Brun - Joga (live version) all that no one sees, you see what's inside of me every nerve that hurts, you heal deep inside of me you don't have to speak i feel emotional landscapes

This is a quintessential Elriel song for me, so perfectly capturing how I believe she feels about him (how they feel about each other, honestly).

AURORA - Exist for Love and then you take me in and everything in me begins to feel like I belong

Joe Hisaishi - Heartbroken Kiki (instrumental)

Rachel Portman - Three Women (instrumental)

Elain, Nuala, and Cerridwen's blossoming friendship. Them in the kitchen learning how to make bread, them teaching Elain how to slyfoot, them whispering secrets about lovers and childhood to each other.

PART II (Powers Awakening, Hidden Secrets of the Magic of Velaris, Witches and Mystics)

AURORA - The Forbidden Fruits of Eden (an interlude)

Powers brimming just below the surface, unseen, but felt by Elain.

(nature sounds)

Elain starts visiting the Sidra more and more as her powers develop stronger. I just imagine her sitting by the water, with a scarf around her head, and a small picnic basket, just enjoying the quiet and thinking about her visions and dreams.

Thomas Newman - Starlit (instrumental)

Night-blooming Jasmine, Elain discovers her place in the shadows of Velaris

Karliene - The Fields of Ard Skellig

Elain digs her fingers into the soil of Velaris and night-blooming flowers blossom all around her. She learns the secrets of the mystics and how to control her powers. Our Lady Kingslayer comes into her own and surprises everyone with her strength of spirit.

The Naked and the Famous - Teardrop night, night of matter black flowers blossom fearless on my breath Runah - Witch how she bathes in it she never had a lover that said her name before the way it drops from his lips it's like she's never heard her name sound like a song and she craves it oh she has woken the witch she's becoming Kati Ran - Vinda slowly the journey goes like the walk of an old man seeking in waves and seeking in sand hear the psalm of the wind, its being sung over the mountain and you, will you listen to the melody in the evening Mykur - Nordlys (instrumental) Thomas Newman - Luthien Tinuviel (instrumental) Agnes Obel - Rosian (instrumental) Helisir - Brisingamen (instrumental) Johannes Bornlof - Wolfpack (instrumental) Honey Gentry - Aphrodite Aphrodite, hear my pain I want to fall in love again Not in love with a man of this world Fall in love with life itself

Elain's prayer to the mother

[bloomingdarkgarden]

WBITD Ch.31 scene in progress.

Three brothers stared at a joyous, weeping pile of three sisters.

Each grin softened as they observed the females. Cassian rubbed the back of his head nervously. Rhysand's face folded in concern.

But it was Azriel who broke away first, stepping forward. One cautious step, and then another, towards the heap of tear-sticken Archerons.

All three females did their best to rub their eyes dry on each other's gowns as he approached.

"Might I have my wife back?" The shadowsinger asked gently, offering the quietest semblance of a grin that could only belong to a newly claimed male.

[bloomingdarkgarden]

That scene in the last chap where Azriel calls Elain “evoking”…. I was SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UPPPPPP

(I love me simp!azriel, he truly has so much love to give)

listen to me listen eventually we will enter a fluff era of wbitd in which Elain is going to revel in how exactly how evoking she can be. What i mean by that is she is going to realize its incredibly easy to give sweet Az a boner in public whenever and wherever she chooses. Girlie is going to gracefully but devilishly flex that power in the most inconvenient situations possible for boi just for her own quiet amusement.

elain is horny and mischievous and in love and cannot be trusted im not sorry.

anyway im 90% sure Ch 36 will be up Monday, i'm in the final stretch.

Also I have super special surprise for you all tomorrow <3