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i am going to be so real with you guys. ever since that migraine i got, i have NOT been back to writing lmfao. i've been stewing and feeling bad about not writing, mostly.

part of the issue here, i think, is that none of my current interests are in the fantasy genre. both of my projects are fantasies. but because i'm just not super into the genre right now, i'm not getting inspiration. i'm not feeling the urge to write them.

so. hear me out. i know i have two neglected projects already, and a third isn't directly going to fix the problem. BUT. i think having something in a different genre that i can switch gears into when i'm just not feeling TID or AFHMB will help. because the problem isn't burnout. the problem is a lack of interest.

no decisions are being made now, but i have some ideas. and i think i'd like to share them eventually.

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i'm alive and back, rejoice! however i am also currently focusing back on afhmb </3

if you're still here, 1. thank you, 2. you have the patience of a saint

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Hello! What are the differences between vampire and vampyr? Why are vampyr discriminated against?

hello!

for your first question, i'll send you here, where i explain in-depth the difference between the two. in essence: vampires are 'tamed' vampyr, who've had their thread to rift magic severed.

as for the latter question, well, they're spawn. creatures borne of rift magic, creatures who have to prey upon humans to maintain their strength. spawns are, at best, pests to the rich and powerful, and, at worst, very real threats to the less fortunate. most spawn are like animals, stalking the wild and closing in for easy meals.

but vampyr keep charge of their mental faculties, to a point. often, newly-turneds will attempt to fight the calling of human blood, or to sustain themselves off of animals, but eventually they will become ravenous-- sent into a bloodthirst wherein they lose control over themselves.

so, the only vampyr your average human will encounter are either 1. ones who hide their vampyrism out of fear, 2. ones who are so ravenous they act like rabid animals, or 3. openly vampyric ones who were willing to feed off of humans in the first place and thus are often considered morally dubious at best. so the public interactions with them often are not stellar.

however, the Church most certainly doesn't help. they propagandize the existence of spawn themselves, and put out bounties for any known vampyr so that the Church can turn them into vampires. how deeply their meddling has affected the way sentient spawn are treated in Ghel, you'll just have to wait and see <3

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logging back into this account and seeing 99+ on my activity was fucking terrifying for a half second. "oh no what happened" a bunch of people found the TID intro post lmfao

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i am still kickin' i prommy. these projects are and always will be hobbies of mine but, because they're hobbies, they're just as quick to come and go as my interest in anything else lmfao. i still rotate those little guys in my head but combine writer's block and ADHD and you get Purgatory :-)

i'll be back on it at some point, but for my own sake, im gonna say that both AFHMB and TID are effectively on hiatus. not REALLY, but if i dont say it, im gonna keep stressing about not updating you guys </3 here's to my brain finally swinging back around to working on one of these at some point

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rereading my initial drafts for some of the branches in the opening sequence. who the hell let this guy write.

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hey just wanted to let yall know that i'm still around and i still care abt these stories i prommy!! long story short the Mental Illness That Affects All of My Life, did, in fact, Affect All of My Life so i've been working on taking care of that. these things aren't abandoned!! i'm just taking a teensy little step back but i hope to get back to it soon.

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Just found this blog and this seems like a really interesting idea! Can't wait to see how the IF and its story develop!

thank you anon <3 i can't wait to share it with you guys! :]

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How does magic work in this world?

magic functions as the manipulation of threads that run through the entire world. a mage, magister, or otherwise magic-using individual, has been trained to be able to see and grasp these threads.

the most common types of magic in Ghel are heat magic and geo magic. heat magic is, well, the manipulation of threads of heat energy. using it, spellcasters can pull threads running around and through things/entities outward to flash-freeze them, or can grasp several nearby threads and quickly pinch them into one line in order to cause a sudden and dramatic increase in temperature, sometimes to the point of creating a string of fire. geo magic includes manipulation of the landscape by using threads to sort of puppeteer the earth, alongside moving threads in such a way that it disrupts energy flow, which can cause literal stutters in biological processes.

it's also important to note that all entities, living and dead, have heart threads, lines of energy running through their body that keep them alive or, well....used to keep them alive. these threads are much thinner and more translucent, so to speak, than the universal threads in the world itself. it takes high levels of very specialized training to be able to grasp them, and even then, the heart threads of, say, a human vs those of a wolf, are so different that they require different techniques. even between two humans, the heart threads' mapping will be different. theoretically, an outside force could return life to dead heart threads, but such a feat has only been completed in myth.

there is also enchanting, which functions a bit differently to spellcasting.

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i need to show you guys what the crazy difference in branching looks like between these two WIPs.

:')

(for those of you who don't know twine, each colored dot represents a different passage in the story. i use vertical separation for chronological ordering like 1-2-3 and horizonal separation for different branches in the narrative like 4a-4b-4c)

also peep the passage count. i've hardly even started writing TID and it also has less UI/coding passages (the clusters in the top left of each) than AFHMB yet it has. that many overall already. help.

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weekly update 2.

it's technically Tuesday but be nice to me i'm on a bad sleep schedule.

i haven't gotten much done this week as a lot of stuff in my personal life has unfortunately picked up and i was busier than i was expecting, but i managed to get those pesky stat pages working and have touched up on some of the first scene passages. aside from that, though, really not much has happened. i haven't had much time to write and plus my ADHD has recently decided that we will focus on Stellaris instead of TID </3 sorry to those of you who were hoping for something more substantial.

snippet:

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Any fun facts you can share about Alvaros? 👀

:)

he lived in a small farming village in southern Ghel until he was around eight, when he moved up north to the capital

he loves animals and has always wanted pets but never had time for them as the commander

he has two younger siblings. they don't talk anymore due to...circumstances, but he still loves them both dearly.

he was the guard-in-training of the royal family and those close to them before he was promoted to commander

he still doesn't have an acolyte assigned to him because he kind of scares everyone, lol

permanent glower. he does not know what a smile is.

his idea of a 'romantic date' is either just 1. taking a day off together, somewhere quiet and secluded, or 2. straight up training together

he wasn't performing at his peak when he and the Warden fought, but he was still impressed by their skill. he wants a rematch, just to see how it goes when they're both focused.

he KNOWS that the Warden can handle themself but god it makes him so stressed to watch them fight 😭 my boy is tearing his hair out

wears boots that give him an extra couple of inches of height because he always wore them growing up (he was like 5'5 up until he was 16 and hit a growth spurt)

he used to sketch and paint as a hobby, but had to give that up when he became commander

keeps succulents in his room :) he had to fight tooth and nail to get the headsman to let him have them lmao

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weekly update 1.

it's Monday night and time for an update.

most of this week has been spent brushing up on the outline for the prologue and thinking about the further direction of the story. i have about 2k words written (outside of the template's code) and 7/12 (players will see 2) passages for the opening scene are complete.

some stat/coding stuff still needs fixing (mainly that using '!headertext' doesn't seem to be working on the stat pages?) but i'm pretty proud of how far i've gotten thus far, especially since TID is massive in comparison to my other project. it also has a lot more RPG-esque elements and is looking to be very, very branching-heavy.

snippet:

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you guys really like vampires, huh

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No need to answer this question, I was wondering about the terrain or just the general setting of this story, such as anything that you drew inspiration from to create this landscape? What genre(s) would you put your story into? I ask partly because I think it'll help me get a better grasp of this world you're generously sharing with us.

okay this is one that i took A WHILE to answer partly because ??? up till now the world was just sort of nebulously floating around in my head. like there's a map somewhere up in my skull but i'm not allowed in the same room as it and just have to get descriptions from someone shouting them through a door lmfao.

firstly, the easy part; genre. dark fantasy and psychological horror :]

secondly; setting. under the cut because this got LONG and has quite a few images for examples.

so, to start out with, Ghel (the nation TID is set in) is cold. for the most part i'd compare it to Scotland, both in climate and appearance. not exactly a 'it's constantly snowing, all year' type of cold but more a persistent, always-chilly type of cold. y'know, a place where it gets to like 70 degrees (Fahrenheit because i'm a filthy American) and that's considered high.

in the north of Ghel, it's rocky and mountainous, and numerous rivers line the landscape. farming is next to impossible there, and so people turn to the fur trade, fishing, and logging to make ends meet. aesthetically, it's most similar to the highlands of Scotland. pictures below of how it imagine it + credit links:

left, right

the south of Ghel is more temperate, though still not warm by any means. it's hilly but much more open. trees aren't very common and the majority of the south is dominated by an open, dry tundra. farming is performed here more often than it is in the north, but it's still quite limited because the climate still doesn't tend to play nice with many crops. animal husbandry is often the most profitable business, especially so with sheep and goats. most of the horses found across Ghel are bred here, save for the rarer northern steed. pictures below:

left, right

though most of Ghel is landlocked (or, rather, its edges are mostly covered in hard-to-traverse mountains that make coastal access difficult), in the east it opens up into a cliffy region known simply as the Eastern Shore. there are areas where the Shore slopes down to meet the waterline, but it is mostly dominated by cliffs and harsh terrain. pictures:

left, right (i think the photos you can find on the neathwaters/left page are really good reps of what most of Ghel looks like. as far as i know, they're all from the Isle of Skye in Scotland :D)

ty for the ask and i hope this helped :]