#WroughtWorlds 2024-01-27 : Characters : Music :
Do you have theme songs for characters, or places, in mind when writing?

More frequently these days.

#TaRegi has a playlist that's 90% set, but may end up with additional tracks as I round out Cantata Of The Wild Soul.

Amara ( #Dulcamara ) has a playlist that's set. Amara canonically sings sea shanties including a slightly different version of Sleeping In The Cold Below,

The Island of Myrkur from Wytch-Fork, sounds like Yulunga (Spirit Dance) by Dead Can Dance. It's a profoundly spiritual place, and where witches drift to when they start hearing The Song of Wyytra.

#PennedPossibilities 193 — How easy is it to gain your MC or SC's trust? Once their trust is broken, how might one go about mending it?

Ta'regi : You earn her trust slowly and with deliberate purpose. If you weren't working towards her trust and she say "I trust you." that really means "I have several contingency plans." You can't break her trust if you never earned it. If you do break it, you're fucked for life. If you sufficiently screw her over, she will kill you at some point in the future. Or you will live with the knowledge that she actively stalking you, an will catch you the second your guard is dropped. Her patience and memory are on par with a Tome of Grudges.
Parthia (aka pre-Ta'regi) wasn't so guarded with her trust, but in that life she also never experienced a significant or non-understandable breach of trust.

Amara on the other hand.
She has 2 tiers of trust. There is "trust" then there is "TRUST.". If she "trusts" you, it's not 'leeway of faith', rather it's more she has you figured out, and she's 95% certain about how you'll act and react. If she says "I trust you." it means she's confident your ability or how you'll react if a situation goes off plan. You don't break this level of trust so much as she re-asses what she can expect from you.
"TRUST" takes years if not decades. Her wife, The Sisterhood, and Oma Isley+husband, are the only people she "TRUSTS".

#TaRegi #Dulcamara

#WordWeavers 2024-01-13
What convictions or values drive your characters?

This is an interesting one

Amara ( #Dulcamara ) has been pretty open to me about the ethos that drives her & the Solanum Sisterhood.
“Don’t kill if you can wound, don’t wound if you can subdue, don’t subdue if you can pacify, and don’t raise your hand at all until you’ve first extended it”

Ours is the law of Rekinding.

We do not make pacts of servitude, or kiss the arse of gods in expectation of favour and power.
We worship with reverence and due respect.
There is agreement, consent, and reciprocation in kind."

There are a few exceptions where Amara 'breaks code' as it were. She was badly abused as a kid, and if she sees someone hit, or else wise mistreat a kid, she will set upon the abuser with fierce vengeance.
If you hit a kid and she sees, BAM! there's a fist in your face if you're lucky, a bear biting offf your hand if you're unlucky. Amara doesn't fuck around, and she doesn't hold back.


#TaRegi Though.. That question gets tricky. I know her spiritual beliefs, and the intense affinity and connection to nature. I know she has a very strong sense of what belonging to a community and family means and the responsibility there of (which is why she makes the choice she does after battling the creature that killed her husband).
Those wheel spokes I know well, and how they keep her rolling.

But there is something else there that she doesn't talk about.

It's not something she hides out of shame.

The vibe I get when talking to her is a very staunch "This subject is not open for conversation, even in vague terms."
So I curb my curiosity, and leave that mystery alone. She'll talk /if/ she wants to.

#WritersCoffeeClub 2024 01-07
Do you have an epilogue in any of your writing? How do you feel about them?

Yes. I posted one approximately 6days ago, that covers the aftermath in Amara's ( #dulcamara ) backstory.
If you want to read it (the epilogue) it's tagged #DvK , warning it involves a quick but mildly brutal revenge murder.

I like them. I don't always write one. I usually use them as a vignette for cleaning crumbs from the table after dinner (such as resolving what happened to the instigator of one the worst experiencs in Amara's life). Or if I get the itch to setup for a follow up story.

#WroughtWorlds 2024 01-05 : World Building :
Do you have'in universe' poetry, prose, or music?

Oh absolutely.
I have a note book rife with songs, folk sayings, nursery rhymes, and etc.

Amara ( #Dulcamara ) ear-wormed me once by singing " 🎶Avrashii! Avrashii! Dance a little dance with me!🎶 "
It took a month to work out the rest of the song.

Then there's things that are a part of a story but not featured in a story. Such as the children's rhyme from #TaRegi / Parthia's village

🎶Ta-regi, ta-regi,
Lurking in the woods,
Ta-regi, ta-regi,
Sleeping in a tree,
Little kids get,
Home by dark,
Or Ta-Re-Gi,
They will see🎶

#AmWriting #FantasyWriting #WorldBuilding #Writing

Parafraseando la frase, “para gustos hicieron flores”. Me gusta éstas de la #dulcamara Solanum dulcamara L. presentes en #Asturias en mayo, no mayores de dos centímetros. El color morado de los pétalos lanceolados combina, resaltando, con el amarillo de las cónicas anteras.

I forget what tv show it was, but one of the characters lashed back at some people for making fun of how she mispronounces words in english, or doesn't correctly use english idioms. I forget most of what she said, BUT, I remember her clearly punctuating with "I'm very smart in Spanish."

I think about that a lot when I talk to Amara ( #Dulcamara ).
Her situation is not quite the same, but has parallels.
She speaks a fractured common, because she wasn't properly taught how to speak until about 12 or 13 when Oma Isley took her in.
Within the Sisterhood, they nearly always speak in an mix of older + archaic Druidic.
So while common is her first language, it isn't her primary language.

She thinks in Druidic, and has to translate to common before speaking.

When she talks, it sounds much like the stereotype of Eastern European speaking english with a heavy accent.

If she has to speak common, she's not persuasive, or overly articulate

If you speak Druidic, she is as smart as a cat-o-nine is brutal.

And she does leverage the assumption most make based on how she speaks common.
She has hustled people in bars to get boat fare.

#WritersCoffeeClub 1/2: Do you have other artistic leanings? How do these affect your writing?

I sketch and draw. Frequently I sketch out apparel for the characters I chronicle such as #TaRegi and #Dulcamara

Even the icon I use for this account is for the NHP (non human person) #531L or "VEIL" as they go by

Being able to draw helps me visualize what the characters describe to me.
Ta'regi's story, Cantata of the Wild Soul, would translate well into a comic book or animated film with how she speaks and relays her story to me.

#Writing #AmWriting #FantasyWriting #SciFiWriting #DnD #Lancer

#DnD #TTRPGS #Backstory #Dulcamara #VanKlauster#FantasyWriting #DvK
And... it flipped the order of the screen caps