Mastodawn

His hooves were exposed. The pauldrons had been left to hang in a nearby tree.

(N.E.R.D. and Rihanna - Lemon)

A stripe appeared on the other faun’s back. Blood slithered down her spine.
(Sam Smith, Kim Petras - Unholy)

<<Did Amalwe: ever watch you do this? Did he like it?>> asked Ildas.

(The Weeknd - Save Your Tears)

The fur on their legs was groomed neatly so that they shined. Each of them had down-turned faces concealed by hair. None of them were the faun Esor had seen with Corvin the other Night.

(ODESZA - A Moment Apart)

“You recall the story of Eriskidon’s forging of Redspine,” said Corvin. “How he murdered much of our bloodline, and thousands of others besides.

(M83 - Midnight City)

There used to be more fauns in the Republic. Amalwe: used my skills to find where they were hiding, and we…removed them. Many of them.

(Faithless - Killer's Lullaby)

“What does it mean?” asked Corvin, his voice betraying a tremor.
“It means we love one another,” said Esor.

(Woodkid - Iron)

“Two hundred,” he murmured. “Expensive gift for your Low lover.”
Magistrate Corvinde:, only weeks from his accession, kneeled naked at Ildas’s feet.

(M.I.A. - Bad Girls)

They were alone in Ildas’s Ralen office, built into the oversized skull of an ancient dire elk. If they had walked down the muzzle’s interior toward the inside edge of teeth, they could have looked through the sinuses at the Great Thicket, but they stood underneath the crown where it was most sheltered from Light.

(Grimes & i_o - Violence)

“I want more churches built before the end of the century, and I want the largest of them on the edge of the Aslas Barrens, where missionaries may strive to convert the filthy heathens of the dust.”

(Elderbrook - Inner Light)

He wanted this thing to be quiet so he could think, but the food did not silence her, and she would not eat. Ahnor simply bowed over with her head to her knees and kept crying.

(GUNSHIP - Ghost)

It's been about an hour. I added 750 words to the manuscript, but I was doing some cutting as I went along, so I think I wrote more like 1000 words. It was mostly filling in holes or else I think I'd have been speedier at it.

I'm trying to get myself amped up for this hard part I've been putting off writing for a couple weeks. For the moment, I'm taking a break.

@skimgoth Looks like things were pretty intense! I'm glad it seems to have gone well, depending on how you define it.

@ljwrites This whole part of the book is *so* intense. I'm building up to the climax (finally) after almost 270,000 words now, and everything gets very bad. I'm definitely leaning into the horror part of gothic horror!

@skimgoth Oh wow, that sounds exciting but hard! How do you feel about getting toward the end?

@ljwrites Honestly, at this point, I kinda just wanna get it done and out of my head. I'm starting to write "uglier" in the rough draft after progressing slower through the early bits just to fit it all together and see what it looks like. I'm not convinced it's going to work? I guess I'm feeling uncertain, then.

@skimgoth Sounds more than valid for a first draft tbh. The climax to ending can really feel like a tightrope act for me haha. Fortunately one with as many rehearsals and refinements permitted as necessary, but the nerves argh.

@ljwrites There's so much to pull together. And I traumatize the hero *really* hard between now and the end, so I'm thinking, do I want to do it like that, at this point? Most of my books have major trauma, but I wanted this one to also exemplify healing, so putting trauma right toward the end is like. hmm. I'm not going to extend the book too much if I do this? I hope? If I go too far beyond 300,000 words I will actually lose my mind, lmao.

@skimgoth Well, if leaving the protag/major character permanently traumatized with only the barest nod toward healing worked for The Hunger Games, Sense and Sensibility, Lord of the Rings and others... xD but yeah, I can totally see just wanting to be done at this point. Maybe that's why those other authors didn't get into a full healing arc for their protags lol.