Sometimes I wonder just who the angels are and who are the demons.

I am the mother of demons. Doomed to watch a thousand of my progeny die a day. Just because I wouldn't stay with my husband.

We'd been created together by the god and goddess. Then my mother left and things got... worse. So I left my husband and I paid a steep price for it.

Meanwhile father made my brother a new wife. From his rib.

I stayed out of sight for eons, birthing countless demons. Watching them die instantly sometimes. The pain of watching your children die is immeasurable. Seeing your children die, especially when you know they should be immortal is beyond your imagination. I live this immortal life with that pain.

My poor darling ones. If I'd known, I don't know if I would have still paid it. I'm sorry.

Then the angels rebelled. They had had children with the mortals. Adam's brood of forever multiplying humanity. The Nephalim were destroyed, the fallen ones were angry. They sought me out in my home looking for shelter. I gave them Hell, curious to see what Eden was like now.

The first cities rose, the deluge came and went. I had children with mortal men, I produced heroes. Doomed to die, but somehow this was better.

My heroes were monstrous. Beautiful charismatic creatures. Far more beautiful and long lasting than my poor doomed Lillim.

Father noticed, looking as my children led his flock astray. Occasionally he'd send envoys. To offer me a new deal.

I ignored him. I missed mother.

I kept having mortal children, who because they were so charismatic, had immortality of a sort.

As the eons go on, they still do.

You know when you hear the fairy tales of heroes and beautiful princesses who's mother died mysteriously? It's always me. They are always my children. When you hear about a benevolent fairy? Or nature helping the poor princesses, or put upon girls? Always me.

All those wicked stepmothers are innocent. They aren't evil. They always try to stop my beautiful children wrecking havoc upon the world.

They fail, and their stories are corrupted.

Meanwhile my beautiful monsters rule the world. They spoil my father's creation.

Humans are doomed to die, I mourn these children as well.

My mother waits for me in a better place. Perhaps all of my children are with her.

I could leave at any point and join her. But my father is the Demiurge. I won't stop until the end of the world and I will trap my father in this existence.

I'm like my mother.

I learned patience.

#quickfic #writing

Petra has just ruined her prospects and those of her sisters, as the son of the Mayor of their town has just asked her rather publicaly to leave her alone. In her third season of being out.

Her elder brother is away on his Honeymoon with his wife, and her favourite brother Peter is no longer there either. She wants to learn and do engineering. To build things.

By the town, she was already considered odd. This recent incident has made things worse. She writes to her Uncle, as she is close to him.

Petra's uncle (on her mothers side) agrees to take her own, and persuade her mother that the best thing is for Petra to go with him, to hopefully improve her sister' prospects.

Petra packs her clothes, but also packs the clothes her brother Peter left behind.

She and her uncle decide to have her attend as Peter, who went through the Portal a few years before. The Scholomanse is about to have a new set of students and “Peter” can attend. Petra used to attend in the summer when she was a child. Her uncle used to let her sit in with Peter. She had gone to stay with her Uncle when her brother was starting to look at marriage prospects for him and her eldest sister.

Peter like Petra, were more focused on the pursuit of knowledge than the pursuit of marriage.

Their uncle looked after them both in the summer during the season, but also over some Winters. Peter signed up for the Scholomanse and volunteered to go through the Portal 2 years before.

The Scholomanse teaches Natural Science, as well as advanced engineering and mathmatics. But every 10 years a portal opens, one way. Petra had been asked by her mother to go back to start her seasons. Petra would have preferred to stay, but Peter made her go, to keep their mother happy. Petra's still not sure how she feels about that given the fact that Peter then walked through the Portal.

Cue several years of boredom on the Marriage Mart until the Mayors second son appears in town.

He's awkward, but fascinated by engineering and is giving free lectures in the hopes of raising interest and patronage. He needs to be there as his family want him married well. She hears about the lectures and keeps sneaking in.

He thinks she's missish and when he was giving a general lesson on well being from the East. He snapped as there's been a relentus pursuit of him by the unmarried women. He didn't want to come back, but his family were reassigned and now are ruling this town. Although she was asking him questions about his experiments and his work.

So when she no longer appears and his mother is hounding him about his prospects he suggested Petra. His family point out, she's left and good riddance. Odd girl.

He departs for University again.

5 years later, the young man who ruined Petra's prospects signs up for the Scholomanse.

#petra #writing

Dreamnotes and stalking

I had a dream once about a stalker and the internals of the dream were interesting. Like psychic powers and everything the mechanics and rules in this dream verse were amazing.

I developed rules for evading the other person. Down to like rose quartz as a psychic blocker.

Including as to why it started.

Although having been stalked in real life I'm not sure I'll ever put it to paper. Perhaps I'll write it and then just not publish one day.

But perhaps the reason for the dream was trying to rationalise why the stalking happened.

The dream was years ago. The stalking happened a decade before that. It was interesting ré reading my diaries from when the stalking happened. I was 17 at the time, I was frightened and very angry.

Even now over 2 decades later it gives me pause.

I don't think I could publish a story about possession in that way. But perhaps there's a way to rewrite the idea.

What gets me in the dream that I cinematically lit one particular scene, where my character is looking right at her stalker and he can't see her, or detect her with his telepathy because she's wearing a rose quartz necklace.

He's lit in blue light.

And she escapes because the nightclub is the cotton club in Aberdeen in the 90s. With entrances on Union Street and justice Mill lame

The thing is the start of the fleeing was in Edinburgh on the A71. On a bicycle.

But it's definitely one of the reasons why my alt account fights for Privacy.

I'm very privileged to be able to campaign for Privacy under my real name.

I'm also very privileged to live in a different country from my stalker now.

Still that terror and anger at the same time. Sometimes it feels remote. Then it comes, to the surface. Especially when I read my own words at 17. Doubting myself. Wondering if it could have gone a different way.

Truth is, no it would not have.

When I look back at my life, and think about the efforts relatives did to try to find me, it seems a bit unreal. Like from a novel or something.

Or remembering being stalked as a teenager by a man in his 20s. While dealing with other crap from other boys in school who were pissed off I didn't like their friend in that way. (although that boy didn't stalk me, which is a pretty low bar).

It seems like a crazy plot from a drama. But it happened.

Plus so many other folks will have had similar circumstances.

Which makes me a little sad, and very angry.

When I read my diaries from that time, I was sad, angry and very scared.

So progress I guess. 

Although one of the boys who was pissed off with me, did apologise 6 months later, which was nice.

Although by then I'd somehow deleted that out of my head, so at the time of the apology I was very puzzled as to why he felt the need to.

#writing #DreamNotes #WorldBuilding

Glass coffin notes fragments.

No one ever tells you where the stories came from. They only tell you fragments to explain the props. The glass coffins, the maidens inside them littered about our Forest.

Our forest is beautiful, in the Spring the bright green of young leaf growth with the strengthening light of the sun there's a promise of life. In the Summer the full richness of Oak in full leaf dappling the wood, although in places darker. Autumn brings the rich colours of brown, and red with golden leaves.

Winter is stark and empty the chill of the air with the sleep of the trees.

The maidens still lie there in their glass coffins forever preserved in their beauty as if in sleep. But as long as they are asleep we are safe. In this Forest the coffins have a purpose.

---

We light a candle for an awoken, when we kill her.

I light this for a friend.

Sometimes an awoken wakes hundreds of years after she fell asleep. No one knows their names, if they loved, who loved them.

We light a candle for all our sisters. I lit one for my mother.

I'm scared. I don't want to sleep, to change.

I don't know what would be a worse fate. Waking with no one to remember me, or for a friend to light a candle in grief.

I loved her.

#GlassCoffin #writing

Glass Coffin January Writing wonders fragments.

Writing Wonders Day 1: Introduce yourself and your WIP with a theme song.

I'm a base amateur writer finally starting to put the plots from my head on to the page. The current WIP I am meant to be working on is a varient on Snow White as a warrior turning into a monster, hunting her own kind who've already turned.

This is one of the songs from a playlist I have for that WIP.

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=GeEuEzoJx5w

Although for my other WIP Kimbras On top of the world's video really encapsulates the driving force for a trapped Goddess kind off. She's perceived as a goddess.

But she's trapped against her will in a magic sword that drinks souls and its getting crowded.

She's kinda the driving reason for the antagonist.

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=e4FApt6z55c

Writing Wonders day 2 — Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

Well I'm currently in the middle of an inspiration storm that came from a very confusing dream. Often the kernels of a story come from a dream I've woken from going how would the dream have continued?

But fairy tales, mythology and history are also very close inspirations. Especially if you can mash them up.

I suspect my teenage reading of science fiction and fantasy played a huge part.

having traveled a little and spent a month in some places far away also helps.

Our different cultures can often feel very alien to each other. The dramas in being the outsider there.

the cool thing about fantasy is that space and time can be mashed up as well. Like you could have a lost kingdom from ancient times disappear into a side pocket dimension, then have folks from another time period come in. Like Knights from the crusades, or from a different culture entirely.

Anything can go.

Plus sadly we also have history to give us an idea with what could happen, with colonization.

Although perhaps the pocket dimension gets other cultures flooding in too, so it's not all one sided.

Although the Knights could also be wounded and pursued so not on top form. It's our playground, so we should play.

Writing Wonders Day 3. What's your antagonist's worse fear?

I think my antagonists worst fear has already happened.

She's lost out on love to her own sister, settled down to slumber in her glass coffin and no one was waiting for after her sleep. She sings in the forest trying to lure the man she loved out there.

It's the same fear her niece the Heroine fears. She can see her own future in her aunt. She fears becoming a mindless monster.

Even the monsters though serve a purpose to protect the land from invaders. Its the price paid the bargain struck with a god.

Their people were fleeing invaders, who'd pushed them from land to land, and at the edge they prayed to their god and a bargain was struck.

With continuous payment. Because its mainly the descendants of the leader that turn. It's usually the women as well.

Some sleep and never seem to wake up. But occasionally one wakes from her glass coffin and hunts.

The forest is littered with glass coffins.

There's an extra tragedy as well, because in most cultures kin slaying is taboo. Mostly the hunters hunt their own kin to protect their society.

But sometimes the gods demand blood as the price for protection.

When the coffin is abandoned, with someone not using it eventually it will break down. Much like Lucy in Dracula even an awakened one uses a coffin as a home, to lure in prey.

You can't tell the difference between a sleeper and an awoken. Both have the appearance of beautiful women sleeping.

There are some coffins that have laid there for nearly a 1000 years.

Occasionally a sleeper wakes and has someone waiting. So the coffin is left. The heroines mother had her father waiting.

I'd say she's a siren. Or at the very least a man eating monster in the forest. Who happens to be able to lure men with song. But once upon a time she was human.

Writing Wonders Day 4 – Describe the sound of your MC's voice.

Well my Male MC has the well spoken voice of a Knight with the kind of accent you end up with from traveling. Often accents do change as you level your dialect. it's a tenor voice, not too high, not too deep.

My female MC, well that's harder to tell. She's well spoken but speaks with a slightly accented voice, given the fact she's on her way to turning into a monster who lures men, who knows if that's what she sounds like?

what does your MC wear on a typical day?

It depends on where she is, out on a hunt she wears warm layers with oiled leather. Stout boots.

At home she wears soft wool and linen. With soft boots. She likes to be warm.

It's always damp in the forest, with the, chill seeping into everything. Although particularly the toes, the moment there's any moisture from exertion it chills.

Luckily it's rare an expedition takes more than a few days. There are some hot pools near her home and bathhouses built there.

She endures the damp and cold until she's back from the hunt.

Writing Wonders Day 6

What is your MC's most treasured posession?

The male MC volunteered for an order that guarded certain artifacts that gave the order economic and political power. Although now the orders been disbanded. With him holding on to the artifacts to keep them away from those in power.

My female MC has a few small keepsakes from her mother. But she's preparing to leave those with family as she will become a sleeper soon. Her equipment for the hunt are tools to her. I do know that it's from her mothers childhood in the forest. Her mother met her father in the forest when they were children. She and her sister were adopted into the town from the forest.

It's interesting looking at the two very different motivations for keeping those possessions.

It opens up questions as to how easily those possessions will be let go off and why. 

I think it definitely gives a window into the minds of those characters at the start of the story.

Writing wonders Day 7: How does your MC deal with stress?

It depends on the circumstances. In the forest the stress of the hunt is limited, she can get through that with training and her team.

The stress at home tends to be worrying about the future. She doesn't do as well with that, she tends to repress it and find other pursuits like historical research from the cultures that have ended up in her home. She is very good at distracting herself till the next hunt.

As for my male MC he's currently very stressed and worried for his brother.

This is rather new to him and he's very confused about the situation. He is finding it hard to think clearly. Now he's in a relatively safe place he's not sure what to do or how he's feeling.

He's stuck in a strange place. Which is stressful. He's distracting himself by focusing on his brother's recovery and finding out where they are.

Writing Wonders Day 8: Name one scent and one sound that evokes pleasant memories for your MC.

The smell of the forest in spring, particularly round the lake with the tree houses. Occasionally she hears her father sing, it brings back memories of her parents singing together in the, springtime as the trees blossomed.

My male MC likes the smell of polish, when he's in downtime he takes care of his armor and equipment . It brings back memories of his novitiate and training. It steadies him.

My male MC likes the sound of hoof beats as he travels to a new place. The motion stilling his worries letting his mind free as he rides.

Writing Wonders day 9 Name one person your MC trusts

For my female MC she trusts 2 people, fraternal twins, they started out in the hunt as part of her team of 7. The twins are the only ones bar their mage who's survived from the beginning of her training.

My male MC trusts his brother the most. His brother risked every thing to save his life by warning him that his order was being disbanded and being tried for heresy.

Writing Wonders Day 10 How would your MC's closest friend describe them?

Withdrawn, sad, drawing away from them. When they started out training was fun, but she's put off her change for years, resisting becoming a sleeper. But the change is pulling her away none the less.

My Male MC's brother knew him as a happy child, he's now getting to know the man the boy became. But in essence he knows he's loyal to his friends and comrades.

#GlassCoffin #writing

Toot storm of inspiration about a Regency Punk Story set in the Scholomanse on Jan 02, 2023, 11:53

Oh no no no random idea from a dream,

I have at least 2 WIPs I do not need a third.

I certainly need to stop plotting it out from beyond the dream. #Writing

I've spent about an hour finagleing it in my head.

Fine new idea, you win, There's a page at the back of my writing notebook now! Luckily it's the kind of notebook that has cream and brown sectioned pages. Which lends it self to scene notes, character notes, place notes etc. The spare section at the back is handy. Now pretty please, I'd like my brain to go back to the Nanowrimo plot. Please?

Shakes fist! “you've won this round dream idea!”

There's a girl learning forbidden knowledge dressed as a boy because she's decided she's sick of the boy's nonsense. She's just gone away.

She's learning about stuff where she has to go on an expedition.

He's clueless and wondering where she went. All this from some random weird yoga class dream where there was an argument. Like how?

It was weird, there was some other stuff in the dream, like some engineering type stuff, which is why the girl was around the boy because she was curious about that, then it came to a climax because for some reason he was giving some form of weird yoga class and she was too close and he was mean to her. So she realised he found her irritating and she decided to leave him alone. I feel there's a lot of my teenage subconscious past stuff going on there.

and like now there's some definite trope stuff with her pretending to be her dead brother.

He's never even heard she has a brother and he's like so confused and she keeps avoiding him, because she in no way wants to irritate him again.

I feel like I was way way too invested as a teen in Shakespeare's habit of dressing girls as boys for reasons......

thanks, it's not often I get a dream like that and my brain goes how would this continue?

So I needed to get it down before breakfast somewhere

and now I know what the knowledge is for, the Scholomance, except the devil taking one of the scholars isn't actually the devil, its the portal to a strange world.

I do not need this when I'm trying to serve breakfast!

like I'm in the middle of an inspiration storm.

Which is nice, but I was happy plotting my other story.

But they are both awkward and bless her she just wants to learn, she can't be arsed with courting.

Which is why he thought she was hanging around. Why has this idea suddenly gone regency science fantasy? Is #RegencyPunk a thing?  Well there's a plot sketch 2 pages long now. If there's more I can add to the section.

I know the girl is called Petra now. like such a strong impression. She knows who she is.

She's also the kinda person who's good at slipping away unnoticed. Good timing that.

#petra

Fragments from Rosamundi, one of my WIPs

It's weird the way that when you are in the middle of doing other things, your brain pops up going “I now know what this random character does.”

Like now I know my MC's Father can always hear her aunt sing in the forest, trying to lure him out.

But he's never tempted. Because he heard my MC's mothers song in his head long before he met her. The aunts song, led him to find MC's mother.

But he still listens to the aunt singing.

Need to go and write this somewhere now.

#writing #rosamundi #SwordSoul

#WritingWonders 6.13 — Is there a corruption arc in your story?

OOH yes there is in the sword soul one. Although it's more a mild background one that post story will kill my MC. Well not directly, but she will need to be stopped.

The corruption started when she was small and she kept it at bay for years.