kaatiba

[kaatiba]

❝ There's this dream I keep having. Maybe it's more of a nightmare, but I don't wake screaming from it.

In the dream, I'm standing outside my house. It's winter. The world is blue, the snow is high. The lights are all on, glowing warm yellow. Music spills faint from behind the glass.

There's no door.

I stand there, looking in.

Nobody looks back at me, but they know I'm there. ❞

— Winter

#q'd

[kaatiba]

❝ There's this dream I keep having. Maybe it's more of a nightmare, but I don't wake screaming from it.

In the dream, I'm standing outside my house. It's winter. The world is blue, the snow is high. The lights are all on, glowing warm yellow. Music spills faint from behind the glass.

There's no door.

I stand there, looking in.

Nobody looks back at me, but they know I'm there. ❞

— Winter

[kaatiba]

21, 36, 38 ? 👀✒️

Thank you so much for the ask, @kaatiba!!!

21.  Who is/are your favourite character(s) to write?

You're making me choose my favorite children. I love them all equally.

Buuuut...if I really had to choose, September would be the clear winner in my Festival Project wip. He's messy and contains multitudes (in both the literal and figurative sense). Following quickly behind him and tied in second place is Hero and Mariela. Mariela for being a combative live wire and Hero for doing his best, even when he'd rather go to bed.

36.  Last sentence you wrote

But [September] braces himself for when he can’t. When staring into the dark void in that bright halo of light will make him shatter across his timeline.

38.  Weirdest story idea you’ve ever had

The most recent weird idea I've had (and executed) is a story about a gas station employee working the night shift and attending to the needs of unique otherworldly clientele. The story opens with the main character having their brain scrambled while trying to interpret a request for gum.

#idk ur boy September but on the name alone i already love him #so off i go to discover more about him!!! #also that last line!!!!!! TIME TRAVEL? DIMENSION TRAVEL? EXISTING ON MULTIPLE TIMELINES? IDK BUT IM EXCITED TO FIND OUT #ooooh gas station story sounds so cool bc! liminal spaces!!!! #replies #fellowship*

[kaatiba]

can't stop thinking about how the "convinced to return for one last job" trope is a kind of resurrection. digging up a restless corpse that maybe should have stayed buried.

#Tropes and archetypes

[kaatiba]

Text: The priests have been crushing fertilized basilisk eggs into my food for years, hoping I’ll develop Death’s Sight. The fifth egg I steal from the kitchen manages to hatch. My first and only friend.

Goes with this prompt, if you like

#prompts #q'd

[kaatiba]

The Storyteller, The Djinn & The Prince ✧ a WIP Re-Introduction

The crown prince has been kidnapped by the djinn, and his mother will stop at nothing to find him and bring him home, even if it means marching into the realm of the Unseen on what everyone insists is a hopeless mission. He's gone, she is told. Grieve him, for he is as good as dead. If he is returned to you, he will not be the same child you knew. But he isn't dead, and Queen Sirin refuses to accept his loss, refuses to grieve him, even if she is called mad for her insistence that he is alive, for her determination to rescue him. She cares not that no one has ever returned from such a venture. She's going to save her son or die trying. Enter Halah; the only person taken by the djinn who claims to have escaped them, rather than been returned. Only she can lead Queen Sirin and her cousin, Raoul, into the Unseen realm and guide them through the kingdom of the djinn...so when Sirin pleads for her help, she agrees. She can't abandon a child, even one she doesn't know. Even if it does mean returning to the last place in all the realms she ever wants to see again...

[[ Updates below the cut! ]]

Sixteen-ish years of working on this wip and I finally have a title! My favourite thing about the new title is that it all refers to multiple characters, which is SO fun to me. Spoilers though, so I shan't say more about that.

The title came to me just after suhoor (~6 am) in March, and I was so excited I immediately jotted it down in my phone before I fell asleep. Legends of Mourra was always the series title, but the volume I've been working on is the first in a series of standalone novels set in this world I've created!

For the longest time, I'd been planning for LofM to be a duology + a spin-off. But as volume no.1's story changed (and as I've changed as a writer), I've come to realize and accept that this is going to be a self-contained story and it works so much better that way. I've finally fully let go of the last remnants of the Grand™ Plot spanning entire decades that I'd initially conceived of. The Storyteller, The Djinn, & The Prince will be very much in the vein of a tale from Arabian Nights, self-contained and (hopefully) satisfying.

I've also finally allowed this to be truly my MC Halah's story, which is reflected in the title (she's the storyteller....or, one of them...). Weird, I know, but I'd initially wanted to write this from the pov of a 'sidekick' to the 'main heroes', but that meant I'd resisted actually letting Halah be a fully realized character. It made my story feel very flat and surface level. I only belatedly realized I could still make it seem so from the perspective of the events that occur in-universe, while still allowing Halah to be the main character of her own life, as we all our to ourselves.

I'll keep the tags I've been using because I'm used to them, so if you want more updates you can keep an eye on the #lofm.wip and #lofm.inspo tags specifically or #kaatibawrites tag more generally.

Thanks for reading!

[kaatiba]

❝ Lately, the dream's changed.

It's early morning. The sun hasn't risen yet, but the sky's the colour of cherry blossoms, pale and a little pink, a little blue. The air is sweet. The birds are singing.

In the dream, I'm surrounded by trees, all new-touched green. The grass is soft under my bare feet. Somebody's laughing, out of sight but approaching. I turn to greet them, already smiling. I hold out my hand.

It's clasped warmly.

I'm not home yet, but I'm on my way. I know I'll get there soon. ❞

— Spring

❝ There's this dream I keep having. Maybe it's more of a nightmare, but I don't wake screaming from it.

In the dream, I'm standing outside my house. It's winter. The world is blue, the snow is high. The lights are all on, glowing warm yellow. Music spills faint from behind the glass.

There's no door.

I stand there, looking in.

Nobody looks back at me, but they know I'm there. ❞

— Winter

#kaatibawrites #poetry #me writing a response to myself months later. amazing #things get better #despite all my own pessimism and hopelessness

[kaatiba]

#Asterisk or line break on ao3 #Writerly #Polls

[kaatiba]

Find the Word Tag

@loopyhoopywrites tagged me a while ago! Thank you :D

My words were smile, slip and song. From that short story about mummies and a murder:

Smile

What Wenuray asked of me twisted my heart, though his words—for a moment—were enough to convince me. Praise often does that. I even smiled at him before I left.

Slip: none.

Song -> Sang

Nothing but us and the butterflies, messengers of death, approached the caves. From the start, this had been a sacred hollow waiting to be filled, and so we filled it, bringing in our wise dead, whose bones sang.

I'm tagging @bluberimufim, @ace-malarky, @rainbow-colored-writer, @kaylinalexanderbooks and @oh-no-another-idea --and/or anyone who wants to do this! Your words are sweet, poke, hood and line.

#As ever your writing is phenomenal #That smile excerpt!!!! #Aspirational tbh #Fellowship*

[kaatiba]

Whenever people try to tell me to ship "moral ships" I like to think about how inherently immoral it is to flirt with service workers at coffee shops where they're obliged to be nice to you so... many coffee shop AUs are like. Immoral. But given that they are a fantasy where this is instant romance without the fear of trapping a service worker in an uncomfortable situation that's tantamount to workplace sexual harassment, I enjoy the cutesy coffee shop AUs immensely.

And that's basically my attitude towards all fantasy. There's lots of things I enjoy in fantasy that wouldn't work IRL. Enemies to lovers. Sudden kisses. Miscommunications in relationships. Codependency. Fight sluts who physically assault each other while emotionally connecting.

Once you start ascribing your morals to the fiction you consume, you tend to miss the issues in even the most innocuous, innocent seeming scenarios. It's easy to judge other people's fictional enjoyment until someone points out your innocent coffee shop AU is romanticised workplace harassment.

But it's all fiction. It's a fantasy. That's why it's fine.

A lack of education around things like consent, healthy relationships, self respect and respect of others, bodily autonomy, etc, has made people think they can rely only on fiction to tell them what right - but that's dangerous. And unsustainable.

#Tropes and archetypes #YES #we need to bring back ymmv and your squick is not my squick and don't like don't read! #Literary #Writerly

[kaatiba]

[kaatiba]

#fellowship* #poetry

[kaatiba]

Deep Water Prompt #3278

Magic runs bone deep in a host, and stays there after death. Bones left to family or friends in wills can be placed in new bodies, through sorcery or surgery, and work almost just as well.

#Prompts #!!!!

[kaatiba]

Text: This particular fight club is brutal, no rules and only one shady medic. But unlike most clubs, they don’t test for shapeshifters, desperate for cash and willing to lose four times a night.

#GLITCH WIP GLITCH WIP GLITCH WIP #glitch.wip #prompts

[kaatiba]

Vaguely Summarized WIP Tag

Tagged by @talesofsorrowandofruin here!

Gently tagging: @cowboybrunch @space-writes @mysticstarlightduck @acertainmoshke @mister-writes @writingrosesonneptune

Rules: Summarize your WIP in 15 2-5 word bullet points (as if you were trying to summarize it in 15 seconds)

I’ll go ahead and do this for TFE because personally, I’d love to know what it’s about (outlining is fun). I may have gone too silly with this.

Emo man grows sadder every day

Victim of tyranny gives up on people, turns to the animal kingdom

You get angst, and you get angst! Everybody gets some aaaaaaangst!

“We all go a little mad sometimes.”

Irresponsible man adopts child to cope with feelings of loneliness

Women run the show and the men go to therapy

Gardening can be evil

Flashbacks are a special kind of magic

Mountain woman shows her affection through violence

Letter writing as a form of therapy

Local woman accidentally starts a cult

“Ah! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!”

The “Holding Out for a Hero” scene in Shrek 2 but with bats instead of a giant cookie

The real hero is environmentalism

Everyone gets to admire the night sky

#Mountain woman shows her affection through violence I LOVE HER #fellowship*

[kaatiba]

#lofm.inspo

[kaatiba]

Character Voice

"Fascinating…"

I was tagged by @tildeathiwillwrite! :D

My phrase was: "Fascinating…"

---

Hhamath: "How strange…."

Athetæm: "Please, go on~"

Shryth: "Wait-wait, wait, wait, do that again."

Ohrik: "Woah, weird!"

Narak: "Oh, interesting…."

---

Gently tagging @afoolandathief, @amethystpath-writes, @kaatiba, @those-damn-snippets, @serenanymph, @surplus-of-sarcasm, @written-in-starlight, and, as always, anyone else who wants to play! :D

Your phrase today is:

"Pass me that?"

#NICE #fellowship* #thanks for the tag!