iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Thahira 🚩: Spiteful, catty, mean for fun ✅: FIERCELY loyal, will absolutely kill for you Daud 🚩: Super religious in an unaware way ✅: Sweetest most chivalrous most devoted man you'll ever meet #writingcommunity #ghostpit #amquerying

050 5

🛑 CW: nudity, burn mention 🛑 Daud recalls his first encounter with the Witch's Manikin, a costumed, heretical knight #WIPSnips #writingcommunity

1161 16

At the same time, "taking reflection" is similar to something like taking communion. Intentionally and privately viewing your reflection is seen as a holy act to clear the mind #amquerying #writingcommunity #darkfantasy

030 3

#OctoberWorldbuilders 28: In the west, sharing a reflection with someone is the same as sharing nudity. Fountains are made to froth, metal is forged covered in grit, windows stained or non-existent, all to make reflections harder to encounter by accident

150 5

Saintfire has not one but two gender-affirming-magic sex scenes (top and bottom ""surgery""). Now I just need to find my audience LOL #queerwriters #amquerying

061 6

In Saintfire, Thahira's weapon is her breath made magic through sacrifice. Daud's is a sword, though he goes through three: The first is humble and hand-forged, the second the glass sword of a desert assassin, and the third the legendary crystal blade of a saint. #amquerying

040 4

🛑 CW: animal and people violent death 🛑 When confronted with horrific violence, Thahira is reminded of a blood-curdling memory. #WIPSnips #writingcommunity

Thahira thought of Isogul. In the heart of the city was a moonless camp. A culture made on the fringe. Floors and walls built of thrown-out blankets. Broken furniture carved into divine idols. Constant prayer. Kindness, even from those who were shown no kindness.
In the heart of the camp was a pen peopled by fowl. Nearly sacred. Their eggs were collected and handed down, one to every woman and child. When the town was wanting and the merchants tightened their belts, when the storefronts kept even their fatty scraps to render into tallow, some of the birds were caught and slain. Every part of the body was used—bones for stock, blood for curd. The meat was pared out into gifts and handed around in offering, palm to waiting palm. Thahira remembered the first time she brought a scrap of the meat up to her lips, warm and crisp, juice rolling down her chin. She’d never eaten something warm before. It was lifeblood. It was salvation.
Then Thahira thought of the screams.
Embers danced up into the black sky like fall leaves in the wind. The moonlit men bundled up the salvaged blankets and threw them into the heap, swallowed up into the flames.

They didn’t even eat the chickens. They led their dogs, barking and scraping and white in the mouth, to the pen and kicked it open. They set them loose.
She watched through splayed fingers as the dogs ripped around the pen, catching and thrashing, catching and thrashing. The sacred chickens screamed and died, the sacred blood pooling into the dirt. Wings and feathers torn away, chomped to pieces in the mouths of dogs.
Even as people were beaten that night, even as they were killed, it was the chickens that she couldn’t forget. Lifeless bird eyes, used to being treated so tenderly, staring helplessly up into the churning black overcast.
Thahira thought of the chickens as the Bared White Fang tore his way through the guards and the noblemen of the Pit. Caught and thrashed, caught and thrashed. The Vapour on his hands was flared like fire, and every body he touched kindled and caught aflame. Most of the men fell to pieces from his attacks. They were lucky. The others died screaming, burning away to ash as they still lived.

0211 21

#OctoberWorldbuilders Day 27: Saintfire is about (among other things) finding community / love after trauma, and the difficulties and joys and sheer importance of that experience. I hope my readers hug their best friends after they put the book down. #writingcommunity #amquerying

241 4

P.S.: his inspiration came from the question "what if Killua Zoldyck didn't escape his family until he was much older and even more jaded?" Iykyk

010 1

He's remarkably funny, affable, and kind for what he's lived through, and acts as the biggest ally to my MCs throughout their gravest challenges I... love him a lot. Very dear character to me!

110 1

Caeus was the King's assassin until the job broke him, and he willingly spent six years as a prisoner in the royal fighting pits Throughout the second half of the book, he learns (or relearns?) that he's more than a broken weapon when he joins the MC's found family #writingcommunity #amquerying

120 2

25. Oh! I love this prompt. Gnosticism (esp valentinian) is a MASSIVE influence on the philosophy, religion, and magic of this book. 26. I did my best to be historically accurate to 12th-13th century Spain (and Gujarat India, for Thahira's 'backstory') #writingcommunity #amquerying

010 1

24. Extremely dark and intentionally troubling, but with a silver throughline of humanity, mortality, friendship, love... I've always called it a found family story, but family sometimes means confronting the darkness inside of others

110 1

23. "Aoudegar was a city unlike anything Daud had ever laid eyes on. Red stone walls, tiled with geometric patterns, stretched over the hills of Rodan... The buildings at the top of the hill had been walled and then—like a child outgrowing his hose—spilled out only to be walled again, and again."

100 1

21 cont. In the city, many people might be crammed into one house or people may have individual rooms, depending on wealth level. Architecture and culture is very 12th-13th century Spanish 22. See my friend's beautiful art here: bsky.app/profile/film...

100 1

20. The infrastructure was carved out by slaves during the Meridian occupation, and then repurposed after the Liberation 21. In the country, people live in family homes. Orphans might be squeezed in where they fit (e.g. Daud sleeps in a pigeon loft).

100 1

17. Food comes from farms surrounding hamlets and cities. Aoudegar, the capital, has been besieged so many times that its people have converted most rooftops into gardens 18. Wind and water powered mills (and beasts of burden) are the closest to automation in the setting 19. Aqueducts

100 1

15. The most significant trade route to the book is the one across the aforementioned Severn Expanse (analogous to the Silk Road, perhaps) 16. In the central country, Rodan, all are managed top-down. There are no organized police besides the occasional knight dispatched by the crown

110 1

13. Don't have one, but I've got a good saying for you: - "The only dents on his plate are from hunting girdles." - A good insult for a fancy lad 14. Have keen eyes, good control of your horse, and good aim with your lance

100 1

12 cont. 'True' huntmire is played on horseback, and girdles can only be stolen by being lanced thru the hooked ring. Peasants play 'village' huntmire on foot

100 1

10-11. Huntmire is competitive and team based... ...It's also the only one I've fleshed out for this setting besides real world sports (fox hunting, jousting, &c) 12. Huntmire is played by finding girdles hidden by a neutral party and bringing them back to the 'Hearth'. Teams often chase and quarrel

100 1

7. Dance is more popular to the east of the desert. In the west, dance is only really seen as acceptable on feast days (of course, every day is a feast day somewhere) 8. Daud played huntmire in his youth, a variant on hide and seek / capture-the-flag 9. Chess exists

100 1

5. The desert was once impossibly large, and completely untraversable. The heat could melt to the bone, and the wind could shear flesh. The world was folded by God's consort, King Berathrebahn, allowing humans to conquer it 6. By traveling in caravans that can hunker down to endure the wind / heat

100 1

Saintfire lightning round 1. The Severn Expanse 2. The desert is harsh enough to be uninhabited except by travelers, except at the fringes 3. It stretches from an Iberian inspired region all the way to the borders of the equivalent of the Indian subcontinent 4. Ibex, lizards, carrion birds, &c

120 2

Just found out my beautiful friend (the artist) has a bluesky too! Follow them here: @galpalz.bsky.social

000 0

Getting settled in bsky by following some writing community starter packs -- disappointed to see how many ""AI agents"" are included in these lists #writingcommunity #amquerying

050 5