#ldoo

I vaguely remember that I got tagged for this one or two years back already but I recently got tagged by @ettawritesnstudies again and I love it and some things changed sooo :D

These are mostly applicable to LDOO and Dream’s Shadow because while Hope Beyond has a lot of these themes, too, it’s not epic fantasy, not an actual novel, and has much less of a plot than the other stories :)

You know you’re in a Siarven novel if:

it’s set in another world (or several)

HOPEPUNK

an important theme is “the power of love, friendship, and kindness”

platonic love!!!!!!!!

despite that it’s still dark epic fantasy with a surprising amount of (body) horror

morally grey characters

trauma and angst for everyone! :)

--> everyone needs a therapist afterwards, and also a hug

there’s at least one child POV main character

--> galaxy brain meme: we don’t need tragic backstories if the WIP is the tragic backstory

it’s at least a trilogy and the scope escalates with every book

--> there’s either a time skip between books or the plot takes place over 10+ years (so they grow up!! :D)

there’s magic and it has Consequences™

--> oh you didn’t choose this? #oops :3c

there’s at least one aro-ace main character

slow burn!! pining!!!

someone does art as a coping mechanism

badass characters abound, but soft characters do, too. sometimes they’re the same person

betrayal and complex character motives

complicated family relationships

--> they’re either really close or they fight all the time

Found family!!! the obvious answer

overly complicated/thought-out worldbuilding including parts that won’t be relevant for any subplot ever

there are always dragons and cats

also other beasties: there are cute beasties & distinctly Not Cute ones

nature and trees abound

there was an apocalypse, either recently or in the past

speaking of subplots: too many (pov) characters / subplots

there are distinctly non-human entities that like/try to meddle

religion/culture are important themes

stories within stories!!! also MUSIC!!!!

(looming?) war and the complexities that brings

foreshadowing, re-framing, and plot twists >:3

any character might die. or something worse might happen to them

bittersweet ending

:)

this list started out really short and then in typical Jana fashion it escalated very badly XD #oops

(also the last few mean points are not hope beyond relevant. XD felt like I had to mention that again xD)

Don’t worry, the give away will last at least a few more days. To be honest, I’m not quite satisfied with the outcome, but I hope you like it anyway.

First of all I swear I’m not ignoring you, tumblr keeps forgetting to tell me that I got asks and I also wasn’t online for almost two weeks (except a bit on my phone and I have no idea how to answer asks on there??) but yeah I accidentally looked in here and ?!?!?! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH I’M SO SORRY, AND THANKS FOR ASKING :’D <333

Thank you so much for being interested in my dumb wips ;W; I also just noticed you sent me another asks weeks ago, AHHH I will answer that after this one x’D I am so sorry, thank you for bearing with me skdfjhskdf

ANYWAYS

Yesss, I have 3 wips! :D <333

The first and oldest one is called Dream’s Shadow (it went through a few title changes though) and the current horrible/dumb tagline is “boy’s should’ve-been-fatal-but-somehow-wasn’t accident drags him and his 2 sisters into an ancient conflict that could change the future of everyone forever”.

It’s dark epic fantasy, set in another world, but also hopepunk (so while it gets dark and there’s some (eye) body horror and monsters and stuff the tone isn’t bleak and hopeless and all that...) . It’s set in another world and is the first in a series where the scope escalates with every book (this one has a fairly small scope, “saving Ben” more or less :D)

Basically Ben (16) is in a coma, wakes as a ghost a few days later and needs to find out how to get back, if he even can, or wants to, and nobody knows what happened including him. His little sister Ava (8) has to keep their dysfunctional family together in his absence, she feels like she’s failing, and she can also see gods (well, entities...) in her dreams now, which is never a good sign. Their other sister, Elinor (14) gets involved in all of it, too, but explaining all that is a bit complicated. XD If you’re interested in the worldbuilding and more about that, though, I recently made a comic sans power point! :D

I also finished the 3rd draft a few weeks ago and it’s now going through some editing and then I will probably actually start betaing?? which is insane?????? I’ve been rewriting that thing off and on since NaNo 2014, what the heck, we’re actually getting somewhere now?! (It has basically nothing in common with draft 1 except 2 names and 2 plot points at this point. XD)

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My second WIP is Like Dragons of Old!

A feral, winged orphan girl and a librarian's daughter are raised by an immortal and a phoenix in chicken form among the towering stacks of a sentient, endless library. Shenangians, adventures, and heartbreak ensue.

It’s also set in another world, also dark epic fantasy, and a trilogy (heh, I can’t do short things...) and also hopepunk because that’s very important <3 It takes place over ~10 years (every book will) so the main characters grow up over the course of the story and it ends when they’re in their ~40s :D It’s basically a slow burn with the main problem that over the course of the trilogy Timbre and Selandri end up getting separated and meet again, years later, as leaders on different sides of a pretty huge conflict :’D I love my babies so much ahhh The first one is still very lighthearted though. For the most part. :3

(It also has a comic sans thingy here)

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The third WIP is called Hope Beyond

It’s a bit different from the other two, because it’s a multimedia story and has 3 different POVs in 3 different styles each that will start to overlap as the characters develop and grow closer.

There’s Alia, who’s basically a child (... it’s complicated), who has limited perspective comic panels as her chapters (so it’s very much how she sees the world, with a ton of magical creatures, magical realism style), then there’s Morgan, her older adoptive sister (who planned on being a book-hoarding crazy cat lady and is 30, she has 3rd person novel narration) and Phaedra, a one-legged war veteran who’s their next door neighbour (who keeps a diary for therapy).

Basically the story is the 3 of them working through their various traumas and grief and rage together, helping each other cope, and growing as people. So, very much a found family story :D I don’t even know how to describe the plot because the setup explanation alone always escalated very badly, buuut I have an intro post for it here <3

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Soooo.... thank you so much for asking, I’m sorry this escalated so badly (it always does lmao) and that I only responded now :’D

Thank you! :D @7chee​

“How could you do this to us? To me?” Timbre’s voice isn’t even loud. It’s barely above a whisper, so quiet that Selandri almost doesn’t catch it.

But she does. And she hears how it cracks near the end, too; hears the slight waver, the pain Timbre is so desperately trying to hide.

It sends a shiver down her spine, and she swallows her tears as she looks her in the eyes and says: “To protect you.”

Timbre’s eyes narrow. “Liar”, she croaks.

And Selandri realizes that Timbre is, in fact, right.

☀

... So this was just the perfectly horrible prompt for my LDOO babies ... how could I resist????

I guess this is when they finally meet again, ten years later, near the climax of book 2 >:’3

Fluffcember Prompt list! :3

WIP: Like Dragons of Old Characters: Timbre, Selandri POV: Selandri 1749 words. Rest and Tags below the cut! :3

In which Selandri and Timbre explore the Observatory, find beautiful books, and Timbre starts humming, which opens up so many new possibilities—

The fourth floor held storybooks. 

Selandri’s eyes widened as she saw them—there were more tables in here, more comfy areas to sit, too. Some of the books had pages filled with nothing but beautifully rendered illustrations. Some had more text and less images. Selandri was entranced from the beginning—the pictures seemed to be alive, and they were beautiful. 

After she’d stared for lengths at the cover of one of these books she suddenly felt Timbre standing directly behind her, looking over her shoulder, her head so close that Selandri inadvertently held her breath before realizing how stupid that was. 

“Can you teach me how to read them?”, Timbre asked quietly. 

fluffcember prompt list

WIP: Like Dragons of Old Characters: Selandri, Timbre just a (very rough) sketch thing, cause after NaNoWriMo and inktober I really, really need to paint again ( ˘ ³˘)♥ 

It’s very much noch finished, but yesterday I didn’t feel like writing so ... have two smol queer babbies :’3 AKA Selandri (grinning) and Timbre (shy). Timbre can only see values of black/grey/white so Selandri’s flower crown ended up being a tad more aggressively non-matching in color, which Selandri doesn’t mind at all :D

I can’t believe I haven’t written anything for them in a year aahhhhh  also, one day I will finish it with proper lighting and all that, I promise

LDOO Taglist (please tell me if you want on/off) :) I will probably post a few more things for them this december, so please also tell me if you don’t want to be tagged for that <3

Hi! :D Thank you for the ask! … oh no, I have so many older ones left to answer, I’m so sorry XD 

I’ll do this for Selandri and Timbre from Like Dragons of Old, because there it fits the best. <3

Selandri’s the daughter of two Librarians, which means that she’s never left the Library in her entire life, until the day Timbre comes. Up to that point, everything’s been really boring and she hates reading and learning (what her parents want her to do, being Librarian and all that) so 1) getting to see the sky and the stars for the very first time, and 2) getting a playmate are the best things that could’ve happened to her.

Even growing up and leaving, she never misses the Library itself; rather, she tries her very best to get away as far as she can, for as long as she can. Her home is Timbre, and Timbre alone, and when they’re first separated halfway through book one, she definitely misses her very much ;w; (not even to speak about all the things happening after book one ahahaha)

Timbre has many homes, but her True home becomes the Library, and the Observer, and Onii… and, most of all, Selandri. Before then, she lived in a place that’s now only known as the Grey Continent, or maybe the Lost Continent; and for a while that was her home, until the Observer saved her from that fate.

Sometimes she still dreams of that time, that place, and when she wakes up she’s screaming, or crying, or both. But those dreams come fewer and fewer. So Timbre’s definitely homesick a lot of the time, especially after waking up, especially during the first half of the first book.

And when things finally escalate, and she and Selandri get dragged apart, she’s homesick after a person, and things will never be the same again.

As to “how do they react when they get to go home again”, that’s very much spoiler territory, and part of what happens in book 3 XD Especially since they’ve both changed, and grown, and aged, and where two teenagers lost each other now stand two middle-aged women, world-weary, each wearing their own “crown”… of ancient, opposing sides. And each of them has changed in ways that go much further than the visual.

So I guess Timbre and Selandri are both homesick for a person and place in the past, one that was lost ages ago.

This got kinda dark x’D

I guess that’s because I’m currently writing Ben chapters, and he’s in a very dark, lyrical mood. XD

Hello, and thank you so much for asking!! :D Happy STS! (Also hehehhee I am Very Glad that our collective love for dragons pulls us all together XD) 

Hmmmmm, I have mapped out far less of this than I want to, but this is what Onii was up to when she met the Observer xD She’s a phoenix in chicken form, but she can decide what kind of bird she wants to reincarnate as, she just generally prefers to look like a chicken ;D 

Basically, she’s always been a very chaotic free soul who did not care about the opinions of others but did care about the welfare of animals (the “dumb cousins”)... so she did not particularly like certain rituals involving their sacrifice :’)

Basically, when the Observer found her, she was busy pretending to be a sacrifical animal (switching between different forms of birds, depending on which one was specifically wanted at that moment, but always returning to chickens) and then, upon being sacrificed by them, her remains would burst into flames, setting everything in her vicinity on fire, and she would be reborn among the ashes. 

She did this a few times until people in that region stopped sacrificing any kind of bird, and some strange legends surrounding birds are still told there. They’re still very careful when it comes to bird, too! 

Onii is very happy with herself xD 

This image inspired me to create her, specifically ;D Up to that point, I’d already decided that I wanted to have chickens in LDOO, running around in the Library, but I didn’t have a specific character yet.... until I found that ;D I love her so much, but I really have to invent some nice shenanigans for her!