#originalficfest

Do you have an original story? Or several? Do you want to share them with people, and to learn about other people’s projects? Do you want to work on your project for a week?

Then the Original Fiction Fest is for you!

For one week, you can answer daily prompts to both develop and share your characters and your world! All you have to do is create a post at your tumblr/writblr, add an @originalficfest , and we’ll reblog your creation.

It would be great if you also made an introduction post about the story (stories) you want to talk about during the fest, so people who aren’t familiar with your work already can dip a toe in the waters. And don't hesitate to interact with others. You might make new writer friends!

The Fest takes place between the 25th and the 31st of May. However if you get behind or want to skip a day or leave it until last, go ahead! We want you to have fun, not feel pressured to participate!

Day 1: CHARACTER DAY

Day 2: ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP DAY

Day 3: NON-ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP DAY

Day 4: QUOTE DAY

Day 5: MUSIC DAY

Day 6: PICTURES DAY

Day 7: FREE DAY

If you have any questions, send us an ask!

Unexpected Inspiration Location Aesthetic: Silveridge

Day 6: Picture Day for @originalficfest - Intro / Day 1 (Characters) / Day 2 (Romantic)/ Day 3 (Friendship Part 1 & Part 2) / Day 4 (Quote) / Day 5 (Music)  (You can find more moodboards/aesthetics about my series and characters here.)

Welcome to Silveridge, capital city of Concordia! When a visitor steps into the city for the first time, they're struck by the contrast between white and color. The architecture of the city varies and no two buildings look the same, but it's all unified by being almost entirely built from white stone. What isn't stone is wood or brick painted white. In a city of artists where individuality is encouraged, this is the canvas and backdrop for the residents' creativity. What isn't white is painted brilliant colors and almost every building has windows of stained or colorful glass. Concordia is a tied island and Silveridge takes full advantage of the amount of sunlight it gets. The streets and buildings are lined with trees and flowers, adding to the color. Silveridge is the home of the Protectorates, the people who guard art and artists, and their connection to plants and the earth has meant this was part of the city's design from the beginning.

More info about the city under the read more link!

Well, day 3 of @originalficfest is obvious. The darkness and the human. :)

The point of Surreal Darkness is their developing friendship. They go from this at the beginning:

Sometimes the darkness and I go for a walk.

They are not very pleasant, these walks.

Sometimes the darkness and I go for a swim.

The water is very cold. The wind whistles through the reeds.

The darkness tries to drown me. I beat against it with my fists.

It says that it was joking, that I need to lighten up.

Lighten up.

Haha.

Sometimes the darkness and I go to the graveyard.

The darkness says I will be like the names on the stones one day. Bones and dust, under the ground. It says that it will never die, that it will flow always through the world, covering all things. Even my bones.

I tell it that its life is sad.

It tries to choke me, but I hide behind the statue.

While it stalks around the graveyard, angrily yelling my name, I read the tombstones. Beloved mother, infant son, gone home to rest. I would like to rest.

The darkness finally looks behind the statue.

I am dusty bones.

Sometimes the darkness and I go into town.

It gives me money. I buy dolls for it. The shopkeeper looks at me funny. I escape back into the street.

The darkness calls the dolls “creepy”, tears their heads off, and throws them to the ground. Small children watching nearby begin crying.

I stand with my back against a brick wall, in the shadows. I watch the children. Their mouths are open, terrible tiny teeth glowing in the sun.

The darkness eats them, one by one.

Sometimes the darkness and I go to the movies.

I want to watch a black and white classic love story. It wants to watch the latest 3D slasher flick.

I tell it that it shouldn’t put such images in its mind, that violence rots the soul. It says that its soul is blood and guts and dismemberment.

Time passes. Tick tock. Tick tock.

We buy our tickets.

I am dismembered.

to this, when they’ve realized how much they need and care about and rely on each other:

Sometimes I am sitting on a bench, and the darkness sits next to me. It is wearing a skin of ash and embers.

The darkness says, “I am sorry.”

The darkness says, “I did not want to lose your universes.”

I think about asking the darkness what it’s sorry for. But I don’t.

I think I already know, anyway.

Sometimes the darkness and I wander through green and ashy hedges together.

The darkness has not spoken since it said it was sorry. Its eyes are gray again. Not white. Not black. But in between.

My wrist is blistered where it picked me up, on the bench. The black pulses from the ring of raised skin. But that’s okay.

I am glad that the darkness is here.

Its ash and embers skin is cooling. The breeze picks up some of its ashes and blows them into the mouths of the hedges.

I don’t hear anything but the breeze blowing through the leaves and the crackling of the hedges that are still burning behind us, but I think the hedgemouths are saying a word.

I think they are saying “Home.”

Sometimes I sit down on the ground, my back against a very tall tree, and the darkness sits next to me.

I want to ask the darkness where it’s been. I want to ask why it disappeared. But I know it wouldn’t be able to answer me. Not right now, anyway.

The darkness reaches out with its hand of ash and dying embers, and it pats my hand. Which I guess is still a human hand, even with the black rolling through it.

I pat its hand. Its skin is just kind of pleasantly warm now. Like holding your hand over a candle flame. A few bits of ash flake off and fall to the grass.

I was always me enough, really.

Sometimes the darkness and I sit on the grass and gaze at the stars.

I think the black was me.

I look down at my wrist, where the darkness burnt the skin.

No.

The black is me.

The darkness makes a sound that is almost like its old hiss but not quite. It’s more of a crackle now, maybe. There are no words in it.

I look at it. It gestures towards my wrist.

I say, “It’s fine. It doesn’t hurt. Thank you.”

The darkness nods. Flakes of ash fall from its skin.

I look up at the stars again. I hold my right arm up against the sky. The black under my skin is darker than the space between the stars.

I stand up. The darkness crackles again. I say, “Come on. Let’s take a walk.”

The darkness stands up too. I worry a bit about the ashes that fall as it moves, but only a bit. I know there are always other skins.

We walk through the hedges that are sometimes burning and sometimes not, and their mouths tell us that we are home, over and over, as we walk towards whatever star comes next.

Sometimes the darkness and I go for a walk.

It is very pleasant, this walk.

It’s been really awesome, writing a relationship that grows and becomes closer and healthier over time. The darkness is learning about emotions and empathy and caring from the human, and the human is learning to value themselves and to have decent self esteem and that maybe someone really can care about them and maybe they can deserve to be cared about.

Worldbuilding of Aelaris - DRAGONS!  @originalficfest​ — THANK YOU so much for doing this! It was amazing :D (And I’m actually really sad that this is the last day! So much motivation...)

|| Introduction | Day 1 - Characters | Day 2 - Romantic Relationships | Day 3 - Non-Romantic Relationships | Day 4 - Quote Day | Day 5 - Music Day | Day 6 - Pictures Day | Day 7 - Worldbuilding/Dragons ||

First of all, there are several different classifications of dragons, and none of them are originally from Aelaris but from a different world entirely. If you want to read more about them, there’s info below (a lot ahahah). 

Anyways, dragons in the world of Dreams and Shadows! Dragons have existed for the past 500 years — since the Apocalypse. This means that everyone living today has never known a world in which dragons don’t exist. The dragons living in Merreadon, the city in which most of the story takes place, are predominantly very small — there are several different kinds but for the sake of simplicity the ones that are most common there are Featherdragons and mammal-based ones that don’t have a proper name yet but might probably end up being called Fuzzydragons (if you have an idea for a proper name you could send me a message, haha.). There are as many different kinds of featherdragons as there are different kinds of birds and most of them just sit around doing bird things, basically. Some are really intelligent and capable of speech, others not quite, mostly depending on the individual. 

All of them can communicate via mind-link (via Essence/magic) but some haven’t quite mastered language yet, so they use images and sounds and smells in addition to words. To the inhabitants of Merreadon it’s completely normal that there are dragons sitting everywhere, building nests, rearing their young, shitting on your coat when you go to work… just imagine a bunch of kids playing with a ball, and then they throw it accidentally into a bush where a featherdragon is sitting and the next thing they know the tiny creature is cussing at them violently inside their head? :D Also, there are two modes featherdragons: ball of floof and aesthetically sleek. :D Some people think that they’re different species but mostly it’s a question of temperature xD Featherdragons are somewhere between sparrow-sized and eagle-sized, at least the ones living in Merreador. 

Then there are the mammal-based dragons, which range from squirrel-sized to large-dog-sized, though the bigger ones don’t roam the streets of Merreadon and prefer to live in the woods instead. They lead similar lives to the featherdragons and love fruit most of all. They are also really great at remembering things so some people use them as messengers by bribing them with fruit to transmit messages. This only works somewhat, though, because they’re also very mischievous and resist taming 100% of the time. Featherdragons generally don’t care about people and prefer their flocks, living wild and free the way they want. They can’t be tamed and usually die in captivity so it’s illegal to own one (not to speak of the fact that you’ll only “own” them for about a month before they refuse to eat or drink) They are true free spirits. Fuzzydragons, by comparison, are loners that love playing pranks on people. They’re generally smarter than featherdragons. They also tend to “choose” humans to hang out with, especially lonely humans, and can become lifelong friends. They might still end up pranking you, though. It’s just in their nature. So it’s very possible that, if you suffer from depression or mental illness, you might end up having a fuzzydragon follow you, trying to make you laugh. You might just end up becoming friends for life.

The Apocalypse, how Dragons came into being, and why people call them dragons.

There was this apocalypse some 500 years ago. Basically people had once made a pact with the Ellariel (mythic beings) that granted them magic powers, more or less. This led to humanity getting a shit-ton done and creating a great amount of technology and generally being quite unkind to their home-world. The Ellariel finally saw that coming and broke the pact, redrawing and breaking off any contact with humans, but by then it was more or less too late. It took a few hundred years until humanity regained their footing but in the end it didn’t change the outcome, it just pushed it back.

So now we’re at the point where the planet is on the brink of utter destruction — climate change, animal extinction rate going through the roof, no natural resources left, most people fighting for survival in ruined cities while the 1% has all the power, money, and food. Usual crap.

Now there was one Ellariel in specific, Luzire, who really, really did not like this. So she made a few deal to get enough power to change that, which in turn made her go completely lunatic (I mean, she did become Master of Chaos, after all…). And then she used this power to sway a few important followers into joining her cause: Wiping humanity off the face of the earth.

That was the apocalypse: When nature suddenly went insane because Luzire used her chaotic powers to give plants mobility, to make animals into monsters, and to generally wreak havoc. When the remaining (and opposing) Ellariel finally managed to stop her some years later there were only a few pockets of humans left and the world couldn’t be compared to what it had been anymore. The technology, buildings, steel, glass — everything gone, just ruins left. Basically, nature was returned to its original state — but most animals were different from before, and somewhere during the chaos dragons had slipped through. And since most humans were dead and there were so few left that the ones who remembered probably never saw one everything the following generations had were tales that had been handed down from their ancestors, including tales of dragons — except that they’d only been mythology in that past world. Today’s society calls dragons “dragons” because of those stories. They are somewhat certain that there were no dragons before the apocalypse but nobody knows for sure. And since in this world they’re kind of uncreative with naming, everything with four legs and two wings is called a dragon, even if the different species have very little in common. There are amphibious dragons, reptilian, mammalian, and finally, bird-dragons! They were created during the Apocalypse by Viridaeya, Goddess of Creation, though they weren’t meant to roam this world. They just found a chink and slipped through — to be specific, the Sanctuary, the multi-storey garden structure at the centre of Merreadon, the city in which Dreams and Shadows takes place predominantly. That’s also why there are so many dragons living there, and why the Sanctuary is as beautiful as it is. People don’t consciously notice but they can sort of feel it and therefore there are a lot of superstitions surrounding dragons. They’re also rather well-treated by almost everyone :)

Dragons are very smart — not the way a person is smart, but of a different kind of intelligence. Most of them are capable of speech, though it’s inside your head, so not really a word-based language — more sensory-based, with sounds, images and smells. They use their connection to the Essence for that.

Species of dragons.

There are many different kinds of dragons and only a few of them live as far north as Merreadon. The typical, “proper” reptile-based dragons do exist, and even in big sizes, but there are only very few of those big ones. Some kinds of reptilian dragons never stop growing, and they have a rather long life-time because there are no age limits for they since they feed off Essence (magic, basically) in addition to “normal” food. Anyways, these big dragons can only exist because of Essence, otherwise their immense weight would crush them. They’re also incapable of flight because they’re generally too heavy. They could fly, once, but that was one or two centuries back. Anyways. The big dragons that exist are the ones that still live, First Generation. They also love eating people, and live a lot further to the south where they prefer to live their lives undisturbed by humans. While humans do taste quite good, they also make a lot of trouble ;)

Reptile dragons exist in multiple forms: just scales and “bat wings”, typical dragon fashion; just scales and scaled arms from which feathers grow; and partially feathered all over their body, with feather wings. There are also a few aquatic species, which get really large, too. 

There are no reptile dragons in Merreadon because it gets far too cold in winters and while it could be colder in summer they do prefer it hot or at least warm year-round. There are a few specialized species that spend the winter deeply buried somewhere (like snakes) but none as far north as Merreadon, apart from the aquatic species. There are a few deep sea terrors in the arctic oceans, and they mostly survive because of Essence, and because they can slow down their metabolism to incredible depths.

Amphibious dragons! They live mainly underwater, and they’re the weirdest, coolest, and largest of them all, especially the deep sea dragons! There are a few kinds that don’t get very large, though, and one of these kinds is common in the streams and rivers on Merreadon island. They don’t get longer than a chopstick and their wings have been re-purposed into awesome paddles XD Ava and Ben have caught one, once, and Ben got bit and had to go to the hospital because of possible infections :P Ava was still rather small back then so she had a few nightmares during the following nights. And then she decided to find another one but never did.

There are also insect dragons, of course, chitin dragons. They live to the west and south and everyone hates them with a burning passion. They are mostly really annoying and will talk to you inside your head. Which is worst of all, basically.

The bird dragons! In addition to the ones above, two species can become as large as 2m shoulder height, but the rest stays rather small — song-bird size, max eagle size. Also, the large ones don’t occur near Merreadon.

And, finally, mammalian dragons! They are the most common kind of dragon in/around Merreadon and range from very small sizes (squirrel-sized) to large-dog size. They have bat-like wings, with skin between the wing-fingers. They can be put in the “floof” category or the “sleek” category. There are more floof dragon species in Merreadon :D

Generally speaking, dragons are theoretically immortal, if they want to be, at least concerning old age. This is most visible in the reptilian and amphibious dragons. Chitin dragons usually don’t get much older than 10 years, and bird and mammal dragons are somewhere between 20 and 100 years, depending on the individual. If a mammal dragon has chosen a human as their companion they’ll usually live as long a their human does, and then die when they die. Bird dragons usually live as long as their chosen mate. There are documented cases of queer dragons raising the babies of deceased parent dragons, because while it doesn’t happen often, accidents can occur at any time and there are lots of animals that eat dragon. And sometimes humans are just mean.

@originalficfest day 1!! I love the characters of Chaosbringers, they’re kind of like my children ;v; <3 I decided to put their chara designs too, tho I haven’t put any color. 

Seira: 

“I am everything. I am the sky above the entire world. I am the wind that blows on the beaches of the Broken States. I am the tornado destroying a city of the Caribbean Federation. I am the atmosphere in which planes fly, high up, towards the Pacific Isles. I am the clouds covering Assemblement-City. I am the rain pouring down on the East Confed. I am the snow falling on the Kilimandjaro. I am the breeze surrounding you right now. I am everywhere and I am here, I am heaven and hell, I am the past, the present, the future. Your Craft has no power on me. You shall not stop me today.”

A small god of one meter sixty, the world’s greatest villain: Skyshift. Born and raised in what was supposed to be a “city” to form Heroes from birth, but the program failed cruelly and turned into some kind of secret dystopic dictatorship to create powerful Crafters (people with powers). Discovered how powerful she actually was after escaping when she was fourteen. Very low morals. Doesn’t really care about anything. Hates the world, hates humans. However, admires Temporality more than anything. God complex, destructive tendencies. Will have to find herself and her humanity after losing her Craft (her power), with Len and Shesheri’s help. 

Len:

Len used to be an anomaly. The Original Family Disappointment™. The brat of the wealthy family who ran into the streets at night, skipped school to hang out with the stray kids, raised his head in defiance when adults told him to behave.

Behave.

Len did not know how to behave; he happened to be allergic to authority.

As a teenager, he was the kind to vandalize cars, set fire to abandoned buildings, break into shops and sneak out with alcohol, steal motorcycles and purposely crash them into dirty walls, threaten passersby who wandered a bit too far from the main avenues for their wallets, disappear for days, and come back with whispers about his most recent havoc trailing along his footsteps.

He had decided long ago that he would only play by his own rules.

He was a troublemaker before using his Craft, and became a villain after he discovered what he was capable of with it.

Part-time villain, full-time “I’m trying to live a normal life but I’m still chaotic neutral”. One of the most powerful villains, though not very active: Regulate. Works at a day-care center, good with kids. Hates rules, having to obey and follow the system. Ex-delinquent, was also part of a biker’s gang once. Decided at some point to get his life together and stay low after nearly being caught by Temporality. Thinks of himself as rather normal, especially compared to other villains. Impulsive and hot-tempered, does not like being told what to do, but also good-natured and earnest. Lets Seira and Shesheri stay at his place after Seira’s fall.

Shesheri:

They were a hundred people at the same time, a hundred identities, a hundred names, a hundred stories. No one knew the real one. The original had disappeared beneath all those masks, as a protection and a rebirth. They slipped through the streets and the corridors, invisible, unstoppable, pulled the right strings, whispered the best words, got the important information, then disappeared, erased from everyone’s memory.

The consequences were the only way to know they had ever been there.

They were called The Ghost.

Everyone and no one at the same time.

Mysterious and enigmatic mastermind villain known as The Ghost, an invisible inner threat for the government of the Assembled Nations. Real identity is unknown. Refugee from the Broken States, lots of different origins. Manipulating and crafty, gentleman-like, extremely clever. Likes to toy with the government, and generally forms of authority, that they loathe, because of how they treated him and the other refugees. Accidentally erased themself from everyone’s memory when they were 15, has lived alone since then. Loves animals, especially dogs. Ecologist at heart. Very secret, slow to open up and show their real emotions - always in control. Has just left their previous living place to avoid being discovered by Temporality when they meet Seira and Len, and decides to live with them. 

Not a main character, but I thought she was still important to introduce there:

Temporality:

Temporality was always calm and composed, even in the worse situations. She was strong and she held her ground no matter what. She smiled fondly, would go to extreme length to help people, and she didn’t fear for her life.

She arrested over three hundred villains during her life. Defeated many more. Only the current most powerful villains escaped her, but she always stopped them whenever they attacked, and it was no doubt she could have defeated them at some point. She held her ground against Skyshift. Because she was there, the world felt safe.

Seira had heard about Temporality since she was born, because Temporality was the world’s hero, the person everyone admired. Temporality was nearly revered as a god, in some places. She controlled time, could distort space, held a power greater than anyone else’s, but was always using it for good.

Like everyone else, at that time, Seira had wished to be such a person.

But she would soon learn that there can ever be one Temporality.

For @originalficfest day 5.

“Sometimes we are drowning In the cries of our singing The only thing that’s sure Is that it’s full of adventure

Hey hey hey it’s a jaysome day But I bet you knew that anyway

Sometimes we have oopses But they’re always just slipses And we fix them with a grin That’s made of joyous win

Hey hey hey it’s a jaysome day But I bet you knew that anyway

Every time we have an adventure It’s like putting in brand new dentures –”

I close my eyes, then kick the door to Jay’s motel room. He opens it with a huge grin, the bed creaking from him jumping off of it.

“I’m singing, Charlie!”

“I did notice.”

“And I made up a song, and –.”

“Believe me, I noticed. Dentures?”

“Because adventures have teeth to them and –

“It’s about Charlie and Honcho and me Everything we make, everything we see

Hey hey hey it’s a jaysome day But I bet you knew that anyway!”

“That’s – very loud,” I say, cutting in before he starts another verse. Knowing Jay, there is definitely another verse.

“Well, why have a song if no one hears it? Everyone has songs inside them and most of the time they don’t hear it!”

The scariest part about Jay isn’t that he’s eleven or from far Outside the universe, or even adventures and oopses and bindings: the scariest part is when he makes perfect sense. “I imagine they don’t. But if everyone in a two-block radius is hearing your song, they might not hear their own?”

“Oh! I didn’t think about that. Can I hear yours?!” he presses.

@originalficfest

So it looks like the Original Fic Fest is coming up soon, and I’m super excited!

About Me:

Hi! I’m Charlie, a 15-year old writer from Utah who’s always excited about a) space and b) writing. I only started writing around the end of 2017/start of 2018, but it turns out that I really like it! Sci-fi and fantasy are my favorite genres/inspirations, and so that’s what all of my WIPs fall into.

My WIPs

I have three WIPs that I’m currently working on:

Technomancy: Technomancy’s a modern fantasy about sorcerers who are trying to combine magic with technology. Lin’s a diplomat from one of the factions - the Conservative Faction, which wants nothing at all to do with this technology, who is exiled when she tries to report that another faction, which is much more open to including technology, is building up for an attack. Freezing and in exile, she finds Raedir, an engineer with a grudge against the magical establishment and trying to introduce technology that would fix some of the problems inherent in magical society. She joins with him to try and stop the attack, but the changes that magic and science together will bring are only just beginning…

Main Characters: Lin, Raedir, Eva, Will

Empty Space: A science-fiction story about a military engineering corps who manage to invent the wormhole in the middle of a war. The problem (at least for the government they work for) is that they don’t want to use it to fight. They desert, but even as they try to escape the war, they find that the multiverse has its own problems as well. Creatures, inhabiting the space between, don’t take kindly to being disturbed.

Main Characters: Sadie, Crowe, Kjiersten, Anise, Emil, Silicon

Contact Magic: Contact Magic is the story of Aura, a young sailor who helps transport dyes, and Zoe, a glassmaker’s apprentice who makes contacts, both of whom work to help hide mages. You see, the type of magic you have dictates the color of both your hair and your eyes, and in this world having the wrong type of magic makes you a target. But the government of Celoras - an elite cabal of mages who can control life and death itself -  is cracking down on this trade, and so, forced onto the wrong side of the law, they find themselves drawn into a revolutionary circle plotting to take control of the cities and the nation itself. But there may be more to it than there first seems…

Main Characters: Aura, Zoe, Calius, Iason

30th May: PICTURES DAY

It’s day 6 of @originalficfest‘s event, time to share some pictures. I’ve shared moodboards for the characters on previous days so today I’ll share some things related to the location; some pen sketches and a map :)

Location Tenibaru, the city on stilts.

Built over the delta of the river Enevar, the whole town is raised on massive pillars. It was originally constructed as a mid-way point between Carmine City and Sirshekt, to act as a shared trading point for the two peoples; The Doir from the south and the Pel from the north. Some buildings extend beneath the foot traffic to rest their lower floors on the sandy soils between the rivers. These buildings give the residents of Tenibaru access to the shadowy sands and swampy bog holes beneath their town.

While rumours of unnamed beings lurking in the dark waters have never been validated, use of these access points has dropped off since the town’s founding. It seems people prefer to use the docks around the town borders to enter the rivers and sea.