#tu stuff

As I mentioned, I took some liberties with the mythology. I read up on the Magyar mythology first, but decided to focus mainly on the Tengriist and Shamanist traditions in Mongol and Turkic mythology, as these are older and seem to be the “root mythology” of the area, so to say. All of the stories and creatures featured in the book are based off of actual myths from these mythologies. The gods, too, are taken from the Tengriist pantheon (with TFTF mainly focusing on Gok Tengri, Umay and Kubai). You can find most, if not all, the creatures on this wikipedia page. As for the myth about the prince and the monster, I can’t seem to find it, but I remember that it was an actual myth :-) 

Not all the characters have Magyar names, but Merse and Gezte were both named with the help of this site. These are the major characters whose names are of Magyar origin:

Geszte – used for strong women; ‘oak’

Merse – Armenian origin meaning ‘lord’; ‘prince’

Aranka – diminutive of ‘gold’ (Hungarian: ‘arany’) 

Virág – ‘flower’

Tavaszka – ‘spring’

Harkány – ‘uncertain’, possibly ‘woodpecker’ (Hungarian: ‘harkály’) 

Gezte’s name is picked ironically, in a way, because she isn’t very strong throughout the book, and her parents definitely weren’t concerned with her strength. Virág’s name, too, is misplaced, but makes some sense when you’re introduced to another character whose name also means ‘flower’. As for Harkány, the uncertainty refers mainly to his many conflicting emotions (Harkány is possibly the most emotionally developed character, now that I think of it). The rest of the names are pretty straight-forward. 

Some of the characters that are encountered later on in the story have names from different culture, something I did consciously as they would not belong to the same tribe as the main characters (fx Tañsilu [’beauty as evening-red’] and Temür [’iron’], both of Tatar usage). Gezte and Tavaszka are named after the same tradition as Merse’s tribe because their tribe lived in the same area as Merse’s until they became refugees. 

Thank you so much! It makes perfect sense, I’ll try to reply in the best way possible :-) 

[click image for larger version] yesterday, I entered my literary horror novel in Inkitt’s Story Peak competition for a chance to get published. it needs a hundred readers to read it for it to be taken into consideration, and the books with the highest readers satisfaction will win. for more about the novel & the competition, check my post here. to read the fire that froze, click here. 

the fire that froze moodboard. click to read. 

i’ve recently (3o minutes ago to be exact) entered my novel, The Fire That Froze, in Inkitt’s Story Peak contest. it needs 100 readers to read the story – the stories that do the best in readership satisfaction will get a publishing deal. 

The Fire That Froze already landed in second place in Inkitt’s Harrowing contest for horror stories, thanks to your help, and has an average 5 star rating. now I turn to you again for your help in this contest.

if you’re interested, you can learn more about the contest here and read the story here. you’ll have to click “get free copy” to read it (there are 100 available) but there’s no download involved. i imagine the inkitt team track how far and how quickly you read it, or look at your reviews. 

if you want to know more about the story, here are some character/novel aesthetics I made, and here are some thoughts and praise from tumblr readers. I’ll be posting some new visuals for the novel soon.

important: the story is a historical fiction/horror, and there are some gory scenes and scenes of vaguely sexual nature (consensual), just as a trigger warning. 

send me a ♕ if you want a line from my novel or a ☆ if you want a fact about it