#vbtr

◆ introducing jonah to the whale

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tagged #whale

speculative literary scifantasy

identity and loss thereof; personhood and the definition thereof; split past/present narrative; haunted by survival, living past your myth; explorations of trauma; artificial people; deeply mentally ill mc; magic as a living force; out of time and space; second person pov

fun facts: stole half of my friend's worldbuilding for this but it's okay because she encouraged me (thank you)

Forever ago, A's life ended, in panic and helplessness. And forever later, it began again.

When the machine that housed her — ate at her — unexpectedly stutters dead and spits her out, alone, naked, and cold, A finds herself in a position she never thought she would: entirely in her own hands. Alive against all expectations, she has escaped her own nightmare, but life catches up quickly. She is not who she used to be.

Unsettled and unsteady, petrified of even her own shadow, and struggling to gather her scrambled mind, A must navigate the vast, mostly empty building that kept her if she holds any hope of getting out to something better. But along with her, the building is changing, affected by the magic that escaped with the machine's death. Reality threatens to combust right in front of her. And who are these other people that look so much like her?

ON HOLD:

◆ vulture by the river

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tagged #vbtr

horror

history and tradition vs capitalism; parenthood; cannibalism; legacy and sacrifice; weird kids; death and murder; nonhuman humans; found family, I guess, if you want to be really literal with how you define it; worldbuilding of if russia and greece had a lovechild

oldest wip :]

anatole's father is dead - at least according to the letter unceremoniously delivered to his capital apartment over a week after it happened. with a degree that got him nowhere and a wallet growing steadily more wanting, it's an acceptable defeat to pack a bag and take the only train back to the tiny village his childhood self called home. a shop waits there just for him, and being a butcher is not that different than being a doctor, he supposes; the robes are similar enough, and blood is the same color no matter who it pours out from.

but a lot can change in eight years. anatole is a stranger in familiar land, and the animal that killed his father still roams the woods, wild and unidentified. when he comes across two children dirty and alone among the trees, there is no question about taking them home to safety. but who are they, and where did they come from? no one in the village recognizes them. why can they not speak? and why do they seem to get thinner and thinner, no matter how anatole tries to nurse them into health?

◆ blood of a rabbit

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tagged #boar

horror(?), dark fantasy

alienation and societal expectations; pressure to conform; loss of identity; community as a smokescreen for harm; autistic mc; monstrosity as a metaphor for outside perception; inaction as action; social pariahism; the whole thing is just a a disability metaphor; fake old time rural germany inspired setting

something stalks the fields of hess' village. for years now the crops have not been growing as they should, and animal carcasses have begun to show up; animal carcasses that are swiftly disappeared overnight and seem to concern no one but her.

sidelined by her family and her peers for her continued curiosity and abundance of questions, Hess retreats to smaller pursuits, attempting to contribute to her community by means of foraging and gathering — only to swiftly come face to face with what she can only describe as a monster, a bizarre wolf-man who speaks her language with a maw full of teeth and stands upright on legs that ought to be twisting under their own weight. he has been alone for a long time, and ignored for even longer. sometimes, hess will find out, ignoring something is the very means by which it can destroy you.

◆ tithe

board

fantasy(?)

gods and religion; loss of identity; sacrificial grooming; deities weaned on blood; worship and complacency; trauma and abuse as dehumanization; kid mc; ambiguous mc

fun facts: the only project I have Ever worked on to be in first person. also probably a novella

x

◆ five

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tagged #5

medieval dark fantasy

potentially literally any trigger warning you could think of; gender roles as violence; parenthood and identity; duty and legacy; everyone hates each other in there; feudalism and monarchy as metaphorical incest; also magic and dragons, but low magic world; multi pov

fun facts: started as a worldbuilding project. has several centuries of history and its own wiki