I'm unlikely to return to this blog, or any of my others. Explanation is here.
Anyway. Hello! This is/was a whump/writing sideblog containing mostly prompts and stories, with occasional art or something else. My main blog is @oldwoolhat.
Links:
Masterlist for my main story. Summary of the unwritten part is below the read-more on the explanation post linked above.
Other masterlist for shorter/one-off stories.
BTHB card with links to fills.
Recommended stories by other writers.
Not-yet-started story info and art.
You can call me Verkja. I'm a certified Adult™ (millennial) man. Although I've liked whump for as long as I can remember, I only learned a community for it exists in 2022. This was a very happy discovery.
I especially like whump that incorporates humour, emotional whump/angst, and good old-fashioned torture. Stories with non-whump content as well make the pain hit harder. But my only real requisite (99% of the time) is a happy ending. If you want a rough idea of my favourite whump tropes, check the #a favourite of mine tag.
Content warning tags are mostly formatted as cw:warning. Long posts and posts with sexual content (of which there's very little here) have detailed warnings at the top, followed by a cut.
Minors - please don't interact with any inappropriate content.
I do not grant permission for my writing, characters, art, or anything else on this blog or any of my other blogs to be used in training/interacting with any type of AI.
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Hello. Not sure how many people are still watching this blog, but for those who are, I have an apology. I will not be completing my story or continuing any events or answering any asks or ask games. I'm very sorry.
My country, and much of the world, are going to the dogs and my efforts to work against that are having no impact. My living situation is not secure and I do not have the resources to improve it. Most of all, the person I thought was my best and closest friend, who I had supported and had leaned on in turn during some of the roughest times in my life, has been lying to me every single day for the past three years. Our friendship meant nothing to them.
I want to blame them for pushing me away from my other friendships, since that is a common abuse tactic, but I don't think they did; it was probably just my reaction to depression, and my own fault. To my friends and once-friends on here, I'm sorry for that.
I don't know what I'm going to do yet. For anyone who was still invested in my story, below the read-more is a brief summary of the remainder of it. Thank you all for a wonderful time while it lasted. <3
___________________________________________
The three mercenaries investigate the former residences of the ancient evil wizards whose names they'd acquired at the University of Jameivird. The first is in the far south, while the others are all in the north, on the opposite side of the equator from where the story has taken place so far. This means the investigation takes months.
In the end, they find nothing. Catha tries to encourage the others by saying they'll find another way, but with no plan to back up her words, this comes off as empty bravado. Radomil is upset and yells at her before going off to be alone. Catha is distraught, and Mures offers to convey her apology to their mutual friend. He does, and in the process tells Radomil that he loves him, just as Catha does.
He also proposes a solution to the situation in the prophetic dream, one he's had in his mind for a while but hasn't brought up because it's not the kind of thing he thinks a good person would come up with. He suggests that by developing a way to drain the energy from the sun themselves, before it is drained by the ancient spell they haven't been able to find, they can use that massive amount of solar energy to split their dimension/timeline in two at the instant they cast the spell. One timeline will lose its sun, fulfilling the events of the dream, while the other will continue unharmed, with its sun intact.
Radomil and Catha make up, and together they decide to try Mures' plan. This will require an extensive amount of research and the aid of hundreds of very powerful wizards. From this point, the story shifts to an episodic format with significant time jumps between episodes, as the mercenaries travel the world recruiting archmages, entire university departments, and the occasional dark wizard.
Eventually, around ten years from the start of the story, this strange group gathers to create and cast the sun-draining spell. Maella, one historic dark wizard who had been thought dead but had actually become a lich and secluded herself to continue her studies, shows up and helps them develop the spell, since it involves high-level dark magic. The protagonists are out of their depth in terms of actually developing the spell, but they do what they can to assist and try to keep the various factions from killing one another.
At last, they successfully cast the spell, and the end of the world is averted. (Or, well, redirected.) The mercenaries get together in a tavern and talk about the future. Without the quest on which they've spent the last decade, they are a bit adrift. They decide to keep travelling around, but more for sightseeing than work.
At this point, the story would move to the epilogue, in which we learn that the protagonists continued travelling for years, eventually turning into a kind of storytelling/bard group, recounting not just established stories and their own adventures, but also new tales which Mures started to write. Eventually, as old age and old injuries caught up with them, they acquired a house not far from a small, friendly village and retired there to live out the rest of their days.
...and then they ended up becoming liches with Maella's help and going on more adventures, because the author doesn't just dislike bad endings; he's not a huge fan of endings at all. But that's another story.
I hope your hiatus is restorative & helpful for you! Just wanted to send this to say I really love your stories with Mures, Radomil, & Catha :) sending positive vibes your way!
Thank you, anon! I appreciate the hopes and vibes, and am glad you're enjoying the stories. I'm hoping this hiatus will, among other things, give me more time to actually write (and draw). I'll still post updates as I finish them, whenever that may be. Sending some positive vibes right back at you. :)
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I'm going on hiatus for an indeterminate amount of time. I'll answer any remaining asks and may finish doing the art challenge I started (albeit late), and I'll post story updates when I have them. I might stop in on occasion for other things too, but I won't be posting or reblogging or interacting consistently. This site hasn't been fun for me for a while, so I'm stepping away from it.
I love you emotionally closed off/distant/reserved characters who are SO full of feelings and love but have trouble expressing it or just dont want to, I love you you are everything to me
im an absolute fan of when characters have their own twisted perceptions of love. like holy shit that guy thinks inflicting pain is affection! woah this silly man believes love is a form of ownership! give me more.
A question about your writing process this week: when you start a new project, do you do it with a word goal in mind? How strict is the word goal and how close to you get to it? Are you an over- or under-writer?
In just before Saturday! Thanks for the ask, and happy STS to you. :)
It depends on the project. I’ve written for fanfic exchanges which have minimum word counts, so in those cases, I do keep word count at least faintly in mind. I’m not strict about it unless the exchange is drabble-based, in which case I strictly stick to multiples of 100 words. Making the word count isn’t usually too difficult.
In terms of writing for myself - nah. I like chapters for my active WIP to come in around 2.5K words, but anywhere between 1.5K and 5K or so is fine. For the full story, I have no word count goal. I’m guessing it’ll end up around 150K, but I won’t be surprised (or bothered) if I’m completely wrong about that. I’m just writing it until it’s over.
I lean towards being an overwriter, I think, but not massively so. When editing, I typically cut out more than I add, but again, not by much. That could mean I’m an undereditor as well as an overwriter, but I don’t think so. I hope not!
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Do you enjoy thinking about "What if?" scenarios? Turning points, where the story could have gone differently (but didn't) and what would have happened, if it had? If yes, do you also enjoy writing them, or do you prefer daydreaming about them? Are there any specific points in your stories, where you think about alternate outcomes a lot?
And what about other people's stories? Do you enjoy reading about AUs that look at alternate turns of events?
Happy STS, Aria! Thanks for the ask. :)
I love thinking about ‘what if’ scenarios! In a way, my whole WIP is formed from them. I’ve daydreamed about my characters for years in different settings and storylines, many of which are very similar to one another. Writing the story was a matter of choosing which of many possible paths to follow.
In terms of actually writing ‘what if’ scenarios - ones which diverge from the canon line of my story - I haven’t done much. I’ve noted down some AUs which are entirely different from my story save for the characters (albeit different versions of them), but the only ‘canon divergence’ scenario I’ve written is this one. It’s essentially an AU for the third part of the story’s prologue.
There aren’t any specific points in my story which have spawned more thoughts of ‘what if’ than others, other than the aforementioned alternative prologue piece. Certain key points would have yielded starkly different outcomes for the characters, but mostly in a negative way, and I rarely like downer endings even in my daydreams. :’)
I do enjoy reading other people’s AUs! A friend of mine has written some different-setting AUs which have provided interesting angles on their characters, posing the question of what makes a character essentially themself; I’ve been inspired to contemplate a modern AU for my own characters partly as a result of this. Most of the canon-divergence AU pieces I’ve read on here have been tragedies, but unlike my daydreams, they just make me appreciate the canon versions of stories more. :)
[ID: The "it's one banana, Michael" meme, showing Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development. The caption reads "I mean it's one chapter, Michael, how long could it take to write? Ten years?" /end ID]
Writing about a world other than our own involves choosing some elements of our world to include and others to leave out. In your writing, do any such elements stand out, like a real topic you put in your fictional setting, or a significant everyday detail of our world which doesn’t exist there?
Did anything work its way in without your intent, e.g. sayings or traditions or units of measurement you didn’t consciously include, but noticed later on? If so, did you remove them or leave them in place?
- @verkja
Thanks so much, @verkja, for the ask! Happy STS!
Hmm. My main stories (TPOT, TQOL) on here take place in our world (just heavily fictionalized) and my Tumblr fantasy, TCC, doesn't have much of a developed world at all, so I guess I'll draw on my non-Tumblr novels to answer. :)
In that... well, I "accidentally" included a pandemic in the past. I say "accidentally" because at this point I've written this damn book so many times I don't remember when I added/decided on/changed things. All I know is that at one point, the character had a birthmark and then later it became a scar, and it was from an illness, not an injury, and the illness was widespread, and hell if I know whether I made that decision before or after COVID.
In terms of mundane things? Workplaces and educational institutions are pretty organized in my world, and very based on real ones. My main character has a job (in a workplace with very clear rules, expectations, hierarchy, and structure), which she got by attending what we might call a vocational school and which differs from the more "formal" or "academic" universities that are also present. So I borrowed those concepts from real life.
Sayings? I'm still battling with whether to include "okay" to this day. And I had to consciously monitor which curses I was using - were they too reminiscent of our world? I meant to invent some original curses and. uh. forgot. [just checked the manuscript and apparently I used 'damn' seven times but nothing else.]
I included "miles," which is funny because I'm Canadian and don't understand miles at all, but I also don't think the metric system really works in a fantasy setting. 😂 I only used "inch" as a verb.
If I included anything unconsciously, I haven't become conscious of it yet. 😁
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Anya is LIVE right now
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Writing about a world other than our own involves choosing some elements of our world to include and others to leave out. In your writing, do any such elements stand out, like a real topic you put in your fictional setting, or a significant everyday detail of our world which doesn’t exist there?
Did anything work its way in without your intent, e.g. sayings or traditions or units of measurement you didn’t consciously include, but noticed later on? If so, did you remove them or leave them in place?
-verkja
Happy STS on Monday, @verkja!
Interesting question. I uh. I didn't intentionally choose any real world topics to include in my writing. I'm sure there are some, but eh. Whatever is there was necessary for the kind of story I wanted to tell, not because I wanted to address real world ethics/morals/issues.
Details, however, are a different story.
I wanted indoor plumbing and toilets and showers. I got them with magic :)
I wanted food and animals that I didn't have to make up, so those are there.
Birthdays are there. Kinda. I guess holidays, but really those are limited to solstice celebrations.
Certain elements of cursing are there. Getting rid of hell, which I started off using before I realized I don't exactly have one of those, was tough. Damn(ed) gets to stay though, fuck that noise. And word derivatives of christ. I mean, I'm sure a lot of curses have derivatives that don't make sense in a fantasy world. With me, you just get to deal :')
Clothing... god I hate clothing so much. My clothing is a mix of medieval and modern and I cba to stick to one or the other. Sorry guys, deal with the leggings. and the occasional dress with no shift underneath. and sleeveless stuff. and... 😅
Details that snuck their way in:
breakfast, lunch, dinner. originally meant to call them smth generic, like midday meal and such, but I defaulted to the others so much that I gave up
same for weeks/months. I meant to measure time passing by season and year, and while I still do the last two, weeks and months kept creeping back in and I gave up
I try to avoid units of measurement, but I'm fairly sure the occasional distance measured in miles has popped up XD
I actually wanted a world with no religion. Turns out that's kind of hard to accomplish, and I'm not there yet in terms of skill. So I made a bunch of gods and tied them to the elements. Reluctantly, I made temples and have them function as a school and a library instead of a place of "worship". There are no religious holidays, sacred days of the week, celebrations, or fanatical worshippers though, that I address. I kind of. Ignore that stuff. Maybe its there, maybe not XD
Aside from removing hell, if something keeps creeping back in, I generally just find a way to include it instead of forcing myself to make some alternative for it. I already fight with my oc's to get them to do what I want, so let's make the language and worldbuilding a little easier for me, hmm? lol
Writing about a world other than our own involves choosing some elements of our world to include and others to leave out. In your writing, do any such elements stand out, like a real topic you put in your fictional setting, or a significant everyday detail of our world which doesn’t exist there?
Did anything work its way in without your intent, e.g. sayings or traditions or units of measurement you didn’t consciously include, but noticed later on? If so, did you remove them or leave them in place?
-verkja
Happy STS!
I put in whatever I want to be part of the story. If I write about a mixed european forest in fall, picking berries and mushrooms, then because that's where I live (Okok, sadly not IN the forest 😂) and I like it. If I write about some kind of oppression, it's not because I cannot imagine a world without it, but because I want to deal with it, even if it's just by punching someone in the face.
I prefer to put it on a personal level. The temple doesn't care who you marry, but that one person can be homophobic. I have no idea how general medical care looks like (not like my chars get any), but I have that one herbalist being a prick about periods.
As for everyday details of our world - my world is a magic heavy fantasy setting, so pretty much no everyday detail of our modern world will exist there! :D
I try to keep away from common real world traditions - I haven't even decided yet if birthdays exist. I also try to stay away from measurements and the likes, but that's mostly because to me it sounds weird to use meters and stuff in English writing, and you won't find me using miles 😂
I guess in some ways, the worldbuilding falls a bit flat - if food isn't an issue, because magic can help with growing/watering/pests, there should be less poverty, but if I put in government-run soup kitchens, I have no way to let Merry starve 🙄 I don't want to think about taxes and infrastructure, I just wanna cut a blorbo up.
About things that are less obvious, I don't care. I spent years trying to worldbuild a fantasy world, and it prevented me from ever actually writing, and I am over it. I do not care about where words come from. Ok, I won't use "hell" as a curse, but damn(ed) can stay. The name Christine does exist. You can have a tomato. Gold is rare, because everyone knows if I say "gold bracelet" that it's expensive. I don't care I don't care I don't care.
