cain-e-brookman

[cain-e-brookman]

Hey all, gonna be gone a longer bit of hiatus. Thanks for all the tags and asks; I promise I'm not ignoring anyone, just doing a life (and finance) recalibration. Hope to be back soon!

[cain-e-brookman]

unrelated but there's a Terrible Little Creature on my bed taking up the Whole Entire Thing and I know this is what I signed up for with a cat but cmon man, I gotta work in the morning

[cain-e-brookman]

Hey

it's my goal for the last half of this year to finally get my patreon off the ground, so I'm doing an interest check. Some ideas i have:

First tier: probably something like $1 to $2 a month. I'm thinking something like book reviews/movie reviews, character dossier's and access to the progress on The Big Big Book of Lore

Second Tier: probably something like $5 a month. All the above plus character sketches and monthly poetry.

Third Tier: Somewhere between $10 to $20 a month idk yet. All the above plus a monthly short story published nowhere else.

Reblogs are encouraged! Being able to have these sorts of things seen helps grow my audience as a writer. Thanks!

Gonna throw this to my tag list. If any of y'all have suggestions please let me know!

@leahnardo-da-veggie @dearunreliablenarrator @seastarblue @eternalwritingstudent @spideronthesun

[cain-e-brookman]

I call this the create a new problem technique

[cain-e-brookman]

me when a character who was completely powerless gains power and proceeds to lose themselves in the intoxication of it before coming to and being horrified by their own capacity for bloodlust

[cain-e-brookman]

ma'am, I'm going to place you on a brief hold while I look for a reaction image

[cain-e-brookman]

writers be like, i can fix him! *gives him pneumonia* *has him lose a limb* *has him almost drowned* *has him barely avoid execution* here, fixed.

[cain-e-brookman]

Hey happy STS!! Is there a song you listen to that makes you imagine a specific scene within your story? If so, feel free to share the song and describe the scene so we can share in the experience!

Thanks so much for the ask! I have a bunch and as i was looking through which one to share i, uh, realized they're all huge spoilers

sooooooo this isn't really a song that i imagine a particular scene to. Backstory: one of the regions in my world is the Ixoryn Marshes (which are swamp lands, not marshes, which is a meta joke in canon that any Marsher can tell you the Marshes are swamps and that the person who named them [me] didn't know the difference between a swamp and a marsh when he named them, but they'd [also read me] been attached to calling themselves Marshers so they won't change it) The Marshes are based heavily on the american south, specifically Louisiana, and although it's not a one to one culture by any means, their accents definitely range across different southern states.

One of my central characters in The Name, Witch is a Marsher named Silas. And I really like to imagine when he was raising his son, he used to carry him on his hip and sing him this song

(My Nana's nickname growing up was Little Bit, and so Silas' son also got that nickname.)

[cain-e-brookman]

Fun Lines tag

Tagged by the fantastic @spideronthesun- Thank you <3

Passing the ta to share a line you're proud of, and a line that's ridiculous out of context to @museandquill @cain-e-brookman @magnus-sm-writes @peach-the-gospel @mkw-writes and leaving an open tag for anyone who'd like to join in :)

A LINE I'M PROUD OF

My family was an ouroboros eating itself.

(Not going to lie- I'd forgotten about this line, and only rediscovered it whilst editing, and impressed myself. So I'm sharing it with you all!! )

A LINE THAT'S RIDICULOUS OUT OF CONTEXT

“I’m not willingly going to throw myself on a sacrificial pyre if that’s what you’re worried about!”

(@queen-tashie I'm leaving you off the hook- this time! I know you have a massive backlog, but once that's cleared, be prepared for the onslaught of tags!!)

[cain-e-brookman]

Fun Lines tag

Tagged by the @mrbexwrites Thank you so much!

Gonna tag @orphanheirs @illarian-rambling @seastarblue and @eternalwritingstudent to share a line you're proud of and a line that's ridiculous out of context

LINE I'M PROUD OF

The Realm of Shadows existed as an inversion of his own; such nonsense, it was impossible to describe. The opposite of black wasn’t necessarily white. The opposite of Life wasn’t necessarily Death. Whatever existed within the realm of Nybiegh the Silver Moon…it was the opposite of everything. So completely foreign, Uthyr had no means of comprehending it.

(well, a few lines. sue me)

LINE THAT'S RIDICULOUS OUT OF CONTEXT

Besides, if he were to channel her power through himself he’d have to take off his boots to ground the spell, which simply didn’t feel dignified in the moment.

[cain-e-brookman]

Not to keep spamming this, but we're almost to the first goal post and a little less than half of my stretch goal. Anything helps!

Hey y'all, i've mentioned my terrible creature here before but he just recently had surgery and it's a pretty hefty bill. If you can't donate, boosting would be greatly appreciated!

[cain-e-brookman]

"Are you good in bed?" No, I can't sleep.

[cain-e-brookman]

tea party with toads!

[oc: Fenny; any pronouns]

[cain-e-brookman]

Why don’t we let the guy whose every plan could be reasonably construed as an abstract suicide attempt take a crack it

[cain-e-brookman]

Friday(ish) Kiss Tag

Thanks for the tag @illarian-rambling! I'm slowly gonna start catrching up on the tag games i've been mentioned in, but I figured I'd go ahead and start here

There's only been one kiss in The Name, Witch. I think I may have shared a bit of it before, but...

Crucius’ smile was soft, out of place on his lips. Something wistful veiled his gaze. Gently he said: “Please be safe.” Uthyr sobered. “I will. You too.” “I came by to give you this,” Crucius said, breaking eye contact and handing off a small drawstring bag made of emerald green velvet. “If you ever need passage, if anyone blocks your path forward and you can't sway them to move, use this. I promise they won‘t fail to get out of your way.” “What is it?” Uthyr asked. Before he could open the bag, Crucius pressed it deeper into his palm, his other hand cupping the bottom of Uthyr's. “It comes with a price,” Crucius said, his voice so hard, it could mortar gravel. “Do not take it out until you have use of it. Don’t use it unless you absolutely must. I will answer no questions about it. I know it’s much to ask, but please trust me.” “I—” Uthyr didn’t know what to say. “I trust you.” Crucius nodded, his jaw working. “They won’t answer to me, but I’ll pray to the gods to keep you safe. Never lose sight of your virtues. Never forget who you serve. Stand strong. “And farewell,” Crucius added at the end. He leaned forward, pressed a kiss upon Uthyr’s brow, then released his hands and left the hut without turning back. Uthyr stood stunned. The skin where Crucius’ lips had touched felt colder for the loss. “Farewell,” Uthyr whispered in his friend’s wake, once he’d recalled how to breathe. The bag in his hands was heavy, heavier than he thought it ought to be. His hut was empty. Would be emptier still when he left. A lump formed in his throat. Stand strong. It all felt bigger than it should have. He was going to be gone less than a fortnight. The rain from the last two days wouldn’t have even dried enough to worry about watering his garden until he returned. He shook his head. Maybe he’d make a wand before he left. Just in case.  He hoped it would see no use. In less than a fortnight, he might still be able to reattach it to the tree. In less than a fortnight, he’d be back at his hearth, making potions for hay fever to bring to market.  Tending his carrot sprouts.  Watching the pollywogs.  And missing Crucius desperately.

I'll go ahead and taggggg @seastarblue @eternalwritingstudent @orphanheirs aaand @spideronthesun

[cain-e-brookman]

[cain-e-brookman]

So @seastarblue received this lovely ask for STS

and I saw mental health in world building and began to vibrate at a frequency that can only be heard by Oregon Cicadas. so Sea was very gracious and shared her question with me. Thanks again!

(This took me a while, thanks for your patience.)

SO

So first of all, let me introduce a main player in this: the Trickster god, Emjir. So no one really knows where exactly he came from. All of the myths surrounding the creation of the realms never really cover where Emjir is from or how he came about. But since the first time his name was uttered, he's been fucking shit up.

Now what does this have to do with mental illness? Well, Emjir is not just a Trickster. He has the title of God of Madness, but that's the cosmic horror, eldritch type madness, not mental illness. But he also has dominion of the mind and its many rooms and mazes. Once upon a time, his Priests made studies of his realms, both of Chaos and Madness along with the human mind and its maladies. When Emjir lost his Priest Pact Making Privileges, most of the knowledge surrounding their worship fell into obscurity, (or was burnt and thrown out by the people of Bhrechin who blamed him [correctly] for throwing their county into chaos.) Which meant a lot of their methods for helping people with mental illness just vanished.

Although the Priests of Uensine as well as his Mages have started in the last few centuries to pick up their work, they can't quite replicate the work of Emjir's Priests, as they don't have the power of the Trickster to call upon to help them. So in the modern age, the common person has a pretty narrow idea of mental illness. Melancholy and nerves are understood to be afflictions of unbalanced humors (hormones and neurotransmitters for the science nerds) or how traumatic events can lead people into survival mode, things that look more like Madness with a capital M (so the realm of Emjir, not actual mental illness) such as psychosis and such...not so well understood. Although there are plenty of healers who are sympathetic and a few who see the illness for what it is instead of an affliction of the Trickster's realm, there's not much known about such things since the bygone Priests of Emjir.

A few of my characters have mental illness, such as Uthyr with his anxiety and Silas who's working through some PTSD and OCD, but in a way that may not stand out to either of them as "illness." Uthyr sees himself as simply "soft and fussy," while Silas has absolutely no self awareness whatsoever.

Of course, both of those perspectives are largely products of the culture surrounding them, but that's a far longer post for another day.

Thanks for staying, gonna tag for my tag list. If you're seeing this and you'd like to be added, reply to this with an emoji or smth and I'll get you on there.

@eternalwritingstudent

@dearunreliablenarrator

@leahnardo-da-veggie

@spideronthesun

(And shameless plug for my gofundme for my Terrible Creature's surgery. If you can donate, it would be greatly appreciated!)