#( wip ) catholicism gothic

[encrucijada]

the best part about a fresh idea is that i can add whatever i want to it and it works <33

[wetcatspellcaster]

ik you'll probably get more articulated comments but sacrosanct is such a good fucking word. great job there. yes i just started reading chapter 17 i might continue live updates if i have more to say. great word

ALL comments are amazing, articulation be damned, anon.

But yes, 'sacrosanct' is a very very fun word. My personal fave is the sentence where I call the palace a 'cathedral to a very sterile god' bc it's talking about cleanliness but it sounds like Rosalie is also calling the Ascendent impotent, as a treat :')

[armentas]

Hey there, everyone! My name's Elliot. I've had a writing blog for a while, but I've never tagged a post to officially "join" writeblr before. My blog is more a place to store random photos and silly posts that remind me of my OCs, but I really would like to turn it into something more substantial!

Some stuff about me:

I'm 19.

I'm a trans man, bisexual, and physically disabled.

My favorite genres are contemporary, surrealist, horror, Southern gothic, and historical fiction/fantasy.

You will always find me writing about tragic siblings and religious trauma. If there's a will, there's a way...

I might not always see them or stay on top of them, but I'm fine with being tagged/ask games/stuff like that.

Now, for the wip intros!

Haven

Plot: When a teenage girl finds herself back in her child self's body after wishing for "the good old days", she attempts to use this chance to prevent her brother's suicide.

Genre: Contemporary coming of age, second person interactive fiction

Heather: The main character. An extremely shy, isolated, self-absorbed 17 year old who wants to be unconditionally loved above all. Endlessly curious, and longs for independence while fearful of it. Artistic and daydreams to cope.

Beau: Heather's older brother. Taking care of Heather was his responsibility as a child due to their father working, and their mother's depression confining her to her room. Well liked and deeply kind, but coddling and dishonest, Beau does everything he can to keep his struggles from himself and others. Suffered from a traumatic car accident at 19, and killed himself at 24.

Erin: Has known the two since she was 12, and dated Beau since his car accident. Good sense of humor and doesn't bullshit anyone. She thinks Beau's digging his own mental hole, and that Heather's burdened him too much. The siblings' parents don't approve of Erin's relationship with him because of her drug addiction. 24 years old.

Trigger warnings: Suicide/suicide ideation, death, self harm, neglect, intense portrayals of anxiety and panic attacks, car accidents, drug use

Prodigal

Plot: A priest decides to bring justice to the world by slaughtering those he deems morally reprehensible in the eyes of God.

Genre: Loosely Victorian inspired fantasy, in a setting controlled and dominated by Catholicism. Religious (trauma) fiction. Third person present tense

Celio: "The" main character. Keeping many secrets. Thoughtful and patient during his priestly duties, rigid and very bad-tempered otherwise. Well known for being one of the best speakers of his time. Selfish, arrogant, and extremely paranoid, especially of immorality and what others' intentions are, yet it does nothing to stop him sinking further and further into immoral and criminal behavior. 32-35 years old.

Finn: A main character. Celio's secret lover and pawn. Saved from prison time by Celio after Finn was falsely deemed responsible for his family's massacre. Looked down on and considered an outsider by all; pursuing becoming a doctor and surgeon with no license or ability to read. Coolheaded and humorous, but passive and stubborn. Just wants to do good for his poverty-stricken hometown, and to be respected. 32-35 years old.

Charity: Main antagonist. A mostly nonverbal, "orphaned" teen girl who Finn becomes a caretaker for. In actuality, she ran away from home after being ostracized by her church. She likes Finn, and gets along with Celio well enough, until she discovers his crimes and tries to separate Finn from the danger to no avail. Calm, sensible, and strongwilled, but with a bite to her. Has decided she's had enough of betrayal in her life, and that she'll take matters into her own hands, even if it means having to turn on those she once cared for. 16-17 years old.

Pearl: Antagonist. She first graduated from college with a degree in criminology at a mere 17 years old, making her a prime target for scouting by the police, but has remained an independent detective leading a relatively peaceful life. Charity hires Pearl to help catch Celio (and Finn as his accomplice), pulling her into a web of murders and lies even she hasn't yet seen outside of her textbooks. Goes from cherrypicking cases due to fear of failing the reputation of her genius (and therefore her people), to completely trusting her instincts, taking on any challenge ahead of her. Gentle and analytical, but sensitive and obsessive. 24-28 years old.

Trigger warnings: Religious trauma, homophobia, sexual content, death, murder, gore, suicide, gun and knife usage, abuse (physical, emotional, financial, domestic, spiritual), harm to animals, smoking and drinking

The Day You Left (TDYL)

Plot: A teenager travels back to his hometown and reunites with his childhood best friend, sparking a slow, difficult mending of happenings previous.

Genre: Romance novel taking place in the mid 2000s, third person present tense

Skip: The main character. A very monotone trans 19 year old with a photography hobby and history of homelessness. He used to have severe anger issues, and they still come to the surface sometimes when reminded of his trauma. Ex-Christian atheist, vehemently. Avoidant to a fault.

Milo: A boisterous, reckless, punk teenager who used to be friends with Skip. Current sufferer of anger issues and struggles to pay the bills, usually resorting to delinquency. They have a complicated history, so Milo feels very mixed about seeing him again. "In between" Christian and atheist. 19 years old.

Josie: Skip's older sister, who he no longer has contact with. Traditionally evangelical and defensive of authority to the end. 17-18 years old in flashbacks.

Trigger warnings: Religious trauma, familial abuse, sexual content, suicide/suicide ideation, self harm, mentions of homophobia, underage drinking and smoking, arson

Finally, I do have a wip called Kettle Creek, but it's...very much in an in between state, which is why I'm not introducing it here lol. But if you ever see me tagging something as Delora, Stasia, or Olive, that's where they come from!

[lasbrumas]

WTW GHOST GALA ; days 1-8

a review of all this week's prompts!

day 1; pumpkin carving ↳ You have to kill off a character; who do you choose?

Without getting into spoilers, certain characters die within Burning of the Apiary. Seems unfair to use them to answer this prompt, and not just because they’re spoilers, but because it just feels too easy. I already accounted for the impact of their deaths in the plot so…

That being said, if I had to make another character die or swap one death out for the other, it would be Camila. Out of all the side characters, she represents life the most. She is fun-loving, and generally optimistic, which would make her death all that more bleak. That and, out of all the characters, she is least invested in the actual plot and mystery, happy enough to keep out of the whole issue. It certainly would affect Dolores a lot, since she is doing her best throughout Burning of the Apiary to keep the rest of the convent school safe from whatever is slowly poisoning their minds and relationships.

day 2; raven ↳ Create a tagline for your WIP.

Love the sinner.

I couldn’t think of a tagline at first, but then I remembered the whole Christian saying of “love the sinner, hate the sin” or whatever it is. I grew up Catholic, though this was never explicitly said; just implied. And it made me reflect on some personal things where that sort of ideology was present and the disastrous effects it had years down the line, especially when it comes to love in all forms. I thought it would be fitting for Burning of the Apiary because, ultimately, it’s about love and its destructive nature when tied to ideologies like that. In world, the religion might not be Catholicism, but it’s still highly dogmatic and devotion based.

day 3; crystal ball ↳ Outline a scene, act, or your entire WIP.

Set up my new outline document and started filling it in. Enjoy this preview of what I’m calling the sections so I know what goes where. Will I actually have a 5-act structure? Probably not. But it helps get my thoughts in order before I fix it up.

Act 1: The Arrival Act 2: The Meeting Act 3: The Initiation Act 4: The Kiss Act 5: The Sacrifice

day 4; fallen leaves ↳ Create a playlist for your WIP.

A few select songs from the Burning of the Apiary playlist:

in the beginning, fahrenhaidt & alice merton ; bee dance, agnes obel ; the disappearance of the girl, phildel ; if the world falls to pieces, young summer ; destroyer, of monsters and men

day 5; jack o' lantern ↳ Share an interesting fact you found while doing research for your WIP.

While researching bees, I found out that there is a type of moth that acts as a predator/invasive species to bees. The wax moth, both lesser and greater, eats beeswax, pollen, remains of larval bees, and more. However, the most interesting fact is that they often only target hives that are already diseased or declining. They’re a great indicator of underlying problems in a bee colony.

I thought this was cool and they may or may not make an appearance in Burning of the Apiary.

day 6; vampire ↳ Tell us where you find your motivation and inspiration.

I find most of my inspiration from other types of media I consume, including movies, tv shows, and, of course, books. Even photos and the rare hike I take give me inspiration. I think part of being a creative person is finding inspiration anywhere and everywhere, and that’s very true with me.

Burning of the Apiary is one of those WIPs I’ve had on the backburner for a while, and I’ve tried writing it several times. The original inspiration was a mix of a few dreams I had written down and Coraline. Since then, it’s evolved to pull more inspiration from the classic gothic novels I read (and loved) in high school college, most notably Villette and Jane Eyre, along with Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth and Crimson Peak, mixed with whatever I find cool and want to throw in there.

day 7; skeleton ↳ Have a favorite plot structure? If not, share how you plot!

My way of plotting is sort of throwing things and seeing what sticks. I tend to get ideas very piecemeal and random –– a scene or piece of dialogue or character. This can make it difficult to plot sometimes, which is why my outlines tend to be written, rewritten, and then usually tweaked even during the writing process.

I’ve tried several plot structures, like the 3-Act, 7-Act, and Save the Cat method. None of them quite worked out for me, but I took pieces here and there to figure out a general plot, or at least plan major beats and fill in everything in between. Knowing the genre is always the most important for me, though, since certain plot points are “standard” for genres (and for good reason). Plus, the better I know the genre, the easier it is to choose what rules actually apply to my WIPs. For Burning of the Apiary, I definitely researched and read a lot of horror and mystery novels to familiarize myself with genre-plot conventions and beats (and also found some new favorites). It’s been fun and I’ll be using that to figure things out!

day 8; trick or treat ↳ Set some writing goals and milestones for your WIP.

the overall goal for Burning of the Apiary is about 80-90k, so I am trying to get at least half of that done during NaNoWriMo. we'll see.

[thelittlestspider]

*spins into ur inbox*

🫂- What was your inspiration for your WIP?

🌵- What did you start with first for your WIP? Worldbuilding, character, or plot?

👽- What do you think is the weirdest thing about your WIP is?

i'm gonna use st. bernedine's school for girls for this, since i haven't talked about it in a while.

🫂 - part of it was inspired by a dream (the school and the general look of vietta city), and the plot was from reading way too many dark academia books, and too many gothic books.

🌵 - i think some of the characters and the setting came first because of the dream, then later i was like, 'y'know, this seems like the plot to a mystery with ghosts' and st. bernedine's was born.

👽 - i would say the cannibalism, but that's just a metaphor for catholicism (which is like. pedestrian for tumblr at this point lol).

[encrucijada]

look how it has eyes on the palms, eyes on its wings.

catholicism gothic [1/?]

[encrucijada]

never paid attention in church because you have adhd and all you did was daydream while looking at the ceiling but still want the catholic aesthetic in your latine coded book? introducing: just make shit up

[encrucijada]

catholicism gothic and the butterfly labyrinth for the title tag pls!!!

catholicism gothic as a concept sprung out during escapril of last year when i wrote the "poem" for the prompt act of creation and captioned it as "catolicismo gótico" as a play of things like southern gothic or small town gothic and the like. it was just some imagery i put together and added some "gothic" elements to (see: blood). here's the thing it's on my 2022 escapril collection

i really liked the imagery! and imagery is 90% of what motivates my writing so i decided i wanted to write something with that vibe. something was intentionally working with the imagery of latinoamerican catholicism but just, make it "gothic". basically write some dark magical realism. the problem was i had no characters or any actual plot, just the ~vibe~. now i still don't have any of that but i... might try to write a chapbook with it?? there are many things i could do with catholicism gothic because it's an aesthetic it's not really a story. the chapbook is about this group of cousins who find a fallen angel in their property's pond one day and decide to lock it away in the basement (or maybe the attic i haven't decided). but i could also do away with the angel plot and simply write a novel about rotten family vibes and just make the images of la virgen cry blood sometimes. many possibilities! i could write them all!

this is all i have for the chapbook so far lmao

as for the butterfly labyrinth, it is the title of my the maze runner ripoff. i love the concept of the maze runner. unethical human experimentation?? set during a post-apocalypse?? awesome. 10/10. if only the books were like... good. i read them all in high school and loved them. then i tried to reread them and never have i fallen out of love so aggressively in my life lmao. the writing was so bad, the dialogue was bad. i think i liked the books because i read them in spanish so when i tried to do the same in english and it was cringe i swore revenge. now: the movies?? i Love the movies. still do, probably always will. the feel and imagery of the movies is amazing. i love the post-apcalyptic outside world contrasted with the sleek look of the w.c.k.d. objectively they're probably not that good but i Love them.

so. with all that in mind i decided i wanted to write a the maze runner ripoff. you know how after the hunger games came out there was a teen dystopia craze? this is going to be my addition to that once that trend comes back. the butterfly labyrinth has a similar set up: scientists are experimenting on kids to find the cure to a virus. except because it's me and i hate zombies (cranks are just zombies lite, i do not like them) i decided to make the virus more... fantasy. so what the virus does is turn people into strange hybrid monsters. they are still locked away in a labyrinth but now the monsters aren't synthetic and made by the scientists (the way grievers are), they are the very same kids of the experiment, except it's those who have succumbed to the virus and turned. so the experiment revolves around examining three groups: the immune, the not immune who aren't infected, and the not immune who are infected and have turned into monsters.

no snippets for this because i haven't done any writing. but if i was to properly commit i would probably make it a duology? one where they are inside the experiment and one after they escape it. oh and it's called "butterfly labyrinth" because the process of transofmation is called metamorphosis.

[encrucijada]

when ladies mary by san fermin starts playing and i think i could write the entirety of catholicism gothic in the time it takes the song to end

[encrucijada]

are the gothic-core posts (small town gothic, etc.) just magical realism? discuss

[encrucijada]

Hi seabird

You don't have to give me titles, but how many sneaky extra wips do you have in your hoard besides your front-runner wips, the ones you talk about consistently or use in tag games? in asking storyteller questions on Friday because I forsee myself forgetting tomorrow

this is the funniest question to ask me, famous wips hoarder. if i was a dragon my cave would be filled with empty computer documents. but! to narrow it down i will talk about wips who are the most bare bones but i still really like

coughing roses: no idea! but it involves the characters fae velásquez, jo czerny, and raf ocampo. they're dating. they're in high school. they are in their 20s living in a shitty apartment. they steal something from the host whenever they go to a party. they're in a band. they're best friends. they killed someone. there's flower symbolism.

little red riding hood & the wolves: an alternative version of little red riding hood where red's family raises wolves and the enemy are the hunters and woodsmen who want to harm said wolves. the set-up is she moves to town with her parents, while her grandmother stayed behind in the forest to look after the wolves.

catholicism gothic: magical realism set in costa rica but while barrio ángeles is set in san josé, i think catholicism gothic will be set in cartago or heredia. it revolves around cousins who one day find a fallen angel in their property's pond and keep it locked away in the house.

the orchard commonwealth: dark academia boarding school book about a classics studies teacher who comes back to the place she graduated from to teach and watches from afar the cult her students begin to form, not knowing she's a big influence on them.

las bacantes: siglo xx: ifigenia moves in with her estranged aunt after her brother is put into rehab following an overdose that almost killed him. she starts attending a local private school where she is roped into a search for the god dionysus through the reenactment of his mysteries, led by a girl who calls herself ariadne.

crocus lane: a world where humans have died out there's a community of talking animals (beatrix potter style). who go about their day to day life in a dark fairy tale sort of way.

there's more but we'll leave it at that!

[encrucijada]

wip title meme tag.

tagged by @wipsbymor ! thank you

rules: post the names of all the files in your wip folder, let people send you an ask with the title that's most interesting to them, and then post a snippet or tell something about it! tag as many people as you have wips

i have too many wips. too many. so this is going under a read more

i also ended up having almost 50 titles and i am not tagging 50 people. so i'm tagging: @saltwaterbells @onomatopiya @macywrites @moonssugar @coffeeandcalligraphy @teddywriting @cream-and-tea and i dunno! anyone else who might want to do this!

disasters to sleep through

evergreen lung

haze dogs

coughing roses

fantasybane

from the mouths with no tongue

house gardens

las bacantes: siglo xx

little red riding hood

perséfone

a home for children raised as wolves

red soul

speak, prophecy

the lupine trail

the walk of eurydice

three girls who cried wolf

to feast just like royals

small gods

fantasy quest*

astral convergence

she's history,

hyacinthus,

antigone's modern lament

the moon like a thin smile

oh, glory!

animal law

hideout

wolves by any other name

greek tragedy!

keep staring and i'll never fall asleep

maybe i dreamed you, maybe we dreamed each other

pointed north

summoning of the muse

appoggiatura

aurum complex

crocus lane

in the wild garden

lazarus house for children who came back to life

media noche

spooky kids*

sunshine horror

catholicism gothic

the butterfly labyrinth

the god's heads

the labyrinths*

angel eyes, darling

somewhere in limbo

barrio ángeles

antigone

[encrucijada]

me: we literally had this idea like 2 days ago, it doesn't have to be fully developed overnight

also me: if i don't know the entire plot for my new catholicism gothic wip right now i will explode