#Arsioly is.... such a character

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

So sad I can't write Arsioly's first kill in his own perspective.... but it's still pretty fun from Visralion's POV too :3

Tw he kills a guy it's not terribly graphic, just kind of, but he does kill a guy and he's kind of weird about it

The nationalist noticed the soldier creeping up on him too late. Just as he made to turn around, Arsioly slapped a hand over his mouth from behind, muffling any attempts to scream. Arsioly dug his knife into the side of his throat and tore it across until it came free on the other side. He hugged the body against himself with an arm slipped under one shoulder, reaching around to grip the other. Visralion could only see from the back how Arsioly's head bent down and to the side, as if to savor the sight of a throat ripped open or to whisper a secret in the dead soldier's ear.

He started taking slow steps backwards, dragging the body back towards the tree line. He laid it in the grass with a reverence that reminded Visralion of when he was young and would watch through church windows as beadles dressed fallen soldiers with herbs and lowered them into coffins.

Visralion felt nauseous as he watched Arsioly bend over the corpse, take his bloody knife, and cut the tip of the soldier's ear off.

"What the fuck?" Sibatol stammered, taking a step away.

"Souvenirs."

"You're insane."

"Be quiet."

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

. . . ⇢ ˗ˏˋ Writeblr intro

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Hello! My name is Vyuntspakhkite, I go by Vyunt. My pronouns are he/it. I'm a writer and an artist :3

I'm a minor! I don't mind interacting with people who are 18+ but please don't interact if you're an exclusively NSFW blog.

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I've always really liked to write stories and I've wanted to make a proper book since forever, but I have a bad habit of getting distracted by new ideas and abandoning my old ones before I can finish them. I'm determined to see this one through, though, as I have big plans for the world I've created and need a solid starting point.

I'm new to Tumblr and a little shy, but I do love talking to people! If you're interested in anything I do, feel free to reach out with a DM and we can chat! Seriously, getting messages makes my day 100x better :3

When it comes to reading, I'm open to just about any genre (feel free to hit me with recommendations!), though I almost exclusively write fantasy. Many of my characters are LGBTQ+, mentally ill, or both. My writing tends to get dark and gory at times, but I do my best to properly tag and warn if anything I post might be triggering.

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Current WIP: Biting the Bullet - early drafting stage Biting the Bullet is a fantasy military story, centering around a group of soldiers as they fight for independence from the oppresive Kristalyan Empire. Arsioly and his fireteam constantly have their worldviews challenged as they slowly realize that war may be less about honor and justice than they thought. Posts about this book are tagged with #biting the bullet vld

List of BtB snippets I've posted (in vague chronological order): Prologue Are you scared? Hate, hate, hate My family has some Selvesh blood... The refugee Heads up, seven up Was I as good as the others?

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[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

Some sketches! Top is btb characters (L->R Arsioly, Visralion, Sibatol, Virava) and bottom is tpwtbam characters (Rasiel, Pio, Ezikiel)

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

I love seeing people ramble about their stories so, can you ramble about Biting the Bullet?

Totally! I recently decided to pause my first draft because I got stuck and do a dummy draft instead so it'll be nice to just talk about it a little. <3

Originally it was going to be a silly story about a military fireteam during a war in a fantasy universe. It. It was going to be silly. It was going to be an action-comedy. It is.... not that anymore. All the world conflicts started getting into the mainstream media and I began seeing more military recruiters in my school and I kind of began projecting my anxieties and frustrations and stuff onto the story and honestly I think that made it a lot stronger.

I have three options I'm still not sure which to pick for the POV. I'm doing it in 3rd person past tense for sure, but I'm still not sure if I'm going to switch between all four of the main characters' perspectives, just Sibatol and Arsioly, or just Arsioly. For the first draft I'm rotating between all of them and we'll see how I feel after that.

I think my favorite thing about this story is the decisive character moments I have planned. My characters will develop gradually, but their biggest developments come from moments where they have to make big choices, whether to stay in their old ways or grow as people. Visralion, the team's medic who usually puts others before himself, says no when Arsioly first asks to be his boyfriend. Because even though they both like each other, Arsioly is a pretty shitty person to everyone but Visralion at that point, and Visralion recognizes that if they got in a relationship it'd just end up with him trying to fix Ari and that's not his job. This is also a big moment for Arsioly- he can choose to be awful about the rejection or he can choose to look at his own behavior and improve as a person. He chooses to improve himself.

Ari probably had the most of these and I can't say one of them bc spoilers but another one he has which is more subtle but still important is when Estera, the girl his fireteam finds on a mission and basically adopts bc she has nowhere else to go, wakes him up in the middle of the night to cuddle because she had a nightmare. His immediate reaction is to tell her to suck it up and leave him alone so he can sleep. But he chooses to be compassionate to her and it really makes him realize how much better it feels to be nice to people (and helps teach him the value of a life bc he almost shot her and is now seeing that all the people he's carelessly killed could have gone on and had moments like these but shh...).

Most of Virava's are more spoilery but they revolve mostly around her being terrified about her past repeating itself, and she ends up overcorrecting and taking several steps backwards before she finally stops bearing all her feelings by herself and actually talks to people about her fear.

Talking about Sibatol under the cut because his portion of this revolves around be talking about him being promiscuous, if hearing abt that will make you uncomfy don't read further :3

The one I can think of for Sibatol is a bit less straightforward than the previous ones but bear with me. He struggles with hypersexuality for most of the story due to trauma from when he was young. Sleeping around causes a lot of problems for him but he just can't stop and he really struggles in situations where he can't just fuck his way out of it. Most of the moves he makes hurt him or make situations worse or just generally dig him deeper into this hole he's dug for himself. But I'm not the person that's gonna give you a character like this and then tell you that the way they become a better person is by being less of a slut. His turning point (I won't be too specific bc spoilers) is when he learns how to use his sexuality in a more strategic way, a helpful way that makes things easier for people for once, which is a gateway into him changing his mindset abt his sexuality and he's still as promiscuous by the end of the story but he doesn't just use it as a distraction from bad feelings anymore, he approaches it in a healthier way.

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

. . . ˗ˏˋ Welcome to my blog!

Hello! My name is Vyuntspakhkite. You can call me Vyunt. My pronouns are it/its/he/him, and otherwise I like masculine terms.

I'm a minor, and while I don't mind interacting with adults, please don't interact with me if your blog is very NSFW-focused.

My books are all set in a low fantasy universe, but when it comes to reading, I'm open to most genres- feel free to hit me up with recommendations! Most of the characters I write are LGBTQ+, mentally ill, or both. My stories are mostly dark and gory and deal with heavy topics. I'll do my best to tag everything properly, but I might miss things, if you catch something I didn't add, just reach out and I'll add in the proper tags.

Now, I'll introduce my WIPs!

Folie à Deux - planning A prequel to The Burning of Nyazhchau, focusing mostly on Arsioly and Tanka, a guy who's trying to court him. I'll update this with a better summary soon!

The Burning of Nyazhchau - first draft A fantasy military story, centering around a group of soldiers as they fight for independence from the oppressive Kristalyc Empire. Arsioly, Virava, Sibatol, and Visralion, who are part of the same rebel fireteam, constantly have their worldviews challenged as they realize war isn't what they thought. You can learn more about this WIP by going to #wip: the burning of nyazhchau or about the characters using #char: >insert first name< .

The Proper Way to Break a Man - plotting A story about a prophet and queen called Rasiel, and her divinely appointed servants. I don't have a good summary to put here but I'll add one when I think of it, for now I'll just leave it with the intro linked. You can find more content for this WIP by searching #wip: tpwtbam or using #char: >insert first name< to find things about specific characters.

I also have a few other blogs! @vyunt-doodles - my art blog, mostly furry art. Mostly inactive as of right now. @vyunt-ramblings - my personal blog, mostly reblogs and political stuff I don't want on main, occasional life updates as well

And that's all for now, thank you for your time and have a good day!

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

Ok so I'm facing a bit of a dilemma I need to ramble about it

I have a side character in BtB that uses they/them pronouns, but is afab and still presents pretty femininely. They and Virava used to date and so Virava knows about their pronouns very well. Sibatol is also friends with them and knows about their pronouns. Visralion hasn't really talked to them before but has heard people talking about them and has mentally noted their pronouns. Arsioly has probably heard them talked about in passing but hasn't ever taken notice of their pronouns and would probably think they're a girl.

As the POV shifts from character to character i like to try and shape the narration to show the reader how each of them sees the world. So should I refer to the character with the correct pronouns while in everyone's POV except Arsioly's? Should I refer to them with correct pronouns in the narration all the time, and just have Ari use the wrong ones while speaking until someone corrects him?

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

So now that I have to write a prequel to The Burning of Nyazhchau, I'm thinking about titles. maybe Folie à Deux could work? At least as a placeholder. Folie à deux/shared delusional disorder is basically when two people are experiencing the same or a very similar delusion to each other and it's something that clearly can't be true.

This isn't exactly what's going on in the book and the characters don't actually have this disorder which is one reason I don't think this will be the final title, but I do think it's a good way of expressing what the main problem of the book will be-- that Arsioly is trying to live as a woman and that everyone around him perceives him as one, even himself, when this just isn't true (he's ftm). Arsioly and a guy who's courting him are going to be the main focus for most of it, and they'll be the two the title is referencing. They're both chasing something unattainable. The suitor wants to turn what he sees as just a challenging woman into a housewife, and Arsioly wants to stay in a society that is designed to keep afab people out of the positions of power he's after.

I'm probably going to start plotting and drafting this soon, it's gonna be a rough one but I'm excited to dig into a lot of the issues it's gonna explore

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

Currently attempting to write a scene I've had to step away from multiple times because it just wasn't working and yknow. I'm starting to realize that I have unintentionally made Arsioly seem to dislike Sibatol, not really outwardly but whenever I see his voice coming through in the writing regarding Sibatol he's like high key slut shaming him and now I'm kind of starting to think, huh, that'd make sense. He is one of those homophobic gays after all and I think it's extremely in character for him to be jealous of look down on someone for being confident enough in their attractions to actually pursue people. So now that's going to be a thing that they're kind of tense with each other and I am going to have fun with that. <3

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

Character voice tag game :3

Rewrite the line in the voices of your characters, then pick a new line and pass it on

My line is: “I’m offended you’d say that to me.” (Tagged by @mk-writes-stuff) Using some of my characters from Biting the Bullet :3

Arsioly: “You shouldn’t have said that to me.”

Visralion: “Oh. Well, I’m sorry you feel that way, but I disagree…”

Sibatol: “Uh-huh. That’s nice.”

Virava: “Go f*ck yourself.”

Liena: “Hm. Go tell your fireteam that you all are on laundry duty for a week.”

Raba: “Care to word that a little differently?”

Estera: “…dad! Come here, someone’s being mean to me!”

Tagging @caxycreations @rhyaxxyn @thetruearchmagos (and anyone else who wants to participate). Your line is: “We have to go.”

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

Happy STS! Do you associate your MCs with any specific songs?

This is gonna be a short answer but I don’t have a very deep answer lmao

I don’t usually associate songs with specific characters, I do often think of Arsioly when I hear COLOSSAL CONFLICT by Lil Darkie though

I also associate the songs Katyusha and Smuglianka (specifically the Red Army Choir versions) with Biting the Bullet as a whole and I’d like to sincerely apologize for that 💀 I wish I had a better explanation but the entire reason is that I feel like Kristalyc nationalist propaganda songs would have the vibe of those songs and I keep imagining rebel soldiers singing them in terrible mocking accents while trying not to laugh

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

Character Voice Tag Game

Thanks for the tag @mk-writes-stuff ! My line is: “Can you give me a hand?”

Arsioly: *clicks his tongue, waves them over.* “Come here.”

Visralion: “Could you help me, please?”

Sibatol: “Hey honey, come help me with something real quick.”

Virava: “I need some help, you mind?”

Just did the main crew because brain is not cooperating atm 💀 it’s fineee

Tagging @reininginthefirewriting, @illarian-rambling, @dyrewrites, @spitefulbull, @the-ellia-west (and anyone else who wants to participate!)

Your line is: “What is wrong with you?”

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

Midnight, monster, mistake for the not so nice OC asks (I do love some alliteration) ;)

Thanks for the ask!

I did midnight in another ask for Visralion, so I'll do Arsioly for this one, since Virava sleeps fairly soundly, and so does Sibatol when he's not up... socializing...

Arsioly had a hard time getting to sleep most nights, and is almost always the last of his fireteam to be awake at night. Besides trying to avoid his own nightmares, he's very protective of his friends, and likes to know where they are in case there's an emergency. He sometimes worries that if he falls asleep first, they'll go somewhere without him knowing. He also knows that Visralion has nightmares a lot, and on particularly guilty nights he'll stay up to soothe him if he gets one.

Mistake is a hard one. I've had to think about this for a while, and some of the answers dip into spoilery territory, but I have one that I can be kind of vague with. Raba- I haven't talked about her a whole bunch yet- but I'd say that her worst mistake was not rebuilding her fireteam after the members of her original one died. That, paired with her do-it-yourself attitude, doesn't end well.

For monster, none of my characters are physically monstrous (sure, they have non-human designs, but since they're just their own species I won't count that), but some of them do feel like monsters. Arsioly is probably the best example of this. He has violent impulses and the strength to carry them out. At times, he lets them win over. He's fairly disgusted with himself for some of these intrusive thoughts, but this is a war, and he has to do what he has to do to survive, so he mostly tries to accept them and learn to shape them into something useful.

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

Writing share tag

Thanks for the tag, @cowboybrunch ! Convenient timing with this one, because I worked on my first draft for the first time in a while last night. And well, it is a first draft, but I do think what I wrote is helping make Virava a more distinct character.

When the group returned to camp, Liena greeted them immediately. They gave her the rundown. At least half of the talking was done by Arsioly. Virava almost expected him to whip out his little trophy, even though it'd probably get him an earful from Liena at best. That was the sort of thing the Emperor's Divine Army did when they managed to kill rebel soldiers, it was a shock that he'd done it. "Our cover was broken earlier than we expected," Arsioly said, referencing Tavery, who had been taken to the large- well, large for the RA's standards- medical tent. "But we handled it well. And if the cleanup team does their job, they'll bring us back a gun." Liena hummed and nodded, and then decided she'd heard enough. She dismissed the group, though most didn't leave the clearing, heading straight for the fire to receive their meals. Virava did so as well, and as she crouched down to eat and warm up by the fire, Liena walked over with her hands on her hips. "How was it?" the camp leader asked, squatting next to Virava, her pinecone-colored ponytail bobbing with the movement. The light caught on the silver strands that were starting to creep through the brown, like ivy overtaking a wall. Virava smiled, and it didn't reach her eyes. "Well… it was fine. Process was different than I remembered, but not in a bad way. We've gotten more careful." Liena hummed but didn't speak, probably trying to prompt a less impersonal answer. "Sibatol gave me a scare. He got lost between buildings, there was a moment where we couldn't find him." Liena seemed skeptical, and Virava couldn't say that, after thinking about it more, she quite believes he'd gotten lost in that little village either. "Ah… him. How did he do?" "About like I expected. He was real anxious going in," Virava sighed. "But I didn't really see him in action. I'll admit, I wasn't paying much attention to anything, the adrenaline had me. But he came out without a scratch, so I assume he did well." Liena nodded and moved to sit down on her hip. "That's good. I was worried about him." Virava made a noise that said the feeling was mutual. She'd been more than worried about Sibatol, especially in those moments where she didn't know where he was. She might have had a heart attack if something had happened to him. She couldn't handle another loss. Deciding to change the subject before the got too into her own head, she asked, "How are the other camp leaders doing?" "They're doing alright. Zhaik and Eila's camps have missions planned that will connect their territories, which is huge. We've decided we're going to focus on that- connecting camps, I mean. We want to close the gaps so that we can block off trade from Conalis to Kristalya, at least over land. Not much we can do about boats." "Smart. But I figure if I was Conalis and I suddenly had a group of ruffians blocking trade and losing me money, I'd be pretty pissed. Let's make sure to redirect traders to places where their merchandise will still be bought. We don't need more enemies, especially not ones that will leave us trapped between them." "We've already thought of that, yes, but thank you," Liena said, her eyes squinting with a bit of humor. Virava chuckled. "Just making sure." They were quiet then, each lost in their respective thoughts. Then Liena spoke again. "You know, that's the kind of thinking we look for in camp leaders." Virava rolled her eyes. This wasn't the first time Liena had propositioned her to try and get her to become a camp leader. Virava knew why, of course. She'd been with the rebellion since just after it started picking up a traction and becoming a real threat to the empire. She'd been here longer than most soldiers in the camp, and she had the skills to prove it. But that kind of responsibility just wasn't something Virava wanted. Her mistakes had gotten people hurt too many times to be interested in that. "Maybe it is." Liena understood that as a rejection of the idea and didn't speak on it further.

Tagging @mk-writes-stuff, @written-among-stars, and @abbyzwrites

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

Rasily Shir-Takya

So, I'm finally doing character intros! I've been meaning to since forever but kept getting caught up in the littler details and worrying about who I should do first, so I decided to pick a character that doesn't get too much screen time but is still important.

Name: Rasily Etor Shir-Takya Age: Fifty-two Gender: Male Sexuality: Heterosexual Appearance: Tall and muscular, with tan skin and quite a few scars over his body. Most notably, a scar on his chin, and one on his right leg, where the fur has only grown back in patches. His hair is black, and he keeps it in a neat crew cut. Personality: Calculated, ambitious, ruthless, and loyal. He's very passionate about his beliefs and will protect those who stand behind him. Important Relationships: Rasily has been married twice. His late wife, Filde, died while giving birth to his oldest son, Arsioly, who is now disowned. He has two children with his second wife, Nayila, a son named Daral and a daughter named Iska. He is close with his second-in-command, Fayidor. Education: He's had an extensive education, doing well in the standard ten grades and then going to school at the Nyazhchau School of Service and Politics for six years. he still regularly attends lectures of any topic he can make time for. Occupation: Rasily is a Major General in the Kristalyc Army. Hobbies: Reading, attending lectures, wood carving, playing sports with his son Proudest Achievement: His promotion to Major General.

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

☀️ - How well does your OC deal with isolation? 

I’ll do this one for the main characters of BtB!

Sibatol wouldn’t deal with isolation very well. He’s a very social person, always has been, he gets freaked out if he feels like he’s alone somewhere. I think if he was hypothetically placed in a situation where there was nobody else around, he’d cope by naming any objects or animals around him and just run his mouth as if he were having a conversation with it.

Virava would probably do fine for a while. She does enjoy being social, but she doesn’t need to have people around to feel okay. Her coping mechanism if she were to be isolated for longer than she felt comfortable with would probably just be excessive exercise or working towards a way out of the situation without taking time to think about her emotions.

Visralion could probably last the longest in an isolated environment. He’s kind of like Viravs in that he enjoys talking to and being around people but it’s generally not something he considers necessary. I think if he was isolated for too long, though, he’d have a similar reaction to Sibatol, maybe he’d come up with an imaginary friend of sorts or he’d try and pretend the people he cares about were there.

For Arsioly, we’ll find out eventually :3

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

So far I think my draft is pretty strong so far but I'm noticing some big flaws and I'm gonna ramble about it

I mentioned in a post yesterday(?) kind of that when I shift perspective, I like to shape the narration style to really help the reader understand how each character thinks. But as I'm going into chapter four and the first actual chapter from Arsioly's perspective, I'm realizing that his style is far more distinct from everyone else's than the other three are from each other.

Because my guy is like a fuckin psycho and he's all like 'will death hold me like water' and reminiscing about killing a guy and barkbarkbark

As of right now the way I'm planning to make Virava's voice more distinct is by making her see things more artistically because she really wants to be an artist even though she doesn't have the materials

For Sibatol I'm not quite sure but I think I'm just going to give him more internal monologue? Because this bitch doesn't say anything he means. He's just a traumatized kid inside but his survival has depended on being appealing to others for so long that he just can't turn the persona off

But I'm concerned about Visralion kind of? I dunno I guess part of me wants to make one of his characteristics be that he thinks far more of other people than he does himself and then part of his arc can be when Ari confesses to him and he's like wait.. i don't really want to be with him right now Will it be too late if I do that? Will people already have written him off as like just a boring love interest for Arsioly to obsess over or will they realize once that scene happens that I did that intentionally?

Spoilers under the cut and also me trying to ffigure out if i have some internal bias I don't see or if I'm just overanalyzing

I'm also worried about Virava and Visralion's agency in the story. Arsioly has the most agency because he's hugely ambitious and just wants more. Among other things he plans the attack on Nyazhchau which literally tips the scale of the war and cements both his fame/legacy and the future of the Rahaithian Army (I finally found a permanent name for the rebels). I genuinely think that if he did not exist then the RA wouldn't win and Kristalya would remain whole for longer.

Sibatol also has a fair bit of agency, he's the one that saves Arsioly from Nyazhchau, and he's also the one that recovers the negotions when Arsioly starts fucking up

Now something I've noticed is that the two characters that have the most agency are the two white characters out of the four MCs. I didn't do this on purpose obviously but I'm wondering if it's an internal bias thing.

I do have my reasons for most of their designs. Arsioly and Visralion are quite different in color for character design reasons and I do really like that character design trope where it's like opposites and they're gay for eahc other idk. I could theoretically switch them and give Arsioly the darker color scheme and Visralion the lighter one but idk then that makes the two POCs the two more violently inclined characters in the group and I don't like that either.

Virava is black as a reference to the black trans women that were part of the stonewall riots, and if I make Sibatol black as well, that makes the three MCs that came from poverty all black and the one character that came from a rich family white. I could switch Virava's and Sibatol's role but I have weird feelings about making the only trans character the one that's very promiscuous.

Idk that's not the point I just need more agency for Visralion and Virava. I can make it so Visralion has a more subtle sort of agency where he supports his friends and is kind of the 'glue' of the team, plus he's the only one of them that's good at comfort. He also has his moment where he makes the call that they're keeping Estera and his moment where he rejects Arsioly because he sees that man is not ready for a relationship.

For Virava though I'm really not sure? I'm pretty sure that when the Nyazhchau situation happens she's going to be the one that goes, "no, we're going to try again, Arsioly could still be alive and we could rescue him and even if he's no he wouldn't just want us to give up." I think she's also gonna have some nice moments with Estera but I just feel like there needs to be more.... I'm going to look for opportunities while I'm writing to give her some more agency I just needed to talk about this and get the words out there