#aboutthewarlord

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Writeblr Re(rere)intro that's a year late!

Hi! I'm Pax, and I write Big Books that keep getting darker and darker in subject matter 🎉🎉

Basics about me:

he/him or they/them, Mid 20s

Favorite genres: Fantasy, SciFi, Horror, Mystery

Favorite authors: N. K. Jemisin, Tamsyn Muir, Brandon Sanderson, Pierce Brown, Samantha Shannon

Other things I do: Digital art (including commissions!), Twitch streams (usually art or writing sprints, occasionally video games), digital art assets and fonts (PWYW on Ko-Fi!)

Basics about my WIPs:

THE MILLENNIUM SAGA

High fantasy/Steampunk epic, 8 books planned. Book one: Firebreathers (160k words; ~700 pages) Book two: Echoseers (148k words; ~600 pages) Book three: Goddess-Touched (15k as of posting; 3rd attempt at drafting) First person, Multi POV What starts as a simple rebellion against their local Citylord becomes a flight - and fight - for their lives, as Ember Timber, their family, and their newfound friends are forced to flee overseas from the vengeful general who will stop at nothing to earn her Eternal King's favor, and will in fact relish hunting her own son and grandchildren for sport. But along the way, the crew learns that the Eternal King's immortality was not granted in return for his success as the Chosen One long ago, as they have always been told - and the sacrifice for such a thing is not only paid dearly in blood, but on its way to being repeated.

WHISPERS

Dark fantasy Noir. Currently with beta readers. 172k words; ~750 pages. First person, Dual POV. Set in the same world as Millennium Saga, ~5 years after the series concludes. Marika Swiftfoot owes her life to the Shadow of Fowden, the sorceress leader of a terroristic crime syndicate based in the north pole. When the man she once loved finally comes to collect on that life debt ten years later, she plans to kill him the moment it's safe. Too soon, after all, and everyone else she's ever loved will join him beyond the Veil. But hate isn't the only feeling that lingers between them, and when they're offered another way out of their debts, the lives of a few innocents looks like a bargain compared to the life of cruelty ahead of them. Lorelei has been hunting the Shadow for twenty years, and looking for the sister who disappeared for thirty. And here, names are legacies: she wants to earn Hopebringer before her legs give out for good, to erase the stain her father's name has left with Vowbreaker. And for that, she sees one way forward: she must never break her vows, no matter how small. The Shadow must die, and the Whispers with her. Her sister must be found, even if all that's left to find is a story. She must find answers for every case she takes on, even if she doesn't know so much as the name of the man who's gone missing.

THE LOST

Space opera webcomic. First scene fully illustrated; will release once the first chapter is complete, a week after Patrons receive the final scene. In the far reaches of space, the term "Media Empire" is quite literal; the Watchers have extended their influence throughout their galaxy filament with the help of their beloved Coliseum, and the Champion therein. After all, having a shapeshifter capable of replicating anything leads to some gruesome, spectacular fights, made all the more heartrending when they are the last of their kind, trapped in the ship molded from their kin's corpse. But while the Watchers have total control over what happens in the pit, they cannot predict the audience. And they certainly cannot predict the malfunctioning psychic implant of an assassin in the front row, and the loss of both opponents and a long-time prisoner of war to the escape.

I also post art of all of these semi-regularly, including in-progress stuff, as well as excerpts and rambling braindumps!! I'm also a huge worldbuilding nerd, so if you ever want to learn more about the worlds I'm writing, don't be afraid to ask!! I love talking about them :D

Boosts are appreciated <3 tell me about your own WIPs in the tags/replies/wherever!! I love learning about what people are working on!

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Badly Summarized WIP Poll Tag!

thank u @writeblrfantasy for the tag <3<3<3 this game is very fun

bonus points if you can guess any of them, but several of these i literally have never once talked about on here so. good luck with those

ill reveal what they are + give brief summaries of those i havent introduced here before when the poll is finished :)

OPEN TAG BECAUSE IDK WHO HASNT GOTTEN THIS TAG YET. DO IT ITS SO FUNNY PLEASE LET YOURSELF BE FREE AND PLAY IF U SEE THIS

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2023 recap + 2024 plans

i wrote 261,200 words in 2023; 172,500 of those for Whispers, 88,700 for Goddess-Touched!

i read 16 books to completion, beta'd for an additional 2, am currently reading 3, and got partway through 5 others before having to put them down.

i maintained my streaming schedule with only a handful of emergency-related exceptions, and drew, uh, a shit ton over the course of the year!

writing goals for 2024:

fix Echoseers (full stylistic rewrite, along with some plot tweaks)

finish the first draft of Goddess-Touched (and edit it hardcore as well)

work on as-yet-unnamed book 4 of tms

fix up Whispers with the added feedback of beta readers

start querying Whispers (i'll look into self publishing down the road if i don't end up finding an agent. the way my brain functions i must cling to the hope of not having to market it myself tooth and nail for the time being)

POTENTIALLY. if my brain fixates on it. write the script for The Lost so that i actually have something to work with to make the comic happen

one of my offline friends is starting to get into writing, and im hoping to help them through some of the early rough patches and potentially co-write a thing with them!!

i completely dropped the ball on the weekly writing updates so im gonna try and get back to that on wednesday. and potentially get back into the weekly ask games!

non-writing goals for 2024:

youtube. i want to make speedpaints and worldbuilding videos and shit. ive already made the basic animation stuff to have a lil sona to do the gesturing for me and i know how to make videos i just havent done it in a While

twitch!! i want to stream a bit more often because its fun and if i let myself branch out into video games as well as art itll be easier to do that. u might see me streaming in the evenings sometime soon. (psst im not streaming this weekend as im still doing a shit ton of holiday/social stuff but the weekend of the 13th ill be back to both patreon and twitch baybee)

SPEAKING OF i want to get my shit together enough to do like. monthly short story releases for my patrons/ko-fi members. early access, that is, so if i post one in january, it'll be posted here a month or two later for all to see/read

i want to read as many books as i did in 2023, if not more! im also considering adding book reviews/thoughts to youtube or patreon/ko-fi perks

my weekend hiatuses aren't going anywhere. having time where im not actively engaging with tumblr + don't feel obligated to do Anything online has done wonders for my mental health and i highly recommend it. focus mode on my phone and leechblock on desktop has helped so so so much

and that's all i'm sharing here!! i hope 2024 is a better year for all than the last <3

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Meet the Writer Tag!

Thank's for the tag, @writingmaidenwarrior!!

Rules: Make yourself using this picrew and answer the questions below!

3 Fun Facts about me:

I've volunteered for both the ACLU and the NCTE in the past!

My best friend and I first bonded over creating ciphers in elementary school

I have logged >6 months of playtime in Minecraft

Favorite season:

Fall!

Continent where I live:

North America

How I spend my time:

Drawing, writing, streaming on Twitch, reading, and being the DM for possibly the most ridiculous D&D players on the planet (affectionate).

Are you published?

Not yet! I've put querying for TMS on hold for the moment, but I'm hoping to pick that up again once Whispers is with beta readers!

Introvert or Extrovert?

Introvert with the social battery of a memory-leaking decade-old iPhone.

Favorite meal:

This changes on the regular, but my family makes a KILLER roast beef poutine and I keep thinking about it even though we had it, like, three days ago.

I'll tag: @writeblrfantasy, @my-cursed-prince, and @lanawritesalittle!! As always, 0 pressure to play, and this doubles as an open tag for anyone who wants to join in!

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I've launched PATREON AND KO-FI MEMBERSHIP TIERS for the New Year!

It's been one of my goals for a very long time to start gaining more independence via something like Patreon and Ko-Fi - so I finally bit the bullet and made membership tiers on both! [Patreon] + [Ko-Fi]

The benefits are exactly the same on each platform, the only difference is which one you as a person are more comfortable with.

Tiers range from a general support Tip Tier of $1 USD/month to a full-fledged Light Mage Tier of $25 USD/month that comes with a discord built for weekly patron-only livestreamed write-ins, early access to several projects I'll be serializing on a monthly basis, digital postcards, commission discounts, and more!

If you've ever wanted to support me, but couldn't afford a commission/didn't have anything in mind for one, this would be a great option - especially because all of the tiers above General Support get automatically added to Discord server where we get to hang out and do writing sprints together as a community!

[More detailed descriptions of the tiers are available on either site - the list is a bit long for a tumblr post like this!]

All that aside - thank you to everyone over the last few years who has helped me along this journey of writing, art, and gaining self confidence! It means the world to me to even be at a point where I feel comfortable doing this, and I owe every single one of you for helping me get here. 💙💙💙

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I did a little shuffling of the benefits of my Patreon and Ko-Fi tiers - prices haven't changed, and all existing Patrons get the same benefits they always have with a couple added perks, like priority in beta reader applications!

This is mainly to keep things simpler and more streamlined on my end - a middle tier has been taken down because of a change in structuring that made it redundant, but all those benefits are now available to the other tiers.

If you've ever wanted to support me but couldn't afford (or decide on) a commission, this is a great way to do that! Especially because Plant and Light Mage tiers get a monthly discount code on commissions, and the latter gets a complementary commission every month if they so choose! <3

[Ko-Fi Memberships] - [Patreon Tiers]

Boosts are appreciated! Let me know if you want a separate post with more detailed explanations of tiers and benefits - I just wanted to keep this update short and to the point.

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Hi~ Happy STS!

For my first question of 2024: If you had no choice but to adapt your story into a different setting, where would you take it? Do you think changing the setting would even be possible, or is it too closely tied to your plot?

(from @tisiphonewolfe)

hi!!! happy late sts :D

honestly, i don't think any of my works could?? work?? in a different setting??

partly because the magic system(s) are inherently tied to Where They Are (on my own world) and also because like. the shadow of fowden could only exist In Fowden and not just for name reasons. like, the only reason she hasn't been caught/apprehended/killed by the time of whispers is because shes hiding in the north pole beyond a wicked antarctic-like ice plain that the large forces necessary to counter her simply Cannot Cross Safely. and the plot only happens at the speed it does because of said ice plain and the things that inhabit it

see also: millennium saga would not play out the way it does if the maelands weren't the epicenter of The Everything (especially with the revamp im doing for goddess-touched), and the lost being set on a space coliseum is Super Important to everything that ensues.

HOWEVER. i think it would be really interesting to see how the characters (and not necessarily the plot) would adjust to a different place/time period. like i can imagine the AUs would be really fun

thank you for the ask!!! ill try to remember to send u one this week too :D

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10 songs, 10 people tag!

Thanks for tagging me, @dogmomwrites!!

Rules: put your library on shuffle and post the first ten songs, then tag ten people

Redemption by Besomoprh, Coopex, and RIELL

Already Dead by Puppet

Alkatraz by DEMONDICE

Hiding In The Blue by TheFatRat and RIELL

194 Länder by Mark Forster

Fireflies by Binky

The Dying Song by Montaigne

The Seas by Envoi

The King by Rosendale

We Have It All by Pim Stones

I'll tag: @writeblrfantasy, @vacantgodling, @fictionalbullshitter, @lanawritesalittle, @ettawritesnstudies, @blind-the-winds, @aziz-reads, @camillenrose, @copper-dragon-in-disguise, and @indy-gray!! As always, absolutely 0 pressure to play, and this doubles as an open tag if you'd like to join in!!

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Get to know me (9 people you want to know better edition)!

Thank you for the tag, @nacricissa!!

Currently reading: The Dragon Republic by R. F. Kuang (im being punched in the gut over and over and over and over and—) and The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin (because i need to not be punched every day)

Last song I listened to: Partners in Crime by Chrstoffer Moe Ditlevsen

Currently watching: Fantasy High Junior Year! Foaming at the mouth for the next episode

Current Fic I'm reading: I don't read fanfic </3 just not my vibe

Current obsession: Fantasy High. The time quangle's effect on the eidolons and possibly the night yorb and ALSO possibly literally everything else happening right now is. Compelling

Favourite color: Cyan!

Spicy, Sweet, Savory, or Salty: Mmmm, right now I'm thinking salty!

Relationship status: single and aroace about it

Last thing I googled: I literally do not know because i have extensions that spam my google thing with nonsense to fuck up data collection. probably something to do with a crossword clue though

Song stuck in my head: Nothing at the moment! But Hound & Hare by Cullen Vance has been quite earworm-y lately

Favorite food: Depends on the day - today is probably the pizza from a local place that I literally cannot get enough of

Dream trip: I would LOVE to just. Go on a bunch of short trips to as many different places in the world as I can, specifically to the more wild areas. I want to see the redwoods and the Andes and the Sahara and the stone forests in China and Mt Fuji and that chalk horse in Britain and and and-

I'll make this an open tag because I once again have No Specific Thoughts on people who might want to play so <3 feel free to tag me like I tagged you if you want to join in!!

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5 things you'll find in my WIPs tag

Thanks for the tag, @sam-glade!!

I'll tag: @writeblrfantasy, @pens-swords-stuff, @lady-redshield-writes, @ashen-crest, and @lanawritesalittle!! As always, absolutely 0 pressure to play, and this doubles as an open tag for those who want to join in!

As for five things you'll consistently find in all of my WIPs...

A ridiculous amount of worldbuilding

At least one trans narrator

Themes of exceptionality/being the subject of idolization being essentially the same as cruel isolation

Frequent, lovingly-described gore

One thing per WIP that gets overly described (stained glass in TMS, blood in Whispers, corn fields in Deity Complex, etc)

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Get to Know Me Tag (number unknonw, i lost count and dont have a tag for it specifically </3)

thanks for the tag, @vacantgodling!!!

Last song: Six Pills by Rosendale

Last movie: i Do Not remember

Currently watching: Dimension 20: A Crown of Candy

Currently reading: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Last thing searched for writing purposes: How to write a query letter :)

Tag 9 people:

@writeblrfantasy, @ashen-crest, @manuscriptsatmidnight, @winterandwords, @authoralexharvey, @doriians, @copper-dragon-in-disguise, @forthesanityofstorytellers, and @calicoy!! As always, absolutely 0 pressure to play, and this doubles as an open tag for anyone who wants to join!!

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Hi, happy STS~!

This week, I want to know: Have you ever had to say goodbye to a character, be it because of their death in the story, or their role in it having finished? How did you feel about it?

(from @tisiphonewolfe)

Hi!! Happy STS!!! :D

I've had to do this a few times, yeah!! Whispers, in particular, features a lot of death, including (without giving too much away) several major character deaths in the climax of the book. And while I knew going in that all of them were going to happen, and while a couple of them were fairly neutral affairs for me as the writer, one in particular had me crying as I drafted their last moments at 2 am. I was debating not going through with it, but ultimately, it was the most appropriate ending for their arc, thematically speaking.

Didn't make saying goodbye any less painful, though. 😔

BUT. I've had to say goodbye for other reasons when it comes to Millennium Saga.

I am a notorious lover of massive casts. I will not, have not, and can not stop making OCs.

But at a certain point, balancing that many characters is. Well. More work than it's worth. Especially when some of them are more appealing to me for reasons unrelated to the current story.

Over time, I've reduced the cast of Millennium Saga by about 50%? And a lot of those characters are still beloved to me, and in my heart they still exist somewhat the way they did when I first made them for their part of the story. But too many names and too little relevance to the plot meant I just had to drop them, merge them, etc. to have at least a semblance of a reasonably-sized cast.

RIP Zero, Ozzie, Maple, Dio, and all the other side characters that captured my heart but never made it to the page. I will remember you always ✊😔

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Writing Update Jan. 10th, 2024

later than i wanted to get this out but hey. hey man. ive been busy (<- was waiting for fantasy high junior year episode one to drop all day and then having Too Many Thoughts about it)

Progress made: 2.3k words for the script for The Lost (total wc: 3.5k) and ONE VERY BIG EPIPHANY FOR GODDESS TOUCHED MADE LITERALLY TEN MINUTES AGO THAT I HOPE WILL UNBLOCK MY ASS FOR GOOD ON THAT ONE (even though it will mean uh. redrafting it. again) Current writing streak: 868 days Current chapter + POV: just finished the first chapter of The Lost in an omniscient POV!

Favorite line(s): (The Lost)

NARRATOR: In the coming hours, the three outlaws will be called many things. Silence claws at the doors from the cockpit of the pod, clearly screaming, though we cannot see her words. Ano pilots beyond her, not strapped in, lance haphazardly propped against the chair next to her. NARRATOR: But the Watchers-- The Champion lies in a heap on the floor, returning to a sludge peppered with blue crystals, unmoving. NARRATOR: --their captors-- And one of the doors to either side is propped, ever-so-slightly, leaking a tendril of smoke. NARRATOR: --will only ever call them lost.

What I'm looking forward to:

THE GODDESS TOUCHED BREAKTHROUGH HOLY SHIT IT CHANGES EVERYTHING IN A GOOD WAY. HHHHHHHHH

will it mean editing the last few chapters of echoseers A Lot? yes. but i was planning to do that anyway.

will it ALSO mean i rewrite this particular book/draft for the second time? also yes. but if it gets the story to come out its fucking worth it.

does literally anyone here have context to understand the epiphany, let alone its significance, including the one (1) person who has read echoseers? no.

im gonna be having too many thoughts to sleep tonight arent i

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happy trans day of visibility

i am not only visible, i am also tangible and i am bringing cookies to all my trans siblings and no one can stop me

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Hi magesmith

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

Hi Sleepy!!!

Firstly: I owe you one, because without this I would have forgotten entirely to send out STS asks before my weekend hiatus, so THANK YOU I appreciate you have some virtual hugs <3

BUT in terms of extra WIPs... if I include the ones I've technically brought up here but haven't talked about in literal years, I've got about 11 stealth WIPs, 9 if I don't include The Lost or Deity Complex. Some of those WIPs are short stories that I'll probably make into an anthology or just little bonus shorts in the future, most of which have no names.

I do, however, have a few more interesting ones that are a bit more than vague concepts at this point! One is a world-building focused serial that (if executive function allows) I hope to start sharing early access to on Patreon in the coming year.

There's also some that have a decent amount of world built up, and some solid foundations for characters, but I just don't have plots or attachment to them yet - one of those is a world where people are born with their destinies etched in their skin, but "destiny" only covers, like, their Big Thing. And so a lot of people outlive their "destiny" by decades, and when they have Very Big destinies, that becomes a whole identity crisis. That one is called Marked in my folders, the world is inspired visually by southeast Asia and the Phillipines, and includes stormcloud jellyfish and very active plant life.

I've also got a magic apocalypse WIP - basically a fantasy world that's divided its kingdoms by biome is devastated by the biomes becoming, like, sentient and vengeful. Like a magic climate apocalypse. And the main character is a messenger sent from the temperate forest kingdom after wildfires absolutely wreck their shit to seek aid from the stony mountain kingdom before they knew that all the biomes were doing their own little apocalypses. That one is called Messenger in my folders.

And then I've got a bunch of story seedlings relating to the worlds that are a focus of other WIPs - a not insignificant amount of them are inspired by the Ehlverse and the world of Deity Complex.

I know that the Ehlverse is going to carry me for life because I've got so much of a history timeline to work with, and the inherent ability of the world itself to reset and wipe things from the historical record on a semi-regular basis, and so there's some plasticity in what I can do if I go back into history and shake the world up, because shit, dude a whole continent and every unique civilization and magic on it was erased 6000 years ago. Who knows what could've happened before that that we've forgotten because the history itself was lost, or what we have is so old the magic of Common can't translate it.

BUT YEAH tl;dr: ive got about a dozen stealth WIPs right now and potential for dozens and dozens more and the only reason they're stealth is because i have the object permanence of a baby. and i use that to my advantage to focus on one thing at a time

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Music Tag Game!

I was tagged by the awesome @vacantgodling!!! Thank you <3<3<3

Rules: List 5 songs you actually listen to, then tag 10 people.

Current top songs for my favorite playlist (Spotify links because I'm too tired to hunt them down on Youtube) include:

There Was Time by Koethe (I just... I love the quiet angry vibes of this one. It was a big contender for Lakia's songs and I don't remember if it got included or not)

Xanadu by Ummet Ozcan (I saw the post I found him from on my dash earlier and I can 100% recommend his stuff if you like EDM and dance music. Absolutely spectacular for getting into the flow)

The London Air Raids by Vian Izak (ONE OF MY FAVORITE SONGS. EVER. god its so good the emotion)

Throne by Saint Mesa (If I hadn't a) found this so late in the year and b) written whispers this year, I could guarantee this would be top ten of my Spotify wrapped.)

The King by Rosendale (That one came out late in the year last year and it was still top 10 on Spotify wrapped. I had the whole album on repeat for WEEKS it was all my brain would want to listen to)

i don't have it in me to tag a whole 10 people so i'll just go off the top of my head and tag @writeblrfantasy, @ashen-crest, @tisiphonewolfe, @calicoy, and ANYONE READING THIS because yeah. No pressure to play and this is even more of an open tag than usual. Give me your music recs please i love finding more music to listen to