#fire and slate

[fireandslate]

Blank Slate is a dark fantasy webserial about fire, hope, lesbians, religious oppression, and rebellion--and also includes:

post-apocalyptic fantasy kingdom

evil church (and not-so-evil theology)

malevolent sellsword haunted by a benevolent demon

uncertain-hero minstrel who is smarter than she lets on

cold-eyed and conflicted traitor knight with a cool sword

devout and defiant nun who is a dead shot with a bow

courtly knights, cryptic druids

the legacy of the true Queen's bloodline

occasional and spectacular combat

infrequent but frightening bursts of otherworldly dread

and of course, ever-present even in a bleak Spring,

--an indestructible, stubborn thread of hope--

--hope that even the darkest times will end, and that the turning of the seasons will bring a new beginning.

Sometimes dark, sometimes sapphic, sometimes mystical, and always updated on Sundays, this character-driven fantasy web serial is available to read at fireandslate.com!

[sumiblue]

200 uploads of Blank Slate!!! Whadda hell!

I remember when updates went up on Fridays - I'd come home from my shitty job during the shitty pandemic and literally lie on my bed kicking my feet and read, cradling my phone like a glowing, comforting piece of coal. A hearty congrats and thanks @fireandslate, absolutely hyped to be on this ride <3

[jungwildeandfree]

maybe one day if more than 5 people read my web serial someone will be able to clock all the references to Dune (1965) but until then i am SAFE

[bogcreacher]

I lied I’m a liar

[eclipse-song]

do you guys ever think about how Hoeru has like -1 emotions a lot of the time because he has grown up in a world where people who were supposed to keep him safe all inevitably vanished and later told him that he wasn't allowed to have anything or is still not even worthy of the urge to want or need anything.

[whateverthought]

The funny thing about the "If you ship WhatIf Aegon/Jaehaera You Are Racist" discourse, is that they're only black in the show, in the books they all look the same.

If we go by show viewers only, Daenaera doesn't even exist yet. Depending on how long the Epilogue goes, she might not even exist at all.

[moe-broey]

Summoner potential is endless. You get an influencer who has perpetual tiktok voice and everyone considers it to be an accent (it... could be considered one?). And maybe with the right combination of magic and machinery (from Reginn's homeland) they can continue to do what they do. You get a Christian missionary who considers it "Part of His Plan" that they've arrived here to "Do The Lord's work and spread the good word" (this probably has extreme political repercussions whether they are well-meaning or deeply evil using this as a revenue for power/control. It's a whole ass historical domino effect). You get a conspiracy theorist with an INCREDIBLY skewed perception of the world, so whenever any Hero asks Anything about that Summoner's world, you're just getting bunk information. Net-negative information. Summoner, who when the Miriel FBs took place, believes the moon landing was faked and that the earth is flat. You get an evil politician and the Order just kills them within a week and goes back to the drawing board (self indulgent scenario. More compelling hypothetical would be the Order being forced to work with that guy, much like the fallen Heroes, becomes a whole ass political drama. Also might depend on how evil the politician is though, sometimes you do just have to make it look like an accident). You get the opposite end of political radicalization where this Summoner is disenfranchised and among many things is anti-monarchy, making all the royals and nobles within the Order's ranks a bit uncomfortable. You get Jerma985

[lectorel]

In retrospect, it's absolutely insane that Byleth canonically didn't know how old they were when they arrived at the monastery. They're only mostly certain Jeralt is their father. They're not entirely sure when they started working as a mercenary.

[askmovieslate]

Thank you.

That fire-extinguisher was really helpful, but maybe not for the reasons you think. I have no nostalgia for any of these characters, but the concept alone gave me several migraines.

YouTube Poops are no longer a thing, aren't they? Apart from Doug Walker's content, that is.

[yyuuraii]

mr callum cpk I Will Cry for real.

[fireandslate]

Blank Slate is a dark fantasy web serial about fire, lesbians, religious oppression, and cultural exchange. If any of the following pique your interest, you might want to check it out!

Pseudo-medieval post-apocalyptic kingdom

evil church that is just catholic enough to be cool

malevolent sellsword haunted by a benevolent demon

uncertain-hero minstrel who is smarter than she lets on

cold-eyed and conflicted traitor knight

deranged and ironhearted nun awaiting her own execution

evil knights

mysterious druids

the occasional outburst of spectacular violence,

and, most important of all,

an indestructible thread of hope--

--hope that eventually winter will end, and a new spring will bring new beginnings to the kingdom of Frydain.

Sometimes dark, sometimes sapphic, sometimes mystical, and always updated on Sundays, this character-driven fantasy web serial is available to read at fireandslate.com!

[sumiblue]

Our many footfalls were loud in the silence Eris wrought. Rather than disturb, it deepened, punctuated it. We held our breath, even the divisive, even the malcontented, beneath her spell just a little longer. I heard only the faintest whispers of speech from those furthest away, perhaps those who were having the tale recounted to them at second degree. Eris was silent, magnificent in her composure, and when she spoke, it was almost a relief, and yet also a pity. I could have walked in that bittersweet silence for hours.

- from web serial Blank Slate, Chapter 2.1.4 - Borrowed Hope (@fireandslate)

[fireandslate]

great opportunity to side note because my coffee is kicking in and i am procrastinating the start of my work day as hard as i possibly fucking can

it's great if you envision Blank Slate taking place somewhere like a forest you know. better still if it's a forest you love. it's set in forests I know, and forests I love; the old (new) growth forests of north american new england.

blank slate takes place in a north american forest biome, and that matters.

we know those forests didn't always look just like they do now. vermont, for example, was mostly clear-cut at one point to herd sheep (transcendentally evil behavior). new hampshire and massachusetts have similar stories. there's very little old-growth forest left in these places. maine has gotten off better; there are still some properly old forests there, though they are patchwork, and need fierce protection.

two reasons for this. one easy reason of course is that i fucking love the new england forest biome, and i know it quite well. if nothing else comes out of the story, at the very least i'd like to be able to say i have in these thousands of words a picture of those forests in the seasons we're in the process of losing--in the fall and winter.

second of course is that this isn't a european fantasy story. sure, there are elements of european fantasy (because i think it's endlessly funny to NGE some old world fantasy aspects into a new-world setting), but i'm not a european writer, and this isn't a story about that. blank slate is about religious trauma, cultural alienation, anti-intellectualism, the endless grind to survive in a spiritually hostile environment--about how each person affected by colonial trauma has to come to decolonization on their own.

decolonizing your own work is an individual practice. it can only happen in community, in context--but it can't happen TO you. it's spiritual, economic, social, emotional, psychological labor, it is lifelong, and it is an every-minute, every-day, every-hour choice.

blank slate is set in the North American biome. a biome that has been brutally colonized and nearly annihilated. the pieces we can see of it are mostly ghosts. the biodiversity in north america has cratered along with animal population; there used to be thousands upon thousands of birds, bugs, mammals, reptiles in the wilderness here. the empty wild places we have here are not how they should be.

But: we can make the choice to remember that. we can try to decolonize our wild places, to rehabilitate as much habitat as we can, encourage natural forest succession, to rebuild the love of this natural world in ourselves, and in other people.

we are not the original stewards of this environment, and we can never return it to its original state after all the violence that has been done. but we can work on it.

so if you read blank slate and your heart is stirred by the natural world in which it takes place, i'm glad. i have a ko-fi which i suck at promoting, but this isn't a post about me, and i mention it mostly because --

if you read blank slate and you love the forests in it, you shouldn't just send money to the writer. send money to the xerces foundation. donate to the new england forestry foundation. check out the old growth forest network. i'm sure there are other, equally effective organizations in the old world and further south in the new one, but i don't know them. find them. help the wild places where you live, whether that's forest, coast, or chaparral.

and then go outside somewhere wild and drink in everything you can. the wild is where we come from, and where we come from matters. god i fucking love forests. thanks for reading.

normal fantasy writer google search meme .jpg

[bogcreacher]

sequel

[wall-maria-around-ba-sing-se]

Hey guys why is the fire emblem heroes subreddit trying to gaslight everyone into thinking Robin is a blank slate with no individual properties outside of Chrom and that no one associates Robin with Levin sword except Smash Fans

[themothersmercy]

Can we go back to casting relative unknowns (globally) for the doctor please