vsholmes

[vsholmes]

i know we’re both just messing around pretending to be whole but look at me. if the train was coming would you move. if the ground was falling from under your feet would you even notice or would it just be another tuesday for you. if somebody stabbed you could it hurt worse than you already do. what i’m saying is that i love you but i think we both drive over the speed limit when it’s raining. what i’m saying is that i want to hold your hand and i understand about how you sometimes have to sit down in the shower. what i’m saying is that i’m here for you and if the train comes please move.

[vsholmes]

Small fantasy worldbuilding elements you might want to think about:

A currency that isn’t gold-standard/having gold be as valuable as tin

A currency that runs entirely on a perishable resource, like cocoa beans

A clock that isn’t 24-hours

More or less than four seasons/seasons other than the ones we know

Fantastical weather patterns like irregular cloud formations, iridescent rain

Multiple moons/no moon

Planetary rings

A northern lights effect, but near the equator

Roads that aren’t brown or grey/black, like San Juan’s blue bricks

Jewelry beyond precious gems and metals

Marriage signifiers other than wedding bands

The husband taking the wife's name / newlyweds inventing a new surname upon marriage

No concept of virginity or bastardry

More than 2 genders/no concept of gender

Monotheism, but not creationism

Gods that don’t look like people

Domesticated pets that aren’t re-skinned dogs and cats

Some normalized supernatural element that has nothing to do with the plot

Magical communication that isn’t Fantasy Zoom

“Books” that aren’t bound or scrolls

A nonverbal means of communicating, like sign language

A race of people who are obligate carnivores/ vegetarians/ vegans/ pescatarians (not religious, biological imperative)

I’ve done about half of these myself in one WIP or another and a little detail here or there goes a long way in reminding the audience that this isn’t Kansas anymore.

[vsholmes]

Me everytime

[vsholmes]

I wouldn't mind if it wrenched the guts of the AI either, gave ChatGPT heartburn

May your prose be gut-wrenching to readers and unintelligible to AI

[vsholmes]

QUERYING IN 2025

The dead deserve a proper afterlife, with a real necromancer for a grave warden. But in Eth, they are stuck with Ivigh and eternal unrest.

When failed-necromancer Ivigh’s town is struck by a magical storm, the bodies he was supposed to have put to rest spill from the soil. Facing imprisonment, or worse, for his con, Ivigh flees. Then his magical impotence is discovered by Mudlark, a cheerful sex worker makes him a deal: she won’t turn Ivigh in if he helps her find Eir Lahren, the very necromancer who unleashed the storm ravaging the world. He has a darker history with Lahren, one rooted in the gaping, bloodless hole in Ivigh’s chest and his inability—despite his best efforts—to die. But, with his terrible reputation barreling down on them and a drug habit he can't afford, he is forced to accept Mudlark’s offer.

Despite Mudlark’s harebrained quest to save the world and Ivigh’s copious complaints, her love for life are as intoxicating as the poppy he injects. The farther they travel, however, the more Mudlark’s story is unearthed and Ivigh realizes perhaps he isn’t the only one with corpse-ridden secrets. Now, he will do anything to save the impossible woman he has come to love—even if exposing his darkest, bloody secret breaks his beatless heart.

THE PASSING OF EIR LAHREN is a blend of gothic romance and folkloric fantasy. You can expect an unreliable, acerbic trans masc narrator, body horror, ritualistic sex, and a grumpy x sunshine duo in a world inspired by my own Frisian heritage, the otherness of being queer, and our deep connection with the land that makes us and breaks us.

I'll actually be querying this project, so details are expected to change, but if you'd like to follow along with some of that process you know where to look.

[vsholmes]

Guy who is touch starved but emotionally repressed goading you into punching him for completely normal reasons

[vsholmes]

this took me a month Rereading Gideon made me wanna design all of the Cav/Necromancer pairings from the Canaan house!

[vsholmes]

yeah im still thinking about the minotaur sorry but just . imagine youre born wrong. imagine your entire existence is a punishment from the gods. for something you had no control over. imagine your mother holds nothing but contempt for you. she wont even look at you, not really, & she keeps crying & you keep crying & reaching towards her with your little arms & someone drags you away from her. & they keep you hidden & alone & a stranger comes & builds an impenetrable prison around you so youre doomed to forever haunt these endless corridors & youve never known kindness or companionship or love. & when they call you a monster. well. you believe them

[vsholmes]

When Adam bit the apple he did it because he trusted Eve. Because he loved her. Adam bit into the apple because the woman he loved told him to, no matter what God said. No matter the rules of heaven. What's heaven to a woman's love anyway? What's God to your wife? The first sins of humanity, were trusting others. Eve trusted a snake, Adam trusted Eve, and I trust you. Maybe that's a sin, just like the first couple. Maybe everyone's right about us and we're sinners and we offend God. But like I said, what's God to a woman's love anyway? What has heaven got that I can't find sitting next to you on a cool autumn morning?

[vsholmes]

Going insane about kicked dog with rabies type characters

[vsholmes]

Mermaids in Dutch folklore

The Netherlands is a country that co-exists with water, but it wasn't always that way. A lot of our cities & villages have been lost due to floods (like Saeftinghe) before we had proper dikes and Neeltje Jans. Some of the areas affected by these floods have become wetlands and others have ruins standing where the village used to be.

So, what do mermaids have to do with this? In Dutch folklore a lot of these floods are either caused by greedy villagers or by fishermen catching a mermaid and refusing to let her free. They talk about pavement being laid with bricks of gold and hooves from horses being of silver with villagers wearing clothes made out of the best fabric around. Sadly, because their villages and cities were always so pristine they did everything in their power to cast out beggars and travellers. When there was no mermaid involved the story would describe the flood as a consequence of their greediness. However, with every story that does involve a mermaid being caught by a fisherman, the place they come from tends to be the same. Golden pavement, silver hooves, etc. A merman, being the mermaid's husband, would come above water and warn them of the upcoming floods if they didn't set his wife free.

'Westenschouwen, ’t zal u rouwen dat ge heeft geroofd mijn vrouwe, Westenschouwen zal vergaan alleen de toren zal blijven staan’

'Westenschouwen, you shall grieve That you stole my wife away from me, Westenschouwen shall fall Only its tower shall stand tall'

In this example the merman curses the village by putting seaweed & sand in the gullies of the city after the people mercilessly killed his wife by putting her up for display. After he leaves, storms flood the place with one single tower standing.

Even in Dutch folklore mermaids were seen as such beautiful creatures that fishermen couldn't help but take them home. They weren't the only ones, however! We also have the Nixie, who in some stories was said to be a beautiful woman who would jump out of the water to sit behind you on the carriage. When you reached the end of the body of water she would jump back in, never to be seen again.

The Mermaid of Edam

Around the 1400s there was a mermaid sighting close to Edam. A mermaid was stuck behind the wrong side of the dike because of a heavy storm. After the storm, the hole was fixed so she had no way to go back to the sea. People described her as drifting between the edges of the lake asleep, unless she dove to the bottom of the lake to eat. She was beautiful and her body was adorned with moss and seaweed. There would often be women sailing on the lake to milk the cows on the other side who were shocked to find her. However, after some time they got the courage to approach her and pulled her out of the lake.

The Mermaid didn't speak their language nor did they understand her, so they did what any rational person in the 1400s The Netherlands would do - strip her of all her moss to put clothes on her. They fed her and she ate our type of food, but she always longed to go back to the water, so they guarded her. She became quite the tourist attraction and because a lot of Haarlemmers wanted to have her for their city, the people of Edam gave her as a gift to them in the end. She learned how to spin wool and lived a very long life. When she died they buried her in the graveyard of the church because she made a lot of crosses in her lifetime (which could also mean she became Christian). In 2014 they rebuilt a statue in Haarlem to remember her.

The Mermaid & The Mother

Once upon a time in the province of Limburg near a big castle a servant took two children out to the beach. He met someone and spoke with them while the children continued playing on the beach ahead, but when he was done they were nowhere to be found. He searched all day and returned to the castle with only their socks. Everyone helped searching for the children, but it was to no avail - they were gone. After a lot of grieving the lady of the house took a stroll on the same beach and to her amazement saw a beautiful mermaid singing in the sea. The mermaid asked her why she was so sad and the lady relayed the story of her missing children to her. "Oh! Don't worry." She replied. "They are safe and happy in my castle."

The mother pleaded with the mermaid to see her children or to bring them back but the mermaid refused. She didn't give up however because everyday she went back to the same beach to plead with her again and again. There came a day the mermaid was sick of it and dragged the mother into the water to take her to her castle. The castle was made out of crystal and on every corner you could imagine was a little light to illuminate the darkness of the ocean. She brought the mother to a room with a glass window and to her surprise she saw tens of children playing together; including her own. Sadly, she was only allowed to look through the window and pleaded with the mermaid again. "You can't go inside, but I'll allow you to live here and look through the glass window everyday."

Many moons passed and everyday the mother would stand outside the window looking at how her children were happily playing with the others. However, she didn't give up and by pleading as much as she did back then the mermaid struck her a deal. She could take her children back home if she would make the mermaid a cloak of her own hair. The mother was handed a pot of fat to grow it out and started to get to work. The first time she finished the mermaid was not impressed and demanded that she do it again. When the mother came back a second time the mermaid was happy and called for a crystal carriage pulled by other mermaids to take her family home.

Conclusion

Mermaids in Dutch folklore, although beautiful, are often related to misfortune, curses & floods. Their symbolism and stories seem parallel to the peoples’ struggle with the sea. Our relationship with her is a complicated one as she both destroyed our towns and livelihoods all the while giving us plenty of abundance over the centuries. On the other hand, it also highlights how we treat and have treated the nature around us. Nowadays we put great emphasis on co-existing with water and try to educate on the importance of our delta works. We can not tame the sea, but we can work together to make it liveable for both of us.

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Books of reference:

The Sagen boeken written by JRW Sinninghe (Dutch only)

[vsholmes]

it takes a special kind of talent to live for hundreds of years, be a whore, bisexual and verse and still be absolutely bitchless in the end

[vsholmes]

oh gideon, i was just starting to dream the silliest and softest of dreams

another homage to my favourite book scene ever

[vsholmes]

Rene Lalique, “Dancing Nymphs In A Frame Of Bats” brooch. C. 1902.

[vsholmes]

There is something about writing death and grief and caring for the dead that just hits differently. I think most of my favorite scenes that I've written are death care and reunions. And maybe they're the same.

[vsholmes]

dark days of late autumn

[vsholmes]

"Some things can be ignored for 20 years but not forever.”

The Drunk, The Gambler, and The Lover

A transgender novella about loneliness, isolation, and addiction, all stemming from the feeling of being unseen and misunderstood

(Available wherever books are sold, or you could just ask me for a free pdf copy in the comments below. Currently looking for reviewers.)