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sylvancantrell.bsky.social
Sylvan
@sylvancantrell.bsky.social
140 followers 210 following 32 posts
Writer | 30 +| Proudly 🏳️‍⚧️| Genres: fantasy, gothic horror | Currently working on my first novel!

https://sylvancantrell.carrd.co/
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sylvancantrell.bsky.social
Sylvan @sylvancantrell.bsky.social · Jan 19
Hi! 👋

I'm Sylvan! I'm currently working on my debut novel, Clockwork Ghouls. Here are some things you can expect to find in my work:

💀 Gothic themes and imagery
👁️ Religious trauma/imagery
👻 The paranormal, themes of death and dying
⚔️ Historical/fantasy settings
🦴 Animated skeletons!

Links below!
sylvancantrell.bsky.social
#WIPSnps #nsfw

A little freaky mage erotica.
The variety of sensations- too much, far too much. Scrambled his every thought and twisted his words into half-articulated syllables, a waterfall of weak pleas out of his open, panting mouth. Blunt drag of manicured nails, fingertips, slick tongue, exquisite in the baffling way that pain is exquisite when the sting was so much that his adrenaline turned it to a radiating thrum, in the baffling way he wanted more. It threatened to crack him open, and he wanted to; split apart, spill out of his fissures, cascade to the floor, drip and pool on the flagstones. Pleasure bloomed so bright, it scorched. His skeleton stifled him, he could feel the edges of his senses testing the boundaries of his overwrought flesh. But when the teeth came, he tilted his hips up anyway. “This one will not use the mouth,” Joy-in-Sorrow had said, Becket remembered it plainly, and yet- the gentle scrape of teeth greeted the overwrought flesh of his thigh. He dared not look down, and so he threw his head back, screwing his eyes shut even as something feather-light kissed his lids. “Look not away, keening one,” Joy-in-Sorrow said, “Partake in all senses.” And so he did dare a glance through fluttering lids down to his own shaking thighs and saw with married wonder and revulsion that Joy-in-Sorrow’s skeletal had had lengthened, darkened, so that it appeared a massive thing of roiling shadow, expansive and clawed and made up of the blackest matter of the star-studded cosmos. Within the palm, Beckett spied, felt, trembled to be beneath, a darkened maw lined with many jagged teeth, winking white like starlight. On the crest of an ecstatic, serrated breath, Beckett screamed.
January 29, 2025 at 2:30 AM
sylvancantrell.bsky.social
As a trans person, I find body horror both compelling and intensely personal, especially when you consider the intersection of being trans and chronically ill, or disabled. It becomes exploring the horror of having a body, and consequently freeing yourself from the fear by writing it out.
January 24, 2025 at 3:34 AM
sylvancantrell.bsky.social
#JanuaryWorldbuilders Day 23: A beautiful tradition of ceremony

The city of Ombrelune has a tradition of wearing the death masks of their ancestors during formal events and festivals.
January 23, 2025 at 11:44 PM
sylvancantrell.bsky.social
#WIPSnips

🍯
The man holding a greeting knife between Beckett's eyes looked painfully Ombrean, dressed as he was in a heavy, structure woolen cloak lined heavy with plush fur, the collar so burdened by it that his shoulders looked twice the size a man's shoulders should be, and gave him a vulture's silhouette. Beckett could not be kind; the man's face was a twisted horror, almost a mockery, for a mottled mass of scars split handsome and monstrous in twain at his right side. His features were gaunt and shadowed with exhaustion– he might have looked a mad, sleepy poet were it not for the scars, which leant an alien sort of rigidity to half his face so that his expression could not be clearly read. Even by Beckett, who considered himself rather clever at reading expressions. Though by the way the man's mouth drew into a tight line, and the knife, yes, the knife, Beckett knew naught but charm, and swift at that, would win him succor. He eased himself into a honeyed smile, gentle, demure, and raised both of his hands in surrender, ignoring with practiced ease the pointe of the knife aimed between his eyes, and parted his lips. Beckett was aware of the loveliness of his own generous mouth, the always-sensuousness of it, especially as it spread into his habitual placid grin, "I am of no harm…" He said, voice low, eyes honed on the man, and added, "To you, my Lord."
January 23, 2025 at 2:39 PM
sylvancantrell.bsky.social
As a writer with a career separate from writing, I find it hard to actually sit down and create during the week, so I'm humbly asking if anyone would like to share how they set aside time to write in these circumstances.

#WritingCommunity #writers #authors
January 23, 2025 at 2:30 PM
sylvancantrell.bsky.social
I think Notion is really neat, honestly.
January 23, 2025 at 2:28 PM
sylvancantrell.bsky.social
In light of today's news, sometimes all we have to do is keep making art.
January 21, 2025 at 4:48 AM
sylvancantrell.bsky.social
So if I can share about my mages real quick, they dress in shrouds, robes, masks and I like their headpieces having the silhouette of medieval hennins like this
January 20, 2025 at 3:34 AM
sylvancantrell.bsky.social
I told myself today was for the WIP, but I spent all day giggling with my friends and cooking, which is just as well. I gotta feed myself before I feed the book sometimes.
January 19, 2025 at 11:17 PM
sylvancantrell.bsky.social
Grief! Nearly everything I write has to do with grief; how characters struggle against it, how other characters accept and live with it, what causes them grief.

Beckett, the MC of Clockwork Ghouls fights his grief, and his inability to accept it drives the entire narrative.
veloravenn.bsky.social 𝐕𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐚 𝐕𝐞𝐧𝐧 ⭐️ 𝗔𝗨𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗥/𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗜𝗦𝗧 💖 @veloravenn.bsky.social · Jan 19
#Januwrite 19

What are the main messages and ideas behind your book? How do your characters drive the narrative?

#WritingCommunity #Authors #Writers
Januwrite 19 - What is the core theme of your story, and how do your characters embody it? All the prompts for January
January 19, 2025 at 11:16 PM
sylvancantrell.bsky.social
#pretendpanel

For today's freebie Sunday, may I offer a WIP:
"How'd you find it?" She asked after a frosty silence settled between them, eyes fixed on the odd box as if it might spring open at any moment to release something unspeakable and foul. "Person in a tatty cowl, funny accent. Had one odd eye and a chunk missing from her nose, smelled like… sweet, but. The way alley rot is… sweet. Wouldn't give me the coin purse 'less I answered a riddle!" "Hm, and what riddle, that?" Isadira's nose wrinkled; her eyes narrowed. "Ehh… 'what is so fragile that uttering its name will break it,' and it took me a long while to work it out… she took out twenty crimson coppers fer making her wait, I says to 'er, I says, 'Mum, it's ill luck befalls one as shorts payment for care o' the dead,' and she laughed at me all dry an' dusty and said, 'tis balance we maintain, child, and so we do,’ or some such horse-shite." Oh that poor boy, to have crossed paths with an Ashen Priest, of all things. Loathsome creatures, in Isadira’s opinion, not at all kin to herself and the other Herald Singers of Khet'dur. Isadira felt all her one-hundred-and-fifty Summers, even if she hardly looked it. Barrows chill suddenly permeated her marrow.
January 19, 2025 at 10:25 PM
sylvancantrell.bsky.social
I've finished my author carrd! Big milestone for me, it's more real now!

sylvancantrell.carrd.co
Sylvan Cantrell
Writer | Poet | Chief Mourner
sylvancantrell.carrd.co
January 19, 2025 at 9:36 PM
sylvancantrell.bsky.social
Haha
January 19, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Reposted by Sylvan
neorsd.org
before tiktok,
before bluesky,
before twitter,
before meta,
before it all,
there were sewers.

after all, there will be sewers.
January 19, 2025 at 3:44 AM
sylvancantrell.bsky.social
#WritingCommunity #Snippetshare

Quote or reply to share any snippet featuring the word "WALK"

A snip from "Clockwork Ghouls."
“Flowers. begging your pardon, I don’t see a reason for flowers. Can’t even distill a good poison from most of them, gaudy things.” Beckett hoped his small sniffle from the oppressive miasma of pollen in the garden remained indetectable. D’Artagnan’s stare was fern fetters. “I take it you believe a pretty thing must always have his use?” Something happened to his own face, he could feel it, like a contortion, the way his lids widened and his mouth went slack, stricken for perhaps a blink before he gathered his composure about him like a mantle and his features settled more into his comfortable lilting grin. “You meant… its.” D’Artagnan’s expression remained unchanged. Such was his company, unflappable in the driest way. Adorable when Beckett knew he’d backed him into a corner. Insufferable when the roles were reversed. “You meant, ‘a pretty thing must always have its use’.” Another beat of silence under his oppressive gaze before D’Artagnan’s brows descended into a pinch. “I said what I said,” he answered, and severed another rose from its bush before he turned on his heel and walked away.
January 19, 2025 at 3:02 AM
sylvancantrell.bsky.social
🎭
January 19, 2025 at 2:12 AM
sylvancantrell.bsky.social
Starting this journey of building community with my fellow creatives with bells on and such a jittery feeling of excitement. That's the joy of jumping into this; commiseration with my fellow creatives. Hi!
January 19, 2025 at 1:59 AM
Reposted by Sylvan
shaydh.bsky.social
"Porn rots your brain" maybe for YOU. It has made me smarter actually.
January 18, 2025 at 5:36 PM
sylvancantrell.bsky.social
Hi! 👋

I'm Sylvan! I'm currently working on my debut novel, Clockwork Ghouls. Here are some things you can expect to find in my work:

💀 Gothic themes and imagery
👁️ Religious trauma/imagery
👻 The paranormal, themes of death and dying
⚔️ Historical/fantasy settings
🦴 Animated skeletons!

Links below!
January 19, 2025 at 1:52 AM
Reposted by Sylvan
markpopham.bsky.social
BOURDAIN: so ive had joints of mutton everywhere. exeter, wroexeter, berwick. Ive never seen a joint of mutton prepared like this

MEDIEVAL SPIT-BOY: we roaste thee meat under a pafte which keeps the juices, and renders the meat moft tendere

BOURDAIN: *chuckling* wow
January 19, 2025 at 12:25 AM