Vaibhav (he/him)

@vaibhavguptawho.substack.com

184 Followers 137 Following

Professional writer and TTRPG game master. 🇮🇳 Now editing first novel. #writingcommunity #writingsky #booksky Blog: vaibhavguptawho.com

The final session was attended by 10 players.
An old elf man getting evaporated. The meme title says "minor spelling mistake".
Map of a fantasy city, made using a software that provides hand-drawn assets.
White dragon, given some light purple and pink to add some personality.
"Ancient Nephilim" miniature from Mammoth Factory. Big brown demon creature with 4 wings, 4 arms, a massive sword, and skulls on the base. Front shot.
A LUDI droid was stationed at the reception, as one always was. “Checking into Club House 6? Please sign in the logbook,” it said, its voice pleasant, if resonant in a distinctly non-human way. Callum always marvelled at how a faceless droid could nonetheless be so expressive with its body language; the LUDIs always looked subservient and eager to help. Callum signed the registry with his signature and house number. He then took a set of stairs down to the bath house, and emerged into a large room with a big sand pit in the middle of it. It was, of course, empty at this time. Putting his satchel and canister aside, he quickly undressed. Despite being alone, he looked around before he took off his underwear, and then quickly dipped into the sand pit. It was pleasantly warm. Sand held heat well, and the apartment complex had its own sand battery, a much larger reservoir of sand that was heated by harnessing wind and geothermal energy. The heat held in this sand battery could then be used in various ways, such as steadily powering the street lamps, community centres, and clubhouses, among other uses. It was really marvellous stuff. Callum took some time scrubbing himself. The warm sand was really relaxing after the hours of cleaning he’d just done, and he found himself feeling just a little drowsy. It would be so nice to be in here for a while… but he didn’t have the time… “Ah, screw it,” he thought to himself, and luxuriated in the bath, as much as was possible in a communal sand pit. Still, it was cleaned regularly, and so Callum decided to enjoy it. It felt good. His skin became smooth and soft as he scrubbed away grime and dead cells. The sweat he’d worked up was absorbed, leaving only dry odour on him. After what felt like half an hour, he got out and fetched his deodorant powder and applied it to himself liberally, and he felt refreshed. He dressed and left the clubhouse.
Screenshot of the words "THE END" and a word count showing 90,897 of 90,000 words.
“Hmm,” he said, and left it at that. He resumed eating and they spent a few moments in silence before he changed the topic. “Why did Olifer drag you away earlier? Did he have something to say?” “No, I think he just wanted me to shut the hells up. Gods I’m bored. It’s been a month. I want to go back. I wanted to go back when I got that letter from Curry.” “The one about your family? I thought it didn’t say much.” “It didn’t, but she got a chance to talk to Tessa Gemin. She confirmed what Chihiro told us in that theatre restroom — that the Geminis were not involved in my family’s killing. But she confirmed that they looked like victims of an explosion. Blown apart into pieces.” “Law’s beard… I’m sorry, Fae.” She raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Did I give you permission to use my nickname?” “Ahaha,” he blustered, looking sheepish. “I thought I’d try it out. Sorry.” “No, don’t be. I don’t mind,” she said, though she didn’t look at him. She was eating quite intently.
Grandfather sat up. He had just awoken, his muscles stiff with age and regret, his eyes sleepy. The wrinkles on his face settled sloppily upon the loose skin underneath. He sat still, waiting for the pain to pass just a little bit. He stretched to move it along, slow and gentle as to not hurt himself. He needed to do this just enough to reach his bedside table, upon which his medicine pouch sat. His fingers were curled with arthritis, but he managed to pull out a small oral dissolving strip. Separating the thin sheet from its wrapping paper, he gingerly placed the strip under his tongue. It had a mild, sweet flavour, which he savoured. For a few seconds, the air stood still. Then… heat! His eyes flew open, suffused in a purple glow. His body began to quiver. The superficial veins, now pumping with adrenaline, popped out further from under his skin in angry, lavender lodes all over his body. His body grew twenty percent wider. More muscular. His white hair, previously a thinning scrag loose upon his head, now tightened and thickened. The muscles of his body rippled and creaked as he stood up. As the strip dissolved completely, he let loose a groan and took a deep breath. Grandfather was now awake. The man known as “The Abundance” rose. He had an empire to run.
“Now I know it’s hard for both of you, but if you could stop being children for two minutes, this can work out for all of us,” said Stitchu. She gave them both the stink eye until they both were both cowed enough to sit down. “Yeah, that’s what I thought! You didn’t expect my own brand of psychic powers, did you?” Faheeda rolled her eyes but didn’t respond. “Now listen up.” She began explaining the situation to both of them, taking care to mention common threads that tied them together. Much of it was for the benefit of Callum, as she described how Dynastes had started being more aggressive in their tactics five years ago, trying to grow their influence. “You’ve obviously seen it. The Blue Beetles have been in use for decades as a police force, but they were mostly out of sight to avoid making the populace uncomfortable,” she said. “But for some reason — we don’t know why — they stopped caring about that around four or five years ago. More units, more patrols, more arrests, slowly but steadily increasing while the other Oryctes companies have raised prices and reduced stock.” “A focus on profit,” chipped in Callum, and both women nodded.
Scrivener screenshot showing the draft statistics. 1349/710 words for a day's session. 88056 of 88000 words for the total length of the manuscript.
A targeted ad in anglicized Hindi for ChatGPT images on reddit. It shows gummy bear versions of people's faces with the prompt "turn my friends into jelly candy" (translated). The ad says "add a twist to your selfies with ChatGPT Images." (translated).
A video of me talking about a new D&D campaign at Now Boarding Cafe, Bengaluru.
A hexmap section of a custom part of my D&D world. A city called Tulsohna sits in the centre with an ocean to the north and a mountain range to the south. To the west is a desert area called The Ashen Wastelands.
Screenshot of Scrivener project tracker, showing a completed goal of 75000 words.
A screenshot of Scrivener's goal tracker showing 69420 out of 75000.
The image shows a whiteboard with the title "Book progress Dec 2025" and context "Start 52k, Target 75k". The rest of the image is a day by day log of words written in December 2025, with some exceptional days having 1502, 1629, and 1552 words, and some days having 0 words. The variance is large and the average seems to be in the 400-700 words per day zone.
A tally of words written towards several stories this year.
A screenshot of Scrivener's word count showing 60025/75000 on a novel manuscript.
Hardy
Pulled chicken sandwich/burger
Scrivener screenshot showing a word count: 40370/75000.
Scrivener progress screenshot that shows 37575 words out of 75000.
My cat Peanut, a ginger female.
Painted Kraken miniature with 3 pieces. 1 inch PC for comparison.
A map of a fictional island Teressa of my own creation, marked with several text boxes depicting where several fictional stories and D&D games are based.
Silksong Act 2 completion screen: 35h 16m 23s
Video of a sea serpent figurine being rotated to show off its paint. It has various shades of purple and blue.
Scrivener progress bar showing 30040 words out of 75000.
A meme of Chopper from One Piece crying. Text says: "SEPTEMBER 4TH! SILKSONG SEPTEMBER 4TH! IT'S REAL! THE ONE CAKE IS REAL!"
Bangalore airport terminal 2, photo 1
Akane-banashi, a manga, is getting turned into an anime. This is the announcement at the beginning of the latest chapter.
A screenshot of a story submission with the queue position 69 highlighted.
LinkedIn post celebrating a news piece that quotes Jensen Huang saying he personally reviews the salaries of 42,000 employees.
Zentangle art envelope 1.
Paprika parade tattoo
Restack of a note that says "Something major coming". My caption: "Me on the toilet the morning after a dinner of cheesy fries, fried chicken, and a three-bean burrito:"
Famous Tumblr post about wishing that a mysterious vitamin deficiency was the cause of all of one's problems and everybody was sympathetic upon the discovery of the deficiency.
Hulk Hogan's legendary tweet: "Goodnight HULKAMANIACS and jabronie marks without a life that don't know it a work when you work a work and work yourself into a shoot,marks"
Screenshot of Substack comments on a horror story of mine: VIII: The true horror story is only 25% of India has access to the internet. Don't quit your call center job. Me: Hahaha thanks for the engagement, fuckface! Your bargain-bin racism is trite. VIII: "Engagement" is LinkedIn mindset, stinky. Me: Racism is Loser mindset, rando.
My cat Peanut, seen here sleeping without difficulty because of the medicine I give her.
This is The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. Look at these one star reviews!
Critical role merchandise: 2 t-shirts, 2 card games, and a pin.
Photo of the 4 hot sauces under the Naagin brand. Original Indian hot sauces. My preference in order: 1. Kantha Bomb, 2. Smoky Bhoot, 3. The Original, 4. The 65.
Quordle sequence comeback from first letter bullshit. First word I guessed Taunt, Haunt, Gaunt, and Jaunt before landing on the correct word Daunt. Had 3 chances to get the next 3 words and I got em.
Kevin Owens: "For a guy who loves being on the indies so much, he sure fucking talks about how much he wants to be back in WWE a lot."
A screenshot of my Notion tracker for short stories with word counts for each.
Scrivener statistics. Important numbers mentioned in the tweet.
Screenshot from my blog post. Relevant text: "I think image and video generators will get a Disney-shaped baseball bat to the head in a dark alley sooner or later."
My cat Peanut, sleeping on her side, looking like a dinosaur.
Aesthetic portrait shot of a serving of tiramisu
Bangers and Mash with onion gravy
Screenshot of Scrivener statistics. 12652 words / 51 pages.
Screenshot of my Scrivener statistics, showing that the project is at 10,166 words or 41 paperback pages.
Screenshot of Moksha portal. I've submitted a story called "Society of the Bedwalkers" to a magazine whose name I've redacted.
Screenshot of a selection from the "Mouse" page of the Poorly Drawn Lines sticker app.
Scrivener statistics for my current project. The important stat is the story is currently at 8632 words or 35 paperback pages.
An Instagram story describing my writing progress. Fiction writing progress in the last 4 days: Wed: 1100 words (1) Thu: 627 words (2) Fri: 1000 words (1) Sat: 723 words (2) Total: 3450 words. Story 1: "Conscious Choices", a fantasy novelette currently at 7000 words with a target of ~14000. Story 2: "Society of the Bedwalkers", a medical sci-fi short story currently at 1350 words with a target of ~3500.
Screenshot of 2 paragraphs from the article. A select quote is in the tweet attached.
Screenshot of the S&P 500 ticker on Google. There was a 5.97% drop on Friday, April 4th.