#needs a lot of refinement right now but i kind of like the idea of two Main sorts of hauntings. one where ghosts are hanging out and one-- | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

selfindulgentpixies · 5 months

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Blood upon the snow: chapter 1

Vampire!Gojo x gn!reader

You read that right folks, it's finally here. Or part of it is anyway. I decided to split my vampire Gojo fic into several parts just because feed back really helps me stay inspired and I'm not sure how long this potential beast of a fic will take me to finish otherwise in all honesty. I've put a lot of work into this fic so far. probably one of the most refined things i've written.

CW: canon typical violence, blood drinking (you know vampire stuff),GN!Afab!reader, reader isn't a blank slate but I still hope you will enjoy putting yourself in their shoes, reader is a hunter(the normal kind), Sukuna is here and he's his own warning. Potential for vampire politics in a future parts if i'm feeling crazy, past satosugu (what you thought i'd be able to leave suguru out of this?)

4.2k

It had been years since it happened but you’d never forget it. The winter had been a particularly harsh one and you’d heard the adults talking about bandit attacks being on the rise due to scarcity. Your mother had soothed you and told you nothing would happen though. That you'd get safely from one city to the next. She’d been wrong.

A merchant caravan was far too tempting a target with all the potential goods on board. From the food to all the valuables carried within. You’d been asleep when it happened, curled up safely in your mother’s lap the both of you wrapped in warm furs and being gently rocked by the movements of the carriage. You were meant to make it to the next major settlement by noon the next day. But right now the moon hung high in the sky, bright enough to to be seen through the thin cloud cover. The world outside was all shimmering shades of blue and white under the winter moon’s silver gaze.

The silence of the snow muffled night is cut sharply by a scream followed by a loud crack of splintering wood echoing through the air, likely from the back of the caravan. You wake groggily in your mother’s arms, dazed and confused as she sets you down on the seat so she can look out one of the carriage’s windows toward the front where your father was at the reins. A wet thump, followed by a scream from your mother. More screams, seemingly from all around, cries from adults scrambling to issue orders. Then your carriage veers, the horses startled by the chaos.

You’re knocked from your seat, tiny body tumbling across the carriage when something suddenly rams into its side, sending it over and off the path. The world goes dark, you’re not sure for how long. When you come to the caravan isn’t immediately in sight though the screams seem to echo all around you. When you finally catch sight of an orange glow in the distance your eyes are able to focus on something much closer as well. A dark shape lying in the snow, red slowly spreading around it. No. Not it. Her. Your mother. There’s several figures in the distance backlit by the distant chaos approaching but you can’t tear your wide eyes from your mother. You begin to crawl toward her when her eyes suddenly fixate on you. “Run.” You freeze. With more strength she speaks again. “Run.” The figures in the distance grow closer. “I said RUN.”

You stumble up to your feet then. A step backward.

“RUN”

And you do. Turning on your heel to stumble through the forest. You hear shouting then but you don’t listen to it. Can’t listen to it because you need to listen to your mother. Her face in that moment seared into your mind. Cold air burns through your throat and lungs as you push yourself to run. To where you had no idea. You didn’t know these woods. You’re quick though, like a little rabbit, running with fur boot clad feet you barely sink into the snow at all while your pursuers stumble and sink through the deep drifts of snow. Too heavy to be supported by the shimmering shell that is the snow’s top layer.

You keep running long after you stop hearing their crashing footsteps and shouts. You keep running until you can’t. You collapse, coughing, lungs burning from the effort and cold. You curl into a ball right there beneath the canopy of pines. You’re not sure how long you lie there, but eventually somehow silent and without sinking into the snow at all a pair of boots appear in your line of sight. You weakly turn your face to look up, your lashes and cheeks decorated with jewels made of frozen tears

A person.. Are they really a person, they seem too beautiful to be a person, it’s as if the moon took human form and came to earth. They kneel down in front of you, expression solemn as they reach out to brush away some of the frozen tears before cupping your tiny face in their large hands. Their hands are nearly as cold as the snow you’re laying upon. All you’re really focused on now though are their bright blue eyes, not just bright but glowing. You attempt to speak but no sound comes out of your raw throat.

“Shhh… Don’t try to speak.” The voice is deep yet melodic, you think it might be soothing if you weren’t so numb. The deepness of the voice at least makes you think they’re a man of some kind even if not a human one. He picks you up and bundles you into his coat. You gaze up at him as he carries you, where to, you have no idea but you can’t seem to care in your current state, so instead you gaze up at him. His eyelashes like the snowflakes that fall around you as they dust over his cheeks with each blink.

You’re apparently not the best listener because you weakly croak out a question. “Are you an angel? Did I die..?”

He pauses mid stride and glances down at you, crystalline eyes wide. Then he laughs, the action jostling you against his chest. “Now that’s a new one.” He adjusts his hold on you and continues. “You don’t need to worry about what I am and no you didn’t die.” His solemn expression has been replaced with a soft one. Lips gently curving at least for a moment and gaze soft before he looks ahead. “No more talking from you, you need your rest.”

You don’t need to be told again as your eyelids feel heavy. The exhaustion from before settling over you like a blanket, wrapped in this strange man’s coat and being gently rocked by his steps you drift off.

You stare up at the ceiling of your small room, blinking away sleep. It’s been years since that night and yet you still dream of it. You roll from your cot, immediately stuffing your feet into a pair of slippers. It was beginning to get cold out, the chill always bringing with it the dreams. Not that it was winter yet. Instead of a world dusted in white the world outside was a fiery palette of reds, oranges and yellows.

You wander your way to the small kitchen where your grandmother sits with a cup of tea clutched between her weathered fingers. “You slept in.” It’s simply an observation not an accusation. “That’s not like you. Normally you’re up before the sun, not well after it.”

You reach for the pot of tea and pour yourself a cup, happy to cradle the warmth in your hands. You hum. “And yet you didn’t come to wake me.”

Your grandmother hums in turn then, it was a response you picked up from her after all. “Of course not. You need to get more rest or you’ll burn yourself out. You’ve spent nearly everyday in the woods either hunting or gathering other supplies.”

“I need to make sure we’re both taken care of. It’s predicted to be a harsh winter. This fall has already been particularly cold.” You blow on your tea and sit across from your grandmother.

“We already have more than enough smoked and dried meats to get through the winter.”

“And the extra can go around to others in the village who need it in that case. If not that I can take it to trade in the larger towns for other supplies we might need. You know, like your medicine. OW!” You yelp as she gives your leg a thwack under the table with her cane.

“Watch your tone,” She replies, both hands returning to her cup to raise it to her lips for another sip. “And stop worrying so much about me. I’m more than capable of taking care of myself still.”

You grumble and rub at your leg. “Stubborn old bat…” you mumble beneath your breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing~” You sip at your tea as she narrows her eyes at you.

Before she’s able to say anything more there’s a knock at the door, drawing both of your attention. “Expecting someone today?” You ask her as you begin to get up and go to the door.

“Not at all.”

Not that it was abnormal for people to stop by for any number of reasons in a village like this. What wasn’t normal was when you looked through the peephole and saw one of the lead elders had stopped by your home unannounced. You open the door quickly and step to the side so your grandmother can see who it is.

“Now to what do I owe the visit, Gakuganji? The elders council isn’t meant to gather until the end of the week.” Your grandmother was technically on the council though she was the current youngest member to be welcomed on. Meanwhile she’s said before that she remembers Gakuganji being old already while she was young. Honestly you can’t imagine this fossil ever being young anyway.

“There’s an urgent matter that I need to discuss with you.” He says to your grandmother while his eyes flick pointedly toward you.

You raise your hands in mock defeat. “Alright alright I’ll make myself scarce. Just give me a minute to get properly changed, old man.” This earns you a glare from Gakuganji and a snort from your grandmother as you head back to your room. Soon enough you’re dressed and heading out the door, grabbing your bow and quiver as you go. Your hunting knife already secured to a belt at your waist. Admittedly you’re curious about what could be so urgent that it would bring Gakuganji here, especially when as your grandmother had said there was to be a regularly scheduled meeting of the elders from the various villages at the end of the week.

You stretch and breathe in the crisp air. Glancing toward the sky you realize just how late you actually had slept in and feel a bit mortified. Your grandmother had really let you sleep in well past noon. You grumble and go to bundle up one of your kills from the previous day onto the back of your horse to bring to the city to sell. You really did need to go and get more medicine for your grandmother anyway.

It’s grown dark once you’re on your way home. The days grow shorter and shorter giving way to long nights. You didn’t mind it much. There was a certain peace that came with it, though while on the roads you didn’t allow yourself a false sense of security. It’s why even when you weren’t hunting you always had your knife and bow. It’s a habit that’s saved your life on more than one occasion, both from creatures of the night and simple brigands who think you’d make an easy target.

Something is wrong tonight. You feel it in the air. Everything is too quiet and when the forest is quiet it often means something dangerous is around. You pet your horse’s neck, aiming to soothe it. That’s when not far ahead you see a figure on the road. You slide your bow off your shoulder, your free hand poised to grab for an arrow if you need it as you steer your horse with your thighs. Not that it needed guidance on the path home which you’ve taken hundreds of times.

“So even rabbits can bare their teeth, hmm?” The figure speaks without looking at you. His voice is deep and dripping with amusement. “Put that arrow away before you get hurt, human. I have no business with you”

A shiver goes through you at the words. Human. Your horse stops and refuses to go forward. Your horse that’s encountered all sorts of beasts and kept its nerve. When you don’t say anything the man looks over at you, his eyes are crimson and his face is adorned with tattoos. You know who he is even without having ever seen him in person. You press your lips into a firm line. Sukuna the vampire lord from a distant land. His territory brushed precariously with the Vampire lord who called your own lands home. Two vampires who were closer to gods than anything walking this earth truly ought to be. Crystalline blue eyes and a snowy night flash through your mind’s eye.

You at least know better than to question his presence out loud. But still you don’t avert your gaze and his eyes narrow. Suddenly he is much much closer, making your horse rear back in panic, knocking you off before it lets out a sound of fear and runs off into the woods, leaving you on your back on the dirt road.

“Perhaps your beast is smarter than you are.”

You let out a hiss of pain before opening your eyes and looking up. He’s standing above you, crimson eyes gazing down at you unimpressed. Fear pricks across your skin and keeps your mouth shut. After what feels like an eternity he snorts and suddenly you feel as if you can move again. You scramble to your feet and look away. Years of experience have told you not to take your eyes off a predator and give them an opening lest they rip out your throat but your instincts say to stop meeting his eyes and get away. You think your instincts have the better of it this time.

“Now you show sense,” His tone is incredulous. Now that you’re looking away from his face he begins to walk past you. He pauses when he’s right beside you. “You should be grateful I’m in a good mood tonight.” And like that he’s gone.

The encounter leaves you shaken and without a ride. You curse and shakily gather up anything that fell off your horse with you before heading home. Hopefully your horse would find their way back home just fine and wouldn’t get picked off. You’d worry about them being stolen if they liked anyone but you.

You debate the whole way home if you should tell your grandmother that you encountered Sukuna. Would she even believe you? And if she does, what can she do with the information? Bring it up to the other elders at the end of the week? Or maybe Gakuganji is still at the house… Your whole face sours like you just drank bad milk. That old man wouldn’t believe you. There’s no way.

You’re incredibly surprised then when you crest the hill to the village and see chaos. People rushing around everywhere, loading carriages and preparing livestock to move. You break into a run toward your home. This had to do with the elder’s visit, there’s no way it wasn’t related. When you burst through the front door and into the kitchen you’re surprised to find your grandmother much like you had this afternoon when you’d gotten up. Though this time she’s smoking instead of drinking tea. Blue grey smoke curls into the air from the intricately carved pipe.

“Grandma, what’s going on? Why is everyone panicking and why’re you just sitting here?”

A deep inhale and the end of the pipe shines bright with embers casting the old woman’s face in orange light before she sighs out a plume of smoke and sets the pipe down against her little wooden ashtray. “I told the villagers they need to evacuate.”

Your brows furrow together and dread begins to tighten your chest. “But why? What did the old fossil say, and don’t try and say it’s unrelated.”

She snorts. “Don’t let him hear you call him that…” she ignores your mumbled ‘you call him that all the time’ and sighs deeply. “You’re aware that we fall within a vampire lord’s domain correct?”

You’re a bit taken aback but you nod. “Lord Gojo oversees this territory and the vampires within it.” Not that he exercised any direct power over the human population. Not in a ruling sense anyway.

Your grandmother nods. “The people of his territory are lucky. He’s benevolent as far as vampire lords are considered. He limits the hunting of vampires within his territory and protects us from outside threats.” She pauses, seeming to think for a moment. “He even saved you and brought you home to me without asking for anything in return.”

You’d started to brew tea as she spoke, needing to direct your attention somewhere to control the dread, but now after lowering the kettle over the flames in the hearth you look at her. Really look at your grandmother, frail and forlorn but with a slightest hint of a smile on her face.

“Imagine my shock when he showed up at my door with you bundled up tight. By the time he brought you home I’d heard tell of what happened to the caravan, I’d assumed you’d been lost. But there he was with you, rosy cheeked and cared for. You’d been missing until you were able to tell him who your family were… “

You sit across from her, wondering where she was going with bringing up this story. “I don’t really remember much other than when he found me to be honest..”

“I’m surprised you remember that much.. Truly though I’d expected him to ask for something in return. Perhaps even ask for you once you were of age.”

You choke on nothing at her words and your cheeks flush with heat. “Grandma! That isn’t funny.” Your voice is indignant.

“It’s not meant to be,” she says seriously then sighs. “My point is we’re lucky. He mostly leaves us all be despite his eccentric whims. That isn’t something many who live within a vampire lord’s territory can say. Afterall when I was growing up I fled from the territory of one who was far more malevolent.”

Lord Sukuna. Your encounter on the road flashes through your mind. Things are slowly clicking into place in your mind.

“Lord Gojo has been challenged to a battle by Lord Sukuna.” She folds her hands on the table in front of her, the weight of her words creating a pit beneath you that threatens to swallow you whole. You'd heard the stories of how those who lived within his domain lived or died based on his pleasure of displeasure.

“On the road tonight-” you begin but your grandmother cuts you off.

“This is why the village is evacuating. We’re too close to where the battle is to take place. Though some are going to go further than others. If Lord Sukuna wins, who's to say how quickly all our lives will be thrown into chaos. If he’ll decide to try and take over or if this is simply a game to test his power.”

You chew your lip. “Okay if that’s the case why aren’t you preparing to leave as well?”

She makes an incredulous sound. “Please, you know how my health is. I’m staying here, I won’t be run off from my home by him again. I told the villagers to evacuate so they can make their own choice. Mine is to stay here.”

You stare in disbelief. Maybe you shouldn’t be shocked considering this small village basically sprung up around your grandmother after she settled here. But still to just stay and wait for whatever happens…

The kettle begins to whistle and you push away from the table to get it. To prepare you both steaming cups of tea.

“My question then, oh grandchild of mine, is what will you do?”

Your hands tremble slightly as you pour each of you a cup. “How long do we have, do you know?”

“Two nights from now on the harvest moon.”

“Thats-”

“Incredibly short notice? I imagine Sukuna is forcing lord Gojo’s hand for it to be so sudden. Fight him on that night willingly or he’ll simply begin wreaking havoc in his domain regardless and force him into a confrontation that way.”

“And i really can’t convince you to leave…?”

“No. I decided years ago that I would live out my life here in this village. If it’s to end in a blaze of glory during a battle of titans? Then so be it.”

You tightly clutch at the tea cup in your hands. There’s an unspoken ‘you won’t take that away from me will you?’ that hangs in the air between the two of you. And you won’t. Despite how much it pains you, you won’t take that away from the woman who’s given you so much over the years.

—

In the end you’d left. You stayed longer than most, until the autumn sun was high in the sky, uncaring of the destruction that was sure to be wrought that night. Hadn’t the sun realized that a day like this was meant for storms and gloom? But you’d stayed until your grandmother urged you out the door. You’d wanted to drag her with you but if her final wish truly was to live and die in this village you couldn’t take that away.

You didn’t go far. Only as far as you had to, something in you deciding that you’d bear witness even if from a distance. The powers at play were hard to comprehend. Two beings who appear to be but mere men but with power so immense that you think your grandmother’s description of titans failed to convey it fully. You imagined this is what it was for gods to clash.

The night is old when all seems to have settled and you make your way toward the battlefield. Your intention was merely to see what was left of your home and if your grandmother perhaps still lived. You don’t make it that far though under the harvest moon’s orange red glow. Instead halfway through a scorched field you find him. Pale form covered in ash and blood, once brilliant blue eyes staring dully at the night sky above.

Your breath stutters in your chest. Part of you wishes you could say you hesitate but you don’t. You move to the vampire lord’s side, gently going to your knees by his head. There’s no reaction, not at first anyway. But then dull eyes slowly move toward you. Even still you knew he was dying. If nothing was done he was going to die just like you would have in the snow all those years ago if he hadn't found you.

You draw your hunting knife from your belt, the worn handle carved from the antler of your first kill making it feel like an extension of yourself. You stare at it and its glinting blade, kept meticulously sharp and clean by you, before glancing back down at the man who’d saved you. You weren’t sure if this would even work but you felt you needed to try. Cold steel cuts into the back of your wrist cleanly. You let out a hiss between your teeth at the feeling, and then watch mesmerized by the blood welling to the surface.

With the knife tucked away you slip one hand beneath his head and then lower your bleeding wrist to his lips. At first he doesn’t react. Instead your life simply flows passively past his lips. “Please… I never got to thank you,” Your plea is quiet.

You feel it then, his lips moving against your skin. His lashes flutter before his eyes seem to gain a hazy sort of focus, different from the dullness of moments prior. You press your wrist more firmly to his mouth and you feel his tongue laving over the cut in your wrist. The action surprising you both as something unfamiliar in itself but also in how it soothes the stinging wound. Then like a steel trap being triggered his hands fly up and grab your arm securely before his mouth fully latches onto your wrist, fangs cleanly piercing your flesh as if you were nothing more than a ripe summer peach. You cry out, both from the sudden sting of pain and the abruptness of his action. You don’t try to yank away, instead curling forward, the hand that was once supporting his head going to the ground to curl into the soil. You pant, your face directly above his with your eyes closed tight. The pain is fading as quickly as it started, numbness taking its place similar to when he’d licked the cut you’d made. Your eyes flutter back open and for the first time the eyes you remember from that winter night meet your own. Crystalline as they hold your gaze even as it grows hazy.

You wonder then if you were trading your life for his. If he would drink you dry with every pull of your blood past his lips. You don’t think you’d mind that since your time had been borrowed from him anyway. You sway even on your knees and begin to fall forward. It’s only distantly that you note him releasing your wrist before everything swims out of focus. __

Ba-thump

“Gojo! You’re alive! We thought- .. who is that?”

Ba-thump

“I don’t have time to explain. Get Shoko-”

Ba-thump

And there you have it folks! And i used dividers for the for the first time. Nothin too fancy but I felt this deserved it. I would love to hear if you guys enjoyed this and what your favorite part/s were. This fic is sorta my baby. It's somthing I'll work on when the mood strikes because I want to do it right and put a lot of love into it. I'm really trying for those gothic romance vibes. Also sorry Gojo wasn't in this chapter a ton but I really needed to set the scene and tone of this story.

tag list!: @icy-spicy @margumis @fah-keet @missmugiwara @pastelle-rabbit @mysugu @fushigurro @nanamikentoseyebags @whispers-of-lilith @princess-okkotsu @strawberrystepmom @chifuyuskoneko @katsulock @kinjuutsu @kweenkatsuki-main @biscuitsngravie @pupkashi @chuuyasboots @porridgesblog @kailali @4sat0ruu

divider credit: @/animatedglittergraphics-n-more

#satoru gojo x reader #gojo x reader #gojo x gn!reader #jjk x reader #jjk x gn!reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #gn!reader #vampire gojo #vampire x reader #rossi writes

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andypantsx3 · 3 months

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Hi Andie my loveeee! This is not a fic request of any sort but I wanted to share an idea with you if that's ok?

I have recently been OBSESSED with "The Apothecary Diaries" and I definitely see some similarities between Jinshi and Shouto that make me laugh a lot when I am watching it but that got me thinking...

Imagine... SecretPrince!Shouto. No one knows what the youngest son of Emperor!Enji looks like, Todoroki Shouto is a name shrouded in mystery. The reason being with Shouto now old enough; Enji tasks Shouto with the matters of the Inner Palace undercover to test him and if he does a good enough job he promises him to bring back Empress!Rei to the main court from the outer palace. She had been sent there after her position declined as a courtesan since the "death" of her eldest son and the tyranny of the emperor drove her mad. Shouto agrees.

Imagine... Commoner!Reader who was taught to read and write despite not being a noble, who harbored a special interest in medicine. Her family has plans of making her a courtesan (which she despises but can't do anything against) , thus the formal education. However, with her father's business going under she has no choice but to join the Imperial Palace work force as one of the ladies in waiting for Courtesan!Momo so they can make ends meet. Surprisingly Momo turns out to be quite generous and open minded unlike the other nobles and the reader finds a family along with the other ladies in waiting such as Ochako, Tsuyu, Jiro and Mina. Now all she has to do is finish her term without any trouble, until then her father should be able to get things back in control at home...

But of course things never go as planned as a bunch of mysteries unfold at the palace needing the help of a specific apothecary, the appearance of a way too handsome yet mysterious eunuch at the inner palace, and his strange yet frequent visits to Lady Momo's place... Wait what he came specifically asked for us?... Huh... how bizarre...

Omg I can see it so so clearly. Through a series of odd encounters, where the reader learns about the true nature on this strange eunuch and surprisingly... he's kind of nice... and the Eunuch of the other hand having such weird curiosity over a simple maid with no courtly manners or refined personality to point where he continuously seeks her company. But we must not get sidetracked! we are here for our family... not for some... handsome... kind... gentle...wai- WHAT NO NO NO BRAIN STOP IT!!!

Obviously this is heavily HEAVILY inspired by apothecary diaries but I think it fits so well... MilitaryCommander!Bakugo, his right hand man being Kirishima, CourtAdviser!Aizawa, MissingPrince!Touya who fled to the neighboring kindom and has been plotting his revenge since.

Omg I loveeeeeee this skdjhskjdhsfl I am gonna have to watch Apothecary Diaries because this concept is everything??

I absolutely love the layers of intrigue and Shouto would work sooooo well as a secret prince masquerading as a far too handsome eunuch!!

We would tie ourselves in knots over how beautiful we found him and wondering if that's something he would ever want too!!! And then to find out he's a prince. I can just see the emotional turmoil of no we must not have feelings morphing into okay we have feelings but he's a eunuch he probably doesn't want us morphing into oh my god I think he wants us?? morphing into HE'S ROYALTY!!!!!! PANIC!!!!!!!!!

Chef's kiss, love this, this is the kind of Reader torture I love to see. I absolutely think you need to make this a fic and I will be watching Apothecary Diaries ASAP!!!!!!

#ask andie

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roseapprentice · 8 months

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Look At It, It's Got Depression

Content Warnings: depression, ed, suicidal reasoning, ideas that could prod you toward fascism or the murder-y kind of socialism if you aren't thinking critically

I feel steadily more sure that depression evolved as a strategy to cope with times of famine & plague.

Source: I have depression and I've thought about this too much

Hear me out: What caused most premature deaths for most of history? Infectious disease. When did infections kill the most people? While we were starvation-weak.

We think of evolution as a process that refines survival skills, and that's mostly right. But the drive of natural selection is more precisely, "Make sure something with similar genes exists in the future." And our standard for similarity can get wonky.

Humans' top priority is usually offspring, and next up is a messy mashup of ourselves and whichever other humans we know and like best.

So imagine we're a group of early humans, trying to keep our loved ones alive in hungry plague times. What strategies will help? Eat rarely to keep food available. Scarf down calorie-dense food before it spoils, especially if there's a lot or there's no one around to share with. Be lethargic & pessimistic about adventures to conserve calories.

If we feel extra bad, shun the people we love for their protection. Distrust the outgroup because they're here to either spread disease or take our food. Reconcile ourselves to thoughts of death in case wandering off to die with our contagion/empty stomach becomes the best shot at survival for our friends.

What cues could our bodies rely on to trigger this response? Lack of plant life in our surroundings. Worrying mainly about how to manage limited resources. Lack of exercise because there's no food to hunt & gather. Shortage of contact with other humans because the ones that rely on us most are already dead or deathly ill.

If you're a human living in the 21st century, these cues are probably sounding awfully familiar.

Of course the strategies are useless now. Advances like motor equipment & modern fertilizer turned starvation into a purely political phenomenon; quietly fading away doesn't help your people survive politicial oppression. Cross-cultural cooperation gets more feasible and necessary with just about every new technology. Physical isolation can still block disease sometimes, but a lack of social support does the opposite. It's now possible to isolate with tools & careful timing instead of instinctive exile; and anyway medicine & sanitation have made that need a lot rarer.

If I'm right about the cause, modern human life contains a wild excess of depression triggers and a stark lack of uses for depression. It's an outmoded strategy with a stuck "on" button.

I've never seen scientific literature bring up this hypothesis (though it has to be out there somewhere). But here's why I want to tell people about my weird pet theory despite my having no research behind it:

In the worst part of my depression, I came across a post that helped me hugely. It said, "Depression is when your body wants to die but your heart wants to live."

I didn't feel at all like my heart wanted to live, but the words hit so hard that I started to wonder if it was true somewhere deep down under all the numb misery.

Any moments when I did want to live just fed directly into my desire to die; the wanting hurt so much that making it stop felt like the ultimate priority. The force of my survival instinct was twisting back on itself as if my brain was caught in some weird paper finger trap of death.

This illness was vast and insidious and frustrating and pointless.

But if depression is an adaptive trait, then my experience makes sense. My body is intermittently trying to incapacitate, starve, or kill me in order to protect the people I love. (In some cases that includes incapacitating/starving me short-term to provide for my long-term survival.)

That's a depression I can accept and outmaneuver.

I can say, "Yes, I want to protect us/them too! These people are my heart, and I want my heart to live. Thank you for also wanting that. But your methods stink."

Then I can use all possible cunning to remind my body that my presence is a blessing to my loved ones, that adventures can yeild satisfying rewards, and that there is more than enough food around for all of us to thrive if only some jerks weren't holding it hostage.

When I've laid out this idea in the past to other people with depression, they tend to eventually find it intuitive and empowering in a similar way. (Or else they start humoring me 😛)

So here's me offering it up to the internet in general to see what y'all make of it.

Final note: for the gazillionth time I'm linking to the interactive self-care website, You Feel Like Shit. I find it's an effective tool for precisely resisting this intricate self-sabatage contingency that's been stupidly built into my stupidly overcomplicated brain by stupid evolution.

(At least I think that's what happened)

#rose posted this #depression #mental illness #mental health #recovery #reblogs welcome #effort post

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sapphim · 1 year

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this is gonna be a long rambly one, and probably repeating a lot of things that have already been said, sorry

I think the failure of the friendship/rivalry system in DA2 is so interesting and like. obviously it was an experiment, they hadn't tried it before, and it was implemented on a game with a very short development, so they obviously didn't have time to really think through the implications and refine it. and I think it's not unfair to label it a failure, since they obviously returned to Origins-style approval for Inquisition. but I think because it was so experimental and unrefined it's interesting to examine like. I think part of the problem was that they had a pretty clear idea of what friendship entails, since that carried over from Origins, and the big failure is with rivalry simultaneously meaning a lot of different things to a lot of different characters (even in how you gain rivalry with a single character, those rivalr bumps will come from vastly different sources, even sometimes *things that you would gain friendship for if you were on the friendship path*) but like broadly, despite this, still having to mean "your characters will be closer/understand each other better and remain together in the climax" and that's even BEFORE throwing rivalmance into the mix.

and like I think, there's potential there, in that in some cases it works just fine! like take Isabela, and consider how it reinforces what they were presenting as her main character flaw at the start of DA2, being that... well! she freed a bunch of people once who were about to be sold into slavery, and that went sideways for her, landed her deep in debt, and she feared for her life, and things snowballed, and somehow this all lead to the qunari kirkwall invasion. and so she's sworn off that and it's every woman for herself now because that's so much less complicated than the hell her life has been for the past several years! and you have the chance to agree with her that, yes girl, personal freedom and liberty is paramount, so do what you want girl. or you can push back and say, hey, if you believe in personal liberty so much, isn't it sometimes necessary to sacrifice for the freedom of others? didn't you do that? wasn't that worth it? wouldn't you do it again? and it's great! it's fine! it gets heated and contentious but not abusive, and it's not dragging her out of her own ideals, it's pushing her further into examining what they really entail. and it's not really better or worse than the friendship path, it's just a different path to where she ends up as a person by act 3.

and then you look at how merrill's rivalry is like going. yeah. I think you're a small infant baby who can't make her own decisions, and that everything anyone ever did to prove you wrong was right and you are wrong and also, marethari was right to force you out of the clan and then continue to meddle in your life long after you left just to continue to prove to you how wrong you are, you wrong infant baby who is wrong and also a child. and also ruining the lives of everyone you touch! like a wrong demon baby who is evil and wrong. like! rubbish lmao.

and like I think that a DA2-style friendship-rivalry path with morrigan would be great! because with Origins-style friendship you shove gifts at her to make her forgive you for not committing crimes against humanity for the lolz, and getting into a rivalry to confront her head-on about, "girl, I know you were raised in a swamp by the abusive mother of the century, but we need to talk about the sociopathy" could be cool and interesting! and, like, there's kind of already the idea there with softening/hardening alistair and leliana as well, and I'm sure that could be expanded upon? but there are other characters I shan't name whose hypothetical rivalry paths haunt me to even briefly consider.

and I'm thinking, could this be solved by adding another axis? like turn it into an "agree" "disagree" axis ("coddle vs confront"? not in those exact terms but yk) and then still have that "I would die for you" vs "I would sell you to satan for a corn chip" axis for the things that would actively push them away? but that's overcomplicating things! by a lot! and you'd still be mapping some very different ideas onto an oversimplified system. so maybe that's way too much overcomplication for not enough benefit, and the return to a simple yes-no axis is right. I just think rivalry as a game system it was interesting and messy and worth thinking about

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eltanin0 · 2 months

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I just found this blog and I noticed that a lot of your stuff seems, well, oddly 3D. I don't mean like in a bad way but it feels like rendered but untextured 3D models? I kinda want to ask what your art process is (sorry for mini-rant)

thanks for checking out my blog! and no need to apologize for anything.

hmm, my art process. honestly i have no idea what to say, i dont know how people normally answer this question so i cant base it off anything either. i'm still kinda new to this whole art thing but i'll try and answer, super sorry if i get this completely wrong and this was all a waste of time.

i guess i'll just talk about how i draw things step by step? for the high effort pieces at least.

ok, so for starters like step 0. when it's a high effort piece, i can already see the image in my mind. i see the pose, i see the general lighting, the layout of stuff, but it's a bit blurry. if i cant see this mental image, the drawing usually comes out extremely poorly.

this is kind of an example of what i see in my head? this might be all useless info idk, but this is i guess where i start.

well step 1 is just the sketch and line. i start with just sketching the general shapes, then slowly refining it until it fits close enough to the image in my head. then in the line layer i'll fix any mistakes the sketch had and add more details to it. oh and for brush, it's just a round brush, like default. i dont know how much of a difference using a drawing tablet does, but i dont use one so... yeah.

i should've put more effort into the sketch for this drawing, but i did not.

next i do flat colors. pretty simple, i just select the smart select the outside of the line layer, invert the selection and now i can't paint outside the lines. i dont really think about what colors i use, i just use whatever the characters normal colors are.

next i do the shading, but first. i duplicate flat layer and recolor it to like a cream color

like so. for high effort pieces, i was told online to shade in pretty much black and white. now actually onto shading. there's 2 kinda shading i do, 1 from the proper light source, and 1 that's kinda just a shadow because things are close together (like corners and stuff). and i'll shade them on separate layers so i can adjust them individually however i want. oh right, i'll either use a very dark color, pretty much black and the the layer blending mode set to multiply. or i'll use a light kind of gray, tinted slightly yellow or something and set the layer blend mode to difference. then i just use a soft air brush and shade in the ways i described above. shading from regular light source, and the corner stuff thing.

normal lightsource - - - - - corner thing

then toggle both layers on and mess with the opacity of each layer until you get what you want.

then you can toggle the normal flats layer, the one that has color and it should apply the shading decently. you can mess with the opacity again on the shadows.

next i do lighting. i just grab a very light color, usually pretty close to white and set the layer blend mode to overlay. then i use a soft airbrush and "light" it? idk i just do like the opposite of the normal shadows, lighter the closer it is to the light source

mess around with the opacity as usual. then i do pretty much the same thing if there's another light source. in this case there was a blue light kinda coming from underneath, so i did that.

now from here i would go back to the flats layer, make a copy, and mess around with different layer styles and properties and settings. sometimes just messing around is useful. in this case, i felt it was too bright and colorful, so i decreased the brightness and saturation of it.

i think it helped a little bit but who knows.

now i do some kinda highlights and details. i grabbed the colors that were in the background and used those. it was a weird pale blue. i had 2 layers for this, 1 of them was specifically for his antenna things at the top, and one was just for his "skin". anyway, the antenna layer was normal, just kinda gave it an outline with the random reflective circles you see normally in pictures, no thoughts behind them. the skin tho had the layer blend mode set to soft light, i thought it looked best this way. it was just more random things to imply it was slightly reflective.

together the layers looked like this. i think it makes him look glossier which is what i was aiming for.

next, and it pretty much the end for pebbles, i got someone to look at it and let me know if they think anything was missing. they said it looked a little unsaturated. which it does. so i made a new layer, set the blend mode to saturation, grabbed the airbrush and made it pretty inline with the lighting layer.

that's kinda it. the background i didnt really care about, just drew and colored it. blurred it a bunch and added a bunch of shadows. i did add some like, "overshadows" is what i call it, i just draw some big shadows down the screen as the top layer.

but yeah thats literally everything i did to draw this. i would like to apologize if this was not at all what you wanted to know, i'm certain i've screwed this up bigtime. super sorry for wasting your time. if there's anything i can do to help, please ask. i owe you a proper answer to your question, i'm just really dumb. sorry for rambling. sorry. and sorry if the drawing i used for example didnt showcase what you wanted to know.

also, i really like your art! please keep up the great work!

#i think i did this all wrong #i'm so sorry #i feel incredibly stupid #:I #rambling :I #now everyone get's to see how little i know about drawing

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junicult · 10 months

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Hello! I really love how you write for harvey and had wanted to ask this for a long time but i can’t see if you’re open or closed for request/Asks.

But if you are may i ask you what do you think about Harvey knowing dances like Cha cha? or Waltz?

I don’t know where this idea came from but Whenever i see him on the town especially with the seasonal outfit mod on winter~

He always strikes me as a refined man from a wealthy family and I don’t even know why plus his portrait looks like he’s the type to listen and sing along to up town girl (T-T)

Thank you~

pls forgive how messy this entire thing is i just worked an 8 hr shift but i see harvey…i gotta write for harvey.

i’d agree he was raised pretty well-off, but still humble. he never really had to worry about money growing up, and i still feel like when he reached a certain age he got a minimum wage job just for his own benefit.

like he never struggled growing up, but he also wasn’t swimming in money. he could afford to get things he wanted, but he didn’t unless he needed them. whether his parents raised him that way or not, he’s always been responsible.

and i definitely agree he’s a gentleman, always has been. he was the type that was raised to say “excuse me,” before leaving the dinner table, y’know?

speaking of, his family was also the kind that made it important to eat dinner together every night. i think he’s carried that on since childhood.

i wanna hc him w siblings. i just feel like he was the middle child for some reason. it radiates off of him. either that, or only child. but i think it’d be cute to imagine him as the middle brother of two sisters.

the most refined men have older sisters, THIS IS A FACT!!

he’d just be forced to listen to all of their problems as teenagers, and he’d learn a lot from them. i know he got along with them so well. he was a little nerd with his interests, and his sisters would gift him little model airplanes on his birthday that he still keeps in his apartment 🫶🫶

now, to bring up the dancing thing; i also agree. his parents probably threw all of them in like cotillion when they were preteens. like u know those like 6-week long ballroom dancing classes that take place like every wednesday night or something… (am i embarrassing myself by knowing too much abt this?)

yeah. he did one of those. and the fact that the knowledge stuck with him for so long says something. but it’s not one of those things he’d just tell you, it’s something you’d find out on your own.

let’s say you’re a fairly new couple, but you still haven’t met each others parents / family yet and stuff. so he’s spending time with you one day, cooking u dinner (as per usual) and he just drops the bomb like, “my sisters wedding is in a few weeks. i was wondering if you’d be my plus one?”

obviously you said yes because…well…it’s also an excuse to get away from work for a weekend and spend time with your boyfriend.

but also it hit u that ur gonna be meeting his fucking family then, too😭😭

ANYWAYS the weekend finally comes, he’s dressed in a cute little suit, got a nice little haircut for his sisters wedding & he’s looking very handsome. he gets to see you all dressed up too, and he’s just a smiling mess the entire weekend because it’s such a special day and he’s a sentimental guy. he definitely dropped a few tears during the ceremony & omfg i’m getting so off track LMFAO

so when the time comes where the bride and groom get to have their first dance, your nerves have calmed significantly because you’ve already met his family, all is well and now you’re both happily watching the newly weds. (he’s definitely not thinking about being in this scenario with u, no. not at all.)

now everyone gets to come in, so ever the gentleman he is that was raised right, he asks you for a dance.

it’s only then when you realized you’ve never actually seen harvey dance, so when he takes your hand and delicately holds onto your waist, guiding you—it’s baffling. you’d expect the anxious man u know and love to be a little uncoordinated & nervous. but no. here he is making u look like a FOOL.

“i didn’t know you could waltz,” you whisper, adding a little laugh.

“i didn’t know you couldn’t waltz.” he teases, smiling at your look of shock. he easily guides you through the dance. no he doesn’t dip you or anything because who is he to steal the light from his sister, and also that’s so excessive 😭

but towards the end he pulls you in for a short kiss, just long enough to get the message across that he’s happy you’re the one he danced with.

like he’s trying to tell you ur the only one he wants to dance the rest of his dances with.

#˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ mail 💌#ੈ✩‧₊˚ headcanons #i love when i can just ramble abt shit #I NEVER KNOW WHEN TO STOP😭😭#asks are open btw😚#stardew valley hcs #harvey x farmer #sdv harvey #stardew valley harvey #sdv harvey x farmer

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tashacee · 7 months

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hi l'm curious about your "sky being blind" thing in the aspect!au. I've never seen anyone write about a blind sky before & l'm so curious about it and how you came up with it

unless you've already talked about it (in that case that's my bad sorry) I'd love to hear more if you're willing to share :D I love hearing about other people’s headcanons and I’ve been enjoying your aspect fic for some time now

You're totally fine!

So when I first played skyward sword i wasn’t very good at the controls, so Link ran everywhere with his sword stuck out in front of him. Me being me, I needed to come up with a narrative reason for this (beyond how much I suck at controls).

The way he runs around with the sword, it looks kind of like it's guiding him, and Fi already describes the various monsters for him (i am absolutely thinking about her description of the bokoblins’ 'fashionable undergarments'), so that was the genesis of the idea.

Even though i have since gotten a lot better at the controls and Link no longer runs around skyloft with the sword out in front of him, the idea stuck and got refined.

When I first started writing fic earlier this year it felt right to include my headcanon for Sky's blindness, hence its appearance in The Chain, Linked and Untarnished, and given that the Aspects series was originally going to be a one-off crack fic based on these stories it was natural to carry it on.

I hope that answers your question and I'm so glad you're enjoying!

#it me #replies #hero’s aspect au #hero's aspect

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random-thought-depository · 6 months

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Brett Devereaux made an observation about Dune that I really like: that Paul Atreides and Feyd Rautha Harkonnen were probably raised with very similar values.

This isn't exactly a ship in the usual fandom sense of the word, but I think it'd be interesting to see this explored in an AU fanfic where Paul and Feyd Rautha somehow team up at the end of Dune.

I think what'd work really well for this is a scenario where Feyd Rautha somehow gets control over House Harkonnen and swears loyalty/vassalage to Paul, adding effective control over House Harkonnen to Paul's portfolio at the end of Dune.

I think that'd have really crunchy social and emotional dynamics that'd fit really well with the theme here. Paul has spent years hating the Harkonnens and seeking revenge on them for the death of his father and a lot of the surviving remnant of Paul's own house have pretty similar feelings, and now here's Feyd Rautha saying to Paul "The armies of my house await your orders, my lord," and Feyd and his Harkonnen buddies are now hanging out at Paul's court and hobnobbing with Paul and the rest of his court. If Gurney Halleck and Duncan Idaho are alive in this scenario I bet they'd hate this and there'd be some pretty tense moments when they have to collaborate with their Harkonnen opposite numbers.

Atreides and Harkonnen generals collaborating to plan the Jihad with kinda shitlib vs. MAGA chud vibe tension where the Atreides have thinking of themselves as the side of good as an important part of their self-image while the Harkonnens tend to be more casually bloodthirsty and sadistic but this is arguably more a difference in aesthetics than anything substantive, when crunch time comes they can put these cultural differences aside and collaborate surprisingly easily on shared goals because they're actually fundamentally similar people with fundamentally similar worldviews and values, molded by fundamentally similar institutions.

Feyd Rautha becoming one of Paul's closest subordinates and kind of his friend in a weird way cause they're actually fundamentally similar people and useful to each other.

I think Feyd is supposed to still be pretty young at the end of Dune, so this might work better if Paul is a bit less lucky in his campaign against the Harkonnens, delaying the events of the end of Dune by a few years but ultimately not preventing them, or something like that, IDK.

I think if I were writing this the closest I'd take this to shipping in the common fandom sense is Paul and Feyd end up kind of in a wife-loaning polycule with Irulan, though one that's asexual on Paul's side. Basically at some point Irulan and Paul have a conversation that's basically a more refined version of this:

IRULAN: "Hey, I'm tired of living a life of involuntary celibacy cause you need a political marriage to me but won't have sex with me because of your issues. Can you just wife-loan me to one of your right-hand men if you're gonna be so complicated?"

PAUL: "Fine, sure. The usual rules will apply: keep it on the down-low and don't get pregnant."

IRULAN: "Fine."

PAUL: "Did you have any candidates in mind? If not, might I suggest Utrecht or Hakim?"

IRULAN: "I AM NOT SLEEPING WITH AN UNBATHED DESERT BARBARIAN! ... Feyd is kind of hot, I guess... I'll take him!"

PAUL: "That arrangement would be perfectly acceptable to me. Pending Feyd's agreement, we have a deal. I'll discuss this matter with him tonight, after I've discussed with him the deposition of his house troops in the conquest expedition I'll be launching against the Megara worlds. I think he'll agree."

IRULAN: "Great!"

I have had one or two or three little ideas for a Dune fanfic but have never figured out what the plot would be. I suppose now if I ever actually write a Dune fanfic, it'll probably be about this premise.

I guess in a way it might be fridge brilliance that this didn't happen in the actual books, cause this is a lot like the relationship between Leto II and Farad'n at the end of Children of Dune and Farad'n reads to me as a mirror to Paul in the same way Feyd is, and the arc of the Dune novels up to God-Emperor of Dune is Leto II could do what Paul couldn't bring himself to do, so Leto II being able to co-opt Farad'n while Paul couldn't co-opt Feyd would fit with that.

#Dune #fanfic ideas

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endwersed · 1 month

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20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by the fabulous @dear-massacre 😘

How many works do you have on ao3?

21 - it would be a lot higher, but I purged all but one of my old Destiel fics back in 2017. They weren't very good, so I can't say I really regret it 🤷‍♀️

What's your total ao3 word count?

319,994

What fandoms do you write for?

Now, just Teen Wolf 🐺

Top five fics by kudos:

Find Your Fire - Reddie (IT)

Clue(less) - Reddie (IT)

Nah, He Didn't - Destiel (Supernatural)

Worst Enemy - Reddie (IT)

as dear as a brother - Sterek (TW)

Do you respond to comments?

Embarrassingly, it's very hit and miss... I want to! I love and cherish every single comment I ever get! But I find the process of replying to comments bizarrely stressful, so sometimes it takes me... a while. And that while might be, like, years. Sorry!!

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I genuinely don't have anything with an angsty ending posted; I need my boys to be happy too badly for that. I guess I could say maybe striking out - just because it's not finished yet, and where it is in the story right now is angsty af!

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

All of them have rom-com level happy endings lol. Maybe Clue(less) - it's a childhood friends-to-lovers soulmate AU, so it has all the sap that comes with those particular tropes wrapped up in there.

Do you get hate on fics?

I wouldn't call it hate, per se - but I guess my interpretation of Stiles is a bit harsher/more rough-edged than others I've seen, and some people don't vibe with that, so I get comments telling me they don't like Stiles in my story for XYZ reason.

To be clear - I also don't write Derek as a completely faultless, entirely perfect guy. I also have him do bad (arguably worse, in some fics) things. But for some reason, I don't ever really get the same kind of comments about him!

Do you write smut?

Like, almost exclusively at this point. It's like my brain can't come up with a story unless I'll get a chance to write them fucking nasty in it.

Craziest crossover:

None, they're not really my jam.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

omg yes! years ago! It was this Destiel HS AU I had posted on AO3 (since deleted because it was... not good) and someone posted it onto ff.net and claimed it was theirs. I can't remember if I ever was successful in getting it taken down.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I don't think so!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have not.

All time favourite ship?

All time is so hard... I do probably have to say Sterek. I shipped them intensely back in 2012, and I ship them even more intensely now. So - yeah. Probably them.

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Are we talking real WIP that I've actually made a meaningful dent in? Or just ideas I've put down to paper?

Because I have so many ideas, there isn't enough time to actually finish them all lol. But for fics I have actively started, I'm pretty confident I'll manage to muddle through to the end of all of them, even if it takes a little while.

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue and smut, I think.

I tend to develop a scene around the dialogue - in that, it's the dialogue that will come to me first when I'm planning the outline, and I'll note it down for when I come around to writing the scene. Then it's mostly a case of refining that dialogue and building the scene with descriptions around it.

I also love smut as character study. It's not just about being horny for them. It's about being horny for their introspection, too.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I don't have the imagination to come up with some of the flowery prose I see and love from other people. I wish I did, but that's just not how my brain works unfortunately!

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I only really feel comfortable writing in languages I'm fluent in. For anything else, I think we all know Google Translate can't be trusted, so I just... avoid it.

First fandom you wrote in?

Harry Potter! Wolfstar all the way back on ff.net <3

Favorite fic you've written?

Oh god, this is hard. Let's go with a Teen Wolf fic, because they're the nearest and dearest to my heart right now.

I think I'd say feels so good inside. It was so much fun to write, and I just love loss of virginity fics so damn much.

Open tag to anyone who wants a go!

#my fic #not sure who's already been tagged soooo open to anyone!!#this was fun <3

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frenzyarts · 1 year

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Could you talk a bit about how you design your OCs from a visual level? I really love their designs. Only if you have the time and energy of course <3

Thank you so much omg 💕 I was trying to think of a good way to answer this question, but the truth is my methods are very nebulous and hard to define! I’ll do my best though 🥳

Some characters come to me very easily, some go through a few revisions, and some go through a meat grinder of revisions lol. Rune was easy, her design was just in my head right off the bat from years of drawing/thinking about demons. Yorick was a little different. Awhile back I played a ttrpg and designed this character:

Look familiar? This is prototype Yorick!! (I have this on my portfolio at a higher res if you wanna zoom in or something idk) She was a character who was kind of elfin and was a clown who controlled shadows. When I started pinning down the stories and characters of A Slowly Beating Heart I KNEW I had to put a demonic clown in there, and I thought of this design.

A phase I go through when designing characters when im not sure how they’re gonna look is doing a bunch of iterations based on vibes. Here’s some of the earliest Yorick sketches I could find, you can see how they don’t quite look “right” yet:

Like the vibes were there but that’s not our Yorick! Here’s what I think might be the first or second sketch I did where they look right:

I used the old Yorick I had designed but finally modified the outfit and design in a way that pleased me. I went with this design, and went through some minor edits with the colors, and boom, the demon clown was born! (Though even in this image they aren’t quite right, in the final comic I got rid of the lines on their horns and saturated the green parts of their eyes):

Melody is another story. Versions of Melody had also been living in my mind for almost as long as Rune, but never as a solid design. I have a zillion sketches of Melody that don’t look at all like how she looks now. It wasn’t until right before her appearance in the comic that I actually decided to refine her character design. Since I had never quite solidified how she looked in my mind, getting her on paper was quite the task. Her hairstyle was already on my mind, but I did a bunch of different versions of her halo and outfits. I put a bunch of designs together and sent them out to my friends to ask them to vote on their favorite outfit to help me decide 😂:

In the end Melody’s outfit didn’t quite look like any of these, because they’re all somewhat complex, and I need things to stay really simple for comics. Once I had designed the outfit the struggle still wasn’t over, cause now I had to do colors. Here’s just a small sampling of the color pallets I went through:

I guess if I was gonna break down my process into steps, it would be like this:

1. Sketch a bunch of ideas based on vibes

2. Choose my fav and then refine it further by tweaking the outfit/hair ect

3. Try out a lot of different colors and keep adjusting them until they look right

4. Give birth to my Art Child 💃✨🙌

I don’t always do all that, and some of the design processes for certain characters happen a little differently. But that’s basically it! Sorry this was super long, I hope it helped!!

#my art #character design #art tutorial #tutorial #original character #Yorick #melody #a slowly beating heart #asbh #frenzy post

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fipindustries · 3 months

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first course completed!

that was arc 1 of introduction to magic.

and this is the first drawing i made of the main characters all the way back in 2019

what is this

now that the first arc is done i would like to take a chance to actually stop and properly self promote a little here. it was about time.

i am currently writing a novel called Introduction to magic, an examination of a magic system i came up with by way of following the lessons of magical apprentice Katerina Dolcevita under the aprenticeship of Maria Bellanova. the best way i have to summarize the feel and tone of it all is Fantasy AU-R63! Rick and Morty. imagine if rick and morty were both women and they were exploring magic rather than sci fi.

the first arc is intended to be a prologue of sorts, to get you up to speed with the nature of this world and the nature of the two main characters.

where this came from

i came up with the story and the concept around this world proper in 2021, while reading pale. i was looking at all the extra material that wildbow had written for its magical world and i found myself really wishing that we didnt have to just see excerpts from the magical books like famulus or 100 years lost. and it came to me that if i really want a book about magic to exist then i can just write one myself.

the magic system in this story follows a bunch of my own deeply held beliefs about life and magic. mainly that is kind of silly how we insists magic doesnt exist when we have things like computers and planes and psychodelics. it occured that if we were to live in a world where magic was real we wouldnt call it magic either, we would just think of it as the normal state of affairs. there is a post i read here, which i cant find right now, which said something about how weird conciousness is, how strange the fact that conciousness arises from the specific configuration of a brain. about how conciousness is the last, mysterious, seemingly ineffable property of reality. they concluded that we live in a fantasy world where our magic system has only one spell "summon daemon". obviously a lot of it was merely poetic and rethorical devices to see with fresh eyes of wonder something we take for granted.

and a lot of this book stems from a similar wish to want to see the mundane with eyes of wonder once again, which is why i insist that low level magic in this world is things as basic as writing and lighting a fire. is also the reason why a lot of the titles that i use for the magic specializations are normal every day professions.

the second, stronger impulse was to try to come up with a system of magic that could be broad enough to grasp all possible forms of magic humans have come up with and yet simple enough that could be understood in a few pages. the classification system i use on this book is based on all the broadest, most basic forms of magic practisce that i have seen in history and fiction. manipulating signs as drawings and writing, manipulating sound as voice and song, using tools and props, moving the body, combining and refining substances and materials, handling living creatures.

what's next

as we move forward on this story the format will switch to a more traditional narrative where we will properly follow the adventures of these two ladies. ocassionally i will dip back into textbook-like sections where i infodump about another interesting concept i thought of, but even in the narrative sections most of the chapters will be an excuse to explore some concept or idea. i gather by sheer quantity 80% of the content of this story is going to be maria explaining things to Katerina.

so yeah, if that sounds at all interesting please do read this, and please do leave a comment, i really want to see what people think of this work. i dont need money or donations or to be engaged in any algorithm, all i need to stay motivated and energized and thus continuing the story is to know that people are invested in it.

thank you so much for reading.

#introduction to magic #writing

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silkscream · 2 years

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happy 3k love!! can I get a sangria (ik ik I'm a thirsty bitch) with mcu Peter Parker where he's like the complete opposite of his high school self and meets reader? you can go in any direction honestly I don't mind I just love reading the way you put words together 🤰🤰🤰🤰💙

“another round for the ladies over there, y/n.”

you roll your eyes with a smirk. “another one, jim? tell me, has any of them promised you some pussy yet tonight?”

“oi, fuck off,” the man in front of you huffs. “it’s called being a gentleman.”

you scoff, shaking your head, but continue to pour five tequila shots anyway. jim, your thirty-five year old regular, was always unlucky when it came to finding dates, often keeping company with whatever gaggle of sorority girls caught his eye or happened to catch on that he was easily manipulated. you watched every friday night for 1) your own amusement, 2) being nice to jim granted great tips even though you had to deny his many advances, and 3) you needed to make sure the bastard wasn’t actually a creep to any of these young girls.

“whatever you say, james.”

you turn to update his tab when a familiar voice pipes up behind you.

“what kind of mezcal do you have?”

your head whips to the source of the voice. you lock eyes with a pair of familiar brown ones, though you aren’t sure where his face is from. a step closer and the boyishness in his face shows much clearer under the lamplight.

“peter? peter parker?”

“hey,” he chuckles.

“thought you were at MIT or whatever.”

“you know it’s the summer time, right?” he raises a brow. something about his appearance is more refined, hardened compared to the last time you saw him. when you had last seen peter parker, you were both in graduation gowns and you’d watched him walk the stage to take his diploma. he had been holding a bouquet of flowers in his hand, cheek to cheek with michelle jones while his aunt may had an arm around his neck. you didn’t have the courage to congratulate him, let alone tell him about your two-year crush, and then he’d vanished before your eyes. seeing him now was like being inside a dream.

“right,” you blink at him, clearing your throat to make an attempt back at professionalism. “oh! uh, we’ve got peloton de la muerte, don amado…”

“i’ll just get a mezcal mule with whatever you prefer,” he interrupts. you nod with a sheepish smile.

you can feel his eyes scanning your body as you make his drink, which has your back straightening like a tree.

“on the house,” you murmur as you set the glass in front of him.

“what? really?”

“it’s not every day you get a midtown alum at your bar,” you shrug, leaning your elbow on the counter. you hope he doesn’t see right through you.

“surprising. i thought you’d see tons considering how many of them stay in manhattan,” peter shrugs.

he’d made you nervous before, back in high school, mostly because he was so unprecedented and you were so timid and stuck in the shadows. meanwhile, peter exuded pure sunlight with his bashfulness, his kindness. it didn’t particularly set in the person in front of you, though. maybe it had been two or three years since graduation, but at the moment, it feels like you’re talking to a new version of the boy you once spent countless decathlon practices with.

“it’s good money, the bartending?” he quips with curiosity as he sips his drink.

“it’s enough for the summer. lots of lonely men need a couple drinks and some female company.”

“better than trying to save the world.”

“what do you mean?”

peter doesn’t answer. he merely flashes you a smile that definitely hides something underneath, but you don’t know him enough to pry. to be fair, you hardly know him at all. you only have the idea of him that you’d made up during your high school years, and even now, you assume that you’ll probably go home and dream of made-up versions of him. his presence is like a test to your psyche at the moment. nothing significant — nothing worth giving your time to ever stayed. you didn’t expect peter to, either.

that is, until he orders more drinks. a mezcal mule, a white wine, a ginger ale mixed with whatever your finger lands on when you close your eyes. it’s a weekday night, so most of your usual patrons have fucked off for the night, leaving you to wipe down the counters and sweep before the clock even hits one.

“gotta kick you out, parker.”

“who, me? where am i supposed to go now?” his voice has a begging tone to it that makes you want to sink into quicksand. or maybe you’re drunk, because the shots he was ordering were for you. he’d slip them towards you, insisting that you needed to loosen up on this tuesday night, and you could never say no to free alcohol. he’d given you a fat tip after all.

“i live a few blocks from here. come with. you can wait there when you figure out a way home,” you giggle, pulling on your corduroy button down over your crop top as you head out the door. as you lock up the bar, peter watcheS you with acute attention — he notices the way your eyes are half-lidded after a few shots, the casual slump of your shoulders, the pixie-like cadence of your voice when you talk about something you’re excited about. he thinks you’re adorable.

once you’re able to sit down on the couch in your apartment, peter plops down next to you sloppily. you end up intertwining legs in the most casual way. you don’t even notice, really.

“you’re different than what you used to be, peter parker.”

“how so?” he chuckles.

“scary,” you mumble.

“huh? sorry, i couldn’t hear you,” peter murmurs, grabbing your head from your neck closer to him. you hitch your breath, which lodges itself in his throat when you feel his calloused fingertips. the feeling excites you, has all your neurons firing in your body.

“you’re less nerdy now.”

“i’ve been through a lot,” he purrs into your ear, and no, it’s not like the nerdy peter you once knew at all. it’s the husky voice of someone who knows what he’s doing, someone who’s willing to take what he wants. you hope he does. you hope it’s you.

you take in a breath, looking at the wall in front of you instead of him in an attempt to calm your nerves, but he doesn’t let you. he merely turns your head to plant a kiss on your mouth gently, so delicately as if he’s trying to touch the fluff of a dandelion without all of it floating away. he grins into the kiss when you reciprocate with passion, tongue exploring the inside of his mouth and feeling the taste of mezcal, of lime, of ginger.

when he emerges, his brown eyes are hooded with desire.

“this okay?”

you nod. “you can do whatever you want to me,” you say breathlessly. his cocky smile shows that he’s willing to test that theory.

#asks #spideyspeaches #3k celebration #peter parker x you #peter parker x y/n #peter parker x reader #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker fluff #peter parker smut #blurb

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maaxverstappen · 2 months

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I’ve been asking ppl cus im nosy. What’s your writing process like if any? Do u have a preferred place or time. Preferred device. Do u write rough drafts then edit or is it much more considered. How do u decide that an idea is worth fleshing out or pursuing if it looks like it’s plotty. Pls yap at length if u so wish — wiz

i love this question!! and would love to know other answers so if you want to reblog them i shall be on the lookout 👀.

i answered partly here so will just like build on that!!

the process is that i’ll have an idea and depending on how large it is write out some sort of outline. my preference for all planning in life is on paper so i have a little journal that ill write out some ideas in. kind of brainstorm / mind map style of just jotting down random ideas that come to mind.

however, with longer fics like my current post-as-i-go wip i have to do it digital bc so much changes and it’s too long (see pics in previous ask). that one i actually started planning in my notes app on a plane bc the idea had to come out of me someway and i was really excited about it. i then transferred it to a google doc and added onto my chapter per chapter outline (1st pic in previous ask). i felt like that was a bit overwhelming for understanding the overall plot so then i went and made a simple overview of the key plot points per chapter (the 2nd pic in previous ask) just so i felt like i had a better understanding of the goal per chapter.

now when i sit down to write a chapter ill get both the detailed notes and the main plot points and just write whatever i feel like in order to get to the goal of the chapter.

for shorter one shot fics i’ll either have no full outline or a one page idea list kind of thing. for instance, for worth the trouble i knew that it would start and end in the present time and then everything in between would be a flashback, but i didn’t know the flashbacks would be non chronological until i was writing it. same for the chewing gum aspect that ends up being quite an important part of the symbolism and that almost weaves the parts together, that wasn’t a *thing* until i was almost finished with the rough draft and i then went to add it in to previous scenes.

for my long fic i have to be a bit more calculated with the hidden messages/foreshadowing as i can’t go back and edit published chapters lmao so that is a little more thought out + i keep track of loose ends to tie together at some point.

editing is a bit of a harder one. for my long fic my overal editing is per chapter, but i do tend to go back and edit per section too. like right now I’m writing a texting scene and first i wrote the plain texting dialogue, then i went back to add the bits in between from characters’ pov. then i’ll read over it fully and edit where needed. finally when the whole chapter is done ill read over it and edit again, but at that point it’s mainly grammar and punctuation.

my main writing issues i’ve noticed so far is that i tend to switch tenses without realising so that’s something i look out for when editing. i also am always worried they don’t *do* enough so i like to think “hmm what action can i add in here to make them more human” when editing.

so far only worth the trouble has been beta read, the rest i do myself. if I’m stuck i will talk through a lot of it with my partner who will give me some ideas and just like help lmao (she’s also the one that beta read wtt!). but she’s not in the f1 fandom so it’s a little hard to have her beta read for characterisation and specific plot points so i do that myself. like when she beta read wtt she gave a few points of feedback that weren’t too relevant bc the average f1 fic reader would understand (like the significance of spa21, there is no need to explain it).

I’m a baby fic writer so a lot of my process will be redefined and refined as i go I’m sure.

as for deciding what to write, it’s really whatever captures my attention. the prompt for help me hold onto you is one i really liked and a trope i love reading myself. i was also ready to challenge myself to a longer plot fic and i was really excited about the idea so i just went for it! my main consideration is really just how excited i am for it.

i will say that i am currently really struggling with perfectionism / imposter syndrome. I’m having a hard time getting the words onto paper bc it feels like it’ll never be as good as my favourite authors anyway so what’s the point. (which is now also impacting the way i read fics bc it makes me sad that ill never write anything as good as what I’m reading lol)

i generally write on my laptop! in a google doc with grammarly activated and the word count on screen (which pisses me off bc i have to turn it back on after every refresh). i wrote my latest crafty!oscar on my phone (bc i was too excited to wait till i got to my laptop) but wouldn’t ever do that for anything much longer or plot-ier than that.

i fear this has gotten very long. i know u said yap away but …. i perhaps have yapped too close to the sun.

#really liked answering this :-) and the fic writer asks from the weekend too. so fun #she says as she still has unanswered asks from that game in her inbox #anyway #thanks wiz <3 a community gem as always #m answers #about me

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