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queerfables · 8 months

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I have this thought that's simmering in the back of my head, and there's some evidence for it, but I simply can't take myself seriously on it, because the idea hits my favourite tropes way too perfectly. I'm, like, 90% sure I should admit to myself that what I actually want is to write fic about this and skip the meta entirely. But apparently this is how I process things these days, so you get my wild projections masquerading as analysis first, and maybe if you're lucky some kind of story later.

So, Nina's partner, Lindsay. Not so much a person as an analogy, right? The consensus is that this relationship is a stand in for Aziraphale's relationship with Heaven, making Heaven the toxic partner holding Aziraphale back from finding real happiness. But the more I think about it, the more I feel like we've taken that assumption and worked backwards from it to prove that Nina is really Aziraphale's mirror and Maggie is really Crowley's.

Look, I realise that drawing the line from Nina to Crowley and Maggie to Aziraphale feels obnoxiously obvious. There are superficial similarities, but does it go any deeper than their general demeanour? When we look at how Nina describes Crowley and Aziraphale - the hard-bitten one who doesn't trust, the soft one who still believes in goodness - I think there's honestly a solid argument to be made that both descriptions could apply to either one of them. I don't think that's conclusive. The thing that's really giving me pause is that Crowley's car and Nina's shop both play Queen. It seems like such a clear signal that they're foils. There's also the fact that the partition around her shop has a very snake-like pattern embedded in it, quite similar in shape to Crowley's tattoo (a detail that pairs nicely with the apple-tree motif on the French restaurant next door).

If Nina is Crowley's mirror, does that mean that Crowley is the one trapped in a toxic relationship? And here's the part where I absolutely cannot trust my brain to give me sensible feedback, because the little gremlin who lives there immediately shuts off all higher functions at the first hint a character might be unwillingly beholden to a nefarious outside force. Especially if they are keeping it a secret.

Could Crowley have been blackmailed or coerced into working for Hell again, despite nominally being estranged from it? I literally could not tell you, because my brain is too busy yelling yes yes yes please oh my god yes. I just love the idea way too much to be rational about it.

I won't insult anyone by labeling this next section "supporting evidence", but here are some ways I think it could fit into canon as it's been established:

In light of my recent meta on how to think about Good Omen's twists, I've been ruminating on some of the big questions I have about season 2. And one of the ones that keeps jostling for my attention is, why are Crowley and Aziraphale not together yet? I don't mean that flippantly, what I mean is - I believe that Crowley and Aziraphale are both aware of the way they feel about each other, and have been for some time. If that's true, what's keeping them apart? Obviously there are quite a few potential answers to this, including the possibility that I'm wrong and they're not both consciously aware of their feelings for each other. But it's an idea I find compelling. They're not together because they're not free yet. And not just in a hypothetical looming threat kind of way.

When Beelzebub summons Crowley in 2x01, Crowley says "I thought we had a generalised understanding." Beelzebub replies, "We don't. You're still a traitor," and then goes on to threaten him with a bounty. The obvious implication is that the understanding they don't have is from the end of season one, that Hell will leave Crowley and Aziraphale alone. But what if it's a different kind of understanding? What if the subtext of Beelzebub's offer for whatever he wants is that he can have enough power to be free of whatever nasty little job he's supposed to be doing on the sly? (Not enough to break free of Hell entirely, though. Never enough for that.)

On the other hand, Crowley doesn't recognise Beelzebub's new face, but they must have been wearing it for a while given all their meetings with Gabriel. Is Crowley bound to the one demon higher than Beelzebub, then? Sorry, the gleeful brain gremlin is the only one available to take questions on this. It sure would be sexy, though, if both the power difference and the secrecy involved were as extreme as possible.

This is a weird little detail that probably doesn't mean anything, but when Aziraphale gets back from Edinburgh, it's early in the morning the day of the ball. The streets are mostly empty and Nina is just arriving for work. Aziraphale helps Crowley put the plants back in the Bentley, and at some point after this, Crowley takes the car and leaves. He must do, because we see him come back. Where did he go? He can't have been gone more than a couple of hours at most, because he arrives back in time to follow Aziraphale around convincing everyone to attend his ball. Okay, fine, maybe Crowley just needed to get away, relax somewhere there's no amnesiac archangel breathing down his neck. But the timeline is so short it seems like a strange detail. It makes me think that Crowley might actually have been hiding something, here. I don't know that this theory is the most likely explanation, but it sure could be an explanation.

And finally, for maximum angst potential, imagine Aziraphale finding out that after everything Crowley said about how toxic Heaven and Hell are, after all the grief he gave Aziraphale for returning to Heaven, that Crowley had been secretly working for Hell all along? WOOF.

#good omens #i am so sorry that there are some genuinely interesting meta details hidden in this self indulgent trash fire #by rights they should belong to something more sensible #but this is the meta we have #fable talks good omens #it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too late and i'm posting this without reading it over again if i've left any sentences hanging no i didn't

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em-dash-press · 2 years

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Find Your Next Plot Idea: 12 Tricks to Try

Waiting for inspiration to strike can take too long. It's also not the best way to improve your writing, since you may not write very often in-between ideas.

I've been there before. When you're getting impatient, find your next idea for a short story or potential novel by trying these simple tricks.

1. Try a Plot Generator

Generators will throw ideas at you that you might not think about otherwise. They don't always make sense, but it's fun sifting through their options!

Check out more than one to find a site you like. You could try:

Plot-Generator

Reedsy's Plot Generator

Big Huge Thesaurus' Story Generator

Cool Generator's Random Plot Points

ServiceScape's Plot Generator

2. Find Random Facts

There are other sites that pull up random facts that could inspire a creative streak. They may also help you with singular plot points your story might be missing or more details while fleshing out characters.

See if you prefer:

Mental Floss' Fact Generator

Fact Republic's Generator

This Random Fact Generator

This Other Random Fact Generator

This Other Fact Generator

3. Check the Current News Headlines

Look up the current news in another city, state, or country. Without reading the stories, see if you can imagine a plot for each headline. It can be a fun creative exercise if you stay away from heavy topics.

You could find the latest news at places like:

NPR (I like their Strange News section too!)

The New York Times

The BBC

Reuters

Global Issues

4. Think About Your Recent Dreams

Dreams don't always make sense, but they can make you think outside of the box. Maybe you recently dreamed about escaping a haunted house or running into your old crush while on a vacation across the world. It could inspire your next story or even just a small part of one.

5. Try Free Writing

Your writing may have come to a halt because you get too caught up in the process. Free writing is an excellent exercise to break out of routines and old habits.

It first started in 1973 and hasn't changed much since. All you need to do is set a timer and open a new Google doc or grab a piece of paper. When the timer begins, start writing your stream of consciousness down and don't stop writing until the timer ends.

Whatever comes to mind should end up on your paper. Don't worry about sentence structure, grammar, or spelling. The exercise will loosen your creative flow and help you think through the writer's block keeping you from your next story.

6. Do Some Digital Eavesdropping

You can always sit yourself down in a public area (like a coffee shop) and eavesdrop on other people's conversations to hear about experiences you've never thought about before. But something about that always creeped me out, so sometimes I go digital.

Scroll through social media sites like Instagram or Twitter. Look for posts with pictures or a quick caption that doesn't explain the full picture. See what's trending, what the latest celebrity gossip is. Make up stories behind it, like with the newspaper headline trick. You'll get much different ideas than you'd find on news sites without carving time into your schedule for stopping by a place in town.

7. Map Your Mind

If you've never tried mind mapping, it could be a great place to start your next brainstorming session. All you need is a central idea or theme.

Imagine picking a theme like self-love. You'd traditionally write it in the middle of a piece of paper and draw a circle or box around it. Arrows then branch off of that theme to whatever idea pops into your head when you think about it.

There's no order to the branching thought bubbles and you can branch off of those as long as you want. Eventually your words could add up into a story idea, scene, or character.

The University of Adelaide has a great example diagram if you're having a hard time picturing your mind map.

8. Write a Re-Telling

There are re-tellings of classic stories all the time. Think of Hamlet turning into The Lion King. Or the folklore that morphed into Disney princesses, who morphed into the gripping series The Lunar Chronicles.

When re-tellings are done well, they give a new perspective on a well-known theme, legend, superstition, or moral.

Many writers feel like they have to avoid re-tellings in their short stories or as future novels, but they can be powerful ways to convey meaningful storylines and themes if done well. They're also a great way to jumpstart your writing after a dry period.

9. Listen to Music

Trying to write something in a quiet room might not help your creative flow. The silence can make your critical thoughts louder than anything else or make it more tempting to set your writing aside.

It's always a good idea to try listening to music while you write. Specifically, you should select a few songs or a playlist that makes you happy. Research shows that creativity greatly improves when people listen to music that generates happiness.

There's also evidence that it's easier to focus while listening to lyric-less music.

Not sure where to start? I've got some recommended background noise apps, websites, and free playlists over on my resource list. It's got everything from rain sounds to my favorite lyric-less low-fi YouTube playlist.

10. Write Fan Fiction

The blank page is even more intimidating when you're not very familiar with your characters or setting. Fan fiction can be a balm for that. Try writing a short story about people in your latest favorite TV show, movie, or book series. You're already very familiar with those worlds, so practicing your writing skills by freestyling new arcs or scenes can be a lot of fun.

11. Analyze a Book's Plot

We all have a favorite book. Think of the one that last dazzled you or made you fall in love with reading. How did it do that?

Sometimes it helps to study an existing book you've already read. You can map it out on paper by writing down character names, inciting events, the plot points that built to the story's finale, and everything in between. Note how each point made you feel and why it mattered. You can reflect those strategies in your own work, which may solve your writer's block.

12. Watch a Documentary

There are some wild documentaries out there that will blow your mind. Pick one and enjoy it, then ask yourself what if things had gone differently? Tweaking part of an event could make it branch off into an entirely new story. It's basically writing fan fiction, but it may interest people who are more into instructional media.

---

When you find something that works, enjoy it! Then try something else the next time you want to create a plot. Writing is a craft that changes with time. It's better to have a well-tried bag of inspirational tricks than sit around and wait for a story to pop up in your mind.

#writing #writing tips #writing advice #writing plot #writing prompts #writeblr #writers of tumblr #creative writing #writing help #writing community #writers #writing inspiration #plot ideas #writers block #writer problems

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heartfulselkie · 5 months

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Below is a section from chapter 29 of Citrus and Lavender. I would love to hear what was going through your head writing it for the ask game!

{Failure .

She was just an ordinary girl. What business did she have trying to play hero?

Shoulders shaking, she pressed her face to her knees and continued to rasp through her broken breaths as tears kept falling.

“Is someone there?”

Ladybug flinched at the sound of a voice calling out. She didn’t want to answer whoever it was and let them find her. But she couldn’t stop crying either. She curled up tighter as though she could somehow shield herself against the world. But she could still hear the sound of hesitant footsteps approaching.

“Ladybug?” the voice gasped. It was distinctly male, but so soft and gentle and somehow familiar. But she couldn’t place it.

“Go away,” she hissed childishly as she hugged her knees tighter. And she did feel like a child. A child wearing some stupid costume as they played make-believe.

The other person went silent, but she knew they were still there as she could hear them scuffing their shoes as they awkwardly stood in place.

“What about the…the akuma?” he whispered.

Her shoulders heaved as she fought back another sob. “What does it matter? Everyone’s right. I screwed up. I failed and now things are worse.” A whimper escaped her and she screwed her eyes shut. “I knew I wasn’t the right one for this.”

She expected the other person to laugh at her, to tell her to leave it to people who knew better. But he remained quiet for a time. Ladybug almost looked up from the defensive shell she’d turned herself into to see who was standing there, but she was far too ashamed to try.

And then his voice came again, quiet and gentle but so warm in its reassurance. “They’re all wrong. They’re not the ones who stopped the attack yesterday or saved Chloe Bourgeois today. Without you, they won’t make it. You just have to prove it to them. So what if you’ve never been a hero before? So what if it’s all sort of new to you?” He paused and then whispered sadly, “You can still try.”

Ladybug didn’t respond. She didn’t know what to do with the comforting encouragement a stranger was giving her - one she was too embarrassed to look at with her puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks. But she felt that agonising terror that had taken root in her chest shift a little. She took a deep, shuddering breath.

“I believe you still can - that there’s still a chance, ” the boy added, his tone almost reflective.

Her heart was hammering hard in her chest, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Compared to the restrictive vice she had felt earlier crushing into her lungs, this felt light and lively. It was as though her heart had become a hummingbird and was doing delighted swoops within her chest.}

[Ask Game]

Given that Citrus and Lavender is an enemies au fic with Adrien being coerced into Hawk Moth's ranks from the start, there's obviously going to be a lot of differences between the events that happen here and what occurs in canon.

Some of these differences can be glossed over, but something I wanted to draw attention and give detail to is the events of origins - specifically the LadyNoir side of it.

Ladybug starts out very insecure in herself. She doesn't believe she's up to the task. And finding that her would-be partner has defected immediately is a devastating blow from the get go. Like her canon self she wants to give up. She believes that this is not a role she can fill because she cannot see what she still managed to achieve on her first day. She can only hear all that's gone wrong.

In the events of canon, Alya helps Marinette see that there are some people who are excited for Ladybug's appearance. This is also true in the fic. But this is a very impersonal viewpoint. Alya thinks Ladybug is cool because superheroes in general are cool! She doesn't know Ladybug well enough yet to give a well-formed perspective.

But you know who did grow close to Ladybug during those first trying hours in the events of Origins? Chat Noir.

Sure he went in head first and full of himself - but he was right there with Ladybug and saw in real time how she went from a nervous, shaking girl to a defiant and unshakeable heroine!

In Citrus and Lavender - even if he's on the other side of the fight, Chat Noir still sees this change in Ladybug very clearly too. And he's enamoured by it! Though it does take him a lot longer to wholly admit how much his feelings were shaken up by her.

Ladybug still needed that closer interaction though. Without it, it's very hard to see her evolve into the hero that she is. She needed that moment of someone caring about her. Not as a superhero, but as a person. Someone to tell her to have faith because what she's accomplished already is outstanding!

I knew I had to include the exchange LadyNoir have in Origins: Part 2, when they stand beneath the Eiffel Tower and Chat Noir gently reassures her. But I couldn't do it in the same way in canon.

So instead for Citrus and Lavender, we have Ladybug running and hiding. She just can't take it. But then she's approached by someone - someone that she later becomes certain is Adrien - and they give her the comfort and confidence she so desperately needed.

Ladybug/Marinette and Chat Noir/Adrien both know this event happened, but they both have slightly differing viewpoints of it. Surely that isn't going to cause identity shenanigans later on...

#fic: cirtus and lavender #ask selkie #ask game

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teaandbatteries · 11 days

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Call and Response

Welp. Despite not having watched a Marvel movie in years, have a random Marvel fanfic that just kind of spilled out of me for no reason over the last couple of days, lol.

It's also a very different vibe from my usual writing for some reason. I dunno, if I'm being honest I feel a bit weird about it, like it's way more purple than I usually write.

Anyway, it was inspired (in part) by a little little section of the poem "Hydrophobia" by Sam Sax.

--------

Alexander Pierce sat staring at the laptop sitting on his desk. Next to him, an analyst stood with a clipboard, watching nervously at the way his boss's jaw clenched over and over again in frustration. On the screen, a video feed showed a cell holding the Winter Soldier and yet another team of medics and agents who had been sent in to subdue him, bleeding out on the floor.

Pierce scoffed, knocking the laptop closed so hard that it nearly tipped backward off the desk. "How the hell did this happen?"

The analyst swallowed thickly, looking down at his clipboard. "Um. Well, sir, he was displaying hesitation before making his assigned kills, so the medical team has been using depressants to suppress his empathetic responses. Unfortunately, he developed a resistance to them very quickly, so they kept increasing the dosage until, uh... Well, the dosage was increased too much, and now it seems to have caused some sort of mental break, sir."

Pierce scowled, rubbing irritably at his temples. "So what, then? We just wait until his resistance to the medication wears off and reduce the dosage again?"

The analyst took a step back with a shuddering breath. "A-actually, given his enhanced physiology, the medical team isn't sure his resistance will ever wear off..."

Pierce leveled a murderous look at the analyst. "Then what do they plan to do about this?!"

"I, uh, I don't... I don't..."

A knock at the office door came just in time to save the poor analyst from having to finish that potentially fatal sentence, and a young woman wearing a lab coat stuck her head through the door. "Sir? I believe I may have found a potential option for handling our Winter Soldier problem."

Pierce waved her into the room. "Explain, miss...?"

"Doctor Patricia Hardy," she answered, smiling politely as she crossed the room and placed the file open on his desk. "The Winter Envoy program may finally have a use."

Looking over the file, Pierce frowned. "Wait, there are other Winter asset programs? Other enhanced agents? Why wasn't I informed of this?"

She shrugged. "Because they were largely failures, sir. The programs were all ended decades ago. The only one that actually produced any surviving assets was this one," she explained, gesturing to the file. "The Envoy program was originally trying to produce a functioning telepath. They never succeeded; the closest they ever came was producing a powerful empath." She reached over to point at a table of data on the next page of the file. "She can detect and mirror the emotional states of those around her. Experiments also suggest that she broadcasts her own emotions to anyone nearby, causing others to feel as she does. If we can ensure that she feels calm and compliant, and then we send her into the cell with the Winter Soldier..."

He nodded slowly, drawing out the first few words of the sentence as he considered all idea. "Yes, yes this could work. How long before we can have her ready?"

Hardy grinned. "I can have her out of cryo this afternoon, sir."

"And..." Pierce hummed to himself, looking over the file again. "You said they never found a good use for her? Really?"

She reached across the desk again, to point out a different table, dense with numbers. "Records show a few attempts to use her for interrogations. They forced her into a state of panic and then placed her in a room with the subject of the interrogation. It seems that part of the experiment worked, but the interrogators were just as affected as the subjects, and they were never able to figure out how to ensure that she only affected the intended subject."

He scoffed, shaking his head. "Sounds like they just lacked creativity. Well, in any case, let's get her prepped to handle this problem with the Winter Soldier. We can talk more about other uses for her later." He turned suddenly to the analyst, who was still hovering silently next to him. "Well? What are you waiting for? Go help Dr Hardy."

--------

I was still disoriented from the slightly nauseating process of waking from cryosleep. They'd injected me with something right after pulling me from the chamber - something that made me feel like I was floating just slightly outside my own body, and yet somehow also managed to feel heavy, like a false serenity was pressing down on every one of my limbs, leaving me sluggish and unbalanced.

The vertigo almost made me trip over my own feet as I was pushed down a dank hallway full of jail cells. I couldn't think, couldn't remember where I was. When the people wearing black masks pushed me through the door, all I could think about was how my fingers still numb from the cold of the cryochamber.

And then I was drowning in anger.

No, not anger. Not just anger, at least. The man in the corner of the cell was like a white-hot coal, radiating a vicious rage that can only be born of a deep, existential terror. He was an injured, cornered animal, with nothing left but a blind fury intended to take his murderers into the darkness with him.

Only, he wasn't injured. Not physically, at least. But I could feel the ragged edges of his psyche, shredded until it bled and scarred, and then shredded all over again, until there was almost nothing left. As the fog in my head finally began to clear, I began to understand who he was. What he was. He was like me - a captive plaything.

To the people who held us here, we were both nothing more than toys, to be broken and remoulded into whatever shape most entertained them today. And then put away, back into the cold dark, until they wished to play with us again. The shape of my scars might be different than his, but they were left by the same careless hands.

As I stared across the cell at him, I understood why they were so afraid of him. His hands were still soaked with the blood of the last team who had tried to force him into submission. Every muscle in his body was tight with tension, ready to lash out at any who came too close.

I wasn't afraid of him.

I should've been. A cornered animal was dangerous. But instead, all I felt was a kinship with him. I understood his rage, and I understood the fear that fueled it.

His gaze swivelled slowly around the cage until it met mine. The anger that lapped against my skin like fire began to change - imperceptibly, at first, and then faster as the minutes ticked by in silence.

Mine was not anger. What lived inside me was a cold hate, a placid glass lake no less dangerous than the fire because it was so easy to mistake for serenity. It was not calm - it was cold and it was bitter, and it would drag anyone who got too close down into its infinite depths to be drowned without remorse.

I see you. I know you. We are the same.

We'd both been people, once. Real people. Whole people. And then we were brought here and hollowed out until there was nothing left that made us us. Denied memories, denied personality, denied pathos, they'd taken from us more than just freedom. They'd taken our identities.

I could feel what a real life felt like, sometimes, from the staff around the complex. I felt the mild annoyance from one of the doctors when one of his children was late for school. I felt the little ache of heartbreak from the admin assistant when his date last night hadn't gone as well as he'd hoped. I felt the low, bubbling excitement of the gate guard at the prospect of her upcoming birthday party. All the little pieces of emotion that made up a whole life - a life I didn't get to have.

I'd had a life like that, once. So had he. And there was still an echo of our lost lives inside each of us, buried deep, even if neither of us could remember them.

there's a theory that says you don't exist unless someone calls and you respond

I wasn't sure where the words had come from. It was a poem, or maybe a song lyric. The rhythm of the phrase said that these words weren't mine - that I'd heard them somewhere before. I had no memory of where. How I'd recalled them at all was a mystery.

But regardless of where they had come from, they were true words. Deeply true, in a way that resonated through the hollow in my chest, where my heart used to be.

Here, in this place, I did not exist. Neither of us did. Our bodies and our minds were assets that belonged to our captors. They were tools to be used. But I - I, the person, the human, the sentience that filled the mind and the body and the spaces in between - I did not exist here. I couldn't remember ever existing.

And then the silence of isolation was broken with a call and a response. I weren't sure whose was the call and whose the response. It didn't matter. It was the exchange. The recognition. I feel you. You exist.

This was Pierce's mistake. The act of sharing and mirroring emotion was not so simple or shallow as creating a general sense of calm. Oh, the Winter Soldier did calm - that much was true. The tension began to unwind from his muscles. His rate of his breaths slowed, and each inhale became deeper. He raised his head to meet my gaze, and his expression smoothed out of that twisted snarl into something more neutral.

But the emotions shared between us were nothing subdued or submissive. If anything, his rage ran deeper now than it ever had before. This was not calm. This was control. This was patience. No longer a machine of blind instinct, he remembered how to be human again.

And in return, he gave me fire. There was an old coal of anger that still lived in my chest. It had long since gone cold; what was the point in fighting to defend a life like this? But his rage was something worth fighting for. A hot flame sparked under my breastbone, coming to life once more under the bright radiance of his fury.

The cell door opened behind you with the sound of nails against a chalkboard. A man in a lab coat stepped inside, followed by two men in black riot gear with stun guns. The doctor was holding a needle, shaking in his trembling hands. Terror rolled off of him in waves so powerful that it made me feel ill.

The Winter Soldier never once looked away from me as the doctor approached. His eyes remained fixed on my face, holding my gaze with such intensity that it was as if nothing else existed - or nothing else worthy of recognition, perhaps. He hadn't looked to the cell door when it opened. He didn't flinch when the doctor pressed the needle into his arm. He didn't move. He didn't resist. He just stared until the two guards took me by my arms and led me from the cell.

--------

"I thought this was supposed to make him less dangerous." The guard to my left jostled me carelessly as he turned his attention to the guard flanking my right. It was as if I wasn't even there. "I heard the doc they sent in after the last meeting ended up with both his legs broken. And he was lucky the team managed to taze the bastard before it got even worse."

The right guard just shrugged. "I dunno. I guess it'll take a couple of meetings before the effect lasts after she leaves. Let the eggheads figure that stuff out and just do your job, man."

When they pushed me through the cell door again, I expected to meet the injured animal again, to feel that white coal of rage. He looked just as he had when I walked in the last time. His hands were not so covered in blood, but he looked just as coiled with tension, just as eager for violence.

Yet, despite what the guards were saying, I could feel clarity in him still. If anything, he seemed more controlled than he had at the end of our last encounter - no longer neutral, his control over his body language was absolute. The stiff, defensive posture were not instinct, this time. Was he doing it on purpose, then? And then, in response my confusion, I felt a faint, warbling thread of amusement from him. It was intentional. He was playing with them, misleading them. Convincing them to bring me back to him.

I want to see you. I want to know you. I feel real when you are near.

Yet again, I felt the spark of something within me that I hadn't felt in memory. And this time, it was something warm. Something good. Delight.

There was something delicious about the idea that the toy might have learned to play with his captors in return, even in such a small way. The warmth in my chest bloomed suddenly brighter. It wasn't anger - the heat was too gentle to be fire. And then I realized it wasn't mine - it was his pleasure at my approval.

Somewhere, buried deep under all the drugs, the obedience beaten into him, the feelings beaten out of him, the pain and the lost identity, I found the fragile shape of the man he used to be, once; the faint impression of a wicked wit and charm.

I felt the same mirrored in him - some vague sense of who I had been, once. It was small, hidden away under the layers of pain and loss, but undeniably there. Though him, I saw a piece of myself; a sense of justice that remained, even chipped and battered as it was, unbroken.

How long since I had known myself? It is difficult to understate the pleasure of knowing who you are, in even such a small way, after being nothing and no one for so very, very long.

--------

Pierce leaned back in his chair with a long groan, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "So she does stabilize him, but only while she's in the same room?"

Dr Hardy winced and nodded. "And when he's alone, his emotional instability is getting worse."

"We should end this experiment now, before he gets even worse."

The doctor shook her head. "Well, no, I don't think that's a wise choice. He's nearly useless as an asset on his own in this state already, so the risk we take by continuing to try to the Winter Envoy to stabilize him is very low. I have a promising new idea; if we leave them together for a more extended period of time, it may help recover his long-term stability because his emotions won't be swinging so often between states."

Pierce glowered at her. "We better not lose the Winter Soldier over this, doctor."

She nodded quickly. "I understand, sir. We'll begin the next stage of the program immediately."

---------

Maybe one day, I would have the chance to ask him for his name. But then again, maybe he wouldn't have an answer. Maybe he didn't know. I didn't know my own name, either.

The guards and the doctors called him the Winter Soldier. But that was the name given by our captors. That was the name for the hollow tool they tried to make of him. It was not a name for him. And besides, it was too cold for a man whose emotions felt like fire against my skin.

We never spoke, not even when we were together for hours. It was too dangerous to risk one of the guards overhearing something that they didn't like. Besides, we didn't need to speak - the better part of communication was emotion, anyway. Words weren't necessary. Even if it meant I couldn't ask his name.

The cell door opened behind me. Tension crawled up my spine and settled easily against the rumbling, defensive anger that flowed out of him in response. He didn't know why I was afraid - only that I was, every time, in that moment just before one of the guards entered the cell to take me away.

I was afraid of one guard in particular. None of them were kind, but this one enjoyed being cruel to me. The others all knew, of course - how could they not, when they could all feel my fear of him? They didn't care. But despite their disregard, it was still always a relief to turn around and see a face that didn't belong to the sadist.

Except, today, that was the very face smirking down at me.

It all happened so fast. The little spark of panic flashed in my chest. Even had I wanted to hide it, there was nothing I could have done. The next instant, he - my fire and now, it seemed, my protector, too - was standing in front of me, blocking my view of the guard. There was barely any movement, hardly a sound. There was just the dull thump of the guard, suddenly limp, crumpling at his feet with a broken neck.

I felt his uncertainty in the silent moment that followed. He hadn't really considered what would come next, after he removed the threat. I expected that uncertainty to bloom into panic, especially when panic of my own began to claw its way up my throat, worse even, than when I'd seen the guard. What would they do to him for this? They would take him away from me. I would never see him again. Never exist again.

And yet, despite the way my terror hammered against him, he snapped suddenly into that particular sense of calm that come from the comfort of familiarity. The tactics of violence and survival were things he understood well. He was not afraid. My terror eased, just a little. I could breathe again. I didn't need my own certainty - I could feel his.

He bent down to take the gun from the guard's body. Then, after a moment's thought, he pulled the vest from the guard, too. Then he straightened, checked the chamber of the gun, and held the vest out for me to put on.

"We're leaving." His voice sounded like gravel, so rough from disuse that it was difficult to even make out the words. But I didn't need to hear them - he wanted me close, and so close I would remain.

The cell door hung open, and I had the sense from him that chaos would erupt the moment we stepped out without the guard. Escape. We needed a way outside.

Well. I could help with that. Down the hall, out of the prison wing, turn right, and find a door. Some of the support staff used it sometimes. I felt that heady combination of nerves and relief when they were approaching it, and I smelled the lingering cigarette smoke when they came back - a faster way out for a smoke break, but one they weren't supposed to use. It wasn't well-guarded, so it probably led to a roof or something equally inaccessible, but it was still better than trying to weave through the entire complex to use the guarded main entrance.

No one expected us to actually try to leave. The alarm didn't even go off until we were out of the prison wing entirely.

Six people. He killed six people on the way out, and never even broke stride. Death wasn't supposed to be beautiful, but he was. It was the way he moved. Every time I'd seen him before, he was tense, stiff, almost lumbering. I had no idea he could move like this. Was this what dancing looked like? It should be. He was a masterpiece of precision, control, and absolute certainty in his actions.

No hesitation. No guilt. It wasn't that he enjoyed killing them. Each time a guard came down the hall, there was a simple choice to be made; he could kill the guard, or the guard would kill us. It was never a question, and there would never be a regret.

Beyond the door was not an exit - it was a window. It looked out into an alley. We were on the third floor. The window was open, the sill littered with cigarette butts. Not even the clinging stench of stale, cheap tobacco could ruin the miracle of breathing fresh air.

I felt it, the moment he judged that he could make the jump. Standing next to the window, he turned to reach for me, but there was a moment of hesitation just before his hands made contact with my skin. For just a beat, I wasn't sure why. Then I realized with a start that he was waiting for permission. I almost laughed - as if I would ever refuse him, as if I would ever choose to stay here, no matter what he asked me to do in the escape.

He did laugh, then, once he understood the nature of my surprise. It was a short, rough sound - almost a cough. But it was there, and the current of amusement underneath washed over me as he swept me off my feet. Then there was nothing but air, and I was glad for the way the wind tore the breath from my lungs, or else I might have screamed and alerted someone. He hit the ground hard and stumbled a few steps before he set me back on my feet.

Escape. Out of sight. Hurry, so close.

He didn't let go of my hand. Into the alley, around the corner. It didn't matter where we were going. Only that it was away from that place.

----------

He knew where to find an old dead drop of cash. I found a generous soul willing to lend us a change of clothes. A quick white lie to the clerk at the hotel front desk, and now, finally, there was warmth and quiet, and there was a locked door between us and the rest of the world. It wasn't safety, not really. I wasn't sure if we'd ever really be safe from people like them. But it was something close. It was good enough for tonight.

And we were free.

I expected to feel joy. Elation. Giddiness. But instead, as the last of the adrenaline drained away, there was nothing rose in its place. Just a void that had been filled with so much fear and pain for so long that, now that they were gone, all that was left was an aching emptiness. Could I even remember how to feel anything with enough power to fill that hollow? Anything other than fear?

And so it was fear that began to crawl back in to fill the vacuum. Fear that I had been irreparably broken. Fear that, after all I had suffered, freedom promised nothing more than this suffocating, blank nothing in my heart.

But it was only for a moment. He caught my wrist and I turned to him: sitting on the edge of the bed, staring up at me with the same cold dread on his face that was threatening to choke me. The ratcheting rate of my heart slowed just a little. I didn't have to face the void alone.

Call and response. I see you. I know you. I feel you. I exist with you.

I felt the spark in my chest. That was source of the ember and the fire. It burned with rage when we were captives, in defiance against those who would snuff out our humanity. But now that the threat was gone, the fire was still there. It was no longer a furious defiance, but rather a desire for confirmation - I exist when I am seen, heard, felt, touched.

Touch me. I want to feel alive.

His grip on my wrist loosened. His fingers trailed slowly up my arm, leaving a ripple of goosebumps in their wake. It was only the barest of touches, but it didn't need to be anything more.

Maybe this desire was already there, and it was only now that we noticed it. Or maybe it really had only crashed into us in this moment, to fill this void of fear with all the sudden force that I felt as it knocked the breath from my lungs. It filled the hollow in my chest and didn't stop - his desire fed mine fed his fed mine again, until, barely a breath later, every inch of my skin yearned so strongly to be touched that to feel the empty air was almost a physical ache.

The next moment, he had me by the waist and we fell together into the bed, eager to kiss, to caress, to be made real together. Every sensation was so potent that each alone seemed unbearable, but to endure them together was a bliss all its own. Even the hot sting of lust denied held a certain gratifying delight, so we lingered in stillness, breathing each other in and revelling in unsated hunger.

It was pointless to ask whose passion first overcame patience - to do so would be to ask whose warmth was felt where skin met skin, or whose pleasure it was that brought us crashing over the edge, or whose sweat was left dotted and drying on my skin afterwards, as we lay tangled together and trying to catch our breaths.

It was ours. Always ours.

Even with my eyes closed, I knew he was looking at me. My cheek pillowed on his chest, I tipped my head up to meet his gaze; hooded, comfortable, soft. He was never meant to look at anyone this way again. This was a sort of victory all its own.

A smile tugged on his lips. "And I don't even know your name." There it was again - the shape of his wit. Less fragile, this time.

I turned to press my lips against his shoulder, muffling my laughter against his skin. "That's alright. Neither do I."

"Then what should I call you?"

I was in no hurry to answer. We were wrapped up, safe and lost, in the infinite hours before dawn. "I'm not sure," I answered softly. I trailed my fingers along the lines of his metal arm. I had not expected it to be so warm. "I've never had a name before. Not one I remember, at least."

I meant to press a kiss to the edge of his jaw when I looked up at him again. He knew what I intended the moment he felt the surge of my affection. He turned to catch my lips, pleasure and affection and amusement mingling between us. His teeth grazed my lip, pulling a whimper unbidden from my chest - and then another as I felt the intensity of his reaction to even so small a sound. The intoxication of desiring and being desired in return swept over us again. On my back as the kiss was broken, I was pinned to the bed by his weight as we fought to catch our breaths. Was it normal, such intensity from nothing more than a kiss? Or was this a particular luxury of us feeling and feeding the passions of the other?

I was surprised to find a growing ache in my chest, but I understood suddenly why he wanted my name. There was a nameless thing that needed to be expressed, and the only way to express it would be to speak his name like a chant, a confession, a prayer. Because it is you who I feel here with me. You who reminded me that I am real. You whose emotions fit with mine like two halves of a whole. You. You. Only you.

I wanted to know his name, whatever it might be for now. "What should I call you, then?"

I could feel the shape of his words brushing against my lips as he answered; "The only thing I can remember being called is 'Soldier'."

My revulsion was fiercer than even I expected. "That is a name for the tool they tried to turn you into, not for the man you are."

His gaze was soft as he looked down at me, and I felt the sweetness wrap around his heart at the hearing the contrast given voice. "Not even if I'm your soldier?"

"You're not," I whispered. "You're free. You'll have no orders from me."

"Then not a soldier," he answered, his voice a low rumble that I felt against my chest as he kissed me once more. "Just yours."

#fanfic #fanfiction #marvel #marvel cinematic universe #bucky barnes #winter soldier

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indignantlemur · 4 months

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Writing process question: With a story as long and involved as Emigre, do you have a master plot plan with an idea of where things will go all the way till the end, or are you sort of making it up in sections as you go? Or somewhere in between?

Hello! I started out, some 12 years ago, with a nebulous plot idea and a bunch of characters with a broad idea for an actual story in the background. I knew where I wanted my characters to go, the big scenes I wanted to write, and I had only a vague notion about the ending.

That worked for me for the first little while, but then my computer died and I lost my vague guideline notes. After that I was completely lost and totally disheartened. Regrettably, this coincided with some very unpleasant happenings in my personal life, and ultimately I ended up stopping my writing entirely.

Since returning to writing, I've salvaged all of the plot points I can recall and I've actually sat down and written out a point-for-point roadmap. I've patched as many plot holes as I can with this roadmap, tried to account for all of the characters that have been mentioned even once, and have a very thorough accounting of what happens from now until the end of the story. This has actually been hugely helpful, and I find it a lot more productive than my old, off the cuff method of writing.

So, for example, I'll usually set up something like this:

Bulreeng Taal: Dagmar and Thelen go to the local festival. Mixed results. INCLUDE:

A. First Vrath-Thelen encounter, goes poorly ; "I just wanted to talk to her and walk her home -because I thought she was in danger- and I was an idiot. I forgot how words worked and came off like an ass." B. Differing reactions to Dagmar, nice positive feels and disappointing negative reaction C. Draw from [inspiration 1] and [inspiration 2] for the festival but keep it alien! Figure out colours/themes, traditions, lore! D. Themes of healing and moving on/letting go throughout E. Enemies-to-loves starting vibes? See if it fits. F. Dagmar and Thelen have a conversation about boundaries, Tha’an/Sannev politics, and making an effort. Establish bestie-dom! IMPORTANT SUBPLOT INFO: Plant seeds for Dagmar/Thelen, maybe Vrath/Thelen where applicable but don't break the chapter for it

2. Date with Shral! (NOTE: Same day as BULREENG TAAL.)

A. Shral and Dagmar chat; expand upon dynamic, emphasize themes of calming and settling each other. B. SHRAL LAUGHS. Great maple syrup heist, ridiculousness. C. Constellations and lore! Write up a draft of a creation story, figure out themes and tidbits. Contrast the Star Thief with the Great Maple Syrup heist? Skip if it breaks the flow. D. Dagmar's gear failure - look up details for hypothermia, cold shock, and reactions to sudden, extreme temperature drops. Make it realistic. Gear fails gradually, a little at a time, before abruptly cutting out. E. If it fits, revisit intimacy between Dagmar and Shral. Consider realistic hesitation and reasons for caution - for Dagmar especially. Work with limitations from that perspective. F. Character development point: Shral is more open during intimacy, versus closed off and stoic otherwise. Contrast important! G. Ruin an arbiter's day, drop hints about Shral, make Dagmar oblivious. INCLUDE: yellow flash, identification cards, autopilot. “What’s wrong, Esheth? You look like you’ve seen a sea spirit.” / “I think I pulled over an Am Tal operative for speeding today.” / “...Oh shit.” / “It gets worse.”

The important thing about setting up my notes this way is not to hold them up as hard and fast rules but as guidelines. Sometimes the dialogue I'd like to include doesn't quite work, or the scene progresses more organically if I skip a bit here or leave some exposition for later on.

Currently, I have the entire story mapped out until the end, with two story arcs to complete and a bunch of additional chapters as well for various bits of lead-up, lore, exposition, and development. I also have about a dozen side stories tentatively mapped out in a similar fashion, too!

Cheers, and thanks for the ask! <3

#ask box #writing process #emigre by indignantlemur

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cfrog · 15 days

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for the art questions thing: what’s your process for shading? how do you come up with drawing / animation ideas? how do you sketch / how does a sketch differ from a complete piece for you?

Oh boy thank u for the questions! Uhh i ended up writing a lot w these so I'll throw this under a cut. I added pictures too. We'll call this a first draft for whatever I end up doing for my class assignment.

My process for shading changes pretty dramatically between if I'm doing my easy cel shading or my fancy soft shading. Lately, if I'm doing cel shading, I'll just come up with colors straight off the color wheel (colorpick and move it darker, more saturated, cooler/warmer depending on the material). OR, one trick I like, I'll draw where I want the shadows all on their own layer, THEN copy my color layer, mask n merge it on top the shading, and multiply that onto the actual layer. So it's the same colors for each exact section multiplied on top of itself? If that makes sense? Does nothing for the Atmosphere but it is Darker, and if I'm drawing them in a void anyways, it works fine. Sometimes I like to just slap a random tilted rectangle on it like its a garfield background. My soft shading is much more trial and error; for those fancy Xiph pin-ups I've been doing, I'll have like 30 different layers going, all doing different shit. Multiply mostly for shading, then for highlights I'll just try overlay/screen/soft light/hard light until something Works. A fun thing I do on these too: To get that "painted" look without adding a bunch of random texture, I use my default lining pen sized WAY up with the opacity WAY down and just go ham. Close up of robot ass for reference.

For ideas: I'd say the majority of the art I put out is "inspired" from something else, like memes or songs or tiktok audios. Honestly, I'd say every piece of information I receive has to pass through a "could this be about my ocs" filter in my brain, and if the answer is even kind of yes, I Will Make It So. Everything is ocs to me <3 and sometimes I inflict those oc thoughts on everyone else :3 For actual Original stuff though? Most of my ideas come about as a natural result of trying to figure something out with my characters. How would they respond to this, how would they do that, how does that work? The whole reason I started doing art is cause I have such a hard time with words, and sometimes drawing it out is just the only way I can communicate a thought. Expressions, camera angles, visual gags, subtle details, timing, those are things I could never figure out in writing. So I make comics and animations!

Sketching, what can I say about sketching. My sketches are very messy because I try for a Zero Erasing method like I do in real life (<- enjoys drawing in pen). If I sit there overthinking every line of a sketch, I get too caught up in the details before I've figured out the full picture. Sketching is for blocking/framing/posing ONLY, clean up is for lineart. I do sketch in only black/grays if that's a thing people care about, but that's because I have very strong thoughts on color, again it's too distracting. The main difference to me (that im sure no one else notices) is I let my sketches get fuzzy from resizing. I'm very particular about my art having NO anti-aliasing/transparent pixels. Crisp and clean, and VERY easy to color. Sketches I have on hand for example. Lil preview of smthin im working on :3c

Actually, sometimes I don't do sketches at all ? Like I go straight to clean lines. Only for certain characters, like LEDD and the lab rats, and if it's not a crazy angle or something. I can just draw them on command at this point. Very handy.

Thank you again for questions ^^ I am. slowly figuring this assignment out.

#chayos speaks #im not gonna tag this oc talk cause Technically thats for Lore. I did mention ocs tho :]#ask #tumblr keeps wanting to move my read more. keep it where i put it Please

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stick-named-figure · 1 year

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quick post on the music in episode 22: parkour.

i have work i need to be doing but i can't stop thinking about the music here. it's not a complete analysis, there's a call that's repeated but i'm not sure why and i need to find out.

so first of all, i look like this right now. remember i don't care whether an artistic choice was an accident or a non-choice. no just blue curtains in this house.

anyway. this episode does REALLY well with music. scott buckley did a great job on the score. i'll give buckley a handshake and a trophy any day of the week.

youtube

use the video as needed, because i'm going to be providing timestamps.

the start of the music is really nice. i'm not sure what quality it is but it sounds a lot like the older minecraft music. the quiet marimba just hits different.

anyway. green is the first one to notice that something's wrong. green's very observant, but that observation also seems to be directly connected to purple. the running melody that appears at 0:44 is on a clarinet, the instrument that's directly tied to green. it comes to a peak as red tries to jump over the piglin and moves into a string section's part, though i can't tell whether it's a violin section or a viola. might just be a "string section" sound.

i don't have much to say about that part (musically. i have plenty of autism i need to get out about how the stick figures handle themselves in this entire video, but that's going to be 30 minutes worth of reading time stuff), because the real reason i wanted to write this post is the part where king is revealed.

at 1:48, purple walks towards king as a much slower ascending violin section plays. it slows as king is revealed fully. there's a cute little reference at 2:06 to "in the hall of the mountain king" by edvard grieg as king has purple show off the minecraft maps with king's plan on them. obviously the crown and everything tells us what king is, but the musical nod is nice too.

anyway the post is about that melody at 1:48. it only plays fully once, it's a four bar melody. every other time it plays it's cut short or modified. the next time we hear it is at 2:45, as orange decides to jump off the platform. the music as orange runs through the looping section goes hard btw.

after that, there's more musical build up as the screen reveals what the place the stick figures are in actually looks like. that reveal makes me go wild. really good. also king's reveal. that goes crazy.

also the dead silence as it's shown king's been drawing little pictures for AT LEAST 4 minutes straight is so fucking funny. purple is bored out of their fucking mind watching this old guy draw for 4 minutes.

the imperial march rhythm at 5:08 is nice too. king later uses "forceHold" on green. that's not an actual command. it's just a reference to star wars.

the real exciting part is when purple tries to take off at 5:30, where that melody comes back again, and is again cut short as green tackles purple back down. it's cut short at the same point as when orange decided to jump off the platform, but this time there's a response, a descending violin section. ascension and descension are very important melodic types for purple, and i'll talk about that later when i can spare the time to finish my essay on episode 29.

the fourth time we hear it is at 5:50, when purple tries to take off and nearly escapes. the start is a bit muddled, but it's only 3 bars, an incomplete resolution for the melody we've been presented.

this melody is purple's. it's not their motif (that's in episode 29), and it's not king's, because king only gets the one usage of the melody. it plays fully when purple believes they've succeeded in the tasks that king has given them.

it's cut short when orange is the first one to escape the platform. it's cut short when green grabs them, and it's cut short again when green stops them.

it's a very good usage of theme. i really hope that motifs keep showing up in the ost because i love tearing them apart. yes i was into undertale.

#avm #animator vs animation #animation vs minecraft #avm purple #analysis #essay #self post #Youtube #music analysis

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oboetemasuka · 3 months

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Can I hear the director's commentary on Mahiru’s visiting section of Order of Attack? I loved all the prisoners' visits, but there were many lines from that one I specifically enjoyed!

Hi, hi! Thanks for asking!

(Source here)

I've taken to writing in a notebook before typing and editing. It's similar to how I draw on paper, scan, and edit. So lucky for you, I can provide some cut content as well!

My commentary in purple, out-of-order writing in green, typed parts in red. Hopefully it's not too hard to read. If it is, I'll figure out something in a reblog.

----

"Fuuta-kun…" Mahiru said as Fuuta opened his eyes.

Would you lot stop hovering over me while I'm sleeping?

Mahiru didn't seem to notice Fuuta's glare—or maybe he just wasn't able to be intimidating enough. Her hands remained on her shoulders, like they had been for the whole interim. She realizes nothing is keeping her arms in place anymore, right?

(Sometimes I realize I wanted to add something sooner. Since I've already written things on the page, I have to figure out where to add new things. For the green part, I had enough room to scrawl it in the margins. The red part was added during the typing process. So in other words, this detail that my dear readers love/hate was an afterthought. :))))))) )

"How much does it hurt?" she asked, still uncomfortably close to his face. Rub salt in the wound, won't you?

"Back off," he managed to say. Mahiru sat straight up, putting space between them.

"Sorry. I… I've been worried about you."

You and everyone else. "So what?"

( Around this point, I wrote a bit that I ended up scrapping. "I didn't mean to let it slip... what happened with you bleeding out." "You' rather have... let me... live a lie?" "N-no! I just realized it wasn't my place to tell you!" "What isn't your place is..." Fuuta struggled to catch his breath as a pain shot through his chest."Fuuta-kun? Are you- hey, I'll wake up Shidou-""No! ...don't need... stupid lectures..." Does this sound like Mahiru's VD? Yeah.)

"I just wanted to know if there's anything I can do to make you feel better."

You? Make me feel better? If it wasn't for you, someone might have saved me sooner! Yuno might have heard the attack right away.* Or Shidou wouldn't have sent Kazui out to protect you. Then I wouldn't have been so broken!

( Cut line: Then I wouldn't have bled out for an extra five minutes, and I wouldn't have permanent brain damage. I wouldn't have been unconscious and broken then. I wasn't sure what the actual medical implications are, so I decided not to include this particularly specific line. )

Whatever expression was on his face as he tried to get his words out must have caused Mahiru to tense up. Eventually, three words made it out.

(The part below, in green, was written in a different section of the notebook. I had switched gears to revise Mikoto's section. Well, to append the part where Shidou lectured Fuuta about lashing out. I'll show you what it originally looked like.)

"It's… your… fault…"

Mahiru looked very hurt, but not surprised. Her eyes started to quiver, like she was trying too hard not to blink.

( Original: [Mahiru is worried about Fuuta] "You... worried about me?" "Of course! After everything that has happened, knowing that-" "It's... your fault." Mahiru was taken aback, but she looked more hurt than surprised. She seemed to take time to process as Fuuta continued on. )

"You're… the cause… of all my problems!" Fuuta continued.

(Mahiru sat silently, guilt plastered all over her face.)

"You think I don't know that?" she responded quietly, tears streaming down her face.

"…doesn't… seem like…"

"You think it doesn't keep me up at night? Wondering what it would have been like if things were different? If I was the one alone, if Kotoko-chan had attacked me first, if you and Amane-chan didn't have to go through all of this because I wanted a little comfort? If…"

Mahiru's ramblings soon became engulfed in her sobs. But things are like this, Fuuta thought. I wouldn't wish this pain on you, but that doesn't mean you can waltz in here and try to make me feel better. As if you know me.

"You're… making this… about yourself…"

"I-I didn't mean…"

"…can't stand it… looking at you…"

(This is the end of the original block of text; the rest is written in a different section of the notebook. The rest picks up from the last green passage.)

(Mahiru kept crying for a few minutes. Fuuta found it impossibly irritating.)

Mahiru let go of her own shoulders to bury her face in her hands. Shidou walked up to her and whispered something in her ear. She nodded, got up, and walked out of the cell. Shidou sat down in her place.

(You told me that I made Mahiru "worse" even though she is physically unscathed. When she doesn't have to deal with the possibility of dying herself, imagine how much more time she has to worry about everyone else. And the way she tends to ramble on about things, I figure she would absolutely do that when under verbal attack.)

"Kajiyama-kun, what did you say this time?"

"What's… it… to you?"

"How many times do I have to tell you that your injuries are no excuse for you to treat everyone else like dirt?"

"Then maybe… they should just… leave me alone."

"I need their eyes from time to time. I can't monitor you constantly and in isolation."

Fuuta huffed. "Then tell them to… stop saying s…"

(Maybe I had a bit too much fun censoring the obvious words...)

"At this rate, they'll figure it out on their own."

(I guess the Shidou lecture came more naturally this time around since I had recently written the one after Mikoto's part)

#milgram #fuuta kajiyama #mahiru shiina #bad things happen to amane #ask game #asks

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rosefrancaise8 · 11 months

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This is our last night in Sifnos and we have been talking about our time here.

We will miss the Geronificas Hotel that has been our spacious and generous home for the last 7 days. Maybe because we have outlasted a good number of other patrons or because it is obvious how much we love the place, we are now receiving free drinks, including a glass today of the Island’s herbal tasting liqueur on ice. We were collected from Kamares the night we arrived, completely unaware of how far the hotel was from the port - and have been assisted in many other ways since then to make our way around. We have never felt so at home in a hotel and have grown fond of everyone who works here for making us feel that way.

We will miss the people of Sifnos. We finally did visit the pottery workshop at nearby Narlis Farm today and the potter told us among other things that he had worked off the island when he was younger and had gone to a pottery festival in Crete but now cannot imagine living and working anywhere else. Working the sideways pottery wheel (as they all are in Greece) requires calmness and he can only find that here. His 12 month old daughter only lasted a week in Athens before pining for the chickens and goats of home. His grandfather never left the island, never even felt the urge to jump aboard a ferry at Kamares for another Cycladean Island. On a different theme, he also told us a very touching story about the 82 year old friend of his grandfather’s who taught him his craft as an apprentice when he was a young man for the price of an occasional home cooked meal and a glass of Ouzo. Our potter’s father and his grandfather before him were farmers - he took a different path, providing Sifnos with one of its 14 remaining pottery workshops (at one point there were 50). What David heard in that story was the natural and unselfconscious transmission of the craft.

Our taxi driver who now lives in Heronissos goes to Athens for one week once a year to have his car serviced and then high tails it for home. When asked if he ever visits any of the other islands he waves his hand dismissively as if to say, why would I need to do that? He has a point.

We will miss our afternoons by the pool alternately reading, writing and watching for movement in sea and sky, driven inside only when the evening’s cool breeze starts whipping our ankles and it is time for dinner.

We will miss the look of it - the hard-worked rocky hills; the evening lights coming on in the village of Kastro below us; the islands of Paros and Antiparos way off in the distance, sometimes looking like a smudge on the horizon and sometimes looking so close you could spit; and the numerous little churches that we now know are used mostly to celebrate feast days and which are looked after by different local families each year as the baton is passed. We will miss the white and the blue.

We will miss the food. We have had some terrific meals, many of them here at the hotel. I have never had better scrambled eggs and David would say the same about the omelette. Everything we have eaten here (and we have now sampled everything on a pretty extensive menu) has been cooked with such delicacy and care. Unlike some other patrons, we have not been enticed out to other villages for dinner - we have stayed steadfastly loyal. Lunch has been another matter - we enjoyed traditional and modern meals in Kastro (a carpaccio of octopus being an absolute stand out) and have eaten our body weight in Saganaki.

This is my last post as tomorrow we head back to Athens and then catch a bus to the airport. This 8th blog has been my longest. I didn’t intend for it to be. I thought that I would just carve out a section of the trip to write about but couldn’t bring myself to draw that line. I have had so much fun writing it and as with all my other blogs we will inevitably come to rely on it in time to fill in the memory blanks. Thanks very much for reading it.

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thedreamlessnights · 5 months

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4, 15, 17, and 31 for the fic writer ask game? :D

thank you so much for the ask! this was so much fun to answer🤌❤️

4. How do you channel characters' voices and personalities?

ooo! i tend to be very picky about my own characterization, which is why i don’t write characters unless i feel i’ve seen enough to fully understand the core of their motivations. this helps with personality, but when it comes down to character voice, it can be more complicated.

one thing i like to do is to note the way they speak. for instance, geralt in the witcher 3 has a very particular cadence for his words! he tends to cut the first word off of sentences when it’s unnecessary; he uses short responses, is incredibly sarcastic, and repeats certain phrases a lot.

astarion, on the other hand, is wordier, places a lot of emphasis in his speech, and the things he says rarely reflect his actual feelings - not unless he’s taken off guard. i take all of that into account when writing.

a huge help is that every time i’m writing for a new character, i open a new doc and look up multiple videos of them. i write down the things they’re saying, note their body language, and draw back to that doc when i’m finding it hard to hear their voice in my head as i write! it helps so much, honestly.

15. Do you plan your fics or prefer to let the story unfold as you write?

when i decide to write a fic, i always plot out the basic story beats so i know how it starts, the major events/conflict throughout, and how it ends. often, as i’m writing it, i’ll get new ideas of things to incorporate and i’ll shift the outline around that! i like to leave it open to change, but have that outline there to rely on at all times!

17. What's the most memorable comment or review you've received on one of your fics?

i recently got told that i inspired someone to start writing again, and i don’t know if anything can top that. i find so much joy in writing - the fact that people like my work enough to get back into that joy themselves is absolutely incredible 🥺

31. Do you prefer writing from a single character's perspective or switching between different viewpoints?

i definitely stray toward a single character’s perspective because it’s easier for me to follow a train of events through one person. but, there have been times where the story calls for a section from another character’s viewpoint, or when i get an idea for an opening line of a fic that’s not who i planned it to be. it sort of just happens that way - but my default is just a single character!

thank you again for the ask!!

#jams answers #<33333 #just discovered i love rambling on abt writing 💀

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winxngasks · 7 months

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Finally have the next redesigns/reworks for the Main Universe kiddos! These are Flora and Helia's children, and they took a while to both sketch and write the descriptions for just because they are the largest group of siblings. Also, similar to Lincoln from Stella and Brandon's kids, I decided to age Jaylin up by a few years, to give him more story opportunity than he would have before.

But yeah, I hope you enjoy! Here are more notes for all of them!

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- Terra: 17 years old, daughter and second oldest child of Flora and Helia. Citizen of Linphea, and Fairy of Flowers. Average height, thick and curvy build that is more on the chubby side, wavy and chin-length hair dyed a rose gold color, jade green eyes, light brown skin, ears pierced. Growing up, she was always regarded as a "mini Flora" by adults, as she appears so similar to her mama in both looks and personality. Is a calm and dreamy kind of girl, rarely getting upset as she often goes with the flow of what is happening around her. As she moves with such a peaceful grace many assume her to be a bit ditzy or inattentive, which is true sometimes when she gets into too much of a dreamy state and forgets her surroundings, she is actually a very intuitive person with a lot of out-of-the-box thinking and who likes to take a lot of silent observations about the things and people around her. A kind soul who cares deeply for others like her mama, but she is not shy like she was at her age. Her hobbies are a mixture of both her parents, as she likes to draw flowers and landscapes like her papa, and garden with her mama, even having her own small section containing her favorite flowers.

- Forrest: 19 years old, son and oldest child of Flora and Helia. Citizen of Linphea, and a specialist at Red Fountain. Tall height, toned and slightly muscular build, long and wavy dark brown hair often in half-up bun styles, jade green eyes, tan skin, rectangle-shaped glasses. As the eldest brother to a bunch of energetic siblings, he is often left stressed and exhausted with their antics, but he has learned how to handle the various issues they may have when their parents are not around. As he often gets anxious when things are not in order, he is a very serious and no-nonsense lad, being a stickler for following rules and making sure everything goes as it should, even if this makes him come across as an uptight, stick-in-the-mud type. Diagnosed with Obsessive-compulsive disorder in his early teenage years, it made him feel much more at-ease having an explanation for why he feels the way he does, and through his medication and therapy he has learned to not let his anxieties bother him as much as they had before. He still rarely relaxes though, since as he is a specialist he often spends his free-time practicing instead of taking time off. A childhood friend to Crowned Princess Violet of Linphea, she is one person who never stressed him out growing up as she helped him deal with his emotions, but lately he has been feeling more tense around her as he has started to develop feelings for her.

- Gaia: 14 years old, daughter and third oldest child of Flora and Helia. Citizen of Linphea, and Fairy of Colors. Slightly short height, slim and pear-shape build, shoulder-length and wavy light brown hair that has a dirty blonde tuft in her bangs, hazel eyes, fair skin, oval-shaped glasses. She is the child that seemingly takes the most after her parents more quiet and demure natures, as she is very timid herself but with a sweet and selfless nature that wants to make sure everyone feels heard and included. She is also the most artsy out of her siblings, as she likes learning various different art and craft mediums, with a focus on vivid and bold colors and designs. Out of her friends Cassie and Lara, she is the one who has discovered her magic core first and has been hard at work training to attend Alfea in the next couple of years, but she is just as excited for her friends to be able to attend school in Magix, too.

- Hazel: 10 years old, daughter and third youngest child of Flora and Helia, older fraternal twin to Basil. Citizen of Linphea, with no signs of possible magic at the moment. Short height, average build with some baby fat, long and straight light honey brown hair, blue-green eyes, tan skin. Her and Basil are the ones that are the total opposites of their parents, as they are the rambunctious troublemakers of the family. They are the ones that cause the most stress to them and especially their older brother Forrest, but they do try to tone down the antics when they are at home. The older twin, Hazel is the more hot-headed one who is quick to assume things and act without thinking, but her heart is always in the right place.

- Basil: 10 years old, son and second youngest child of Flora and Helia, younger fraternal twin to Hazel. Citizen of Linphea, with no signs of possible magic at the moment. Short height, skinny build but with some baby fat like his twin, short and straight dirty blonde hair, blue-green eyes, tan skin. Just as energetic and adventurous as Hazel, but unlike his twin he is the more serious one that tries to stop or slow things down before they can get too far. Regardless of these differences when it comes to their plans, he is very close with his twin sister, as they are each other's biggest support system.

- Jaylin "Jay": 5 years old, son and youngest child of Flora and Helia. Citizen of Linphea, with no signs of possible magic at the moment. Short height, skinny build, straight navy bluish-black hair that is a little past the ears, dark blue eyes, pale skin. The one who takes the most after Helia in terms of looks, but he takes after both parents in-terms of personality. A very emotional, sensitive, and shy young boy, as he is easily spooked by things in life and his older siblings often have to make sure he feels safe and comfortable. Being the baby of the family he cannot go out or get up to as much activity as his older siblings, but he is much more content staying indoors and playing with his stuffed animals, often liking to act out some of his favorite stories with them.

#winx club #winx #next-gen #ocs #main universe #redesign #revamp #sketch #character concepts #terra #forrest #gaia #hazel #basil #jaylin #some of the more noticeable differences but I decided to give gaia glasses too and change up the twins' colors #so they are not just genderbent versions of each other like before

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mikauzoran · 2 years

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Mikau Draws Tissue Boxes and Fruit

Hi everyone! Long time no see. I’ve been doing a lot of drawing during my holiday from writing, but I haven’t felt like touching my laptop because I’m so burnt out, so I’m only posting about it now. The drawings above are a little old at this point, but I want to keep a record of my progress, so I’m posting about them now.

At top left, I tried to draw the Pisces glass from my zodiac set. I got it at a rummage sale over a decade ago because the designs (not pictured here because I’m not capable of that kind of detail yet) were really neat. It was really hard to draw glass because of the way it distorts. I tried my hand at shading too, and I think it looks so-so. I haven’t learned shading yet, so I have no clue what I’m doing. ^.^;

Next, I drew a tissue box, and I think it looks pretty okay. My lines are fairly straight for doing it all freehand, so I’m fairly happy with it. I’m excited for when I learn perspective so that I can make it look more realistic.

In the middle, I drew two views of the same banana. I like the bottom half of the first one and the top half of the second one. ^.^; This was a lot harder than I expected, honestly. I think I could draw a banana from my imagination without much difficulty, but it’s hard to actually look at what’s in front of you and draw that specific banana.

After the bananas, I drew another tissue box. My mum has a few different tissue box covers, and this is one of them. I really like the large ceramic flower just off center. The petals were a challenge, but I got almost all of them in there, and I’m proud of how this turned out.

Next, I drew my magnum opus to date at the time: the pineapple. It was a pain in the butt to do all of those little segments on the body of the pineapple. I wasn’t happy with how they turned out, so I did another version the next day. You’ll get to see that in my next drawing post. The stem was hard too, but I really like how it turned out. I’m very proud of my first pineapple attempt. XD

Last, I drew three strawberries of various sizes. Below is a close up with the strawberries rotated so you can see them better. I didn’t have enough room for them in a horizontal orientation, so I had to turn my paper vertical when I drew them. I’m trying to move towards drawing multiple objects at once, so doing three strawberries was good practice. It further drove home that the mental image I have of “strawberry” isn’t what real strawberries actually look like. I would have drawn them differently had I done it from my imagination.

Below is a picture of some of the objects from my drawings. From left to right we have the pineapple, the tissue box with the cover with the ceramic flower on the front, and my Pisces zodiac glass.

As a bonus, here are two images of various drawing exercises I’ve been doing. I got a few different books on drawing from the library, and that’s where I got the exercises.

This first one includes exercises in mark-making, line, shapes, and shading. The shading section is kind of embarrassing. XD I was supposed to make a sphere with the outer edges shaded dark getting progressively lighter as I neared the center.

I’m a little proud of this because you can see in my first attempt that I had no idea what I was doing, but my attempts got a little better until my tenth attempt yielded something that looked more like what I was trying to do. At around attempt six, I was despairing about how I would never learn shading. It felt impossible, and I couldn’t figure it out, but then it suddenly got better. I’m proud that I was able to make progress.

Below, I did exercises that focused on making three dimensional shapes like cubes and cylinders. Then there was more shading which I still have no clue how to do. Oh, well. I’ll get there eventually. We’ll be covering shading in the art class I’m taking, so I’ll get better soon once someone shows me how to do it correctly.

Side note: I’m really happy with my Campbell’s soup can à la Andy Warhol in the bottom left corner. ^.^

Thanks for reading!

#Drawing #Graphite #Mikau's Art #Still Life #Tissue Boxes #Fruit #Drawing Exercises

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dashawfrostart · 20 days

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These Two Weeks In “Time & Again” #15: IT'S FINALLY DONE 😱 And The Logo, And The Font

I almost kinda can't believe this, but just a couple days ago, it finally happened:

I FINISHED CHAPTER 5 and shipped it to my editor-in-chef.

Wooooo-Whoooooooooo!!!!!! 🥳🥳🥳 I am so happy! It's really hard to emotionally understand that the work is finally done. That was quite an undertaking.

... Overdue by approximately 3 months. But that was just a silly time limit I set to myself before I even started working on it. Different life situations got in the way of me finishing it up faster, but, all in all, since I am fairly satisfied with the result, I don't think any complaints are justified. I am indeed happy. Now I am in the state of mental emptiness. Joking. Not really. I suppose, until my editor gets back to me with a handful of suggestions, I will simply keep drawing and I will try to finish up all the last preparations before I could justify the public release. Gotta make everything look nice and sparkly clean after all 😁

I also slowly, little by little, write materials for a bonus book that currently has a vague title "Time & Again: Collector's Edition". I believe I never revealed that plan just yet, but that's been something I've been working on on and off since the last year, I think. Or maybe even since 2022. Hopefully it's gonna be interesting to all the "Time & Again" obsessed fans in the future someday, because it will contain more WIPs and sketches. As for myself, it's just fun to use it as a sophisticated diary for how the work went.

Speaking of different editions... Earlier in this post I've mentioned my plan to release the updated versions of the previously released Chapters 1 to 4. So, the prospects of that updated release are also getting brighter and brighter; from ghostly, ephemeral concept it is actually gradually fleshing into something real, almost day by day now. And this is very good. And here's the grand reveal for you: this is what the refreshed logo for of the updated edition gonna look like:

In fact, Chapter 5 will already have this very logo, for it's gonna be the first Chapter to be ever released that came with "Notes & Commentary" section right away. And the presence/necessity of that very section is the main reason why I am updating everything in the first place.

So, when will "Time & Again: Clean Cut Edition" of the previous chapters be released?

- unfortunately, that I have yet to decide on. Cannot tell right now, but one thing that stands for certain is that it will be released only after Chapter 5 goes public. My current priority right now is the release of Chapter 5, proper and nice.

Since today's blog post already contains a fairly big and happy announcement, this might be enough of the news for now. What could possibly be as important as the fact that I finally finished up the supermassive amount of work, literally a new chapter in Lothar's story?! Probably not much!.. Well, almost.

For the last topic to cover today, I wanted to tell something else important and interesting that most people will probably not understand due to excess amount of specific terms 😅 But it matters a lot to me, so here goes.

Not long before all the work on Chapter 5 was 100% done, I finally got to look at the main font that I use in my graphic novel (Frosty's Comic Font), for it needed some perfection: I remembered that it was not displaying correctly in some cases, or rather, selected set of the symbols didn't look right, depending. ... I must admit, I am a huge fan of typefaces. I used to collect fonts for personal use back in the day, for I loved to experiment with different designs, and usually I needed them for my custom "one of a kind" greeting cards I used to make for my friends' birthdays. Good memories.

A few years back I started to learn how to make my own True Type fonts - and I bet you have already seen at least a couple of those fonts on my artworks, logos, signatures and, of course, in "Time & Again". Some of those fonts are still partially incomplete and/or unpolished and, thus, currently unused by me - until the moment in the future when I will finally have more time to fiddle with 'em, for working on fonts is not too difficult, but not particularly easy either. In this case, I mean "it's time consuming", for the process of actually drawing a font, designing letters and symbols to me is easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. But vectorizing, perfecting the kerning in between certain pairs of letters, making sure that nothing is sticking out too much comparing to the rest... That is a bit tedious. In the end of the day however, it pays off tenfold, for you have a pretty, absolutely nice font that can be used virtually anywhere, in any software, for any purpose. I've never designed any monospace font yet... But aye, I'm being a little too nerdy again. Back on track, Frosty.

I never post my fonts anywhere to download, paid of free; I use my font solely by myself for now. And "Time & Again" was the reason why I urgently needed a new nice font with a fair touch of "me" in it... I wanted to make "Time & Again" my own as much as possible. So it was only obvious that I needed to design my own typeface for this crazy project. In 2021, I made the first relatively complete version of Frosty's Comic Font to use in "Time & Again" as the main font for the characters' speech. It contained all the basic English language glyphs and extra symbols for German language. Alas, not everything was smooth, and in Inkscape, when I used to copy-paste the lines of text on the speech bubbles, the formatting of little symbols such as apostrophe and quotation marks went down the drain, and was exchanged with the default system font (or whatever Inkscape uses when a glyph is missing). Unfortunately, that error stretched out in time (and space) up until a few days ago. I only was able to figure it out last week. By the time I managed to figure it out, the version of the font reached 1.3, and the last update also contained glyphs for Spanish language. It turned out, I did not include glyphs for all the possible variations of apostrophes and quotation marks. So I got that fixed. And now everything works like a charm. I am very proud 🙃 But the actual reason why I needed to return to designing fonts was different: I was tired of not being able to force italicize my font in Inkscape. While Krita allows for a default italic offset for a font that does not come with a premade italic version of itself, Inkscape does not do that. My manner of work is such, that I work with fonts on the pages of my graphic novel in Inkscape, for it's easier to me. But I like to sometimes accentuate certain words in the speech of the characters with italics, usually to make the readers pay extra attention to those particular words. I did not want to fiddle with workarounds (and in fact I know of no such things for my particular issue) in Inkscape, trying to combine multiple text boxes with different manual skew on the same line or whatnot, so I finally decided to make Frosty's Comic Font Italic. I generate all my fonts in FontForge. Here's what the window looks like:

I couldn't even imagine that generating an italic version out of a regular font could be done in just a couple of clicks in FontForge! 😱 So simple!

Once it was skewed, I tried to input an example text just to test it out and see what it looks like. When I'm test driving my fonts, I like to write something that uses extra symbols, such as something in German or in Spanish, because all those extra fancy letters make me happy. And once I was satisfied with it, I saved the final version (v1.4) and started using it! Here's the clear side by side comparison of what the regular version looked like versus the new italicized one:

I think it turned out rather nicely.

And now in Inkscape I can finally use different formatting of my own very font within one text box, as illustrated through a quotation from a song by U2 (these guys are my current obsession - just as in ol' good times when I was 11 🤣) on the screenshot below:

Magic!!!!!)))))

That's probably all for now.

... Okay, okay! You probably want more teasers/spoilers from the finished product, right? Here's a little funny snippet for you:

Because any urban landscape always requires fat rock pigeons staring at stuff. Some of them might even watch something while munching on popmeat popcorn.

That's all for today's great news! See you soon! 👋😎 There's more to come.

#TimeAndAgainbyDWF #This Week In Time And Again #Krita #Inkscape #typeface design #graphic novel

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