#//With tweak this and edit as I see fit later

[dutybcrne]

v; faded memories; new beginnings (human!guizhong)

At her death in the Archon War, Guizhong used the last of her strength to allow her part of her soul to cleave from its whole and be granted the chance for reincarnation. As much as she'd tried to make it seem as though she had made peace with her demise, in truth, she was not yet ready to leave her precious people and friends behind. This was the best, most desperate way she could ensure herself a little more time with them even if she had been unsure if it would work.

Even if it did mean forfeiting her memories. But hey, if that's what it took to have this second chance, by all means. Perhaps she may be lucky enough to meet and love them all again one day.

Her life began in the outskirts of Qingce village.

At least, that's what she could remember most clearly, her first true vivid memory as a young child wandering the area.

Named Guiying, the elderly couple who ultimately found her raised her among the other children in the village. She possessed an exceptional talent in mechanics and invention, notable even early on in her life. Thus, it became what she took up doing when she was old enough to seek work and help the others in the village with whatever fixes they needed. She spent a lot of her time at home in the workshop built for her, tinkering away and making new creations to sell or gift her fellow villagers.

Other than that, she would also make trips to the Wangshu Inn to properly sell her creations and services there ( and sometimes along the way if she happened to be lucky enough ), though never straying further than that place. When asked why, she would simply smile and say she didn't want to go too far from home.

In truth, while she genuinely did feel uneasy at the thought of parting from her family, it was mostly because the few times she dared venture into the Guili Plains, she would be plagued by visions ( or were they memories? ) and horrid headaches brought on by the ensuing surge of them. Though, admittedly, the same would sometimes happen at the Wangshu Inn, particularly at night when she would stay longer to complete repairs or finish up selling her creations and network with the merchants that showed up there. She has no idea why this happens, but for the longest time could not bear to brave it all and seek to head out for Liyue Harbor, even when she could no doubt find better opportunities there. Even when she herself felt such longing to go there, after catching glimpses of the city through paintings brought by merchants.

Eventually, after confiding the truth to them, her family would encourage her to try, anyways. That perhaps this is a sort of test she must face, perhaps due to her past life, and in enduring it, would find all the more success after surpassing it all. The thought had her growing determined to do just that, determined to brave those visions and reach the place her heart so yearned for.

Still, as Guiying had thought, the journey to Liyue Harbor was arduous, and she was indeed plagued by vision after vision along the way through the Guili plains. Of people, perhaps friends, and longing, of battles and chaos, it varied greatly whenever they struck. The merchant she tagged along with to make things easier even wound up abandoning her along the way, right near what was once the Guili Assembly. He had thought her cursed by the gods, and after she'd had a particularly harrowing glimpse at what appeared to be her own demise, even Guiying found that notion hard to deny. But even with no travel companion and protection, Guiying would continue forwards, determination to see her journey through in spite of pain what every day would bring her, in body and mind alike.

In encountering hilichurls and Treasure Hoarders along the way, in sometimes being lead astray by the visions filling her head ( why did they keep leading her back to the ruins of the Guili Assembly? ), but she strove her best to keep moving. She wasn't too much of a fighter, save what experience she'd gotten in previous journeys, but with her strategies and swiftness, she would manage. She would manage, in stealing potions and a crossbow from Treasure Hoarders, and arrows off her defeated enemies for her own benefit. Sometimes things went off without a hitch, sometimes she wound up taking a bit of a beating before having to retreat, and sometimes what visions she saw would even begin ease to things she could merely stop and let go on before continuing, rather than chase after or run from. But in any case, she would continue to survive and press onward, growing more and more eager to reach her destination.

Eventually though, even determination and her clever plans would not be enough to see her through alone. Her body would end up giving out just before reaching a village along the way, passing out as a result of many a sleepless night and everything she'd been dealt along the way. Luckily for her, the Millelith who'd seen her there were kind enough to bring her there and let the people care for her, even leaving with her all the possessions she'd managed to keep along the way, too.

Once recovered and she'd given the last of her Mora to repay the kind man who'd looked after her, Guiying would set off once more for Liyue Harbor, now closer than ever and without any dangers to slow her travels. And without the odd flashes of those visions to hinder her, as well, to her relief.

At long last, she was finally here, and she couldn't be happier. While saddened some of the things she'd brought had been taken by the merchant when he'd cast her away or had gotten lost along the way, Guiying was still determined to do her best to find success here. To live up to her family's hope and wish for her. She'd already faced her toughest trial in getting here, right? No doubt, everything would be smooth sailing for her, from here on out.

Especially with the gleaming Geo Vision she now possessed.

As for where her path may go from there...perhaps for now, she may pester the blacksmith for some work while she got her bearings in the city. A man of brawn like that could use some good, fresh ideas and she could use a guy who had the strength to help out with certain projects in mind her own couldn't handle alone. Yeah, that sounded pretty good.

Somehow, the idea seems almost wonderfully familiar to her.

[sirfrogsworth]

Let's talk about vintage lenses.

Here is your cool samurai show with modern lenses.

Here is your cool samurai show with vintage lenses.

Hollywood is no stranger to fads.

We are currently in the middle of a "make everything too dark" fad. But that fad is starting to overlap with "let's use really old lenses on ridiculously high resolution cameras."

This is Zack Snyder with a Red Monstro 8K camera.

He is using a "rehoused" vintage 50mm f/0.95 Canon "Dream Lens" which was first manufactured in 1961.

This old lens is put inside a fancy new body that can fit onto modern cameras.

Which means Zack is getting nowhere near 8K worth of detail. These lenses are not even close to being sharp. Which is fine. I think the obsession with detail can get a bit silly and sometimes things can be "too sharp."

But it is a funny juxtaposition.

The dream lens is a cool lens. It has character. It has certain aberrations and defects that can actually be beneficial to making a cool photograph. It's a bit like vinyl records for photography.

[ Peter Thoeny ]

It has vignetting and distortion and a very strange swirly background blur.

[ Gabriel Binder ]

Optical engineers have been spending the last 60 years trying to eliminate these defects. And I sometimes wonder if they are confused by this fad.

"I WORKED 70 HOURS PER WEEK TO GET PERFECT CORNER SHARPNESS!"

And whether you prefer to work with a perfect optic or a vintage one... it is a valid aesthetic decision either way. I think vintage glass can really suit candid natural light photography. You can almost get abstract with these lenses.

[ Peter Theony ]

Personally I like to start with as close to perfect as possible and then add the character in later. That way I can dial in the effect and tweak how much of it I want. But even with modern image editing tools, some of these aberrations are difficult to recreate authentically.

That said, it can be very easy for the "character" of these lenses to become distracting. And just like when someone first finds the lens flares in Photoshop, it can be easy for people to overdo things.

Zack Snyder decided to be his own cameraman and used only vintage glass in his recent movies and it has led to some complaints about the imagery.

I mean, Zack Snyder overdoing something? I can't even imagine it.

Non camera people felt Army of the Dead was blurry and a bit weird but they couldn't quite explain why it felt that way.

The dream lens has a very wide aperture and it lets in a lot of light. But it also has a very very shallow depth of field. Which means it is very difficult to nail focus.

[ Peter Thoeny ]

Her near eye is in focus and her far eye is soft. You literally can't get an entire face in focus.

There is no reason you have to use the dream lens at f/0.95 at all times. But just like those irresistible lens flares, Zack couldn't help himself.

Here is a blueprint that you can't really see.

Extreme close ups of faces without autofocus at f/0.95 is nearly impossible to pull critical focus on.

Looks like Zack nailed the area just above the eyebrow here.

Let's try to find the point of focus in this one.

Ummmm... she is just... blurry. Missed focus completely.

But Zack isn't the only one going vintage. I've been seeing this a lot recently.

Shogun is a beautiful show. And for the most part, I really enjoyed the cinematography. But they went the vintage lens route and it kept going from gorgeous to "I can't not see it" distracting. And perhaps because I am familiar with these lens defects I am more prone to noticing. But I do think it hurt the imagery in a few spots.

Vingetting is a darkening of the corners of the frame.

Light rays in the corners are much harder to control. A lot of modern lenses still have this problem, but they create software corrections to eliminate the issue. Some cameras do it automatically as you are recording the image.

Vintage lenses were built before lens corrections where a thing—before software was a thing. So you either have to live with them, try to remove them with VFX, or crop into your image and lose some resolution.

It's possible this is the aesthetic they wanted. They felt the vignetting added something to the image. But I just found my eyes darting to the corners and not focusing on the composition.

And then you have distortion.

In this case, barrel distortion.

This is mostly prominent in wide angle lenses. In order to get that wider field of view the lens has to accept light from some very steep angles. And that can be quite difficult to correct. So you kind have to sacrifice any straight lines.

And sometimes this was a positive contribution to the image.

I thought the curved lines matched the way they were sitting here.

But most of the time I just felt like I was looking at feudal Japan through a fish's eye.

It's a bit more tolerable as a still, but when all of these verticals are bowing in motion, I start to feel like I am developing tunnel vision.

I love that this is a tool that is available. Rehousing lenses is a really neat process and I'm glad this old glass is getting new life.

This documentary shows how lens rehousing is done and is quite fascinating if you are in to that sort of thing.

But I think we are in a "too much of a good thing" phase when it comes to these lenses. I think a balance between old and new can be found.

And I also think maybe Zack should see what f/2.8 looks like. He might like having more than an eyebrow in focus.

[colleendoran]

I was curious how you manage to keep features consistent when you draw them? Do you use models? Is there a model for Crowley? He is very handsome.

I don't use models per se, but I sometimes keep files of photos or art that resembles the subject.

Crowley is based a bit on the French actor Alain Delon who was once considered the handsomest man in the world. He doesn't look exactly like Delon, but that is in my head when I draw him. I recall reading Neil and Mr. Pratchett once considered Peter Sellers for Crowley.

There is no reference for Aziraphale because he is entirely in my head and I can't really find anyone who looks exactly the way he does. I recall reading that Neil and Mr. Pratchett thought of Brian Dennehy at one point, but my head canon Aziraphale won. I think a Brian Dennehy Aziraphale would have been amazing, though. Anyway, he is actually kind of hard for me to draw because his facial structure is a bit outside my usual style. His face is a bit long and his eyes closer together than I normally do, and if I'm not careful, he slips away. He appears younger and more classically handsome as an angel than he does in his corporeal form, but I think he's quite fetching as a bookseller.

Michael Sheen is so perfect in this role it is really hard not to leak bits of his performance into the graphic novel edition, but I have to resist the impulse. I am not allowed to use any of the show actors as models.

I adore Michael Sheen. Who doesn't?

Adam is also a head canon character. He is a perfect young Greek God, so that's kind of drawing on a day with a Y in it for me.

The inspiration for Newt I'm keeping a secret. I submitted a number of sketches for Newt. The show Newt dug in deep and I had a hard time shaking him off.

The Them are based on kids I knew. They're in my head, I don't need any photos. They don't really look like the kinds in the show. The book version of Pepper, for example, is a freckled red-head.

Anathema is an amalgam of features that don't come from one person, which I think fits the description of the character. She's also unusual for me to draw but she's easier to draw than Aziraphale. I nail her every time.

Hastur is a caricature of the stereotypical English upper class you'd see in broadsheets 200 years ago. I have a file of pictures of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury for Hastur. I considered making Hastur more handsome in a Duke of Hell sort of way, but I think Hastur likes to be scary. I keep thinking of Peter O'Toole when I draw Hastur, too.

I feel kind of bad basing Hastur on Lord Ashley because he was a wonderful person and I'm sure he didn't go to Hell.

Ligur is a broad caricature of Danny Devito. I obviously can't use a DeVito portrait. That would be wrong. But I can tweak from there and come up with a general idea of the face I want to use.

Beelzebub and Metatron are head canon, and don't look a thing like they do in the show. I postulate some demons prefer to look like their angelic selves, and at other times prefer to be fearsome. Crowley can look fearsome when he wants, for example. In the book, Beelzebub appears as a young man in red flames.

Shadwell was drawn from reference at the direct suggestion of Neil.

Madame Tracy is based on a certain person, but no one you would have heard of. The original source might not be flattered, but I love Madam Tracy. She's really easy to draw because she's a bit over the top. I'm sketching around her scenes right now because I don't have final approval on some things yet. So she might need some changes later.

War is head canon, very easy to draw. She's a knockout. No reference required.

Famine looks a lot like Famine in the show, actually, but that's what Famine always looked like, pretty much. Except he has the grey eyes he has in the book.

Pollution is initially described as being a forgettable white guy, but later described as looking like a romantic poet, which strikes me as being memorable. Because he's only on one page in his forgettable white guy phase, I chose not to make major changes in his appearance between those panels and later when he appears as his true self, because that's a bit more confusing than it needs to be in the graphic novel edition. He's rather glamorous as the essence of Pollution, though. No reference needed.

Dog is a dog.

While I do give every detail a lot of thought, I am sure other people have other opinions. I understand that, and hope you enjoy what I do anyway.

Thanks for your question.

I'm still a bit under the weather, so may be stepping away from the net for awhile so I can concentrate on work. I have a lot of sick time to make up.

But don't think I don't appreciate your interest in the Good Omens graphic novel adaptation. Your wonderful support is acting on me like a tonic, let me tell you.

[officialrocketjumper]

HOWDY EVERYONE- so excited to FINALLY be able to show off my piece for this year's Bumbleby Big Bang!

Unfortunately no accompanying story as of yet- but I really hope you guys get to read it someday! The premise involves Yang cursed to be trapped inside a sword, which was an idea I KNEW I had to make move.

Details and development stuff under the cut!

Lots of fun collaboration with the author, Celeste! We worked together to find the look-of-picture, Blake's outfit, how the Grimm look, the style of the sword, the whole shabang! I'm really happy with how it all turned out!

When I first saw all the prompts, even before claims opened, I got to work on a handful of exploration pieces based on some of the summaries, to decide which of the stories I was interested in would be the best fit. Here's the initial idea for this one I put together over a lunch break:

After showing Celeste, we got to work finding the look we wanted! Went back and forth a bit and found this great look for Blake! Also shoutout to Pinterest boards for visdev inspiration I love you Pinterest boards.

Just about everything stayed to final anim, with the simplification of getting rid of that purple cloth hanging from her belt, (since I already had the rope ends to think about working with), and the light purple strap across the chest, since leaving it out would simplify the linework on her chest.

The sword also went through a bit of change! Celeste had the idea of Yang making the sword catch on fire, which I LOVED. I went with a split design so we can see the fire more clearly start from the hilt and grow to cover the whole blade.

And from there we brainstormed animation ideas! I went all over Youtube for video reference of sword work (that would be complex enough to be interesting, but short enough to be manageable). I found something we liked from Motion Actor Inc., a channel I've used LOTS for both personal and professional work (I work in 3D Animation, for those who don't know). I edited this together, to see the action from multiple places at once, which gave me the idea for that camera move that's in the final anim!

Now for the fun part! Make that badboy MOVE. For the cam turn, the first frame she's in the air I'm referencing the top left video, and the frame she lands I'm referencing the bottom left one. While she's airborne I'm just inbetweening that! No reference for the Grimm, just wanted it responding to her attacks, but I end up tweaking the roughs later on to make the block feel stronger.

Then from there we had to actually figure out Grimm designs! Nimona had just released, and Celeste and I loved it, so she asked if I could take some inspiration from Nimona's shadow form! GLADLY. Here's what I came up with!

I was going between how the movies and comic designed Nimona, really loving the almost liquid shadow of the movie, but also how the comics had this broken up/held together rougher form. Celeste liked the second to last one the best! The original plan was to have it leave a wispy shadow trail like the concept art, but to simplify the animation we left it solid instead!

Next up is tiedown! Basically just getting the roughs more on-model, so the lineart comes out nice and clean. I've also transferred the new Grimm design to the base from earlier, and fire's also outlined orange so it reads clearer. (SPOILER- if you look REAL close here, you can see Yang visible in the fire! I liked the idea of Blake's slash also doubling as Yang throwing a punch. The idea is in the concept art earlier but now it's working with the action.)

Next step- final look of picture!! I asked Celeste for sources of inspiration to draw from when thinking about environment design, and we got Nimona, She-Ra, and Owl House! Used each of those as springboards for shading style, colour palettes, and how the fire would look!

From there, we kept the straight trees/bush/lake/foreground greenery from the first one, the blues from the second, and the fire from the third!

Once I had this frame, it was a matter of working backwards and making the background work pre-camera turn (which was ABSOLUTELY the most challenging part of this process). Learned a lot doing this! Procreate isn't quite equipped to make something like this efficient, but I'm pleased to say that Dreams would make something like this easier in the future (keyframing objects instead of hand-drawing/spacing duplicates by hand, for example).

From then on it was just colouring the lineart, adding shading, and finishing up the background! Beginning-to-end this whole process was beginning of July to end of October!

I had an absolute BLAST putting all this together. Here's to next year where I find a way to do something even more ridiculously complicated!! It's fun!!!

[byoldervine]

Tips For New Writers

1. You ARE a writer. If you write fanfiction, you’re a writer. If you write one-shots, you’re a writer. If you only write for fun, you’re a writer. If you’ve never finished anything, you’re a writer. If you haven’t written in a while, you’re a writer. If you think up the most amazing plot but can never write down any words for it and you think it always sucks, trust me, you’re definitely a writer

2. Your first draft will never be good. It’s not the starting point that makes a story good, it’s the editing, so don’t try to strive for perfection in the first draft - you’ll only burn yourself out and get disheartened because you’re comparing the first draft of your story to the finished products of others, and they’ve likely undergone at least three edits MINIMUM

3. Never delete decent-sized chunks of your story. Retrying a sentence or even maybe a paragraph is alright, but if it’s anything more sizeable than that then you want to copy/paste it into a different document. I like to call it my ‘writing graveyard’ - you might be able to come back to it later on or find ways to tweak it that better fits the current narrative. And even if not, you can look back on it and see how far you’ve come

4. “Writing is a habit”. All this means is that, if you have some kind of consistent writing goal, even if it’s just 100 words every week, that’s still a guaranteed 100 words every week. A consistent writing practice means consistent progress will be made, rather than occasional spikes in productivity followed by long periods of no motivation. Just figure out what you can comfortably commit to without it feeling more like a chore than a fun activity

5. Make backups. If you work online, make sure there are backups of your work so it doesn’t get lost somehow. I’ve been writing all my first draft chapters in separate documents so far so at worst I’ll only lose one chapter if something bad happens, but I’ve also got everything backed up just in case

Best of luck in your writing projects!

[thepoetjean-makes-stuff]

HOW TO ACTUALLY WRITE -- THE BASICS (AKA STEP 0-1)

(AKA ThePoetJean justifies their Master's degree and makes it everyone else's problem)

1) "WRITING IS REWRITING" AND WHAT THE HELL THAT MEANS -- No writing is law or set in stone upon the first draft, and whoever taught you that is a bum. Even permanent glue can be removed by nail polish remover, so why is editing your first draft no different? When writing for fun, oftentimes you can edit the post and clean up the story when things are no longer working (it's called a cutting room floor for a reason). When writing for publishing, you'll often be paired with an editor who'll send tweaks back-and-forth to you, chipping away at any structural mistakes or grammar flaws to bring out the point of your writing piece in the process. The first draft is just about getting the general vibes of the story down: like the batter for the cake recipe before you start baking it. This part is meant to be fun and messy and no one expects you to serve them go when you're just cracking your eggs open. Let yourself be messy cuz (burnt or fluffy), this is the first step to making your story, so no need to have something be all pretty and presentable the first time around! Again, a lot of writing is just rewriting cuz drafts are a thing so getting stuff down is most important. And another amazing thing -- if the story sucks, you can always change it later! You gotta trust yourself to get it done in order to get it out to the world one way or another, so go do that!

2) LEARN YOUR OWN WRITING PROCESS! -- (OH MY GOD PPL, LEARN HOW YOU TO THE THING IT'S HALF THE BATTLE!) Most of the struggles I see with newer writers is never learning how they write, and that sucks since have the joy of making things is making the thing -- so why make writing stories so arduos for yourself. Learn your own methods and use them whenever you get to writing! Learn the writerly basics like plot, structure, framing, character voice, setting, time period, etc and learn how best you can utilize them in your own stories! On a purely craft level: Learn ALL THE WRITING CRAFT and keep in mind that all writing craft is meant to be guidelines rather than hard rules. Learn many ways about how to write in general cuz no writing advice is one size fits all and being embarrassed of your process is dumb and hinders your creative growth. Trust yourself as a writer, you'll improve faster that way. Believing you can and believing it's possible is the first step to doing anything! (Plus all writing is rewriting anyhow to there's no need to feel embarrassed about something you can fix later, anyways, right?)

3) Read projects like your project in order to get a better feel of your project. Whether it be writing style references, basic literary craft examples, or just you want to break down the vibes of the stories so you can better emulate in your own -- GO AND WATCH/READ/LISTEN ETC TO WHATEVER STORIES YOU THINK WOULD MATCH THE VIBES OF YOUR OWN!! Now, this isn't a 1-to-1 copy, you're not mean to make a clone of the thing you like or take properties for the IP that you're into -- that's more along the lines of fanfiction (which can be fun and is ofc, super valid) -- BUT! To create your own stories, you need to learn where you get your ideas from, and learn how to implement, borrow, twist, etc from the story structures and properties you gather your inspo from. Other writers are your peers, not your enemies -- so treat their work and your own with the respect it deserves. No two chicken sandwiches are ever exactly the same; true artists steal from many places, so learn how to be a good thief (creatively speaking). Example from my own secret WIP novel: I'm writing a New Adult Urban fantasy novel with a dark, powerful lady protagonist that uses lots of philosophical themes, alternate history perspectives as well as using mythology as a basis for a lot of the magical roots and setting roots. Likewise, this a story about friendship and romance after major loss and trauma, and how to come back to yourself after grief, so I've been looking for stories that cover those themes in their plots, which has made the story a lot more fun to read and write outside of just being a cool concept to play with.

If you're writing a second-chance romance story, read romance stories. If you're writing a sci-fi story with lots of robots, read stories about robots. Presumably, you enjoy the same stories you're writing in concept if not in execution, so don't hesitate to seek those stories out, and break down how those stories work in order to scrap them for literary parts. You're smarter than you think you are, and breaking down stories is a lot of fun once you get the hang of it, so please consider doing this as you go into your next project, your writing will thank you for it!

OPTIONAL:

4) If the story works better as something else, swap the format and see what happens.

Have you ever read something and been like "Huh, I like this book, but with how iconography is used in the actual text, it might be better as a movie or a comic book"? So have I!

So, if you ever feel like the story you're writing isn't working so well as a novel or a play, consider turning it into a movie or a webcomic! Of course, this is all easier said than done, and every writing format comes with its own rules and limitations, but I'd give it a try if you ever want to see your project from a fresh perspective! If nothing else, you'll learn something new -- and become a better writer for it!

Til next time, beloveds~

__

PS. Take all advice with a grain of salt. I am not your parent or your principal, I'm just a lady with a writing degree and a lil free time. Take what resonates, leave what doesn't, etc. PLEASE SHARE THIS POST AROUND TO ANYONE WHO IT MIGHT HELP! THANKIES :3

KOFI: https://ko-fi.com/thepoetjean

[anstarwar]

Bonding time for the commanders

Wrote a thing for it on the fly, not edited at all, but was having fun thinking about their dynamic...

"So, um, what's it like in there?" Barriss asked casually, flicking some dirt from her skirts.

Gree, who was lost in his datapad entering some note about a leaf he just discovered, only replied with "hmm?"

This is how their conversations usually went, much to Barriss' frustration. She'd been...commander (weird)...of the 41st for three months now and had gotten no further in breaking through to her fellow commander.

Maybe this is just how it was supposed to work between Jedi and Clones? They had a job to do, she reasoned, so maybe the clones didn't want to be...friends? That didn't feel right to her, but nothing to be done about it.

"Never mind," she cleared her throat, wrapped her robes tighter around her shoulders and went to find Master Luminara.

+++

Two months later...

"Do you want to see, Commander?" Gree asked as he examined the visor of his helmet in his hands. He'd spent the better part of an hour fiddling with the wires, scrubbing the dirt away, and touching up scraped off bits of green paint.

Barriss looked at him, eyebrow arched in question.

"...my bucket...helmet. You asked a few months ago and...well, if you're still curious." He answered, rolling it around in his hands.

"Is it ok?" Barriss replied, hesitant.

Gree wasn't sure how to answer that. Helmets, to the clones, were personal. You didn't share yours with anyone just willy-nilly. They were designed for protecting a very vital part of their body (though Gree was convinced some of his brothers didn't use their noggins as often as they should, so he's not sure how effective they were for those particular troops), and tweaked and customized to each wearer's specifications. They were as close as anything to a prized possession for many of them and "is it OK" wasn't as simple a question as it sounded.

But Gree had also spent a month trying to get to know his little Commander. Well, little wasn't quite the right word. Barriss was fearsome, strong, and wise beyond her years - but she was small, barely coming up to his shoulder. She was too young to see the things they saw on a daily basis, and it pained him to know she also had to live this life. That, like the clones, she wouldn't truly know what it was like to be a kid. It was like a blaster to the gut the day he realized she also didn't have much choice in the matter, and that she was working so hard to hide her own pain and worry.

It hit him one day that maybe she needed reassurance just as much as his own troops. Not from the fighting or the uncertainty of what tomorrow would bring, but from her own self-doubts and insecurities. She was his little sister, his vod'ika. So he'd decided he'd do what he could to reassure her and, he reasoned, that meant breaking down his own walls and getting to know her. To build trust.

"Yeah...yeah its ok, here just..." Gree moved to place it on her head, but paused. "...don't know if it'll fit over your robes there, Commander."

Barriss laughed. "No I suppose not." She scrunched up her nose, an expression Gree observed she'd make when she was coming to a decision.

"What about..." Barriss pushed back her hood and unwrapped the robe from around her shoulders.

"Here," she said, extending it out to Gree with a shy smile.

He took it, holding it in front of him like it was a specimen he found on the underside of a lartie, and not a piece of cloth. He arched his brow at the Padawan.

"You're sharing something important with me, so it's only fair I do the same, yeah?" she said in explanation.

Gree nodded, but wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with it. He shook it out, not sure what he was expecting it to do, but it felt like the best option. It wasn't like he'd never seen or held a cloak before, but this belonged to a Jedi, his Commander. Was there some sort of protocol or etiquette he should be aware of?

Barriss chuckled. "You can put it on and I'll put on your helm-bucket?" She looked into the visor of the helmet as if it would tell her what to call it. "Bucket," she nodded, turned it the proper direction and plopped it on her head.

"Whoa," crackled through the vocoder as things flickered to life on the HUD. Scrolls of data came through, lights blinked here and there --indicating what she wasn't sure. It was a lot and she felt the urge to rip it off of her head to stop the onslaught of information. She thought better of it, though. Gree had trusted her with it and she didn't want to make some egregious error in etiquette or cause offense.

She centered her breathing as her eyes adjusted to the flashes and pings. "Oh my god," her hand flew up, smacking the aerator, unused to the extra bulk around her face.

Giggles erupted from the vocoder. "Commander Gree you, haha, you look...well..." Gree shifted, pulling the hood of the robe over his head while simultaneously flicking the edges of the robe over his pauldrons. He was struck, suddenly, by an urge he hadn't let himself feel since he was a cadet.

Grinning mischievously he stuck his tongue out at the young commander. "I look amazing! I think I might keep this." He flapped the edge of the robe at Barriss.

"I didn't say..." Barriss lifted the helmet and held it propped on the top of her head. She stuck her tongue out as if that would make him give the robe back.

He stuck his tongue out in return.

"Click click." Gree and Barriss' whipped their heads around at the sound.

"Lookin' good commanders!" Captains Styles and Grey stood, barely suppressing their laughter, Styles holding up his datapad, clearly having just snapped a holo of their superior officers.

"You are going to delete that holo right now, Captain!" Gree grumbled, pushing the hood back from his head.

"You are going to send me that holo right now, Captain Styles!" Barriss said as she strode over to the clone, holding out her hand. "Can I see?"

"Sorry Commander, but the Commander outranks you," Styles looked at Gree, eyes twinkling with glee, as he handed the datapad to the Padawan.

"Oh, yup, you're right Commander Gree. You do look amazing!" She beamed as she took in the holo.

Gree sighed, he knew when he was defeated. Pulling the purple hood back over his head he straightened and marched off towards camp.

"Hey! Your bucket, Gree! I need my robe back, hey!" Barriss yelled as she chased after him.

+++

oops this was way longer than I meant. If you made it to the end here, thanks for reading!

[girlfailurefelix]

what gave you the idea for borrowed time? did you have any other plans for it? (aka yap about it all you want)

so actually! i had been thinking about it conceptually for like two weeks before i wrote any of it (i was complaining to my sib about it cuz i was embarrassed to write since i hadn’t since i was a preteen/young teen lol) and it just drove me absolutely nuts cuz i couldn’t stop thinking about it at work.

just gonna establish now since it gets confusing: greg ≠ gregory. i treat them as two different characters in the same body. so i will not use them interchangeably on this ask, just like i don’t in my fic

cut because i am going to YAP

i wrote chapter one as an attempt to stop myself from thinking about it further (i was originally going to kill tony off and have it be a oneshot, either post-pizzaplex escape much like security breach’s bad ending c̶u̶z̶ ̶s̶o̶u̶l̶m̶a̶t̶i̶s̶m̶ or have him end up getting chased to the fire escape and yk, you can fill in the blank on that one. blah blah blah insert something here about tony’s very interesting, incredibly weird intro in the book. i’m still trying to figure that one out cuz other themes in the book [the celtic stuff specifically. this is a huge thing for me and i can go off about how it’s used in the book, but that’s for another post if yall want that] make that interesting if we didn’t know how ggy kills from the therapist tapes. actually, even though you can’t see it, this is how he dies in my cotard’s solution animatic. the knife in it wasn’t for killing him lol, his ass went off the roof [hence “i wanna make my murder look like a suicide”], but now i’m getting sidetracked). but one thing led to another and i wrote chapter 6 and the epilogue.

Chapter 4 was my last written chapter (hence why i don’t bother uploading individual chapters and just drop whole stories at once) if you don’t count editing several parts of chapter 1 (small tweaks for clarity purposes, not huge minus what i mentioned above. debated making this one two chapters but ended up keeping them together as a big one cuz it didn’t make as much sense when split up) and chapter 5 (i originally wrote the car ride to the pizzaplex cuz i thought it would be funny to make tony flip a tit and go hellaciously slow with the fear that he’d get pulled over cuz yk. twelve. but i figured it was too boring and discarded it).

the original title was actually a different song name. (super embarrassing but it was a hollywood undead song -another way out. i might use this later for a different, more fitting fic- cuz it helped me come up with a lot of the smaller details within chapter 1)

i did name it after the song from the death note musical cuz it can be interpreted about being about both tony and gregory. i meant it about gregory personally cuz at the end he quite literally is living on borrowed time (since tony’s death is the reason he’s able to get away from vanny. very remisa.), but tony is too throughout the entire fic, since obviously it’s an extension of his original implied lifespan (you’re welcome, you little shit.) and also cuz he’s putting up with (and being worn down by) greg’s shit the entire time in order to save gregory, even at the risk of his own safety, and i think that lines up really well too.

the chapters also all had individual names but too many were deathnote so i got embarrassed (og title of chapter 4 was the game begins lol, which is why the last sentence of chapter 3 was what it was)

color was SOOOO important. like the names i used were incredibly specific. i really wanted to emphasize how dead greg’s eyes are vs gregory, also how tony was losing steam cuz yk. traumatizing.

i based tony’s mom on mine lol. and she and my sib picked up on that immediately after they both read it (i didn’t have a beta cuz i didn’t take criticism or editing, but i did let them read it immediately) i know she doesn’t check on tony in the book when he sneaks out, but i figured that’s her giving him space, and i loveeeee projecting so that was reflected in the mom parts. mother’s instinct and all that. she totally knew greg was weird after the first night, he wasn’t just bullshitting on that part, but again, space (and yet another projection from a specific experience of my own).

greg. let’s fucking talk about greg. FIRST, he was gonna kill tony’s ass the whole time, despite chapter 4’s events. that was him being manipulative because i just don’t think greg *wouldn’t* notice tony’s behavior. as i wrote, he’s NOT subtle, even in actual canon. he meant what he said when he called him useful, and he certainly didn’t like feeling rejected, but don’t let him fool you, he doesn’t actually like tony. tony actually mentions this in chapter 2 as a possibility and much like his instincts in the actual book, he was right. it was just about dragging it out to make it worse on tony and getting something out of him as a bonus. i like to think of him as building on gregory’s original personality cuz virus, so he’s not that different, but he’s like,, worse if that makes sense. like the worst parts of gregory, amplified. with some killing, yk.

speaking of tony guessing, he was absolutely BULLSHITTING with the greg vs gregory shit. denial is not just a river, he just happened to be right. cuz seriously, he was two seconds from cracking anyway, i mean little dude is SO traumatized, especially at this point.

so gregory. he was able to communicate when half asleep cuz i think that greg/the actual virus would want him to experience the nightmares and such (agony continuing to feed the virus. yk. fnaf shit) to keep him in line. so this is the small window of opportunity he would have to even be a person, much less attempt to save himself. he’s miserable in this state though cuz tired and unable to be fully awake lol. also he can see everything greg does, hence knowing tony and trusting him, but he can’t really do anything about it. he’s always present though.

ellis wasn’t in this besides mentions because of multiple reasons. 1, i wanted to make it clear how much greg was isolating him. like that’s on purpose. 2, it would’ve gotten too convoluted to have tony protecting both of them in this specific case. and 3, i knew i wanted it to loop to security breach, so ellis would’ve interfered with that unless i killed him off. regardless of the fact that i personally see him dying in addition to tony as the canon post-ggy events [cuz let’s be real, regardless of if he believed it, he read tony’s paper. that’s a loose end and a disaster for greg waiting to happen. i don’t think he would risk it, especially since tony’s immediate disappearance would be sus as fuck.], i didn’t feel like killing him off needlessly.

so i actually sobbed after re-reading the end. giggled and kicked my feet about how awful it would be while writing it, but rest assured, it kicked my ass after. like to the point that i considered scrapping it and letting them get out safe (which is where the AU with Sunlight on Your Skin came in), but i knew this was the proper ending for both of them. greg ended up getting his way in the most fucked up way (tony was useful.) but also failing in the same breath, tony got to save gregory (giving him a far more satisfying character arc than his original, meaningless death. also fulfilling the void left by the guilt from not being able to help his dad’s fate), and gregory got saved, even if it was a hollow, tragic “victory” for him.

also i originally was going to have greg fatally wound tony as he won the game, but i wanted to bring in vanny (cuz of the “friends” comment from the beginning and it being brought up again by greg in one of the middle chapters) cuz A) i love my wife and B) it felt /too/ sad and angsty to the point of overkill (no pun intended)

oh. and gregory does actually like tony back, he wasn’t just saying it cuz wanting to escape and then him dying. just so we’re all aware. maybe not at that point as much as tony does (and not as much as he does in sunlight on your skin’s au continuation, cuz actually actively getting to be himself would help.), but it would’ve worked out if tony didn’t yk, kick the bucket. sorry if that makes his death worse.

[zellk]

My question is about Qalaa! She’s got an amazing design in every iteration so I wanted to ask what were your main inspirations for her? Also could you tell us a bit more about her story?

Hi there ! Thank you so much for your kind words about my babygirl ;A; !!! Everything started circa 2014 when I started to play Wakfu again with @shuuzaar and decided to make a red-skinned osamodas. She also now exists in multiple universes (a minotaur or tiefling in DnD, a demon/oni, a dragon, etc etc).

It wasn't a very conscious & willed thing but since I put a lot of 'myself' into her (more than all my other OCs, who have more... handpicked bits) so her build started to grow towards the larger / bigger side naturally. I'm definitely not as big, nor tall as her though (I am short and she's like, 209cm tall or sth).

Her general themes / traits are : A kind, soft & gentle soul in a body that is 'made' for killing / hurting easily because of it's size and strength. Feeling inadequate / dysphoria / struggling to accept her body because it doesn't fit what she likes (petite and feminine girls). Struggle to control flares of emotions & physical strength. And being very, oh so very gay about girls and feminine people (this is a very important part ok).

In time I've been slowly collecting pictures of athletes and people that make me think of her and trying to refine how she looks in my head ! Though, like many of my characters, the specifics tends to change depending on how I feel on the moment... sometimes I want her nose a bit more like this or like that... don't be surprised if her gallery isn't the most consistent in terms of facial features :,^)

One thing that definitely DID inspire me for her though are the marks on her body ! They are inspired from scarifications of the Chambri tribe in Papua New Guinea https://bodyartforms.com/blog/sepik-river-scarification.asp)

As for her story, well, my current DnD group where I play her has given me a lot of opportunities to flesh it out a little more >:^D I'll try to keep it short.

Qalaari was born from an unplanned pregnancy. Her mother, Aamira Molandine, was someone with a very weak health due to a blood curse running in her family (more on that later) ; but despite her health she decided to keep the child and see the pregnancy through. Her father, Temhos Croquelune, is a member of a tribe of "beast folk" (this is tweaked and adapted to fit in various universes when I can) and, while enamoured with Aamira, was really not ready to have a child, and to potentially have to raise it alone should Aamira die while giving birth. After yet another argument with her about getting an abortion for her sake and the sake of them both, Temhos ran away during the night and never came back.

~6 month pregnant Aamira found refuge in the Croquelune tribe under Temhos' sister roof, Olgha (who also had a crush on Aamira & both her and her brother tried to court her). The travel took a heavy toll on Aamira's already weak health and yet she somehow miraculously survived the delivery of her (very) big and healthy baby girl Qalaari. Qalaari was raised in a very loving home by Aamira and Olgha, but developped a big resentment towards her blood father, especially since after giving birth, Aamira remained a very sickly person with a broken heart. Aamira died when Qalaari was 13, which kind of forever scared her and worsened her struggles to control her emotions.

Remember the Cursed Blood thing ? Well basically, it's a curse that either 1) eats you alive if your body is too weak to handle it (Aamira's case, which is why she had a weak health from the beginning) OR 2) enhances the physical potential of your body, but tends to make you lose control and become little more than a beast (Qalaari's case). So yeah... she's trying to get better but she has a lot of healing to do with her inner child and that's not easy... especially with the layers of self hatred the cycles of her life are bringing in :^) !

EDIT : I FORGOT TO ADD that Qalaari is currently exiled from the Croquelune tribe. The circle scar on her clavicle is the mark of the exiled, who are sent away from the tribe for 3 years before they can come back. The practice exists to try and get people to grow 'outside of the community' before coming back in it as a slightly different person. The once-exiled people are reintegrated in the tribe when they return if possible. Olgha, Qalaari's aunt-in-law and adoptive parent, has a mark like this! This exile is definitely not the best solution ever but it's been done for so long in the tribe that it's hard to yknow... challenge the system of it.

Anyway if you've read to this point, thank you for listening to me fail miserably to keep this short... Qalaari is one of my dearest OC, so it's really hard not to gush about her in a 3 hours TED Talk everytime...

Thank you for this kind ask ! Hope you'll have a good day :> !

[devilheartsblog]

Synthwave (Gantlos x Musa) Massive Info Dump

Before I start shoutout to that one Russian who makes edited pics of these two.

Don’t mind me yapping about these two because I think they’d make a good pairing IF you write them well enough. I can easily see Gantlos being used as a moral scapegoat to make Riven look better in comparison, despite Riven saying his gf changed when that’s literally her special interest and she’s the FAIRY OF MUSIC!

Anyway the ship mostly started as a joke when I found out about Fairies of the Black Circle and brainstormed some interactions for a Season 4 rewrite but the more I thought about it the more I think their dynamic works and my friend @calissarowan agrees with me (and in return they lade me ship Dumantlos)

Enemies to Lovers is actually fire

This is my biggest argument for the ship and that Enemies to Lovers is honestly a dynamic I’ve grown fond of after seeing it being done right in some stories.

The biggest one I can point out is Ace Attorney tho it’s more Rivals to Lovers. Long story short Miles Edgeworth is Phoenix Wright’s rival as the prosecutor in the first game. He ends up being a suspect for the last murder and Phoenix, as the defense, decides to take his case and defend him. Throughout the story we learn about their character and how Edgeworth is the reason why Phoenix became a lawyer, and Edgeworth ultimately redeems himself by bringing down the true culprit of the overarching story built up during each episode/chapter.

Gantlos and Musa are obviously enemies fighting to get Roxy and later on the White Circle. While they don’t have many interactions, you can use your imagination; Musa taunting him while he brushes it off to attack her and maybe banters back in a similar fashion to Anagan, and even shits on Riven for being a bad boyfriend. Now if we tweak Season 4 to make the wizards more useful we get the Winx and wizards banding together to stop the Earth Fairies from getting rid of humanity, and as the story goes Gantlos opens up to Musa and they grow closer, eventually fighting tooth and nail to have eachother’s backs. I know this is fanfiction territory but I don’t like how the threat of genociding humans was brushed off while the wizards’ treason and sending Nabu into a coma was treated like blasphemy (which I mostly blame the writers for killing him off tbh)

Basically the enemies to lovers dynamic opens for a lot of character growth and thus better dynamics for them. Not to mention it being very interesting overall when done right.

But Harper, why would they even like each other?

While I can’t give a direct reason my answer lies within the other characters. It’s well known Riven and Musa are very shitty to each other, with how Musa sets up too many expectations on Riven who’s new to dating, and Riven’s jealousy and insulting his gf’s special talent. The others also push them to be together when we all know where this is going… Anyway, Musa has said before she needs someone to support her but it’s obvious she likes bad boys. Well, if you think about it Gantlos fits her type perfectly. Again he’s stoic and a jerk at times but if you’re someone he’s close to he’ll show you he cares. I mean, his concern over Duman is why people shipped them so I can see him comforting Musa when she’s sad or scarred. And here’s a bonus, the reason she gets back with Riven every time is because he’s brave and strong and able to protect her. Guess who stopped the metro to protect his friend despite it possibly costume both their lives: GANTLOS! She’d be head over heels for him if he was a good guy!

For Gantlos you’ll have to bear with me here. I’ve noticed in the show he’s not respected on the same level as the other wizards: Ogron acknowledging his ideas ONLY after he’s proven wrong, Anagan saying he may have lost his mind and Duman insisting he’s wrong in Episode 16 (god I need to make a rant post about this someday). And since Musa can listen to the song in his heart and empathize with him she’d maybe treat him better and with the respect he wants. Maybe they get closer and he starts to have romantic feelings towards her and wants to stay by her side to protect Musa.

The Dynamic:

I should walk you guys through the dynamic we cooked up tho. Gantlos is obviously the jaded and stoic guy to contrast with Musa’s more “romantic” and snarky vibe. Even if Gantlos is evil he’s shown to have a soft side mainly for the people he cares for. Musa would tease him about having a soft side which he would deny until he caves in. I doubt Gantlos would be a pro at talking about his feelings, stumbling on his words and downplaying it, which doesn’t work on Musa since she can read the song in his heart (remember how that was established in one of the movies?) And with both of them being aloof or giving off that vibe even if they prefer to be alone they can be alone together, like two introverts getting hyped about each other.

Of course I can’t ignore the fact they would also argue and fight, Gantlos calling out Musa’s bad traits while Musa insists he’s not being good and he’s still a villain. It’d be rocky and they’d both be stubborn, but I think Gantlos calling Musa out would open her eyes to the fact she’s also to blame, while Gantlos gets talked by Ogron or Anagan that he was being too harsh on a lady. They talk it out in a healthy manner and no drama is dragged out for about 15 episodes.

Dates/Hobbies ideas (a lot of headcanon territory here)

In terms of dates I think it’d range from fun, to chill, to spicy. I can see them just hanging out by themselves listening to music together in a park or Musa’s room. With their more aloof nature they would probably do things like stargazing when it’s peaceful and nobody’s around, opening up about issues they have while the other comforts them.

I headcannon each wizard knows how to play an instrument and Gantlos does the electric guitar which is why he can summon seismic waves and has similar powers to Musa (sound waves, seismic waves, ya know). So he can jam out on a guitar while Musa sings to the melody or sing a song to her. Yes I also think he can sing, but the other characters assume the opposite because of his constant yelling, so him and Musa could duet (and they seal it with a kiss cause dhskdjsj it’s perfect that way)

Restaurants would be nice. I doubt Gantlos eats much, same for the other wizards, so he’d scarf down anything and wait for Musa to finish afterwards.

They could brush each other’s hair, maybe Gantlos braids Musa’s hair if she wants. Musa could also give him a massage whenever cause he needs it.

And lastly I don’t really talk about steamy stuff but I’m 90% sure they’re both freaky switches.

Marriage? Child?

Sorry but I can’t see them married, but that’s because I’m not big on marriages. But either way Gantlos is definitely moving from the sewers to her house and maybe has to work on his criminal record to get her dad’s blessing. I can imagine them having a mesh between a rock concert and the typical wedding stuff for theirs.

I’m also not a fan of fanchilds cause I can easily see the characters being reduced to “mom and dad” but maybe that’s a me problem. I’d imagine they have a daughter who’s very punk/rebel and she’d be a guitarist whose weapon is the same guitar she uses for her rock album.

The End

So far that’s all I have to say about this ship. Maybe I’ll talk about how Riven could factor into this or the tragedy of it all if it follows the cannon ending of Gantlos being stuck in a frozen hellscape after betraying Musa, her friends and the Earth fairies. But otherwise let me know that you think in the Reblogs and I’d appreciate anyone sharing this post because I feel like Synthwave would be a fire crackship.

Otherwise I’ll see you guys next Wednesday, buh-bye!

[akysi]

This one was a long time coming, updates to The Chamaeleon Three! It was a difficult and delicate balance to strike with editing each of these, making sure their concepts and symbol integration were strengthened while streamlining a few things as well.

Lepus’s palette and design accents are very similar to Centaurus’s right now, as I plan to overhaul Rus’s colour palette with his own tweaks later. Between the two I think it fits Lepus a bit more.

I was already happy with Lynx’s prior pose so most of that was copied over here, and overall his tweaks are slightly more subtle compared to the others.

It was just a matter of cutting back on a few things to balance the level of detail and colour placement, which was easier said than done! Chamaeleon especially, I didn’t want her to lose her neon flare when trying to simplify parts of her design, so I had to take a long break after looping back on myself too many times. I’m not sure why it didn’t occur to me earlier to combine the concept of the mottled skin of a chameleon with spray paint splatter for her, but better late than never I guess! I wanted it to be more obvious that she’s a tagger without having to rely on her holding her spray gun or paint cans all the time.

I’m not sure who got the biggest glowup between them, but I’m super happy with all three, especially the improvements in the posing and overall anatomy/structure. This was quite a few months in the making, but it’s nice to see it complete now :) ---------- The constellation symbols for Chamaeleon, Lynx, and Lepus were originally designed by Denis Moskowitz and released to the public domain

[beegswaz]

OK WOO!!!! JEREMEJEVITE DESIGN BREAKDOWN! KINDA!

This may end up being A long post, so it Will be tagged as such for filtering :) ONWARDS!!!!

Starting this off with her Initial concept sketches! I was trying to figure out what her face should Look like, and I think the left image Was closer to what I wanted, both in how her Hair looks and how her face Looks (even if it's A bit simple)

The singular head horn stuck Around throughout the Entire design! You'll see some attempt passes at Giving her more spikes to fit with Cleos original design, as featured above the sketches :) (the gems were All decided right when I made the document, so Any relation to other fusions is Just a coincidence!)

You can see it in The left sketch, but Originally I tried to Give Jeremejevite Pearls' almost crescent hair swoop, which Stuck around for a good while :) This is the Only other time Jeremejevite will have Long hair too, which goes to Show how little attachment I had to it..

Originally she was Going to be in a sort of Suit, as seen somewhat in the right sketch. This idea instantly fell through, but The pattern on the collar accidentally makes A resurgence in her Final design!

Her technical first finished design! This is where I ironed out a lot of ideas you'll See later on, like gem placements, rough colour scheme, limbs, and Her split-dyed hair!

...As noted to the right of her, this Design was WAYYYY too Cleo-heavy, I was basically just Turning her MC skin into A gem! I hastily tried to Make up for that with Scotts' coat-thing and Pearls' sleeves, which..... Somehow made Jeremejevite look MORE like Cleo..???

This is the last time you'll Ever see her with long hair, or With two eyes on Her faces left half, among some other things (Like the Shirt from Cleos' MC skin)

Right after this I made a test sketch before Asking for help from my mutuals/followers.

RIGHT HERE was when I decided she would have Short hair (That... Ended up getting Shorter the more I drew her..?)

The fur collar goes Kind of hard, I won't lie, but I am still very happy with What I ended up with. Around here I was still trying to mix Pearl, Scott, and Cleos' designs, which had... varying Success rates.

AND HERE IS THE DESIGN MY FRIEND @biggitybugs MADE! You all should follow it btw, he helped me A ton with figuring out this design, and also its art is amazing <3

You can see a few things that made it Into the final design! Namely the top, the hair and skin Colour, and the Boots! This was also when I realised I used too much red/pink in The original design (Though I don't believe I remedied that in The final design..)

A sketch of her second design! (Third, if we're Counting bugs design) I started straying away from Mixing the three gems designs and instead I started making her seem Like her own character.

Some things ended up in the Final design, and you can See I swapped the Side that was "dyed", which is Also carried over to the last Design :)

I ended up turning to Pinterest and Looking up "Alt Fashion" which, barely Helped me, but it Kicked off the Jacket and the weird undershirt gloves! I also looked up "Steven Universe OCs" to see some Other design conventions, but I just ended up scrolling and Looking at the cool Designs..

I did a designing Stream a few days ago where I tried to get more outside Input, and Kayden (@spottedside) ended Up saying she should have chains And a cropped jacket + crop top. Which. Oh My God. I forgot those Weird cropped cut jackets existed and it Changed. Basically everything.

There's not much to Note in these sketches, aside from the small right one being the Most similar to the final design. You can even see the neck Chains!

Aaaand the final design! I still believe I overdid the red and maroon, but I think this design is ACTUALLY the better of the 3 (4?). I could still stand to Edit this design, but I am currently happy with where I am. However, I implore anyone who wants to To edit this design with their own tweaks! Just, yk, credit me Somewhere for the initial design :)

And no, the chains and cuffs Don't mean anything, they're just dope. (Do you see what I meant about the First sketches collar design Making a reappearance?)

[dazyxi]

;; RYWD WRITING (REMEMBER YOU WILL DIE) @vapolis — content warnings: very brief mention of sh (digging nails in skin), derealization (slightly), and smoking. notes: not lore accurate. i wrote it for fun, and it's very short becauseeee... i didn't know how to continue it from that point ibr 😭😭i don't write shit like this sooo it's very fast-paced and sloppy!! — you're not seeing double! this is a post with added content because people started liking it and the author saw it (thank you so much for the sweet words!! it made me so happy to see that you enjoyed it!!💕) and i was like ohmg!!!! so i wanted to tweak it a little. there's an extra 300+ words, but i didn't really edit the content beforehand, so if it's confusing, sorry!!

The air is thin in Ivy's lungs. The breaths she's expelling are heavy, heaved, and drawn out. She's struggling to inhale and exhale. To breathe. To function. Her room is too tight, the walls too closed-in. In short, she feels like she's being choked. Strangled. Not just by this apartment room, suffocated by life. And she doesn't know what to do. There's no out. She's stuck. Stuck in this endless loop. Stuck in a role. A rabid dog on a tight chain. A vicious animal waiting to be set loose. A psychotic murderer who shouldn't be trusted. Stuck proving them right.

She's mad. Not at Orla. Not at the people who labeled her. At herself. She put herself in this situation. How could people think differently when all she does is fit into their title? Whenever she's given the choice to do the right thing- be better- she does the opposite. Maybe she got comfortable with the low-held expectations. Got used to being held in poor regard. I mean, you can't disappoint someone who never had hope, right?

Her skin is crawling with discomfort, and her posture is rigid as she sits against a wall. A lazily bandaged hand lays against her exposed collarbones. An attempt to ground herself. Flesh against flesh. Warm flesh. Not cold.

She's disoriented. Alienated. As lines of reality turn fuzzy, and she starts to get distant, she mentally wrangles with herself. Nails start to press carelessly into olive skin while her mind ripples with static. This feeling, the sickening nauseation of being trapped, is clawing through her. Seeping into her bone marrow. Sticking itself to her permanently.

Strands of her black hair are stuck to her face by sweat. The sweat that beads from her hairline and trails down her cheeks, joining tears she was unaware of. She feels pathetic. Helpless. She wants to give in. Let herself melt away. Instead, she lets her hands fall to her side in a clumsy action, leaving crescent-shaped indents at her collarbones. They're laced with a left-over stinging sensation but no blood. She starts to count her fingers. Starting with her index finger. . . then middle finger. . . ring finger. . . pinky finger. Index. . . middle. . . ring. . . pinky. She repeats it over and over and over until she's sick of it. Sick of calloused fingerpads scraping together in a strange anchoring method. Blearily, she mocks herself through the disorderment, This is all so stupid. Get over yourself.

She stares at the ground. Exhausted. Her gaze flits around the rays of neon light cast from the windows and onto the floor. Squints at the cracked wood. Scrutinizes the fractures. She drags her eyes upward to the window, the presence of Vapolis leaking through the glass. It's taunting in a way. Slowly, she regains her thoughts, the repeated buzz being replaced. Her mind scrambles to catch up with her emotions, and a moment later, she's frantically digging into her pockets. Her fingers catch onto the cigarettes and lighter, messily dragging them out of her jacket like she's on borrowed time. She flips the lighter on after she's stuck a cigarette in her chapped lips. Briefly, she eyes the dancing flame. Observes as it spins and whirls around like a dandelion in the wind, only less innocent.

She places the fire underneath the cig, and soon after, tendrils of smoke billow into the atmosphere. She sighs out clouds of mist while the familiar rush of pleasure pangs through her. Easing slightly, she lets her body slump, head tipping upward and hitting the wall. Her sore eyes flutter shut, her shoulder still tension-filled and clamped up at her sides, but the looming factor of dread has settled. Somewhat. It's still at the forefront, lingering in her mind. She takes another drag, and it begins to haze over.

One hand still holding her cigarette to her lips, the other struggles to help herself up on wobbly legs. They feel like jelly underneath her weight. "Fuck," she mutters, her voice strained. Wrecked. She stumbles toward the bathroom, and on the way, her feet nearly catch on the mass of random objects lazing on her floor. 

She nudges the door open with her arm, blinks as it creaks open to reveal the cluttered state of the room. She mumbles. Something dumb, trying to be funny, like, What’s that about your house being a reflection of your mind? A rasped scoff escapes her mouth, and she doesn’t like how it sounds when it rings in her ears. It’s dull, devoid of the usual mirth. Not that the mirth is ever really real. It’s fine. Pretending is something she’s good at, comfortable with. She enjoys it. She’ll eventually learn how to do the same being a puppet– or maybe hound is a more fitting word.

She staggers in, immediately supporting herself with her hand on the dirtied tile of the sink. Frowning at the reflection in the spotted mirror, she scans it. Black hair sticks up, tangled and mused, with dried blood at the tips. A split lip and a bruised face with swollen eyes. Red-lined scleras, violet irises glowing in the yellow hue of the light. She doesn’t recognize the woman she sees. She's trapped in skin that’s not her own.

She watches the woman pluck the lit cigarette from her mouth. Hold it between her crooked index and middle. Watches her pull the corners of her dry lips upwards. It’s too toothy, the smile. There’s crimson-red itching underneath it. She doesn’t know if it belongs to her or someone else. The unsettling grin fades as quickly as it rose, and smoke leaks from her lungs and into the air. A deadpan settles on her expression, eyes half-lidded, and it looks strange on her features.

Her mind wanders, thoughts messy and daunting, growing anger festering. It wraps around her bones, causing her to shake. She welcomes it, the feeling comforting. More comfortable than whatever she was feeling earlier. It's whatever. She'll adjust. Conform to fit the mold. Easier than trying to break it or reform it. She always does what's easier for her. Less work. At the end of the day, she did this. What's that saying? Nobody to blame but yourself?

[morningstargirl666]

THE LITTLE WOLF UPDATE

It's here. The new improved chapters 1-3 have posted. Read The Big Bad Wolf's prequel from the beginning here. Chapters 4 & 5 should be posted a week from now, either on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, depending on when I finish it.

Think of it as my little gift to you all - I hope you all have a Merry Christmas (or a Happy Hanukkah!). And for those who don't celebrate either, then Happy New Year!

If you want more details on all the changes I made to The Little Wolf, read below. It's not too spoil-ery but it's not exactly spoiler-free either, so by all means come back later to see if you found all the changes I made! Extra kudos to those who notices them all.

Over 20k+ of brand new content. This includes two new chapters (chapter 2 & 4 respectively) and around 20 or more new scenes to devour across the entirety of the fic.

Original scenes have been tweaked and expanded upon, with longer conversations or scenes between characters.

All punctuation, grammar and spelling has been proof read repeatedly. I won't say it's all perfect, because I've probably still missed bits, but its in a much better state than it was before. Dialogue grammar in particular has had a complete overhaul, which should make everything much easier to read.

Each chapter has song lyrics at the beginning, fitting the vibes or themes of the chapter. This is a part of a playlist that I will share in Running With Wolves after completing the editing to The Big Bad Wolf (which has it's own share of songs, compiled with a mix of the music I listen to while writing and music I feel embodies each chapter).

In a similar thread, new timestamps have been added whenever there is a time or location jump. Again, this is a change that will be happening to The Big Bad Wolf as well to make flashbacks clearer. Upon completion of TBBW's edit, a timeline will be added to Running With Wolves so you can see all of the events that take place in the series in chronological order.

Historical accuracy has been given a bigger focus. Obviously, there's still a need for suspension of disbelief (vikings never travelled that far south in America, horses weren't introduced to America until the 1500s etc) as I'm no history buff and I personally believe you can allow a little leeway for sake of creative freedom. However, that said, I've tried to right the most egregious wrongs by Julie Plec: the white washing of the native Americans, the almost European-Christian culture of the Mikaelsons' village (views on bastards, women like Rebekah not carrying arms and being all innocently feminine even though they were warrriors too in viking culture, lack of historical accuracy in settings/costumes/props etc) and of course, the complete lack of explanation behind how the vikings arrived in Southern America. Hopefully it should feel more alive, and I'll probably add even more in the final FINAL edit that will happen once I've finished TBBW.

The Little Wolf's main focus is Klaus' characterisation arc. However, in this rewrite, all the Mikaelson siblings get more screen time and you get their characterisation arcs in the background, as a treat.

Henrik is much more fleshed out as a character. He's mischievous and playful, a lot like Kol, with other attributes from the other siblings thrown in. He's also got more Youngest Sibling energy, just as the other siblings have Middle Child/Eldest Child energy, because in a fic about family, really that's the most important detail of them all.

I've delved deeper into Mikael and Esther's treatment of Klaus and how it wasn't much different to how they treated the other siblings after all. Don't get me wrong - in my mind Klaus was dealt the worst of Mikael's physical fury, but I don't believe 'he was singled out' is as black and white as the show would lead you to believe. That's not how abusive households work.

Talking about Klaus' characterisation, think of this fic as the death of Niklaus Mikaelson, leading to the birth of Klaus, The Original Hybrid. The Little Wolf leading the way for The Big, Bad Wolf. You'll get innocent baby boi Niklaus of course, but that same innocent kid has a feral side. When you become a vampire, it heightens who you already are and Klaus - he had that fury and violence in him all along, and it wasn't just because of the wolf.

In a lot of human-era Originals fics and the actual shows, when they're turned into vampires its all very planned out. Idk, like Esther and Mikael are evil villains twirling their moustaches? Turning their children into vampires, its all very pre-meditated, oh the horror and everything. And although there is elements of that in this rewrite (they ARE shitty, evil parents after all) I tried to do something a little original myself. In this fic, more focus is given to the family's grief and how Henrik's death becomes the shatterpoint for EVERYTHING. His death causes every bad decision made by the family from that moment on. It's less of "I planned to make my children the most powerful beings to ever walk this earth" and more of "I tried to save my children and didn't expect ANY of this so wtf do I do now, another bad decision? Yeah let's do that". You feel me? Hopefully that comes across anyways.

Okay what haven't I mentioned yet... WEREWOLF LORE. Yeah that's been expanded on and fleshed out some more. You get a glimpse into my take on how the werewolf gene is triggered, along with a coming of age ritual, general culture, outsider prejudice against werewolves etc...Klaus' views on them is much more explored, especially in relation to his heritage. Kinda playing with the idea that him being a bastard was never the problem to Mikael or Klaus - it was him being a werewolf.

Since I started re-writing this I watched way too many of Mike Flanagan's series'. So I kinda went all 'Midnight Mass' on the Mikaelson's village. Oopsies.

In a similar thread, the raven from the Fall of The House of Usher left a bigger impact on me than I like to admit. That's something so sexy about an omen of death okay leave me alone I NEED THE FORESHADOWING

There's probably more, I'm disclaiming that now, but I've forgotten. Go forth and devour my lovelies ✨

[an-act-of-will]

Random tidbits of advice no one's asked for about writing but I've learned over the years

In no particular order:

Don't worry if your first draft is messy. That's what editing is for.

You won't learn anything from nitpicking the same story for years. End it and then edit.

Between edits, take a break of a specified time so the work can breathe. I do one to two months. You might need only a week or three days.

Don't be afraid to experiment, in your writing or routine. Stepping out of your comfort zone is the way to grow.

Don't worry if you can't pinpoint a precise 'routine.' I don't have one and I've written for almost a decade.

Let your characters speak, but don't let them monologue. You will need to play God to wrangle them into place. If you can't get them to behave, you might need to make a new character.

Don't delete anything permanently. If you really like a scene/chapter/character/whatever else, but it doesn't work in this story, put it in a separate document for future inspiration. You'll be surprised when you can re-use it with some tweaking.

Number your drafts. Please. Just do it.

Back up your work.

Back it up again.

Save your work before you close the program if it doesn't do it automatically. If it does, save anyway, then refer to previous two pieces of advice.

Don't be afraid to try silly writing 'hacks'- the 'writing in comic sans' one works well for me.

Get someone else to read your work and see where it needs some love. Prepare specific questions for them so they know what you want from them.

If you've been stuck for quite a while, the problem is in your last sentence. Don't delete it- I put it in brackets and move on as if it doesn't exist. You can also turn the text white on a computer, or cover it in a dark highlight color on the computer, or cover it with your hand if you're writing longhand.

If you write longhand, I salute you.

If you think the problem is in the last sentence, it might be the last scene. Do the bracket trick and move along.

Momentum is key. Don't stop to research when paper clips were invented (1867, for those wondering, by a gentleman named Samuel B. Fay. They were originally used to attach tickets to fabric.). If you know you need to research something later, put the item to be researched in brackets. Something like [CHECK DATE OF INVENTION OF PAPER CLIP]

Don't feel bad if you can't think of a specific or common word. I've forgotten the word 'lunch.' It happens. Put the approximate definition in brackets like [WORD FOR MIDDAY MEAL] (As you've noticed, I use a lot of brackets).

When it's time for editing, read through it first and take notes either on the manuscript or in the document. I color code mine, then include a key because I'm forgetful. For example, green is often a continuity error, red is something that can be cut, blue is where a scene can be added. I use changing the color of the text, highlights, and adding notes in my writing document.

Don't shell out money for expensive writing tools if you're not sure if you'll use it. Free word processors and office supply store notebooks are fine.

If you're well and truly stuck, move to the physical world and write longhand, even if you write digitally the other 99.99% of the time. I've found that it almost 'unlocks' parts of my brain that are understimulated.

If you do take the physical world approach, school notebooks and index cards are your friend. The notebooks are great for rambling and figuring things out, and index cards are amazing for writing short descriptions of scenes and physically moving them to see where they fit best.

If those don't work, you can always try the rubber duck technique I've heard coders use- use a rubber duck (or a stuffed animal, or a picture, or anything else) and talk your problem out. You'll probably see the solution once you articulate it. I use a wolf stuffed animal and record on my phone. You'll feel ridiculous, but it works.

Don't be afraid to feel ridiculous. It's a hobby that takes you down rabbit holes.

When I'm done with a chapter, I often use my text-to-speech function on my computer and listen to my story. It helps me catch typos that are other words. For example, 'bed' typed as 'bet' instead.

Your word processor isn't perfect. It will miss mistakes, and it might make new ones. To, too, and two and your and you're can be tricky for them.

Research your made-up names thoroughly to make sure they don't exist as other things.

If you have an idea unrelated to your current session, make note of it. You will forget it and you know you will.

Don't forget to take care of yourself- drink water, eat, and take breaks even if you're worried you'll break your groove. The words will still be there when you get back.

[arimiadev]

May Updates – Android Ports & Editing

May was a very hectic month for me personally, so there wasn't much progress made this month - but that doesn't mean there wasn't any!

Asphodelium

In May I was asked a simple question - will there be an Android port for Asphodelium? I almost immediately responded "no, it would need too much reworking", but then I got curious.

I assumed the small size of the text (as the story is completely NVL) would make it too hard to read on mobile, but I went ahead and (after a few Java downloads and updates) made a build for it and tested it out. It's actually quite readable and only needed a few tweaks. So, off and on for a few days I tinkered with a build of it, testing it out on my phone. And I was able to release it!

You can now play this Android build for free on itchio.

To go with it, I also released the stickers & print set I've been working on of Hazel & Aster on the store! Rather than have them be separate, I included them all under 1 pack for $10. You can find them on our merch store~

Canvas Menagerie

I wrote about 4k words for Canvas Menagerie. I also did a fair amount of editing for Act 2 of Canvas Menagerie, proofreading what's there and trying to make sure it all fits together.

There's one somewhat frustrating character in particular that is fully introduced in Act 2 who's named Rose - I won't go into who he is for spoiler reasons, but I will talk a bit about him as a person. Rose is a very secretive person with low self-esteem and not a solid self-image of himself. He's quiet and can come across as rude because of how little he responds to others, preferring to keep to himself.

Rose's sprite, which I was able to work on more this month!

Rose is very important to the later half of the story and a fair amount of it is centered on Niko trying to break Rose out of his shell as they're now coworkers. However, it can be hard for 2 reasons:

Rose isn't a love interest

Rose doesn't respond honestly (and hardly at all) to others

Rose isn't a love interest - Ren is. This is a romance game about Niko and Ren's growing relationship rather than a simulator game where there's multiple love interests. It's surprisingly hard to balance having scenes between two characters that could theoretically date but aren't going to. The overall focus is on Niko and Ren, but Niko and Rose's relationship is also important to the later half of the game - it's just not romantic.

Rose doesn't respond honestly - Rose is a very timid person, mainly because he doesn't have much confidence in himself. Rose is similar to how Niko is at the start of the game, but the interesting thing about their relationship is that by the time they meet, Niko is a different person. He's not overly confident, but the Niko that Rose meets has become more confident in himself and more comfortable with others than the Niko we first met at the beginning of the game - it's only because of meeting Ren that Niko changes. So, in a way, it becomes Niko's job to do the same for someone else.

I swab some lavender paint, hesitating to lay it down on the canvas. Just as I reach over to my phone, there's the sound of one of the doors opening. —And then, the door to my painting nook. Rose "Ah—" Niko "Oh." As probably the last person I thought I'd see, Rose steps in the warehouse room. Just as quickly as he stepped in, he looks like he's about to run off again. Niko "What are you doing here?" Rose "I—" Rose "I got turned around..." How do you get so lost to end up here?! Niko "What were you looking for?" Rose "...The script reading rooms." Wow. I know this studio can be confusing to navigate, but that's a whole new level. Niko "That's....kinda far away...." Niko "W-Wait, I didn't mean to laugh!" Rose tries to hide his face and shut the door, but I quickly reopen it. I'm not good enough at giving directions so he'll definitely be lost if I don't help him. Niko "Do you have to be there immediately?" Rose "...No?" Niko "Well, if you'll give me a minute to clean up then I can walk you down there." Rose "..." Rose "...Sure." He says everything with a careful pause. Canvas Menagerie - Act 2

I call Rose "frustrating" because, while I do like him, I sometimes feel like I'm Niko while writing his scenes - it feels like I'm trying to pull any kind of information out of him with little to no avail, just like Niko. I hope by the end though we're able to see Rose's true colors!

Last but not least, May 31st is a special day - it's Niko's birthday!

But I'm writing this in June a few days late because I was at OffKai Expo so....

HAPPY PRIDE! 💜

— Arimia