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ezdotjpg · 7 months

Note

do you have any directors commentary on the recent two updates? 👉👈 the color palette is absolutely lovely! and and and WOLF!! :DD

OH BOY DO I

In the original draft of this chapter, Wolf stays a, uh, wolf until like the 4th update. Instead of actually managing to get his teeth on the master sword, Loft threw him off immediately. The Deku Tree still said the line about all three of them being heroes and Slate is like. “Including the fucking dog????!” I thought it was very funny but a) it made some scenes later down the line a huge pain and b) I was tired of drawing wolves ALDKDKD

You may have noticed Wolf’s scowling in the bg of almost every panel. That’s kind of just his face, but also right now my guy is nursing the world’s biggest migraine from popping the shadow crystal out of his skull. He can stay wolfmode for a while, but it’s still technically a curse. It’s not consequence free, and there’s an upper limit for how long he can spend in that form. Anyway, cut him some slack if he’s a little prickly for a bit.

There were a lot of comments about Loft being strong enough to toss a wolf over his head lol. My hc is that he’s one of, if not the strongest Link sans any magic items like power bracelets or gauntlets. He’s actually not even as strong now as he was during his quest. Wolf maybe has him beat now, but he can still get tossed lolol

It might seem like Slate’s really taken everything that happened at the end of ch1 in stride, but don’t worry. He’s simmering. Loft is grateful for the opportunity to get distracted by something else. Maybe that’s why he was so willing to approach the wild animal he’s never seen before lol

This maybe goes without saying based on the events of the last two updates, but Slate never had wolf link with him during the events of botw. He doesn’t recognize Wolf.

I’m really glad ppl seem to be liking the colors bc I struggled with them so hard on both updates 🫠literally days of me turning to my roommate and going “I think I’ve never made anything worse” and them going “it looks good stop being dramatic” WKDJDK I have this thing where if I had an idea in my head for what an update should look like, and what I produce doesn’t meet it somehow, I start seeing in fucking. shrimp colors. Posting always gives me a confidence boost back lol.

these pages were cursed in general bc like. this doesn’t usually happen but I think I redrew every panel in this update at least 5 times each. that’s part of why it ended up being late SKDJF

I REALLY like the idea of being in the presence of the Triforce and having access to its power being this eldritch, divinely horrifying experience. The sort of thing that is impossible to explain to anyone and also haunts you forever. Loft spends a lot of time actively trying not to think about the Triforce. Just, like, remember that about him.

Like how tears in reality are shown through holes in the literal comic panels, I tried to show the concept of reality bending in the form of a panel stretching and twisting like a ribbon ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ I hope that came across. Triforce lore varies a bit from game to game, but I’ve come up with my own internal logic for bonus links that combines all the ideas I like lolol. We’ll learn more about it in due time!

I also really like this parallel :D I intentionally set up the panels so past and present loft would line up like this. i love getting to draw flashback links it’s so fun to think of ways to convey what they used to be like, and how their quests might have gone for them. Past Loft’s not having a great time by the time he reaches this point lol

I think that’s all I’ve got for now. Thanks for asking :D

#long post #askdotjpg #bonuslinksdotjpg #bonus links #bonuslinks #bonus loft #bonus wolf #bonus slate

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princessbrunette · 7 months

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rafe being president of a frat and saying readers brother can only get in if she sucks him off

thinking about this concept with this rafe? yes.

‧₊˚👛✩ ₊˚🎀⊹♡

you never knew floorboards could be this sticky, and that people could smell so strongly of beer. you didn’t particularly love frat parties, but you’d been looking for an excuse to get drunk after the week you’d had, and wear that new little skirt you knew you looked good in. as your group gets let in to the building, you’re stopped by the shoulder — and you huff as you watch the rest of the girls wander off without noticing your absence. you put that down to doing too many shots at the pre-game.

“and what do we have here?” you’re greeted by rafe cameron, his hand still clasping your shoulder, can of beer in the other. “what, you gonna… walk right in n’ignore me? where’s my hug huh?”

“you don’t get one. you told my brother he can’t join your stupid frat.” you feel pathetic at the way you border on a pout, crossing your arms over your chest what you hoped to be intimidatingly — which only make you come across as a sulky brat.

rafe tongues his cheek with a smug chuckle, looking away and nodding as a greeting at a familiar face passing by before turning his attention back to you. “who cares, a’ight? ‘kids a loser. i’m actually doing the guy a favour, he wouldn’t fit in.” he resists an eyeroll, bringing the can to his lips and taking a sip.

“you’re purposely excluding him! and — and you didn’t even give him a chance to prove himself.” you furrow your brows making his jaw tick, looking around incase you made a scene. he leans in, voice a little quieter.

“cry me a river. alright? that’s just how this shit goes. now is there anything else you wanna say?” he raises his eyebrows and you back down, deciding it’s not worth it. you were here to get drunk after all, and getting kicked out before you’ve even really entered would spoil that plan completely. you blink up at him silently and he nods. “no? alright then.” he steps back, gesturing with his head for you to go inside. “run along, sweetheart.”

but that’s not the last you see of rafe that night — if you’re not ignoring his usual stares, or glares if you’re talking to another guy — you’re dodging his attempts to try and get you to come over, where you know he’ll end up being all touchy and condescending (and you’ll have to totally deny that it’s turning you on.) regardless of your attempts to evade, he catches you anyway at the drink table, wrapping his arms around your waist.

“you know, i— i have been thinking about what you said.” he gets straight to the point, and your interest is piqued.

“about my brother?” you spin to face him eagerly, so he all but has you backed up against the drinks table, wet smirk on his face from the lip of his beer bottle.

“mm.” he hums, a faux pensive frown finding his face as he nods as if deep in thought, only further drawing you in. “i uh, i think there’s something we might be able to do. you know, a little agreement.” a salacious smile spreading on his face.

your brows knit, lashes scraping them as you look directly up at him — and it only made him wanna chuckle, because you just looked so doe eyed and pleading. he did believe you’d do just about anything.

“like what, rafe?” you sound unsure, but you could probably guess the direction things were headed. he leans in, his mouth hovering over your ear so that he could speak up and be heard clearly.

“i’m saying i…i would be willing to take a bribe. some oral persuasion goes a long way with me.”

you surprise yourself when you end up on your knees in a locked guest bedroom, the taller boy happy as ever as he fists his cock infront of you. even he was surprised this had worked, so he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to draw the whole thing out.

“c’mon rafe, just lemme—”

“nah, nah…” he licks his lips, batting away the hand that reaches for him. he pauses for a moment, looking you over with drooped eyes and parted lips. “i really, really think it’s in your best interest to start beggin’… let’s hear it.” he shrugs, stopping everything to stare you down. you huff, hot in the face and humiliated already.

“please, rafe. let me suck you off.” you mewl, quietly because you can’t bring yourself to speak any louder. he laughs boyishly, tongue poking out as he does so.

“yeah uh, i meant beg for me to let your brother into the frat— you really want this dick in your mouth though don’t you baby? huh?” he teases with a grin and you go all dumb and glassy eyed, barely able to think straight. he clears his throat and sits up straighter at your reaction. “alright, it’s okay— don’t go getting all… upset.” he dismisses, a clammy hand sliding round the back of your neck to bring you closer. “c’mon, get to work. you know what to do.”

you give him your all, because if you were going to stoop this low all for your brother, you might aswell make it worth something. you hollow your cheeks, you drool, you play with his balls, you take him down as far as you can go — all things you knew would get you in his good books. it seems to be working, praises starting to tumble past his lips when you gag on him instead of teasing you.

“shit, good fuckin’ girl. keep takin’ it.” rings through your ears as you switch to jerking him once more, tongue swirling at his tip. this seems to be what sends him over the edge, and just to ensure your place — you swallow.

he’s surprisingly soft with you as you both recover, the cameron boy wiping your mouth on the back of his hand and watching you catch his breath through his own wrecked panting. bless your heart, you’re staring at him with these big hopeful eyes, rimmed by watery mascara and pink scleras, batting gloopy lashes at him like he had all the power in the world. a dangerous thing for a man’s ego.

rafe tucks himself back into his pants, letting out a relieved exhale before cupping your face— leaning in and pressing a kiss to the centre of your forehead. he pulls back, gazing at you with an unreadable expression for a moment before patting your cheek. “i’ll think about it.” he presses his lips in a tight, malicious smile before he stands, walking to the door.

you stare, stomach twisting at the lack of promise despite your efforts and you turn your head from your knelt position, jaw agape. “c’mon, up you get. wouldn’t want anyone seein’ you like this, right?”

‧₊˚👛✩ ₊˚🎀⊹♡

#anon #rafe cameron prompt

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breathlesswinds · 6 months

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(Devlog) What We Learned Making A Trans Dating Game

Hello, Amelia here, the writer for Breathless Winds. It's been 250,000+ words, countless revisions, and three years since this game entered development, and I wanted to talk about what I've learned leading up to release.

The concept for Breathless Winds was actually sort of a joke between friends. I was talking with Doris about how there should be a dating game where you play as a trans woman and your dating options revolve around certain ‘tropes’ we’d both seen in trans fiction-- the totally accepting cishet guy who falls in love with the trans heroine before she even knows she’s a woman, the cool trans woman who the heroine doesn’t know if she wants to date or wants to be, and so on.

Doris wound up suggesting we make this game ourselves. We both like visual novels and want to tell LGBT stories. Still half-jokingly and half-seriously, we started fleshing out what the romance options would be and coming up with a setting-- and soon, we were fully committed to making this game real.

I was a fan of visual novels but had only ever written prose. I knew which visual novels I liked and which scenes stood out, but I didn’t know why they did or how to make my own.

I read some great advice from visual novel developers, but a good amount of my knowledge came from just working on Breathless Winds. As our first project, this game has grown a lot with us and we’ve learned a lot while making it.

Learning How to Write Visual Novels

A bad habit I had to break out of was only using the ‘novel’ part of the game and not the ‘visual’ part. I would sometimes write “He smiled” or lines like that, and Doris informed me that we can convey this much more simply with a sprite change.

It sounds obvious in retrospect, but lines like that are often pretty invisible when you’re reading a non-visual novel. These lines change the sprite of the character inside your head (if that makes sense, haha). I realized that I’m so used to them being ‘invisible’ that I didn’t notice their absence in visual novels I liked, so I would accidentally include them while writing.

I was also writing these routes in a word processor, so I didn’t have the visual portion to reference, myself. I wound up making a lot of ‘tone’ notes like, “Lantana should be smug here” so that the meaning would carry when revising and implementing these into Ren’py.

So, while visual novels share a lot with prose, they’re an entirely different medium. On the subject of representing things visually, I’ve struggled trying to figure out how much can be visually represented and how much should be written.

Every asset in the game has to be drawn by Doris, so if I want the characters to go to a new location for a scene, I have to keep in mind that’s another background that Doris has to draw. If I want a new character to show up, that’s another sprite she has to draw. I don’t want to overload her, but if I’m trying to avoid this entirely, characters sometimes wind up standing in one room talking for ages without anything significant changing on-screen.

I’ve learned that it’s recommended for something to almost always be changing on-screen, though, so sometimes I just have to ask Doris to make a new asset for a certain scene. I still try to stick to locations/characters that already exist more often than not.

Every single thing in a visual novel is deliberate. Another thing I’ve had to learn that I never even considered before is how to write each line so it fits in the text box. It sounds obvious, but when I’m playing a visual novel, I don’t usually think about how each line has to be carefully constructed so it doesn’t need to be split up into two or more text boxes. In my mind, if a visual novel is well-created, there’s not much that breaks a reader’s immersion.

Planning & Outlining

The previous section might sound really weird to some people, so let me elaborate. I’m a lifelong ‘write by the seat of your pants’-er, so the biggest trial-and-error of creating Breathless Winds for me was planning out the game.

Initially, I created outlines for each of the four routes, and we agreed ahead of time on which CGs each route would have. That way, Doris could draw the necessary backgrounds and CGs while I was in the long process of drafting this game. My original outlines weren’t great. I know a lot of people have different experiences with writing, but for me personally, a story is always shaping itself in my mind. When I started making the outlines for Breathless Winds, I knew the concepts we wanted to convey, but I didn’t know what each route (and the game as a whole) was really about yet. This might sound weird and unprofessional, but sometimes, I don’t know what a story is about until I finish the first draft.

So while I was writing, I would look at my outlines and I would think, “this doesn’t actually make sense, he wouldn’t say that” or “this plot point would work better if moved to this other section” or “there’s a plot hole here I didn’t notice”. The story wound up changing a lot in this way as I learned what it’s really ‘about’.

And even after I finished the first draft, I’d get feedback from Doris and/or my editor and they would suggest fixes to problems that even I hadn’t noticed, and then I would revise the route some more, and later on I’d come back and need to redo part of the route to comply with something I wrote in a later route-- I haven’t really felt ‘finished’ with Breathless Winds at any point, and I think I’ll still feel this way after the game is released.

This means that sometimes, a background was created but would go unused because there was no space for the scene that would use it, or we’d need a new CG last-minute, or so on.

When I’m figuring things out as I go while writing a non-VN, the only person that I can adversely affect is my own self… so I’m eternally grateful for all of Doris’s patience with me on this matter. I think Breathless Winds has come out a much better game for all the re-plotting and revision.

I redid the outlines several times as I went. I think I’ve understood how to create outlines that personally work for me-- ‘living’ outlines that hit all the main points, but leave wiggle room for moments when a character does something unexpected, work the best for me.

Scope Creep

So, originally, each route was meant to be 40,000 words. “With four routes, that’s only 160,000 words!” I thought. “And some of my favorite visual novels are about that long, so I can write that much, too!” ← clueless

This is the most infamous mistake that new creators make, and I walked right into it. I should have known better since I’ve bitten off more than I can chew with past non-VN writing projects before, but I was starry-eyed and didn’t realize how much work it is to make a VN. Some of those favorite visual novels I referenced were made by much larger teams, writers whose full-time job was writing (I wrote all of these routes on the side while working at a day job).

If I could have done it again, I would have asked Doris to start out with a really short VN. But, I don’t regret making Breathless Winds at all. It’s brought Doris and I a lot closer, for one. Every time I thought I wanted to give up on this, Doris would motivate me to continue. Without the two of us both and our strong friendship, Breathless Winds wouldn’t exist, and I think that’s beautiful.

No matter what, we’re going to see it through to the end. (I hope people like it, though…)

Anyway, here I am talking about how much 40,000 words is. Each route now is about 60k to 70k words. The problem with having evolving outlines is that they can often evolve into double their original size.

We came up with the idea of the poachers really early in development, and then not addressing the poachers felt like a failing, but by that point it was too late to remove the poachers entirely… and so the game wound up a lot longer dealing with the poachers.

I think that if we had an editor sooner on in the game’s development, then we might have had someone to tell us, “do you really need all of this in the game? Does this plot point really need to be there? Will you be able to write all of this in a reasonable amount of time?”, haha. But Doris and I were really excited about the possibilities of this game when we started creating it, and without anyone to reel us back in, we wound up coming up with more and more things we wanted to put in the game.

Did you know there was going to be an island full of talking rats who say things like “the big cheese” and stuff all the time in Breathless Winds? Yeah.

The Core Design Philosophy of Breathless Winds

So, for anyone who’s read this far but doesn’t know yet-- the premise of Breathless Winds is that you play as a trans woman who doesn’t know she’s trans yet, and she finds love with one of four love interests as she discovers her gender identity.

In real life, it can be a lot messier for a person to date when discovering their gender identity. To put it briefly and mildly, a trans person’s life and sense of personal identity can rapidly change during a gender crisis and the early stages of transition.

However, we wanted to make this game a ‘wish-fulfillment’ type story-- a trans fantasy about acceptance, community, and love. During a gender crisis, it can be easy to feel as if one has lost touch with themselves and become isolated from others. A sincere wish shared by many trans people is to be accepted, loved, and even celebrated as their true gender, not just tolerated.

Since many trans people don’t get love and acceptance in real life, especially with the ongoing transphobic moral panic, we wanted to create a game that would bring this feeling of trans joy and celebration to trans audiences.

We also hope that cis players will still enjoy the story and characters, and maybe come away from the game with a new understanding about being transgender and other aspects of LGBT identity (although we never intended this game to be ‘educational’).

Making Characters that Celebrate Trans Identity

Although we went through several revisions, the core identities of each character stayed the same since the game was first ‘jokingly’ pitched. In another post, I discussed how each character is themed around a change in seasons. (I also wound up theming them around the four humors when I was initially concepting them-- I really wanted to avoid too much ‘overlap’ in the LI’s personalities, haha).

Ultimately, characters are created to serve a role. The LIs in Breathless Winds were designed to be love interests, of course-- characters who would appeal to the hypothetical trans femme audience. As mentioned earlier, we modeled them after other trans fiction tropes because these types of characters have a certain tried-and-true appeal, but this left plenty of flexibility to put our own spin on it.

A trans woman being loved as a woman by a cishet guy can feel like a high form of ‘passing’, ‘fitting in’ to the female gender role, and being validated by his orientation. He only likes women, and he likes you, so you’re undoubtedly a woman. As a cishet guy, he represents a sort of acceptance into a societal norm that trans women can desire to live to. (Lantana, as a cis lesbian, represents the sapphic counterpoint to this-- although there is of course a big gap between the ‘normalcy’ of a cishet man and a cis lesbian woman, and I don’t mean to say those two are equivalent.)

But not all trans women want to live to that (cis) societal norm. Rue and Valerian, as a trans woman and a trans man respectively, are the t4t options.

Rue’s route represents that trans/sapphic ‘envy’ (“do I want her or do I want to be her?”) as well as finding power in community aside from what society considers ‘normal’. We’ve always been pretty clear about what we wanted to do with Rue’s route.

We went back and forth a lot more on Valerian’s route. Initially, we were unsure if he should be trans. He and Rue are the two less-friendly love interests (at least initially), so I was afraid it would come across that t4t is a more hostile option, which is not true at all. But it also felt like a mistake to not have a trans man in the game-- but making Gallardia trans would have required a big overhaul of what we had in mind for him and his route. (Although, childhood friends t4t is a really good idea...)

Beyond that, Valerian takes a villainous role in any route that isn't his own. We were worried that it would be wrong to have a trans antagonist who represents unjust power. However, Breathless Winds is a queer game with other positive trans characters, and we've always approached Valerian as a hot anti-villain man that you can't help but like.

In the end, Valerian’s route is about breaking generational cycles and what it is that makes you a man, and I also managed to sneak in a scene where they dance at a ball in the royal palace, so in the end I think it all worked out great.

Wish Fulfillment and Catharsis

Doris and I both agreed that we wouldn’t depict on-screen transphobia in Breathless Winds. Poppy worries about not being accepted, but fear of acceptance can come with any change in identity. Rue was rejected by her family for being trans, but this doesn’t take place ‘on screen’ in the game. There exist certain metaphorical parallels for transness and transphobia, but every route has a happy ending.

Following up on this-- it can be difficult to write about discovery of gender identity without writing about transphobia, considering how many trans people suffer from internalized transphobia during their period of repression.

Sometimes, repressed/closeted transgender people ‘hyper-perform’ their assigned gender as a form of denial. A trans woman might grow out a beard and join a gym, while a trans man might become very interested in makeup and feminine clothing.

In Breathless Winds, Poppy often struggles with ‘strength’ and what it means to be a man. In several routes, she tries to prove her strength under the assumption that being stronger would make her happy. Afraid the world would reject her if she became who she really is, she preemptively rejects herself.

Not every trans person suffers from prolonged denial, internalized transphobia, or even gender dysphoria. I don’t think it’s impossible to tell a purely-positive story about trans joy.

While Poppy never gets rejected for being trans, faces transphobia, gets called a slur, etc, she faces both internal and external (metaphorical) obstacles to realizing and accepting her identity.

Gallardia represents a societal norm that Poppy can’t live up to herself as a man.

Lantana suffers from certain aspects of her identity as a woman, which makes Poppy feel guilt for wanting to be a girl.

Rue is isolated from town at the start of her route, a ‘punishment’ for breaking this societal norm.

Valerian has to hyper-conform to his masculine gender role at first in toxic ways before finding acceptance from within and from his loved ones.

These struggles are real to a lot of people, but instead of pretending they don’t exist, I hoped to tell a story about catharsis. Poppy is able to live up to her truth as a woman and finds love with Gallardia, Poppy and Lantana redefine what being a woman should and does mean to them, Rue and Poppy find community in others who don’t fit the norm, Poppy and Valerian stop seeking gender validation from a society that was never made to serve them.

Although these powerful forces of oppression exist, loving yourself as a trans person- and loving those around you, protecting the natural world, and standing up for what you believe in- can save the day. That’s the kind of story we wanted to tell.

Wrap-up

There’s a lot more I could write, but this has already gotten really long (sorry!) so I’ll wrap it up here.

Learning how to write a visual novel in terms of technical skill (how to depict events on-screen, how long each line should be) as well as in terms of writing skill (how to outline the game, how to plan visual assets) has been a massive undertaking for me.

Writing Breathless Winds has been a big challenge but also deeply rewarding, and all of your support has made the experience even more wonderful. Thank you for reading and thank you for supporting the game!

#visual novel #otome #dating sim #amare #trans #lgbt #breathless winds

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lumosatnight · 10 months

Text

23 Fic Recs 2023!

This year has definitely been a year. I've devoured so many wonderful fics by so many amazing authors. Thank you @hprecfest for the super fun rec categories and for some fic inspiration! Here are 23 fics that I read and loved in 2023 (although some are quite a few years older) ordered by ship.

🌼 - fluff | 💔 - angst | 🔥 - smut

—

💫 DRARRY 💫

1. A post-canon fic

The Discreet Gentleman's Connection by pluto (gayrights420) [Drarry, E, 80.4k] 🌼🔥 I had the absolute pleasure of beta-ing for this fic, so when I say it is amazing, it truly is just that. Fast burn on the smut via Floo sex, slow burn on the in-person falling in love. Satisfying in all the best possible ways.

2. A fic that made me laugh

AITA for being "obsessed" with my childhood nemesis? by @rainstormradish [Drarry, M, 4.3k] 🌼📲 Draco on a reddit forum is hilarious just on its own, but the banter and formatting really bring this fic to life. Amazingly creative, had me in stitches!

3. A comfort fic

The Eighth Tale by @letteredlettered [Drarry, E, 12.0k] 💔⏳ An oldie but a goodie. I constantly find myself coming back to this fic and having my mind blown every single time. Time travel timey-wimey angst.

4. A fic with art

Dating Draco - A Visual Game by @itsphantasmagoria [Drarry, M, Video Game] 🌼🎮 This is a fic in video game form!! Amazing art and lovely story where YOU get to make the choices for Drarry's happily ever after.

5. A favorite series

The Journal of Dreadful Things by @lilbeanz [Drarry, G, 112k, WIP] 🌼📖 Hilarious, witty, AND COMES WITH ART!! Lilbeanz draws and writes a wonderfully delightful series starting from Draco's First Year. His characterization had me in hysterics. Book 4 is starting soon!

—

💫 COMMON SHIPS 💫

6. Fic with the hottest smut

Moonstruck by @prettyremus [Wolfstar, E, 3.8k] 🔥🐺 Found this gem while scrolling through the werewolf smut tag (don't judge me). I love the switch in dynamic with Sirius taming Remus's wolf through, ahem, rough sex.

7. An unreliable narrator fic

Sea of White by @dividawrites [Harrymort, E, 8.6k] 🔥🤍 Deliciously hot, creepy, and strangely sweet. Love their dynamic here, the unrestrained lust. Harrymort "die" and lose their memories, so, of course, then they bang.

8. A fic that made me cry

Far Apart, Far Away by @unmistakablyoatmeal [Hinny, minor Drarry, T, 1.6k] 💔💍 Infidelity angst has never been this good. I love the layers of emotion in this fic. Quick punchy sections that really pulled me in.

9. A Muggle(?) AU fic

Pleasant Hope by @ac1d6urn, @sinick [Snarry, E, 41.6k] 💔⛪️ Pastor Severus!! The angst, pining, and self-discovery in this fic is superb! I love the interwoven magic and detailed world-building of this little town.

—

💫 RARE PAIRS 💫

10. A fav amongst faves

The Last Trial of Peter Pettigrew by @sleepstxtic [Prongstail, M, 20.8k] 💔 🐀 Holy moly, this fic!!!! Is this my new favorite fic?? Possibly. The concept is brilliant, so creative and nuanced. The Peter character study using outsider perspectives is genius. Seamlessly balances canon and new scenes.

11. A pre-canon fic

Careless by @tax-onomic [Luther, E, 1.5k] 🔥🪞 Lucius/Arthur my beloved rare pair!! I am captain of the Luther ship, and Tax's fic hits all the right spots. The pining, the sniping, the prickly personalities with emotional vulnerability underneath! And all in the middle of a hot smut scene. Perfect.

12. A canon-compliant fic

Scottish by thepadfoots [Chedric, G, 749] 💔🌟 Lovely Cho character study focused around her Asian identity and the boy she loved.

13. A fic rated G (more like T though)

Lion-Hearted Girl by MinnieQuill (odainath) [Minmione, G, 4.5k] 💔🦁 I know the large age gap might scare some, but their relationship feels very organic in this fic. The setting is grim, but there is always hope in the darkness!

14. A fic rated T

You're So Vane by @patriceavril [Romelina, T, 6.8k] 🌼💄Romilda is so delightfully characterized, I was smiling through the entire fic. Angelina is the perfect foil (and love interest) to Romilda's attentions.

15. A rare pair fic (less than 2000 fics on AO3)

Snakeskin by @cntrl15 [Bellastoria, E, 3.7k] 🔥👠 Talk about a rare pair! Astoria/Bellatrix only has 2 tagged fics on AO3: this fic and the drabble I wrote based on it. But read this fic, and you'll see why I felt the need to write more in this universe.

16. A fest fic

Master of None by @nanneramma [Snormac, G, 5.5k] 🌼🧘 Severus is so wonderfully cranky, and Cormac is fine AF. The surprise pairing of 2023 that I never knew I needed and now I'm obsessed with!

17. An under-rated fic

Sun, Shadow, Shade by @naomijameston [Snuna, G, 700] 🌼☀️ Post-war fluff. Sunshine Luna is the perfect match for sullen Snape. A short and sweet fic for this underrated ship.

18. A canon-divergent fic

but somebody's gotta do it by nocturn [Pangulus, T, 920] 😄🧟‍♂️ This fic will make you say WTF but also huh, okay that totally works. The concept is WILD but Lyra executes it wonderfully. Pansy drags Regulus out of the inferi lake and they flirt a little while he gets de-corpsified lol.

—

💫 POLY SHIPS 💫

19. A dark fic

In his embrace by @loneamaryllis [Snarrymort, het!Snarry, E, 48k] ⚡️👀 Dark and dirty but so so good. A Voldemort Wins AU where fem!Harry is taken as prisoner. Snape's mindset as he tries to save her (and is forced to rape her) is so twisted and mesmerizing. Mind the tags!

20. A thought-provoking fic

Icarus by @thistlecatfics [Millvansy, M, 20.0k] 💔🍾 War trauma, addiction, codependency! This fic is messy with emotions but has a strong, beating heart underneath. I am in love with Parvati as she deals with Pansy's addiction and Millicent's denial — three beautiful, imperfect girls.

21. A holiday fic

A Time, Dark and Divine by @moonflower-rose [Dronarry, E, 17.0k] 🔥⛱ HOLY FREAKING FUCK!! The sexual tension in this fic is off the freaking charts. Drarry seducing Ron while on vacation in Portugal. Sign me the fuck up!

—

💫 GEN 💫

22. A favorite fic under 5k

The Scrunchie by @saintsenara [Lightning Era Girls, G, 4.5k] 💖👭 Such a lovely look into some of the female background characters, all following the path of a single scrunchie. Lisa, Padma, Parvati, Hannah, Sally-Anne.

23. A fic with an ending I can't stop thinking about

Through the Middlegame by @sandervansunshine [Astoria & Peter, T, 6.6k] 💔♜ Devastating, heart-wrenching, tragic. 10000% would recommend. Kylee has already heard me screaming in the servers about this fic. If I could get a fic tattooed straight onto my brain, this would be it.

—

💫 BONUS RECS! 💫

A podfic

Plenitude by @wilfriede, written by eldritcher [Amelmione, M, 14 min] 💔🥀 Amazing voices, amazing music, amazing ambience. Wilfriede really brings one of my fav Hermione/Amelia Bones fics to life in this podfic!

A comic

War Prize by @mrviran [Snegulus, Reggiemort, M, Comic, WIP] ☠️🐍 The panels are awe-inspiring. I am HOOKED on this comic. The murder and the TENSION. Ughhhhh so good. I am so invested in Severus's arc!!

A self-rec (completely self-indulgent)

For I Have Found Salvation by @lumosatnight [Snarry, E, 7.1k] 🔥✝ My first time writing Snarry! Priest Kink, church sex, and blasphemous religious imagery. Priest Severus is oh-so-tempted by Teen Harry. So fun to write and even more fun to go back and read as a guilty pleasure.

—

⚡️ Want more fics to read? ⚡️

Try my rec tag: #lumosinthelibrary

Year in Reading, b-day oneshots, WLW Library

#2023 fic recs #hprecfest2023 #year in reading #hp rec list #drarry #wolfstar #harrymort #hinny #snarry #prongstail #minmione #snuna #dronarry #lumosinthelibrary #2023

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lucrezianoin · 1 year

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Astarion-centric fics recs (49 fanfics)

I will divide them by ship. They are all complete unless specified. Also, if a fic is not here it does not mean that I did not like it, I could have forgotten it or just not seen it given that there is a lot of Astarion content!

Just make sure to read all the tags warnings when you open the AO3 page. I added the non-ship focused but Cazador focused ones at the end.

Also it feels weird to rec my own fics, but in case you want to read astarion h/c I am writing you can find me here at LadyRagnelle (for now all DarkUrge or Tav/Astarion).

Regarding if this reclist might be useful for you... there are a lot of Astarion fics, a lot of tags used and a lot of preferences! I have a very particular preference for a specific kind of fic (h/c, whump, softness, mainly) and in the case of Astarion I tend to not read nsfw, usually. So if you have been around my blog and you think we might share fics preferences... maybe these are the fics for you too! I will update this post with time.

I am trying to add a small description to all the fics, but I prioritized adding the links, so some of them do not have a description yet, but they were beloved in my bookmarks.

GEN (no ship)

Prying eyes (unsupermarket) - One of my absolute favorite. Karlach and Astarion share one of Astarion's nightmares (thanks to the tadpoles).

Reflecting endless down the hall (Asidian) - Each chapter is dedicated to one of the companions and the way they interact with Astarion, each chapter connected to a part of his past and trauma.

TAV (OR DARK URGE)/ASTARION

After all that I can do for them is done (votiveviscera)

To Aid and be aided (Beppoberry) - Post Cazador, taking care of each other.

Between the lines (Slothquisitor) - Amazing story about Tav gifting Astarion books.

Broken mechanism (laquearia) - Character study on Astarion's "Don't touch me".

Copper blood and silver hearts (netherprince)

The darkest corner of Baldur's Gate (Nebulad)

(Don't) lose your head (CL34R)

Don't you hear me praying? (ridgeline) - Short haunting story about Astarion's trauma.

And his pretty hand hold my leash (osiris_ryes) - one of the few nsfw fics in this rec list. This has some amazing Dark Urge writing and manages to use nsfw scene without ignoring the consent issues present in the game.

Hold me without hurting (fairbutnotsomaiden) - Astarion disassociates, Tav is kind.

I could feel my life begin (Flowercitti)

I have a good place to hide (Flowercitti)

I know how this will end (MyFandomCausesHanaji) - Amazing Dark Urge story about Durge trying to stop themselves from killing Astarion - and reliving the same day over and over.

A long dead pulse (enthugger) - Post-Cazador, Tav takes care of Astarion.

Made / Unmade (Adaphyl)

Mortal shortfall (titasylase) - Giving a gift to Astarion + act 1 angst, perfect combination.

Not something that I was but what I played (WitchyBee)

Out of wine and flowers (enthugger)

Porcelain (cweepa) - Astarion is sick, and he really cares about how he looks. Absolutely stunning story full of very delicate hurt/comfort and angst. I've reread this so many times.

Savages (cweepa) - Astarion finds a kitten.

Seducere (Tlon) - This is THE fanfic. I remember waiting every night for the new chapter. It narrates Astarion's past and his present in the game. Heartbreaking and haunting.

Specter (justfortune) - post game fanfic about Tav and Astarion's new life together, with some interesting concepts about personal space and sharing life.

Suck the rot right out of my bloodstream (Flowercitti) - I love Flowercitti's stories so so much. This one is specifically about consent. Please, read all their fics.

Vanity items (Flowyen) - Incomplete fic, but still amazing. Just Astarion receiving genuine compliments.

You only feel it when it’s lost (gettin’ through still has a cost) (Flowercitti) - Flowercitti's Tav takes care of Astarion after Cazador.

The way you are (imprinted on a page) (cryptidvaquero) - Tav draws Astarion as a gift.

Was it something you ate (Anoke)

Water down what I call being grateful (Flowercitti) - This fic was written for one of my prompts. I will be eternally grateful because I love stories that deal with looking right through Astarion's seductions.

HALSIN/ASTARION

Animal I have become (Ulfrsmal)

Free (Faetality)

Handmande (BerlinBelin) - One of my favourite, absolutely stunning series about touch starved Astarion trying to ask (with difficulty) fo non-sexual intimacy.

Known in its aching (BerlinBerlin) - sick fic with so much tenderness.

Never gonna fall for (modern love) (Dwinkle) - Halsin offers Astarion his blood.

Through sneers and words snide (BerlinBelin)

HALSIN/TAV/ASTARION

Working on it (casswathever) - Very well written series with multiple fics, I particularly loved the relationship discussions.

WYLL/ASTARION

To die with you (WaterSeraphim)

A dream of sweet things (Asidian) - delicious h/c, trust issues and some nightmares too.

Innocence died screaming (Flowercitti) - Wyllstarion fic that starts from Astarion's past with Cazador, from his turning into a spawn. Ongoing.

KARLACH/ASTARION

Repairs (Asidian) - Heartbreakingly angsty fic about Karlach finding her touch again and Astarion expecting their first night to go a certain way.

The Things you miss (Asidian) - A very sweet fic about Karlach and Astarion interacting.

ASTARION/SEBASTIAN

A lyric on your tongue (justfortune) - Sebastian and Astarion meet.

GALE/ASTARION

The heat is only skin deep (ThatKorka)

POLY

Sharing (Asidian) - a touch of angst, touch starved characters, act 1 spoilers so slightly present consent issues.

CAZADOR-FOCUSED (no secondary ship)

Fake it (deerna)

Lost and never found (arenathesia)

Thou art mine (sophos) - The story of Astarion learning how to keep Cazador happy.

your reflection can't offer a word (to the bliss of not knowing yourself) (undermounts)

#astarion #halsin #wyllstarion #karlach #karlachastarion #dark urge #my fav fics #fic recs #astarion fic recs #fanfics #bg3 spoilers #mind the tags please #cazador

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epiicaricacy-arts · 1 month

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without the sour the sweet wouldn’t taste

why are you as a man eating another man’s ear after you failed to make him eat his ex girlfriend. 🤨🏳️‍🌈⁉️

im allowed a bit of toxic yaoi. as a treat

process discussion utc ⬇️

for those familiar with my work you’ll know that i like trying a lot of new styles and experimenting in order to achieve a certain vibe. usually those are heavy painterly styles such as the sunday art inspired by Yuming Li, which is what i’m familiar and comfortable with, both traditionally and digitally

what im NOT familiar with is watercolour. i’ve never had a good time with it 🥲 i just cant seem to wrap my head around the process since its requires me to work backwards (light to dark vs dark to light)

for this piece i just couldn’t imagine myself rendering it in my usual style. i needed to do something new so that i’d stay invested enough in the piece considering that it has two people, meaning double the work. for some reason i thought it’d be fun to do double the work with a style i am completely uncomfortable with but oh well!! i managed to do it 🤷‍♀️ i was specifically looking at the works of Ko Byung Jun, an artist i’ve seen all over my pinterest feed

while i didn’t end up really following the style super closely i still learned quite a lot just by looking at it while i drew. i tried my best to stick to watercolour brushes and an ink pen but as i was nearing the end i needed to make some alterations that i wasn’t bothered to try fixing with the watercolour brushes so i just went over it with my digital ones 🫡 i did my best that’s what matters!!!

i had to repaint rody a few times cause i just couldn’t get it right and the colours never ended up matching vincent. i painted them separately and i think i got possessed while painting vincent cause it happened in like. 40 minutes. and i couldn’t get it to happen again 😔 it didn’t really matter cause i ended up going ham with the curves tool as always but you know 🤷‍♀️

here’s the image without all the effects:

i find lately it’s been more and more common for me to be sketching several iterations of a concept for days, even weeks before i land on something i like. i have an entire separate canvas that i’ve spent 5 hours just doing thumbnails trying to figure out how i wanted to pose these two in a way that would showcase the characteristics that mattered in the story of this piece.

that’s my process for coming up with drawings: i find inspiration somewhere, i figure out the key concepts/characteristics/symbols etc i want highlighted, and i work around those. sometimes i have a composition in mind or just a general vibe i want to portray. for this one i wanted to make sure the towel, rody’s injured finger and vincent’s face could all be clearly seen, while also portraying the fight scene and the vibe i get from the reference song. almost all of my work revolves around a specific lyric from the song which drives the story of the piece. here i interpreted the line “without the sour the sweet wouldn’t taste” as a connection to all the little actions vince takes with rody that can be seen as “sweet.” drying rody’s hair, bandaging rody’s cut. i then asked myself how i could take those actions and make them “sour” or show them in a different light, in which vince is biting the finger he bandaged and pulling rody closer, preventing his escape with the towel he used to dry his hair. what im trying to communicate in this illustration is the idea of “if it weren’t for how i’m treating you now, you wouldn’t understand how kind i was to you then” in an attempt to illustrate the complexities of the way vincent acts towards rody.

i’m truly in love with the story telling of this game. it’s hard to really say anything about how the characters acted during the story because it’s so complex in how it’s done. it’s very hard to summarize their relationship because there’s so much about it i can’t explain without just quoting the game directly. i think it’s such a beautiful portrayal of obsession and just being fucking weird about someone. i wanted to ensure the elements i mentioned in the above paragraph because i didn’t want to be portraying vincent as solely a villain and rody as a victim. i wanted the storytelling of this one illustration to live up to my impression of this beautiful game and i hope i did it justice.

thank you for reading this if you’ve made it this far. i love rambling on all my art posts cause i think it’s so valuable for artists to expand on their work outside of the result alone. i hope what im saying is at most helpful to someone and at the very least a good read. i’m probably gonna take a bit of an art break after this since it took a lot out of me, plus im on the last days of my trip. thank you again for reading!

here’s my dog

#my art #fanart #dead plate #dead plate vincent #dead plate rody #dead plate fanart #dead plate game #vincent charbonneau #rody lamoree #digital art #artists on tumblr #digital illustration

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anistarrose · 2 months

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It's a little thing, and an underdiscussed thing — because it's a choice I appreciate their story for not doing, rather than one of the cherished wonderful things that it does do — but one of my favorite things about Barry and Lup's love story is this:

It's a mutual pining story that doesn't pull the "no platonic explanation for this" card.

It doesn't mock the mere concept of caring, devoted gestures possibly being platonic.

No one insists to Lup or Barry that their crush must like them back romantically, because "they wouldn't do X for just a friend."

Barry and Lup take their time getting together, take their time feeling comfortable and confident getting together... and it's fine. It's sweet, and it's the right choice for them. It's not a laughingstock.

Perhaps, you could argue that The Stolen Century just doesn't use this trope because of how tight the pacing is. Because Lup and Barry are technically supporting characters; because there just wasn't time for scenes like that. But I would counter that the lack of this trope also makes profound, thematic, characterization-level sense.

Because who gives Barry romantic advice, in canon? Who's obviously Lup's closest emotional confidante? Taako. Who has incredibly close, intense platonic relationships of his own with Lup and Barry. He'd hug them, he'd cook for them, he'd always be looking to spend more time with them, he'd teach them things with the utmost patience! He'd save their ass in a fight, and worry about them while they recovered from their injuries! He'd do it in distinctly Taako ways, not the Barry way or the Lup way — and crucially, they'd do the same for him!

So, why would Taako insist on fitting acts of care and devotion into a strictly romantic mold, when he performs them platonically, and sees them returned platonically? Increasingly with Barry, but especially and always with Lup — his heart? I truly can't see him pulling a "friends don't do that" for any reason other than his own potential insecurity, about the strength of his platonic bonds — a fascinating concept to explore, but one that his sister and dear friend are uniquely equipped to see through, and call out.

We don't just have to focus on Taako. I don't think the argument is even exclusive to him — the Starblaster as a whole is full of intense platonic and familial bonds. By the time that the Blupjeans pining is in full swing, 17-plus cycles in, everyone on that ship has grown indescribably close with people that they hold no romantic feelings for. I mean, come on — the platonic cuddle-pile game onboard has got to be insane.

A "no platonic explanation for that" from any of them would be.. well, weird, and would draw attention! And probably say more about their own mental state than it would say about Lup and Barry's relationship! What it wouldn't say is that "friends don't do that" is by any means true.

It probably goes without saying: among mutual pining stories where at least one other character acts as a wingperson, Blupjeans is so unique in this regard. And personally, as an aromantic person who's passionate and loud about the platonic love that I experience — or more broadly, as someone who just doesn't like people making assumptions about my relationships — the lack of this trope is so refreshing, honestly. Truthfully, a really understated complement to the way that Lup, while loving Barry with her whole heart, reaffirms that Taako is her heart — defying that norm that platonic, familial relationships be placed below romantic ones.

#taz #taz balance #taz balance spoilers #blupjeans #barry bluejeans #lup taaco #taako taaco #taz meta #now this isn't explicitly:#aspec taz #but it *thematically* belongs in that tag

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tipotape · 1 year

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10. Through a Kiss

Hi @tohru-n!! You're too kind. Thank you, I'm glad you enjoy my fanarts 💖💞

Yes, I've read "Those Gentle Slopes that Lead to Hell" before!! Such a beautiful fic! I read some of it years ago, and although I haven't continued reading the newest chapters, I still remember how compelling it was. There are so many scenes I love, but if I had to choose, then this is the one I remember and like the most:

I've always been so fascinated by the concept of taking soul through a kiss ever since I first watched it in the anime. It's arguably a very generic scene we can find in many Kuroshitsuji fanfics, but there's just something about it I can't get enough of. In this fic in particular, I love how surprised Ciel was. If I remember correctly, Ciel already had a bit of a crush on Sebastian at this point, but they were playing games in which showing weakness could be considered losing. Ciel, who had always acted strong and aloof, was so taken aback by Sebastian's answer at this scene. This glimpse of flustered and unsure Ciel is something I found really endearing ^^

Lastly, thank you to the wonderful @k-s-morgan, the author of the fic who has given her best sharing this story with us, and also for giving me permission to draw and post this fanart ^^💞

#kuroshitsuji #black butler #sebastian michaelis #ciel phantomhive #sebaciel #fanart #mine: art #based on ask

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jojo-schmo · 1 month

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hi jojo! im just wondering but ive been wanting to make a comic for a little while but im not too sure where to start 😅. i really love your style of art and your forgotten land roleswap, and i was wondering if you had any tips for beginners?

Hello, hello! Thank you for enjoying my Forgotten Land Roleswap comic, it means a lot! <3

I'm very honored that people have been asking me for tips and advice. All of this is coming from a hobbyist who draws these comics purely for fun outside of my regular day job. Some of my methods would probably deal psychic damage to a professional, LOL. But I'm more than happy to share some things I've personally learned! :)

First of all, the book, "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud ROCKS. It literally gave me a new dimension to understand the medium of comics and how it presents ideas and emotions to readers! And I haven't even had the chance to finish it all the way! I'm very happy I own a copy and I recommend having one of your own if you can, but it's archived here if you want to read it :D

I also like analyzing other comics and thinking about how they get information across to me as a reader. It's helped me learn more effective ways to visually tell a story, like what to include in a frame, how zooming in or out affects the feeling from the panel, maybe building a scene by focusing on other stuff if someone is talking a lot... etc.

ANYWAYS-! Some other tips I've learned through my personal experience-

I had to overcome a lot of negative self-talk in order to tackle a huge comic project like this and stay committed. I was a pretty severe self-deprecator for most of my life so far, and getting help has allowed me to catch myself when I'm slipping back into those habits, look in the mirror, and go, "NO, JOJO! You pour your heart into what you make and that is a wonderful thing! You are appreciated and loved and you deserve to have fun making something you are passionate about!!" Some examples of the negative self-talk I catch myself in....

"I'm a noob at writing and making a story interesting... What's the point of even trying?"

When it comes to starting a project, whether it's 2 pages or 2000 pages, is to just jump in and start! It's okay to be a little insecure or nervous about your technical art skills, writing skills, etc... But writing a "bad" scene is better than no scene- because you can always edit a "bad" scene down the line, but what can you do with nothing? Nothing!! I also put "bad" in quotation marks because I am trying to use that term less, and instead call them "early drafts." or "works in progress."

The first Roleswap scene I fleshed-out was the first Bandee boss fight, in May 2022. I made this drawing on an impulse, getting my ideas down on the page without thinking about the technical stuff like comic panel borders. I consider it like a "pilot episode" almost, haha. The final project is going to be very different from how things play out here. But it got me interested in the concept and excited to see where I could take it, and I made the decision to commit to an entire game plot's worth of AU comics!!

Also, what's the point in trying you ask? The point is to have fun! Making a fan comic in my free time means I don't have restrictions like deadlines, nobody's telling me what I can and can't write, and I can make the story as long or as short as I want! I have full control, which means the world I'm writing is all mine to create! Yes, with a fan comic there is a pre-established world with existing characters. But a universe like Kirby has enough open-ended concepts for people to take basic concepts in the world and take them to whole new levels! I think that's why there are so many amazing fan interpretations of Kirby characters and OCs. The rules are so vague, you can just make up your own a lot of the time!! And it's a wonderful exercise to learn skills for someday building an original world with all original characters from scratch! Magical!!!

"I'm not good enough to make a comic. I don't understand perspective or color and other stuff. Anything I make will look bad.

I once read a two panel comic on here. I can't find it anymore but I remember most of it. First panel showed the artist looking at what they're drawing on their tablet, looking defeated and sad. "Man, I don't even know how to draw this....."The next panel was like them smiling and shrugging, I think rainbows and sparkles were coming out of their tablet, ".....I GUESS I'LL JUST HAVE TO DRAW IT SHITTY!! :D "

IF ANYONE KNOWS THIS COMIC I'M REFERENCING, PLEASE TELL ME AND I'LL LINK IT!!! Because it permanently and positively changed my brain chemistry.

No kidding, making the decision to just do my best even if it's not perfect, helped me a LOT. I was always waiting to "reach a certain level" to tackle a huge project because I felt like I'd never do it justice at my current state. Except I had been telling myself that kind of stuff for years and I still didn't start any projects!!

So the day I said, "Oh well! If I draw backgrounds shitty, then it is what it is! I'll learn from it and draw the next background a little better," Was the day I could commit fully to the project. I'll keep studying how to draw them better for my own benefit, but I won't let my skill issues stop me from even trying!

And for my limited confidence in full-color art, I solved that by making the comic in black and white with no-to-minimal shading lolol. Because I can only address one skill issue at a time before it takes me 25 years to finish this HAHAHA.

It saves a BUNCH of time to work with skill issues rather than against them! Because at least experience is gained in other ways, and who knows, maybe that new knowledge will help address the skill issues someday! So identifying your personal skill issues and deciding which one to try to grow stronger, and which one to work around, could help with big projects!

"Nobody will read this. I'm going to put months or years of my life into a dumb little thing nobody will even care about."

Learning how to draw for my own enjoyment instead of somebody else's was one of the biggest breakthroughs I ever made. Enjoying the feeling of being challenged artistically and just doing my best, even if it's not technically perfect, is the reason why I was even able to start this!

And just because someone doesn't directly like, comment or whatever on a post doesn't mean nobody saw it! I used to get really down on myself for the lack of engagement on my art on other websites.

I was a lurker for pretty much my entire teenage years and never posted my own stuff or commented much. But that didn't take away the fact that I really enjoyed the things I saw online. Those positive feelings were real to me, even when I didn't know how to articulate it in words. Granted, I grew up into a Words of Affirmation main, and I use words to tell people the positive things I think about them as much as I can! But I know not everyone prefers words to express themselves. So I think about the people that I don't know enjoy my work- that just because I don't see it doesn't mean I didn't make a positive impact on someone by sharing my stories.

THIS IS GETTING LONG-- UHHH, STORY TIPS!!

If you work best on technology, start building the story in a Notes app, or a Google Doc! If you work best with pen and paper, start a notebook and rearrange stuff as you need to!

Or if you're chaotic like me, a mix of tech and paper!! I bought a notebook with ring binding so I can remove and rearrange pages of drafts as much as I wanted to! Like here's two very rough concept pages of one Chapter 1 scene made months apart.

I'd say planning out the biggest basic plot points and then filling in between as I went was most helpful! I also have separate notes for character motivations, important story-changing events, etc... So I can have my own reference when I'm writing new scenes!

Okay this was a lot, sorry about the yapping! Hopefully it helps even a tiny bit. If you have any specific questions I'm happy to talk about my experience in the creation process! Or elaborate on anything I said above.

And finally, because I'm not a professional there are probably plenty of other tactics that could work better for some people. My ADHD probably doesn't help with the chaos of my process either, HAHA. But thank you for reading this far and enjoying the peek into the rainbow glitter and soap bubbles that inhabit the right side of my brain, heehee.

#ref #roleswap scraps #roleswap asks #forgotten land roleswap #ask #king dedede #meta knight #elfilis #bandana waddle dee #comics

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melpomai · 2 months

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exes to lovers! isagi yoichi concept please... let me know if this is something you want to keep reading

fem reader works as an aged care nurse, isagi is a professional athlete

this is the first scene of the fic, got no clue how long it'll eventually turn out to be but i do have a loose outline for it

Breakups are never easy - you know it all too well. You’re still recovering four months on after your own. It’s hard to wake in a bed that once held two, and now it's just you. In those early moments, where you’re drifting between the realms of unconsciousness and lucidity, he lingers like a mirage. You feel his fingers warmly brush against your cheek again. The gentle sound of his voice, asking how his pretty baby is doing flutters towards you. You reach for him, joy in your heart as your broken voice reveals all your secrets you’ve locked away.

“God, I missed you so fucking much. I love you, Yoichi.”

But he slips from your grasp like dust.

When you wake, you shake your head at your own yearning, a frown pinching your face.

What right do you have, you think, to crave him like this, when you were the one to end it?

So you wash away the traces of your weakness, and go about your day.

This is the routine you’ve been settled in since. Some days, you manage to convince yourself you’re over being emotional, like when you’re pushing the evening medication trolley through the halls of your work, and one of the elderly has their television playing the latest match and you see him again. Flashes of him in action, racing across the field with the determination of a tidal wave in motion. Or, if you're unlucky (lucky) an after-match interview that centres the camera completely on him. His satisfied, no, euphoric grin, the way his sweat sticks his fringe to his forehead and when he attempts to wipe it away, it causes said fringe to stand straight up. The flush of blood rising to his cheeks. It captures his every reaction, every miniscule change while he answers the same mind-numbing questions posed by the reporter about the game he'd just won.

You watch him for a moment, (your heart bleeds in your chest—) you shrug it off with a smile and tap the plastic portioning cup to draw attention to yourself. “It’s time for your meds.”

Behind the screen, he’s easy to pull away from. He can’t bring you into his arms, fit your frame against his and keep you there, like this.

You don’t reflect on the other days. The ones where you have to call in sick because the very thought of venturing out into the world, alone again, makes you feel nauseous. You resist the urge to check what he’s doing on social media then, afraid of what you might see. You wonder, if it's this bad for you, what must he be experiencing?

You’re an awful person.

But deep down, you know it still was the right choice to make. Even if your heart disagrees.

#m.writing #writing warm up #blue lock x reader #isagi x reader #isagi yoichi x reader #isagi x you

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staerplatinum · 6 months

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Some of my favorite doodles from my headcanon/redesign concept sheets used as an excuse to list my headcanons about the main six (for an AU that I'm writing)! More under the cut!

Charlie Morningstar:

She's way more hot-headed than in canon, albeit still keeping her cheerful and gentle persona.

She loves food, and she's always hungry. I always loved the trope of protagonists (both male and female, like look at Goku himself, Usagi Tsukino or Minako Aino) and I think it could fit Charlie perfectly!

She loves planning (and this is already canon) and she has a lot of stationary gadgets. "Sure Alastor, you can borrow any pen! ... Not that one! :D" And takes good care of them.

Her birthday is February 29th. I thought that it wouldn't be strange if her birthday ended up being that day if she follows a demoniac calendar...

Vaggie:

It's canon that she likes everything to be clean and organized. I think she would help Niffty with the rooms and everything! They bond!

She and Angel Dust absolutely have BFFs vibes. Before Hazbin Hotel I remember they were meant to be a couple, but with the new canon they're still adorable as best friends and I love the dynamic more. They get into fights but it's never anything serious, they look like a big brother and a little sis, even though sometimes she definitely acts as a big sis to him. Angel sees Molly through her :(

As we know she doesn't really believe in herself, but she actually makes a very good leader!

In my fanfic, contrarily to the series, she was really fighting with burning hate towards the angels that cast her out. She holds a deep grudge and it's hard for her to come out of it. (I want Out for Love to be useful, it's my favorite song ç_ç)

Her name as a human was Agata Flores, she was born the 28th of June in 1993. If we still count 2014 as her death and if she was once a winner that then became sinner... my headcanon is that she died of a hate crime in March 25th 2014, aged 21.

Angel Dust:

He's not in drag 24/7. He really is feminine, but sometimes likes to try masculine outfits too. (which make Husk wonder "why am I staring??")

He's secretly a nerd. Or not so secretly. He owns video games, and especially likes RPGs and life sims.

He overanalyses everything. Well, almost everything but still. He actually likes reading, and this led him to analyse anything that comes into his eye. (Oh, I can't wait to write one of those scenes because I already had fun outlining it LMAOO)

He's probably Charlie's food buddy. Give them some food and they'll be happy (Valentino doesn't like this but get screwed Val, give him food too)

His name as a human was Anthony (canon) Cavallaro and had Neapolitan heritage. He's born in April 1st (and this is canon) 1912, he died of overdose (canon) in October 11th 1947, aged 35.

Alastor:

I loved his pilot persona more than the series', and most of the things are confirmed canon... but I do have some headcanons for him, too! (also yeah I don't think that will be my last radioapple drawing or doodle lol)

We know he either doesn't sleep or sleeps with his eyes open. Well, I imagine him that in the few rare occasions he actually sleeps, his radio works as a mental surveillance "camera". Also, he's a light sleeper and would definitely go "Do you fellows mind? I'm trying to sleep." like the old man he is.

I would like to explore Alastor's feelings for Charlie more, and how he sees her as a daughter. While we may not know if he was telling the truth, I think they both seeked each other as a fatherly and daughter figures in a way. Many in the fandom headcanon Alastor's father to have been shitty to him. If he truly sees Charlie as a daughter, it could be because he would like to be a better father than the one he had, and since he never had children, he grew affectionate to Charlie as such.

He knows how to handle alcohol well, but I like to think that when he's really drunk he doesn't even know what he's doing. Oh, you saw him playing with Angel's Nintendo Switch? He even brought it into his room to continue playing Animal Crossing by himself? He was totally wasted.

His name as a human was Alastor (which is apparently canon, but I wonder if it'll be retconned or not?) Boudreaux-Alexander. Boudreaux was his father's last name, Alexander was his mother's. He didn't like his mother taking her husband's last name and wanted to keep his mother's. He was born in March 7th 1901, and died in August 4th 1933, aged 32, after being shot by a hunter that confused him with a deer and was mauled by dogs afterwards. (Yikes, I'm so sorry)

Niffty:

She definitely has written lots of fanfics about her fellow hotel friends. Especially men. Yet, she loves Charlie and Vaggie too, so they're there as well.

We know both Niffty and Husk have deals with Alastor. She loves them both, I love to headcanon that when she feels lonely and can't sleep well or had nightmares, she either goes to Husk's or Alastor's room to sleep with them. They welcome her warmly ç_ç

Alastor and Husk most definitely know Niffty's story, which is why they care about her so much. She's childish for her age, but it could be tied to a past that only the two of them know very well.

Niffty knew Vox when they were alive. Now I know it could be a weird headcanon since Niffty is Japanese and Vox is American, but if Niffty's work brought her around the world it wouldn't be weird if they crossed paths. When Vox died Niffty was 19, she either saw him die in front of her eyes or something else happened.

As I mentioned in my concept sheets, she used to wear glasses when she was alive so she can't see really well without them after she died. Sometimes she borrows Alastor's monocle, and if we apply the headcanon that he's colorblind, without his monocle not only he can't see anything but can't even see colors LOL

Her name when she was alive was Sachiko Tanaka, born February 27th 1934. She died September 1st 1956, aged 22, there are popular headcanons about the way she died and yikes, if it's true she didn't have a good death either. Not at all.

Husk:

Maybe I'm overanalysing but what if the reason why he grew affectionate to Niffty was because he once had children? Or just one? Either he had a child and was with him but felt like he wasn't a good father or his ex-wife left him because of his gambling addiction and this made him feel guilty, not able to see his child ever again. (I feel bad just thinking about this but ç_ç)

Despite the fact he hates being on a leash and none other than Alastor's, he actually cares about him. If the two were friends when they were alive (including Mimzy), this could explain why he's still around Alastor even if reluctantly. (Sure he says he's forced, but in the pilot Alastor summoned him, so it's safe to assume either Alastor-Husk-Niffty were roommates before coming to the hotel and did their business without telling Alastor, or simply we need more explanations of Alastor's deals)

His name when he was alive was Ivan Goncharov, born January 29th 1900, and died in December 23rd 1967, aged 67. As I mentioned in my concept sheets, he was friends with Alastor and Mimzy when they were alive and he was the last one of them to die. He would often visit his friends' graves when he was still alive :(

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