#falling shards

[risingshards]

I've had a ton of ideas for the Patreon project/potentially next Tapas web novel contest project this week! I have kind of a crazy premise that has what I think is an eye catching web novel title...

I'm thinking about worldbuilding continuity today. I'm figuring out if I want this new series to be connected to the Rising Shards universe directly, or have it be more loosely connected. I'm of two minds at the moment.

1. I think it would be cool to have a new series in the RS universe and pick up on some characters that I don't plan on doing anything with for a while or ones I have no plans for. I could explore a section of the RS world that's been unexplored so far, and do exciting new things that wouldn't happen in Rising Shards.

2. I'm worried that if I enter it in a web novel contest and it's in an established universe, it will have a lot of lore baggage or people will be intimidated by the characters having backstory in another web novel series. With Rising Shards I wouldn't mind having some crossover because that's my "I do what I want" series, but with one like this that I would try to enter in a contest I want to be more thoughtful. It could be a hindrance if one doesn't want baggage from an entirely separate story, and it might get confusing if I'm not careful.

That said, both ideas are exciting to me. If I have it in the RS universe I have a great starting point and characters raring for action. If it's something new it'll be a blank slate.

So now the question(s) for you: Are you familiar with my series? Would you enjoy a new series set in the RS world with a few RS characters, or would you rather a blank slate for a new series?

[fallingshards]

2.8.25: The FS brainrot

Some kind of updates on this project, a few days ago I was like "Ugh why did I make a side blog for this I should just put it in my main series." But I've just had this idea rattling around my head for years slowly growing. I have RS chapters to catch up on but I keep thinking about this FS thing, a puzzle I've been trying to crack for years.

Rising Shards is a mainly slice of life focused series, big things happen and there's action and adventure and such, but generally speaking it's more focused on the trees than the forests, focusing on the girlies' daily lives is the heart of it and it's important to me that they stay at relative ground level. A series in the overall world focusing on the micro instead of the macro. Like in my beloved Bionicle Mata Nui Online Game, the focus is on the Matoran villagers on the ground, and then they run into the heroic Toa who are in the middle of their own major missions.

Falling Shards then could be a series more focused on the opposite, the macro instead of the micro. Focusing on the Toa hero type figures instead of the Matoran villagers. Something to expand the world and explore lots of new places. If Rising Shards is about fluffy slice of life, Falling Shards could be about the big movers and shakers of the world, people our crew would never dream of interacting with.

I keep getting really excited about RS worldbuilding for things I don't think would ever be touched in RS. Asking myself like who would a Superman type figure be in this world (or other archetypes of heroic figures)? I don't think Zeta, Oka, Kalei, Lillia, etc. would end up in a situation where they run into a Superman tier figure outside of like a once in a lifetime moment. But who would then? What's the rest of the world look like? Who are the big movers and shakers? What are the places in the world where the major dominoes get set up and knocked down? There's more to the worldbuilding than just thinking about it in superhero terms but that's one of my frames of reference for my ideas, my big RS worldbuilding influences are Venture Bros, which is in a similar hodgepodge world of series types mashed together, Star Wars, a few particular manga series, and Bionicle, whose worldbuilding I am forever entranced by.

I was debating what to do with a boys' school focused show, like teleporting the school away to get them out of there. But I keep thinking about taking a group of mainstays from Rising Shards and giving them a big adventure to go on, something that puts them in touch with the big movers and shakers, the big heroes and villains, in places where the major events are occurring, separate from the fluffy slice of life business. Would that even be feasible or would it break the sand castle that is Rising Shards? I don't particularly know why I'm possessed by this idea of exploring the RS world outside of the lens of a fluffy yuri series. But it's an idea that's been rattling around for years now as I said.

This might not be a series that is ever-ongoing like Rising Shards and its spinoffs but one that arrives in seasons, like 8 episodes of Falling Shards drop in the summer and end on a cliffhanger that comes back later like a TV show.

Another debate has been how to do a series with already existing characters. With Rising Shards' cast growing, characters spreading out and such, I think it might be good to put a few who are moving into the background of RS to the foreground of FS. But should I just put it as chapters in RS especially if it's picking up main characters' journeys? Can I send someone away to another series even temporarily and expect current readers to follow? Would it feel like I'm shunting characters out of the way if I do this? My hope would be if they go elsewhere that it's due to something important happening to them than them getting pushed aside.

It might still just be something that ends up in the big Rising Shards web novel. I was thinking it could work as a monthly chapter thing, but the tone I want for FS is kind of different than RS so it might feel out of place. An idea I had to keep readers in the loop if it's a separate series is to do another Bionicle homage, which had little news updates summarizing the story for some years. So if someone isn't reading the other one and they want to know what would effect RS and where the characters they were following are at, they could get little glimpses.

For the hypothetical 2025 Tapas contest poll I did a bit ago, the results were pretty unanimously "don't do a new series with an established cast" so I would probably have to come up with something new for the Tapas contest as I've mentioned before. And I have to consider that that response could apply to this series idea, too. It is potentially a busted premise to expect people to follow this. If I do pursue it and it doesn't work I could always just rope characters back into the main series, but there's something about all of this that I can't let go of just yet.

[ink-pocket]

companion piece to this

(thought to myself, what would Filbrick hate most, and my brain instantly and inexplicably went to dance)

[the-east-art]

Digital version of Golden Youth

[bluefrostyy]

FORD IN LOST LEGENDS BE LIKE:

thats his brotha guys!

[l1-b1]

REF SHEET FOR MY NEW LLOYD DESIGN WOOO

[nenoname]

Journal 3’s references to Stan

(…does the Lost Pages count as J3 when some had to be in J2 and also may or may not be a truth lie turducken? idk. Ford’s TBoB letters sure as hell don’t count as J3 but I’m including them here anyway)

Lost Journal Pages

"STANLEY COULD HAVE MADE HER LAUGH"

“My stomach sank a bit when I realized… it was my birthday. This day has felt… odd, since S and I… parted ways.”

"I was adjusting my TV antennae for weather reports (looking for ideal conditions for F's first portal test) and spat out my coffee when I saw THIS! My brother hawking scams under the name "Panley Stines." I had half a mind to call that number, just to pretend to be the police and maybe scare S straight for once! There is something so galling about seeing your OWN FACE committing crimes on your own TV! When my Muse saw me break my stress ball, I decided it was finally time to vent about Stanley."

""How about that; you've got an inferior clone! Why didn't you just eat him in the womb? Think of how powerful you'd be!"

"You can't just eat your twin, Bill."

You'd be surprised what you can eat! I say sure, call him if you want him to start mooching off you again! ME, I went no contact with my home dimension and I don't regret it. All they did was hold me back and sabotage my talents! Can you imagine?"

"More than you know. But you do ever wonder if maybe... maybe things could have been different?""

"Our heat budget was so tight that Mom forced S and me to wear one sweater at the same time. (She called it the "Abominable Snow-Stan." Our cat lived in fear of it year-round.)"

“DAMN! This morning I found F rummaging through my old copy of Urban Legends of New Jersey, where I had forgotten I had hidden some old personal items! I’ve quickly re-hidden them here, away from prying eyes.”

"But then he crossed a line. Helplessly I watched Cipher in my own body limp up to a pay phone and dial... STANLEY'S phone number from the infomercial?! No. He wouldn't.

"Hey brother, it's Sixer. I'm going to take a swim in the frozen lake tomorrow, and I might not ever come back, so if you don't hear from me, I just want you to know that it's because I never loved you. BUH-BYEEEEE."

My heart was in my throat until I heard the dial tone... The pay phone was out of order. The message hadn't gotten through. Cipher turned back to address me.

"TSK, TSK, TSK. LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME MAKE YOU DO! TOMORROW'S TAPE IS GONNA BE MUCH WORSE.""

(Bro secret code) "miss you"

“The snow has begun to fall again and there’s very little time. There’s only one left I can turn to to protect my journals while I prepare for the journey…”

"S is an overgrown child with none of my rigorous mental training. Who knows what could happen if Cipher stepped inside Stanley's mind for even one minute...

What if Stanley somehow manages to destroy the portal just like he destroyed my perpetual motion machine? I suppose that machine did work in its own way... It kept me perpetually angry for thirty years."

(Bro secret code) "HAVE I BEEN TOO HARSH ALL ALONG?"

"What if he tries to rope me into his latest get-rich-quick scheme? His latest commercial was for "Stan Sauce: The Miracle Sauce that's too cool for the FDA!"

What if... he mocks me? What if he sees that I abandoned our family to become a recluse on the brink of madness? Could I risk admitting that I was... wrong?

PROS: I have no one else. Well, that settles it. It's time to come face-to-face with a face I haven't seen in 10 years. My own face. Which... is my brother's face. God, I miss sleep."

Ford’s Letters

"In the weeks since Weirdmageddon, I conducted numerous tests on Stanley's mind (his terrible jokes are still intact) and inspected the state for dimensional leakage (we also took turns kicking the statue, and Stanley took a few cracks with a crowbar). I burned every Cipher-shaped item I had ever collected, and even threw away all my one-dollar bills, just to be safe (Stanley, of course, found and pocketed them).

“I emerged from my lab after days of agonized contemplation to find- to my shock- that Mabel was reading the book, out loud, to Stanley, Dipper, Soos, and Wendy!”

“They didn’t see me as an irredeemable screwup. Stanley said, "So, your past is just a giant pile of mistakes? Congratulations- you really are a Pines!”“

"Bill may tell you that happiness requires conquering galaxies and living forever, but I've seen enough of the universe to tell you that he's wrong. I've found my happiness. And it looks like this:"

"If you're reading this... then I am dead. Kidding! Sorry, Stanley thought that would be funny. Ha-ha! We're currently out shopping for harpoons to prepare for our trip to the arctic."

"Stan, if you end breaking into my lab at some point later today- Bravo! Still as good a locksmith as in 8th grade. Beers are under the desk."

(It kinda strikes me that the BoB Lost Journal pages about Stan sound far more like post-portal Ford’s opinions on Stan instead, where he’s openly angry at both being pushed into the portal + at the portal being opened again + his murder suicide attempt being foiled + Stan disowning him + turning his house into a tourist trap + taking his identity vs pre-portal Ford being more… melodramatic(?) constantly being reminded of him but not wanting to linger too long? idk the vibes are different

Plus pre-portal Ford pretty consistently only calls Stan "S” or just refers to him as his brother (with the exception of him writing his name in a Caesar cipher). I think he only ever messes up the general naming scheme a single time when he wrote Fiddleford instead of F

…not to mention the perpetual motion machine comment says thirty instead of ten years)

Other sections: Pre-Portal, Post-Portal, Post-Weirdmageddon

[sharksfrommars]

thinking about what the people of glass shard beach would think about Stan and Ford over the years.

like, imagine it’s the 60s, and you’re a kid playing in the neighbourhood. There are a set of twins who are kind of wierd and tend to stick together. One of them had 6 fingers but other than that you literally can’t tell them apart, they’re inseparable. They even have the same name.

then you start school and you’re in the twins class. Turns out, the one with 6 fingers? Total genius. Insane levels of intelligence. The other one eats glue. They still mostly hang out with each other. The one with 5 fingers once told you that he found a dead rat in a bucket. You decide to keep your distance.

By high school , they’ve seemed to have stopped spending so much time together. The one with 5 fingers, Stan, flirts with you once, before trying to sell you these rocks he clearly spray painted gold. You roll your eyes. The other one, Ford, looks like he’s going to go to a prestigious college, the first in glass shard high history. You don’t really pay any attention to it.

until the next week of school, Stan is nowhere to be found and Ford looks like he’s going to bite anyone that talks to him. Word on the street is that Stan got kicked out for sabotaging Ford’s college project. It’s real juicy drama, up until the Sibling Brothers go to prison. Then, they kind of forget.

years go by, and you see one of the twins on tv. Selling scammy products. That’s got to be Stan, right? No one has heard from either of them in years. You tell your friends at the diner and you all have a nice laugh over it.

then, more years pass and Stanley Pines is dead. Someone cut his break tires. It’s a shame. Stranger still, Ford seems to have opened a tourist trap in Oregon? Losing his brother must’ve given him a mental break because you thought he was a scientist. Stan is the first in your class to die. You sit with that.

30 years later, you turn on tv to watch Cash wheel. You see Stanford Pines stripping naked on national television. You change the channel.

a few years after that, both Stan twins appear in glass shard beach for the 50 year reunion. You don’t know who invited them. You thought they died. Apparently they survived the apocalypse and are now sailing the seas hunting monsters?

you decide to walk away.

[bbuzz28]

So, I often see people saying the elder Pines twins grew up in a city and like...no. No, these fellas did not grow up in the city-at least not like a city most of you would know. Growing up along the New Jersey coast is unlike any other place in the world.

Glass Shard Beach isn’t "officially" (that I have been able to find) based off any specific real-life seaside town in New Jersey, but I’ve seen everywhere from Cape May, Atlantic City or all the way up the coast to Asbury Park being cited as possible locations.

I think Glass Shard Beach would fall somewhere in between on one of New Jersey’s inlets or tiny islands-like the one I grew up on (am I drawing personal comparisons to characters I enjoy? What, are you a cop? Let me have this).

It's almost like time stood still on the island where I spent my formative years; most of the original houses were built around the 50's/60's or older. We had a rinky-dink boardwalk off in the distance, tiny shops on Main Street that “Pines Pawns” would fit in nicely besides, a school, a tiny library and of course the beach. There's a small grocery that moonlights as a pharmacy and also a deli-anything else you wanted you would have to go off the island for. There are two pizza shops that had a fun rivalry, an ice cream stand that makes all their wares and an odd attraction that is the only notable thing "putting it on the map", so to speak. Mostly, unless it was the summer when the tourists appear out of thin air, it was a sleepy little place where not a lot happened.

The perfect place to get lost along the shoreline searching for buried treasure. We didn't have any official shipwrecks to speak of, but there were several sunken skiffs that could be seen from certain spots in the bay. Sinking cages down for crabs along the rocks or fishing standing off a pier. I used to be able to lay in the middle of my street for long stretches of time because I could count how many cars I would see in a day (the antithesis of my life in the city).

I loved my childhood there-but it was isolating at times. Unless it was the summer, it was mostly just me entertaining myself. Exploring rocks along the shore, swinging on the singular swing set in the park, spending hours in the library reading. Sound familiar? I can absolutely see the boys growing up similarly.

I can hear the "oh, but Stanley is so street smart."

First of all, street smarts are a learned behavior sure, but we really only have the aftermath of him relying on his street smarts. Do I believe Caryn/ Filbrick taught him a thing or two in terms of how to catch a con? Yes, of course (he grew up in a pawn shop and his mother lies for a living). But you will never convince me that the naive and freshly kicked out of the house teenage boy, combing the beach for treasure with a metal detector seen in ATOTS, is an example of having an amazing set of already well-tuned street smarts.

Second, I am not saying Glass Shard Beach was as idyllic as my childhood home. I mean, glass shards aren't exactly pleasant. It's supposed to be a little gruff. There's definitely petty crime (i.e. purse snatching), vandalism etc. It's definitely a bigger area logistically (they had a diner and a movie theater? snazzzzzzzzzy) but still small enough that two children could scoot around town easily on hijink adventures. And small enough that Ford would know that people would remember him and hail him a "hero" after his "Grand Unified Theory of Weirdness" research made him a science star.

I am just saying their childhood in Glass Shard Beach was a different experience than growing up in say, New York-or any other "big city."

[dreamy-pill]

So, I’m reading a story when I unexpectedly have the unrelated thought: “oh, what if Stanley tried to work on the boat while waiting for Stanford to help him work on it, only for daylight to turn into nighttime with Stanford still being a no-show.”

Stanley would’ve been gone all day, so of course Stanford would go looking for him. The first place Stanford goes to look for Stanley is the Stan ‘O’ War and there he is, inside the ship’s vessel, curled into a ball, snoring loudly. Stanley’s sleeping, and he’s got a sunburn.

Stanford would feel a little guilty because he just spent his whole day studying. He totally got sidetracked so he didn’t get to spend any time with Stanley to work on the boat.

Instead of waking Stanley up, Stanford would reach into one of their storage compartments in the boat and pull out two sleeping bags.

The boys both fall asleep that night out at the beach, as it is tranquil and hardly chilly. Plus, Stanford also doesn’t want to wake his brother up, as he looks like he could use the rest.

(If you want, you can just assume that the twins would occasionally sleep in the Stan ‘O’ War on nights when their father is being unbearable. This just so happens to be one of those nights, and also the reason Stanley chose to stay outside at the beach for most of the day in the first place.)

I just think it’s moments like these that make Stanley think very highly of his twin brother because no matter what Stanford will always find ways to make up for the things he did. In this case, missing a whole day’s worth of working on the Stan ‘O’ War with him. Just sticking by Stanley’s side through the whole night makes Stanley think his brother’s the best.

I tried making up a sweet scene from the time when the twins were in Glass Shard Beach.

[pixeltwix]

{ Ear Piercings }

Emma May reeeeeally wanted to get her ears pierced, but was too afraid to do it by herself

Stan steps up to be supportive while Ford exercised enough panic for the both of them

Filbrick was so upset he made him sleep down in the shop for a few weeks, but Caryn secretly helped Stan with keeping the piercings clean and disinfected so he could still keep them as he got older if he wanted

But yeah no, Emma May is very much an earrings girlie!! She loves to mix and match and collect anything she finds pretty :)

[risingshards]

Theory I'm going to test with FS WIP: I wonder if I put out a web novel with more men if it will have different readership.

That sounds very cynical and as I've written extensively about avoiding cynicism in my writing, but I have had a bunch of non-cynical ideas for a series that would fill out some spaces of the RS world that Rising Shards proper would never touch so this wouldn't be my usual cynical WIP idea where I just write something I'm completely not interested in out of some desire for a mass audience. Like making something that reaches a big audience is a goal, sure, but I have an idea for a series I really like that I think will be a lot of fun.

I also am thinking of that writing advice post about writing in different character voices, and I think this project and its focus could be a really good exercise in doing that.

I'll still have Rising Shards as my "I do whatever I want it's my 400 girlie yuri slice of life fantasy" series, so Project FS can help me try writing new character voices and avoid falling into regular archetypes (I do have a few regular archetype voices but I think I can differentiate them at least), as well as test my theory of readership if it's more guy focused.

(Also if I do end up getting too cynical my muse completely shuts down in some kind of creative protective measure, so if this stalls out that's most likely why)

[pokimoko]

Here's a completely normal, totally wholesome Gravity Falls fanart that definitely isn't for my fanfic where bad things happen to these poor kids. They're absolutely fine, I promise. :)

[ink-pocket]

after school in Glass Shard Beach, NJ

[yashley]

Say something true!

[xxbimboboyxx]

They would both be almost identical to their men ogs but we all know how filbrick is