#i basically have the scene playing out in my head so i can add details

[acorrespondence]

From "i put this heavy heart in you":

“Hello?” says a voice over the line.

“Shit. You ain’t Raylan,” Boyd says. He steps out onto the porch and closes the door behind him. 

“Ah... no. Look, this line isn’t really for personal calls—“

“Well,” says Boyd, “I happen to have some information as pertains to the two enterprisin individuals busted out of Big Sandy this very night.”

There’s a pause. “All right,” the voice says eventually. It’s a slow drawl, professional enough, though something about it strikes Boyd as bored, maybe even sarcastic. Although he supposes he’d be aggravated himself, having to answer another man’s phone half past four in the morning. “What is your information?”

Boyd looks out at the headlights flashing by, the roads here never quiet, even in the small hours before dawn. “Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens was ten, fifteen minutes out of Parisville on the Mountain Parkway towards Big Sandy as of 9:20 this evenin. However, if you were to contact the prison, I fear you might find that Raylan Givens never made it back to survey the livin quarters of the escapees, as he was intended to do. I believe he encountered a gas station he saw as suspicious—and I have an inkling his suspicions may’ve proved founded.”

“And… how do you know this?” asks the voice slowly. Suspiciously. Boyd supposes it must sound like an awful lot of detail, to someone who hasn’t spent the last three hours turning every facet over in his head like seaglass, holding each one up to the light, waiting for something to shine through.

Boyd sees no cause to lie. He smiles into the mouthpiece, the one that shows every tooth in his head. “Well, Deputy, I was on the phone with him when he happened upon the very service station in question.”

The deputy on the phone makes a skeptical noise. “And you think this has somethin to do with the escaped convicts?”

“I do believe that to be the likely case, yes,” says Boyd. His hand flexes around the phone, a movement only half-conscious. He only notices when the plastic case creaks. “And if it ain’t, then, when you find him, you tell that fucker to answer his goddamn cell phone.”

The deputy snorts. “All right. Thank you for your information. And what is your name and loca—“ 

Ah, the phone call. As we know from later on in this chapter, the guy who answers the phone is Tim (and I do hope I did a good enough job characterizing him that this was clear even before he confirms it in the car on the way to Shirley’s later). He is going to be so bummed when he finds out that Raylan came out to Rachel first, after he laid such nice groundwork for such a confidence, but boy is just too subtle for his own good. Of course, this was a large part of the point of this scene: much of this fic deals with being closeted, how and when to come out, the fact that queer people often have to come out over and over again, and the fact that they can be out in some places or to some people but not others; if coming out should ever be necessary and the ramifications of that decision; etc. So, this is the first instance of anyone having cause to question whether or not Raylan is straight. Since Tim in this fic (and in canon, let’s be honest now) is gay, I gave that honor to him. He’s the one most likely to draw the correct conclusion.

I’m so glad you picked this bit, I was very proud of my Tim voice here; plus, it’s the first instance where we hear Boyd talking to someone he doesn’t live with, so I got to really stretch my vocabulist muscles. I know I’ve talked about it before, though I can’t remember where—possibly DMs with @boydcrowdr?—but based on my extensive rewatching of canon I came to the conclusion that Boyd’s language isn’t quite as elevated with the people he’s closest with, including Raylan. I’ve incorporated this quirk of character into my fic, and so while he always has a big vocabulary and likes to throw some impressive words in at random, I’ve written his everyday dialogue more casually so far. He’s at his most verbose when he’s a) defensive or b) trying to get someone (or a group of someones, as it were) to do something. Here, he’s stressed, at a disadvantage, and trying to convince someone of something, so it was fun to let loose on the eloquence front. The hope is that, upon close inspection, the fic hints at Boyd’s state of mind, as well as his intentions, in accordance with how pedantic he’s being.

I think Boyd’s feelings are pretty clear through the narration, but as for Tim, I think he starts the conversation annoyed and confused, but then gets intrigued, and by the time he hangs up he’s feeling pretty amused and obviously curious, which leads him to go fishing the next day, when he has Raylan as a lone captive audience. Prior to this call, he was stuck in the office doing boring shit in the middle of the night because of this prison break bullshit, his new colleague is out doing all the legwork Tim would much prefer to be doing right now, so this ends up being a pretty interesting event to cut through the boredom. Ultimately, he doesn’t regret picking up Raylan’s desk phone; his night would have felt a lot more pointless and monotonous if he hadn’t. Plus, you know. It’s nice not to be the only one.

So, after California, we now have all the most important players from the Marshals’ office at three different places when it comes to their knowledge of Raylan being queer: Rachel, who he told outright; Tim, who guessed correctly; and Art, who’s still in the dark. This, of course, adds several delicious layers of tension that are very fun to work with. And the one of the three who has the most reasonable argument to claim that he should know is the only guy who doesn’t.

(Ask game here)

[deadbeat-motel]

ᑕᕼEᖇᖇIᗷOᗰᗷ ᗩᑎᗪ ᔕIᖇᑭEᑎTIOᑌᔕ ᖇEᗪEᔕIGᑎ

The last two designs for the main cast. With these two done, I can finally work on miscellaneous characters that I've been eyeing the most.

Again, thoughts below the cut:

My issues with their Original designs:

Sir Pentious:

I thought I would only have one thing to say about him (the unnecessary eyes) since he was my favorite in the entire original cast but having taken a closer look at him for this, I saw a lot of things that bothers me.

Too many eyes. specifically the lower half of his body has too many eyes and it seems detrimental to him. It's kind of painful to think about it since I do not think we ever see those eyes close. Is he just slithering on the ground with those exposed eyes? That's got to be irritating at best and damaged at worst as he continuously slithers on them.

There are eyes on the bowtie and the hat? There are already 4 extra eyes on his hood, so why have even more? I get that the original Pentious design was basically a monsterous amalgamation of eyes but the eye thing could have been scrapped altogether.

While his palette was the least red out of the cast (More so composed of yellows), it still blends in with the rest of the reds.

The claws are an unnecessary repeating design trait (Alastor and Vox notably have them too). I don't think it would've been too big of a difference to just keep his fingers fully black.

The stripes on his suit are too thick. It's called pinstripes for a reason.

I don't like how the hat is shaped to fit the head, It's awkward.

not a point, but I just wanted to say how the blue color palette works really well with him in that last episode.

CherriBomb:

She's not that bad of a design (She's sort of bland in my opinion) but it's the little small details about her that makes her so simple and also so complicated at the same time. There are so many batches of freckles scattered everywhere, little explosion lines on her skirt as well as the X on her chest, the tattoos are a jamble of random loops and bombs, and her tattering doesn't have an easy shape to consistently draw.

The thought process for these two:

Mx. Pentious:

Pentious goes by both Sir/Miss/Mx. but uses she/they pronouns.

Minimized the actual amount of eyes on her, I kept it only to her actual eyes and those on her hood.

Gave her a butterfly-shaped hood. It's nothing deep since it stems from the fact the notches in Sir Pentious' hood almost looked like one to my bad eyesight. I decided to play more into that idea.

I read some posts where people talk about how Sir Pentious should have a snout and while I understand why and fully support people giving him one, I really didn't want to add the snout to this design. It drove me crazy since I'm not a big fan of it. I tried a compromise where her head was shaped more like Phineas.

Kept the tophat but removed its eye and mouth. If I remember correctly, Viv took that from one of her co-workers from the pilot. I decided to just have it as a regular tophat.

It doesn't have all the colors, but her design does have the Neptunic flag.

I'm not sure if this even is a real snake but I based Mx. Pentious' design on this:

CherriBomb:

Scraped most of her features in exchange for a sukeban theme. I personally have zero knowledge about the punk scene in Australia.

A majority of the suggestions I received for her rough draft had something to do with the skirt. I elongated it and gave it a slit in which the magenta from the inside is able to pop out.

Thought it would be a cute detail to have her hair explode if she's angry.

----

Apologies this took too long to be posted, Life got in the way as well as the fact I was feeling shitty about Pentious' first draft. Her skin was an awkward and ugly shade of green and seeing some posts critical of Pentious' design got me to think a little bit more about what direction I'd like to move her redesign.

You could see this in the earlier rough sketches but this was how Pentious' first redesign looked like

[becauseimanicequeen]

Timelines and the Color Red in 4 Minutes

(I've already published this in a reblog of my timelines post. However, since I know not everyone has the energy to read through all that (since it's basically three long-ass posts so far), I've decided to add this in a separate post as well.)

First, let me summarize my thoughts on the timelines so far so that you have an idea of what I've been thinking these past 4-5 episodes. (Also, I've highlighted my theories in purple so that you can choose to ignore them if they want, lol.)

I still believe there have been at least 3 timelines present so far:

The present timeline.

The 4-minute timeline (which is Great's do-over timeline).

The real past/Tonkla's timeline.

I also still believe that both Great and Tyme are having OOBEs (and a possible third character), and that we will now get to see Tyme's perspective on what's happened. In other words, I will most likely add another timeline to my list at the end of this post.

How I've been able to see/notice the different timelines so far, has been primarily through:

The clocks/watches and the times they display.

The difference between Great's environment before vs after his 4-minute phenomenons (4MPs).

Details that change throughout the scenes (like items and their positions, lamp colors, etc.).

I won't go into detail about these two aspects in this particular post because I want to focus on something else this time. However, we did get to see the clock move to 11:03, first on Great's wall:

And then on the news:

There was also the way Great's mom talked to him before vs after he had his vision of her getting shot. Before he was sent back, she was almost pleading for him to apologize to his dad, while after he was sent back, she was more commanding. Also, as he came back, the gunman was ready to shoot before Great even had a chance to leave his mom and drive off, the way he did before his visions.

(This moment of precognition was very different to his previous ones, btw. This time, he only saw the things happening rather than "living" them.)

There also continue to be the smaller details that tell me there are different timelines/realities at play. Like the things on Chanin's desk in the scene where Samarn went behind Korn's back vs in the scene when Korn is scolded by both his dad and Great's mom:

The lion figurine is facing the wall behind the desk in the first scene while it's facing the room in the second, and the framed family portrait is on Chanin's right-hand side in the first scene and on his left-hand side in the second. (Those two items in the second scene are placed in the same positions as they were in the 1st episode when Korn walked into his dad's office to talk about his new position at the company, btw.)

In other words, this episode was also consistent with the time, the differences in the before vs after Great's precognitions (even though this one was different than the 4MPs), and the other details to show us that different timelines/realities are at play.

With that out of the way, though, I want to focus on something entirely different in this post. It's still related to the timelines, obviously.

I want to see if a theory I have about a specific color is true or not, and if that specific color can help us figure out the backbone of the story (about the core events of the story). In other words, I have a theory that may (or may not) tell us which of the events we've seen in Great's 4-minute timeline so far also happened in the real past.

So, in this post, I'm going to go back for a moment before I make some predictions of where we might be heading in the next episode and onwards.

But, first, I need to emphasize Den's research, and especially what he reiterated in the 5th episode: What people go through during their cardiac arrests varies because of their experiences.

In other words, if what we've seen so far has been Great's OOBE (which I believe), then it means that (most of) what we've seen so far was his interpretation of what really happened (as well as filler content of stuff he might've wished had happened, but I won't focus on that here). And now that we're going to get Tyme's perspective (at least I believe we will, in one way or another), that will be colored by his experiences and be his side of the story (and possible filler content from him as well).

We've all heard the saying that "there are two sides to the story", which is true. But that doesn't mean either side is completely forthcoming about what really happened because the truth is usually somewhere between those two (or more) sides. But that doesn't mean there isn't at least some truth in the two (or more) sides of the story.

I want to focus on that middle ground in this post. Specifically, if the color red tells us which scenes are the backbone of the story. So, let's get into it.

Does the Red Reveal What Happened in the Real Past?

I think we all know that the color red is often used to indicate the red thread of fate (mostly in Asian media). Where I'm from (northern Europe) we also have a red thread saying, but it's used more as a synonym for theme. For example, an essay can have a good red thread if the theme throughout the essay is clear and concise.

Red is also a great color to use to capture attention (which mine was as soon as I saw the trailer). So, I've been tracking the red (and other colors) throughout the show so far to figure out if it had a specific meaning. (I even made posts for the red in episode 1 and in episode 2.)

It might.

And, it might not.

But, let's go with Great's idea and start connecting the dots with the red...

My theory as I go into this is that the red shows us the things in that middle ground I wrote about above. Those scenes/events might be the backbone of the timelines that are at play. Let's see if that's a hit or miss (or somewhere in between).

I will only focus on a few major scenes from the currently released episodes and mostly focus on Great and Tyme's part of the story (because I only have 30 images to play with, which is giving me a headache, btw). So, let's start from the beginning and go through it in chronological order of the episodes.

When Tyme is shot in the first episode, there's a red light behind the shooter:

And when the patient is flatlining in the same episode (whom I believe is Great), red lights are blinking:

Whether everything we've seen so far was triggered by these events or if these events were triggered by something else, Tyme being shot and that patient flatlining is at the core of the story.

Then we see Great and Korn's dad wearing red when he gives Korn the responsibility of managing the illegal gambling sites:

That surely happened in the real past as well, right?

Chanin also wears that same outfit during the family dinner later on in the episode. And while I don't believe Manee survived in the real past, I do believe the dinner happened, it's just that the conversation would've been different.

Then we have Great, who hit Manee with his car, where the seats have red lines on them:

So far so good, right?

Then there are red roses when Tyme gets home and jokes about Coachella:

He and his grandmother also eat from porcelain plates with red flowers on them when we find out Tyme's motivation for becoming a surgeon (to make a better life for his grandmother and himself), which I'm sure was part of the real past. (Unless Great, in his OOBE state, made up the story about Tyme's parents being murdered by his dad...)

Then we have Lukwa, who carries something red the first time she enters Den's office to talk about her own cardiac arrest experience.

She clearly has an important role in the story since she's the woman in that gallery with the red lights where Great saw her. (Perhaps it's the red from that gallery that spills into the story to show us what the key events are?)

I will forego the legendary Tonkla by the lighthouse opening of the 2nd episode where he has blood splattered across his face because I feel like that's the future from our current vantage point, and right now I'm more focused on looking at the things that could've happened in the real past.

Dome clearly saw what happened between Title and View in front of that red trashcan (with a 4 on it, btw):

Which led into this scene where we have the red lights from the car plus the red blood when Title kills Dome:

Considering I think that most of Tonkla's timeline (at least in the beginning) is the real past, Dome was definitely killed.

There are also red folders on the desk Win is leaning against when Tonkla comes in to identify his brother's body:

Which is probably how they met in the real past as well.

And then we have the red Aston Martin Great parks as Title barges in and accuses Great of betraying him:

Now, what's interesting about this scene is that it only seems like Great is in the timeline where he saved Dome while Title isn't. First of all, Title already had that bruise on his face when Great got into his car that night he killed Dome:

The other side of his face doesn't even display any evidence that Great clobbered him with the rock. That's why (apart from the red) I believe this scene happened in the real past as well. It's just that, in the real past, Title was pissed at Great for betraying him about something else rather than saving Dome.

Then we have the hacker attack, which turned their screens into a multitude of reds:

Then we have the shareholder with the red umbrella who was, more than likely, shot in the real past as well. What impact he may or may not have on the story remains to be seen. But I still wanted to mention him here (even though I'm saving on the image limit with this one, lol).

Then there's the red tea Tyme gave to Great:

Which he might've given Great in the real past to get closer to him (due to his family) rather than telling him to check his wound at the hospital (which might not even exist in the real past). Great might've taken that as a sweet gesture, which might've been why this scene popped up in his timeline.

After that, we have Great in the red gallery with a mystery woman (which we know is Lukwa):

This is where things might get a little wonky. But, I think this is meant to highlight a connection between Great and Lukwa that happened in the real past, which is why they are both in that (subconscious?) gallery together. That's why I've included it here. (Also, like I mentioned before, what if it's the red from that gallery that spills into the story to show us what the key events are?)

Then we have Great driving Tyme home after their claw machine date in his red car:

I don't necessarily believe they had a claw machine date at the mall in the real past, but I do believe Great drove Tyme home after a possible date at some point.

Then there's the red light as Tyme walks out of the operating room:

That leads into the scene outside where Tyme tells Great to get out of his sight (before the 4MP changes things). The way Tyme acted in that scene (before the 4MP) was a lot more like the Tyme we saw in the 1st episode than Great's rizzless version of Tyme. So, that might've been the real past Tyme bleeding through in that particular scene.

Then we also have Tonkla's red cat collar, which goes even further back in time as he buried his cat while at Uni, but also now that he's thinking back to that time when he and Korn started their relationship/situationship:

Both those scenes (burying the cat, which leads to his thing with Korn, and looking at that collar after having a fight with Korn and fucking Win) could've happened in the real past.

Why do I think this matters to the story, though? And why do I believe it's part of the backbone of the story? Well, I'm basing this off my theory that Title is Fasai's brother. If that's true, there's a chance that Title knew about Dome's brother (Tonkla) being Korn's "toy" (as Fasai put it). That could very well be the reason Title clearly hates Dome as much as he does. And it all started with Tonkla burying that cat at Uni.

Then there's the blood around Nan as she's held captive and is beaten (and later shot):

Which, in the real past, might've led to Great and Korn fleeing town in Great's red car:

And considering we still haven't seen the scene from the trailer where they're lying in a boat out on the water (which I think is at the same glamping site as at the beginning of the 5th episode), they're probably going back there again in Tyme's timeline. And if they're going back there, there's a big chance it happened in the real past as well (since both characters are imagining it).

The same goes for when they returned to the city in Great's red car. They likely returned to different circumstances in the real past, but they must've returned either way.

Then there are the red features on the news as they report about the accusations against Great's dad and his company (which can be seen in an image above).

I'm sure the evidence Tyme had gotten on the illegal gambling sites leaked somehow in the real past as well (it might've been Tyme who did it, which might've led to Great and his mom being shot).

Then we have the sign on Tyme's place saying "House for rent" in red letters:

Whether he (in the real past) left because Chanin bribed him or because he just wanted to take his grandmother somewhere safer is up for debate.

But at least I'm pretty sure Great was shot (and, most likely, his mom too):

Just look at that red splatter.

This is as far as we've come in the show right now.

So, does it make sense that the red tells us what happened in the real past and/or which events are the backbone of the story? Yes.

Do I think I cracked a code or something? Not really.

But it does make me eager to keep tracking the red in the remaining episodes to see if it will keep being the red thread of the real past/the backbone of the story or if any pitfalls will come up.

Now, let's move on to my predictions of what might come in the coming episodes.

Jewelry, Clothes, and Bruises

At first, I was going to write about the jewelry after the 5th episode because I've been tracking them (besides clocks/time, numbers, and color, to name a few things) since the start, and I think it will play a role now that the show is moving toward Tyme's perspective instead. But, @yakdee wrote amazingly about the jewelry in this post, which means I don't have to. I recommend you read that post first.

To that post, I want to add that the 5th episode ended with Tyme wearing the clothes he was wearing when he was shot in the 1st episode (he also doesn't wear any jewelry in the scene when he's shot):

Is he still in Great's timeline here, running towards his own death so he can have his own OOBE, or is he in the real past?

Or, a third option, perhaps he's in both at the same time, which could be indicated by the bruise on Tyme's nose that he had in the 1st episode when he was shot (image above), which also showed up every other time the lights flickered in the last scene in the 5th episode:

Perhaps the spinning of the camera in that last scene was to show these two versions merging together. Perhaps it showed one Tyme ending while the other Tyme beginning. Or, perhaps it just showed that everything is upside down.

Now, whichever version of Tyme it is that gets shot, I believe that will be the trigger that moves the show into Tyme's perspective of whatever happened in the past. Because I do believe we will be sent back into the past again (somehow) since there are scenes from the trailer that haven't yet shown up and yet would've chronologically happened in the past from our current vantage point (I'll get back to these in a bit).

(I would personally argue that the Tyme with the bruise is the Tyme from the real past. I also believe it's that version of him we'll see get shot in the next episode like we did in the 1st episode, and that will be the trigger that sends us into his OOBE timeline.)

In other words, this is where I believe we're headed.

Tyme's Timeline

I've had the theory for a while that Tyme is having an OOBE as well because there are times when the thunder has broken through into the events we've seen, which I think is his real present reality bleeding through (the thunderstorm at the abandoned place where he was shot in the 1st episode).

So, what can we expect from Tyme's timeline? Or, what will I keep my eyes open for when (if?) we get Tyme's timeline?

Again, considering the things Den commented about in his research, it's obvious that the person from which perspective we're seeing is coloring the narrative.

We might be getting a completely different vibe going forward when seeing things from Tyme's perspective. And just like @yakdee wrote in that post, there's still the scene at the bar from the trailer as well as the sex scenes Great had visions of. The vibe in those scenes is very different (in my opinion) from what we've seen so far from Great's perspective.

There's also this scene of them lying in that boat out on the water:

Which I believe is at the same countryside/glamping site they were at in Great's timeline.

We know that these scenes will show up at some point and we'll likely get to see them from Tyme's perspective, which will be an interesting contrast to Great's.

Also, from a color perspective, Great's OOBE timeline had him in white and Tyme in black for the most part (that might not change very much in Tyme's OOBE timeline, but it's definitely something I'll keep my eyes on). Just look at that image of them in the boat, though. Great is wearing primarily dark clothes with a white jacket while Tyme (who has basically only worn black clothes excluding his doctor's robe, his gray clothes when visiting Great's Uni, and the clothes he wore when he was shot) is wearing a black shirt and white pants... (Also, look at the yin and yang they're creating lying there in that boat. It's just so visually stunning.) That's super interesting to me.

I will keep tracking clocks/time, the color red (and other colors), numbers, more tilting camera shots (which also appeared in this episode, but I don't have the brainpower, or the images left, to write about that right now), and more as the show continues.

So, if I'm to summarize the major timelines right now, they would be:

The present timeline (where Great and Tyme are dying).

The 4-minute timeline (which is Great's do-over timeline).

The real past/Tonkla's timeline (which may be the same timeline or have diverged into separate ones as the show has progressed).

And the addition I think we'll get in the next episode: Tyme's timeline (which may get another name if he also develops a supernatural ability).

I can't wait to watch the next episode and see how wrong I am.

Is it Friday, yet?

[hannahssimblr]

How did you improve so much in a year at building and taking screenshots?! Forever in awe

hahah thank you so much! I'm so happy with my improvement - the answer is ~magic~

nah, really, it's just that when I started Lucky Girl back at the end of 2022, I knew absolutely none of the screenshot tricks - I only ever got ts4 as a way to tell the story, and hadn't played it at all in the years prior. I ended up trying to take screenshots in a game where I didn't even know how to work the teleport function - and you can tell, I fear.

I was also using another platform to share my story at the time, and a lot of the content there kinda looked the same - vanilla, screenshots taken with plumbobs on and the walls down etc. I wasn't using Tumblr so I didn't have any inspiration. Coming here really pushed me to be better and taught me a lot of tricks and new things to add to my game to make it look better - the short of it, is that I just really didn't know better, and I just wanted to write the story. The screenshots felt secondary. I look back and cringe tbh, but I distinctly remember not really bothering that much with them, and thinking that 'just okay' was good enough.

Since then I've learned so much!

The first was how to teleport, and use MCCC to get sims to do couple poses off the lot

I got TOOL and figured all of that stuff out - including to create the illusion of varying heights etc.

I added in more details to the sims, changed any hair and skin issues, and added in skin details galore

I use WW for posing whenever I need something a bit more complex

I got over my fear of having too much CC in my game and just got so much build/buy cc - this made it possible to create the kinds of houses and rooms I imagined in my head - also, experience building helped a lot. In the beginning I was so intimidated, and frankly, unable to make things looked good that I relied on builds from the gallery 90% of the time.

Weirdly, even though I studied film in college, I never applied my knowledge of composition to the screenshots - I just started doing that, and generally trying to think more cinematically.

I got more use to using photoshop to fix screenshots, mix them together and crop them to be more compositionally pleasing. I also did that tutorial about changing the BG of a scene - I do that as a last resort, but it really works.

RESHADE - this was the biggest one. That DOF really changed my screenshot game - there's a point in lucky girl where I started using it, and you can see the instant difference.

Lighting mods - I use sunblind, and I also use the ghibli replacement clouds. I have a few others also to fix the shadows and lighting in general

Being more intentional with poses. I got a bunch of new ones with more subtle expressions that I felt suited the tone of my story better. I think the exaggerated ones are super cute, but they always seemed too much for my story. I also got animations for even more natural movement in scenes. Sometimes I'll make my own, too, if I can't find exactly what I am looking for

The eye trick was a huge gamechanger - I use it almost every single shot, and truly couldn't live without it.

Relight is a recent addition to my game - I only figured out how to use it around the end of part 2 of Lucky Boy. I don't use it a lot, but it was great more some of the dramatically lit festival scenes, and whenever I want some lamplight on a character (Or to just balance out a dark part of the shot)

camera mods have helped me gain more control of my scenes, along with the CTRL 5/6/7/8/9 camera saving trick. I use this a lot too, especially when I need to characters to look at each other with the eye trick and they won't do it at the same time (recent example below)

All of that is basically how I did it! It was a whole process but I'm so pleased because I look at the old screenshots and just think, damn, I've come so far!

More examples of the same scenes redone, because it's fun

[thealogie]

q&a report q&a report (late but better than never) q&a report i didn't catch quiiiite everything in detail but i did my very best

we got: dt ros watt (malcolm) jatinder singh randhawa (porter) cal macaninch (banquo) casper knopf (fleance, the kid actor) alasdair macrae (musician, murderer) annie grace (gentlewoman, musician) and i think? kathleen macinnes (singer)

the last three people all shuffled in a bit apart from each other after the round of everyone introducing themselves by name and character was already over so i'm not sure i caught them all accurately. i'll refer to people by first names

during the introduction round i think casper started introducing himself and got kid applause so the audience ended up giving every single person a sped up little round of applause like a cute lil call and response rhythm between introduction - applause of very specific short length which was kind of funny. the cast joined in for each others as well and everyone made funny faces while applauding.

most questions were asked by the moderator

question: What did you think about the production when they first heard about it? cal was confused but intrigued. a lot of "not sure how it was going to work or feel like". when david and cush got on it the binaural audio wasn't yet firmly part of the concept but he was intrigued by the approach through trauma and how that affects the macbeths' relationship.

question: Wow was it for them with the binaural audio knowing the experience is different for the audience? what do they think? dt: we don't quite now how it comes together. the sounds are all cued off us actors, not the other way around. all i know is without Laura we would be fucked! (Laura = live sound mixing person) ros: we never quite know how it sounds for the audience, we were able to put on headphones and experience scenes we're not in in rehearsal, but i want to watch the whole thing! the cue speakers have some stripped down sounds and music that are relevant for the actors. but the audio choices enabled us to create intimacy jatinder: i think it makes the audience better able to relate to mental health struggles and trauma, giving what happens in the characters heads into your heads and relate it to your own experience. i think everyone here in the room has some of their own experiences with mental health and… voices in their head

question to the musicians: how does your work add to the concept and experience? kathleen (i think mostly, but the other musicians might also have weighed in): music enables us to place the text in a very Scottish place, but without getting in the way of the text. The headphones make it possible that it mixes with all the layers, balancing between music, sounds and lines is possible thanks to the technology. you can have loudly, energetically played music but then mix it at a level where it doesn't interfere with lines, when usually you would have to play quietly to let the text come through, which creates a different atmosphere. kathleen: i was advised to sing when nobody is speaking and turn that to humming when somebody is. so it was also very useful to have the glass box and always see what is happening on stage.

question about the porter scene: how did that come to pass, especially making a more modern version out of it? jatinder: decided together with max to just play it and see where it goes, starting with improvisation and then fleshing it out. there was an interest in finding a modern equivalent to the original jokes that audiences would perceive in a similar way as audiences back then would have related to the original jokes. the scene purposefully takes a bit of the intensity out - basically an emotional intermission in the middle of this really intense and dark journey. but my job was also in the end of the scene to bring the audience back into it.

question to david: What makes you come back to the big parts? dt: Well, Max had a good idea and I like Max. I liked the idea of the themes of PTSD and child loss and I like the donmar warehouse. i performed here 20 years ago, which is remarkable because i'm in my mid twenties right now! (laughs all around). there's something a bit magical about this space and doing an olympic event of a part like this one in this intimate of a space.

audience member question to Casper (kid): What is your favorite bit of the play? casper: my favorite bits are the murdering… or the attempt to murder. (laughs all around) But no, seriously. I like scenes where I'm not being killed and I'm having a conversation with someone that's not about death. different cast member (not sure who): -Is- there even a scene like that? (everyone laughs) dt, turning to Casper kind of conspiratorially: My favorite bit every night is the audience's reaction to your neck getting broken. (raised eyebrows, nodding to the audience with a wide grin) That's always something.

audience member question: Do you notice the audience being different in any way with the headphones compared to your experiences in other plays? different cast members answer in bits and pieces (sometimes i have a vague memory who it was…) ros: with the headphones sometimes people are louder, sometimes i feel like you are more connected and zoned in on us! maybe because you don't have the opportunity to talk to your neighbor maybe… somebody else: i feel like it's very quiet and there is somehow less coughing than usual. (laughs around) i don't know why that is!!

audience member question: What other productions of macbeth influenced this one: [here be the the answer part with david's ian mckellen impression, see the other post] musicians (i think annie): we came straight, literally no break, from the RSC's macbeth production so we really had to empty our brains. there was no break in between, but the music is very different and Max's vision also very different, so we really had to unlearn parts

audience member question: The physical theatre stuff, the witch swarm, how did that come about? ros: We really tried to think more of what would be a physical representation of the voices in somebody's head. Everybody in Macbeth's life is watching, taunting, staring at him. It was always more about the intention of the movement, what these voices want to do to him and less what the movement itself is.

THANK YOU for transcribing all of this. I love getting an explanation for what the swarm of witches were meant to represent! It really did feel like a dance/feeling more than a literal scene and it’s fun to know that was sort of the intent. (Also the neck snapping bit - I also loved the audience’s reaction to that every night.)

[corbits-comet]

writing tools tips and tricks I personally use

I write historical fiction and am very detail oriented and also highly forgetful so this is the stuff I use to plan my story and so I don’t forget stuff

STUFF U NEED

-notebook or google doc (I use a combination of both) 

-internet access or a public library and the ability to read 

-your big beutiful brain you’ve got swirling around up there 

You really don’t need any fancy shit

  PRECURSORS. 

You’ll need to come up with a concept or a character dynamic you like. For me it came with: two detectives who have a bitter rivalry, and then the setting, extra characters and plot line fell into place. 

Day dreaming— this is a vital step, as soon as you get a concept, or even just a character dynamic in your head, put on some of your favorite music that you feel like might match the vibe and get imagining, just play around see what happens

Write that shit down. It seems stupid but trust me write down ever little idea you have, nothing has to go in order, you can write the ending and then the beginning and then the middle for all anyone cares. If you get ideas for scenes or side characters halfway through developing your main characters WRITE IT DOWN. Even if it’s shit and dosnt get used. 

Start stitching stuff together, start weaving in your favorite troupes, plot lines and ideas, for me it went from the rivalry to then the idea of a stalker, then the additional idea of adding political rivalry, murder, aristocracy and eventually a fully fleshed out story. Just keep adding stuff until it feels round, you can always add and subtract 

Now character work. For me at least I don’t need to know everything about the story before I start writing but I do need to know everything about the characters. I start with just doing a big infodump on each characters personality traits and their function in the story. And that’s it for now, that’s the first step. The second one is I go through the dynamics between the main characters, for example I have two main characters so I write about how they feel about eachother respectively, and then how each of them feel about the villan, the stalker, and a few other main characters etc. this will help you with scenes and character development. The third and final one I like to do is actually a character work excercises off tumblr (I found it on Pinterest here’s the link, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1038501995319442405/ no clue who wrote it so if anyone knows I’ll gladly credit them <3) and after that I usually have a pretty good grasp on what my main characters think and feel about most things in the story. You can go farther by I typically don’t

Alright by now you probably have at least an idea of what kind of setting you want to have your story in so now it’s time to start worldbuilding. Like I said I mostly write historical fiction so this step will look a little different if you’re making your own world and stuff but the basics are pretty much the same. RESEARCH. Find and read anything you can on anything relevant to your story, for me that’s geographical locations, town layouts, early zoning, social hiarchies, medicine, law and religion, as well as the functions of certian poisons used for the murders in my story. But this can look like anything. Writing FNAF fanfiction? Get prints on the layout, and if you’re making your own look up layouts of old 80’s pizzareas and accounts from people that worked there. Get the links and keep them all on a document, for later…

Lists. While all this is happening I have two lists going, one of things that I know I want to happen in the story. You don’t have to have a coherent plot line, just a general idea and then as you start working on it you’ll accrew some ideas, write these down. Even if they’re shit. You want forced proximity with the main rivals? Do it. You want a certian character to get hurt? Do it. They don’t have to have a sensical order, this is so you don’t lose track of all the cool stuff you think of. The second list is one of side characters. They don’t have to have names yet, a few of mine are ‘old richy rich mcmoneybags’ and ‘crazy old bag McGee’ and then a brief character description about what they do in the story. These characters can be even more important than the main ones, and ones your readers will remeber forever.  

And the last is one of the best writing advice I’ve ever gotten. Write your first draft like total shit. It’s a map for your story, for you to go back in and fill in later, if you think of something for the future midway, put it in and fix it later. And most importantly; you don’t have to write in order. Write what you know, what you’re excited for. Just tiny scene by tiny scene. And then start stringing them together and fill in the gaps

Now go my minions. Write your story’s. also! Tumblr writing advice can be worth its weight in gold.

[n3xii]

Vintage Aesthetic tarot decks ~a list created by your personal shopper <3 ~

as a tarot reader i've noticed that there's a clashing interest between having new, modern style decks VS having vintage looking decks that uphold classic art styles of the past. Many people probably think of the basic rider Waite decks or Marseille decks when they hear the word vintage decks, but there's actually a wide variety of beautiful, timeless cards that don't necessarily fit neatly into those categories. if you love tarot cards and are looking to expand your collection then this is a comphrensive list of decks I've found and some background on them! the affiliate links are in the title of each deck, so if you chose to buy from that click it would be no extra charge for you but would give me a small percentage. I love doing ''personal shopper'' type post for niche interests so i'm grateful to anyone who chooses to support!

the enchanted tarot: This is actually a deck that I own and even purchased for my sister for christmas as well. This deck is LARGE, it's vertically pretty long and the backs of the cards are this gold and white regal design. Sometimes with decks you LOVE the art on them but the backs of the cards just dont match the beauty of the rest of the deck. that is NOT the case with this deck, wvery single card and every single detail about this deck feels nostalgic and purposful. the deck itself feels expensive despite it being $25 dollars. I feel rich holding it and it was clear as soon as I got it out of the box that I had a very deep bond with it. Every reading I've had with it has been ACTUALLY divine and incredibly accurate.

2. Ancient Italian tarot: this is also another deck that I own. I cannot stress this enough, the art in this deck is everything a 1960's witch doing readings in the back of a party would want. The art style is very classic with italian titles for each major arcana card. This deck would be perfect for people familar with either marseille or rider waite in my opinion, but defintetly for more ''skilled'' readers. (if you're getting it for aesthetics it doesnt matter.)

3. cosmic tarot deck: my friend bought this in a shop the other day and I was blown away by how pretty it was in person. I love the blue tones of this deck, and the sureal, astral feel it gives

4. the medieval scapini deck: this deck looks older than it is, it originated in 1985 and the cards themselves have very recent images embedded into them. for example, the queen of swords represents an intelligent woman rising above a small scene of kkk members (yes the kkk) among other things too, this was the artist's was of depicting a person rising above ignorance and bigotry. The reversed meaning of the card is a person falling for ignorant or biased narratives. I feel like the art in this deck adds a whole new layer of meaning to each card and it can easily go above your head if you arent paying attention to them! I love this deck and have a very deep connection with it

5. a jane austen tarot deck: this deck isnt vintage in the literal sense, but it has that aesthetic and feel to it. even the cardstock is very thick and durable with a unique texture. this deck itsef can actually be used for cartomancy as it has 53 cards with a playing card design to them, with a corresponding scene from a jane austen book paired with each card. This deck is perfect for cartomancy, journaling, prompts etc.

[utilitycaster]

@wanderingbasilisk replied to your post “my totally biased opinion is that the black moss...”:

...do you perchance have that recipe, and would be willing to share it? 👀

​I do (thanks past me for never deleting my texts), and have asked permission to share, and it has been granted.

2 c flour (all purpose)

1 c sugar (white granulated)

1 stick (8 tbsp) butter

3 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

1/2 c cocoa powder

1 tbsp heavy cream

1 c beet juice

matcha powder (straight matcha powder - not sweetened matcha latte powder) and turmeric to taste; I believe the recommendations were 1 tbsp matcha and 2 tbsp turmeric.

The recommendation was to do a matcha creme patissiere for frosting but for some reason creme patissiere consistently eludes me so I'd do a matcha-flavored, light on the sweetening version of your go-to cupcake frosting. I think I did a not-very-sweet whipped cream, honestly. The recipe he recommended, if you are a better pastry chef than I and wish to try, is this one (matcha pastry cream only although if you feel like making pate a choux as well, I support this endeavor)

Edited: realized I did uh. not provide any details on the making thereof bc they were not in the screenshots. basically, standard cupcake rules:

Cream together butter and sugar

Beat in eggs

Add the dry ingredients, mixed together, a little at a time; alternate with the remaining wet ingredients (ie, the beet juice and cream). Essentially, find and follow a normal butter-based chocolate cupcake recipe except put matcha and turmeric in with the flour and sub in beet juice and cream for the milk/buttermilk.

Bake at 350 F (180 C) for 20-ish minutes, do the toothpick test as needed.

Notes:

You do want straight up beet juice that isn't mixed with various other fruits, and this can be a pain in the ass to find. I don't have a solution here, just a heads up.

Once you have used a cup of beet juice, you will have a bunch of beet juice left over. You can either use this to make even more cupcakes, or you can make a very lazy borscht (which is what I did) or you can just drink it. I don't know your life.

You can leave out the heavy cream and swap butter for margarine if you are dairy free, which my brother and his friend did test, but egg-free versions were not tested so if you are vegan/have an egg allergy you'll need to play around with your go-to substitutes.

Similarly, should play well with your go to gluten-free all purpose baking flour.

Recipe was developed prior to Jester's Isharnai cupcake scene (hilariously, in looking back through my texts, I received the recipe the Friday after that episode aired) so no guarantees on efficacy re: hag distraction

[bathroomtrapped]

ur art is so, so amazing, is there anyway u could do a tutorial bc I wanna draw like u so badly

i can try but idrk how to explain myself or make tutorials lol

i think my style is just a product of my brush and what im trying to get out of my art, which is trying to portray the characters as accurately as possible. i rly just want it to look like it could be a stylized redraw of a deleted scene or something

my process is kinda everywhere bc i just move on to whatever step will probably make me hate the piece less when im done with it. i draw with a more square brush (blurring marker 1 on ibis) which i def recommend. its great for focusing on shapes in ur art and it helps me not overblend/forces me to think of more interesting lines/shapes. my sketch is a thicker size of the same pen, focusing on the major shapes and proportions and i just make as many additional layers overtop of it, lowering the size of the pen and adding details as i go

once im at the lineart i usually use a site that creates color palettes based off images (usually just steal some from old catholic art) and i steal my base colors from that. it doesnt matter how terrible ur base colors look as long as they make sense and r what ur generally going for.

these were my original base, i use colored line art and shade the basic shadows using the line art mixed with the base color, highlights r whatever is the lightest color in the palette. after that i duplicate and throw it through this filter

i play w the colors and use it as a color/hue/luminosity layer on top of the original version, lower opacity and render now that theres more colors on the canvas (the filter creates more contrast between the lame base colors i mix, then i can add bounce shadows and shit).

i use a shit ton of digital cheats. single color overlay layers at the end of a piece, pizza face overlay glow, using vignettes around the border to draw the eye towards the subjects at the center, filters, color palette generators, etc. they make things sm easier so u can worry abt experimenting with other things.

i dont rly know how to explain how i do clothes or hair other than focusing on the shadows and worrying abt lights later. this is honestly the best tutorial i can think of bc in my head im just drawing what i see as best as i can with the pen i use. use a fuck ton of reference, do actor face studies, and try to experiment with ur style everytime u draw. ur never gonna learn how to use ur programs or expand if ur bogged down by trying to achieve a specific look. sometimes that thing u were nervous abt bc thats not how ur style usually works is the best thing on the piece at the end.

actually draw only what u want to draw in that very moment and use that as an opportunity to experiment however u can. i just draw chainshipping and find ways to trick myself into learning 👍🏻 sorry this is so bad if u have any specific questions i can try to answer those better

edit: this is what i mean when i say just draw with whatever base colors and use the lineart to add value. i thoroughly hated this piece at this stage but once i adjusted the pallet it felt much more cohesive and i could continue on with the drawing. the best thing i can say is to have absolutely no process past the same few first steps and resign urself to a cycle of self hatred and throwing random bs at the wall to see what sticks

[indescribeable]

It do be like that sometimes

My ass is sat here like damn I wish someone would write some more fanfics for me to read dead ass serious when I have 3 fics on the go that are all on hiatus as well as asks I still haven't answered because I cant find the inspiration or motivation to do it myself like girl its hard for everyone. But on a real note yall are incredibly talented and I cant wait to read more stuff from everyone and even though rn writing fics might not be the best option for me if anyone wants to ask anything about personal headcancons or scenarios or stuff like that feel free as it I feel like that stuff will be a hell of a lot easier for me to write rn.

I have also been thinking about trying to seriously plan out and flesh out my own AU, on a base level its not that different from the original game but then it also can seem so out their sometimes that I'm like people aren't gonna fuck with it when I need to remember its my AU so I can add whatever I want lmao.

I also have a question for yall, my AU and my version of Mika are hella dark like I have had a scene in mind for my light in the dark fic since I started writing it that basically takes the scene of Diana showing Damiens past without permission and shows one of Mikas past lowest moments instead and TW* (its to do with pretty severe self harm) but I feel like its important for Mikas character development, the development of Mika and Dianas relationship, both of their relationships with the boys ect. And the way that scene would be written is VERY descriptive to give the full effect that Diana REALLY crosses a line and in my head I'm like, am I okay? well the answer is no but I hope you get what I mean I guess I just want to know if anyone else experiences that though process of am I getting too serious with it and too in my head for a fanfic like when I'm thinking about my fic I play that scene in my head in FULL detail and it concerns me sometimes lmao. Also I just wanted to say Mika does NOT have to have any mental health issues or anything of that nature to be an interesting and fully fleshed out character this is just the way I see her for whatever reason.

I guess that's all I wanted to say for now lmao I hope you found some interest in my rambling lmao.

P.S Also being content starved if anyone wants to drop any fluff *whispers* or smut in my inbox go for it I would genuinely love that XD ok have a good day/night!

[wutheringmights]

Hi I just emerged from a haze of reading all 513,000 words of CTB in less than a week. I have so many Thoughts that I can't condense into something readable. I am rotating the boys in my head like a microwave. I don't know what to do with my life now that I have to Sit Here with no one around me to talk to about this story. Thank you for everything.

How carefully/detailed are your chapter outlines, if you use any? Do you have a vague idea or is it carefully plotted? How intentional is the pacing of the past story vs the present story (like when to show events in the past relative to when they're referenced in the present)?

No, thank YOU for being a sane person and NOT reading the entire story in one day lol

For story outlines, I split the difference between having everything planned and making shit up as I go. Here's a photo of my outline for everything from the sixth chapter up until Spirit's return:

(You can see here that there's a lot of shit that got changed or deleted entirely, but you get the idea.)

So you can see that I have broad strokes figured out in advance-- basic plot stuff like "character does x-- as well as a few smaller story beats. I wait until I'm about to write a chapter to figure out a play by play of what needs to happen.

My main reason for doing this is that I think figuring out the plot is the funnest part of writing, so having outlines that are too thorough saps out all of the enjoyment. But plotting like this gives me a lot of flexibility to add or remove ideas/scenes based on feedback from readers.

The best example of this is that plot point there labeled "Travel to Cia." That is a chapter better known as the Fever Dreams. I came up with the entire fever dream sequence when I realized that I needed to go into more detail about how Warriors grew up. (This is one of the many reasons why I love getting all kinds of feedback and comments from you guys-- it lets me know what I need to add or take away to tell the story right).

For pacing, everything was anchored around making sure the child leaves the war (in the past) happens in the same chapter as when Spirit arrives (in the present). I believe I wrote out everything that happened in the present day first, then paced out everything in the past based on it.

Managing the information economy was surprisingly easy, all things considered. Warriors is the only character who knows the entire story, but he is reluctant to even think about what happened. So when something is mentioned in narrative, he only provides Just Enough Context for the reader to get what happened, but none of the details.

From there, the other characters can just organically bring up what little they know. It helps that I didn't care if readers knew what happened in the past before it happened. The tension in the past isn't that readers don't know what's going to happen. It's that readers know how the story ends but they don't know HOW it'll get there.

Plus, it's important for writers to remember that your readers aren't inherently on the same brainwave as you. Unless you explicitly tell them something, there's a high chance they are not going to connect the pieces the same way you do. I thought I was giving the whole goose away with explaining what happened in the past; in reality, readers got all the pieces but none of the glue that connected them together.

And if people do put it together? Good! They can sit in agony knowing they can't stop what will happen.

[stop-talking]

I loveee your Derek fic! IK you said you’ve been kind of stumped lately and I have a suggestion if you don’t mind. Maybe add more to the reader to give her character more personality? Like make her a recovered addict so her and Derek can relate/bond more? Just a suggestion!

I'm so sorry for the wait on ch. 7!!!

I have been writing, just... it's currently a one thousand word incomprehensible blurb of feelings & thoughts, broken up by a few lines of dialogue here and there.

I don't know what to tell you guys as to WHY it's taking so long... other than I just haven't felt right.

Usually when I'm writing, I can see the scenes play out in my head like a movie, and it's just a matter of describing what I see. Like I'm fucking hallucinating.

Sometimes writing is super easy, because I've been replaying the same scene over and over in my head for days and I already intimately know how every little detail should play out.

Sometimes I have to do a little bit of prompting to get the scene to come together. (writing the little blurbs about how each character is feeling usually helps)

But recently, even that did not save me and I just could not see the story. I know that probably makes no fucking sense, but hey, the creative process is different for everyone and I don't think I'm going to be able to describe this abstract process using concrete words.

Basically the vibes have been off. Usually it only takes a few hundred word chapter outline to get me going, but this one took a thousand words before I could finally see the story.

But yes. I finally see the story. And I'm honestly probably going to wait and outline the next few chapters as well before I start actually writing, it'll just make it easier for me in the long run.

So yeah, gonna be a couple days on chapter 7... but when it does finally come out the wait for chapters 8, 9, and 10 shouldn't take too long. And I already know exactly how I want the epilogue to go... (it might even be two parts)

To anon:

I like your suggestion about making the reader a recovering addict as well, and I actually thought about doing that when I was first writing this. The problem is, I'm just not confident enough in my ability to write a character that's gone through that kind of a struggle in a realistic & respectful manner, seeing as I've never gone through that myself.

(I'm doing my best with Derek already, and I'm still not satisfied with how easy it's been for him. I feel like he should be more anguished 😭)

Anyway, it's also a little late in the story to suddenly reveal that she's been though the same thing he has. I mean, the story is partly told from her perspective, and i feel like she would have thought about it before, even if she never revealed it to Derek.

It's an interesting thought, though, and thank you all for being so paitent!

P.S

I'm at 197 followers, so submit some deranged jhutch smut requests for a 200 follower special. (I'll write just about anything other than non-con, underage, pissplay, that sort of thing.)

I'll pick one and write a short one-off AFTER chapter 7 of SISOTSIAICEHAS. (Wow, even the acronym is terrible.)

And to the person that requested the Clapton Davis fic... it's in my drafts. It will see the light of day eventually. Sorry.

[sassenach082]

I gotta know, what is your writing process? Is there a specific mindset you get into or can you just write anywhere? take me through the process please:)

Hey there! Okay, wow, so. I'm going to attempt to answer this without sounding like a lunatic. It's going to be long so I'll put it under the cut for those of you who want to move on.

First, my actual writing process, which is mostly planning.

The first thing I do is decide how I'm ending. I'm a work backwards kind of writer, probably because I'm a teacher and that's how we plan, the first thing we decide is what we want them to know. So in writing, I always decide, "How is this going to end?" and write that first. I've had the final scene of I'll Ride in my google docs since about 3 hours after I saw TG:M for the fourth time (I saw it 12 times in theaters, hence the lunatic comment above, but I digress).

Once I know how it's going to end, I decide, who are the characters? Where is the setting? What is the conflict going to be? Once I have a vague idea of that, I start my google doc for my outline. Since I write both POVs, I do three columns:

chapter number

POV

main scenes / summary

I'm not someone who writes out every little thing in an outline. Just to give you an idea, here's the summary for chapter 8

title: that fear that’s inside you will lift, give it time

-Ice & his fam vs. The Colonel Who Is An Ass -Sarah is a gem and already knows he’s gay and loves him anyways because, she’s A Gem™  -ice talks to Pete on the phone after dinner, listens as Mav and Bradley read the dinosaur book to him -ice goes to the o club to see the boys and is all ‘yo maverick is fucking struggling also we’re all adopting bradley’ and the boys go ‘aiight cool bro’ -slider pins him against a building and is like “so how long have you been fucking  mitchell” and ice is like ‘fuck off ronnie’ and ronnie is all ‘ice for fucks sake how stupid do you think i am i don’t give a fuck if you like dick i know you’re in love with him i’m not an idiot’ etc -He checks out books after Mav’s panic attack on how to help with trauma

So as you can see what I had in my outline isn't exactly what happened, it's basically just "which scenes do I want in this part". I don't write them in order I just kind of write the main things I want to happen, the scaffold if you will, and then I build the house. I usually go through 2-3 drafts which is why it sometimes takes me a long time to post. It's a 4 step process.

+ decide the scenes I want to see + write the main scenes + put them in chronological order in a new doc + go back and fill in details to connect the scenes together

I'm a very visual person and I have a gift of being able to read something and play it like a movie in my head while I'm reading. It's actually called "visualization" and lots of people can't do it which is my theory why they hate reading but that's whole other conversation. The point is I make the movie in my head, but I pay attention to - where are they? What are they doing? How are they moving? Where are their hands? Ice picked something up, now he has to put it down, where is he going to put it down, how, when, etc. I call it setting the scene but I don't know what it's actually called. As a reader it annoys me when I have no guide on what they're doing in a scene so I try to include those details just because it's easier for me to picture it and I hope it's the same for my readers.

Sometimes my brain decides to do other scenes and I'll add those in as I go. Sometimes my chapters get too long and I have to shove scenes down into the next chapter. It all lives in my google doc so I can keep track. When I'm working on a chapter I will just highlight what I've written so I can see what I still need to write.

Once it's written, and I think this is the most important part, I go back and reread. The whole thing. Start to the end of my new chapter. I check for: 1. am I following my own canon 2. do I have a plot hole on accident, and if I do, I have to fill it 3. do details match (like descriptions) 4. does it flow Sometimes I don't like the flow and that's why I will scrap sections and rewrite them to get more in the headspace of whoever the POV character is. This is extremely difficult for me to do with Ice, he's the harder of the two to write and his chapters take me a life age. I've straight up had Mav's chapters done for over a year. It's the Ice ones I'm working on now. Some of the later chapters will have both POVs just because Ice is so hard for me right now.

Once I have it done I send the link over to my beta. She's great and gives feedback on scenes etc. (Love you mtnofgrace!) and helps me to check that it makes sense / is in character / etc.

Then, I post! I can write pretty much anywhere, and I get into the writing mood by listening to the Top Gun soundtrack mostly. Or just rewatching one of the movies if it's been a while since I've written. Some days I write nothing and others I crank out thousands of words, it just kind of depends on if my muse is flowing. Listening to asmr Top Gun youtube videos with the music and jet noises helps me focus that's what I usually listen to while writing.

Hope that answered your question!

[rabbittwinrithings]

I’m finally making it, My Beyond Reach Review

Disclaimer: While I didn’t have the best time with this mod, that doesn’t mean you may not. I never want my opinion to sour someone else’s, and have the risk of them not playing the mod. So I highly recommend you check it out. 

I’m putting this disclaimer as well since my playthrough of the mod is a bit unfair. I played it with godmode (since I suck at game combat,) and after a while started to clip through dungeons to get them over with. This started to happen around halfway through as I found myself more frustrated with the mod and kinda wanted it done. I also played through only mostly the main quest. However, a friend of mine did tell me about one sidequest I do have a problem with. So keep this in mind with my review that I may be treating it a little unfairly. 

There’s also the point that mods are hard to make, let alone one of this scale. The mod author did an amazing job at creating this mod and I never want to invalidate that. With all that said, let’s get going. 

CW: Sexual Assault, Child Abuse, Ped*****, Cannibalism, and Harm Towards Women.

And Obviously Spoilers!

First off, I’m not the best at writing reviews. It won’t be wonderfully crafted or anything, just mostly detailed bullet notes of what I liked and disliked. While there is more I disliked, I did find some positives and will be layouting things in a sandwich review (that’s the right word?) going from positive to negative. Here we go!

This is a review for the mod, Beyond Reach by razorkid. 

Good: Grimdark. I will always love me some Grimdark. Hell, my current playthrough of Skyrim is currently a grimdark playthrough all with dead trees, gallows, horror monsters, ect. And while I think some parts of Beyond Reach’s grimdark-ness falls flat, most of it holds up and creates an eerie atmosphere. There were bodies hanging, creepy monsters, creepy dungeons, and a lot of stuff that fit the tone of the mod. However... some of it did not... 

Bad: A lot felt like shock value. In grimdark there’s always a tendency to add a lot of stuff for shock value, and sadly, BR had an abundance of it. I knew the mod got dark, but still I decided to play the uncensored version as I did want to get all the content. However, some it felt just... unneeded. At one point the player is tasked to go raid an Orc stronghold where there are legionnaire prisoners. However, you end up finding two of them, both women, one alive, one dead. The player can piece together what happened from that alone, and yet the mod goes as far as to have the alive prisoner wail at one of the soilders about how she was raped and would have an Orc child. The only purpose of this scene felt like to show how horrible these Orcs were. But why not just do that with dead prisoners (doesn’t need to be SA,) or why have her go on a whole speech about it.     After playing through this part I really was trying to rack my head around how it could have been done better. And honestly, after a day, I was reminded of Red Dead Redemption 2, and the scene were Arthur finds a woman who was also SAed. The only difference is that the scene added more than just “wow, those guys we killed were pretty bad,” instead, it added to Arthur's character. He helps the woman home. When she’s about to explain what they did he simply said “I know.” Subtly in situations like this tend to be the most powerful. As people our brains peice together what we want to see and having the woman simply say “They...” and the solider reply with “I know,” would have made the scene much more powerful. (She’s also naked during the whole ordeal, let me give the woman a blanket, something!)    There’s other darker themes that I felt like were shock value (mainly the ending place with some children, however, talking about will just make me sick. So I think I’ll just move on. Basically, some stuff happens to kids and again I feel like it’s only there to prove how bad someone is and doesn’t give much of anything else. I feel like something horrible and big like that need to have numerous reasons to be there than a singular “look how terrible this dude is!”)

Good: Cool enemies. I don’t really feel like there’s much to say on this part. I just thought some enemies were really cool. I think the ones that stuck out to me are part of Vicn’s Creature Pack, but could be wrong. Mostly it was the bloody skeleton monsters. Very cool to see. 

Bad: Not much role playing. Honestly, this part kinda made me the saddest as after one sidequest (which may have been my favorite part of the mod,) I had become an enemy of the state. It felt super in character as I was playing Alllin and despite being a serious guy, is also a little chaos gremlin who will flip off authority. But despite all that, I still ended up becoming a knight of the very state I was an enemy of and was forced to pick dialogue options that bended my knee to the king and was very formal. I’m not saying multiple path options in the way of a knight or criminal are needed, I just wish there were more dialogue options. 

Good: Neat dungeon horror design. So this one is a bit here and there as the dungeons I went through had super neat astrosphere that did have the grimdark feel to them. One was an asylum dungeon which I found pretty neat. However, there was also a problem with length... 

Bad: Long Dungeons. While this whole review is subjective, this part may be the most as I hate dungeons. If they’re neat looking I don’t mind. But when they take around thirty minutes to complete and little progress has been made I get real tired of them. This is why I started clipping through dungeons to just get the thing I needed and get out. 

Good: Music is nice. (But as I type this I went to go find the composer. But I don’t see any credits to music, so a slight bummer. If you know who did the music, please let me know and I’ll edit this part with credits.)

Bad: A lot of dead women. And I get it, a lot of people in general die in this mod. And maybe I’m misremembering stuff, or looking to deep, but in the main questline there was one main female character. And she is killed. And then there are several spots that are just about women in harm. (Like the SA I mentioned before, a part where a little girl is killed by a griffin, an Orc woman being tortured, a brothel getting massacred.) And I just didn’t see so much focus on men. And that sounds weird. But when it leans to one side so much, it is just super noticeable. 

Good: Voice Acting is nice. I know there isn’t too much to say there. I just really liked it. There were some unvoiced lines, but I don’t have too much of a problem with that since they are still looking for voice actors for various roles. I think the only problem I have with the unvoiced lines is that there’s no white noise for the line so the dialogue would just blink in and out and I couldn’t read what was said. 

Bad: Very railroad path. You are forced to be a knight, and see red flags of the nobility and yet you can’t do anything. Most of the time when you question a noble why you should do something it’s “well I’ll just have you killed,” and sure, not dying is great, but then the next line I’ll talk as if my life wasn’t just threatened.     A friend of mine who tried to be a bit more through in the mod took a sidequest where it told you a noble (who turns out to be evil later on in the main quest,) is a cannibal. Can we confront the noble about it? No. Can we warn those who may be hurt by him in the future? No. Do we talk to him as if we don’t know that he eats people? Yep! It’s all just odd and I think again it just falls back to the lack of player choice. 

Good: So on my list I wrote “Liked sick town,” which makes no sense to those who haven’t played it. So to explain it better there was a Side quest I really liked. Not only did it give a ton of player choice, but it actually made me feel like a good person, and the people were nice to me!    During my playthrough I made a rule that if someone was mean to me, I wouldn’t help them outside of the main questline. Cause why would I help someone who is rude to me? (There’s also an issue that most of the place is filled with mean people, so it creates little to no agency to help High Rock.) But one event was with some guards at a city I had to get into. I had to help them with an issue of some sick people and one of their guards who went missing. Come to find out the guard got sick and was trying to find medicine for the town so that they could live about three more years in peace. And in the end I was given a choice to kill the town, or help it. Obviously I helped it and became an enemy of the state. But I loved it! While the sick people would threaten you if you got to close to them, the guard with them was understanding. And his compassion for these people really stood out to me. It’s a shame I later had to bend my knee to the very people that wanted to kill them... 

Bad: Lore Friendliness. This one is very short as I see lore in ES as free real estate. I don’t care what you add in your mod. That what makes it fun. However, I know this will be a turn off for some so I thought I would say it. I think the main factor is you talk to Mara on various occasions and I’ve been told that isn’t possible. 

Good: City Design. I just like the layouts and looks of the city. What else can I say? Districts were interesting. (I think I'm running out of typing juices...)

Bad: Too much going on at one. There’s an Orc extremist group, there’s reach men attacking, there’s Namira shit, there’s a plague, and there’s a civil war starting. That is a lot, and it’s just the main quest. I realize it’s good to have a lot going on in a location, but not all of it needs to be in the main quest. All this stuff makes it super confusing and hard to keep track of what is really going on. 

Bad: Buggy. I’m doing two bads in a row as I do want to leave the review off on a good note. There were quite a few buggy stuff. However, considering how I played through it I wouldn’t doubt if a lot was my fault. That being said, I know some who did play through it correctly did also suffer from bugs. That being said, I know the mod author is still working on the mod so bugs will most likely get fixed.

Good: Dialogue explanation. One thing I really found helpful was that in front of dialogue options were [lore], [quest]. These little tidbits made it super easy to tell what dialogue I was picking or which one I needed to pick. Very small detail, but works wonders. 

Oh me, oh my, that is long... Sorry about that. 

TLDR: The mod is successful in it’s eerie astrosphere, but is dragged down by heavy writing. lack of player choice, and shock value issues. 

Thanks for reading all this and want to say again I don’t want to sway anyone away from this mod. I think it’s always important to try out something for yourself. Though, if the Content Warnings from above upset you, I recommend playing through the censored version (it will ask you in the game.) I haven’t played through the censored version, but it says it get’s rid of those events. 

I may try and do more reviews in the future, but understand these reviews are never an attack on the modder as I get modding is extermley difficult. My reviews are here to be optional constructive critism, and if I’ve said anything wrong or you disagree with I’m more than happy to have a conversation in the comments.  (I also say optional as sometimes modders aren’t looking for critism and just want to mod/create and that is 100% valid.) 

Thanks for reading again, and hope y’all enjoyed! 

[blackstarchanx3new]

Hi! Uh... I might sound a bit dumb for this question but I really can't think of anyone else to ask, how do you fucking go about on making an au? Because like... I don't know. And it's overwhelming me ngl. I don't know.

You know all those random head cannons that float around in your brain.

Or interactions you've thought of between characters FROM said head cannons:

You just make those a reality. X'D

Welcome to the "Character based AU" Idk what else to call it.

Creations AU for example: Born from me having dumb funny ideas like making Bonnie a stoner, or Freddy a literal prostitute and the Night guard a stone faced bad ass who reacts near emotionlessly/weird no matter what bullshit is in front of him.

Shit like that gives way to a LOT of stupid interactions/comedy. Is if objectively funny? Idk. But it makes me laugh.

Fannon Fan cannon ideas I like from a writing perspective. Not exactly a cannon/theory one lmfao can't stress that enough.

Glamrock Freddy being Michael/Josh in Creations instance, Mikebot, William murdering to try and resurrect his children, Golden Freddy being crying child. Those are just some examples of fannon ideas/theories I liked enough to run with.

Cobbled with: Scenes from the actual games I like

Also: A shit ton of OCs cause we're cringe tonight!~ >:)

I mostly focus on CHARACTER based AUs just cause I like writing CHARACTERS not character concepts.... Multiverse Mayhem is a character concept thing, but I'm not ready to write that yet, and it's way more "Character based" when it comes to how it's actually IMPLIMENTED

But you can do em with random concepts too most UNDERTALE AUs I know are more IDEA based than character based:

CONCEPT AUS!

Have you ever asked yourself:

"WHAT IF INSTEAD OF BEING HAPPY, THEY WERE ALL SAD!" "WHAT IF ALL THE CHARACTERS WERE SHRIMP!?"

And my least favorite: "WHAT IF WE SWAPPED THEIR ROLES!?"

The laziest/my least favorite/fun trope lmfao but a lot of people like that one. it's SUPER hard to make interesting At least to me but my opinions are ass so you can throw em out. X'D but if you're a good writer you can make nearly anything work.

Evil character A is the good guy and Good guy is the bad guy. They swap outfits and MAYBE their backstory's are swapped? Idk there's no consistent rules to this AU idea. Somehow we ended up with the reverse of what was there in cannon. I've only seen it done in a fun way when it's like REALLY detailed Reverse Falls I found interesting for example. Underswap is lazy af and we can all admit we only like the skelebros. I virtually ONLY like them when they're accessories to other AUs/playing off other Sans and Papyrus but that's just me....

There's also "What if x plot point from cannon was changed"

Like uhh, you know. A character NEARLY dies in cannon but ACTUALLY dies in this AU.

@james-p-sullivan wrote a fic about that with Four Swords where Vio dies at the fire temple.

That still has one chapter left that i am waiting eagerly for. X'D

Basically AUs like this are "Cannon divergence." I think is what they're called???

These are super fun.

Because if you know the characters really well you can make em react to whatever divergence in cannon in great ways.

And then there's:

THE PREQUEL, THE SEQUEL AND THE MIDQUEL

Four Swords Returns for example is a sequel with midquel elements.

Midquel: You add scenes where they COULD have fit in cannon or you flesh out scenes mentioned but not seen.

I made FSR: Because I didn't like the ending we were given.

And if you hate an ending: Make a sequel. It's fun.

I started FSR with the simple concept:

How I can split Link in 4 again?

Vaati's curse! :D

Vaati is still alive. Retcon Gannon being in the sword and retcon Vaati being dead. Literally no one has complained because Vaati is wonderful and we love him.

Make it possible for them to split again.

Oh...But what challenges COME from this?

Boom the plot happened.

Basically: Ask yourself a SHIT TON of questions.

"What if this?" "What if that?"

Keep going.

Keep writing cool scenes you would like to see in this AU.

Bam.

You got yourself an AU. :

Hope this helps.

[synchodai]

just dropping by to say how much i love your jacegan fic 🥺 i want to start writing my own fic but i've tried and every time i lose interest and finish it. i love how you give us such quick updates with barely any typos and a clean structure. what's your secret? do you use any tools like ai to write so fast? thank you!

Oh wow, first of all, thank you for the compliment! Second of all, do not, and I mean DO NOT, for any purpose use chatgpt, character.ai, or any large langauge models for your writing — just don't. It won't help your writing, it won't help you as a writer, and it won't help anyone alse.

To answer the question, I guess I'm a relatively quick writer because I've been writing for years and years now outside of fanfiction, so I have a process and the habit down pat, honed from creative writing workshops and the more rigid process of academic writing. With the process I have, half the entire project is basically done even before I post the first chapter.

My approach to writing is very similar to how most people draw and make visual art. You start with a rough and vague outline and then add the details in later steps. Outlining is a learned skill. For fanfiction, most free-write their work, but if I actually intend to finish anything more than 10k+ words, I need to have a plan and know where I'm heading. I really do recommend at least learning to outline, even if you are an intuitive writer who will end up mostly ignoring it.

Here's a rundown of my "steps" with examples taken from my current fic and a project that's still in the planning stages that I may or may not write:

#1: Outline the whole project

Plot the fic chapter by chapter, centering each chapter around one major event or info reveal. You can be as vague and messy as you want for this step since you're the only one who'll get to see your outline anyway.

#2: Outline the scenes you want per chapter

You don't need to list everything that'll happen at this stage. These are the key scenes that you daydream about while listening to music or taking a walk. You can picture these scenes on vivid 4k.

#3: Write summaries of each scene

I put each chapter into a seperate document with their key scenes already there. Here's the phase where you just start telling yourself the story. Again, this isn't meant to be read and seen by anyone but you. The goal is just to know how the events are connected and will play out. This is also the part where I do most of my research.

For example, under Chapter 4 - Jace Recovers, I wrote:

Jace wakes up in Driftmark/High Tide. Body aching, barely can move. [Research here how long it takes to heal from broken arm and medieval casts.] Sees himself in the mirror for the first time and doesn't recognize himself. Has as existential crisis but because he's Jace, he channels the dread into wanting to keep fighting.

This is very short since it's a scene with no dialogue, just one character, and just one major plot point. Some of my summaries are 10x longer, especially for things like trials, small council scenes, battles, and other big events.

#4: Actually start writing the prose

Because you've done step #3, you won't be staring at a blank document and actually know how everything will play out. Without having to worry about plot consistency or inaccuracies since you've ironed that out in the previous step, you can focus on just making these things sound evocative or beautiful or punchy or comforting or angsty or whatever mood you want to communicate with your prose. The summary that was 55 words ended up being 750+ words after this step, and I breezed through it in one sitting.

#5: Plug the prose into a text-to-speech program

I don't have a beta-reader so this is basically my beta-reading step. There are plenty of free TTS apps out there and any of them will do. The goal here is to catch typos, see which lines sound clunky, repetitive, or disjointed, and make corrections accordingly. I listen to my own writing while doing chores, walking, or any other mundane task, and I find it the most enjoyble part of this process because it fills me with such a sense of accomplishment having that sort of tangibility in hearing my work.

Just to clarify, this is the process that I've tailored for my own personal needs and preferences. Every writer is different — some need to have a mood board or reference images or find summarizing their chapters removes the joy of "discovering" as they write. All those methods are perfectly valid as long as they get you to actually put words other people can read on a page. But you can't discover your own personalized method unless you actually start writing. It will be slow earnings at first, but eventually you will craft it bit by bit through trial and error.

OTHER MISCELLANEOUS REASONS WHY I WRITE SO QUICKLY

My job is not emotionally or physically draining, so I have plenty of energy for creative pursuits. If you go home exhausted, don't force yourself to churn out words. If this starts feeling like a chore and not fun, that's your signal to rest and take a break.

I write primarily on my mobile device. Because of this, I can write during downtimes and my commutes. There are some writers who have to be in front of a desk, but I recommend at least trying it on your phone just to see if it works for you.

If I don't want to write about it, then I don't. Don't ever feel like you have to write about anything if you don't want to. If there's a big battle that happens but you get bored writing action? Just tell the readers it happened in one or two sentences — no need to devote a whole scene or chapter to it if it doesn't excite you. Same with time passing and travel. You don't have to fill the page with paragraphs explaining what the characters did if you just want to get them from point A to B. If it isn't fun to write about, then your readers most likely won't have fun reading it either.

I don't care if it's not the best that I can do. Often, I do think I could have written certain things better and added more. But eh, it's fanfiction. It's a hobby. The fact that it exists and I created something is already an accomplishment and the desire to endlessly finetune gets in the way of that.

I have a community of fellow fanfic writers I can bounce ideas off of. Honestly, I got lucky with this one and just got invited to random server one day. But you can usually find discord servers with fellow fanfic writers linked in your fandom's subreddit.

I don't have twitter, instagram, tiktok, or other social media time sinks that might distract me from my hobby. This one speaks for itself. Tumblr is really the only place you can find me.

Anyway, I think that's pretty much it. I suggest starting small with a one-shot or short story, and then expanding from there. Happy writing, and remember, the goal really is to just have fun and be proud you made something with your own two hands (so absolutely NO AI).