#so i guess i'll just write backwards and do 19 first???

[sassenach082]

writing update

me: alright brain chapter 18 let's get 'er done

my brain: but snuggles

me: but the angst-

my brain: no. snuggles.

[blueempty]

I cant see shit when I take pictures facing the sun, its a miracle theyre often in focus

Had another late rise today. I hope I find the strength to wake up at 11am again soon. Today was good because I was not at jury duty. Thats all I can really ask for

I'm gonna start trying to learn one kanji a day on top of practicing my kana and numbers, and first one I picked is probably more complicated than I should have chosen, but I have a history with chinese characters so the complexity of the particular kanji isnt really a concern for me

Today I went with 願 (ねが ne ga), because I was going through my lessons again and like the first thing they teach you is introduce yourself! Say "onegaishimasu" and then I look up to read the kana and it says お願いします, and I'm like come on bro. So I learned that one. Maybe thats how I'll choose, I'll just go by whatever pops up next in my lessons lol. Its 19 strokes but I sat there and did it over and over for like 10 minutes and I think i got it. I actually like learning stroke order and stuff. I always preferred writing chinese over speaking it

I really need to get back to streaming, which i say all the time, but speedrunning and goofy challenge runs would be good for streams. Im trying to beat Onimusha without upgrading weapons or using healing items right now. The trick with that is if you kill enemies with an issen strike they always drop health souls, but issen are very hard to pull off. It forces you to really learn every enemies attack animations well, which is something I love doing

A big point of contention with me and my friends rn is they dont get how I can just sit and play Monster Hunter for multiple hours at a time. My brother has admitted many times now thay he is never paying attention when we play, he just auto pilots fights because he doesnt find enjoyment in fighting them once hes basically seen everything they can do. But like thats the fun, is learning how kill things faster and more efficiently. I can play for hours on end because its fun to react to something a monster did and cause it to fall out of the air mid jump because you knew your weapons hitboxes well enough to hit it backwards while it was above you. And then he points out thats the fun of fighting games and asks why i dont wanna play those anymore, and I'm like because I fucking hate other humans and the way their minds work lol. I want to abuse a poor helpless CPU player that cant even stand on two legs. The lizard men in Onimusha raise their little cleaver and I go haha idiot, and I instant kill their ass. Thats what sparks joy for me. Thats also why I've been playing games alone for two months I guess hehe

Anyways, thats not really me complaining exactly, I'm trying to be aware of my negativity you see, thats all to say that I love the slop Capcom puts in my trough. It's good slop. I'm also so fucking excited for Splatoon 3 Side Order (i guess) but more importantly HYDLIDE 3 COMES OUT TODAY YAHOOOO

Heres my kanji for today cuz the night sky hasnt been very photogenic around here. With and without guides

Live Long and Prosper

[saltydazeinnit]

Would ya'll be interested at all if I posted parts of my Encanto o.c fic here? I'll leave some information here for you to see if you are. Also this is kind of Encanto theory on accident.

Luciana Madrigal

I don't have a name for her gift yet but she basically can summon Skeletons

She's the oldest Madrigal Grandchild as she's 24 (Dolores and Isabela are both 21 or 22 with Isabela a month or two older)

Also I saw none of them have set heights so I guess Agustin or Luisa is the tallest, with that math I look at their heights compared to the doors and Luisa looks taller than her dad by maybe an inch or two. With people saying Bruno is confirmed 5'3? I'm guessing Pepa is 5'9, Agustin is 6'1, and Luisa is 6'2/3. So since I wanted Luisa to feel like she's still Luci's little prima in the one scene I wrote I made Luciana 6'5/6.

Anyway as you can probably guess Luciana is Pepa's kid based off her matching color scheme. I haven't made her gift part of her design since I don't know how to yet.

I realized while making her I make O.C's to take other characters trauma 😅

I talk a bit about how she interacts with her Abuela on my new tiktok account

*cough* cursive_beauty *cough*

But I'll talk a bit about it here

I know Alma isn't a villain and I didn't try to write her that way but I honestly don't like her and you can probably tell in how I write

I try to have Luciana treat her Abuela with understanding while still protecting her family from her frankly abusive ways

Before you come at me think about it, Bruno left because he knew Alma would think Mirabel had fucked the magic if he showed her his vision

Mirabel/Bruno/THE WHOLE FRICKING FAMILY deserved MORE than a hug and god damn apology

Alma (and also low key the town) CONVINCED Luisa she was useless if he wasn't of physical help

Even Isabela's room looks like it was designed by Alma

When Mirabel is sneaking into Bruno's room we see Isabela and Alma walking by talking about Isabela's marriage to Mariano (sorry if spelled wrong) and Alma's like "so good, so perfect for the encanto" like bruh

Anyway that got off topic

Luciana facts:

Luciana has horrible posture, either leaning forward or backwards she's just bent constantly

Antonio and her have a 19 year age difference so aren't the closest but he loves her like he has two moms (I find this happens with age gaped siblings also I don't want to take away his amazing relationship with Mirabel just so my character looks better)

Dolores is the only one who knows that Luciana wants to send their Abuela threw the window a lot, she lowkey understands (Camilo is getting there)

Luciana is very tired, shown by the eyebags she carries around

She just has insomnia but mostly it's because her siblings and cousins find her bed very comfortable (maybe it's because she's a furnace idk)

Family things:

Dolores and Luciana have quiet time in her room

Luci also covers Dolores's ears if she notices a loud noise is coming

Camilo calls Luciana 'Luci' more than her actual name

Luciana and Camilo are pretty close despite their age differences

Since Camilo could walk and talk he's been trailing his sister, he adores her and tried to fight a kid who called her creepy (she agreed with the kid and Camilo hated that)

Luciana fights her Abeula for what Isabela should be doing a lot

Luisa gets help a lot from Luciana's Skeletons even when she says she doesn't need it

Luisa low-key has always been amazed at Luciana since most of the grandchildren took some her chores when they got their gifts

Mirabel was very happy when Luciana started including her in her chores (Luci still has a skeleton trail the girl but Mirabel can't tell since the town always has a bunch around for when Luciana is in the field)

Speaking of Luciana in the field, she works in the fields with her mother and the towns people which is why her clothes are pretty damaged

Just realized this is a bit much anywho, send an ask or comment if you want more!

Bonus!

When I first started her this is what she was supposed to look like! But then I scrapped her personality and made her taller/bigger, also her door is better now, most of this is older art from before I really got into Encanto also I know I don't have their outfits complete in some art, again it's old art

[criticallyacclaimedstranger]

Alrighty, here are some questions for you too :) I'll go backwards hehe 38, 26, 19, 7 💖

Thank you, @rambling-in-purple, for the ask! I'll put everything under a cut because it got long-ish.

38. What is something about your writing process YOU think is Really Weird? If you are comfortable, please share. If you’re not comfortable, what do you think cats say about us?

I don't know if I think anything is Really Weird? I open the document, and I write? Sometimes I listen to music while working, sometimes not - it depends on the current work, and on my mood. I do a lot of brain writing when cleaning, walking, gardening, driving. I dare to think that these are really "normal" (whatever that means) writing processes? I've even become better at re-reading and revising before I post (thank you, doctoral studies!).

26. How do you get into your character’s head? How do you get out? Do you ever regret going in there in the first place?

If it's an original character, I watch whatever media they're in and try to understand their motives. With some it's easy, with others not. I also get a lot of insight through osmosis on here. I don't really read other people's fic, mainly because I don't want to accidentally plagiarize them, or build my characters on their analyses. I also don't have much time or interest in reading right now (my reading interest has been off and on since 2020)

I don't know if I do anything special to get out of their heads? I just switch off, I guess? I think I got a lot of practice in doing that when I worked on my dissertation. When I finished my workday and went home, I left my text at the office and didn't think much about it until next workday.

With OFCs, it's a lot more complicated. At some point, they really begin to do their own thing, and I don't always know what or why. A lot is based on my own personal preferences and experiences, so that makes it harder to switch off. I can live in an OFC's head for days, especially the ones I've worked with for a long time, like Jay and Eva.

But I also think that in order for me to write well, I need to step back. First I need to feel everything they're feeling, really put myself in their shoes, see things from their perspective. But I can't write that, because it's too messy. So I need to step back a little, look over the situation, and then write. Then I have a clear overview over what's happening, but I'm also still connected to the character and their struggle.

So far, I haven't regretted it, not even when it keeps making me Feel stuff. And I'm not afraid of going to the dark places. (Frankie having a vivid nightmare about little baby Alma being dead and stuffed with a body bomb, anyone?)

19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?

I already answered this here, and quite extensively!

Although I realize I didn't actually answer the last question, of where I'm now and where I'm going. I'm in a place where I enjoy writing. I know I won't be in this fandom forever, I know I won't write fics like this forever, and that's fine. When the day comes, it comes. Right now I'm enjoying it.

I still hope that one day, I'll get a decent enough original idea and maybe write a novel. But I don't have any ambitions to do it, really. I can sometimes find it frustrating that I suck so much at plots because I do characters and emotions really well. If I only had an idea that wasn't set in a movie or TV show universe, I could've written novels already. But publishing isn't an end in itself for me, at least not now. I write fic because I enjoy it and it's easy. I enjoy the feedback I get, I enjoy knowing that I make someone's day better with my fics.

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

This one was also answered in the previous ask, link in my above answer!

[rebelwheels-blog]

Attempting...

Feb. 19, 2020

A promise is a promise, so here I am.

As today is Tuesday, I had physical therapy. So Zoey came early to make sure we got ready and out the door on time.

I've not been a morning person as of late, as I haven't been sleeping well or staying up too long talking to my friend or reading. But this morning... I got a message that woke me up pretty quick. It was from my friend that I mentioned yesterday.

The two of us make characters for potential storylines, and are always helping each other out when one of us comes to a dead end. This was something that my friend, Jae, was having me do last night. I just now got his permission to use his nickname, created by yours truly. Gods I hate the formalities of these things.

Anyway!!

He was writing a new character outline last night and asked for my help with it. So that's what I did. In doing so, I woke up to a rough draft of it. First thing I noticed was the height. It was my height. I guess I know why he asked now. As I continued to read, I fell more and more in love with the character. He calls her a Techno-Necromancer, and she is the coolest character I've read about that is based off cyborgs. It certainly got my brain going. Tomorrow I'm hoping to sketch her, but we'll see.

Once I finished reading his work, it took me a few minutes to figure out how to say how much I love it. But I was able to type out something somewhat worthy of expressing how impressed I was, and off I went to physical therapy.

On the way there, as Jae wasn't up yet, I had some time to read. Zoey, my aide, hadn't read any more yesterday. So I figured I'd put some more space between where we are in the book. Plus, after reading the character outline, I got in a reading mood. Of course, this just made me speed read. Which, I'm not complaining about, but it's much harder to stop reading once I get into the speed read mode.

Once we arrived at pt, it wasn't long before I was taken back to the room I go into every week. Luckily, she had seen my blog before I arrived, so I didn't have to explain too much of my improvements as she'd seen them already. So onto the table I went.

She had me sitting on the side of the table and tried something new with me. She had me pass a small ball from my left side to my right side. Scratch that-she had me do that second. First, she gave me a filled balloon. What she had me do with that was reach to touch her hand with it. I did so fairly successfully, but when I went to get her right hand on my left side, I couldn't touch her hand. Only her arm. Which she said was good enough. I said it wasn't. So I shifted my body weight to lift up my hand, and all of a suddenly it was touching her hand..............and I was falling backwards. I dropped the balloon, catching my pt off guard and went to go get to it. Then explicatives started, weakly with a buttload of panic, spewing out of my mouth. Luckily, as I don't use this language very much, this regained her attention back to me and she quickly grabbed my arms to keep me from falling. All I could see was the wall having a date with the back of my head. My heart rate went up so high.. but this little scare proved something.

I didn't just fall. I slowly fell. I was able to keep my body from just tumbling over. This is a pretty big improvement, allbeit a terrifying way to discover this improvement, but an improvement nonetheless.

After I regained my nerve, we then proceeded to utilize the ball. If my pt held my right elbow, I was somewhat able to use my arm to grab the ball.

After that, my body was about ready to give out. Down I went onto my back. We did some more exercises and then the session was finished.

I'm sorry this is getting rather fast paced, it's getting late and I want to submit this.

After physical therapy, I check my phone and see Jae texted me which cheered me up a bit after having an anxiety attack over not being able to do something people think I should be able to do. He didn't respond right away, so I went back to reading.

We went to Panera, and chilled out there for a while as we ate. When we finished, we went back in line to get my dad a salad.

My day really isn't all that interesting.

Dad was organizing his office and getting rid of some books, so I naturally took some. Luckily I did, there were a few I actually think I'll read.

After that, bathroom then ear drops. I went to the doctor the other day to follow up on my prescriptions for my ADD and she checked my ears as I asked her to. The inner ear canal looks irritated, hence the drops.

After that I chilled in bed and chatted to Jae.

Dad and I had steak for dinner and we watched a new movie. Rush. Wasn't a terrible movie, had a few actors I like in it.

Now I'm finishing writing this blog as I hear dad fast asleep. Which I am going to follow suit as soon as I finish this thing.

I'm told these are enjoyable.... But I'm not entirely sure as to why.... Let me know in the comments what you like about reading my ramblings and I'll give you a shout-out in my next entry.

See you on the flip side