#why yes i made this poll instead of working on my WIPs

[librathefangirl]

Hi Libra! Hope you're doing well!

I forgot to tell anyone but!

Some elements of Meliodas's "more demonic" character in my new au are heavily inspired by you in particular. A demon having a unique system of thermal regulation is straight from that one fic of yours, I thought it was a crime I haven't seen such a concept played out in anything else I've read. I feel grateful to have read so many interesting ideas for how demons and goddesses are, biologically and culturally, and I hope you and the mutuals can feel the respect I have for your work and creativity when I reference your headcanons in my own.

Hope you have lots of fun with the new writing challenge! I am right there with you (spiritually).

Does this mean I'll be updating my fics, especially that first one I haven't touched since April? Hopefully 🥲

we really chose the "good luck with all that" fandom to write fiction for. serious kudos to everyone doing this (the canon character writing and nakaba's weirdness are haunting me.)

Have a lovely day :D

Hiii!! I'm doing pretty good all things considered. Been making some real progress on chapter 2 of A Debt to Pay these past few days, so I'm really excited for when I'll finally be able to share that with you all.

Ahh, I feel so honored 💜 You know I love more demonic Mel, so any time I can inspire more of that is a win in my book!

I think that's one of my favorite things about writing for this fandom and one of the most frustrating things about canon, because we've got this whole fantasy world with all these different races, not to mention a main group that are all different - there's just so much potential there, but so little is done with it in canon. Like, yes there are differences between the races, especially when it comes to what they can do; fairies can fly and transform, giants have their connection to the earth, demons have their dark power and goddesses have their light and healing. But I also feel like there's much more that could have been done, especially when it comes to physically attributes. Like Meliodas' demon form (because yes that still annoys me). We have demons that definitely don't look like humans, and with Meliodas being the son of the literal Demon King, you'd think he would look a little more, idk, demon? I mean, Chandler and Cusack get human-looking forms and definitely-not-human-looking forms, so why lot Meliodas and Zeldris too? And the Demon King as well. For someone with demon in his name, I expected something... more?

Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. What was I talking about? Oh right! One of my favorite things about writing for this fandom is that you can take a look at canon and then go "you know what, this is actually what demons and goddesses are like". It really gives you the opportunity to explore creatively. And, while I can only speak for myself obviously, I feel honored if someone goes "this is a great idea, I wanna add it to my story as well, so that I too can explore it!"

YES! I'm excited to get started on this challenge once the poll is done. And I'm really excited to see how everyone's been voting! Because, as I haven't voted in the poll myself, I can't see how it's going. So, yeah, living in the dark until the week is over. But last time I checked I've gotten 30 votes so far - exciting!

Until then I'm working on my other wips. Like I mention, I've made some real progress on A Debt to Pay (finally). This chapter's gonna be a lot longer than chapter 1 too (6 scenes instead of 1!) Not sure how much longer yet though, I've only written about half of the chapter so far and have actually been going at it old school for the most part (so I have no clue about the word count). Yesterday I spent most of the day sitting on my sister's balcony writing in a notebook. Hoping to get it done and up soon! :D

"Does this mean I'll be updating my fics" <- This! I feel this 😂😅 Hopefully we both get some writing done this summer. Excited to read the continuation to that fic whenever you get back to it! Or any other fic you may write/update before then! 💜

Yeah, there's definitely some... some things to think about while writing for this fandom 😅 Agreed, kudos to us all!

Hope you're doing well too!!

[bodycountgame]

Ahead of voting opening on Sunday,  I just wanted to drop a quick FAQ to help answer some of your questions! 

Remind me why we have to vote?

When I started writing Body Count, I didn’t like the idea of deliberately writing filler characters that I didn’t really like and was perfectly happy to kill off. So I thought: “Hey, the beauty of interactive fiction is that it’s interactive! Why not just write only characters that I adore and make my readers decide for me?”

I think it’s kind of a fun idea, and I hope that you guys do too :) 

What are we voting for?

The vote will be between the 9 cast members that you have met so far. You are voting for the character you most want to save; the RO that you most want to keep around and see more of. The top 6 characters in the poll are guaranteed to survive (at least until the next poll).

What are you going to do with the results?

From the results of the poll, the bottom 3 characters will be at risk. I’ll then make the final decision about who actually gets the chop - otherwise it’d be really obvious who is getting murdered from just looking at the poll, and that wouldn’t be very fun at all. Gotta keep some element of surprise, right?

Will all of the votes happen this way?

Not necessarily! I’m trying something new doing this, so I’ll see how it goes. I’m keen to have all of the murder decisions being made by readers, but who appears on the chopping block may vary.

How many times can I vote?

There’s some amount of strawpoll magic stopping you voting more than once, but feel free to get all your friends/family members etc to vote on your behalf. It seems to be more browser based than IP address-y (I don’t know anything about computers - is it obvious?).

When does voting end?

Voting begins on Sunday 30th May and ends at 11:59pm BST on Sunday 13th June (so you’ll have just over two weeks)

More frequently asked questions under the cut!

When will we find out who gets murdered?

When I release a completed Chapter 2! I’d love to be able to put a date on it, but I’m afraid I just don’t know! I’ll still be posting fortnightly updates, so you’ll get a bit of an idea of my progress.

Are the results of the poll going to be visible?

Yep! You’ll be able to keep an eye on how many votes each RO has throughout the voting window. If your fave falls behind and you want to beg your friends to vote on your behalf then power to ya.

The producers aren’t on this poll - that means they’re the murderers!

I’m afraid that you won’t be able to sus out who the murderer is or isn’t based on who appears on polls. The producers aren’t in this one because I think that it makes most sense to have the first murder victim be a cast member - they’ll definitely feature on future polls.

Wait, so the same ROs will die in every game regardless of our MC’s actions?

Yes - at least for the early chapters/deaths. I would love to set it up so each death could be either of two people, but there would be so much coding and work to go into pulling something like that off and I just can’t commit to it.  There are already a lot of variables in Body Count to make the experience as varied as possible for different MCs, so adding this amount of variation would just be really unachievable. 

Ok, but what if all the NB/F/M ROs die?

This isn’t gonna happen! I’m really proud of my diverse cast, and I’ll be making decisions about who is at risk in future polls based on who has already been killed. Basically, there won’t be a situation where only characters of a certain gender/ethnicity are dying, because that would be fucked up.

If my fave dies I’m gonna lose my shit and send you loads of really aggy anon messages.

Ah! How about instead of doing that... you don’t? I realise that some people are going to be disappointed whoever dies, but that’s just the thing - I really can’t please everyone. Even if I just decided for myself who was going to die, it wouldn’t be possible to please everyone. 

If the idea of your RO dying will send you into a frenzy such that you cannot resist sending anon hate, please consider just not playing the WIP and waiting for the final game. I think that this is a really fun idea, but I absolutely accept that it isn’t for everyone.

I hate these mechanics and this game isn’t for me.

Cool, yeah, I totally get that! This game absolutely isn’t for everyone - it’s something that I’m writing for my own amusement more than anything else. If this game isn’t for you, you absolutely don’t have to play it! You could wait for a completed game when you know who is going to die, or you can just peace out altogether. I won’t take it personally and you don’t need to explain to me why you don’t like it.

Will you also give a warning at any point in the full, released game that certain ROs won't make it or will you completely leave it up to surprise?

Yeah, I think so. I plan on including an option to leave it up to surprise or toggle to lock off the romance paths with the ROs that are going to die.

How many murders should we expect to see before the end of the process?

At the moment, I have 3 or 4 murders planned (depending on who they end up being and the direction that I take the plot) plus there isn’t a happy ending with the murderer/s if they are your RO. I’m expecting to lose 4-6 of the original 13 ROs before we finish up. 

[yibuo]

UMMM I would love to know what exactly happened with xnine too if you know??

i didn’t know how to answer this without hating on long danni but... that’s not possible when you’re talking about xnine

CORRECT ME IF I’M WRONG IN ANY WAY @ DIMPLES AND CFANS

tldr ceo addicted to producing survival shows realizes boy group is incapable of feeding her fat rabbit because of her OWN mismanagement and throws them away (literally? probably not, maybe, idk)

HOLY SHIT THIS BECAME RLY LONG IM BEGGING KEEP READING TO WORK LO LOL LOL

long danni= wjjw company ceo

wjjw=company that xnine, xz, r1se, etc are under

huo mala: fat company rabbit that WILL give u nightmares goodness gracious thinking about him sends chills down my spine

alright so long danni (ldn i will refer to her) & ee media along w/ tencent and sm made the survival show x-fire... the premise of xfire was that 16 contestants split into two different teams (white and red) and then at the end it would boil down to each team having 4 members and the winning team would debut as a group called xfire...but wait...the group’s name is xnine? so out of red team (peng chuyue, baishu, xiao zhan, xia zhiguang) and white team(wu jiacheng, gu jiacheng, zhao lei, and guo zifan) white team won...and they unofficially debuted as xfire..went abroad to train yadda yadda yadda and then a few months later, TELL ME WHY LONG DANNI DECIDES TO RELEASE POLLS TO LET FANS VOTE IN 5 MEMBERS INTO XFIRE TO CREATE XNINE! ldn PLEASE if u wanted to rig the show you should’ve decided in the beginning what was the point of making the teams and the fans fight against each other...

so yeah xz and crew weren’t actually supposed to debut according to show rules...i mean i’m glad they debuted obviously bc x9 is x9 but ee media and frickin ldn couldve handled this better...like every member except chen molerat is amazing and great but....WHY DIDNT MaNAGEMENT NOT BLATANTLY RIG THEM INTO THE GROUP

but also thank u ldn for also letting us get to know the 4 guys who were added n not chen molerat <3 but like DO UR JOB PROPERLY

anyway the polls were RIGGED obviously thanks ldn what did u expect out of making POLLS, and xiao zhan, peng chuyue, xia zhiguang, yan xujia, and chen z*** were added to the group to create xnine...talk about rigged when chen z*** the molerat lookin turdface misogynist was added... anyway at the time he wasnt known to be problematic but ya the whole rigging thing caused a whole rift esp when x9 debuted bc there were fanwars and death threats initially but xfire did well because it was one of the (if not only) survival shows at that time and x9 debuted w/ a good response etc

then they got moved to wjjw (still owned by ldn thanks ldn) and wjjw is known for hoarding artists and not promoting them (THEY HAVE LIKE 45 ARTISTS BUT WERE FORMED 3 YEARS AGO MAKE IT MAKE SENSE) and not being promoted properly was EXACTLY what happened to xnine. as idols what they needed was music promotions, variety shows, etc stuff to get them as people out there but this genius ldn decided to promote them through stupid zodiac dramas like super star academy (to promote xfire finalists) and oh my emperor (which was an xnine drama). now i haven’t watched OME, but SSA gave me enough brain rot and gunk for me to not watch OME. (the only person who could act was baishu), and the story was SO BAD. nevermind the acting, because the boys weren’t initially slated to be actors, but the story was horrible, girl without superpowers suddenly becomes white cult goddess at the end??? WHAT???????? why didn’t ldn just promote them normally !!!!!! are they an actor group or an idol group???? I LOVE XNINE, THEY ARE TALENTED ARTISTS !!!! and eventually some went into acting (xz, guo zifan, gu jiacheng) BUT WAS THAT THE TIME DLFNJNF and then they just kept getting sent into random dramas and movies as random side characters instead of being able to make music and promote????? i’m sorry i’ve been stuck on using dramas to promote x9 for a while because that’s such a SILLY IDEA *vigorously shakes head* 

ldn knows how to do survival shows but she doesn’t know how to promote her artists thanks ldn. xnine has so much talented, we know xiao zhan is a great singer, but other main vocalists like wu jiacheng, zhao lei, and peng chuyue are amazing as welll, here’s me plugging this video of zl and pcy performing their self-written song on produce camp because it’s the most beautiful thing ever

-oh yeah somewhere in here insert chen molerat getting outed as a pedo misogynist cheater by his gf who still has the audacity to have xnine in his weibo name because xnine starting to get popular gtfo rat lookin ass i WILL barf, when we say ot8 xnine we mean xnine w/o chen toadratass but sometimes ppl think it’s xnine minus xz which is untrue-

they also have talented rappers (gu jiacheng yan xujia) and dancers (xia zhiguang guo zifan) like xia zhiguang can end me with his spinning flying kick thing and i WILL let him 

so YEAH !! TALENT that went to waste because wjjw gave them weird random hiatuses and kept pushing them as actors??? seriously what is with this actor stuff...so that’s why they debuted in 2016 and have very little discography to their name because wjjw just gave up...trying to promote them GOD thank u so much ldn for ur incomptency <3333 xnine had members in diff stages of life (ranging from xz who was born in 91, to yan xujia born in 2001, they were all close tho soo cute) and wjjw really was like nope we’re not gonna try to promote yall’s dreams of becoming singers on the stage because they couldn’t add 34783473 pounds to fat huo mala’s weight

so ya a lot of people are like omg wjjw hates xiao zhan!!! ya no they hate all of xnine but now xz is bringing enough money to make huo mala even fatter so good for huo mala i guess /s

also rumors and any bad media? lol wjjw doesn’t care they do a shit job at handling bad things too WHAT A WELLROUNDED COMPANY

OH ALSO TALK ABOUT HOW THYE HAD 3 DAYS TO PREPARE FOR A CONCERT???????????? WHAT????????? wjjw u mfs

anyway to summarize my rants above wjjw did  a SHIT job of promoting xnine as idols when the boys worked so hard and wjjw kept tryna push them to acting bye (some of them can’t act and literally don’t WANT TO ACT HHHSFLNF), wjjw is also horrible at letting all of the xnine members shine when as i mentioned before, they’re ALL TALENTED!!!! and then they just gave up on xnine somewhere in 2017-2018... ok anyway so is xnine disbanded? no although some may say their last concert in dec 2018 was their last concert ever they’re not disbanded

xiao zhan , gu jiacheng, and guo zifan went into acting

wu jiachang is focusing on his music etc (he was actually the first member of xnine i came across when i watched the collaboration/cyzj in 2018...yes carats this is That wu jiacheng!!!) MAN CAN SING

peng chuyue, zhao lei, xia zhiguang, yan xujia all went on produce camp 2019 (aNOTHER SURVIVAL SHOW BC THEY WANTED TO BE ON THE MF STAGE BC THATS WHY THEYRE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE WJJW) along w/ fellow labelmates zhou zhennan and zhai xiao wen ... and everyone but peng chuyue made it to the final 11 spots and got to debut in the group r1se...UNFORTUNATELY ALSO UNDER WJJW HELP SEND HELP

if they’re in r1se does that mean they quit xnine? no! they’re in both that’s just how survival shows work it’s kind of weird

peng chuyue recently released a song and it’s really good and you can’t not tell me that it’s gay here it is

anyway xnine hasn’t disbanded!! the X玖少年团 (xnine) in the non-r1se members’ weibo names say that loud n clear!!! and when the r1se members from xnine won produce camp 2019, they all made xnine signs SO XNINE IS ALIVE and they do keep in contact!!

why haven’t we seen blatant public interactions btwen xiao zhan and the xnine members? because some frickin annoying xz solo stans/xfx claim that the other members use xz for popularity (HELLO??????? IN WHAT WORLD DOES THAT MAKE SENSE HALF OF THEM R LITERALLY HIS KIDS BUT OK) 

anyway in conclusion wjjw doesn’t know how to promote any of their artists, thus screwing over xnine members and making them go on a group hiatus where they focus on acting/singing/r1se for r1se members but they are very much xnine as of now !!!

here’s some REALLY GOOD RESOURCES to follow xnine bc as an ifan it’s mf hard

-xnine slideshow

-xnine faq

-xnine eng sub channel by yuer

-all of that content i listed above was made/subbed by one person and she is the queen of uhh...xnine international fandom outreach (????) how do i word it but she’s been subbing and spreading xnine long before xiao zhan’s popularity skyrocketed so go follow her for updates and memes here

-xnine intl fanbase twt and tumblr

-and here’s this twt account with dumb pics of xnine because why not

also i’m pretty sure there’s a wip video explaining x9′s history being created (by yuer because queen) so when that’s posted i’ll rb this and post it here

also here’s this video dragging wjjw

[iam93percentstardust]

State of the Fic

Hey, all! I’m back with another monthly roundup! This month, I really didn’t post as much as I did over the summer. I mentioned last month that classes started up again but I didn’t start teaching until the first week in September and this might be the busiest I have ever been with my teaching schedule. Honestly, I devote more hours now to teaching than I ever did for in-person classes. But I do find the time to write here and there and fortunately, I was able to push my qualifying exams back to the spring when they would normally have been during this fall so that was nice

WIPs

More Complicated than a Smash and Grab: Chapters 13-15 posted this month, I’m trying to stick to an updated every two weeks schedule (it’s not official in case I fall behind) so hopefully this work will be completed by the end of the year

Kissed by a Muse: started posting! Chapters 1 and 2 posted this month, this work also has a tentative every two weeks schedule alternating with Smash and Grab

Recently Posted

Soft Summer Darkness: posted on September 1

After, after it is over, after the war has been won—though by who, Bucky cannot say—after pardons are granted, after he steps foot on American soil as a free man, after, he seeks out Stark.

They call Bucky whole and he snorts at the thought. He is not whole. He has a new, working arm, yes, and enough memories to last two lifetimes but he is not whole. He broke apart long ago, splintered into a thousand glittering pieces in a lab in Azzano, ground into dust on a mountaintop in Switzerland, made into something new in a bunker in Siberia, shattered in a river. He is Bucky—and yet, he is also the Winter Soldier and James and the White Wolf and something that doesn’t quite belong to any of the four though he doesn’t know what to call it.

And he thinks, I am not the only one. He hears the stories that Natasha tells of the years following Stark’s phoenix-like rise from Afghanistan and he thinks, He could help.

OR: Bucky decides to retire instead of becoming a superhero again

Pipe the Three Words Lightly: posted on September 4

Sometimes, these bad days happen. Sometimes, Bucky wonders why he ever thought he would be good enough for Tony. Sometimes, he loathes himself for asking that they keep their relationship quiet for a few months.

Luckily, on these days, Tony is right there beside him to promise he's not going anywhere.

you can’t be married (i’m trying to set you up) part 2: posted on September 12, part of the 1000 Followers Celebration

Steve finally gets tired of Natasha trying to set him up on a date so he tells her that he’s married. It’s too bad she doesn’t actually believe him.

The Shop on Iris Lane: posted on September 18

No matter what his sister or his best friend claim, Jaskier isn’t lonely. How could he be? He’s got his shop and his regulars and brunch with the other shop owners on the street, what’s to be lonely about?

So maybe he sometimes wishes he could hold someone at night. So maybe he’s getting tired of the constant one night stands. So maybe this isn’t the life he envisioned for himself when he was younger. He’s perfectly happy, right?

At least, he is until a tattoo artist with the most unusual eyes moves in next door with his daughter and shows him that there’s more to life than selling flowers and strumming his guitar.

Asking for Trouble: posted on September 20

Bucky meets a cute customer at work - with the most unusual nickname

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow: posted on September 26, part of the 1000 Followers Celebration, part 3 of The Play’s the Thing

It's been years since anyone besides Maria's friends joined her for lunch. There had been a time once when everyone knew that if you wanted to speak with Maria Stark, you found her at the little cafe by the park but that time is long gone. The offers had mostly stopped coming some twenty years ago and then she had had Tony and the offers had stopped altogether and now Maria Stark often ate alone, almost always unbothered because who would notice an old, washed-up actress like herself?

Rocky Road and Mint Chocolate Chip: posted on September 30

A Ko-fi Thunderiron fic about ice cream, featuring dramatic Tony and long suffering Thor

Sunbursts: posted throughout the month

A Ko-fi Stuckony fic about summer and the things our boys get up to (mostly lots of naps)

Coming Up

1. 1000 Followers Celebration: You Got the Heart of a Phoenix, Bewitched Body and Soul, and Spoils of War are all coming up soon so keep an eye out!

2. Winteriron Western arranged marriage

3. A King for Christmas: underwent the first round of edits this month, be sure to let me know if you want to be tagged when I start posting, and, as always, all related posts can be found under #a king for christmas

4. With Smash and Grab hopefully wrapping up at the end of this year, it’s time to start thinking about the next long fic I’ll be working on so expect a poll coming out about that soon

5. I’ll also be setting a schedule for the next year’s round of long one shots and would like to get y’all’s opinion on what fics you’d like to see next year so I’ll be posting a poll for that as well but that’ll be happening after MTH

[humdrum-hummingbird]

intro for two of my oc's

so, i have many oc's for my current wip, but of course my monkey brain insists that i start writing what is essentially fanfiction of my own characters. this is not canon in my current wip, but i thought a break-up/ make-up injury prompt was super fun for my favorite sapphic children Luna and Lyra

so like, yeah, who needs context anyway

ok sometimes context is good here is a little context:

Luna and Lyra had been broken up for a while, Lyra left their group to have some time to herself while Luna continued to work with their group of robin hood like marauders. Some of them are mentioned, maybe I'll post some shorts with them soon.

Let me know if you enjoy Luna and Lyra :)

t/c warnings: mentions of a wound and blood

word count: 1782

~

Lyra looked up at the sound of a soft knock on the door. Really? She had specifically rented this cottage because it was out of the way of traffic. Who thought that someone who lived out here would want visitors? And after dark?

Another knock.

“No one is home!” She gave an exasperated sigh.

“Oh, come on,” a muffled voice from the outside.

She knew that voice. Frowning, she stood to glance out of the window. What did she have to lose?

Opening the door ajar, she poked her head out and said, “what do you want?”

“Now that’s no way to greet an old friend,” Luna responded, slightly breathless.

Lyra frowned, opening the door further and leaning against the doorway.

“That isn’t an answer to the question, Soluna.”

‘Soluna’. It had been a while since Luna had heard Lyra use her full name. As much as she tried to hide it, she was sure Lyra caught on to her surprise.

Luna was leaning against one of the polls of the porch now, and Lyra noticed that she was holding her hand to her side.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Where to start,” Luna winced, “first part, Akso is mad at me.”

“And why is Akso mad at you?”

Luna smiled, “that’s the second part,” she let out a heavy breath, holding up the hand that had been pressed against her stomach. It came away a dark red.

“Is that…” Lyra stepped onto the porch for a closer look, “is that blood?”

Luna nodded, with a grim smile on her face.

“Third: please catch me,” she said has she slumped over.

Lyra lunged forward to catch her before she collapsed, managing to pick her up to carry her inside.

“Didn’t know where else to go,” Luna’s words slurred together, “sorry.”

Lyra carried her through the kitchen and into the living room, placing her on the couch before fetching a medicine bag. When she returned, Luna was attempting to sit up on the couch.

“Don’t even try it,” Lyra said, pushing Luna back onto the couch with a little more force than was strictly necessary.

“Ouch, shit,” Luna gasped out, “take it easy, will you?”

“I told you I didn’t want to be dragged into any of this,” Lyra said, slowly pealing Luna’s shirt off her stomach and lifting it to get a look at the wound.

“Hey, take me out to dinner first,” Luna laughed, before gasping in pain at the effort.

Lyra glared at her but kept working silently, dabbing the blood away with a warm towel.

“Luna,” Lyra looked closer at her side, “this is a lot of blood, did you—did you get stabbed?!”

“You should see the other guy,” Luna gave a forced smile.

“You need to go to a doctor.”

“I really don’t.”

“You really do!”

“Well, I really can’t. And you know I can’t.”

Lyra could not argue with that. Even away from the cities, a physician would recognize them. Four years ago, maybe not. But now.

“Besides,” Luna continued, relaxing against the pillows, “there is this beautiful woman I know who is perfect with healing, I can always count on her to take care of me. Whether I deserve it or not.”

Lyra stayed silent, but a hint of a smile was forming on her lips.

“Really, though,” Luna continued, “I can’t stay here much longer, I need to go see that beautiful woman.”

Lyra’s smile grew then, going from fond to amused, then devious as she pressed down the towel slightly harder than before.

“Agh, gods,” Luna gasped, “why?”

Lyra shrugged, moving the towel away and taking a small vile out of her medicine bag.

“Wait,” Luna tried to move back, “wait, wait, wait, what is that stu—OUCH!”

Lyra let out a quiet laugh, letting a few more drops fall onto the wound before replacing the cap to the bottle and returning it to the bag.

“What the hell is that stuff,” Luna was gripping the armrest of the couch, knuckles almost white as she waited for the stinging to pass.

Lyra smiled, “Doe gave it to me last time they were here. Something they and Breonna mixed up out of some herbs.”

“There are no ways to make herbs sting that much.”

“Well, you know Doe,” Lyra said, “they won’t make anything that doesn’t have a little magic it. And it’s either that or you need stitches.”

Luna grimaced at the idea of sitting through more little stabs and pricks.

“Besides,” Lyra leaned over her to grab bandages, holding eye contact with her all the time, “you like the sting, don’t you?”

Luna stayed silent, trying to remain stoic, despite feeling a blush spread across her face.

Lyra smirked at her reaction, and Luna could not help but notice how tired she looked.

I should not have come here, Luna thought, not like this.

“I’m not done yet,” Lyra said, making Luna realize she had been staring, “you’re going to have to sit up though.”

Luna obeyed, though not without a whine, and let Lyra pull her up to a sitting position. Lyra turned, sitting with one leg under her so she could move better from their position on the couch. She unwrapped the bandages and placed the first piece of cloth over Luna’s stomach.

Toned, Lyra mused, as usual.

She smiled to herself and took Luna’s hand, placing it over the bandage.

“Hold that.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Lyra shook her head, her quiet but ever-present smile never leaving her face. She continued unwrapping the bandaging, slowly circling it around Luna’s lower back.

“If it’ll help, I can,” Luna nodded forward, then, without waiting for an answer, turned, and moved closer, positioning herself almost between Lyra’s legs.

Lyra raised an eyebrow but was much better at hiding any sort of flustered emotion. She simply continued wrapping the bandage around Luna.

As she leaned forward, Luna’s eyes began roaming her face, taking in all the details she was so familiar with, though it had been a year since she had gotten a close look at them. She did not seem to look a day older than the last time she had seen her. The curve of her face and her bright blue eyes were just as beautiful as Luna had left them, and her lips were just as inviting.

“What are you looking at?” Lyra whispered.

Luna started, realizing that Lyra had finished tying her bandage, and had caught her staring.

May as well put all my cards on the table, Luna thought.

She leaned closer, until her lips were brushing Lyra’s.

“Someone so beautiful,” she whispered, “that it is impossible to look away.”

“Luna,” she started, and Luna smiled at the use of her preferred name, “what are you doing?”

“Me?” Luna shrugged, making sure to keep their lips just barely touching, “I’m not doing anything. This is just—I call this very close talking.”

The corner of Lyra’s mouth rose, “stupid,” she whispered, before leaning forward to kiss Luna, slowly and sweetly. After a moment, she went to pull away, but Luna’s hand caught her gently behind her neck to bring her back. They stayed in that moment for an eternity, gently, languidly, relearning each other. Too soon for Luna’s taste, they separated. But Lyra did not move away, instead, staying close and resting her forehead on Luna’s.

“So,” Luna started carefully, “can I stay here tonight?”

Lyra rolled her eyes, smiling.

“First, tell me why Akso is mad at you.”

Luna’s eyes jumped to hers.

“Oh, well,” she sighed, “this is the worst I have been wounded since you left. Doe was fixing everyone up, but,” she trailed off.

Lyra waited expectantly.

“I wanted to see you.”

“You are such a dramatic,” Lyra laughed, “it’s not even that deep. It was more blood than anything else!”

“Yeah, well,” Luna let out a soft laugh, “I still wanted to see you. Showing up with a stab wound was just my ticket inside.”

Lyra narrowed her eyes, “fine, you can stay the night. But I am not defending you against Akso.”

“I’m sure Levi has his hands full at the moment,” Luna giggled, “Akso is probably still yelling about splitting up being a bad idea.”

“Yeah, well,” Lyra started as she stood, “splitting up was a bad idea.”

“I agree,” Luna said, hoping Lyra would catch her meaning.

She did, but continued walking into the bedroom anyway. After a minute of her not returning, Luna frowned.

“Wait,” she called into the other room, “you have to help me! I can hardly even stand up.”

Lyra’s head appeared around the door.

“If you want to share the bed, you’ll have to get to it on your own.”

She smiled and winked before disappearing back into the bedroom. Luna scoffed at her, staying on the couch until she heard the shower turn on.

“How dare,” Luna said aloud to herself.

She braced herself on the side of the couch, slowly pulling herself up to test her balance. Fine so far. One step at a time, she hobbled to the bedroom.

Ten minutes later, Lyra was stepping out of the bath, wondering if Luna had made it to the bed or was still pouting on the couch. She slid the bathroom door open to find Luna had, in fact, made it to the bedroom, and was fast asleep on top of the covers.

“Typical,” Lyra whispered, putting on a robe before walking over to Luna.

She didn’t want to wake her, but she also couldn’t let her sleep with bloodied clothes on.

Gently, she cupped Luna’s face.

“Hey,” she whispered, “can you sit up for me?”

With some help, Luna sat up, eyes hooded and half seeing. Lyra took one of her shirts from a small dresser and helped her remove the bloody one.

“Put this on,” she instructed.

Luna made a tired noise of agreement, pulling the shirt over her shoulders with some difficulty before falling back down against the pillows. Lyra rolled her eyes.

“Pants too,” she sighed.

“I thought I told you, dinner first,” Luna mumbled.

“Shut up,” Lyra said, helping her out of her trousers and into some far more comfortable shorts.

“Mhmm, goodnight,” Luna whispered, turning around and slinging her arm over Lyra as she slid under the covers next to her.

Lyra looked down at the arm slung over her with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah,” she said, “goodnight.”

“I lo- you,” Luna mumbled.

Lyra turned her head to look at Luna, who was thoroughly out of it.

“What?”

No answer.

Lyra sighed, a small, contented smile on her face as she settled down into the pillows.

“I love you, too.”

The End?

[septi-art]

Art, Artists, and Community Interaction

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. It’s something I think both artists and people interested in consuming art should take the time to read. It’s a discussion worth having. 

[Disclaimer I’m basically spit-balling this, and it is based on my own experiences and perspective. This discussion and advice may not be universal.]   

Having interaction with your audience/community is something that I feel is incredibly important as an artist. When you make art you need to be marketable, you need to sell. This isn’t universally true but if people aren’t seeing your art, somewhere along the line, something has gone wrong. There are multiple factors that go into your success as an artist of course. Things like work ethic, self improvement, and the core foundation skills you use to create art in the first place, are fairly obvious factors. However once you’ve made a drawing your work isn’t done. You still need to show it. You still need to sell it. Otherwise you’re not really a successful artist, right?

It gets lengthy under the cut, but please take the time to read through this and consider sharing it. I put time into this and would like for it to gain at least some visibility. 

From my experience there’s more than a few factors that play into your success. Your audience, your business sense, and your ability to interact with your community as an artist however, really stand out as important to me. And all three are linked very closely to each other. Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and I want to touch on specifically the first and last elements on that list. Business sense is important, but it relies entirely on the artist to understand how business and entrepreneurship work. Community and visibility do not. 

As an artist you depend on your audience and the community surrounding your work, however large or small it may be. I know that personally I have several friends who I can rely on to support my work. They may be a small network of people, but they are in the notes on almost every post I make on this site. As an artist I want to see this network grow. If I spread my community it makes me more successful as an artist, and this benefits me a lot as someone who plans on using my art as a source of income. As someone who has yet to break into the professional setting, my options are limited to freelance work and private commissions being my major sources of accessible income. Freelance work and getting commissions can rely heavily on reputation and visibility. This is why I (and many other artists) need a community.

Growing a community is something that takes time and effort. And it’s something that I believe requires the artist and the audience to sort of meet in the middle. Realistically though, growing a community is primarily the artist’s job. In day to day life, as a consumer, it’s not my job to advertise a product to myself. A company wouldn’t just give me a product and tell me that if I like it, and want more of that product, I need to try to get my friends to buy it too. In the same way, forcing the audience to sell the artwork they consume is not practical, and just straight up won’t work. As an artist seeing people only hit the “like” button is frustrating because it limits my exposure, but also it’s not that person’s responsibility to hit “reblog”. Just like it’s not a consumer’s job to sell the products they want. However art isn’t quite like say, Pepsi, or a pair of new shoes. The audience shouldn’t be passive in their consumption of art. After all art at it’s core is interactive. 

This is where community and interaction really come into play. I both need and desire to have people care about my artwork. But getting “popular” is slow. Gaining an audience, is slow. Early on in your art career your visibility is very small, and no one knows who you are. You have no reputation, and no incentives for your audience. You need something to sell them on.

For someone to want to be involved more actively in consuming art they need to have a reason to care. This is why fanart is so popular, this is why web comics and artists with long running series do well. They have a product people can identify with or learn to identify with (this is why my Dark Souls sketches I may have drawn in an hour have several hundred notes and my personal work I spend days working on gets no traction comparatively). 

This just shows that on some level, for an audience to care, art has to have an immediate appeal to a person. This is either based on personal taste (what art really stands out to you?), or by appealing to a group of people as a whole (drawings video game or TV characters from popular franchises that people love). I feel that being able to do both is important. Bring in people based on topics or themes they know already, and hopefully they stay because you have a body of work outside that they like as well. And outside of your artwork, appeal to them even more by showing that you have an accessible community. That you care about the fact that they like your work. This is something you can do through community outreach, by doing things like:

Drawing things you know people will like, it doesn't have to be your entire body of work but it helps to make your content relatable to your audience(which I mentioned already).

Make and post art frequently. 

Streaming your artwork on places like YouTube and Picarto.

Show works in progress (WIPs), or show how you make your art from time to time.

Interact with other artists (draw together with them Google Hangouts are great for this, this post might be helpful for that). 

Create a system to reward people for involvement in your community, Patreon is a good way to do this.

Another way to reward interaction is to let the community have some influence in your content (polls and contests).

Set up a way for people to make small donations, it’s better than undercutting your prices. it’s more affordable for people who care but aren’t just full of money. Using a Ko-fi button is good for this.  

Post to as many sites as you can.

Respond to feedback now and then 

Posting with regularity, and making your content accessible with links to where you post attached is also a smart idea. Make it easy for people to find where you put your art.  

Just because it is the artist’s job to build and “curate” their community doesn’t mean that the community itself should be passive. If you are seeing art, you are interacting with it. And if you are interacting with it, even for 10 seconds, it took hours and hours of effort on top of years of practice and learning just for the artist to let you see it for those 10 seconds. Even mediocre artists often have spent a large amount of time trying very hard to get as far as they have. No one should have to try that hard not have some kind of payoff. This is why your support as a consumer matters so much.  

That being said a consumer’s job isn’t to sell the product. But being passive in your interaction with art really doesn’t benefit anyone. The largest form of this I see is people hitting the “like” button, and nothing else. Doing that is like walking up to a street vendor and telling them you like what they’re selling, and then walking away. Consumer interactions like that mean that while you get to see the art, the artist now has a smaller audience (I’m basically saying likes on posts essentially do not matter from a practical perspective). 

And yes, it’s not your job to make the artist’s community larger, but it’s worth considering that you can. But then again, why should you if it’s not your job, right? By being active in your consumption you can join a group of people who are a network that truly supports an artist and will benefit both the artist and you. If you interact with the art you appreciate, and especially with the artist, you increase your chances of seeing more art you like. it doesn’t even have to be monetary contributions. 

So how can you help out, how can you be active in an artist’s network? Here are some things you can do:

Hit “Reblog” instead of “Like” (it’s easiest thing you can do and involves almost no extra effort) 

If you see art you like, find out who made it. More often than not, they have more like it. 

Follow artist’s streams. 

Ask questions. 

Leave comments. As long as it’s not rude or negative just say something in response. 

Give money if you really, really, like the art. Support on Patreon, Commissions, or even just one or two dollar donations are all super important. 

if you can, just learn about art! broaden your appreciation for it. It can even be fun (seriously art history is crazy). 

[Keep in mind that not all artists will interact with you or their communities the same, use good judgement. This post is all coming from someone who is talking about smaller artists working independently or freelance, and trying to build a following on an online platform like Tumblr.]

But like I said, your job is at the end of the day, to just be an audience. You can do whatever you want. You can hit “like” and keep scrolling, I won’t stop you. I won’t be surprised or upset even. But if you really like a piece of art, if you care about art in any way, keep this discussion in mind. It’s really important. Art can’t exist without an audience that supports it.    

TL;DR - As an artist, reach out to people and actively make yourself visible. As an audience member, interact and support artists you like.