#you just get the most boring format of them all: bulletpoints

[al-mayriti]

as i did last year, this year i've been recording basically everything i did during the year so i didn't forget. anyways, here is my true 2023 experience, it is divided by categories (travels, books, music, movies, etc) and i will bold my favourites of each category. also, if you want more details especially with travelling and music, here's the twitter thread i've been using to record everything down <3

also!! just in case, dates are in dd/mm format !

TRAVELS:

02/01. calp (alacant, spain) 05/04. mojácar (almería, spain) 17-18/04. glasgow (scotland) 18/04. balloch and loch lomond (west dunbartonshire, scotland) 20/06. albacete (spain) 18-19/08. barcelona (spain) 19-23/08. milano (italy) 20/08. lake como (lombardia, italy) 22/08. verona (italy) 08-10/09. valència (spain) 15/10. bari (italy) 15-28/10. metaponto (matera, italy) 22/10. taranto (italy) 13-16/12. vera (almería, spain) 15/12. mojácar (almería, spain) 16-17/12. valència / la pobla de vallbona (valència, spain)

CONCERTS:

14/01. amaia (la riviera) 17/04. paramore (OVO hydro, glasgow) 15/05. cariño (el matadero) 16/06. valeria castro (noches del botánico) 23/09. amaia (wizink center) 12/10. ginebras (wizink center)

MOVIES:

17/01. knives out 22/01. glass onion 19/02. ¡ay, carmela! 25/03. volver 26/03. jojo rabbit 26/04. super mario bros. the movie - IN THE CINEMA 30/04. knives out (rewatch) 27/05. glass onion (rewatch) 10/06. matilda (2022) 21/06. spiderman: across the spiderverse - IN THE CINEMA 28/07. barbie - IN THE CINEMA 01/09. indiana jones and the dial of destiny 22/09. the little mermaid (2023) 24/09. bottoms 11/10. barbie (rewatch) 18/11. mean girls 02/12. marie antoinette (2006) 09/10. the hunger games: the ballad of songbirds & snakes - IN THE CINEMA

VIDEOGAMES:

03/02. simmiland (PC) 03/02. stacklands (PC) 10/02. fire emblem engage (switch) 03/03. crusader kings iii (PC) 09/03. rpg maker xp (PC) 04/05. dice kingdoms (PC) 25/06. harvestella (switch) 27/06. indoorlands (PC) 08/07. humankind (PC) 28/07. the legend of zelda: tears of the kingdom (switch) 28/07. lakeburg legacies (PC) 28/08. the yawhg (PC) 08/09. frostpunk (PC) 31/10. lakeside (PC) 24/11. hades (PC) 23/12. cities skylines ii (PC)

TV SHOWS:

18/02. el ministerio del tiempo s1 06/03. druck s5 (rewatch) 08/03. druck s6 (rewatch) 13/03. el ministerio del tiempo s2 20/03. shadow and bone s2 16/05. abbott elementary s2 23/06. el ministerio del tiempo s3 21/07. derry girls s1 (rewatch) 12/11. bany compartit

TOP SONGS BY MONTH:

january: 5. la maza - priscila félix 4. la canción más hermosa del mundo - manuel carrasco 3. inteligencia emocional - belén aguilera 2. odio que te quiero - paula koops, noan 1. joker (REPUTA) - zahara, carolina durante february: 5. liar - paramore 4. you first - paramore 3. running out of time - paramore 2. big man, little dignity - paramore 1. figure 8 - paramore march: 5. si quieres - cariño 4. inteligencia emocional - belén aguilera 3. música ligera - ana mena 2. me he pillao x ti - ana mena, natalia lacunza (album version) 1. me he pillao x ti - ana mena, natalia lacunza (single version) april: 5. california friends - the regrettes 4. galgo - belén aguilera 3. costura - valeria castro 2. un clásico - ana mena 1. no me querías tanto - natalia lacunza may: 5. oh boi - shego 4. c'est comme ça - paramore 3. évidemment - la zarra 2. this is why - paramore 1. zenzenzense - RADWIMPS june: 5. yo quisiera - alice wonder 4. you first - paramore 3. antagonista - belén aguilera 2. father and son - yusuf / cat stevens 1. tonta - nathy peluso july: 5. guerrera - valeria castro 4. la vida moderna - veintiuno, love of lesbian 3. vampire - olivia rodrigo 2. i have a dream - amanda seyfried 1. fiebre - bad gyal august: 5. galgo - belén aguilera 4. nunca llega 05 - natalia lacunza 3. roméo&juliette - olympe chabert 2. discoteka - lola índigo, maría becerra 1. es albacete - rozalén september: 5. narciso - pipiolas 4. get him back! - olivia rodrigo 3. love is embarrassing - olivia rodrigo 2. vampire - olivia rodrigo 1. ballad of a homeschooled girl - olivia rodrigo october: 5. vampire - olivia rodrigo 4. hot to go! - chapell roan 3. más colao que el colacao - la la love you 2. vii. cassandra (fillas de cassandra) - fillas de cassandra 1. ateo - c. tangana, nathy peluso november: 5. novix - maría josé llergo 4. si quieres - cariño 3. maledetta primavera - loretta goggi 2. salvaje - nathy peluso 1. all too well (10 minutes version) - taylor swift december: 5. san peter - pipiolas 4. ballad of a homeschooled girl - olivia rodrigo 3. deja vu - olivia rodrigo 2. drivers license - olivia rodrigo 1. can't catch me now - olivia rodrigo

THEATRE PLAYS & MUSICAL SHOWS:

05/03. la saga (teatro lara) 07/04. tick tick... boom! (teatro la estación caixabank príncipe pío) 08/10. school of rock (teatro ibercaja delicias) 18/11. mean girls (grupo de teatro amorevo) 29/12. phantom of the opera (teatro albéniz)

BOOKS:

29/01. assembly - natasha brown (2021) 08/04. tartesso y los fenicios de occidente - sebastián celestino pérez & carolina lópez - ruiz (2020) 12/04. daddy - emma cline (2021) 23/04. a thousand splendid suns - khaled hosseini (2007) 29/05. los renglones torcidos de dios - torcuato luca de tena (1979) 03/06. the bands of mourning - brandon sanderson (2017) 24/06. kokoro - natsume soseki (1914) 10/07. miss benson's beetle - rachel joyce (2020) 08/08. the no-show - beth o'leary (2023) 18/08. tales of the alhambra - washington irving (1832) 22/09. the attack - yasmina khadra (2005) 25/09. the lightning thief - rick riordan (2005) RE-READ 30/09. the sea of monsters - rick riordan (2006) RE-READ 02/10. the titan's curse - rick riordan (2007) RE-READ 04/10. the battle of the labrynth - rick riordan (2008) RE-READ 07/10. the last olympian - rick riordan (2009) RE-READ 23/11. the kamogawa food detectives - hishashi kashiwai (2023) 21/12. a christmas carol - charles dickens (1843)

[newttxt]

hi quip! i really like your one piece comics and i am curious how you do them! i'm not good at comics and want to be better at drawing them! how do you learn how to make comics?

thank you!

uh oh... im afraid u have caught me at the perfect crossroad of "bored at work" and "unrelated task ive been meaning to do but keep putting off."

this is long. i hope you like reading (and grayscale progress pics). and of course!!! disclaimer before we begin that this is just how I, personally draw comics. there is no "right way."

quip's comic-making process!

Switching my typing to make this more legible...

My process can kinda be broken down into 6 steps:

Brainstorming

Thumbnailing

Sketching

Panels & Text

Lines

Tones/Colors

1. Brainstorming

My brain is a leaky sieve on a good day, so I sloppily jot down ideas in my phone notes the moment I have them. This helps me when it's time to draw too, because if I feel art blocked, I can look through old concepts and see what catches my interest.

Otherwise, I love drawing for other people's writing. :) And if worst comes to worst, doing manga/comic page redraws in my style teaches me new things every time.

Once I have my idea, I'll usually make a bulletpoint list of "plot points" or "story beats" I want. Then I plan the comic with this format that I've adapted from a tutorial I read once. I'm going to use my most recent comic (original comic post) as an example.

I start in the third column, writing notes of what I'd want to see in each panel. I also include the dialogue (in this case, I didn't have to write the dialogue! it's from the fanfic linked in the original comic post!). I usually write the whole name like [Luffy:], but at this point I've drawn so much of these guys, just the first letter works.

I like to handwrite these notes to get an idea for how much text I'm putting in a single panel.

After I describe all the panels, I go back and separate them into pages. I can't tell you how to know how many panels to a page. It's whatever works for you. I just kinda know about how big each panel will be, and so I can feel when I'm probably running out of space. (Also. You can change things later. I don't in this example, but I add/drop pages/panels all the time.)

2. Thumbnailing

Thumbnailing—as the name suggests—should be done tiny. Too tiny to accidentally get sucked into details.

This is about marking down blobs where items/characters go, and figuring out the paneling. I'll draw and redraw these a bunch of times too.

This is also the most time-consuming/brain-working part for me. If I were in a zine that did progress percentage, I'd try to finish thumbnailing around the 50% mark (but I'm also a moderately fast artist, so your mileage may vary).

I think the terrible quality makes them charming, actually. I really like how silly they look. :')))

I will add, when you draw your "page" rectangle, make sure it's the same proportions as your actual canvas for the final image. You want an accurate idea of how much space each panel will take up, especially if you have a lot of text.

3. Sketching

This is my most recent change to my usual workflow, and it's saving me a lot of time. I make my thumbnails a bit bigger (each one about half the size of the final canvas), and I sketch these basic body forms right over them.

It just helps give me placement for my actual lines!

I usually draw these in a paleish color so I can lower the opacity and not get distracted by them while lining. The random darker parts are to either help keep two forms separate (like when two characters have their limbs all over) or to better define sections that were too sloppy/poorly proportioned.

I also think this helps my poses stay looser, because I have more dramatic/wriggly shapes that aren't too bogged down by proportions yet.

Sidenote: I CANNOT show this here, but sometimes this is when I take videos. Of myself. I prop my phone camera up and shoot a video of me acting each panel. :/// It looks really dumb, but it also shows me fun body language ideas like hand gestures, expressions, weight distribution, etc. Just pretend you're an overdramatic cartoon character, and try not to worry about your roommates or mother walking in on you doing odd things. (You can also use the video for anatomy reference later, but I usually just capture the vibe and don't try to copy the actual video frame.)

4. Panels & Text

Oh, boy. So, the panels are usually just straight lines (though it's fun to make creative exceptions, like a round panel to mimic looking through a spyglass), but there are some fancy rules that I don't strictly adhere to.

I believe (I have no technical training in this. Take everything I say with a grain of salt) the vertical gaps (between two side-by-side panels) should all be a consistent width and the horizontal gaps (between two panels on top of each other) should be another. The vertical ones? Should be thinner? Because you want the eye to easily glide between them, whereas the horizontal gaps should be a visual barrier to keep you from jumping ahead. Just something I've vaguely noticed.

There are lots of fun "default layouts" you can look up. Or keep it a consistent grid. I think it's fun to sometimes have characters/objects sticking out of panels and overlapping others. This is just a matter of taste, creativity, and inspiration. (Read Witch Hat Atelier... It has some of my favorite paneling...)

You may also notice I have already done the speech bubbles. This is, to me, a crucial step. This helps me catch early if I don't have enough room for all the words. It also lets me plan the art in each panel with the speech bubbles in mind. There's nothing worse than working really hard on a panel, and then you realize there's no room for the bubbles.

I also try to lay them out in a way that guides the eye! Even without art, can people tell where to go next? Better yet, if I want people to look at panels out of order (aka not left to right, in my case), can I use the speech bubble path to make them? Here's just a vague example of what I mean.

As an added bonus, doing speech bubbles early also allows me to be lazy! :) Ignore the comic; I'm not supposed to post it yet oops,, There's a whole lot of drawing to do on each comic page, and I am not wasting my time on stuff that will be covered up. So yes, if I hide my bubbles, there are a lot of unfinished lines trailing off into nothing. (As a bonus, if there's a part of a character you're struggling with—and it won't look weird to do so—you can move speech bubbles to just hide the problem area yayyy)

Making the actual bubbles could be their own whole tutorial, tbh, but there are some general guidelines I use.

Zoom out when you choose your font size. You want to know how it will look to the average reader, so it isn't super teeny tiny or way too big. You generally want to keep the same text size for all your pages/bubbles.

When I draw bubbles, I try to size them about one vertical letter height (and some change) around the words [left side]. This isn't always the case though, because humorously large or funny shaped text bubbles can convey different feelings [right side].

On Procreate, I set my bubble lines to Reference and just drag-and-drop the white fill on a separate layer below the lines. (Remember to turn Reference back off again when you're done, or your fill bucket won't work right when you're drawing.)

To get the white outlines I use to keep the bubbles from cluttering up the art, I literally just Gaussian blur an all-white copy of the lines + fills... and then I copy and merge it 5 times until it's opaque enough. This is a terrible way to do it, but it works for me. :')

5. Lines

This is the part that I can't tell you how to do. I literally just. Draw right over my wacky sketched body forms. Boom. Comic drawn.

I'll make three suggestions:

Don't focus on making every panel perfect. Give a little extra love to big ones or ones you want people to linger on. Otherwise, know that people are typically speeding through the art. It's way more important to focus on storytelling than art technique. In my opinion, a good story that's told well will always be better than a beautiful one told poorly. (Some comics are beautiful AND well-written... Alas, I am just a hobbyist who needs to get the ideas out of my head at top speed.)

Put your background lines on a different layer. Put your foreground lines on a different layer too, if you have those. Basically, I try to keep the main part of each panel (usually a character or object) on my lines layer so I can erase background/foreground/etc lines to ensure clarity/focus.

You can make background lines lighter colors too. I have too many numbers sorry. (1) Background. The stuff that's farthest away. Lightest lines. Few details; more focused on shapes and the suggestion of a background (I'm not good at backgrounds). (2) Midground. Same distance away as the characters are. Lines can be black. (3) Also midground, and also the same distance away. But they're very detailed, so I lighten them so they aren't so distracting. (4) The characters. Black lines for focus. For people who haven't seen the comic, I swear they are just hugging. This is SFW. D:

6. Tones/Colors

Do not. Do NOT ask me. I don't understand colors. I hate working with them, but I try because I want to improve. I hate doing anything beyond the simplest grayscale shading. Please go elsewhere for your coloring/tone advice. This is how my color picker looks 95% of the time. I have pre-set "percentages" of black that I got by lowering the opacity of a black layer and just color picking it. I don't even know the exact percentages I used. Good luck out there. Be better than me.

7. Sharing

This is a bonus step that I didn't mention earlier, but it's actually the most important of all of them.

You need a friend. Or maybe a groupchat or discord. A family member or coworker if you're really close like that. I don't know.

Find SOMEWHERE you can spam wips and be cheered on. Drawing comics takes a while, especially if you're trying to tell longer stories than I'd dare to attempt. If I don't force someone to praise me for every line I draw, I shrivel up and die.

Also if and when you post online, add alt text. I'll admit I'm the first person to complain and drag my feet on this, and I literally use a screenreader myself when my eyes hurt (strong prescription glasses wearer). Comics should be accessible, because stories are fun and everyone should be able to enjoy them.

***

Learning???

And I guess lastly, how do you learn to make comics? Two steps: 1) read them and 2) make them. This is the tragedy of creating things.

1) Reading them: I grew up reading comic strips, western serialized comics, and webcomics. I've always loved graphic novels too. Then in late middle school, I started reading manga (Death Note and Haikyuu were my first two), and now I'm trying to read more webtoons (sorry im so slow bree)!

I also... mass-consume doujinshi, thanks to proxy mailing services and bilingual friends/Google Translate/knowing some Korean. (I have an entire bookshelf of doujin, actually,,)

The thing is, it's not usually enough to just read comics. You also need to be thinking. :/ I notice paneling, comic devices, clever comedic timing, etc. as I go. It's just a lot of studying/learning while also enjoying the story.

2) Making them: You just have to start. :( Even if you think they're "bad." My first comics were actually just drawings placed randomly all over the page, connected by speech bubbles (yay... I was already practicing how to place bubbles to lead the eye around the page...). I was going to post a pic here, but I'm a coward. Backscroll my account and you can find some older ones though.

I also know my art in general improved dramatically when I did ten comics in ten weeks for my friend's fic. Don't do this. It hurt my hands/wrists. But do practice in moderation.

***

If you actually read all that... I hope it made even a modicum of sense. And maybe it was even helpful? Just know at the end of the day, there is literally no right way to draw a comic.

And if you aren't ready to go for it yet, you can start by just adding a couple speech bubbles to your illustrations or doodles! It's a way to add storytelling and dialogue writing to things you may already be making.

Yay. I love comics. :))))

[ennergetics]

omg can i get a ghost! woojin au pleaseee in the bulletpoint format

[sure, anon! not sure how you wanted this but?? lol this just wrote itself tbh i apologize for the LeNGth and the ANGST i did not intend for this to reach over 1k words]

(image credit) 

pairing: park woojin x readersummary: Park Woojin is the shyest, sweetest, and most talented ghost you’re ever going to meet.

ever since you moved to Busan, things have been a little strange

you settled in easily enough, joining the school newspaper’s tiny staff as its sole photographer

when they unveil the new arts building where the old gardens used to stand, you’re one of the three students present

the new caretaker offers to give you a tour, and you’re the only one who takes it

within minutes of unlocking the building, the caretaker grows bored and asks you if he can go take care of something

you’re tempted to report him because you know he just wants to smoke on the grounds, but this is an important chance to explore before everyone else

you’ve run out of battery on your camera and your phone, but it doesn’t matter since nothing exciting is likely to happen anyway

you’re climbing the stairs when you get a prickly feeling at the back of your neck, a wave of light-headedness hitting you, and you KNOW there’s something there

you see something in the corner of your right eye and follow the faint sound of music that grows louder as you near the end of the hallway

the door’s ajar and you see a bulky old radio, R&B from the early 2000s booming from its speakers

in the room is a young man dancing with his back to you, his form graceful and fierce. you’re watching him with wide-eyes because??? you were expecting something as dumb as a ghost sighting and instead you find something moving and beautiful

you enter the room as the song finishes, and he turns around, revealing one of the gentlest faces you’ve seen in a while, prompting you to say, “hey, you’re a really great dancer!!” with a smile

then he smiles a snaggletooth smile and blushes and FUCKING DISAPPEARS

you were always a cautious believer in the supernatural; back in Seoul, your aunt would warn you about which alleyways to stay away from, when to apologize to an errant spirit, and how to pay due respects

when you moved to Busan to live with your no-nonsense grandfather, he dismissed everything spiritual as ridiculous, and soon you came to agree with him

sure, you enjoy reading scary stories till late at night, freaking out at the smallest noise at three in the morning

and yes, you may be known as the paranormal “expert” in your class because of how well you know all the different superstitions

okay, you may have nearly burned down the gardens because you lit a candle to make sure the guard dog that had chased a truck wouldn’t come back

but you definitely considered yourself a retired paranormal believer, so seeing and talking to an honest-to-goodness spirit has you reconsidering your life choices

the next day you return with a fully charged camera, prepared to catch at least his dancing on film for you to send to your aunt, and you wait hours and hours after school in dance studio B but nothing happens

you’re curled up in a ball and nearly fall asleep when the radio clicks on, and you scramble to get either your phone or your camera but they’ve both run out of battery

the boy doesn’t appear anyway, so you get up to leave, and you stretch while closing your eyes, and when you open them he appears, shy and shimmering in the sunset’s light

his name is park woojin; he’s seventeen years old; and those are pretty much the only two things he can tell you for sure

you try to make a lame-ass twilight joke—“how long have you been seventeen?”—and he just looks confused, so you ask him about dancing instead

and he tells you he’s glad to have found this space because it feels right for him to be dancing here, but also that for the first time he has an audience

woojin blushes when you ask him to dance for you, but readily agrees, his smile morphing into what you’ll soon call his “killer dance face”

you mean dead dance face? he jokes, and your hand goes right through his arm when you try to slap him

dance studio B becomes your regular hangout after school until the school’s dance troupe begins to use it, and you’re worried you’ll never see woojin again until he appears by your side as you’re walking home

that becomes part of your daily routine: you and woojin at the edge of school grounds, with you watching him dance by the light of the fading sun, his lithe body casting no silhouettes

he walks you home, and after talking about anything and everything under the sun, you say your goodbyes at your gate, your school day not complete without the sight of his smile

“woojin,” you say once, fiddling with the settings of your camera, “don’t you ever want to move to the next life?”

and he looks at you, the leaves’ shadows covering all but your bright eyes and fond smile, and his heart aches, but all he says is, i don’t know how

you look up and mistake the longing on his face for sadness, so you tell him, “we can fix this,” and call up your aunt as soon as you get home, and she says you need to find his story to find out what’s keeping him on earth

and you start to read through the school newspaper’s physical archives, searching for a mention of his name

woojin doesn’t know how to tell you he wants to stay, that you’re the first person who’s made him wish he were alive again, if only to find out if your hair is as soft as it looks, if your nose against his would tingle as he imagines it would, and he wants to say all of this but can’t find the words

day by day, his dancing grows more impassioned, the movements precise but desperate, and one day you cry while watching him, promising him you’ll help him soon

and you feel guilty because you’ve been going slowly at the archives, not wanting to lose your new friend, not thinking about how he’s the brightest part of your day

you finally find out the details of his death, an awful construction accident that left him in a coma for a week, which your aunt says is easy enough to fix with blessed spring water and the right prayer

and you tell woojin and he smiles sadly

tomorrow, woojin says, not able to say no when you’ve worked so hard

and he asks to come in when you arrive at your gate, and after dinner, you find him sitting at the foot of your bed

jokingly, you take a picture of him, telling him it’s an image you’d like to save forever, and he makes a face at the camera

you get under the covers and pat the space at your side, and the two of you lie face to face, and you swear you can feel his slightly translucent arm draped over your shoulder, and you close your eyes so he doesn’t see your tears

the next afternoon, the two of you decide you’ll perform the ritual as he dances, a fitting goodbye for the both of you

and you’re crying as you chant, the repetitions forming a rhythm he dances to, the setting sun growing clearer behind him as he fades away

before he disappears, he reaches over, and you feel a whisper of a kiss against your lips

i’m glad i met you, you hear

you cry and cry and look for him everywhere, but woojin is nowhere to be found

months later you’re going through your camera roll and you find something that makes you smile

and whenever your friends ask about the unfamiliar face among your photos, you tell them

“oh, that’s park woojin, my first love.“

[takerfoxx]

“Monsterland” Thoughts

Monsterland was one of the first episodes I had plotted out and initially had two purposes: to reveal what the dockengauts actually looked like and get them over as a serious threat for whenever I needed them next, and to get Kyoko her pet valk (more on that little chicken nugget later). Plus, you know, all the violence, violence, violence, violence. I'm starting to think I have a problem. This is what happens when you're a 90's kid and read Animorphs instead of Goosebumps during your formative years. It does things to you.

Anyhoo, I was originally going to save it for later on in the story (y'know, like I should have done with Help), but when it came time to choose the last episode before the break, I was really worn out from The Heist, was tired of all the plots involving politics and betrayal, and didn't feel like writing anything with too much plot. And since Monsterland was pretty much nonstop action, it was selected as the note to end things on.

In regards to the fight in the Velocity Terminal (the name of which I absolutely love. Naming places is often a pain in the ass, but I got a real kick out of this one), it was actually thought up as a standalone scene, one that wasn't actually connected to any specific plotline. It was just a fun all-out brawl on a wacky landscape that was admittedly heavily inspired by Sonic the Hedgehog games. Plus, as much as a love how good the fight in Breaking Through the Clouds came out, I was disappointed that I never got to fit in a scene where everyone from the Freehaven Four got to square off with their opposite number in the Void Quartet (Kyoko with Annabelle Lee, Mami with Nie, Charlotte with Artz, and Oktavia with Ticky Nikki), so this was my way of making up for it. And like all my big fight scenes, it was planned out bulletpoint-style, with a handful of high spots (notably Kyoko's trick with the spear and the freefall drop, Mami's shootout with Nie, and Oktavia racing along like as screaming lunatic) with a lot of improvision in between. For me, the highlights that were made up on the spot was Charlotte's MMA-esque battle with Artz and Charlotte and Mami's finger-wrenching rescue of Oktavia (ouch). Though in hindsight, I should have made more use of the teleporting towers thing. It's too cool of a concept to just use once.

Though I will admit, I did struggle to come up with a reason for why the Void Quartet would still be chasing the gang. I guess, "Because we hate you and have nothing better to do" works okay.

Anyway, the dockengaut home planet was originally going to be dull, grey, and lifeless (save for the monsters), much like the elephant graveyard in the Lion King (yes, the boneyard was a direct reference). But that just struck me as boring. Yeah, I appreciate a lot of gothic aesthetics, but I still have a perchance for colorful worlds, and there was nothing to say this one couldn't have a lot of color and still be sinister. So we got things like the black jungle and purple fields and whatnot. I guess more of my Animorph fanboyish came to play, since most of KA Applegate's alien worlds operated under similar principles. Come to think of it, this whole episode was one big love letter to Animorphs.

Insofar as the monsters were concerned, I only had a couple in mind going in, other than the dockengauts and valks of course. The bahemont scene was preplanned, as were those cone monsters that almost got Mami (they were originally going to be sandworms, but screw it, sandworms are overused). The design for the miscus were actually stolen from a monster idea I was going to use for Subconscious, but they ended up working just fine here. As for the others, those I deliberately avoided designing in advance so I could have fun making them up on the spot. The Worm was pretty much brainstormed on the fly, and it ended up being really cool if I do say so myself. It borrowed the whole hanging from the ceiling from Bongo Bongo in Ocarina of Time, while the rest of its body was designed around a cactus. And it really helped to have something so huge and terrifying be scared shitless by the dockengauts, as it helped drive home just how unstoppable they are.

Anyway, the bulletpoint approach really does help with action scenes. I think I've mentioned this before, but sometimes the coolest "found moments" come from trying to work your way around logical problems that show up unexpectedly. For example, during the freefall into the boneyard, Kyoko was initially going to just snatch Oktavia out of the sky and then sort of wall jump her way into the ground. Then I thought, "Shit, what about the wheelchair?" So I stopped writing and brainstormed for a few minutes before coming up with the spiral ramp of shields and having Kyoko literally ride the damned thing all the way to the ground, with Mami making the save at the end. Come on. I know it's far from the most memorable scene, but it was still pretty damn cool.

In contrast, more often than not scenes that get planned far in advance fail to live up to what I see in my head. Take the introduction of the first dockengaut. It came out fine when I first wrote it, or so I thought. But after going back and reading it over when the chapter had been up for a while, I feel I had ended up rushing the whole thing. It should have been drawn out more, delaying the reveal, making the formation of the dockengaut's body take longer while leading the dread build. Instead, it just went too fast. It's was fine for what it was, but it could have been so much better.

Same for the fight on the next chapter. Beat by beat it's fine. But I really should have played up the horror aspects more, especially when it comes to the lighting. In hindsight, it would have been a good idea to damage the equipment after all and screw up the lights, so that they would be flickering in and out, giving the dockengaut a more demonic appearance. When it comes to things like building dread and inspiring horror, aesthetics, pacing, and atmosphere are everything. As such, the dockengauts worked best when they were in the shadows.

Speaking of improvising versus planning, all of Kyoko's dreams about wandering around in the dark were made up on the spot, mostly as a way to slow the pacing down whenever she passed out. It's easy to slow things down when you need to if you have several characters to bounce the POV back and forth between, but when it's just one for the whole chapter, you have to rely on whatever tricks you can when the time comes for a breather. Dreams are great for that sort of thing. So are flashbacks. And in this case, I ended up liking the idea so much that it became a recurring motif, one that eventually led to the big rescue at the end. Plus, with Oktavia being absent, it helped build up the idea that Kyoko was developing feelings for her and made their reunion a little more special.

The same applies to the compass. I needed to give Kyoko some kind of advantage, and since I had already introduced the fact that she still has it as a Chekov's Gun in case I needed it later, now was a great opportunity to fire it off. As for it copping some kind of attitude, that was one of those on the fly things that made me laugh so I just rolled with it.

But with all the improvising and extra stuff, a few planned things did end up getting cut, one in which Kyoko's hiding from a dockengaut only for some kind of fist-sized monster crab thing to sneak up on her, shriek at her, and have her throat it right at the dockengaut and flee while its getting torn apart. The other was for her to make her final escape out of the caverns by rushing through a black tunnel filled with alien slugs, squishing them along the way and eventually have her jump out of a hole in the side of a cliff (that part sort of made it in). This actually were taken out not because they wouldn't work, but because I'd like to do another dockengaut themed chapter sometime in the future and didn't want to blow through all my ideas in one go.

Now, in regards to the meat slave Kyoko runs into, I had an idea for her to find a hole, peek inside, and realize that below was a huge cavern, with hundreds of meat slaves being devoured by thousands of dockengauts. While a great image, that was another thing that I felt would be better off used when the gang made their eventual return to dockengaut land, so a single meat slave was used instead. Which was good, as some things you want to start off small and slowly escalate.

That being said, I admit that I ended up feeling really bad for the poor kid. I have a personal policy to avoid redshirting as much as possible, and I hate it when innocents suffer and die horribly to get the monster of the week over while the mains get out unscathed, even if the death was temporary. But I had to make an exception in this case, as there was no way in hell Kyoko, or anyone else, could have saved her. To be fair, at least she wasn't completely forgotten. I had Kyoko rage at God at the end for never sending anyone to help her as a way to make up for things, which is more than they usually get in some of the shows I've seen. Still, sorry about that, kid.

Okay, let's talk about valks. Now, it's no secret that I fucking love Jurassic Park (first one only, accept no shitty sequels!), and the velociraptors were my favorite part of it, oversized and scientifically inaccurate as they might be. In fact, I like them better that way! Screw the feathers! Boo!

Anyway, yeah, I love raptors. And so when I decided that I wanted the gang to adopt a team pet, I first thought of giving them a dog. Except no, there's no way a dog would ever survive, so they needed something tougher. Then I realized that this was my damn story and I could do what I wanted. So if I wanted to give them an alien velociraptor as a pet, I could do just that. I just needed to find a way to make it work.

That was part of the reason for their surprise appearance way back in First Time (damn, that was like two years ago! Time really does fly). I wanted to take the concept for a test drive to see how people would respond and introduce the idea of valks imprinting on the first thing they see upon birth. And seeing how the valks got more fanart than most of the main characters, I'd say things went off smashingly well.

So it was time to reintroduce them, and since their first appearance had them getting killed off pretty quickly, I needed to get them over as a threat as well. Now obviously, I couldn't make them too OP. After all, super predators or not, they're still just animals, while Kyoko and Charlotte were "hot immortal chicks with superpowers" (Buffy FTW), but I still wanted them to have a good showing.

I just wasn't prepared for how big that showing would actually be.

See, for the valk fight, I only had a couple of bulletpoints in mind: the part where they run into the nest and the baby hatches, and the one where the valk gets thrown into the balboa trees. Everything else was to be made up on the fly. Unfortunately, when it came time to do it, I got hit with a vicious case of writer's block. The wheels weren't turning, the words weren't flowing, and I was about to smash my head against the computer in frustration.

Oh, I got over it of course. Sometimes you just have to force the wheel to get things rolling, to grit your teeth and power through whatever's got you hung up. But when I finally did break out of that block, I found myself confronted with the opposite problem: I was having too many ideas.

The fight just kept going on and on and on and on. Every time I ran into a logical issue (how do I get them from point A to point B? How do I get this valk over here to get killed by so-and-so?), the solution would end up inflating into five pages. And that happened a lot. That whole bit with the gorizzly was literally spawned from me just needing to figure out how to get the valks into the gorge. The miscus was me figuring out that the valks would have wised up and not attacked the girls directly, so I needed some other way to get Kyoko and Charlotte into the gorge first. The pillar was to get the girls into the labyrinth. And the…well, you get the idea.

Still, while frustrating, per usual the improvisions ended up making some of the best bits, and it was a good feeling when it was finally completed. Because wow, that was an ordeal!

Side-note: I did cut out a bit where Charlotte would impale a valk with her wires, forget herself, and then accidentally retract them with its blood still on them, necessitating Kyoko to cut off her arm before the poison paralyzed her, mainly because I couldn't have Charlotte taken out of commission that completely. I made up for it with Kyoko get blinded and having to cut out her own eyes, because CLEARLY I HAVE ISSUES!

That the dockengauts would "save the day" by taking out the two remaining valks was always going to be the ending though, as was the gunship rescue. I know it's a bit Deux ex Machina-y, but sometimes that's the way things have to be. I did got back and insert those transmissions between the gunships to sort of soften the blow, though I wouldn't blame anyone for rolling their eyes. Also, I again feel like I rushed that last dockengaut scene, but oh well.

The reunion scene sort of speaks for itself, so I won't comment too much on it. However, I will say that the way it ended got changed several times. See, Kyoko had a baby valk in her backpack, and it needed to be smuggled out safely. Well, if I had the border guards take the girls to their HQ as planned, it would have surely been found, and I couldn't have that. I toyed around with the idea of having the guards simply drop them off and let them go on account of being suspicious of the order to have them arrested or something and fearing that something was up, but that was too kitschy. So, having them just bail it was. And as such, no hot meals or good night's sleep in a warm bed for them. Sorry guys.

For the epilogue, it sort of served as an epilogue for the whole story thus far, with Charlotte aptly summing up just how lost they were. And let's face it, she's right; even Kyoko admitted it. And I have to admit as well, maybe I did go to a couple wells too many times, what with the girls (Kyoko especially) getting the snot beaten out of them and being pushed past the point of exhaustion. Also, having this episode end on a tearful reunion when the previous one had done so as well does kind of dilute the effect, which means going forward I'm definitely going to have to dial back the violence and find some more variety in the plots. Which isn't to say that there won't be other search and rescues or heavy fights that push the girls to the edge, just that I need to lighten up a little and stop putting them all in a row.

Still, damage done. Only thing to do now is keep moving forward. Hey, I did say these stories were intended to be a learning experience.

And boy howdy, have they ever been. While I'll freely admit that I've made numerous mistakes in Imperfect Metamorphosis, looking back it does seem that I've made even more in Resonance Days. I'm starting to regret the whole Alliance thing, as it takes away the edge the story had in its first few chapters. And the episodic format should have been in place from the beginning. And Help was used way too early, and sending Kyoko and Oktavia off halfway through was a mistake. And The Heist, while an interesting experiment in unconventional writing, was a total mess.

Which isn't to say I necessarily regret all the decisions I made or think this story is bad. Far from it, I love Resonance Days and the freedom it gives me. And most of it came out very well, I feel. However, let's just say when it comes from learning from your own mistakes, I have learned a lot, and continue to learn more with every installment. And I expect that I will also learn even more from the first Subconscious book, and will learn more when the fanfics start up again, and…well, you get the idea. No matter how much experience you have or how meticulously you plan something out, there will always be more mistakes right around the corner. And if I had to choose the most important lesson I've learned from writing fanfiction, it's that even if you do screw up in a major way, sometimes you just have to adapt on the fly and keep going, instead of throwing the whole thing out and starting over like I kept doing before Imperfect Metamorphosis.

Now, looking back on Monsterland, how did it stack up? Well, it has its problems. Again, I felt that I should have slowed down most, if not all, of the dockengaut scenes, change the atmosphere a bit, and built up more horror and dread. Also, in reading it back, I admit that the big valk fight is a sudden change of gears. The fight itself is pretty damned good, but after hyping up the dockengauts, having the finale be against a different set of monsters entirely does cause a bit of a hiccup.

However, while I do like Help a bit more despite it having more problems with its placement and execution, Monsterland came out the smoothest of the three episodes so far, in that I went in with a specific vision for what I wanted it to be and the final result being more or less how I envisioned it, plus a few extras. Even the parts I cut out were mainly due to wanting to use them later than discarding them entirely. So yeah, pretty happy with the final result.

Okay, okay, okay, let's talk about the baby valk. Well, to be honest, there's not much to say since the little dude was only just introduced, but even so, I've been looking forward to bringing him (and yes, it's a him) into the story for a long time. I know, it's kinda cheap to introduce him right before the break, but one thing at a time I guess. Anyways though, in addition to realizing that the team pet needed to be something big and mean enough to survive their various misadventures and to pander to my raptor obsession, I think another reason for going with a baby space raptor was sort of subconscious (see what I did there?), in when I read the Jurassic Park book for the first time, I sort of fell in love with the baby raptor that shows up for all of two scenes and was devastated when it got eaten. So I included a baby raptor of my own that wouldn't get eaten. While…killing off an entire family of raptors, juveniles and other babies alike. If younger me ever read this he would want to strangle older me. Well, tough luck, kid. I'm bigger than you.

Still, he does promise to add an interesting dynamic to the team. Especially given how Charlotte's likely to react. Oh, this is gonna be good…

Or will be. Huh, it's kind of strange. After this goes up, I'll officially be done with Resonance Days and Imperfect Metamorphosis for a long time. It is sort of eerie, in an end of an era sort of way. Still, sooner or later you have to take things to the next level, and as much fun as I've had with these stories, the sad fact is that there's no money in them, and if I just keep going with them exclusively forever I'll never get around to Subconscious. So this is it. In a few hours I'll be starting the project for which I've been preparing for…roughly about twenty four years. Twenty four years of dreaming, daydreaming, plotting, planning, writing, rewriting, scrapping, and obsessing. This is really it.

Well guys. It was an awesome near eight years. Stay tuned for what's next!

[durifmdarchived]

a headcanon about duri & working out.

word count: 722. about: how duri feels about working out, his workout habits, and all that good stuff. also duri sexc. notes: if you now see me picking up writing headcanons in bulletpoint format now when i’ve been writing in paragraph form for 2 years and 9 months... no you don’t <3 here’s a minho gifset for your viewing pleasure. 

duri has never been someone that’s rather into sports. he doesn’t care to watch them, even if he’s gone to watch both soccer and baseball games in the past thanks to his family, but mostly his uncle and some cousins. however, the one sporty thing that duri has always enjoyed is working out. it probably isn’t something that would be considered sporty, but at least can tell what’s going on. (basketball is probably one sport he can actually explain and tell what’s going on, but that’s not important.)

duri can tend to work out pretty often, but it mainly happens when there isn’t a lot of schedules to worry about. most of the time, when he has a busy schedule, he’s promoting, or knight is promoting, duri will only work out on the days there aren’t music shows, as it’s easier that way. he also doesn’t want to lose out on his work out routine, which is why he continues anyways. 

he tends to work out four to five times a week, depending on how he’s feeling and all of that. working out really helps his confidence and helps him out in a lot of ways. sometimes when he can’t sleep, he’ll work out to hopefully get his body tired enough to sleep. sometimes it works, which is rather nice.

duri started working out when he was a teenager, with rather simple stuff. he thought it would be smart to do, since he wasn’t doing much physical activities as a child or teenager as his focus was on music completely. he decided that this would be the best way to go about it, which really got him on the working out kick. 

now, while duri really enjoys working out - he’s not a health nut in any sense of the label. most of the time, he’s eating whatever he wants and cooking whatever he wants. sure, sometimes he’s careful, like when it comes to sodium on somedays. but, most of the time, if he wants something, he’s going to eat it anyways. that’s the whole point of working out, right? he doesn’t over-do anything, he just does the healthy amounts, as given by the nutritionist that’s provided by bc entertainment. 

duri doesn’t believe in meal-prepping, that’s just glorified leftovers.

like many work out routines, duri will give certain days to certain tasks - such as legs, upper body, and so on. however, he will tend to always finish off workouts with a run, it’s something that he can’t help, because it feels right in some odd way. it’s his “cool-down” period. 

after times when he’s doing squats, maverick will swing on him - which duri doesn’t really mind considering the fact that it helps the work-out a lot. 

going off of that, he tends to go to the gym with maverick pretty often, so he’ll purposely show off to tease them, as well as taking off his shirt in the middle of a workout to workout. it’s just a fun really little thing, and a fun little fact. 

not to flex, but he can do a lot of pull-ups on pull up bars - this is something that duri has shown off on variety shows, considering the fact that he do pull-ups on about just anything. (much like minho.)

while duri isn’t really a “sporty” person because he’s never actually played on a sports team, he’s still rather good at sports and games (though, mainly things that would have to do with what he does at the gym, as well as basketball. there’s also archery, where he went viral at isac for breaking the camera.) 

personally, duri can’t say that he has a favorite thing to do at the gym. he quite likes using every machine that he uses for his workouts. especially because he has specific sets for things, mainly set up by a trainer, but something that he’s remembered himself. however, he does find lifting weights a bit boring, but he’ll still do it. 

in general, working out is one of the hobbies that duri has and unlike most people, he actually has fun with it, even if there’s some workouts that he isn’t too fond of. it helps him to sleep sometimes, helps bulid his confidence, and really just helps to make him feel good. strong sexy man duri!