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burntoutdaydreamer · 6 months

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Weird Brain Hacks That Help Me Write

I'm a consistently inconsistent writer/aspiring novelist, member of the burnt-out-gifted-kid-to-adult-ADHD-diagnosis-pipeline, recently unemployed overachiever, and person who's sick of hearing the conventional neurotypical advice to dealing with writer's block (i.e. "write every single day," or "there's no such thing as writer's block- if you're struggling to write, just write" Like F*CK THAT. Thank you, Brenda, why don't you go and tell someone with diabetes to just start producing more insulin?)

I've yet to get to a point in my life where I'm able to consistently write at the pace I want to, but I've come a long way from where I was a few years ago. In the past five years I've written two drafts of a 130,000 word fantasy novel (currently working on the third) and I'm about 50,000 words in on the sequel. I've hit a bit of a snag recently, but now that I've suddenly got a lot of time on my hands, I'm hoping to revamp things and return to the basics that have gotten me to this point and I thought I might share.

1) My first draft stays between me and God

I find that I and a lot of other writers unfortunately have gotten it into our heads that first drafts are supposed to resemble the finished product and that revisions are only for fixing minor mistakes. Therefore, if our first draft sucks that must mean we suck as writers and having to rewrite things from scratch means that means our first draft is a failure.

I'm here to say that is one of the most detrimental mentalities you can have as a writer.

Ever try drawing a circle? You know how when you try to free-hand draw a perfect circle in one go, it never turns out right? Whereas if you scribble, say, ten circles on top of one another really quickly and then erase the messy lines until it looks like you drew a circle with a singular line, it ends up looking pretty decent?

Yeah. That's what the drafting process is.

Your first draft is supposed to suck. I don't care who you are, but you're never going to write a perfect first draft, especially if you're inexperienced. The purpose of the first draft is to lay down a semi-workable foundation. A really loose, messy sketch if you will. Get it all down on paper, even if it turns out to be the most cliche, cringe-inducing writing you've ever done. You can work out those kinks in the later drafts. The hardest part of the first draft is the most crucial part: getting started. Don't stress yourself out and make it even harder than it already is.

If that means making a promise to yourself that no one other than you will ever read your first draft unless it's over your cold, dead body, so be it.

2) Tell perfectionism to screw off by writing with a pen

I used to exclusively write with pencil until I realized I was spending more time erasing instead of writing.

Writing with a pen keeps me from editing while I right. Like, sometimes I'll have to cross something out or make notes in the margins, but unlike erasing and rewriting, this leaves the page looking like a disaster zone and that's a good thing.

If my writing looks like a complete mess on paper, that helps me move past the perfectionist paralysis and just focus on getting words down on the page. Somehow seeing a page full of chicken scratch makes me less worried about making my writing all perfect and pretty- and that helps me get on with my main goal of fleshing out ideas and getting words on a page.

3) It's okay to leave things blank when you can't think of the right word

My writing, especially my first draft, is often filled with ___ and .... and (insert name here) and red text that reads like stage directions because I can't think of what is supposed to go there or the correct way to write it.

I found it helps to treat my writing like I do multiple choice tests. Can't think of the right answer? Just skip it. Circle it, come back to it later, but don't let one tricky question stall you to the point where you run out of brain power or run out of time to answer the other questions.

If I'm on a role, I'm not gonna waste it by trying to remember that exact word that I need or figure out the right transition into the next scene or paragraph. I'm just going to leave it blank, mark to myself that I'll need to fix the problem later, and move on.

Trust me. This helps me sooooo much with staying on a roll.

4) Write Out of Order

This may not be for everyone, but it works wonders for me.

Sure, the story your writing may need to progress chronologically, but does that mean you need to write it chronologically? No. It just needs to be written.

I generally don't do this as much for editing, but for writing, so long as you're making progress, it doesn't matter if it's in the right order. Can't think of how to structure Chapter 2, but you have a pretty good idea of how your story's going to end? Write the ending then. You'll have to go back and write Chapter 2 eventually, but if you're feeling more motivated to write a completely different part of the book, who's to say you can't do that?

When I'm working on a project, I start off with a single document that I title "Scrap for (Project Title)" and then just write whatever comes to mind, in whatever order. Once I've gotten enough to work with, then I start outlining my plot and predicting how many chapters I'm going to need. Then, I create separate google docs for each individual chapter and work on them in whatever order I feel like, often leaving several partially complete as I jump from one to the other. Then, as each one gets finished, I copy and paste the chapter into the full manuscript document. This means that the official "draft" could have Chapters 1 and 9, but completely be missing Chapters 2-8, and that's fine. It's not like anyone will ever know once I finish it.

Sorry for the absurdly long post. Hopes this helps someone. Maybe I'll share more tricks in the future.

#writing #creative writing #writerscommunity #writers on tumblr #writing tips #writing advice #writers block #novel writing #fiction writing #writer #writers of tumblr

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vixstarria · 6 months

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Another gift

This is a continuation of my headcanon of Astarion’s romance with bard Tav. I can’t remember the actual chronology of cutscenes, but let’s assume this takes place after you’ve started a sexual relationship with Astarion and are beginning to grow closer. I was going to take it in a different direction initially, but these things have a mind of their own once they get going.

If you like it, check out my first fic. I do plan on writing more!

P.S. I may have taken some liberties with the game background story and DnD lore and magic system here �� if it doesn’t really match up or make sense – sorry! Also I’m still only on Act 2.

Tav tries to comfort or distract a brooding Astarion.

Astarion x Reader, Astarion x Tav, Astarion x Bard Tav

Comfort, fluff, budding love, humour, angst, banter, no spoilers, non-explicit

Approximately 2,000 words.

Astarion was standing outside his tent with his back to the camp, staring into a silver mirror. The man had either lost his vampiric condition, lost his mind, or was simply brooding.

“Looking at something?” he asked absent-mindedly, as you approached.

Brooding. Definitely brooding.

“Looking for something.”

“Oh?” He turned towards you. “Just my company, or is there something else I can offer you?”

“I'm the one making an offering, actually. I thought I’d bring you a little snack”

Astarion grinned and beckoned you inside his tent.

Inside, aside from his bedroll, was a trunk with a large mirror opposite, a lit lantern and a scattering of weapons, equipment and books. You assumed your usual position, cross-legged on the bedroll, and offered him your wrist. This didn’t take long. Just a little pick me up.

He finished, planting a light kiss on your wrist, reached for his amulet and whispered an incantation to heal the wound. He kept hold of your hand, lacing his fingers through yours.

“Do you have any idea how much I appreciate that you don’t sexualise this?”

“I haven’t thought about it... Really?”

“Well imagine that any time you went to, say, take a bite of a turkey leg, there was someone staring, groping themselves and wagging their tongue at you. When you’re just trying to perform basic functions to stay alive.”

“Sweetheart, that’s an average evening at the pub for me, when I perform. With or without me biting on anything. ...But I see what you mean”. You contemplated what he just said in a brief silence. “I can't believe you just compared me to a turkey leg.”

“You’re more of a ripe, juicy peach” he said. You found yourself oddly pleased to be compared to fruit rather than poultry.

You glanced at the large mirror standing on the floor of the tent.

“You own an awful lot of mirrors for a vampire. Why do you even keep this here?”

“That? Oh, it reflects light... makes the tent appear more spacious... prevents anyone from sneaking up on me. ...Unless they’re another vampire.” Astarion said contemplatively. “And I figured, I woke up once with a tadpole in my brain that let me walk in the sun again – who's to say I won’t catch another parasite tomorrow that might cure my vampirism entirely?”

“Do you miss it? Seeing your own face?”

“Preening in the looking glass? Petty vanity? Of course I miss it. I’ve never even seen this face. Not since it grew fangs and my eyes turned red. My face is just some dark shape in my past. Another thing I’ve lost. I wouldn’t even recognise myself anymore. It’s been two hundred years.”

“But...” you fumbled, trying to wrap your mind around that. “You could have found a street artist to sketch you since then.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“Or commissioned a portraitist, those artistic types would accommodate you any time of day or night”

“Commissioned a - …I’m sorry, at what point did I give you the impression that Cazador paid us an allowance..?” Astarion was growing agitated. “And before you say I could have stolen – remember, everything I had, anything I acquired by any means, the clothes on my back, my body, my will – it all belonged to the master.” He paused, regaining control of his demeanour. “There was no point in having any possessions, it would all be the bastard’s in the end. I didn’t want to give him any more than I absolutely had to.”

You kicked yourself in the ass mentally.

“Well how’s this... We get to Baldur’s Gale. We exterminate Cazador and take over his palace. Then we rip out whatever he’s got as décor, commission all the best artists, and hang paintings of you on every wall. There will be nothing but portraits of Astarion everywhere.” Astarion’s eyes softened as he watched you gesticulating and getting carried away by your own imagination. “Astarion in shining armour. Astarion on a horse. Astarion on silk bedsheets, half-covered in rose petals. Pirate Astarion. Astarion stroking a cat. Historic events, but every single person depicted is Astarion. Oh! And in the main banquet hall, there will be an enormous mural of you, fully naked, lounging on a divan and being fed grapes by a cadre of nymphs.”

“With a fig leaf covering my unmentionables?”

“A comically large fig leaf. Or better yet, no fig leaf, just your full unmentionable glory looming over the dining table” You paused, as if sobering up after being lost in your grand vision, and added in a more serious tone: “We can commission busts and statues, too. Get a mold of your face for a hyper-realistic one.”

“We” he whispered, as if to himself, with a scornful chuckle.

“Oh? Do you have someone else in Baldur’s Gate you’d rather spend time with?” You realised how callous that might have come across as soon as the words were out, and cringed inwardly.

“...No, I don’t” he said absently.

“Elves live long lives... Do you still have real family there? Friends from... before? ...A spouse? Children?” You'd wondered about this before, and figured you may as well lie in the hole you’d dug for yourself.

“Gods, no!” Astarion blinked in surprise. “I wasn’t even considered a full adult by elven society then. No, mercifully I didn’t leave any little Astarions behind. All my friends from my youth are either dead or have blissfully forgotten me. And I don’t even know where my family is.”

You gave him a sympathetic and questioning look, waiting for him to go on. He sighed and continued.

“As you might expect, Cazador placed a restriction on me, preventing me from telling anyone about my affliction. I couldn’t approach my old acquaintances and go ‘Surprise! I’m actually alive! ...Sort of. I’m just someone’s vampire spawn slave now!’. No. I was to turn around and walk the other way if I ever came upon anyone who might recognise me. I was supposed to be devoted only to my new ‘family’.” he scowled. “I feared that Cazador would use anyone he thought might be important to me against me - for fun, or to teach me a ‘lesson’. And he would have, too: the mental torture he unleashed on his spawn was far worse than physical.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I couldn’t go and see my family, but as soon as I had my wits about me, I managed to arrange for one of the mercenary guilds to quickly escort my relatives out of the city. They were to be told that I made some powerful enemies who had me murdered, and that these enemies would come for them next. That they had to leave, change their names, and never return. I don’t know where they went. I can’t know, if I want them to be safe.” He looked away. “I can’t imagine how much they hated and cursed me. I ruined their lives.” he whispered.

“You saved them!” you objected, taking his hand. He shrugged but squeezed your hand back.

“I suppose I might have. Cazador would’ve left their heads on spikes in my crypt by now, otherwise.” He met your eyes again. “So yes, if anyone is going to be helping me decorate a palace, it’s you.” he added with a false cheer, clearly finished with the topic of Cazador.

You thought he might want to be alone then and were about to leave, but he gently pulled you towards himself. He was sitting on the ground with his back against a trunk. You settled between his legs, your back against his chest, his lips right at your ear, one arm across your shoulders and chest, the other playing with your hair. The large mirror was on the ground right in front of you. He studied your reflection over your shoulder. You appeared to be lounging suspended at an odd angle.

“How does it even work, anyway... It’s not just your body that disappears, it’s your clothing, too”. You grabbed a hat from the top of the trunk, holding it by its crown, and held it over Astarion’s head, moving it in circles against his hair. “Now you see it...” You let go and watched it disappear in the reflection. “Now you don’t.”

“I’m actually not sure, darling. Maybe it needs to be supported solely by me. Or it’s got to do with movement” He threw the hat back onto the trunk, where it reappeared in the reflection.

“Say...” threw your head back to look up into his eyes “Do you think my reflection would disappear... if a part of you was inside?” you bit your lip and grinned mischievously.

“I don’t think so, but I love how that dirty mind of yours works” he purred in your ear. “Let’s check and find out” His hand slid towards the clasp of your pants, but you swatted it away.

“Later.” Suddenly you were on a mission. “I have an idea.”

The rest of your group were gathered around the fire as you made a dash for your tent and grabbed your kit of stage paints and powders.

“Chk, are you doing each other’s makeup in there?” came a scoff from Lae’zel, as you rushed past.

“Don’t be jealous, Lae. We’ll have a girls night and braid each other’s hair tomorrow” you retorted, making Shadowheart choke on her drink.

Back in Astarion’s tent, you reached for one of your loose facial powders.

“You really don’t need to do anything, I’m used to it and nothing will work anyway” protested a confused and weary Astarion.

“Astarion!” you said gravely, “This isn’t for you. This is for science”, and you blew the powder hard into his face. Sure enough, an outline of his features appeared briefly in the mirror, as the powder flew all around him. “It worked!”

“Fan-tastic! Too bad you had to blind me to achieve that split second of a silhouette!” he coughed and rubbed at his eyes.

“It should work with water, too, if you want me to pour some over your head. You need to wash all that powder off anyway, you look ridiculous.”

He glared at you through the still flying powder particles and pointed a finger at your face.

“No.”

“Actually, hang on, I have a better idea.” You heard him groan into his hands behind you, as you ran back to your tent, to return with an amulet.

“So, the good news is, I am really, really bad at this.”

“If this involves setting me on fire again...”

“That was an accident. Anyway... No, this lets me create a fog cloud. Or so it should. I can just barely manage some fog tendrils. Now if I just aim them at your face...” You concentrated on the spell. Whisps of fog appeared around Astarion. “Look...” As the fog tendrils twisted in the air, you could just make out a form that they floated around, in the reflection, one unmistakably of a face.

“Well...” breathed Astarion, transfixed by the reflection, trying to make motions with his head to make the fog recoil. “It’s not much, but it’s more than I’ve seen in centuries”

“Come on” you grasped his hand. “Let’s go outside, it needs a different light and a slight breeze”

Astarion snatched his handheld mirror and followed you. He was actually eager.

Outside, Astarion spun in the whispy fog, gazing at the mirror in disbelief, as you continued to concentrate on the spell. It was actually working. Your conjuration magic was just bad enough to make the thinnest layer of fog, framing his face like a delicate mask and reflecting in the mirror. What would have been considered incredibly precise work by a wizard, was made possible entirely thanks to you borderline failing.

“That’s better... I’ll channel the fog right, you turn left against it. No, your other left! No, don’t go into the fire, you idiot, it won’t be my fault this time”

You grabbed Astarion by the hand and tried to guide him away from fire and anything he could trip over – he was paying exactly zero mind to anything around him, as he semi-stumbled in circles, looking in the mirror. Scratch ran around you, barking, excited for a new game, and eventually tripped you both.

“Another gift...” Astarion smiled at you, as Scratch did his utmost to lick his face.

Meanwhile, the group watched the two of you from a distance, dumbfounded. Lae'zel broke the silence:

“Your people have the strangest mating rituals.”

“Should I... should I tell them I can probably just cast mirror image on him? I’ve only done it on myself, but it should follow the same principle” added Gale.

“Maybe tomorrow” said Shadowheart. “Just let them enjoy this tonight.”

~~~~~

Next in series

AO3

#astarion #baldur’s gate 3 #bg3 #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #bg3 fanfic #astarion fanfic

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zarla-s · 3 months

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Do you get anxious whenever you start drawing comic pages? Is that connected to ending of Handplates? It's like you're trying to find any random activity to avoid drawing comics. And your usual sketches get less and less dialogue. I'm asking because I'm worried and I don't know what's happening. D:

Hmm... I haven't really thought of things in these terms? I was like "eh that can't be right" but then I did a quick look back and it does look like I've been doing solo shots or single/two panel comics for a while, haha. I've just got a lot of small ideas or images I wanted to get out recently. And I've been writing a lot of fic! Which I haven't done in a while, which is nice. Writing a fic (particularly lengthy ones, like the Hell jailbreak or the hanahaki one) is a lot more time consuming than people might think. I started the hanahaki one in early December and only just posted it a few days ago...

I was doing Handplates for such a long time, like seven+ years and all, that I'm assuming the vast majority of you out there never really knew me when I wasn't doing it. The thing is that Handplates is a massive outlier - I never did any project of that scale before, or one that updated that consistently or took that much constant effort. Never! Most of the time before when I'd start a big project I'd get distracted and never finish it, or there'd be huge hiatuses between updates (Vargas). It was super weird to have such a big project I so consistently updated and worked on. It's not common for me! I'm amazed looking back on it all that I was so committed to it when so many other ones fell flat.

Handplates took up a LOT of my time, so with it over I've been doing some other things I wouldn't have had much time for before. Playing some games, taking screencaps, writing fic, web design, little small experiments like all my pixel stuff. Just trying out different things! I don't think I'd say I was anxious about doing a comic page... it's more so that I'm just tired, I think. I was doing these huge elaborate pages that'd take days to finish for so long - now that I don't have to do it anymore, my brain just wants to relax, haha.

The reason for the slow updates on Defrag is really that I keep getting stuck lol. It's not really focused like Handplates and I still don't really know how it'll end. I keep getting stuck on what should happen next, so I keep putting it off. It's just me being a lazy writer rather than having anxiety about doing a page. |D

At least, I think that's what it is...

#asks and answers #morning8magpie #to be fair i kept getting distracted while doing the hanahaki one #case in point #been hard to focus lately!

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justarandompersononthehellsite · 4 days

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So... @muffinlance wrote a really awesome story. I read a post from a point in time, though I truly do not remember when since it seems like I've been working on this project forever, saying that she gives blanket permission for people to print and bind the story into a book (I think there was an also addendum saying that they do not give permission to be sold, since selling fic is illegal). This fic has had total control over my whole brain since it was sent to me (@creatorofthemind I believe it was you, so thank you forever for tuning me into it) back during the days of like chapter six or seven.

So here I am now, sharing this amazing journey of my first ever bookbinding adventure. Further reading below.

So to give you an idea of what's going on, this is a fanfiction about Zuko (Avatar the Last Airbender) (animated show version, the LA show did not exist yet and we do not speak of the movie) being adopted by Hakoda, Father of Katara and Zuko. (This might have also been what kicked off the Give Zuko A Parent craze, but don't fact check me.)

Overall, the characters from the show stick very well to the cannon versions, but where MuffinLance really shines is in the rich backstories and fleshed out feeling of all the non cannon elements. Especially the background characters. I would argue that the writing in this peice of fanwork could easily rival the cannon show at many points of comparison.

Now that you have context, we can get into the actual process.

To start, I used this guide to figure out where to even begin, and fount the included resource list to also be quite helpful. I cannot for the LIFE OF ME figure out where I found the template I used for the front matter and such, but it must be somewhere and I will link to it when I inevitably come across it again.

Then I began to typeset. This step took... a long time. I worked in chunks from about September of 2022 to late March of 2024. I would get a big section done, sometimes even the entire thing, but then find I hated the way I had done it and give up for months at a time. Such is the life of ADHD and flitting interest in projects I suppose.

And then finally, step one was done, and I was left with pages on a word document that look like this. (And do please let me know if you want the link to the document. It was so much work, and I would love to not be the only one to use it.)

Next step was printing out this beast. Ended up being about eight pages of front matter, and about 630 pages of body text.

That I printed wrong.

Twice.

Before finally getting it right. And then not getting a picture of it, because I finished at 4 am and had work at 7, and am also an idiot.

Then I simply stitched along, putting everything together into a beautiful text block.

And came up with a design for the cover.

Yes the glue did end up lumpy. Ignore it.

Yes I did have to sketch out the design onto a scraped page several times before I figured out what I was doing. Ignore that too.

The cover design does wrap around the entire cover. No I did not get a picture before I glued the thing down. See again: I'm an idiot. And just... massively impatient.

Finally, we get to the stage of gluing. Behold, my bookpress.

Of course, topped with Madam MuffinLances own actual professional-people book, Fox's Tounge and Kirin's Bone. It is Excelent. Here is the LINK so you can go and support this amazing author with the real-monies as well as the internet-kudos.

Then, once everything is glued together, one must give the book its "gilt" edges.

#atla #salvage #bookbinding #fanbinding #muffinlance #I'm a really big fan of this story and the characters ok?#They're really fun and I love them.

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dhampling · 3 months

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the tailor's smock (astarion x reader)

“You know what the problem is. We all know what the problem is. Hunkers Boolean across the street knows what the problem is. Do not make me say it!” - inspired by the prompt 'let’s get you out of those clothes' from this list sent to me by @kikistarstuff! thank you - i took a slightly different direction with it but I hope you enjoy! w/c: 1,023

Eventide ripples through the Upper City.

Church bells - scintillant, joyful. A provincial hum weaves amongst lavender-laden window boxes and bread left on cooling sills for the evening air to swallow. In places the sky still blushes through a deep crimson pink but nightfall quickly arrives as it always does.

You’re awake early, by all counts.

Astarion bristles as he works. His leg bounces, and the chair doesn’t quite sit even on the board flooring of your townhouse. The little knocks form a steady rhythm.

You stand astride his tailor’s podium in an almost-complete garment. He’ll lift his eyes to survey you every few moments as he sketches.

“Coffee?” You mumble.

He stays frozen for a moment - deep in thought elsewhere - before quickly collecting the tankard from his desk and delivering it into your chilled hands.

“Sorry, my sweet. I’m just-’

A sigh

‘I’m a little lost with how to finish it.”

His pallid hands drag over a now-long face. He spins slowly in place and lets out a long groan.

“You had a plan at the beginning, no? What happened to it?”

What began as a routine addition to your everyday wardrobe - an overall-style frock, nothing grand - now hangs as a genuine blockade between Astarion and doing anything remotely useful. Stitching seams only to later rip through them, selecting which buttons would best compliment the straps of fabric over your shoulders then switching at the last moment, drawing vague silhouettes in a heavy journal and showing them to you in flustered breaks. Torn pages balled in the corner of the room.

He looks at you with an incredulous tut. A fiery flick of his lashes.

“It clearly wasn’t a very good one, was it?!’

You’re tired of the garment now. Any want to wear it was discarded alongside the first five iterations of the dress; and you’d rather simply go and sit among the blankets in the den with a book. Maybe a fresh cup of coffee.

‘Don’t roll your eyes at me! I’m doing this for you!”

His arms gesture wildly to the dress, eyes frantic. He looks insane.

You meet his gaze in a tired standoff. The energy from both of you runs wholly parallel, and in entirely different directions.

You refuse to meet his angst with anything remotely similar. Your brain can’t compel itself to make this an argument, no matter how much you might want to.

“What is the problem here? Really?”

You remove the few remaining pins from the garment. He sighs once more.

“You know what the problem is. We all know what the problem is. Hunkers Boolean across the street knows what the problem is. Do not make me say it!”

In all seriousness he flounces to his chair and sits pensively, leaning over the desk with elbows resting; head in hands. You stifle a snort.

“What are you on about?!”

A sip of coffee. A frustrated borderline-yowl. The bells continue to chime on beyond the window. The bristle of a late wind.

“I can’t even make an overall! An overall!”

You draw the corners of your lips cheekward in a closed grimace.

“Love. With the best of intentions, please do not let the fact you can’t make a smock get you this upset.”

He looks up at you. Rolls his eyes.

“So you do know I can’t make it. Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

“That is categorically not what I meant.” You chide, putting your tankard on his desk and tapping him on the arm lightly.

“I’m completely and utterly useless then, I suppose.

Astarion drawls. A child seeking attention.

‘A basic smock. Beyond the ability of my wretched spinster hands.”

“I suppose you are.’

He looks up.

‘Useless, that is.’

Gormless. Too tired to be witty, just a blank stare.

‘I suppose I’ll just have to find another prospect who can make me my own personal smock collection. It is my greatest wish, after all.”

It takes a couple of minutes of nothing for him to respond. You watch the streetlamps glower in the new dusk, the stray cat pottering onto nearby roofs; one of your neighbours collecting their washing for the night.

“Hah!’

He smacks the desk lazily and rests his head on the wood for a moment. When he lifts his eyes are heavy-lidded. A roguish daze. The quirk of a smile.

‘I’m being stupid, aren’t I?”

The grimace returns. You nod.

“Really, properly stupid.”

The clientele Astarion desires in his new business venture aren’t the kind who are buying regular overall-type garments. They visit the tailors for their finery; not middling homewear.

“I was doing it for you. I really was.’

He pushes his chair back and stands, crossing the few steps to where you stand adjacent.

‘You look so homely in this kind of thing. It’s-’

He pauses. Tilts his head from side to side. Errs.

‘- sweet -’

With another step forward his hand moves to your cheek in a soft, revering touch. All tension melts from his face

‘And I thought it’d make you happy. Being able to bustle about our little house in something so mundane, knowing I’d made it just for you, to be able to do so in comfort.”

His forehead meets yours in a worn stupor.

“You’re silly. I hope you know that.’

You meet him in a tired coffee-stained kiss; his own relinquishing their well-worn mirth.

‘Plenty of time for that. For you to make me all kinds of beautiful things. A whole lifetime, even.’

Another kiss. He gives a fanged grin against your lips. Bliss.

‘But right now, I am desperate to go back to bed.”

His arms snake around your waist, hands grabbing your sides in a weighty adoration.

“Now then treasure - that’s something I can get behind.’

He gently moves his kisses down to your neck, pressing against your weary frame with an intentional rut of his hips. Every part of him emanates a sleepy desire and you can’t help but feel heady at the thought of returning to your shared bed. Your lover.

‘Come now. Let’s get you out of those clothes. I fear we have new plans this night.”

#astarion x reader #bg3 #my writing #astarion #request #x reader #fluff

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randomyuu · 7 months

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there's a lover in the story, but the story's still the same

Ahh, don’t you love it when fear motivates your drawing mood? (not really)

That’s what I felt reading the scene that is drawn below. It’s fear for Yuuji but also feeling excited picturing an emotionless teen!Gojou so here I am. Always down bad for Vox’s Goyuu fics, aren’t I? *sighs*

Welp, here we go.

Title: there’s a lover in the story, but the story’s still the same

Author: @voxofthevoid

Second fic of the series there’s a lover in the story, but the story’s still the same

Pairing YuuGo, NSFW, please read the tags carefully before giving it a read... the usual drill ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

!!! SPOILER FOR THE FIC !!!

Highly recommend you guys to read them first. Or not, it’s up to you honestly :v

Usually I would gush about the fic but I’ve already done that under the fic itself so I just want you to know this comic is solely carried by me wanting to draw the ticking time bomb called teen!Gojou-post-discussion-with-adult!Ieiri. You could probably guess what they’re talking about :”)

The fear for Yuuji’s well-being started this, but Satoru’s cold eyes kept me going. I can’t get rid of it from my mind lmao

You can say drawing these kind of expressions is my jam (￣▽￣)

I hope I did Satoru’s emotions justice haha

A bit of my thoughts and doodle below. Unhinged maybe, it’s midnight, I got more work to do after this, and my brain cells are barely hanging on. Haha I'm living the life-

I AM STILL REELING FROM THE FACT I MANAGED TO GET THIS DONE.

There are so many things I want to talk about in the process of making this. But after I typed it out, most of them sounded so unnecessary so I rewrote it a few times. I tried to make this as short as possible lmao

Typesetting and sketching are the roughest parts of this project. During these stages, I kept feeling everything I did wasn’t doing the scene enough justice, and it was frustrating. As I planned this project, I read a few doujins and noticed the font types scanlation teams use. There are so many of them, and each helped convey the tone of each image. Felt like crying when I realised I’m not knowledgeable enough to apply good typesetting, ngl. And then the interior design. Fuck, the frustration is so real. I am absolutely clueless about this kind of thing. Tracing lots of references because I have no perception of space makes me feel even worse. I knew first times rarely create a masterpiece, but I was not satisfied with my accomplishment and the feeling of failing to fulfil my own expectations hurt.

BUT.

Thank goodness most of the things I need to draw are Shouko, Yuuji and Satoru. Because dear g o d drawing them healed me. I found so much comfort in drawing Shouko’s long hair and Satoru’s eyes and drowning Yuuji in an oversized hoodie. The comfort zone of character drawing never feels so real lmaooo

Drawing them was so effective that I can look back at the backgrounds with acceptance. Hey, I did it! Not perfect just yet, but I did it!

Haha I feel like I’m losing my mind. I don’t know if it’s in a good way or a bad way. Guess I do have one or two screws loose.

Only for Yuuji lmao

(nah I just need sleep, or cooling down from the rush of having finished this)

It might come off as a surprise if you’ve only seen my art on Tumblr, but I’ve always preferred to draw feminine-leaning ladies. I’ve always loved drawing their curves, whether it’s the figure, the clothes, or the (long) hair. But I’ve grown to like drawing masculine gentlemen as well with their sharp edges and straight lines, and now my ladies start to look more androgynous lmao

Anyway, I was pretty stoked to be able to draw adult!Ieiri! I… I kind of miss drawing long hair so here have some more before you go on your day ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

#yuu's art #jjk-fic-fanart #jjk-ship #五悠 #goyuu #goyu #5u #gojou x yuuji #I'll see you sometime later #if real life lets me haha #:")

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tavyliasin · 3 months

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The Highs and Lows of Fandom Creation

Hello darlings~ It has been a little while and this one has been on my list to get to for a while, and with the Baldur's Date Valentine's Fanworks event soon to draw to a close it seems appropriate to start preparing ourselves for the cycle of what happens when we release our works into the wild. So without further ado, our latest essay~

The RollerCoaster of Emotion That Comes With Being A Creative In Fan Spaces (FanArt, FanFiction, Cosplay, Photography, Music, and So Much More) ((Another CallOut Essay Prepare To Be SEEN)) (((Also I Have Some Coping Techniques Here Too!)))

As usual with my essay pieces I will be making plenty of use of the headers to divide topics, and I fully welcome any thoughts and feelings in the comments. Whilst I am really only in the FanFic side, and a focus on Baldur's Gate 3, I do intend to make this essay inclusive of the trials and tribulations that we all tend to face in making and sharing fanworks of all kinds and through all fandoms. The more people I speak to, the more it seems to be a universal experience, so hold on to your hats it's a bumpy ride! The first part will talk about the Rollercoaster itself, the how and why behind it all, and the second will be around how to cope with it. For readers and appreciators of fan content, I urge you to have a little look too, and at the end I will add in some ways you can help support your favourites too~

Creatives Are Emotional Beings

Starting off with the obvious callout - most of us are. We feel things deeply, and that emotion can often be an incredible driving force behind our works. Whether we're creating around things we've experience, being inspired and influenced by our current emotions, or drawing on our well of imagination to work out what characters might feel (and often more importantly how/why they feel that way), emotion is a strong part of the process.

This can be an incredible strength! Tapping in to the deeper parts of ourselves, our experiences, and the emotions at our cores, can bring out the very best in our works across all creative formats. It also tends to help our audiences engage too, as they recognise their own emotions mirrored in the works.

The Downside to Strong Emotion - The Rollercoaster Effect

This chart was initially drawn up based on writing, but truly after speaking with a few beloved Discord friends it was quick to see that this easily applies to art as well, so I'm going to go over this slightly differently to the initial plan.

The Start Of Every Ride

We begin usually around a neutral baseline, or maybe a little below if we haven't created in a while, perhaps we might start higher than baseline with the rush of an exciting new idea. Either way, the first part of the project tends to go up in mood very quickly when we share those early unfinished parts.

For writers this might be a beta reader or sharing a sample of the work as they're still writing as a teaser, artists might see this as their initial sketch or linework stage if they're sharing progress and teasers too. Cosplayers could be the first part of a build, musicians sharing a few bars of the melody - whatever it is, that first little positive boost that says Keep Going is a powerful one.

But what happens next? Well, you still have more work to do! That initial boost and confidence can drop down to a slump, especially if it's taking longer to complete than you thought it would, and double that if something goes wrong that needs to be changed or fixed.

You may, hopefully, find it begins to rise as things start to come together again and that finish line in sight, but then...

I Finished Making The Thing, Now What?

Well, first you're going to feel that massive surge of satisfaction from completing the thing. Sometimes a dopamine rush in the brain, and all that excitement of "Finally I get to share the thing I worked so hard on! It's done!" So, off you go, you post it. You share the links, maybe drop them in some Discord servers, other social media...and then, often very quickly, it hits you.

Post Publishing Drop

Those of you in the convention and event scene might also know this feeling as "Con Drop", which can take a little longer to manifest. Post Publishing Drop hits quite quickly. Sometimes it might take a few hours, but other times it starts almost within minutes of posting as all that rush of energy finishing and publishing is just...gone.

If you're lucky, you might get some quick and early feedback, especially if you're a well known or popular creator, but I imagine even those of you who tend to get very high engagement can feel a lot of this too so I don't mean to exclude any of you in any way at all~ So what is it? What's happening? WHY?!

Well darlings all that adrenaline is wearing off and realistically you're not likely to get that creative feedback and validation instantly. So that wonderfully powerful emotional heart of yours is going to crack a little. It won't last, it won't stay this low, but good gods that lack of engagement and positive reinforcement can be devastating.

The first engagements you get - kudos, likes, reaction emotes on a Discord post - they may be enough to boost you right back up to your baseline or even a little above, until the worry creeps back in again. And I know that it does, clawing and slithering in the back of your beautifully creative mind whispering those horrible lies:

Why isn't this getting the reaction I hoped for yet? Is this work not as good as before? Have people stopped liking me? Is the website/platform hiding my work? Have I upset people somehow in ways I can't even see?

Then Back Up We Go, And What Goes Up...

Hopefully those voices don't get a chance to be too loud for too long before you see more of that engagement. Maybe it's a heartfelt comment from someone, or a share from someone you respect, or just a little surge of interaction in general. You're back on top, darling, your creative heart is soaring, finally your work is being seen in a way that reminds you why you put in all that time in the first place!

And each time, the high wears off again, with a drop, though the extremities of each is likely less and less as time goes on. Unless, of course, we make one little mistake and the gradual confidence build comes crashing back down...

The Perils Of Comparing

Sometimes this might be looking at someone else's work, seeing a similar style or similar topic get far more engagement than your own. It can be really hard not to feel discouraged by this, and falling into that trap of questioning where you're "going wrong" can lead to absolute agony - I urge you to do your best to move away from this as soon as you notice the feeling. I'll cover some proper techniques later though, I promise!

The other trap with comparison can be looking at your own past works, and over-analysing why some pieces never got the same love and appreciation as others. Picking it apart to find what you can do better is not as wise a plan as it seems for one simple reason:

Over half of this is down to pure chance!

It might be the time of day it was posted, or just one or two people seeing it and deciding to share it on that gives a work a massive boost to interaction and engagement. Maybe a work was lucky enough to get shared in a prominent community by one of the members, or even had someone with a huge following give it a boost.

At the end of the day, there seem to be very few ways to predict this. Of course there are some characters, topics, art styles, writing tropes, etc that will have a tendency to get more love from their respective fanbases - that's how popularity works - but there is no guarantee that, for example, two portraits of the same character in similar styles by different artists will have the same levels of engagement and "success". The main person you should be aiming to please with your own work is yourself~ After all, when working on it you will be the one going over it again and again, knowing every detail in and out, if you don't love the subject of those details your less likely to even reach that finish line~

And It All Begins Again

At the end of the cycle there's often one last spike up. Maybe it's a comment or interaction from someone who truly felt the depth of meaning in your work as you hoped it would, or you realise that it has done better overall in the numbers, or most often you get that creative surge of a shiny new idea that calls to you with that familiar siren song, promising the high of satisfaction and sweeping the memory of that Post Publishing Drop under the rug all over again so you won't see it coming when you trip on it.

How Do We Get Off This Ride? Where's The Safety Bar?

Darlings, be honest, you didn't want to stop. You still don't. That's why you're still right here, reading this with me. Your cycle might take a day, a week, a month, or you may go through the whole thing in a matter of hours.

Riding The Waves

The first way to begin coping is to prepare. Know yourself and how you're likely to feel, and plan ahead for it. If you know the drop is coming, you can try to avoid it, or deploy distress tolerance when it feels too much.

On a very simple level, this can be reminding yourself that the lows do not last, and those highs will still be there. You might even be tempted to try to regulate the highs as much as the lows, to bring everything a little closer in to the baseline throughout the cycle.

Distress Tolerance techniques can be important to practice when you're feeling close to your baseline and calm so that they're easier to turn to when you're feeling that low hit. There are lots of things that work for different people, so it might be trial and error - largely you're looking at relaxation techniques, distraction from the source of the distress, and/or community support.

You Can Rely On The Community!

It is ok to ask for help! You can ask people for reassurance, directly ask for feedback, or even just talk over how you feel with other creators and find out how they're handling things. Sometimes just knowing you're not alone and that your feelings are real, valid, and matter can be a real boon - that's why I'm here, spending a couple of hours putting all of this into words as best as I can for you all. I've felt this cycle too many times, but the more I talk about it with other fic writers the more I feel we are connected and that I'm not just losing my marbles over nothing~

We are human, we have emotions - strong ones, remember? - and there's nothing wrong with that at all!

There is nothing wrong with having emotions and experiencing them!

Knowing When To Step Away

If you know you're more likely to have a swift drop from lack of quick feedback, it's a great idea to plan to step away from socials as soon as you're done. Have an activity planned, or do it all write before bed so you can switch off and go to sleep. Turn off those notifications so you aren't fussing over each one of them as they come in and don't go back for a while.

Allow a realistic amount of time to pass for people to see and engage with your work before you worry it is invisible!

The Next Shiny Idea

Conversely, if you're feeling too much of a creative itch, then as soon as you're done sharing move right on to starting the next project. Let the initial surge of energy from completing and sharing something be the driving force to kickstart the next great adventure! That way you're thinking more about the new work, the sparkling allure of a fresh idea, rather than fixating on the success of the last.

Cashing in on that adrenaline rush to make a good head-start can boost you right to that early feedback stage too, then if you're really lucky when you hit the first drop-off you'll have the positive engagement from the last work to boost you back up, so in some ways you're overlaying your graphs to balance them out with each other.

Naturally this only works if you have the time and energy to do so. It's also important to know when to take breaks to avoid burning out.

General Mood Boosting Ideas

These might not work for everyone, but here are some things to try when you're in one of those lows. A lot of this may be trial and error and knowing yourself best, so treat this as a few things that may or may not be effective rather than Lia's Super Snake Oil Cure For Everything (you have to buy that from me separately, it's super expensive but it is delightfully cherry and cinnamon flavoured~)

Check in on your basic needs. Drink, food, meds (if applicable), sleep/nap, caffeine (if you usually have it), shower/bath/hygiene needs (even if just a quick freshen up it's better than nothing), fresh air/outside time (if possible), exercise/physical movement (if you're able to), social needs (can be in person or online, any social interaction/support)

Music can be a powerful mood tool. Sometimes it's cathartic to listen to music that matches your current mood, but other times it is better to listen to music with the mood you want to feel.

Media from the fandom, like the book/film/game/etc that you're making fanworks for - return to the thing that inspired you to create and remember all the things that you loved about it in the first place.

Look at other fanworks but be very cautious! Do this for inspiration, to look at things you do and don't like in other pieces, but do not do this if it will be likely to cause a mood drop for you.

Do something different and change up your routine. Something entirely new or something you haven't done for a while.

Try something small, not connected to a large piece. A few sketches, doodles, make a meme, write a few short lines of dialogue or a brief scene. Share something with far lower stakes for a little boost.

Talk to others in the creative community and have a bit of fun, maybe try some games together, whatever you like!

I'm Not A Creative, How Can I Help?

This also counts for creatives who want to support each other, too! Of course I will put the caveat that I do understand that not everyone is comfortable visibly interacting with spice and that's fine~

Drop a like or kudos if you enjoyed the piece, it takes a second and means the world~

Leaving a comment, even a couple of silly words of "I loved it" is great!

Leaving a longer comment, picking out your favourite parts? That is the kind of boost that lasts weeks darlings it really does.

Sharing the work is also a big boost, whether publicly or privately to friend/fan groups, but especially when sharing art/images please share the link with it not just the image or a screenshot~ let people find and appreciate the artist.

Follow or Subscribe or Turn on notifications if you really want to see more of their work, then you can interact sooner and give that much needed boost~

Try to be patient, especially with longer or higher effort works. Expressing excitement is a boost, but just be careful you're not putting too much pressure on the creator. We do have things going on behind the screen that can delay our plans at times.

Consider dropping an interaction on something else, or check in on how they're doing in general - a little kindness outside of just the works being produced can be a boost too!

The Grand Finale of the Rollercoaster

Thank you for staying with me to the end darlings, I know this was likely a bit of an emotional ride, but please do drop in some comments or reblogs with the other things you experience and how you handle the emotional whirlwind of being a fan creator. Always remember, you are valued for more than just what you can produce, your works are adored but the person behind them is worth so much more and always will be. Look after yourselves, I love you dearly~

#fanfic #fanart #fan creations #support for creatives #fanfic writing #ao3 writer

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seiya-starsniper · 6 months

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WIP Word Search Game

I AM 8 BAJILLION YEARS LATE WITH NO EXCUSES (that's a lie, I was sick so haven't written too much lmaoooooo) but thank you so much for the tags @five-and-dimes and @hardly-an-escape

My words are cold, warm, soft, hold, hurt and book, scare, red, hip, tree. Let's see what we've got!

Putting this under a cut because it got long!

Cold:

From an Untitled Dreamling Forced Marriage AU

Dream wishes he had tried harder to convince Robert to open their marriage. Then maybe he could have had someone else’s child, and taken the fall for an affair and run off, out of this cold, loveless place. But Robert had vehemently refused him even that small comfort, and Dream now finds himself hating his husband for it. Now he was trapped forever, with no escape.

Warm:

Continuation of Untitled Portrait of a Man (I Want to Obliterate Me)

“Hey,” Hob greets warmly, breaking Dream out of his reverie and forcing him to reboot his brain. “Hob,” Dream says, cringing internally at how breathless he sounds despite Hob being the one breathing heavily at his door. If the other man notices, he doesn’t comment on it. “It’s bloody hot outside,” Hob replies. He runs a hand through his sweat soaked hair and Dream has to clamp his jaw shut before he blurts out something stupid like “it’s bloody hot inside too”.

Soft:

From the Untitled sequel to A Dream for a Viscount

He wakes to sunlight filtering through the windows, soft and gentle. Hob is snoring peacefully next to him, a rarity as he is normally an early riser while Dream prefers to sleep in. Dream’s last night of heat had been his most fervent, and he blushes when he remembers how desperately he had begged for Hob’s knot, had even begged the alpha to stay inside him until they both fell asleep.

Hold:

Continuation of Untitled Portrait of a Man (I Want to Obliterate Me)

Dream doesn’t expect Hob to show up for their final session. He has every right not to. When he had left Dream’s apartment last week, Dream had buried himself in his work and his sketches. He obsessively stalked the man's social media accounts and downloaded dozens of photos to use a reference in case he needed them to finish his project. In case Hob decided to not come back. The photos don't hold a candle to the real thing though.

Hurt:

From the Untitled sequel to Break Me, Shake Me

Johanna explains to the group gathered who Dream is, and why he’s agreed to help them. Though many of the group regard him warily, as they should, they all fully accept that he's yet another person that's been irreparably hurt by Roderick. Dream wonders what it is they see when they look at him. Roderick has not left him with scars, nor starved him. But there must be something in his expression because Dream catches more than a few pitying glances.

Book:

Continuation of Untitled Portrait of a Man (I Want to Obliterate Me)

“So are you going to let me see what you've done so far, or do I need to wait for the finished product?” Hob asks, settling himself back on the lounge and looking far too comfortable. He doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get dressed, much to Dream’s chagrin. It’s not that he minds Hob’s company, but he’s so horny he might actually explode if Hob doesn’t dress and leave soon. “When I have something worth sharing, you will be the first to see it,” Dream replies, more curt than he'd intended. Hob doesn't seem bothered by his shortness though, he simply huffs in amusement before he stands and walks over to where Dream is sitting as he finishes some additional lines on his sketches. On instinct, Dream pulls his sketchbook close to his chest when Hob is close enough, and when he looks up, he finds himself staring at the most brilliant amber brown eyes he’s ever seen. He almost tells Hob to sit back down just so he can sketch them.

Scare:

Not found in any of my WIP documents (but I'm sure that'll change soon enough!)

Red:

Follow up to SnowBaz Dreamling shenanigans, requested by @bazzybelle

“ ‘m not drunk,” Morpheus insists. Hob snorts. “Sure, sure, and I had the queen of England over at my place this summer,” Hob jokes. “I’m serious!” Morpheus insists, huffing and puffing out his cheeks like a small child. It’s absolutely adorable, if not absolutely terrible for Hob’s balance. Morpheus’s cheeks and lips are both flushed cherry-red from the cold, the most color Hob’s ever seen on the other man since they met. It was a really good look on him. A very tempting look. “Pretty sure your boyfriend would agree with me,” Hob replies, reminding himself that no matter how cute and tempting Morpheus looked, Hob wasn’t a homewrecker. Even if Baz would have thanked him for him and written him a check for enough money to pay the rest of his rent and tuition for the rest of the year. Morpheus furrows his brow. “Boyfriend?” he asks in a confused state. “What boyfriend?”

Hip:

From the Untitled sequel to Break Me, Shake Me

“What do you like, baby?” Hob asks again. “Tell me, I’ll give it to you.” Dream wants to say, look at me. Tell me you can't live without me. Instead, he places a hand on the alpha’s chest, pushing him back and off of him until Hob is sitting on his ankles watching him, his eyes never leaving Dream’s. Then Dream turns and presents himself, bracing on his elbows and knees as he spreads his legs as wide as he can manage. “Take me rough, just like this,” Dream whines. “I want to feel you so deep inside me, I forget everything else.” Hob growls and grabs him by the hips, before the alpha finally, finally does what Dream’s been fantasizing about for weeks and sinks himself into the omega’s cunt.

Tree:

From Chapter 3 of Set the Night on Fire

“You need to leave,” Dream says, his voice low and dangerous as he hears the adventuring party advance further into his territory. By his estimates, they would be at the bottom of the trail leading up the mountain in an hour. “What? Why?” Hob asks, sitting up and now fully awake. Dream does not explain further, he simply grabs Hob by the waist, careful not to squeeze too hard on the soft human’s body, before he dashes out of the cave and jumps from the cliff, taking off into the chilly morning air. “What the fucking hell!” Hob yells as Dream carries them high above the trees, and as far away from the fast approaching humans as the bounds of his curse will allow. He cannot allow the humans to see Hob. He cannot allow them to think Hob is aligned with him. If they do, they’ll kill him, and Dream would not be able to stand it if he loses another human companion.

tagging @pellaaearien @bazzybelle @arialerendeair @blueberrymffn @beauty-of-nyx @tj-dragonblade @bruce-wayne-simp @delta-pavonis @lostelfwriting

Your words are: blue, rich, sky, jacket, and heart

#dreamling #seiya writes #seiya gets tagged #seiya's wip previews #nsft #omegaverse #angst galore!#if there's one thing these word searches make me do #it's write more so I can fill the prompted words LMAO #thanks for tagging me friends!!! 💖

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tippenfunkaport · 1 year

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Introducing MAYbe I’ll Make This, the easiest month of prompts you’ve ever participated in happening this May 2023.

It’s a chance to share all those ideas you’ve been toying with that you might draw or write someday with no pressure to actually commit to finishing anything!

Participation can be as little as sharing a few words or a single sentence or as involved as a sketch or plot summary, it’s up to you!

What’s the point?

To fill our fandom tags with fun new ideas and stimuli to get everyone’s creative juices flowing. For fan creators ourselves, it gives us a chance to talk about our ideas with no pressure to deliver. And who knows, hopefully seeing people excited about our ideas might give us extra inspiration and motivation to maybe even work on them someday!

Here’s how it works:

Throughout May, post anything from a few words to a snippet from an idea you’ve been kicking around that you MAY draw or write someday and tag the related fandoms, if any. (Ideas that you've started, have actively in progress or have even started but abandoned are also welcome!) A few sentences about a fic you might write, a sketch you’re still figuring out, or even a long infodump about the AU of your heart, share as much or as little as you want!. It’s not a commitment to make anything, just a fun excuse to talk about your ideas.

Don’t have any ideas of your own? No problem! You can still participate by boosting the ideas that others post, asking questions and expressing your excitement about the ideas that appeal to you.

Anyone from any fandom is welcome to participate as well as original writers so please spread the word!

We’ve got 30 days worth of prompts to get you started that you can interpret anyway you like… or ignore entirely and do your own thing. Do all 30, pick and choose, do them out of order, whatever you want! The point is just to have fun and share your ideas!

That’s it! Just a super chill, low effort way for us all to celebrate those ideas taking up space in our brains that we aren’t quite ready to commit to making yet (or maybe ever).

Notes

Participants retain all rights to their ideas and first dibs on the writing / drawing of them.

Want feedback on your ideas? Encourage brainstorming? Happy to let someone else take your idea and write it themselves? Add a note to that effect to your post so people know what kind of interactions are welcome.

Please be supportive of others' ideas and keep overly negative opinions to yourself (especially if they did not ask for feedback). If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all!

You’re welcome to tag your posts with “MAYbe I’ll Make This” or link back to this post to explain the challenge but your host (me) won’t be sharing every post related to this challenge. This is just something I wanted to do for my own purposes to share all the ideas I may never get a chance to write but I’m opening the prompts list to anyone who might like to do the same.

Questions? Drop me an ask!

May 2023 Prompts

No Plot Just Vibes

Lives In My Head Rent Free

Sometimes One Must Torture The Blorbos For Enrichment

Completely Self Indulgent

I Just Want Them To Be Happy 😭

Canon Divergent

Inspired By A Movie

Galaxy Brain Of Me, Honestly

No One Wants This But Me

All The Tropes!

Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Canon

Idea Fueled By Spite

Shameless Excuse For Hurt / Comfort

Inspired By A TV Show

Slaps Idea: This Baby Can Fit So Much Projection!

Yes, I’m Cringe But I’m Free

One! More! Time!

Totally OOC But Hear Me Out…

Role Swap

Inspired By Someone Else’s Au

I Hurt Myself With This Idea

Old Tropes, New Tricks

Pretend I’m Good Enough To Pull This Off

It’s Really Just All About This One Scene…

Crack Treated Seriously

Seriousness Treated Like Crack

I’ve Actually Started Working On This

Yes It’s Been Done But Not By Me So

More Of What You’d Call A Character Study

Casually Slides in My OC

Inspired By A Book

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mrghostrat · 5 months

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Howdy! I am really considering starting a fic of my own and I've already got so much stuff written out for it, as well as a decent plan of action, but I always lose motivation right when I think I'm about to get it started. I'm always this way with big projects and I feel like small oneshots have been too little to sustain my brainrot, Do you have any tips on writing to share with a newbie?

i do!! i've been there a thousand times, with all kinds of projects (fan and original). know that it's a skill that you can hone, and the more you write the better you'll get at sustaining longer works 🙏

it's one of those things that's part luck at first, but hopefully this can help:

don't share WIPs or snippets, especially when you really really want to. maybe find one friend who will hype you up and get ferally excited in DMs about it, so you've got an outside force that's encouraging you to get to the later plot points. but in general, resist the urge

because you know that lil burst of dopamine you get when you share a sketch or wip or something online, and people are interacting with it or maybe congratulating you on your progress, and you feel really accomplished for a bit? yeah, that can be detrimental to long form projects. because brain says why bother finishing the thing or doing any more; you've already gotten the dopamine out of it, you already feel accomplished, let's rest! brain bad.

write the whole thing before you post it.

getting audience feedback is exquisite, and it can be a real driving force to make you want to continue. but it can also be a burden if you're in this early stage of honing your longform skills. you might get too swept up in the pressure to update if it's been a while since you wrote, and that can sour your whole association of the project. when it becomes a have to instead of a want to.

alternatively, some people work better under this kind of pressure. it's very subjective.

reread your work before diving back in

i sometimes reread too much and make myself really bored of it, so be careful not to hack and pick at it like i do. but if you go a week without writing, reread your last chapter/scene before starting the next. it can draw you in, trigger flow, and if you're me and you're obsessed w your own stories, will get you impatient to read what happens next which FORCES you to write the damn thing

baby step into it

i get that "one shots aren't enough" 100%. but it can def be daunting to suddenly commit yourself to a 50k multichapter when you're not used to it. plan something that has one or two pivotal plot beats and set yourself up for a 10k thing with a couple of chapters. ease yourself into it. set yourself up for success ✨

#ask a rat

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biteghost · 11 months

Text

State of Affairs: oh, it's not good. Bad, in fact!

listening music (lol)

Greetings, all! I apologize for not much communication, art or comics this month, but things were a bit out of my control! I'll cut right to the point: I had a big oopsie at the start of May, and the situation overall has not gotten much better since then.

Here's the scoop as plain as I can explain it: I dropped my external hard drive, and it no longer connected to my computer. My computer has a very tiny amount of memory (the OS capacity is less than 120GB), so I have used an external hard drive as the brain of my computer for years now. I have no back-ups either on another hard drive, older computer, or cloud service.

This external hard drive housed everything I have created and brought with me between computers since 2013. It stored all my art. All of it. My comic pages, my working files, my works-in-progress, my commission pieces, as well as gifts from friends and other artists. It had all the sessions of my at-home tabletop game 'Blueshift', which is a pretty big hit for me as I had only just finished the game. I didn't even have time to be happy the game was finished until I had to mourn a loss of it I had not anticipated.

I sent the hard drive to a data recovery company with good reviews. It had nearly 2TB of data on it, and I tried very hard not to get my hopes up that they'd be able to retrieve most of my data. Despite this, I still was disappointed by what they sent back.

To be blunt: they did not retrieve most of my data. In fact, I'd say in total they only recovered about 40%, if I am being generous. They were unable to recover any of my in-development projects (A Cure for Athanasia, Super Manifest: Steward Cycle, The Tenth, The Sword of Hours, etc), and unfortunately BACKLASH didn't make it out unscathed either. Old art files that I one day wanted to make Prints off have been lost, as well as small doodles and secret sketches which never made it online.

While reviewing the files that they managed to recover, I also noticed that whole chunks of BACKLASH's working page files have been lost or corrupted. This isn't a huge setback for the comic itself since all of BACKLASH is online to read. But it is hard and heartbreaking for me, because despite everything I did one day want to make a printed edition of BACKLASH. I wanted to hold my comic in my hands.

That dream is not impossible, but it is now much further away. I can recreate my old pages with what I currently have, but it will be a lot of extra work, and there is no getting around that.

Losing this much of my history, artistic journey, relationships and formative time as an artist has been really hard on me, emotionally and mentally. I'm very sad. It's hard to draw right now for myself. Commission work comes easily, since I am given a prompt to draw for someone else, but creative ideas are not flowing for me at the moment. My hands are frozen and dejected.

I am now waiting to get back the files that the data recovery people managed to retrieve for me (probably by tomorrow, they said), and I am looking into other places in order to get a second opinion of sorts. At this point there really is no harm in trying, and maybe a different operation might have better luck. Who knows? It may be grasping at straws, but at this point things can't get any worse than this.

When I get my data back I'll be able to finish up BACKLASH chapter 7. I want to finish it off - there are not very many pages left, and miraculously the few remaining pages are among the ones that were recovered! So that's good. I will be finishing up the chapter, and afterward BACKLASH will be taking a bit of a break. I don't know how long the hiatus will last, and I won't be making any kind of estimate. It'll take as long as I need until I feel I can put one foot in front of the other again. Maybe I'll work on something else for a while, maybe I won't draw anything. Who knows! I don't, haha.

Eventually I'll be okay, and I'll get back on the horse. Even in the midst of all this turmoil I really just want to be making comics ;_;

Until then, I just need some time. It's the only cure for this kind of problem, I think. So, I thank you for your patience, and I thank you for the love you've shown me, my work, and my characters. I couldn't be where I am and I couldn't have made all the work I have without your support and love. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

I'll see you when I get back! Much love and many kisses, xoxo 💖💖💖

(cross-posted from patreon)

#state of affairs #not art #long post #UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGH #RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGHHH #BRR:URUUURHHHGHGUURHHGNNGH #HRNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGG #UGH.#i didn't really proofread this so if it's bad or rambly sorry but also ughghhghhsklgajdl;kgLKSgjlsdgjdlkj

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plznomonkeys · 3 months

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I cannot add the screenshot but saw your comment about the process of making OCs. please share yours cuz I'm so curious!

I had literally 5k words written out explaining the process and thought 'nobody needs to read that' and just shortened it to point form. It was a lot of rambling......

Anywho

OC's, in my mind, fill a void that I feel a story is missing. I mean, no whole story is necessarily missing something, but it is in my perspective. Usually OC's are born from something I disliked with the original work or felt could've been handled differently.

So the tip of inspiration is a 'What If?' moment.

"What if L had someone on task force -with more than 2 brain cells- on his side?"- Death Note

"What if Naruto had a friend growing up who loved him?" - Naruto

"What if Truth was an even bigger dick and tortured someone's soul through reincarnation until they finally learned to break the cycle?"- FullMetal Alchemist

"What if a main character didn't have a damsel in distress as a love interest?" - Bleach

The what if is the first point to creation. It gives me an anchor of reference, of purpose, to this character. It's not to make them a plot device, but it helps me shape around what the reason for building them is. Everyone needs a purpose to have fulfillment in their lives, even if it's just to feed your cat and water your plants. You have a purpose, so what is my OC's? There's usually a moment in the story that inspires this specific purpose and each one is different.

Great, now that we have a purpose, let's move on.

Part 1: What's the start and ending?

It doesn't matter what the story is yet. To me, what's important is the end of this character's story. Where do they end up? Are they alive? Dead? Did they end up with love interest? Did they succeed in their goals? etc.

Despite how crucial this part might seem, I'm never dead set on it. I have a general idea most of the time.

The point of the ending is to have guidance as to where I'm going with the story line and remind myself that this character is moving in that direction. It can also change once you know your character more and once you have a fully fleshed plot, but again you'll change it likely because it works more with the OC you've created.

Now that you've got an ending, pick a starting point. It can be literally anywhere. It can be another character POV. Beginnings are really easy, just pick a place you want to begin and write a few words. Great, now figure out how this beginning meets that ending. Rough sketch it, when you write it out it'll change and grow, that's perfectly okay. No character is the same at the start and finish, so be aware that change is normal.

Part 2: What's the secret?

Every character that has any level of depth has a secret that is revealed in the story. L's successors was a big one. Naruto's parentage was theorized for years before being confirmed. Aizen's betrayal in Bleach was another. What big secret changes the reader's view on the character? What do the other characters think?

Part 3: How are they compatible with their pairings?

Legit this one comes up early in my mind. If I'm completely honest it has to, as you already have a character that is fully fleshed out and in order to keep them in character then your OC needs to adhere to the canon character's interests IMO. It's the reality of it. Which also means you have to know the canon character really well. Which is where character analysis comes in.

Let's take L for example. While I imagine he's the type to make his partner comfortable regardless of their wants/needs, I also see him as the guy who would legit rather die that admit those feelings at first? Like I subscribe to him being a little autistic and mildly self-degrading when it comes to 'why would they like me?' perspectives.

I say mildly because it's not so much he has no confidence as simply 'I literally have no internal clock, I likely have uncontrolled diabetes and broke my back on my own from sitting like this all day, I will ignore your very existence to finish a case and I literally haven't been home in god knows how long, so why would you ever have feelings for me?' It's illogical for L to entertain the idea of someone feeling that way about him because he simply doesn't fit the profile of a dating candidate. And so he disregards the idea that someone could ever be interested in him. Never mind he'd have to know everything about them down to their god damn SIN number before he'd ever see them in person.

So yeah, L's tough, but not impossible. I could see him with a character who really enamours him. I mean as in a character who thinks so radically different from him that at first he sees it as illogical, but progressively he begins to understand how they tick. I could see him being especially fascinated with someone who is very capable of lying convincingly, and yet wears their heart on their sleeve. I find this type of person to be so opposite and yet so similar at the same time.

Now that you have their OTP.... what other pairings are there? Contrary to the belief system, but there are multiple pairings in every story. Pairings don't have to be romantic, but they must be dynamic. What do other characters think of them? How would they interact with each other? I usually know intuitively who I want my OC to befriend and who they realistically could get along with.

This is, quite literally, the toughest part to flesh out, since I work pretty hard to try and stick to canon.

Part 4: Define your character in one scene?

As I said in the What If? section, each character is born from a specific scene or idea. So what is the scene in the story that defines the entirety of this character? For L I think his defining moment was his lil speech about 'do you really think I do this for justice?' in the manga. It brought into perspective that L was having fun on this case, and when he was 'wrong' about Light his temper tantrum made so much more sense honestly.

Characters need a scene in the story that really lets the reader understand the character on a deeper level and really drives home 'this is a person' even though they're not real it makes them feel raw and real.

Part 5: Motivations

Okay, great, we have so much covered, literally I could probably just go off this and wing the rest. But now we gotta ask why is OC even in the story? Why are they a moving puzzle piece? What made them get to their ending? What did they sacrifice? What's the most important thing to them? Why? Knowing why a person moves is far superior to simply wanting them to move. Why did Light swap the notebooks between shinigami? To keep Ryuk's big mouth away and Rem up close to L. Why did L confront Light at uni? Because he had enough sugar to kill a camel in his system and a gut feeling that Light was Kira and would eventually fold under pressure if he pushed him enough.

Part 6: The Plot

Okay so we've got literally everything necessary. So what's the plot? Is it AU? Partial AU? Canon compliant? Does it just follow canon to a certain point and then go off the rails? Personally I like canon divergent. It holds some points of interest with the original plot but diverges at points only to link up in some spots. I also am a huge fan of making events happen in different time frames.

And now.... where do the OC's affect the story? I mean there's no way that Death Note is a completely unchanged story despite another character being added? Something has changed, so what? Do certain events not occur? Does something better befall certain characters? Something worse?

I am also a stickler for universe rules. I do no bend rules for my characters unless I can come up with a universe compliant reason that it would work. I try to respect the original author's world...... but I will do whatever the hell I want with the characters as long as they're in character.

Part 7: The personal touch

Believe it or not, the appearance of the character is the literal last thing to even cross my mind. Like I legit started writing a Naruto fanfic and realized in 8 chapters I hadn't a clue what she looked like. I had to go to pinterest and make a board, along with a character bio in my notes app. I pic out the height, weight, hairstyle/hair colour, eye shape/eye colour, face, aesthetic, any scars/tattoos they may have and I put it on my notes/pinterest board. Now that I know their story is so I know why they'd have that scar or tattoo. I know why they have that kind of look in their eye. I know everything about them really.

The last bit is mostly spreading this personal touch through the above mentioned steps. It's fleshing it out further, making them more flowing in growth. When did they get the scar? Why that tattoo? Does it affect the story?

Attractiveness is something I debate a lot, and honestly it mostly comes down to plot. If a character needs to be pretty because of the plot I write them as attractive. If they need to be ugly that's what they are. Full disclosure, I see through my OC's eyes when I imagine scenes since I like to write in first person. Meaning I never remember their appearance and always have to review the notes to remind myself what they look like at all.

---

Ok, I think I got everything? So yeah, this is the fuck fest two brain cells can come up with. Keep in mind it is a cyclic mentality and I am perpetually editing and upgrading ideas in my brain. My newest OC to Death Note has literally changed so dramatically in 5 days just by doing this process 3 times that you'd think they were two different characters. It really helps me know my OC's honestly. Do I follow this to the T? Not always, but it is generally the process I subscribe to.

Hope this was a good read, cheers.

Also sorry if I did this wrong I've never posted on tumblr before this year god save my soul

#creative writing #original character #character design #character concept #originalcharacter #i have no idea how to use tags #oc #my ocs

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cookii-moon · 1 year

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This is my excuse to gush over Dragon form because yes.

Basically headcanon and redesign galore yayy

More under the cutoff since this is LONG. You have been warned.

The first part is an introduction, and then the second is actually talking about my designs and ideas and stuff, plus some thoughts/snippets/headcanons... help me.

SO apparently I am far more stupid than I thought, and the reason I say that is because for WHATEVER REASON, it took me ONE. YEAR. For the thought "Hey Cookie the ninja became dragons that one time" to even properly cross my mind, let alone set in. Which is surprising, because I historically freak out over dragons. You'd think that my favorite blorbos having dragon forms would make me instantly go crazy, but no, it took an entire year for my brain to even realize it was... you know... dragon related... even.though I knew they were dragon related... I just didn't... does that make sense? Probably not.

ANYWAYS

As it stands the dragon forms are forgettable because they're literally just reskins but with different element colors (which makes sense, cause yknow... Lego molds...) and then they vanish which obviously yeah. Who knows maybe they'll come back in dragons rising now that the ninja have their powers again.

BUT THAT DOESN'T STOP ME FROM GUSHING OVER THEM ONE YEAR AFTER THEY WERE RELEVANT.

Hyperfixation transcends the measly concept of time (actually that's probably not true I wouldn't know since I don't think about the very fabric of reality that often) so good luck stopping me.

ANYWAY, so uh... I might or might not have on a whim made messy concept sketches for each dragon form, made up a ton of headcanons, and chosen color scheme... no... no I didn't do that.

Okay yeah I did that.

...I was supposed to do two at a time.

How did I get here. The power of autistic brain.

Time to actually talk about the designs!!

Uhhh I'm gonna go in true potential order... because yes.

First... Zaneee!!!

Without color in case it's confusing

Also you're gonna notice a trend with this being that the drawings are not high quality or rendered or anything and are sloppily colored and that's because they're just concepts. I only did the actual "big" draconic traits because I wanted to get it finished quickly so i had an excuse to talk about it. If I ever do use them for an actual art piece then I'll fully render them n stuff obviously this is just to get across the concept.

So since Zane is a robot it.. would be kinda hard for him to suddenly get like.. organic dragon wings... or whatever...

So instead- he gets cybernetic dragon wings and a tail. Yes i know that still requires cartoon logic. The power of creation just magicked them into existence OK? It makes more sense than randomly growing scales.

The mechanic parts are mostly held together/afloat by the ice energy flowing through them (which is what the crystal-like fragments that make up most of his wings are!)

Also his horns are like a little crown... because... I dunno I thought it'd fit with his haircut and such but also ice Emperor (even though he didn't really wear a crown) look this was drawn at like 2 am I don't know what I was thinking with it or why I didn't actually draw the haircuts as well..

I imagine that he'd be very cold to the touch, especially his wings (which are pretty much sheets of ice) both Jay and Kai have ways of circumventing it, but when Cole has to deal with it (like sitting next to him or such) he gets sluggish pretty quickly. Zane is still trying to figure out a way to ease it a bit.

He also tends to make clanging noise by tapping his tail against the ground when he's upset, or make mechanical whirring noises when irritated. Nobody quite knows why since yknow robot, it's just a quirk.

His ice energy does mean he's gotten a power boost. Just like literally everyone else.

Also this is going to involve me assuming they kept these features because if Lloyd can be part dragon then so can the ninja I dare you to fight me /lighthearted

Jay!! He bird. Feather scrunchie.

"But Cookie that's not a dragon-"

Shhhh If a dinosaur can have feathers so can a dragon they're both giant reptiles OK. Feather dragon. It's a thing.

I'm going to be honest the only thing going through my mind while drawing this was vague wing shapes I can't even put a name to (they were probably from monster hunter... I think... Uh... ) and silkie chickens. Not quite sure why I thought of silkie chickens, but I did. So here we are.

So anyways I love him. HIM!! FEATHER MAN!!!

Also I just realized while writing this he can finally be fugi dove's proper equal and arch nemesis. Amazing.

So while drawing I was like "it'd be neat if he could produce static n such with his wings/feathers" so I took off to the internet and after trying a ton of different "CAN BIRDS MAKE STATIC" "ARE BIRD FEATHERS STATIC" and such search queries I finally came up with that ostrich feathers can have static and chicken feathers were used in computer components and hummingbirds can produce static from how fast they flap their wings. Is that trustworthy whatsoever? Probably not. (Surprisingly the most trustworthy one seems to be that chicken feathers were used for computer components which is funny) But rule of cool. I get to break the laws of physics and reality for my story as long as it's cool. Yay.

He's very fluffy and enjoys using his wings to snuggle up in bed :) Cole also tries to steal him as a blanket during winter. Nya and Lloyd can't because of the static but Cole can't be shocked so Jay just has to begrudgingly accept it with his hollow bones and consequentially low weight. He's also known to let sparks off when he's excited/happy, which is f u n.

Also I used the blue/yellow color palette because they seem to be leaning towards using more yellow in Jay's color themes (like how they started using orange in Cole's or blue in Zane's) and I thought it worked really well here so yeah!! It also helps differentiate him even more.

He sheds like crazy. Especially during winter where he gets EVEN FLUFFIER. (no one knows how it's even possible) Feathers everywhere. Cole and Kai also shed, but they shed skin all in one go (usually..), whereas Jay just leaves a pillows worth of feathers everywhere he inhabits, and it drives them insane.

The type of dragon he is is mostly a flight based species. They hunt in the air, live in the air for most of their lives, and such. Because of that not only does he rarely sit down, but he is FILLED with excess energy. He's also the most natural and second fastest flier, and fastest consistent flier.

Because the type of dragon he takes after is so focused on flight, they also roost up in really high places, so you'll probably find him on the top bunk, up in rafters, on the Monastery roof, etc. He loves that they're on a mountain because it means he can take a flight whenever he wants to. That doesn't stop him from being horrible at evading actual birds, though.

He also regularly makes "chirp" and clicking noises. (By chirp I mean the type a cat will do while looking at a window or such. Look up cats chirping or smthn for an example if u haven't heard it before.)

Could I have just made him a dragon with lightning bolt patterns?

Yes but that would be very boring and uncreative (in my opinion and standards I hold myself to ofc-) SO.

Jay is chicken. Jay uses wings to shoot lightning. Thank you for your time.

Cole. He crystal dragon. He's probably also gonna be a pain to draw (but also very fun) because of that. Yay.

I could of just done magma but I loved the idea of like a crystal dragon. So I made a ninjago related crystal dragon...

... again. Don't ask about the first one.

so uh I chose the colors bc like light blues/purples/white are pretty stereotypical crystal colors (plus I think they're pretty) and then orange... because. Cole. He has little crystal patches all over him and his scales also have like.. small crystals dotted all over.

I feel like whatever species of dragon he is is probably adapted to like.. mostly living in caves? Like cave bats kinda where it goes outside at night to hunt but sleeps and lives in caves, and probably goes deeper in the cave to hibernate. So because of that he can be sensitive to artificial light and doesn't really have any like adaptations for the winter, so he just tries to snuggle up with Jay or Kai to keep warm and gets really tired/sluggish when he's cold because reptile. On the other end he can sense vibrations since his species wouldn't be relying on sight as much, which is very handy.

Unlike Zane, Jay, or Kai, he can't really "fly" exactly. His wings are much smaller because the species kinda adapted to being able to use them as a sort of speed boost thing where they'd use them to get quick bursts of flight to catch prey, but since they mostly hunted on the ground and lived in caves they didn't need full on flight. However it's sorta a peregrine falcon situation where technically he is the fastest of all the ninja in flight, but only during a short burst.

He is also very well adapted to climbing vertical surfaces. His claws are REALLY good at gripping onto things since they were adapted to cling onto things such as stalactites, rock walls, etc. to traverse up ledges and deeper parts of caves, and he can also use his wings (and more specifically their claws) as a third pair of limbs to grip onto walls.

Cole tends to make more subtle noises, he growls when agitated and purrs when content or in pain (yes that's a thing, purring soothes and encourages healing, so cats will also purr when they're hurt or scared to comfort themselves) but it isn't very loud, so it's not easily noticeable.

Kai!!

Again

Could I have done magma for Cole and just given Kai flame wings?

Yes. But I'm not going to, because I find this approach more interesting.

... I joke that it's magma but not REALLy, it's still just.. fire... but his scales are brown cause I thought it fit. So. A lot of people like to draw Lloyd with the kinda dragon ears so I thought it'd be cute if Kai, as his guardian, also had them since, again, a lot of people like to see them as brothers. And I just gave him generic dragon horns. Because dragon.

It's hard to simplify it because... fire... so this is probably the worst sketch..

Look OK he gets to breathe fire. Like that's one of the most iconic medieval red dragon things, he's the fire ninja, he gets to breathe fire and blow smoke out of his nostrils when mad I don't make the rules.

I also kinda went all in on generic dragon tropes (i mean ig they're not as generic anymore because of stuff like HTTYD) because... Kai.

So like hot temper, fire breath, that type of thing.

He also has a hoarding habit, as in instead of cleaning or anything when he uses something and just tosses it aside, he puts it all in an ever growing pile of stuff that he just let's stay there until somebody else cleans it up because they were sick of it. Compared to Jay's feathers it's not the WORST thing in the world.

He's slower than Zane and Jay, but can fly for longer periods of time than Zane. His species is kind of adapted to flying closer to the land. So that they can eat some well cooked cow. Yknow generic dragon stuff.

I also think it'd be funny, since dragons are fiercely protective, if these dragons had a dragapult situation where if they didn't have a kid they'd just "adopt" (in their eyes, in reality it's abducting. Usually.) a random animal and pretend it's their child. Because. Kai.

He's also fireproof, to an extent. He can withstand intense heat (unlike Cole or Jay) and can withstand intense cold (Unlike Cole... poor guy) because fire. He can't dive bomb into a volcano though since it would eventually get through and burn him to a crisp, but in small amounts he'll be FINEEEE...

Im not quite sure if he'd make any sort of draconic noises or anything. I feel like maybe he'd growl when upset, but it'd be louder than Cole? Whereas Cole does it more frequently (probably to be passive aggressive) but it's much more silent. He also has a tendency to involuntarily raise his voice a lot.

Yeah that's about it. Also if you consider lloyd to be a dragon, or think of Nya as having dragon features from when she just became h2o that one time, then the entire group might as well be renamed to Dragon ninja. Even Wu!!

..I feel like Lloyd would be jealous- Like "Oh why do THEY get to go full dragon and have wings when I don’t?!" But he'd never say anything because Lloyd.. but everybody knows something is up and is trying to make him feel better... but it's making him feel worse because it just makes him feel more singled out... oh boy that's uh I'm gonna shut that depressing thought train down right there.

Poor pixal though... she's left out because she's too cool already.

ALSO if you ever use this or want to expand upon it/take inspiration from it PLEASE DO AND TELL/SEND IT TO ME I WANT TO SEE AND HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS PLEASE DHRJGJDJDJ I LOVE WHEN MY STUFF PROMPTS IDEAS

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kozachenko · 2 days

Text

I've crawled out of my cave after playing Final Fantasy IX for a long ass time what have I missed?

Artist's Notes:

I'M BACK BABY! A while back I made a post with a new style experimentation thingy but I ended up deleting it because it was just kind of a boring face thing, I was planning on doing more art but then I started playing Final Fantasy IX and uhhhh yeah so that game has kind of taken of my brain for the past two weeks and I am 20 hours into the game because I love it so much. I wanted to draw Vivi because Vivi is just really fun to draw ok? I've kinda been feeling really burnt out with my lineless style, mainly because of how hard it was to do lighting. I'll show one of my initial art style tests on the bottom of this post. Again, used to have it be an individual post but it was just one face so it was kinda boring, so might as well include with this one on the subject of art styles. I wanted to kinda mix some aspects of my older style with the sketchy shading lines with a more painterly way of doing the lighting (mainly in the shadows). All in all, I think that's my favourite part about this drawing, it feels nice to finally be able to do some proper lighting again, and I want to experiment even more with my lighting and rendering in future pieces. Also, part of the pant shading got kinda lost in the sketchiness, so for next time I'll probably focus on the clarity of the more sketchy parts of the drawing, since I did go with my initial sketch for the final drawing. I also gave up on the background since I had no idea what to do for it, and I didn't put too much detail into the staff as I forgot which one I gave him in my current playthrough and I didn't want to risk spoiling myself via looking up references, but that's ok I like how the singular yellow circle on it matches Vivi's eyes. Also I was having a bit of trouble figuring out how to draw his body and how to pose him, but I like how the pose turned out a lot. It was inspired by his idle animation when in a battle in game where he does a little shimmy.

Ok I need to talk about Vivi's design because I love it so fucking much oh my god-

I absolutely love how his face is just in complete shadow and only his eyes stand out, it's so cool and unique and I love how they recontextualized the original black mage design from the classic Final Fantasy games. How they did it I won't say because I don't wanna spoil the game, but someone give this poor baby a therapist because he goes through a lot. Actually, same can be said for all of the FFIX cast, they all need therapy (again, I won't spoil anything, please go play the game for yourself).

While I do love almost all the characters in the game, even though Vivi is most fun to draw, my favourite character has to be Zidane (the main protagonist of the game). He's a really fun protagonist, and they could have easily written him as a misogynistic jerk who doesn't respect women but they didn't, and I really appreciate that. He's just an overall cool dude who's a really nice older brother figure to Vivi and also just has a cool character design (who I also want to draw eventually). Initially in the game I was planning on grinding levels for Vivi to make him the tactical nuke of the party, but then that title went to a different character (who was initially multiple levels behind the group since I grinded the party in the starting area way to much before they joined, but now they are two levels ahead of everyone and have pulled the team through a lot of tough battles, again I won't say who it is because it is kind of a spoiler and the way the gameplay actually ties into their character arc is just so good omfg). Once I eventually finish the game I'll probably write a full review on here, so no spoilers until then lol

Also, I've kinda been burning out a bit with making Touhou art, which also made me a bit burnt out with Touhou stuff in general (although I will continue keeping up with the manga) so getting into other things (i.e. Final Fantasy and even Fallout since I've watched the first season of the TV show which is a whole other post for another day) has helped me refresh and given me something new to think about. I've ended up in the exact place I feared ending up, where I would start drawing fanart for it not because I wanted to but because I felt like I had to, so I'm taking a bit of a break. When I do draw Touhou fanart again I'll try to draw for the sake of myself, and to all the other artists and fanartists on this platform (and on any social media for that matter), take care of yourself and don't forget to take breaks when you need to!

(Ok part of that last paragraph was definitley influenced by the good ol' "it's 9:00pm and I need sleeb, but the message at the end still holds up, always take care of yourself)

Oh yeah, and here is that one style experiment I did btw

Man I really fell down the "Yoshitaka Amano art enjoyer" to "Final Fantasy fan" pipe line didn't I?

#art #fanart #final fantasy ix #vivi final fantasy #ff9 #vivi ff9 #final fantasy #final fantasy fanart

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tomatoart · 1 year

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mwah your art is good and nice :>

can I ask for some advice? no worries if u don't want to answer.

do you have any tips on how exactly to practice art? everytime I ask for art advice everyone always says "practice" but idk what to practice first! do you have any strategies for learning how to draw something? do you do excercises? and if so how do they work?and are there any beginner mistakes I should look out for and change specifically?

thank you so much!! have a wonderful week :>

thank you so much! im ok w answering! i dont want to speak as if i am an expert on how to draw things in general as i am learning as well and definitely am not completely learned, so i might not be the best person to ask since im not very professional w my art as I do it as a hobby (and I can only speak on mostly digital cartoon matters) but i reallly hope to try and help u out even a lil ! im really happy that you’re eager to draw :] I wish you so much luck muwah muwah

i also hated when ppl told me “just practice” and i dont wanna inflict tht on u EITHER LOL but also thats just what i ended up doing for awhile but i tried to find some things to help ^_^

tips for practice: My number one rule is that practices should be challenging but still fun, I know it can get frustrating trying to redraw a pose over and over trying to get it perfect. And over time it rlly is all about muscle memory, the longer you draw the more your eyes will pick out specific shapes in everyday life and convert them into its own vision of them! or at least its good to look at life that way, try to pin point key shapes and stress less on details in practices. after you look at key points, THEN you can go over what you have and draw in and over it to make it more “complete.” To stop practices from getting too stressful I recommend starting out drawing what you want a little more simple looking than ur desired finished product. This helps eliminate the pressure of everything not looking “perfect” and keeps your art more loose and fun. Doing this a few times is gonna get ur brain to recognize patterns in art and how things look/flow in anatomy and such. dont get stuck in ur own head abt perfecting everything to the point you either 1) give up bc ur not at a level capable of it being 100% “perfect” or 2) focus so much on making it perfect that you end up saying the work looks “wonky” or stale in dynamics, So while I do think studies help, don’t get too lost in them. I always practice with media I enjoy too, whether it’s characters or fashion I enjoy.

Strategies learning to draw something: people get mad abt this one but I think tracing reference photos is great. its been awhile but When I tried learning to draw hands better at first I would trace them then put the traced image to the side of the canvas, then try and replicate what my mind saw as its most important angles and aspects. Same for clothing folds/hair/etc! I think it’s maybe not the best idea to trace the ref and use the tracings as is, because you learn more from tracing it then trying to replicate and simplify what u learned into the style you’re working in. Find what shapes you like from them and don’t over detail it. you may have to go by eye and think “what parts of this ref photo should i simplify to fit my style” and for me, its usually adjusting the length of the torso and then the limbs by associations. i dont recommend feeling like u need a reference for every art you make though, its ok to let ur own head try out its own sometimes too while trying to learn this, see if it remembers any call bad from the past referenced sketches! over time ull remember where everything goes more, these days i rarely kick myself to use refs but im sure they still would help to use, but figure drawing simple blobby figure in a bunch of random poses was a big thing i used to do as well to get better at full body art + overall dynamics (still does this). also paying attention to silhouettes is great

Exercises and how they work: I WANNA HELP U SO BAD BUT to be honest, all the works on my blog ARE exercises! i rarely actually do finished pieces, if u scroll thru my posts ull notice most r sketches. i usually just fill up a page and call it “warm ups” then i get attached to some of them, take a few, and just line them up pleasingly on a smaller page, then color them in (or sometimes fix the lines to be more clean too). im not rlly a person who “exercises” to practice, it more so happens from just me drawing a lot for fun as a hobby! but i really should. i will tell u this has humbled me a lil i need to start practicing too 😭 LOL but a good exercise is to look at what ur inspirations do, and study it. Make a collage and write out what you like most abt their styles/what u want to gain from them. For ref Here’s a page I did awhile ago when someone asked me abt my insps:

i also look at fashion magazines and as well as anime figures and take insps from that sometimes with learning cool poses and compositions to convert into my own things

Beginner mistakes to look out for: its hard for me to pin point “mistakes” beginners make, as sometimes we cant avoid all of them or even notice them, progress comes from growing out of old ways. some mistakes are even the foundation of ur future amazing cool style! but i think some things to look out for could be these, from my own old art experiences

Hands were the first thing I learned bc i liked drawing them. I don’t know if that is the best way to go but I think it is smart to practice sooner than later, here is a lil guide thingggyyy wingyyy from awhle ago

i see beginners shy away from drawing signs of age in people, sometimes adding too much detail on an older person in cartoon art makes it look weird, so i try and hit the key markings on ppls faces of age.

Too thin of lines. sometimes its a stylistic choice to use thin lineart, and it can look amazing ! but sometimes it can flatten an image if ur not familiar with its flow. im not saying use thick line art, but more so to keep in mind the weight of ur strokes, adding depth with a thick thin combo of line art can do SO much for the simplest of pieces. heres a visual from a while back when i talked abt my brush + more abt lines:

but if ur desired style is thin lineart that is cool too! tbh it was just harder for me as a beginner

sometimes artists think they need to do full lineart for everything and then hate how it looks compared to the sketch, do not fear i will introduce u to my bff: painting over a sketch, extractinging the lines, then calling it line art. i only do this sometimes but its a fun exercise-ish thing to do in a pinch. example:

finding what shading fits ur art. sometimes ill see ppl starting out who have a style thats very simple, but they use a very detailed rendering process on it. this is not something id ever police of course, art is each persons own choice! And it CAN work. It can be so cute! but sometimes mixing two very contrasting mediums of art can throw off the “put together” look of it. i use to abuse the airbrush tool thinking it made my simple style look super cool and detailed, but looking back on it now those pieces looked a little off, having such a simple style have somewhat more realistic shading. dont get me wrong the ability i see ppl use rendering like that is so insanely talented! but i found cellshading to be a good match for cartoony art like my own. a tip i learned way too late abt that is rather than shading each layer by color picking a darker color, instead use a clipping mask over the entire art (above line art too as I color my lineart) and lasso tool the areas u want shaded + fill it w a saturated purple then set to multiply + lower opacity. also, sometimes coloring can come out chalky looking when u meant for it to be smooth and transitional, i think this comes from overshading and overlighting pieces without reason. pay attention to where the light source is, and focus on making the shaded and lighter areas nice shapes that cover the necessary areas, then u can add additional shading to the smaller details of what should have a casted shadow/light

its good to spice up ur art now rather than later, focusing making ur art pop more w backgrounds will help ur coloring skills look better too! i dont mean detailed huge backgrounds, a small lil color pallet and design rather than a blank white bg. like this will make u feel better abt it or at least it helped me *sweats* yeah:

beginners tend to draw blank faces like “:)” but I think a good thing to do is try and get silly with expressions early on. It’s okay if the mouth hangs off the face cartoonishly with joy or shock, it’s ok if the eyebrows are super high in surprise.

tracing and pasting it as is (already said this but I’ve seen ppl do it a lot with hair styles and it makes it look alienated from the rest of the style) (final fantasy fans found critically injured) n if need a ref for a pose, using a real humans anatomy as-is doesn’t look quite right on a cartoonyish drawing. Shortening torso and legs usually comes out of this for me!

flip ur canvas i promise u it’ll be less embarrassing over time!

using guidelines for perspective and foreshortening is GREAT. Do it stylistically rather than realistically to add some groove to it...yay. Having silly perspective in art can make it look like a 10 so easily opposed to a normal front facing sketch. Look at cool poses from fashion magazines! Don’t be scared to draw something you don’t feel confident in conveying perfectly, this is why progress redraws exist :)

Drawing the hairline b4 u draw the hair is great, it helps u understand where their hair flows from, where it starts and stops, AND prepares u for drawing bald ppl. Also don’t make the head too big, the skull IS bigger up top, but sometimes I see an alien head affect.

Anatomy is an interesting mistake that beginners make a lot, but it’s one they find harder to notice! When I started out, all my art would be SO wonky, but I didn’t even realize it! It still happens today too! specifically though I see beginners struggle with the arms in this department. My advice is to try and measure them out and make sure they don’t go past the knees, and are the same length as each other when Unfolded. asking for criticism is hard but it helped me realize when i would make something bigger/longer than it should have been in my art, and stuck with me being able to go “oh... i see it LOL”

clothing wrinkles- do not over do it! Too many wrinkles and shading can look unpleasant and wirey- like a plastic table cloth all bunched up which isn’t exactly what ppl wear. pay attention to gravity too

I hope this helped even a lil im sorry tht I’m not very good at explaining or didn’t have much to sayyy! If u have any troubles no guarantee I’ll have the answer, but ur always free to ask!

#asks #faq #I hope ur week is going good n that u’ll have fun creating 💙🐠#long post #not tomaart

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