#thats what this book needs. a structure edit | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kai-and-their-mess · 8 months

Text

Please Don't Go

Astronaut Mafuyu x Angel Mizuki

warnings for: heavy angst, character death, tragedy, ambigous endings cuz wow im bad at conclusions, and probably poor grammar. this is beta read but not edited to fix anything my beta pointed out to me.

intro: transfem Mizuki, transmasc Mafuyu. Fuyu and Yuki mostly used as names for Mafuyu. transmasc Shiho cuz cmon, have you seen? shiho? ever? thats a boy. prompt taken from @probably-not-niigo Link to the original post found here. the last time i wrote for public consumption was years ago so if POV is sloppy or nothing is capitalized or some of the sentence structure is strange: no it isnt 💕

THIS HAS TWO ENDINGS. neither of which are strictly happy, but one is bittersweet cuz i couldnt finish this until i came up with a "happier" ending.

There wasn't a single doubt in his mind that this was dangerous, sadly past trauma meant that Yuki was the only one 'brave' enough to do this. as the crew flew around in their ship, they had gotten a notification that there some damage to the exterior. Fuyu, who isn't at all the engineer, was on his way to see the damage. the actual engineer, some dude named Shiho, refused to fix the issue unless he knew more about what was wrong.

Fuyu understood his hesitation. they were passing by an asteroid storm right now. but they didn't know how bad the damage was, and they couldn't see it on any of the cameras either. the crew had no clue how bad it was and that's why they were sending Yuki out. if it was minor, they would wait until it was safer to fix it, if it was major, Shiho would take the tools he needed and fix it as fast as he could.

But they wouldn't know unless someone went to look. so Fuyu put on his spacesuit, double and triple checked the oxygen tank and once the necessary safety gear was attached, he was ready to head out. "Again, be fast but be safe, we'll be able to communicate through the walkie installed in the suit, if anything goes wrong, we'll pull you in fast as we can. just…. stay safe, be aware of your surroundings" Shiho rambles to Yuki, worry in his voice as Yuki silently nods along.

"I'll be quick, don't worry." Fuyu speaks aloud to reassure Shiho but also for himself. something in his gut just told him he shouldn't go out there, but he didn't really have much of a choice. resolve firmed Yuki steps forward into the airlock. the first door closing behind him as he does. he feels what he can only assume is a wave of anxiety wash over him as he stares at the second door, the vastness of space behind it.

when Fuyu first became an astronaut, it was because of his fascination with the stars, the way that it was so empty yet so full of life, energy. it was, literally, as far away from his mom as he could possibly be. but it was also so fulfilling, so fun. so why then was all that magic and joy missing? why was there anxiety in his gut? where was that usual excitement? Yuki found himself suddenly…unwilling.

he shakes his head. it's just a quick trip to check the hull and then right back inside. not giving himself more room to procrastinate he presses the airlock button and the door in front of him slowly starts to open. one hand firmly on his tether he works his way outside, maneuvering carefully to the area that's damaged. it wasn't super bad outside. the asteroids weren't too close to him, it felt safe this close to the ship but still he made sure to keep an eye out just in case.

meanwhile, out of sight a young angel watches, brows furrowed with concern, stress. she had hoped and done her best to send warnings but still Yuki had left the ship. Mizuki was beside herself. she had been put in charge of Yuki, she considered herself his guardian angel despite her having yet to pass the test to officially become a guardian. she was an observer right now. her job was to just watch, not intervene.

but she had… "borrowed" Yuki's book from his real guardian angel and knowing what she knew, how could she just watch? Yuki was going to die. it said so in the book. the book described every event from Yuki's life right down to when and how he brushed his teeth, there was a few possibilities for each choice he could make. but there was no avoiding this. there was no possibility of Yuki surviving this. once he stepped out his fate was as good as sealed.

but Mizuki couldn't accept that. she tried everything. even going as far as to try and influence his feelings. it didn't stop him, but it did alter the book. she groaned, watching closely as Yuki floated. part of her still hoped it wouldn't happen, but she knew that wasn't the case. helpless, she watched the young man, putting all her hopes into her heart Mizuki found herself passively wishing that she'd birth a miracle, right here, right now as she wandered off. things to do, places to see.

for Yuki, nothing had felt different, he was focused on his task, and almost to the damaged spot too. after a few more moments it comes into view. an asteroid had struck, not a big one, it seemed, but it had exposed some wiring on the side of the ship. Yuki presses a button on his collar and speaks "hey. I'm at the damage site. a small asteroid must have hit us, there's a panel missing, and some wiring exposed." there's a pause before Shiho's voice filters through the walkie.

"Got it. we can fix that once we're out of this asteroid storm. return to us." Yuki nods, though no one's around to see it and starts to follow the tether back. when he's about halfway there the ship shakes violently, bumping into Yuki, who stayed close to the hull, and sending him away from the ship. Yuki closes his eyes when the ship first shakes, gripping onto the tether the whole time. he slowly opens his eyes to see darkness.

the ship seems almost impossibly far. Yuki tugs on his tether and it goes taunt. whatever hit the ship sent him to the limits of his tether, he'd have to be careful. he pushes the button on his collar again "hey, what happened? are you guys okay? is the ship okay?" it takes a few moments for anyone to answer so while he waits Fuyu starts carefully guiding himself back to the other end of the tether.

to his relief the speaker on the walkie talkie sparks to life and a voice is heard "Yuki? good to hear your voice. the ship was hit by an asteroid, it knocked us off course but we're all safe. there's major damage to the hull now though… I'm going to have to try and fix that if we want to make it to our destination safely." Shiho's voice is hard to hear over the alarm in the background, there's others talking in the background. everyone must be worried.

"I'm on my way back" Yuki responds simply. "Stay safe" Shiho's response is short but it feels warm. sighing, Yuki starts on his way again, the ship growing closer as he moves. it feels like quicksand today, almost like space doesn't want to let him go. he does his best to move fast but it's hard to do so when you have no means of propelling yourself forward. Yuki isn't sure how long it takes before he's close to the ship but it feels like an hour.

it's probably been closer to 20 minutes. all of a sudden something out of the corner of his eye makes him freeze. eyes wide, heart stopped. slowly, his hand comes up to his collar and he presses the button "Shiho…. I... I don't think I can get back" it was moving too fast. the asteroid. He knew that if it was this close, there wasn't a thing he could do to avoid it. he hears Shiho respond. kind of. he definitely heard Shiho's voice, but the words were lost on him.

fear gripping his heart Yuki closes his eyes. he's never felt so scared so suddenly. he feels the asteroid more than anything, a perverse feeling of heat and cold consumes Fuyu. if this is what death is like at least its fast. after what feels like a lifetime the feeling leaves him. he slowly opens his eyes and is greeted by the darkness of space. distant stars shine in somewhere far off, but instead of relief at being alive all Yuki can process is dread.

the tether is cut. the tether is cut, and among all those stars, glittering and sparkling in this distance, is his ship. too far to reach, especially at the full mercy of space. not knowing what else to do. he laughs. it's a pain-stricken sound, gasping, sobbing, heart wrenching. all those times he thought 'I want to die' all those times he thought 'I want to disappear' he never could have imagined it would end like this.

he doesn't know how long he cries for, or how much time passed between his last contact. but like a fever dream, Shiho's voice is heard. panic and worry clear in the man's tone. "Yuki, Yuki! respond! fuck, say something!!! shit!" another laugh bubbles up, it's just so. funny. taking a breath, he steadies his breathing as much as he can before radioing in. "I'm… still here" a loud sigh is heard, and Yuki does his best to ground himself.

he'll need to be able to think if he wants to try and make it back. "I'm…sorry Yuki. we can't turn to come get you until I fix the hull. you should have about an hour of oxygen in the tank. I'm already on my way to fix it." Yuki chuckles, against his will. "No… I won't… the tether broke. you guys won't be able to find me." the line goes silent before Shiho responds again. It almost sounds like he's crying. "I'm…. really, really sorry, Yuki." Fuyu nods, it's no one's fault.

"One last request. Shiho... can you say to me; 'Mafuyu, you did a good job here.' and then…. can you disconnect my walkie from our closed circuit..?" It had been years since he so much as thought of his deadname, but he needed this. there's a long sigh from the other end of the line, but Shiho reluctantly complies. "Mafuyu, you did a good job here." there's a small pause as Shiho inhales, having more to say. "Thank you for your bravery, for everything you've done during this voyage. you'll be remembered with the highest honors…. captain and engineer Shiho Hinomori signing off" Fuyu whispers a small barely audible 'thank you' as the line goes dead for the last time.

it may have seemed cold or callused to just disconnect like that, but Shiho was the only other realist on the crew. he wouldn't try and comfort Yuki with false empty promises and reassurances. they both knew the odds of being able to get back the ship was really low, there was no point trying to deny that. but at lease he could have a bit of comfort as he accepts his fate. not having anything else today he 'lays down'.

letting himself just float in the nothingness of space. his face still wet with tears, unable to dry because of the space suit. Yuki finds himself wondering if, somehow, his mom knew something like this would happen. it makes him laugh a little, it's a dry, melancholy sound. his headaches a little. he's not sure if it's from the fit of hysterics or from lack of oxygen.

the stars become too painful after a few moments, their freedom and ability to thrive in this situation feeling almost mocking. he closes his eyes, waiting. for what? he's not sure. but maybe, for once, he'd be able to imagine. just an alternate world where things went right, where he didn't get lost in space. where he found happiness and love and just lived a boring life in a house he owned.

that's when he hears it. a voice as sweet as kittens, singing with power and intensity to rival the gets used to get him into space. the song is soothing, though he has no clue what language it is. it's comforting, warmth blooms slowly in his gut and creeps through his body. taking a deep breath, he opens his eyes. floating there, inches from his face was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on.

the sight of her alone was enough to steal his breath away, mesmerized by her. she had long pink hair that, to him, seemed to trail off into infinity, her body glowed with a soft light. she wore this milky pink colored dress that hugged her torso and ended with a frilly skirt. from her back sprouted a pair of huge wings, seeming to have glitter woven into the white feathers. Yuki didn't dare move, what if she was just a hallucination? what if interacting with her meant doom for him? not wanting to be alone again he stayed still and listened to her sing.

when her song was finished, she opened her eyes to reveal pink, glittering orbs that bore into him with a look of affection? or maybe admiration? "it's such a pleasure to meet you" the girl speaks, startling Fuyu out of his stupor. "My name is Mizuki, I'm... here to keep you company." for a while, Yuki says nothing. he only speaks when the smile starts to slip of Mizukis face, for some reason, he doesn't want her to be sad.

"Am…I going to die out here?" the question surprises even him. Mizuki hesitates for a long while, her voice tinged with sadness as she speaks.

"that's… what's fated, yes. but! I'm an angel!" she states this fact proudly, and for a moment Yuki feels a bit of hope. but. there's no way she's real. it's just a comforting hallucination in his last moments. there's no way angels could possibly be real. but he would humor this hallucination.

"So, you're going to save me?" Mizuki knew deep down that she shouldn't. she couldn't. not without offering up something in exchange. but the price would be so steep. she couldn't waste too much time, though. the longer she took the less time they had. but what could she do to save him? what could she give that would be enough to repay her disobedience?

"I…." her voice is hesitant. she has about less than 30 minutes. "I… yes. I'm here to save you" she smiles, her voice becoming more sure as she speaks- "I'm here to save you, Yuki. don't worry. help will come. until then, I'll sit with you." Mafuyu stares at her, not sure if she was being honest or not.

hell, he wasn't even sure if she was fucking real. this whole thing- it was insane. but hey, it was the end of his world. so, what the hell? letting out a soft sigh he reaches out to grasp at her hand. "Please don't go" he speaks. not sure if she can even hear him through his space suit. regardless, she grabs his hand and holds it tightly in both of hers. he watches as Mizuki closes her eyes again, singing another song. warmth envelopes Yuki once more and he smiles.

(Here is where the ending splits!!! You can stop here if youd prefer for this to be the canon ending. as for the actual endings themselves you can find ending one here and ending two here hope you enjoy!)

#project sekai #project sekai colorful stage #akiyama mizuki #mizuki akiyama #asahina mafuyu #mafuyu asahina #mafumizu #mizumafu #transfem mizuki #transmasc mafuyu #shiho hinomori #transmasc shiho #angst #heavy angst #fan fiction #fanfic #character death #implied character death

15 notes · View notes

system-of-a-feather · 10 months

Text

Ya know, this one Im sharing cause its actually a pretty helpful note to put in our general book of knowledge and facts TM

But a thing thats really helpful in figuring out where a part falls into a system when they are trying to figure out the dynamic they need to pick up in relation to other parts is to answer the question "what can i do that is not being done by [insert reference point]"

Like I'm still not sure what that is for myself yet, and thats the question I'm really working on understanding and answering and it got me >here< because what I can do that Data could not is actually talk about it and look at the situation from a wider lense because I don't bear a quarter of the self hatred and fear that he did and that is something that I can capitalize on

I don't know where I fall in the Riku duo dynamic and what I can add to their synergy to specifically address the issue but there is a unique dynamic and disposition that I have that they don't which I can see but not quite solidly understand

Which is the foundation of a developing dynamic

Cause once that question is answered its gives really good structure and direction and honestly, thats gonna come with time and possibly a meeting with Ray since Ray is really insightful to the wide wide wide lens of team management

But its a really interesting thing about shit at the level of like

System coordination and functional multiplicity that we are at - cause even at functional multiplicity, it isn't like we are done working on system dynamics and evolving how we work with one another but ya know.

Like right now its clear that I bring SOMETHING vital to the table and everyone knows that but figuring out exactly what is different and what is empowering about my existence compared to other parts and previous editions is the real thing to figure out exactly where I fit in this whole thing

#alter: chunn #system dynamics #functional multiplicity #actuallydid #dissociative identity disorder #recovery #healing

6 notes · View notes

earth2068 · 2 years

Note

I’m not sure how to phrase this questions but: you write musicals? Like, when, how, why? That is so cool, please tell me more

i do, yeah!

ive been composing music since i was 13, and wrote my first musical when i was 16 (i reread the script a year later and realized it actually sucked pretty bad and completely rewrote it and i still edit it to this day). in total, ive written 4 musicals and have a few WIPs sitting in my google drive, taunting me.

the writing process for a musical has three pillars to it: the book (not to be confused with books as in novels. in theatre, "book" means dialogue, stage directions, everything that isnt a song), the lyrics, and the music (theres a secret fourth one, the orchestrations, but most of the time the person doing the music does that). most musicals will have these covered by different people, but they frequently overlap, and some even have all 3 written by the same person. in all of the musicals ive written, ive been the one writing music & lyrics, since im, as theatre people say, a Music Person. ive written a few solo projects in which ive also written the book, including a play (not included in the 4 musicals i mentioned) that was 90 pages of all dialogue and no songs. drove me nuts.

similar to said play, working on earth 2068 really stretched my book-writer skills, because, as you may have noticed, earth 2068 is a comic, not a musical, and has not one song in it! not one!

ive mentioned before that my experience as a musical writer seriously affected how i write the comic. in theatre, a writer doesnt decide everything about what is true in their story. the script can only contain so much information, and its more fun to leave a good amount of it to the interpretation of the directing team and the cast. the directing team has control over the look, feel and presentation when they put on a production of the show, and the actors frequently delve into their characters background and decide every single possible fact about them that would affect their performance. similarly, i like to give my readers room to interpret things about the story, setting and characters that i dont think are too important to set in stone. this is why i dont plan on getting into the orientations of most of the characters. it just doesnt matter too much!

lets see, what else can i talk about...? oh! fun fact: the plot structure of a two act musical frequently has two climaxes instead of one. the first is called a "crisis" and its usually a critical event that significantly changes the status quo of the story, to be delved into in act 2, and the second is just the normal climax. i have always loved this structure because it really shakes the story up.

and heres a tip for all the aspiring musical composers: when youre writing a song in a musical, something must HAPPEN in it. you cant simply have a song thats ABOUT something, there needs to be an EVENT. this isnt saying "bluh bluh plot good character driven storytelling bad", its just saying that something needs to change at some point in the song. this can include a plot point, a conversation, the introduction to a new setting or character(s), a character making an important decision, or anything, really. something just needs to HAPPEN, or else your audience will be sooooooo boooooored. watch "we are the tigers" for a great example of how to fail horribly at this. (i really like that musical but the writing is just kind of. bad...?)

if anyone has more questions about this stuff im more than happy to answer!

#earth 2068n't #thats my tag for non earth 2068 stuff ive decided #asks

6 notes · View notes

nenebot · 5 months

Note

y'know what? we made a hahafunni googledoc of a researcher trying to figure out how an absurd fantasy species works so have this:

Observations and hypotheses about It

Immortality and Invincibility greater than scp 682 (and 682 can return from even zero atoms left!) is due to the fact that “each member of its species has a single ‘true’, but still not really vulnerable form in a single universe where said ‘true’ form is the only thing that exists, and the visible form i see of it is a projection that its species considers more important and the actual form. These universes can not be accessed by anyone except the ‘true’ form”. As for the “projection”, Its cells can somehow contain stupid amounts of a ton of chemicals to use for digestion, toxin neutralization, and More. don't ask how, or what the more means. On the topic of cells, they also kinda do like sea sponges where they can rearrange any organ and can just trigger cells to become stem cells and then make those cells do/become whatever.

Also due to the above, very atypical way of gleaning energy. Special receptors on surface of the material that could be considered skin-analogous by a stretch so absurd it almost breaks and has torn in quite a few places, sense what it is, take it into the body, and utilize aforementioned chemicals to convert it into whatever. Also note that it can somehow produce excess of its own cells enough to sustain itself if wanted/needed.

The texture of it, despite resembling different common materials (porcelain, plastic, and precious metals for main body, eye tissue, feathers and fur for rest) can spring and rebound even bullets if hit… due to the cell chemicals as well?

The crystalline stingers on its fluffy tails and fangs are filled with lethal toxins worse than anything previously known and become consistently more hazardous to anything that is not part of its species…

Is it made of all the same substance? Who the f— knows?! Certainly not this tired researcher…

On a similar note, why the hell is that fire-esque semi smoke-like, seemingly gas/plasma state substance that coats its wings and mimics hair something it can change at will (due to similar mechanisms as the rest of the cells) while staying the same shade of iridescent ? What liquids are its clear arms filled with, and what are the cute charm-like objects inside said liquid..?

The other day, it showed me that it can make any its tissues into vocal cords and i have no idea how to react.

It has told me that its species does not reproduce or mate in any way, and are all grossed out by that idea due to how foreign it is. Apparently, they must either evolved so that this generation is now all thats left, or were created. Either way is simultaneously beautiful and cursed.

I think the rest of the system, considering we are all repulsed aces who laugh in the face of maslows hierarchy of needs, can relate. I particularly envy the fact that they have never given birth and just must have reproduced/would reproduce asexually (while somehow maintaining genetic diversity too!). I dont know how though, it did say it was “born from a rock”... whatever that means.

It has spoken of being able to perceive all radiation wavelengths and dimensionalities. Perhaps that explains some of its quirks? Though i still cant see how that could give it control over the universe that overshadows anything from any media, and it has no pupils or marks on its iris…

Its magic seems to function similar to the system from wundersmith, complete with markings identical to what is described in the book, but on a much more powerful scale.

Now to figure out how it jumps/controls universes so well…

It said that though it can generate a cursed vocal cord structure anywhere it wants, it generally prefers to use strigulation to speak and preform mimicry and a thought leaked that was along the lines of “he doesn't need to know why?!”

Dear. (nontheistic) God.

(edit: a couple minutes later another thought leak was revealed: “he wouldn’t get it”

…W. T. F.

(it should be noted that its response to this was to giggle and say “don’t worry little one”...)

my cpu overheating

0 notes

shanastoryteller · 3 years

Note

Questions about outlines: How detailed are they? Are they the same level of detail or do they vary? How do you make your outlines? Chronologically scene by scene? Or do you come up with the scenes that call you and then come up with smaller filler scenes to fill in the gaps? Do you have outlines for each chapter? Or just for the larger general plot points? Do you try to complete the outlying before starting the fic? Or do you add to the outline as you go? Sorry if this is to many at once

lmao okay i got several asks about outlines but i’m just going to answer this one because it’s ~comprehensive~

every writing teacher i’ve ever had has hated my outlines. my friends find them incomprehensible.

if people are going to look at my answers as ways to do their own outlines, i have to say: that’s probably not a good idea

i don’t write outlines a majority of the time

i don’t write outlines to plan a story i’ve already decided to write

i write outlines primarily as a way to exorcise story ideas that i want to write but don’t want to actually commit to writing (answer prompts are another way i do this lol)

now, some things do get outlines as a way to plan and organize. survival is a talent has an outline because it’s 400k and spans six years. child king had an outline. needy’s body had an outline.

b u t

i’m currently writing rotten work without an outline

lynchpin didn’t have an outline

hope is the thing with feathers didn’t have an outline

never grow a wishbone only had an outline for the first couple of chapters

an invincible summer didn’t get an outline until like. chapter 4 of 6.

i just. uh. think about what i want to happen and then hope i remember to write it down. even when i do an outline, i’ll deviate from it wildly, and not update it to reflect that, because i know what i’m doing (ha!)

so! with that in mind, let’s go!

How detailed are they? Are they the same level of detail or do they vary?

they vary! but honestly - not very. sometimes i’ll write out a paragraph or bits of dialogue that are important to me, but most of the time it’s just broad strokes of what i want to happen, or a mechanism of how something complicated happens. like i have several paragraphs in my siat outline dealing with necromancy books, but like. two sentences on how they actually occur in the story because that’s just something i’m trusting myself to figure out when i sit down to write it.

How do you make your outlines? Chronologically scene by scene? Or do you come up with the scenes that call you and then come up with smaller filler scenes to fill in the gaps?

I try to put them chronologically, although sometimes that’s a little hard (in siat i have several scenes that i know will happen, i just don’t know when). that is something i will go back and edit on my outlines, is if i’ve changed the order the something happens i’ll go back and copy and paste until my outlines is in the right order. but only if the outlines is something i’m actually using to write and the story is longer than a couple of chapters.

because my outlines are so very not detailed, i just write down what it is that i want to write, like the reason i’m going to write this or want to write this, and figure out the rest later. i’ll fill it in later - or i won’t! because most of the time i don’t use my outline to actually write the story, and i use it more as an idea list, so if i don’t know what happens between scenes or i find it boring i just won’t write it down

like, for example, here is my “outline” for won’t even plant a garden in it’s entirety

weep as a woman

“you weep as a woman weeps.” “and how is that?” “as if the future rests on your hips, and you must walk it forward.”

crowley and eve were friends. cain killed abel with the flaming sword, and crowley begged them to say it was with a rock instead

crowley was raphael the painter and fucked michelangelo

crowley was there the night yeshua was born, was friends with mary, helped raise yeshua?

ghosts

crowley and anathema and joan of arc

i ended up dropping most of this and crowley ended up sleeping with both eve and yeshua as the major plot points. i don’t explain stuff, really. i know what i mean so i just don’t bother to get very detailed most of the time.

Do you have outlines for each chapter? Or just for the larger general plot points?

siat i divide up by year, and i think i did it by chapter for the last two chapters of build your wings on the way down, but otherwise it’s just one long list. i do my chapters based on words counts rather than content, so outlining by chapter doesn’t really make sense for me (siat is always around 15k a chapter, and everything else i do these days thats multi chapter is around 8k because that’s the best, but ngawb was 5k a chapter and i think for child king it was around 11k a chapter)

Do you try to complete the outlying before starting the fic? Or do you add to the outline as you go?

I’m constantly adding as a i go! my outlines are never really “complete” they’re just abandoned. i write down what i think will help me and tend to ignore the rest. sometimes i just. talking to myself in my outlines when i’m trying to think something through.

my outline for child king is under the cut because that’s one that’s a good mix of stuff i kept and stuff i threw out. DON’T JUDGE ME!! bad ideas don’t get written because they’re bad!! it’s part of the ~process~

child king

Summary: “A child king is still a king,” Deaton says softly. “A child king is still a child,” he snaps, but he knows this is an argument he’s already lost. – Stiles is a born alpha, and after the Hale fire, things get real complicated, real fast.

Stiles’s mom is the last remaining human from a pack that was destroyed by hunters. John is the one that helps her after, so he knows everything. When they move to beacon hills she doesn’t feel the need to say anything to the hale pack, because as far as they’re concerned she’s just a human, and she doesn’t want to get involved in pack business. But then stiles is born with red eyes. The doctor is quiet and scared john and Claudia freak out, but it’s because he’s a werewolf, which is a relief to parents because they thought something was wrong with their kid. Maybe they don’t know he’s an alpha, only that he’s a wolf? Or they know and they keep it a secret on purpose

Claudia is the one to approach mrs. Hale. She tells her that her son is a born werewolf, but that she’s not interested in joining their pack. Her husband is a new deputy and they just bought a house but they’ll move if they have to. “he’ll need a pack one day. It’s safer,” she says. “if he wants to join you one day, I won’t stop him. But that’s not a choice I’m willing to make for him.” Mrs hale agrees that they can say separate as in exchange for the sheriff smoothing over some ruffled feathers no and again. They agree. Claudia to sheriff “we’re going to have to move one day. Our son is an alpha, and he’ll need to make his own pack.”

Stiles is seven the first time he snarls at his mom, eyes flashing red, and she freezes. She’s got the pack instinct, it doesn’t matter that hes her kid, hes still her alpha, so its hella awkward. John can see how this will quickly spiral out of control if they can discipline their own kid. But stiles is the one to back down first, apologizing and doing as he’s told. There are careful power structures here, and this is the beginning of differentiating between stiles the human and stiles the wolf.

When his mom gets sick, stiles offers to turn her. Hale offers to turn her. She refused for Reasons that I have to figure out. Maybe the politics of it? Wanting to protect stiles and not wanting to become part of the hale pack

The fire happens. John ships stiles the hell out of dodge, because there are hunters about. He snoops around enough to figure out it was kate argent, but theres not really anything he can do about it

Scott knows about everything, and tries to tell his mom in a really akward way that they should trust stiles if they’re ever in danger, but she just laughs it off. Except when someone breaks in and threatens her with a gun, and she manages to make a phone call, it’s not 911, not john, but stiles, and she doesn’t even know why, regrets it as soon as it happens. But then stiles shows up and breaks both of the guys, eyes glowing red, and then calls his dad and scott to take care of it, because they’re humans, so they get human punishments. Melissa is told everything.

Scott has a bad asthma attack and, and Melissa asks about the bite. Scott is itching for it. He wants it so badly. Stiles has already promised to turn them when they turn 18, and Melissa knows that. She asks if theres a reason to wait, and the answer is nah, not really. So he gets the bite. Stiles being like uh psa punishments cant include scott staying away

After hale fire and stiles gets back, he’s shocked that hey just left, and that they left peter behind. He starts visiting peter several times a week. He tells his dad that they should pay for his medical care. They have a fuckton of money because his mom inherited all the pack wealth, and john doesn’t touch it because that’s stiles’s money, that’s werewolf money. But this is a werewolf thing, so he agrees. “his pack left him dad.”

Stiles bites Erica when they’re 14. Some point in middle school stiles wises up to the Isaac thing and tells his dad he needs to arrest his dad, or stiles is going to kill him, and he’s not even a little bit joking. Stiles hears Isaac crying while going by the house? In johns squad car. Makes them pull over, then bursts into the house. John goes with it because his son’s eyes are red.

Some point after the hales leave, things start trying to move into hale territory. Some wolves? Stiles smells them, and ends up at 10 years old telling them to fuck off. This how scott finds out? He’s with scott and his dad. Deaton is facing off against something? Panics when stiles intervenes, but stiles goes wolfy and red eyes and is like. This is mine now fuck off. Looks at the hale house, and finally says, we have to take care of this. We have to. But they don’t own the house or the land or any of it. They do … something

Stiles ends up having to deal with a lot of crap real young

Stiles has scott and Isaac when peter wakes up. Stiles is there, and peter isn’t crazy because he wasn’t abandoned to die alone. Stiles says he can stay, or he can go, not trying to pressure anything. Peter chooses to become part of stiles’s pack, because his family is either dead or abandoned him. Peter ends up moving in with them as he finishes healing and to get used to being in a pack and with stiles. It’s very strange for john, but it’s a werewolf thing and he’s trying to be supportive. After a couple months, stiles tells his dad that having peter is a relief, that there’s finally someone who knows things, someone older who can support him as a werewolf. Peter acts as his second, and he finally has some degree of authority that age has lost him. Stiles has peter take care of the hale house. Peter and stiles have the conversation, where peter is like the hale land is your land now. You’re the alpha of beacon hills. He does what stiles directs him to.

Isaac is living with scott under stiles’s direction ish. But lots of Melissa. Isaac like I don’t wantto be afraid anymore, I don’t want to hurt anymore, and stiles is like. Okay. We’ll fix this. But he doesn’t bite Isaac until he goes to a shitton of therapy and has mostly sorted himself out. For isaac’s fifteenth birthday, he bites him.

Erica is spur of the moment, it’s something that all instinct and very little thought. OR they’re dating and it happesn? Erica’s parents suck. Stiles doesn’t want the balancing act of being boyfriend and alpha.

Jackson is so fucking desperate to belong to something. He nags and nags and nags and finally stiles bites him at least half to shut him up.

“dad can I talk to you about something weird and uncomfortable and a little creepy” talks about crush on Lydia, and how he’s not sure if its because he has a crush on her or if it’s bc he thinks she’ll be good for the pack. Lydia joins before Jackson, and she’s the one that pushes stiles into it. Lydia and stiles are not dating, but she’s clearly high in the hiarchey.

Boyd? Just like. Shows up. Idk.

So by the time laura and derek show up, stiles’s pack is: john, Melissa, peter, Lydia, Jackson, danny, Isaac, boyd, Erica, deaton (who’s acting as emissary but is training danny). Maybe bring in some later characters, like malia and kira and cora. Ooooh maybe the twins show up before they became alphas, still run aways and looking for something else? Stiles takes them on. Stiles finds malia early on after the fire

Peter is willing to forgive derek but he has a lot of shit with laura. Stiles agrees to let laura and derek stay and not be part of his pack, although laura insists she doesn’t need his permission. She snaps at peter to come home with them, and he looks at her like she’s insane. He says there’s no hale pack, and if there was, he’s not interested. He’s a stillinkski wolf now. Cora too maybe? Double blow. Peter owns the hale land, and he makes it clear the day stiles turns 18 he’ll be signing it over to him. Stiles is known by the surrounding packs.

Stiles has to somehow defend the surrounding area, has to make it clear he’s his and that he’s not willing to give it up. It’s valuable land. People are going to come looking for it once people figure out it’s abandoned. When deaton finds out stiles is an alpha, he goes around as an emissary to the surrounding packs. Saying that its under stiles now. He’s known to them so it goes mostly uncontested. This is when he and the sheriff have the child king conversation.

Stiles tries really, really hard to be a good alpha. That means controlling the territory, and working with other packs when members go rouge or something goes wrong. He’s thirteen the first time he goes to lend a hand in a fight, and it’s young, it’s too young, but he’s an alpha. He has to do this, to maintain the peace. And the thing is – stiles is good at this, good at not pushing, at not using his status as a crutch or an excuse, instead as a tool.

Maybe this is why no one cares for laura’s excuses. As much as laura wasn’t ready to take on the responsibility, she was an adult, if only barely. Stiles is a literal child, and in her absence shouldered it all. So even if she does technically have a claim, none of them are willing to honor it. “if you kill alpha stiles, you won’t have allies, you’ll have enemies.”

Allison and argents. Stiles brings his pack to kill kate. Gives peter the chance to do it himself, and is so very proud when he says no. but instead of letting her go free, stiles crushes her throat. “revenge would have been trapping you all in here and setting the whole thing on fire. Justice would have been making you watch as she burned alive. This was mercy, and don’t you forget it.” Scott is hella in love with Allison, but he knows this comes first. Her mom is full of hatred, but stiles more than makes it clear that he has no problem with killing her too.

Stiles sees derek soon after. They’ve already gone back and forth a lot. But he and laura weren’t there. Stiles tells him what he did. They have a ~moment~

Derek wants so very much to join stiles’s pack, but he doesn’t want to lose laura.

Something finally convinces laura to take the plunge and the stillinksi pack is one happy family

#asks #anon #writing advice

152 notes · View notes

rickriordanfandam · 4 years

Text

opinions on riordanverse ; my edition

a lot of people have been doing this so i decided why not right. probably gna lose some followers or smth but anyways. pls respect my opinions! if u disagree, thats fine, but please be polite. unless any of my opinions strikes u as morally wrong then pls point it out to me respectfully. thanks!

- i actually liked drew. im so sorry to everyone who hates her but full offence, why. think about it this way ok, first of all drew became hc because silena died. silena was the traitor, the one who betrayed chb, yet after she died campers celebrated her as a hero? and then drew suddenly has to replace her and live up to idk that legacy she left behind,, when all of a sudden this girl named piper swoops in and takes her place. idk abt u but i wld be salty abt that too. not only that, but as an asian, the chances of drew having faced racism/bullying as a child is pretty high (she studies at brooklyn academy). which means that when she finds out shes a demigod, and arrives at chb where most of the campers are white (this is an assumption btw), she’d obviously be scared of being bullied for her skin color right?? so the first thing she wld do before the campers get to bully her is to bully them before they can do so. (sentence structure here is wack i apologize) ofc this might not even have happened, drew could have had a perfect childhood && was a b1tch for no reason, BUT EVEN THEN HER ROLE AS A BULLY WAS PRETTY VITAL BECAUSE THAT FURTHER SHOWED THE CONTRAST BETWEEN HER AND PIPER,, HIGHLIGHTING PIPER AS A HERO//GOOD CHARACTER,, AND THEREFORE MAKING READERS LIKE PIPER MORE. anyway stop hating on drew please. ALSO WHY IS THIS SO LONGA SDFJHG

- jason isnt bland, the fandom just kinda erased his backstory (thanks to @pjohoo-memes for the phrasing lol)

- reynabeth wouldnt have lasted/would have broken up several times. idk i just see them as two extremely powerful characters who have firm opinions and will definitely clash at some point. in a platonic relationship,, i can see them as really good friends but as lovers? idk i just think theyll break up

- PIPABETH

- i dont really like jercy,, i see them as better friends than lovers. also idt jason and percy were that close..?

- the dam and not my type jokes are srsly cringey and were never funny. ik that seems hypocritical since my username literally makes use of the dam joke but honestly i dont actually like the joke. its not funny to me and has never been funny

- the seven were not best friends. they definitely argued,, and honestly probably werent as close as the fandom makes them seem. like ure dumped with 6 other people, out of which u only know a few. my introverted ass would have jumped off the argo 2 quicker than leo valdez could bomb camp jupiter up. also leo was a dick to frank. so what if frank is bigger sized?? thats not a valid reason to tease him

- the fandom needs to stop hating on octavian while worshipping luke. if u hate luke and u say u hate octavian too, then okay. but if u tell me ure a luke stan but u despise octavian?? imma disagree w u. luke was worse than octavian im sorry. first of all, octavian being a dick was kinda justified. hes been after the praetor position for so long, and everyone keeps saying to “wait for jason” when suddenly this dude, whos a son of NEPTUNE (neptune wasnt liked much by romans), and the camp decides to make him praetor?? dude i would be pissed off big time. and then afterwards, he finds out that greek demigods are real and the dude they made praetor is greek. AND THEN GREEK DEMIGODS COME TO CJ AND ONE OF THEM BOMB IT UP?? octavian has been told all his life that greeks are scum and this dude called leo valdez attacks cj. sure it was an accident, but did octavian know that? no. so it was honestly justified that he was such a salty prick im just saying. also some of yall be hating on octavian for cutting a teddy bear open and thats the funniest shit ive ever heard i swear

- luke didnt go to elysium

- travis and connor stoll r way too underrated. the two have been head counselors of the hermes cabin since luke was revealed as a traitor, can u imagine the stress? luke, the person they probably looked up to as a brother, betrayed them. and they didnt even have time to process this when they were thrown the roles of being hcs. that would have been so stressful and i would probably have broken down if i were them. the stoll brothers taking turns to wake up at ungodly hours because a new camper is crying and homesick and terrified, the stoll brothers having to comfort and take care of new campers, having to deal with the amount of people in that cramped space because not enough campers are being claimed fast enough. having to resolve issues between campers in the hermes cabin all the time. the stolls arent just comedic relief, and we need to stop treating them as such

- tratie shldve been canon idc idc

- demigods of the demeter cabin arent talked about enough and i love the fact that meg was demeters kid. like she isnt the child of one of the big three yet shes so powerful.

- we need to hype clarisse up more her character arc was phucking amazing

- rachel is overhated. sis found out greek gods exist and regularly come down to earth to fuck around and went “ok cool”. queen shit behavior methinks

- the floor 19 crew of mcga is srsly underrated. like do u even remember halfborn gunderson, mallory keen, tj, etc??? bc i feel like we only remember samirah, magnus, alex, and sometimes blitz and hearthstone

- sadie (tkc) was kinda annoying at first. i like her more now tho but i rmb not liking her for a phat while

- tkc and mcga need more love

- carter kane and jason grace arent boring. theyre just really sweet boys who are too good for this world and yes yes yes

- hazel and frank (especially frank) need to be hyped up more. i hardly ever see anything about them. also yall seem to forget that frank was literally made praetor and that even hecate admired hazel and was willing to fight beside her because of how powerful she was

- frazels age gap is kinda sketch but i still think theyre really cute

- nico definitely had trauma from going to tartarus on his own

- GROVER IS PERCYS BEST FRIEND

- annabeth isnt smarter than leo but neither is leo smarter than annabeth. ive seen a lot of discussions about who is smarter and heres my hot take on it: neither. theyre equally smart, just in different ways. leos a genius mathematically speaking. he has no issues solving math problems meant for people much, much older than him. annabeth on the otherhand, is great at strategies etc. she can make an army of 1000 more powerful than the enemy, even if theyre outnumbered. so in my opinion, both are equally as smart//u cant compare their intelligence, because their talents lie in two different areas.

- while i do agree rick riordan isnt a god and that hes bound to make mistakes,, AND that hes given us a lot of representation,, if the representation offends the people its sposed to represent, then theres a problem. im talking about piper as a poc and wearing feathers in her hair. im not a poc, so i cant speak for them on whether or not its wrong, because i dont know either. HOWEVER, i have seen multiple posts BY pocs talking about how they didnt really like rick’s representation of piper, and thats an issue. pocs have been and are still oppressed and discriminated against by many. as a white cis man, we cant really blame him for not knowing (tho he could have done a research,, asked some pocs,, idk), but by representing pocs in that manner, hes influencing impressionable kids/teens into thinking “oh pocs wear feathers in their hair all the time” etc, which isnt true. the pjo/hoo series is extremely successful, and kids who read the books will probably start forming inaccurate opinions on pocs. the amount of fan art that depicts piper with feathers in her hair dont help either. “but rick said so in the books, so its canon” yeah well rick isnt a god and he can get some things wrong at times. im not saying we should cancel him, im saying we should start educating ourselves and not spread false info like pocs wearing feathers in their hair all the time. also that snake song shit where she sang Summertime was just- yeah. bc heres the thing you can be racist, and still include minorities, but portray them in a racist way. And even then, ignorance isn't a thing to admire. Getting those facts wrong still has a major impact. It continues to perpetuate racist stereotypes.

“ With the feather thing, I looked it up myself; it takes less than five minutes to figure out that Cherokees don't braid feathers into their hair. I didn't grow up in the country where my parents are from. I have many other first/second generation American friends who have also been through that, with a bit of a disconnect from their culture. But something that most of us have in common is that when we didn't know something, and when our parents weren't that big of a help, we looked it up. We sought out resources online and through other people from our culture to be able to connect more with where we came from. Some of that took a Google search. So I find it hard to believe that Piper, a girl who Rick's trying to portray as someone who is attempting to connect with her culture and is totally against racist stereotypes, wouldn't know that eagle feathers aren't supposed to be braided into your hair casually. She may be disconnected from her culture, but she's also shown to want to connect back to it. Piper wouldn't be casually braiding feathers into her hair while also telling off people for being racist. It makes no sense.” - reddit thread (down below)

for those of yall who wanna know more please please read this, it has a lot of things i wanna add in here : https://www.reddit.com/r/camphalfblood/comments/gy3gl2/piper_mcleans_portrayal_is_innacurate/

as well as https://finding-my-culture.tumblr.com/post/189422373260/maxie-ratties-and-cattie-finding-my-culture

i will be posting screenshots of these in future posts so if ure viewing this on ig and u dont have tumblr,, dont worry

- the fact that most of the strong female characters in the series refuse to be “girly”, and ngl i dont really like that. just because ure girly doesnt mean u cant be strong.

- piper would have been a great way for him to start making the strong characters act girlier, but instead he went with the “I’m not like other girls” trope which is quite obnoxious to hear constantly, and I don’t think it’s necessarily great for younger girls to read that idea growing up. the closest we've ever had to a strong female character who was also into "girly" things was Silena. when I was younger I admired Piper's "I'm not like other girls" thing, but then I got older and realized that the whole mentality of "not like other girls" is super obnoxious, and a little bit toxic

i have a heck load more that i cant rmb rn but yeah feel free to add more

130 notes · View notes

fipindustries · 3 years

Text

critical missive

dedicated to @cryptovexillologist

oh boy arent we in a fine pickle now?

usually i enjoy talking openly and bluntly about my opinions on whatever the last thing i read is, safe and secure in the knowledge that the author will most likely never stumble on my measily 700 followers tumblr blog, so i am free to express my opinion to my heart’s content knowing that no feelings will get hurt.

mission critical would be no different except i talked with the author and read their acknoledgement and the AMA they did on discord after writing the story and they have endeared themselves thoroughly to me so my language will have to be neutered, at least for the first half of this excercise. afterwards things will get a bit harsher but i’ll try to rest at ease in the knowledge that we seem to be kindred spirits and i would be delighted in hearing any kind of criticism of my work either positive or negative.

ok, enough coaching done, lets go on to what i thought of this novel.

it is a delightful romp, as i said before, the worldbuilding is understated and realistic with enough glimpses of depth and detail to suggest a much larger picture. this world feels inhabited, lived in, like it was well chewed on for long by the author before putting pen to paper. consequentially the characters that arose from this world feel like they belong, they feel like real people with real lifes. by far the strongest sections of the book were the flashbacks to their lives before the plot started. their voices, regretably, do sound very similar when interacting with each other but in their own sections the characters shine in their charm and cleverness. every time one of their flashbacks ended i was left with the intrigue and the desire to know how their particular story would continue.

the terra ignota influences are very noticeable, the world and its people carry the same kind of almost childlike positivity and innocence, the same kind of cheerful, happy go lucky trust in human progress and the great project of humanity for the future with the same sobering forlorn attitude towards the horrors of the past.

on top of that its silly, gosh in heaven it is silly. it has moments of cringe, in the best of ways. strange slapdash bits of flavor, immature non sequiturs, small indulgences from the author’s own weird interests and dumb meme humor. i do love me my awkward corners in a book, after all it is those that make something unique. there is a clear personality poking through and it is a delightful personality to meet.

i cant help but like this almost more for the context in which it was written than for the content itself, it was done during quarentine as a way to both stave off cavin fever and to process the author’s feelings regarding their gender identity. as someone who also wrote a story where i almost deliberatly tried to trick my self into breaking my own egg and who turned madly towards creative endeavors to survive the pandemic i can sympathize strongly with this. i am really happy that the author got to do this and kickstarted a project towards a big, possibly decades spanning trilogy.

so, yeah, those were the nice things i had to say, if you are content enough with that you can stop here but if you are curious to know more, well... you can

in short: it is a bit of a mess. again, im willing to be lenient, considering the way in which this was worked on, this is very much a really early first draft. the second half of this story was a very slow and very boring trudge towards a sudden end.

first, the fact that the flashbacks and the worldbuilding bits are the strongest part of this story means the actual plot itself suffers from being fairly boring and generic. “astronauts explore alien planet, find spooky stuff there” was already old hat by the 50′s. it is a plot so worn down and archetypical that it really cant survive if that is literally all you are going to do with it, and that is kind of all that this book does. i did mention moments of flavor and strange self indulgence. we needed way more of those. yes thats right, im saying that this story was not self indulgent enough. when you have such a well trodden plot such as this, worn down to the point that it becomes paint by the numbers, we need quirky, we need cringe, we need strange excess and personality. the author mentioned that they would love to see some of the weirder alexandria fan fics, well so do i! be the miracle you want to see in the world! the moments alexandria debated if wether identifying as a trilateral were amazing but they were not enough. we have a great structure here but lets put some proper meat on these bones, some proper fat and skin, some clown make up and a weird novelty hat and outrageous clown shoes. im getting carried away here, lets get back to the point.

the other problem is there is not a clear trajectory for the story here, no well defined moment of climax and the emotional beats tend to fall a bit flat or to come out of nowhere. there are emotional crisis which i sort of missed or didnt get where they came from. the characters act in ways that are hard to relate to that come off as stilted. the way they conduct themselves through the mission felt at times weirdly unprofessional and like it didnt follow much of a logical throughline, and when i say logical i dont meant “i wanted the characters to act hyperrational at all times” i mean i want the characters to act in ways that make human sense. ironically the one character that acted a bit too human for my tastes was the AI. alexandria is an interesting character but i feel that the place to explore that idea is not in the middle of an incredibly important mission where having your mainframe experience a crisis might not be the most practical thing in the world.

the ending was jarringly sudden, i didnt feel there was a proper resolution and finishing it off with flashbacks to the time the characters were training was... odd. i reached the last line and it felt like the story had just decided to stop without ever having reached anything that came even close to the third act. all of this can be easily fixed with some concientious editing and a complete rearrangement of the different sections of this story.

all in all a great first step in what i hope will be a long career as a writer.

#mission critical #it was nice #if a bit flawed

8 notes · View notes

tomatograter · 4 years

Note

Do you have any tips on starting fics? Like thinking of idea's, getting motivation, and thinking up plots and themes?

Think of things you want to read about! The litmus test of anything writing-related to me is if i think it is compelling for myself. Trying to appeal to an outside audience can be very discouraging and counterproductive to getting words out.

I realize not everyone thinks like this, but i believe fics should be no different than other kinds of fiction, so; try to think of a Genre for your story while you're brainstorming it. This could flatten the process. It doesn't have to be set in stone, but ideally, placing what you intend to write as an "action" "adventure" "horror" "western" "dissertation" "comedy" "scifi" "missing scenes" etc etc story can be helpful to develop an atmosphere, further ideas, define what kinds of devices are to be employed and such.

Specially when it comes to fanfic and dealing with prewritten characters (see: dming for tabletop roleplaying games), i also think it is useful to write a story that challenges your characters. Not "i have a setting. I guess the characters will kick it up somehooooooow?". Make it tailor made. Character is afraid of snakes? Throw a fucking naja at them. This is a critical moment, what happens? Whos affected? Why should we care? What are the consequences? That gets your brain running. "Character is very invested in (X)" ok, now crush it. Same questions as before, why should we care? Can you pierce it back together? So on and so forth.

When you're cobbling it together, think of what kinds of situations could make a good contrast to their personality, troubles, weaknesses and a little bit of their strengths. (Balance it out.) It keeps things more engaging and interesting if your character is walking towards something, rather than being limblessly pushed by a series of events.

Being acquainted with the characters you're writing, their ticks, interests and embarassing traits is very helpful here. Play to their tune.

Dont let your scenes be an afterthought. You'll still have to write them after all!!! Not every scene has to be a showstopper, but if you find yourself writing large swatches of text whose only purpose is filling up space and not doing much tonally, emotionally, or character-wise, what is the point? Write things you want to read about. Think of the minutiae. 'How is this meeting/development/conflict different from others ive seen? Is it funnier? Is it unexpected? Is it cute? Is it embarassing - how can i make it evoke something like these traits?'

Write to your/your audience's level. Purple prose is cool, but are you comfortable with it? Does the story call for it? Are you sure you aren't more comfortable with other structures? Homestuck fanfic is neat because it's the fandom where I've seen the most entertaining works utilizing second person, and they can really rock.

Be indulgent. Don't be afraid to be stupid. This is self-explanatory. Keep a little document with all your ideas and dumb thoughts, no matter how messy they are. You'll eventually thank yourself for writing them down and not losing them later. Who cares if you want to write a fairy themed romance set in space? Wait, thats homest

Read other fanfics, sure, but read things that aren't fanfic. A lot of fanworks follow molds that may not be the best to replicate in your own writing. (Remember the "genre" bit from above? This is also helpful here, because then you know what to look for.) Hell, you don't even have to settle down to read all 600 pages of a book. Read opening statements from different authors. Compare and contrast first chapters. Find out what you like and what you dislike re: writing and try to replicate it in the lab. Do you have a story hook? Do these authors have a story hook that made you want to keep reading? How was that applied?

You're not going to write the fucking Mona Lisa on the first draft. Get that concept into your head, make peace with it, there, now you're friends. First drafts suck ass.

First drafts should suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck big smelly turds.

You're not doing it wrong. Try not to be discouraged! Instead, take it as a chance to read over your story and figure out what is not working. Write it again, with improvements. Personally i can't write anything straight through and i know very little people who can without having planned it beforehand - thats another keyword. Loosely planning scenes and a sequence of events showing how things happen is good even if you're improvising most of it, it gives you direction. Even better, sometimes it can help you visualize entire chapters or stories before punching them out. Even better! Crossing out the little blurbs of scenes you've completed and seeing how many are left to go can keep you motivated to finish the whole thing.

Writing is a laborious process, you dont need to make it more mystifying. Most of the magic comes with editing, re-writing, and adjustements.

Also, when you're done writing let it rest. Coming back to a text you think is finished 1-2 days later can be very illuminating, as opposed to posting straight away.

I hope this is useful in some way, and if it isn't, maybe this could be more up to your speed:

youtube

(Don't be intimidated by the equation. That was a very optional tip in a runtime of friendlier ones)

This lecture has some engaging tips on quickly snapping up concepts for short stories - your intention may not be writing a short story, but you still can get a kick out of how quickly she can structure them, brainstorming, what is used to give a sense of narrative progress, how to break complex things into bites, etc. Don't be afraid to learn stuff from people who have been doing this for longer than you have, but remember no writing instruction is necessarily universal.

#fanfic #meta #?

93 notes · View notes

ask-mortarion-the-death-lord · 3 years

Text

some continuation i guess

this time with the emperor

we get the basic rundown, born to human parents, massively gifted, immortal, hidden among humanity and all that. It’s here where his motivation to shepherd humanities psychic awakening is really first brought up [something thats given overall more prominence in the book as well]. a much more interesting note however

now, this probably seems inconspicuous enough at first glance. Indeed even in modern canon 40k’s imperium is first actually created over ten millennia ago. However, take into consideration this little bit earlier in the lore section that i didn’t think to much off at the time

now, taking this into consideration, the implication here is that the age of strife, something that is typically thought to end right before the unification wars in modern 40k lore, is only considered to have ended after the emperor’s internment upon the golden throne, and that further the imperium seems to only officially be a thing upon the that internment. Now this suggests some things to me, two large ones possibly being

a) the unification wars and the great crusade were more so part of the same wider war, ie that the wars ‘only the emperor remembers’ were a large conflict between various warlords to determine who got the rightful rulership of the crumbling pre age of strife human civilization. or

b) the emperor started the age of strife in order to dominate humanity to control and shepherd the psychic awakening he saw humanity stumbling into.

take your pick i guess. food for thought and all that. also

in my earlier post i jumped the gun, the 1st edition emperor is still a punk who needs human souls to survive. Though in this case its not some vague need to bind his soul to the chair or anything, no, its just that he apparently cant eat or drink anything else and hes really god damn hungry and thirsty all the time. Which is hilarious and i almost feel is just a better explanation in general.

to be fair he does look like this 10 millenia later

makes sense he would need to eat unconventionally.

as well, as opposed to specifying 1000 psyker souls a day it just mentions a vague ‘hundreds dying every day’ which is still a lot but also likely less then modern emps eats everyday.

some explanation/emperor wank on why the emperor needs to be fed everyday. not much to say, just that i feel like the implications here atleast lean a bit more towards the emperor being pitiable in his own right as someone so dedicated to this vague future ideal of humanity that hes forsaken most of his own physically and mentally.

apparently humanity underwent no genetic changes over 38,000 years that werent the direct result of mutation from environmental hazards.

@ lordsofmedrengard early dark angels lore, here we can see where they got stuck with the moniker of “first legion” from in 30k modern lore, and its cause here in the first 40k book they’re noted as being ‘honored as the first marine chapter’. Guess it was something they felt needed to carry over... I like the copious more amounts of wine in the old dark angels chapter, and they seem a lot more aristocratic here then in modern 40k. Which makes an interesting contrast compared to the barbarian stocks of soldiers mentioned earlier in the book as being preferred for “legiones astartes”

we get some rundowns on the branches of the adeptus terra next, not much particularly new to note outside of them all being part of this larger governmental priesthood. some highlights though

the old school custodes uniforms are in fact the traditional uniform of the custodes in 1st edition.

custodes wielded ‘lasers built to resemble the traditional and symbolic guardian spear’ whatever the fuck that means

tech priests and the adeptus mechanicus were monastic monks who primarily lived on earth and didn’t stick metal parts into and all over their bodies. they were consequently much more boring as the echlissiarchies IT department.

arbites basically doubled in the sisters of battle’s role as the militant branch of the state religion.

arbites fashion choices and the arbites acting in a similar manner of chaplains as well really.

the more voluntary nature of the astronomican in the first edition, the trainees learn how to safely let the battery drain them but it still seems to be a demanding job with a high fatality rate

they also share monastic tendencies and a uniform with the mechanicus, though theres is a fashionable blue.

included the entire bit on the administratum cause honestly, i find it incredibly fascinating. The parallels are certainly there between modern and 1st edition administratum, but i feel how its presented here just has more teeth and intrest to it. That is to say, its not just the ‘oh what fate, administration has become even more horrid, tedious and soul draining in this grim dark future, woe be us!’ that tends to get tossed around when mocking administration. Instead its a literal organization of religious monks dedicated to tax filings, school administration, rezoning and what have you. Blessed be the regulations and all that. Is there small cults dedicated to paper clip gods? what holy rites are involved when faxing documents compared to when faxing fourms? This is shit i want to know more about.

all adeptus terra adepts carry a knife and are likely legally allowed to shiv you here as well incidentally.

the inquisitors are mostly the same, though with no mention of chaos whatsoever. less sub divisions from the looks of it too. this bit did catch my attention though.

psychic powers seemed to be a hell of a lot more common among inquisitors back then as well.

quirky inquisitors, who’d have thunk it. [its not that surprising, i just like that they took the time to mention it is all]

don’t know wtf is going on here though, especially as to whats going on with dudes armour on the left. looks like a knight crossed with an oven.

we get the usual spiel of psyker background, but then we get some interesting differences in opinions here on psykers compared to modern 40k imperium. How justified or not it is, is up to you but its definitely a shift in tone i would say.

possibly the proto servitor narrative wise? As said, 1st edition 40k readily uses robots, so servitors would be unnecessary. technomats on the other hand fall between that as menials who likely operate these things but dont full on replace them like servitors eventually will.

astropaths are basically the same, though the 90% statistic im not sure if it holds over to modern 40k. im thinkin likely but i could be wrong.

navigators outside of not ubiquitously having the third eye mutation also seem to have much more personal freedom and respect in imperial society in 1st edition. probably pretty comfy to be a navigator back then really. Aside from that, navigator families are still a thing.

space marine time!

well we get the same ‘feral world recruits as warrior god soldiers’ sortta stuff, it is mentioned and stressed that hive world criminals apparently make better stock in terms of raw aggression. Entire gangs will even be rounded up for the purpose of making new space marines.

the early process to create a space marine. no special organs, but bio-chem and the black [plastic?] carapace were there from the start, and hypno indoctrination is alluded to. Apparently this is still barely controlled chaos though. [and on a personal note, nothing that indicates it was male exclusive either, outside of general attitudes of the 1980′s]

early organization graph of a space marine chapter.

chapter markings and armour

AND THE POSSIBLITY OF SPACE MARINE BAGPIPES, WHERE ARE THEY GW WHERES MY SPACE MARINE BAGPIPERS!

iron hands apparently only had the one iron hand?

list of chapter symbols with names and colours, these keep appearing in the book. seems i was wrong on only the imperial fist symbol, its actually the crimson fists chapter symbol so thats 3 of the modern big 9 that didn’t exist back then.

we get a break down on the typical structure of a fortress monastery for space marines next, using the space wolves funnily enough who were far more normal as it were in 1st edition [and also their home world was lucan isntead]. and its got a lot, and well its all fairly interesting ill just shotgun blast some highlights

that the space wolves had an entire fuckin ship hanging in their great hall i find endlessly amusing, so thats why its there. the rest are interesting in terms of the domestic situation of space marines.

#space marines #space wolves #the emperor #mechanicus

28 notes · View notes

adhbabey · 4 years

Note

hi. im really sorry for bothering you. this is also a long ask so im really sorry. and im sorry if im ranting. i feel like i need to explain and give the entire story and everything. it ends up leaning to overexplaining. and im already doing it. ok. so sorry. so, for the last few months (six or seven) ive been questioning if i have adhd. i show many symptoms such as sensory overload, hyperfocus, emotional dysregulation, rsd, delayed sleep phase syndrome, inattention (1/6)

hyperfixation and emotional hyperarousal, some problems with memory and object permanence, a selective memory like i memorized an entire 369 page book but i forgot where my phone was when i put it out of my direct line of sight,

i stim (drawing, moving, humming, etc) and i need stimulation or i die, I’m bad with remembering to shower/eat/brush my teeth and i will forget to change my outfit for days on end,

I have trouble controlling my volume and all of this: ( Do you feel like you’ve ruined everything when someone tells you that you did something wrong? Do you think you’ve offended people when you haven't? Do you have a hard time judging reality correctly (like you think you’ve offended or hurt someone and you feel awful but it didn’t bother them that much)? ) But I still don't show the "normal" signs of ADHD.

I’m not loud or disruptive in class. i get excellent grades. i took the act in 7th grade and got a 23 (good for a seventh grader).

i don’t struggle with getting things done, if they have a deadline. no deadline, never even going to start. but i’m known in school as the smart kid, with perfect grades and in the gifted program. when I’m at home i get all my homework done immediately. everything is turned in one time or before the deadline.

I don’t have time blindness unless I’m hyperfocusing. otherwise I’m way too acutely aware of time. i can guess what time normally within two minutes without looking at a clock.

I’m constantly stressed about making it to places on time and am never late. and ADHD is a disability, but I’m doing fine, it hasn't affected me really at all, so i don’t feel like I’m valid enough to talk to people about getting a diagnoses or even talk to people that i might have it. i don’t even think they'd believe me. they'd just brush it off that i was lying, i was trying to justify why i forget what I’ve just been told or why i disrespect the teachers by drawing instead of looking them in the eye.

I just don’t know what to do, and so I’m asking you, do you have any advice? should i talk to someone?

It’s not affecting me really. I’m not struggling. i have friends, social skills and i do great in school, i turn things in on time and all that. i don’t have major issues that a lot of ADHD people face. You have to have at least six symptoms interfere with your school, home, social life before you’re 12. I’m 14. but i show so many now i don’t know what to do. sorry for the rant. any advice?

I’m so sorry I didn’t answer this sooner, by the way, I’ve not been able to get on my computer in the past couple of days, so I deeply apologize. But for first looks, by the fact that you made a wall of text, in which I edited down for an easier time reading, you absolutely have ADHD.

I’m going to say this, one thing, it absolutely affects you. Just because you aren’t having bad days, doesn’t mean you never will. And it’s likely that you’re not struggling so much, because you are currently in a structured environment. I was in a similar position when I was still in public school. I didn’t realize that I had ADHD until I was 20 and entered an unstructured environment for college. It was then I began to struggle so much that I wasn’t able to clean my dorm room and had an ant infestation.

And you don’t need to be disruptive to have hyperactivity symptoms, especially if you are assigned female at birth, afab people are taught to mask things, and tend to end up being called drama queens, chatty and daydreamers. So if you feel the need to brush off your symptoms, its because we are unfortunately taught that.

With executive dysfunction, its literally about having a hard time starting tasks, thats what they mean. Also many neurodivergent people can relate to the “gifted kid syndrome”, you are not alone in that.

For time blindness, being stressed about the time or hyperaware can be a sign of overcompensating for the fact that you may not have an internal clock. Time blindness is when you are doing something and next time you check its 2 hours later but it felt like 15 minutes. If you have anxiety about the time its a sign you experience time blindness.

Also its a neurodivergent thing to hate eye contact, and with us who have ADHD, it helps to focus on something visually to listen to them. Stimulating certain senses can be important for not getting distracted, because its a controlled thing to keep you occupied, so your other senses can be used better.

You should talk to your school counsellor and parents if you can, tell them that you relate to specific symptoms on this list. Say you think you deal with executive dysfunction and all this stuff. Because while you may not struggle as much right now, you may struggle worse later and its important to start managing it now for the future.

I hope this helps. Sorry for taking so long!!!

#babey asks #adhd #aaaaa

21 notes · View notes

loreswritings · 4 years

Text

What to do when you get demotivated

I myself struggle with this too and I have found some tricks or ideas that might help you too!

1. Have strict goals This might seem a little difficult at first but it is very important and in my opinion very helpful. What do you want to tell in this chapter? — write it down (in keywords). It helps me to keep everything structured and organized. If I have an idea that won’t be coming up in the next few chapters I can easily write it down and when time comes, look it up on my list. You have your Story planned out and you know what's coming. You can look forward on the scenes that you like the most which keeps you motivated.

2. Remember why you started writing your story in the first place Why have you started writing it in the first place? What made you so desperate to write? What was the point where you were looking forward to writing? Were there scenes you had in mind while starting your story?

3. Share your thoughts and drafts with someone. I know that may be a difficult task depending on your situation but I believe it is worth it. Having to figure out your story alone can be very boring and demotivating sometimes. Go and share your thoughts with friends or family. Maybe they have some good ideas that could help you or just have them for support.

4. This is a very important one — Give yourself time! I know this is hard, I struggle with this too but don’t press yourself to write. If you really feel like you don’t want to write then wait. The best stories are made with time, that have a lot of thought in it. Take as much time as you need. A day, a week, a month, it does not matter. It shouldn’t be a duty for you to finish a chapter or a whole book.

5. busy yourself with other aspects of your story. - Edit your Story. Go through the things you’ve already written and change the things you don’t really like at the moment. - Correct your Story - Add details. The more details the better. The challenging thing is to not overdo it. Only add details when it would help the story.

Good Example: Kevin glared out his window as he waited for his morning’s coffee, cursing the frozen snow from ever pummeling down from the sky. He couldn’t even see his car with all that ice locked onto it—just the shape that somewhat resembled a car that resided in the place where he normally parked.

Bad Example: Kevin Kelly glared out of his big window on his right as he waited for his morning’s coffee—a latte macchiato with extra cinnamon for the cold season, cursing the frozen snow from ever pummeling down from the grey blurred sky. He couldn’t even see his car—a Mercedes-Benz with all that ice locked onto it—just the vague shape that somewhat resembled a car that resided in the place where he normally parked.

Thats all for today! -writingguide-prompts

#writing #writing a story #writing advice #writingabook #writingbooks #advise #motivation #writing motivation #book

20 notes · View notes

hazelenergy · 4 years

Text

How I Digitally Paint like a Scenic Artist/Designer

Aka: how I did this and put my degree to good use.

LONG POST WARNING

Step 1: Research.

First off, get to your image search. If you are going to be using Google, you may want to type “-pinterest” in the search to eliminate the countless boards.

I had to figure out clothing that is vaguely late 1800s. I found a multitude of reference images that were fancier clothes- but I wanted to find images of clothing for kindred across all social classes. Photographs from the era and paintings are your friend. They will more accurately showcase what was worn.

After Fashion research comes location research. The 1890s in America is known for the rapid industrialization. Factories were getting bigger and work days were getting longer. But, I wanted the moonlight to be cascading into the place, illuminating the scene. This means I needed to find a structure that had skylights or let sunlight in. And the best images I found? Slaughterhouses. Fitting, huh?

The same rule for fashion still stands- if you can find photographs or paintings from the era- they’re better. There are tons of places still standing today from the 1800s. But today, they look WAY different. Ya know, Abandoned! So just be sure to take this into consideration if you search “abandoned slaughterhouses” or go trespassing like I did.

Lastly, pose research. Finding the poses for a fight scene can be tedious. So, I enlisted some help from a few fight choreographers and stunt men. You can record their fights and play them back at quarter or half speed. You can also get a mirror and flop on the floor a bunch. I did both. This lets you see the action/motion lines you are going to replicate in the drawing. Heres how we initially did fina’s pose:

And sometimes you have to go back and get a clean shot. I ended up using this pose for the axe.

Step 2: Set up and Background!

When you open a new file, set it to the dimensions and resolution you want. I was working at 600. Usually, I’m working at 300-350. You can always reduce resolution. Its hard to prevent fuzzy lines if you increase it later.

I cannot stress the following enough:

You work background to foreground. Big Shapes and areas to little shapes. Work your way forward. What this means is you need to fill in as much space as possible first. Then build your details. I prefer working as follows: Big Solid tones, Soft shadows, Dark Shadows, Highlights, then final blend. Once you finish this, put an overlay on top. This knocks everything back and helps create the illusion of depth. See this at work with the video below or here

Step 3: Figure Drawings + Composition

Utilize that research and images you collected to pose your characters. I create subfolders for each set of figures. Organization is important here. This will help keep you on the right layer and prevent the eternal digital artist struggle of “Fuck that was on the wrong layer!”

Even after you move on to lineart and shading, Keep the sketch layer as a reference. You may need to see what youre original notes/ figures looked like as you do the lineart and shade. Don’t be afraid to move them around and alter the composition rn. You want to be able to make changes. Make notes! Detail light sources!

I’m about to through out some art jargon:

You want to think about asymmetric balance. The easiest way to achieve this in an eye-pleasing manner is to use the Fibonacci spiral. Yeah. This boi:

Place your figures and actions in a similar sequence to the spiral and the viewer’s eye tends to naturally follow it. This is sometimes called the Golden Ratio in the art world.

Doesn’t need to be perfectly on the spiral. You can break it- but its an excellent tool to plan how things move in the piece.

Step 4: Lineart

Once you got things sketched- its time to do the lineart. I’m using clip studio paint’s standard brushes. Nothing fancy. I often switch between the G-pen and the For Effect Liner. Mapping and Turnip are for thicker lines.

Usually I set these pens to a specific thickness depending on where I’m drawing.

My background figures are lined at 0.05 thickness, the midground is .1 to .2, Fina is .3 and the foreground is .4. I set my stabilization high to help keep my lines smooth. Stabilization 100 means there’s a significant delay between where the pen is and the cursor. I like the stabilization to be at 20 for freehanding and at 50 ish for outlining. Dont become completely reliant on the stabilization though. Good and smooth lineart is drawn from the arm not the wrist. Your range of motion is severely limited if you only move your wrist. Practice moving from your elbow and you’ll be surprised how much smoother your lines get.

Once I finish lining the figures, I usually go around it with an outline. This does three things:

1. Solidifies the figure and cleans lineart for paint bucket tool. More on that in the next step.

2. Its a stylistic choice. Helps give it that comic book feel with a heavy outline.

3. Pushes figures forward or back in the composition. Thicker outline helps denote that a figure is farther forward than another. My background figures have no outline to push them away

Step 5: Digitally coloring

For each figure you are going to select outside the lineart.

Create a new layer under the lineart

Invert the selection. Paint bucket. You should now have a solid shape of the figure under the lineart. Do not deselect.

Create a new layer above the one color. Title it solid colors. Paint in thick, solid tones. I like to use the mapping pen and turnip pen to color in my solid tones: skin, clothing, hair, etc.

After that, deselect. Create a multiply layer if you can. If your program does not have a multiplier function, Pick a tone you want to use for shadows and lower the opacity (usually 30-40% I like to use lavenders or blue tones). It will not be as vibrant, but you can edit it in post. Select off of the solid colors layer. I like to start with skin tones. Use the airbrush tool to create soft shadows. You don’t want to create harsh lines on this layer.

Then repeat this process with harsh lines.

Then knock it all back with an overlay. If you dont have the ability to create an overlay, you can again drop a solid color and lower the opacity, but you’ll have to mess with the color balance/ brightness/contrast to let all the hard work come through.

You’re going to repeat this for every single figure. Here’s a few color theory tips though.

Your overlay colors should be darker (not more vibrant) in the foreground and lighter (avoid using pure white) in the background. This helps with the depth of the piece. Things closer tend to be darker (not always true, depends on lighting)

You can choose to use color theory to aid your shadows. Instead of choosing black or grey for shadows, choose a complimentary color. I used a lot of green for this piece, I used red for really dark shadows. Its not that black drains color- its just loses some depth if not used carefully.

Keep your colors consistent. Helps unify the piece. You can strategically break the consistency to draw focus. For example, Fina is the only figure with a true blue overlay. This helps her stand out from the other figures who have reds and greens.

Step 6: Touch Ups and Final Renderings

Now comes the most tedious part. If you’re like me, your computer fans have been whirring for the last few hours trying to render this monster of a file. If you havent already, SAVE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD

These are the last four layers I have for the entire piece. Here, I am trying to create effective and believable lighting. This kind of work I have only been able to achieve in clip studio or photoshop. You can do it with normal layers, but choose your colors CAREFULLY. Stay away from pure white. Carefully utilize your knowledge of light and shadow to create soft highlights. Harsh lines tend to be a stylistic choice for me. The final layer, subtract, dulls out harsh red tones. I used this as a final overlay to help put everyone and everything in the scene. Without it, things are a little too green and skin tones are a little too blushed for vampires.

The challenge here is I want to tone down the red, but not lose the vibrancy of the blood. So, shift it to a blue. This also helped reinforce the “nighttime” effect. Its only a slight change.

Final thoughts:

Whenever you finish something, its important to reflect.

1. I am so FUCKING PROUD OF MYSELF. This is easily one of the most complicated pieces I’ve done in a while- and I’ve made 16′ tall faux stained glass. Brag. Let yourself feel awesome cuz you just made something awesome.

2. I timed myself on the piece. I could have easily spent another 7 hours on it. But its important to know when to stop messing with it. Partially for budget reasons but also when you get down to the details you can make yourself go insane. Theres also a ton of detail work I lost cuz of overlays or its just too small to notice. Fina’s face? hard to see cuz its not close enough.

3. I needed to take frequent breaks for this piece. That was good. Resting and stretching was very important. That is one of the reasons why I was able to work so fast.

4. I started doing more digital art in April 2020. I have to say, practice makes perfect. I practice drawing and digital painting for at least 3 hours a day.

That discipline has allowed me to improve so rapidly. So- I don’t wanna hear shit about I can’t possibly get this good! Or I couldn’t even draw a stick figure! BULLSHIT. You can. Get yourself some free software like Krita or Autodesk sketchbook and start playing!

And thats what I got! Thanks for coming with me on this long post!

#digital art #my art #okay to reblog #how to #long post

27 notes · View notes

rogue-hammer · 4 years

Text

ENTRY #2: ELDAR (PART 1)

“I watched the Forging of the Widow Makers, the 12 swords of Kaine, I watched as one was stolen and hidden far away.”

Eldar. The ancient Race, one time masters of the Galaxy and Seers without equal.

ELVES IN SPACE! SPACE….Space….space…

Believe it or not there is quite the history to this race outside of the typical hum drum of being the most powerful psykers, or, dumbasses who gave birth to Slaanesh. The history of the Eldar and their varied kin goes all the way back to Rogue Trader, and their lore has seen many an interesting tale told. The question is, do you have what it takes to make something out of it all?

Will you follow the Path of Asuryani?

Become a Exodite?

Mayhap an Outcast?

Or have you followed the path of Damnation?

#1 Study the history and model scope of the Eldar

As much as I love poking fun at any Knife ear, and their fans, I admit to a love of how otherworldly GW have made the Eldar over the years.

Going all the way back to the RT era, when the eldar where mostly but Corsairs and Enigmatic Xenos who seemed to materialize from the ether and sow discord for some unknowable reason, to the Golden Era of GW where these space elves where given a giant and truly inspiring background of triumph, a fall, loss, and desperate measures taken to keep their now dying race alive in the face of a hostile Galaxy.

For this reason I suggest to anyone interested in Eldar as a faction, to go back in time and visit some old books and codexes, as well as the classical ranges of minis.

Eldar once looked the part of eerie and almost frightening Alien creatures from a time before man crawled forth from his birthworld.

#2 Throw out the meta

First things first. Many of us probably grew up knowing the Eldar in their Post 2nd ed form. From 3rd ed’s chopped down Codex, to the easily abused expansion, and finally culminating in the 4th/5th ed incarnation of what has basically been the Eldar mold in modern times.

Hordes of Aspect warriors, spam grav tanks, spam Wraith-units, Spam Psykers and yes now a days, Spam Wraith Knights.

Or if you lean to the dark side, ummm Spam Raiders. Yeah just, Spam Raiders.

To put it blunt, Eldar meta is probably the most boring of all git-tastic play styles in the game of 40k, challenged perhaps only by Tau.

Throw it out. Read the lore. Apply it.

Eldar don’t have Hordes of ravening Aspect warriors to send in waves at their opponents.

Raiders are cool, if you can afford to have them and risk losing them in a raid. And your not likely to toss your most veteran Kalabite warriors into an attritional grind against Mon’kei gaurdsmen.

Wraith constructs are a nigh unthinkable resource to ever waste, and oh yeah did we mention not every fucking Eldar Force takes an Avatar of Khaine as it requires a heavy cost in order to even summon one of those things?

The Aldaeri have an interesting and sophisticated way of waging war, and they have highly advanced tech and powers in order to over come their foes, even if your actually trying to put some theme into it.

Lets discuss some interesting ways to look at your Eldar, seperating them into the 2 official factions, as well as ways to whip up an Exodite army or Corsair force.

#3 Craftworld Eldar.

Craftworld eldar are the main stay of the Aldaeri race, and the one lots of people tend to flock to when it comes time to game. And why not? Aspect warriors? Wraith Constructs? Tons of psykers and Autarchs? Whats not to like?

So how does one go about making a CW Eldar army worthy of a true hobbiest?

First things first, find a theme that digs deep into the lore. Are you;

-A Craftworld Defense force, using the might of your titanic space fairing world’s militia forces to fight off attackers. Squads of Guardians/Storm Guardians, backed by mobile weapons platforms and War Walkers. Your troops sailing into combat aboard Wave serpents and Viper Attack craft, all under the covering fire of punishing Heavy weapons platforms? Remember that all Eldar serve in the defense of their CW, and guardian and basic military based tech in an Eldar army is still some of the best around ( The best in certain editions).

-A Specialized Craftworld force, highly trained in a certain area of combat? Crack open the old 3rd ed Codex Craftworlds sup. And find some excellent ways to theme an army based off the major worlds, or perhaps mix and match certain styles in order to create your own world, with a unique color scheme, heraldry and history streching back to the fall, or even farther. House rule in the various advantages and limits of the old CW sup. And enjoy playing with the different styles of balance. (Just do your friends a solid, don’t abuse it.)

-A Doomed host heading into the Eye of Terror? Many CW Eldar have made the perilous if not downright suicidal journey into the Eye. Within that hellish realm, the Crone Worlds lay, the ancient now consumed home worlds of the eldar. Within them are many secrets, Spirit stones and other relics the Eldar greatly desire to have returned to them. Is your army such a quest? A brave Warrior Autarch, or Visionary Farseer having gathered those warriors of the Aspect temples to fight through the horrors of Chaos and retrieve something of unimaginable value?

-The Fist of Asuryani mayhap? The biggest and most powerful weapons the Eldar can bring to bear, hammering their opponents into submission by sheer might of their advanced fire power? Fire Dragons and Dark Reapers scorching the earth and slagging enemy armor, while Prism tanks and War Walkers streak and sprint ahead unleashing salvos of lance and Shuriken firepower into the enemy ranks. Batteries of Heavy Platforms annihilating units from a distance all the while the ground infantry providing cover support to your valuable aspect squads.

-Perhaps the Quick Death is all you need. After all what is more fast and fleet than the Eldar? Eldar on fast moving grav vehicles of course! Jetbikes and Vipers, Falcon tanks combined with the Shining Spear Cavalry and swift Swooping Hawk and Shadow Specter Aspect warriors to run circles about your slower more primitive opponents, cutting and blasting them to pieces before they have a chance to react.

-Maybe you watched Predator one too many times and have a thing for Stalking and killing your enemy from the Shadows or from unexpected angles. The hidden strike is a component suited to the crafty Eldar race, able to hit opponents with Striking Scorpions and teleporting Warp Spiders. Speedy hard to hit Harlequins and deep striking Autarchs and Hawks can be used to to tie down valuable enemy units while Rangers pick off targets of value from the safety of range and cover.

However you manage it, always remember that the eldar war machine is a finely crafted tool, with all units having a value within the force, not just the big OP units that so many others enjoy spamming.

Choosing a backdrop for your army is an easy way to find what units to select for thematic purposes, from Militia, to Seer guardians, Maiden World security forces to simple insertion armies meant to retrieve something stolen by lesser races or eliminate a target of future threat seen by the visions of the seer councils or Lost Wraith Engines on a distant barren world, awakened by a roaming warlock and his followers. Any unit in your army can become a core idea for your force’s history and reason for fighting. Thats the beauty of an army whose whole design is one of unique characteristics and fighting styles.

#4 DARK ELDAR

The Dark Kin, The Damned Path, The Drukari.

Dark Eldar are certainly a far cry from their CW kin, yet they have lost none of the potency and ancient power of their race, and indeed are far more arrogant and vicious.

However, different as though they may be, finding a unique concept in the Dark Eldar may come with a bit of a challenge.

In the earliest days of 40k, the Eldar where a unified faction, and in so much where a bit of a melting pot of all of what we see today across their various sub armies. The Dark Eldar seem to have been born out of GW’s need to mirror the High/Dark Elf style of WHF, and so sliced away the more destructive and often times treacherous and debased acts of the RT-2nd ed Eldar and formed a faction that, while having its own unique character is a bit on the smaller and often mashed together side. But there is unpicked fruit in the thorn covered garden of ideas for Dark Eldar. Lets have a look at ways you can theme and structure your own Kabal, Coven or Cult, or an unholy alliance of the three.

-A new Kabal rises: An excellent theme often over looked by most players is the concept of a new and young Kabal, lead by an aspiring Archon, only just starting to take his/her place in the dark city. This lends an interesting way to re-model an army and veer away from the typical spam of Elite warrior units and raider craft and focus more on the unique character of each unit. Basic Warriors making up the core of your force, backed up by the toughened meat shields of Wracks, sent into battle by a Haemonculus that has attached himself to this rising star. Meanwhile your Archon sits secure in his own personal Raider the only one at first in the army, directing the flow of battle as he sends in payed off Street gangs of Hellion riders and Scourges to do the work he himself would not dare put himself at risk for, waiting until the enemy is bruised and bloody before descending down from his craft to feast on the pain, guarded by alien mercenaries kept for ease of their greed and less ambitious minds.

-Mayhap you enjoy the idea of just going full gang? An entire force of wild eyed crazed Reavers, Hellions and Scourges mounting up on wings and craft, screeching across real space in thuggish raids to secure flesh and power to rise about the lower scum of the city streets. The various elements banding together for mutual greater gain before fighting over their spoils giving rise to powerful Leaders that take the street alliance higher and higher into the spires of the Dark City.

-If lowly gangs and young archons don’t suit, then perhaps Highborn power and elite warrior code is more the poison of choice. Few can match the ferocity and skill with a blade that the dark kin possess. An army that worships the blade, made of Incubi, Veteran Wyches, Succubus’ and maybe even a powerful Archon, much a Swordsmen in their own right as any proud member of the Incubi Temple. Holding to a code of seeking out the greatest challenge to sharpen their blades against, engaging enemies head on with raider and Venom craft to quickly close and slaughter their way to infamy and higher praise in the ranks, shunning the pathetic court intrigue and power plays of the other Kabals and cults, seeking only gain and perfection through bloody handed combat and death. A good alternative to the often typical Wych cult raid.

-Or the More Esoteric route? Haemonculus covens are all well and good, but do even these twisted flesh shapers come close to delving into the darkness that lies within the heart of the dark city? From the depths may rise an even more infernal and mysterious force for you to command. Born of the Beast masters who bend the creatures of the warp to their will, and the dreaded Mandrakes, sinister daemonic dark eldar who creep from the shadows and snatch their victims away. Truly an army lead by a Coven leader, so immersed in the dark arts of arcane science and flesh would be a terrible enemy to all sane life. Unleashing webway portals in the hearts of peaceful worlds, or worse, the middle of crowded hive cities for the vile things of the dark kin to reap bloody carnage on, dragging victims back to the benighted realm for sacrifice and experimentation too horrible to consider.

-Take to the air perhaps and rule the skies above worlds who fear the dread shadow of your lightening speed craft as it passes over. An army made of Raider, Ravager and Fighter/bomber craft, even it’s troops never setting foot on the ground except to reek carnage in it’s aftermath, once all has been pulverized by shockwaves of horrifying munitions and bombing runs, the enemy position reduced to smoking craters of gore and blinded wreck. Their ears ringing with the echoing screech of your craft’s engines as they sore across the grim skies.

-Or maybe the final and most deadly of all weapons. Fear. Does your army not even dine to soil its hands in the proud defenses of your enemies? Do they instead send forth the most hideous and perverse works of the dark kin to shatter the mind, and break the soul before the body is even touched? Floating Talos and Chronos pain engines, their sanity blasting bodies shrouded by the dark wings of Shrikes and raider craft filled with wracks and beastial creatures ready to be unleashed once the damage is done. Medusae and other strange contraptions born of the Dark Eldar’s crazed intellect striding alongside Archons wielding the most horrifying weapons to inflict the worst possible trauma on a foe.

To quote the 3rd ed. Dark Eldar Book. The Dark Eldar are not nice. Not nice at all.

When considering the theme and characteristic of your army, not unlike your CW Eldar, ask yourself, what is the history of each unit on the table? Then consider what perversity and malign goals have brought them forth. Then, multiply that by something ten times worse. Are even a thousand Imperial souls merely an appetizer for your Archon who has fallen to such depths of need he must draw out even the most simple act of pain infliction to its most perfected measure?

Does your haemonculous make it a private goal to break and torture Astartes? His ambition to see the very limits the super enhanced minds and psychologies that a Space marine have can endure? Do they prefer the sweet meat of psykers, or the flesh of their more noble kin? Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, is bellow a Dark Eldar and their arrogant quest for self sustaining torture and arrogant aggrandizement.

To be continued in PART 2 (Exodites and Corsairs)

#warhammer 40k #warhammer #eldar #eldari #dark eldar #drukari #xenos #aliens #lore #background #gaming #insperation #hobby #miniatures #a word in your ear

24 notes · View notes

everydisneymovie · 4 years

Text

Review #21: Peter Pan

Post #24

6/18/2020

Next up is 1953′s Peter Pan

Enjoyment : [2]

Holy crap this is a hard movie to get through. The concept and setting are great, a fantasy world filtered through children’s bedtime stories? I am here for that. But honestly the characters really ruin this. Everyone without exception is selfish, self centered, racist and sexist. The characters only speak in snarky quips or weird bigoted statements. It is ok to write mean characters, but none of them do or say anything that shows further depth or growth. Tinkerbell is the only character who does anything redeemable and even then they muck up her heroic sacrifice with baffling editing. Other than a few funnt visual gags there is nothing enjoyable here.

Quality : [3]

The animation is average, albeit more than a little stiff. Only Tinkerbell and Tigerlilly are animated with any effort or personality and that appears to be purely fueled by the animators horniness. Captain Hook has some good animation and visual beats, but thats only because he gets to partake in easy-to-animate slapstick. The editing is down right awful. The scene were Tinkerbell sacrifices herself is the peak example of how bad the editing. Peter and Tink seems like they are about to have a moment of character growth, when it abruptly fades and moves on, with Tinkerbell perfectly fine in the very next scene. I think they had the ‘clap if you believe’ scene but cut it during production. The story structure is also garbage. I noticed this in Alice in Wonderland as well. Both movies are adaptations of children's books, and each movie seems to go chapter by chapter. This causes each scene to be really self contained and it doesn’t connect to the next at all. This is a really rough movie and all the corners show.

Hold up : [0]

Hey look the first zero on this list. This movie is easily the most offensive Disney movie I have seen so far. Song of the South is pretty awful, but the racism is non stop throughout Peter Pan. The characters just spew weird imperialist rhetoric about the ‘savages’ they are trying to colonize. Do I even need to bring up ‘What made the Redman Red?’ Yes. Yes I do. Holy crap this movie is garbage. How can this still get rereleased by Song of the South gets vaulted? I am kinda shocked. There is also a thick layer of sexism soaked into this movie. Every woman just fawns over Peter and he treats them all like trash. The only emotions any woman expresses is jealousy towards one another because they all want Peter and that’s their whole personality. Again, I don’t think I can find any dialogue not twinged with hatred or judgement. It is just non stop ugliness from start to finish and there is no good justification for it.

Risk : [4]

The only real points I can award is how dark and creative this movie gets. It isn’t much but the pirates openly talk about murder and actually do kill each other. I also liked that Tinkerbell was openly just a jerk from the start. Characters in Disney movies don’t have a lot of personalities so even negative personalities are fun to watch at this point. The storybook aesthetic could have been a lot of fun but it doesn’t really go far enough with it. I think Disney kept falling back on their comfort zones by animating slapstick instead of telling a good story.

Extra Credit : [2]

Can’t really say much. I really liked the gag with Hook having different hooks for different occasions. Also a really creative shot is the X-ray of the bomb package. You can actually see that the bomb is a repurposed canon-ball and flintlock pistol fuse. The hands of the clock complete the circuit and set off the pistol, activating the canon-ball. It is very minor but I like the clear thought put into the actual functional design and how Hook would logically construct a timer bomb. I liked that they got into his head and what he would have on hand to construct a bomb.

Final thoughts:

Wow this movie sucks. I feel like Disney needs to apologize for making this. I feel like the characters were all set up for lessons that they never end up learning. Jerk characters need to learn their lessons and change by the end or we should at least be able to understand WHY they couldn’t change. The characters in Peter Pan just stay jerks, with the exception of Tinkerbell. I am actually glad Tinkerbell got her own spin offs she deserves better than Peter. This is hands down the worst movie I have seen so far on this list. I know for a fact there will be worse in the future but this one is just garbage.

Total Score: 11/50

<- First <- Previous 21 out of 431 Next ->

the list

#every disney movie #I watched Every Disney Movie #reviewing every Disney movie #Peter Pan #tw: racism #tw: sexism #Disney #animated movie #movie review #Movie Reviews #movie theory #movie ranking #Film Theory #Captain Hook #Tinkerbell #Rey Rapids #capitalism #late stage disney #late stage capitalism

18 notes · View notes