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nickmarini · 4 months ago

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Ayden’s Build

TL;DR: Barbarian 1, Druid 2 (Circle of the Stars), Paladin 8 (Oath of the Ancients), and Cleric 9 (Peace Domain). Feats: Squire of Solamnia, Remarkable Recovery, Warcaster, Knight of Crowns, Spelldriver, Tough.

Building Ayden was a joy and a journey. To begin we were told we had 20 levels to work with and stats of 20 across the board. The only thing I knew about Ayden from the session 0 was that he was going to be a Cleric of the Everlight and that I wanted to make him the best support character I could. I also knew that the Dawnfather was aware of the mission briefing and so would have directed his growth to the task at hand.

Stats of 20 meant multiclassing into any class was possible and that any ability score based bonuses or proficiency based abilities were going to be very good. I figured that with a warlock and a sorcerer we’d have some pretty good counterspelling and 9th level spell access, so I didn’t worry myself about either of those, instead focusing on making sure we all survived.

The Dawnfather and The Everlight share 2 of 3 Domains. Life and Light. The Everlight’s 3rd domain is Peace. The Peace Domain cleric is an excellent subclass and its 6th level ability, Protective Bond, was something I knew I wanted to build around. The ability to take hits for, and aid, my siblings while teleporting around the battlefield is an excellent support ability and it also lets allies in the bond do the same, fostering sibling unity and cohesion.

With the Dawnfather having Nature as his unique domain separate from the Everlight, and literally sending himself to Exandria to infiltrate a city full of the greatest mages of the age, the Oath of Ancients Paladin seemed like an obvious path. It is the nature Paladin, (his domain) and 7 levels gives you both Aura of Protection and Aura of Warding. This means as Ayden moves through the battlefield with Protective Bond he will be granting allies +5 to saves from his cha as well as resistance to damage from spells. Incredibly good going up against the wizards of Aeor he knew he would encounter. I didn’t want to go to 10 with Paladin because I didn’t want to be immune to frightened. I just felt that fear played too large a role in the reasons the gods were here and although aura of courage is probably my favorite ability going back to 3rd edition, I felt like it wasn’t right for Ayden. He had to fear in order to reinforce his need to hope.

These two classes were set relatively quickly and then I began looking at how else I was going to build him out.

I really liked the idea of being able to grant my allies some extra attacks and so I was looking at battle master to get commanders strike and goading attack as well as maneuvering attack to help take hits for and position my allies. Action Surge is also a great ability that could really come in handy if I needed to save someone and needed one extra action to do so.

I was also looking at the 2nd level Divination Wizard ability Portent. The ability to fully dictate 2 rolls is very powerful in certain circumstances, especially if the numbers are very high or very low.

Both these seemed good but weren’t feeling totally right from a character perspective. They felt too forced.

As I was playing around with these two classes I was also building Aydens backstory. I really liked the idea of him being agriculturally focused, as this aspect of the Dawnfather is actually his youngest. Sun begets days, and thus time and seasons, and as civilization evolves agriculture follows. The fighter levels lent the idea that he has spent some time training under a knight or some such warrior, and I knew that he would eventually find his way to Trist to begin his tutelage and become her cleric. I liked there being these different eras of his life.

It was around this time that I got an awesome email asking me to describe Ayden visually so that the incredibly talented Hannah Friederichs and Cael Lyons could begin to bring Ayden and the Dawnfather to life. I wanted Ayden to be a simply dressed with a shield he took from his mentor, but no sword for striking. They sent 4 sketches and told me I could mix and match as I desired. Image #1 however was exactly as I had envisioned him. It was the simplest and had this depth to his eyes that told the story of a much older soul in this 15 year old body. It was so perfect that it made me realize I had been going in the totally wrong direction with fighter and wizard. The concepts of nature and agriculture were suddenly staring me in the face. It was not wizard, but druid, and his mentor could have taught him to be a paladin as easily as fighter, but if he is the bringer of agriculture who has he brought it to? A remote tribe still hunting and gathering was the answer. Barbarian therefore replaced fighter. I can’t tell you how influential the sketch I received was. It felt like a bolt of lightning suddenly clarified everything.

I was for sure cleric 6, Paladin 7 and now looking at druid and barbarian.

I didn’t know Druid subclasses very well but Circle of the Stars jumped out from the pack just with its name. The Sun after all is a star. When I read its 2nd level abilities Starmap and Starry form it was so obvious. I can cast Guiding Bolt to set up those attacks I wanted to grant, and I can glow instead of wild shape and either heal more or have a massive bonus to maintain the concentration spells I knew I wanted to cast. For the keeper of time to know how to read the stars just felt right. It also feel right that the druids of a tribe that had been hunting and gathering during the tumultuous Calamity would have learned to navigate by the stars, a singular constant in an every changing age.

Barbarian has a number of interesting subclasses but none felt like they clicked. 1 level of Barbarian though, for a character with 20 dexterity and 20 constitution, catapults your AC to 20 and it also gives you a proficiency in Constitution saving throws if you take it as your first class, again reinforcing those concentration rolls. He was found as a child by this barbarian tribe and his first class is also his first community. Barbarian was the strong foundation I would build upon.

I was now Cleric 6, Paladin 7, Druid 2, Barbarian 1. Reorganized to be the order Ayden would have taken them in it becomes the following:

Barbarian 1, Druid 2 (Circle of the Stars), Paladin 7 (Oath of the Ancients), and Cleric 6 (Peace Domain)

4 more levels to distribute. As a player who has mostly played 3.5 (I think downfall just about doubled the amount of 5E I have played) feats are my absolute favorite things, so getting to multiples of 4 in class levels to grab some was something I wanted to do (also I didn’t have to worry about ability score increases)! I had already given one feat up by taking barb and druid but I made up for it with the human variant. I also took the Knight of Solamnia background to give me Squire of Solamnia, the prerequisite for Knight of the Crowns which would give me the ability to grant attacks to my allies without needing battle maneuvers.

So I upped paladin from 7-8 for a feat and then decided to take Cleric from 6-9 because it gave me a feat and access to the spell Dawn. I mean the Dawnfather should be able to cast Dawn after all!

Now to feats

1) Background: Squire of Solamnia to give me the prerequisite for Knight of the Crowns

2) Human Variant: Remarkable Recovery. I knew I’d be taking extra damage so having 5 extra hp from any healing I get might just be the difference. It also plays into his background. He had to leave the Barbarian tribe he brought agriculture to because his skin could not retain the ceremonial tattoo ink that would have symbolized his initiation into the community.

3) Cleric 4 Warcaster to get advantage on those concentration checks, that along with proficiency and starry form of the dragon means I need to take 28 damage (56 if it’s a spell) to even have to roll, and when I do I get advantage and proficiency on the check. Getting me to lose concentration is gonna be a task.

4) Paladin 4 Knight of the Crown getting to grant an attack proficiency times per day combos wonderfully with Starmaps free guiding bolt, conveniently also proficiency times per day.

5) Cleric 8 Spelldriver I’m gonna be casting a bunch of spells so the ability to cast multiple each turn is going to make my support spells come out much faster. I have a big fam to take care of!

6) Paladin 8 Tough I really went back and forth between this and Inspiring Leader. Granting all my siblings 25 temp hp is amazing but ultimately I decided that as I’d be tanking a bunch of damage I’d need toughness. Toughness gave me 15 more hp than Inspiring leader would have, and I ended up going down to 14 at one point so it was a decision that very much paid off by a single HP! Don’t wanna pop a deathward if you can help it!

Last but not least we were granted 2 magic items. One very rare and one uncommon. For my uncommon I chose a cloak of resistance, a parting gift from the tribe that Ayden could not join. This upped my saves to 11s or 17s and took my AC to 23. For his very rare magic item I took a spellguard shield, inherited from the knight who brought him from the remote tribe to Trist‘s school, giving me advantage on saving throws vs spells and magical effects and inflicting disadvantages on spell effects targeting me. Combine that with resistance to spells from Aura of Warding and that’s a nasty nasty combo v wizards.

All in all Ayden’s build is an incredibly hard to target tanky support character who can move through the battlefield protecting his allies and being an absolute nightmare for enemy spellcasters. The only thing I really didn’t fully consider was just how much damage he would take from Warding Bond which totally bypasses all those wonderfully crafted defenses. As crazy as it is, I think we barely got to scratch the surface of Aydens full potential and it’s probably good those mages decided to cast spells at everyone else because Ayden was going to be a tough character for a spell caster to crack. The Commanding Rally did get to shine allowing characters who specialized in weapon attacks to get a little extra out of those 20 level commitments. Ayden’s build was crafted to keep his siblings alive and let them shine as bright as possible together. I’m very proud of him!

If you read all this then you’re as nerdy as me and deserve a reward!

#critical role #cr downfall #cr spoilers #ayden #cr: downfall #critical role downfall #dawnfather #the dawnfather #critical role spoilers #nick marini #multiclass #multiclassing #support build #this is too long to post on the Beacon Discord so I's posting it here!#beacon #cr speculation #cr c3 spoilers

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dseval · 2 months ago

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[★INTRO POST★]

Hello, page visitor. If you'd like to, please read this intro post. (And if you don't want to, that's fine, too)

(i promised myself that after posting 10+ posts I will create an intro post idk why. Guys. Is this how tumblr works?)

!! These are always open

Unless stated otherwise. But this does not mean I will do/go along with everything.

Asks/Submissions (you can also ask and submit anonymously)

Art Suggestions

Art Trades (preferably by moots/friends)

��Accounts

2nd page: @dsevalyappuccino (for shitposts, reblogging, yapping, and lowres doodles)

Twitter acc: @/dsevalxdsx (there is actually nothing here, but it is open for DMs)

AO3: dseval (there is actually only one fic, don't expect anything in the near future)

Bluesky: dseval.bsky.social (not really active, but I post there sometimes, and I accept DMs)

For commissions and inquiries, feel free to message me anywhere or email [email protected]

☆General Info

✧ I am Dseval. (Pronounced dee-s-eval eval like in the word evaluation.) If you feel like it isn't a cute/short enough name for you— then you can call me Eva. Or call me whatever, I'll tell you If I dislike it.

✧ I draw. Occasionally I also code, make games. I also write fanfics (barely), and make music (barely).

✧ I won't reveal my age, but know that I am not a minor.

✧ I'm Queer. I'm okay with all pronouns, but They/Them is my personal favourite.

✧ I am not open for any relationships, in case you plan on asking.

✧ I am okay with dark topics, I love exploring them, but I do prefer wholesome things.

✧ I'm shy. As in, ☆super shy☆. So I may not post often and chicken out of conversations. Please do not be offended If I did that, you did nothing wrong.

✧ I did say I'm shy. But I also over-yap. I like friends. I'm accepting friends anytime anyday. On the topic of over-yap, I apologize If I ever said something that offended anyone. I am not very great at socializing.

✧ I also don't understand tone tags. So i apologise if I'm slow to get things.

✧ NSFW or suggestive is okay. But I don't really make these contents myself.

✧ I am OK with tagging. In fact, tag me in everything.

✧ Most of the time, I act on absolutely no reason and just because. Do not overthink my actions.

✧ I am not diagnosed (mental healthcare is very poor in my country). But I suspect I have Bipolar Disorder. I may have mood swings and be over-excited at times, or be too tired to response. I hope for your understanding.

✧ My favourite color is PURPLE, in case you can't tell.

☆ Expect:

Expect mostly Undertale Multiverse content, but to be more specific...

Drawings of Sans AUs

Sanshipping

Genderbending Sans AUs

Making my own AU (not speedrun)

Maybe other things, a list cannot list all of my interests

... All in my inconsistent artstyle.

However, feel free to also talk to me about Deltarune, My Little Pony, Evangelion, and Madoka Magica, and several gacha games. I am very deep into the lore of all of the above.

☆Interests

My favourite AU Sans' are Cross and Dust/Murder. (I also think they should kiss)

I am a multishipper, and my bar is very low so I swallow pretty much any content just as long as it is appropriate. Here are my favourites though:

☆ Cross x Dust, Cross x Dream, Color x Killer, Nightmare x Error, Horror x Farm, Geno x Reaper

I absolutely eat those up, so if you know me and you know about these, please tag me in any related content.

☆If...

Do not interact with me If you are any of the following:

You are a proshipper/comshipper/darkshipper (or, whatever name you call yourself). I do not support that behaviour nor do I do condone it.

You are pro-Israel, Queerphobic, body shamers, pedophiles, zoophiles, etc.

You spread hate and harassment.

☆Tags

#archiveverse (for my AU)

#dsevalanswers (for every asks that I answer)

#kebaya skellies (for every drawing of any skeleton in kebaya)

#dsevalreblog (for reblogs interactions something just for me to visit later)

☆PFP hall of fame

In chronological order, from left to right. Only includes previous PFPs.

#intro post #will update if needed #archiveverse #dsevalanswers #kebaya skellies #dsevalreblog #<- for accessibility

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literary-illuminati · 1 year ago

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Book Review 65 – System Collapse by Martha Wells

I’ve had this on preorder long enough to have entirely forgotten about it by the time I got the email that it’s available for pickup – but thanks to the magic of an extremely obliging local book store, I was still able to pick up and read the entire thing before it’s technically released. So score one for buying indie, I guess.

The book is set directly after Network Effect – directly directly, to the point where I needed to look up a plot summary to remind myself what the situation was – following our beloved rogue and rampant SecUnit, ART, and their assorted humans as they try to convince an abandoned and alien-contaminated colony’s inhabitants to trust them and accept evacuation with them (and also go along with the colonial charter they’re forging) rather than the indenture offers the corporate mission also on site are offering. Along the way there’s hacking, shuttle chases, gunfights, and plot-critical media curation.

Mostly though it’s about Murderbot having PTSD (on account of all the horrible trauma in Network Effect specifically, and also just its life generally) and absolutely zero idea how to cope. After a false memory/panic attack makes it crash out of nowhere it spends the majority of the book terrified that it’s going to crash or freeze up at some vital moment and get everyone killed, dealing with constant alien-related paranoia, and generally second-guessing itself and feeling useless and depressed. Absolutely no one around it has any idea how to deal with this, and their awkward attempts to be supporting are both endearing and entirely unhelpful.

Anyway, this is a Murderbot novel. Do you like Murderbot? Then you will like this. Do you not know the series? Then by god start with All Systems Red none of this will make any sense at all without context. Do you dislike murderbot? I mean hateread as you like but it is largely more of the same, don’t expect any series-saving twists for you.

It’s kind of absurd to call the series ‘cozy fantasy’ – by the end of the book SecUnit is down several extremities and bleeding out on the floor (as is traditional by this point) – but I feel like the series fills about the same emotional niche for me as like say Becky Chambers does for people with normal tolerances for low-tension sentimentality. The setting is a horrible dystopia and the plots are full of violence and trauma, but all that is more or less set dressing to stories that are actually about SecUnit making connections and deciding at a tortuously slow pace what sort of life it wants to have (usually several hours after commuting itself without thinking) while consistently running into the best possible friends and forming mutually affectionate relationships it absolutely did not want. It’s a story about fun, low-tension character dynamics, corporate kill teams aside.

I am being entirely sincere when I say the fact that SecUnit has no idea what it wants or what its doing is a selling point. In the same way, the fact that there’s never any real ~breakthrough~ or moment of sudden recovery is absolutely key to the book working. The story closes with it being hopeful and doing better but from any remotely reasonable baseline still being pretty far from ‘okay’ (in much the same way, it is utterly vital to the whole series that it has absolutely zero angst over ‘not being human’ or pinochle syndrome and only cares about ‘not being normal’ insofar as its had to work really hard on some automated scripts for walking and idle motions to pass as human while doing infiltration work).

Anyway, speaking of character dynamics – look, I’ve always been the first to roll my eyes when people complain about not being able to keep tracks or large casts. But every time I open one of these books, I realize I have only the vaguest idea who the vast majority of the (human) supporting cast is. Not really an issue with actually following the story, but I’m absolutely certain I’m missing out on some things.

The non-human supporting cast are great though. ART best spaceship, and I cared significantly more about the colony’s central control computer than any of the actual colonists. I’m like 70% sure this is intentional.

Stepping back, it’s interesting how the series’ setting has evolved over time. In All Systems Red the universe around SecUnit was incredibly broadly sketched, generic sci f playing with space opera and cyberpunk tropes it pretty much relied upon readers already being familiar with. This never exactly stops – especially for the aesthetics and technology, the book has a profound lack of interest in the specifics of what ‘projectile weapons’ look like or how spaceships work beyond the convenience of plot – but as the books go on the world definitely gets more specific and also broader. You can mostly blame ART for this, I think – there’s a definite shift in the tone of the setting when you introduce an institution like the University with power like it can throw around, and more generally make active resistance to and subversion to the corporate status quo a plausible and fruitful endeavour.

All this to say that there’s an offhand mention at one point about ‘intracorporate violence’ increasing and the system being increasingly unstable, and I’m curious what Wells is going to do with that going forward. Especially with the book’s final resolution and the status quo it sets up going forward.

Anyway like I said, it’s murderbot. This is the 7th book in the series. If you’re considering reading it you’ll probably love it.

#book review #system collapse #murderbot #martha wells #sff

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springdandelixn · 2 years ago

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Would it be possible to do one with Bucky (or Loki if you don’t write Bucky) finding out from a video you post about the four years of grooming and gaslighting gaslighting (and the inability to believe your own brain or trust reality because of that), and physical and sexual abuse that an ex put you through? Reacting however you see fit. I have to make that video about my ex next week and I’m really just in need of some comfort

No Loose Ends

Summary: Everything Bucky does, he does for you.

Warnings: non-graphic death, mentions of abuse, nothing really to worry about but do read the ask to be aware of what's to come.

Characters: Bucky Barnes x F!Reader

A/N: I thank you, my dear, for this request. It's the first time that I am writing Bucky and to put him in such a scene was a delight to write. Also, I just want to tell you again that you are strong for doing what you will be doing, and know that I have your back and you have my support. Thank you for trusting me with this and I hope I've done Bucky some justice and given you comfort.

His hands clenched tightly into fists as Bucky keeps his eyes on the computer screen. Each word coming from your mouth, each tear falling from your eyes was like a knife stabbing deep into his heart. The woman on the screen wasn’t the woman he fell in love with, for he knew you to be someone who always had a smile on their face, always ready to help, and always prepared to listen to anyone who needed someone for them to not feel alone.

But all the same, he wants to love her even more.

It’s what he loved about you, what drew him to you in the first place. The calmness you exuded, the gentleness you showed him, the love you gave back tenfold, and the bravery you showed when no one but Steve wanted to do anything with him when he first joined the team.

Bucky didn’t think too much of the email Steve sent him with that video attachment. He thought it simply to be another mission brief like any other but as soon as he played it and saw how broken you looked in the video, whoever you were talking about, the person that brought you so much pain and destruction; he wanted dead.

“You look so nice there, doll.” You turn your head and give Bucky a soft smile as you finish folding his shirt and lay it neatly on the bed.

“The housewife you dreamed of?” You tease and a startled gasp leaves your lips when you feel his arms wrap around your waist all of a sudden, the bed dipping low from his weight.

You giggle when he buries his face in the crook of your neck, dropping the garment in your hands back in the basket. You reach over and cradled the side of his face, your back leaning against his strong chest.

“The mission tough?”

“No. Pretty easy really.” He huffs, his breath tickling your skin. “Easy in and easy out. Child’s play.”

“Then why does it seem like the end of the world for you, Mr. Barnes?” You ask, your fingers running through his soft locks as he nuzzles his nose against your shoulder.

“You know I hate being away from you, Mrs. Barnes.” He whispers against your skin, the sensation tickling you and sending shivers throughout your body.

“As you said, easy in and easy out, right?” He nods and faces you, blue eyes shining deeply as you cup his face. “You’ll be home before you know it and I will be here, waiting like an antsy wife til you come back.” You smile and sigh softly when he presses his forehead against your own, his arms tightening around your frame as he moves you to sit on his lap.

“You do always get antsy.” He chuckles lightly before his face turns serious. He reaches up to cup your face and you feel the pace of your heart quicken when you see the intensity of his gaze. “Just know that I love you, doll. Always.” His voice is low and sure and you smile at his words, knowing them to be nothing but the truth. “What I do, I do for you. To keep you safe.”

“No loose ends.” You recite upon instinct. It was his mantra ever since, one you adapted to it easily when he walked into your life.

“No loose ends.”

The sound of the television playing in the background calms you as you prepare dinner in the kitchen. Bucky sent you a message, informing you that he’s coming home and the excitement you felt after reading it was through the roof.

Not that he was gone for long; the mission only lasted three days, but Bucky coming home and knowing that he’s safe and sound always brought a sense of peace through you, and if anything, you only want the best for the man that has shown you nothing but love and affection despite his hardened exterior.

You shut the oven door close and set your attention to cutting up some fresh fruits, making sure to cut up the plums nicely and setting them on the serving plate. But your heart stops when you hear the name you never thought you hear again, the muffled sound of the television turning all too clear as you turn to face the screen.

The knife drops from your hand and you gasp when you see his face on the television, your body shaking as memories of the past begin flooding in. The gaslighting, the manipulation, the toxicity you forcibly pulled yourself from and tried so hard to escape, only finding such courage and drowning out the fear after years of his continuous abuse.

“Nick Fowler was said to be the leader of the notorious crime syndicate terrorizing New York and the neighboring states.” The news anchor recites as images of Nick flashed through the screen, his body covered in blood and lifeless against the pavement of the street.

“We didn’t think they would be heavily armed.” Your shock intensifies when you see Steve talking to the media. “They put up a strong fight and in the face of a battle, casualties cannot be avoided. Though we do take comfort in the fact that he was a very dangerous man and the Avengers' number one priority is to keep the civilians safe.”

If Steve is there then you know Bucky is there with him. Your mind then flits back to your conversation with Bucky the night before he left. How hard he was holding you, his words full of sincerity and love replaying like a broken record that you don’t doubt he knew about your past with Nick. Of what he’s done to you.

No loose ends. You hear his voice in your head.

“No loose ends.” You whisper back.

Your feedback would be highly appreciated even if this is simply a drabble and I hope you guys enjoyed this piece 💙

#bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #bucky x reader #bucky fanfic #comfort fic #no loose ends #bucky au #mcu au #request fic #request by harlequin-hangout #coconut bun stories #bucky drabble

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sujuyeonn · 3 months ago

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Sujuu!

It's fanfic writer appreciation day so here I am in your askbox :D

Thank you so much for writing and sharing IWATIFI with us! You have no idea how often I reread it, and how much more I love it with each read. I know I haven't gotten around to commenting on the last chapter yet (and I plan to, it's halfway written so far but life is lifeing) but the short version is: I absolutely love it. Just a little bit more than the rest of the fic though I probably shouldn't have favourites lol.

I also want to acknowledge how hard you've worked on it. It probably wasn't easy writing a long multichaptered fic while maintaining the pacing and plot consistency, but you still posted regularly. And IWATIFI was one of the few things I really looked forward to back when things weren't looking so great in my life- I would often eagerly wait to wake up to that one email from ao3. Well, that and the email notifying me that you replied to my comments haha.

I really appreciate you for being such an amazing writer and human. I hope you have a great day! 💜

lume!! omg hello i can’t believe i’ve taken like,, a week to answer this lovely message.

happy late fanfic writer appreciation day to you too!! :D you made my entire week with this and i’ll probably keep thinking about it til the end of the year lol. hearing that you reread iwatifi is both a blessing and a curse; i want to send you tons of hugs!! but i also reread a few chapters lately and my god, you can really see how my writing progressed throughout. currently afflicted with self critical author cringe😫 that said, i absolutely support ch15 being the favourite because it’s probably my favourite too (… i may have made a whole ranking list at some point). and don’t worry about taking a while to comment! i totally don’t expect it. am super hyped to see your thoughts though, your username in my inbox always makes me scream into the void <3

‘thank you’ isn’t adequate enough because i feel appreciated beyond words. and yeah, iwatifi was a first-fic-ever-so-let’s-experiment-with-slow-burn kind of challenge, i definitely don’t think i could write it again if i started now (plus, i’m working on fics that i think will be way more fun). i’m genuinely so touched to hear that you looked forward to updates and replies. your comments managed to catch me at pretty low points too, for which i’ll be forever grateful since they never failed to cheered me up. hope things are going better for you too :)

i appreciate YOU endlessly for being one of the kindest people ever <3 (and one of my favourite commenters but shhh don’t let anyone know) have a great day!! 🧡

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ao3userwalkingonfirex · 7 months ago

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Blog FAQ

What fandoms do you write?

Exclusively bandom rpf, specifically All Time Low. It’s always going to be Jack Barakat/Alex Gaskarth (Jalex) slash, sometimes paired with Zack Merrick/Rian Dawson (Zian). Sometimes, I include the boys with others for narrative reasons, but Jalex is it for me. Lol.

What genres do you write?

ANGST. Not so much death, but I like soap opera-levels of drama and pining. If it doesn’t include emotional pain and suffering, I don’t want it. I love a happy ending after a long whump, but that’s not always how my stuff goes. Open-ended endings are my favorite. I have written fluff a few times, but it’s just not my favorite. A lot of my fics are smutty, but I haven’t written kink before, and typically the smut is necessary for narrative purposes. Friendly reminder that this blog and my fics are NOT intended for minors and I strongly discourage minors from engaging with my content.

What can I expect to see on this blog?

Hopefully, writing asks, updates, musings, reblogs, and memes. I also like to wax poetic complain about writing in general, so there might be a few of those. Respectfully, this isn’t the place to discuss drama and tea about All Time Low, but you are more than welcome to send that over to my main blog. I’m also hoping to get some writing challenges here.

Can I send requests?

Not right now, sorry. I’m trying to finish a novel-length work that I’ve been writing and developing since before 2019 and I can’t really have any distractions until that’s done. Maybe some day.

Do you have any formal training?

I was an English and Creative Writing double major in college and I also have a Master’s Degree in Liberal Arts with a focus in English and Creative Writing. Some of my original fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have been published, but I don’t know that this is the place to share them. Lol.

Where can I read your fics?

AO3: walkingonfirex Mibba: walkingonfirex (inactive) Wattpad: walkingonfirex I have other, older fics on some other sites, but they’re not about All Time Low, so I don’t see any reason to link them. Besides, a lot of those older fics are also still on my AO3 and Wattpad. If you’re curious, message me and I might tell you, but they’re pretty niche fandoms, so I can’t see why anyone would be interested. They’re also not hard to find lol.

How can I support you?

Literally, just the fact that people read my silly little stories at all means the fucking world to me. However, kudos and comments are the absolute best way! I get overjoyed every time I get an ao3 notification in my email. That’s all I really need. Buuuut if you really want to do something more, you can buy me a ko-fi!

Thank you times one million to @ao3usermelancholyhues for letting me use her blog as inspiration!! Please follow her and read her stuff.

#i have no idea how this is going to go but here we are lmao #faq #about me

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recurring-polynya · 1 year ago

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Are we allowed to share RenRuki fic ideas with you?

Ummmmmm.............I guess the question I have is, I guess it depends on why you want me to see it?

So, on one hand, I always want to support the Renruki fanfic writing enterprise. If you sincerely want help developing an idea, I am open to help with that, although if that is the case, *please* do not send your ask anonymously, because I would probably prefer to reply privately. You can also email me for that sort of thing. If we are already on a DM basis, and you want to chat about your ideas, I am happy to listen and support you! (or if we're kinda friends and you want to make the jump to DMs, maybe that's a good excuse).

On the other hand, I sincerely do not like it when people, especially people I don't really know, send me things that are like "here is an idea that I had!" because I have no idea what is being asked of me. I cannot even conceive the thinking behind sending something like this, I would never. What on earth would motivate you to put that in someone's askbox instead of just posting it on your own blog, where your followers, the people who want to see your ideas, can see it? If you tag it, then everyone who follows that tag will see it too! Maybe people want my blessing, or something, but I am deeply uncomfortable being put in that role. It's all well and good, I guess, if I happen to like your idea (although I still don't know what to say...I would be so much more comfortable reblogging a post that you made), but if I don't like it, that really puts me in an uncomfortable spot, you see? I have kind of particular tastes, but I very intentionally keep the things I don't like to myself. I don't ever want someone to be sad because I hated on their favorite idea, but sometimes I don't know what else to do when someone shoves it into my inbox and my only choices are to make a public comment on it, or just delete the ask, either of which is going to hurt the asker's feeling. I don't ever really think that what the asker wants is a sincere criticism of their idea, but unfortunately, that's what I usually end up doing and then I feel terrible about it and then I close my ask box for three months. Also, literally, who cares what I think? If you have a fanfic idea and you like it, you should write it. (Although, I guess maybe part of the reasoning behind sending strangers your fanfic idea is because you have no intention of actually writing it, in which case I am doubly not the person to send it to)

To be honest, I don't care very much about fanfic ideas. I care about fanfic execution. Most of my own fanfic is pretty low-concept. I know many people enjoy just talking about their ideas with no intention of ever writing them and this is not me. If I could write the fanfic without ever having the ideas, I would. I read just about every Renruki fanfic I see on ao3 (unless the tags are a no-go) and if I liked it, I'll leave a comment, and if I don't have anything nice to say, I won't.

I guess the third case is that you want to tell me about your fanfic idea in the hopes that I'll write it, to which I will say, a) please be very clear if that is the case, and b) I suppose if it's interesting enough, I might, but the odds are very low, and it will probably take me forever. Oh, also, once again, please don't ask on anon, so that I can reply to you on private.

#sorry to be weird and neurotic about this #but these kinds of asks cause me an enormous amount of distress ☹️#it's always helpful if you're really clear about what it is you want me to do!#i have bad social anxiety and do not thrive on ambiguous communication!

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bemusedlybespectacled · 6 months ago

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While OceanGate touted the dive as history-making proof of its submersible’s bona fides, even Rush was getting worried about loud noises the hull was making at depth. Then on June 7, three weeks before Titan’s maiden voyage to the Titanic, an OceanGate pilot inspecting the interior with a flashlight noticed a crack in the hull. He sent Rush an email warning that the crack was “pretty serious.” A detailed internal report later showed that at least 11 square feet of carbon fiber had delaminated—meaning the bonds between layers had separated. This time, Rush couldn’t ignore the data. The hull that was meant to last for 10,000 dives to the Titanic had made fewer than 50—and only three to 4,000 meters. It would have to be scrapped, and the Titanic missions would be delayed for yet another year. When Rush shared the news with GeekWire a few days later, however, he blamed the delay on legal complications with Titan’s support vessel. It’s true that OceanGate ran into issues with maritime law, says one former employee: “The lie is that it was not the reason we delayed.”

From the Geek Wire article they're talking about:

Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate has had to postpone this summer’s deep-sea dives to the Titanic shipwreck, just as they were about to start, due to complications relating to the expedition’s intended mothership. The complications have to do with the status of the Norwegian-flagged MV Havila Harmony under Canadian maritime law, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush told GeekWire today. The ship’s operators at Reach Subsea feared that the ship might be impounded if the expedition went forward as planned, Rush said. Rush said that the issue cropped up last Friday, and that the resulting complications couldn’t be resolved in time to do this year’s Titanic Survey Expedition. The first departure from St. John’s, Newfoundland, had been scheduled for June 28. “I’ve been up in my life, and I’ve been down in my life,” Rush said. “I was as happy as I’ve ever been on Thursday night, and by Saturday I was almost as low as I’ve ever been. … It’s been quite a swing, and I hope I don’t ever go through that again.”

I MEAN I GUESS HE GOT HIS WISH

The Ocean Sciences Building at the University of Washington in Seattle is a brightly modern, four-story structure, with large glass windows reflecting the bay across the street.

On the afternoon of July 7, 2016, it was being slowly locked down.

Red lights began flashing at the entrances as students and faculty filed out under overcast skies. Eventually, just a handful of people remained inside, preparing to unleash one of the most destructive forces in the natural world: the crushing weight of about 2½ miles of ocean water.

In the building’s high-pressure testing facility, a black, pill-shaped capsule hung from a hoist on the ceiling. About 3 feet long, it was a scale model of a submersible called Cyclops 2, developed by a local startup called OceanGate. The company’s CEO, Stockton Rush, had cofounded the company in 2009 as a sort of submarine charter service, anticipating a growing need for commercial and research trips to the ocean floor. At first, Rush acquired older, steel-hulled subs for expeditions, but in 2013 OceanGate had begun designing what the company called “a revolutionary new manned submersible.” Among the sub’s innovations were its lightweight hull, which was built from carbon fiber and could accommodate more passengers than the spherical cabins traditionally used in deep-sea diving. By 2016, Rush’s dream was to take paying customers down to the most famous shipwreck of them all: the Titanic, 3,800 meters below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

Engineers carefully lowered the Cyclops 2 model into the testing tank nose-first, like a bomb being loaded into a silo, and then screwed on the tank’s 3,600-pound lid. Then they began pumping in water, increasing the pressure to mimic a submersible’s dive. If you’re hanging out at sea level, the weight of the atmosphere above you exerts 14.7 pounds per square inch (psi). The deeper you go, the stronger that pressure; at the Titanic’s depth, the pressure is about 6,500 psi. Soon, the pressure gauge on UW’s test tank read 1,000 psi, and it kept ticking up—2,000 psi, 5,000 psi. At about the 73-minute mark, as the pressure in the tank reached 6,500 psi, there was a sudden roar and the tank shuddered violently.

“I felt it in my body,” an OceanGate employee wrote in an email later that night. “The building rocked, and my ears rang for a long time.”

“Scared the shit out of everyone,” he added.

The model had imploded thousands of meters short of the safety margin OceanGate had designed for.

In the high-stakes, high-cost world of crewed submersibles, most engineering teams would have gone back to the drawing board, or at least ordered more models to test. Rush’s company didn’t do either of those things. Instead, within months, OceanGate began building a full-scale Cyclops 2 based on the imploded model. This submersible design, later renamed Titan, eventually made it down to the Titanic in 2021. It even returned to the site for expeditions the next two years. But nearly one year ago, on June 18, 2023, Titan dove to the infamous wreck and imploded, instantly killing all five people onboard, including Rush himself.

The disaster captivated and horrified the world. Deep-sea experts criticized OceanGate’s choices, from Titan’s carbon-fiber construction to Rush’s public disdain for industry regulations, which he believed stifled innovation. Organizations that had worked with OceanGate, including the University of Washington as well as the Boeing Company, released statements denying that they contributed to Titan.

A trove of tens of thousands of internal OceanGate emails, documents, and photographs provided exclusively to WIRED by anonymous sources sheds new light on Titan’s development, from its initial design and manufacture through its first deep-sea operations. The documents, validated by interviews with two third-party suppliers and several former OceanGate employees with intimate knowledge of Titan, reveal never-before-reported details about the design and testing of the submersible. They show that Boeing and the University of Washington were both involved in the early stages of OceanGate’s carbon-fiber sub project, although their work did not make it into the final Titan design. The trove also reveals a company culture in which employees who questioned their bosses’ high-speed approach and decisions were dismissed as overly cautious or even fired. (The former employees who spoke to WIRED have asked not to be named for fear of being sued by the families of those who died aboard the vessel.) Most of all, the documents show how Rush, blinkered by his own ambition to be the Elon Musk of the deep seas, repeatedly overstated OceanGate’s progress and, on at least one occasion, outright lied about significant problems with Titan’s hull, which has not been previously reported.

A representative for OceanGate, which ceased all operations last summer, declined to comment on WIRED’s findings.

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redtalksaboutstuffandthings · 4 months ago

Text

Don't mind this.

I'm unemployed. It's not as dire a situation as it could be. Tumblr is awash with unemployed people who actually need support and attention, and I am not one of them. I am not in danger of being homeless; all my needs can be met thanks to the kindness of friends. This post is just a chance for me to put my thoughts together on what is, honestly, some pretty low-stakes problems.

If there's been one overriding theme that defines unemployment, it would be "silence." For months, now, every attempt I've had to get myself back onto my feet has been greeted with a stark, deafening amount of nothing.

Put out an application.

Silence.

File for unemployment.

Silence.

Throw dozens of applications into the void, hoping that any of them will get back to me.

Silence.

Finally get an interview. Have a delightful conversation with a manager. Get a promise that I'll hear from them, whether I've got the job or not.

Silence.

Apply for a horrible gig economy job just to have any sort of income.

"You are on a waitlist."

It's gotten so bad, and the time I've spent in between job applications has started to feel so long, that I threw myself into an honest attempt to go into business for myself. I write. I post. I attempt to present myself as someone who makes something worth paying for.

Silence.

That last one isn't surprising. The only reason I made this Tumblr blog was because I was banking on the fact that nobody would see it, that I'd be able to write whatever I wanted and to have it just disappear into the formless void, only noticed by data scrapers. That's also why this account is separate from my actual work, and why I'm not telling anyone here what I do in any detail. I harbored the delusion (and I still do) that maybe I'll take off, that one day I'll want the safety of a pseudonymous Tumblr blog only followed by a single Banana Fish fandom account.

Even so, it's just been a lot. This post has been my attempt to get my words in, because I can't open the word processor. I don't have ideas. I feel like I could handle it, if I wasn't also stuck at home because the approaching-triple-digits places I've applied to refuse to call me back. I could handle being a nobody writer, if I got an email from the unemployment office telling me they'd denied my application, after three months of filling out weekly certifications in vain. It'd just be a fun little hobby.

But I, in my infinite wisdom, let myself drag my hobbies in to the giant pile of stress already in my life, made it yet another failure for which I will receive no feedback. Go me, I suppose.

#vent post

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pwblogarchive · 4 months ago

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June 2004

June 2, 2004

“journal drama is so two years ago”

hey old faces and pretty eyes come out and see us when we hit your city. its been awhile. painted some sick bats and hearts on my bass cabs. let me know what you think.

thosewholiveinglassheartsshouldn'tthrowstones.

June 2, 2004

getting ready for tour. threw down some some vocals on the new rise against record. it sounds pretty good. talked about doing a rise against, spitalfield, fob chicago show. it would be like old times.

the truth is i am going to miss you so much more than i could ever let on.

- petey

June 3, 2004

“I'm all fingers crossed and eyelash wishes”

It feels good to be playing again. New set. New songs. New hearts. I'll get into it more later. A lot of people have been asking what I want for my birthday. Don't even worry about presents its all good. Thanks for just acknowledging it and giving me a good year that's enough. But whoever brought up halloween on june 5. Amazing.

Anyway. Thanks for everything. I don't say it enough.

I want to take you out on the road.

Peterabbit

June 3, 2004

“if I go home alone tonight I think I might die.”

The story is coming along. Saw more sketches. We have a deadline set. Its gonna be better than I thought. Well have one clandestine design out on tour but were only gonna sell a couple of designs. Tonight after the show my heart was beating so fast I thought it was going to become a constant tone. I was heaving into the bushes but it was one of like 10 occassions in my life that I felt truly alive.

Peter

June 3, 2004

“if I go home alone tonight I think I might die.”

peter

June 5, 2004

“I’ve O.D.’D On Lonliness 24 Times”

cleveland. what a weird show. got some sweet cakes- this one was possibly the coolest i have ever seen. nick took pics of it. me and some of the guys from don’t look down and anberlin are doing a metalcore band on this tour called Death Support. i am singing and it’s alot heavier than any of our bands. when you wake up alone on your birthday don’t you just think maybe thats going to happen forever? thats okay i am pretty stoked on all my friends right now. i’m tired. thats all. peter

June 6, 2004

second star to the right and straight on till morning.

there is nothing to say besides thank you.

the new taking back sunday will be the soundtrack to your summer. trust me.

peter

June 8, 2004

I only use this stage to wage personal vendettas and make you dance like I am shooting at your feet...

The last few shows have made me feel so right about all of the decisions we have made in the past year. I need a new hat- don't buy me one but tell me some recommendations. Brokehalo7 email is all but destroyed. Gotta find a better way at keeping in touch. Got some new shoes. They have flowers on the, gay or partyanimal? Watched the flight of the navigator and the new harry potter. Some stories are just too great to keep to yourself. We are setting a deadliine for printing "the boy with the thorn in his side". Sorry if I have been out of it, I am feeling kind of low lately.

Everybody loves an underdog.

So don't be suprised when we don't go down.

June 9, 2004

I have so much to say that I never will

What do you do "when you wake up everything will be better". Except its not. And there's no worse feeling than when you wake up and feel okay for a minute. And then that sick feeling washes over you and you remember its not okay. And were blowing this up too big and maybe not big enough at the same time. I hope this (we are) is all forgotten soon.

June 11, 2004

“when the moonlight hits your bright eyes”

And you can't sleep cause no bed smells like her or feel okay because you never really get clean no matter how many showers you take. Its all just night air and broken white lines racing by. You couldn't figure me out if you tried. You never even came close (and you were the closest). We build our own prisons and throw the keys to hearts that never knew they had them anyway. I'm ready to stop. I don't want to feel this way anymore. How long will my excuses keep you at bay? Baby, I'm sorry attentions just been my thing all along. That's all I ever wanted right? The pot calling the kettle... And so on. Call me up. Pull the blanket from over my head and say its okay that words only feel safe out on the computer screen and not whispered into your ear late at night- or just leave me alone. I gotta say I'm tempted to break your heart just cause I could do it best.

Peterabbit

June 12, 2004

“you own this sick feeling in my stomach”

You're not bad news. Your not even news anymore.

June 16, 2004

"the things he writes hurt too much to be real" right?

Friends and lovers. I haven't slept in forever. There have been so many things going on. We got the issue of ap with us on the cover- kids from chicago- there are a couple of crowd shots you can probably see yourself and friends in. Sometimes everything gets so bad that it just turns okay. Know what I mean? Probably not. Went to newyork hardcore and payed for jordan to get a mustache tattooed on his finger. You'll be able to see this and lots of other funny stuff we've been filming. We decided to do a clandestine dvd called "release the bats" so we can show off some funny footage and showcase some of our favorite bands. Oh yeah and don't worry the drawings are done for the book, just waiting on the coloring. Some new shirts will be up in the next few weeks...

I see your face in my dreams imprinted on clouds and blue sky.

Peterpan

June 17, 2004

“I'd go to hell and back for me and you”

You're the kind of kid that knows just how beautiful you are. But it's the moments in between that when I look at you and I feel like I can't breathe.

June 17, 2004

I'm living proof that there such thing as too much of a good thing. The kiss (off) of fame. You can't measure me cause I'm only lying (yeah I left out that part) "I've given up on all that stuff" to get youu back in bed. Oh yeah and how about how you steal all these words from my teeth and fingers and call them yours (yeah you left out that part) and then have the heart to accuse me. That thing aint beating in your chest, its counting down. The spotlights your only home but don't get too comfortable. Its almost too perfect. Too voyeuristic as I watch you go down. Too good to be true.

Cover of ap: www.livejournal.com/~askheychris

- petey

June 19, 2004

“sometimes, new jersey”

I've still got my skateandsurf paper bracelett on. 2 months. I am nin love with nj.

June 20, 2004

who's bright idea was it to make captiol "I" and lower case "l" the exact same thing. fucking lame.

June 20, 2004

“R.I.P.”

American nightmare/giveuptheghost- whatever name is over. This band has changed my life in the past few years more than any band has in recent history. Honestly it hurts and feels so strange that its over. If you get a chance buy a record, you won\'t be disappointed.

When people talk to me about reacting to FOB and how it makes them feel, only this band comes to mind. Their music saved my life.

June 25, 2004

“there's no greater weapon then her name”

Getting ready for japan. I have so much to say. But its way too early. I don't know when ill get to a computer again. I dyed my hair. Its pink with a bit of black in it. Ask some japanese kids to post them.

Underoath "they're only chasing" is almost thje new "tell all your friends"

Napoleon dynamite is almost the new rushmore

Ilove you is the new...

June 26, 2004

kaweii co

boys and girls, deadly cobras and snake charmers. japan is amazing. it is a perfect cartoon over here. we are written in. i am not going to waste too much time typing. i have been keeping a real tour journal of it and will post it when we get back. until then stay lovely.

peter pan

keeprunningyourmouthontheinternetyouresuchajoke

June 27, 2004

im in japan. its real late at night. why would anyone in japan like my band? clandestine- the story is almost done, the release the bats dvd is gonna drop this fally. funny stuff. someone please send me a torch and some faith, cause i just cant see.

peter

- petey

June 29, 2004

this is my heart version 2.0

download new picture. www.fueledbyramen.com/journal

June 29, 2004

sorry that picture was huge. try this one instead. i am gonna be dying my hair black when i get back to the states caused i am sick of making pillows red. its been a really great time over here... dont mistake my arrogance for shyness or the other way around. i cant wait to get back out and touring again in the states. thats what feels like home to me- i know i can be hard to understand and deal with at times, so thanks for putting up with me.

please dont hate me

did you expect us to just roll over and die. your mouth is writing checks your heart cant cash.

i miss you guys so much

peter

#livejournal #fall out boy #pete wentz #pete wentz livejournal

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thedivinefish · 7 months ago

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TGIWednesday: All you had to do was ask

TGIWednesday News

I am diligent about paying bills on time, but this month I paid them from the APP on my phone. 🙄 Whoopsies, missed a credit card payment that was not in "the view". Then I never realized until about 10 days later via emails, texts... yada yada. I transferred the funds on a Saturday from account to account - STILL didn't resolve until Tuesday. 🤦 Fast forward to receiving late fees, penalties, late payments! Oh no sir, not on this nautical watch! I fished like a fisherman in a storm! 🎣 Brought in grace and ease and then some. I then called the bank and the nicest young lady ever spoke with me on the phone. I explained it all at great detail. She did not say much other than, "I see it all here." 👀 Cloaked in what she was looking at were all the bank fees that were not showing up at my end. 😠 When I asked about them she explained them and I said, "I've been with ya'll forever. What can we do to erase all these excess fees?" and she said, "What would you like to do?" I said, "I'd like to delete/erase them!" She responded with, "All you had to do was ask." 🤩 We all know sometimes the universe can play a game with us, and as sure as the sea tides ebb and flow, high and low, so goes life! 🌊 Often in order to get some much needed Universe change... all we had to do was ask.

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divinefishingtips · 7 months ago

Text

TGIWednesday: All you had to do was ask

TGIWednesday News

This photo was sent in to us - Just a shining example of what I always see around everyone 24/7 in outlines and (purple) energy aka all Holy Spirit stuff.

Reach out whenever we can help/contribute to you and yours in any way. View Calendar First, Then Pay and Schedule 15 mins | 30 mins | 60 mins | Appointments

TGIWednesday Video Download

~ UNIVERSAL CHANGES ~

▶️ Watch here on YouTube - Please Like 👍 and Subscribe 🔔

FREE Live Appearances

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives from the Jimmy Mack Healing Radio show.

https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

Fish Food

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack Own this e-book so that you can read inspiration every day!

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

From the Fish Box

MY DAILY PRAYER SUBSCRIBER

What's On Deck?

Returning to Your Ethereal Restore Point An excellent vehicle to support anti-aging, finances even wellness rebirth and a return to splendor! 💸🏦🌠

Join us on our continuing voyage to navigate the unusual, the different and the deepest changes!

The Fish Market

Shop The Prosperity Collection Shop the Body, Mind and Spirit Collection Shop the Improve Your Life Collection

Browse over 45 Videos in the Zoom Replay Collection

The 5 Anchors Energy Process The Purple Rain Energy Process The Magical Golden Key Process TheNight Passage Sleep Process

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

Use PayPal for subscription Click here

Use Stripe for subscription Click here.

*Anytime prior to your next scheduled payment within the 30 days, you can cancel or pause this service via email request.

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Visit our Online Training Center "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" - Lao Tzu

Visit now, Click Here!

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-------------------------------------------------- TGIW newsletter managed by: Sandy Bidinger Digital Marketing Specialist at SMBeConnected Solutions www.sandybidinger.com

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advancedthetapractitioner · 7 months ago

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365dailyaffirmations · 7 months ago

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TGIWednesday: All you had to do was ask

TGIWednesday News

This photo was sent in to us - Just a shining example of what I always see around everyone 24/7 in outlines and (purple) energy aka all Holy Spirit stuff.

Reach out whenever we can help/contribute to you and yours in any way. View Calendar First, Then Pay and Schedule 15 mins | 30 mins | 60 mins | Appointments

TGIWednesday Video Download

~ UNIVERSAL CHANGES ~

▶️ Watch here on YouTube - Please Like 👍 and Subscribe 🔔

FREE Live Appearances

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives from the Jimmy Mack Healing Radio show.

https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

Fish Food

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack Own this e-book so that you can read inspiration every day!

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

From the Fish Box

MY DAILY PRAYER SUBSCRIBER

What's On Deck?

Returning to Your Ethereal Restore Point An excellent vehicle to support anti-aging, finances even wellness rebirth and a return to splendor! 💸🏦🌠

Join us on our continuing voyage to navigate the unusual, the different and the deepest changes!

The Fish Market

Shop The Prosperity Collection Shop the Body, Mind and Spirit Collection Shop the Improve Your Life Collection

Browse over 45 Videos in the Zoom Replay Collection

The 5 Anchors Energy Process The Purple Rain Energy Process The Magical Golden Key Process TheNight Passage Sleep Process

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

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tdcloud · 2 years ago

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DVerse Lore - Luminaries and Charlatans (blog#17)

I feel like I’ve reached May in a dead sprint, racing towards a finish line only I know exists. Good lord, was April a busy month! Even without conventions to eat up my weekends, so much had to happen in what felt like such a short month. But we’re here now, enjoying May and all it brings. Let’s get down to things and on to our next author blog.

I’ll start off things again with some updates: This year’s October Novella Event poll is still up and will be ending in just a few days, so if you haven’t voted yet, get to it! It may come down to the wire on what will end up winning, so if you haven’t read over last month’s blog post that goes into depth on each of these options, take a look, cast your vote, and be sure to pledge to Patreon if you haven’t yet to join us for the main event. The more, the merrier, and the support really does help make my birth month awesome.

Secondly, at the tail end of this month I’ll be setting out for Colossalcon in Sandusky, OH and tabling at the usual Thursday Craft Fair sale. I’ve only got half a table and I’ll be selling some of Sun’s new A Little Rain Oracle Deck bundles, some of her beautiful art in the form of mini prints, as well as my usual assortment of books. Given the size of table constraints, I don’t intend on bringing my full collection. If you are lacking copies of Deluge, Petrichor, or Apricity from The Tempest Series, please email me through my contact form on my website or DM me on any of my socials to reserve a copy before the convention. I’ll essentially be holding it behind the table for you to pick up/meet up with you later in the weekend to deliver it by hand. Payment will need to be upfront, but you’ll at least be sure to complete your collection at my normal con rates now that I’m beginning to phase out older titles from my convention rotation.

Thirdly, this is the month that my new Patreon serialized story begins! Aubade is a Norse fantasy about a male magic user forced to help a kingdom dying of plague under the hand of a Jarl struggling to keep his head above water. I’ve spoken about it at length in previous blog entries, so if it sounded like a good time then, now’s your cue to pledge to join us as I release a new chapter for this work every month for the next year or so. There’s going to be a lot of really beautiful art included in the updates of this book as well! It’s going to be a very emotional, bittersweet experience, but I think one that’s worth experiencing. Chapter one launches 5/15!

I’m sure there are more things to update you all on, but those are the main things for the moment. I’m hopeful that starting next month I’ll be able to get something akin to a timeline in order for when to expect Infaust. No promises—just cross your fingers for me!

For this month’s blog, I figured we’d cycle back around to the DVerse clans and finish up that aspect of things. We’ve only got two clans left: the high-blood Luminaries and the doomed Charlatans. Both are almost diametrically opposed when it comes to inherent blood and status privilege, but there’s still something almost cosmically similar in terms of power. While Luminaries are the top of the food chain from their claim to worldly power structures, Charlatans are the epitome of what makes a vampire better than a human—even if vampiric society doesn’t see it that way or grant them deference for it.

These two make for great foils to one another for that reason. Let’s kick things off with the Luminaries, shall we?

Where to start? Luminaries are the highest of highs and experience some pretty low lows as well. They’re really the quintessential movie vampire—the eloquent, rich, highborn Draculas with the lavish homes, opulent clothing, and expensive tastes. They’re charming, well-spoken, wealthy elites who occupy high positions in government, politics, and corporations in modernity and dictated laws and societal progress in antiquity. But behind those shiny, polished exteriors, they’re utterly depraved. Luminaries are frightening not only for the power and prestige they wield, but for the deplorable habits they indulge in. They’re marked by a lack of self-control, self-restraint, and are instant gratification personified.

You see this sort of behavior echoed throughout the bloodline and throughout history as well. They’ve always occupied high positions within the vampiric hierarchy, their claims to the land and gentry too strong to break in death. Their desire to rule and govern, however, waned and waxed over time. We’ve discussed Marcu’s ascent to power in previous blog posts, so I won’t bore you with rehashing old history. Just know that prior to the Dark Ages, Luminaries tended to hold absolute control over their territories—usually the land they personally owned—and after consolidation happened with Marcu’s rise, they gave over a lot of the active day-to-day reins to Marcu in favor of enjoying themselves without worrying about who was flying the plane, so to speak. So long as Marcu kowtowed and let them do as they pleased, they had no problem lending him their names as legitimizing factors to keep the Triarii in power and fronting the bulk of the managerial aspects a position like that demands. After The Fall, Luminaries took back control entirely, using the sudden end of their extended vampiric Spring Break Vamps Gone Wild party as an excuse to reassert that only nobility had the right to rule and the skills to maintain order.

As far as origin stories, I’m sure one exists—sorting through the chaff of generations upon generations of ego-stroking hearsay, though, would make it hard to suss out, even for the most dedicated Loremaster. Luminaries have existed for as long as the nobility and aristocracy have. They maintain strict control over their own narratives and genealogies for their own purposes, and the topic of lineage is especially important when it comes to deciding matters of inheritance, fledgling stock, and territory disputes. They are simultaneously the most hands off yet high maintenance clan out there, fixated on the tiniest things so long as it satisfies some part of their egos. Great power and influence comes at a cost, as you can see, and that price tends to be inner control.

Luminaries are prone to fixations. These can be on specific people, ideas, or actions. A lot of this is rooted in the old folktales that the way to deter a vampire is to throw a handful of rice or beans or grain on your doorstep at sunset. Any vampire intent on getting in will feel compelled to count every single grain before coming inside, and if you’ve thrown down enough, the morning dawn will catch the vampire before they’ve finished their task. Luminaries have racing thoughts and low attention spans if they aren’t adequately engaged. They’re worse than amoral children when they feel “bored” and have little regard for those they view as expendable entertainment.

It takes a lot of effort for a Luminary to rise above the bad habits of their bloodline. Age can help. Going into the blood with good habits already instilled is even better, but as many Luminaries (especially Old World-leaning ones) are raised as humans knowing or aspiring towards becoming a vampire within the clan, good habits can be hard to learn in an environment that already caters to excess, indulgence, and a lack of accountability. More and more Luminaries are learning to at least contain these impulses behind closed doors, and as New World Luminaries become more prevalent, better self-control has slowly begun to enter the bloodline, one new self-made fledgling at a time.

That’s one of my favorite things to play with when it comes to this bloodline: New World vs Old World traditions. Luminaries are THE clan based on tradition. Very, very rarely will there ever be someone of low status brought into the Luminary fold. If it happens, it’s almost always illegal poaching—one of the few crimes even other Luminaries will view as something that demands punishment. The same way a royal would never dare marry a peasant, a Luminary would never bring someone of low status into the fold. But that begs the question: we don’t have landed gentry the way we did in the past, so where do Luminaries find new stock?

This is where genealogies come into play, and where Loremasters make the bulk of their living. In the Old World, Luminaries took their stock from any established lines of succession grounded and rooted to the land. When America rose to power, New World Luminaries sprung up from the families who became barons and kings in their own rights—enterprise, Capitalists, and self-made scions. Self-made families have become the common stock in modernity, and as we’ve experienced in Apotheosis, rising through the ranks of Capitalism can draw prospective Luminary eyes towards you long before you’ve realized there’s anything lurking in the dark.

We’ll get into a lot of the minutiae of Luminary lines of succession, bloodlines, and fledgling stock in the next duology of books since that’s a main conflict connecting the two standalones. It’s pretty cool stuff, honestly, and I hope you’re eager to see just how tangled these webs get when you’ve got familial bloodlines up against vampiric blood ties competing for the same things.

As for the clan-specific traits, Luminaries do have several beyond just the finances and social clout.

Enhanced compulsion, mesmerization, and presence. They can draw every eye to them just by entering a room and end every conversation in an area at will

Low self-control/impulse control

If Nicciave have OCD/Anxiety disorders, Luminaries have ADHD

Easily forged fixations with obsessive personalities

Strong defenses against vampiric compulsions from others (practically impossible to compel or mesmerize a Luminary unless you’re another Luminary, and even then it’ll be dicey)

Again, age and pre-vampiric habit formation is a big determinate in how deplorable a Luminary’s behavior will be. In Apotheosis, we see an almost four hundred year old Elijah behave fairly well. He’s got his quirks, but he’s composed, contained, and respectful. He wasn’t always like that, and he’ll explain that in his own words within the story itself, and that’s pretty indicative of most Luminary experiences—at least, it is for those who have the desire to change and improve for the better. Many don’t. Many don’t see anything wrong with how they behave. After all, they’re the elite. It’s their right to live freely, kill freely, and indulge in every vice to excess. We’ll see the full spectrum as we go.

What do you guys think? Is it worth being at the top of the pecking order when your self-control is the cost? I think no matter the clan, there’s always a trade off for the perks. It’s important to give things balance, and at the root of it all, no matter how sexy or cool we find vampires, they’re still creatures damned to live forever and consume blood to survive. Any connections they’re able to form come at a risk and for every impressive, super human power, there’s a cost.

Charlatans, especially, display that in spades. Charlatans are fascinating characters. No matter who they are, what their ability is, or how ungodly powerful they are, they’re always just… so pitiful, or conversely, fucking terrifying to behold. A lot of how I built these different clans was in terms of how things might exist if the DVerse were closer in nature to something like VtM. How would each clan work as a tabletop rpg character class? Is everything balanced? What are the downsides to each clan? Is any one clan too overpowered so as to break the game?

If anyone was going to break a game, it’d be a Charlatan. Any gamer knows that if someone or some weapon is too overpowered, it’s going to be nerfed in an update, and boy howdy, are Charlatans OP but also nerfed out the ass. From their very earliest days, they were on the outs with every other clan. Unlike many bloodlines, there is a known root for them. Their original name from before they became blacklisted pariahs during Marcu’s Dark Age was Children of Lycus. Lycus is, as you can likely infer, the progenitor of this clan. He is immeasurably old, for sure the oldest vampire I’ve got in this universe (or as my editor says, Lycus went to school with the dinosaurs). On my grand whiteboard timeline of characters, his sticky note takes up occupancy at the far leftmost edge of the board, so far left that he’d be on the wall if this whiteboard didn’t take up the entire length of my office as it is. He’s just that old.

There’s so much about Charlatans tied up with this one singular character. Not many bloodlines can say the same. Most don’t know who their sire was, let alone the progenitor of their entire clan. While a lot don’t know Lycus’s name these days, those of his bloodline—the few, at least, who have managed to stumble upon another Charlatan old and kind enough to take a moment to speak with them about such things—just might. There’s a marked lack of cohesion and clan bond with Charlys (as I like to call them). What roots they’re able to find, be it through physical connection to other Charlys or merely just the notion of genealogy or shared clan history, they grasp it with both hands. Stories of the halcyon days of their bloodline, of Lycus and his students… It’s a balm during the darkest, loneliest nights. It’s a dream of better, long-gone days, and for those who have nothing, sometimes less than nothing, it’s something. Painful as it is, it’s something.

So, who was Lycus? Lycus was an artist. A creative. A seeker and appreciator of beauty in all the myriad forms it comes in, as well as the hands of those who create it. A philosophe, aesthete, and mentor, Lycus traveled Europe in pursuit of the things he valued most in the world: creations that stirred his dormant heart. When he found the people responsible for such creations, he’d offer them the gift, or merely offer to join them or they him as they mutually taught one another new skills or means of appreciation. If he fledged, his fledglings received more than just immortality and an indelible connection to him. Every Charlatan has a unique blood gift: Lycus’s gift was that mutability. Through it he made artists, and through it, he made monsters, too.

At its core, Charlatans are based on the premise of mutability. Their blood is inherently unstable, the powers it yields forming from the core of the recipient to become a gift or curse depending on what self-preservation or instinct determined they needed most at the moment of inception. Every gift, no matter the presentation, has a spectrum to it. At its most innocuous, it may seem to be nothing more than a cheap parlor trick, but when pressed… There’s no such thing as a harmless Charlatan, and that, my friends, is the crux of what makes them so damnably sad.

Lycus had no desire for power or prestige. He never wanted to rule. He just wanted to create. His fledglings, however, didn’t always share his pacifism—or if they did, they did so in ways that screamed “armed neutrality” but with the armament in question being a nuclear bomb. It scared people, and scared people lash out. When Marcu instigated his massive cullings, it stood to reason that Charlatans would be one of the first to go, and with them, the recognition of them as a bloodline. The name change happened, almost akin to a damnatio memoriae. Lycus exchanged his life for the protection and further subjugation of his remaining kin, and the rest, as it’s said, is history.

Life for Charlatans hasn’t changed much between the Dark Ages and modernity. They’re few in number, are prevented from congregating in cities, and are loners by forced necessity, never design. If they sire, they do so while on the run or out of desperation. Very few Charlatans have any sort of relationship with their sire. It’s simply too dangerous for two Charlatans to be near each other for any length of time, and because of that, they tend to have a high rate of fledgling mortality. Most are forced to masquerade as other bloodlines in order to fly under the radar, but others… Well, there’s a reason why other bloodlines fear Charlatans and their gifts so much.

We’re going to experience a lot of the Charlatan struggle firsthand in the Mortigena book as we go through the motions with Cesare, Lycus’s final fledgling before his execution. In many ways, Cesare is the prototypical pitiful Charlatan. He was an artist who attracted Lycus’s attention, trained under him, loved him, and had everything taken from him by Marcu and his cullings. His own blood gift, the ability to sense when someone is lying, was then weaponized politically by Marcu and his cohort as he was forced to exist as a political prisoner/tool. Stripped of his clan emblem, ties, and ability to be around his kin, Cesare lived in hell. If he tried to fight back, what few remaining Charlatans in the city would be culled in response, and if he tried to kill himself, the same would likely also happen.

Lycus’s blood is mutable. It’s chaotic. With Cesare as his last, it almost seems poetic that Lycus’s first fledgling would be the root of the terrible reputation the clan has for being dangerous, volatile, and worth so much outright fear and loathing. Those of you who read my ao3 oneshot about Charon, another Charlatan, may remember his burning curiosity over someone named Mercurio. Mercurio is one of the most terrifying and fascinating vampires I’ve made for this universe, and while I think it’s a shame he’ll never show himself in canon, it’s for the best of everyone involved that he doesn’t. He’s the nuclear bomb that’s got everyone worried about fallout becoming reality, and while I think it’s awful how Charly’s are persecuted… The fact that Mercurio exists, the way he exists… It makes sense to be that wary of this bloodline. It makes perfect sense, and honestly, if I were a vampire and lived in this world, I’d be wary as fuck, too.

If there’s a vampire capable of doing what Mercurio can do, you’d bet your ass I’d want nothing to do with the whole bloodline, too. I think my character profile listing on him says it best, so I’ll just cut and paste here:

Lycus’s first fledgling. Ancient but so fey that the years don’t touch him at all. Capable of subsuming the will of his fledglings and controlling them like puppets on a string. Only able to maintain this hold while they are within his radius. If a Flower in his garden leaves, they’ll snap and exist in a hollow state. Is capable of performing this ability on others outside his immediate blood-family, but not as quickly. Feared by every vampire with a self-preservation instinct and therefore single-handedly changed the CoL’s reputation as one to be reviled and feared. Has no desire to turn his attention to dominating the world at large; that’s the only thing keeping the rest of vampiric life from ending as we know it.

Is able to independently control his Flower’s blood gifts which makes him the most powerful man on the planet, easily

Doesn’t cavort in public often, but when the mood strikes he’ll show up at gatherings to see the sights and hear different voices. Most ignore him outright, afraid to make eye contact in case he looks back. If you attract his attention, you’re already lost

Charming and incredibly insincere—but what we think of as insincerity is his absolute truth for as long as it remains interesting to him. He’s a man of absolutes that change at the drop of a hat.

There’s only one known Flower to have left his garden. Chartreuse (Char) was left behind at the manor of a Luminary who took a shine to Mercurio’s gentle clown. Char behaved normally for a few days before the tenuous connection to Mercurio went silent, and, when left alone with their own thoughts for the first time in ages, found they could no longer function. They snapped. Blind as they were in life, they did what they knew how to do; they made those around them laugh, and laugh, and laugh. By morning, the whole manor was dead, their throats shredded and lungs pulverized from laughing themselves to oblivion. At the center of it all was Char, nonverbal and listening desperately for some shred of Mercurio’s influence to come back to them.

He’s the sole reason Charlys have as terrible a reputation as they’ve got, but really, just like with the story of Chartreuse, any Charly is capable of some pretty insane things when their blood gift reaches the maximum setting on the dial. Things like that aren’t typically consciously activated—they’re stress responses, sort of akin to a mother lifting a car off her trapped child. But due to his proximity to Lycus, his age, and the fact that his personality already has few safety restraints to begin with, his blood gift isn’t easily controlled.

If you haven’t read my ao3 oneshot yet, I suggest popping over there and checking it out. Charon is a very interesting Charlatan, one we’ll encounter more of in future books, but he gives a good overview of the sort of reputation Charlys have as a whole. His own blood gift offers him more protection than many other Charlys can boast. It makes him cocky, but he’s protected. Most Charlys would kill to have the same sort of freedom he’s got to flaunt it as openly as he does.

What sort of gifts are common, though? Well, almost every Charly has a unique gift. They’re very fun to create, these powers, but also very difficult at the same time. As I said before, the gifts are a spectrum. Most will only ever operate them at their lower-end settings, but they have to have the capacity to be cranked to eleven and wreak some real, earth-shattering levels of damage if properly targeted. Cesare’s bottom-end ability is serving as a lie detector. Charon’s power, something he can control fairly well given his practice and confidence, is akin to a love-potion or roofie-aura. No one can harbor ill feelings towards him, wish him harm, or do anything but adore him, even love him, when he’s turned it on. I’ve got one Charly with something sort of similar, but his gift lowers inhibitions, more like playing with adrenaline and self-control until the logic center of the brain goes silent and lets sloppier impulses out to play. Another has a vocally-induced compulsion ability that’s far, far stronger than the usual vampire mesmerization. While vampire mesmerization is a soft, velvety urge to do what will make the vampire happy, Blair’s hurts if you refuse it. A vocal iron maiden that won’t ease off until you do as you’re told, and the commands they can give… Boy howdy, let’s just say don’t back Blair into a corner. You won’t be the same afterwards.

As you can see, a lot of these gifts are largely defensive in nature until they’re weaponized. They tie into the characters’ needs, many of them centered around the sort of defenses they needed most when they were turned/in the process of dying or are off-shoots of honed skills they already had in life that manifested more thoroughly after the fact. It’s a fun game to build a Charlatan, so if you guys want, definitely spitball one for yourself and leave them in a comment! I’d love to see what y’all come up with.

Now it’s time for questions! Everything comes from Instagram, Twitter, and private messages this go around.

What’s your favorite and/or most memorable con experience?

Okay, so for starters, favorite and memorable are very two different things when it comes to convention experiences and I love that you made that distinction. I don’t think I’ve talked much about it on here yet, but I’ve had a lot of really questionable moments when tabling. If you sell any sort of nsfw content, you open yourself up to people who have zero boundaries, zero understanding of proper ways to engage with other human beings, and just outright awful moments of people saying the most out of pocket shit to you when you did not ask. In that regard, the most negatively memorable experience I’ve probably had is every time my mother has tagged along to a con with me to help me sell and a stranger saying something completely out of line to me with her within earshot. No one wants to explain to their mother what “futanari” is. Seriously.

Let this be a reminder right now that the person seated behind a convention table is working a job. If you wouldn’t say it to your waitress, accountant, or cashier, why the hell would you say it to a tabling artist/author?

I could go on for 5k words alone on all the cursed ass experiences I’ve had while tabling, ranging from homophobic assholes to offensive comments to people seriously not understanding that just because I’m talking about my smut works doesn’t mean I want to hear about all the graphic ways they have sex with their partners. I live and operate largely in the midwest. The good definitely outweighs the bad in terms of my usual reception, but boy howdy do the bad experiences stick in my head a hell of a lot longer than the good ones, no matter how good those good ones get.

Anyway—on the other side of things, I’ve had so many wonderful experiences as well. My favorite moments have got to be when someone stops by my table and they’re cosplaying from a fandom I’ve written fanfiction for, and upon me mentioning that, they learn that I’m actually the author of their favorite fic in the fandom. That’s happened several times with HxH and DBH and I never tire of finding fans like that. One actually pulled out their phone to show me the mock cover they’d made in a college class for one of my fanfictions! It was so sweet and made my entire convention.

My favorite con experience from when I wasn’t tabling would be during my first ever Youmacon meet-and-greet. Someone showed up cosplaying Khouri ;-; I just about cried.

How do you work through writer’s block?

I get this question quite a lot when I’m out and about. Usually writer’s block hits me when I’m bored with whatever project I’m working on. That boredom manifests via different avenues. Sometimes it hits me when the section I’m on is very low action or worse—a dreaded travel scene. I fucking HATE writing travel scenes. Other times, I’ll get bad writer’s block when the project I’m working on doesn’t align with the current mood I’m in. When I’m writing something soft, gentle, and rom-com, I will inevitably get hit with crippling writer’s block because all I want to do instead is write insane survival horror. That disconnect will lock me up and keep me from proceeding on anything because while something is on the to-do list, it has to be worked on. I can’t move on until it’s done, so if I’m not making progress on it it’ll back up every other project until I do.

Now, all of that is to say that I’m self aware about what trips me up. The best way to get out of writer’s block is to know how you write, how you work, and to know yourself. Identify what is causing the block, and then you’ll have an easier time getting out of it. If you’re bored, work on something else, skip ahead to a more entertaining section, or look at your outline and revamp it to make it exciting. Find someone to talk to about the section you’re stuck on and I guarantee you’ll feel a lot more invigorated afterwards since you’ve likely just talked your way through the issue. If you’re like me and stuck with a to-do list of things that have to be worked on at certain points in the month… It’s harder then, because you have to commit to your schedule and finish things regardless of what you actually want to do. When I’m feeling bored or locked up on something that HAS TO BE DONE, HAS TO!!! I’ll do my best to muscle through it despite my lack of interest. Finished is always better than perfect, and knowing that you can come back to it in the editing phase and fix it will usually give just enough motivation to get over the hump and over the finish line, even if it’s like pulling teeth every step of the way.

Time, though, is always the best answer. It’s a luxury I don’t always have these days, but if I don’t feel like working on something, leaving it until I do will almost always be the correct answer. There’s always other things I could be working on even if I’m not writing. I could be editing something else, working on cover mock-ups, updating my website, or even handling the physical aspects of my business by adding labels onto my purchase bags, signing all of my book copies to speed up things at conventions, or just organizing the office space so I don’t get overrun with my own product.

So… long story short, I just try to focus on other things and work through shit if necessary to meet deadlines. My patrons and editor are used to me tacking on disclaimers about how certain chapters were more difficult than others and to prepare their expectations accordingly, but it’s always going to sound worse to me than it does to them, and when I go back to edit it three months later, it’ll likely not be that bad to me at that point either. Occupational hazards, I guess. I’m such an old hand at this entire process that I just roll with it when it happens.

What kind of things do you do to replenish your creativity? Ie: where do you go for inspiration, how do you sort it/save it, and what kind of stuff makes you want to create?

Lots of banger questions this month! When I need to replenish my creativity the number one thing I tend to do is consume other people’s work. I read books, watch movies, anime, shows, or go down a research rabbit hole to plumb the depths for more concepts, philosophies, or interesting dynamics that might add depth to shape whatever project I’m currently working on or wanting to flesh out.

It may surprise you guys to learn that I have to be careful about timing my intake of external content. I can become so easily inspired by good stories and art that it can completely distract me from my current projects and lead to additional ips thrown onto my already overflowing stack. But other times, I really need to just let loose and consume freely. I’ll pick up books that I’ve heard mention of or have been meaning to read over the years, find manga or doujin with interesting premises that might promise some inspiration, or pull up a new tv show on netflix recommended by a friend. Inspiration can be found anywhere, to be honest, and all I really need from it is something that gets my mind buzzing with new thoughts and different ideas than the stuff I come up with organically in my own little echo chamber.

As for where I save stuff, I’m a big proponent of buying things that serve as massive sources of inspiration for me, so if there are manga, doujins, or books that fit that, I’ll buy them and keep them on hand. If I can’t get physical copies, I save the links and create folders on my desktop to house them instead. I use my Tumblr likes as a repository of inspiration bait as well, and on there you can find decade’s old comics that have stuck with me after all this time, snapshots of long-passed zines that lit a fire in my brain, and long chains of obscure word glossaries that serve as reference for future book titles.

As for what kinds of stuff make me want to create… It can literally be anything. I can watch a bad movie with a decent premise (or even a bad premise) and come out of it with a new book idea of how I’d execute it better. Fanfiction can lead to the same exact thing, and even partial themes from an existing piece of media can spawn a huge series concept behind my eyes. I’ve even gotten inspired by terrible indie horror games that had concepts buried within their shoddily executed foundations that made me want to do it better, make it worse, make it gayer.

For example, I watched my favorite youtuber/streamer John Wolfe play a terrible indie horror game called Dinner with Strangers. Long story short, you’re trying to escape a murderous dinner party after learning that you are a clone of your “father’s” dead wife who was created solely to become his new bride. It’s terrible, shlocky, and broken af, but while discussing the concept of how entirely stupid it is to clone your dead wife and then raise the clone from infancy to become your bride (like the pseudo-incest vibes aside, why the hell would you want to marry someone you literally saw in diapers/who will never be your lost wife as her personality came from her own upbringing and such and this wife-daughter won’t ever have that same experience), came up with a better concept of how to be a possessive yandere bastard in the wake of losing your true love. It involves dimension-hopping and stealing from an alternative version of yourself. Never intended to write a story like that before watching John’s thirty minute let’s play and bitching to my editor about how bad it was, but there you go. That’s how my brain works and as I’ve said before, I’ve written books for stupider reasons.

I’m also hugely inspired by academia and the scholarship behind different tropes and concepts. I’m a huge fan of exploring how things affect readers and why certain concepts and ideas are so effective in terms of scaring or resonating with an audience. A lot of my current work has to do with horror and always has, to some extent, but as I begin writing more and more outright horror-based concepts, I’ve been delving more and more into the rich scholarship of horror as a genre and driving force behind the human psyche. I absolutely love deconstructing tropes within the genre to explore them at their base levels. Ossuary and Reliquary are really deeply inspired by that research and just my general interest in the horror genre at large, and, on the flipside, something like Courtly Love also comes from my fascination with chivalry as a philosophy and romantic device alongside the codified records we have of the edicts of courtly love as recorded by troubadours and courtiers throughout the middle ages.

I always say academia still has me in a strangle grip and I mean that in the most loving way possible. I love scholarship and basing my own work on those foundations, and I’m just as likely to find inspiration in a thesis paper as I am something like Hannibal or (more recently) Trigun. So… yeah. I get inspired by horror, history, subverted tropes, the subversive and transgressive, and roving thoughts that follow the conclusion of an external piece of media or a random daydream amounting to “How could I make this worse? How could I make this gay? How could I make this better?” and things in that vein.

If you guys are curious at all about what inspired certain works of mine, that’d probably make for a fun blog in the future, too. Chime off in the comments if there’s anything specific you’ve wanted to know the thought process behind, be it a scene, character, or story (book or fanfic alike). I’m excited to see what’s stuck with you guys and whether you’ve ever been inspired by my work the way I’m inspired by other people’s stuff!

But that’s enough for right now. -leans back in my chair with a groan- I’ve got a bit of a buffer made up now that I’ve finished rewriting the first eight chapters of Aubade, so for the next eight or so months I’ll be putting the pedal to the metal on Hiraeth, largely, and in another month or so to the winner of the October poll, too. I’m really hopeful that Hiraeth’s first draft will be completed before we hit September. The second it is, expect to see me screaming that to the rooftops on every social media I’ve got.

Please send me all the good luck you’ve got to spare as well as some prayers that I survive the crunch of these next few months—I’m going to be pulling double duty once more as I try to power through the five remaining chapters as quickly as I can. If you see me at Colossalcon this month or Jafax the second weekend of June, tell me in person as well. I’ll need it, and I always appreciate knowing people are excited for what’s yet to come.

Until next time,

T.D. Cloud

#blog #author blog #dverse #lore

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