#I finished and scheduled this page to post like a week early

[pdalicedraws]

Nobody's having a good time!

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[thedevotionaltour]

in terms of art alone im sorry. im a jrjr defender to my last breath you be fucking nice to him. i dont wanna hear shit❗️❗️❗️

[fairytalegobang]

OFFICIAL Opening DAY

I wanted to clear up some questions and timeline for those not sure if they want to join yet! First, this is a Bang, so Authors will be going first! -That being said we are allowing Artists to submit if they like some inspiration pics to authors who finish early! Second, this theme is fairly open to interpretation; you are not expected or required to do Grimm's Fairy Tales. They may be the most popularly known ones, but that does not make them the only ones. Modern setting is not banned, it just has to feature elements of a Fairy Tale. For the purposes of this Bang, A fairy tale is a story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. Myths, Folklores, and Legends are allowed to be adapted, but anything relating to a current religion people follow or important folkloric figures SHOULD be treated with respect when adapting! So stories relating to the Greek, Roman, and Norse pantheons, for instance, are allowed, as well as folklore figures like Robin Hood or Mulan as examples. Original but on-theme stories are also allowed, as long as they feel and have relevant Fairy Tale aspects.

Third, the timeline! January 13th - Voting/Interest Check Opens February 13th - Sign-Ups Officially Open March 13th - Sign-ups Close for Authors May 30th - Summary Submissions Open (50% work due) June 13th - Summary Submissions Close and Sign-Ups Close for Artists June 15th - Claims Start July 31st - Group Check-in August 13th - Final Check-in (Call for pinch hitters) September 13th - Posting Starts

Posting Will be done to AO3 under a collection set up for the Bang and site of the Artists's choosing to host their work. The artists are expected to be in contact with their Authors to provide a link to their work to link in the fic itself. NEITHER work should be posted publically until September 13th!

Server Rules: •Be Courteous and Respectful to Everyone in the server. •Keep NSFW in the labeled areas. •Keep discussions to their relevant areas. •Do not share anything posted here without permission (This can be disregarded if they themselves utilize a link to another page). •You must be at least 16 years of age to be in this server. BANG Rules: •Do not share art or fic outside of the server-assigned areas besides with your beta privately. •Posting will begin on the 13th of September and be expected to be done (at least a first chapter uploaded the week of) with the rest of the fic to be completed and uploaded on a schedule your artist is comfortable with if their art is to feature at a particular point. •All of your fic should be uploaded no later than October 13th if you want to roll out chapters over a period of time. •Claims will be limited to one fic to artist ratio until a full 24 hours have passed to give everyone available a chance to choose before a second claim can commence. •If you are both an artist and an author, you will be able to participate in the second run of claims (6 hours after), Depending on which time zone is most convenient for the majority of users. •No users under the age of 18 can choose from any fic/art rated Mature+ •Fics are to be at least 3k in length.

Link to join is clickable in the Image

[herotome]

Devlog #120

Hi-ho, Wudge here. Early devlog...!

This week I drew a blush just for Warden and nobody else. There are two very specific ways to see it, and only in this office location. So... good luck!

I playtested the game enough to get allllllll 26 achievements. I actually... had to reference my own walkthrough to get one of them. ;;; But I was able to do it!!

I also had a small.. incident where Griffin promised he'd talk to everyone to help fix their negative opinions of me (aka, reset the approval points to a more neutral zone after I thoroughly antagonized everybody).... and then he didn't. It's fixed now ;;;;;; But woo that would have been an awful lil mistake hahaha.

I finished the 'updating ur mc pfp' tutorial - seems to be intuitive and working seamlessly enough!

I converted converted alllll the pngs into webps, and converted alllllllllll the mp3s and wavs into oggs...

...and deleted all unnecessary files and notes from the development process. This is usually the stage where I'll end up breaking something from accidentally nuking an important file... but so far so good.

I put in a cute, special lil sfx for the reward you get after the credits.

Finish designing and coding my SECRET NG+ screen, and wrote a personalized dev note to put in it.

And - we've finally updated Mr Whidden! Wahoo!!!! Remnantation did an amazing job as always!

I thought about putting in some animated smoke coming out of his cannon arm but I had to tell myself No... No Wudge....stop.. ......I did add a lil ember and smoke at the very edge of the gun but THATS IT I restrained myself there and did not animate!!!

So, what else is left?

Thanks I'm glad you asked.

Test my email subscription service to see how much I can customize those emails.

Film and upload the Griffin CG video.

Finish and import a few final pieces of in-game art (1 bird sprite, 1 background, some food art).

Review some sound effects in a final, final dev playtest.

Schedule out some social media release posts; wherein I might do like, a week of counting down until the game's release.

Finish updating my itch page (adding the final few lil graphics, putting up the new Content Warning, linking to the new video, then finally, uploading the game files and walkthrough).

Decide how I'm gonna update my pinned post. I should save a link to the old one bc most of its information should be quite relevant, but I'll want a temporary, shorter pinned post for new players who aren't familiar with this blog and are looking to troubleshoot or say hi or something.. Should still have fun attention-grabbing gifs and stuff from the itch page though. <_<

.... So yeah, mostly like - social media promo stuff. That should be it. Fingies crossed. Whew.

By the way?

Super Demo comes out December 2nd. Mark your calendars <3

Stay safe and keep warm,

Wudge.

[open-hearth-rpg]

The TTRPG Year So Far

I’ve been away from the blog for a couple of weeks, mostly because I’ve actually had a burst of productive energy. This week I released Danger! Unexploded Spell, a series playset for Girl By Moonlight: “Unacceptable mages drafted by the authorities protect their city from damage wrought by arcane air raids and bombings while trying to survive and create a community.”

Before that I finally cracked down and finished writing up Numberless Secrets, my Hearts of Wulin sourcebook for running mysteries. That came in at about 110 pages, and includes six sample mysteries. I’m really happy with the end results. Of course leading up to that I posted the draft of the new Celestial playbook for HoW on the blog and a tweaked version of the Villain playbook. 

Then in early April ago I put out Veil: Iterations, my version 1.5 rules for The Veil. I’ve had some feedback, but it is a pretty niche release (like all of my stuff). I have to make a couple of tweaks to that. 

Assuming I get this next GBM playtest written up, I have several other things in the queue: a couple new cases for Apocalypse Keys, my fantasy/samurai hack of Free from the Yoke, Hearts of Yokai (PbtA inspired by Changeling the Lost), and maybe more campaign frames for Hearts of Wulin. I’m sure there’s a couple of other things I’m forgetting. 

ACTUAL GAMING

All of that has been in parallel to all of the games which I’ve been running online and locally. Here’s what I’ve done so far this year, 87 sessions total with nine as a player. I have links to actual plays where they’re available. You can also listen to these in podcast format on our Open Hearth site:

Before the Sith: My hack of Before the Storm for the Star Wars minicon. I’d run another hack of this for superheroes before and realized that a four hour block just didn’t work. So I ran this as two three-hour blocks with an hour break in the middle. That helped and gave us room to let the scenes breathe. Even with that, we still ended up cutting out one of the rounds to make sure we had enough time for the ending. 

My Star Wars framing worked, but I think particularly because we had three Jedi and one non-Jedi character. That created a really solid set of tensions and questions. In the end two of the four characters had tragic/heroic deaths in the final battle. The core game’s mechanic for the cards works really well and would be worth adapting for other games. (one session)

Bounty of the Week: We just started this as a stand-in for the Veil: Iterations game I’ve been running on alt-Sundays. I managed to over pack my schedule so I asked if someone else could step in to run something. We did our session zero and I’m looking forward to playing. I’ve played vanilla MotW a couple of times in both editions and dug it. However I found it tough going when I ran it, I think because I have a different approach to structuring mysteries. (not recorded, one session)

Dreams and Machines: Oof. I ran a couple of sessions of D&M from the starter set last year, and even wrote up my impressions. I picked up the physical boxed set afterwards. So when someone asked for a series to see how 2d20 worked, I volunteered to run the full game complete with character creation. It crashed and burned.

I don’t want to go too far into this here- it deserves a full write up. But I only remember canceling one other series in mid-run because the game itself just didn’t work for us (that would be Dangerous Times: Muckrakers and Magic in Old New York). I like 2d20– I have two other series using it on this list. But Dreams and Machines has some serious problems. After the second play session, the group talked about our frustrations. I switched over to a Hearts of Wulin series, to help cleanse my palate. (two sessions)

Dune (not recorded): This remains probably my favorite implementation of 2d20. It has its issues (move as an action, spatial duel set up, slow advancement) but I dig the presentation, resources, and the mechanics generally. We’ve gotten fairly deep in our story. The world our PC house has taken possession of has developed nicely– with interesting ideas about society and ecology. Plus we’ve had some fun interactions with rival houses. We will be hitting a stopping point for this soon. That’s because the group’s schedule can be uncertain and we want to do some short-run things we can likely finish. (six sessions)

Fearful Symmetries: The Second Aethyr: We did a full three-month campaign arc of this Trail of Cthulhu series at the beginning of 2023. I loved Fearful Symmetries' combination of magicians, folk horror, and a specific historical place. Towards the end of that series it became clear we could easily do another arc. 

We took up that story a year later real and in-game time, checking in with our characters and how they’d recovered from the conflict at the end of the last series. Despite the break, everyone fell right back in. We ended up with three “mysteries” (including a country house murder) plus some transitional sessions, and an action-packed coda. I loved it the whole way through. It has renewed my faith in simple, streamlined Gumshoe. 

We decided we would do a third and final arc, even talking in the final session about the framing for the start of the next campaign. We might do this later this year or at the beginning of next. I’ve done some pipelaying already for the campaign, and have been thinking about how to integrate the Bookhounds of London material with it. (twelve sessions)

Girl by Moonlight: On a Sea of Stars: Another one we started last year, though right at the end. It became one of my favorite series; I dig GBM’s approach and mechanics. The group enjoyed it, though I think one of the players significantly less so than the others. We decided to do a two-month series to finish out the campaign this year. I imagined it as a mid-season break for a prestige TV show. On Wednesday we hit our 14th session, playing out the final, world-breaking mission. Next session we will do role-play and epilogues to finish out these stories. 

I really like GbM. The mechanics drive an interactivity which feels right with the genre. Any action can be from the individual, but becomes stronger when you wrap in the other characters. It may be the rpg with the strongest support-class mechanics I’ve ever seen. (four sessions)

Godbound: Sundered Cycles:We finally ran the third and final quarterly arc of this series. I really enjoy Godbound. I love how the wild powers combined with an OSR adjacent system make people think carefully about how to solve problems. It has some wonky bits– and the problem of the flat OSR combat, but overall it works. 

I really enjoyed returning to this because we’d built up the characters and world so fully in the previous two quarterlies. Going back made me a little nervous but– as I mentioned in an earlier post– I’ve found it's much easier to go back to previous games when playing online. We also added a fifth, new player which added a great dimension to the play. They had a unique perspective on divinity and the characters’ role in that. 

Had a great set of epilogues and we tied the finale into events from the Mountain Home game. I like the world we’ve built and will probably go back there again. I used some of the Thousand Thousand Island bits early on, but there’s still a ton of that I could integrate.  (ten sessions)

Hearts of Wulin: Ageless Sin (not recorded): A solid four-part HoW series using the supernatural set up. I ran for three folks I hadn’t before which was great– and everyone really leaned into the genre. Big, hot tragic ending in the last session. (four sessions)

Hearts of Wulin: 3 Mountains, 1 Heart: A great series. This is what we transitioned into when Dreams and Machines collapsed. We used the fantastical materials, even doing an initial playtest of the Celestial playbook (which needs some proofing and tweaking). We had some great characters, including our Celestial. The Fox-spirit PC from Ageless Sin returned and I integrated several elements from that story into this one. We also had a really fun take on the Aware and a PC who used music in a unique way. I’ve had players run musician characters, but I don’t ever think I’ve seen someone lean into performance and musicality like they did. (five sessions)

The Hunted: I need to write up a review of this. It’s one of the best one-shot frameworks I’ve ever played. It uses Forged in the Dark to create an amazing, tense, and propulsive game of characters being hunted by something terrible. Great play structure, dynamite tools for collaboration, and just dripping with atmosphere. Highly recommended. (one session)

Imperium Maledictum: 3 Cycles from Retirement and Plausible Deniability: So I have been running this to justify buying the core book (and the GM screen as it turns out). This is a newish 40K game, clearly intended to be a kind of follow up to Rogue Trader– though it is both narrower and broader than that. It uses the same mechanics as the latest version of Warhammer Fantasy, creating some consistency between the games. 

I’ve enjoyed both series– despite the tradness of the system. There’s enough interesting flexible choices for success and combat to make it really interesting. But it's abstract in a lot of places (like zones for movement and influence as a resource). I originally planned to just run one series during the day, but I had enough interest that I put another on the calendar for the same day in the evening. I’d always planned to do different adventures for the two groups, but having one player in both confirmed that for me. I’ll admit I had some worries going in, but I’m having a great time running this and leaning into slightly-satirical grimdark combined with the 40K elements which attract me. (seven sessions)

Mecha Hack: The only rpg I played besides the newly starting Bounty of the Week campaign. I thoroughly enjoyed this OSR game which combined a dynamite GM with a great group. I had some of the most tense moments I think I ever have. The combat clicked, exploration merged tension with narrative, and the final fully role-play session tied everything together. Plus I learned about Owlbear Rodeo which I’ve been using in a couple of campaigns. (nine sessions)

Murder in the Jedi Temple: I ran this one shot for our Star Wars mini-con. I’d playtested the scenario with a group which helped me trim and fix a couple of things for play. While the playtest went OK (pretty clear one player hated it), the game went well at the table and we managed to get a full, rich story done in four hours. (two sessions)

Pressure: One of the two newish Osprey rpgs I did a two-shot of. I found it decidedly mid but I had a really good time with the two adventures I ran. In particular I dug my set up for the second session and how wild things got. You can check out my review of it here. (two sessions)

Pulp Cthulhu: I did a short series of this by way of justifying my purchase of the Humble Bundle for Call of Cthulhu 7e. I enjoyed the play which adapted and drastically changed an adventure from the book. Pulp Cthulhu is pretty much CoC 7e with a few talents and more ability to spend luck. It’s a minor adaptation. It reinforced for me that if I’m going to do trad-ish Cthulhu I’m pretty off running Trail. 

It’s probably the last time I run CoC, given that Chaosium decided that their best move was to hire an unapologetic shitheel who doxxed folks who were already subject to harassment. After this, despite my love for Glorantha, I’m done with their stuff. (three sessions)

Star Trek Adventures: We wrapped our multi-year 13th Age campaign in 2023– we’d started it well before the pandemic. I pitched out several concepts and this one tied for first. Since I’d already invested in the books I cast the tie-breaking vote. We have a big table (six players). I was worried about that originally but it has been fine. We’ve done four “episodes” so far, each split over two sessions. I’ve encouraged them to keep thinking of this as a TV show– with that kind of dramatic logic. 

One of the challenges has been that we have two people who really know Star Trek, two who know Star Trek, and two who don’t know Star Trek.

Of course shortly after I started (and picked up the last of the physical books) Modiphius announced Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition. I don’t think I’ll switch over– in part because I spent a bunch of money buying sets of Effect Dice which the new edition doesn’t use. (face to face, ten sessions)

Tomb Raider: The Last Guardians: I ran a short playtest of this last year, but only a few sessions. This time I’m running in the Open Playtest with more room, trying out a new adventure and team playbook. I continue to dig the mechanics here– and the character interactions work throughout. I’m hoping that after the playtest period I’ll be able to post the videos. (three sessions)

Tomorrow City:The other Osprey RPG I ran. I did a two shot of this (you can see the review here). I liked the system and the setting’s solid. It’s not a bad start for something simple and dieselpunk. But it is one of those cases where you have to decide if the setting’s something you really want to lean into and learn. If not, then the evaluation’s really on the strength of the system. (two sessions)

Veil: Iterations: This is our every other Sunday game. I started this last year to playtest some of the new elements. However we had a bunch of bumps in 2024 and only got in a few sessions. Right now it is on hiatus until after our Bounty of the Week game, when my time frees up a little bit. (not recorded, three sessions)

[gracie7209]

Amaryllis

Chapter Two: Wednesday

Pairing: Frankie x f!Reader

WC: 4.7K

Warnings: Mostly fluff and a little angst…

Summary: Something, no, make that someone, throws a wrench in your normal weekly routine.

A/N: This was originally posted as a Writer Wednesday entry well over a year ago and was the first chapter I completed for this story. The concept is the same, but some words/phrases have been changed. You can read the original Writer Wednesday post HERE.

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

Tom knows that you go see your mother in the City every Wednesday… You go and spend the day taking her around to do her shopping, Doctor appointments etc and you have to go see your OBGYN once a month anyway, so it all works out. You started getting pretty bad anxiety within the last couple of years or so… Your arrangement taking its toll, but Tom would never let you see a counselor or therapist because he fears what you would tell them. Even though revealing the inner workings of your life would put at risk the one person you were doing this all for in the first place… So you avoid the conversation entirely and go every week just to get some things off your chest, since you would have no one else to talk to otherwise.

Today, you go for your regularly scheduled appointment. 9:30 am every week without fail. As soon as you walk in you see a familiar face, currently nose deep in a magazine. You keep walking forward and take a seat. You open your book and try not to make it obvious that you’re hiding your face.

Tom isn’t aware of these appointments, which is why you felt safe having them at all since they took place over an hour out of town. You’ve been coming regularly and never once has there been an issue with seeing someone either you or Tom knew. Until today…. Today, Tom’s friend Frankie is sitting in the waiting area, left foot resting on his knee, thumbing through the pages of the standard medical magazine set out for patients' to help pass the time. So far, he has yet to notice you. You let out a breath and continue flipping through the pages of your book.

Apparently Frankie is early to his appointment, because even though he was here well before you, your name is called loud and clear. Of course, Frankie hears your last name and he looks up at you then. He just smiles and waves a friendly hello, and—

Nothing else happens. The world doesn’t suddenly combust at him seeing you. So you wave back a little awkwardly and make your way to the nurse waiting at the door to take you back for your appointment.

The hour is over way too soon and when you walk out, thankfully the waiting area is empty of Frankie. So you quickly make your way to your car and head to see your mother and carry on with your regular Wednesday routine.

You’re hoping that there would be no reason for Frankie to bring it up to Tom… Like ‘hey man, saw your wife today at the therapist’s office…..” etc etc… there should be no reason for him to, so you force yourself to let it go. Thankfully, Tom never says anything (you know he would if he knew) so you go about the rest of your week as normal.

Next week rolls around and you show up extra early for your appointment, hoping like hell that you would be called before Frankie even showed up. If he showed up at all.. There was no reason for you to believe that he had a regular schedule like yours. It was just a one off and you needed to stop worrying about it. And you did… That is until Frankie walks out of the doors as he was finished with his own appointment.. How had you never seen him here before when you’d been coming for so long?

Frankie spots you this time and walks over to you slowly to say hello…. “You’re Tom’s wife right?” You nod quietly. “I thought that was you last week, but I wasn't sure. I’d never seen you in here before, but my appointment last week got pushed back for some scheduling issue… So I…” he slows down his words… “I guess I normally wouldn’t have.”

He’s rambling. Frankie is cringing internally at the realization, but you hardly pay it any notice when your own thoughts are doing much the same. —So that explains it. And you just HAD to show up early to your own appointment this time trying to AVOID him..

You still haven’t said anything so the silence quickly becomes awkward… “Well it was good seeing you. Uh, tell Tom I said ‘hey.’” And with that, he leaves you to stare blankly at his back as he leaves the office. Again, you’re hoping that there would be no reason for this to get back to Tom. Thankfully, it doesn’t.

Next week you go to your appointment at the normal time… He said it himself that his regular appointment was earlier than yours, so you just needed to go like you normally would and everything would be fine… And you’re right. You go in and he’s not there. You get called back and go into your appointment, breathing a quick sigh of relief.

When your hour is up, you walk out and he’s still not there. Again, you let go of the breath you hadn’t realized you were holding, and make your way to your car with a smile on your face.

The air is cool and the sun is shining when you exit the building and you are ready to take on the rest of the day… Refreshed that your anxiety was unnecessary, only to curse the ground at your misfortune because apparently the universe hated you and enjoyed your misery…..

Walking up to your car, you see the back passenger’s side tire is now flatter than a pancake. “Shit,” you let the word escape your lips quietly, shaking your head as you think about your options:

Option number one: You change the tire. This would be great if you had any knowledge whatsoever on HOW to change a tire.

Option number two: You call your husband—Well if you called him, he would want to know why you were parked at the Doctor’s office, and also without your mother, you instantly decide against it, which leaves you with option number three….

You do nothing.

You look out across the parking lot and continue to ponder your poor options when you notice a little diner across the street. You decide to just take a breath and grab a coffee and maybe something to eat while you figure things out. You call your mom to let her know; she doesn't own a vehicle which is why you made the weekly trip up here. Fortunately, she was still stocked up on food and she didn’t see her own doctor until next week, so you not making it today shouldn’t hurt anything.

So, you make your way over to the diner. You honestly think the City is beautiful… all of the buildings, nothing like in your town. Everything was so big and open.. You missed it a lot….

When you step inside, the door has a little bell that dings signaling a new customer. You walk to the front and wait to be seated. You just want a few minutes of quiet so you ask for the secluded booth over in the corner. Perfect. You sit and order a coffee with cream and sugar and pick up a menu and attempt to let your mind relax.

The funny thing about anxiety is that letting your mind relax is the equivalent of asking a toddler to sit still…. They may WANT to, but their little bodies just have so much pent up energy that despite your effort they HAVE to move… Your anxious thoughts immediately take over—

‘How am I going to get this settled without letting Tom know?’

‘I wonder what would happen if I just stayed here… Forever?’ ‘No, no, can’t do that’

‘I really like this mug’ ‘Do I want a sandwich? Or maybe some soup?’

‘Hmm, the guy at the counter has a pretty nice back… snug jacket, broad shoulders and faded jeans. Dark brown curls peeking out from underneath his ball cap… Oh my God! That’s Frankie!!’

You curse to yourself, which apparently wasn’t really to yourself, when your very audible gasp is heard near the front, to which said object of your attention turns and immediately lays eyes on you. His face actually seems to light up… You wonder why that is? You also notice how flush you suddenly feel for shamelessly admiring his back side, not knowing at all who it was as if he could hear your thoughts.

He’s making his way over and lucky you, you’re cornered in your little secluded booth… ‘Breathe…. Breathe…’ you tell yourself until you hear “Hey there,” Frankie is upbeat and to anyone else looking, you seem to be catching up with a friend. “Hi Frankie,” you say softly.

“Funny seeing you here… if you weren’t married to Tom, I’d think I had a stalker,” he says in a joyful tone, but the wild deer caught in headlights look on your face has him apologizing almost immediately. “Sorry, just kidding… Promise! —But I will say, I’ve run into you the last three weeks in a row now…” He’s looking at you with a question on his tongue, but he won’t ask it. So you answer for him. “My mother lives here in the City, so I help take her around on Wednesdays.”

“Must’ve just missed each other before then.” He smiles before saying “well it was good seeing you.” He seems to hesitate before adding, “Hope you have a good day.” He goes to leave and you suddenly remember your current dilemma….

”Wait, Frankie?” He turns to you, a look of confusion on his face, “actually, I’ve run into some trouble with my car. The tire is flat. Is there um, any way you could help me figure out how to get it home?”

It takes him a moment to respond… like his gears are turning, but he finally answers you, “oh, uh yeah, sure. I’d be happy to.”

God you sound like an idiot, Frankie chastises himself.. Why are you making this awkward? Well, she’s beautiful, you dumbass, and you’re fucking awkward— His running commentary matches your own, unbeknownst to you.

“Ok, so where are you parked?” Frankie tries to curb his thoughts by just addressing the task at hand.

“Across the street…” You point in the general direction of the office building, “at Dr. Pomater’s office.”

“Oh, that’s right. I usually come over here for a late breakfast after my appointment.” Frankie is annoyed at himself— she doesn’t care, she just needs your help.

Also food… She just got here, there’s no way she’s already eaten..

“Did you um, want to eat first? I noticed you only have a coffee..”

“Oh, I uh, well yes. I guess I haven't gotten the chance to order yet.” —Frankie thinks your light accent is endearing. It’s not super thick or put on, but almost makes you sound elegant, which he would argue matches you pretty well.

“But you’ve already eaten, I’d hate to keep you any longer than necessary. I can just eat when I get back home.” Your stomach chooses that exact moment to growl, like the traitor it is…. Frankie notices.

“Nah, I don’t mind. I’m off on Wednesdays so I’m free. I actually could go for another cup of coffee, if you don’t mind the company.”

You smile slightly at that and say “Ok, well would you like to sit? I will try to order and finish quickly.”

“There’s really no rush, go ahead and take your time and we can talk about our options for getting you back up and running.”

You agree and so you both sit in your booth across from each other… You decide to go ahead with the soup and sandwich combo, sneaking a peek over the top of your menu before the waitress comes back over —Frankie is looking down at his own menu… He’s wearing a light gray t-shirt, the material thin, but not worn. He’s got his jacket on as he was about to leave before your squeak of surprise at seeing him alerted him of your presence. One thing you hadn’t noticed about him before were the thick rimmed black glasses he was wearing now. Had he been wearing those before? After a moment you notice he takes them off and puts them in his inner jacket pocket and sets down his menu. So just reading glasses then, you suppose… You think to yourself how they give him a very boyish quality that makes you smile inwardly. You definitely should NOT be noticing this, so you look back down at your menu.

The waitress makes her way to you and takes your order. Frankie orders his coffee with cream and sugar… Hmm… You think how Tom would never drink anything unless it resembled something akin to freshly laid tarmac, claiming it “separated the men from the boys” or some other ridiculous admonition.

You notice Frankie looking at you and shit, did he ask me something?

“Hmm?”

He smiles slightly at that and you notice a dimple in his right cheek… Again, noticing things you shouldn’t…. His chuckle breaks you out of your head yet again as he says “I was just wondering where Tom was today?”

“Oh, Tom is uh..” your frustration at the question prevents you from answering right away. This was the entire reasoning for your anxiety toward Frankie seeing you. You couldn’t afford for Tom to find out about these appointments and put a stop to them. The small amount of peace of mind it provides you with, gets you through the week and you’re just not ready to lose that yet.

“Um, well Tom he uh, usually works on Wednesdays… shows his houses.”

—His brow furrows slightly like he can sense your hesitation, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Gotcha, yeah I haven’t seen him since that fight night awhile back….” The night I met you he reminds himself. “That was a pretty fun night…. First time I got to see the guys in a while.”

—Your stomach clenches at the memory of Tom on that night, but you’ve gotten good at hiding your disgust by now, “yeah — Um so is there an auto repair place nearby or…? I honestly know nothing about cars,” you laugh nervously, hoping he doesn’t notice your obvious shift in conversation away from Tom.

Your waitress then makes her way back over with your food and Frankie’s coffee. He takes a long sip and you start in on your soup.

—“Do you have a spare? I’ve got my jack in the truck. I could probably just change it for you.”

You feel like an idiot, but answer honestly, “I really don’t know. I’m sorry.” You give a nervous laugh and Frankie chuckles. He’s not making fun of you, but he thinks it adds to your charm.

He chuckles again and shakes his head a little, shrugging off a thought…

—‘This is Tom’s wife man, get a hold of yourself..’

He continues to shake the thought from his mind and moves on — “What kind of car do you have?”

‘Real smooth’ —

“Oh, it’s a… I’m really not sure…”

“That’s ok. We’ll figure it out. It’s probably in the tire well like most.”

—Your blank stare makes him cough and regroup, “I mean that there are some that have them underneath, but most sedans have them in the trunk.” Still nothing — You would be embarrassed, but you were genuinely just confused. Tom ensured that you were only knowledgeable in things meant to be handled by women like cooking and cleaning house. “Let the men handle things sweetie,” Tom would say when it came to just about anything etc.

“It’s ok,” he laughs again, but it doesn’t have the condescension attached to it that you’d come to expect from Tom. You think to yourself that it’s a nice sound coming from Frankie.

“I think I know where to find it and how to get you going again.” He smiles at you again and you say a quiet “thank you” as you go to finish the remainder of your meal in a comfortable silence.

Frankie is looking out the window now…The view from the diner overlooks a little park and you think the colored leaves against the still green grass is beautiful… Fall has always been your favorite season and you thank the Lord that the majority of your pregnancy will be in the cooler months.

After a bit, your waitress walks over and asks “is there anything else I can get y’all today?”

“No thank you,” you and Frankie both say at the same time, pulling another light chuckle out of Frankie and a smile from the waitress. She finishes writing out your check then puts it face down on the table and scoots the paper toward Frankie.

You both reach for it at the same time again and while his gets to it first, you go in and lightly swat at his hand saying “no sir….” And you wiggle a finger at him. “You’re already fixing my car…. The least I could do is pay for your coffee.”

He tries to come up with some quip to keep the lightness going but falls short and just puts his hands up in a mock surrender. Broken pride and all — he’s not upset; far from it actually, but he can’t help the small pout that makes him look offended… the sly look in his eyes tells you he’s only playing though, and you lift your chin in triumph at your little win.

It takes him a moment to remember that this is a completely abnormal situation whereas he is with his friend’s — No not his actual friend - his mentor maybe? He doesn’t really know what Tom even is to him anymore. All he knows is that —this is Tom’s wife and you’re simply having coffee and he is going to help you get your car running—

Frankie’s thoughts are interrupted when you stand up and say “come on, follow me.” He trails behind you - the awkwardness coming back slightly.

You pay the bill and walk toward the exit. Frankie follows and you both head outside into the crisp Fall air. You start to walk toward your car that’s parked across the street when Frankie stops you —

“Uh, my truck is over here. We can just drive over if you’d like?”

“Ok,” is all you say. Why is this so awkward? You already find yourself missing the ease of the diner.

He is just a friend of Tom’s helping you get to your car… Nothing to worry about.

Frankie’s truck is kind of what you’d expect — it’s an older looking truck. You have no idea of the model, just that it’s aged. -Brown with tan lines down the sides — almost matching his jacket. The inside is clean, but the interior is worn.. it smells of gas and oil, with a little hint of vanilla from the little tree air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror. When you first opened the passenger door, there was a horrible creaky sound that you were well used to. Your Papá used to have a truck similar to this and the thought makes you smile.

“She’s a little old, but she takes good care of me,” Frankie says warmly. His adoration for the truck is evident in his tone. His hand worries at his scruffy chin and he asks “ready to go?” You quickly nod and close your door.

The drive to your car is short — Neither of you say anything other than an “over there” as you point to which car is yours.

So when Frankie asks you if you’ve called Tom yet you jump… unsure if it’s an accusation or just from the question as a whole.

“No, I didn’t want to bother him. He’s usually very busy.” Frankie almost scoffs at that.

“What?” You ask him. He almost seemed annoyed.

“I don’t know why it would bother him to hear from his wife when she has a problem. I’d hope he would want to make sure you’re ok. Make sure you get home safely.”

Frankie is having a hard time keeping his mouth shut…. Tom very rarely mentioned you unless prompted when the guys got together… and before he met you it didn’t really matter… but having spent just this short amount of time with you today, it makes his blood boil. He doesn’t have words to voice the why behind that quite yet.

You honestly don’t know what to say to that. Tom was never like that with you for obvious reasons, but Frankie wouldn’t know that.

“Well — Ok, so you see…” you sigh… there was no other way to do this. Unless you said otherwise, there was no way this wouldn’t get brought up to Tom. Not about the car, but the where. You wanted to be honest. You wanted to be able to talk with someone about your situation, but you couldn’t. Not about everything anyway. Not yet.

“Frankie, can I say something? Without judgement and without this getting back to Tom?” He nods. The confusion is clear on his face… “Would it be ok if this just stayed between us?” You motion between the two of you. “About the Doctor I mean..?” He’s still looking confused. Similar to how you must’ve looked when he was talking to you about cars.

“Tom doesn’t know that I see Dr. Pomater. He’s never believed in Therapy and thinks it’s a waste of time and money,” — ‘amongst other things’ you think to yourself.

“He wouldn’t be happy to know that I’ve been seeing one. But to me, just having someone to talk to that is unbiased and non-judgemental? It helps me feel better.” You know you sound childish, but it’s the truth and Frankie holds all the cards here.

After a moment you hear Frankie respond. “So he just thinks you’re taking care of your mother on Wednesdays?” He looks up at you at the question.

“I do take care of my mother.. She doesn’t speak English well and she doesn’t own a vehicle, so she needs assistance getting groceries and getting to and from Doctor’s appointments. It also allows me to spend more time with her since I moved out of the city.”

Frankie nods — He seems to be processing.

“So, Tom doesn’t like the thought of a therapist, or he won’t let you have one?”

“I, um… I..” you trail off.

You look down, breathe in then out through your nose. You look back up at him and —he must know how Tom is… “Tom, he… No.” And you leave it at that.

You look away and start unbuckling your seatbelt— Frankie says your name and you turn back to him to see this look…. It’s a mesh of worry and concern, but also something else you can’t put a name to. His lips are parted like he just paused mid-sentence — “Does Tom…? I mean — Tom has never really told any of us much about you. Is he, uh, is he ok? To you?”

You’re not liking where this is heading.. Frankie continues…

“When we were in the service, he was my Team Lead and I’ve always respected him for his position. We’ve all managed to keep in touch for the sake of all the shit we’ve been through together. But through all of it, we didn’t even know you existed until a couple of years ago…”

Shaking his head, he starts again.. “To say we were shocked to learn that he had a wife—was a fucking understatement.”

“Where are you going with this Frankie?”

Upon hearing his name, he stops and looks at you…. “How did you and Tom meet?”

“It was a long time ago. I believe we met at the grocery store. He was in line behind me and my mother.”

“When did you get married? He never told us anything until about two years ago… during our last deployment.”

“Um, six, almost seven years ago… Yes, it will be seven years in March.” Nope no this is not good……

“How old are you—?” He says your name at this to really stick the question….

“Twe— I’m twenty-five.”

“So you were 18 when you got married? How long did you know each other before that?” Frankie can’t seem to stop the words from leaving his mouth…

You think he is almost accusatory in his questioning and you’re unsure of where all of this emotion is coming from.

“Frankie, these are very personal questions… Why do you need to know this?”

“Sorry — I’m sorry.” He looks down and takes a breath. He immediately looks like he feels terrible for even asking and waits a few moments before starting again— He’s struggling with his words— wanting so much to understand what exactly is going on, but he knows he hasn’t earned that right yet. He feels terrible and hopes that he hasn’t offended you.

Frankie takes a stuttered breath, “it was inappropriate to ask you those questions and for that I’m sorry. I just don’t understand him sometimes. You think you know a lot about a person when you work side by side with them in life or death situations like we did, but turns out I don’t know much about him at all. I’m sorry…”

You dislike the look on his face… the despair of a situation you know absolutely nothing about is clear, so you try to lighten the mood…

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t know much about him either…”

You get a small laugh at that so you take it as a win.

After another minute or two of semi-awkward silence, Frankie moves to get out of the truck.. “Well let’s see what we’re working with here.”

He grabs his jack out of the back of the truck and makes his way over to your car. You pop the button to the trunk and he easily finds your spare. He goes back to the bed of his truck and looks around for a moment and comes back with this X looking tool. You can tell he’s done this before, many times, and you flush at how ignorant you must’ve sounded to him… shaking your head, you just let it go… You don’t feel like Frankie is judging you for what you lack in tire changing etiquette, so you turn and watch him to see if you could maybe even learn a few things.

Frankie takes off his jacket after he gets the car partially up off the ground — taking the X tool and beginning to remove the bolts from the hubcap.

He’s so quick and efficient, he makes it look easy. As Frankie is crouched down, you notice a little bit of sweat at the small of his back that’s dampened his thin t-shirt slightly.. You also notice that the material hugs his torso and makes a show of the muscles in his back and shoulders as he keeps himself steady. The muscles in his arms flexing as he grunts slightly with the exertion to loosen the bolts… it has to be the hormones that are making you focus on entirely the wrong thing, but….

No, you need to look away, so you try to find something else to focus on while he finishes.

Looking up you begin to silently name each thing you see, desperately trying to keep your focus away from Frankie’s backside— blue sky, birds, leaves, trees, more trees, there’s a couple walking their dog, a mother pushing a stroller….. You go so far as to start listing the color of each new vehicle that passes by…

This is ridiculous— you think to yourself. You’re a grown woman and you can handle this.

You turn back around, just as Frankie is standing up. The tire is on and he’s wiping his hands off on his jeans. “I think we got it all done.”

“Thank you so much Frankie— Really, I truly appreciate it.”

“You're welcome,” he smiles back at you.

“How can I repay you?”

“You bought me coffee, remember? We’re even.”

“No seriously, coffee doesn’t count.”

“Ok fine, how about you pay me back with a second coffee next week? And maybe a donut?”

You tense slightly at the thought because you know how that looks…. But you shake the thought away because you should be allowed to have a friend. And coffee with a friend should be ok. Right??

“Alright, you’ve got yourself a deal. I’ll see you next week then.”

He quirks a small smile and nods, “see you next week—.”

Your name sounds so soft coming from his mouth that you instantly blush, turning quickly to walk around to the drivers side and get in. He’s already back to his truck before he offers a small wave. You smile and wave back, starting the car to head to your Mother’s and continue on with your day. The smile never leaving your face as you drive away.

******

A/N: I’ve been playing with the wording of this chapter just trying to get it to flow the right way, but I feel like I’m running in circles with it so here it is lol As always please let me know if you would like to be tagged or if you would like to be removed from the tag list. Thanks for reading!

Tag List:

@just-here-for-the-moment @boliv-jenta @heythere-mel @sunnysidekit @wildemaven @harriedandharassed @bitchwitch1981 @hnt-escape @autumnleaves1991-blog @queridopascal-main @queridopascal @quica-quica-quica @littlemisspascal

[essenceofarda]

I'm working on fleshing out the plot for my farawyn & eothiriel fancomic and it's,,, y'all,,, this is literally gonna take me like 20 years to finish 😱🤣🤔🫡

It's gonna be hella long 😳 The first chapter alone is gonna be over 25 pages long, and I already have 3-5 chapters planned for and that's not even close to the finish line lol let alone the halfway mark of the story (i mean, it's probably equal to a long-ish fic, but comics take so much more time to tell 🫠). Also I cannot wait for y'all to meet Lothiriel in just a few pages 🤩

Anyway, I'm thinking of MAYBE adding early access pages of this comic and a few others to a low cost tier on my patreon once it's relaunched/revamped bc I really want to be able to post at least one or two pages a month 🤔 tho i'm hoping to maybe post weekly on patreon, so it'd be early access AND faster update schedule, if I go this route. That way i don't feel guilty for spending hours a day/week working on these comics lolll

anyway, i'm having so much fun working on this story 🥰🤗

[goshdarnitjay]

Hello love your writing so much and came here on tumblr to check u out. I have just found out that u have a patreon??? I was hoping to join but couldn’t seem to find the link. Oh! And I was also wondering what kind of content you post on there and how much will the subscription cost? I was actually hoping for some lonely heart settle down content not gonna lie lol :P so will it be on your patreon? I reckon you will possibly post it on there first before you post it on ao3 and I would like to read it asap.

Hi! The link to my patreon is this: https://www.patreon.com/goshdarnitjay (not just putting it as a hyperlink this time for people on mobile 😚💜💚).

First off: I am so, so, so happy you love my writing and want to support it. That means a lot! I know we're all having a hard time with inflation right now, so I understand not everybody can.

Here is some info about my patreon for anyone who's interested. And yes, that includes an update about Lonely heart, settle down.:

What you get by singing up to my page at a minimum of 1.00 $/month:

1. Early access to all of my stories (at least one day in advance) 2. Previews of stories I'm working on 3. Polls about upcoming projects (both topics and update schedule)

So, what about Lonely heart, settle down?

My patreon is indeed the place to go for updates until it is completely finished. Not only will I be publishing updates twice a week once What You Owe is finished (the updates will come Wednesday and Sunday), I have also decided to publish the story there in nice, bite-sized chunks while I'm working on it.

Okay, Jay, but what does this mean?

Starting next week, every Wednesday and Sunday, patrons will receive about 400 words of Lonely heart, settle down. ahead of publication until it is finished! Think of it as ye olden days 🥸, when newspapers would publish one chapter per month. This way, you will receive regular updates about the story and get a lovely treat every few days to sweeten up your life!

Thanks for asking!! :) 💜💚 I hope that answers most of your questions! If you have more, don't hesitate to ask!

[bvannn]

Weekly Update March 29, 2024

I’m pretty volatile in terms of mood, but I did get a good amount of actual work done on projects. I’m exhausted, I haven’t fixed my sleep schedule yet because I’m addicted to working. Like I’ve genuinely tried to stop and go to be early or sleep in and I just always ‘just one more drawing, just one more verse, just one more thumbnail, it’s let me find this one perfect instrument, just let me finish these four bars, just let me-‘ and before you know it it’s two hours past bedtime and you haven’t even brushed your teeth yet. Or eaten dinner. On the bright side all the stuff I’ve done has gone pretty well!

First big exciting point, that little pitch comic I’ve been working on? Thumbnailing/writing is done. Done enough anyway. I might still go back to edit some pages but I can get going on others now, which is great because even though I’ll only post the full thing once I have the whole comic complete, I might post individual panels, so there will be stuff to see! I’m also going to try to keep writing at night, so I can let other episodes and stories play out a bit, but Art priority will be shifting more to the comic. It will be 30 pages so it will likely take a while, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to do 3 or so panels a week while I’m finishing up this semester and switch to a page a day once I have more time.

Music is also going very well. I’m putting the final mixing touches on a vocaloid cover song (unless I decide to go back and redo the guitar, which I might), which I’ll try to start putting visuals to soon, although that’ll likely be pretty slow since I finally got past the thing that was bottlenecking me on the comic project. I’ll also have to get licensing settled, although that currently looks to be affordable. The whole project has given me a taste for blood and now I want to do a bunch of other cover stuff, but good news: I also found a nearly finished cover of another song that I had put aside in favor of the Green Day one. That’ll probably take a while before I can call it ‘done’, though, whereas I could probably release the first cover song today if I really wanted. I have some time tonight where I’ll try to throw some music together, maybe I’ll work on that.

There’s a few smaller nearly-finished songs I dug up from the depths of my WIPs too, one I need to redo a melody line, one I was bottlenecked on finding a specific instrument for, which I did the other day in lab, and a few others that also either need structure or Melodies. Plus there’s those two that are waiting on lyrics still but I’m still chugging at that, just slowly. I might also try that one tonight too, if I finish or can’t do the vocal cover for whatever reason. There’s also a couple character themes that haven’t really been priorities but I did re-outline one that I’ve been working on, so once I have recording time I can go try that one. That one is on its third draft so I really hope this one will stick.

Other miscellaneous projects haven’t seen much progress this week. I’m still thinking things through for that epithet TTRPG campaign, but I’m having a bit of trouble outlining the third chapter. I just need more brain power for that though, so earlier bedtimes would do it. A couple other art things keep coming to mind but I’ve been focusing more on big projects, so that’ll probably continue if I can. This next week I want to focus on keeping my body as healthy as I can, and then comic, second cover song, and visuals for first cover song, in that order of priority. Passive projects I can work on while doing other activities will be epithet TTRPG planning, song lyrics, and outlining future comic stuff, in that order of priority. If I come up with any song Melodies or ideas for visuals for the song I’m finishing up those priorities might shift, but right now I want to stick to more of a plan, since it worked out well this week.

[magnus-sm-writes]

February Wrap-Up!

It’s the shortest month of the year, and it’s time for the monthly wrap-up (which I haven’t done in some time). One of my main goals this year is consistency. Expect more monthly wrap-ups!

February is my third favorite month (March > October > February, I have opinions on the months), and it’s been the month where I’ve decided to attempt to get my life in order. This has everything to do with attempting to not get stuck in my seasonal depression hole and attempting to make myself more comfortable following my biannual neurodivergent meltdown (realizing the world isn’t made for me and freaking out about it). The world is difficult to live in if your brain isn’t built correctly for it.

Anyways, I’m quite pleased with how this month has gone for me.

Let’s move on to the neatly-organized categories!

Writing journal

I made an Instagram post about this, but I ended up with two bullet journals, so I use one for work and one for… work. Writing, that is. The work that I don’t get paid for but still love. (Yes, I love my full-time job, too, but it’s more of a side piece to me.)

My writing journal has been essential for keeping me consistent and accountable. (Except for the eleven days I forgot my journal was in the living room. ADHD for the win.)

But when it comes to my goals, I would say I reached more this month than I did in January.

My layout for February was super simplistic and based on the bare-bones functionality of my work journal. It’s not pretty to look at. I changed that in my March layout, so please bear with me.

The goals I reached this month were:

Continue re-writing a novel

Keep word count & submission journal

Make monthly wrap-up

Write in a café

I read three books: Teaching my Mother to Give Birth by Warsan Shire (twice), Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link, and In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Macahdo. I loved all of them. In fact, I resonated so deeply with In the Dream House that I actually purchased it.

The next page is just a couple short stories I was working on: “Communion” & “The Boy & the Hag Stone”. I did not finish “Hag Stone”. In fact, I didn’t finish a single short story this month.

My “words written” page is prettier, but still incredibly functional. Then my “poetry written” page. Overall, a very simple layout.

My writing journal is crucial to keeping me on schedule. If you are riddled with neurodivergence like me, the advice is true: keeping track of what I do has actually helped me stay with my goals and get some major work done.

Word Count

I’m rather happy with my word count this month! I’ve recorded writing 27,748 words, though I did forget to record my word count for about 11 days, as I accidentally lost track of my writing journal (as mentioned above).

What have I been writing?

In early February, I wrote 12 poems. That’s fantastic, in terms of poetry-writing. I wrote a little bit of Greenest and some stuff for OC Kiss Week, but a great chunk of my word count comes from my Hamish rewrite. It seems like I only want to write Hamish in the more wintry months, as February seems to be the month I’m most inspired to write it.

If you don’t know about Hamish, I encourage you to visit my WIP post about it. Basically, it’s a modern interpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In short: it’s a gothic horror told in first person referral (I to you).

It’s an older work, compared to what I’m currently writing. A relic from the days where I believed that I could only write contemporary literary fiction instead of what I tend to write now (fantasy, horror, & sci-fi). However, I can now add my own spin to what was originally a work grounded in reality. (That is, make it more like a gothic horror novel.)

I’m hoping to make an update post about it, since I’ve doubled my typical 10,000 word goal. I’ve been pretty busy with trying to meet all my goals as of late, and posting has taken the back burner as opposed to attempting to overcome my seasonal depression.

(Maybe writing Hamish isn’t the healthiest option, but the vibes are there.)

I am a little burnt out at the moment when it comes to Hamish. I’m in what I call the “27k slump”, which is where I get demotivated at around 27,000 words in a project. The end of Act I tends to be difficult for me. This problem results in sagging middle, which is an issue I struggle with in a lot of my novels. I’m still trying to find a way to circumvent this.

In March, I hope to play with some sci-fi!

Publications

I don’t have any publications to show for February, but I did get my novelette Body rejected by a publisher, so I’m proud of myself for putting myself out there.

Looking forward!

(Hopefully I’ll remember to take a picture of my journal layout for March. If not, check out my Instagram for some updates. Gotta self-promote as much as possible in this wild west that is the writernet.)

My March layout is more complex than the February one, which is an upside of a bullet journal format. I can modify it whenever I need to.

My biggest goals in March are:

Finish 1 short story

Go to the library 2 times

Write in a café 2 times

Maintain submission & word count journals

Read 10 pages a day

Finish 2 audiobooks

Submit 2 stories for publication

I think these goals are me realistically pushing myself. I probably won’t reach all of these goals, but that’s okay. The point is to foster good habits instead of reaching perfection.

On the lower corner of my “big goals” page is a “best poems” section, where I will write down my favorite poems of the month. Like a monthly playlist of poems. I’m hoping I’ll use this a bit this month, but if not, it’s no sweat.

Then it’s my “books read”, “stories written”, and “want to read” page. My “want to read” section is a lot of books that James Clear recommended, because I’m on a self-help kick right now and I like reading his articles. I’ve also got some general books I want to read this year or month. Since it’s Women’s History Month, I want to include some more female authors.

My “books read” and “stories written” section for February were far larger than they needed to be last month, so I made them smaller for March.

Next is my “words written” and “poems written” page, which I will definitely be using the most. I’m attempting to write every day and note it. It’s easier to write a poem than a short story or novel, so I made the section just a little bigger. Mostly, this is a word count tracker.

The next page is blank. I think I might do a tracker or brain dump page, or both. I’m constantly brainstorming ideas, so having something with me all the time is essential.

Personal Life

As some of y’all might know, my birthday is in March! I am doing a Golden Birthday Bonanza, where I do a little retrospective on my eleven years of writing with the intent to publish. Let me know if you have anything you’d like to hear about during my week of birthday fun. Q&A is officially open!

[randomwords247]

It's about time I address the elephant in the room: WHAT HAPPENED TO HILDA AND THE LOST FUTURE?

So, for anyone who doesn't know, in I believe early 2021 I started a comic called Hilda and the Lost Future, based off the episode the 50 year night. I haven't updated this comic in a while and I know I've had some people ask me when it'll come back

A tl;dr for anyone who wants the short answer:

It will be a while. It's not my current priority or main interest, but I absolutely want to get back to it at some point: When I do, it'll be from slowly working on multiple pages in the background which will eventually be posted every week when I have a big backlog.

For anyone wanting any more information tho, theres a number of reason's its been a while

A big one is burnout. I got really heavily burnt out I believe late 2021 and I haven't done nearly as much drawing as I would've liked since then

One of the factors for why I had so much burn out was university - For those of you who don't know, I'm currently a University student, specifically I just finished my second year meaning I have the Big Boy Dissertation coming up for my final year. I also had a job until late last year which I'd work during my uni breaks so I had like no real break.

Uni has taken generally just a lot of my time and energy away from me and it's because of uni that I haven't been drawing much. I'm still tryna get back into drawing way more regularly and it's a little disheartening that in some regards I'm a tad rusty, but I still enjoy drawing way too much to quit

Another issue that doesn't help is, as I'm sure a lot of you have noticed, I've been bitten by the minecraft bug quite bad. Or more that it's come back from the grave because I swear my minecraft obsession never truly left. And like as a result of that I've even been making my own videos! It's been really fun and I'm having a blast. I honestly have been finding making videos really fun and a nice escape from uni, plus a good excuse to draw (thumbnails). Outside of the game itself I've been very into a lot of mcyt fandoms, currently I am loving watching hermitcraft and I have loved bansmp (a series by my friend bantaro) and its been a blast being able to be a part of that series which I've loved watching.

I still like Hilda a lot, don't get me wrong. I'm just way more focused on other interests at the moment and with so little time it kinda leaves you prioritising, and I definitely lost steam with my strict schedule I put upon myself.

So, where does that leave us?

I know initally when I started the comic I had a lot of people offer to help out, help make it and things. I still am sure that I do not want this, as much as I appreciate peoples' offers.

One of the main focuses of the comic, outside of telling a story I have planned out, is to improve my drawing skills and make a comic from start to end by myself. I also know I'd be too particular with the way things would be done to want to pass it to someone else, and I don't want to like hand it off. It's something I want to do for myself, and again it's a way for me to improve my drawing skills. I mean heck, from the pages I've done so far I already vastly improved my ability to do backgrounds and perspective.

My plan is to work on pages in the background, not give any real estimation of when I'm working on them or not or when to expect them. Just a slow work on them every so often as I focus more on other things. That way, when I eventually get say (as an example), 10 pages finished, I'll do an announcement and I'll post the finished pages spacing them out a week at a time, to give myself a buffer. If this like makes me passionate enough to bump out one a week like I originally did, I'll do that, but if not then I'll repeat the process of slowly working on a bunch and posting them all after a lot are finished

So yeah! For anyone who read this far instead of just reading the tl;dr, I appreciate it! I know its a long and probably overdue talk on things, but I thought it'd be worth talking about because I've been thinking about the comic a lot lately and how I wanna get back to it. I just also know that like, I don't wanna burn myself out with it again so it'll be more of a slow project to chip away at.

Again currently my main focus has been youtube (link in pinned post), and if you're enjoying that then I'm glad to hear! I have another video that I'm hoping to get done before next week, though I've come down with a cold so it might be a little iffy on that front. Otherwise, hope you all have a nice day! :)

[uwmadarchives]

Oral history from pre-interview prep to transcribing, indexing, and abstracting!

by Elisa Miller, Student Historian 2022/2023

Hi all! As this semester speeds by, I cannot believe I only have a few weeks left as a Student Historian. This has been an amazing year and I have learned so much throughout this process. While I’m incredibly proud of all the work I’ve done and looking forward to our final presentation in May, I am also sad to see my time in this position coming to a close. It has truly been a pleasure to work with Cat, Troy, and everyone else I’ve encountered at the Archives.

Since my last post, I have fully completed the oral history process with Professor David Furumoto. It took a lot more labor than I anticipated, but I had a wonderful time from start to finish. A special thanks to Troy for all the help and guidance he provided throughout the experience! I continued to familiarize myself with the oral history process and Professor Furumoto’s work up until the day I first got to meet Mr. Furumoto. The pre-interview went smoothly and it was great to finally meet the person I’d been researching for weeks. I knew the actual interview would similarly go well based on this first conversation as Prof. Furumoto already had a plethora of interesting things to say in the pre-interview.

One of the most interesting things that came out of this conversation was when Prof. Furumoto told me about a closet of stuff from A.C. Scott, the founder of the Asian Theater program here, was still in Vilas Hall. It included costumes, screens, videos, images, props, and more. I was able to connect some people at the Archives with the Theater Department to organize a time for the Archives to come look through all the stuff. While this is still pending (we’re looking at early May!) I am happy I was able to jumpstart the process. I hope to be available to also go through the closet as it will likely be the physical remnants of all the research I’ve been working on this year!

We scheduled the interview two weeks out after our initial meeting, giving me time to do some more prep work: research and practice, practice, practice! By the time I arrived at Memorial Library for the interview, I hardly even felt any nerves because I knew I’d prepared so much. The interview went really well and I learned a lot of really incredible things about Prof. Furumoto and his time here at UW. He was a fascinating subject and told a really compelling story across our hour of conversation. I just did my best to stay engaged and propel the conversation forward smoothly.

I finally finished transcribing, indexing, and writing an abstract in the last few weeks. This took longer than I was anticipating, but I wanted to ensure I was being as thorough as possible. It was interesting to come back to the interview about two weeks later and listen to it as a third party. While it’s always cringe worthy having to listen to yourself speak, I was still immensely compelled by Prof. Furumoto, and was even able to process some of his answers a bit more than I did in the actual interview.

Finally, I have just been working on a page for the Student Program website my fellow Student Historian, Chloe, has started. I am definitely still trying to get a hang on WordPress, but I think it was a fantastic idea and I’m excited to get all my work up there. I’m also getting ready for our Student Historian final presentation in May which I’m perhaps equally parts excited and nervous for.

The presentation and reception will be held on Friday, May 5th from 12:30 to 2:00 pm in the Memorial Library Commons at UW-Madison and will be a joint event with this year's UW-Madison Libraries Undergraduate Research Award winner, Shelby Len! Stay tuned also for a virtual option.

As always, thanks for reading, and I will see you all for my final post in May!

[ladyazulina]

August 5th

So, before I start distracting myself once again, let's go on with what's quickly becoming the best part of my day.

Is this sad?

I didn't want to do a thing today. That's usually most of my days, but I woke up early without reason, was (still am) bummed because my ankle hurts, probably won't start new courses I'm excited about next week because of that, and, well, just usual Saturday moods, y'know?

I passed part of the day unnecessarily refining a page I made here for my personal campaign, then wanted to do the same with Linney's, but I'm still not posting my advances, so it won't be really good if I go share things there without posting. I like having an order.

So I also passed a time wishing around for more people playing Iron Valley and discovering this kind of directory I made and also wanting to put their characters there so my beautiful and made-with-love form will have... some love.

Yeah, I was kind of set on Iron Valley today, but curiously, I didn't want to write about it.

After watching two chapters of one hour each, I decided I had enough and needed to sit down to write. Because I won't go anyway with my plans if I don't make progress. So I needed to make progress, no matter how little it could be.

So I just fought against ten of those

because I'm still collecting wood and are the easier ones to fight. I like easy.

I still have a lot of wood to get, so we're going to see no one else for a while.

Early, though, before I was able to put it off for whatever reason, I

Worked in: A post for my personal Instagram. Words written: 190.

that was the last one of my scheduled series, but I know I at least have three more that I should make and do and schedule, so... we're not yet finished with this (will we someday?)

Also, parenthesis: would someone want to... pay me for doing my job? It seems like I'm catching on no one no matter how many posts I do and I'm starting to feel doubt and all those things you shouldn't feel. I'm a proofreader, beta reader, writing coach, assistant of creation (ideas, worldbuilding, backstory, whatever), and I'm good and I'm cheap, so why does no one want to work with me? Okay, rant off.

I also did my job, which is the reason for this whole thing.

Worked in: AngelDemon. Words written: 837.

Chapter 5 is ready to be worked with and things are starting to go off the hook. What the hell was I thinking when I wrote that? I'm starting to feel disgusted at the writing of the 2015~2016 me, no matter how young and innocent was I then.

Thinking this way... I'm not sure if I would ever work with the novel and the sequel I wrote in 2011 then... I'm genuinely scared now.

So... I'm satisfied, slowly advancing one chapter per day with this new project as expected. I don't want to celebrate yet because I'm just starting, but each step taken is enough reason to celebrate, right?

I should be happy more often.

Total words: 1.027. Lower daily goal: 100 ✅ Higher daily goal: 300 ✅ 4thewords goal: 444 ✅

Now I can be distracted with whatever, right?... Ugh, not much time left.

Tagging: @aziz-reads

[dollwritesarchive]

𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐮𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝟏𝟏.𝟎𝟏.𝟐𝟐 !!

i’ve got a LOT of updates to cover because my blog has changed drastically in the last couple of months so bear with me here. i do ask that if you’re a reader of mine, please take the time to read this post thoroughly, it may answer some questions you may have about what i’m currently or no longer writing for, and it just also has some useful info on upcoming aus and a new possible posting schedule.

but!! before we get into the necessities, i just want to thank you all for 11k followers! 💕 i won’t be doing an event for this milestone because of the timing, and the fact that so many other things will be going on in my blog, but you have no idea how much i appreciate each and every one of you for your reblogs, likes, anons, and support!

☇ 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗺𝗽 !

if the theme has not already been changed by the time this scheduled post is live, then i will be updating it soon hereafter. that includes graphics & colors for my main header and icon, all of my extra pages, masterlists, pinned post etc etc. please be patient with me because this might also include additions / amendments to information currently on these posts / pages.

☇ 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱 !

starting after 11.7.22 to avoid clashing with my birthday blurbs event, i will be implementing a new writing schedule and sticking to it as best i can — twice a week. i will try to have at least one piece of writing posted on Monday, and another on Friday. obviously, it’s never going to be absolute, but i will do my very best to schedule these fics up and keep the schedule going as smoothly as possible.

☇ 𝘂𝗽𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘂𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 !

my birthday blurbs event is starting today ( 11.01.22 ) & will run until 11.07.22

i am also prepping a jojo au ( 𝗱è𝗶 𝗱𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶 ) to be introduced towards the middle or end of the month.

as i mentioned above, i won’t be doing a celebration for 11k but i will be doing one when i hit 12k!

☇ 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝗲𝘀, 𝗮𝘃𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝘀, 𝗲𝘁𝗰 !

currently, i will be writing for anime *, dc comics, possibly the marauders, matt murdock, and six of crows. requests are only open for anime, though, and the list of who i will and will not write for can be found on my pinned post. once my masterlists are all fixed, it will be clear which fandoms i am actively writing for and which ones i have retired. please respect this.

i have a requests page that you can browse through to see if your request is on there. if it isn’t and it has been longer than 5 days since you sent it out, try sending it again. it may have been accidentally deleted or never went through in the first place.

requests are still held until the fic is finished, but I will be posting the ask separately, letting you know what day your request will be posted. this is just for my sanity lol.

it is my goal to do at least one request per week, and do them all in a timely fashion. once again, your patience is much appreciated.

☇ 𝗶𝗻𝗯𝗼𝘅 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗻𝗼𝘂𝘁 / 𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗷𝗶 & 𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝘁 !

by the time this is posted, i should be completely finished with my inbox deep clean out. i have been going through and deleting all of the old requests that I’ll never get to, to make my inbox as easy to navigate as possible.

i also will be resetting my emoji anons, to make sure they’re all still present. if you want to keep your emoji, just send me an ask!

☇ 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 & 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗼𝗻 𝘂𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 !

commissions will reopen sometime this month! i know that I want to rework pricing and stuff like that.

my patreon is still open, but billing was paused for this month because i’m changing things up. my patreon is mainly for early access, but i will most likely include a monthly exclusive piece, as well. however, until this is decided, monthly payments will be turned off. you can still pledge, if you want!

[colder-yet-colder-comic]

a quick few things about this comic, think of it like an faq except nobody asked. if you have any additional questions please leave them in the comments, i’ll try my best to answer.

(for all future purposes i’ll be calling doyouheartthunder Nathan because its easier to type)

Q: How frequently will this update?

A: Whenever I finish a chapter I’ll post it, I’ll take a guess of 2-3 weeks between chapters, but it’ll vary depending on my motivation and personal life. I don’t really keep schedules well, so don’t expect real consistency.

Q: Are you associated with doyouheartthunder?

A: I’ve gotten permission from him to make this comic, but besides that he has no influence on the comic. I haven’t talked too much with him about it besides the general ‘hey can I do this?’ thing. So… sort of???

Q: How long will the chapters be, and will you cut out things or change dialogue?

A: Some things are going to be really hard to adapt from written to visual mediums, so some elements will have to be changed or cut out. I’ll also probably edit dialogue to be shorter but I’ll try me hardest to make the tone and message the same. Chapter length varies depending on how much movement, dialogue, etc is there. So far chapter 1 is about 12 pages, and some early sketches I did for later chapters tend to range from 5 or 6 for the shorter ones to 13 for the really long ones. I’m less concerned with page amount and more with keeping the pacing intact and giving a faithful adaptation, so like I said, don’t expect consistency.

Q: What are some things we should expect from it visually?

A: I’ve never done a long-form comic before, nor am I very good at keeping consistency. This is a learning experience for me and I mostly took up the project to improve on some things. Some things like character design will also probably change, as sometimes while I work I think, ‘wow, this would be a cool element to change or add!’ and I see what sticks. Backgrounds are going to be mostly monochromatic except for in certain instances. I’ve drawn backgrounds for later chapters where I fully colored them and those are certainly going to stay. They’re also going to be mostly lineless. My style has also been developing over time so the comic will certainly change with it, even though I have made a basic style guide for things like line thickness and such. I don’t want it to stay stagnant and it will probably change with me.

Q: Are you going to do comics for later fics in the Snow Angels series?

A: That depends on how I’m feeling when I finish this one and if Nathan is okay with it! I like the idea with it but I have a lot of struggle sticking with one thing and seeing it through, and this comic will probably leave me drained by the end. If/when I finish this, I’m probably going to take a long break before I consider getting permission to work on the sequel.

Q: Is this official?

A: Sort of..? It really depends what you qualify as official. It is in the sense that I have permission from Nathan to make it, but as stated above, he has no influence over the comic. It’s less of an official adaptation and more of a love letter. Also this is Deltarune fanfiction so official is a pretty big word to use.

Q: When will chapter 1 be posted?

A: 2-3 days hopefully, depending on how much work I can get done in that time. Most of the pages for chapter 1 are done, I just need to make some finishing touches on most of it, as well as redoing one page that is barely started. That’s going to take up the bulk of that time. It’s coming soon, though!!!

and thats about it! if you have any other questions, throw them at me in the comments. i’ll answer them all as best i can!!

[xtrablak674]

Nothing on my mind...

Wanting to write something, and actually having something to write about, are two very different things. My writing usually has to come from a place of strong emotion, repulsion, passion, anger, rage or indecision. I have had some strong feelings about some films I watched recently, a niece who I realized was quite spoiled and maybe my empathy about a friend struggling with familial relations, but none of these items got me to launch a Page in iOs and get down some thoughts, and I missed that. I can't just write to write.

The main reason I wanted to do a post was to use a particular photo that showed up in my For You in the Photos app, just a year old photo of me from behind wearing my hakama pants. As I try to loose twenty pounds I gained I can clearly see that I am thinner in the photo. And even though I am more than a quarter of the way back to where I was I still enjoyed the picture because I felt I look good in it. Striving to look good is a constant worry and struggle, even though its for an audience of one.

Even my issues with this eBay seller who listed an item, then forgot to mail it because allegedly they were moving, but then after I had to reach out to them again two weeks after the purchase the story changed to, they didn't know where the item was. My thing is, you're misrepresenting, just refund my money, why are there further games or discussion? I have already submitted to eBay for a refund, but these kind of people are just messy and get so caught up in themselves they don't notice they are inconveniencing others.

I told a friend today that she needs to work on taking up more space. She went through some traumatic ish this weekend and thinks her feelings aren't worth the tears they are imprinted on. I want to dissuade that and encourage her to not be so apologetic about allowing herself to matter more to those around her. I think sometimes trauma leads folks to want to move through life as frictionless as possible and thats relatable, but life is about friction. And if you are creating friction so you have the room to express your full humanity I am all here for it.

Dionne Warick is now on my spirit I was looking forward to getting that four album collection and right now I am trying to quench that thirst with some Billie Holiday which is an entirely different vibe. But I finished my Sci-Fi Sunday early. I did something I don't usually do I ran of cartoons much earlier than usual. For a few moments I was like what do I do now?

The bulk of me filling my time usually has to do with something I am watching, so when I run of out of things to watch per my regularly scheduled programming I get a bit lost. I did put my walking clothes in the buckets to be washed. I wear them for two weeks than switch to other clothes to wear for a couple of weeks. Its getting cooler and wetter I hope I am able to walk for at least another month albeit I did successfully do at least a couple of sessions of yoga on the rainy days we had.

Well for having nothing on my mind I did find a couple of things to write about and now I can use the photo I want to use the way I want to use it. The thing was I was putting restrictions on myself saying I have a blog that shows naked flesh do I really want to bring any of that over here, and I decided I need to stop partitioning myself and allow me to be me and now try to stick to such a rigid agenda of who I should or shouldn't be in the digital spaces of the interenets.

[Photo by Brown Estate]