#I just wanted to make sure I made sense

[mermaidslabyrinth]

hi 👋

i have a question! what inspires you when crafting an oc? i, for example, cannot write an oc without them being practically a self insert. (skill issue, i know) i was reading your oc’s facts and he seems very interesting and feels like he could actually belong to the hotd universe. so i was wondering what is your creative process in writing him. <3

First off if this sounds long winded, doesn’t fully make sense, or you have more thoughts/questions let me know. Putting a read more because I wrote a bit.

I’d like to thank you for reading my facts. It would be easy to say they were a breeze but that document is many months of additions of ideas that came at random times and subtractions of things that didn’t work.

I did a lot of self inserts in my life. They were just me but with different hair or eye color. And they got with the character I was smitten with at the time. A lot of the time they didn’t make sense and were rather shallow in development but I had fun. Self inserts are the first step to figure out what you like and not like about creating a character. They all helped with my creativity.

So, I’m going to be honest and say Rhagerys is the first character I put actual time into. I mean come this April it’ll be a year since he was created. And I’m still working on him and helping him feel somewhat real. It’s a lot of work and thinking. And I’d be lying if I said he didn’t have a few things I personally like or do. For example I have a stuffed bear that I cherish, so I decided to give Rhagerys a stuffed dragon he cherishes. It’s the small things like that helps me build on giving him some depth. (Because then it’s like well why does he have a stuffed dragon? And I made a little fact on why. If needed I could write a little story on how he got it). I'm left handed so I made Rhagerys only be able to write with his left hand.

My creative process when it comes to writing Rhagerys I always start with, and this is my process, a simple word or phrase or a thought. One night I was getting ready for bed and it was a full moon and I thought “What would it be like for Rhagerys to ride Starsong during a full moon?” And I wrote a little snippet of him asking Daemon to let him do so the next full moon. That he would be good and listen to everything Daemon told him during that month leading up to it.

I definitely want to expand on it sometime but the important thing right now is that I wrote it down and it exists. So, no matter how small the thought is (ex. A 215 Drabble about Daemon snoring) to something lengthy but not ready to be part of the story (ex. A 1.3k about Rhagerys trying to avoid Jace’s name day celebration). Write it down. You won’t regret it. You may not use it but you can draw from it or see it as a practice in writing.

I have so many snippets I’ve lost count. I have a full outline, categorized in years with bullet points, of my story as well. From beginning to end. I’m happy I have them because I can go back to them and expand or change certain parts. If I didn’t write them down, I’d forget them and they’d be lost forever. Will I ever get to them? Idk. But they’re there sitting and waiting if I do.

So, if I had to pin down my creative process it would be that I write down any thought, no matter how small (I have a folder full of literal 1-5 sentences or a line of dialogue that I’d like to build around). To a straight up outline of a plot bunny that may be hopping around in my head.

Like right now a plot that wouldn't leave my mind until I wrote it down is a long part of my story and it all started with me wondering “What if Rhagerys rejected his father one night and fought back? How would Daemon handle that boldness?” Well, it turns out that it’s a week worth of manipulation tactics on Daemon’s part.

I wrote down a day by day outline of what I wanted to happen in the mentioned plot above. Just detailed enough of what I was going for. It’s a slow process getting it written out. I’ve been working on it since December.

I have very few full chapters written. The handful I do is because I put all my other pieces I was working on to the side. What I learned by writing those few chapters is that I do so much better in small writing increments. A full length chapter drains me (I have an 11.8k that I adore but it was such work). However, a 5k at most is much more doable for me. I learned that I am capable of writing lengthy chapters but it felt like all my creativity went into writing and perfecting such a hefty task that I didn’t feel like writing for a while. And I didn’t like that feeling because I had so many ideas I wanted to write down.

Also to help flesh Rhagerys out more, for the past month I’ve been filling out OC questions. It helps immensely on figuring what makes Rhagerys tick. Get inside his mind. There were questions I would start answer and realize that doesn’t sound like Rhagerys so I’d delete and really thought on it. From frivolous answers about the position he sleeps to deep ones like does he even like himself. The questionnaires are a big help in me figuring out my character and getting his personality believable.

As well as all those “Your OC Does What?” posts that I have been bombarded the dash with these past 3 nights (apologies to whoever follows me). Those have helped me write down little ideas no matter how random they may seem. They help me in understanding Rhagerys more.

I would say my creative process is, that no matter what, is I never stop wondering. I never stop playing a scenario in my head. From basic moments (Rhagerys at breakfast and he eats a piece of moldy bread) to moments that drastically effect him (him being 15, very drunk in Pentos, and Daemon takes advantage of that). My mind is always trying to create where Rhagerys can come alive, even for just a couple pages worth.

Creating anything takes time. Practice. Patience. And understanding that what you create is for you first and foremost. If other people like it, that's wonderful. If it's just you marveling at what you've done, that's just as wonderful. You put your heart and soul into something and whether you share it with the world is completely up to you.

If you chose to, like I did (and that took almost 9 months of me building up the courage), you'll be amazed at how many people out there are so willing to listen/read/see what you created. To see them say "Omg, I love your OC." It's a great feeling and something I do hope you get to experience. Because there is always that one person out there who is waiting for character just like the one you created.

Also, as a bonus, you meet and interact with so many great people. Letting others see Rhagerys, read about him and his story (I was so terrified about that because it is not a normal one) is one of the best decisions I have ever made while being on this website. I was scared at first. But now I'm practically shouting from the rooftop "Look at my boy!" I will always feel indebted to the four people who started the ball rolling for me. @emilykaldwen. @ewanmitchellcrumbs. @selfproclaimedunicorn. @murmel-malt. They helped me feel comfortable enough with myself to feel safe and let Rhagerys become part of the ever growing HotD OC world. (Sorry to tag you guys but I need to give you credit)

When you're ready to shout from the rooftops for people to look at your OC, I'll be one of them. I'm rooting for you. I do hope this helped. If you, or anyone reading this, want to reach out and just randomly chat about OCs, or whatever, I'll always listen and chat right back. Thank you for reaching out.

[turtleblogatlast]

Leo learns something about himself 🏳️‍⚧️

Based roughly on this old post.

Bonus:

[Leo is taking the fact that he was born biologically female simultaneously very well and also not so well but overall he’s mostly coping with the fact that it was Draxum that just essentially gave him the turtle equivalent of ‘The Talk’.]

[keferon]

“Mistakes on mistakes until” ch 69 spoilers below!

Ahahahahahahah here I go again

Mistakes on mistakes until until I can draw Jazz with my eyes closed

I woke up, checked my phone, woke up for real and decided that whatever plans I had for this day yeah no they can wait a little bit kfkgnfk

Also. Consider listening this while reading. Or don't who am I to tell you what to do~

[boarloved-art]

Wei Wuxian should be able to get drunk for once. I think he'd either be singing bawdy drinking songs on the roof of the Jingshi or he'd be getting irrevocably lost no matter where he is. He's found in the bushes behind the mountains like a cryptid, and then he's like "I can't believe you all got lost" (extremely slurred) as if he didn't get embarrassed by something Lan Wangji had said and just somehow disappeared when everyone looked back at him

oh ABSOLUTELY im walking with u and nodding and agreeing, i can see him becoming an absolute menace to keep track of at his drunkest.

anyway heres wonderwall The Gang (Wangxian & their fave group of ducklings) in a city known for its STRONG wine and wuxian being like well. ur all grown now, youre technically not juniors anymore. we have to see whos lasting the longest against this stuff!, smash cut to a suspiciously wei ying-less group of the worlds drunkest cultivators being wrangled through the woods by designated driver hanguang-jun, with at least 2 of them clinging to his robes at all times.

[snarkspawn]

tell us more about ur lucanismancer rook please!!!

Oooof well!! What do you want to know? :'D I always find it easier to answer specific questions than to just ramble on with only my jumbled meandering thoughts as a guide lol

So uhhh ... his name is Nazeeh and he's in his early 30s, I'm kind of still chewing on his backstory so I haven't really settled on anything concrete yet except that he's from MInrathous, probably, and before he was adopted by the Mercars he grew up as a slave/indentured servant in the household of a (Venatori) magister. He's very smart but not particularly educated (and whatever the opposite of a bookworm is). Generally speaking he's very laid back, honest and direct, although he prefers hiding truths in jokes that often don't land (terrible sense of humour). He does have a temper but it mostly shows when he perceives some kind of injustice, in which case he will fight tooth and nail to right whatever he feels is wrong. He also thinks he's charming but he's really not, he's just lucky he's cute lmao

I think he came into his magic rather late so his approach is very fists first, throw lightning bolts later haha he's also an incurable optimist and very annoying about it. Like he doesn't even think of failure as an option, if you fail it just means you have to get up and try again until it works. Which also means that he often doesn't stop to think things through but just blindly jumps ahead and runs into situations that could've easily been avoided if he had taken a moment to consider all the options. He's a do-er, definitely.

In terms of the game he's an orb and dagger mage (no specialisation, more a jack-of-all-trades/whatever-works kind of thing) and mostly purple with a bit of red here and there. His best friend is Davrin but he's very close with Emmrich and Bellara as well (the latter he kind of views as a little sister, especially after the whole Cyrian thing).

Anyway, here he is with his mullet down

[divorcedfiddleford]

and you may say to yourself: "my god! what have i done?" and you may tell yourself: "this is not my beautiful wife!" and you may tell yourself: "this is not my beautiful house!" and you may ask yourself: "well, how did i get here?"

time isn't holding up, time isn't after us, time is a pony ride! (images described in alt text)

[owlheartt]

Something I really like about timebomb is that Ekko actually knows what he's getting into.

I'm not really seeing it get talked about but in season 1 they mention that Ekko and the firelights help people addicted to shimmer get off it and lead more fulfilling lives within the community. I should probably rewatch the scene for the exact wording (might be misremembering tbh) but that comment implies A LOT.

First: Ekko's mission is helping people where he can, he would probably try and help Jinx even if he wasn't in love with her

Second: He has experience dealing with severe mental illness as that often goes hand in hand with drug abuse, namely depression/suicidal ideation like what Jinx was exhibiting

Third: He's probably mapped out best course of action FOR dealing with this and has already figured out his own limits/boundaries. Meaning he knew what he was getting into trying to talk Jinx out of suicide, and was thus more equipped to deal with the aftermath

Fourth: He's probably helped ex members of Silco's gang. The firelights seem to have a theme of healing and repairing and recovering, so they've probably also learned to forgive. If they're mission is to rebuild the lanes into a safe space, they can't exclude people they don't like, they have to make room for them. I think they fought Silco out of necessity, and I doubt Jinx would be the first person they help who's killed one of them.

These all might be a bit of a stretch but I think it really fits. Beyond that, it shows that Ekko can ACTUALLY help Jinx. As much as unconditional love can do, Ekko has the tools for Jinx's recovery and a path ready for her. He also probably knows that her "healthy" will look different from AU Powder's "healthy." On top of that, I expect he knows how to respect her even in the middle of psychotic breaks and won't agitate her already frail mental state

[the-meme-monarch]

smiiiles i’m writing a dandys world fic. frowns. yes it is about arthur and delilah

[puppppppppy]

personal character design headcanons + brainrot

Note: the re-bound!au does NOT belong to me, it belongs to @chipper-smol I’m just not normal about it lol

[uncanny-tranny]

If somebody in your life offers to knit or crochet or, really, create anything for you, please be an active participant in the creation of the piece they are making. I adore making and gifting things, but nothing bums me out quicker than a person who passively just goes "okay," to my ideas about what I'm making them - it can send the message that they won't like it, or that they don't care, even if they're happy about my offering. The back-and-forth feedback is a great way to make sure that you are being gifted something that was truly worth the time, effort, expertise, and money that will inevitably go into the gift!

I know it's really hard to be an active participant, believe me, I'm an anxious ball of horror, but it will only do good for both parties to interact in this situation. It is a big deal to be offered a hand-crafted gift, but it's also something we want you to love and use, and that can only happen if you tell us what would make you fall in love with what we create.

[midnightwind]

you guys like me going off on random DA tangents and musings, right?? because I've been awake too long so you're getting another one

I have been sat here trying to figure out Why Lucanis' prison looks like a bunch of ice and why it was so far away from the "lab" settings for a while now. (arguably two rooms fit this description, the one where Lucanis tells you about Zara and the one right outside his phylactery room) Like, even without that bridge being broken, it's in such a bizarre corner of the Ossuary. And I mean, it wouldn't really matter with a normal prisoner, but Lucanis was a notorious Crow and mage killer on top of that, plus he was Zara's special little guy to fuck with. You would not want to take him for a long walk to experience the worst shit on earth every few days. Maybe it's close enough to the little room where he mentions Zara and maybe she wanted him close to the door so she didn't have to go far to torture him, but again, leaving such a challenging subject close to the exit seems like a bad choice. You want him to have to get through so many guys and doors before escaping so you have time to take him down.

This also ignores the magic required to leave, but they're not clear on what that is and not all the Venatori are mages so there's gotta be a mundane way out he could snatch off a guard. I digress, the whole ice cage and far off room doesn't make sense. But we know they were shipping demons to Zara. (I'm pretty sure the few demons you confront in Minrathous were Zara's little pets set loose so we can assume she wanted them in the capital for the eventual Venatori coup on the crown) If Zara was about to be stuck in Minrathous for the foreseeable future, setting things into motion for Elgar'nan, I could see her wanting her pet Crow at her side. Especially if you consider the initial idea for Lucanis: he was going to be a mind controlled murder puppet before you break him out.

Sure, Spite didn't crack open his ribcage and crawl out like some new horror, but having a demon in Lucanis lets her control him via the phylactery if not just outright with her blood magic. Maybe his will was too strong for mundane control, but the phylactery works. We know it works based off of Lucanis' dialogue about it. So we know she had a surefire way to keep him under control. (There's a whole other post exploring the amount of dead Venatori and the fact that Lucanis still has his leathers and weapons [which would make sense if he was Zara's murder puppet, but alas] and whether Lucanis recently made a break for it or if the loose demons/spirits/undead killed them all) Maybe he kept his leathers because Zara wanted him presentable upon delivery, I don't know.

But I do think he was being prepped to move. The Ossuary is falling apart, Zara is pulling all the best results, they're losing personnel and servants without being given more; Zara was clearly moving on from that location. But she wanted her little Antivan prize. He's too dangerous to move normally, a Crow is likely to escape if given an inch especially a skilled one like Lucanis, so they need to lock him down somehow. Ropes and chains aren't reliable, not with a Crow, but he's not a mage. You can use magic. You can literally put him on ice. I think they were packaging him up in an ice cube and doing it next(ish) to the door so they could more easily move him. I think Zara was going to take him and his phylactery to Minrathous and use him to cause some absolutely ruthless mayhem in the city before her cult took it over.

I think Rook showing up weakened the spell being cast just enough for Lucanis and Spite to break out, and I think it saved a whole lot of lives.

[kaontic]

“I'm headin' in for repairs!”

“I'll shadow you back!”

One of my fav G1 moments, even if I read too much into it.

[oatmealcrisp-freak]

"shipping saiki is aphobic because he's aroace!"

stares at you with my demiromantic asexual in a committed relationship eyes then looks at the camera like im in the office

[d8tl55c]

oh boy !! ! ! ! !!! ! thANK y0u all for the kind words on my last art posts. you all get it and i was/still am so happy about it

as promised, here's some close-ups of the comic for image quality's sake, and other screenshots i rescued from the community whiteboard (and something else)

first up another sketch of mystery gender-ambiguous being. (please send me more name ideas for them if you got one- i like to hear em! (reminder it's the side character that appeared for <10 seconds in AvM Ep. 30))

a few fav scenes

emotional support cwab

they weren't meant for this purpose exactly, but i do have countless "fluffy sticks" loose in my notes and homework sheets from the school years.

papery critter.

even when i wasn't confident in fur or feathers, they helped me practice posing and create some satisfying gradients/flowing poses. (im a sucker for good tail poses) (oh yay! i found a good pic...)

and finally, little sneak peak for you for reading so far ;3

i realized that whiteboardfox is pretty great for my working needs. simple and to the point and all. feels nice with the mouse and the tablet.

so i started hashing out a big project idea just to see if it holds up and

[

several hours later ...

]

oh

oh man

it's a little bigger than i expected

<next>

[callixton]

i think the thing to understand abt martha jones is that even after she leaves she is five seconds away from dropping everything and traveling with the doctor at any given time. bc that itch to blow everything up and damn her personal duty to hell in search of a higher call never leaves her. but martha is smart. and rational. and has spent a long fucking time needing to keep herself safe. (bc he comes when she calls but never before.) and so she has gotten very good at keeping herself on the right side of those five seconds. but i do think if ten was a different person (if he could acknowledge how much he needed her instead of just how much he liked her) (if he didn’t feel this righteous martyrdom when it comes to being left alone) (if he cared enough about her to beg. if he cared enough about himself.) i think that her answer no would come crumbling down pretty quickly is all.

[kacievvbbbb]

Okay new take on the angst.

Neither Shanks nor Mihawk die (yay!) but Yoru shatters instead and Mihawk wishes it was him instead.

In a nice parallel to how Mihawk shattered Zoro’s two nameless swords like it was nothing Zoro uses these three great and kind of cursed swords to slowly and painstakingly chip by chip shatter the greatest blade in existence and even tho he’s still breathing Mihawk dies right along side it.

Honestly I don’t see a future where Zoro breaks mihawks sword and lets him live he has to much honor for that has to much respect for Mihawk both as a great swordsman and as a mentor figure. Knows what it means to die proudly with your blade in your hands so I think he’d think it quite cruel to shatter Yoru and then not give Mihawk the honor of death. So like even if he did I think it would be kind of on accident (like he wasn’t deliberately making precise blows to shatter the sword it just kind of happens) and Zoro has spent to much time with Luffy and shanks to kill Mihawk, has spent to much time with Mihawk has witnessed the boredorm and discontent he faces and it’s all complicated. So he Gives him the same lesson Mihawk gave him three scars down the chest from shoulder to hip tells him to come challenge him again.

Either way Mihawk is here scars down his chest for everyone to see and no sword and he has never been more scared or more empty in his life. But shanks is just glad that he’s here and that makes it so much worse.

Because now he feels like he’s just another thing Shanks has to protect. He’s weak and Mihawk hasn’t felt weak in a long time can’t remember a time when he felt there was a challenge that he couldn’t face. But living life after this might be the hardest challenge he has ever faced. There wasn’t supposed to be an after this was supposed to be it. His escape from the monotony a way to go out as honorable to the life that he had lived as he can be. And yet, here he is…..with Shanks, and he has nothing to offer him.

Mihawk is not a good man, not in the way Shanks and Luffy and even Zoro are. He’s selfish, capricious, haughty, callous, casually cruel and all these other adjectives that have never mattered to him before because he was also strong. His strength was all he had to offer and he has never felt as weak as he does now. Why would shanks want that? Why would shanks trade in an equal, a rival someone who could meet him at the top, why would he trade thay in for just another person to worry about. Mihawk wouldn’t (doesn’t think he would but he doesn’t know anymore) Mihawk left him at his lowest moment because of strength and he expects, demands, that shanks do the same.

Unlike Shanks he has nothing else to offer there is no deeper than this but Shanks is just glad that he’s here and what does it mean that he is still here?

Also this is very shanks to Mihawk coded because shanks has always know that this is exactly who Mihawk was there was no deeper (and maybe there where certain things he hoped he could learn) but Shanks has always known and has always accepted him for exactly who he is. There is no question in his mind that Mihawk will pick up a sword and get stronger again (maybe never as strong as he was but that’s okay too) not because that’s what Shanks expects but because that’s who Mihawk is