#I need to get back to my wip with this exact concept in it

[vampire-lord-garfield]

I think Sebastian deserves to get hit by force and powers greatly exceeding his own wounding him greatly.

And then get his pride obliterated and worldview erased by having to rely on humans in his life in order to survive.

Bonus points if they manage to deal with original threat by their own in the first place.

[baudouinette]

Art log: old, unfinished projects… once again

Warning: long post, lots of yapping

another oldish project that I wanted to do in a KCD (Kingdom Come Deliverance) style. I have a very clear vision of the horse’s pose and his too, but… I can’t find a reference for it. (I might make it a palomino in this one btw!) Nowadays I’m leaving references behind for the most part, but for horses I’m not at that stage yet lol. // I also wanna draw him in joust in another art even if he can’t partake, just because I love the aesthetic of it 😅

The text is from the letter to Constance of France because I love that intro, but I’m still thinking of what to add next.

•The sword is the basic one I drafted over a year ago, looking at the one from the movie, looking at period-accurate references, then adding my favorite guard which is similar to the movie one but stylized to my imagination, and basing the grip on the movie too. There’s not really much to it, because there’s only so much you can do without straying from accuracy.*** But I always have to go back for measurements/dimensions for example, just to make sure (for example, i have to shorten the fuller a little). I still need to get used to drawing them effortlessly. I sometimes want to just change the guard a little (I like to make curved guards most of the time but I’m partial to straight ones too), or add stuff to it like little inscriptions or very few gems. Obv in the pommel I always add the cross, but on the other side I may add a fleur de Lis too sometimes. Especially with a ceremonial sword such as this one, he needs to be fully represented with his emblems.

***There are other “options” but they seem too simple for a king. But I do love them for knights. My OC Juliette/Julius will have a pretty plain sword for the most part, by the nature of the Order. Tho… she might acquire a bit of a nicer one along the way ;) (this is still super raw and quickly sketched so ignore the errors and goofiness. But I really like her and I think I hadn’t shared any concept or art of her yet)

I remember the first time I watched the movie and the swords were the first thing I (and I think everyone) noticed even tho I was a kid, and then talking about it in high school years w friends in a crusades groupchat like 🤓🤓😅😅😅 (some are actually ok? Funnily though, it’s some of the extra props. You’d think giving the King an accurate one would be priority)

•I have various versions for different stories (or not tied to stories at all) but in each I always give him two (“twins”): the battle-ready one and the ceremonial one. The ceremonial is technically battle ready too, but it’s got its own place and reserved for… you got it, ceremonies, and knighting, and imparting justice—hence why this particular one in the first image (name pending) has the inscription “Iudicium in Terra”, and why it’s so golden (more pure gold and expensive materials). Sometimes, I think of a heirloom sword for him too, that carries a lot of meaning. It was normal for royals to have more than one sword.

(art WIP) •The one from HCW says “Benedic et sanctifica hanc gladium cum tua serenissima pace et voluntate.” Baldwin calls this one Pais Sereine, and Sereine alone as a nickname for the battle-ready counterpart to set them apart. However, I'm not happy w the way it looks here, too similar to those exaggerated fake Templar swords that I hate. How did I draw something similar to something I hate? Makes no sense. I really should also design the Andalusi swords of the Al Jazirah family and guardsmen (bc Andalusi swords are so pretty and interesting!), as well as my concept for Saladin, etc etc.

I might buy Nomad Sculpt to sculpt all my “assets” for fun and for practice for my game dev journey. I’ve always had Blender but I need to work straight on a screen, so I’d rather work on iPad for sculpting, then for anything that needs rigging, hopping to Blender. I could make Baldwin’s “exact” sword from the movie but with accurate proportions and mod it into a game like Skyrim for funsies. I wanted to mod the mask into it too, and into Fallout for my ghoul-loving gang <3

And here’s another old concept:

JFK as King Arthur (in a non-fantasy way and w some accuracy lolol)

For Excalibur, this is just an interpretation with creative liberty in mind. The guard is supposed to have beast heads, like dragons or lions, so it’s fun to base it on Charlemagne’s for that. The pommel of Joyeuse (Charlemagne’s, although this sword is also legendary) is an Oakeshott type B or B1, supposedly the blade a slender Oakeshott type XII. Yes, this is more contemporary to his time, so I wouldn’t give him that blade, as I would for some of the crusaders n Baldwin. You can’t see the whole blade in the drawing so I’d leave it like that and not put much more thought into it. I could give him a late Roman-type spatha, but I’m also not sure, I can’t imagine Excalibur in that way for some reason, the blades are short and I imagine Excalibur a little more formidable (but I also don’t imagine that enormous, overcharged, super inscribed sword they always give him that makes no sense 💀). Although I did shorten the guard just a little to make it a bit more “accurate” and I should shorten the grip too. I might still change it into a spatha after all, if I continue it 😂😂

•I chose Romano-brit scale armor. I still had to add the pteruges (sturdy strips in the armor, typical of Greek and Roman). His shield would have a small religious icon. I in part use JFOliveras’ (who does give him a spatha) work as reference for many of my general historical works. Because he uses his references from real art from the eras, as do I. But he can sometimes help interpret many of the specific, hard to understand parts.

•I just… abandoned this because I didn’t like it, it wasn’t the vision I had, and now my skills are better over a year later. I thought of adapting it to a similar composition as the one above.

•For those not into JFK, the Camelot musical was his and Jackie’s favorite, and they played the record basically each night “before they drifted to sleep upon their cot”. And it’s also the name of their administration. Since it was more like a royal one than a presidential one. I always wanted to draw him as Arthur (and not Lancelot. Even tho his code name was Lancer.)

Speaking of sword names, I think El Cid’s la Tizona/tizón is pretty cool.

In the series Isabel they show the inscription to be “Ave Maria gratia plena Dominus tecum”. He had another one called Colada, for “cast steel”, but colada also means laundry in Spanish so I can’t shake that off 😂 Titionem would be cool as a sword name, buuuut I refuse any word that starts with “tit” LMAO or anything that can be joked about (“Taeda” could serve as a substitute tho). I thought of a Greek word too, then decided against it because it started with “dik”. A sword name that sounds like d1ck… yeah, no. 💀

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

////I had this post in my drafts (just added the newer art from HCW and of Juliette from Vide Cor Meum, and have other posts like this but they always remain there because I assume people don’t wanna read so much text (yapping, basically). A lot of times I cut out text from my posts and explanations because I’d rather people read a resumed version even if it doesn’t contain all info, specific terminology, or my full lore, than ppl seeing so much text and just not reading any of it, not even the beginning. ☝🏼🤓 but I know there are others who would. Would anyone also like to hear about other medieval weapons, siege weapons, languages, garments and armor, specifically chain mail (a hyperfixaton ⛓️), strategies, formations, diplomacy, instruments, music and dances, horses and horse riding and riding with ur legs and…? 🤓🤓🤓🤓 I will go bonkers even about super specific stuff like girdles/belts (I have a hyperfixation w them too 😂👉🏼👈🏼)

My brother is also a nerd (about everything) but since he’s done sword fighting for filmed media, I always make a point to ask his opinion about my swords and he’s like 🙂‍↕️👍🏼 , so we ballin’

Can’t wait to afford a real sword and duel him. Although he might lend me his Amazigh sword if he buys another one of those, he’s not happy with the current one, and we could try with that. Tho obviously I want to use western swords with western martial arts.⚔️⚔️⚔️

EDIT: oh!!! And I have this three way mirror that I was gonna use to paint a Christian triptych. But i may make one dedicated to phases of Baldwin’s life in medieval art style. I would include religious imagery too, but yeah more focused on him.

[3d-wifey]

Hi!!! Awhile back I sent something about how star reminded me of “Work song” by Hozier and I was thinking about how Finnick reminds me of “From Eden” (also this is long I’m very sorry)

—

Babe

There's something tragic about you

So I kinda view this as when Finnick first met Star he kinda realized what could happen to her. The Greek concept of tragedy is different from ours, it’s watching something, knowing how it’s going to end and being powerless to stop it. Thats the tragedy, the inevitably of what is going to happen and for Finnick that’s how he sees star when they first meet.

—-

Something so magic about you

Don't you agree?

I also think this applys to when they first meet because, correct me if I’m wrong, Finnick was kinda interested in star the moment they met and the fact that she can draw him in like that is odd, it’s new, it’s something he’s never experience before.

—

Babe

There's something lonesome about you

Something so wholesome about you

Get closer to me

When Finnick first met her she was alone, even when she’s around people she isn’t really like them. All her fellow victors from her district are much older, she isn’t like the people in the Capitol…she is alone a lot. I also think Finnick views her in…not an innocent light but wholesome in how much she cares. And Finnick literally is close to her a LOT.

—

Honey, you're familiar like my mirror years ago

I think there’s a big part of Finnick that views himself in star, at least at the start. There’s the same fear, same need to protect their families. For him it’s like looking in a mirror, one he’d rather not look at.

—

Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword

Innocence died screaming, honey, ask me I should know

Eluding to the games, for Finnick he was apart of a career district he had a certain idea of the games that died as soon as he got there. I think the idea of “innocence died screaming” is referring to how they both had their innocence taken by both the games and the capitol.

—

I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door

Idk how to say this but Finnick is fucking WIPPED. He just wants a single glance at star, just anything.

—

Babe

There's something wretched about this

Something so precious about this

Where to begin?

You can view this as the start of their relationship, something they have to hide, how they can’t truly belong to each other but there’s this innocent precious love they share.

_

Babe

There's something broken about this

But I might be hoping about this

Oh, what a sin

Again their love is kinda a tragic one but something they have a lot of hope in, despite it being against Capitol rules.

—

To the strand a picnic plan for you and me

A rope in hand for your other man to hang from a tree

I mean…how many times has Finnick probably thought about killing snow for what he does to star?

—

Anyway I’m really sorry this is so long! I’m just obsessed!

You literally broke down my exact thought process when I added this song to the playlist

And don't apologize, I love when you guys rant in my inbox!!!

Here's a Lil sneak peak of chapter 15:

[ginkuki]

The way my mind INSTANTLY played Fantasy when I read the title 😌👌 Now I have to listen to the whole album again

I love the duality of this is loving and this is despicable xD Could I ask about these two?

HOO darky you really asked for it this time, SO!!!! these two wips are based on the same prompt but with different outcomes. as you would expect, 'this is loving' is tender and sweet and 'this is despicable' is the gaalees going through torment simply because i asked myself what if. prepare yourself for a long response...

'this is despicable' spawned first in conversation with @bayheart - what if lee got hit with a sleeper agent jutsu that led to him destroying suna once he returned home from a mission (in this universe, the gaalees are married and lee is living in suna), and the only option was for gaara to have to fight him? well. this. gaara realises just how much lee holds himself back normally, and that he can't bring himself to hurt him properly.

'this is loving' spawned when we got too upset at our own concept and we decided to make an alternate universe where this Did Not happen to lee, and instead he returned to find gaara had not coped with them being apart for so long. gaara is going Through it. cue body worship smut times.

they both start with the exact same scene but take on some divergence once lee gets home.

without further ado.... snippets under the cut....

i will say now - both need tws. the first for violence, the second for weight discussions

'this is despicable'

He rolls out of the way of Lee’s fist, but it still strikes the ground hard enough for the resounding shockwave to tear at his eardrums. New deafness greets his left ear when he suna-shunshins back to gain more objectivity. Space for thought.

Nothing comes to him in the split second he has before Lee catches up.

This isn’t something Gaara can mastermind his way out of - Lee’s attack style is unlike anything he’s ever faced in earnest, not since the last and only time they fought, again, in earnest. Quickness usually lends itself to lightness, and Lee might be light on his feet, yes, but he’s powerful too. Every blow is a tsunami, drowning Gaara, depriving his brain of oxygen, and the longer he withstands this, the more he worries he won’t be able to outlast Lee.

His stamina means nothing if Lee pounds him into a pulp first.

“Lee, please, you aren’t yourself! Listen to me!” He shouts, forearm barely blocking another punch so solid his bones protest. “Lee!”

Face torturously, vilely blank, Lee’s teeth tear at the bandages over his hands, and Gaara knows where this is headed. Still, the kick to his chin takes him off guard. His head snaps back, his teeth clacking together hard enough to rattle, and blood fills his mouth as gravity forgets it should have an effect on him.

With every punch, his thoughts grow muzzier. It becomes easier to accept his inevitable fate. Lee’s going to kill him, and Gaara hasn’t even had the strength to hit him back once.

But.

Maybe he doesn’t need to.

A palmful of armour detaches, spraying out with pinpoint precision to wind up in Lee’s eyes. It’s only a split second of distraction, but it’s long enough for Gaara to form the hand signs needed to substitute himself with a sand clone before bandages begin to wind around his torso. While Lee’s trying to snap a false Gaara’s neck, Gaara stands back with his trembling arms raised.

The Reverse Lotus doesn’t leave much room for peripherals, but even so, the flash of lighting would surely raise the alarm.

As he watches a mirror-image of himself and his lover crash headfirst into the ground, a sand dome snaps down to cover them. Then, praying he’s fast enough, Gaara places both palms on the outside and pulses lightning into it. Glass spiderwebs across the surface, molten silica heating and shifting to create a glass dome that’s enough to trap even the likes of Lee inside.

Lee slowly comes into focus inside, staring unfeelingly at the crumbling remains of Gaara’s clone.

The sand clone reforms, wrapping around Lee’s legs. Even to Gaara’s own eye, it’s pathetic. His own mouth moves, his own face dragged down with pain, his own eyes welling with tears, and Lee does nothing except meet Gaara’s real eye on the outside.

Gaara reads his own lips.

‘My love, please, stop.’

‘Listen to me, you have to snap out of this.’

‘Come back to me, please. I can’t stand to hurt you.’

It’s what he’d say if he were in there himself, but even that isn’t enough when Lee’s fist shoots out to crush sand-Gaara’s head mid-plea. Lee’s still watching the real Gaara. Only the real Gaara, with nothing at all behind his eyes. No memories of their love, no recognition. Nothing.

The oxygen inside will run out soon. Gaara only hopes he knows the right moment to let Lee breathe again.

'this is loving'

The Kazekage’s living quarters are found not too far from the office. Around the softly angled sandstone walls, it’s completely still but Lee knows ANBU are lingering. Even if he did know where to cast his gaze, he wouldn’t see them. They recognise him, though, even dirtied and exhausted from travel, and let him pass without so much as a flicker.

And Gaara, lovely Gaara, is waiting patiently outside the front door. He sits amongst small jungle of cacti, all potted in fine earthenware and laid around a wooden bench Lee brought from Konoha, where it’s impossible to breathe without stumbling across a master woodworker.

Lovely Gaara, though it is not Gaara in entirety, not as Lee left him.

The shadows at his temples, beneath his cheeks, under his eyes, seem deeper. The pallor to his skin is wrong, his hair looking thin. Lustreless. Lee’s spent years undoing the work of Gaara’s tireless youth, but they’ve crept back. A weed has grown while he’s been absent, unplucked convolvulus roots spreading to the surface.

Without even having removed Gaara’s coat, Lee knows he’ll be finding more ribs than he left.

He tries for a smile. Maybe it falls flat, he thinks, when Gaara ducks his head. The flesh underneath his chin doesn’t crease like it did a month ago.

This isn’t the time to be worried. It’s been so long since he’s seen Gaara’s smile in more than memory. His pack thunks to the ground, puffing dry sand into a cloud he leaves behind in his quick stride to his husband. “Long time no see, stranger!” Gaara folds into his arms with a happy chuckle, happier still when Lee presses a wet kiss to his cheek. “I have missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you more, I think.” Gaara sounds so very small as he nudges his nose into Lee’s collar, arms winding around his ribs and back up to the nape of his neck. His thumb strokes gently over Lee’s hairline, the grown out strands of his undercut now at tickling length. “You at least had distractions.”

“Yet still, they were never enough to keep me from thinking of you. You were my last thought before sleep and my first thought upon waking.”

“And mine of you. I’d forgotten what it’s like to go to bed alone.” Gaara’s grin is a damp smear across Lee’s throat. “Not to mention, I’d forgotten what it’s like to be so pent up. I’ve been masturbating like a hormone-addled teen since you left - it hasn’t been enough.”

“Gaara!” Lee buries his face into the side of Gaara’s hair, ears burning. “Your ANBU are still within earshot!”

“I know. The poor things have been witness to it all, I imagine.”

“Let’s get you inside, you relentlessly obscene creature.” It’s still natural to scoop Gaara up and over his shoulder, no matter how intensely Gaara may protest at the indignity. After doubling back for his rucksack, he carries his husband over the threshold for what feels like the thousandth time. For all Gaara may splutter and bang his fists against Lee’s back, he does nothing else to wriggle free.

“I’m a Kage and have been since I was a teenager.” Gaara grouses, face still tucked into the small of Lee’s back. By Lee’s chest, his feet kick petulantly. Though he knows he shouldn’t, Lee can’t quite help but notice he’s grown lighter. “I’ve led countless shinobi in war, I assisted in the defeat of Uchiha Madara, I was host to-”

“You have an erection.”

[cepheusgalaxy]

How has your WIP and/or OCs changed since its/their creation? What's something you wished you could keep but just wouldn't work? What's stayed consistent throughout all drafts of this WIP/OC?

Well that sure is something that happens often lmao

Even Espada, actually XD It didn’t stay in the draft board for too long because one of the reasons I started it was to get onto actually writing as soon as possible (that's why I ditched the fantasy genre right off the bat because it'd take me lots of time to craft a world and I'd certainly go overboard with the magic system), but there was a theme I originally was gonna play with that was Espa's need for love. Compulsory alloromanticism, to be more exact, because although it'd not romantic, her feelings about love stay overall the same in the story we have now. My plan when I made her up (before I even had a premise besides "living weapon"...) was to make Espa someone who heard about romantic love and how everybody felt it and would force themself to, just because they thought that was what was supposed to be like. Gaslight itself into crushes with boys, quitting and trying to like girls right after, never fitting in whatever this "love" thing was.

It still is a bit of a part of her arc to feel a necessity to love to be good — she must love her family (the org), that's what is expected of her, she has to love the people that care for her, she has to love as gratitude and as a must — and then. A bit foward in the story, the first person she doesn't feel required to love despite meeting all of the requirements is Guy. He feels a bit weirdly about love too. He cares about people, but what he'd define as "loving" them fits a very very narrow definition. He refuses Espa's crafted and forced notion of a need to love him and when she realizes that it's like a weight's been lifted off her shoulders.

Oh. They don't have to love him. It's okay.

Or something like that!

Now. For Meine. Meine was actually intended for a completely different medium than it is now you see.

It was originally a Gacha Life series I wanted to do.

OKAY so you know like back in 2017~20 when there was a fuckton of Gacha Life mini novellas and series and stories on Youtube. If you don't it's basically a dressup game but you have tons of slots to save as your characters and you can also place them in different backgrounds and add speech bubbles. The og version of the game was even called Gacha Studio. It was a pretty versatile medium for people who didn't know how to draw or animate to make their own little stories in the community

BUT I DIGRESS

Anyways back in 2018 I had a big big big Gacha Life phase. I wanted to make my own stories at some point. By then it wasn't Life anymore, it was an updated version launched in 2019 or 2020 I think (i remember getting sooo mad along with my cousin whom we'd watch stories together, that the version was supposed to be released in june 2019 or something and it took half a year after that if i recall well) called Gacha Club. I'm digressing again. Anyways, Meine was originally intended for that.

[ID. A Gacha Club screenshot of a boy, Meine, sitting in the backseat of a car. He has dark skin, straight white hair, a black halo and a red horn coming from the side of his head. His eyes are green and he is expressionless. End ID.]

^i have like 30 frames of that original idea ngl. This was him. Here is a drawing of him now (nevermind im considering giving him dreadlocks and playing with his hair):

[ID. A black and white drawing of Meine. He doesn't have a halo or horn anymore, and his hair is similar, still long, but now he has curtain bangs that show a third eye on his brow and sidebangs. He has a reluctant expression. End ID.]

(Here, you can easily spot Sami's absolute obesssion with characters with the dark skin + white hair combo)

I actually have a few notes of what it was originally like in those very first concepts. Overall, there were no characters besides Meine, his mom, and Ceres (who was originally "Kyouka") and whatever plotline I had was infinitely more focused on Meine's whumpy backstory back with his dad and a possible recapture in the future.

I had completely forgotten about it, to be honest, and then like two years ago or so I suddenly remembered it and was hit with a wave of nostalgia and was like "OH MY GOD" how could have I forgotten it??? and all and decided to rework it to its current written medium!

The character designs are one of the main things that have changed, I think, aside from the cast expansion (now we have Yuri, Alisson, an aunt) and the proper fleshing out of the plot (which is still not very polished lmao).

Meine himself didn't change much. He had some weird red horns though, and his eyes were green while his clothes were blue, and I switched them up eventually. His third eye was also something that came after lmao. Ceres was the one that changed the most.

Originally I wanted her to have albinism! I didn't know much about it back then but it was probably like OCA1 (oculocutaneous albinism—the kind that doesn't affect just your eyes but your skin and hair as well, and type 1 if im remembering well is the one with the least pigment in skin and hair alike but i may be wrong) or similar. Ceres was always, from the start, an "experiment" kid. Not necessarily a lab baby, but def raised in one because of her extra rare and cool powers (which i didn't know what were gonna be, btw). I... was really moving towards aesthetic and made her have albinism probably as a way to make her look "odd" and unusual and sort of "ethereal" and "unnatural" (lab baby), which looking back, wasn't really a nice creative choice so that's why I changed it lmao. Her hair was straight, she was always very colorful in her wear, and her hairstyle was all cut with paper scissorrs and spikey in all the wrong places. I wanted her to have paint stains on her face and a band-aid over her nose, to signal that she has this really chaotic and childish and carefree energy.

I still liked that concept when I was reworking "Kyouka"/Ceres so a big part of her character is the child-like aspect, but I took it in a different direction. She isn't really... allowed to be this messy and colorful in the environment she's in. Ceres is cared for, far from neglected, never hurt or anything and all of the project is made and adapted with her needs in mind etc, but she isn't given a lot of agency. A key aspect of her redesign that I had in my head was a doll symbolism.

She is dressed in cute girly all-white dresses and her hair is styled for her in intricate hairstyles, like a dress-up doll. She was originally very thin as well, but I made her fat because it was easier to make her look like a doll that way (round chin, full cheeks, thick neck and overall soft appearence) (and also everybody in the cast was thin already let's spice it up right). Ceres still likes being colorful and cheery and bubbly in the way she dresses—but she only figures that out once she distances herself from the labs and starts actually exploring her agency and tastes!

One thing from before is also that "Kyouka" had chosen her own name, because she didn't really have any so she read it in a book and started telling her caretakers to call her that. Ceres is now still a name she choose (she likes reading about biology and animals and Ceres is the roman goddess of agriculture so she liked it it dont make much sense but bear with me) but she already had one: Arkisto. I think it's finnish for "archive" (don't quote me on that one) and she was named that way because that's what her power is: the archive. Ceres can sorta scan other people's powers and store them away for her own use, and that's why she is being raised in this lab in the first place. It's a pretty rare sort of anomaly in the magic system and they really want to understand it better BUT i digress again and what you need to know is that thats why she was named Arkisto.

Ceres isn't really called "Ceres" by her caretakers up until later on the story.

Anyways, a bit part of her arc is this infantilization. She isn't allowed to have a name, or agency, and she's cared for, like a kid, but never allowed to be anything more than that. The doll motif is because of that. This confinement to childhood. Ceres is a teen, she's sixteen, and she should be allowed to make her own choices and explore herself! I go on a bigger ramble about this here lmao

(That also is a pretty neat part constrasting with Dimitri. Dimitri is the wip's local living weapon (he/they/it/she) and as I was making them I realized that their concept was eerily like Ceres's, but in a total opposite way, so I developed them both to be each other's opposite. Dimitri's power is the Copycat—he can copy other people's powers in a way similar to The Archive—and like overall they are pretty complimentary characters. While Dimitri was denied childhood, Ceres is forced into it. Dimitri wasn't allowed to be a kid, Ceres wasn't allowed to be anything other than that)

I could go on and on and on about Ceres for an entire day but this is very long already so I'd say that's it! In Meine, the biggest change was Ceres herself. I love her. She also has autism and prosopagnosia (face-blindness) and has low empathy now.

OH YEAH

AND MEINE AND CERES WERE SUPPOSED TO BE ELEVEN OR TWELVE BACK THEN

[verbenaa]

for the fic asks: 2, 19, 29, 37, 40, 47, 57, 59! 🫂❤️

ahhhh tysm my friend 🥹🫂💕

(answering from this set of questions here)

2. do you plan each chapter ahead or write as you go? I already answered this question here, but the short answer is both, haha 😅. I am a very chaotic writer.

I will say though, the farther I get into writing to eden, the more I have planned for each chapter moving forward. In the beginning I had very little plans for the story and more of a vague idea, which gave me a lot of room to figure out exactly what I wanted to story to be and now I have a much clearer trajectory of where I am taking things. But even knowing that, I still technically only have a basic outline set up for the next 5 chapters or so (which puts us post-confession near the end of act 2)! Once I post the confession chapter, I definitely need to sit down and think about how to move towards act 3 for sure (though I've definitely already been thinking about it in my mind) 😅🫡

19. what is the most used tag on your ao3? I think it is a 3-way tie between 'Porn with Feelings', 'Soft Dom Astarion', and 'PWP' hahaha

29. what's your revision or editing process like? absolute chaos. Every chapter and fic is different during editing, of course, but I am very much NOT an organized person in any facet of my existence, and this extends to editing✨. I do a lot of rereads, change wording around, change it back, etc. The one thing I do in every WIP though is use the color red to designate something that needs attention, so it serves as a clear visual marker of 'hey something about this word/phrase/paragraph is off and needs a little more TLC'. I also utilize this while writing as a way to say ‘I like this idea but the English is not flowing and I can’t find the exact words’ so I can know to go back to that concept and flesh it out when the English DOES decide to flow again. I also like doing this because it means when I'm done editing, I get to see a word doc without ANY red which is a great feeling!

37. how do you choose where to end a chapter? straight vibes 😎. but honestly I never really know if I'm ending on the right thing, I just attempt to close stuff where it feels like a natural conclusion--like someone leaves, someone has a thought that ends, and so on so forth. (there's lots of leaving tents in to eden, ok? it's a thing.)

40. if someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see? ooooooh certainly something from to eden, but I have no idea what scene? I think I'd be happy with any of them, honestly.

47. how many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting? a million? a billion? it's an infinite number. all I know is that once my eyes start to cross and my head gets fuzzy when I'm reading over it and any obvious mistakes are gone, it's probably time to post.

57. do you prefer editing as you write, or waiting until it's finished? Either, really! I edit when I am having a not-so-great writing day typically so I can feel like I am at least achieving something! But in general, the bulk of my editing does happen at the end. But really it’s whatever suites my brain at that moment.

59. does anyone in your personal life know you write fic? If not, would you tell anyone? Aside from my husband, no! Family members know that I do write though, but I just tell them I am "writing fantasy stories for fun", which seems to appease them. I would probably tell someone I felt close to that UNDERSTOOD it, but I don't actually know anyone IRL who writes/reads fanfic believe it or not.

[aboutdragons]

Hello, I'm sorry to bother but I had a spur of questions after reading your 'ttad answers' tag.

You’ve talked about not being straight or monogamous, what made you choose that? Why pick Aemond to be her main bae?

Will Aly Rivers appear in ttad? 

What will Lyra’s relationship be like with the next gen?

What make you pick the 14 flames as the main gods in this fic?

What scene has been your favourite to write? Both published and wip?

What make you want to write the dragon-riders the way you did? Like with all the dragon/ inhuman features? As well as the bond with their dragon?

What was your thought process when creating Lyra? Why make her the child of Daemon and Rhea?

Alicent and Lyra seem to have a blooming friendship, will that continue in the upcoming years?

sorry about all the questions - they've just been burning in the back of my mind for a bit now and I just had to ask. Thank you so much

Yes, hello! I like questions, I'll try to answer them thoroughly.

I never thought about Lyra not being straight being a big deal. She just isn't. Same with polyamory; though they both might well hark to the whole 'freedom' part of her story. Freedom to love who she will, even if it's multiple people at once. Aemond as main bae was concieved at the initial concepting stage with my friend because she likes Aemond a lot. Whole store began from that actually.

Alys Rivers will make an appearance indeed. Aemond canonically has a thing for women older than him after all.

I'm not sure if Targtowers are included in the next gen, but she's going to interact positively with them, though for Reasons she'll be largely absent later down the line. But she likes them and is a role model to them in a way. She's obviously going to have a close relationship with the twins as they're her sisters. As for Rhaenyra's spawns, Lyra will keep her distance, mostly due to the growing rift between Rhaenyra and herself and Daemon. She has nothing against them per say, and she pities them a little because they will inevitably be caught in the crossfire of the consequences of Rhaenyra's choices, no matter if she ascends peacefully or not.

Because 14 are Valyrian gods and the main characters are Valyrian, it just fit very well. Plus I get to do some Fun ThingsTM with them later, plot-wise.

For published, my favorite scene so far was Lyra telling Daemon about her reincarnation and then retelling him Silmarillion. For WIP, there's a little scene of Rhaenyra and Alicent basically at the end of the whole story. I really like it.

Because I am primarily a fantasy hoe and Targaryens are supposed to be the elves of ASoIaF, they deserve to be a little more inhuman as a treat. As for the dragon bonds, I'm honestly just making shit up I think is cool because I like the dragons a lot and I want them to feature as more than props or pets.

I needed a convenient spot to place Lyra in the timeline so that she'd have biggest influence of the world, and this worked well. With Daemon as her father, it gives her a great personal freedom as well. As for the conception of a character itself, I simply asked myself what would be most interesting to throw in the setting, and came up with a woman who doesn't at all fit in with the times. It makes for some very interesting interactions, especially later down the line.

I'm not entirely sure where the future of Lyra and Alicent lies, but I will try to keep them friendly with eachother. As I mentioned prior, though, Lyra is not someone who fits in with what a highborn noblewoman of that era is supposed to be, and Alicent's whole persona is built upon being just that; they're on the exact opposite ends of the spectrum, and I'm not sure where it'll take them yet.

Don't be sorry! I really enjoy being asked questions and discussing ttad things with people!

[misscherry-26]

omg from your WIP --

bellamy blake <3

im so happy you love him too. dropping in a request, was wondering if you would have a lil drabble or shot story of maybe Biker!Bellamy AU? 👀 (echoing my Biker!Ari series too, I could totally see Bellamy apart of the crew)!

Ahh hi! I'm glad to know that you like Bellamy too!!!

Well, I have four (five with your request, which by the way, I will write it down so thanks 💖) in the works and I love the ideas ya'll sent me.

I'm currently editing the first one I finished and I realized—while reading other fics—that I had a lot of mixed concepts (my timeline of the series is a mess 😂 a lot of time has passed since I last watched it) so now I'm focusing on that. I don't expect it to be exact, but there are small details that I need to correct.

🫣 I won't say what is it about yet but here's a sneak peek...

You whirl around, stepping closer, your chest brushing against his, both too angry to care. “Then why are you here?” you fire back, your voice louder than you intended. “Why do you always have to control everything? Who made you the boss of me?”

His hand, still on your back, clenches into a fist, pulling you closer instead of pushing you away. “Maybe because I’m trying to keep you alive!” he spits out, his face inches from yours, his breath hot against your cheek. “You’re always doing this—taking risks, getting in my way. Do you have a death wish?”

Your heart pounds in your chest, anger flaring into something more intense. “No, but maybe you do,” you whisper fiercely. “Coming out here, risking your life for someone you supposedly can’t stand. What is it, Bellamy? Why do you even care?”

~

Now, Biker!Bellamy AU... Oh my goodness I'm getting some ideas already. Though Ari and Bell in the same universe!!? Are you trying to kill me? Hahaha, kidding I love it, he would fit perfectly 👀

[nestingtendencies]

Hello, my lovelies!

For some reason I don't post here often as just... me - the person behind NestingTendencies. I'm not quite sure why this is; I guess most of my crafting needs are catered to by Ravelry, as a platform. But I do realise that I have many, many wonderful followers, who have been regularly reblogging both the patterns that have piqued my interests and my own creations. And for that I am very grateful!

So I'd like to try and be a bit more social here; get to know you a little, learn what projects you're working on, and show you what's on my own hook!

First up is the Mariposa Sweater which has been the bane of my existence sole focus of my work since January!

You see, one of my new year's resolutions was to grow as a crafter beyond shawls, which are my specialty, and make sosme sweaters and jumpers! I've been having urges for those since last autumn and by now the craving cannot be ignored any longer.

So this is my first ever crocheted sweater, right? Do I bother with a gauge swatch?

No. Gauge swatches are for the weak.

Pretty soon I realise that my crochet is much, much tighter than the author's. Do I go back and try a size bigger? Do I increase the hook size to obtain the right gauge?

No. I decide that I know better, and I understand enough about how raglan works to just wing it. The joy of making a garment yourself is that you can make it fit your personal body contours perfectly, right?

So long story short, I am now on Mariposa the Second (First one is here) and I have frogged SUBSTANTIAL NUMBERS OF ROWS (like, all of the yoke for example) - wait for it - upwards of 20 times. Yes, 20. Not an exaggeration. If I hadn't done that, I could have probably about 4 completed Mariposas by now.

But no. The Gods have cursed me with a perfectionist streak. So we live and we learn and we carry that burden with us.

The photos in this post are the latest of the most correct version of this top that I currently have. My New Hope. My baby. I'm going to be sharing more WIP photos in the future.

The only good news is that as soon as I figure this sweater out, I'm going to have meticulous notes, which will give me the exact stitch sounts for my measurements and unlock the door to other jumpers like this one, of which I want to make at least 3.

And then there are other sweater patterns. 74 of them currently in my library. At least a dozen literally burning a hole in my consciousness - I want to start them immediately right now yesterday!!! Look look!

Elara Pullover - This is want in gradient purples, like an autumnal sunset

Chevie Sweaer - This I want in greys and golden ochres. I love the stitch used.

Don't Scrap That Raglan - Aaaah, Moss Stitch my favouritest stitch ever and I've almost improvised a sweater like this before!

Cosmopolitan Sweater - This I want in solid teal. Alpine stitch could well become my new mistress. It's also probably THE sweater I should have started with as my first project...

Peony Tee - I am in love with the funky-coloured contrasting sleeves and the raglan concept

Bridgette Ballet Neck Pullover - Ballet necks are my weakess...

Cap Sleeve Top - This I had a little romance with before, oh, about 8 years ago and it was shaping up beautifully in navy - I have all the yarn that I need for it.

Isop Sweater - I really want to learn this fair isle technique of making yokes, because I saw this pornographically beautiful set of 2 knitted sweaters in just the perfect colours and I'd like to do equvalent crochet versions, no I'm not at all trying to run before I can walk, why you ask?

Many of them much easier than Mariposa. Many of them not so tailored to the figure.

But no. Mariposa.

I have been buying up yarn in bulk again. This is how I know I'm in trouble.

But what about you guys? Do you have a Nemesis Project that has been kicking your ass for ages? Do you get overly ambitious like me? Or do you make your gauge swatches and avoid pissing off the Gods of Yarn, like sensible people?

[pinkponchoclub]

PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT MERMAID BODE 🖤🖤🖤

Yes! A second ask! Of course I’ll tell you about mermaid Bode 🩵 (I actually got curious about this one when I found it in my wips and went back to check it out so lucky you, this one’s fresh in my memory)

So this wip came from me wanting to participate in MerMay someday and deciding I needed an idea. Lo and behold, my brain promptly complied and came up with this. Sadly there’s no snippets to share (yet. Perhaps we’ll make this may my first MerMay) but I have some concepts/ideas.

First thing’s first:

Who’s who?

Well, Bode is a mermaid/merman. The sort that can shift into a human. And here comes the fun part: my half-asleep brain decided all good mer shifters need to be mute (Ariel style) so Bode’s got to be mute. Why is he mute? Because there’s a superstition about mermen being sirens and someone made sure to damage his vocal cords to take his voice. He’s got a nasty scar on his throat from it too. Additionally, this au was created around the time I was taking a sign language course at uni, so I feel I have at least the beginnings of an idea of how it works and what to watch out for when writing a mute character. I will have to do more research but at least I have a head start, right?

Now, of course this is SpyScrapper (I say, despite the fact that SpyScrapper always seems to come second to everything I write having to be about Bode first and foremost), so Cal’s here too. I’m not sure what his exact relationship to Jaro was in this verse but in any case, Jaro ended up dead because of mer-people and Cal got his famous cheek scar from that encounter. He’s then taken in and raised by Prauf because we love him. Cal’s obviously got big trauma about mer-people and the ocean in general.

All the other characters may feature as I need them, but they don’t have a concrete role to play as of rn.

The Plot

You can guess where this is going but I’ll spell it out anyway. Cal and Bode meet at a bar. Cal catches sight of the big cutie and goes to introduce himself. Bode is pleasantly surprised by Cal’s ease around the fact that he’s mute. They communicate by writing/drawing out letters in Cal’s palm before they get a pen, the scraps of sign language Cal picked up (spontaneous idea: could this be where he picks up the nickname?), and a lot of lovingly gazing at each other of course.

Something something, they go on a few dates, something something, they start falling in love (not yet sure what to do about this part). Cal being scared of the ocean comes up. Bode starts helping him work through it. Side note: Bode does have scales as a human, but they’re so light, they can be mistaken for strange scars. Thus, Cal doesn’t know he’s been falling in love with a mer. Big angst when he finds out. I’m thinking something with a big storm, choppy waves, potential almost drowning or something. Whatever it ends up as, I’m sure it’ll be fun, heh

That’s about as far as I’ve gotten. But man, now I really want to actually write this.

Hope that satiates your curiosity 🩵 I really wish I had a snippet to share, but rest assured, when I do, you’ll be the first to know about it

[jadeile-writes]

Fanfic Progress Update 153

Hi people, it's time to do an update on this week's writing progress. Stay tuned for a sneak-peek for Keep the Cuddles Platonic -challenge at the bottom of this post!

Current WIPs:

Keep the Cuddles Platonic -challenge

Fandom: Sonic the Hedgehog, movieverse

Summary: Doctor Robotnik is simultaneously touch averse and touch starved, which results in a plan to "get the touching needs over with" in the most efficient way he could think of: cuddles overnight, when he wouldn't be doing anything useful anyway. Agent Stone was not privy to the plan until they arrived at their hotel room for their business trip.

Progress: Chapter 2 is the current latest chapter and was posted on 23rd of November. Chapter 3 is finished and will be posted on 30th of November aka next Thursday. Chapters 4 and 5 are also finished :D

Originally this was supposed to be a threeshot, but chapter 3 got so long that I cut it into two chapters, and chapter 4 reached the desired word count perfectly naturally, so it was clearly a necessity. Chapter 5 just kind of wrote itself, it's a shorter epilogue chapter that the fic didn't really need, but now that it's there it perfects it, so turns out the fic did need it, I just didn't know it. Anyway, it's all written now and only needs to be posted.

—–

I'm Signing in the Drain

Fandom: Sonic the Hedgehog, movieverse

Summary (temporary): Not many people know this, but Doctor Robotnik is actually deaf and uses hearing aids to make up for it. Agent Stone does not know this, he just kind of assumes he's told to learn sign language upon being assigned for some other, mysterious reasons, and not as a "just in case" measure.

Progress: This fic will have at least three chapters, maybe four, maybe more (if I decide I actually want to do more with this concept than my initial idea, because the potential is there). The second chapter is almost done. The first chapter is now about 1/3 done.

I'm actually not sure if this fic will end up being Stobotnik aside from Stone being Big Gay as usual, cause Robotnik is being very aroace right now and I don't know if he'll give Stone a chance or not, as that is not really the point of the fic. We'll see how this shapes up.

—–

SBLF (workname)

Fandom: Sonic the Hedgehog, movieverse

Summary (temporary):

Wanted: a yesman who is capable of operating an espresso machine, has at least a higher IQ than your average amoeba, and is willing to put work before having a personal life, or indeed a life, period. The extra in your pathetic paycheck is good, but the strain in your psyche will make up for the positives. Forfeit your basic human rights and apply today if this sounds like you. 

Maybe it said something about Agent Stone - and probably not good things - that the poster in the cafeteria's pin board piqued his interest more than any of his official assignments had for a good long while. 

Dr. Robotnik, huh?

Progress: This one will be a longfic, probably around 20 chapters. It's a bit hard to estimate at this point, so the number is subject to change. Or I might cut this into two fics in a series, because quite honestly, it's two stories in one package (that is, half of it is pre-canon and half post-canon, so you know, could easily have two fics.) My writing hours will be devoted to this fic.

I have the first three chapters completely written now. Chapter 4 is half done. I also have two halfway written chapters that don't yet know their exact placement within the fic (they're scenes that will be slotted in to wherever they feel natural, once we get Stone settled in.)

—–  

Other WIPs I’m not currently working on but intend to get back to Someday™:

PoE Drabbles (Pillars of Eternity)

DC Drabbles (Justice League)

Diaphanous Relations (Forgotten Realms, R.A. Salvatore’s books)

Rolling with it (Zelda: BotW)

Hah, our afterlife is the most hilarious bushwa, dearest! (Hazbin Hotel)

—–

That’s it for the WIPs! Here’s the promised sneak-peek into Keep the Cuddles Platonic -challenge (Note: the text may end up slightly different in the fic itself due to more editing happening before publishing). Enjoy!

It was a perfectly average day at Doctor Robotnik’s laboratory. No business trips, no missions, no field tests, nothing but staying at the lab. Stone’s workday would be from ten to six, he’d do his usual everyday work, no meetings scheduled, no presentations, no visitors, no deadline crunches.

Simply a regular Thursday.

Except it was going to be anything but.

When Stone came in for the day, the lab smelled off in a way that was hard to define. Curiously, he walked up to the big crossroad that divided the lab building into two distinct halves and sniffed the air, pinpointing that the smell was coming from the left corridor, which meant the origin was likely the testing lab. Upon entering it, he could immediately see the cause of the smell: the large steel glass cabinet where the doctor tested various weapon proofnesses of his prototypes was covered in soot, metal bits, and chemical splatter. In short, the machine he had worked on yesterday when Stone clocked out had exploded upon testing.

Stone cringed in sympathy. That was days of careful work gone up in smoke just like that. At least he hadn’t been here to get yelled at for it.

—–

That’s it this time. See you next Saturday!

Links:

My AO3   My FFnet   My Ko-fi    Radiohusk Discord Server

[macabremoons]

Midas' Prologue

TW: Grimoire being himself, sicko for sicko romance, possessive behavior, anxiety, and general dark themes.

Word count: 1.2k

A/N: "Wow, Moon," you ask with sweet innocence, "you're four concept stories in. Are you closer to understanding this wip?" No. No, I'm not. Honestly while I like this I still haven't untapped Grimoire's true insanity. One day, truly. Oh! Sabelina's name has been changed to Annabella <3 Anyway enjoy!!

Rain taps on outside of my tent. I try my best to relax to the sound, but the smell of petrichor takes my mind right back to where it was running from. 

The sword shifts from more to less than an itch away from my face. Cassander smiles down at me, and my mind is flown back to my father. All this effort, and he regards me with the same causal power. 

I bite the inside of my cheek. I can afford this time to recoup, but I can not afford to be consumed by fear. I still have to find a way to get out of Cassander’s hands. I’ve escaped them temporarily, but he will be back, even madder than before now that Grimoire has killed so many of his men. I’ve steeled myself through many things on this trip. Corpses, infected wounds, screaming soldiers. This matter is not different. Rather, I refuse it to be.

The tent flap goes up, and I go deathly still. I resist the urge to cover the tear marks on my face, but then I see who it is and sigh.

“Grimoire, you still need to announce yourself before walking into my tent.” To my delight, my voice doesn’t waver.

“My deepest apologies, my lady. I am a bit tired, so it must have slipped my mind.” 

“Tired? You?”

Grimoire laughs softly, flopping onto his side of the tent.  “Yes, me; tired. As violent by nature might I be, too much of it is still exhausting.”

My eyes dart away. He wouldn’t be so tired if he hadn’t had to save me from Cassander. It strings—seeing my exact failure stare back at me. Worst yet, Grimoire has been very obedient lately, and said obedience allowed me to make mistakes. His resistance before had felt like a curse, but now feels like a blessing in disguise.

“We’ll take a break then. I have many things to do,” I say. He doesn’t reply. He’s drifting off, but he looks tense. “Wait, Grimoire.”

“Yes, my lady?”

“Sleep in my bed tonight. The floor is not enough for proper rest.”

Grimoire opens his eyes, staring into mine. His eyes stake through me completely, but I stand my ground. I must look ridiculous, but if I want respect, I must demand it in any circumstance. A king that can not be mocked by his jester is a coward, after all.

He wordlessly gets up and slides into my bed with me, face down. He’s quite close to my thighs. Too close, even. Though there is only so much space in the bed for him to be comfortable. I’ll just bear through it. 

“Might I ask one question?” Grimoire whispers. 

A single question in a lifetime of servitude. “I don’t see why not.”

“Does the taste of violence satisfy you?”

I begin to regret my kindness immediately. “I’m not sure I understand.”

He turns to look at me. “Violence is blood, and blood is life essence, at least for me. For you it’s power, no? But power at the hands of violence is an acquired taste. Do you like it?”

My fingers curl around the blanket. “I’m not scared of violence.”

“Mhm? I didn’t think so.” His lips ghost my skin, but I am too angered to be embarrassed by it. “No, no. You’ve been in too many battles to be scared of violence. I just don’t see that you enjoy it.”

“It’s a means to an end.”

“So you don’t enjoy it?”

“I am not sadist, Grimoire. Of course I do not enjoy violence.”

“But you enjoy the power it brings?”

Is he of all people suggesting pacifism to me? Grimoire reeks of blood.. He’s washed of it now, but you can see it in his very soul. Or the nook it used to be in. Nothing I could do would compare to him.

“Ah,” Grimoire hums. “That is more than one question. No pressure to answer, my love.”

A way out of this conversation. An easy solution, I do not take those anymore. Grimoire’s words could be excused with exhaustion, or it could be that exhaustion is letting him say what he really feels about me. If so, I need to know this. Grimoire is my greatest ally, and therefore my greatest enemy.

“I do enjoy the power it brings. Words can only get one so far. Or, perhaps ,they could get a different person farther, but I am not in a position to be propelled far by them. You know I had to fight just to be here.”

“Verbally, but yes.”

“We wouldn’t still be here if I did not resort to violence.”

“We wouldn’t be, no.”

The format of his words irk me. “You have more to say.”

Grimoire sighs. “Wouldn’t it be better if you were in the bed, like I am? You deserve rest too, you know. We are not in a battlefield, my lady, no need to be so tense.”

I should deny him, but I am tired. I sink into the bed. A sparkle goes through Grimoire’s eyes, but his expression does not change. Something, too, goes through me. Grimoire is my familiar, but he is still a man. This is the first time I’ve shared a bed with one. 

"Well?" I press.

"Time takes most things despite how tough they are. Maybe I just worry it will take the fire you have with it.”  Grimoire gives another soft laugh. “Or maybe it’s not my place to say at all. Yet, your desire is so warm. Ah, I’d miss it.”

Warm? The rain has me frigid cold, and I can’t stop shivering from fear. Grimoire thinks too highly of me. I wonder if it’s delusion from living for so long or another part of his… charm.

His words make me even colder. He’s slightly right. I find myself not missing the men lost in battle until I have to send letters home. It’s easy to have poison testers until they find poison. Does this make life not worth living? Does this mean that my dreams should not be achieved just because I might feel differently about them years later? An easy answer comes to mind.

“Maybe I’ll puke on the taste of bloody luxury later, but I am certain that starvation kills. I do not have the hindsight to tell you you’re wrong, but—” Words catch in my throat. They scramble away from me, leaving only the truth that lets me sleep at night. “I have to become more than my father’s daughter.”

Grimoire stares into my soul one last time before smiling wide enough I can almost see his fangs. “We will have to find out together then, mhm? I am excited to see it. Whether you like your Midas’ touch or not, I’ll stick with you. High heaven or low hells—they’re all the same to me, my lady.”

“Such is the life of a familiar,” I murmur. My tiredness is catching up to me, but I force myself to stay awake. 

Grimoire leans in closer. “Sleep. No one will harm you by my side.”

As I drift off, I call back to my own thoughts: greatest ally, greatest enemy.

Taglist (ask to be added!!): @anonymousfoz, @stesierra, @leisoree, @immortaladrien, @lyra-brie

[millenari]

2 for wip ask game? Time travel is a crazy concept

Number 2, the timetraveling 7kittens au! This one is inspired by the 'pulled seven kittens out of a hat' line from Misto's song that people often hc to mean that Misto is trans and has given birth to kittens before. This au is an offshoot of Gold Rush, in which only a few elements are changed (most notably that Misto is trans). The story starts when, one night on the junkyard (perhaps only a year or two prior to the events of the show) a group of seven kittens come trotting into the junkyard, claiming to be Tugger and Misto's litter from the future. The kittens have no idea how they got stuck in the past (and had no idea they'd even moved through time at first) so Misto and the others are stuck taking care of the little guys while all the resident magical cats try to put their heads together and figure out how the litter got there, and why. I don't want to call this story 'dark' but it could be severely triggering for some people, because it has a lot to do with Misto struggling with dysphoria due to his heats and the idea of becoming pregnant in the future. The concepts of choice and fate and destiny and such are tossed around a lot, and Misto spends a lot of time struggling with the feeling of having no control of his body. He has to wrestle with these feelings all the while he grows fonder and fonder of the kittens he'd initially resented, and also has to re-evaluate his relationship to Tugger along the way. And if all of that wasn't complicated enough, one kitten of the litter in particular, Victor, is a little too much like Misto for his own good. Or at least, Misto thinks so. Another way too long summary. Anyways, snippet:

Misto waves his paws a little, incredulous. “Don’t you want to know if you actually make your own choices?”

“No. Because I know I do.” Reaching over, Tugger rips a small chunk off of Misto’s fish, and then proceeds to chuck it across the clearing. He’s lucky it’s empty right now, or he would’ve probably hit someone.

“Tugger!” Misto barks, taken aback.

“See? I just chose to do that. I know that for a fact.”

“And if every existing— existing universal iteration of you did that exact same thing at this exact same time? Is it still you choosing?”

“Yes. You know how I know?”

“How?” Misto sighs.

“Because I chose to. Just now.” When Misto groans again and leans back against the crate behind him, Tugger smugly adds, “Put that one in your diary.”

“Do you really not care about any of this?”

“What? Destiny? No. A bunch of shit happens and then we get reborn into a new life. And then a bunch of shit happens again. Repeat for eternity. We’re cats, Misto, how much does any of this matter?”

“Because I want to know where I’m headed!” Misto exclaims up at the stars, gesturing at his chest. “I want to know if there’s any point in fighting against— my destiny, or my future, or whatever.”

“You don’t need to ‘fight’ your destiny at all, Misto.”

“That’s easy for you to say!” Misto exclaims, sitting up to look over at Tugger. “You were born in the right body! All I fucking do is try to work against what the universe hands me, and if there’s a possibility that there’s no point in it and I have no say—”

“Then what?” Tugger asks wryly. “You’ll just stop?”

Misto pauses. He scratches his nose before admitting, “Well. No.”

“There you go. Just do your thing, Misto.” He leans back against the crates, folding his arms behind his head. “Who cares about destiny and shit.”

[ratwavekayla]

@msmcnevertweet tagged me to talk about different works in progress. I think I've been getting better at tracking my WiPs this year so here's where I'm at.

TTRPG Projects that I'm "actively" working on

Terminal - I finished the first draft before the Kickstarter launched (terminal.ratwave.uk) but there's still lots of stuff I'm doing beyond just running the campaign

Jukebox Tarot - A GMless one-shot game for telling stories inspired by musical theatre, using a deck of tarot cards and the music you love.

Godslingers - Play a posse of cosmic desperados with necrodivine weapons in a space fantasy western setting. Built for short campaigns as characters deal with their weapons eating them alive.

Demon Cage Fireball - Play a season of diabolic football league, using a unique mechanic for aping the emotion of football match.

The last are "active" because what they all essentially need is a playtest to check they work before I move on to the next steps and I'm bad at organising playtests.

TTRPG Projects that are "paused"but I may come back to

Untitled Kassily Solo Journaling Game - Half written over a year ago. Involves venturing into a shifting dreamscape illustrated by public domain Kassily paintings. I intend to come back to this but it's a weird one as it's fully just diving back in mid flow.

Bloody Hands Dig Shallow Graves - A campaign length adventure for Wild Duelist. I had some fun ideas I was batting around but basically Wild Duelist has never sold well enough to justify me putting the effort into this (unless the fancy really captures me)

My Heart is a Nuclear Reactor - Worked out some concepts based on this phrase that popped into my head during a therapy session. Realised I was getting upset if people didn't grasp the exact metaphor I was going for so decided it was too raw. Feels more likely to get scrapped for parts than picked up but you never know.

TTRPG Projects that are paused with no intention of being revisited

Awesome Altered Hero Force - Power Rangers Lumen game with plural characters. Had some fun ideas but I never got a setting that actually felt interesting. Already scrapped a lot of the moves for Wild Duelist parts back in the day.

Hyper Racer: Triumph - A PBTA science fantasy bloodsport racing game I was working in just for friends before I actually started taking games seriously. I think I just have too different ideas around what I want from games I make to revive this idea.

TTRPG Projects that are just a glint in my eye

Transgender Deathmatch Legend II - An idea I've batted around is crowdfunding a box set with multiple adventures as well as some tweaks to the system inspired by other games built on the original game. Basically the hold back is making sure I feel confident enough to have a bash at a box set.

I Only Listen to Underground Music - Psychopomp road trip playlist making game. It was a pitch for an anthology that didn't get picked up. Doesn't feel like a priority right now but I dug the ideas so I could see myself knocking it out one rainy day.

Low pressure tag if anyone wants to talk about their WiPs; @gormengeist , @anarcutie (I always feel awkward doing tag chains but also I never jump on them if I'm not tagged and I had fund doing this

[amadeusgame]

Amadeus Devlog 1: from Concepts/Ideas Into An Actual Demo

Well, as of this past Saturday, the demo for Amadeus is live. I hope it's a good introduction to the world, story, titular character, and general atmosphere/ambience of the game.

Over the next year, I'm going to be shifting my sights toward getting the full release of Episode 1 ready by next summer. I'm planning to post at least monthly long-form development updates, both here as well as devlogs on the itch.io project. I'm considering a newsletter, but that hasn't happened yet - in the event it does, I've created a Linktree to track all of the resources relevant to the ongoing development of Amadeus. Give this a bookmark and check back: https://linktr.ee/amadeusgame

Without further ado.... the first update about the ongoing making of Amadeus! Or, in this case, a retrospective on making the demo. If you're curious about how this project started, and how various inspirations and circumstances helped me see it through to a released demo, give it a read! It's a bit long, so if you'd rather skip it, you're not missing anything but context on what's already done. Future devlogs will be shorter and have more news looking forward.

Amadeus the character has existed in my brain for several years, now. Solea - who is mentioned in the demo, but has not yet made an appearance - was conceptualized at the same time, but she was originally named Solaris. I changed her name because it felt strange to have both main characters' names end with the same sound. Now that it's changed, I think Solea fits her better.

Below are the first sketches I made of these characters. It's interesting how little Amadeus changed, but Solea on the other hand is almost unrecognizable. Her characterization changed so much that I felt she needed a new design to accompany it. As for what that design is... that's something to be revealed later! I think she's an incredibly compelling character, and I can't wait for everyone to meet her.

What motivated me to turn these characters into protagonists of an actual, real video game, was a series of concurrent Things during my second year as a grad student studying music composition, last year. At the time, I was:

Taking an elective course on C#/Unity, and learning how to Actually Make A Game

Writing a music piece for solo marimba and electronics (for a different course), and using Professor Layton music as inspiration

Thinking about a particular scene I had just come up with involving Amadeus

#2 is extremely relevant here. There was one evening when I was listening to a WIP of the marimba composition I wrote, and realized it evoked the exact kind of melancholy that might fit my story - so, as a form of fun procrastination, I played the track back on loop and sketched out a title screen for Amadeus's story in a small notebook.

Yep... the very first thing I made for this game was a title screen. Not exactly the conventional way to do things. (That marimba piece eventually turned into "Spellbound Mischief," the BGM track during the largest interactive/investigation scene in the demo. It was greatly inspired by the "Kodh" BGM in Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy, and "Bewitching Puzzles" from Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney.)

Meanwhile, in the Unity class, I had just learned how to make a very basic title screen with a button to proceed to the game on it. So I opened a new instance of Unity, imported a phone camera picture of the drawing I did as a title screen asset, and made a "proceed to game" button that deactivated the title screen. I went ahead and put the in-progress version of the marimba piece as background music while I was at it.

And so the development of Amadeus began.

The very first build was made in one weekend, after I had finished my actual Unity/C# homework for the week, and wanted to apply what I had learned to building a game. Unfortunately, a game needs art assets. I found that it was incredibly difficult to motivate myself to work with pure greybox assets, so I sketched up very placeholder-y assets (a background, a walk cycle) and played around with them. As a visual artist, I find it easier to work in pencil and paper than digitally, so I sketched the assets in the same notebook as before.

Behold the glory of Prototype Amadeus:

I ended up building out a very rough skeleton version of the first scene in the demo, almost exclusively using Unity buttons as functionality, because that was what I understood best at the time. The portraits for Amadeus and the Witch are used in the final game, as well as the hand sprite and the door scene (all of which I put considerably  more effort into than the placeholder walk cycle and manor, seen above.)

...In fact, if you're REALLY bored, the prototype still exists here on itch.io: https://arcanaxix.itch.io/amadeus-prologue-demo (password is "werewolfdepressionsim").

If you're not that bored, you can hopefully still appreciate how much better the released demo version of the text UI looks, compared to this:

At this point, the professor of my Unity course introduced us to our final project: we were to create a Game Design Document for a game, a timeline with finishing major benchmarks to complete the game as proposed by the day our final project was due, and then have a fun party where we would all play each others' games. The game didn't have to be anything very involved at all (it was music school, expectations were not very high), but I was getting excited about actually making a game with MY CHARACTERS, and I wanted to use this assignment to build a playable point-and-click chapter.

I also wanted to learn how to try and code a drag-and-drop puzzle mechanic, not just for this game, but also to try and help with the ongoing development of another exciting project I am part of (Project DuskPuppy). At any rate, I used the final project of this class to build a very janky "chapter" of Amadeus.

I learned so much working on that, and at the end of it, I had something that was Technically Playable, an absolute nightmare in terms of user experience, and in which half of the assets were scribbles. But I shared it with friends, and one of them gave me the following feedback, which (thanks ZeroJanitor) basically directed my continued development of the demo:

"i love the whole tone of this game, the paper cutout sprites and somber music set a really cool tone, which compliment the character dialogue and theming really well! also it functions from start to finish which is always nice"

I'm including this because I think it's important for people to know just how much their comments can influence and motivate creators. Hearing just one person say that the paper sketch visuals - which I was using originally NOT out of any aesthetic direction, but literally just because I personally find it easier to draw assets on pencil and paper, and needed assets to implement - set an interesting and unique tone? Well, that settled it! I decided to double down on the pencil sketches from then on, and have used the same notebook that I sketched the original title screen in to draw every single art asset in the game.

This has come with its share of difficulties - a couple of the sprites I needed to entirely re-draw, because they were drawn at a different scale in my notebook, so the line thicknesses didn't match up with the other sprites. This would have been much easier to tweak digitally, but for pencil-on-paper, I had to just start over.

The second version is an improvement anyway; but I ended up using the "rough" version as an in-between frame in an animation, and by sheer luck, it happens to flow pretty well. So the original still made it in after all!

Anyway, that all came later -- at the end of 2022 I simply had a technically playable version of the game that was extremely rough and was mostly held together with Unity buttons deactivating and activating things, but it was Enough of an accomplishment that I started to feel like I could see this through into a real release.

I had learned:

The basics of how C#/Monobehaviors work, and enough of an understanding to be able to look up answers and resources for further learning

How to make a game design document and break a HUGE task like "make a game" down into every single small task within it, and prioritize/schedule those to get something made

That no matter what you will never actually finish everything on time, and to make peace with that

(Regarding Point 3: my original script for the movement could not handle the upper limit of movement on a screen being anything except a horizontal line, so for the scene with the grave on a hill, I just.... rotated the camera and Amadeus' sprite. I figured out a more elegant solution later, but sometimes, deadlines mean you have to slap on a band-aid that sort of works!)

And, crucially, I had the OK from my professor to continue asking him code and Unity questions after the course was finished, with the caveat that he would respond when he had the time. This is probably the only reason I actually finished the Amadeus demo. Being able to ask for help when you need it is invaluable.

The next important thing that happened was over winter break I spent 2 weeks obsessively binge-reading the visual novel Umineko When They Cry. This was, I cannot emphasize enough, THE most motivating thing I could have possibly done. I was struck by several things: the insanely catchy soundtrack, the fascinating abstract sound design choices, and the CHARM of the MS-paint graphics. I had been surrounded by an obsession with big budget games at school and the idea that music that's too melodic or looping distracts from the game, but here was an example of a soundtrack with some of the catchiest tunes I've ever heard that hit incredibly hard during key narrative moments.

(The development of Amadeus had to take a brief pause while I painted the Golden Witch Beatrice on my laptop. But this means that the majority of serious development for Amadeus happened on a laptop with the Golden Witch Beatrice on it:)

Playing Umineko was exactly what I needed to completely throw the "soundtracks should support the game but not draw attention to themselves" value out the window. I had just played a masterpiece of a game in which the soundtrack hit you over the head with itself and it ruled so indescribably hard. Moreover, I had just played a masterpiece of a game in which almost all of the art assets were clearly drawn by one person doing their best, and it ruled so indescribably hard. So I doubled down on my values: I was going to create a game, with my own hand-drawn assets, and my own music, and it was going to be chock full of certified bangers if it was the last thing I did.

(May as well plug the soundtrack again while I'm on the topic: https://arcanaxix.bandcamp.com/album/amadeus-demo-original-soundtrack - I was studying music at music school during the majority of this game's development, so unsurprisingly, the music and sound are by far the most polished part of the whole affair.)

On the subject of music-! My last semester at school I didn't have a C# course giving me deadlines to work on the game, so I had to learn how to make my own deadlines. I drafted a calendar that originally scheduled the release of the demo for the end of May, 2023. I broke down the remaining tasks for a "complete" demo and scheduled them across the remaining months.

I did not follow this calendar at all. What I did do, was learn more about myself, and how to motivate myself. As you can see, the demo got released - so that means I managed to find a way to keep myself on track! And that was to take advantage of the fact that I was in music school, making music.

The whole project was started because of a piece of music I was writing. So it made sense to me to channel that, and to use my remaining time at school to create the perfect soundtrack, and to draw inspiration for the game itself from the music I was writing. Sometimes the game inspired my music, and sometimes it was the other way around! The point being: I still had deadlines, but they were music deadlines now, so I used that to motivate my development of the game.

A few examples:

Spellbound Mischief: I worked alongside percussionist Jay Lee on this composition, and engineered the recording session. Because of that, I had the backing track and the marimba recording split into two different audio stems. This gave me an idea: what if I had the marimba stem fade in and out? The actual nature of the dynamic soundtrack in the scene changed a lot over development, but it was inspired by the fact that I had multiple audio stems to work with in the first place.

Fugue ~ Interlude: The underlying composition of this piece is just what it says - a fugue. My final project in my counterpoint course was to write a fugue. The nice thing about fugues is that, once you understand the process, fugues more or less write themselves; this was written entirely divorced from Amadeus. So I wrote this fugue, and a different friend (thanks monstrman) gave me the feedback that it sounded like a Final Fantasy villain theme. I started thinking about it and I realized it had a ton of potential as a theme in my game... and much later, when I created the "Amadeus opens the notebook and thinks to himself" scene (added after playtester feedback that the narrative flow was hard to follow), I realized that I could use it there.

Deal With a Witch: I knew I needed a witchy theme. I didn't have one. So when I got assigned to write a contrapuntal ABA form piece, I wrote one in minor on the harpsichord, and it felt suitably witchy. The clarinet was added after, and I don't even remember why I added it other than that I know someone who plays a mean clarinet. It was definitely the right call.

A Riddle for Thee (Demo Version): I'm being a bit rude by including this one... this piece was written as a final project, a "Theme and Variations" for a course on 20th century harmony. However... this piece is going to manifest very, very differently in the complete game. I won't tell you what that is, but I will say this much, and hint at it very heavily: I hadn't quite figured out how to structure the complete narrative of Amadeus, other than that it would be in episodes; but writing this piece finally gave me a very compelling idea.

So I continued to work on the audio assets while I was in school, and resolved to have a mastered version of every track before I left campus for the last time. Once I graduated, I took the "end of May" deadline very seriously and focused on knocking out all of the remaining tasks to get the demo ready for private playtesters. Privately, I extended the actual demo release to the end of July, to give myself some time.

And here is where I have learned the most about keeping myself on track, as an individual with ADHD, no formal deadlines, and a lot of passion for this project:

Make your own deadlines, and make them ones with accountability.

I didn't follow my calendar because there was no accountability. What I DID do was finish a private-ready demo by end of May, because I had announced that it would be ready by end of May, and had a handful of people ready and excited to playtest it. And I finished the public version by end of July, because I had announced that it would be ready by the end of July.

You may be suspecting something... that's exactly what these monthly devlogs are going to be! I have a private calendar with benchmarks to meet in order to ship the finished Episode 1 of Amadeus by next summer, but the best way to be sure I meet those benchmarks is to write about them each month. This also helps keep you all informed too, and hopefully, excited about the project.

I know this has been a long write-up, but hopefully you gained some insight into how this project started, and how I as a musician-slash-multimedia-artist with one semester of C# under their belt managed to cobble together a game demo. And I hope you're as excited as I am about the complete game. I can't wait to make it so you can all experience it!

[lindseymcdonaldseyelashes]

Fic Writer 20 Questions

Thanks for the tag @ghostlyarchaeologist!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Just 2 (Not counting previous, abandoned AO3 accounts)

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

4,684 (plus another 6k words in a note that needs to be reckoned with)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Leverage and Angel

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The Rooftop Job - Leverage, 6 kudos

"The Sky's Gonna Open" - Angel, 5 kudos

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I've gotten one comment, and yes, I replied to it!

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably neither. Also I'm bad at ending things on angst. Usually I like endings to be warm and cozy.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

The Rooftop Job, just because it's the only one with an ending (yet)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not enough people have read my fic to hate it

9. Do you write smut?

I do... but haven't gotten there yet this time around

10. Do you write crossovers?

I have in the past, and there's so much potential in the "Every character Christian Kane plays is actually the same person" universe that it'd be fun to tackle

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not stolen exactly, but I've had people kudos and comment on a story and then write basically the exact same story afterward?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I don't think so

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

I'm probably a bit too precious about my writing to co-write, but I've definitely workshopped ideas with people that turned into awesome stories

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

Probably self-insert x Eliot Spencer hahaha

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I have a 300k+ fic out there that's half-finished for a dropped hyperfixation and part of me wants to keep it going but I do not have the will power or time

16. What are your writing strengths?

Probably just coming up with fun concepts that make my brain tingle

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Actually doing the writing

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I try to avoid it unless I know I'm saying exactly what I think I'm saying.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, back when the show was still on and I was a wee baby writer

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

"The Sky's Gonna Open"—I've really only just started but I'm very excited about where it's headed

And I'm tagging @curious-phenomenon :)