#I recommend keeping an idea folder of some kind to any creative sort

[marlynnofmany]

I have a new story to write, so I can submit it to a Thing, and all I know is that I want it to be about shapeshifters.

To the money bin story seed folder!

I do love swimming in here.

[vulpiano]

Music Video Making-Of: Brevyn – “Moonbow”

https://vimeo.com/305635092

After an enforced hiatus due to my MacBook dying with no hope of recovery, I was of course delighted to resume video work when I was back up and running again with a new laptop a few months later. I had begun a music video in August 2018 for Brevyn’s “Moonbow” from the Liquid Sunlight EP on Vulpiano Records and finished it in December 2018.

Brevyn, also known as dreamfortress on Rate Your Music and moonsandmelodies on their Tumblr music blog, is a talented electronic artist and a resourceful listener, possessing a wealth of knowledge about all manner of music, including library music and new age. After exchanging conversations on RYM and delighting in their 8tracks mixes, Brevyn released Liquid Sunlight on my netlabel (with bonus tracks!). The imagery of the album was so clear – the ocean, colors, times of day – that the ideas necessary for a corresponding music video came to mind readily.

My workflow for creating a music video that uses outside source material is usually like this:

The artist sends me any reference images, videos, symbols, or typography that I should have in mind when creating the video. Brevyn was great about telling me just what they hand in mind throughout the process:

I feel the bluer shot of the ocean could fit more with a tint of another color e.g. a darker orange to fit the orangeish shots..do you think with some of the clips, e.g. ocean-then-moon, you could have them fade into the next? – As i said, the images already go very good together, but I think blending them in that sort of way would make it even better. I was thinking of the kind of subtler distortion they have in some vhs-inspired images / videos.

I create a Google Doc to place all of this reference material in, as well as the resources I locate or create myself and any other feedback the artist gives me on draft versions of the video so that I have everything in one place

In the Google Doc, I write out some keywords associated with what I should be looking for (example: moon, sunset, tide) to keep in mind when I’m searching

I search on Creative Commons repositories such as Vimeo and Pixabay for any images or videos that I would be allowed to utilize in the music video. CC-BY (attribution) or CC0 / public domain are ideal; I am free to use these assets in a video legally and I do not have to write the creator asking for permission. I feel like it is important to gather more clips than you think you’ll need, but don’t five too far down the rabbit hole of clicking around for interesting clips, tempting as it is, or you won’t get around to making the video!

I paste all the links I find in the above in the document and download any that I am thinking about using. I mark in bold the ones that make it in the final video and note the title and author information so I will have the accurate details for crediting appropriately within the video and in the body of the video’s description.

I keep everything together (inspirational images, font, videos I may use and will use) in one folder on the desktop and backed up on an external drive (I recommend LaCie).

Final Cut Pro is my video editor of choice. I personally find it much more intuitive than Adobe Premiere, even though I use Adobe in many other ways (such as organizing all of my photos in Lightroom and the ever-useful Photoshop for creating graphics).

The next part is a bit trickier to describe: how does one actually make the music video? This is where listening through the track several times and picturing the scene unfolding in your mind comes in handy, along with your own personal techniques. It is important not to over-think it and begin to work; you can always adjust everything later. Here, I thought: how can I tell a story about a relationship between the tides, the moon, and the sunset? How should these elements best flow in-and-out? Lay everything down to fill the length of the song, chop clips up, see what works best. I think it is important to be light on effects the first go-around so that you can hear from the artist what they want to see happen next.

After the initial draft, I then went ahead and made adjustments according to comments from the artist and applied color matching and correction where necessary to give the clips from various sources a unified feel. One of the desired changes was to add VHS effects. I managed to find an amazing and heavily customizable free plugin for FCPX that helped me to achieve just that. This moon phases font filtered through the familiar coral / sunset color throughout the piece also helped to set the tone. I created another draft, got further feedback of other areas where the transitions were a bit too abrupt, and worked until the final piece was complete.

When the video is all finished, I upload it to Vimeo and YouTube and also back up all the associated files on a cloud service as well. I can’t stress how important it is for all video editors to always have back-ups in one or two places of everything they’re working on or finished with, as well as any of your files period! Before my laptop died a few months ago, I had done a back-up of everything two weeks before. As a result, I lost almost no important data. Get into the habit now if you don’t already and it will become second-nature.

There are other approaches I use when the video I make includes material I’ve shot myself, footage generated or manipulated with Processing, or footage from Second Life, but I will hopefully cover these processes in a future post. I hope you found this informative – feel free to comment with any questions or thoughts below.

[bookenders]

11/11/11 Tag Game: Rounds 24, 25, 26, and 27

Tagged by the wonderful @corsairesque, the lovely @azawrites, the stellar @sunlight-and-starskies, and the incomparable @inexorableblob - thanks!

And @inexorableblob, thank you for letting me rewrite the end of The Great Gatsby. It was very cathartic.

Rules: Answer 11 questions, write 11 questions, tag 11 people!

Bilbo Taggins: @aurumni-writes @quilloftheclouds @aslanwrites @starlitesymphony @writingonesdreams @waterfallwritings @cataclysmic-writer @ren-c-leyn @timefirewrites @minusfractions @ink-flavored - and if you like the questions and aren’t tagged, feel free to answer them! And tag me so I can see! 

My Questions:

How many licks would it take for your OCs to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?

What are your favorite smells?

What’s the book you’ve read most recently? What did you think of it? What impressed you? What would you have done differently?

What are your thoughts on mugs?

If your OCs had a comic book series/graphic novel about them, what would it be called? What would be on the cover? What would the art style be?

Can you draw a bear?

Do you do any other kinds of art? Are you ever influenced by other kinds of art? What about other areas like science or mathematics/other disciplines?

Have you read any craft books or writing advice books? If yes, how have the helped or hindered you? Which would you recommend? If no, would you ever consider reading them?

What are your favorite kinds of narratives? What narrative structures do you prefer to write and what do you prefer to read?

What’s your favorite recipe?

What are some signs that make you consider setting a project aside vs continuing with it?

As always, answers under the cut!

@corsairesque‘s Questions:

1. Do you create playlists for your stories or characters?

I do! 

Here’s a detailed post about how I make them.

This is Mel’s from H2H.

This is Gemma’s from H2H.

This is one for the story I recently posted.

And I have one for each WIP on my WIP page! (Mostly, I’m still working on Fish Food’s.)

I actually have folders in Spotify for my characters and stories. Each one gets a playlist.

2. What is your stance on endings that don’t end with some hope?

Sometimes a story needs to have a certain ending to have an emotionally satisfying conclusion. I don’t think hope is absolutely required for an ending. I’ve ended stories without hope because that’s how the story ends. If I wrote it to conclude with an upturn, it would’ve been disloyal to the narrative. Like life, not everything ends happily, or with a positive outlook.

If you want it from a more technical perspective, there are three sorts of endings: positive, negative, and neutral. They can mix and match, but these are the three base ones. I tend toward neutral or positive-neutral endings. The best story I’ve written so far has a negative-leaning neutral ending because it concludes with a loss that does not promise hope. Positive endings are not necessary for a narrative, or for a conclusion. 

Sometimes you need to write a hopeful ending. Sometimes you need to read a hopeful ending. And sometimes you need to read or write something that ends on a down-note. I know I have. 

So, TL;DR, there is no ending hierarchy. It all depends on the reader and the writer, what they need, and what the story demands.

3. What author would you love to hear feedback from on your WIP?

Of literally anyone? Dead or alive? I mean. I’d love to hear what Flannery O’Connor would have to say about my short stories. I try to do a remix-version of her moments of grace in each of them.

4. What is the genre of your WIP(s)?

I mention these on my WIP page!

Most of my short stories are literary and contemporary fiction. My longer projects tend toward low fantasy.

5. How do you come up with new ideas for your WIP(s)?

I don’t have a method or anything for idea generation. My brain works in the background while I’m doing other things, so I’ll be washing dishes, or brushing my teeth, or writing something else, and an idea goes HI HELLO WHAT ABOUT THIS HUH? and I scramble to write it down.

Most of the time, my story ideas come from cool sentences I think of while observing. That sounds super weird and nerdy, but it’s true! When I’m bored or need to occupy my brain or just sorta feel like creating something spontaneous, I’ll look around and figure out how I’d write about a certain thing in the vicinity. 

Some examples of this from my phone notes:

“Laughter echoing through a cave, bouncing off the walls, the gift of hearing it over and over until it fades like gentle waking”

“Cheeks baked pink from the flush of her modesty”

“The last remnants of home, the dirt hidden beneath their fingernails”

“Headlights flicker between the gaps in the barrier like a slipstream of stars”

Ya know, stuff like that.

Sometimes, if I’m stuck while writing and need a thought, I look at the plot and think up complications for my characters to face. That’s how I figured out how to make Lithium 100% more plot relevant. I thought, okay, so she has this role right now, what can I add to make her stand in the way of X plan while also being an asset to Y? And boom, idea generated and problem solved.

6. What do you use to keep all your writing on? (Scrivener, Google Docs, good old pen and paper…)

I use Scrivener for all my main writing. I have a ton of phone memo notes for ideas on the go. I have a notebook full of random stuff for when I’m blocked and need to hand write something.

I also answered this further down!

7. What gave you initial inspiration for your WIP(s)?

H2H: There was a publisher who had a call for shapeshifter stories, and then I missed the deadline so I decided to try for a zine instead, then I got rejected, so I made it into my own thing.

AOPC: I needed to flesh out a piece of my homebrew DnD world, so I started worldbuilding, then it was my turn to turn in a story to be workshopped in my writing class, so I wrote a thing set in the village about the tribe and it all spiraled out from there.

FF: I had an errant thought about the script that hero and villain stories follow and wrote a thing about what would happen if one of them decided to deviate from it and BOOM the plot hit me like a semi truck.

Almost all of my short stories start with a sentence I think sounds really cool, a tone I want to try to capture (ex. the feeling of standing inside an old cathedral), or the ending moment of a character arc (I tend to work backwards).

8. How long have you been working on your WIP(s)?

I’ve been working with Heart to Heart since November 2018. I started thinking about Fish Food like 3 months ago I think? And I got the idea for All Our Painted Colors 3ish years ago, but it started as a short story that I thought about expanding about 8 months ago.

My writing process starts with a long period of thought percolation before I write anything definitive down.

9. What was the first thing you came up with for your WIP(s)?

H2H: The fact that the main character is an apothecary who uses recipes from historical documents to brew things and lives in a small town, and that their love interest changes shapes in some way.

AOPC: That the tribe is a society based around body paint, art, preserving their personal history, and stories. But mostly paint. 

FF: The hero danging over a pit of hungry piranhas and asking the villain a question that throws off the whole “death threat” vibe.

10. Have you considered Hogwarts houses for your characters? If so, what are they?

Answered this for the H2H cast here.

As for the Fish Food cast:

Iron Will - Hufflepuff

Overseer - Ravenclaw

Nightmare - A Hufflepuff who asked to be in Slytherin and the hat said “yeah okay”

Lithium - Gryffindor

Babylon - Slytherin

Sparkplug - Gryffindor

11. What do you find easiest to write? (Description, dialogue, etc.)

Interiority! Free indirect discourse! Unvoiced character brain thoughts! Which I guess means description? 

Writing dialogue sucks old car tires!

@azawrites‘ Questions:

what’s the best part about your writing style? I like how I build up to emotional punches. It’s like walking up a ramp, but in a literary way. And at the top of the ramp you either get a gut punch of feels or an ice cream cone.

do you write on the computer or on paper? I do most of my writing on my laptop because my hands can’t write fast enough to keep up with my brain. My typing is way faster. If I’m having trouble getting an idea down, or the tone of the writing lends itself to being handwritten (idk how to describe this, but sometimes words just gotta be scribbled, ya know?), I’ll hand write it in pen. I don’t use pencils anymore because I wasn’t allowed to in college and it kinda stuck.

what are your favourite books and why? Oh, no, there are too many. So I’ll just say my top book: The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien because of how it deals with stories and grief and remembering, the fact that it’s a story cycle (which is very cool), and the way he writes - it’s beautiful and sad and messed up and poignant. I love it.

why did you start writing? I’ve answered this before, but there was never really starting point for me. It’s just something I’ve always done. 

why did you continue writing? Because I had too much fun to stop! I also get creatively constipated, I guess is how I would phrase it, and need to have some sort of narrative outlet or my brain gets really mad at me.

where do you usually write? Pretty much anywhere, but most often at my desk. I think I need a taller chair, though...

can you describe your favourite piece (written by you) in one sentence? Let’s get authory with this one: The teacher hands out the tests, multiple choice this time, but when the stapled packet slides across your desk, there’s something odd about it, something that brings the war to life inside your head, a long-forgotten voice that speaks the souls of the soldiers and tells their stories from the annals of history. Or: A multiple choice test about WWII that tells the story of 4 men from Company B from enlistment to the end of their campaign.

what’s one cliche/trope you overuse, but still like anyway? It’s a trope when it comes to my own writing, actually. Person Sits Alone in the Dark and Contemplates. I love it, I abuse the hell out of it, and I will never stop.

what music do you listen to when working on a WIP? Depends. I have a go-to Writing Flow State song, playlists to help me get in the right head space when writing certain characters, and playlists that help guide the tone of a story. I can never listen to movie or video game scores because the association of song and cinematic moment is too strong for me.

have you ever dreamed of a fictional character? Uh, I have the occasional nightmare about Kokopelli? Does that count? 

what’s one thing that makes you automatically dislike a book? Overly pretentious first person POV prose (and I don’t mean purple. I mean a character who - honestly and without a hint of satire - thinks like a writer from the 1920s who just discovered what “paid by the word” means and believes they’re the wisest human being in the universe and everyone who doesn’t agree with them is the basest of idiots - barf). Gratuitous female violence. The use of the word “loins” outside of an animal context. Everything about The Beginners by Rebecca Wolff. 

@inexorableblob‘s Questions:

Which of your characters could you write as twice their current age? Oh, man, I think writing Iron Will in his forties or fifties would be really cool. It’d certainly give the story a new commentary twist.

Which of your characters could you write as half their current age? (I’m not gonna cheat and say Mel, I promise.) I think writing a 30yo Treena would be very cool. However, writing a 13 or 14yo Lithium who is just learning how to use her super powers would be WILD. 

What big city would your characters do best in?  London?  New York? Tokyo?  Mexico City?  Rio? The Fish Food characters would all do best in New York or London, since they’re very close to Conover. Lithium would prefer Rio, though, and Babylon would lobby for everyone to move to Tokyo.  The H2H characters would do best in Mexico City or London, depending on who decides to take charge and teach everyone the local customs. 

What would your characters do if they were in a small rural community that was attacked by underground worms? This is giving me too many ideas for H2H. Gemma would be a little bit furious, since she hates having to get rid of animals, especially when they’re invasive. If the worms just minded their own gosh dang business then everyone could live in peace.  If we’re talkin’ normal sized worms, like worm-sized worms, then Gemma would develop a pesticide that wouldn’t kill them, but force them to the surface where they would then be stunned by whatever weird solution Mel comes up with. Then the town would have a Worm-Off, where the person who collects the most worms wins free pie for a year, courtesy of Harry’s.  If we’re talkin’ DnD-style Purple Worms, like Beetlejuice worms, then Mel would take over. She’d help organize an evacuation and steal Oz’s gun, just in case. Then she’d do some spoilery things with Gemma assisting.

What is the worst place where you’ve ever wanted to write? Probably while I was taking the math section of the SATs. Kinda inconvenient, brain, thanks for that. Other terrible places: mid job interview, in the middle of an empty street at midnight, anywhere I’m sitting where I have terrible posture, watching a slam poetry event in a very crowded bar, etc.

What’s the most uncomfortable subject you’ve ever written about? I’ve written a little bit about hate crimes and loathed every second. I’ve written a character actively contemplating suicide (he was a WWII soldier) and that was not fun at all. I mean, I also wrote a paper about sexy (somewhat graphic) wlw poetry for my Sexuality class, which a lot of people would be uncomfortable with, but I thought it was a very good collection. Go read Marilyn Hacker’s stuff, it’s good.

If you had to change the ending of any famous novel, which would you pick? The Great Gatsby. We don’t end with the green light, screw the green light.  Gatsby wills all of his possessions and wealth to Nick and Nick becomes the next James Gatz. But this time around, he pines for the man who was killed in the pool just below his balcony while pretending to love Jordan, who finds out and amicably marries him because 1920s. She then uses Nick/Gatsby’s money to purchase an automobile manufacturing company and makes cars in every color but yellow. (Gotta maintain that color symbolism for F. Scott, I guess.) Nick discovers Gatz’ old bootlegging and illegal activities buddies and starts up a criminal empire. He and Jordan become the biggest, queerest, most spiteful and angsty crime bosses in New York. Nick makes it his life’s mission to take down false accusers, vigilante style. The car manufacturing company is what they use to launder money. Daisy divorces Tom because they’re both terrible people. Daisy takes her daughter and moves to California. Jordan sends Daisy’s daughter money secretly, about a hundred dollars a month. The last line is something about how Gatz was always reaching out and chasing green, but because of him, Nick is steeped in dark, bloody red. I would then write a sequel about Nick and Jordan and their crime empire that spans the East Coast. God, I hate this book.

If you had to change your life, what would you change without regret? Start therapy way earlier, 100%. That would have saved me a lot of nonsense.

If the end of the world where scheduled a week from tomorrow, what would you do?  Would you tell anybody? Everybody?  Keep it a secret? Assuming this was legit and the end of the world was actually happening, I’d probably try to tell some big-shot geologist or something, hoping they spread the word. Other than that, since debt won’t be a thing, I’d take the people I love on a killer trip around the world.

What would you do if a wizard offered to cast one spell for you, but your worst enemy got the same spell? Hmmm. I’d ask them to cast the Self-Realization spell, so they would instantly become aware of the effect their actions have on others and know exactly how terrible they’ve been to other people their whole life. Maybe then they can be a better person. My anxiety makes this spell ineffective on me, since it’s already there! Thanks, brain! 

Which would you choose, never eating in the same place, always eating the same meal, always eating with the same people, or never eating with the same people? I’d choose always eating with the same people. I like frequenting restaurants I like and eating different things. I don’t think I could deal with only eating the same thing/off the same menu forever. And I have bad social anxiety, so constantly eating with new people would probably short-circuit my brain eventually.  A good meal in good company is pretty great, though. 

@sunlight-and-starskies‘ Questions:

What is your favorite genre of music? I’ll always be a rock fan at heart. Right now, I really like folk rock and any kind of music that sounds like it has history behind it.

What are your favorite words? Illustrious, shimmer, soliloquy, incarnate, bound, and many more. Also most Yiddish curses.

Describe your ideal vacation. Somewhere cozy where I can explore and chill at my leisure. A week of artsy events in the city. Exploring landscapes in the country.

If you could have any fictional creature for a pet, what would it be? Why? Pegasus! I can ride and they can fly. We’d make an excellent team, and where we’d go, we wouldn’t need roads.

Which fictional universe would you live in if you had to live there for the rest of your life? Logic dictates the Star Trek universe, since I’d probably be an average civilian. Post-scarcity society? Sign me the hell up. My heart, however, is screaming ROHAN.

Favorite childhood toy? Uh... I honestly can’t remember. 

What is your aesthetic? Good smelling old books with doodles and notes in the margins, a pile of unfolded clean clothes on a chair, a stack of handwritten papers perched on the corner of a desk, the smell of breakfast cooking when you wake up, the immediate “woops” shock the moment you trip over something you should’ve moved earlier.

Tell me a random fact about your current project or you. About me: I have a birthmark that kinda sorta looks like an elephant. About Fish Food: The Coalition knows what happened to Hydrophase. So does Sparkplug.

Are you an early bird or a night owl? Night owl, all the way. I like the idea of being a morning person, though. 

What is your favorite food? Pasta! Or any kind of Asian food. 

What is your happiest memory? Oh, geez. Ummm. When I was little, I would curl up in my grandpa’s armchair and eat Burger King breakfast sandwiches on Saturday mornings. 

[captainquestionart]

hey my man, amazin work on act omega- the team behind it is wonderful!! im lookin to make a fanventure myself, could you give any tips as to pixelling in gg and how to edit images? you know like basically any recoloured, edited clusterfuck of an image in homestuck that hussie does (planets, for example) + how you tilt to have them at different angles? sorry if this sounds like a loooot and you can completely ignore this ask(!), but im just clueless and motivated, my guy

Thank you for asking! I never get asks and I’m always glad to help with any questions like these.

…Anyway, the team behind Act Omega is definitely wonderful, take it from me. My job is typically to do all sorts of sprites/ sprite edits (like the ones in the [S] Resume animation) and I draw the characters and/or backgrounds for panels often enough, so I can definitely give you some tips on those things.

Most editing effects like the ones you asked about aren’t really my domain - a lot of them are done in Photoshop by (among others) our amazing art director @joyfulldreams (she’s seriously great go follow her please), so I asked her for some additional tips.

(This is probably going to turn out long enough to be annoying to scroll past, so I’m putting it all under a read more.)

First off, I have to clear up that when it comes to editing the typical Homestuck sprites (like the ones in [S]:Resume), GraphicsGale hasn’t been my main tool.

The first thing I did for Act Omega was drawing some talksprites (for Tumblr asks, mine were never actually used). I used to do that in Gale, but as soon as I tried it using Paint Tool SAI’s aliased brush (Legacy Pen) instead, I decided that was more comfortable. Most of my work for Resume, redrawing sprites from Collide we couldn’t find elsewhere, was done that way too.Pros of using SAI (and probably Photoshop too? Not 100% sure) for sprites compared to Gale include:

The layers are much, much easier and more intuitive to use than Gale’s. To me Gale’s layers kinda suck and using them is always a pain.

Using a sketch is easier too, and you can make it semi-transparent

Gale doesn’t really do pen pressure, which is most important in talksprites but still can be helpful for the regular sprites too.

That said, when I had to make entirely new animations (like the one above), I had to use GraphicsGale, with its handy preview feature, and it is perfectly possible to use only Gale for everything. Rotating things also had to be done in Gale and then manually cleaned up a little, since SAI will turn anything you try to transform into an ugly anti-aliased mess.

So, bottom line is, I personally prefer to use Gale and SAI in combination, but that’s not strictly necessary. If you’re going full-on Gale (and now I’m gonna assume you haven’t used it too much before), here’s

A few quick practical tips on using Gale I wish I had figured out earlier:

The default settings of Gale include a 1 pixel brush and a 3 pixel brush, but no 2 pixel brush. Since pen pressure won’t save you here, that’s inconvenient. The less you need to go back and painstakingly correct your lines to be the right size, the better. You’ll want to make that brush yourself by opening a new file in Gale, 32x32 pixels, and 1 bit (2 colours). Make it look like this and save it as a bitmap (BMP) image: 

And then find this option:

and put your bitmap in there. Gale will recognize that as a custom 2px brush.

If you want to make your images have a transparent background, make sure you tick that box in the options of the frame, not the layer (the little ellipsis button next to each Frame thumbnail -see below). Gale still has no way of telling if your BG is transparent or just white, so I recommend always working with a different color as a background. That way you can tell from the animation preview - if the BG looks white there, it’s transparent. Also make sure these settings apply to every frame by changing “current frame” to “all frames”.

If you want to change the opacity of something (like, say, god tier wings on a troll), you need to save the image as a .png first and tick the box “With Alpha Channel” underneath…

     …then open the image again. Only then will the transparency slider above the palette sliders actually work. You can also use the thick blue pencil button:

    …to set your pencil tool to opacity mode, which will make anything you draw over into the opacity set by the slider.

Now for some more Homestuck-specific tips:

You’re probably better off making sprites in separate parts (a layer for the head, one for the body, one for the arm(s)… from the start. It’ll save you a lot of trouble when you need to animate them. In fact, it might not be a bad idea to also put all of those parts into a neat spritesheet so you don’t have to look too far when you need to reuse something.

(I didn’t see this one all the way through because there was too much to do but you get the idea)

If you don’t already, make sure you have a big folder of references from Homestuck, both panels and sprites, just so you know how The Huss would have done it. That might be more important for Act Omega since we’re trying so very hard to be as close to canon as humanly possible, but it’ll be very handy regardless.

What else is there… well, I could say some more stuff about the art style itself but I figure if you want to start a fanventure you’ll probably have the basics of that stuff down already.

Now, for what Joy had to say about editing images:“Say you need for example a scene on Prospit or Derse, then the process goes like this:1. Find an image (or images) on google that are generally of italian cities and cathedrals. A lot of iconic “Derse and Prospit” images actually come from pictures of the roof of the Milan cathedral, but generally you should get the gist with the Florence skyline and by cobbling together a bunch of cathedral images. 2. You want to use Photoshop tools like the magic wand or selection tool to cut out the sky and anything else that isn’t the actual building. Usually anyway depending on the image. If you have a picture with a bunch of tourists you could just crop them out or use the clone stamp tool to make them disappear oooooo.3. Turn the entire image grayscale, and (optional at this point but you might want to do it eventually) bump up the brightness and contrast. 4. Then you want to eye-drop pick from a canon Derse or Prospit image the light and dark Derse/Prospit colors. For prospit its like a bright saturated yellow and a more dark orange color? You can actually play around with the two colors you use to vary contrast and stuff if you’re putting together a bit scene. 5. Copy the cathedral layer and lock the opacity, put it above the original layer, and fill it with the solid light color. Set the layer mode to overlay.6. Do this again but with the darker color, and put it below the original layer.7. Lower the opacity of the original layer. It should start to look how hussie makes it look.8. Sometimes to give it an additional rough pixellated look, I’ll go to image>adjustments>posturize and play around with it. It gives the image some of that gif-ified look.But basically when it comes to hussie-fying images these are some of the basic main principles you want to keep in mind. The posturize effect, using overlay layers, and finding images and mashing them together creatively.

Also another key thing to note is that when you resize or transform things, there are different transformation MODES. In order to transform pixellated stuff, you want to use Nearest Neighbor. That will preserve sharp edges, but sometimes it can distort things and make it look weird. In situations like that Hussie often uses Bilinear instead, and then sharpens the transformed part. He usually ONLY does this when he is making things smaller or rotating them, not to enlarge anything, because then the blurred/sharpened-ness of it becomes way more obvious.This is honestly the best advice I can give. A lot of it is kind of fucking around with blending modes and layers until you get the right LOOK lol.”

(-Joyfulldreams 2017, give her a round of applause)

…So that’s pretty much some general technique pointers. I’ll post them publicly in case anyone else would like to know.I hope I haven’t just been stating the obvious here, wasn’t entirely sure what I could say that would really directly be helpful, but in any case, if you have any more specific questions you think I might be able to help with, please feel free to send me a PM.

[ashadowcalledkei]

I know, I know, I should be working on my two other fics and am absolutely the worst, but ... well, this idea wouldn’t leave me alone.  So, I decided to start writing this too, and boy it was a great way to break out of writers block and get started again.  And no, this is not part of my normal babyblasters storyline.  WitD, TLtN, and the oneshots are all one connected story, but this is its own thing.  An au of an au (of an au of an ... well you know).  And as such, it’s gonna be very different.  And also a lot shorter.  Yep, short chapters from me for once.  Shocking, I know!  Not too many of them either, I think.  i just wanted to write this sort of on the side to explore a few what-ifs (and because I missed writing nice Gaster!).  (side note; the assistant in this currently has no name or description because ... well I didn’t know who to use.  I might go with one of the followers or Sil (a background oc from To Last the Night) but ... not sure yet. )

Credit where credit is due, I wanted to point out some of the inspirations behind this (and also recommend some awesome fics).  While planning this out I wound up thinking back on two amazing works; A Year Every Minute by @askull4everyoccasion and Creative Problem Solving by bermudablue.  Both of which are fantastic and if you haven’t read either then you should stop right now and go do so.  But oddly enough the real source of inspiration for this story was ... making the babyblaster bjds for spacegate.  I’m not kidding!  I wasn’t going to make a pair for myself until the chest piece I made for hers wound up warping in the oven.  I couldn’t use it for a gift, it didn’t look right anymore, but it was still a functional piece.  So ... well, you’ll see ...

I hope you guys like this little tangent of a fic.

Bend

Pairings: None Characters: W. D. Gaster, 1-S

Warnings:  prepare for unexpected cute (G is not prepared)

Notes: Baby Blasters AU belongs to the wonderful @spacegate​​, I just write here.

Chapter 1

W. D. Gaster stared down at the file in his hands, one foot tapping out an anxious rhythm on the polished tile floor as he read over his own notes for what had to have been the hundredth time.  'Determination Trials', the somewhat worn cover read, 'WDG-DTP5-BP-0018 1-R'.  He flipped through page after page of carefully recorded observations chronicling the process by which subject 1-R had been created.  The ratios of different magics that had been merged to create its soul.  The time it had taken that newly crafted soul to stabilize and the amount of external energy that had to be introduced to achieve that.  Growth rates.  Energy levels.  Liquid magic supplement types.  Everything he'd done had been carefully monitored and recorded, checked and double checked for any signs of irregularities, yet it still hadn't been enough.

'Irreversible soul destabilization.'  The neatly printed words, bold and accusing even in his own signature script, hardly did his failure justice.  After the horrific, liquified mess subjects 1-O  through 1-Q had become only a few short months into their incubation, he'd vowed to find the correct ratio of Determination to monster magic before daring to attempt the procedure again.  And then, after countless hours of calculations and testing, he'd found it.  At long last one of his creations had developed the way it should, forming not only a stable soul but a body as well.  But then, when he'd tried to remove the subject from incubation, everything went wrong.  Due to the influence of Determination on its physical form, 1-R's bones hadn't fully calcified the way they should have and the creature had been unable to support and sustain itself outside of the magic infused liquid it had developed in.  In his eager haste, Gaster hadn't even thought to test for such things.  The fact that the creature would likely have never survived outside containment regardless of if he'd noticed the problem ahead of time or not was little comfort when he'd been forced to clear away the dust of yet another failure.  

The scientist closed the thick folder he held with a weary sigh.  He placed it back at the end of a row of seventeen other similar files and turned his attention to the one folder left sitting on his desk.  Barrier project experiment attempt number nineteen.  Subject 1-S.

Snatching up the file and taking a pen from the deep pockets of his lab coat, Gaster jotted down a few notes to himself as he left his office.  There was so much to be done today.  He'd been in the lab working ever since what passed for dawn in his subterranean home, too anxious to even be tempted by the thought of sleep.  By the time his assistant had come in to join him, already chattering excitedly about the 'big day', he'd run every test imaginable on his latest creation.  

Gaster pocketed his pen and retrieved a large mug of coffee, still sitting by the containment chamber where he'd left it.  The drink was stone cold and bitter, but he was used to that.  He sipped it slowly, barely aware of the flavor so many others found overpowering, as he stood in the pale green glow of the incubation tank.  The tall, glass cylinder was full of a thick liquid made up of mostly synthetic magic.  It sat atop a sturdy metal base which housed the various mechanical parts necessary to keep the mixture warm and ensure the development of the creature housed within it.  And suspended at its center, amidst the various wires and tubes that had sustained it during these long months, was subject 1-S.

Just like each of its predecessors, 1-S was a combination of human and monster soul energies fused together with both science and magic to make something entirely new.  If the creature turned out the way Gaster intended, it would be strong, intelligent, and capable of wielding devastatingly powerful magic.  As strong as a human mage, if his calculations were correct.  And if he could really do it, if he could create not just one but seven of these creatures, they would be a force strong enough to destroy the barrier and free monster kind from the underground.  No more human children unfortunate enough to fall into their realm would have to die.  No more monster children would be sentenced to a lifetime in this dark prison.  They could end generations worth of suffering.  If only his creations would live.  

The creature in the tank was small, smaller than he'd predicted and, in fact, smaller than 1-R had been on the ill-fated day of its extraction.  And just like 1-R, the end result of all the mixed magic types that had come together to form the soul of 1-S had resulted in a creature that could not be easily classified.  It had developed the solidly built legs of a canine, the flexible spine and sharp claws of a feline, and a vaguely reptilian tail.  That odd combination of features was interesting enough, but the unique anatomy of its sloping, crested skull made his creation unlike anything Gaster had seen in any animal or monster.  

Like most of the others that had come before it, 1-S was skeletal in nature.  Unsurprising considering W. D. Gaster himself had been the primary soul energy donor.  It took so much magic and raw life energy to create each one of the experimental souls that, while he did readily make use of donations from the few other researchers aware of the project, the scientist always seemed to find himself running short and filling the gaps with his own magic.  While this did carry a higher risk than he wanted to admit to himself, each time leaving him exhausted and dizzy as he came dangerously close to draining his reserves, he just couldn't bring himself to ask someone else to take that risk for him.  Besides, he always recovered after a few days.  And, in his opinion at least, if the project was successful it would be well worth all the risks.  

There were other benefits to using his own magic as well.  For one thing, it was easier to tack development in a skeletal being.  There was no risk of unseen, internal complications, because there was nothing 'internal' about the creature at all.  Except for its magic, but that was being carefully monitored for any potentially dangerous irregularities.  There were other risk factors to consider, mostly to do with how fragile a young skeleton's physical form could be, but their predominantly magical nature made for even greater potential power.  It was a tradeoff Gaster was more than willing to accept.  

The sound of approaching footsteps drew his attention as his assistant came to join him.  “Everything looks good,” they said as they checked something off on a clipboard then flipped it so that Gaster could see what they'd written.  The very same tests he'd run twice himself and had been about to ask them to run as well.  He looked over the numbers, checking them against his own findings.  They couldn't afford any mistakes this time.  

“Alright,” he said, moving his hands in precise gestures that had long ago become second nature to him.  “Let's begin the extraction.”

For the next few minutes, the lab was a flurry of activity.  The large, heavy cap that sealed the incubation chamber was removed and set aside.  Some sequences were terminated while others were started to take their place.  A rush of bubbles rose up through the green liquid and a soft hissing sound emanated from the mechanisms beneath it.  Gaster felt his soul pounding in his chest as the fluid slowly began to drain.  He summoned a set of floating hands, comprised of magic bone much like his attacks but without any hint of harmful intent behind them, and guided them into the cylinder.  Phantom sensations washed over him as he reached into the thick, warm liquid.  Carefully, he cupped the small creature in his hands and held it secure as the liquid slowly drained around it.  It seemed to take forever, but at last the fluid level dipped low and his creation settled into the conjured hands.  

Excitement made the scientist's magic race, but he steadied himself as best he could.  If he rushed things now, he would just be inviting another disaster.  With agonizing slowness, he lifted 1-S, attached monitor cables and all, out of the tube.  His assistant dutifully called out the data their machines were receiving about the creation.  Magic levels steady.  No noticeable variation in DT.  Soul energy spiking, but that was to be expected given the sudden change in circumstances.  He couldn't see any signs of melting or unexpected indentations in the skull.  The scientist called on his own magic, feeling the warmth of energy sparking in his eye sockets, and a pale indigo haze colored the world around him as he used his power to check his creation's soul in a way no machine ever could.  Health, strength, defenses, all on the low side but not unbearably so.  No doubt they would improve with time.  And underneath, there was the pulse of new magic glimmering in shifting shades of blue.

As the sheen of magic faded from his vision, Gaster slowly became aware of a subtle vibration against his conjured hands underscored by the faint rattle of tiny bones.  His creation was shaking in his grasp.  No, he realized, not 'shaking'.  Shivering.  It was cold.  And no wonder, the lab was quite chilly compared to the warmth of the incubation tank.  Gaster levitated the creature closer to him and reached out, carefully taking his creation into his arms.  1-S stirred in his grasp, its tiny body pressing close to his chest.   His magic pulsed a little faster as the skeletal creature nuzzled him, eagerly soaking up his warmth.  It was so small.  So fragile.  Its entire body couldn't have been longer than his radius.  

“Sir?” his assistant said, snapping him back to reality.  They handed him a towel and helped him clean 1-S, wiping away the last traces of green fluid until it's bones were sparkling white.  Gaster took a second, clean towel and swaddled the creature in it, carefully threading the fabric around the various wires and tubes still connected to his creation.  When that was done he set 1-S on a nearby cot.  His eager assistant, practically buzzing with excitement over their success, set to work moving the necessary equipment over and locking guard rails in place as an added bit of precaution against potential accidents.  

The creature squirmed in its towel cocoon, wriggling out of the soft fabric just enough to raise its head which wobbled on its thin neck.  Its tiny muzzle pointed towards the scientist, twitching as if sniffing the air.  Eye socket blinked open, squinting at first but then large and round as they stared up at him.  Faint hints of light glittered in their dark depths.  1-S let out the tiniest squeak of a sound.

Gaster could hardly believe it.  Knowing the data was one thing, but seeing it, touching it, watching it move on its own, that was something else.  Against all odds, 1-S was alive.  He was so lost in his own amazement that he didn't even realize his assistant was talking until they grasped his hand and shook it.  

“Congratulations,” they said, breathless with a heady mixture of relief and excitement, “you finally did it.”

“I couldn't have done it without you,” he managed to reply, his own voice faintly choked with the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him.  So many years of work, countless sleepless nights spent pouring over data from failure after failure, and now here it was.  1-S; the first successful life created from monster and human magic.  The culmination of the Determination Trials that had dominated his life since the completion of the CORE.  The first of seven living weapons that might one day strike down the barrier.  That lofty goal had never seemed closer.  But for now, 1-S was just a newborn.  Nothing but a helpless little puppy.  Gaster rested his free hand gently on the bundled form, feeling the faint rise and fall of the creature's chest as its first shallow breaths gradually settled into an even, calming rhythm.  He wasn't entirely sure what would become of this tiny thing he'd made, but for now, this was enough.   

When his assistant returned to work the next morning, they found the scientist fast asleep in a desk chair beside his creation's bed, his head resting on the edge of the cot and the sleeping puppy's muzzle pressed against his outstretched hand.

[thisfellow]

The Art In The Awareness Of Time

Human attention span has supposedly dropped from 12 seconds in 2002 to only eight seconds in 2013, which is a second shorter than a goldfish.  So, it makes perfect sense that content creators are constantly working on ways to keep us engaged in their work.  Some people will edit flashy photos, or queue their videos to catchy music, and maybe even set something on fire - because, why not?  The fact is that, it’s true! We need, as creators and artists, to be able to look ahead and not only entertain our audiences for more than eight seconds, but for as long as we possibly can.  This is where the trouble comes up for many!  It’s often that we find ourselves stuck in a pattern of comfort and convenience and don’t get out and try something, fail, pick it up and do it better next time.  

I recently have started a lot of these.  I started a YouTube Channel, and someone left me a comment explaining that my talking points were too quiet - something I completely missed, when I was editing.  So, I made sure that everything seemed more balanced while recording and also while editing my second video.  I took something new (recording my voice and editing the tracks) and failed, but then got back and did it again - Just better.

Today, I’m happy to have you here, and happy to share with you a new tool to add to your creative collective - The Hyperlapse.  

I guarantee that starting off you’ll get discouraged and frustrated because, as the effect is so cool to see, when done well, it’s a trick of temperance and knowing that you will be spending a lot of time photographing and editing to make something that will last for moments.  And I live for this kind of work.

First, if you haven’t seen my video on YouTube, demonstrating this technique from beginning to end, please check it out HERE.

If you have seen it, Thanks!  Now on to iron out the finer details that might be missed in the video.

These days a lot of people ask me what kind of gear they should be using to take their photos.  I try to offer my favorite bits of kit, but never forget to explain that any camera will work.  Most Smartphones today are more powerful than the DSLR I’ve been using over the past 5 years!  So, when I shot the video, I wanted to show that you can make a killer hyperlapse with anything that takes still photos - lots of them.  The idea behind a hyper lapse is pretty simple: create a moving Time-lapse.  To do this, you will be taking as many photos as you can between two points and have a fixed point that you can always focus on, as a reference.  Many people create Hyperlapses with Tripods or a Monopod (which I used whilst shooting the video at the beginning of the tutorial), but you can even create them hand-held, if there is enough light out!  I wanted to showcase this by setting up my Sony A7S on a tripod, far away, and made a time-lapse of me making a hyperlapse (hyperlapse inception) with just my iPhone 6S, handheld and nothing fancy about it.

The specific tips I’d recommend for the photo-taking process are simple enough.  If you are using a tripod/monopod, move the stand the width of your foot, for each photo.  This is really handy (footy?) so that you have a consistent distance per shot, and this is important because before you take a single photo, you want to walk the path you’re planning on taking and do a couple things (I know, this get more and more complex).

Find the scene you want to shoot.  In the example in the video, I wanted to focus on capturing the movement of the pier, along with the movement of the birds and the boats.  The sky was pretty flat and overcast, but there was a little cloud movement, which is always a great thing to catch in a time-lapse/hyperlapse.  I then walked the distance, Heel-to-toe, so I could gauge how many photos I would be able to take.  This is important because you’re essentially making a little video, and videos have rules, like frames per second.  (Breathe…)  So, for example, if I walked Heel-to-toe and took 15 steps, and took a photograph every half step, or the width of my foot, I would have roughly 30 photos.  And if I decided to make my video 30fps (frames per second), then I would have a one second hyperlapse, which is never very impressive, considering how much work you’re about to do to get it.  So, shoot as many photos as you can, and the shorter the distance you need to travel, the smoother your video will be.  Just remember that if you want to have a 5 second hyperlapse, you’ll need to shoot about 150 photos, and I usually aim to shoot every two seconds, or as quickly as I can.  If you want a really epic and long Hyperlapse, be prepared to shoot and hold a camera for a long time.  The statue at Columbus Circle, in the video, took me about 45 minutes to shoot during the day, and I repeated it at night, so I could have the option of when to cut.  It should put into perspective how many photos were taken and edited to make my 1 minute Hyperlapse at the beginning of the video (I took over 5000 photos and ended up using around 2000, so that I’d have options).

You also want to make sure that as soon as you’re ready to start your hyperlapse, you won’t need to stop for anything.  A time-lapse is convincing because it takes so many photos, evenly, so we can see how the clouds move smoothly across the sky.  So, if you’re shooting a Hyperlapse and get a call from your Cousin Tom - don’t answer it.  If you have to pee, suddenly - don’t stop shooting.  This is all because you want the smoothest and most realistic capturing of time and those clouds you’re not noticing moving will be really obvious when you’re editing.

Once you’ve shot your photos, you’ll want to drop them onto your laptop and open up Adobe Lightroom.  This program and Adobe After Effects are so important for this effect to look as smooth and professional as possible, so if you don’t have them already, I’d suggest downloading the Adobe Creative Cloud and pay the monthly fee to use the programs - it gives me access to everything for a relatively inexpensive look, but I’m pretty sure you will also have a 30 day free trial period.

Once in Lightroom, import your photos and then scroll towards the middle of the hyperlapse.  Select one in the middle and begin to edit it to your heart’s content.  As you can see in the video, I put a lot of time and work into creating the most dynamic photo, so get familiar with working with Lightroom and have fun.  This part of the process is so enjoyable to me because it’s the meat of the hyperlapse - if this looks bad, the video won’t look any better.

After you edit the photo, select copy, or hit Command+ C (copy) and then highlight all of the photos.  Once they’re all selected and showing with a white box around them, select the “Sync” button, make sure everything is selected in the boxes to the window that pops up, and hit Enter.  Boom, now you have placed the edits you made on the one photo, on all the photos.  Best feeling ever.  Now, with everything still selected, hit Command+Shift+E (Export) and fill out where you’d like the files to end up.  Give the project an easy but relevant name and make sure they’re jpegs that are resized to around 2500-3000 pixels.  Much larger and you’re editing in After Effects will take forever, and any smaller, you risk losing information to work with.  Hit Enter and Bam, you are one step closer to finishing up.  Once you’ve exported your photos, open up After Effects and get ready.

I know in the video I sped things up quite a bit and may have rushed certain points, but that’s only because there are hundreds of videos on YouTube that talk about similar things, and I felt that I can write a little more on here to help.

In AE, hit Command+i to import your sequence of photos.  I say sequence of photos because the way AE works is awesome.  You won’t have to add every photo, but just click one in the sequence and hit enter.  It will import all of the photos in one folder, rather than hundreds of separate folders.  Then I like to change the default 8bpc to 16bpc for more information to work with, resulting in a higher quality video.  I then take the sequenced folder of my photos and drag it beside the 16bpc icon, to create a new composition.

Here you’ll be able to set up all sorts of customized options, but for now you can just hit enter and get started on the hyperlapse, since we’ll go back later and change the Comp settings.

If you hit the space bar or RAM Preview button, you’ll be able to see what the Hyperlapse looks like at the beginning - usually just awful.  It doesn’t matter how steady we are, if you’re using a tripod or not, these things just never look that great before the editing process.  Now, hopefully, you can really cut down your editing time by a lot, with the effect “Warp Stabilizer” alone.  This tool is fantastic and usually does a pretty good job with correcting your image by selecting position points that are familiar throughout, accounting for rotation and scaling the photo down a bit with a crop to get rid of weird edges.  

But, if it doesn’t work, or doesn’t work as well as you’d like, I’ll now be showing how to do everything the manual way.  It’s the same thing that Warp Stabilizer does, but you will have the control to make sure everything stays tracked.

So, if Warp Stabilizer doesn’t want to work very well, you can just delete it from your video file - for now.  What you will want to do is go to the “Window” tab at the top of the screen and select Tracker.  With that open, click on your video file, on the timeline, and select Stabilize Motion.  You’ll notice that it already has the box with the word “Position” checked and a box will appear on your preview screen.  Expand the outside box a bit and the inner box a little as well.  In the middle should be a small +, which is the point you’re tracking.  You want to place this somewhere in the center of the screen, usually on whatever you were using as your fixed tracking point, when shooting the photos to begin with.  You also want there to be a significant amount of contrast where your point meets, so, in my video, I used the top of the tower, which was black.  Against the sky, it’s a perfect spot to track.  

Underneath the “Stabilize Motion” button, you’ll see a few buttons that look like “play forward/backward” buttons.  The far right is track forward one frame, and the one before it is just track forward.  I really feel it’s better to always track forward one frame at a time, so that you can follow the points and reposition them where they need to be.  The computer will do a pretty good job keeping the points where they need to be, but there will always be points where they fall off.  It took me fifteen minutes to track my example video at the pier because it kept losing the focus.

Once you’re done and have tracked every frame, hit Apply and select X + Y, which are your Left/Right and Up/Down coordinates.  If you hit the space bar and let it render through, you’ll be able to see exactly what you did.  Now your images should all be rearranged so that the tracked point you selected is perfectly framed and level.  To test this, place your cursor on the point you tracked and make sure that the point you tracked doesn’t move off the point your cursor is resting on.  So, now that you have a fixed position, you’re getting closer.  But you’ll notice that it still has a wobble, like the photos are rotating around that point you made, like you stuck a tack in a stack of photos and moved them around.  So, let’s fix that.

The project you just worked on is your composition, with the position edit you just made.  Go to the top and slide to the side to get back to your comp window, select that comp you just made and drag that into the composition box again.  This is creating a new comp with the effects you already applied on the last comp.  Think of it like, saving your file and reloading it, to do more work on.  Clean Slate.

We are going to be doing the same thing in this comp as the last comp, with a slight twist.  

Go to Windows, select Tracker and click Stabilize Motion.  But now, select Rotation and deselect Position.

You’ll see that there are now two boxes.  Don’t worry.  It’s the same idea.  Expand the outer and inner boxes of each one, and drag them to two points, near the center and running on a vertical or horizontal plain.  In the example at the pier, I chose the same pole and just found a point at the base.  I put one at the top and one at the bottom and Boom, hit Track Forward and make adjustments as you go, if you need to.  Hit Apply and select X+Y.  When you RAM preview this footage it’ll be deceiving.  It’ll look like it’s having a seizure and also smooth at the same time. This is because it’s almost done.  What we have been doing is setting your computer up with the best version of the end product as possible, so with the final step, we’re going to run Warp Stabilizer again and it’ll take an already pretty awesome, smooth hyperlapse and make it so smooth.

Drag the second comp that we just worked on, with the Rotation tracking, into a new composition (So, this should be your third comp).  Go to the effects tab, go to Distort and select at the bottom Warp Stabilization.  Let it render and interpret the footage - this will take a minute or two.  You can also boost the Smoothness up to around 100, from 50, and be sure that the Method box is choosing Subspace Warp.  Hit RAM preview and see how smooth the hyperlapse has become!

All you have to do now is set it up for the formatted size you’d like to show it on.  I like to share in HD, so go back to the top of the screen and select Composition, then select Composition Settings.  Here you can make it perfect.  Deselect the Aspect Ratio Lock and change your comp size to 1920x1080 and change your frame rate to 24fps, so that for every second of playtime, 24 frames will pass by, rather than 30.  This way, you can have a slightly longer video and it’ll feel more natural to watch, since we’ve been watching films at 24fps since the invention of the Motion Picture - which you just created.

Hit select to apply the effects, then add the final Comp to the Render Queue, change the Lossless format from Animation to Apple Pro Res 422 (HQ). Then confirm that choice, hit render and you have FINALLY made your awesome Hyperlapse video.  

They are addicting and there will always be room to get better, so keep working at them and tag me in any projects that you work on!

Best, Bobby

All Content Created/Edited by me.

Here are some links to the gear that I recommend you check out, if you’re interested in elevating your content. Pro Gear - Click Here Beginner Gear - Click Here

[vorthosjay]

Magic Story 2016 in Review

I don’t usually do reviews, as most of you know. At most, I tend to recommend or not recommend certain novels and stories as worth someone’s time versus reading a summary. I try to avoid them because Magic’s story is inextricably tied to the process of developing the card game itself. It’s a rather unique situation even for properties with established lore (like D&D or Warhammer) which also tell stories about the universe (more like a video game than a table top game’s story). I’m also just generally not a fan of literary reviews, as I find Tolkien unreadable but unabashedly love trashy Sci-Fi novels.

So instead, I’m going to tackle 2016 as a SWOT Analysis for the state of Magic’s Story overall, not really for individual stories or writing quality. Don’t know what a SWOT Analysis is? Basically, it’s just a method of dividing feedback into four areas: Strengths (things that are being done well), Weaknesses (thing that could be improved), Opportunities (things that could enhance the overall experience), and threats (things that could hurt the overall experience).

Keep in mind that I don’t know anything about the inner working of creative, and there may be perfectly good reasons for the weaknesses I describe, and plans in place to address the threats I identify. This is just, like, my opinion.

Side Note: I realize that I teased this piece after the 2016 story summary. Sorry, I forgot about it and it sat in my draft folder for the last couple weeks.

Unholy Strength by Terese Nielsen

Strengths

Expanding the Roster While the core writing team has largely remained the same, bringing in Alison Luhrs, Mel Li, and Michael Yichao for more stories has been a welcome addition to the rotation. Alison and Michael both previously wrote Commander 2015 stories, Mel previously wrote the BFZ story summary and one of the Checking In articles. Whether they’re members of creative moved into a slightly different role or members of other teams brought in for their skills, it’s been a good thing.

Hiring Veteran Talent Bringing on Chris L’Etoile, an industry veteran who was not previous involved with Wizards of the Coast in another capacity (as much of the creative team was), signals a pretty strong commitment to continuing to improve the story with the new paradigm. Chris hit the ground running with Homesick, which along with another story I’ll mention in a moment was one of my two favorites this year. I believe we’ve started to see his influence with Kaladesh, and I hope we continue to see plenty of it going forward - word counts be damned.

Hiring Consultants It means a lot when we see outside consultants for expertise in areas the creative team lacks. Reading between the lines of some comments that have been made after Conspiracy: Take the Crown and Kaladesh were revealed to have used consultants, I think we’re likely to see more of this going forward. While it’s not always going to be perfect (Kaladesh had some major flavor misses), it’s a huge step in the right direction, and for that deserves real credit.

Ken Troop’s Blackmail I don’t know what he has on the rest of the team that they let him get the good stuff, but Ken consistently steals the show. He’s only got three stories in 2016, but they’re all fantastic and big story tentpoles. The Promised End is my second favorite story from last year, and The Blight We Were Born For is a close third.

This piece goes on a bit yet, so I’m putting the rest behind a keep reading line.

Hunt the Weak by Raoul Vitale

Weaknesses

Characterization The biggest part of the story that suffered in the new two block paradigm is characterization. Now, to be fair, character complexity is something hard to get across when you’ve only got about 5,000 words a week and a very broad focus. Stories like Homesick helped establish the characters better, but going forward I think it’ll be important to show more sides to the different characters. For instance, if someone hadn’t read Agents of Artifice, they might think Tezzeret is a rather one dimensional character because of his portrayal in Kaladesh. Chandra has seemed to regress as a character, feeling more like an ADHD caricature than the young woman we’d gotten to see grow through The Purifying Fire and her various other appearances. I don’t know entirely how to fix it, but I think taking more moments for the characters to breath and interact will be helpful.

Pacing Given the new serialized structure, it’s harder to get a sense of the timing of events. In Shadows Over Innistrad, was Jace on Innistrad for days? Weeks? Months? It’s not clear, but the story did a whole lot of hopping around with him to different locations all over the plane. Finding a balance between how Magic Story used to be (a series of relatively unconnected vignettes with the occasional important story piece) and the new serialized structure is going to be a major hurdle in 2017. We also got a number of stories unconnected to the main stories this year (or no stories at all), which can be jarring to the pace of events. Now that the team has a few blocks behind them, I think they’re starting to find the right pace.

Community Outreach Last year was weakest in terms of the accessibility of the creative team that I can remember. There was a big call on Tumblr for question for the creative team that have never been answered (at least, not in any venue that I’ve seen). Doug Beyer’s blog has been mostly abandoned, and interaction with the team has largely been limited to official events and Twitter (where 140 characters isn’t a whole lot of room for lore talk - but shout-out to Kelly Digges and others for trying). This was the first year I can remember where a well-known member of the creative team wasn’t hugely visible in responding to the community, as before we’d had Ask Brady or A Voice for Vorthos. These outlets were immensely popular, and I’m hoping the new podcast idea that Blake Rasmussen mentioned on twitter turns out to be a good new successor to that legacy. This criticism comes with the caveat that I’m not sure the creative team’s workload has ever been higher, and I’m sure they’re still trying to find a groove in the new paradigm.

Opportunity by Patrick Faricy

Opportunities

Reconnecting to Older Lore Kaladesh has major story ties to older story lines, and with the Gatewatch established it’s probably time to return to more of the plot threads left dangling over the years. For perspective, it’s been eight real-world years since Liliana, Jace, and Tezzeret were all in Agents of Artifice together. It’s been almost as long since Chandra and Gideon’s story began back in The Purifying Fire. Continuing to connect back to older lore in a meaningful way will help keep older vorthos interested and invested.

New Mediums for Outreach I mentioned earlier that Blake (of Daily MTG fame) dropped the potential for a new story team podcast. This is an exciting opportunity and will go a long way to fixing that big gap I mentioned in weaknesses. Podcasts are the format of choice for many people online these days, and don’t require the same equipment and software intensive set-up as video formats do. Given the success of Maro’s Drive to Work, I don’t think this podcast would be lacking an audience. In this same vein, the recently announced initiative to move the Magic IP in different directions could be great for us Vorthos. I loved being able to experience the story through different media, and Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015 was a fun was to share the plot developments of Magic 2015 - and to get players interested in the story.

Official History With the plot moved to free serialized web stories, there’s a rather huge demand from new vorthos interested in what came before Magic Origins. The success of my own articles and those of my fellow vorthos out there is a testament to that demand, and while I’m certainly not going to complain, even the most popular among us don’t have the same reach among the community that the mothership does. In 2014 and 2015, we got “Checking In With the Planeswalkers” articles, which served as a sort of update and history for the uninitiated and invested vorthos alike. Prior to Scars of Mirrodin and Return to Ravnica we got brief histories to catch people up. Now I think we need those kind of background pieces more regularly, because as neat as it is to see Agents of Artifice and The Purifying Fire references in Kaladesh, most newer readers were scratching their heads about the various references.

Threaten by Pete Venters

Threats

Accessibility of Older Lore This runs parallel to some of my other comments. How well can a new reader inference what they need to know about Magic’s past for a story? The experience of Kaladesh is fairly different for someone who has read Agents of Artifice or The Purifying Fire. Chandra monastery at Keral Keep is heavily influenced by Jaya Ballard - an ice age character whose lore is entirely locked into two out-of-print novels... one of which goes for about $40! Making sure that new readers can access the older stories they want is going to be critical going forward, especially if you want to keep older fans invested, too. Granted, these novels are likely locked behind contracts with publishers, but as the story continues to expand and older lore continues to be referenced, there’s a risk of alienating new readers. In some cases, it’s as simple as continuing to post story summaries once a block concludes - we got them for BFZ but not for SOI. As the two-blocks a year structure continues to pile up, we’re going to find newer readers significantly less interested in reading every article between Magic Origins and the latest block.

Mismanagement of Expectations This happened a couple times last year, and I think it’s important to address because fans need to know what to expect. When things are going to deviate from the norm or when we have gaps between the different set stories, that should be made extremely clear to the audience. November 2016 is a good example, as we got no Commander 2016 stories and no catching-up article - both of which we’d gotten in that same slot in previous years. I don’t think these breaks are a problem - but fan expectations based on previous years resulted in disappointment and resentment.

The Expanding Multiverse While I mentioned that the newly announced IP initiative is a great opportunity, it’s also a threat if not managed properly. Non-canon lore from early Duels of the Planeswalker games are still problems to this day - especially the ‘racist Nissa’ misconception. Keeping up with an expanding universe is going to be a lot of work, and it also has the potential for alienating fans both new and old. The creative team will need to stay on top of everything to avoid problems that will haunt them for years to come.

That’s about it for today. I hope you enjoyed my perspective on what worked and didn’t work in 2016, and how I hope 2017 can improve on that. Overall I’m optimistic for the future!

[fuckyeahfightlock]

How do you write so fast?

I don’t think I write particularly fast, but I do write regularly. I write every day, in fact. I have a specific time of about four consecutive hours each and every day, which for me is in the evening, that is “writing time,” though in reality, the first hour or 90 minutes of it is generally devoted to things like this–catching up on social media, doing any reading I set aside (articles and such), playing casual PC games (things like puzzles that only require half my focus are a good way to create a flow state–it relaxes me and allows me to use that time to think about what I’m working on, sort of put the problem into my brain and see what it spits out), etc. My most productive hours, I’ve come to learn, are between 9:30 and midnight. Most nights because I have a husband who needs to go to sleep, and I write in our bedroom, on the bed, I have to stop around 11. Once in a while I go on working ‘til about 1am.

Being in the habit of writing makes writing easier. There’s science about this–that spending time in states of creative flow makes it easier to get back into that state. You know when you’re writing away and everything’s humming and you feel productive and focused and even if it’s not 100% smooth, you’re really on a roll? Maybe you even start to feel a little “high”. That’s Flow. And the more often you cultivate it, the easier it is to return to. I often know it’s about 9:30 because whatever time-waster I’m doing, I just feel like, OK, Time to Write, and when I check the clock, it’s usually within ten minutes of 9:30. It’s a habit. I didn’t always write every day, but I have been doing so for about two years.

I also gave up all my other hobbies because writing is the most fulfilling and satisfying to me. I used to watch a lot more television in the evenings (I’m a mom; evening is “grown-up time”); I also enjoy making quilts, have done different types of handicraft such as needlework, and used to participate in online forum discussions of various kinds. Now I write. I do some of those other things, but much less frequently than I used to.

I am protective of writing time and the people I live with respect it. When I’m not in the mood to write, I set a timer and “just” write for that time. My standard sprint is 20 minutes, but if I’m really not in the mood, I’ll set a timer for eight minutes. It’s easily do-able–eight minutes is nothing–and usually by the time the eight minutes are done I’ve built enough momentum to breathe for a few minutes then go again–for another eight, or fifteen, or my full twenty. I’m very competitive, too, so for me personally, if I can find someone to write with me against the timer (”Word Wars”) I’m very motivated to focus and be productive for the whole twenty minutes, so I can write the most words and “win” against the other writer/s.

I never reread what I’ve written while I’m still working on a draft. I just start writing where I left off, and rewrites happen at rewriting time. I used to start every writing session by reading from the beginning of the draft (!) and then when I started writing longer pieces, I’d start by rereading what I’d written in my previous session. Someone recommended not rereading as a good habit to have in relation to completing the 50,000 word/30 day challenge of NaNoWriMo and I’ve been doing it that way ever since. It’s more important to get the whole draft written, however imperfectly, than to keep rewriting the first 30% of a story til you’re so sick of it you want to stop.

I also only write one project at a time, with very few exceptions. I would not try to have more than one long story on the go at once, though occasionally in the course of working on a long piece I’ll take a few days’ break to write something short just for fun. I have more ideas than time, but I don’t want to have a folder full of half-written things because I refused to focus on any of them all the way through to the end. I think this is why I only have three UFOs (unfinished projects) in five years of writing Sherlock fic. Even when I was mostly writing shorter works (under 15k words), I wrote them serially, not jumping from one to the other at whim. Now that I’m essentially a novelist, I really need to only have one big project going. This way of working also makes me weigh whether a given inspiration is worth pursuing, since committing to a project means if not giving up on others, at least putting them off. I also think before beginning about how long the story will need to be, and that helps determine whether it’s a project for now or for later (a 2000 word one-off I can bang out in two or three days is worth taking a quick break from my big WIP for, but if my new idea is going to need to be a 30k chaptered fic, it’s going to have to wait).

I don’t set deadlines; I just write until the thing is done. I always know what my next project will be, often I know my next two projects.

So, TL;DR version: I make time to write and write as often and as regularly as possible. I love my stories and can’t wait to fall into them every evening, whether it’s for a 2000 word mega-session, or just a few hundred words before bed. I just enjoy writing more than any other thing I do, and I just do it. For me, writing is easy, because I love it.

[shakesonaplane]

“What Do They Call Greek Yogurt Here?” - Mykonos Musings

Yia sou! As my constant summer of travels continues, I quickly realized that the idea of living in “London” isn’t really a thing for my life at the moment; the more apt moniker would be “living in Europe” given the penchant for travel that seems to come with the territory. With that said, my latest trip took me to Mykonos, a Grecian Island in the Aegean Sea known for its wondrous views, fancy beach clubs, amazing food, odd testicular mythology, and (notably for Americans) a destination for your a post-nuptial getaway. As a recent visitor put it, “I’ve waited my whole life to get married and honeymoon in Mykonos and you go there on a freaking weekend.” I’d say sorry, but the darker hue of my skin would call my bluff.

Apologies to my parents if my "lack-of-wheatish" complexion causes trouble on the "please marry my son" circuit

What follows below is a quick travel guide to Mykonos. This isn’t a top-five list or any sort of trip recap, but more of a rundown of what you might find yourself doing on this Island if you’re [purposefully] marooned here for some time. Before I begin, a much needed shoutout to my old friend Arnav (pictured above) for doing an amazing job of planning our excursions and providing the regular “hair related” humor for the trip. As a return-visitor here, I aimed to help him grow his Mykonos experience after a recent breakup, to explore and try new things at every turn. Did we always succeed? No…but did we have fun doing it? Absolutely.

So, with that, what on earth does one do when in this paradise?

Beached As Bro

Not pictured: My private yacht that is a totally real thing that I 100% own in real life...

I’d have to say the #1 attraction in Mykonos is the beaches (surprise). The island is literally scattered with a beach clubs, all of which offering a similar experience: rent a few beach chairs for the day, sunbathe/swim, have some drinks and then a large lunch and then fall asleep on those beach chairs while you contemplate why you ordered that second lobster pasta. The popular beach clubs in Mykonos are a plenty and you’ll find it hard to go wrong with any of them, but if I had to give my recommendation, I’d lean on Alemagou or Sol Y Mar as my favorite spots. The views of all beach clubs will be amazing, but these two had the certain vibe that made them less posh and more approachable. Alemagou wins out bc of its laid-back atmosphere and super friendly staff…not to mention the bartender I met there who fixed me up some killer cocktails (best on the island).

Beautiful Sunset Count: ∞

Next time you see me scurry off in the middle of dinner, you'll understand why

It got to be that beautiful views were so frequent during the week that you kind of take them for granted. That said, a sunset in Mykonos had a special “stop what you’re doing” effect on everyone, would would pause conversations or turn around in chairs to watch the end of another gorgeous day. Given the fairly mountainous terrain, only a few locations get the unadulterated view of the sunset, but who really cares? If you’re paying attention where ever you are, you’re going to catch some splendor. The summers in Mykonos consist of very long days, so it’ll be well past 8pm when you noticed the burning hue of the sky. When you’re there, whatever it is you’re doing, take a pause and reflect on just how lucky you are to be watching it. My recommendation for the most beautiful sunset of the trip goes to the beach club Scorpios, a view well worth the long drive there.

“What Do You Want To Eat?” … “Uh, Everything?”

I'm sure I'll make it to the gym sometime...next week?

Real talk: Mykonos is not a cheap location. Given that tourism is the main economic driver and that the visitors coming to Mykonos do so in Yachts or Private Jets and that Greece could really use the money, you’re going to spend a lot without realizing it. The food, though, is almost always worth it, given that the cuisine is a big factor for why lots of people return to specific spots (if you can’t make a good lobster pasta, people won’t care as much about your view). As far as dining goes, I have to say I was blown away by most things, but found the constant pasta main course a bit boring after a while. Seafood is understandably amazing here, so feel free to explore a bit outside of your comfort zones. Example, Spilia will leave you with breathtaking views, but your meal may leave a “meh” taste in your mouth, hole in your wallet and annoyance in your mind from the service. Contrast that to Kiki’s Tavern, a local haunt without fanfare but with amazing food, wine while you wait and great service at reasonable prices. I had very few “just ok” dishes whilst here but Kiki’s stood out as the first and only real “Greek” experience I had whilst here.

Confessions Of A Shopaholic (…I Mean, My Shopaholic Friend?)

Objects in display case are more expensive than they appear

Because of the penchant for the wealthy to come stay in Mykonos, you’ll find no shortage of amazing shopping throughout the main town (creatively called “Mykonos Town”). Walking through the streets of the city you’ll find a plethora of boutiques showcasing the most famous names in fashion and some names (if you’re like me) you’ve probably never heard of. I don’t fancy myself much of a luxury-brand-shopper, but it’s always fun to walk through these spots and wonder what life would be like if Givenchy was a brand I actually knew. That said, I did stumble upon some great gems of artwork, old maritime objects, and cheaper deals on unique items you can wander away with for only a few Euros. 

“Did We Just Become Best Friends?” “Yup!”

Excuse me, is this patch of sand-covered-by-a-rug taken?

When walking into the first few places in Mykonos, I was amazed at how beautiful everyone is. In my usual fashion I assumed most of these attractive specimens were standoffish and difficult to speak to, but I was amazed at how easy it was to make new friends in Mykonos. Perhaps it’s a combination of the holiday vibe + how serene the surroundings are, but people were genuinely more polite and easy to speak to everywhere I went. Approaching a random group of people asking for help, advice, a picture or what have you is incredibly easy, and as someone traveling with a friend, it was a great way to expand our group and experiences. I know most people aren’t super keen on discussions with strangers, but the incredible distribution of people here makes those stories incredibly unique and fun to hear. And who knows, you might just happen upon a random party where people who you’d normally be afraid of are all-too-welcoming with their tunes, food and fashion.

So there you have it, my quick and dirty guide to Mykonos. To be honest, it’ll be nearly impossible for you not to have fun when you visit this island. It’s combination or serenity, activity, pleasure and comfort will make for whatever type of vacation you’re hoping for. Whatever you do, keep an open mind, a rested body, empty stomach and, most importantly, a deep wallet.

And, as promised earlier, here’s my folder of photos for your viewing pleasure.

Yamas! Abhishek