#i was actually drawing something else totally unrelated

[tomwambsgays]

"i think he's still there… in martinaise. he's in martinaise…"

[toyherb]

oblivion battery feels like it was made for fujoshi to make doujinshi of it

[skemford]

Decided to refresh my knowledge of bendy protagonists personalities/quirks and i can say that i forget how distant canon Audrey is from fanon one sometimes

Here's relatively short list with Audrey character analysis+random tibbits (environmental/gameplay/voice lines)

(I'll appreciate if someone will interact+most of it is under the cut!)

1. Her workplace is an unorganized mess

On the right side: a couple of empty teacups, empty paper sheets, unopened envelope, books/notebooks, a toy ball and keys in the middle of the desk, storyboards that are UNRELATED to what she was working on;

On the left side: donut that she kept close to her elbow & storyboards while she was drawing + to-do list for a day

There's no WAY she'll be able to keep anything tidy. If you hc her and Bendy to have a familiar bond post game, she'll be as messy if not messier. Her home might be a wreck.

2. She easily distracts

- Audrey is working overtime and claims that she has "only eight hundred more frames to go" until the next deadline

But was she actually *actively* working?

She has unrelated items on her desk (listed above) and jumps on the first opportunity to get a coffee.

If she really did wanted to have a drink, she literally has a soda machine close to her office doors.

Some brands of soda do have caffeine in them, right? Getting a coffee looks more like an excuse for a walk.

Bonus point: if you'll stay in her office without getting up (for 15 minutes), she'll acknowledge that she has no time to waste and will return to work instead.

- "Well, the coffee's good and all. But this work's gotta get done"

Worth to acknowledge: this girl has "employee of the month" award and some kind of animation award (boris statue) in her office .

Does she stays overtime everyday to finish something? Or other Archgate employees are even worse at their jobs, somehow?

3. She uses dry sarcasm or makes jokes a lot

Honestly, it happens really often and should be brought up in fan content more imo.

Due to the images limit i can't put a lot of examples with screnshoots but I'll quote some of them.

- "i think you and i have very different definitions of alright" (toward Allison)

- "Looks like he's having a bad day" (about dead lost one with the gent pipe)

- "Ok! Yeah! And that totally makes sense" (reaction to an easter egg)

- "That's one leap of faith i definitely won't make" (about the pit in animation alley)

4. Audrey gets defensive when someone starts to talk over her or when she feels overwhelmed

Audrey either will deny what was said or will acknowledge it by being sarcastic

Prominent example of this is her reaction to Memory!Joey at the hotel:

- "Oh,now you knew my father. Well, newsflash! I didn't even knew my father...or my mother. Or anyone else in my family" (after Joey says that she has "adventurous spirit of her father")

- "What? Are you crazy?... Who do you think you are?" (after the reveal of her being created by the ink machine)

+ Similar behaviour can be seen in her short interaction with Twisted Alice (Susie).

Audrey prefers to keep conversation equal between both sides and when it fails to work, she'll either stay silent or will express frustration (which can be seen with her replying "no" to Twisted Alice and not saying anything afterwards)

5. She seems to trust Allison enough to be vulnerable around her

After leaving the spider lair, she'll try to reach to Allison through the speakers

- "Alice? Are... you there?... Alice!"

She'll acknowledge that she feels scared and after Allison won't sound reassuring enough, Audrey's hand will be visibly shaking.

Allison is the only character Audrey has opened to; you'll never see her being that vulnerable with anyone else

(She is honest with Henry but not on this level)

It makes me wish they had more interactions; Allison for sure was really important in early development of the game.

6. She's blunt

Through the game Audrey is a type of person who says whatever is on her mind without hiding her intentions too much.

She's emotional and rarely thinks twice (most of her decisions are impulsive or sometimes irrational) which reflects on the way she talks.

It's often slips out through sarcasm when she gets defensive/tries to cope but it's also happens in relatively safe environment (for example, when she talks with Betty):

- "Are you...very old?" (Wilson's mansion, bedroom)

This one liner is the most random question you can say to a stranger; I doubt it was very well thought out from her side

7. Audrey easily trusts people which makes her easy to manipulate

I couldn't skip this one.

When Wilson has created a story about his "poor lost father" as a bait and Audrey did believed in this, there are multiple reasons for "why"

This either could come from her being "goodhearted" or the circumstances being used against her

- She went through whole "father trauma" in one day without being able to process anything & get proper answers:

An idea of "saving" another father (Nathan Arch) who she could've knew more than her own father (Nathan says in one tape that he meet young animators at least once) could've hit her really close to home

- Audrey never actually got a real answer on how to leave the cycle, teaming up with Wilson (who was able to enter and leave) could've looked like the only one way back

(I do acknowledge that writing in DR could've been better at places but if you do think about it in this way,it makes sense)

7.1. She is empathetic

I think that this part says everything for itself and it doesn't need to be explained. Thought, she's the one who decide if someone deserves it.

- She felt bad for hurting Bendy on accident & apologized when she was able to

- When she met Allison for the last time, she "gave" her this name, remembering that she doesn't like to be called 'Alice'

- At the end of the game she wants to try to make the cycle better for everyone.

Twisted Alice (Susie) was included which means that Audrey doesn't hold grudges against her (even with the latest one wanting to kill her previously)

8. Audrey puts her arm through an ink container without hesitation or any side thoughts

IT IS a game mechanic and lore wise you can relate it to her being an ink creature

But honestly? It's in character for Audrey.

We're talking about someone who decided to go to great lengths to catch an aquarium fish (that's kept as a pet) and wanted to use it...for a recipe.

8.1. She doesn't mind eating out of trashcans

If you think that wanting to use someone's pet for a recipe is too weird, you're actually wrong. But eating out of trashcan (when you have other options) may be.

Thought, she drives a line on a food that has flies or other insects on it (like "chocolate cake")...i guess in other cases, it's fine to her.

~~~~~~~

Trivial things:

- Bendy seems to be her favourite cartoon character.

She calls him "little guy" in prologue and keeps close to her storyboards where he's the main character:

In the cycle, she acts joyful when she first stumbles upon the real deal.

- She loves chocolate donuts

- Audrey uses dark eyeshadows (can be seen only in prologue custscene. It's hard to notice at first)

- Her breakfast from to-do list are toasts

- She has abstract Bendy painting in her office

- It can be speculated that she's uncomfortable with being touched (or with someone being physically close), unless, she's the one who initiates it

~~~~~~~~~

[the-s1lly-corner]

Reader comforting Gangle, Kinger, Jax, and Caine after they have a bad dream

"but caine likely doesnt sleep-" shhh i need you to hear me out on something hushush let me have this going to write this then im going to go stretch my legs since uhuhuhuh before i got to writing i was drawing for three hours and i am SORE

CAINE:

imagine he decides to try to sleep, or try to the closest he can get to it.. and just, hes so unused to it that it stresses him out. now sure, this isnt a "hes had a bad dream" buuuuut... okay i just wanted to write for caine... or imagine he does manage to fall 'asleep', in order to have something else to relate to you with, but his first 'dream' is something... not good

i think, while he would be a little unnerved he wouldnt be TERRIFIED... though i do think he would play up how distressed he actually is in order to get some extra special attention from you. i dont think he would try sleeping again, though... might still lay down next to you and pretend, though! oh please please rub his back and pepper him in kisses! thats the only way to console him! (winks)

JAX:

i think he would try to brush it off and deny any comfort you try sending his way. i commonly write jax to reject comfort and affection, and generally try to deny any perceived weakness in hopes that hes not... well seen as weak... you know? thats his whole coping mechanism in the circus, asides of course being a menace to everyone else. though... i dont think he would push you away if you tried to smooth out his fur, maybe even kiss his head... just dont say a word about this to anyone else..! i dont think he would go back to sleep, unless he felt truly exhausted

KINGER:

oh hes going to freak out, especially if the dream is about you abstracting or about his late wife... (does she count as late if shes abstracted...?), actually him suddenly yelping out and shooting to scramble around for you is going to wake you up. definitely not going to be going back to sleep anytime soon. please help him get his breathing under control, and reassure him that you're still here. i would say hold him, but i dont think that would be the best thing to do, at least not until hes composed himself enough to gives you the go ahead. good thing is, in the digital world you guys dont NEED to sleep... i say this because i can easily see kinger not going to sleep for a while after this (he just like me frfr). recommend taking him out to the grounds and having a nightly stroll so he can have 'fresh air'

GANGLE:

i dont think she would wake you up, actually i dont think she would cling or cuddle onto you out of fear that she would wake you up... i mean she knows she shouldnt feel bad, but she would rather abstract than risk bothering you. probably cries, and that might be what wakes you up. turn on the light and sit up with her. it might take some coaxing, but let her know youre not mad about being woken up (and perhaps even state that she has permission to wake you up whenever and that shes not going to bother you and youre not going to be angry with her). you guys probably talk until morning, starting with the contents of the dream before spiraling into something totally unrelated

[noctlas332]

seeing as it is currently aro awareness week and i am aro i decided to draw vflower with my piss ass microlabel, bellusromantic !!!

bellusromantic is a label that means enjoying typically romantic things but not feeling romantic attraction, "we can kiss but dont catch feelings", like enjoying things like kissing and whatnot in a non-romantic context

for me this is kind of like, enjoying typically-romantic things kind of in the same way one might enjoy rping or playing pretend ?? like i enjoy doing the stuff without actually partaking in the thing theyre acosiated with ? like i enjoy kissing and stuff, tis fun, but i do not feel romantic attraction to people,, those are very seperate tjhjings in my mind, unrelated to one another i hope that makes even a lick of sense ??? like the physical act of smthing like kissing has no romantic connotation to me personally, so i can totally still enjoy that without feeling romantic attraction to other people, but i know its generally associated with romance, so its kind of like playing pretend,, like how someone might enjoy cleaning in video games but has no want to clean their house irl agsdhadkjasdkas im really bad at explaining waht i mean,, this is something ive felt and known for so long now thats its evolved beyond words, i cant compress years of feelings and thoughts into words that will make sense to other people,, so i hope if nothing else this was maybe interesting to read,

[chibishortdeath]

I got a new sketchbook since I filled one recently :3c. Shout out to suddenly getting a ton of energy and drawing bizarre fanart at 1 am 💀💀💀.

I’m putting the more violent ones under a cut even if the post is already tw tagged because of the subject matter being a bit dark d(^^ ).

Along with explanations for all of them of course!

⚠️tw for self harm and burning past this point⚠️

First one (before the cut) is just some pose practice. Simon’s just sitting, all sad and mopey. There’s also a little chibi doodle of him in the bottom corner and a little pose armature in the top corner for a pose I didn’t even end up drawing whoops lol. I feel like I drew his face a little differently than I usually do in this one :O. Idk how that happened lol.

This one is to show the differences in anatomy between each game! The curse takes a lot out of him, poor guy, so he’s a bit less jacked than usual 😔. Well, more specifically he doesn’t have as much of a layer of protective fat anymore. And he’s also very tired :(. But yeah, this is just a reference I’ll look back at to keep this detail consistent! I was going to put scar reference on it too, but I completely forgot and eh it mighta made it kinda hard to make out anyway d(- - ).

I drew this side profile of Simon while watching a video talking about lost media stuff. I think the image I based it on was something Saki Sanobashi related, idk I just liked the vibes of the hair being blown back by wind and got inspired :). And yes I know that Saki is probably a hoax 💀💀💀💀💀, I didn’t have much interest in it tho tbh, besides just hoping something lost gets found in general. Lost media videos are honestly great for putting on as background noise when drawing :)

Simon is totally me when I have a crisis and cover my face with my hands, but make sure one eye is visible and miraculously out of shadow for dramatic effect!!!

Ok spookier stuff time, first of the below the cut drawings. This one is based on how sometimes vampires are depicted as being able to drain someone from long distances or beyond the grave. Dracula is mean, and Simon is suffering from the curse, the usual. Augh I actually need to do things cause I keep thinking of a cool scene of Simon having a weird Dracula nightmare and then waking up to see it wasn’t a dream, and that’s tropey as hell, but it’s spooky!!! Do you see my vision?

This is a depiction of like what happens with a game over or something :O. Like an absolute worst possible outcome: Simon dies and Dracula is unsealed and fully regenerated. I basically just took is Simon’s Quest design and then rehydrated it and tada, Dracula is no longer a skeleton— He ends up looking way more like Vlad the Impaler in this outfit hmmm. Also, unrelated, but a friend of mine mistook Dracula for Jesus in this drawing 💀💀💀.

Oh boy, edgy depictions of uh a lot of not being very kind to yourself themes. Idk how else to describe this one other than ya know when you get really mad at your past self for making a mistake or the wrong decision that you could’ve only known about in hindsight? Also in part the fear of actually becoming a vampire at the end of all of this? And I guess a bit of feeling like it’s your own fault, you’re the one that keeps shooting yourself in the foot, but I feel like he’d also attribute getting hit by Dracula in the first place as his fault too… hmm just a lot of very sad things going on, this one was definitely a later 1 am time drawing, maybe 1:40 or something. I think what I draw at night is further proof to not trust you when you’re tired; I get weirdly existential at night and then it’s totally fine in the morning. Simon! Just sleep! Stop overthinking!!! You’ll be ok!!!

This one I debated putting up at all cause it’s graphic and not finished (TwT ;). But it was a rare drawing of Simon smiling that didn’t look uncanny, which is kinda ironic because Simon this is not the time to be smiling—! That is also wayyy too far for just the Dracula ritual, you really only need a tiny amount to open the seal, but I’ll cut him some slack cause he is a bit at wits end by this point. I’d say maybe he’s smiling because he thinks he finally won, but tbh I thought of it more like when things are just so bad you start laughing. Like Dracula just rose from the altar and the morbid irony of it all is just so absurd, the irony that you did everything right and fought tooth and nail (Dracula’s to be exact lol) to stop it and here it is happening anyway. I wanna give this guy a weighted blanket and a bowl of warm soup—

These last two are based on what could’ve happened to him. The Grey ending is pretty much usually considered the “worst”, but they’re all nearly interchangeable, especially in the Japanese version. For example: the western release really makes the Blue ending seem like he died and didn’t kill Dracula, but it’s a lot more that he just died doing it in the original, which is to say that it’s kinda like the Grey ending just with a different eulogy— Anyway, the Grey ending is the only one that doesn’t show Simon at Dracula’s grave, so I’ve always taken it as he didn’t make it out of the castle basement. And well, setting Dracula on fire is a pretty common way to kill him so uh um, R.I.P. I’ve got a couple ideas for alternate comic endings to say the least. I might honestly just depict all of them and leave it entirely up to the reader which one happened because it doesn’t change much— Though this also has me thinking of how him surviving would work now. The curse would definitely have left some lasting effects, you don’t just magically stop having been rotted, sleep deprived, and whatever else it did. Idk I picture him being like Renfield levels of lost it afterwards if that makes sense… that could also be a pretty solid explanation for why his story isn’t told correctly and the cycle repeats with Maxim later; it’d be a pretty traumatic thing to talk about tbh. Ok but yappersvile over, next doodle 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

Aside from the burnt doodle that’s uh same explanation as the above (R.I.P.), the other two are just a little head angle and expression practice and one tiny one towards the top that’s Dracula being all spooky ghost vampire, but I didn’t like how it was looking and gave up on it 💀💀💀. It’s very hard to draw a vampire attacking someone and not have it look kinda awkward or unreadable. Tbh I struggle putting two characters in one image anyway because I have to draw the anatomy lines for both of them and they end up getting really hard to tell apart when one is behind another, one character suddenly isn’t proportional compared to the other, or you find out one of them isn’t tall enough for the pose you had in mind (>~< ). So anyway Dracula was accidentally way too short all of a sudden and I couldn’t figure out how to draw his torso without making a completely incomprehensible blob behind Simon oof.

Okie, it’s lunch time, bye :3!

[suburbanbonfire]

tagged by @18minutemajor for a hockey art share tag game! I enjoy talking about myself but am terrible at posting so this is perfect. i WILL talk too much, this is a threat.

rules: post your first ever hockey art, your latest hockey art, and your favourite hockey art, then tag three hockey artists.

FIRST ART

I made the Kraken Orb (Korb) at the end of the 22-23 season, as a commemoration, although a sort of ironic one considering i had only gotten into hockey in time for the playoffs so there are a couple players here i actually never got to see play at all before making this (Joonas, Jaycob, Burky, Fleury)

it was a whole lot of fun though! Prior to this i was in a months-long art slump after leaving a fandom, so it was a total surprise to have hockey of all things be what revitalized my art.

technically, the very first hockey art from this was Matty; you can kinda tell by the way his lines are a bit thicker than the rest since i wasn't in my groove yet. i also knew coming in that i wanted to arrange the faces in a circle, but didn't plan out beyond that, so i just made sure that i was getting a variety of head directions in my references and hoped for the best. My favorites from this are Gru, Soucy, Dunn, Schultz, Borgen, and Eeli. I think they all turned out really well.

LATEST ART

MEAT CUT MEAT CUT

this one is fun for me because it's quite different from my usual style of art, with lineart and non-realistic forms/face. I've had the concept in my head for awhile after hearing/reading so many interesting descriptions of the physical qualities that good hockey players possess.

'Sacrifice the Body' actually came in mid-art when i had an epiphany doing something like driving my car or an activity similarly unrelated. Before that, it was going to be a lil heart drawn on the chest and the going contender for the label was 'Ferda.' which would've been great, but sacrifice the body just worked too dang well with the themes.

FAVORITE ART

i mean, c'mon. it's gotta be this one.

my magnum opus, my white whale. it came out even better than i saw it in my head and i love everything about it. when i came up with the idea, i had TOTALLY forgotten that Climate Pledge has those giant windows, so when i set out to find references and saw it, it instantly made everything even better with LIGHTING!!!!

It was my first time drawing this kind of interior architecture and although there's definitely things i would do differently now, im so so proud of how it looks and turned out. I was also still drawing through my decade-old laptop at that point, so I had to split up the work on this into two files - i sketched everything, then worked ONLY on the bg until it was about 90% done, then made a flattened copy to open as a new file to draw the players on top of.

I also have a bunch of WIP shots of it in my drafts I guess I'll throw in here now!

initial sketch to get down the composition before i remembered the window | lines of the building! i actually found a 3d virtual tour of CPA from before it was built which had the PERFECT angle, so i screencapped that and straight up traced the architecture. Ultimately, the scoreboard and the paint lines ended up getting moved around.

planning out my lighting in greyscale (i really need to do this more often, i struggle with values so much, alas) | in progress bg! at this point, the ice and the boards/glass were the only things completed. I eventually said 'fuck it' to being able to see the areas behind the stands like you could in all my references, and just put the people dots all the way up.

Now the most gut-wrenching part

THE TAGS

this is where me being bad at posting comes into play, because instead i just lurk and thats not great for forming connections HERE GOES

@ruinedcasket - it has been awesome seeing your art progress! would love 2 hear your thoughts about it

@rouzys - your kraken stuff is so pretty, love how you capture likenesses

oh god oh fuck everyone else i know has already been tagged fuck oh sshit

If You Are An Artist On Hockey Twit And See This, It Is A Sign

[ikilledamanforthisurl]

who's lila yammerings (i should be asleep

thinking about Who's Lila again and i really do love how the three layers of the mystery as broken down by Flaw Peacock includes kindof commentary to the "all interpretations are equally valid/correct" writing copout that isn't just the opposite statement or a rebuke of it, but also something that ties it all in with the rest of the game's infohazard/memetic properties themes. like yes, broke = all interps are valid + woke = there IS a correct answer as this is a mystery, but also bespoke = the correct interpretation comes from the unconscious mind of all people, a zeitgeist, et cetera.

it can be equally as much of a copout- because break it down, what tf does that imply? that the interpretation that takes us at large is the most correct? so the most popular theories, and that the most widely accepted aspects of the game, are what is true? whichever red herring that turns out to be when it is handed to the public? it can totally be a copout. not for lack of effort or intelligence or artistry, as FP's video is nearly 8 hours for a reason, but also it can be copout. a REALLY COOL copout though. i can't picture of any other story that i know that does this, nor could i think of a better story to do it.

because it's all about the cultural zeitgeist and memetic properties. beliefs and feelings and ideas and superstitions that trend. Lila is the mystery but she is also a demon, she is also a trauma, she is also a metaphor, she is also a delusion, she is all of these things, but above all else she is what YOU hear she is. the most popular, most widely accepted interpretations are what get shared, and spread the furthest. unrelated people hear about it, maybe give these opinions the time of day for a quick read, and Lila has fully cemented herself in those people's brains as that interpretation, even if alllll that information they just took in winds up being dead noise that the brain scraps entirely with time. she WAS there, however fleeting, as is her abiding by her, or the, laws of memetics

and to me, this is the interpretation. but that doesn't change how people at large are viewing her and i certainly wouldn't know better as i haven't bothered looking into it. idk yall im not gonna ask. regardless she is whatever we first thought she was, and unless you dig deeper and find out more, she's infected you thus. just like how the Dada Dog was originally just some guy's silly drawing, but evolved into an alt-right symbol of actual genuine murderers. somebody took the Dada Dog and maybe unintentionally recontexutalised it when putting it next to their personal dangerous rhetoric, and their ilk ate it up like flies to the point that there was nothing left of the Dog but the picked clean, bare bones of its lineart and sombre expression

my best guess are that there are three layers to the current zeitgeist of Lila as well. 1. the unknowing crowd, who have maybe seen a few pictures at most and maybe a little bit of the game, assuming she's a trauma metaphor characterised as a paranormal thing possessing dear William. 2. the initiated, knowing a little more and who may lean towards her being a demon taking advantage of kids with issues. and 3. whoever was insane enough to dig this deep and grasp that she is exactly what we think she is

Conclusion: Poor William

[marigoldbaker]

9, 10, 20 - dealer's choice for which OC :D

thank you endlessly :’) i have so many girls im gonna mix it up.

9) How does your OC handle their physical health? Do they take care of themselves?

thea probably has a regular and rigorous workout routine and sometimes the girls will try to follow along and almost accidentally kill themselves because thea is insane. ros and norie go running together on the rooftops sometimes (idk how this started. possibly some sort of misguided bonding attempt when ros first moved to the bakery and was trying to go Hello Fellow Child, You Like High Places? and then somehow it escalated). mari is a soft and squishy wizard who kind of hates exercising but she darts round the bakery like a rabbit and sometimes that’s a workout, ngl.

evie’s whole life is a workout. actually give that girl a break for real.

10) How does your OC handle their mental health? Do they take care of themselves?

almost no girl of mine has a good answer to this so i kind of have to answer for all of them bc i needed to really think about it.

marigold is fine :) she’s fine all the time she’s fine :) she’s never not been fine and if you ask her how she’s doing the answer is always fine because she’s fine. TOTALLY unrelated: has anyone in the room ever thought about how that building across the street should be burned down? For no reason she kind of feels like maybe burning down a building is a great idea. Just saying (handling mari’s mental health usually involves trying to minimize the body count thru outside intervention)

evie has a mind that is swiss cheese and tumbleweeds and it is never really going to function normally, so “mental health” to her is kind of a foreign concept. she needs a certain degree of guidance just to get through her daily life, usually. that said, of all the girls on this list, she’s the one most likely to actually try self care if you explain it to her, but that’s not really saying a lot bc if you ask evie nicely to jump off a cliff there’s a non zero chance she’d do that too. so.

roslin has Older Sister Issues so she never talks about her feelings because she’s trying to take care of everybody else’s, BUT if pressed even gently by her mom she will completely fall apart without hesitation. so usually when she’s having a rough time she will just go awkwardly silently lurk by thea until thea will ask her if she’s okay and she’ll go (tearing up) no mumma i am Not. and then launch into a really long monologue about it.

lenora is literally always in a state of being pissed off about SOMETHING and it takes very little to get her started about whatever it is that’s upsetting her but ONLY if it’s roslin she can complain to!!! with thea there will just be one of those awkward “alone with dad on a fishing trip” silences while they both debate killing themselves rather than actually discussing their emotions (like mother like daughter). so her mental health moment is getting roslin to do her nails while she complains without drawing breath.

when thea is having an off day she goes and she beats up some random criminal and then she shows up in jaheira’s house and stays until jaheira comes home and comes up with some insane reason to pick an extremely unserious fight until a very irritated jaheira (who has experienced this like 20 times) is like BE NORMAL and kicks her out. i would not call this “handling her mental health” by any means but it is for sure what she does.

sofie goes to mommy :’) and then mommy scoops her up and they usually make cookies together or something. baby girl.

20) If they fight, what's their weapon of choice?

norie fights with a morningstar that she named spider’s bite :’) specifically because “spider” is her childhood nickname, courtesy of thea, and norie is at her core a sentimental fool 💖

thea fights with a hammer! blunt brutal terrifying just like her.

evie fights with a bow and arrow. she sort of forgets she has it a lot though sometimes and will occasionally just tackle people or start swinging fists.

[qqueenofhades]

Hiii! I hope this is not too random but you always have such good advices and it's always interesting to hear your opinion about different things.

So, I have this idea for a serialized web-novel that I really want to stick with, write it and actually publish it. But I'm afraid that I'm not good at writing and I'm not sure how to improve. As an academic/teacher who writes fiction, is there anything in particular you would recommend? Like the list of books?

Also, everyone says you can be good at only one thing so you should invest your time in mastering that one thing, otherwise you are going to always be mediocre, Jack of all trades. I have BA in Philosophy, work as a video editor and dream of writing that particular story. Am I too over the place? I thought that I could connect writing to philosophy as there are a few philosophers who write fiction, and connect it to video editing bearing in mind that video editing is also a form of storytelling and can be connected to scripting, in a way.

Ideally, I'd want my story to be in a comics formats, but then I'd also have to learn drawing, which I would absolutely love to do, but then will I be turning into mr. Jack even more? Lol.

First off, my chillun, I am here to safely inform you that the idea of "jack of all trades, master of none," thus implying that it's stupid to do a lot of things when you could devote your time to Doing This One Thing Only, is a pile of crap. What is life even FOR, if not to try new things, experiment, see what you like, make mistakes, and learn how to do it better? Especially when it comes to art??? It is the primal and timeless impulse of human beings in all ages of the world to make art, the end. Someone who has written a "bad" story or drawn a "bad" picture is still 100x more of an artist than some yokel who feeds stolen art into an AI algorithm and presses a button. They have made something original and creative and maybe it's not as good as those who have been doing it more or for longer, but WHO CARES? You can try again! You can laugh it off or pretend it never existed or whatever, but honestly, you should NOT be ashamed.

This whole "do only one thing and don't waste your time with unproductive side hobbies" idea is also an extremely capitalist conceit: you should spend your time being Financially Productive At Your One Skill, and not doing things that bring you joy solely because they bring you joy (even if not money). It presupposes that the only purpose of life is to be generating Profit at all times, which you can't do if you're not "good," etc etc nonsense. (Clearly, I have strong feelings about this.) So if you want to learn how to write and draw in order to make a web comic, you should do that! It doesn't matter if this is totally unrelated to anything you've done before. You don't need to justify it to anyone. You can just go "you know what, I want to do this" and do it!

That said, if you want to produce it to a publishable level in a reasonable timeframe, in this case it might be good to partner up with a person and/or persons who have more experience than you. You can be the storyboarder/show-runner/ultimate mastermind, but you can also reach out to writers and artists who have already practiced to the level needed, so you don't have to spend years becoming good enough (whatever your definition of that might be) to produce a quality product. You have experience with video editing and production; great! You can find someone else whose skills enhance and collaborate with yours, and who can do something that maybe you can't. But if you practice in the meantime, you'll understand more about how it works, what you want to do, and how to translate that into narrative/art form.

As ever, my only advice for people who want to learn how to write better is a) write, and b) read. Find writers whose style you enjoy, whose particular technical skills you want to emulate (is it character development? World-building? Plot twists? Smooth prose? All of the above?) and see how they do it. Sure, there are plenty of writing books out there who purport to tell you How To Do It The Right Way, but honestly, I don't think I've ever read them. I started writing around the age of 7 and worked at it ever since (along with a lot of reading, so yes). Some people might benefit from a more structured/guided approach, so if you think that sounds like something you want to see, even if it's just someone putting words down on a page about the basic technical craft of writing, then I do encourage you to check it out. But if at any time you go "eh, this doesn't feel like my style" or "I don't want to do it that way" or "this isn't quite what I'm looking for," you can shut that book and try something else. This, too, is entirely fine.

I realize that for many of us, writing is the Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, and it's hard to share it if you feel like it's less than perfect, but at some point, you will also need to start doing that. The nice thing about fandom is that we are all amateurs (i.e. not being paid for it, not necessarily "bad," since I have seen plenty of professionally published books that make me go YIKES), and there's generally a forgiving and supportive atmosphere. If you want to write about two blorbos kissing or not kissing (as the case may be) or whatever else, chances are there is someone out there who wants to read that story, and they will enthusiastically respond to you about it. Strangers who offer unsolicited criticism on fanfic are obviously dicks, but there are also beta readers, people who read your writing to support you and also suggest what can be made better or more polished or otherwise better. So if you think that's a feedback structure you might benefit from, put your toes out and see what kind of response you get.

Anyway, this is all to say: write, draw, make art, do it badly, do it again, you'll get better, and don't feel like you have to excuse it or explain why. In the case of this particular project, if you have a strong artistic vision but not the technical skills to execute it to the level you want, consider reaching out to people who DO have those skills and might be interested in collaborating with you. Write a lot. Read a lot. Find what works for you. And have fun.

[lazyyogi]

Hi lazyyogi! Hope you’ve been well these days. I had a question regarding heartbreak. I feel that this has been a center theme in my life for the past several years, and lately I’m realizing that the reason I seem to continue to have a difficult time is because I keep misidentifying with it. It’s impeding my moving on and letting go of the past, yet I can’t seem to just move past it. It’s like being stuck in limbo. Any tips? Will meditation help?

Hey friend! Sorry for the delay in response.

I think for questions like these, dealing in specifics may be more helpful. In what ways are you stuck? How does your inability to move forward manifest?

Knowing more would be helpful. However, I can speak generally on the matter from my own experience. And yes meditation will help.

Wounds

Firstly, heartbreak creates many wounds within us. That ache in our chest is the most obvious wound and hence the term heartbreak. But there are other places in the physical body we may be wounded as well. After a tough breakup with my on again off again high school girlfriend, my gut was particularly harrowed.

Call it the energy body, the emotional body, subtle body, or whatever. There are wounds inflicted in our personal energy system. Then over time those wounds may become chronic pains, tensions, numb contractures, or physical imbalances.

Then there is the psychologic aspect as well. If we unknowingly allow our sorrow to overtake us, we will start to perceive ourselves and our world in terms of that sorrow. We may make harsh self-judgments, develop unhealthy habits for self-soothing, draw dramatic conclusions about how true love does not exist, and so on.

And to compound it all, sometimes a hurtful turn of events such as a heartbreak will also trigger totally unrelated aspects of our past forms of suffering. Fear of abandonment or loss, self-fulfilling prophecies of failure, etc.

Coming face to face with our suffering during a heartbreak sucks. It is painful. It feels shitty. But I will emphatically attest that it is one of the greatest opportunities we have for personal evolution and growth.

The Shadow

One book I am endlessly recommending is The Places That Scare You by Pema Chodron. It is replete with tibetan buddhist practices and teachings for cultivating loving-kindness and digesting suffering. Among all spiritual and occult traditions I have explored, the tibetans have the most comprehensive description and understanding of suffering and love, as well as technical methods for working with each.

All of these wounds that I described, as well as the triggering of past forms of suffering, is a surfacing of our shadow.

Everything that makes us feel ashamed, repulsive, weak, boring, unlovable, and desperate, all of our accumulated forms of suffering, congeal into a shadow self. Eckhart Tolle calls it the pain-body.

Everyone reading this right now intuits to what I am referring, on some level. It is the stuff within that you'd rather ignore, the place that makes you feel squeamish when it is given any attention. It is cringeful. It is a place that scares us.

After something like a breakup that results in heartbreak, the shadow leaks through into our conscious experience. And we then recoil in horror and desperately try to find ways to make ourselves feel better.

The Opportunity

Typically people end up taking one of two paths. The first path is suppressing the suffering and shadow while distracting themselves with something else. These are the people you will see making the same poor relationship choices in cycles of passion and suffering. The other path is more therapeutic, where there may some elements of self-care, self-work, contemplation, and the like.

But there is a third path that incorporates elements of the therapeutic route in combination with meditation and other spiritual practices.

While it may be horrifying and immensely painful, when the shadow or pain-body begins to enter our conscious attention, it actually makes itself more vulnerable.

You see, the whole power behind the pain-body (and the reason why it is called the shadow by some), is that it hides in a blind spot. Because it is so cringy and makes us feel squeamish, we turn a blind eye and it festers in that unobserved place within our unconscious/subconscious mind. It influences us and limits us while at the same time nearly invisible to us.

But now that its camouflage is weakened, although the suffering it causes us is heightened, it is also now more easily dismantled and digested.

The Work

People focus on feeling better and moving on after a heartbreak. But many are never able to love again as if it were the first time. Many will bring their hangups, fears, and projections forward into new relationships. And they will either learn to live with that--and burden their future partners with it--or they will eventually grow through it.

If you were to let go of moving on, forget about feeling better, and instead turn your attention upon the shadow, the pain-body, then not only will grow through and digest this traumatic experience but you will also learn how to meet all future forms of trauma with a zen-like resilience and you will also learn how to digest other various forms of suffering from your past.

In this way, we become more capable of love and kindness, more capable of meeting and staying present with the suffering of this world, and free to live without regret.

That book by Pema Chodron is an excellent place to start learning how to make this your own practice. And I'm happy to help however I can along the way.

Much love ❤️‍🔥

LY

[maeve-is-annoying-about-books]

Live Read Thread: House of Leaves

What I know and Foreword:

I only first heard of this book because of that one video about the really impressive DOOM wad. It was mentioned a few times offhand and then some pictures of the page layouts were put up and I was intrigued. But like a week later it slipped from my mind, until a friend who's a literature fan told me she had been reading it due to a totally unrelated incident. At that same time my partner had just seen the video I had and also encouraged me to give it a look, so I went down to the bookstore my next chance.

All I knew going into it was that it was a spooky book with inventive formatting, I really thought it'd be just that, but I'm five chapters in and it brought me here to record my thoughts without disturbing the other poor dears in my life. So without further ado I'll start posting my thoughts chapter by chapter, starting with what I've read so far.

Ugh, get that clinical analysis tone outta your blog, Maeve.

The foreword here by Johnny Truant is the most enticing warning to a book I think I've read. He's an absolute trainwreck of a man who just started to get something arguably good in his life when this old man just drops his House of Leaves on him. Like I know it's too early to have a title drop pun but what else do you call this complete mess of papers and napkins Zampanò has?

Anyway, it's this long and rambling piece about how curiosity devolved into obsession, and how strange things have been costing Johnny here his sleep. Strange marks on Zampanò's floor, the endless random stuff arranged around him, his curious habit of writing a book on filmography when he is very blind. And of course, Johnny's paroxysms of panic around this life work. It's almost... trite? Trite, like he's saying "oh it's a spooky book with a spooky monster oh it's gonna getcha if you read it!" I swear I nearly put it down.

Then these last few passages hit differently. And suddenly I wasn't looking at Johnny the loser drifter, suddenly I was painfully inside this man's soul. This like... fear or change in him that's so fundamentally different from his usual griping self. It was all at this line that I got pulled back in:

"You might try then, as I did, to find a sky so full of stars it will blind you again. Only no sky can blind you now. Even with all that iridescent magic up there, your eye will no longer linger on the light, it will no longer trace the constellations. You'll only care about the darkness and you'll watch it for hours, for days, maybe even for years, trying in vain to believe you're some kind of indispensable, universe-appointed sentinel., as if just by looking you could actually keep it all at bay."

Reading this at one o'clock at night in an empty, dark house wasn't so great for my mental state. This passage and the ones leading directly too it are just so... drawing, so latently terrifying in a way I don't know if I can describe. And this nebulous sort of fear of... Of what, the dark? The expanse? Nothingness? Nonexistence? played me like a damned cello. I think my spine hit a high C and I knew I had to read the book. I know exactly how it's going to ruin me and it's so different from getting jumpscared in another slasher movie.

So, let's take a look. What's the worst that could happen?

[qafiansage]

As someone who’s slowly and somewhat-tortuously working my way through WoT at the moment (it’s endlessly frustrating because there’s just enough interesting stuff that I keep coming back after putting it down and getting annoyed) - I totally agree with this. I want to enjoy the story despite Jordan having no idea what he does and doesn’t have to do pages of description for (exhausting) and randomly getting weirdly horny in offputting ways (offputting because the horny stuff is almost always accompanied by either straightforward sexism or tortured worldbuilding clearly meant to justify the horny stuff, or both).

My personal opinion, supported by no facts but my own sense for what writers do, as a writer, is that Jordan started from the position of wanting to have women doing magic openly, and men persecuted/cursed for doing it, and worked backwards from that at least somewhat to get the result he wanted.

Also, people talk about how interesting and detailed the WoT magic system is, and I’ll agree that it’s detailed, but interesting? Sanderson’s magic systems are interesting, because they have consistent rules that can be exploited to do interesting stuff. Channeling is detailed in the sense that there’s loads of detail in it, but that detail is pretty much all fluff on the basics of ‘some people can do magic, there’s boy magic and girl magic, different spells need different colours of magic, different people have different levels of power and talent in different areas, and some kinds of spells require you to have an inborn talent’. 

And then there’s just random, unrelated stuff like telepathically talking to wolves, smelling the aftermath of violence or seeing visions of the future, which isn’t ever explained in connection to anything else.

To take a random example, in the Cosmere there is a magic sword called Nightblood which was made by a repeatable, understandable process (Awakening a non-organic material with a great deal of power, using a known Command). In WoT there’s ter’angreal, which are magic objects made by... Ancient Channelers using lost arts, which are rediscovered but not explained beyond ‘It was rediscovered based on copying the magic collars and leashes of the Empire of Unethical Petplay’. WoT has a neat vibe where it starts off seeming like a LotR setting where magic is declining, but over the course of the story magic starts returning - but we, the readers, never really understand how that magic works. We are not involved, we can’t be, in the way that Sanderson lets us be with magic in the Cosmere, because Jordan doesn’t let us see inside the workings of that magic. They’re black-boxed, compared to getting a look at the inner workings of the magic to the point that the national sport of the Sanderson fandom is coming up with new ways to exploit and combine the magic system(s) based on the rules we know so far.

Obscure or soft magic isn’t necessarily a bad thing - Tolkien does good work with magic in LotR, and although that magic does have rules (or at least guidelines) those are never really explained. I don’t even necessarily think that gendered magic is a bad thing, if it’s put in conversation with how gender actually works re: societal/personal construction or biological[1]. But if the precise workings of the magic system are so central to the plot of a story, perhaps it should be possible to actually see those workings, and consider them for more than five minutes without having to get into doublethink.

Tl;dr: Stormlight Archive is the result of Sanderson taking the lessons from WoT and doing something better with them. 

Also I should probably not read books that frustrate me as much as these.

[1]  For example, magic held and taught within a gender-specific order (see Earthsea and the wizards of Roke); magic which draws from a goddess who only gives that power to women (see the immortality of the Hunters of Artemis in Percy Jackson); magic which is gendered but it’s possible to ritually become that gender (see Cultist Simulator and the Church of the Unconquered Sun); magic which is influenced by specific physical features of the body or reproduction which might vary between genders (see Motherland: Fort Salem).

If you want a really good example of how "treating gender as way more fundamental to the universe than it actually is" makes for shitty worldbuilding, look at Saidin and Saidar in Wheel of Time.

(This post will upset transphobic WoT nerds and that is intentional.)

Saidin and Saidar make no fucking sense. Why are fundamental forces of the universe that may or may not even be sentient gendered? Why is the magic pink and blue flavoured? Why, why, why tho Like, not even "what purpose does it serve in the story," WHYYYYYYYY

How did this happen? Like how did the Creator just wake up one timeless aeon and decide "yeah hmmm okay gonna just make this extremely arbitrary distinction between who gets to do what type of elemental magic better, and it is based on whether or not they have dicks or boobs." So FIRE and EARTH are MANLY elements so Saidin is better at manipulating them and AIR and WATER are WOMANLY elements so Saidar is better with them BUT THERE'S ALSO A GENDERLESS FIFTH ELEMENT CALLED "SPIRIT" THAT BOTH HANDLE EQUALLY SO IT ALREADY UNDERMINES ITS OWN PREMISE

BUT ACTUALLY the distinction isn't even based on the gender of your body, it's based upon the gender of your soul, because in the 9th book the Dark One puts a dude's soul into a woman's body as a prank BUT HE STILL DOES DUDE MAGIC so the distinction is based on your soul??? But that's even more fucked because it implies gendered souls, which is even more weird and arbitrary because like, did the Creator make an exact amount of girl souls and boy souls in the soul factory at the dawn of time and somehow there's always enough girl bodies and boy bodies to put them in?

The only logical explanation is that Robert Jordan had a catastrophic failure of worldbuilding from mistakenly thinking - due to social conditioning - that gender is actually a way bigger deal in the universe than it actually is.

[avatarmerida]

Beautiful

I know that this ask was from the “send me a word and if it’s in my wip I’ll post the sentence it’s in” prompt and I didn’t have a sentence with this word in it but seeing this actually inspired a short little fic so Imma just post it here in response lol. I used google translate for the spanish pls no one hate me i lost my Duolingo streak

---

“After this can we go over conjugation again?” Hunter asked as he flipped to an empty page in his notebook.

“Sure,” said Luz. “But you don’t have to take so many notes ya know, there’s not gonna be a test or anything.”

“I know that’s technically true, but something about the look in the eyes of that little owl in the box makes the stakes feel higher.” said Gus with a shudder.

“We have a streak to protect,” added Willow with determination, furiously sharpening her pencil to take notes of her own.

“All right, let’s try translating some basic sentences,” said Luz, writing a new one on the board. 

La flor es muy hermosa

“Oh oh oh! I know this one!” announced Amity, eagerly raising her hand.

“I know you do batata, but let’s let someone else try,” said Luz with a wink. “Whatcha got, Gus?”

“I’m not entiiiirely sure what it says, but I’ve gotten really good at rolling my r’s,” said Gus. “Herrrrmosa. See?”

“That is pretty impressive,” marveled Luz. “What about you, Hunter?”

“Well, I know that ‘la’ is a definite article for nouns,” he began, breaking down the sentence piece by piece as he often did. “And ‘muy’ is a common adverb that means ‘very’ or sometimes ‘highly’ so it’s saying ‘something’ is ‘something,’ right?”

“You’re on the right track!” Luz encouraged. “I snuck in two new vocab words to test your ability to use context clues.”

“Boo! You said there were no tests!” said Willow with thumbs down. Hunter contined to stare at the board as if it was one of life’s greatest mysteries. 

“Hmmm, ‘la flor es muy hermosa.’ read Hunter aloud. “Can you give me a hint?”

“Hmmm... it’s something in this room,” said Luz, looking towards the corner where Willow’s latest collection of chrysanthemums sat in a pot basking in the sunlight. 

“Uh... beanbag?”

“No, uh... oh!’“ said Luz, snapping her fingers with inspiration. “It’s a word you would associate with Willow.”

“Oh, beautiful.” said Hunter as though it couldn’t be more obvious, writing it down with confidence in his notebook.

“Um...” said Luz, taking delight in the smile Willow was obviously trying to suppress as she snuck a glance at the boy beside her. “That’s technically correct. So we’re almost there, ‘flor’ is another word we could associate with Willow.”

“Strong? Brave?” tried Hunter, tapping his chin with his pen. “But... no, ‘la’ signifies the following word would be a noun... is it captain? ‘The captain is very beautiful?’ Or would that be capitalized?”

“Hunter, do you want me to-.”

“No, no I don’t need another hint, I can figure it out,” he insisted. “Beautiful like Willow... what’s beautiful like Willow...?”

“Luz you’re gonna break him,” said Gus playfully as Hunter attempted to do the impossible.

“Oh! The flower is very beautiful!” said Hunter triumphantly.

“Perfecto, mi amigo!” sang Luz. “Is, uh, that what you got too, Willow?”

“Well, I’m more of a visual learner.” smiled Willow, turning her notebook around to share a detailed drawing of a beautiful flower.

“Wow, that is beautiful Captain!” Hunter praised, Willow had truly brought the sentence the life.

“Yeah,” agreed Luz with a grin. “Does that mean you’re gonna draw a picture of Willow in your notebook Hunter?” She teasingly asked the boy who was suddenly made aware of his own words and turned a bright crimson.

“W-what? Why? I-I don’t do that!’ he sputtered, covering the bottom of the his notebook page for some totally unrelated reason.

“Oh! Oh! Teacher, teacher!” said Gus, frantically raising his hand. “How do you say ‘busted’ in Spanish? And please tell me there’s an r in it.”

“Arrestado,” Luz replied.

“Arrrrrestado dude,” said Gus with a smirk to Hunter, who groaned lightly as the rest of the group laughed.

“Okay, okay, there will be plenty of time to tease Hunter after class,” said Luz. “Let’s translate some more adjectives while we’re on a roll. What are other words similar to ‘beautiful?’“

“Oh oh! ‘Amazing!” sang Amity, ready to shine. “Its ‘Increíble’ as in ‘mi novia increíble.”

“Aw! Gracias, batata.” Luz blushed.

“Not impressive, we all know that's like the first thing you learned,” scoffed Gus. “What about ‘totally awesome?’”

“Totalmente asombroso.”

“Gus es totalmente asombroso,” said the boy. “I think we should all work on making this a permanent part of our vocabulary.”

 “What about ‘handsome?’” asked Willow.

“Well, you could use guapo.”

“And then muy guapo would be very handsome, right?”

“Correcta!”

“Cool,” said Willow as she added the new phrase to her notebook, her eyes wandering over to Hunter who still stared at his notebook with a face that reminded Willow how she had learned the word rojo. “Muy guapo.”

As Luz moved on, Hunter couldn’t help but feel Willow’s gaze on him and turned his attention away from his vocab to return her dreamy look with inquisitive eyes. “Why are you looking at me?” whispered Hunter, bringing his hand to his cheek worried there was another reason to be embarrassed. “Is there something on my face?” 

“Nah, I’m just a visual leaner,” said Willow with a shrug, committing the word to memory for future use. 

[michelle-is-writing]

Family Matters, Greg House

Word count: 1.7k~

In the time I’ve worked at Princeton-Plainsboro teaching hospital, some might say I'm the bubbly doctor in our group. Although I don’t know how true this might be, I do know everyone can agree I'm definitely more bubbly than doctor Gregory House, but that's for another day to discuss. I'm usually the one people send in to try and cheer up patients. Because of this, I mostly work in the pediatrics ward where young, sick children are. Sometimes, I have an easy time talking to the kids and making them happier, and sometimes, I don't; usually, when I'm upset, I have a hard time.

Right now, I'm having a very difficult time.

A young New Jersey girl at the age of 11 had developed mastoiditis, an infection that affects the mastoid bone above the ear and is typically caused by a middle ear infection. Usually, this all clears up, but sadly, this infection had grown to be so bad that the girl ended up with only twenty-three percent of her hearing left in the one ear. Although this is the case, I'm not having a hard time because of the girl's loss of hearing, no.

I have my own problems at the moment.

Since I'm working in the children's ward, I don't get to see Wilson or Greg as much as I want to. Despite Greg's tendency to be an asshole, he's still my best friend and not to mention that Wilson is the kind of guy anyone can talk to about anything. However, our schedules are all different, so, as I said: we don't get to see each other that often.

At least they're still in my life though. For my family, I can’t say the same. Recently, I've just lost the closest person to me in my family; although it wasn’t through death, but through immaturity and childishness. Because of this, all of my other family members have closed me out as well, causing me to be alone. With all of my friends busy and my family shutting me out, I have no one to talk to or enjoy time with... no one. I can't even get a boyfriend for Christ's sake, and it's not like the guy I have my eyes on actually likes me back. Greg is the type of guy you can easily fall in love with, yet at the same, you really shouldn't.

"Doctor (y/n)," the young girl by the name of Jessie states. Putting all my focus back on her, I remind myself not become distracted anymore today. This isn’t the first time, unfortunately. "Will my hearing ever return?"

I smile sadly at her and shake my head. "I'm sorry, Jessie," I tell her. "Your hearing in that ear won't return, but it's not a bad thing!" I assure her. She smiles in relief. "We can always get you a hearing aid, and that will help get your hearing back to normal again, but the wait might be a little long," I explain. "Is that okay with you?"

She nods her head at my question. "I'm okay with that, doctor (Y/n)," Jessie tells me, "I'll have my family help me until then," she smiles brightly. "You can always look up to your family, right?" She states, confident in her words.

Tears slowly rising to my eyes at the thought, I nod and quickly blink them away. "That's right," I tell her, still smiling. "And don't you ever forget it," looking toward her parents, I nod my head. "The discharge nurse will be here in a few moments with the papers. If you'll excuse me..."

Without another word, I quickly leave the room and walk as fast as I can to the nearest empty room. I prefer going to James’ office instead, but it's two floors away, and I don't want any awkward elevator trips. So, before I have a mental breakdown in the middle of the hallway, I find an unlocked janitorial closet before walking in and closing the door behind me, ultimately sliding down the hardwood door once it's shut.

Sitting on the cold, tile floor, I begin sobbing as quiet as I can, my hand covering my mouth. I already had my family drama on my mind all day, but for that girl to unintentionally throw it back in my face? That was the frosting on top of the already leaning, three-layer cake.

Tears stream down my cheeks like raindrops as I cry my heart out. I can tell my cheeks are red by the sensation of heat I currently feel on them; my hands feel it too. I'm crying so hard my chest begins to heave up and down as if I were having a panic attack. Oh God, I can't have a panic attack. Not here, not now.

Behind me, I feel two knocks on the door, causing me to halt. The only problem is: the knock wasn't above me, it was where my back is against the door. Remind you, I'm currently sitting on the floor. The only way someone can knock that low is if there is a midget behind the door there or someone used something like a cane... it's Greg.

Slowly moving up a little, I shakily open the door and let the grey haired man in, watching as he looks at me with pity. I've never seen the confident doctor House look like this with anyone. It's like a... a totally different Greg.

Sitting down beside me against the door, Greg drops his cane beside him as he sighs and wraps his arm around me before gently tugging my body close to his. Shocked, I tense up, tears no longer pouring out of my eyes. Greg never comforts anyone like this. He always makes fun of them or says something that many people take offense to, but he never... he never cares. He always brushes it off his shoulder, yet for some reason, he seems like he actually cares this time.

"What's wrong?" He asks, his voice deep as usual with no emotion.

I wait a few seconds before lying. "Nothing important," I tell him, my voice wavering from my scattered emotions.

Pulling me back to face him, Greg looks me in the eye before sighing again. "I know you've been crying by the wet tears on your cheeks, slight puffiness, and redness to your eyes, and fast-paced breathing - and I don’t even have to be a doctor to notice that," he breaks down my current state, lifting an eyebrow. "Now, are you going to begrudgingly tell me what's wrong or do I need to stay in here with you until you finally give in to all my unrelenting sexiness."

His comment makes me laugh, causing a grimace of a smile to fall on House's lips. Out of all of us, I've been the only one to do that. I've been the only one to break Greg's stone exterior and interior. Plus, It doesn't help that I like Greg romantically. I like the fact that he's confident and witty; he's not afraid to be himself. Although, he can still be quite an ass to others, but to me, he’s always been nothing but kind. Even when I first started working here, he was still patient and sweet - a rare sight to everyone else. It used to hurt me to think he’ll never feel the same way as me, but I’ve gotten so used to that fact that it doesn’t even bother me anymore.

"It's just... my family," I explain, Greg pushing my head back onto his shoulder as he holds me. At this point, I'm not shocked by anything he does. The infamous doctor could be high for all I know. He probably took a few Vicodin tablets before coming down here now that I think of it.

"They've completely... shut me out," I explain, shrugging as I rest my hand on his shoulder. "They never talk to me anymore, they've blocked me in any way of even trying to talk to them. My cousin just sent me an email last night telling me that I didn't need to contact them anymore as they no longer wanted me in their lives," I close my eyes, tears rolling down my cheeks. "Plus, I wish I could work with you guys again," I take a breath before saying the next thing. "I miss you."

A few seconds of silence pass before Greg leans down to my face level. Opening my eyes, I'm greeted by his own sapphire orbs, watching as he continually inches forward until his lips plant themselves on mine. Our eyes close at the same time in response to the touch of our lips, and they stay that way too. With my heart beating fast and a different fire in my cheeks, I instantly respond to his kiss while placing my hands on the sides of his face, feeling his hands attach themselves to my hips as I do so. We kiss until we have to breathe, both of us pulling apart simultaneously.

"They don't deserve you," Greg tells me, a little out of breath. "You are wonderful; a decent and kind human being, inside and out," he takes a small pause, flashing his blue eyes down to mine. "I never thought I’d say this, but… because of you, I think maybe not everyone is a horrible person and that maybe I can be a bit nicer a time or two," he then smiles at me, kissing me once more. "You have made me feel love believe it or not."

Smiling, I lean up to kiss his forehead before sitting back down and resting my head against his chest, my eyes cast upon him as he looks down at me. "You've also made me feel love," I confess to him, my voice shy. "I've grown to love you as well. You and your sarcastic comments and witty comebacks and your insults to apparent stupid people," for once, he laughs, making me grin. "I can't help but love it all."

After a few moments, Greg speaks up. "I know I can't be your entire family," he murmurs, holding me close. "But I can try to be your... your..." He draws on, clearly trying to come up with an appointed title for himself. After a few seconds, I giggle and cut him off.

"Boyfriend?" I ask, making him roll his eyes.

"I was going to say significant other," he argues, looking over to me. "The term boyfriend is so, well, childish," he complains, making me giggle.

Leaning closer, I peck his lips. "Good thing you have a childish mind," I tease him, pressing my lips to his one more time before he responds to my comment with something horrible or completely inappropriate. It is Doctor House we’re talking about, after all.

[cowboymantis]

Started this pretty much immediately when I saw the post! :D

So here is my journey so far! Decided to stop for today (well, it's already tomorrow technically...) since it's 4 am, but I had a lot of fun already :3

I wrote this separately in a notes app, while I was playing, so I'll be just pasting it here:

First of aaaall, I'll give a short comment on the extra PDF:

Advanced Documents for the Board Overseeing Archaeological Research Department

As someone who is familiar with Blade, I tried to put myself into the shoes into someone who has never heard of it, so I think even with this bias it looks very understandable for newcomers to Blade!

Okay, now to the main thing!

I loved the description of the Undead as furries, realistically people would totally first think they are furries (goes with any Tokumon really) 😭

Before I started, I was getting ready and making it look all aesthetic, fully knowing I won't use my epic Oneus card deck from the Trickster album bc it's not a full suit, also fully knowing I won't need all the other dice but they just cool for the photo :3

(Future note: My notebook here has a lot of random information in it, like world times, different currencies of the world, a world map, etc, which is really cool! But now I noticed oh wow it actually lowkey influenced me in my character creation, love the subliminal messages from my own equipment)

Creating a character

Since I am writing those notes, in real time while I am playing the game, I just want to say, the "Thoughts on anti-homeless architecture?" questions in the character creation was a jumpscare. 😭😭 Well we'll see how relevant this will become in the future, I guess... But you're on thin ice 👁👁

Anyway, for the character I tried to make it a bit quick, since I wanted to get to the game fairly quickly to test it out. But the questions about creating the character gave me a lot of inspiration so I sat a bit longer on the making! I guess it's just like the character creation in video games, you end up spending way too much time on it. 😭

He's got some characteristics from me, but at the end everything else, like abilities and origin are mostly OC, in general just more focus on existing in a Kamen Rider world!

So yeah, my rough character sketch:

Put it in more of a cute almost chibi style so I don't spend too long on the drawing kdjdjd

Btw... The name is a BIIIT of a refference to Ravn from Oneus, bc I had to think of them with the card deck staring at me, and I love Ravn, so yay!

His last name's meaning is something along the lines of "peaceful warrior", which I think fit perfectly for the character :)

Also, I tried for the first time to draw an OC Kamen Rider design, I'm not sure yet if I will even go that route, but I just thought it would be cool to have :3 Loosely inspired by the Cobra Undead, since I love snakes and it's my Chinese zodiac funnily enough, and going for the obvious (Mantis Undead) felt kind of weird given Hajime exists lmaoo 😭 He stole not only that humans identity, no, MINE TOO!!! I AM MANTIS!!!

Anyway, let's get to that character lore:

Raven Humphrey

[he/him, aroace which is completely unrelated but I just want to specify it so there is one more aroace character on this planet 🙏]

Age: 34

Origin: Alaska

BOARD:

- just newly joined BOARD as a Kamen Rider in training

- saw weird people in suits fighting monsters, was immediately intrigued, so he followed them, ended up being the one attacked by an Undead, actually tried to fight back, until he got rescued by the suited people and got ridiculed for doing such a dangerous thing. Wouldn't stop pestering them until they told him what they were and now he somehow ended up training to be a Kamen Rider

- is very fascinated by the Undead, thinks they're actually kinda cute! Thinks fighting them looks fun, but is kind of sad about the only option to interact with them to be hostile, so he likes to imagine different possibilities how to interact otherwise

Even has a small notebook where he has a lot of sketches of the Undead he encounters

- is, like any decent person, very much against anti-homeless architecture and gets kind of sad whenever he sees it

Before BOARD/backstory/overall character:

- grew up in Alaska, was always rather quiet, but easy to make friends with once you get to know him. He's rather introverted though, so he never really went on too many activities during his childhood

- doesn't have the best relationship with most of his family (probably bc they want grandchildren or something), but is still in contact with his older sister from time to time

- nowadays generally prefers peace and quiet over everything else, but has been doing Judo from an early age, later on started fencing, then archery. So while he is regularly more of a pacifist, he can get heated in a fun battle and his old battle spirit gets ignited!

- actually got heavily in trouble in high school for knocking out someone cold in a battle THEY started and didn't expect him to fight back. From then on spiraled into a bit of a street fight phase, got thrown out of his Judo team due to that

- normally is rather logical and tries to see things through, but also always tries to see the best in things and the best in people, since he went through a rough depressive episode during his teenage years (probably the major factor of his more aggresive behaviour during that time) and since then managed to come out more positive and controls his anger well now

- worked a bunch of different jobs you can do from anywhere (like writing books, doing journalism or photo/video editing, which back then definetly wasn't something just anyone could do!), so he could travel the world a lot, in the countries he stayed he would also sometimes work in random establishments, primarily works with heavy lifting since he's quite strong and also doesn't need to talk too much in those (helpful when you're introverted and not an expert at a language)

- in general is just interested in many things and loves to learn about new stuff

- really liked it in Japan, always loved different movies and shows from there, especially when they had fighting, and decided to study the language more in-depth and live there for a while (since all of this Kamen Rider stuff is happening, seems like he'll be staying there for a bit longer!)

Special skills:

- martial arts, different weapon fighting skills and also quite strong

- skilled in first aid (very useful and needed when you're travelling alone all across the world)

- very cold resistant due to growing up in Alaska

- I guess it is kind of a special skill, stays cool most of the time (no Alaska joke inteded) and its very hard to rile him up nowadays

- speaks a bit of multiple languages

- different computer skills

Relationship to the other characters:

Kenzaki:

- thinks very positively of him, while they haven't talked too much, he thinks Kenzaki is a good person, maybe even a bit too good given how naive he seems, but appreciates that there are people like this

Shiori

- probably interacted with her the most so far, since he's very interested in the Undead and their story. Overall the easiest to talk to for him, maybe because she almost feels like a little sister

Kotaro

- thinks he's a bit silly, but alright other than that (but the obsession with milk is, no offense, kind of disgusting)

Hajime

- thinks he's an alright guy, but they never really talk. Probably all of their conversations would just consist of silence since none of them would want to be the first one to talk

Tachibana:

- isn't so sure how to feel about him, since he seems a bit unstable, but trusts him anyway, since he and Kenzaki were the ones saving Raven back then from the Undead, so in a way he feels like he owes them trust

Mutsuki

- thinks he means well overall, but sees him as a bit annoying, but that's just how teenagers are. He'll hopefully grow out of it

Everyone else not named: neutral

Position in house:

Second floor, his room is filled with different bits and bops from all the places Raven has visited and immediately looked very lived in!

Now, finally getting into the gameplay!!!

Already like the system with different tasks and how cards are being used to determine what you're going to be up to for the day!

Also damn!! Started off with some great RNG, get to do 3 tasks!

For those, I pulled K, Q and Joker!

(Live Mantis reaction:

Okay let's see what task K is- OH MY GOD)

Anyway, Day 1 from the perspective of my character now, imagine him reminiscing or writing about the day in a journal:

"This day was certainly off to a rather weird start! I finally finished packing all of my belongings in the temporary farmhouse home, and it seemed like a quiet moment for once, so I went out for a walk to get my mind off things. So much happened all at once, it's only natural you need a bit of a time out, right?

Well, seems like the universe had other plans... For some reason, this weird guy claiming to work for the IRS just kept on bothering me. Not sure how he knew me, IF he even knew me (I didn't ask about my name at all) or if he even was IRS.

It was rather annoying, but thankfully, I just started to talk English, which he didn't seem to understand, and act like a confused tourist. Which probably just confused him more in turn, since he just completely stopped trying to annoy me at all.

Guess that's one way to get rid of the IRS (don't try this at home kids!)

Being sure that weird man went away, I continued my journey around the city. And I went down this really idyllic forest path, when I set my sights on an absolute abomination. Such a beautiful bench, ruined by an ugly metal bar in the middle. Surely, this was just to prevent homeless people from sleeping on it. Not even that, it also looked absolutely hideous.

Now, I normally try to stay calm, but I just couldn't, it infuriated me so much, I just HAD to get rid of those. I'm sure I'd be doing a favour to everyone.

Thankfully, it wasn't to hard for me to get them off the benches, but when I was just finished with a second one, an officer spotted me! And I was so stupid and held the other one still in my hand, thinking I could recycle it into a cool makeshift weapon or something else. But it just ended up exposing me further and the cop watched me put both of them back again... Ah, well I guess all I got was a warning.

Eventually, I decided to just give up and go back home anyway, away from scammers and police."

Adding to the Joker Task: Omg this reminds me so much of one of my favourite dramas, SPEC: Birth, where one of the protagonist always throws a bunch of paper in the air (it has a point there but the mental image I got from this task just reminded me of it!)

Also, just trying to make sure, but I'm fairly certain this isn't canon/included in the story, since it is a "safe", aka a joker task?

DAY 2

Exciting, my first Undead Encounter!

Also, I keep accidentally writing Unded 💀 My brain is rotting from the internet I swear

Omg, I got a King of Clubs 😭 Tarantula Undead... Guess that's probably the most fitting first encounter for my character (well, Shima to be more specific bc he's also rather chill)

But that also means no fighting!

"Yesterday I pretty much just fell into my bed, exhausted from everything and then those weird encounters on my walk. I'm not gonna lie, I was feeling a bit down this morning and just wandered around the house a bit.

Eventually I started to get into a little chat with Shima, who also was around at the time. I never really actually got to talk with him, so I didn't know he was so chill! If anything, it just further proves my theories that Undead don't necessarily have to be fought. It makes me wonder if there are any other Undead like him..."

DAY 3

I didn't roll an Encounter, so I thought it would be a fitting idea to make my character look for an Undead, after a conversation with Shima he might be encouraged to try and look for Undead to potentially befriend.

And...Oh boy we'll see if this will go horribly wrong or if he gets lucky for once!

And yes, I actually got an Encounter and pulled 7 of Hearts. SO CLOSE to 8 Hearts! Why do I care about 8 Hearts? Bc now I have Welcome To Hell stuck in my head, aka the boss theme of 8 Hearts in No More Heroes Travis Strikes Again... the boss also likes to say RIDER KICK when attacking you, so I guess it's all connected somehow-

Anyway, I got distracted again!!!

"Today, I was feeling rather optimistic! Talking with Shima gave me some new hope again, and especially ensures me that it's not impossible to get along with different Undead. Obviously, since my training isn't complete, it's not recommended I go and look for Undead myself, so Mutsuki was sent by Tachibana to follow me, since he somehow knew my intentions for leaving. Ah well. I mean, the kid isn't bad (I think), but edgy teens like him are the exact reason I don't ever want to be a parent. No offense, but I just couldn't handle this all day.

One day though, I guess that's fine. Or rather, part of one day.

We were walking through a park, when suddenly, I felt like something held me back! And there I noticed, something was tangled around my ankle, I could just about stop myself from tripping.

Didn't take me long to realize it was an Undead, because it revealed itself, probably trying to squish me, thankfully Mutsuki quickly reacted and punched it away.

This encounter definetly didn't start off friendly, but I tried my best talking to it! I'm... honestly not sure if it understood me or just chose to ignore me, but I felt like talking to a wall. I guess it was annoying even Mutsuki, since he told me to just leave it to him, eventually defeating the Undead and sealing it.

Honestly, I was a bit frustrated. I told him we could've tried harder, he answered it just won't listen. Eventually, he just threw the card at me and told me I can always try and talk to it this in there, not that it would know.

Now I'm home again, staring at this card while writing... I'm... not sure how this made me feel. I guess, some Undead just have to be fought because they have a more violent nature.

It definetly sucks, but I'm also not saying no to an exiting fight..."

Having the Plant Undead as an encounter while Raven was trying to look for one to befriend was definitely kind of funny. I was trying to think, but I just don't think that's an Undead you can befriend. Not saying it's impossible! Just maybe for my character :'D Also it's a good character development moment where he learns early on how different the Undead can be!

DAY 4

Another day with tasks, 3 again and... JOKER AGAIN??? Like damn I know the Joker Undead is one of my favourite designs ever but damn...

Anyway, I got Joker, 3, 6!

"I guess I woke up rather early today, I just was very exhausted after yesterday, once again! But I decided to do something nice for everyone and prepare breakfast today!

There was this dish that wouldn't leave my mind ever since I tried it in a breakfast menu in Germany! To be honest, I had to look up what it was called in my journals: Kaiserschmarrn.

But I absolutely wanted to try and recreate it, so more people can experience it.

It's basically like a scrambled egg for pancakes, if that makes sense.

And, well, I guess it smelled very good because everyone was commenting on that, but once we tasted it... Yeah, I think I definetly mistook the salt for sugar...

I mean, because of the cinnamon sweetening it too, it wasn't aaawful, but it also wasn't good either. Funnily enough, I think Tachibana really liked it, which, I don't know if he acted like he did, out of sympathy, or he actually just has a weird taste.

Either way, I think in theory this recipe would've been nice, if I actually added sugar. Ah well, we'll see next time!"

Fun fact: I tried making Kaiserschmarrn the other day for the first time and I was amazed at how easy it was and everyone absolutely LOVED it, I inhaled everything off my plate in record time it was so good. So it went the exact opposite from what my character here experienced lmaooo this poor guy man 😭

I got the baseball practice next, and I just want to add: this is actually such a creative way to implement that training into this game!

"Later that day, Tachibana asked if I wanted to do baseball practice with him and Mutsuki.

...I knew exactly what that meant and no, I am not good at it. I don't even know why, with my skillset, hell, archery especially! I technically should be good at it, but it seems almost impossible to me.

But with everything, practice creates the master.

So I did join them, and I would say I was very average at it. And with average I mean about how good a regular person with no fighting experience would be at it.

I mean, I did guess some of them.

But I always impulsively punched them away, and I might've accidentally hit Mutsuki on the head with one!

Now, I am not one to start a fight or hold a grudge but all I'll say this is payback for him being so stubborn with the Plant Undead. Yes, I am still thinking about that. Yes, I do think mayyybe it was possible to befriend it.

Either way, I think all things considered, and the unfortunate happenings aside, today was quite fun."

It's funny, the ONE character my character was a bit negative towards (Mutsuki) is now one he keeps on having to interact with, like a kid having to babysit his smaller brother 😭😭😭

NEXT TIME ON OWO, THERE WILL BE AMONG US... (Yes I rolled that task)

But for now, it's sleepy time.

As a last visualization, page 1 from today and my setup dkdjdj

Hopefully me going through my experience like this kind of shows the thought process of someone who did not make the game and just goes after the instructions, however here are some things I haven't explicitly listed during my playthrough, and just thought about later on:

I started to kind of question this when my first real fight started:

Does your character have Kamen Rider abilies in the fights?

Or just the characters that help you?

When an Undead gets sealed, does your character get the card? (aka can you freely decide?)

If your character has Kamen Rider abilities, do you just make up a new Category Ace Undead card for them (however that would work logically)?

Obviously, a lot of things are open for interpretation, since it's all about telling your own story with vague instructions, and at the end of the day you can literally do what you want, but I was just very unsure about those points personally, and if they were intended in a certain way, or if you're completely free to go Kamen Rider fighting route (wether it is from beginning on or during your journey)!

Version 1 of the Kamen Rider Blade Solo Journal RPG project is now up!

I'll be posting the link in a reblog of this post in a second. This is my first time making one of these, so any constructive criticism is very, very much recommended. I hope you enjoy trying it out! And if there's any issues with the gameplay, please let me know immediately. Thank you!