#if i can get a better pencil i will be drawing interactions with other characters

[higanberryceo]

prosecutor kay!!!! been drawing her for 4 hours save me

[the-s1lly-corner]

Drawing each other (CRPS 1/2)

I'm probably going to forget to break these posts up unless like- I dont write all the fandom parts at once so I'm sorry you guys have to see the same prompt but different groups of characters/fandoms over and over LMAO

Characters: slenderman, splendorman, masky, hoodie, ticci toby

Notes: reader is GN, admin tossed a coin on whether or not the reader is an artist or not

CWs: none

SLENDERMAN

neither of you are... good artists... but neither of you are about to judge one another for your skill levels

im... not even sure hes picked up a pencil before in his life, and that shows in his drawing of you

he keeps the art you make of him tucked away somewhere, where exactly... youre not actually sure, but you know he keeps them as youve caught him holding them before

you keep his drawings of you tucked away somewhere where they cant be damaged

... its not the best bonding activity, but its a nice little moment between the two of you that feels... normal

SPLENDORMAN

he love love loves watching you draw, so when you approached him with this idea hes over the moon! you want to draw him? and you want him to draw you as well? say no more!

hes not insanely skilled, but he doodles here and there! likes using bright colors, so expect his drawing of you to be vibrant! if you let him hes going to add extra stuff such as glitter and stickers! youre not sure where he gets them...

waits patiently for you to finish your drawing, he even does his best to sit as still as possible so you can get a better reference of him

even if its not your best work- in your opinion- hes going to treat it like its the greatest piece of art made by anyone ever

hangs it up on the fridge, and will constantly praise you

is it a little much? ...yes... but damn it hes going to let you know how much he loves it!

MASKY

i like to think that proxies are the ones who create slenders pages, and... well they arent exactly pretty, a lot being just scribbles

doesnt find much enjoyment in drawing, but he may agree to do this with you

now you on the other hand, you like drawing... and its likely masky may pick up on some of the things you do when making it, even if you dont notice him hes somewhere watching you

his drawing of you has the scratchy look a lot of the pages have... but since hes given more time to work on it, it looks a lot nicer than some of the pages even if theres some flaws in the anatomy and all

quietly looks at the drawing youve made of him, he doesnt seem offended by your portray of him so at least you have that going for you!

gently places it on the table, but youre sure hes going to put it in his stash somewhere in the house to keep for later

HOODIE

not much of an artist, and neither are you

generally the interaction is pretty light hearted, even if there isnt much talking between the two of you

very proud of his drawing of you, even if it ends up being a mass of colors that only slightly resemble you- similar to masky, theres a lot of that scratchy black scribbling on his drawing of you

gives you a thumbs up when he receives your drawing of him, he doesnt say anything but thats to be expected from him

tucks it into the back pocket of his pants

TICCI TOBY

he cant draw, but you can... it leads to a.. funny exchange

you put so much time into drawing him how you view him, even if its just a quick colored sketch, its going to look like mona lisa compared to what toby is about to show you

you both poke fun at the skill difference between the two of you, it quickly leads to the both of you needing to take minute in order to catch your breath

hes not interested in art, or improving his skills however hes going to jump at the idea of you offering to teach him some stuff

just to spend time with you, really! there isnt much spare time to do that given his being a proxy thing... likes any excuse to hang around

[fagboyfriend]

i rlly like ur composition, i wanna know about your process :D

thank uuu !! yeah so like. composing a scene for me generally begins with a vague idea that i want to get down as quickly as possible- and for me that usually starts with finding a setting. I knew that i wanted to draw a) a group of roomates gossiping in a crowded kitchen and i wanted there to be b) one figure in the extreme foreground and c) lots of plants. i do use some tools to figure out perspective, mainly the csp perspective ruler. Usually i start by finding a picture i like similar to the vibe im going for- but instead of referencing anything else- im purely interested in perspective. sorry to anyone who is shocked i dont generate all of my perspective purely by myself- i can draw in perspective fairly well but i struggle to make straight lines and this is easier to make grids with than the line tool lol ^_^ i try to use it kinda more like spellcheck on typos than like something to fully rely on. this is the video i learned this trick from:

i saw the left photo and realllly loved how the cabinets alligned with the wall- so i used my ruler tool to draw out my inital plotted points from the image- basically the linear movements i was most interested in and then i turned off the image layer and worked with those lines and the ruler tool to move on. eventually i had this:

which was enough for me to put my characters in for the inital round. if you notice- i made a looot of further adjustments as i go on. this sketch is not a final layout, its so my characters have somewhere to be! i cannot draw someone standing on a floor if theres no floor, nor leaning on a table that doesnt exist. i can’t draw my characters without a background, but i also cant finish my background without accounting for how my characters can comfortably exist in it!!

this was the like.. very basic start. i knew the positions of two characters- but i needed to change a lot not only to fit them better but to allow for the other two figures i had planned.

okay.. a little better. i widened the kitchen, closed the fridge door.. added a chair and fit in all the figures.. but this is waaay too dramatic. only two figures are actually interacting- and they are at wildly different energy levels!

this is where things started to make a little more sense characterwiss, so i was ready to refine backgrounds and figures and unite the two.

inital base sketch. much better layout.

okay- this is where im getting my footing but things seem.. really really off. You can see me working on my framing here- theres some good linear movement from left to right here- but not vertically. It’s hard to notice the figure in the far back, so i need to redirect the viewers eye to move upwards as well!

this is where i decided to zoom out, add an interesting vertical element to the left of the image and make it clearer whats happening in the foreground. i had to account for some stuff by adjusting the cropping, but i paid attention to that as well.

annnd- thats what a clean sketch looks for me! i have all the elements of my scene accounted for, and things are clean enough to read.

the next step for me would be transfer! essentially- I print the image of my sketch out, resizing and taping pages together so my sketch matches the size of the paper i want to paint on, and then i use a lightboard to transfer my sketch with pencil onto my paper. Then i refine the sketch a few times on paper before stretching my watercolor paper (essentially just prepping for painting) and inking with a brush and colored ink before going in with watercolor, gouache and ink, then usually finishing with marker, colored pencil, pastel and ink. it’s a lengthy process but a lot of fun lol. but sketches for me can be like.. 15 layers of different roughs until im happy with just the sketch. there were more images but im on mobile and theres a 10 image limit 😭😭 im a bit masochistic but i believe that if i dont have a good sketch i dont have a good painting!!

[0rb0t]

Don't mind me, just talking about Shadow as being on the autistic spectrum, and how his portrayal in the games and anime (before 2010s era) reflected this even if it was never outright stated.

(TIME FOR A CHARACTER ANALYSIS ABOUT SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG)

    When I was in high school, I struggled a lot in social situations, I'd go completely stiff and just watch people. I had a "resting bitch face", I never really could have conversations and seemed to just fixate on things. I'd make observations that irritated people. I'd ask "why" a lot. (Asking why or even asking 'obvious' questions seemed to make people think I was questioning their judgment, or that I was challenging them. But no, I just didn't understand and wanted clarification. I still run into this a lot and I wish people would stop assuming I have ulterior motives. I just wanna understand stuff better cause it doesn't connect for me. Even if it seems obvious. I'm the genius that asked my mom why she was crying at her dad's funeral when I was 11. It's not that I didn't understand why Grandpa was gone, I knew he passed away, but it hadn't really landed for me, and my brain registered my mom's sadness before it registered the why.)

    I didn't like small talk (still don't) and would rather every interaction have a specific purpose. You'd never catch me at a party and I didn't think drinking or drugs looked fun or interesting. The act of rebelling didn't interest me either. The few interests I did have were something I'd always go back to, and I couldn't function without them. (For me, drawing has always been a huge part of my life and if I didn't have a pencil or pen and paper, then I couldn't hear. I know, very weird. If I were doodling or just even had my sketchbook open, I could study a lot easier. In High school, my teachers started telling me to put the sketchbook away, and my grades plummeted because my attention did, too. Trying to tell them just kind of led to the same old "well everyone else can't doodle so you can't either". I wasn't in any of the special ed stuff because I guess I masked too well.)

    Sonic 06 and Sonic X have the same characterization for Shadow, especially in Japanese, and I think that's honestly the best he'd ever been-- he's quiet, he's reserved, he observes and he doesn't like to "waste time". Not because he's edgy, not because he's a jerk or too serious, but because he struggles in social situations and he's more introverted. He doesn't want to be the centre of attention, he doesn't enjoy any of that. Shadow also behaves like an adult, and I'm sure a ton of us on the spectrum have heard that before, that we're very mature for our age. In reality, we can't relate with our peers and have very fixated interests that don't really expand to other things. Limited interests and we just wanna do stuff tied to that. We know so much about that one thing or those things, but those things won't get you ahead in school. Unless you're LUCKY and your fixation is math, oy vey! (My fixation was etymology. I loved learning and knowing where words came from. Useful for 2 seconds in English class, quickly loses its usefulness in a skill-oriented world.)

    I don't even think he's naturally boastful, at least he wasn't since SA2 (when he was an antagonist), but Sonic brings out a competitive side in him. Sonic brings out the childhood-self that he lost to trauma and being sealed away. Shadow never got to be a normal kid/adult. He has always had expectations placed on him. I think Sonic really brings out a side of him that even surprises himself. It's why he will even say very often "What am I doing?" or "This is such a waste of time!" but he won't STOP… Because he's having fun and doesn't know how to describe his own feelings. Shadow's the type who'll say "I'm fine" no matter what state he's in when you ask if he's okay. My spouse is like this actually-- I can often tell when he's feeling down, but he doesn't know how to describe emotions beyond functional things like "i'm healthy" or "i'm unhealthy", so he'll say he's fine even if he's having a melancholy day. I struggle with understanding my emotional responses, but not necessarily identifying them. A lot of people on the spectrum do struggle with identifying their emotions beyond empirical things. "Do I feel sick? No? then I'm fine" Shadow is exactly like this. And because his expression is so neutral, sometimes intense, he gets mistaken as being angry or too serious. In reality, he's just standing there. He's not gonna expend energy smiling when he's got nothing to smile about. Why force yourself to emote for people? Especially if it feels unnatural.

    Another thing about Shadow being autistic is if he's got nothing to say, then he won't say it. If he wants to leave, he'll leave. Good luck stopping him! But for many actual people it's not an option to leave. We can't just teleport out or skate at lightning speeds like he can, so we have to just sit there and do little coping or self soothing methods to keep ourselves in the moment and calm. We don't often see Shadow stimming in traditionally understood ways, like lip biting or rubbing his arms or fidgeting with his fingers-- but he often stands with his arms crossed. This CAN BE a stim. Feeling the weight of your arms on top of each other, it allows for you to be aware of your own body. I fold my arms a lot in public, because I'm usually playing with the hem of my sleeves, or I'm rubbing my arms or squeezing them. Shadow doesn't seem to do any of that but he's rarely seen without his arms folded.

    When his arms aren't folded, he stands so still and just stares at people. He looks completely out of his element. He doesn't seem to have a relaxed stance--until the anime, where he's shown standing with his hand on his hip. Rouge also does this, leading to the popular headcanons that Shadow is unintentionally imitating Rouge-- his masking leads him to identify the most 'normal' person in the room and copy their behavior in order to blend in better. Unfortunately it rarely, in my experience, leads to people NOT thinking I'm weird. Sometimes I'll even start imitating speech patterns or accents and BOY. I don't even realize I'm doing it until it HAPPENS. So embarrassing. But Shadow absolutely imitates everyone around him. We can see him do this even as far back as Sonic Heroes--that scene where he's nodding or shaking his head to whatever Rouge is saying. The scene where Sonic starts getting competitive and Shadow starts kind of imitating his posture and his way of speaking to become competitive with them-- I don't even think he realizes he's doing it. But it also makes sense with his NAME.

    His name is Shadow. I think of Peter Pan, where Peter's Shadow can sometimes get away from him. Usually it does everything he does, but sometimes it gets away and does its own things, and Peter has to catch it. Wendy sews the shadow back on in Hook. I think Shadow's name is referencing that as well, that just like a shadow, he mimics those around him. He's watching over them, but also copying them. Learning to blend in.

    Another moment I adore is in SA2 (and Sonic X) when Amy Rose hugs him from behind. According to the 2010s era and early IDW, you'd have expected Shadow to push her away or yell DONT TOUCH ME or whatever. But no, he actually just goes REALLY RIGID and doesn't even say anything. It isn't until Amy realizes her mistake that Shadow turns around to look at her, smiling like 'What are you doing???' But in Sonic X, they changed this scene further into autistic territory--

    Shadow doesn't even TURN to her. He goes rigid, yes, and his eyes widen and he just stands there looking towards the audience like 8| He's completely OUT OF HIS ELEMENT. He prepared for the mission, NOT to deal with random people HUGGING HIM. He's probably not been hugged since Maria over 50 years ago. We don't even know if Maria hugged him much because Shadow has always seemed pretty touch-averse. I love GIVING hugs and I love receiving hugs but only from people I'm REALLY close to. I don't even like getting hugs from extended family. My spouse? VERY touch averse. He'll get hugs from me but hugging and touch are just not his thing. Shadow is not a huggy person, but he does tend to hold hands.

    We know he grabbed and held Maria's hand, running with her-- but we never actually saw that until Sonic X (2003) he can be seen running with her away from the military, and he's holding her hand as he leads her. In Shadow the Hedgehog, Maria often grabs Shadow's hand when telling him things. This is also a grounding method to bring the person into the moment. For me, I feel like I can focus better on what my spouse is saying to me when he holds my hand and it's crowded or busy. Even in our home, if he wants to tell me something, I recommend that he hold my hand or touch my arm so I can focus on him better. This happens with Shadow.

    Sonic doesn't tend to hold peoples' hands. In Sonic X he usually just picks people up, but we do see him grab Elise's arm in 06 and run with her. But holding hands? Not really his thing! Shadow does do it more often though. In Sonic X S3, in the episode, Molly's Dream, Shadow's immediate way of leading Molly away from danger is to grab and hold her hand. He even keeps holding her hand until she lets go. It speaks to me the sort of childlike behavior he may still be exhibiting, but not that I'm trying to say that autistic people are more like children. From my experience on the spectrum, I am more childish than my peers. I still react like a kid might to things, and I don't really think like an adult is expected to. I am mentally behind my peers as well, I think my emotional maturity is lower? But it's hard to measure that without a doctor. It's not just about laughing at fart jokes or knowing to pay bills, it's like, how I problem solve is more creatively aligned with kids than it is adults. This is both great and terrible, depending on the situation. A situation that requires math and stuff cannot be solved my way. A situation that involves encouraging kids to try again or be nice to each other, well it's very useful because I can communicate with them on their level (I was a teacher in South Korea for over half a decade, my brain was great for being a teacher but not great for other things).

    I think Shadow really gets misread as a mean guy a lot, but he really isn't. I also don't really enjoy the headcanons that imagine him as very outgoing and whimsical when he was on the ARK, and I especially don't like headcanons that infantilize him-- I really don't like headcanons where people infantilize autistic people. We've seen Shadow when he loses his memories a few times. In Heroes, but also in S3 of Sonic X-- his personality is still the same. He's still reserved, he's still quiet, he still struggles in social situations and prefers getting to the point rather than dilly-dallying. I'd argue that he was exactly like that before the incident on the ARK, too. It's just that the incident caused his inner peace to be destroyed. His precious person, Maria, was no longer around and he lost everything all at once. He doubled down on the one thing that made sense: Revenge. But even after all of that was sorted out, he's not gonna just magically be a different person. He's still reserved, he's still serious, he's still "get to the point". If he played FFXIV, he'd only focus on main quests, and never do side quests. He'd never spend money on cosmetics, probably. He's likely a person who values gameplay over story. If the game is broken or the mechanics aren't utilized well, that's probably more what he'd be fixated on than whether the story was good or not. He'd skip through dialogue because he reads fast, even if the dialogue is voiced (my spouse does this and it drives me nuts. SHADOW I BEG OF YOU PLEASE DO IT FOR ME, DISABLE THE VOICE ACTING IN OPTIONS SO I STOP HEARING THE FIRST UTTERANCE OF A WORD EVERY TIME U MASH THROUGH THE DIALOGUE)

    Trauma affects people in all kinds of ways. I don't think all autistic people are like Shadow, because autism is a spectrum and no two people present exactly the same, although there will be similarities. Shadow's trauma happened at a time where he barely knew himself already, so that's why it was so easy for him to fixate on revenge, and then he'd be content with dying afterwards because he figured he had nothing left to live for. Finding out he was wrong was the best thing that could have happened to him.

    I was really saddened when SEGA decided he was an edgelord who hated everything and had no friends because that's such a horrible read of this nuanced character. In my personal headcanons for Shadow, he's actually very into plants and flowers, because Maria loved the planet so much. And eventually he learns to love the planet because of nature. Shadow's never going to be a people person, in fact he probably still doesn't care much for people as a whole, but that doesn't mean he won't step up when they need his help. Which is why his line in Sonic 06 is still so poignant. "If the world chooses to become my enemy, then I'll fight like I always have." Basically, it really doesn't matter, I've made my choice, I know who I am now and I get to make those decisions. No one else will shake the foundations of who I am.

    And because he knows who he is, he doesn't feel the need to repeat it and boast about himself. He's confident, not arrogant. He can be smug and competitive, but that's playfulness, not cruelty. He's quiet and may just straight up walk away while someone is mid-sentence, but that's not because he's evil or intentionally being a jerk-- it's just how he is. He needs to work on it if he wants to have friends, but his friends already understand him very well. They know that he's like that, and from what we saw in The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, occasionally they forget it's not personal. I'm happy to see them admitting "oh no, I completely misjudged you, I'm so sorry!" because it's been way too long since we've heard the main cast apologize to Shadow for assuming he was a big jerk on purpose.

    Knowing the restrictions on how Shadow is written have been lifted, I'm really hoping we can get more of how he's meant to be, the reserved, socially awkward but well-meaning hedgehog we love. Autistic Shadow FTW!

    

(our experiences and headcanons

may differ, that's okay.)

[canmom]

l'aventure d'canmom à annecy épisode DEUX - lundi - partie 1

sure hope everyone knows the days of the week in French.

I'm gonna be writing throughout the day today because there's gonna be a lot!

this morning i wasted my reservation for The Most Precious of Cargoes by not showing up early enough, rip. As a consolation I went into Grad Films 1! These kinda slapped! ...mostly anyway.

first up, we had Sheep Out by Zofia Klamka, which was pure style. a severely dressed animator has her routine disrupted by a runaway cartoon sheep, taking her on a crazy chase through the ads and posters of the city. edited tight as fuck, the initial routine montage of match cuts transitioning perfectly into crazy smears, wacky perspectives and some really playful shots with the characters running through posters at different scales and interacting with the real world. calls to mind Kon. hell of an opener.

Apartment 203 was a bit of a dud for me. Found footage style about a serial killer, it explains the premise in text at the outset so there is little tension, and it's just a camera looking around a dirty CG with foley of breathing, music, and offscreen violence and screams.

Luckily such misses were not the rule in this block!

Echoes by Robinson Drossos used a very strong sketchy traditional animation style to depict a boy descending into a sewer that becomes an increasingly surreal cave. The pencil texture and strength of drawing and movement do a ton for this one, i fully winced when the boy falls down a shaft hitting his head on every surface.

Carrotica by Daniel Sterlin-Altman was a blast. It's about the desires and fantasies of a single mum obsessed with her carrot research and her repressed gay son who writes erotica in his notebooks, all depicted in stop motion. Excellent naturalistic voice acting and a script that is both funny and very genuine.

Humantis by Paris Baillie from Calarts was a really cool stop motion one about flower petal creatures which engage in strange formal dances, and one of these creatures whose white petals start becoming corrupted with green. The creature tears petals from the others to try to hide its condition but inevitably gets found out, only to discover other green humantises. Yet in the final shot of the film, we see that it still mourns its white petals. I loved the visual style here - really imaginative creature designs.

You are the truck and I am the deer was not really to my taste - poetry over abstract imagery of corruption and trauma, i kinda get it, but it felt a bit too generic for me.

Yapalaponky by Masataka Kihara... I'm sure glad I can post a picture so I don't have to describe the creature. The film depicts a series of cute/funny little interactions between the man and the creature, good visual gags around weight and such, eventually pulling back to a child in a car on the way to a funeral (I think). Always interesting to see jp animation outside the anime bubble - I appreciate the visual imagination of these weird guys with their う faces.

The Time Botanist by Glenn Paul-Parvenu is a delightful tribute to rubber hose and earlier animation, with its mc getting sneezed back into older and older styles by her anthropomorphised time machine. Good concept, nails the execution!

The Last Visit by Keawalee Warutkomain is a meditation on grief, animated in the pages of a book. Foregrounding its process this much, it led me inevitably to think about the act of making a film to grieve someone. I made a short animation when Fall died - it was really rough, but I felt moved to use the art I was making at the time to commemorate her somehow. I always felt a little ashamed that I didn't make something better, but like... as if she'd care! And it makes me wonder like, the stuff about technical execution, how it relates to something so personal as a film about grief - but then, it's not just a personal project, it's being screened for others here. What is the right way to make art 'for' someone who has died? I really don't know.

In this case, Warutkomain is mourning her aunt. The film is more about the experience of grief than the aunt herself, and it felt a little too long for what it had as such an abstract film, but like, it feels cruel to make that kind of criticism. It certainly provoked thought of my own experience of grief, but the subject is inherently resonant - I realised I was getting lost in my head and missing the film. I don't know what to make of it all. Certainly the animation in the pages of a book was a cool effect.

Adiós by José Prats seemed like another such personal film, but in this case a tight drama. A father is struggling to accept the departure of his son, the dialogue full of loaded lines about leaving him behind. They go out hunting, but their dog accidentally eats poison; the father is resigned to losing the dog, but the son runs to fetch salt instead of staying at their side - and this turns out to be the right call, since the dog is saved, and the father finally accepts his son's decision. Strongly executed stop motion, this was a very solid note to end on.

I love student films, because there are few other cases where people get to create with such few restraints. Which isn't to say there aren't pressures - students are trying to impress future employers and their instructors and so forth, and they draw inspiration from other student films so you get certain genres - but I'm always impressed by the sheer variety of stuff that people can cook up in just a year. Definitely a strong block, can't wait for more. (Also some of the directors were present, I hope they appreciated the applause - living the dream of getting a film into annecy. one day.)

[franjayheadcannons]

Hello, It's been a while

Hello friends, it's been a while, isn't it? Is crazy to think that this blog will be 10 years next year, that i was just a young adult, still a kid when i started it. I don't know if someone will be interested in reading my ramblings of growing old and art but i would like to think someone do.

I strated this blog in 2015 but the story starts a little earlier. One day, some time before, a few years even, i found in deviantart and artist that i really liked, miss KPenDragon. I was enamored by her art and her stories when i started reading her fanfic "The Bully and the Geek". That's how i started shipping Francis and Sanjay from Fairly Odd Parents. That is quite a condensed version of the story to be honest. In 2015 I decided to start a blog to write my ideas for the ship, reblog KP's content and see if there were any other people who liked this ship. I cannot help but smile reading some of the things i wrote, the way i reacted or the things i drew. Some are funny, other cringe, but in the end it makes me want to hug my little self.

Ten years ago i was a little weird thing, i was supposed to be an adult but i wasn't. I was still a nerdy girl who wanted to make friends and get along with my classmates, i tought that life in college would be different but it wasn't. I was lost, trying very hard and with friends that weren't so... receptive of me having an hyperfixation. My english was weird, a bit broken, my stories were stuffed with cliches and my art was anatomically... funny.

But i was happy creating.

I still remember one night my best friend stayed over and we talked until 8 am. He let me ramble for hours about this Persona FOP AU I was obsessed with. My mom woke up to go to work and almost killed us.

Recently life has been a bitch, I won't talk about it here but let's just say i'm in a very toxic workplace away from family, friends and in a country i cannot simply go out and enjoy my time. All this brought me back to what made me happy, i checked old fandoms and blogs i used to religious check every single day. It brought back memories and made me feel much better. It gave me the itch to draw once again, to write just fun things, not forcing myself to write the dark novel i've been working on for moths.

This brings me back to this blog. I decided that i wanted to come back, even if it's form time to time, to draw and maybe write a bit more. To be sincery i probably will draw funny thing or just Francis and Sanjay being cute together. One day I want to write something heartwrenching, with deep characters and important themes or drae a beautiful piece like the artist i admire, but not all my art have to be like that.

It can be just fun.

I want to draw Schrodinger wearing a stupd sweater or cuddling with a random Sanjay. I want to redraw cute anime bases. I want to use the characters like fashion dolls and just draw cute clothes. I want to write weird ideas for AUs I will never write about, I want to make small one shots with no connection in between them.

Next year I will be 30 and i just want to draw and write like when i was 12, when drew something on a paper and gave my 100%. I used makers, pencils, and was proud by the end of it, not questioning myself, feeling bad because my art isn't "that good" If i can give any advice to anybody reading this: Just do the shit that makes you happy. Maybe when you turn 30 you will have your life together, maybe you will have the job you want, a place of your own and someone you love. Maybe you will be kilometers away from your family and friends in an awful job, not sure of what will happend next. Maybe you are both, with bad things and good things going on.

Either way, buy that cheap BTS pencil case, draw two characters that never had a meaningful interaction in canon kissing, write that shifter omegaverse with weird animals. Just do it.

It's fun. It's nice and it will make you happy.

I dont know how much effot i will put back in this blog, If I will make a post once a year, but i will be back because it makes me happy.

[joggerfive]

Almost

Re-listened to the Season 1 side missions "The Brunswick Incident" as part of the community run and immediately latched on to Sam and Haley, so I've written a lil fic about them!

Also the beginning is influenced by Firewatch because these two being in radio contact from different towers gave me Henry and Delilah vibes

Link to read on AO3 here if you prefer!

Summary: An interaction between Sam and Haley in their own radio shacks as they get to know one another (and poke fun at their bosses in the process).

----------

“What do your eyes look like?”

Sam startled at the sudden voice crackling through his headphones, unused to someone talking to him on his own radio frequency. 

“What?” he replied as he finished a mouthful of dry toast, swallowing it down thickly then pushing the plastic plate further away on the desk.

“I’m drawing you.” Haley elaborated, her tone light and bubbly, “I’ve done a basic body, but I’m on the face now-”

“You’re… drawing me?”

“Yeah,” she said, as if it was the most obvious activity in the world, “I’m trying to develop new habits while I’m stuck here. I tried knitting last night but Miranda snatched it off me, saying it was a waste of supplies, so now I’m trying art instead. So, like I said, what do your eyes look like?”

Sam paused, considering his answer, “Chinese?”

Haley laughed so loudly directly into the microphone on her end that the volume made him wince. But he immediately wanted to hear it again. 

“I meant more like… Happy? Sad? Tired?”

“Oh! Uh, right.” He thought again, trying to remember the last time he saw himself in a mirror that wasn’t either partly shattered or very smudged, “Um… Happy? I think? Or at least I’d like to think. Maybe tired too. Happy tired.”

Haley hummed in accordance, “Happy, tired, Chinese eyes. Got it.”

Sam heard the pencil scribbling against paper on her desk, the sound almost therapeutic. He twirled the wire of his headphones around his index and middle finger as he waited for her to say more. 

“What about your hair? Dark? Short?”

“Yeah. Very very dark brown, basically black. And it’s… I don’t know… just a regular length. Though it’s too long right now, it’s bugging me.” 

She seemed amused at the grumpiness threaded through the last sentence, “What does ‘too long’ entail?”

“It gets trapped at the back of my neck when I put a shirt on, and it feels all itchy there-“  He reached up to scratch at the nape of his neck just at the explanation, the phantom feeling creeping up.

She was quiet for a moment, long enough that Sam wondered if fiddling with the wire had caused his headphones to disconnect. 

“Can I offer some advice?” Her voice sounded quieter as it came through, like she was shy.

“Other than a haircut?”

“If it gets stuck when you put a shirt on, maybe you just shouldn’t wear a shirt.”

Sam was suddenly very glad that their shacks were miles away as a blush crept up his cheeks at the slightest inkling of flirting.

“I- Uh- I’m not sure Janine would like that.” He replied, wincing as he overthought his words, “Not very professional.”

“Oh,” she stretched out the syllable in a lower tone, “Miss Janine ‘Best Electrician Left in England’ you mean?”

“That’s the one.” He sat up in his chair, straightening his spine to get into character as he began to talk in her clipped tone, “Mister Yao, being a radio operator should be treated as your occupation in Abel Township. Even being a university student with no experience in a formal workplace, I would assume that you’d know better than to perform under such conditions. The fact that you wear a brightly coloured hooded sweatshirt is already informal enough.”

“She sounds like a hoot.” Haley replied, the words dripping with sarcasm.

“Oh, absolutely.” 

There is a miniscule part of him that feels guilty for poking fun at Janine, since she’s the primary reason he’s still alive and all, but teasing their superiors seems to be the main correlation between him and Haley so far. It’s practically coworker bonding. That’s what he’d tell Janine if she truly had bugged the microphones. 

He continued, “What about Mr Jones?”

“What? Would he let me do my job with my little mosquito bites on show?”

Sam was suddenly even more grateful that she couldn’t see him, even though she could definitely hear him clearing his throat.

“No,” he emphasised, willing his voice to stay neutral, “What’s he like? Boring and professional like Miss Second Best Electrician Left In England?”

“Ah, putting yourself in first now, are you?”

“Putting you in first.”

There was a moment of silence, and Sam couldn’t help but wonder if he’d finally managed to fluster her in return. 

“Ben’s alright. A little bossy, sure. But I know he has the best interests of Brunswick at heart. I used to think he was an uptight arse, but I’m not sure I could ever think of him as fully professional after karaoke night.”

“Aw, man!” Sam chuckled, leaning back on the desk chair, the headphones pulling slightly, “I remember our last karaoke night! Jack and Eugene, the guys I told you about, put it on for us! Me and Alice tried to sing Breaking Free from High School Musical, but we couldn’t remember the lyrics to any of the verses, so we made them up instead. There were a lot of basketball references.”

Another moment of silence, this time tinged with awkwardness.

“Who’s Alice?” Haley’s voice was smaller again, as if she’d retreated in on herself.

Sam winced, rubbing his forehead, “Shit, sorry-”

“No, no!” She quickly interjected, trying to add levity, “We’re not dating. You can bring up the ex-”

“She wasn’t an ex,” He corrected, then felt a small pang in his chest as the words left, “Well, not really. She was…” A heavy sigh. “An almost.” 

He wanted to explain further, but didn’t know how. Luckily, Haley seemed to understand completely.

He heard a sigh in return, staticky over the microphone. “Almosts are sometimes worse, aren’t they? You’re always thinking about what could’ve happened. What they would’ve said if you’d just… stuck your head out of your arse and been brave enough to ask.”

Sam fidgeted with his hoodie sleeve, then used it to wipe at his eyes before any tears could fall, “You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

“Yeah. Gwen from my sixth form days. I always wanted to say something, but thought it would be awkward if she said no, since we sat next to each other every day in Biology. Then she went to uni in Aberystwyth and I stayed home, and then the whole world went to shit.”

Sam waited for a beat to make sure he wasn’t cutting her story short, “I’m sorry.”

She sighed, “Is what it is.”

He knew it might be insensitive, but he had to ask. “I didn’t realise that you… you were a uh… That you liked…” He cringed at himself, unsure how to word it.

Haley was quiet for a moment, then chuckled as she understood, “Don’t worry, you’re still in the catchment area. I’m what some people would call greedy.”

He wanted to say he was too, but he wasn’t really sure. He’d never had a chance to be sure. It was living under his family’s roof with his disapproving dad, then being at university but being too stressed to consider long term dating, then it was the damn apocalypse.

“Promise me something.”

Her gentle voice snapped him out of his thoughts, “Okay.”

A small laugh came through, “You don’t even know what it is yet.”

“Is it related to me being shirtless?” He teased, wanting to get back to the playfulness to undo the knot forming in his chest.

“We won’t be an almost.”

His breath caught in his throat. It sounded too concrete for someone he’d never actually met before. A whole myriad of emotions mixed through him. Fear, guilt, anxiety. Hope, excitement, giddiness.

Haley’s voice came through again, louder and faster, “Sorry, that was too much. Maybe this cabin fever is getting-”

“Promise.” He cut off, placing his hand on the base of the microphone as if reaching out to her.

“Really?” The word was higher than her usual tone.

Sam nodded, even if she couldn’t see it, “We’ll get this exchange program in order, and I’ll come over and wait on you hand and foot while you’re recovering. And you can draw me while I do it.”

“Like one of my French girls?” 

“If you’re lucky.”

Haley laughed loudly, the sound melodic, “You’ve got yourself a deal. Now, speaking of drawing, what does your nose look like?”

A few days later, when he’s tentatively rubbing circles on Janine’s back as she cries with her head in her hands after hearing the two gunshots, he absently wonders if she ever finished the picture. 

[daydreamerfox]

🦊ABOUT ME!

It’s been a while that I’m here, but I feel like I’ve never really tried to talk about myself, not even a little bit, so here’s my attept to do that:

Hi! I’m Pattie, I’m 26 years old (My bday is September 17th, in case any of you wanna do something, just saying 👀), I’m a freelance artist and a streamer from Brazil! I started drawing as soon as I could hold a pencil in my hand! I’ve always enjoyed to be able to put all my ideas on a piece of paper, create my own character and stories and draw my favorite characters from series, books, movies, etc.

I started my major in game development to learn more about game design and hopefully work making art for games (and why not the actual games). In 2019 I began thinking about taking more seriously the 'posting my art online' thing, be known and actually get some money working with it. Many things happened that delayed this journey, but here I am, still trying to make things work, not giving up and documenting my discoveries about what kind of artist I wanna be, sharing my growth as a person and as a professional too with you guys!

In 2021 I decided to start streaming so I could share my work, but also to interact with the people who followed me and ended up falling in love with it! At first I only did it in portuguese, but eventually I felt more comfortable to keep switching languages! Even if sometimes I can’t really keep up with my streaming schedule for a few different reasons I sure still love doing it, they’re always so much fun!

I’ve been studying a lot about how I can have a better presence online and how I can grow as an artist,practice is a little harder than theory, but we’ll get there, but this is stil a work in progress that I’ll for sure keep updating you guys.

Right now I’ve been trying to work on making videos, using my streams as a base for them (even though I’m not the best video editor out there and sometimes get stuck at some points and don’t know how to continue the project… oops) and, more importantly, I wanna let you guys meet my characters! I hope you have fun reading about their stories as much as I have as I have fun writing and creating about them!

But anyway, enough about me, I wanna know who are you guys, what can you guys share about yourselves with me? You guys can either reblog this or send me asks, whaterver you prefer I'll be happy to reply to it!

In case you wanna check my work on other social media here are the links:

Twitter (X... idk anymore) Instagram Twitch Youtube

[catboyolli]

sunday morning rambling/vent about creativity and other stuff

i have been trying so hard to enter a creative mode again but it's just.... not working at all

i don't remember when was the last time i grabbed a pencil and made something on paper, and i have my drawing tablet in front of me but everytime i think about finally doing something it feels like a waste of time and the fact that i have been looking at art that's clearly out of my skill range doesn't help much

(the solution of course would be practice and study and practice and study but i feel like the results of said practice would be devastating and i don't know if i'm in the mental headspace to accept that the stuff i create is basically trash (i know it is but knowing and having concrete proof are two different things))

then there's the 10 year anniversary event in a few months and i really want to participate and i fucking know i should've started earlier but now not even the deadline is making me react to get up and do something because what's the point if it's going to be trash? what's the fucking point of doing something you love about someones you also love when all i will see are the thousands of mistakes? what's the point of creating and delivering something that's not good enough for my standards that i won't allow myself to lower? what's the point when a lot of people can create better stuff than mine?

and i go back to uni classes in mid august so that + my full time job + the amount of studying that is needed for this course will leave me with barely any time to live, so naturally i won't have time to sit and draw

btw i have been trying to craft a sort of fantasy au since mid 2021 and i settled on the final classes this month but now there's a bigger problem: the character sheets and the setting

the tabletop rpg i chose isn't an easy one, it has tons of ruling and and unnecesary long list of spells, so building the character sheets is driving me crazy but i don't want to change to an easier one because it doesn't have the flavor i need (if i can't have my blorbo olli finding answers in the stars then what's the purpose? 5e doesn't have what i need) but at the same time i find the setting of this ttrpg a bit weak (to which the easier answer would be just build upon it, but how much? do i have enough imagination to fill the cities with npcs for my blorbos to interact with? answer: no i fucking don't)

so who knows? if something so easy as picking the class took me 2 years, by 2034 i will probably have the designs ready and bc will be long disbanded by then so again, what's the fucking point of it?

i hate how perfectionism kills the best part of me

[ref-draw]

Bit of a personal addition but one of the core things I have learned as an artist is MAKE A MESS!!! Right is a page from a sketchbook I've had since high school, left is one I bought a couple days ago. Can you tell which one I had more fun with?

As a teenager I struggled SO MUCH with being a perfectionist in my art that sometimes I just...didn't draw. Or (like in the picture shown above featuring cat butt) I would start something to be a full piece and then never finish it because it wasn't turning out the exact way I wanted like all those other pretty sketchbooks I'd seen. And you know what? That desire to be perfect was really hard to get rid of.

But then I started doing something I call "busy bee" (I'm sure I didn't come up with this, just haven't seen anyone else put it into words) where I draw random things next to whatever I'm sketching. It can be shapes (squares, circles, et al), something I draw all the time and am comfortable with, or even just smaller versions of whatever I'm sketching (for some ideas, maybe flowers from a landscape, or try simplifying your character to a few shapes/colors), and I geniunely think doing that improved me as an artist to not take my sketchbook so seriously.

And that reminds me! What better way to make a mess than with color! Mix mediums! Splash watercolor over that sketch you don't like and see if that inspires you! Get some colored pencils from the dollar store and scribble as hard as you can with them, see how they interact and form!! Or even if you wanna work in monochrome, experiment with pressure and swirls and wiggles! MAKE A SKETCHY, COLORFUL, MESS!!!

Okay, rant over lol

i don't like to yuck people's yum but i have to say that my least favorite thing to come from the current state of Artists on the Internet is the idea of a sketchbook as something nice and pretty and shareable. like i love me a notebook full of gorgeous art don't get me wrong but that is NOT what a sketchbook is. a sketchbook is my friend who i carry around everywhere like a purse chihuahua. it is the physical manifestation of my notes app. it is the container into which i wring my brain out. it is my therapist. and most of all it is filled with absolutely terrible sketches that should never see the light of day.

[dashawfrostart]

This Week In "Time & Again" #2: Gettin' Technical Here! 😁

Now, since all the vector prep is done, it's finally time for me to start actually drawing every single frame for Chapter 5!.. Just like that! 👇😁

Oddly, as I started drawing the frames for Chapter 5, I feel extra hyper but also very relaxed and blissful at the same time. Maybe it's nostalgia, for as far as I remember, in winter days I liked to enjoy drawing at home, in the warmth, watching the snow outside. Seems like the work on the artworks is going exceptionally well - much better than when I worked on Chapter 4. I'm excited to go forward with my crazy undertaking; but on the side, I have a lot of non-"Time & Again" ideas, and I revisit my old writings, hoping to find extra spark for the other universes and timelines I have in mind, and all of that powers me up. I feel very active and positive. Aaaah, dis is the season, innit?.. Here, on this side of the globe, winter is halfway on. In the end of the last week it snowed in neatly and almost evenly, and the birds on our balcony look all fluffed up and fidgety, waddling from one little foot to another to keep themselves warm while trying to unbury the birdy omnomnommies from under the not-so-giant-yet heaps of snow. The snow has melted a bit by now; I watch them through the balcony window, sipping on my Earl Grey tea every morning and throughout the day, and it makes me feel at peace, and yet a little sad at the same time. For if I had knitting skills, I would've supplied all those cute little sparrows and the peanut-hungry blue jay family with some nice sets of hand-made sweaters, hats, scarves, and socks. But alas, I can only do that in the form of artworks for now. But I digress. Back to my graphic novel now.

For those who don't know how I usually work on "Time & Again" - and I presume, that's what I'll keep doing for the rest of my comic-type projects, that is, if there's ever gonna be any more - I do everything consecutively, starting from the lineart (including the backgrounds, especially if the frame requires very specific placement of the character on the background, or they interact with it in any way), then I do the flat colouring, and then I go for the shading. And by that, I mean that I do all the lineart for all the pages first, then, once that is done, I switch to colouring of all the pages, and then, once that is done as well, I finally get to do the shading on all the pages. Told you, there's definitely a certain system in the way I work on my stories. This is also a reason why I never ever post updates page by page: because there's simply nothing to post, since they're all incomplete. Deal with it 😎 It seems that this manner of work suits me best. I'm not certain why, but I've never been keen on sharing the works that are half-done or something - although lately I'm going through a certain metamorphosis in this respect. Moreover, it is important to me to keep the same steady, precise, and classy art style throughout the chapter. Consistency is what I highly value in my creations. People, who also draw, have probably noticed that, at times, their art style might wiggle and be, let's say, all over the place - and sometimes this just happens on its own. I can't really explain this. This must be some sort of hidden mysterious consciousness of our pen/pencil that simply does things on its own 🤪. Sometimes our mood contributes to how the art style changes in tiny little details - at times to better, at times to worse comparing to what we strive to achieve. Through executing everything consecutively and finishing up the "chunks" of different types of work one after another, my goal is to avoid unnecessary and unwanted art style inconsistencies that might occur otherwise.

But enough of this lengthy preamble! Let's finally get technical, just as the post title announced it! I see you're getting bored... (no, wait, what do you mean it's just my neighbours snoring?.. I don't know what you're talking about)

This time, since I decided on making a regular page-by-page PDF version of the chapter as well as its scrollable webcomic doppelgänger, I needed to figure out how exactly to simplify my work in order to avoid accidental complications (here, almost a quote from a character's line from the current chapter, lol!). Of course there's no way I want to do the same amount of work twice just because I didn't anticipate the outcome correctly. Not to brag about it, but I must admit, as far as I remember myself - I've always been good at this. There's always a place for being extra technical when it comes down to the artworks. It's not as simple as it might seem to you. Deciding on the technical aspects of creating artworks is kind of a puzzle, in a sense. It's almost mathematical 😁

So, as you can see on the screenshot just a little above, that's a layout of a comic page (in the regular format for now). To make everything work out in a simple way in the end, I decided to create layer groups for every each separate frame (red markings) that will include everything I need for the frame: the lineart, the colouring, and the background. That will help me to just copy-paste a certain frame on the new canvas optimized for the webcomic format - and that is all! All done in a few clicks. Automation 100% 😁 (having Minecraft flashbacks now for some reason...)

All the text-related material (speech bubbles, the text lines themselves, and all the possible written sound effects such as "Swoosh!", etc.; the green markings on the screenshot) is currently included into one group above everything else. I've been importing these layers straight from Inkscape in PNG. But I started to think now that I need to separate those elements in the end, too, for further convenience and simplicity of arrangement on the webcomic format canvas. But that will be work for another day in the future.

In terms of memory usage, I'm not certain yet how it will go for me, for sometimes Krita would randomly crash on me without anything in the error log, and every additional layer adds to the memory usage even if it's near empty - finally, considering fairly large size of the artworks pixelwise, it all adds up pretty quickly. But I'm not exactly running Krita on a potato either (mmm, potaties 🥔🤤), so I think I should be fine.

Previously, perhaps counterintuitively - but again, it worked just fine for me back in the day - I used to create a giant layer with all the lineart for the current page, and then the flat colours for the entire page were stored on a separate "flats" layer, and all the shading for the entirety of the page was stored on its own separate "shading" layer, too. The same went for the backgrounds: depending on the pictures overlapping or not, I would've drawn all the backgrounds on a single layer called "BGs".

This approach would've not worked this time though.

In the lineart work, I'm currently finishing up page 9 already. ALREADY! 🥳🥳🥳 Which indeed sounds pretty awesome, because it just goes ahead steadily. That is, however, keeping in mind that there are frames that I just left out and skipped for now, for they require extra consideration. You see... Chapter 5 is going to have a peculiar scene - something that I've never ever tried drawing before just yet, and it's gonna be pretty long. It's fairly stretched out across a few pages and it's almost represented in a slower-than-real-life pace (surprise, surprise, isn't it what I usually do anyway tho?..). As I work on it, I wonder if it's going to be too boring for the readers. But I think the time will tell, for, once everything is done properly and in colour, it's gonna be much more of an eye-candy than it is now. I sometimes have difficulties approximating the end result in my head. But often it just turns out a little nicer than expected, which is a bonus. Because screw perfectionism; that's in the past for me 🤣 (true story! did NOT enjoy it! got out with minimal losses!)

... Since this post seems to be stretching out in time and space as well, just as the certain scenes I'm working on, I think it might be time to wrap it up for today.

Happy Halloween everybody! And I foresee significantly more sketches and screenshots in the upcoming posts! Take care! See ya sometime next week! 👋

P.S. And, of course, for a nice holiday treat, I made a Halloween artwork, again. And this time it's not that simple (and for a spoiler: this year it's not gonna have Cacodemons as pumpkins, nope): it also serves as the first teaser for Chapter 5 and the second half of "Time & Again"! So don't miss out on it 😉 You won't though, because it will soon appear in my blog!

[after-witch]

Sketch Memory [Yandere Overhaul x Reader]

Title: Sketch Memory [Yandere Overhaul x Reader]

Synopsis: Chisaki lets you indulge in your little hobbies. But he’s starting to suspect that you’re taking advantage of his “generosity.” 

For request: @hello-lucky-luka​ said: Remember that one ask about overhaul’s angel having a boyfriend? Can I request a scenario where she misses her boyfriend a lot that she draws pictures of him to the point where overhaul got his attention and get jealous?

Word count: 2700ish

You’re not lying, you reason. You’re not, technically speaking, hiding anything. Overhaul never asks to see your sketchbook. And he never said you couldn’t draw someone you know. So the fact that you have been drawing your boyfriend every day since your captor gifted you the hefty, nicely bound thick sketchbook is something you force yourself not to worry about. 

Sometimes you find yourself sketching just a bit of him--his hands holding onto his favorite coffee mug, the profile of his face, looking up, staring at a movie marquee on a date night.

Sometimes you draw his face in all its glory--smiling, frowning, annoyed. When you have lots of energy, lots of drive (which is not often, you feel so tired now, all the time; the lack of movement and weariness of captivity is getting to you) you draw an entire scene. Your favorite is the one you’re doing now, though to be fair, every new drawing is your favorite because it’s new. This one, you admit, is exceptionally special. You’ve drawn him sitting in the park, with a book in his lap.

The park, like everything else, is from memory. You wavered on where to put the tree behind the bench, because you can’t quite remember if it’s off-center or not, and whether or not it had a knot in the trunk towards the bottom or the middle. But it’s realistic, and that’s enough for now.

It’s your boyfriend that gives you the most pride in this piece. You’ve outdone yourself, you really have. He looks… alive. Weighty. Real. Real enough that you wish you’d done this in color and not just with your sketch pencils. Real enough that you close your eyes and imagine you’re in the park, that he’s sitting there with his book, engrossed in a story, so engrossed that he doesn’t see you coming. You stop in your tracks and admire his face, preserve the way he looks so focused, so far-away, to memory. You admire the way the breeze gently blows his hair, and a hand absentmindedly pushes his bangs (he needs a trim, or a style) away from his face before he flips a page.

Finally you can stand it no longer, and though you hate to break his concentration, you glide up to the bench and sit next to him. He jumps, but once he sees its you his body tension melts away and he slides closer until your thighs touch. “Good book?” You ask. He nods, then looks ahead. He looks concerned. Or focused. You’re not sure. “Are you okay?” He gives you a look of surprise, of worry, then a smile. “Of course. I just…” His hand fiddles in his pocket. There’s something there, something bulky and square. “Wanted to ask you something…” Your heart is hammering because you know what’s in his pocket and his hand is moving and he’s about to ask you and you’re smiling--

“Who did you draw?”

You’re not in the park--you’re not in the park--and your boyfriend is not here, and Overhaul is looming above you and he’s looking right at your sketchbook.

You slam the book closed and you know in the instant that you do that it was the wrong move. Defensive. Obvious. Shit, shit, shit shit.

You stare ahead and will yourself not to shake.

“I asked you a question, angel.”

“I…”

You don’t know where it comes from, but the courage to lie comes from somewhere, and you deliberately, slowly reopen your book to the exact page.

“Sorry,” you say, finally, looking up at him. You laugh, breathy and light. His face is impassive, as always. “You scared me. I was really focused, trying to, you know, think of what’s missing.” You pick up a pencil and fiddle with it, make a line here and there, useless things really, to make it look like you want to keep going.

“Mm.”

Your heart is beating so hard that it almost hurts.

“You didn’t answer my question. Who did you draw?” To anyone else, his tone might seem casual, neutral. Bored, even. But you know there’s something simmering underneath, the low threat of perceived bad behavior, the low threat of him sitting you down for “a talk,” or the distant promise returning to a particular small room and confinement. 

You force yourself to smile, nervously. No point in hiding the anxiety that he knows is there, after all. “Oh! It’s,” and in a split second the idea comes to you, genius--”just a character from that book I was reading the other day.” You set your book down and casually--you hope it looks casual--reach up to the shelves installed along the walls behind your desk to pluck the book out. “The one about the guy who came home from war and no one remembered him, so he starts a new life in a new town.”

You set the book back in place and glance up at Chisaki, who stares down at you. You’re about to blurt out something, anything, to fill the silence when he nods. It’s a tension-cutting nod, a nod that tells you you’re okay, you haven’t fucked up, he believes you and you can stop feeling like you’re going to throw up now.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying the book.”

He’s fine. You’re fine. It’s fine. For now, you think, for now. You want him to leave before he starts asking more questions.

“Kai?”

“Yes?” His eyes crinkle ever-so-slightly. A smile, you think, behind the mask. Maybe.

You smile in what you hope is a sheepish, not nervous, expression. “Could I take a nap today? I’m feeling kind of tired.”

He doesn’t answer right away, which makes your fingers curl on the hard back of your sketchbook. Does he know?

He reaches out with a gloved hand and there’s a split second of fear--you’re done for--before he simply brushes your cheek. One of his rare, yet increasingly common, touches.

“Of course you can. I’ll set a timer so you don’t sleep too long.”

He turns and leaves your room through he unassuming door that connects to his office and you mumble a quiet thank you as it shuts. He’ll know if you don’t nap--you swear he has cameras in the room, though he denied it when you asked--so you tuck your sketchbook into the drawer of the desk and decide to hop into bed. A nap might help you feel less anxious, anyway. Your captor doesn’t let you nap long enough to dream, so you’ll be spared a nightmare.

**

You wake, almost jerking up, to the sudden, loud beeping of Overhaul’s watch--which is strange, because he usually sits in his office while you nap and wakes you up in a condescendingly gentle manner.

You open your eyes and Chisaki is standing silently next to your bed.

“Um?” You rub your eyes, the gentle rest of the nap falling off you abruptly as you take in the unusual circumstances.

You sit up and oh.

He’d holding your sketchbook.

He’s flipping through your sketchbook.

And he’s really, really pissed off. The air suddenly feels heavy and there’s nothing of the cold staleness that usually permeates your mundane interactions with your captor, the awkwardness replaced instead with the gravity of your situation. For the first time in a long time, you remember who has you captive. You remember what he can do. He could hurt you. He might hurt you. Did you anger him enough to break down whatever barriers that have kept him from hurting you so far?

He flips another page and another and lets out a sarcastic hum of approval. You feel your heart beat faster at every sound.

“Is that his hand? Remarkable shading, but…”

He rips the page out and crumples it, tossing it into the large trashcan before flipping the page. “Ah,” he says, voice low and cruel. “Another one of his face.” He rips that one out with particular gusto but it doesn’t crumple--it explodes, pieces of paper flying into the air. Some of them land on you, in your hair, and you furiously bat at them and your heart hurts and you know you’re tearing up and you don’t care.

“Stop,” you say, weak. A whimper. “Stop it.” Fat tears roll down your cheeks and it’s hard to see.

“Don’t argue with me.” His tone is quick and curt, and you know there will be no mercy, no coddling. No soft hushes and shushes. Only coldness. “You’re already in enough trouble.”

At the word ‘trouble,’ you wrap your arms around your chest. Trouble, trouble, trouble. The word carries memories and connotations. Isolation. Anxiety. Boredom. Helplessness. All things you experience on a daily basis, amplified, rolling together in a thick ball that rests at the bottom of your stomach. You can’t go back in your punishment room.

“Look at me,” he says--and you do. You want to get out of trouble. If that’s possible.

Chisaki doesn’t glare at you, not precisely, but his eyes are stern and unforgiving. You wonder if he’s frowning behind the mask, but maybe it’s better not to know. Once he’s satisfied that you’re paying attention, he continues.

“You are going to get out of bed.  You are going to stand next to me. And then you’re going to rip out every drawing you’ve done of this… trash. And you will throw them away.”

You can feel the bitter, acrid taste of your lunch threatening to rise up to your throat.

“Please.” You’re whispering. You don’t have the strength to talk. “Please don’t make me do that.”

Somehow, you know--you know that if you rip up these pages, you’ll start to forget what your boyfriend looks like. The earliest drawings have the strongest features, the ones you flip to when you’re not sure about something. If those are gone, if every study you’ve done from memory is gone, you’ll forget. Just like you’ve forgotten the combination to your locker at work and the street your favorite bakery was on. You’ll forget, without the pages, without the reminders.

You know this. And Chisaki knows this, too. He always knows what you’re thinking, somehow, someway. If you could get a few steps ahead of him for once, keep yourself guarded, maybe he wouldn’t be able to effect you so much. 

“If you don’t want to destroy drawings of this garbage, I can always pay him a visit.” Your entire body goes rigid and you want to cry out and beg him--no no no--but nothing leaves your throat, thick and tight and trapped. Chisaki’s eyes practically glint as he continues. “It might be more satisfying to destroy the real thing, now that I think about it.”

Something in your throat loosens and you stand up, nearly tripping over your own feet.  You grab the book and he lets you, lets you hold it out in front of you like a burden. “I’ll do it,” you murmur, your body trembling. “I’ll do it, just… just don’t hurt him. Please. Please?” You look up and there’s no softness in his eyes, no agreeable smile that you sometimes see when he’s agreeing to give you a treat (because that is your life now, your captor agreeing to let you watch a movie is a special treat to be celebrated)--just passive coldness.

“Do what I told you, and we’ll see.”

It’s a start.

But now you have to do it.

Your drawings. Your work. Your memory of him. All pages and pencil and smudges and tears. Your entire body is trembling--you feel like the ground is moving, swaying beneath your feet. Your hands shake as you flip open to the nearest page.

An early sketch. One where your boyfriend’s face was so clear in your mind that if you had the skills to make photo realistic work, you might have been able to do it. You try to capture it to your memory but the second your hand moves, rips just a little, it seems to fly away. You pull harder and quickly wrinkle the paper in your hands before tossing it towards the trash bin.

You pause too long, apparently, because Chisaki speaks up.

“Keep going. I won’t tell you again.”

And you do. You tear out page after page, your tears flowing freely. You begin to feel numb, after a while, even as you rip out drawings that took you hours--drawings you poured your soul into, whatever is left of your soul after months and months of captivity.

One more to go.

Your hand gingerly touches the sketch that you’d been so proud of earlier. The last page. The last visual memory left--the only one not ripped apart or crumpled or shredded and nestled in your hair.

 You want to lose yourself in it again. You want to close your eyes and pretend you’re at the park and he’s about to propose and your life will be nothing but sweetness and planning for the future. But the air is too thick and Overhaul is staring and he can’t read your thoughts, but he’ll figure it out anyway.

So you rip the page out of the book and tear it in half, jagged and uneven, before throwing it into the garbage.

Your hand recoils from the ghost-like memory of the paper on your fingers and you press them against your chest, above your heart.

Your boyfriend has probably moved on by now. Maybe he’s months deep into a rebound relationship, finding himself brushing away tears at new firsts with another woman, a woman who can’t replace you but who will heal the wound you left in his heart. Who will heal your wounds?

Chisaki is staring at you, you realize, and you drop your hands. You don’t want him to think you’re fondly reminiscing. He could always change his mind about leaving your boyfriend--your ex? What do you call him? What does he call you, you wonder?--alone.

“We’re going to have a long talk about this later,” he says, voice leaving no room for argument. He pauses, and your chest feels tight. Will he tell you that you’re being sent to the quiet room? The thought of being there for days, alone, unable to do anything, barely able to move in the tight surroundings makes you shake and you dig your nails into your arm.

“You can stay in your room. You listened well.”

You swallow, throat tight, and nod. You almost want to smile. You don’t have to go back there, if you listen. You know how to listen, when it comes down to it.

Chisaki glances down at the trash bin and picks it up with his gloved hands, dragging it towards the door.

“One more thing,” he says, glancing back at you.

“Go wash your hands. They’re filthy.”

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hey writingquestionsanswered, I'm writing a scene where an entire town is being turned into a horror show with wild magical chaos, I'm talking alligator pigeon hybrids, enormous geese that tower over humans,fire balls that exploded and then turned everything in it's radius to ice(or freezing every thing in it's radius in the ice) that type of shit, how should I write the sheer terror and confusion of that situation and the protagonist being like"huh, did I do that? I probably did that, nothing else here could have done that, do I have a responsibility to stop it? I probably do, so I think I should stop it" how should I write the utter chaos? And how should I write the absolutely horrific consequences of the destruction, even though in The story it's happening on a scale of barely minutes? And above all else, how should I fill the scene with just enough chaos that it gets the point across, without being to much or redundant, or just plain stupid?

Writing a Chaos Scene with Impact

1) Know the scene's purpose and your character's goal. Before you worry about how to write a scene, you have to understand why you're writing it. Why is this scene necessary in the story? What does it accomplish to move the story forward? And, more specifically, what is your character's goal in this scene? What are they trying to do or what do they need to do? What steps need to happen in the scene in order for them to accomplish this goal, or try to accomplish it? What obstacles do they face along the way?

2) Keep it brief and to the point. Your brain has conjured this scene in vivid detail, but avoid the temptation to translate everything you're imagining onto the page. Instead, choose a few things to describe--either because they're the most relevant or because they're the best examples to illustrate the chaos.

3) Use sensory description to create emotional impact. Chaotic moments are rarely just visual. Don't forget to think about other sensory details your character/s experience in this moment: what can they hear? What can they smell? What can they touch or physically feel? What can they taste?

4) "Block" the scene as you would in theater. If you've ever been in a play, you remember the process of "blocking," which is when the director tells each actor where to stand and where to move to during different parts of the story. You can do the same thing for the characters in this scene. Try drawing a layout of the area where the scene takes place. Pencil in any important details like structures, paths, stairs, doors, furniture, geographical features--anything your characters would see or potentially need to interact with or avoid. Then, mark down where each chaotic thing happens. Mark where the alligator pigeon hybrids are, and where they go. Mark where the ice "fireballs" originate and where they hit, circle the areas they freeze. Note where other characters are and what they're doing. Now, mark down your character's path through this scene. You can detail their progress with timestamps if you want, like if they start at 7:57 p.m., maybe they run out of the way of the first hybrid pigeon at 7:58, then walk a little further and duck out of the way of an exploding ice ball at 7:59. For each step, you can also put a note about what they might be thinking or feeling in that moment.

5) Just dig into it. Even if you've done all of the above, it can be daunting to start a scene. Remember that it doesn't have to be perfect the first time around. Sometimes the best thing to do is to just start writing it and see how it plays out. Try some different things. See what works and what doesn't. By the time you get to the end of the scene, you'll have a better idea of how it all needs to play out. Sometimes that will retroactively inform the earlier part of the scene, and then you'll know how to make the first part better.

I hope that helps! ♥

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[souplovingwerewolf]

I just forced my friends to watch this last night and we turned it into a try not to laugh challenge. We all failed multiple times. It's just.... everything about it is so... I'm sorry I NEED to talk about it. Because honestly, this movie deserves an analysis and I have much to say. Spoiler warning I guess

The thing about this movie is that the premise is actually... pretty good. Like, The idea of a movie about an artist who struggles to find her place in the world and with feeling like her passion/career isnt a "real career" and might become obsolete is really nice, since it's relatable to a lot of artists nowadays. And having part of the movie take place in a Harold and the Purple crayon type "drawing reality" world is a genuinely cool concept, and allows for there to be a lot of wacky and creative character and background design choices. And having Paige start out as a bit of a bad person, but learning through hardship and experiences to be a better person is awesome. Even the concept of the twist villain and his motivation is cool. Having the villain be a disillusioned art teacher who just wants people to respect his, and others, passion but is going about it the wrong way is cool! and while most of the dialogue is absolutely buttcheeks, there are rare moments where it's actually decent. There is real potential here!

But my god, I don't think I have ever seen a premise executed this badly. It's almost impressive. People like to call bad movies "fever dreams" but I've never seen a movie genuinely feel like a fever dream than this movie did. Literally everything is wrong with it.

First off, every single concept that could potentially be cool is mentioned for literally one minute and then dropped for the entirety of the movie. They bring up like 10 different major plot points and then immediately abandon them, never to be seen again. Like Paige's sister gets introduced and she's like a bad guy who's working for a big evil corporation that wants to feed drawings to AI and profit off them. Is she seen for more than 5 minutes? No. Do we ever hear about that corporation again? No. And then at one point they just randomly mention that anyone who stays in the drawing dimension for too long becomes a drawing. They mention this ONCE and it's never brought up again. Never. And this is a consistent theme throughout the movie! This movie feels like it's directed towards goldfish or mosquitos or something else that can't remember things for more than 3 seconds.

Also, the few plot points that DO stick around have the most poorly explained and inconsistent lore I have ever seen. Like the concept of the pencil of intelligence and the power of drawings is incredibly confusing. Was it the pencil that held the power? Or the drawing dimension? Or the drawings themselves? Absolutely nothing about how anything works makes any sense.

Also, the pacing. Oh God, the pacing. This movie seems to be allergic to building any kind of tension or a consistent plot. Every scene slowly fades out into a black screen (yes, I'm serious) after 5 minutes, and when it returns the characters are doing something completely different, or there are suddenly different characters shown. Coupled with them throwing random topics in like they'd been a major plot point the whole time, this makes feeling any kind of connection to the characters and the adventure impossible, because every scene feels like an out of context clip. Like, there's a scene of Paige and one of her friends having a bonding moment and opening up to each other that, in any other movie, would feel like a pivotal moment for their bond and characters, but we barely hear the friend talk, and they basically NEVER interact before this scene in any meaningful way, so it has no impact.

Oh and the Constant, CONSTANT flashbacks. Now, you can do a movie that switches between flashbacks and the present well, but the issue here is that it's very hard to tell what's a flashback and what isn't, since not only are the scenes completely random and unrelated anyway, some of the flashbacks are from things that happen FIVE SECONDS before the previous scene, which just makes it feel like the creator put the scenes in the wrong order.

This movie feels like it's trying to speed run the plot, and yet it's still an hour long, mostly because a lot of scenes just have character saying the most drawn out, repetitive dialogue ever, or straight up repeating THE SAME voice lines. Half the time I felt like I was being lectured by my mom and she was making sure I got the point for the 10th time.

The animation is also just lackluster, lacks any kind of life, and keeps repeating frames, the humor feels like if you asked a 12 year old to prompt chatGPT to write a "Gen Z joke", and even though the creator claims he was developing this for 6 years, one of the first jokes in the movie is an Ohio joke, which would have made no sense even 3 years ago.

Oh yeah I almost forgot. The most powerful and plot significant character (besides Paige) is a self insert of the creator that is literally his PROFILE PIC. And he just looks weird as hell throughout the whole movie because he's this blue child with an ice cream sandwich on his head and brightly colored clothes that for some reason has this deep man's voice. Like yes, I get it that he's a drawing in this dimension and he can look like whatever he wants and that's the point, but it doesn't change how bizarre it is to see someone's profile pic as the main character in this movie. Also I'm sorry but his design is ridiculous. It works as a PFP because that's just a still image and is kinda supposed to look weird and distinctive but I could not take this little ice cream boy seriously at all.

The whole movie is just an absolute mess. That being said, I really enjoyed watching it just for the sake of laughing my ass off, and I'd recommend you watch it too. It's funny as shit.

PLEASE watch the whole beatboxing puppy movie im BEGGING. its SO bad its called Our Drawings Princess Movie its free on youtube pleeeeease its so bad. me and my friend watched it we need a fandom for this movie

[shadowhuntertrash]

tlh gang as funny first modern day impressions for @serene-victory-77

alastair - the first time alastair meets christopher he’s confused as to if he likes this kid or if he is annoyed. he meets him in their chemistry class. he goes through school with his head down because honestly he was really only there for good grades. when he was partnered with the infamous christopher herondale (yes his names was well known around school) he was slightly scared. christopher comes up to his table with a smile on his face and his goggles slight askew on his face. alastair is already leaning toward quirkily adorable. from the stories he’d heard christopher had a bit of a mad scientist rep, so he was happily surprised when christopher was less of a mad scientist and more of an evil genius. he did the experiment perfectly and then much to alastair’s horror, continued without any directions, going purely off his knowledge of the chemicals. when christopher was done he’d made a much more complicated version of the solution they were making and alastair was very thoroughly impressed. the teacher on the other hand, was not. they both got in trouble but alastair found he didn’t mind much. from then on out they were lab partners no matter what and it was quickly becoming alastair’s favorite class.

cordelia - the first time cordelia meets eugenia she thinks she is so badass. here’s this girl who could literally not give less of a fuck what anyone things about her. she has long curly hair that is either always down or put up into a messy bun. cordelia is slightly star struck by this girl who has just plopped herself down next to her in her ap calculus class. eugenia seems to bring a storm with her wherever she goes and immediately draws all eyes toward her. when cordelia looks at her eugenia just winks and crosses her ankles before leaning in slightly to ask if she has a spare pencil she could borrow. they became fast friends which surprised cordelia but literally no one else. they are very different but similar at the same time. cordelia is a badass but she is less obvious about it. she’s kind when she can be whereas eugenia doesn’t really stop to give anyone a chance to catch up with her unless she gets a good energy from them.

lucie - the first time lucie meets matthew is when he comes over to their house to hang out with james for the first time. at first he seems incredibly polite. he greets tessa and will with utmost grace and respect but lucie can tell it’s unusual from the way james’s face scrunches up in his tell tale expression of shock. she finds it amusing and decides to follow them for a while, matthew catches on quickly but instead of telling james they had a tag along he simply winks at lucie and pretends to lock his mouth and throw the key. she decides immediately that she likes this one. when they get to the indoor pool the first thing matthew does is push james into the pool. lucie couldn’t help but laugh which gave her away but when james went to tell her off and to get lost matthew pouts at james and said in an obnoxiously whiny voice, “jamie, let her hang out for a bit.” james turned to him and lucie was amazed to find them in a seemingly silent conversation before matthew smiled triumphantly and james groaned throwing himself back into the water as matthew gestured for lucie to come swim with them. lucie decides then and there that matthew by far her favorite of james’s friends he’s had over so far.

matthew - the first time matthew meets james is at detention. it would have been at debate but he had missed the first meeting for the club because his teacher had held him back to redo an activity he’d done completely wrong. he’d gotten detention that same period for disrupting the class (which was completely unnfair, he had just forgotten to take his adhd medicine so he was more restless than normal. when he walked into detention that afternoon there was only two other people there, neither of which he recognized. the teacher that was trapped into watching them was actually one of matthew’s favorite teachers, mr. lightwood (gideon lightwood, not to be confused with his brother gabriel who also taught there). about ten minutes into detention the door opened and one of the most attractive people matthew had ever seen in his entire life strolled through the door with a lopsided smile. mr. lightwood looked up and upon realizing who was there sighed heftily and shook his head. “again, james?” james just smirked wider and shook out his curly black hair, matthew’s stomach was doing a weird flip thing. ‘uncle gid, it really wasn’t my fault. the debate teacher just wasn’t seeing my side of the debate. he said my ideas were ‘crude and unnecessary’ but he was the one who asked what my opinion on dorian gray was. it really wasn’t my fault if she didn’t want a ‘mature’ opinion she shouldn’t have asked about a ‘mature’ topic.” mr. gideon simply shook his head but he was hiding a rather obvious smile. “go sit down, james.” with a confident smile he strolled over to where matthew was seated and turned to him with an outreached hand. up close matthew realized with another jolt to his stomach that james’s eyes were golden. “james, james herondale.” he said when matthew gripped his hand. matthew smiled widely. “matthew, matthew fairchild. i think we’re going to be good friends.”

thomas - the first time thomas meets alastair is his freshman year of high school. thomas will forever remember it vividly because alastair was the first person to really help him around school. he was so lost and he didn’t have anyone he knew so when this junior stepped up to show him around it was pretty cool. he was thoroughly embarrassed though because not only was this guy very very attractive but his friends were laughing at him. well not him, but thomas. alastair had waved them off and told him not to worry about them. he showed thomas to his classes and the main areas such as the library and the cafeteria. it was the first interaction of many but there were a few years until the next one. thomas never forgot his kindness and how he went out of the way to help the new kid, alastair never forgot either but for him it was more of a distant memory, the second time they met was the first meeting that left him with a lasting feeling.

james - the first time james meets jesse is when he comes to pick lucie up for a date. his immediate reaction is to evaluate if he is a good person and if he was good enough for his little sister. he held himself with an odd mixture of confidence and uncertainty. james had stood in the study with jesse for a while waiting for lucie to come down. jesse was fidgeting a lot which james recognized as anxiety which he himself had. he was slightly reassured by the fact that jesse was nervous. they were never really close nor did they ever become very close, seeing as james was practically always waiting for jesse to mess up or hurt his sister in some way. it lessened as time passed and jesse proved himself worthy in james’s eyes.

jesse - the first time jesse meets lucie it’s right in the middle of an epiphany in a story she’s writing. she’s been in a slump with really bad writers block for about a week so she can’t help her excitement when she finally has a breakthrough. jesse was sent by a professor (well professor herondale aka tessa the english professor aka lucie’s mom) to find her in the library to pass on a message and when he stumbles across a girl furiously tapping away on a laptop with a mad smile on her face and two pencils holding her hair up he is immediately enraptured. he goes to let her know her mom is looking for her but she simply tsks him and informs him that she simply cannot be disturbed and when he asks why she launches into a complicated plotline and jesse is so mesmerized that he can’t help but sit down and listen to an hour long rant about her novel and the characters. he misses his next to classes but if you ask him it was so so worth it. he soon becomes her person to rant to about intricately woven story lines and he can’t argue one bit. he was smitten from the first tsk.

christopher - the first time christopher meets cordelia he blows her up. well, nearly. he was experimenting and she happened to walk in right as his solution went awry. she had screamed loudly, more so from being startled than from injury but christopher had still rushed over to her and made sure she was unharmed. when he made sure that she was truly okay he apologized profusely and explained what he was doing and what he did wrong. she seemed genuinely interested which christopher immediately appreciated and he found he quite liked this girl. she was kind and smiled and asked questions when she was curious. there was no better way to get to his heart than by asking about his experiments (well, besides lemon tarts). every time they ended up staying for science after school he never failed to update her on his latest invention or experiment and she never failed to be attentive and curious. they worked surprisingly well together.

kamala - the first time kamala meets thomas is when she meets eugenia (her girlfriends) family. thomas was kind and the longer they talked the more he smiled and looked at her with an approving look. she had taken a liking to him almost immediately and had spent most of their time talking until eugenia interrupted claiming thomas was stealing her girlfriend to which thomas scoffed and rolled his eyes saying that there was no chance of that happening. kamala hadn’t understood the actual meaning of that until later to which she laughed until tears sprang to her eyes. eugenia’s entire family was kind and accepting but she knew she’d always have a soft spot for thomas and she did. she was always there for him and he, her. he became a brother she had always wanted and never gotten to truly have. eugenia complained but she couldn’t be happier with the outcome. 

eugenia - the first time eugenia meets grace she thinks she’s cold. she always has a careless and intimidating resting face and very rarely speaks to anyone as if they’re worth her time. eugenia’s blind reaction to having her on the cheerleading squad was not a good one and she worked her pretty hard until they finally talked and eugenia learned why she had so many walls up and why she was so cold. it took a while to unravel the mystery of grace blackthorn but they ended up being surprisingly good friends, especially considering they were both close to kamala. kamala being one of grace’s closest friends and eugenia's girlfriend.

grace - the first time grace met kamala she was in the locker room the cheerleaders shared with the dance team. grace had just gotten off a particularly cruel phone call with her mother and was trying her best to keep her composure but it was quickly slipping through her fingers. her throat was hurting from the strain of not crying and her eyes were burning suspiciously. she cleared her throat a few times in the empty locker room and almost jumped out of her skin when a girl poked her head around the corner with a concerned tilt to her lips. she had a kind face and it barely took a quiet, “are you okay?” for grace to break down completely. the girl had walked over quietly and bent down to grace’s level. grace wasn’t sure why but she felt like she had known this girl for a long time, it was a feeling of pure trust she had never felt before. there was something so calming about kamala, as she had introduced herself, that she found herself spilling things she’d never told anyone else. there was a lot left unsaid but enough was said for kamala to comfort her enough to get her to calm down. there was something so trust worthy about her that she found herself in the same situation a few more times in the weeks to come until they started to talk with no tears. it was definitely an odd friendship but they both valued it a lot.

[bookwyrminspiration]

hello! just curious, how do you plot out your stories? (for example, what have you done to plan out the wings au? do you have it all in your head? do you plan it out on paper or in a doc specifically for it? do you just go with the flow? sorry if this is a lot of questions lol i'm just trying to convey my point-)

hello, synonym!! lovely to see you again! I'd love to share my process!

as I explain my personal methods (again, personal, just how I do things!), I'll use the wings au as an example because i know you've read it and it'll just be easier over all. but essentially, yes to all of the above, just with different parts of the story!

my progression is: chaotic doc, background (as needed), basic written plot, expansion on the plot, any other details needed, and then just write things! but don't worry, I'll provide more detail, i say as if i'm capable of being concise

(putting below a readmore for simplicity)

chaotic doc: so, the very first thing I do when i have a story is open up a doc, and write down everything i know about it in little bullet points and rambling sentences, just basic information with no organization. the organizing can come later, right now I just want to get as much of what's in my head onto the paper as possible.

I type out the basic premise of the story or the few things I know about how I want it to go, the things I know I want to remember later, things I'd need to think about to set it up, etc. for the wings au, this was details like everyone's wings (things to remember later), how they got those wings and a sentence or two about what the world was like now (things I needed to think about to set it up), a little blurb about where the story would start. this is less writing details about the story, and more noting down the details I want to figure out later in the expansion. i find it works best to type this out because i'm a much faster typer than I am at physical writing, which allows me to follow the flow of my thoughts a lot better and go back and change things.

background: background prepares me for the next step, but the amount of effort I put into this section depends on how complex my story is. it basically means write down (we've moved to pencil and paper now, but this could be digital too if you prefer) anything you need to know in order to set up the rest of your story. what do you need to know in order to tell the story you need to and to get you where you want to be? for the wings au, the background was that the world had been overrun with monsters and everyone was living underground now. the neverseen had been defeated, or so they thought, coming back later. all these things that essentially prepared me to get to the plot. it told me where the story was happening and the emotional/physical environment everything else would happen under. if you have a more worldbuilding heavy world, this step might be a little more complex, or if there's something very specific with the characters you need as context beforehand.

sometimes the readers will be aware of pieces of the background, and it's even necessary for them to know--for example, you all knowing the elven world is in the middle of a monster apocalypse and living underground; if you didn't know, the rest of the story wouldn't make any sense. but there may be things you write down that are just for you to know, personal notes. for example, I have notes written about how the monsters came to be, more specifically, that you all haven't been made aware of and may never be. planning this out is for you, so if there's something you want to remind yourself to keep in mind while writing, this could be a good place. but now that we know the world we're writing in, we can move on

basic plot: for me, I struggle to figure out where to take a story, and if I don't have the basic concept laid out before I start writing, I ended up with really weird stories that completely deviate from what i wanted (I say this from experience). so I break it down into the bare essentials. literally as basic as I can be. there are five crucial parts of a plot: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. just those five. for each of those, i write--writing, because it takes more time (allows me to think) and feels more organized to me, but you can do it differently--just the general idea I have for each section. just as few words as possible. detail comes later. for the wings au I literally wrote "they get wings" for rising action. having read the wings au, you know just how simplified that is.

one things that might help is consider how you would explain this idea to someone in one or two sentences. you just want to make sure you have a beginning, middle, end, and the transition between them. from there you've got the skeleton of your story, and everything else can fit itself into this idea.

expansion: now that you have the skeleton, it's time to fill in some of the more essential anatomy. this is where you add the specifics. for me, i write this physically in bullet points in a journal of some kind. I take the first section, and write down how the story is going to start. where am I going to begin this journey. for the wings au I wrote "beginning: sneaking into breeding facility to destroy monsters. problem: caught/monster breaks loose." if you remember this is essentially the events of the first chapter but in two sentences. I'm giving enough detail that I know what I'm going to write, but not so much it's going to be stifling to follow my exact notes when I actually get to writing. this will be different for different people, so you may want more or less detail than I provided, I'm just giving an example of how I did it.

I continue this for the rest of the plot, but that doesn't mean every single little detail that will ever happen is planned out. I'm not patient enough to be super thorough with every little thing, so I go long enough until I have a solid understanding of what I'm going to start with when I'm writing, or just until I'm bored and can't deal with planning anymore. for me, that meant I was more detailed when planning from the mission in the facility to them getting to the abandoned gnomish village, as those would be some of the first things I would be writing about. after that, I got more vague and just touched on some of the key part of each of those five sections. I take those two/three words and turn them into two/three bullet points. I also didn't want to be too specific with the later details, because I knew i'd be influenced by things as I wrote and would be inspired to fill that out.

any other details: this is kind of any afterthoughts you might have or details you need to keep i mind that aren't necessarily plot. you may have a lot of these, or you may have none. for me, this was where I wrote down what kinds of wings and other animalistic traits each of the characters had (yes, I wrote them down again). it's not strictly plot, but it does affect the rest of the story. this is also where I write anything I forgot to when going through the first time, and then i can draw a little arrow pointing towards where it fits in to the rest of the story or is relevant (which is part of why I like the writing aspect, but this is entirely achievable on a doc). another example from the au is me writing "domestic" to the side and pointing it back to my notes about the gnomish village, because while it wasn't essential to moving the plot forward, i wanted to touch on some aspects of domestic live with the ten of them while they were there.

just write things: now that you have all this planning done (good job, you!) you can get into the writing aspect. you've already decided your beginning and know where you want to go, so this is the part where you just starting putting words on the page. it can be pretty daunting to just look at a blank page, so if you'd like, start a paragraph in. skip the first paragraph and just start in the middle of something else--you can add back what's missing later. I personally note things that I want to come back to inside [brackets like this], and that can be words, sentences, entire paragraphs. i use the square ones specifically because I don't use them in my writing unlike (these parentheses), and then I can search the document for them all at once and see all the places I need to go back.

this is also where the "just in my head" and "make it up as I go" part comes into place. you have a pretty good idea of what you're doing, but you're going to have ideas as you write, so sometimes you just follow the flow of your brain and write things you could've never even planned for. and if you're interacting with others as you're going (like I'm talking about theories with you all while writing future chapters) then you may be inspired by them to add things to the story. originally, I wasn't going to even have any messages from Bronte or Oralie, but now because I saw what some of the people reading it were picking up on, I realized the potential there and added them in on a whim

and sometimes when you get stuck, the best way to get yourself out of that is to just add something random, which can spiral off and affect the rest of the story. I've said it before, but the dragons were not planned. I'd actually seen a piece of writing advice months ago that if you're stuck, change the weather. so I was stuck and made a sudden rainstorm, but then I needed an explanation as to how things got so wet so fast because I'd mentioned clear skies earlier. so in my attempt to explain it, dragons came to exist. writing is a process, so don't limit yourself to everything you've written. you'll be inspired along the way, so try to take it in stride.

one final note: as much as you plan, this is not going to be a definite map for how the story will go. maybe something makes sense as you're planning it out, but when you get to actually writing it makes no sense as all and you need to change things. that's fine! this kind of a plan is just to get you prepared and keep you afloat amongst this ocean of words trapped in your head that you want to transcribe. if something isn't working, change it! in my original written plan for the wings au they weren't going to run away for a few weeks, instead sneaking out for an hour or two at a time over those few weeks because they couldn't stand being underground anymore, until Linh was actually the first one to make contact with a creature and realize it didn't immediately want to kill her. but because she's not the narrator of this story, I couldn't write it the way i wanted, so I gave that to sophie in the tree.

this is just my approach to my more complicated stories! for some of the really quick ones, I just open a doc and start going. this kind of thinking keeps me organized so that I'm doing the idea the most justice. but just because it works for me doesn't mean it'll work for everyone. if it does work for you, great! but if there are parts you need to modify for yourself, you are more than encouraged to do so. personally, if I could only chose one part of this process to rely on, it would be the basic plot. that's the key to everything for me, but for others it might be something different.

I hope this helps with whatever it is you're writing!! I wish you luck and look forward to seeing whatever it is (should you chose to share it, no pressure)!! if you'd like more of my process on how I write it consistently and update on a schedule, I'd be more than happy to talk about that too!