#invisible ink

[sabertoothwalrus]

I’ve been having fun going back to older drawings in my sketchbook and adding blacklight secrets 🔍

[whumpwonders]

This makes no sense but I was thinking about invisible ink and how that could be used in whump (not sure why, but hey) and came up with the idea of a Whumper that would 'write' things on Whumpee's skin with a pen while psychologically torturing them, like a non-painful form of branding. Only instead of this scaring Whumpee further, it just confused them because "Whumper that pen does not work."

At the time, Whumpee found it a little funny. Whumper would say so many horrific things while tracing their words over Whumpee's skin, writing over their face, their hands, their back. But no ink was ever visible, it just tickled...

...until Whumpee is rescued by the Team/Caretaker and one day ends up in a situation involving ultraviolet light.

It turns out the pen did work after all. Not only did it work, but it worked well. It was just invisible under normal conditions. The moment Whumpee stepped beneath the UV light, every monstrous thing Whumper had ever said became readily available for the Team to read. Despite being free from Whumper for months, the ink still stained Whumpee's skin, like some kind of twisted tattoo.

Now the Team has to figure out what to do with everything they've just learned, and Whumpee has to figure out how they're going to live knowing that no matter how hard they try to forget, they will never be free of Whumper's words.

[tdutb]

the erm. giys, yeah,.

@peppermintz-25 ya already saw it but eh

[artist-issues]

Hello! I am Catholic artist who is currently writing a story and reading your commentaries on other people’s work I’m starting to wonder if I am actually writing my story the best way that I can. I’m starting to wonder whether or not the story I am writing has a good moral message to begin with, or even one that would make sense. I’m really struggling with this, and I want to tell this story, but I don’t know if the message I’m trying to communicate is the right one anymore. I don’t know whether I should change it or not, and if I do change it, what to change it to. I don’t know how much experience you have with writing, but I wanted to ask you what is your opinion on what the best way is for a story to communicate its lessons, and also how to come up with good themes in general and be able to tell when the one you originally had planned was too weak for the story you wanted to tell.

What do you do when you want to (or you’re thinking about) changing the meaning of your story? Where do you go from there?

I think…sometimes you just have to pick the thing you want to say and make the necessary sacrifices.

There’s lots of ways to say a message like, “Faith Triumphs Over Fear.”

You could say it with a farm boy who chooses to stop running toward his own ability to protect what he fears to lose, and instead, lets a Higher Power do the protecting.

You could say it with a tragically powerful war hero who, despite all his strength, can’t save everyone, and instead of trusting a Higher Power with what he can’t do, he burns the world down trying to make up for what he can’t, out of fear.

You could say it with a princess who’s kingdom is burnt to the ground, and who could choose to give up and believe there’s nothing worth fighting for; but instead she finds ways to go on because she trusts in a Higher Power to win in the end, even if she can’t force it to happen.

You could say it with a ragged punk who’s only out for himself, but when he sees how hard better people are willing to fight for what they believe in, he starts to catch onto their faith instead of fearing for his own skin all the time, and finds out it’s a better way to live.

You could say it with a deposed government official who lost everything at the height of his influence, and has to learn patience in exile, patience to pass on what he knows of failure, and trust the Higher Power to do what he couldn’t do even at his most powerful.

I think you get it, I just described to you Star Wars.

Now, that’s all one franchise, but it’s actually lots of little or long stories interwoven together. And each one starts at a different place, with a character of a different age or walk-of-life, and they go through different turns of events and choose to respond to those events in all different ways. Lots of stories. But they’re all different ways to say “Faith Triumphs Over Fear.” One of them is even a cautionary tale about what happens if you don’t believe that.

Lots of ways to say one message.

So you can change the message if you want to. But my question to you would be, why do you think you have to? If Star Wars can come up with twenty different types of stories and characters to say one message, what is it about yours that doesn’t lend itself to your own message?

Find that out.

I think it’s okay to change a message if you find that it wasn’t Good, Beautiful, or most importantly, TRUE. If you say something that’s not true, it’s a waste.

But if your original message is good, beautiful, or true, why change it? I find myself wanting to change my messages for two reasons.

1. The message I thought I was saying wasn’t clear or accurate enough.

For example, I have a Wish Rewrite in my notes app and for the longest time the new message was ““Have Faith and Even More Than What You Wished For Will Come True.” But that’s not what I really meant to say, and so when I was writing the characters, they didn’t fit. I had an Asha who I envisioned as kind of glum and closed off—I was writing her as if she would go FROM “never trying too hard to make anything happen” TO “daring-to-dream.”

But that didn’t fit the original message, because the original message was too broad. Because it has that whole “and even more than what you wished for” part, which implies that the character is wishing for something. Which is not the Asha-version I was drawn to. Again, the version I was drawn to was “refuses to wish.”

For that message, a character like Tiana would’ve fit better—a character who does dream, but does so with no faith, just hard-work. And that’s not the rewritten-Asha that I was warming up to.

So I changed, or rather, honed down the message to “Wishes made in faith can come true.” Ah, now the story is about a character who doesn’t believe wishes can come true at all, and the ingredient she’s missing is faith. Well, then, all the other parts of the story I was struggling with fall into place. Because I honed it down in a way that I could re-focus on, it freed up the parts of my brain that couldn’t figure out what the story needed.

Now that it was about a clearer message, I could focus better and think, “okay, well if wishes made in faith can come true, we need to define what she’s not daring to wish for, that she should wish for.”

Into place clicks something that the main character wants and knows would be good, but won’t admit that she wants it, because she doesn’t believe wishes can come true. Into place clicks who the Star-Boy character should be in order to draw that out of her. Into place clicks what might’ve happened in Asha’s childhood to keep her from believing wishes can come true—and right after that, who her family is clicks easily into place.

So that’s one reason I might “change” the message—just re-phrasing it or eliminating some nuance in order to help myself, and by extension, the story, focus a bit more.

2. I let myself get too attached to the “Fun Stuff” of the story, until the “Fun Stuff” cluttered-up and crowded-out the message.

This one I actually don’t struggle with often because I’m a control-freak, so I’m constantly outlining how everything ties back into the message. My particular weakness is “having fun while storytelling,” I’m not good at that.

But sometimes it does happen! I’m in the middle of writing a sci-fi thing and the message is good, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to write one of the characters. I know it’s because I’m too attached to this version of her who’s like, sassy, but with a protective mom-heart. I like that characterization.

But what I need her to be in the story is actually pretty dark. And that dark-story-reason is why I added her character in the first place. The problem is, her compassionate-sassy-mom personality and motivations don’t match up with the dark thing I originally intended her to do.

So—AND HERE’S THE MEAT OF THE POST—I have a decision to make.

Am I going to sacrifice the thing that I like about this character and find something else that works and supports the message—

—or am I going to stall out and basically give up on writing it because I keep shying away from making the big change, because I don’t want to let the character go?

Because I can’t force the character I like into the role that the story needs. Not in this case. So I can either choose the message, or the Fun Stuff.

Obviously I believe you should choose the message. Because your tastes are wide-ranging, like the cast of Star Wars characters and their stories. I can find another characterization that I like—one that fits the story better. It just takes harder work, and a little sacrifice of the Fun-Thing that I was attached to. But honestly, is this about me, or the audience? That’s what it all boils down to.

I wish I could help more, but without knowing your story I’m not sure if this was answering your question at all. To sum up, I’d say:

Is your message good, beautiful, or true?

Do the characters, setting, and events in your story fit the message and help support it?

Figure out where the problem is and then stop-and-fix, or else you’ll start spinning your wheels and not finish. That’s been my experience!

Thank you for asking! I am not an expert.

[sweettinspoo]

Invisible ink

[jasmine-sketchbook]

Today’s Gravity Falls stuffs from my sketchbook !

Don’t mind Bill...

[catdragonstella]

HAPPY 1ST FRIEND ANNIVERSARY 💚❤️

(It's something quick I'm sorry. And it's not very visible, but it's night selfie and there id more details. I promise. I will send you better version to see the smaller details

I can't believe it's been already a whole fricking year since I met my most favorite person. You are my bestest friend I ever had and you inspired me so fricking much. Without you I wouldn't even be posting, or have the will to continue my original stories. Hell, thanks to you I wanted to start again on water colloseum. None of it would become true if you weren't in my life. And to be honest. I would be miserable.

Your stories of gods, stars, mortals and other creatures is just amaizing and inspiring. It has so much life and thought putted into it it's insane. The design of characters, the thought out story and personalities feels like real characters that people actually want to find out more about them. I wish you nothing more, but one day turned legends of Stellaris into whole Cartoon series with many fans and fanarts and marketable plushies that would fly of the shelfs. ( I would be already number one customer with the merch and help as much as I can to make it into a real show)

I know our meeting was by pure Chance, but I can't thank any entity that exits enough I met you. Thanks to you I met amaizing artists and make so many memories. I can't Wait for more years spend talking with you. Hang out with you and support you threw thick and thin and maybe one day even meet you in person and maybe go to comic con as our characters. I want to do anything to make you happy. Whatever it takes. You are the bestest artist, person and friend I know, Onyx. 💖YA FOREVER

@clock-onyx

[cinnamons1999]

[victusinveritas]

[luna-the-bard]

When all the dipper brains are solving puzzles and cracking codes, and you have a Mabel brain

Hand-stitched this felt pen holder bookmark and got uv pens for writing in the book

[kryptidcreative]

Godzilla / Pinkzilla

my husband and I saw the new movie recently!

Good times. Drew this because I've never really drawn this king of monsters

[artisticpizza]

Nothing like doodling on your textbooks in invisible ink

[bitingdown17]

INVISIBLE INK

when i tell you my jaw dropped

[picklewednesday]

I had an idea and had to make it before it ran away.

@peppermintz-25 pspspsps invisible ink

[artist-issues]

Oh boy no anon lol. Anyway. I was wondering where you learned so much about the fundamentals of storytelling? I have a very deep appreciation of storytelling and can tell you what little details make stories good or weak, but when it comes to my own writing, it's like I don't know anything. Which I guess is true because my understanding, while maybe more literate than the average person, is still very surface level. I can't say I agree with all of your analyses lol but I agree with 99% because of your insight on how each element of a story relates back to its message. I don't think most people, even modern authors, have the ability to do that. Storytelling has definitely become a lost art, which is so unfortunate because I think it's so fundamental to human culture.

I really try to deconstruct the idea of "storytelling" and then say, "what did God do with this? Obviously He invented stories, Reality is the story He's telling, so how does He do it? What's the thing He uses it for? Now, how can humans also do that (because we're made in His image) and how has The Fall affected the way we do it?"

But, when it comes to articulating my "fundamentals of storytelling" understanding, I'm not very original. I learned a lot from the Belief Agency (especially Brian MacDonald's Invisible Ink. I don't agree with all of it but it was helpful in understanding how to communicate the main idea thing.) and from Lewis and Tolkien's thoughts on storytelling.

I think humans can't help but storytell. Even people who've never created a character or put pen to paper, consciously, are telling themselves a story every day in their head. They're observing the world, processing it, and then repackaging those observations according to what they've decided is true. Worldviews. And then they'll tell stories to the people around them.

What's getting lost is telling stories about things that are true. Like my pinned post says, stories reposed to be signposts that point your brain and emotions back to Reality when they've wandered. Nowadays even people who get the "This is supposed to communicate a main point" thing make that main point about ugliness or hate or straight-up lies. (I'm usually thinking about Riann Johnson's Knives Out movies.)

Thanks for your kind thoughts! If I ever hit the mark or say anything good or true, it's thanks to God, not me.

[blazedmamii]