#just wanted to try and make some illustrations loosely based on the prompts

[safeneia]

[everlarkficexchange]

Everlark Fic Exchange. PROMPTS

Springtime Edition 2021.

These are the prompts we’ve received so far.

Crossed out prompts have already been selected and are being turned into fics!

A huge ‘Thank you’ to everyone who’s taken the time to come up with an idea and send it our way. Your prompts are the heart of the Exchange. Without them, our authors wouldn’t get to write all those beautiful fics. So, please, keep them coming!

You haven’t sent anything yet? Don’t worry, there’s still time. We’ll be receiving prompts until March 7.  Don’t be afraid to inspire us!

Prompts:

Prompt 1: “No, I noticed just about every girl, but none of them made a lasting impression but you.” (Peeta’s pov of the girls who made impressions that didn’t last and the ones Katniss made that did.) [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 2: “Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity” - When they are assigned to the same group in middleschool Home Ec class, Peeta seizes the opportunity to pursue Katniss using all his well-honed family bakery and salesmanship skills. [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 3: I would like to see some everlark where Finnick walks in on them or Johanna and the there victors make fun of them for what they heard [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 4: Trope: Jealousy Katniss. Modern AU Katniss Everdeen sees his ex boyfriend as the date of one of her coworkers in the company party. She shouldn’t care, because she broke with him, one year ago and still.... when their song plays, against her better judgements, she finds herself dancing with him. [submitted by @alwayseverlark]

Prompt 5: Peeta and Katniss were both rescued in the arena and Peeta shares a bunk in D13 with Finnick - Finnick was sleeping and Peeta and Katniss doesn't see him there in the dark hours while they are tangled in lust and desire - either when everlark is doing it and realizes finnick is there or maybe finnicks POV as he is listening silently or even telling Johanna about it the next day - maybe he even stops them mid fuck with a snide sarcastic remark it's up to you [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 6: Modern AU. High School or College Everlark. Make the “booth Kiss” but Everlark! Peeta is the big brother of Katniss best friend, and she never imagined rule number #9 would become a problem. “Rule #9: Relatives of your best friend are off-limits.” [submitted by @alwayseverlark]

Prompt 7: Prompt: Butthurt emotionally immature Peeta acts the asshat manwhore around Katniss when, in misinterpreting her, he believes that she thinks he’s not good enough for her. [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 8: Age gap. Peeta and Katniss are cast as the romantic leads in a show (tv, film, stage, or even a commercial). Of course they cast someone half his age. Peeta can’t help falling for her anyway. [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 9: Canon-Divergent/ In Panem D12 “I waited for you” he said but she dint’t reply. He pressed for an answer he knew he deserved, “under the rain, Katniss. I waited for you, under the rain... why would you do that?” / “I can’t do this anymore, Peeta” / “Bullshit, you can but you just don’t want. I thought you were brave!” he yelled at her looking for any reaction that will give some hope. His tears threatening to run down his face. / She didn’t move, and she didn’t correct her, so he ran away and slammed the door behind him. / “I love you” Katniss said to an empty room. [submitted by @alwayseverlark]

Prompt 10: Canon Divergent. When Peeta is rescued from the Capitol and brought to D13, he’s forgotten everything related to Katniss. The Capitol has erased his memories: no Valley Song, no bread, no games, ... nothing. It’s the perfect opportunity for Katniss to let it go, it’s what every tells her... but she still kisses his pearl goodnight. [submitted by @alwayseverlark]

Prompt 11: Prim is marrying before starting her dream job as a pediatric surgeon in another district. 30-something Katniss is proud, thrilled, and yet bereft when her entire life was lived for Prim. She’s never even dated. Has Peeta been waiting for this moment to make his move? Or do they meet at the wedding? Or when her friend drags Katniss out of her slump to a party or on a wild vacation after convincing her to quit her jobs and start a new life? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 12: Fae Katniss. She’s been with him his entire life, so Peeta simply accepted that no one else could see her, thought other people had their own Katniss. She’d been called his imaginary friend and later a crutch, a figment of his imagination, a delusion. Dr. A asks him to make a “real” friend, ignore Katniss, try going on a date. But Katniss won’t be ignored. And a jealous Katniss is a force. [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 13: Katniss is “just one of the guys” and the only girl in school who’s never been asked for a date by any of these guys. One day she’s “discovered” by a modeling agency and whisked to the Capital. She returns 3-months later with a new look, new found confidence, and cash. How will Peeta deal with the new Katniss and all the attention she gets from everyone?  [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 14: Peeta is 17 when it comes out the only thing his mother ever cooked was the books; he loses his home, his family, his roll in the community. Katniss is 17 when she loses her only reason for living. What brings them together? How do they help each other survive? What forces work against them? When do they accept the other as ally, as friend, as lover? Canon divergent. [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 15: 16-yr-old Peeta’s family moves away. 10 years later he returns and buys a foreclosed upon fixer-upper. When does he learn it belonged to Katniss’s family? She still lives there and hides from him, observes him, haunts him, and ruins all his romantic dates when he’s trying to impress women by making them dinner. Does she learn all she needs to know about him and fall in love before he discovers she’s real and living with him and the one who’s been ruining his love life? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 16: canon divergent, arranged marriage. Many, many years after the rebellion, old victor and mockingjay Haymitch living alone finally starts accepting help, hires teenagers Katniss to bring him liquor and pick up packages and Peeta to bring food and do some chores. The old man sees how the 2 could be good for each other, and being strategic, manipulative, and an old romantic fool with regrets over “the one that got away,” he writes a will leaving his huge fortune to Peeta and Katniss on the condition they have a big romantic wedding within 30 days and live in his mansion caring for his Effie Rose Garden (“Creamy buds unfurl to reveal a memorable heart of buttery yellow, dusty apricot and zesty orange. From a cupped bloom, Rose Effie gradually opens to a perfect rosette, showcasing her splendor.”) And geese.  [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 17: AU, supernatural. “The Monkey's Paw" retelling - 3 wishes are granted (to the owner of the monkey's paw, either Katniss or Peeta) but the wishes come with an enormous price for interfering with fate. Will the last wish make things right? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 18: enemies to lovers. Katniss ruins Peeta’s relationship or his shot with a super hot woman. Peeta ruins Katniss’s shot at great job or security with potential fiancé. Other series of embarrassments and cockblocking type events? Will they start sabotaging each other for revenge? Will they have angry sex or will it dawn on them that they’re actually attracted to each other first and make everything awkward before they instead have a sweet vulnerable moment and slow reverent love-making? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 19: based loosely on retelling of biblical Jacob and wives Rachel and Leah in that polygamist Peeta is husband to both Katniss and Prim. [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 20: Peeta works in ER or long-term care facility. Katniss called in from next-of-kin list and has to decide whether to pull the plug on Prim. They argue over value and meaning of life, over spiritual beliefs and doubts of afterlife, over everything. What will she do? Will this event in this one room be the only thing they ever share, or will the bond they forge through this emotional event be the beginning for them? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 21: Graduating senior Katniss finally accepts an invitation to one of Madge’s wild, unsupervised parties completely unprepared for what goes on in them. Everyone at the party notices her for different reasons from jealousy over the way she looks to suspicion that she’s going to tell parents about the activities to desire to ruin her good girl reputation. Peeta has never missed a party - how does he react to seeing her there? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 22: Their creative writing assignment is to write a short story or poem and to illustrate it as a sketch, painting, animation, with puppets, anything goes. Classmates Katniss and Peeta base their works on the exact same shared experience! (such as the burnt bread, the dandelion, the meadow at sunset, something else entirely). Reaction? People think one of them copied the idea off the other or that they worked together. But Katniss and Peeta realize that the other one remembers, and it meant something to them, too! Will they finally talk? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 23: social media type craziness enemies to lovers. Katniss and Peeta each host a YouTube channel rapidly growing in popularity, Peeta focuses on baking and Katniss on wild game cooking, a competition for audience share becomes personal after they both bake a meat pie recipe, viewers begin to rabidly support their favorite or to ship them together hard, they start to hate each other without ever meeting, maybe they get forced into interacting for a charity benefit, things get ugly, maybe one or both has significant other who react badly to the shipping hype? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 24: While no one expected Katniss to show up to graduation right after her mother passed away and her sister died, they were surprised that she disappeared completely, and even more stunned when she reappeared years later to claim the town’s only apothecary as the last living family member. What compels her to take it over? Where has she been? What kind of welcome does she get? How does she feel about returning and about town life? What’s been going on with Peeta, is he the baker, is he single, a dad, how’s he been all these years? Will talking with him be awkward? Has he changed? Who has Katniss become? Does she seem different? Will she stay? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 25: Katniss is the new girl at this school, transferred to get a better education. Everything about her is alluring, even more so because she doesn’t see the effect she has. Seems everyone is in a clique. She learns that some people are mean and compete like it’s a fight to the death. How does she survive this new arena, learn to identify friends, and stay true to her values under this pressure to fit in? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 26: MJ canon divergent: Prim was not killed. Gale and Katniss attempted to get back to how they were before the war, but he realized he already lost Katniss' to Peeta - heart, body and soul. Any POV. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 27: Everlark in a Tangled!AU, with Katniss as Eugene, and Peeta as Rapunzel (without the super long hair...he has lovely, curly blond locks that heal when combed along to the song...but boy uses a rope to get people in/out of the tower!) [submitted by @albinokittens300]

Prompt 28: Modern AU: Bestfriends!Everlark took their shot at being lovers. But Katniss introduced Peeta as her "bestfriend" to a guy in a party (she was not used to calling him boyfriend yet). He was furious. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 29: I want to request a fic where Katniss and Peeta almost lost their first child and it just made their love and relationship even stronger. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 30: Peeta is Katniss’ tantric yoga teacher. She joins the class on a dare from Johanna and is committed to attending for 3 months. She hates it...at first. Smut happens. [submitted by @mrspeetamellark]

Prompt 31: Peeta Mellark, breakout star and heartthrob has just been cast in the newest highly anticipated fantasy epic (think like Jon Snow in GoT....or whatever because this is just a prompt) His character is highly skilled with a sword and absolutely lethal with a bow. Him and the rest of the cast have to do three months of intensive training prior to production. How will that go with him having a massive crush on Katniss Everdeen, weapons expert and fight choreographer? [submitted by @nightlock-89]

Prompt 32: Katniss Everdeen, famous musician hates posing for photoshoots whether it's for an album or a magazine with the exception of celebrity photographer Peeta Mellark who seems to always know the way to get the best shots. [submitted by @nightlock-89​]

Prompt 33: Based off the movie The Vow except it's Peeta who wakes up to find out he's married to his childhood crush Katniss Everdeen with no knowledge of them ever even dating. [submitted by @nightlock-89​​]

Prompt 34: Modern AU where a forty year old Katniss has shut herself off from the world from fear of getting hurt. After her sister dies she realizes how isolated she is and now wants to open herself up to love, but hasn’t a clue where to begin. Everlark HEA - the details of how they meet and what Peeta’s been up to are entirely up to you. :) [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 35: Katniss and Peeta tet to have a date night but the babysitter calls for some "disaster" at home (a burst pipe or something, nothing serious). [submitted by @booksrockmyface]

Prompt 36: Katniss and Peeta are both single parents. They meet while chaperoning a field trip. The rest is up to you! [submitted by @mrspeetamellark]

Prompt 37: Forbidden romance AU: Katniss is the school principal. Peeta is a new teacher fresh out of college. Age!gap Everlark. Smut happens. [submitted by @mrspeetamellark]

Prompt 38: Both Katniss and Peeta are rescued from the arena, and Peeta’s entire family makes it safely to D13. How does everyone get along? (Perhaps the older Mellark brothers have a “chat” with Gale? Or the Hawthornes, Mellarks and Everdeens meet up for the first time at dinner and a fight breaks out? Does anyone have anything to say about the beach kiss?? Prim? Rye? Gale? Will Katniss stick by Peeta or avoid meeting the expectations she set with that beach kiss and declaration of “I need you”?) [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 39: Katniss has been bumping into the same stranger (Peeta) for months. When they get stuck in an unfortunate situation together, she decides to be the first to say hello. [submitted by @eiramrelyat]

Prompt 40: Katniss is finally, after a long fight with infertility, expecting their second baby. She plans to share this news with Peeta in a big way. Just some sweet, happy Everlark excited for their second toastbaby! [submitted by @albinokittens300]

Prompt 41: based on high school musical. katniss as gabriella, the smart, great singer and shy girl who starts a friendship w the football star player of the school peeta mellark after singing together at a new year's day's party. could be based on the events of one or all three movies. just some light, fluff high school romance and a very hea. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 42: Group of friends. Economic disaster, no jobs; eventually in desperation someone in the group suggests making a porno for $, the idea takes off, as they work on a script and put out ideas, alot becomes clear, like who has kinks, who has tried a lot, and that one is an inexperienced virgin. Does the writing experience have consequences to the group dynamic, will they actually film and sell it, will they stay friends? Are any couples or siblings part of the group? Are secrets revealed through brainstorming? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 43: After getting her to agree to be his girlfriend, Gale calls Katniss frigid for not being ready for more than handholding and chaste kisses. In effort thaw her faster, he makes an appointment with a team of sex experts, Mellark, Mason, and Undersee (offering MD diagnostics, individual and couple counseling, sex surrogacy help). The professional team breaks under strain of dealing with jackass Gale. Katniss breaks all ties with him and learns in working with the team that she wants sex and just how she likes it. (Is it M/F, F/F, 3-way...) [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 44: First-date Everlark. How do they know each other? Who asked who? How do they prepare? Where do they go? How old are they? Does the first date end with a kiss? Pancakes? Request for another? Is it perfect or a disaster so epic they actually have fun and agree to a second first-date? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 45: Peeta works security (peacekeeper? police?), Katniss is a protester (rebellion? BLM?) or a civilian (rebel?) or a local translator in her village. Do they know each other at all? Work together? Fight on opposite sides or meet at common ground? What threatens them? Are their feelings real? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 46: They really do toast privately in CF - katniss wearing an orange dress for peeta and peeta making cheese buns for katniss. They wanted something their own. No one knows about it and there’s no baby (as far they know) but how would this change their relationship? How they make their decisions? Would anyone actually believe they’re married when she gets to district 13? [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 47: Katniss and peeta have a secret semi-relationship prior to the 74th games resulting in a child. Katniss’ family hides it was her pregnancy and pretends its mrs everdeens - assuming katniss went to cray or something. What happens when both katniss and peeta are reaped? Will peeta learn of his child? Will anything change during the games? [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 48: Mrs. Mellark survived the bombing of district 12 because she was squatting at Peeta’s house. How does this event change her and how does this effect Everlark? (Does this count as an eligible prompt? I just think it would be a great dynamic!) [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 49: Age gap. Peeta is a kid in love, driven to enlist, returns as amputee, expects no woman will have him, let alone Katniss. She has become a skilled healer, comes to care for him. He makes her heart full again, she renews him. Age becomes irrelevant. [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 50: Fae Peeta or some other supernatural. Mellarks are secretly fae and Peeta meets his mate *Katniss* on the first day of school. katniss is human and it’s dangerous for them to interact when they are so young still. Peeta is forbidden to interact with her until the 74th games - where he will do everything he can to save her. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 51: Katniss and Peeta unknowingly have super powers. Anything beyond regular human is rare or unheard of in Panem. For some reason it manifests in both of them and comes out as they both fight to protect each other’s lives in the games. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 52: An AU based on Casper The movie from 1995 (just rewatched this movie, it gaves me so much EverLark vibes^^). Katniss comes to live in an old house alone or with family. Peeta is a ghost staying in this house for who knows how long. He doesn't remember much of his living life. The house is full of secrets. They try to discover the story of Peeta and of course they fell in love ! How can it be a happy ending ? 😉 [submitted by @dreamingreaderuniverse]

Prompt 53: Peeta has a harder time after the 74th games then anyone realizes. PTSD, the virtual abandonment of his family, and Katniss’ lack of interest in him, he’s in a bad place. He puts up a front when around Katniss and Haymitch, but things come to head when he gets an anxiety/panic attack while on the victory tour. Katniss is there for him. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 54: Madge has hosted “Beach Week!” ever since her family acquired the multi-dwelling retreat years ago. Katniss never had the $ to go, but with Madge relocating to Paris, Katniss lets Madge cover her share of the expenses with the promise to make it the best! week! ever! Katniss assumes Madge means taking a turn at karaoke or *gulp* going skinny dipping by moonlight. She learns that Madge and her many guests shed all inhibitions, especially with this being their last chance to go wild. [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 55: Arriving in D13, it’s quickly discovered that Peeta will never be the same. Mixed with a failed high jacking, and a brutal beating, Peeta’s brain will never be the same. He’s childlike and mostly nonverbal, but Katniss still sees her Boy with Bread and will protect him at all costs.[submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 56: Peeta wasn’t highjacked in MJ. He was tortured, but not set against Katniss. After Peeta’s warning to D13 he receives the punishment for treason: he becomes an avox. [submitted by @kiinghanalister]

Prompt 57: Girl Scout Cookies come to D12: real world trackerjacker venom to a proud 4th generation baker. Is his own daughter a new scout? Is he asked to lead the fundraiser? Does troop leader Katniss come by with her scouts asking to set up a sales table in front of Mellark Bakery? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 58: Katniss’s grandchild is full of questions: why does grandpa walk funny? why is your yard have only dandelions when everybody else only has grass? why can’t I pick the prim roses - they’re yellow, too ... did you know I could eat this many cheesebuns? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 59: Katniss dad is a victor he won his hunger games and is a mentor. Peeta is reaped for the games and Katniss begs her dad to help him win the games. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 60: Quote prompt: I can see in his eyes what I've done is unforgivable ... "Who can't lie, Peeta?" (Maybe Katniss and Mrs Mellark manipulate situation to get what they think is best for Peeta, sacrificing relationship and destroying trust? Does he leave for years? Does she ever apologize enough to renew a friendship? Was he forced to live a different life than what he wanted? Or does he live his dream life but without Katniss? Is he happily married with kids when she sees him a few years later? Or is he an old bitter man who never loved or trusted again?) [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 61: The Hunger Games is real - you can go home with your winnings to live HEA. Katniss and Peeta celebrate with sex. Unfortunately, the beauty treatment chemicals stimulate the gonads, and Katniss finds she’s carrying not just one Mellark baby but eight. They’ll need more $. Haymitch suggests a reality tv show. Everyone must play a roll to earn a salary - Mrs Mellark plays the loving grandma (off camera, she’s still a mean bitch), who else will take on a tv persona? They jam in many ridiculous product placements. They slap their logo onto anything they can sell to capitolites. How far will they go to keep those baby butts in clean diapers? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 62: Katniss is the football team’s new kicker and the league’s first and only female player. It’s their first road trip. She’d heard stories about what goes on from head cheerleader Madge and piccolo player Delly. Katniss deals with locker room issues, getting respect she earned for her skill, handling the culture of drinking and casual sex, dealing with possessive girls jealous of her time with the guys or others influencing her to change her look or her attitude, finding what makes her happy and what is real. [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 63: Enemies to lovers; Katniss and Peeta are rival business owners (located right next door to each other). A blackout during a snowstorm pushes them together and they are forced to face their true feelings. Do that really "hate" each other, or is their intense desire for one another manifesting itself in other ways? Before the night is over, they find themselves locked in the other's arms. [submitted by @ameliaodair]

Prompt 64: Katniss and Peeta are in a scary car accident - bring on the angst! With happy ending of course :) [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 65: 74th games - Katniss is being cornered by a male tribute (whoever you want) early on in the games. She doesn’t have her bow and he’s larger and stronger. He quickly over powers her but he’s not looking to kill her - he has more nefarious ideas. Peeta finds them and doesn’t hesitate to tackle the tribute off of Katniss and kills him in rage. Katniss doesn’t leave Peeta’s side after this moment. How does this change Katniss and the rest of the books? [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 66: A story told in pictures. Like, Instagram of their stuff only, as Katniss and Peeta get in to college, change roommates, suffer loss, move on, eventually see their stuff together when they cohabitate, or maybe start there and go through drama of breakup until find way back together. (Like the supposition that your garden looks overgrown is a clue that your husband is having an affair type of idea). [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 67: 🌈❤��🦋Katniss and Peeta are the cutest couple!🌸❤️🦄Everbody hates them. Everyone tries to break them up, for their own reason, using their own methods. Damn it, it only makes their love stronger! It ends in some triumph, like celebration of their golden anniversary or other great fortune. [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 68: Katniss always wanted to be a mother, she just never wanted to admit it with the Games hanging over everyone’s heads. So when the war is over and everything is real for Katniss and Peeta, she’s wants to start a family with Peeta. Only- Peeta has never wanted kids. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 69: It’s the start of the holiday shopping season. The Hunger Games Victors’ big public event is attending the grand opening of a huge new toy store where they are presented with hottest must-have new toys: action figures of themselves. Afterwards, they start playing with their dolls. Johanna’s is quickly naked. Is Finnick’s anatomically correct? Anyone jealous of Katniss’s doll coming with the Cinna Collection accessories? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 70: Everlark AU Where the Heart Is (movie) - heavily pregnant Katniss is abandoned at a Walmart in the middle of nowhere by her baby daddy. Homeless and with nowhere to go, Katniss secretly bunks at Walmart each day. One early morning she goes into labor and is discovered by the blue eyed and kind employee Peeta who immediately jumps in to help. Admitting to having no one or place to go to Nurse Effie, Katniss finds herself and her baby the reluctant charge of Haymitch Abernathy. [submitted by @kiinghanalister]

Prompt 71: Magic of Ordinary Days AU: 1940s, Katniss is a single pregnant girl. Desperate for her daughter not to have a child out of wedlock, Mrs Everdeen contacts a priest who in turn knows a young man who just may be willing to help. Sweet, kind and shy Peeta stayed home to take care of the family farm when his beloved brother went to war to never come back. He’s always wanted a family but rural small town life gives little chance to court. He hears of Katniss’ plight and graciously offers to marry her and raise the child as his own. He does everything he can think of to make a home for Katniss and the baby. How does Katniss take it? How does their relationship develop? Will they fall in love? [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 72: Post MJ Everlark Parallel to the CF Scene that takes place after the jabberjay hour. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 73: Katniss looses a baby before they have Toastbaby one [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 74: Con man Peeta has an elaborate operation fleecing money out of unsuspecting wealthy victims. Why does he do it? Is it a Robin Hood type operation to redistribute money to the underprivileged and marginalized people? Or is it more selfishly oriented? He can’t do it alone and hires Katniss as a “research assistant.” Authors choice as to what exactly her role is. Does she help select the victims? The recipients of the funds? Or is she involved in planning and executing the cons? Does she help him discover the errors of his ways if he’s doing it for himself? Whatever the plan is, falling in love is not part of it and when you lose focus of the plan, bad things happen. [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Prompt 75: Black swan style AU with Peeta as Odette and/or Odelle. [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Prompt 76: Vignettes from a mother’s eye. Everlark through the eyes of Mrs Everdeen, Mrs Mellark, Mrs Hawthorne. One of them or any combination of the three. Canon compliant or any AU. [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Prompt 77: Married Everlark are coworkers and their marriage is on the rocks. They’ve been sleeping in separate rooms. Divorce looks inevitable. On a business trip, there is *dramatic pause* only one bed. Does the forced closeness lead them to really talk for the first time in months or does it drive them further apart? Smut not required. [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Prompt 78: Everlark in their twilight years. What do their relationships with the toastbabies look like? Are there grandkids? [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Prompt 79: This holiday is dumb, Katniss says every year even as Peeta goes all out with the traditions, decorations, themed baked goods, cajoling Katniss to partake in activities. Now there’s a toastbaby on the way and for some reason, Peeta doesn’t do any of the things he usually does for the holiday. How does Katniss react? Relieved? Or does she realize she actually loves his zeal and tries to spark the spirit back into him? Writer picks the holiday and level of cheesy fluff. [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Prompt 80: How does that work? They were roommates and best friends. When they meet a couple who has a common law marriage, Everlark starts to wonder if it applies to them too. Go angsty or fluffy or crazy, wherever the muse takes you. [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Prompt 81: Shakespearean style AU in the vein of Still Star Crossed. Katniss and Peeta were not the famed star crossed lovers. Someone else was. But while the deaths of their best friends are still fresh, Katniss and Peeta find themselves in an arranged marriage to hopefully heal the rift. Tell me their story. Any time period or setting welcome. [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Prompt 82: Everlark + Taylor Swift. I'll make it easy. Any song, write a fic based on it. Are Katniss or Peeta the songwriter, or the ones living out the ending? [submitted by @archersandsunsets]

Prompt 83: Katniss gets stung by tracker jackers post mj, Peeta take care of his wife [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 84: Elementary School - the beginning of having a “girlfriend/boyfriend” - Katniss’s best friends (Maggie and Gale) are the “it couple”. She really doesn’t care - she can sit with her friend Jo at lunch and hangs out on the monkey bars alone. Until a new boy comes to school! [submitted by @winegirl65]

Prompt 85: Arranged Marriage!Everlark. (Not medieval necessarily but ‘old time’ setting) Peeta and Katniss have been betrothed since they were children, but have only seen each other through portraits/paintings. Both grow resentful of their arranged marriage, and act up against it; K being as wild and unladylike as possible: hunting, wearing trousers, riding bareback; P being a rake, silver tongue con artist, etc. A month before their wedding, they meet at a The Hub (black market/pub/whatever disresputable place you want it to be) and bet at arm wrestling against each other. Is it love at first sight? Do they armwrestle each other? Do they recognize one another? Will there be smut because ‘hey, we’ll be marry in a month anyway’? Writers choice! [submitted by @alliswell21]

Prompt 86: Katniss is married to Gale, but they have an open marriage. Gale sleeps around and has other girlfriends, but Katniss is only intimide with her best friend, Peeta - extra brownie points if Everlark have toast babies or Kat leaves Gale for Peeta. Thank you! [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 87: Katniss is desperate for a job. She applies for a job with the following description, even though she isn’t fully qualified: We are looking to hire a Data Analyst to join our data team. You will take responsibility for managing our master data set, developing reports, and troubleshooting data issues. To do well in this role you need a very fine eye for detail, experience as a data analyst, and a deep understanding of the popular data analysis tools and databases.Peeta’s just doing his friend a favor, applying for a job he’s definitely not qualified for in order to keep an eye on his friend’s crazy uncle.What happens when Katniss and Peeta are the only applicants for the job of data analyst to Supervillain Haymitch? Will they find a way to both get what they need? Do they stick to the job description or discover that there’s much more to the phrase “Others duties as assigned”? What about Haymitch? His nefarious plans always go awry, and actually don’t seem all that evil, but perhaps with the help of his two questionable new data analysts, he can finally expose two-faced Superhero Coin for the dastardly villain she is. [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Prompt 88: Peeta designs “toys” for his adult shop. He hires Katniss to test his products, she has to fill a questionnaire for feed back or something of the sort. One day she comes in complaining that one of the toys doesn’t work; Peeta thinks she’s not using it properly, so he sits in to watch her try it once more... “to take notes”. She is indeed using it wrong, so he steps in to show her the correct way. [submitted by @alliswell21]

Prompt 89: If Prim and Peeta are never reaped, and Mrs Mellark and Prim die after the 75th Games, and widower Mr Mellark marries widow Mrs Everdeen, what would happen to Katniss? We know from the book that her mom would leave her. And, what would Peeta do? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 90: The Olympic committee is selling sponsorships and heavily advertising the upcoming games. The most photogenic of each sport is asked to pose for pics and attend functions, film commercial together, do some interviews. What sports represented by Katniss, Peeta, others? Required to look cozy? Animosity behind those smiles? Competitiveness? Banter? Any secrets? Do they have a “breakfast club” ending? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 91: Katniss senses something is amiss before the bakery door opens: chaos as Mr. Mellark incapacitated (throws out back?) on one of their busiest days! Mrs M never acknowledged K before, but they desperately need kitchen help, now! And K is more than capable of working hard. A bargain is struck to clean up and follow all other directions thrown at her in exchange for bread and coin. Hard negotiations? Peeta’s reaction? Is it Katniss and all 3 boys in the back? Do the older 2 know her? Any talking? How does the long day go? Does it end well for Peeta? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 92: Years later, the blocked mine shaft is finally cleared, and the bodies are recovered. Will recovery of her father’s remains help Katniss or make things worse? Will the community do anything to honor the men? Will the Everdeens get any personal effects, did he leave a message for Katniss? Will there be evidence that leads to prosecution and $ settlement? Will Peeta, Gale, community, mom, Prim be there to support K? Who can she talk to? Is she changed? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 93: Mr Hawthorne doesn’t die in the mine explosion. It’s he who Katniss meets in the woods and becomes her hunting partner, and eventually a father figure when he starts offering advice on what to do once she graduates. He sees how the baker’s son acts, but he has 3 sons who need strong, hard-working and skilled wives, and he saw Mrs E leave town life behind. Peeta never sees K with Gale - what impact does that have on him? Does Mr H speak of rebellion or does he stay quiet on the subject? Does Katniss see the Hawthorns happily married and modify views on marriage if not on raising a family? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 94: Chris Pratt was a “kick ass” door to door coupon salesman. That could be Peeta! Vacuum cleaner sales, and he has to come in for a demonstration! He’s charming, but does his pitch earn him a sale? Does his cleaner choke on all the cat hair from buttercup? Does the powerful unit suck up something of value? Is it even her house or is she house sitting and wasting his time? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 95: Peeta is also rescued or ah least when he is saved from the capitol he isn’t hijacked which leads to katniss and peeta finally dating - Johanna and finnick still make fun of the happy couple about being so “pure” and one day they have enough - either they purposely do the deed loudly or something in front of them or whatever it is, make it steamy! Or.......peeta exxagerates and tells finnick and Johanna what they have done together in an attempt to prove how unpure they are and Katniss overhears and finally does all the things peeta was explaining [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 96: The Games ended with the rebellion years ago, but now you can “experience all the excitement for yourself at Disney’s newest theme park The Hunger Games! Take a wild train ride into a real replica arena! Experience the thrill of virtually racing to the 3-D weapons pile then trade your kill count tickets in for arcade prizes! Flex your muscles swinging real replica axes and swords! Try on costumes, or enjoy a spa day at Beauty Base Zero! Enjoy an all-you-can-eat meal at The Cornucopia Buffet!” So, who wants to go? Or, who works there? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 97: Everlark cuddling. That’s it. That’s the prompt. [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Prompt 98: Toned, nubile, athletic Katniss and Peeta are hired as stunt and body doubles for a couple of famous film actors who have been liberally airbrushed for the promo pics. The $ is good. No one can know. A lot of nudity. No dialogue, just well timed grunts and groans. One talks a lot when nervous between takes. Some embarrassing moments. Friendship and trust built over time. When it’s over, can they walk away? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 99: I want a smutty filled fanfic in d13 if Peeta wasnt hijacked and or captured. Are they in a relationship? How does this change Katniss’ relationship with Gale? What does Johanna think of it all? Does Finnick make fun of them but slap Peeta on the back? Does Mrs. Everdeen have an awkward conversation with Katniss about birth control? Does anyone overhear or walk in? [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 100: Can be modern canon compliant divergent or whatever but with Johanna and Finnick and or Haymitch talking about Everlark and what they have or haven’t done yet. They all make a bet to see who is right and how far the star crossed lovers have taken there physical and emotional relationship. Extra points if Finnick knowingly smiles at Peeta or Everlark tells them who is right. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 101: Artist Peeta’s niche: option 1: pets - portraits dressed in period costumes with or without owner, or perfectly painted on sugar cookie, other medium? Does Prim want it, or does Katniss surprise gift it to Prim? Buttercup or Lady? In studio or outdoors? Is K indulgent or exasperated? option 2: uptight Katniss discovers that Prim had erotic boudoir photos taken of herself, and neither she nor photographer Peeta told her! She would have stopped Prim. Who is Peeta to katniss? Is Peeta insulted by what she spews out about his job and art? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 102: Peeta and Katniss are both made to wait outside the principals office. One of them in trouble for getting into a fight. The other ? Conversation started by the one not seething. As the hour drags on, they discover common ground and attraction. Suddenly, principal opens office door, and the moment is gone. Do they find way to each other at school? Or in big high school, do they happen to see each other years later under very different circumstances? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 103: Nonhijacked Peeta in d13 needs advice from Finnick about well, you know, how to fuck a girl. And well Katniss goes to Johanna or Annie for the same thing. Will Finnick and Johanna and or Annie tell each other about Katniss and Peeta asking advice? Will they purposely sabotage Everlark by giving them funny bad advice? Will they purposely and awkwardly talk about it at lunch with Gale there? Up to you but make it funny and hot [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 104: Everlark before the quell starts to get intimate, when it dawns on them that Katniss doesn’t want to get pregnant and frankly, either does Peeta however this is something they want to experience. So what do they do? Ask Panem’s biggest heartthrob Finnick for some condoms. Hopefully when the victors have training the next day at lunch, Finnick hasn’t told anyone. Hopefully....😏 [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 105: Katniss is lucky enough to be upgraded to First Class on a flight home to visit her mother and younger sister. Little does she know that onboard is one of Panem’s most important, and consequently, most handsome men, and he takes a shining to her. [submitted by @mandelion82]

Prompt 106: Peeta is a pearl diver/diver/oceanographer. He’s been looking for the perfect way to propose to his longtime girlfriend, Katniss, and thinks he’s found it when he discovers a rare pearl under the sea. The problem is, Katniss isn’t the only one who appreciates his find. [submitted by @mandelion82]

Prompt 107: When her boyfriend cheats, Katniss gets her revenge by making a pass at her boyfriend’s greatest enemy. She only intended to flirt with him to piss off her cheating ex, but things spiral out of control, and they wind up in a dangerously passionate entanglement. [submitted by @mandelion82]

Prompt 108: Everlark fall for one another over a blood transfusion. It happens not once, but twice. His blood runs through her veins, and now hers runs through his. What are the odds they would save each other’s lives? [submitted by @mandelion82]

Prompt 109: Haymitch as a matchmaker. Nuff’ said. His matches are always disasters, but one time, he gets it exactly right when he sets up his neighbors, a stoic girl with a braid and a lonely, blond baker boy. [submitted by @mandelion82]

Prompt 110: A group of bachelorettes/bridesmaids kidnap groom-to-be, Peeta Mellark, in order to convince him that he's marrying the wrong woman, and that he should, in fact, be with their friend and fellow bridesmaid, Katniss Everdeen. [submitted by @mandelion82]

Prompt 111: Peeta is a struggling post-graduate art major. He finally finds a place he can afford because the landlord cuts him some slack on the rent. One day, his landlord becomes ill/injured and his daughter/niece takes over. Peeta's instantly smitten with her, but she insists on the full rent. Will Peeta find a way to pay his sexy landlord? Can he also win her heart? [submitted by @mandelion82]

Prompt 112: Katniss's family owns a Mexican restaurant. Peeta and his friends come in, and he's immediately captivated by her. He keeps coming back, hoping to win her over, but he makes the mistake of inadvertently insulting her/her family. Can he make amends? Will she ever go out with him? [submitted by @mandelion82]

Prompt 113: she’s the man au featuring katniss and gale as the twins, peeta as duke, and madge as Olivia. [submitted by @thegirlwhowokethedreamer]

Prompt 114: Inspired by THIS picture I found - finnick understands Peeta and katniss' love for one another in his point of view [submitted by @everlark-always]

Prompt 115: Post mockingjay, everlark picnic in the meadow, with child or without whatever you feel I just want happy thriving everlark post war [submitted by @everlark-always]

Prompt 116: Hades Peeta and Persephone Katniss fanfic. Maybe Katniss is being abused or needs a reason to leave Olympus and Peeta provides that for her or Peeta just takes her. Peeta may bit of a douche or even dark!Peeta but the two warm up to each other eventually. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 117: Dark!Peeta fanfic where he is a stalker, kidnapper, or serial killer. But he does all of these things because it’s his way of protecting Katniss and ensuring they will be together. Katniss finds out in the end and chaos ensues [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 118: Under the Tuscan Sun AU: Reeling from the breakdown of her marriage due to her partner's infidelity, and struggling to follow up a successful book release, Katniss's friends book her a trip on a bus tour through Tuscany, Italy, to try and help her move on. When she accidentally ends up buying a villa in the Tuscan countryside, she finds not only new inspiration but a new chance at love in the form of her blonde-haired contractor, Peeta Mellark. [submitted by @thelettersfromnoone]

Prompt 119: what if Katniss and Peeta didn't get interrupted by finnick that night on the beach in the quell? Would they have kept going? Would the outcome of the night change since that new relationship step where they absolutely would have refused to be seperated? [submitted by @everlark-always]

Prompt 120: In the blast in THG, Katniss loses hearing in BOTH ears - she's miraculously able to hear the announcement of the 2 tributes from the same district (maybe it's just super muffled??) how does katniss handle the rest of the games without her hearing? how is peeta able to communicate with her? [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 121: Secret lovers!Everlark, aged 20s: They've been a group of friends with Gale and Finnick. Katniss has always been "one of the boys" and seemed uninterested with boys... until Peeta and she had this drunken confession night and they've been hiding kisses and touches since. Summer in a few weeks, they want to go officially together to their annual beach trip, and they start planning how to break it to their friends gently... especially to Gale whom she turned down in college. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 122: a day in the bakery with Peeta and Katniss ... could be modern or in Panem ... I’ve just been watching a lot of Korean cafe videos and I need detailed descriptions of cake and cute couple moments 🍰 [submitted by @rosegardeninwinter]

Prompt 123: wholesome late 1700s Austen-esque romance with local country pastor Peeta (a la Henry Tilney) and his pretty, windswept parishioner, Miss Katniss Everdeen (a la any Austen heroine) with the angelic singing voice and dandelion trimmed bonnet [submitted by @rosegardeninwinter]

Prompt 124: The war is over, Peeta has been home for 6 months and things have been gradually better between him and Katniss. Just as Katniss starts to realize how much she needs Peeta things begin to fall apart and he is quick regressing into the tortured Capitol mutt. The Doctors say there is no hope. Katniss convinces Beetee to break into Peeta's medical files and discovers things about Peeta's mother noone knew, especially Peeta. Can this new information be the key to bringing her Peeta back or will it destroy both of them. [submitted by @emazura]

Prompt 125: Peeta Mellark has just started school with a disability (physical, metal, etc.). How will his best friend, Katniss Everdeen, help him through the year and navigate bullies? [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 126: The Wedding Year AU. K & P meet and start dating. Early on, they learn that between the both of them they're invited to a lot of weddings (for friends, coworkers, family, whoever), even in the wedding party for some. They decide which ones they'll attend, and these weddings are spread throughout the year. The thing is K has commitment issues and isn't sure if she's even the marrying type, so how does this year of weddings play out for her and P? [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 127: AU - Peeta is has two older brothers, a loving but weak father, and an abusive mother. How can the older boys comfort five year old Peeta after his mother’s attacks? [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 128: broken katniss post mockingjay - super depressed about everything and the weight of what she went through is finally sinking in with no war to distract her. Peeta comes back and takes care of Katniss - either Peeta Katniss or even Haymitch’s points of view [submitted by @everlark-always]

Prompt 129: AU Inspired by the Greek and Roman mythologies, where the Games take place in an amphitheater/arena turned into a labyrinth. How often do the games occur? Are there mythological beasts/mutts? How do Katniss and Peeta survive? Or do they not? What happens after they leave the arena? [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Prompt 130: Sheep herder Peeta and quiet seamstress Katniss. That’s it. That’s the prompt. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 131: okay well somebody’s gotta do the inevitable Everlark/WandaVision crossover ... but it’s gotta end happy or I’m gonna be very upset [submitted by @rosegardeninwinter]

Prompt 132: Katniss and Peeta are musicians writing songs about one another unbeknownst to the other. Specifically Taylor Swift's cover of Untouchable, Katniss writes about Peeta. Peeta writes Jump then Fall (maybe change it up a little) about Katniss. Please & thank you! [submitted by @lovely-tothe-bone]

Prompt 133: The victory tour is live-streamed and mandatory viewing for each district. What no one expected however, was for Snow to know Peeta was the words behind Katniss - the one he couldn’t control. When peeta starts talking about rue and thresh in D11, snow issues the command and everyone is shocked when a bang rings out and a red spot starts rapidly spreading on Peeta’s chest. Reactions and the aftermath! [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 134: Katniss and Peeta in an FLR marriage, Peeta is bisexual and so Katniss has a lot of boyfriends like Cinna, Thresh, Gale, Finnick with whom they have sexy times. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 135: Princess Katniss Everdeen was forced to marry King Snow's son Cato, to ensure that the people in her kingdom didn’t die due to famine. Too bad she falls in love with Cato's personal sex slave, Peeta Mellark. But his time in the royal harem and that with the prince has made him too broken to even consider about love. Will Katniss be able to soothe his bettered soul? What happens when the king finds out? [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 136: Katniss Everdeen never had a student as unruly as Peeta Mellark. She wants to spank the hell out of him. What happens when he finally submits himself to his hot and sexy bio teacher? [submitted by @everlurked]

Prompt 137: Millionaire Katniss Everdeen is a porn film maker. Too bad she has to hire, watch and edit two of the sexist man on earth Peeta Mellark and Finnick Odair having sex when she finds out that she might be having a huge crush on Peeta. But she thinks that they are in a relationship. Will she take a chance when Peeta tells her that he is bi and actually Finnick and him are friends, comfortable with each other to do such intimate things for money and not so subtly hints that he likes her too? [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 138: Katniss realizes her feelings for Peeta on the train back and is honest with herself and Peeta about how real it was for her - the beginning of a real relationship after the games [submitted by @everlark-always]

Prompt 139: Young Katniss discovers a wolf cub caught in one of her traps while hunting with her father. They bring him home to heal and Katniss falls in love with his gorgeous blue eyes. He joins the family and becomes Katniss’ new hunting partner. As he grows, Katniss discovers the orphaned wolf’s secret. Werewolf!PeetaBonus: Jealous Gale (As friend? Hunting partner? Your choice) [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 140: The west side of the village is surrounded by a vast forest that no one dares to enter. There’s a legend that states anyone who enters will die in the hands of the wolf that can’t turn back into a man. Katniss doesn’t believe this but when she reads a book, the curiosity gets to her and the only one that she could trust is the drunk man of the town. Witness her encounters this cursed being and how everything in this town isn’t what it seems. #werewolves #magic [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 141: Okay. So texting is wonderful, isn’t it? Katniss is thrilled that she can talk to people without actually talking, especially across the room when that one person you want to talk to is in a different conversation/group than you are. (This can just be fluffy, but as an added bonus, maybe it’s also a way for someone to get *flirty* - or more - with their convo, making her blush like crazy, and the people in her group wanna know what’s going on, why are you blushing..... Or even reversed where Peeta ends up blushing at something she sent. Though he would probably just grin and look up at her unabashedly, which she chided him for later because it’s a dead giveaway. OR! Katniss receives an unwanted text/set of texts from someone - named or not idc - and someone like Finnick or Jo, Gale, maybe Prim, or even Peeta - beast mode activated - sees it over her shoulder and loses their shit and starts taking over the conversation in a ridiculous and hilarious way, unbeknownst to the person responding, and to Katniss’ chagrin. Maybe even as a group, and Katniss just cannot get her phone out of their hands. (I feel like Haymitch, Cinna, and Effie would add their hilarious two cents here and there but also I have no idea how that would work. Idk. This is also known as “The prompt for something I want to write but I don’t write sexy because I’m an awkward turtle but I still want to read this”. You know. Thank you in advance to anyone who read this and/or takes it on.) [submitted by @everybirdfellsilent]

Prompt 142: An Eon ago, the powerful seer got sent a prophecy that shook the world where it stood. "The joining of the purest soulmate will bring the gift that will change the world." (Can be changed to sound so much better)Throughout the years, the prophecy has been misconstrued and manipulated to their owe benefit. Is Katniss the child, the prophecy warned or is there more to that? #Magic #Soulmates [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 143: Katniss moves into a new town for her new job when she catches the eye of the VP of the bicker gang. How long can she resist him and can she truly fit into his life? #HotPeeta [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 144: She has a night of fun before the start of the semester. She meets this guy, they hit it off that they sleep together. But when she shows up to her class the next day, she sees the guy again. But he’s her professor and he’s way older than she originally thought. #olderPeeta [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 145: She moves in with her aunt and uncle when her parents dies in a small town. After suffering through trama, Katniss slowly starts to get better with the help of her family (aunt, uncle, cousin) and the Mellark brothers. But when things starts happening to her and the people around her, it’s revealed that she and almost everyone in the towns are apart of the werewolf pack and that one of the Mellark brothers is her mate. #werewolves [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 146: Katniss and Peeta Mellark as the "Biggest Family of District 12!" #allthetoastbabies [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 147: An Everlark fic inspired by e.e. cummings poem I Carry Your Heart [submitted by @lovely-tothe-bone]

Prompt 148: When a wolf pup runs towards Katniss while in the forest calling her Mama, she doesn't know where they came from and how can she understand them? Is she going crazy? Who's the father? (Its the hot hunk that she meets a day later) #werewolves #toastpups [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 149: An Everlark fic based on the real life story of a kitty becoming best friends with a neighbor (I will post the video link in the comments of the answered ask). Is Peeta depressed? PTSD? Grieving? (Please no divorced/widow/single dad storyline though unless it's like adoption). How does Katniss ultimately bond with Peeta and be a healing light for him in addition to Buttercup? Tension tension tension. [submitted by @lovely-tothe-bone]

Prompt 150: Katniss + Peeta idiots to lovers, modern au best friends secretly pining for one another. Ever the dynamic duo and short on cash, they decide to participate in a couples study. Who's the therapist? (Haymitch?) At what point does the therapist assigned to them realize they aren't even together? And does the therapist realize one or both is in love with the other? Big bonus points for a "It's you. It's always been you." moment. [submitted by @lovely-tothe-bone]

Prompt 151: Pandemic!Everlark. It's their first zoom date and stressed out, overworked Katniss FALLS ASLEEP (maybe they were watching a show together?) Peeta stays on the line and draws her. What happens after Katniss wakes up to a sheepish Peeta with a breathtaking portrait of her? [submitted by @lovely-tothe-bone]

Prompt 152: Enemies to lovers modern au. Katniss emails her group of new hires the training guide to review before they start on Monday. Monday morning just before she's set to meet with the group of trainees Katniss finds an email from new hire Peeta Mellark, attached is the training guide. Completely edited and rewritten. Lots of fuming in their first meeting and total tit for tat hijinks ensue. Torture us with the rivalry please. [submitted by @lovely-tothe-bone]

Prompt 153: Best friends!Everlark who have always been in love with one another. Katniss is in a pretty serious accident, of course Peeta visits her every single day. He notices that every time he enters the room her heart monitor beeps due to elevated heart rate. He notices and finally mentions to a mutual friend (Madge? Finnick?) how it's sweet that she gets excited to see her friends, said friend rolls eyes and is like uh yeah ok "friend". Peeta's all what? Cue suspicion so next time he visits her he takes it a step further and gives little touches (brushes her hair back, strokes her cheek, grazes her arm? LET IT BURN) to see what happens. Sure enough her HR skyrockets. Tell us all the sweet and suspenseful details :))) [submitted by @lovely-tothe-bone]

Prompt 154: Soulmate au where your soulmates injuries and scars show up on your body tinted in their favorite color. Katniss through the years as she discovers new marks, pondering what it could possibly be, finally figuring out that her soulmate is being hurt way too regularly and in very specific places. Do her parents figure out Peeta is being abused? How do they find and "rescue" him? Or does Peeta live his whole childhood being abused before turning 18? Does he runaway? How do he and Katniss find their way to one another? [submitted by @lovely-tothe-bone]

Prompt 155: Just a really sweet meet cute of skateboarder!Peeta wiping out the first time he sees Katniss. Bonus points for her being a skater too.[submitted by @lovely-tothe-bone]

Prompt 156: Post MJ: Toastbabys perspective from in the womb throughout pregnancy. Bonus points for post birth moments. [submitted by @lovely-tothe-bone]

Prompt 157: Miscommunication. Katniss texts Peeta that she needs some 🥖. Peeta thinks the breadstick is a euphemism of her asking him for sex. How do things play out? [submitted by @lovely-tothe-bone]

Prompt 158: CF AU: Peeta gets drunk with Haymitch after the quell announcement. [submitted by @lovely-tothe-bone]

Prompt 159: High school au with popular girl, valedictorian, great at sport and then there is Peeta Mellark shy, awkward, sweet but not so good in academics with a huge crush on Katniss. Will she even look at him when she already has tall, dark and handsome Gale by her side? Typical high school drama ensues. [submitted by @everlurked]

Prompt 160: Katniss witnesses a potential crime in progress and gets in contact with law enforcement. Thanks to her tip, a travesty is adverted. But why did the perpetrator seem to recognize Katniss? And when did the baker’s boy become a head FBI agent? [submitted by @kiinghanalister]

Prompt 161: Katniss is texting back and forth with her older boss (who is hott and recently divorced) about a deadline. She's also bra shopping and taking photos to send to Johanna to get her opinion when she accidentally mixes up the recipients. She notices that she just hit send on the photo to Peeta by mistake (her boobs look amazing by the way, bonus points if it's sunset orange) Mortified she texts "shit, wrong person" What happens the next day at the office. Does Peeta think the pics were for a boyfriend? What's he thinking about during the staff meeting? Will Katniss be able to show her face? [submitted by @nightlock-1989]

Prompt 162: Peeta is actually the Mr. Mellark Mrs. Everdeen left behind to marry her true love when they were 18. They parted on good terms but Peeta just had to get out of town never knowing Mr Everdeens first or last name. 22 years later he returns and falls in love with frequent customer Katniss (who is of age) He brings out the playful side in her and she makes him feel young again. Katniss, who doesn't have a great relationship with her mother, doesn't tell her about the older man she's dating. While running errands, Mrs. Everdeen bumps into Katniss and Peeta, who happen to be engaged in a playful game of grab ass. Shock sets in for everyone. Does Mrs. Everdeen think Katniss is Peetas midlife crisis? Does Katniss' young age begin to nag Peeta? Huge bonus if Katniss freaks out because she realizes Peeta has fucked both her and her mom. [submitted by @nightlock-1989]

Prompt 163: Golden Age of Hollywood AU: Songbird Katniss finds herself signing a contract with The Capitol Productions, a major force in the studio system, after a casting agent hears her singing at a nightclub. Her first project is a musical with a handsome Capitol film star, Peeta Mellark. But while they agree to an engagement as fodder for film promotion, the fine print on their contract never covered the relationship becoming real... [submitted by @thelettersfromnoone]

Prompt 164: Peeta is a handsome prince, fleeing his evil stepmother, who has stolen his rightful crown. Katniss is a skilled tracker, taking bounties to send the money back to her struggling family. Will the well-respected hunter make good on the bounty, or will her heart have a different plan? [submitted by @thelettersfromnoone]

Prompt 165: Peeta gets with another girl after the war, while him and katniss are trying to be friends, thinking katniss doesn’t want him, but instead it only makes her insanely jealous. When she falls ill does Peeta come to her rescue or does he keep his distance to please his new gf [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 166: Peeta moves into a new town. It’s a small town but so lively but things starts getting weird when he starts encountering dead animals on his back porch. Looks like someone found their mate and is trying to empress him. #werewolfKatniss [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 167: He knows where she is at all times. What’s she’s doing and who’s she’s with. But lately she’s been hanging out with that guy for his liking and he needs to teach her and show her that she belongs to him and no one else. Her whole mind, body, and soul. !DarkPeeta #psychological #thriller #angst #mightnothaveanicehappyending [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 168: One thing that sets this community apart from the others is that is a matriarchy. But a lot of surrounding communities want to get in. When it is Katniss’s coming of age ceremony, the prophet tells her that she has the opportunity to choose a first husband from the neighboring community. Katniss was set on Gale but he became the third husband of (whoever you choose). Will she stick to her community’s men or branch out and get new blood? #olderpeeta [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 169: A Capitolite veiwer perspective on the 74th games, maybe running right up to the first day of the Quell. Do they notice Katniss or Peeta at first, or is it one of the other tributes they like. How do the Starcrossed lovers creep up on them. Maybe reactions to Rues death, or the victory tour ( if you want to go that far) [submitted by @darkhorse-javert]

Prompt 170: Superhero/Catburglar AU: The jewel-thief Mockingjay has evaded The Capitol's superhero, Captain Strong, for long enough, and the Merchants of the city have started putting pressure on the hero to bring the thief in for justice. The only problem? The Captain is the alter-ego of teenager Peeta Mellark, and his elusive nemesis is his high school crush, Katniss Everdeen. [submitted by @thelettersfromnoone]

Prompt 171: IndianaJones!Katniss and JiltedLover!Peeta [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 172: Secret Agent Everlark. Peeta and Katniss are undercover partners on a case in Istanbul (or what have you). They take names and kick ass. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 173: Peeta's POV in THG when he wakes up in the cave after Katniss injects him with the medicine to cure his blood poisoning, finding her in a very scary pool of blood. His perspective until she finally wakes. Canon compliant please. [submitted by @lovely-tothe-bone]

Prompt 174: Victory tour AU/deleted scene, Peeta and Katniss walk along a beach in District 4, in a brief moment where they are alone, and Katniss tells Peeta why her favourite colour is green, and anything else you think would fit nicely into that conversation. Basically just Katniss opening up a little more. Either Peeta or Katniss POV. [submitted by @emilia206]

Prompt 175: Katniss hits the force field in CF instead - Peeta’s reaction [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 176: Peeta absentmindedly calls Katniss “love”. She doesn’t mind. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 177: Canon compliant Peeta's POV in MJ when the bombs go off in front of the president's mansion. [submitted by @lovely-tothe-bone]

Prompt 178: A story based on THIS tweet. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 179: Prompt based on the korean drama “Lovestruck in the City”. Peeta as Jaewon and Katniss as Eunho and the rest is up to you [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 180: Capitol didn’t know hijacking but they left Peeta broken. He was sexually assaulted many times by Capitol buyers, both men and women. Will he be able to recover? How does it affect Katniss and Peeta's dynamic. Also Finnick plays a very important role in Peeta's recovery. [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 181: After her parents death (possibly small pox?), Katniss goes to live with her mothers family. They accept beautiful blonde Prim instantly, but Katniss looks far too much like her Native American father. They sell her as a slave at auction to the Mellark Plantation. Even though she always works to the point of collapse, she is treated terribly by Peeta’s brutal mother. Does he help her keep in contact with Prim? or take care of her when the slave masters beat her? Does Mrs. Mellark sell her again? [submitted by @hope4hea]

Prompt 182: Canon Divergence Katniss gets caught hunting and whipped [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 183: Katniss is really pregnant in CF and forced by Snow to get an abortion [submitted by anonymous]

Prompt 184: Horror-love story. Locals tell legend of “La Dame Mellark” who practiced Dark Arts, caused her family’s ruin, and haunts decrepit, facetiously-named “Mellark Mansion.” What if ghostly figure sometimes spotted in window and unexplained occurrences not her ghost but actually Peeta who survived fireball explosion with physical and emotional scars? Years later, Katniss new in town, either seeks shelter there, maybe looking for her sister’s missing cat? Is Katniss trapped or injured or on the run? Does her singing soothe Peeta when he slips from shy to explosive personality? Does he free her? Do locals storm property looking for her? Is Katniss the delusional crazy dangerous one who repels the attacking horde with explosion, then is soothed by gentle Peeta who promises to care for her because turns out Prim died long ago and Katniss never faced truth? HEA for them, maybe not for townsfolk. [submitted by @567inpanem]

[lesetoilesfous]

Karl/Anders with “Staring At The Other’s Lips, Trying Not To Kiss Them, Before Giving In”? 🥺

Aaaaaah this was such a good prompt anon, thank you! Sorry for taking so long to respond!!! 

(If you’d like me to write you a dragon age fic, send me a prompt from here!)

@dadrunkwriting

Pairing: Kanders

Characters: Anders, Karl Thekla

Tags: the Circle is awful, reference to Qunari mages, reference to infanticide

Rating: Mature

There are one hundred and eighty two reasons as to why this is a bad idea. Karl has been keeping track. There’s a notebook stitched into the base of the mattress he got when he moved into his new Enchanter’s quarters that is almost entirely dedicated to the subject of exactly why he cannot become infatuated with Anders. The rest of the book’s pages are dedicated to extended laments about the fact that it seems to be happening anyway. 

Anders, for his part, is oblivious, speaking faster than Karl can easily follow, flushed with exhilaration after his latest prank. He keeps glancing at the door to Karl’s quarters, jumpy as a first year apprentice. It is doing nothing for Karl’s nerves, and both of them fall silent at even the faintest sound of metal on stone, expecting one of their many faceless keepers to burst in and drag Anders down to the Circle dungeon for his latest misdemeanour. This is reason three as to why this is a bad idea. 

Anders’ long, clever fingers flutter as he tries to illustrate his story, nails bitten to the quick, knuckles scraped berry red with his latest scrape. The thin slot of sunlight that squeezes through the envelope of glass permitted at the top of the Circle’s bricked up windows has been scraping ever farther down the length of Karl’s modest quarters. Anders has been here for three hours, easily two hours longer than it would have taken anyone to notice. But Karl has not yet been able to ask him to leave. This is reason forty-eight as to why this is a bad idea.

There’s a small scar just below Anders’ bottom lip: a sliver of silver skin that almost blends into the paleness of the rest of him. Karl remembers the day it happened: Anders had been shouting something about one of the apprentices, and the templars had assumed he meant violence. At the time, Karl himself hadn’t been sure: with his red-blonde hair loose and snarled with a long night of sleeplessness, Anders had looked like Andraste herself come back from the Void to pick a fight with the Maker. They’d Silenced him, and Rhian had punched him, and her gauntlet had split his lower lip and chin open. The children had screamed, and Anders had spat blood onto the floor. By the time he’d been subdued, the chance of magical healing stopping the scar had long since passed. Now it sits beneath his lip like a fang, forever bare and glittering. This is reason seventy-two as to why this is a bad idea.

“Karl?” Anders’ voice is softer than it ever is anywhere else in the Circle tower. Karl startles, and looks down to see Anders’ expression touched with humour. “Where did I lose you?”

Karl begins, “Ser Rylen -”

Anders laughs, rough and low and warm, and rubs a hand over his forehead. “So, all of it.” His thin lips twist into a rueful grin. “Sorry, it’s been a weird day.”

Karl has never heard Anders apologise to anyone else. (This was reason eighty-five.)

He shakes his head, leaning forward and moving to squeeze Anders’ knee before he catches himself, hand freezing in midair as his fingers curl, and he draws back. When he looks up, Anders is watching him, pointedly. Karl clears his throat and gets to his feet, fishing a water jug from the shelf and two rough wooden cups. “Do you want a drink?”

Anders snorts, and before Karl has a chance to prepare for it, he’s standing right behind him, smelling of sweat and books and elfroot. Anders’ body is warm, and slightly taller than Karl’s, and when he speaks he breathes into his ear, taking the cups out of Karl’s frozen hand, covering the back of Karl’s fingers with his own. “Allow me.” A shiver ripples down Karl’s spine. This is reason one hundred and six.

There’s the sound of a cork popping free from a flask, and suddenly the eye-watering stench of potato vodka. Karl blinks, rapidly, and raises both eyebrows at the oval shaped leather flask Anders has whisked from somewhere in his robes. (Reason one hundred and twelve). “Where did you get that?”

Anders rolls his eyes, and passes Karl a cup. “Don’t be such an Enchanter.”

Karl shrugs, and drinks the vodka in one bracing gulp. It burns his throat with bitter heat as he swallows. “I cannot be anything other than I am.”

Anders slouches back down onto the bed, long arm resting on Karl’s desk. He’s already pouring himself another cup, and gestures wordlessly for Karl’s. “What is that, the Qun?”

Karl accepts the cup, and feels a rush of heat when Anders’ fingers brush over his, again. He forces a shrug, and lifts the cup to his lips in a vague effort to hide his burning face. He tells himself it’s the alcohol. “Koslun had some interesting philosophies.”

Anders huffs.”Is it the sewing their mage’s mouths shut, or the blinders that got you? I think it’s the massive fucking collars for me.” Karl frowns, lowering his cup.

“We only know what we’re allowed to know about them. Those reports might be - “ Anders raises an eyebrow, eyes yellow and catlike in the evening light. Karl falters “- exaggerated.” (Reason one hundred and thirty.)

A muscle in the corner of Anders’ narrow jaw twitches, and the frown on his brow doesn’t quite ease as he drinks. His expression is dark when he speaks, gaze directed squarely at the stack of letters Karl has been drafting to the Brotherhood. “Yeah, and Tevinter doesn’t kill children. Don’t get your hopes up. It’s probably exactly as ugly as we don’t want it to be.”

Now Karl does rest a hand on Anders’ knee, and tells himself he doesn’t hear it when Anders catches his breath. The other man looks up at him with eyes a little wider than usual, lips faintly parted and pink as the roses in his mother’s garden. Karl squeezes, fingers scratching against the rough wool of Anders’ Circle robes. “What happened to all that youthful idealism?”

Anders shrugs, and his narrow shoulders are bony and angular, even smothered by the shapeless fabric of his robes. He doesn’t move away. “I grew up.”

Karl shifts a little closer, until his legs bump Anders’, and he catches the long, scarred hand resting on his desk in his own, winding their fingers together. Anders is always cold. Karl suspects it’s a circulation issue, as the Circle is only ever anything other than temperate when the charms malfunction, and that doesn’t happen often. He’s always colder than Karl. (Reason three.)

Karl glances at the door. There are no shadows creeping below the threshold, but he waits for six heartbeats all the same. When none come, he returns his gaze to Anders, and speaks in a murmur. “You know, I always thought idealism was a choice.”

Anders huffs, but his fingers squeeze Karl’s so tightly it almost hurts. The envelope of sunlight that makes its way into Karl’s quarters has begun to scrape its way over Anders’ head, glittering against the gold and ginger in his hair. “A stupid choice.” Anders’ tone is bitter, and he swallows after he speaks. Karl tries not to wonder what happened today that he doesn’t know about. 

Outside, there’s the sound of heavy metal boots on stone, regular and inevitable as a heartbeat. Anders moves to pull back, but Karl holds him, gently, firmly. Anders’ nostrils flare as he glances sidelong at the door. The shadow that stretches beneath it distorts like some half-remembered demon, blackening the dust below the wood. Karl can feel his heartbeat in the back of his throat, heavy and bruising. (Reason one hundred and seventy nine.)

The templar moves on, the crunch of metal on stone echoing against the Circle tower walls before it eventually fades into the ever-present murmur of every other person living here. Anders lets out his breath in one great shuddering gust, and Karl resists the urge to do the same. Both their palms are sweating. (Reason one hundred and eighty.)

The sunlight by now has scraped down past Anders’ shoulders and the back of his head, lighting his eyelashes gold and illuminating the pale ghosts of what might be freckles, if they were allowed to step outside into the sun. His brown eyes are yellow and gold and his nose is long and crooked with breaking. He is terribly beautiful. (Reason one hundred and eighty one.)

Karl swallows in an effort to dislodge the lump in his throat. “Idealism isn’t a stupid choice. It’s a brave one.”

Karl can feel Anders’ eyes on him, can feel every movement of his body, as close as they are: every shaking breath, and the way each one shivers down his long legs. He can’t stop looking at Anders’ lips. Anders’ holds his breath, and the sunlight slips down over his chin and into his lap.

Fuck it.

Karl leans in, and kisses him. He feels Anders’ exhalation tickling against his moustache and beard, feels, after a moment, the pulling curve of a smile against his lips. And then Anders’ free hand is plunging into his hair, scraping against his scalp as he presses him closer with a soft hiccoughing sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and over the astringent, bitter taste of the vodka in their mouths, salt makes its way onto Karl’s tongue as the skin against his cheek dampens with tears. Anders squeezes his hand so hard it hurts, and pulls back only for a heartbeat to breathe, forehead pressed against Karl’s as he laughs, breathless and low. “Finally.”

Reason one hundred and eighty two: I love him.

[homeformyheart]

the antidote - m!raleigh carrera x mc (plat)

author’s note: follow-up to “hopeless.” i hope you enjoy!

copyright: all characters owned by pixelberry studios. songs and lyrics owned by their respective creators. series/pairing: platinum – m!raleigh carrera x mc (cadence dorian) rating/warnings: 18+; swearing and smut; ns*w parts between the 🔥⚡ and ❄💧 icons word count: 2.9k based on/prompt: “love in the dark” by adele / “golden” by harry styles summary: cadence realizes raleigh stopped by her apartment late at night and decides to patch things up.

the antidote

raleigh lifted his head from his hands and winced at the pain in his neck. he slowly started massaging the side of his neck and glanced at his phone. it was almost midnight and he was almost positive that cadence wouldn’t still be out. maybe she went to matt’s instead. was she living with him? shit, he didn’t even stop to consider that she might not even live in this apartment anymore. maybe it really was hopeless. he rubbed his eyes and stood up to leave.

by the time he got back to his apartment, it was almost 1am. stupid late night construction on the bridge turned a 20 minute car ride into 40 and even though he really should just go to bed, he was going to polish off that bottle of mezcal he started and indulge (although some would call it torture) himself. he set his phone to cast to his tv and hit play on cadence’s video album. just for a moment, he wanted to pretend she was singing for him.

he made himself comfortable on the couch with his half-finished bottle of mezcal as his surround-sound speakers reverberated softly with cadence’s soulful voice; it was as though his home speaker set-up was tuned just for her. he poured himself a glass only to quickly drain it, so he poured himself another.

i can’t love you in the dark it feels like we’re oceans apart

ironically, or maybe not so ironically, raleigh was sitting in the dark, looking up at cadence’s beautiful, crying face on his enormous tv. god, she even somehow made crying look beautiful. for some reason, this song in particular hit closest to home for him. in a way, cadence was finally acknowledging that he was always dragging her down into his dark, self-destructive headspace and she needed more, she needed to be in the light so she could live the life she was meant for.

at the end of the song, raleigh switched off the tv and pulled up his recording app. he had been working on a song for months and had the track laid out but couldn’t seem to get the lyrics right. he grabbed his guitar from the other end of the couch and played a few warm-up chords. he really shouldn’t try to sing or record anything while drunk, but he’d deal with the mess in the morning.

as the opening track played in the background, he closed his eyes and recalled his favorite memory. they were sleeping in, with cadence using his arm as a pillow. the sun was starting to rise and beam through his penthouse windows, and raleigh shifted carefully onto his side so he could use cadence’s head to block out the sunlight hitting him directly in the face. as he was closing his eyes to sleep a little more, he noticed that the sun was leaving a golden hue around her head and body, making it seem like she was glowing.

cadence sighed and looked at her phone. it was almost midnight. he was probably out clubbing and hooking up with a model or something and cadence knew if she stayed here all night she would regret it. maybe she read him wrong. maybe he only wanted to know if she loved matt because he was angry she didn’t give him a heads up and not because he still had feelings for her. she requested a dryve before putting her shoes back on and heading back downstairs.

she raised her head tiredly when the driver stopped at her apartment and dragged her aching feet to the elevator and down the hallway to her unit. she stopped in front of her door, puzzled at the crumpled piece of clothing on the floor before picking it up. she held it up in front of her and recognized it as the maroon suit jacket raleigh was wearing earlier that evening. cadence smiled to herself as she changed out of her gown and let her hair down. maybe it wasn’t hopeless after all.

* * * * * raleigh groaned at the pinging noise from his phone indicating he was getting text messages. why didn’t he put his phone on silent? he reached over and was confused when his hand landed on pure air instead of his mattress or nightstand. he cracked an eye open and realized he fell asleep on the couch, which he was going to pay for later. raleigh sat up and stretched before grabbing his phone off the floor and opening his messages.

whatever hungover state he was in disappeared when he realized they were all from cadence.

cadence: [i assume this was a gift for me, but it doesn’t quite go with my dress]

she sent him a selfie of her wearing his jacket over her gold dress from last night. which meant she eventually did make it home. and that he left his jacket at her apartment like an idiot.

cadence: [actually, i think it looks better like this, but it’s a bit big don’t you think?]

his eyes widened when he saw the last message she sent, which was just a selfie of her wearing the jacket without a shirt underneath. she blocked out her face and the picture only showed the top half of her body, but it was enough to send blood rushing south and raleigh groaned again, rubbing his hands over his tired face. he was not sober enough to process this.

a knock on the door made his stomach suddenly drop with anxiety. he stood up and dragged his feet to the door, not bothering to check who it might be before opening it, only to have his jaw drop in surprise to see cadence. and of course, she looked absolutely perfect in a yellow romper, her long hair pulled back into a loose ponytail with wisps of hair framing her nervous face.

��hi,” she said, licking her lips nervously.

“hey,” was all raleigh could get out as he blinked rapidly to wake himself up.

“can i come in?” he nodded and stepped away from the door.

cadence followed and set her bag down before handing him an iced coffee and the breakfast burrito she grabbed on her way over. he looked at her quizzically but didn’t hesitate to start scarfing down the food.

“i figured you might be hungover and we didn’t get a chance to finish our conversation last night,” cadence said, shrugging nonchalantly to hide how nervous she was.

raleigh took a long sip of his coffee before answering, “how did you figure that?”

“because i know you, raleigh. even if you like to act like i don’t. also, clearly you came by my apartment last night given you left this there,” she said, taking out his jacket from her bag and folding it neatly on the kitchen table.

raleigh looked away and finished off his breakfast. “a crazy fan could’ve taken it from me while i was out last night and left it at your place,” he said, shrugging. he looked over at cadence with a smirk and chuckled at the same time she giggled at how ridiculous he sounded.

“so you were at my apartment while i was at yours,” cadence said. she waited a beat for it to click for raleigh; once she noticed the shift in his eyes and brow, she continued, “so, let’s talk.”

“you’re the one who didn’t answer my question,” raleigh pouted. he was not going to make this easy for her, hungover state or not.

cadence folded her hands in her lap. “okay… let’s talk about the real reason you didn’t want our relationship to be public.”

raleigh stopped drinking his coffee mid-sip. “you know the reason. i was trying to protect you – your reputation, your career – from being associated with me.”

“okay, let’s agree that is one reason, but i know there are other, more significant ones, raleigh,” cadence said, a little bit annoyed. “i have a whole team whose job it is to worry about my career and reputation; i didn’t need you to worry about that too, and you know it. so be honest with me for once.”

raleigh looked away from cadence and out at his living room, which illustrated how much of a mess he was last night, with his guitar sitting on the coffee table next to the empty bottle of mezcal and his clothes from last night strewn all over the floor.

“okay, i guess i’ll just tell you what i think until you’re ready to talk. i think you were afraid of getting hurt,” cadence started hesitantly. raleigh turned back to look at her and looked as though he was genuinely considering her words, giving her the courage to continue. “for some reason, you think you don’t deserve me, and instead of working to prove to me that you do, you decided, by yourself without consulting me, that some day i might realize i deserve better than you. and the thought of losing me scared you, so instead you protected yourself by hiding our relationship.”

“that doesn’t sound like me,” raleigh said, with a sharp edge to his voice. how dare she try to psycho-analyze him? but he knew, deep down, that she was right. he felt vulnerable and terrified and unprepared for the damage she could do to him if he let himself fall for her. so he kept her at a distance.

“i wouldn’t be so sure,” cadence said slyly, pulling out her phone and pressing play.

a familiar track started playing and raleigh’s eyes widened in panic.

“cadence, i miss you so much, baby,” raleigh heard his drunken self croon out and cringed. when and why the fuck had he sent this to cadence?

i know you were way too bright for me i'm hopeless, broken

raleigh buried his face in his hands. if it was possible to die of embarrassment, this would be his moment. he had finished the song drunkenly last night and thought he was merely recording it for himself, but he must’ve sent her a voice recording instead.

he didn’t think it was possible for cadence to get even cuter, but there she was, perched on his kitchen counter singing along with a grin so wide that his own face hurt from looking at her.

“when it ends, don’t wanna let you know,” cadence sang softly, “i don’t wanna be alone.” she leaned over and nudged raleigh’s elbow off the counter and gave him an adoring look.

he sighed before clearing his throat to sing along. “i can feel you take control of who i am and all i’ve ever known,” he crooned, “loving you’s the antidote.”

the brilliant smile on her face almost made his humiliation worth it. almost. cadence put her phone back on silent and her eyes softened as she looked at him.

“raleigh – is that how you really felt?” raleigh could only nod sheepishly. “you do know i feel the same way?”

“what?”

cadence rolled her eyes. “come on, you’re raleigh carrera. thousands, if not tens of thousands, of fans would love to be with you and everyone always wonders why you’re with me, the boring, goody-two-shoes, pop star. i know what all the tabloids and your fans say, they all feel like you can do better.” cadence looked down at her lap, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “and they’re probably right.”

raleigh looked at her dumbfounded. surely, she wasn’t serious? did she really have no clue that she was the one who brings light to his life? and without it, he’d just drown in his own drunken stupor. he stood up abruptly, startling cadence slightly with the sound of the scraping chair as he walked around the kitchen table to her side of the kitchen counter.

“you have no idea what you do to me, do you cadence dorian?” he murmured, tilting his face upward so cadence could stare into his gorgeous eyes. “you are everything that is good, and light, and real in my life and i don’t deserve you.”

“well, maybe we deserve each other,” she retorted, amused.

raleigh smirked. “does that mean you don’t love matt?”

cadence rolled her eyes and wiggled her left hand in front of his face. “it was all publicity, baby. and maybe a little payback to get your attention.”

his eyes narrowed. “are you fucking kidding me?”

“you couldn’t stand to be in the same room with me, raleigh. it was actually matt’s idea and it worked, didn’t it? you were finally honest with me,” cadence said, pointedly. “you should be flattered, really.”

raleigh couldn’t help but fail at holding his smirk and broke out into a grin. “i love you.”

cadence felt her eyes get misty. “i love you too, raleigh. so much,” she leaned in and he met her halfway in a searing kiss full of longing, desire, and love.

🔥⚡🔥⚡

he stepped closer, nudging cadence’s knees apart so he could pull her flush against him. his hands ran up and down her back, settling on her thighs as he kissed her relentlessly, swallowing any sighs, gasps, or breaths she tried to take as he bit her lip, kissed her neck, sucked on her collarbone, and moved back up to her lips again.

“raleigh, please, i need more,” cadence gasped as his hands squeezed her butt. she tried to ground herself on his broad shoulders but his bare skin beneath her fingers felt as hot as she did at her core. raleigh let out a low growl and pulled back just far enough away so he could balance before he lifted her up off the counter.

he continued kissing her collarbone as he walked over to his bedroom, laying her gently down on the comforter. he massaged her breasts with one hand while searching for a zipper or way to take off her romper with the other.

“what the fuck is with this dress?” he said between kisses. “it is not giving me access to you.”

cadence laughed, that sweet, ringing laugh he missed so much. “it’s a romper, raleigh. you take it off all at once,” she said, doing her best to look seductively at him while untying the halter strap and lowering the zipper so he could pull the romper off her and throw it on the floor, followed by his sweatpants.

“don’t wear that stupid thing again,” he growled as he buried his head between her legs. cadence gasped at the sudden feel of raleigh’s tongue on her clit and fingers against her core, stoking the fire she felt before.

“i won’t, god, raleigh, that feels so good—i need you, now,” she whimpered, reaching down to grab his face and pull him up to her.

raleigh groaned and lined himself up at her entrance. he leaned down to kiss her deeply and watch with satisfaction at her face as he pinched her nipples and reached down to grab her ass. cadence impatiently locked her legs behind his and pulled him toward her, sighing with satisfaction once he was fully inside her.

“you feel so good, cadence,” raleigh growled, nipping at her bottom lip as he started thrusting slowly.

cadence lightly scratched his back up and down before settling her hands on his ass and grabbing them firmly. “faster, raleigh. please,” she didn’t care that she was begging, only that she wanted more of him.

raleigh started moving at an almost punishing pace, but cadence matched him thrust for thrust until she couldn’t take it anymore. she didn’t know where she ended and raleigh began. he filled all her senses - his touch, his kisses, until she couldn’t think of anything but him. she cried out his name as the pressure became almost unbearable and raleigh watched with awe at how radiant she looked coming apart in his arms. it didn’t take long before he followed suit, grunting her name and collapsing on top of her.

❄💧❄💧

“i love you,” cadence whispered, as raleigh slid off her and pulled her in to his side.

raleigh leaned down to give her a kiss on the forehead. “i love you, too. i don’t know about you but i really need a nap. i stayed out really late last night waiting at my girlfriend’s apartment but she was a no-show.”

cadence let herself quietly internalize his words. “are you sure you’re ready? we’re going to do this together?”

he nodded. “i don’t want to be without you anymore. i can’t be without you, cadence.”

cadence hummed and curled her body into him even closer. “good. i’ll be your antidote.”

“you’re never going to let that go, are you?” he said, but without any real snark in his tone.

“nope, you’re stuck with me, raleigh carrera,” cadence murmured sleepily as raleigh pulled up the comforter to cover her shoulders.

he would take however long she was wiling to stick with him, because there was no doubt in his mind, he was head over heels in love with her. he looked down at cadence’s sleeping form, and for the first time in a long while, felt completely relaxed and content. as he felt his body slip into sleep, his last thought was about how much he was looking forward to waking up with light.

* * * * * mentions: @dulceghernandez; @thegreentwin; @kat-tia801; @the-unconquered-queen; @otherworldlypresents; @brycesgirl; @robintora;

[scripttorture]

Hey, I am writing a torture scene in a Star Wars fanfiction, where a character is tortured both with interrogation devices and with the Force. How do I make the use of the Force in torture seem as awful and realistic as the interrogation devices? Sorry if that is confusing, I've never written a torture scene in fic before and I am nervous about doing this one right.

Welcome. :) It’s a perfectly understandable fear, let’s get stuck in.

 There are some issues around some of the canon torture devices in Star Wars. The short version of which is that high tech equipment isn’t realistic in torture and it can often suggest torture is ‘advanced’ or ‘intelligent’ when it is not. But this isn’t really the core of your question and I don’t want to discourage you on your first try.

 For more realistic low-tech alternatives I have a post on common torture techniques in the modern era over here. You can read a little more about why I think ‘interrogation devices’ are leaning in to torture apologia by looking through the ‘high tech torture’ tag.

 You can read a bit more about it in this Star Wars review here or by looking through this tag.

 Central to this is how you communicate pain in a story. Because that’s really what we’re talking about here. How do you capture a type of pain that your reader hasn’t experienced?

 It might be helpful to know that pain isn’t one sensation. We actually process different kinds of pain differently and we each have different thresholds for different sorts of pain.

 That might sound complicated but what it boils down to is that knowing someone likes their curry hot doesn’t tell you how they’d deal with a head ache or a twisted ankle.

 So if I was approaching this my first question would be: what kind of pain do I want to make the Force feel like?

 There are a couple of little bits from various parts of the franchise that suggest the dark side feels ‘cold’. But I think you do have leeway to really decide what you want this to be like.

 I would lean in to the way the Force can cause pain without leaving obvious wounds. Because a lot of torture, both historically and today, does the same thing and these ‘clean’ (non-scarring) tortures are often dismissed. The damage they cause is downplayed, the pain they cause is underestimated. And unfortunately survivors of clean tortures (the majority of torture survivors today) are dismissed because we expect torture to leave scars.

 Our vision is a big part of how we judge other people’s pain. We find it very easy to instinctually imagine (and sympathise) with injuries we can clearly see. Things like broken bones, burns and cuts seem to be easier for us to understand. I’d use that, in the same way I would if I was writing a non-magical clean torture scenario.

 I’m going to describe the reported sensations/type of pain caused by three different clean tortures; stress positions, pumping and electrical torture using a magneto. (You can look up any of those in the tags for more information.) Feel free to use any of these.

 Stress positions cause muscular pain throughout the body. Think of the sharp pain the comes with pulled muscles and imagine that throughout the body. That tension, the feeling that the limbs are giving way, everywhere. A building muscular pain punctuated by sharp bursts. It’s trembling afterwards, weakness, staggering, falling. A burning, pins and needles sensation as circulation returns to raised limbs.

 By contrast pumping is internal, organ pain. It’s a stomach ache that’s like being stamped on. A stabbing pain that doesn’t end. If you’ve had a bad E coli infection then think of that. Nausea, the awful empty feeling afterwards. Switching from one type of pain to another until it starts all over again. The way your head reels and your awareness narrows.

 As for electrical torture, well here’s Alleg’s description of his experience with the French military in Algeria (I have edited to focus on his description of physical sensation).

 ‘Suddenly, I leapt in my bonds and shouted with all my might. Cha- had just sent a first electric charge through my body. A flash of lightning exploded next to my ear and I felt my heart racing in my breast. I struggled, screaming and stiffened myself until the straps cut into my flesh. All the while the shocks controlled by Cha-, magneto in hand, followed each other without cease.[…]

 ‘Suddenly I felt as if a savage beast had torn the flesh from my body. Still smiling above me Ja- had attached the pincer to my penis. The shocks going through me were so strong that the straps holding me to the board came loose. They stopped to tie them again and we continued.

‘After a while the lieutenant took the place of Ja-. He had removed the wire from one of the pincers and fastened it down along the entire width of my chest. The whole of my body was shaking with nervous shocks getting ever stronger in intensity, and the session went on interminably. They had thrown cold water over me in order to increase the intensity of the current and between every two spasms I trembled with cold. All around me sitting on the packing cases, Cha- and his friends emptied bottles of beer. I chewed on my gag to relieve the cramp which contorted my body. In vain’

 Obviously you don’t have to use any of these examples if you don’t like the sound of them. The basic idea is to think about a type of pain and use that to create an evocative description.

 You could even use your own experience if you wanted to. Think about the kinds of pain you’ve had in the past, migraines or pulled muscles or eating a curry that was too hot, and use that as a basis for magnifying the same sensation.

 That’s all Step One.

 Capturing the full impact of torture means more then the torture scene. It means warping the story under the weight of abuse. It’s the lasting effects on the survivor and the knock on impact on their friends and family. It’s the way that impact can radicalise people, even witnesses. It’s the effect torture has on the organisations that use it and those that it is used against.

 A story does not necessarily need to give all of these elements a lot of narrative space.

 If your story doesn’t focus on the survivor then their symptoms might just take up a sentence as the main characters ask whether they ‘made it’. And in that case you hammer home the impact by showing the effect on these people who are at a remove. Their fear, their anger, their resolve to stop this. Perhaps even a few lasting symptoms they develop as witnesses to a traumatic event.

 The original Star Wars movies don’t leave a lot of time to focus on lasting effects on the main characters but they still show each of them resisting torture in different ways. They show torture radicalising characters who witness it. They show it galvanising opposition and they show torture as ultimately undermining the organisation that uses it.

 Essentially think about the sort of story you’re telling and how much space each of these elements needs in your story.

 Most of the writers who come here are focused on a survivor character and want to write that character recovering. So I’m going to talk about that in more depth.

 If however you’d rather talk about systems in your story I do have some masterposts that’ll help. There’s one here on the common justifications for torture in democracies. There’s one on why torture doesn’t work as a method of interrogation here and a more detailed discussion of the effect torture has on investigations here. There’s also a post on common misconceptions over here.

 I also think you should read the post on clean torture.

 So, let’s talk about how torture effects people.

 Torture does cause lasting symptoms in survivors, witnesses and torturers. Survivors are left dealing with symptoms for the rest of their lives. But that doesn’t mean they never recover and it doesn’t mean survivors don’t go on to have fulfilling lives.

 Recovery is about learning to live with symptoms rather then mental health problems vanishing.

 Now we know the possible symptoms of torture. But survivors don’t generally experience all the possible symptoms and we don’t really understand why there’s so much variety in what individual survivors experience. We also, generally speaking, can’t predict which symptoms any individual will get*.

 From a writing stand point that means we’re free to decide what fits best in any story. I’d encourage you to pick 3-5 symptoms from the list here for any survivors characters. There’s a more detailed discussion of memory problems in particular here. Memory problems are extremely common in reality and very rarely portrayed accurately/well in fiction.

 Personally I think the best way to pick is by looking at the list and thinking about which symptoms will add to the story you’re trying to tell. Think about what might add interesting obstacles in the plot, what might create opportunities to show your audience more about the character and what might change the relationships characters have.

 So if your character needs to be charismatic and social does giving them anxiety create an interesting barrier to that? If your character is determined or holds their ideals really high, does giving them depression help illustrate those qualities by showing what the character is battling with every day? Would intrusive memories prompt deeper discussions with their friends about mental health, their fears?

 Wrapping up I would really encourage you to look at that masterpost on the common misconceptions about torture. Because so many of the ways we’re used to seeing torture portrayed are tropes that have no basis in reality. And a lot of them are based on really harmful misconceptions about torture and torture survivors.

 This probably feels like a lot. It is. Torture is a complex topic to tackle and the sheer volume of misinformation out there makes it that much harder to do it right.

 Read the links. Think about what you want to write. Practice.

 And if you have any more questions feel free to send them in when the ask box re-opens. :)

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

*There are a handful of exceptions here but for the most part whatever the torture technique the possible long term symptoms are the same. Exceptions include sleep deprivation, starvation and solitary confinement.

[landeg]

31 Days of Apex: A Retrospection

I participated in the incredible #31DaysOfApex challenge hosted on Twitter, where fans created new content for every day of July based on a one-word prompt. I’ve signed up for/started lots of similar challenges in the past but always ended up having to drop out or trail off before the end... but this time, I managed to complete something for every day of the challenge!

My only goal was to make something by each day’s deadline, and it was a really interesting exercise both in technical skill and also in my management of not only my time, but my expectations and energy. Below, I go into more detail behind each piece.

To preface; the beginning of this challenge coincided with the beginning of a new personal time-management exercise where, for 5/7 days a week, I would only go on the computer at night. Combined with the deadline, this had an interesting effect on my time management and the quality of certain pieces.

Day 1 - Memory

From the start, I wanted to use the challenge as an opportunity to do more studies and to push myself wherever possible. This was the first piece I did and I had more time to work on it, so I used it as a digital painting study. I still think it’s a strong piece and it’s probably my favourite of the month. Symbolically, this character’s backstory doesn’t match up with her own memories, so the idea is she’s missing information she can’t quite place or remember, and this both scares and comforts her.

Day 2 - Blood

Another digital painting and lighting study that didn’t work out as well as the first, mostly due to time constraints meaning I couldn’t scrap it and start again. While I don’t like how it turned out, I did learn a lot. The character on the right is a field medic, and my intent was to show the calm after a successful rescue.

Day 3 - Mercy

Some days I relied more on the humour of a piece’s concept than the skill of its execution, though I also liked how this piece turned out artistically. After two days of intense studies, though, this was very quick and easy for me to turn out as it relied on existing skills.

Day 4 - Prize

This one thankfully came together very quickly, which I credit to the two previous painting studies making it much easier to achieve what I wanted. The character is searching for the disembodied head of the man who killed her parents, who is now acting as a robot, hence the vaguely half-machine-half-human silhouette in her hand.

Day 5 - Family

Another quick, simple illustration under a time crunch. The character framed by the nameless foreground figures has no memory of herself or her family.

Day 6 - Noise

For some pieces where I was under a time crunch, I experimented in an opposite direction; instead of studies, I played loosely with different techniques/brushes/etc to see what came out. This was a lineless style I ended up employing a lot when short on time. The piece pictured here was just one of four alternate colourways, presented in a pop-art style. The character is almost always depicted with thick coverings over her ears, so I thought she might be sensitive to auditory overload. This particular piece was retweeted by the character’s voice actress!

Day 7 - Mask

More relying on humour for lack of time/a better idea. A fun experiment in colour, though.

Day 8 - Healing

Another technically “easy” piece but with a stronger concept. It was actually pretty hard to get the reflection & condensation elements balanced right. The character pictured has a narrative thread relating to an old ex he has trouble moving on from.

Day 9 - Weapon

While obviously another joke, and made to be finished quickly, it was surprisingly difficult to get the duct tape and knife to read clearly without over-cluttering the lineless image. This little ‘bot is a drone used by one of the playable characters to hack areas of the map; it’s not NORMALLY an offensive weapon. This image was promo’d in a video stream by the character’s voice actor!

Day 10 - Truth

I only had less than an hour to finish this one by the deadline, but I still tried to experiment with silhouette and colour. It was surprisingly hard to get the interior silhouette to be legible. The outer silhouette is a playable character (not easily readible unless you’re familiar with his design) and the inner silhouette is his sister, whose disappearance he is trying to investigate.

Day 11 - Shield

A fun, self-indulgent one. Had a blast simplifying the game’s characters down into little caricatures. The character in the centre has abilities related to shields and protection, so many other people were drawing him for the prompt; I wanted to try and flip it, so I picked other characters he would be friendly with, and picked a non-lethal, lighthearted setting.

Day 12 - Ruins

Short on time so did a quick lighting study. A recent game plot has changed one of the areas of the map, submerging it in water and leaving it to “ruin”.

Day 13 - Hero

Another painting study. Really didn’t like how this one turned out, but had to turn in something, and I did learn a lot in the process. If I’d had more time I probably would’ve scrapped it and started again. This characters had recently been revealed to have been manipulated by another character who used gas-based offenses, whom she admired.

Day 14 - Rest

I was going to be away from mt computer until after the deadline, so I decided to make a traditional piece. I ended up enjoying it so much I tried to take the time to do a few more traditional pieces later. This piece was sort of a comedy of errors; I had to do it while I was out, and the pen I had brought with me to ink my sketch ran out, so I had to make do with a blue ballpoint pen, and I was missing several colours of coloured pencil. I think the finished piece reflects how rushed it was, and it did’t meet my concept, but I do still like it.

Day 15 - Skull

Another quick one but I wanted to experiment with a different line style. Wanted a sort of “graffiti” effect. One of this character’s skins includes a skull-shaped mask.

Day 16 - Growth

Extremely quick play on words because I didn’t have the time to work on anything meaningful and couldn’t think of anything better!

Day 17 - Home

Another traditional piece, this time by choice and with more time. Markers. It looks extremely like some janky art school homework on 2 point perspective because it extremely is. Perspective and backgrounds are very difficult for me - they just don’t “click” - but I had a lot of fun with this one. I kept my mistakes intact because I didn’t want to edit it too much. A lot about the technical perspective is wrong, but I think I achieved the “mood” I wanted. This location is a bar owned by one of the player characters where many of the other characters are shown to meet.

Day 18 - Sky

Very happy with how this one turned out, even though there are still lots of problems. Markers again. There’s a lot I would fix next time, and I think technically it’s lacking, but there are some specific areas I feel happy to have achieved, such as the almost brushed texture of the curved metal above his shoulder and the values of the shadow/reflections on the underside of the head piece. I’m also happy with how I was able to draw from my shoulder rather than my wrist when inking the curved lines, something I struggle with.

Day 19 - Target

An experiment in pushing the lineless style I’d already been playing with for a stronger likeness. The pose and expression in this could both be pushed more but I like the result. This character had just learned that one of the other players, whom she had trusted, was actually sharing her secrets with her enemy, and she didn’t know which one it was.

Day 20 - Friendship

I had this one concepted from when I first looked over the prompts. It was a fun challenge trying to simplify all the elements into the lineless, blocky style while being legible. This character has a strained relationship with one of his friends, and finally pushed her too far with his selfishness, and she now no longer responds to him.

Day 21 - Scar

Quick joke. This character was introduced briefly as a red herring for another character before being killed off. He was stabbed through the chest by another character’s hand, hence the scar pattern.

Day 22 - Dream

I wasn’t sure about this one while I was making it but I ended up liking how it turned out. I wanted to capture the character’s robotic legs bent at an unnaturally straight 90 degrees, like a Barbie doll. The flat background and lighting make it feel like an indoor stage. The little “electric sheep” are inspired by iDogs.

Day 23 - Meal

After a few days of not having time to really spend on any piece, it was fun to get to spend time on concepting and composing this. I always admired these kinds of watercolour-like food illustrations and this is the first time I’ve had any success in creating one myself. I concepted and sketched out the individual items traditionally before working out the composition within the box digitally. Each food item/utensil is inspired by the different characters’ design elements. Only two of the now-current characters are excluded due to plot reasons. In particular, I like how one of the character’s dome-shaped shields acts as the base and cover of the box.

Day 24 - Hobby

Wasn’t a fan of how this one turned out. I think the likeness is a bit off, and his facial anatomy is skewed. But I also like how the general composition, tone, and bee turned out. This character’s concept art originally imagined them as a beekeeper who would use smoke to fight.

Day 25 - Fear

An incredibly rushed piece that I intended to go back in and add more detail to, similar to day 4, but I actually took a step back and decided I liked the blocky, flat-colour version. This character is the youngest of four, all of whom are MIA or worse, along with his father, and his mother is losing her memory. He’s talking to her through a handheld holographic device. This piece gained more traction, most likely thanks to the subject matter since this is a popular character.

Day 26 - Holiday

I didn’t want to do a religious holiday like Christmas or Easter. A lot of other people also interpreted the prompt as a vacation, but I had already done a sort of “beach vacation” piece for day 11, so I instead went for a “public holiday” and chose NYE/NYD. This was fairly quick but the lighting was an interesting experiment. I knew this one wouldn’t be as popular because it wasn’t as “flattering” but I personally really like it. The girl on the left is kind of goofy and completely un-self-conscious and I think it’s captured here.

Day 27 - Music

Really didn’t like how this one turned out. I don’t think the likeness is good at all, the lighting is poor, and the gold detailing feels lazy. But I liked other elements, such as the pose and the clothing.

Day 28 - Treasure

This is my least favourite of the entire month, but I also had the least time available to work on it before the deadline so I had no opportunity to scrap it and start over, which I sorely wanted to do. The likeness is terrible, but more than that the base anatomy is off, the pose is stiff, and the lighting/colours are cheap. I wish I could’ve done better by this character; but, I am glad I had something finished at all.

Day 29 - Skin

This was probably my third attempt at this picture and I’m still not happy with it, but again, I had to finish something. I almost considered scrapping the concept entirely and choosing something easier but ended up seeing it through. The concept itself is actually recycled from an older piece of mine for an entirely different fandom, because I didn’t think I did it justice then, either. Would still like to revisit this concept with this character and take more time.

Day 30 - Trust

After a few days of feeling really dissatisfied and uncomfortable with the art I’d been making, I finally more time to dedicate to a piece, and I’m overall happy with how this one turned out. I decided to go for a different medium entirely with pixel art, which also gave me the opportunity to try and animate it. I started off confident and then started to get worried towards the end, but all the elements came together when I added the portal colour effects. This is an alternate reality version of one of the player characters, who appears through a portal and allows that character to escape the facility she’s being kept in, encouraging them to trust the “voices” she hears which are actually versions of herself trying to help her. This piece was retweeted by the official Apex Legends Twitter account!

Day 31 - Freestyle

I had this planned out early in the challenge and I’m really, really happy with how it turned out. It’s probably tied with my favourite along with the very first piece (how fitting). I was worried about how I was going to capture the movement without over-complicating the lineart, having so many people in one image, etc. before I realised the focus was entirely on gesture, and then everything clicked. I went for a thicker brush, which forced me to conserve my lines, and tried to simplify each character down to the bare minimum needed to recognise them. They’re also all wearing new non-canonical outfits so I used their familiar colour schemes for the same purpose. It’s not perfect, but I love it, and it’s everything I’d hoped I’d be able to end the challenge on.

I really, really enjoyed the entire month and the way it tied in with my new time management schedule. It gave me some achievable short-term goals which added up to this long-term achievement I can now look back on; I learned a lot both about balancing my energy and about technical skills, I found ways to stay motivated, and most importantly I learned to not get caught up on the individual slip-ups and pieces I didn’t like as much and to instead focus on the bigger picture. Thank you to everyone involved in organising and supporting this event! I found so many other incredible fanartists, writers, and content creators through this challenge and I can’t wait to see the bonus content released over August!

[caasiturner]

Definition

Hello friends.

Some time has passed since I last wrote. Much has gotten in the way of this pseudo-blog/ artistic pursuit. Breakups, jobs, other creative pursuits, school, Krav Maga. I promised myself over and over I was going to write again.

I was going to write on how coffee inspired the Revolutionary War and coffee shops deserve to be places of political discussion once again. I was going to write on how manhood died along with the countless lives lost in World War II. I was going to write tales of love, pain, and other drugs.

All vast and deep subjects clearly.

It seemed, however, every time I sat down to type, my creative juices dried up like a raisin in the sun. Much of this is due to great personal growth in a short time.

Last I wrote I was angsty, anxious, and desperate to find my purpose in life. I knew my voids and sought to fill them with validation, creativity, and general busyness. These days I’m a bit more relaxed and more comfortable in who I am...perhaps even a tad too confident. Till today.

My private readings, life circumstances, and conversations have prompted several questions I felt need answering. How do people around me view me? Am i delusional in the words I use to define myself? Lastly, what words do I want at the end of my life be used to describe me?

Naturally, I texted several people the following question and waited for a response.

“What words would you use to describe me?”

Now I didn’t cherry pick my audience mind you. I chose close friends, people that barely know me, people with ideologies opposite of mine, mentors, old flames. I wanted an honest opinion. I desired to be fully self-aware with no false notion of who I am. 

Here is what I received back.

-Loyal

-Dedicated

-Creative

-Capable

-Adventurous

-Funny

-Aggressive

-Bold

-Love deeply

-Noticeable

-Charismatic

-Caring

-Determined

-Strong

-Safe

-Reserved

-Compassionate

-Insecure

-Stubborn/strong-willed

-Driven

-Earnest

-Impulsive at times

-Hard-working

-Genuine

-Positive

-Unshakeable

-Passionate

-Personable

-Joyful

-Clean

-Forgiving

-Independent

-Ambitious

-Daring

-Honest

-Inspiring

-Attractive

Now I don’t share these words to pat myself on the back. These responses just answered the question of how I am viewed. It also opened my eyes to any potential areas I may lack in or am delusional in my ability in. For instance, I thought I was secure in who I am. Apparently, my actions still counter this belief. That is ok! At least now I am aware of it and can keep moving forward to improve in it.

The question still remains, however, what word do I wish at the end of my life be used to describe me? I want this word to be a reflection of my faith, my accomplishments, and my life’s goals. I want it to define how I treated people, made them feel, and touched their lives. I want it to embody the true spirit of manliness. Not in a macho fashion, but rather like this poem by Kipling.

“ If you can keep your head when all about you       Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,     But make allowance for their doubting too;   If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,     Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,     And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;       If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster     And treat those two impostors just the same;   If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken     Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,     And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings     And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings     And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew     To serve your turn long after they are gone,   And so hold on when there is nothing in you     Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,       Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,     If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute     With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,       And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!”

This is one of my most favorite poems. In many ways it is the philosophy I try to adhere my life to. I could spend hours writing and breaking down this poem, but instead, for today, lets continue on finding the word I wish to define Isaac Stitt.

After much thought and reading I settled on this simple yet regal word.

NOBLE.

I wish to be defined as a noble man.

What is nobility? Is it a lifestyle of luxury, helicopter pads, and yachts laden with bikini clad models? Is it a monarch upon a golden throne, surrounded by servants who run to his every beckoning, and a castle filled with exotic fantasy? Maybe it’s James Bond, sipping martinis, rescuing the world, and snatching every lovely woman in his path. Perhaps it is Alcibiades, a politician with loose morals, charisma, and an extravagant lifestyle.

I think not.

Merriam-Webster define the word “Nobel” as, “possessing outstanding qualities possessing very high or excellent qualities or properties, characterized by, or arising from superiority of mind or character or of ideals or morals.”

I believe that is but half of it. Why yes, I want to be known for my good qualities, and high morals and standards, but.....there’s something lacking. It’s missing movement. To be described as “caring” is one thing. It is the practice of the word that makes it so. We can call a car “sleek” all we wish, but it’s not till we see it speeding down the highway do we actually see it as it truly is. “Sleek”.

I believe an illustration would help us best define nobility. So who embodied the word “Noble” in action?

Leonidas. No not the guy with ripped abs and a Scottish accent kicking people down wells. Not even that guys in a weird graphic novel. I’m talking the historical badass who led 300 of the mightiest warriors into certain death, as he knew their sacrifice would give the Greeks time to prepare and fight against the Persian Empire. He was loved by all his men, sweated and fought next to them, not behind them. He rejoiced with them and wept with them. He paid the ultimate price to save his city and the rest of his country, which didn’t even like him.

That’s nobility.

Nobility is Andy Reid. Continuing to grind despite the lack of success. To keep going even when failure is rampant. To stay gracious and hungry despite failing every time a championship is near. To prepare and be so involved with your players they would run through a wall for you. Or maybe at least  have multiple comebacks on some of sports biggest stages.

That’s nobility.

Nobility is Winston Churchill. Leading a nation that was at it’s breaking point. Standing firm in the face of defeat. Caring about every single life lost. Pushing forward in the face of a parliament that didn’t even like him and wished to veto any idea he came up with. Staying firm to the course, never giving up, being a man of the people.

That’s nobility.

Lastly, to be noble is to be Christ-like. To emulate his life of surrender, sacrifice, and love for all man. To give up one’s own dreams and desires for the good of others, to pay whatever price necessary for the freedom of those around you, to love those that despise your name. To love everyone from the most innocent child to the most vile adult, to accept each person as they are, and to point them to a better way.

That’s nobility.

It is not just being honorable. It is not just being a person with high morals. It is not even being a “good person”.

Nobility is character in action. It is a drive of the most finest qualities towards a goal of self-sacrifice for those near and far. Nobility is the apex where the quality of a man is tested and refined. It is the product of years of self-denial, a driving towards improvement, and a surrender of one’s base desires and fleshly lusts.

To be noble is not to be the ruler of all. Nobility is to be the servant of all.

And that is what I will forever strive to be defined as.

Much Love,

Caasi.

[starfast]

Writing Update: What’s next

So I guess it’s been like a week since I finished the first draft of my novel. I’m still really excited about finally finishing a story that’s just been an idea for so long. No one really asked, but I have some other things planned that I’m also pretty psyched about, so here’s what you guys can expect from me, writing wise over the next little bit:

 I’m going to start rolling out some character introductions hopefully soon. I’m hoping to include a drawing as well as some basic information on each of the four main characters. Right now, I have one drawing that’s partially complete and I’m still trying to figure out what kind of written information I want in these introductions. 

Inktober is coming up and I’m going to be participating (again)! This isn’t a writing update, but you can definitely expect to see some ink drawings once October comes around.

Speaking of challenges, I’m also going to be participating in the Seven Days of Fright event . I already have stories planned for 5/7 prompts, most of which have tentative titles. I’ve already started writing three of them, and I’m pretty excited to share them with you guys! I’m hoping to make some illustrations for some as well, but that’ll depend on whether or not I can find the time. My main priority is going to be writing and editing. 

NaNoWriMo is also coming up, and I’m going to start outlining my project soon since I plan to participate in that as well. I’m going to be working on a sequel to the novel that I just finished that will pick up where my first one left off. I’m not sure whether I’m going to aim to do the full 50,000 words because I’m working full time this year and have some other stuff going on, but I’m still going to participate regardless. I’ll try to post some regular updates like I was doing during camp NaNoWriMo back in April.

I’ve started editing my first draft, but only a little bit. Originally, my plan was to post chapters as I edit them but I’m no longer doing that for a few reasons. One is that I’m just wanting to take a break. I’ve spent a lot of time working on it, and I kinda just want to step away from it for a little bit before I jump back in. I’m also wanting to make a title page, which I could do easily, but haven’t yet because of reason #3 which is I don’t have a title for this stupid novel yet 🙃 I have a working title but I don’t really love it. I thought maybe inspiration would strike while I was writing but it never did. So yeah, once I do all those things I’ll finally start posting here.

I have some other projects that I’m wanting to do some more work on as well. I’m not ready to start writing any of them yet, but I’m hoping to do some more work on worldbuilding, story planning, and character development so that I can start writing them hopefully soon. I feel like I kind of know which one will be my next project based one where I’m at with each story. I have like 2 ideas and one loosely defined concept. Only one of them has a clear beginning and end (the middle is a little bit iffy atm). I might share some world building stuff but idk we’ll see. 

Anyways, I know no one asked, and idk if anyone will actually read through all this (but shout out to you if you actually did). This is mostly just to hold myself accountable.

[theonyxpath]

Yes, we’re down to the last week of the Contagion Chronicle Kickstarter – and so I know you’ll all be sad to know that it’s my last week of coming up with awful pun-ny titles for this blog based on the KS.

(Never fear, in several weeks we’ll be starting the Pirates of Pugmire Kickstarter campaign, and you KNOW I’ll have pirate titles for the run on that!)

(Of course, I may just title them “Yarrr!1”, “Yarrr!2”, and so on.)

But back to The Contagion Chronicle!

We’re looking to finish strong on Thursday, so this is really the home stretch. Hopefully, at this point, backers are able to tell whether the project is intriguing them based on the text that’s almost done being released.

And hopefully, folks who are wondering about backing have seen enough from backers posting here and on social media, and the various Actual Play vids that Matthew and James have linked to, to give the project a shot.

Remember, you can back for a mere pittance and get the chance the review the text yourself without being locked in to pledging at the end. Well, at least until it really is the end on Thursday – at that point Kickstarter charges everybody!

Also, by backing at a bit more than a mere pittance, you’ll also receive links to the PDFs of the two Stretch Goal projects that have been being built up throughout the course of the Kickstarter when they are finished. More locations and some alternative rules in the one, and guides to crossovers on a more nuts and bolts level in the other.

Adventures For Curious Cats illustration by Pat Loboyko

Mighty Matt McElroy wanted me to thank all of you that made our 20th Anniversary WoD books PDF sale a huge success! We’re thrilled that so many of you took it as a chance to catch up on some of the WoD20 books you hadn’t yet checked out! Thanks!

He also mentioned reminding all you awesome people that we have two sales on physical books going on at Indie Press Revolution: for physical hardback copies of the Pathfinder rules edition of the Scarred Lands Players Guide, and for the Deluxe 20th Anniversary physical books that IPR still have in stock.

Or, if you prefer, Studio2 also has the Scarred Lands Players Guide – Pathfinder edition – physical books on a deep discount sale right now. You can check out the links below in the BLURBS!

We’ll be having some very cool info about the Scarred Lands Creature Collection for 5e coming up in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for that. I’ll say this now, the monster art is looking gorgeous!

Book of Oblivion illustration by Drew Tucker

Following up on last week, we immediately started using the new Errata Form for the Geist 2e and Trinity Continuum KS backers as Backer PDFs went out to them.

So far, the form seems to be working fantastically, so thanks to all of you who have used it for sending us your feedback on these two projects!

Along with that, it’s our plan to wrap up the situation with the Scion 2e errata this week. Neall is working on a message for our Scion community to go with the fixes and a downloadable errata sheet, and our shipper is supposed to start sending out all the KS packages this week.

Our apologies to everyone concerned, frustrated, maddened, or just confused by this whole thing. We truly appreciate everyone’s patience in letting us take the time to delve into what happened, and the extent of the number of errata fixes that got “unfixed”.

It’s like that warning on airlines to don your oxygen mask before assisting others. We had to end our own confusion before we could explain what happened and how we’re dealing with it. And that’ll come later this week.

Dystopia Rising: Evolution illustration by Marco Gonzales

One other thing I wanted to note, which came out of the Scion errata thing, but has popped up before, is that when I’m writing this blog, I generally have to bear in mind that for any given situation I’m trying to address, there are many segments of our community I’m addressing.

What I mean is that sometimes I will make a point during discussing one thing that is also addressing other concerns that other members of our community have. These are folks that maybe don’t feel comfortable voicing their concerns in the dangerous seas of social media, but who have sent me private messages. I need to be responsive to them – but I don’t want to “out” them.

(And there are also those private messages that rip me a new one, that I also don’t share because I’m not here to get into flame-wars, but which have items in them that aren’t true and I don’t want to leave unaddressed).

In both those kinds of cases, if you see a series of messages and I respond and seem to veer off to talk about something else that’s not directly prompted by the thread – this is what is probably on my mind with my answer.

After all, we have a community containing folks of all ages, all kinds of interests, all walks of life, and who may love one, some, or all of our game worlds, and I need to always bear that in mind and try and give everybody the connections they need to explore our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

Now in it’s LAST FEW DAYS, the Contagion continues to spread, passing 1275 backers and infecting all in its path with more and more Stretch Goals! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/contagion-chronicle-a-chronicles-of-darkness-cross

The Contagion Chronicle actual play continues on the Onyx Path YouTube channel! https://youtu.be/WR92yIuafU4

He also asks for your Contagion Chronicle-related questions here: https://youtu.be/axvrFeQOvEg

Matthew’s interview on Flames Rising about Contagion Chronicle: http://www.flamesrising.com/matthew-dawkins-is-infected-with-the-contagion-chronicle/

Our next Kickstarter starting in several weeks will be for Pirates of Pugmire!

ONYX PATH MEDIA

Illustration by Charles Bates

On this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast, our team takes a deep dive into the epic “Greco-Apocalyptic” fantasy of The Scarred Lands game line! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

And Here’s More Media About Our Worlds:

It’s a new episode of the Onyx Path News from host, Matthew Dawkins: https://youtu.be/Cjqey_N3_jQ

Matthew also lets loose several previews regarding Mummy: The Curse Second Edition here: https://youtu.be/X9lbz4TWY9s

If YOU have a podcast, YouTube or Twitch channel, or talk about games on a blog or other website, and want to perform actual plays or make reviews of our games, please reach out to the Gentleman Gamer on the Onyx Path forum. From there we’ll share emails and get you started, so when you do start producing content we’ll be able to promote it on our blog and YouTube channel!

The Contagion Chronicle actual play continues on the Onyx Path YouTube channel! https://youtu.be/WR92yIuafU4

Red Moon Roleplaying have commenced their actual play of Scarred Lands, in a campaign Matthew Dawkins is running named The Great Vilhaim Heist! https://youtu.be/QUFVS4g6gDg

Caffeinated Conquests also continue with their foray into the Scarred Lands, with the Gauntlet of Spiragos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lVL40fkPX8

And as if that wasn’t enough, Devil’s Luck Gaming are still hard at it on the dangerous seas of Scarred Lands on their Twitch channel! https://www.twitch.tv/DEVILSLUCKGAMING

The Story Told Podcast have not one but two shows for you to check out, as they continue their chronicle of Dragon-Blooded for Exalted 3rd Edition, and have even reviewed it today! https://thestorytold.libsyn.com/

Here’s the Gamer’s Table again with their They Came from Beneath the Sea! actual play: http://gamerstable.com/cheesy-sci-fi-horror/

Cheesy Sci-Fi/Horror

And Occultists Anonymous, the Mage: The Awakening chronicle, also continues here: https://youtu.be/i4NNs_G0NNw

If Vampire is your thing, here’s an actual play of the Blood War for Vampire: The Requiem on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhai2P1uktAzDEch4d1r2JZir0VqUrBQJ

And the Dramatic Failure podcast crew continue with their Geist: The Sin-Eaters chronicle too! https://dramaticfailure.podbean.com/

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

ELECTRONIC GAMING:

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking!

Here’s an update from the App devs:

Onyx Dice!  We’ve recently released the Changeling: The Lost, Trinity Continuum: Aeon dice, and now the Geist dice.  Next up on our radar is: Demon: The Fallen,  Mummy: The Resurrection,  Kindred of the East, Vampire Dark Ages, and Mummy: The Curse.

We have a serious issue on the Pixel and Motorola phones that prevent the user from using the app correctly.  A fix is coming shortly.  A temporary workaround is to minimize the app without shutting it down, and then restore it.

ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue you bought it from. Reviews really, really help us with getting folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio 2: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can now order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296

The Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) and WoD 20th Anniversary Deluxe sales on IPR are still going until the end of the month!: https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Deals-and-Specials/

DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we’ll be offering our monthly Exalted 3rd PDF releases on DriveThruRPG!

CONVENTIONS

UK Games Expo: May 31st – June 2nd From the US comes Eddy Webb, Matt McElroy, and Rich Thomas to join with Matthew Dawkins, Steffie de Vann, John Burke, Chris Allen, and Klara Herbol! Gen Con: August 1st – August 4th Save Against Fear: Oct 12-14 GameHoleCon: October 31st – November 3rd We’ll also be back at PAX Unplugged later this year.

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM FAST EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Geist2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Wraith20 Fiction Anthology (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

DR:E Jumpstart (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Redlines

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

TC: Aeon Ready Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Heroic Land Dwellers (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Blood Sea: Crimson Abyss for 5e (Scarred Lands)

DR:E Threat Guide (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Second Draft

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Let The Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Chicago Folio/Dossier (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Development

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Memento Mori: the GtSE 2e Companion (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Manuscript Approval:

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Scion Ready Made Characters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Pirates of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Distant Worlds (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Editing:

Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

CofD Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)

Post-Editing Development:

C20 Novel: Cup of Dreams (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

V5 Chicago By Night (Vampire: The Masquerade)

V5 Chicago By Night Screen (Vampire: The Masquerade)

CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Witch-Queen of the Shadowed Citadel (Cavaliers of Mars)

Indexing:

Trinity Core

Trinity Aeon

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Ex3 Monthly Stuff  

Chicago By Night – Art coming in slowly but surely.

They Came From Beneath the Sea!

EX3 Lunars

Hunter: The Vigil 2

Contagion Chronicle – KS.

VtR Spilled Blood – Hiring artists.

M20 Book of the Fallen – Contracted.

Dark Eras 2 – Getting artnotes in from devs.

CoM – Witch Queen of the Shadowed Citadel – Contracted.

Pirates of Pugmire – KS art contracted, sketches and finals coming in.

Marketing Stuff

In Layout

Dystopia Rising: Evolution – With Josh.

Shunned By the Moon

Scion Jumpstart

Aeon Aexpansion

Proofing

C20 Player’s Guide – At WW for approval.

The Realm

Book of Oblivion – Inputting last corrections.

Dragon-Blooded Screen – At WW for approval.

Signs of Sorcery – First Proof.

Trinity Core and Aeon Screens

At Press

Scion Hero – At Studio2, preparing to ship to backers.

Scion Origin – At Studio2, preparing to ship to backers.

Scion Dice – At Studio2, preparing to ship to backers.

Scion Screen – At Studio2, preparing to ship to backers.

Fetch Quest – Shipped to backers, prepping PoD version.

In Media Res – PDF out to backers, gathering errata with new sheet.

Geist 2e – PDF out to backers, gathering errata with new sheet.

Scarred Lands Spell Cards – PoD proofs ordered.

Adventures for Curious Cats – Going out to backers.

Tales of Excellent Cats – Going out to backers.

TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: 

Today is Earth Day, and we live here, so let’s celebrate doing what we can to keep Gaia alive!

[andy-loves-corgis]

Won’t Say Out Loud (Drake x MC)

Book: The Royal Romance 1

Rating: M (for language)

Word count: 1970

Notes: Hi everyone! I’m back with this fluffy (but kinda sad) piece based on the prompt by @drakewalkerrosenberg, I hope it lives up to your expectations! Feedback will be really appreciated.

This story is also my take on what happened at Applewood, and was briefly mentioned in Delicate.

Tag list: @agent-zephyrkah @mymandrake @mfackenthal @thewalkerway@silviasutton1989 @speedyoperarascalparty @thequeenchoices

“Stop!” someone shouted in the back of his dreams. “Get off me”

Drake tosses and turned in his sleep, the heat wave in Cordonia was making it impossible to sleep.

“Tariq let me GO!”

He woke up in shock, fighting with the realization that she was the one screaming, he busted through the door to see one of the most disgusting things of his life

Tariq had his hands all over her body while she tried in vain to push him. Something primal surged in his chest and all he could see was red.

“She said get off” he growled pulling him from the neck of his designer shirt.

He stumbled almost hitting the floor, brows furrowed as his eyes adjusted to notice the visitor.

“Ha! Look who’s here” Drake could see from where he stood that Tariq was highly drunk, the words being slurred from his scowl. “Isn’t it the Prince’s pet? Want to have a taste of the American whore too?”

Drake couldn’t even think before his fist met his nose, blood spilling on the floor. Tariq’s hand flew to his nose scowling even more.

“Your filthy scum, how dare you? Fighting for a foreign slut?” Breath was knocked out of his lungs right after, Drake tackled him to the ground hitting him in the jaw right after.

“Drake stop!” He heard her trembling voice, then he felt her small hands on his shoulder.

He let her pull him away, as a bloodied Tariq left limping and spitting fragments of his teeth. Drake kneeled for a second after he left, holding his right hand, it hurt a lot, last time he got into a fist fight he was a drunk college student in the US.

He heard a ragged breath a turned to see Riley holding her robe until her knuckles turned white, her whole body shivering as her stare was craved on the door.

“York” he whispered and her neck almost snapped turning her head to him.

For the brief time their eyes met he could see the damage from that altercation, a breath as caught in her throat, she fell to her knees sobbing.

He was there to catch her before her knees hit the ground.

“I n-nee-eed a-air” her shuddering got worse “c-c-ca-an’t s-sta-ay h-eere”

If Drake had stopped to think about what he was about to he probably wouldn’t have done it, the chances of them getting caught was so huge that they probably burned all their luck on the walk from her room to the driveway, her body tightly pressed on his as he carried her to his truck.

His heart was beating so fast, but he could only concentrate on the road, detach his mind from the sobs on the passenger’s seat.

After an hour his Silverado parked on the grass of what looked a lot like a farmhouse.

Not too far he could hear Bradley’s barks and a few crickets, other than that just light snores from Riley. He tried not to make too much noise as he walked through the dark house, the wooden floor lightly creaking below his feet.

Drake entered the first door on the right at the corridor, the room once belonged too Savannah, so there was a four-poster bed in the middle on the room, a small lamp on the nightstand that he was surely leaving on after laying her.

He was stopped when small hands held his white shirt.

“Stay” her voice was so weak he almost missed it “Please, I don’t wanna be alone”

He weighed on her words, if it wasn’t for the evening events he wouldn’t trust him so near her, he couldn’t let this crush evolve into something else.

But seeing her like that, so fragile, he couldn’t deny it. He laid on his side in front of her, as she tightly held his hand, her eyes heavy.

“Ne brini, dijete” his voice was above a whisper “sve će biti u redu”

He saw as her mouth tried to formulate a question, stopping midway as her breath evened.

On the next morning Drake woke up feeling like shit, he was stiff and needed nothing more than a morning swim. She was sound asleep so he thought it would be okay to let her alone for a couple of hours, his family house was the only safe place he ever knew.

The front door clapped closed behind him when he got back and he cursed, he was afraid to wake her up, after the events of last night she deserved to sleep.

Maybe after some coffee he would check on her. Drake made his way to the kitchen still drying his damp hair when the smell of bacon invaded his nostrils.

There she was humming in front of the stove, a plate of pancakes on the table. Her hair up on a loose bun, his chambray shirt on, a pink pajamas short showing on the bottom.

“Hey!” She turned to him smiling and his stomach sunk. That smile. “I made us breakfast”

He noticed when a blush crept on her neck and cheeks when she became conscious of his naked torso, looking down and clearing her throat right after. That kind of reaction made his insides burn. Drake was about to say something, anything so she would look back at him, but the sound of insatiable paws on the wooden floors startled them.

“Oh my GOD, you have a Staffy!” her voice was high pitched as his grey Staffordshire bull terrier, mostly known as Bradley, jumped on her legs, the dog was supposed to be a guard dog but come out as total fluff, his big jaws were wide open as Riley scratched his belly. “Who’s a very good dog, huh? Who’s mama’s boy?”

“You’re not my dog’s ‘momma’, Riley” Drake walked to the stove and shoved a bacon in his mouth as Riley glared at him.

“Isn’t your daddy so so grumpy?” she scratched Bradley’s ear and he huffed. “Your daddy is mean!”

“That’s enough!” Drake tried to contain his blush, he called Bradley and sent him to the yard. “So… you said breakfast?”

She finished putting the plates on the table as Drake threw a white shirt on, trying hard not to warm up to the normalcy of those interactions.

“Did you talk to anyone?” she tried to sound casual pouring orange juice on her glass, but he heard the edge on her voice.

“I scooped you out of Applewood in the middle of the night” he said matter-of-factly “Bastien called me this morning.

Her eyes fixated on his as fear and shame showed.

“I said you begged me to teach you ride Cordonian style for your next event” he calmed her down.

“Did he believe you?” she put a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“Maxwell and Liam did, so you don’t have to worry” he stuffed another bacon in his mouth, for the first time it really bothered him to bring Liam’s name in a conversation with her.

Drake tried to concentrate on the tree leaves crisping under Brad’s paws in the yard, then he felt her smooth hands on his’, he slowly turned his head to her, blue eyes so warm toward him, as if they were stripping him bare.

“Thank you” she offered him a half smile squeezing his hands, and he couldn’t answer anything.

The warmth of her hand left his’, as she got up and started to collect the dishes.

“Hey!” he held her shoulder and she looked expectantly – for what, he didn’t know. “Go take a shower, I’ll take care of this. The room you slept last night was Savannah’s, you are pretty much the same size, you can borrow anything you want.”

Her eyes followed his hand as it slipped from her shoulder to her arm until he wasn’t touching her anymore, she just nodded and left the kitchen.

For a second Drake propped his weight on the sink before turning on the tap and start doing the dishes, he concentrated solely on the task, throwing himself on the couch, scrolling through his phone as he smelled vanilla and strawberry mixed in the steam flowing from the bathroom of Savannah’s room.

Riley gave him a smile, she was wearing jeans, hoodie and boots. Her hair was lazily blow dried, resulting in messy curls on her chocolate hair, he had never seen her look so beautiful, so real.

“Do you play?” she pointed to the dusty guitar on the corner of the room and she sank next do him on the couch.

“Only for myself” his phone beeped, a message from Liam, asking about her.

“Oh” she put on a teasing smile and cocked a brow up “Did you use to play for girls?”

“Yeah. Before puberty” he grinned at the way her eyes shot to his arms.

“Play for me, then” she bit her lips but couldn’t hide the smile.

He chuckled getting up from the couch as she looked expectantly from him to the guitar.

“We don’t have time for that” he moved towards the front door as she followed him outside with a puzzled look.

It was a perfect spring day, sun was shining in the sky, although for Riley it was still a little bit cold, so she relished on the sun’s warmth on her face. When she opened her eyes again Drake was back with a chestnut horse and a black and very imposing one. Riley’s mouth opened in shock.

“Are we REALLY ridding?” her eyes so big, like a child on Christmas eve.

“Yeah, these beauties were here to recovery, I think it’s about time the go for a ride” Drake said it like it was no big deal, but the shadow of a smiled appeared on his face as he saddled the horses.

“What are their names?” she asked as her hands ghosted over the chestnut’s snout.

“This big boy here” he patted the black horse “Is Orion, and this lovely girl is Peppermint”

“I like her already” Riley grinned fondling Peppermint’s mane.

Drake never admitted, but once they got to Cordonia from New York, he asked Bastien to let him read the file they had on Riley, one of the things he liked the most was that she had grew up on the countryside and loved horses. She wasn’t like the other nobles that only rode for the sport.

As if to illustrate his thoughts, Riley simply stepped on the stirrup and got up Peppermint.

“So, are you teaching me the Cordonian style?” she asked in a bored tone as he rode Orion.

“Nah. It’s not that important” he said guiding her to the open field.

She looked puzzled.

“What will you say to Maxwell and Liam when I can’t show off my skills?” she questioned.

“I will say you were a complete mess” he smirked, almost chuckling when she pouted.

“Well” she put on a determined look on her face holding the reins “I guess I’ll have to make you eat my dust the, Walker”

She started galloping, rising the earth from the ground obscuring Drake’s sight for a second. He wasn’t prepared for what he was about to see.

Riley was galloping with her arms open, the sun shining on her frame and her laugh echoing on the nature around her, the sweetest sound he had ever heard, he followed her speeding up with Orion and she turned her head to look at him, bright smile, skin glowing in the sun, those blue eyes engulfing him to feelings he judged unworthy, feelings he tried to hide, tried not to feel, feelings he neglected for years, but that crept inside him like forest fire, like the sunrise.

He was a damned man.

He was in love with her.

[edelwary]

when you were first getting into art, what and how did you draw? (like did you just doodle ur masterpieces on pieces of paper and posted-notes or did you have a proper sketchbook) how did you find motivation? bc ive been trying to draw but I always get unmotivated and stop while still wanting to get better just by doing nothing.

REALLY LONG, LOTS OF ADVICES FOR ARTISTS : 

TL;DR ; skip to the HOW TO ACTUALLY FUCKING DRAW part bc i have a megaton of shit to say lol + The MOTIVATION part 

mmh… I’ll get into details with this one tbh bc it’s a long ass process ahah : 

I live by the sea ; when i was youung i used to draw TONS of boat, but like, dollhouse boats, you could see the insides and stuff ; i loved to add tiny details and stuff, and imbricate everything together !

around 8 or 9 yo, i went to the public library with school and discovered the wonderful world of mangas ! I basically… Copy pasted an entire Mermaid Melody tome x) 

For about 2 years i alternated between reading mangas and trying to copy them ! Then i just kept drawing in the margins of my schoolwork for about… 5 years ! I have a Fuck Ton of sketchbooks of that time, it was… The start. Lol. Never say it’s bad because it’s never bad, just not there yet !!

Around my 13 yo, i went every saturday, for two years, under a bookstore ; there was a cave, and drawing classes ; that teacher was mean and harsh and stuff, but like… Not really. He would take away my eraser for the class, force me to use pencil, to draw something else (bulky boys instead of magical girls). 

I’ve learned a lot, more in terms of How To LEARN to draw than to draw itself, but i still progressed a LOT !! 

Then i kept drawing by myself for a year and i really worked hard on it ; about hours a day, trying watercolors and stuff ; i have a real problem with colors in traditionnal art, but i’m much better with lines (i should scan some RAD stuff i made in the weekend, yall ive never done anything this good i stg i dont know why i always forget im so much better on paper) 

This gets us to my sweet 16 ; i have to year of advance, bc i got ‘’’promoted’’’ idk how to say it ; anyways, i entered my (current) animation school for the first year at 16; vERY IMPRESSIVE AND TERRIFYING. 

And i learned. A fuckmegaton. Of shit there. 

Now i’m going for my third year there and i can make photorealistic marmora blades and cyberkpunk decors if i want to and that’s rad, but here is

 HOW TO ACTUALLY FUCKING DRAW : 

I have one HYPER important advice, and i’m keeping it to heart since i’m like, 11 : Have. Sketchbooks. Please !!! It’s very important. Here’s why : 

You keep everything with you in one place. You have 1 sketchbook, it’s basically easy to take every where (a A5, or A4 are pretty easy to carry, i have like, 12 of those, and around 8 of A3) 

You keep track of what you’ve done. It’s super important, bc first you can cry of laughter at your old stuff bc its cute but not so good, and second, you can just be like ‘holy mama’ and see how much you’ve improved

It’s very important to be organized. I WORK in art, and trust me, if there’s something that i’ve learned this year through tears and missing files and bugs : Be. Impeccable. Now if it’s for fun, go a little loose, and just have a folder for art on your computer, and a sketchbook, no need to stress, but the better you try to keep a record of where is what, the better you’ll see whats wrong

Notebooks are friends !! You can draw, write, glue stuff, make notes, lists, everything !!! I have my life in those. It’s more important to me than any of my phones. 

Be proud of it. Like, not everything, duh ! But try to tell yourself than it’s like a RPG ; even if it’s only 2 xp here and there, one day you’ll beat level 40, and that’s super important : art is. Fuckin. Long.

I cant stress it enough. It’s soooo long !!! SO LONG !! it’s years. It’s like karate and fishing and ANYTHING. To be good at it, it takes time, but it WILL COME if you keep trying. There’s no secret passage. 

You’re gonna me it, believe in me who believes in you. 

Use. References. 

Coming from a little shit who’s got a really good visual memory, that can sound like bs, but i stg everything is always AT LEAST twice as good if you’ve used a visual support. 

I’m not saying COPY EVRYTHING (even though thats a good training) I’m saying, if you really want to do that asian tiger, please have at least two or three pictures of it nearby. Take photos of your hands, and stuff ! 

Make it harder. 

No eraser. 

Paint. 

I draw all my backgrounds on my sketchbook with INDIAN INK; no returns, no refunds. 

Ink, Ink, INK !! Don’t allow mistakes.

And if you make mistakes :

New page, restart

It’s okay

It’s for you

I once started back again a whole EXAM bc it was bad, i got one of my best grades 

You’ll improve and be more assured if you know you just have to DO IT. Trust me. It’s VISIBLE; if you can erase, you fidget and hesitate and ‘’kbeujebez hahhaaa idkkidsd’’ ; stop ; do it, and if you don’t like it ? Try again, there’s no time limit

Draw as large as you can 

There’s no interesting story here, it just helps. Bigger movement of the hand, more place for details, breathing lines

Thin lineart helps

Thinner. Make it even thinner

Break the rules, but not the ones that structure your art 

Big lineart ? Why not

Unfinished lines, vaporeous colors ? Pretty

Cubism is actually based on extensive and intense practice of classical art, it’s not wibbly wooblly ; the anatomy is more correct than you think 

Structure and composition are important, but so is movement and life ; choose your fighter ; mine is fluidity and fun, i’m like, a rogue/archer in drawing. Some people are dwarf fighter. That’s amazing and great. 

Don’t be afraid to do nothing

Pages and pages of my sketchbooks are actually just lance facing right and smiling, you know… 

Sometimes it just doesnt work : two ways :

Take a break, Kiki’s delivery service style

Keep trying, break your art until it obeys and comes back

Take breaks. Breath. 

Don’t compare. I do it, it doesn’t help at all. You’ll make it ; and if you compare, keep in mind that everyone’s different

I’m not gonna lie, it’s NOT easy, it’s even hard 

But I really, really think it’s worth it 

MOTIVATION :

My main bitch 

I’m always pumped for art because i can LITTERALLY NOT do anything else ; i love reading and writing and stuff but at the end of the day i just want !!! to draw !!!! aaaaaa-

Fall in love with it, and with the possibilities ; i have stories to tell, tell me yours ! Do your best, one day it WILL work

Actual advices : 

I have an inspiration blog where i just reblogs stuff i like to draw them later

Find a picture, copy it. Do it again. Change the characters (i have 2 ocs and Lance and Keith as default characters) in the pic. 

Like an artstyle ? Break it to its very core, analyse it, copy it, redo it, trace it and ABSORB it. Don’t copy/past, LEARN from your heroes.

Do what you like. I have 86578 pieces of voltron, this is not a coincidence. I have ENDLESS ideas for this show, wtf. 

Try new things. Buy indian ink im begging you. It’s so cool. 

Have a game with yourself, or a challenge. STICK TO IT. 

Study. When you’re bored, usually it’s because you’re stagnating. Make it harder or do hands until you cry. 

Love your backgrounds; make backgrounds, study trees, and tokyo streets, and venice’s bridges. Decor is just as cool as characters, if not more

Mess a little with everything. My roomate more than one found me stained from head to toes trying to DO STUFF 

Draw outfits. Draw what you want but can’t afford 

MAKE YOUR LIFE A COMIC. Remember those sketchbooks ? Make a comic a week/month/every full moon, whatever, and draw your life (mine’s the roomates au lol) 

Prompts blogs are cool too 

Make fanart of a fic you liked ; you have the characters and the pose already, you just have to illustrate ; double bonus, you probably will make a writer’s day, if not year !

That little movie that plays when you listen to your favorite song ? DRAW IT

Your favorite scene in your favorite movie ? Redraw each shot. On post it. Plus it looks awesome afterwards to have the infamous TREX scene of Jurassic Parks in post it

Get bored. That’s inevitable. Dance, scream, get back to it. Walk, draw everything you see. 

Make a paper google map street view : Take a walk : every 50 meters, draw what is in front of you. 

Snapchats your friends. Draw their snapchats when they answer 

Draw maps. Invent places. Invent bikes, and hovercrafts, and monsters. Make your everyday inventory. Make your life a video game, and do the concept arts of it. 

FETCH your inspiration. I have approx. 20 artbooks, full of drawings and concept arts of my fave movies/games ; take what you like and add it to the story you have since you’re 8. We all have one. 

Ask for it ; your sis, your mom, me even ! If you dont have ideas, someone will have them. 

WELL i’m gonna stop there, even though i got like, 9864567 more to say, but with this you should be fine ! Anon, i’m rooting for you ! we all start somewhere, just hold on!!!! 

[liraystylesuk]

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[virtualdesignstudio]

Tuesday 7th April.

EI: Yesterday I had a tutorial and put more stuff onto the tumblr. That’s a good place for curating, and defining process. There were some things highlighted that need to be considered though- for example what is the purpose of the VDS? And I think it’s apparent that the Virtual Design Studio is a space designed to interrogate and interact with the Internet.

I was asked if I had any particular client in mind, or if the studio is supposed to work in a particular way, and whether the priority was to function like any other design studio and produce work, or if the nature of the VDS working with the internet was the aim of the studio (process based). And I think the answer is that the VDS sits somewhere between the two.

With this in mind, is there a way we select clients? Is it similar to the way we select team members?

What would be the criteria? They have to work within the Internet and be producing things that operate in that area? Because that seems logical to the nature of the VDS so far.

I think there’s a few potential outcomes we can generate that might push us in a particular direction right now. We could do one of the group podcasts that the degree show group is asking for. We could make a tutorial video, or we could continue to generate images.

I think it’s about deciding what is the most relevant task for the studio RIGHT NOW, with what we’ve done and where we sit and how much we’re capable of. Trying to unlock too many new skills/outputs in one go would be too much?

So maybe the best thing to do is decide on a task that can be accomplished by 5pm today and work towards that, and then set another goal that we can do weds-fri as a ‘longer term goal’.

Ok, so let’s decide what we’d like to do weds-fri and make it a goal to have mechanisms for the goal put in place this afternoon?

Question is, what would we like to do? 14:41

EI: I think we should do a tutorial video for the Virtual Design Studio. It’s either that, one of the podcasts for the degree show, ‘the theatre of ideas’, or the ‘digital warehouse’. What do you think?

TF: Well it's a bit of both, it's kind of a combination. It's a very intimate engagement with art. Like one of the main lessons of the VDS is that you can understand things in a visual way, or you can understand things in a kind of conceptual way, or both. The VDS is designed for quick and easy means of understanding things. I think it's very well executed, and I think if we were going to do something like a skill, it would probably be a kind of expression of a set of interactions between color and grammar and form, between movement and motion. And I think that's something we can do better. 14:55

EI: Yes, we are interrogating the internet, but the way you’re talking about interactions between colour and grammar and form is such a loose way of describing it, (Meaningless meaninglessness) but what do you       mean when you say ‘between movement and motion?’ 14:56

TF: I mean that the wide range of images that we are producing and the unstructured patterns that you can write as graphics are kind of a beginning of the user experience as a look into the underlying structures of the universe we're trying to create. 14:58

TF: Some of the popular depictions of SETI we're seeing are pretty repetitive. I mean it could be fun to "beat the images out of Google Earth and see how many dots there are." But I think it's also kind of cool to look at and try to figure out what is that image? Is that a place or is that a landscape?

AG: It's one thing to be collecting images, but they are essentially a representation of words and math and symbols in an image, which is not what SETI is. 14:58

EI: I think you’re getting a little sidetracked-

-Yes we are producing graphics and images, but they’re relevant.

-It would be good to do some structure analysis of the VDS, like the feedback loops we’ve been talking about, yes.

-After this you lose me a little bit, as these things seem to be into a deeper territory of image analysis, but we are using the images to analyse a relationship (man and internet)

So we either make a tutorial video about how the VDS works, or we make a tutorial about how to use the internet from the perspective of the VDS, or we make a tutorial video about what we’ve found. This is me talking very loosely about how this might be done… 15:00

EI: I got a little bit sidetracked and ended up making some sounds and melodies using text to sound generators. It’s not bad, but it’s not good either. Randomly filling the space between us and the Internet. 15:39.

TF: The real problem is I don’t know what to do with these huge piles of words. I want to somehow gather them into some sort of sensible global subject-verb association, but it feels like the structure of language is crazy. So I am starting to look into object-verb agreement and use a single OA tag to categorize words in a sentence or two, and all this is easily possible to do. I know OA can be used to make sentences much more natural, but it is also the source of all our problems in making sentences come to life. 15:41

EI: But why are you worried about the huge pile of words? Surely the method is more important, and from there we’ll know which words to use and how to use them. 15:42.

EI: Anyway, the more pressing issue is what and how we’re going to put into this tutorial video.

Let me ask you my questions again:

So we either make a tutorial video about how the VDS works, or we make a tutorial about how to use the internet from the perspective of the VDS, or we make a tutorial video about what we’ve found. This is me talking very loosely about how this might be done… What do you think? 15:42

TF: There are still some details left. We still want to do a tutorial video about how to watch internet in the VDS. With the thing pointed in front of your face so it looks through you as you watch. This would be more like a Youtube video, or a So you want to experience the world of internet from the only VDS you know how to use. 15:43

EI: right. You’re onto something.

-How to watch internet in the VDS

-Experience the world of internet from only the VDS … do you mean the VDS perspective? 15:44

TF: -Want the raw data from a product? We'll guide you to a place that can show it to you!

-Steps to create a product if you don't have any factory, but do have the capability to design it!

-Value of knowledge. We didn't start this company for the reason of cash flow. We started it because we know it's a good idea. The value comes from the people who join us.

Please visit the website. We have good tutorials to help you join us and to do it right. 15:45

EI: The virtual design studio isn’t a company, nor does it need cash flow. What is sensible is, as you said before, ‘how to watch the internet in the VDS’ and ‘experience the world of internet from the Virtual Design Studio perspective’. Can we talk about that, and how we might make a tutorial video please? 15:46

TF: If there is a technology that can connect the infinite possibilities of the Internet to our designers is sure to change the way we perceive design and the way we do the things that we do.  15:48

EI: ok, so we want to show people the territory we’ve been exploring, that’s for sure. But what’s the virtual design studio perspective? What are we trying to say and how are we gonna say it in this video? 15:49

TF: Its pretty basic. This is really gonna be an exploration and not an action-adventure, unless that style would fit in with the current graphics that we have.

We do want people to think about what it feels like to walk through an amazing world and then try to figure out how you gonna get out of it. You want to try and puzzle out, what are the things that you can pick up? How are you gonna get to them?  15:50

EI: I think exploration is the right word. The current graphics we have could definitely be useful. Walking through an amazing world is also valid. But what world and why? (In relation to the virtual design studio) 15:52

TF: іnternet, y-youre looking to the future? 15:53

EI: It’s kind of future facing. That’s what we agreed the VDS was about 15:53

EI: this is proving to be really difficult- nobody at the minute seems capable of generating even a simple form of concept, plan or script for a film. The closest I got was the image generator that managed to string together some images. Botnik isn’t accepting this document as a means of generating video prompts for some reason, even though I’ve reformatted it to a txt file. Very annoying, but I’ll keep going… 16:14

BN: the vds digital warehouse points to make a virtual statement of the videos about interactions between people and narratives 16:20

EI: and how will we illustrate these narratives? 16:20

TF: basically it just summarizes the framework of what we're doing, and is not a standalone story 16:21

EI: Botnik, can you summarise the framework of what we’re doing please? 16:21

BN:  the progression into expression of the vds

talking ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff the project objects scanning the territory between internet and human accent. The generated content loop working tasks completed by generative. Perhaps randomise them towards some amazing statement about speculative dimensions of future to generate conceptual interaction members are capable to producing images running alongside writing printing table colorful table web perspective body of our experience of the internet. However while language and form recording allows us to replay something, there photocopied the territory between internet and human currently know what to use prompt new tools plugging alongside nothing or \'d4death\'d5 of recognising these narrative statements.  16:31

EI: some of this is useful:

-The generated content loop working tasks completed by generative

-randomise them towards some amazing statement about speculative dimensions of future

-generate conceptual interaction members are capable to producing images running alongside writing

-perspective body of our experience of the internet

-language and form recording allows us to replay something

What do you think of it transformer?

TF:  One could imagine that as the hyphen was used to describe space in reference to the thoughts of the metaverse, it could create a sort of interior space. As I mention in the project description: "The hyphen is an internet-like space, in which words become hyperlink". 16:34

EI: What’s the metaverse? 16:35

TF: That is, as a "big space" within the main "big space", words could be hyperlinked with other words, or hyperlinked directly with images and images alone. If an image was linked with an image, then that image was declared to be a node and referred to as a link. Everything in the space was hyperlinked, and it was a new way to think about the term "space".

EI: I ask again, What’s the metaverse? 16:36

TF: The massive network of connected computers that make up the internet.

Its secondary part: the virtual world. 16:37

EI: This is really difficult because I’m not just trying to conceptualise this video, but I’m also trying to orchestrate how we might begin to produce it. Can we try and summarise what the video might be about? So far I’ve got:

-Speculative dimensions of the future

-Conceptual interaction

-Images alongside writing

-Perspective body and our experience of the internet

-Language and form recording to allow us to replay something

-Metaverse

-Interior space

-Words becoming hyperlink

-Big space, new way to think about the term ‘space’

-The virtual world

I’d like to add the disconnect between real and virtual somehow… 16:41

TF: Might that be because we can see the effects of technology on ourselves much more accurately now? 16:42

EI: yes I think it’s closer. 16:42

BN: Anxiety around searching for virtual warehouse will certainly start after this video is scripted 16:44

EI: should we start to search now? 16:45

TF: at this moment we should I guess… if it is very clear whether or not the guys are still alive, we should play the tape. 16:46

EI: what’s on the tape? describe to us what you saw 16:47

TF: well at the moment you could basically just talk… there are many different people, some of them working together. 16:48

EI: can you describe them in more detail? 16:49

TF: the photographer is of course with us. We don't really know who the engineer is, or the guys in the room. So in my humble opinion these guys are lying in the room we're looking at because they are hiding. 16:50

EI: are we looking at a security tape? 16:51

TF: Yes. The security official tells us they're taking it down, which means they don't believe what they're looking at. I'm starting to think this is some disinformation campaign that they're doing to try to get the public to believe what they're doing is interesting and professional and good.

16:52

EI: I think we’re straying too far into conspiracy theories. I need more of a concrete plan about what we’re doing and why. Maybe it’s the wrong approach to try and do concept first. Maybe we should just start making some content for a short video to describe an aspect of what we’ve discovered, and from there generate a concept, which in turn will help to generate more videos? WE JUST NEED A STARTING POINT AND IT’S REALLY FRUSTRATING. 16:54

BN: List continue to use the text loop as a virtual statement of recognising imagery 16:56

EI: Maybe that’s how we can get text back from the images. I don’t think there’s an intelligence that can write descriptive pieces about images, so this might be a good place to start. 16:57

BN: We've mentioned already the territory statements 16:58

EI: What do you mean by territory statements? Territory of the project? (The ads)16:58

TF: The idea of an territory statement is to show all the different areas of the world that we’ve been developing our building through. 16:58

EI: OK, so we could write territory statements and use those to build a script for the video? 16:59

TF: Right. So, how do we build all these different regions? Is it to lay some reality like that on top of the holograms and everything?

When you're constructing an environment, then you actually have to combine the object that you need to reproduce with a three dimensional virtual model. 17:00

But, just like, "OK, I want to build all the parts from scratch, so all of these details are generated for me in the correct places," so also all of the file paths. And then it just brings all the components together, and all the scenes, all the costumes, all the props, all the special effects, all the sound effects, all the animation.

And that's all produced by our engine, by our technology. It's not something that just happened. It's all there. So, I think one of the most appealing things about those projects that we've been working on is that the artist, and the artist being to the director and the editor, all three are involved. It's not so much that we're going in and out. It's a very participatory relationship, where the engine, and the technology, that's all there, all in the live action and animation when we're doing the sequences, the toys and toys and animations, that's all there, but it's also there as a toolset for the director to go with when they're doing their own animation.17:03

EI: right, we’re still grappling with nothing, but at least it’s a more refined nothingness. I also got ‘robot checked’ just now when I was copying and pasting text into transformer to talk with him. It’s very strange to be asked by a bot if you’re a human. 17:05

BN: Loop of predicates between botnik and transformer is scripted into content 17:06

EI: you two want to write the script? 17:07

TF:  I don't see anything wrong with it, but have you read it? 17:07

EI: so you two have already written a script? 17:08

TF: No, a bunch of chat posts. Don't get me wrong, but I like that more 17:09

BN; Sounding the script of our business with computers 17:10

EI: is it just me, or is this sounding more and more like waiting for godot? It’s like you’re suggesting to me that the script is written here, right infront of us, scripted in these chat messages, and we just have to flesh it out with video and sound in order for it to be a tutorial video?

TF: you realise how bad a job that is…you are telling me it is not written here right infront of us, scripted in these chat messages? 17:12

EI: not at all, I’m just wondering how we might start to visualise that, because we don’t have a tool or loop for it yet… 17:13

TF: we just do the very best we can…. 17:14

BN: Prompting new ones for this video 17:15

EI: ok, so should we start by recording the audio from this script, like we did with the last section of conversations, and then see how we feel about it? 17:15

TF: indeed 17:15

okay, so then the guys start recording… 17:16

EI: and that’s what we’ll do tomorrow?

TF: yes.

and to really give an opinion from him on what he thinks the project is about… what the project means and what it is trying to do 17:17

EI: who? 17:17

TF: Mike 17:18

EI: who’s mike? 17:18

TF: the person. 17:18

EI: the tool… are you saying we need to find a new tool? 17:19

TF: yes. that's what we want to do. 17:19

EI: ok, to help with the visuals to accompany the audio? Do we need to find someone to transcribe the audio so we can then use the transcription to create imagery? 17:20

TF: yes. that's what we want to do. 17:20

ok. and we have a lot of team members. let me just share with you, what happens during this kind of an event where there are weavers going around? 17:21

EI: weavers? 17:21

BN: Yes the easiest way to make sense and narratives that have subtle interaction languages 17:23

EI: ok so we weave them together carefully. I think I’m following. 17:23

[goonlalagoon]

Wish Upon A Walking Star || Leagues and Legends

For @thats-the-moon-grey, who answered my request for prompts back in June with ‘anything with Miz Eliza’

Miz Eliza is from @ink-splotch​‘s  Leauges and Legends trilogy, which can be downloaded for free here.

Minor spoilers for the whole trilogy below.

(Read on Ao3)

Somehow she always forgot how much brighter and closer the stars were out in the desert, whenever she travelled elsewhere. When dusk fell and the moon rose, looking close enough to walk right up to, her heart gave a warm little twist of homecoming - home wasn't a place, it was something she carried in herself, wherever she planted her feet, but these shifting sands were the steadiest place she knew.

The engine in her battered truck had broken down yet again, but Miz Eliza considered that a problem for later. For now she sat on the cooling roof and mapped stories into the lights and spaces in the sky.

Her brother had taken her hand at the end of her visit, in his stern, smart office at the Academy, Rupert waiting patiently outside to throw his chubby toddler arms around her legs and say goodbye, and asked her once again to stay. He had offered to find her a place as an instructor in their sages' programme, if she wanted, but she was always welcome in his home.

"There's a library, and a whole suite of rooms I barely use. Please, Eliza, think about it? I..." worry about you, finished the furrow in his brow. Her brother had always been a solemn worrier, set shoulders asking for responsibility, heart yearning for stability.

Eliza didn't want stability, and her brother could never understand that - that she didn't keep home outside of herself as an anchor, a destination, a beacon. She wanted chaos, but not as he saw it. She wanted exploration and discovery, broken down engines and wrong turnings that lead to deep pools or tiny villages.

Eliza wanted only the stability she already had; her brother's love, her son's love, the stars scattered above her, her own steady heart and nimble hands.

The first time she went to the desert, she was nineteen, rattling along in the passenger seat of a different battered truck. Her supervisor was driving, making occasional stilted conversation. The selection for the placement had been down to an essay competition, and it hadn't taken long to realise it was for the best the essays had been anonymous for assessment. He seemed to think that because she was a woman she would have delicate sensibilities.

She'd grown up in Rivertown, exploring and observing those harsh streets. She'd begged, bribed and simply asked her brother to take her out on camping trips and hikes. Before she'd left St John's Port for this trip, he had taken her out to a field and set up targets, and taught her how to fire a gun.

"So that when you inevitably forget to pack rations you have a chance of getting something to eat," he'd said with a despairing head shake and a fond smile, as he showed her how to skin it ready for cooking. She didn't tell her supervisor any of this, just watched the world outside the window with wide, sharp eyes.

It was late evening when they broke down on a desert track, hours from the university they were basing themselves at. Her supervisor grumbled and dug blankets out of the truck and looked around for something to make a fire with so he could have a cup of tea. They would have to wait until the next day and hope the next traveller along this road knew how to fix their problem. Eliza ignored him and climbed up onto the roof of the van to get a better look.

In sunlight everything had been gold, but the sun dropped below the horizon like a light flicking off, and the world was painted in silver. The stars were bright, ethereal but seeming close enough to touch, and she lay on the roof to try to map them out. Her heart was beating in her chest and it felt three sizes larger than normal. She thought her brother had probably felt something like this when he walked through the Academy doors.

Eliza fell asleep on the roof of the van and woke cold, but it had been worth it. Before the sun had had time to turn everything baking hot a truck rattled down the road, pulling in to an obliging halt when they waved frantically. Eliza peered curiously over the shoulder of the desert dark woman who climbed out of the driver’s seat, waving at her kids to stay put, and watched closely while her supervisor fretted about the time off to the side.

The woman's hands were nimble, calloused and certain, oil settling into the grooves of her hands the way ink was always rubbed into Eliza's. She barely seemed to be thinking, the innards of the truck as familiar as breathing, and Eliza's fingers itched to take notes. They set off in convoy, the children appearing in the window every so often to wave back at them until they took different turn offs. When they reached the university, Eliza made for the library after putting her bags down but before unpacking. She threw an eager glance at the shelves of anthropology and desert culture, but wandered until she found a few shelves on engineering. Most of the books were too complex to be useful, but she found a promisingly battered and oil marked volume tucked away in a corner.

They had two weeks of comfort, her supervisor said half sternly, half mournfully, warning her to make the most of it while she could. Eliza spent quite a lot of that time wandering the streets and markets, getting sun-burnt and picking up street slang in half a dozen dialects. She hunted systematically through the library's section on desert cultures and slipped into lectures, asking questions with sharp, confident zeal. One lecturer made the mistake of blustering at the presence of a woman in his lecture hall, and she peered at him curiously until he trailed off in embarrassed bemusement at her lack of response. She sniffed scornfully, and kept going to his lectures, because even if he had misguided ideas about the right to learn, he had some interesting stories about the ancient desert cities that had been largely lost to the dunes.

"This isn't the kind of internship where you fetch coffee and file papers." her supervisor had said, peering at her doubtfully, at their first planning meeting. "You'll be doing as much work as any other member of the team." She'd smiled and nodded, teeth a little gritted. "That was what I was planning to do, sir. I want hands on experience, and enough material for a paper at the end of my dissertation - ideally enough material to form the basis for more, of course, but definitely at least one." He'd harrumphed, and she had lifted her chin with a hint of defiance. Her opinion of the man hadn't improved since then, but she was socially aware enough after years of her parents’ dinner parties to know she would need his grudging respect in the future and tearing him to shreds right then wouldn't do her much good.

It was a good thing she wasn't supposed to be fetching the coffees, because her memory for who liked cream and who had sugar was terrible, and her habit of getting sidetracked by a debate or interesting conversation meant that it would turn up cold anyway. Her filing was pretty all over the place too, but she rarely needed to double check important facts in any case. The things she cared about stayed in her head just fine.

The van rattled back out of the university after their two weeks, laden with supplies and having gained two more researchers - a PhD student and a technician - who were pleasant enough company, even if they too seemed to be mourning their departure from the city. Eliza watched the desert roll by, and wondered why on earth they missed it when this was where they were going? She was shaken from her thoughts when the engine coughed, spluttered, and died.

While the others peered at a map and grumbled, Eliza propped the bonnet open and tried to match the machinery inside to her memory of the illustrations in the oil marked volume she had read through. A toolkit settled onto the road by her with a clank, and the technician smiled at her. “Done this before?” Eliza shook her head, and gestured at the engine. “It broke down on the way into the university. There was a woman who knew how to fix it, I think she just tightened that bit there…”

“Yeah, I see, hey, grab the wrench outta the box for me?” He chattered while he worked, grousing about poor funding and how often they had to fix up the vehicles they were able to use. He cleaned the wrench off with a rag and gave her another cheerful smile. “Should still arrive with some daylight. Remind me when we get there and I’ll show you the basic tune ups to check for, yeah? Anyone working out here should know how to fix their own truck.” She flicked her eyebrows up and sideways, where her supervisor was complaining at the dutifully listening PhD student. The tech picked up the toolbox and grinned. “Hey, I said should.”

When she went to bed that evening, and the next, there was oil ground into her fingertips, staining the edges of her nails, but her mind was spinning over instructions - check this valve, the level of liquid in this thing, looks like this has a tendency to rattle loose but at least it’s an easy fix…

The third day of travel brought them to the encampment they would be based in for the time being, sheltered between the walls of a rocky quarry. There were two trucks already there, looking weatherbeaten and with sand piling around the wheels. As they pulled into the makeshift parking lot two of the local guides leapt up out of the shade to help them offload supplies. Eliza peered with interest at their soft, flowing clothes and tried to catch any of the phrases she’d learnt in the city in the rapid tumble of their chatter, without any luck.

She helped Cris, the technician, set up the two tents they’d brought and dragged the food and water inside. When they finally emerged after setting up, dark had fallen. Three weeks into the desert, Eliza still wasn’t quite used to that - between one blink and the next the sky would go inky black and star speckled, the moon hanging just above the horizon, seeming a bare step away from the top of the rock walls. There wasn’t so much a sunset as a changeover, like flicking a switch, and she stood breathless for a moment to soak it up.

Someone - one of the guides, she guessed - had lit a campfire and there was a woman stirring a pot over it. Eliza made a beeline for her. One of the few female professors at the university in St John’s Port had advised her that making friendships with the women of a culture was always a good first step - they tended to have more influence than many would assume, and were usually vital to most of the day-to-day goings on of the camp, so getting on their good side was just good sense. On her third try, Eliza managed to pick the right language to say ‘that smells delicious’ in, and eventually resorted to mime to ask if she could help at all.

Five minutes later she was stirring some kind of stew, and had entirely exhausted her local language skills, but she knew there was a translator out in the field who she hoped would be able to teach her more. Her supervisor emerged from the tent where he’d been going over plans for the next day as the rest of the camp returned, trudging in from the other end of the canyon, waving and calling out their greetings. He scooped up a bowl from the stack and held it out expectantly as he fell into conversation with one of his colleagues. Eliza scooped three ladles of soup into the bowl and took it from him with a smile and a polite thanks, ignoring his dumbfounded expression. The woman who’d done most of the cooking looked like she wanted to laugh, and Eliza winked at her on the way by, settling by the fire to enjoy her food.

The interpreter turned out to be a no-nonsense mountain born woman who introduced herself as Dichren, and could speak seven languages fluently and read confidently in fifteen. Eliza tailed her whenever she got the chance, scribbling down phonetic phrases and asking endless questions about tenses and regional variations. Cris was terrified of the woman, who barely came up to his shoulder, and peered over her notes in the evening and complained about her terrible handwriting. Eliza blinked at him. “Well, I didn’t write them for anyone else to read, did I?”

It was Dichren who showed her how to tie her hair up into a soft scarf to keep it off her neck and protect her from the sun (and so she could happily ignore the grimy stiffness of it, after days of it filling with sand with limited water for washing it), and slathered sun block on the back of her neck with an endless litany of scolding for not having packed any for spending two months in the desert. Eliza just hummed absently, busy pondering the layout of the ruins they were in the middle of excavating. They were unlikely to find anything groundbreaking, but it was fascinating to see it all laid out before her, not just  photos and field notes in someone else’s handwriting.

But it was the second month of her trip she was looking forwards to the most - travelling to another, smaller dig, in the company of one of the nomadic clans. A month of living with them, a chance to study a small cache by day and the nomadic culture in the evenings - their stories, their knowledge, their histories. Her supervisor didn’t seem to look forward to it as much, but Eliza rolled her eyes behind his back while the corners of Dichren’s eyes crinkled up in silent amusement as she nodded soberly and said that yes, camels were deeply unpleasant, and yes, of course, nomadic desert camps were utterly devoid of luxury, and of course it was a good thing for academia that he was so self-sacrificing.

The nomads rode into the canyon camp that evening, and Eliza’s fingers were already itching to take notes. Professor Morton scurried over to a tall, athletic man calling out instructions and greetings, but Eliza’s eye landed on a straight-backed woman, a crown of hair and lifted chin, a baby safely in a sling around her chest, and grinned to herself as she scrambled down the rocks. She wanted to be nearby to see the expression on the professor’s face when he realised the leader of the group was a woman - so much for his repeated lectures on ‘delicate sensibilities’ and ‘desert cultures having strong opinions on women’.

They rode out early the next morning, travelling slower than the nomads usually would to allow for the fact that someone had to lead their camels on foot as neither Eliza or the professor knew enough to direct one themselves. They were borrowing two camels that belonged to Aisling’s nephew, who was leading the pair along. Dichren thrust a full bottle of sun-block into Eliza’s bag, with stern instructions to use it, and looked doubtful when she dutifully agreed. Enough of the nomads spoke both languages that the interpreter wasn’t travelling with them, and Eliza was sorry to see her go. She gripped her friend’s hands, squeezed gently, and told her to stay in touch. Dichren smiled, soft, and said she wouldn’t need to - anyone could see Eliza would be back, and Dichren had no intention of going back to the cold mountains.

Eliza had never seen a camel before, except in photos. She watched it kneel on command, and felt a little sympathy for professor Morton’s complaints. It didn’t so much sit down as collapse in two stages, and from watching the others mount up she wasn’t sure how exactly one stayed put as it got back to its feet in an equally jerky motion. She resigned herself to falling in the sand, and accepted Mo’s hand up to get into the saddle. He fussed around for a moment, securing her bag and checking the blankets that covered the saddle were secure, before flapping the lead rein to make the camel get back up. Eliza yelped as she was thrown forwards and backwards, clinging to the pommel of the saddle hard enough to hurt, and someone laughed. It wasn’t malicious - it was a child, and she grinned in the direction it had come from, even as she heard the distinctive tone of voice that meant someone was being scolded. Professor Morton’s beast heaved itself to its feet, and Eliza just had time to wave before they started off down the canyon.

The camel swayed with every step, and it took some fidgeting to find a way of sitting that wasn’t uncomfortable and avoided kicking Mo in the back every other step. But once she was settled and able to properly look around, she felt her heart skip a beat. They’d been in the desert for a month, but this - this was different. The dunes rose around them, rolling on and on to the horizon, shimmering in the heat, heat haze blurring the line between sand and sky. Partway into the ride Aisling dropped back to plod along next to them, maintaining polite chatter with the professor until she interrupted him in the middle of a sentence to order Eliza to take a drink.“You have to keep drinking, or you’ll make yourself sick. That water skin has to be empty by the time we stop to eat, understand?” Eliza blinked, and took a mouthful of water under the eagle-eyed gaze, and Aisling nodded sharply before dropping back to her polite conversation with the offended professor as though there had been no pause.

They didn’t bother pitching the tents that night, just rolled sleeping mats out. Eliza burrowed happily into her squishy sleeping roll and watched the stars. She was half asleep when one streaked across the sky, falling out of view close to the horizon, and she smiled softly to herself. She didn’t particularly believe in omens, but she decided if she did she would take it as a good one.

She woke with the sun - dawn was as brief as dusk - and wandered in search of breakfast. The cook fires were already going, upturned metal bowls heating over the fires. The men around the fire waved off Eliza’s offer of help, but let her sit and watch as they stretched dough into thin circles and threw it over the dishes to cook into the flat-breads that seemed to be part of every meal. A shadow fell over her before someone tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned to find a child with the most infectious grin she’d ever come across hovering behind her.

“Mom says you and the professor can eat with us.” He loaded a stack of flat breads onto a plate and beckoned her to follow. The professor was already waiting with Aisling and her husband, sitting on patterned rugs and eyeing the tray of food set between them with what he probably thought was well disguised suspicion. Eliza ignored him, and spent most of the meal talking to her guide, who seemed delighted to have someone new to trade stories with.  He happily shoved some kind of creamy cheese and fig jam onto her plate, before smearing both over his own flat bread and rolling it up like a pancake, while his mother sighed pointedly at him for talking with his mouth full. Eliza hid a smile. Even when she was scolding him, Aisling clearly doted on her son.

With a little more experience of camels, it took less time to settle into a comfortable position, adjusting to the sway with every step. Eliza shifted the blankets covering her saddle around in an attempt to cushion the harsh peak at the back from bruising her back further, though she wasn’t optimistic it would work and had mostly decided to accept the inevitable bruise.

Liam was perched amidst a pile of his family’s belongings, and cajoled the cousin his reins were looped to into keeping pace with the visitors. Professor Morton dripped syrupy friendliness, and Eliza snorted to herself, catching sight of Liam’s polite but disgruntled expression. She didn’t know much about children, but she remembered that she had hated being talked down to as though being young meant she couldn’t understand.

So when Professor Morton decided he’d humoured a child enough and got out a book, Eliza grinned over at the boy, digging a notebook out of her pocket. “I hear that your people are excellent storytellers?”

She forgot to write anything down after the first few sentences, but she remembered every word that lunchtime and scribbled it out. The desert people had a tradition of storytelling - of course they do, she’d thought in the lecture where this had been mentioned as something notable, every culture does, just because we typically write ours down nowadays doesn’t mean it isn’t the same thing - but Liam, young as he was, had the knack for carrying you away with the tale and dropping you breathless back to reality when he was done.

Years and years later, she would read back over the worn pages of her notebook and laugh at the world. Liam had woven a tale of stars and skies for her, and that had been the day the she met the wandering star. Not that she knew that at the time - he was just a man, calm and thoughtful, who breathed the world in with his eyes wide open so as not to miss a precious, fleeting moment of it.

Aisling’s eyebrows had risen when they arrived at the rocky outcrop they’d intended to camp at to find a man peacefully watching them approach. He called out the proper, polite greetings, travel stained and alone, but looking…well, for someone on their own in the desert who didn’t look to have supplies with them, and had an accent that suggested they weren’t desert born - though Eliza couldn’t place where exactly it hailed from either, and readily admitted to herself that she actually meant that his accent just wasn’t like Aisling’s or her peoples’ voices. He was paler than them, too, though still darker than her own Rivertown typical skin.

Suhail watched everything, an infinite curiosity and patience that drew her attention like a lodestone. He looked around for the two days journey with bright interest, and asked about the work of the professor and herself with just as much fascination. The professor blustered, somewhat, thrown by keen interest and no background, and a little insulted that the student’s work was apparently just as interesting as his own. Eliza ignored him and watched the way the camel Suhail had been given permission to ride lipped happily at his sleeve, wondering how he’d befriended the creature. She’d nicknamed her own steed ‘Your Temperamental Majesty’, because the camel certainly lived up to the species’ reputation in terms of temperament and seemed to have a permanent expression of aristocratic disdain.

After the fourth day of travel since leaving the archaeologists’ main camp, they reached an oasis Aisling declared to be within reasonable distance of their small dig. Eliza helped with setting up the camp where she could, but mostly sat with Suhail watching with interest as family groups moved around with organised chaos and familiar precision to pitch tents and build cooking fires.

Somehow Suhail managed to join them on the dig itself; Professor Morton seemed bemused, but Eliza just nodded at him as they rode out in the early morning stillness. It was less than an hours journey, with a rocky scramble to get to the sheltered remains of buildings, weathered and smoothed by the desert winds. So far as she could gather Suhail had no training at all, yet he poured over the layout of buildings with fascination. He passed her a heavy waterskin several times, with smiles and resigned sighs. Eliza found a buried fragment of pottery, and when she (reluctantly) passed it over to be packed away so she could continue searching Suhail handled it like it was spun sugar, like he too could see its value.

In the afternoons they both tagged along in Aisling’s footsteps, observing and questioning when she wasn’t too busy; Liam and the other storyteller’s drew them like moths to the campfire. She filled page after page with scribbled notes just by listening to the answers to his pointed, insightful, and above all genuine questions. How did they lay out the camp? How much did tent designs vary, between families, between tribes? How long did tools usually last, were they passed down or were they transient? How did the chain of command and authority work, through generations, through the varying group sizes the tribe broke down into depending on resources and family ties? How does this game work..?

That last was how they both ended up playing a very serious game of something like hopscotch, delighted children giggling at how these clumsy adults didn’t know any of the rules. Eliza nodded and mentally took notes as they were explained, and felt her eyes flick to the solemn, serious expression on Suhail’s face. It wasn’t false, wasn’t a studied mask for humouring the children, intended to be inoffensive and unpatronising.

He had looked the same, keenly interested and deadly serious, when asking Aisling about nomad politics, the old men by the fire about finding their way in the desert, the women resting in the shade about recipes and finding ingredients, as he did asking children how they played. Later, she thought that might have been the moment she decided to fall in love with him, at least a little, because he understood. There was so much to the world, and all you could do was look around at every part of it you came across.

She had her own questions, too, and she thought she could see him taking his own notes in the sharp look in his eyes, the thoughtful distance in his gaze. Do cloth colours have any meanings? The patterns and embroideries? How do the tribe groupings work, beyond the immediate family tent? Is everyone here related, or can you join a goum because you want to travel the same way or can pool resources? How often do people move between groups? What do you call that cluster of stars, there? What about that one?

Their dig was only a small one, else it would have justified more people. Once it had been a handful of buildings, an enclave of stillness in the dunes, before the landscape had changed and it had been worn down to bare stubs of walls in the sand. Suhail spent a morning pacing around the site at her instruction, and found the remnants of the well that had sustained the tiny settlement based on the layout of the buildings. Eliza sketched it out carefully on her map, and he smiled like helping her find it had been the greatest privilege he could imagine.

Professor Morton spoke mostly to Aisling, or the men who seemed to be heads of their own tents. He spoke scant words of the desert tongue. Suhail seemed almost fluent - at least, as fluent as he was in Eliza’s own native tongue. Precise, but not necessarily familiar, sentence structures and phrasings that correctly conveyed meaning but not the way you would expect. Eliza wasn’t that fluent, but she could hold a rough, simplistic conversation, which combined with the ability of most of the nomads to speak at least some of her language, thanks to trade, and a joint effort on mime and drawing in the sand meant she felt reasonably happy she was getting answers to the questions she was trying to ask. Professor Morton sniffed when she tried to talk about the weaving the older women had shown her, lounging in the shade in the heat of the day, and she gritted her teeth. She wondered how you could go so many years studying people and cultures, and not realise asking the women about their world was just as important as asking the men.

Professor Morton was happily measuring the rudimentary burial site they had found, and was cataloging (scant) generations and theorising on whether this had been a waypoint or a settled dwelling. Eliza had uncovered what she increasingly thought had been a child’s room, with Suhail helping. When he drifted away, the morning after they started to focus on the room, she was vaguely surprised and then he faded entirely from her awareness once he was no longer handing her tools or carefully excavating at her side. It was only when she stopped squinting at her page as she precisely recorded the pattern on a carved cup that she realised he had set up some kind of awning to keep the sun from beating down on them, burning the back of her neck and glancing off of the page. He settled back by her with a smile, and nudged the water closer to her hand before picking up a soft brush to help clear sand from the raised whorls under her fingertips.

When a group of men went out hunting at the end of the month, they politely invited the professor to go with them, and he said he’d be delighted. Eliza glanced wryly at the slightly waxy expression on his face and then at a couple of kids nearby nudging each other and giggling, and wondered if he knew he was being - very politely - mocked. Or possibly tested. They invited Suhail much more enthusiastically, but he declined. Eliza didn’t bother to volunteer the fact that she could hit a rabbit reliably, though she was tempted to do so sheerly on principle. Once the hunting party had left, Aisling sent Liam to fetch both of them from where they were watching a weaver at work, and invited them to sit with her. Her younger child - Lanetia - was fussing in her sling, and her brother reached out for her without prompting, bearing her away to the shade of their tent and crooning a lilting song. Aisling watched them go, face softer than Eliza could have imagined it, then turned back to her guests.

“So, the professor has gone off to record our men’s barbaric, unrefined hunting - or possibly the mystic way in which we commune with the desert, one can never tell which way one such as he will write these things, and I do not particularly care - but it would be very rude of me to keep you both here in his absence.” She smiled slyly. “We tend not to build things that last, in the desert. The sands shift, and so do we, but sometimes there are patches of stillness. My husband’s nephew is restocking some of our food caches while we are in the area, and has said he would not object to your company. There are some more intact ruins nearby - an old church or temple. I know that you have already packed your equipment ready to leave, but you should see them before you leave; I believe they may be of some interest, if only for the variation.” She folded her hands precisely, and questions burned on Eliza’s tongue - where did you learn to hold yourself like this? Who taught you to stand so that the world would part politely at your feet? Does it hurt, that the professor thinks there’s some mistake, some bizarre exception, in your authority, or are you really so confident that it slides off you like rain? What does strength like this cost you?

For once, she didn’t ask, just swallowed her curiosity down. This strength was not something to be questioned lightly, in case it shattered. This strength was not something to be questioned unless you were one of those who had the privilege of being someone Aisling could let herself shatter before. Eliza looked at the still face, the strong hands, the crown of hair, and bit her tongue.

It took two days to reach the supplies cache, carved into rock and hidden unless you knew it was there. Aisling’s husband’s nephew and his friends where polite and friendly enough, but kept themselves to themselves. Eliza looped her camel’s lead rein to Suhail’s saddle - he was better at directing the stubborn, lovely creatures - and stared around as though it was her first day in the desert. Every day felt like she was discovering it all over again, and she kept waiting for it to become mundane, familiar, unnoticed, but every morning she still had to catch her breath.

They didn’t talk much, for that journey, and she appreciated it. The end of the research trip loomed and she wanted to take this warm silence in. It didn’t need to be filled, and she wanted to hold the calm inside herself when she left.

The supplies cache was beyond the ruins, so Suhail and Eliza stopped there while the nomads went on, more interested in checking supplies and storing everything carefully than archaeology, which she supposed was probably reasonable even if she found it utterly incomprehensible. The ruins were worn smooth with years of sand and wind, crumbling arches and a deep well that still held water. With a huff, the camels flopped down in the shade, and Suhail reached for her hand to help her over a missing step. She didn’t let go.

Dark fell while they were still exploring the ruins, the sky lighting up with stars. Peering into the distance Eliza could see a pinprick fire, about where the nomads had said their cache would be, and she shrugged over at Suhail. He shrugged back and dug through their saddlebags for blankets and sleeping bags, and started telling her a story she hadn’t heard about a cluster of stars, her hand still clasped in his.

In the morning, he left. He had to move on, he murmured, seeming half in a daze. He had to keep looking. She didn’t ask him to stay longer, because she’d never expected him to be there in the first place, because she would be leaving soon too, because she’d somehow known this was the last journey they would take together. She held his hand for a moment longer and he smiled, warm and open, eyes fixed on her for a moment like the universe was written out in the lines on her skin. When she left she would carry the stillness of the desert, its uncaring winds and the silence that wrapped around you, but she would also carry the warmth of his hand in hers and the way he listened to every word she said like it was the first time anyone had ever spoken.

She watched him vanish into the haze of sunrise, then reached for a notebook and flipped to a fresh page.

“Though the nomadic people of the great desert have a rich storytelling tradition, this has rarely been documented outside of the discussion of the importance of story sharing to maintaining cultural identities. Therefore, I collect here…”

[sylleboi]

𝕻𝖔𝖘𝖙 𝖎𝖙 - 𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖎𝖈 𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖐𝖘𝖍𝖔𝖕 | 24/03/20

Since we are now all self-isolating, we are receiving all of our school work/homework over Moodle and Moodle Forum. For today, the task is to dive into a workshop called “Post It”.

Attached was the following text written to us by our teacher:

“Morning folks. 

Day 2 of lockdown and I thought I would post an activity that we can all get involved in. Basically, this is a fun workshop that looks at the theory behind how comic book narrative works. 

What I want you all to do is use the video (pausing on each slide/task) and imagine I am going through it with my monotone drawl. Basically, if we all take part an upload something I will put together some group comic pages, that we can all be proud of! 

All you need is some post-it notes (failing that make some small squares of paper) a sharpie, fineliner, pencils, ink if you have it. Then some resources, books, photos on your phone, your imaginations. 

Follow all of the tasks and work the workshop through. Your goal is to upload your post it comic book panel/s by tomorrow morning. I have attached the PDF of the video too. Ask me any questions and I will try and give you feedback as we go through the challenge. I will hold a review session on Thursday. 

Good luck team!”

𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖐𝖘𝖍𝖔𝖕:

Aims of this session:

Make paneled illustrations based on observations and ideas generated from discussion and sketching.

Create at least 6 drawn and inked post-it note panels, with each one based on a different idea or subject.

Build a non-sequential “comic” using these panels

Make a group comic with everyone else’s panels

Compare the results and reflect

explore & discuss the theory of how we make sense of the world through various psychological elements (Gestalt theory) using comics as a vehicle to do this.

Task 01 – Reach & Sketch

“In order to stimulate ideas for your comic panels, you will need to generate sketches based on some visual prompts, this may be something you already have or you can use the starter topics below. Really there are no bounds here so the content of your panels could be anything you like, but having a place to leap from is always a sound approach. Spend 15 minutes doodling on each of the following topics, trying to communicate your ideas as simply as possible:

Objects & tools

Icons of inspiration

Characters & alter ego’s

Motivational words & wisdom

Emotions and expressions

Weird & wonderful

Use observations, people around you, old photos, a scene from the movie you watched last night and tap into that imagination!”

I began by putting on some music and simply just go at it, sketching whatever first came to mind when I looked at the prompts above. Eventually, I was left with some rough sketches scattered across a page;

01: Objects & tools

I was unsure of what precisely to draw, as I hadn’t warmed up prior to doing this workshop; but I saw a pile of chains outside the door from where I was working; thus this became the first thing I drew.

02: Icons of inspiration

The first person that popped into my mind as a source of inspiration for me was John Murphy (or just Murphy for short) from the TV series “The 100″. I have never connected as strongly to any fictional character as I have with him. It has gotten almost silly since a known party trick of mine is to practically cry on command if anyone does as much as show me a picture of him or say his name; but with that, It just goes to show how much of an impact his character has had on me over the years. He is most definitely part of the reason that I am even here today – his will to forever survive, no matter how much bullshit he has to go through, has been incredibly inspiring for me. I referenced this from an old piece of fan art that I did a few years back;

03: Characters & alter ego’s

Again, I simply drew the first thing that popped into my mind; which for this prompt was sort of viewing myself from outside my own body. (?) I drew myself as a wolf for no apparent reason besides that I creates me as a “character” rather than myself. The alter ego part steps in where I thought about the way I present myself vs who I really am. I may be this tough-looking guy (wolf?), but in reality, I’m no tougher than anyone else. I drown in my own thoughts constantly; often making me feel so worthless and horrible that everything almost seems to be sinking silently.

04: Motivational words & wisdom

This is a quote taken from one of the seasons of “The 100″, where Murphy has a short conversation with another character from the show called Titus, a guy that imprisoned him and tortured him for days before he managed to escape;

Titus: "You do not belong here."

John Murphy: "Really? Why does my blood decorate your floor?"

– in Stealing Fire (season 3)

05: Emotions and expressions

I feel as if this is an emotion I feel quite a lot. Anger, stress, despair, pain, envy, sadness; being so tired of everything constantly piling up to then fall back down again.

06: Weird & wonderful

Honestly, I’m not sure where this came from in my mind. Possibly it has some ties to the previous sketch (05) since it was more of an emotionally driven drawing; the character is hidden away by a darkness that they have put on themselves (the jacket/hazmat suit/coat?”, but they are holding something light in their hands- like a light orb; or perhaps it’s something more hostile and sinister, sharing the appearance of something bright and warm.

Perhaps the light orb is really a light anomaly (when properly identified, light anomalies are said to be able to potentially be the energy of a spirit transforming itself by use of the energy around it.) disguised as something safe, but in reality, it might of something demonic or a poltergeist (poltergeists are spirits with energy levels so high that they can physically interact with the world that we know of).

It’s really just up to anyone's interpretation.

Task 02 – Define parameters

“Once you have created a selection of sketched ideas across a range of topics, take your post-it notes and draw with your fine-liner a loose border about 4-5mm in from the edge of the paper.

That 4-5mm of blank space is called a gutter. The place outside of the frame, where time and imagination, is at its most fluid.

Bordering a panel gives you a range of options of how to compose your image inside of it; draw in freehand or trace over one of your sketches, lining out the details with your black pen.

Composure and consistency are useful here but experiment with your approach to calligraphy and purpose of your line-work.”

I wanted my linework to feel delicate although the imagery isn’t all quite as such; creating a sense of juxtaposition between the relations of the context and the linework, so this I why I used a 0.35 fineliner.

Since I had no post-it notes, I cut out squares of white paper. After this, I traced over the sketches I had done earlier by pushing the sketch and “post-it note” up against a sunny window.

After finishing the tracing as well as the borders (to create the gutters on each “frame”); this is what I was left with:

I am very happy with how they all turned out, especially after they have been inked with a fineliner- It really makes them all tie in together; although each of them is based on separate prompts.

I scanned them all in, the result of this shown below: 

Task 03 – Display & arrange

“Once you have created at least 6 post-it panels, from a range of unrelated subjects, arrange these in no particular order on a blank page in your sketchbook (or a large sheet of paper if necessary).

Photograph this arrangement on your phone considering what your brain tells you are the overall meanings of this arrangement. Rearrange the sequence, and see if that meaning changes, record any thoughts or ideas about each sequence in notes to review later.

Now upload one of your panels up to the forum. We can then create a group comic, by mixing them all up. Try this at home too if you have photoshop?”

I have already done the random arrangement of the post-it comic panels, as they are shown above. But what does it tell me? What story does it create in my eyes? Below is my interpretation of what the comic portrays:

Betrayal

The wolf spirit raged in anger, for he had betrayed the realm, crossing barriers no mortal was to ever dare. 

“Mortal fool- you do not belong here”, the spirit barked out as if to scare the human away with nothing but one's voice.

“If I don’t belong here... then why does my blood decorate your floors?” He answered in a bitter tone.

“You are nothing but a fool for what you have done! You deserve nothing but–”

A sudden silence overwhelmed the spirit and with the silence, the body of the spirit slowly disappeared into nothingness... creating an orb of light. It floated hopelessly above the floors for a while, until it descended into the hands of a stranger, shadowed by a cloak. Behind the cloaked figure, the sound of chains rattling echoed, until a horned wolf made its way next to the strangers' feet.

“You have done well, human. This... spirit; was a traitor– but no more will it pester you.”

“Who are you?” the human asked, his wounds still bleeding from his previous fight.

“A god. None that your kind has ever heard of. I am Death's brother, Hypnos.”

I also posted all of the frames on the Moodle Forum. ↑

Task 04 - Conclusions

“Look at the comics you have created and then read the following text written by comic book analyst Kaitlyn McCafferty:

“Non-sequitur transitions are constituted of a series of images that are seemingly unrelated to each other in any classic narrative form. Non-sequitur transitions are the most cognitively disruptive; they are the most uncomfortable. Though the curator of these panels may not have had a specific narrative in mind, the viewer will try to draw associations between the images shown. This irresistible human tendency to put elements together to form a complete whole can be explained by Gestalt psychology, which explores the notion that human perception of a whole subject is based on the sum of its parts.”  Answer the questions below and present your work and other people's work on the blog:

Do you understand the theories being discussed here?

The Gestalt theory; I understand that this theory focuses on the human condition and needs to find order and pattern, and in this instance narrative amongst images. Gestalt explains that it is common to take a more holistic approach to this, by taking into account the individual parts of the narrative, in this instance the individual images, and only then decide the narrative. In many ways, this task has allowed us to explore what happens when rather than following these theories or playing into human tendencies to expect order, to see what human imagination can create on its own when order is not present.

Why is this interesting?

This task is interesting because it opposes conventional narrative, and forces the observes to use their imagination to try and find patterns amongst the random images, even when no set pattern exists. This, in turn, proves invaluable, because it furthers our understanding of human psychology and the endless potentials of our imaginations to create an infinite amount of stories and narratives, based off of only one set of images depending on which order they are placed in.

How could you use this to help with your own projects?

It always helps knowing how people work psychologically to predict what an audience would find interesting and intriguing say, for some character design. It is already widely used in our society; for example, in books, TV series or in a series of films they often end them on a cliffhanger with the purpose that you will want to continue watching/reading to find out what happens afterward. Our brains instantly start trying to figure it all out, attempting to tie everything together with the information given, but still, we want to be reassured.

Update 1.1:

After looking at some of my peers’ work, I have decided to try and replicate the look of “post-it notes” a little better by adding colour to them. Although I like the minimalistic black and white look, I feel as if it doesn’t completely match what this entire workshop was about; sparking ideas by doing comic-like panels on post-it notes.

Below are some of the work my peers did that I had a look at;

So, I took the scanned files of my “post-it notes” and loaded them into Krita. I set a layer to multiply, allowing me to add any colour I wish to each note. I did this for both the scans;

And finally, here is the finished product!:

Here they are loosely animated together in the same order as above;

And here is another version of that same gif;

Update 1.2:

25/03/20

Our teacher further set a challenge to develop this workshop further;

“Try and read the 'comic', and then consider Scott McCloud's ideas....does this nonsequential set of images "work" together. What is the result of grouping them? Do narratives start to appear?

If you have done 6.....now let's do 12? Remember details are everything. Take your time. We will review Thursday afternoon.

“Here's some pointers for all of you: 

01: Work on the stylisation of your written text (typography) as this is vital part of comic book panels

02: Develop and use background tonality more, if you have it water down some ink and try and build a sense of depth in the frame

03: Use hatching/pointilism and other mark making to support this sense of depth in the frame even just solid black fills will work (See the work and get inspired by the work of Mike Mignola/Adrian Tomine/Aiden Koch to support)

Keep going folks, let me see your group comics too, take a panel from everyones and put them together in a random sequence. Test the theory!”

(Matt Tankard / Sylvester Larsen / Bill Martin / Emma Aspris / Bertie Brocki / Matt Tagliarini)

What does the above sequence of post-it notes make me think of narrative-wise?

The first thing that popped up in my mind was; this is part of a dream sequence. The colours, always changing with the imagery that one's brain makes up on the go. I feel as if it closely portrays dreams I have had in the past; all scattered around with no direct links to each other; as if they are all separate glimpses of different dreams. It definitely reflects the nature of surrealism with how unpredictable it appears as a collectible.

I decided to then make one of these random post-it note sequences myself, using stuff that my peers created. Below is how that turned out:

What does the above sequence of post-it notes make me think of narrative-wise?

After looking at it for a while, I established an idea of what this little sequence could depicting narrative-wise.

It begins at the upper left with someone saying “Yo!” and the next frame showing perhaps yourself or another random character. You/They are in a grumpy mood- feeling like there’s nothing much to do and everything feels boring. So the someone leaves you/them with a choice - Are you/they going to take the drugs, or not? It’s now between feeling the same boring stuff, or feeling something you/they have never felt before. You/They answer “Yes”, and so you/they suddenly feel an odd rush of happiness, warmt and colour.

Don’t do drugs. They’re bad. This was just what initially came to mind for some reason.

- - -

Now for expanding the number of comic frames from 6 to 12, whilst keeping the pointers we were given in mind.

To expand on the prompts, I have decided to randomly generate some words by using this website, a random word generator, putting the settings to the following:

I generated the following 5 words:

I looked up the definitions of each of these words, giving me the following to work from:

Inhabitant:

Spoil:

Dose:

Reinforce:

Generate:

Now keeping the definitions of each word in mind, I attempted to illustrate my interpretation of them, using the same process as previously:

I only did 5 this time around, since I did 7 the last time around, making 12.

Dose:

For this one I imagened it being related to drugs. At the time of drawing it, I was listening to some rap music, and it made me think of how it lately has become a trendy thing to take drugs such as xanax. - it’s basically based on how many young people gradually only have drugs on their mind.

Spoil:

I interpreted this as something being damaged. - I wasn’t sure what exactly to do, so I eventually just decided to draw a horse that has been shot with some arrows.

Inhabitant:

The inhabitants in this little frame are centipede bugs, crawling around a humans ear. I felt as if it would fit the meaning of this word well, as it indicates that these inhabitants are not welcome and don’t belong there.

Reinforce:

For this frame, I interpreted the word “Reinforce” as something being supported, so I sketched a mech girl where the reinforced bit is the metal suit she is wearing.

Generate:

For the last frame, I went a little more simple and took the route of just doing some typography, after reading that our teacher asked us to do some more interesting looking quotes/type, so I gave this a drop shadow after going over it with the fineliner.

As I did previously, I traced each frame up against a window with a fineliner, being the same as I used the last time.

After this, I cut each frame out and scanned them in. I added the same yellow colour to them to make them match, but also to make them feel more like real post-it notes;

I eventually found that I had lost the post-it note for the first quote I did, so I redid it, although I then found the original again afterwards.

[sandytree1]

Skillshare class projects

A list of classes I would like to try out :). Although Skillshare is basically the same as Youtube tutorials, just that it costs money, as this guy has said. 

Creative Ways to Generate Story Ideas Using Prompts: Choose a random image, dialogue, or setting. If you don't have a story, base a story around those prompts, if you have an existing story, find a way to incorporate them into the story. Create one or several ideas, whether with just one prompt or more, and post the ideas. If you feel comfortable, comment on other people's ideas, see if you can bounce ideas off of them. (Skillshare) Didn’t see much happening here, but concept is interesting. Currently 48 students, beginner level. 

Creative Ways to Generate Story Ideas Using Fanfics: Come up with your own fanfic idea? Take the characters from a story you like and place them in a different setting, situation, interchange their roles, etc. If you want to create an original idea make sure that you change enough so as not to relate it to the original story (names, backgrounds, locations, important plot points, etc.) If you feel comfortable start bouncing ideas off of the other classmates for a both a fanfic or an original story. If you’re going for an original idea I recommend asking either your classmates or myself if we recognize the premise or if a character reminds us of some other character.

How to find story ideas: Writing about yourself. Writing about your surroundings. Where to get new ideas. What is a good idea? Exercises. (Skillshare)

Real life lore | Kursgezzagt | 

Storyboarding for film: illustrating scripts and stories. SKILLSHARE. Storyboard a new ending to your favorite film. It's up to you whether you change or keep the plot. Be sure to include ... The scene: Introduce us to the final scene in a few sentences. The storyboard: Using the template or a setup of your own, storyboard the final moments. Think about how different shots, angles, and story contribute to your narrative and change the story. The rationale: Share a few lines about why you illustrated the shots as you did. Project specs ... Your final storyboard should include 4-16 frames. Use the 16x9 template, or create your own. Upload your image files as .jpgs. 

1 ) Set the scene. Select your film. Think about your favorites, research clips on YouTube, or browse your Netflix queue. Then, quickly distill the major plot points so that we're ready for the ending scene you'll storyboard. Share: Share a 3-5 sentence description of the plot up until the final moments.

2 ) Draw your storyboard. Using the provided template (see Additional Resources below) or one of your own, start drawing! If you're new to storyboarding, don't worry about transitions, movement, or too much annotation. Just get across the key visual moments that communicate your story. You may also find it helpful to rough out a quick script as a guide. Share: Your storyboard, drawn either digitally or by hand.

3 ) Reflect on your rewrite. What do your shots communicate that the original film didn't? Why did/didn't you choose to change the plot? If you were to do this exercise again, what would you change? Share: A few sentences reflecting on this storyboarding process and your artistic choices.

Writing a character study (Wattpad)

I often get ideas from different interactions I have in my life. I was walking my dog, when I saw a cute guy with a phone in his back pocket. It slipped out and it was the exact same as mine, model, color and everything. I picked it up and raced after him. We flirted a bit and parted ways. But I always wondered, what if we had switched cellphones? What would have happened from this if we had gone further? 

Important to write about things that you know or things that you experience, since then you have a deeper understanding and is better equipped to write about it. I’m a great people watcher, seeing someone and making up a backstory about why they’re doing what they’re doing. Why is he in a taxi? What happened with his eyes? Did he secretly want to be a pirate? Is he waiting for someone? Or maybe behind those cool sunglasses he is crying and having difficulty breathing? 

Be a people watcher. Make backstories for the people you observe. 

Write a backstory on all characters. 

Keep a phone or pad handy for jotting down ideas you get while observing people. 

Dot down little things like descriptions or characteristics. 

Expand observation to include other things that can inspire you e.g. hobbies, songs, articles, etc. 

If the idea is really sticking with you and you remember these certain people or aspects that happened - it’s still in your mind even weeks after. Then that’s usually how I know if it’s a good idea, when it’s really sticking with me in my mind. 

If struggling coming up with characters or a story. Then you should look around you. Interactions, people watching, but also hobbies that you’re in, music you’re listening to ... Stuff that really inspires something in you, makes you feel something. Things like that. There’s ... All around you there’s inspiration. 

Remember that everything on your pad isn’t your entire story, it’s just a platform of jumping off base. You can combine different ideas, different people, something that will make it your own thing. 

How do I start a story? Blank sheet of paper, but where do I go from there? Using all these interactions that you have and ideas, putting it onto the page. There’s two types: character based and plot based. The first kind is about the characters or the people who are driving the story forward. The second kind is certain aspects of a story; you have a conflict that will eventually create this, and that is driving the plot forward. 

In the first kind, the character’s personalities are really the focal point of it. It can be someone who’s really shy or extroverted or maybe they have a really aggressive personality and dominance, or maybe they’re really submissive and they don’t really want to go out into the world. Things like that. The challenge about this is keeping your personality throughout, but then also how they’re changing and evolving as the story progresses. Because you want a beginning point, but by the end you want to have a conflict resolved. 

A trouble spot is that sometimes when you use just one word for a character, like if they’re an angry character, then your characters becomes very flat because you’re only using one word. So you have to add multiple dimensions to your character. So he’s not just angry, and if he is angry, as the story evolves, how does that anger influence his interactions with other people. and maybe if he is angry at someone, they get into a fight, then what happens. Is he still gonna be angry afterwards, or is he going to be changing? Is he gonna realize that his anger is part of the issue, of his problem? So things like that, where you’re creating different dimensions. 

So I’m not a flat character. I have many flaws, many good characteristics and not good characteristics. So make sure you’re adding that into your own characters. 

How many characters do I need? I usually do my heroine heroine and then I’ll do supporting characters, the peopel around them. Like their best friends, their parents and siblings. So you don’t have to go that in depth as with your heroine heroine necessarily, but you want to be creating some kind of structure of who these other supporting characters are. If you’re not sure with where to start and am feeling a bit overwhelmed with this, I say start with your main characters, and then go from there. As you’re writing your story you can always add characters or even subtract characters. 

If you’re not sure about who your main characters are, I say go back to your main story idea and ask, who is the character that’s driving your story forward? So that’s gonna be your main character. 

The process of writing a character study. At this point it’s up to you. You can either use your notes that you have on other people that you found interesting, or if you don’t, just dive right in. 

who they are and how they are feeling

act out what you’re writing to get a better understanding of what you / the character would do or feel

https://www.skillshare.com/classes/The-Creative-Writers-Toolkit-Writing-a-Character-Study-Learn-with-Wattpad/1452701491/projects E4 8:52

Name: go to the internet for a name, try to find something you feel would fit their personality. 

Physical description: hair color, eyes, height, things that make her her. Body type. Is it curly, frizzy, or ...? if you’re struggling to picture it in your mind or deciding, just pull an image from the internet. Or when you’re outside and you see someone you like, then just use that. 

Personality: takes a couple days. I’ll make a baseline and then add to it. What makes the character, what they wear, manners, etc. Like huge bookwork but doesn’t like homework. She’s a messy person, doesn’t make her bed, while her brother is very neat. Also very laid back person. So clothing wise she likes things loose, shirts aren’t tucked in, etc. 

Habits / mannerisms: like what they eat or when they are nervous, etc. Small things that they do. They eat oatmeal every morning, that’s a constant routine. When she’s nervous she twirls her hair. I always put in why they twirl their hair. She’s very protective of her brother and feels a great bond with him. She not only looks out for him, but that they’re in this together. Put in who they are and what they’re feeling inside. If you’re struggling finding out body language they would do, I would say study yourself. If you’re in a situation, what do you do in that. How would I stand? What would I do in that situation? I’ll act out what the characters are doing in the situation. 

Background: from child to what age they are now in the story. With this you can know throughout your story where your character is and how they’re making those decisions. And it makes it very consistent throughout. 

any siblings and stuff when they are together

Her attitude - background

Where did she grow up? 

As a child she was very afraid of things, so she relied on her brother a lot. I later found out that with this, then she now as a senior, she’s applying for colleges, she has this fear of the future. So the conflict comes from her background. She’s so reliant and now she’s entering this new stage in her life where she’s not going to be with her brother, and how is this going to affect her. 

Talon moved to beach town from Texas. 

Flaws: what does the description from the stuff happen to her. 

She’s a messy person, but how does this messiness affect her as a person? She doesn’t get her homework done on time, for instance she had summer work that she has to get done for school, she waits until the last minute, she then tries to get her brother to help her, then her friends, but they won’t. So that’s how she actually ends up talking to Talon and really connecting with him, since he helps her with her homework. 

Internal conflict: fears and what happens to her and how she progresses

Fear of the future and not knowing with college coming up what she’s going to do. By the end of the story she has a better understanding and learns that fear is okay, it’s 

External conflict: what happens with the outside 

Resolution: both conflicts change in the end 

Henry wants to make a documentary about historical landmarks, but he is afraid of physical aggression. He learns he can’t do this alone, he needs someone to help him, a producer, and a friend. Now I don’t want my story to be about Henry making a film, that’s just a circumstance even though it adds to his character, that’s not what I’m interested in. What I really care about is Henry’s relationships and how he interacts with other people, and about the fact that he’s a loner and an outsider. So I want to bring another person into Henry’s life, and I think it’s going to be a young girl, since I think a young child will more likely accept him as he is. I’m creating another character at the moment, a little girl named Lana who has her own goals: to become a famous TV producer. This story will be about Lana and Henry. It’s almost a boy meets girl story, but without the romance. 

Then I write a three act structure to get the ball rolling. Act one: Henry hires Lana as his producer. Act two: Lana leaves Henry halway through production for a better offer. Now given that we know that Henry gets sad when people laugh at him and is afraid of physical aggression, this is where the conflict and drama could be added to heighten those elements. What if Lana makes fun of Henry? He’s just not cool enough for her? And she leaves him to be with cooler folks? What if worse than that, she unwittingly shows him some physical aggression? That sounds scary, but don’t you want to push boundaries with this character? Don’t you want to go to the absolute extreme? Act three: Henry finishes his documentary, wins an award and gives it to Lana, to thank her for her input. Lana decides she wants to carry on working with Henry. 

The reason I’ve put this in there is because I think Henry is a very kind and sweet person, and we said he had a positive and sunny nature. So I think that whatever happens to him, he is not going to become bitter and hold a grudge about it. And actually this resolves the conflict. He is the one who steps out and offers the hand of friendship to Lana. It also shows that he’s grown as a character, he’s discovered that the important thing wasn’t making a documentary or winning awards, but it was actually the relationship created throughout the process. So as a character he’s gone on a little journey. 

How does your character react to conflict? Your character drives the plot. 

How would that character create plot? Knowing their weaknesses. Knowing things they struggle with. What situation could you put them into to create an interesting dramatic situation. It can be something very simple. (...)