#posting this while i'm busy getting a lot of other work done in the background

[forsetcabiri]

The Spirit of Effervescent Wonder. Though more tired than that makes him sound.

(A quick sketch of my character in an experimental tabletop campaign for a talk icon)

[sleepyafcapricorn]

Headcanons to Yandere Shanks x Reader:

WARNINGS: MDNI, implied kidnapping, crazed shanks, selfish, hypocrite, desperate, situationship aka not really together, implied hookups, violence, mature language, shameless, manipulation, etc.

SUMMARY: You're the only one who truly understands Shanks for all his actions and support him on it. However, you think of him as a temporary, fleeting figure while he is already planning ways to get you to stay with him.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The fact that this has been in my drafts for months.. I even made a copy of this post because there was like more than 900 posts in my drafts and it made me unable to access this. I had to do a clean up of my drafts, which is why I'm reposting a whole lot of things too, but I will be posting more fics as well this way! :)

MASTERLIST & REQUESTS: Before you go, have a glass of wine or better yet, recommend a good bottle. any kind of message is always a delight.

Let's start with how it all began. Shanks is someone who values freedom, so him ending up in this situation is very hypocritical for him to do, especially with his background, but he supposed that it is in his nature and blood to be possessive of things or rather, people. Shanks never considered himself perfect and when it came to you, he knew he had done some fucked up shit, both for you and to you, but he did it out of love.

You were just an ordinary bartender living in the same island that you were born and raised on for so many years. You were never really interested in going out to sea. Sure, the island wasn't that interesting and you always adored hearing the stories of voyagers or even pirates who had experienced many adventures, but you never really thought about leaving for it. You were someone who sees and listen to things from a distance, not involve yourself in it. It wasn't your cup of tea.

That was until one day, you came across a peculiar red haired pirate and his crew. You didn't know much about them but according to the stories told to you beforehand from other pirates, they seemed to be a strong one. However, none of them possessed Devil Fruit powers, which made you curious. Nonetheless, you continued to serve them like a regular customer. They were drinking to their hearts' content and almost finished your whole stock of alcohol for two weeks, but you didn't mind their presence. In fact, their company had made your bar livelier and more fun, not to mention much more successful as well.

While you were working, you loved to listen to the captain of the crew's endless stories and talks, but it wasn't the only thing that made you stay close to Shanks. Oh, definitely not. The man has a way with people, always knowing what to say and do to charm them. He could be the definition of 'charm' and you would have believed it because not long after meeting him, you became one of the unlucky bastards to have a crush on him. He was an attractive and charming man, who could blame you?

Not only that, but even when you were busy with work or doing other things at that moment, Shanks would always be around you and starting up a conversation or even flirting with you. Your heart certainly isn't trying to move on any day with the way he acts towards you and you weren't even trying to move on either.

Shanks always made you laugh with his ridiculous jokes and antics, but you never noticed how he kept on staring at you each time you laugh. It was like a melody in his ears, even if you ended up snorting in laughter, he still couldn't help but be filled with pride that he managed to make someone as gorgeous as you laugh.

It wasn't long before a spark of romance began to appear between the two of you, and you noticed the subtle way Shanks always reached out for your hand during conversations or even the way you began to lean closer against him when talking to others. He wouldn't be saying anything and neither would you but he would make sure to be close enough to you to lean against him.

The closer you to him and the more frequent he came to you, the more he saw how you matched his freak and how insane you could be at times, though you kept that part of yourself hidden since no one ever got close enough to you for you to comfortably let down your mask until Shanks came in.

He loved how feisty and sassy you were to him sometimes, not at all fearful of one of the longest and most powerful Yonkos. You just treated him like a friend. Perhaps, a bit more than a friend with the way the two of you were continuously flirting with each other to the point that his crew mates would always ask when the two of you will get together.

You always brushed off their question with a laugh. After knowing who he truly was, you knew that Shanks had many people depending on him and many adventures to still go to than just be in the island with you. So, you expected your relationship with him to just be a small fling. Something that the two of you could look back to and laugh at when the two of you catch up again. After all, you had no interest going out to sea nor did you want to settle down yet. You had dreams of your own, even though it doesn't involve going on dangerous adventures like they do, those dreams are still precious to you.

However, Shanks didn't understand that. He was always puzzled whenever you brush off the crews' question. He actually did wanted to start a long term relationship with you, which is quite a surprise to many, including him, since he is usually not the type of person to settle down yet, especially with how excited he is to go on to his next adventures. He still plans on doing it but this time, he wanted to do it with you.

You're the only person to truly make attempts to understand him and still supports him, even though you don't understand some of the actions he had taken. You believed that he is a good man no matter what, even when there were doubts and rumours casting on him and his actions, you still stayed by his side and all he wanted to do was to protect you.

He understood you didn't want to leave your home and you might even be safer staying in your island, but his heart longs for you to stay with him. It was a selfish thing he desires but after everything he has done, all the sacrifices that he has made, it would only be right for him to just be this selfish for once. And it wasn't as if he would abandon you. No, he will be taking care of you and try his best to make your dreams come true. But you will be doing all of it while staying with him, okay? Why do you need to leave him when all he wants is to protect you?

That's why he got a little confused when you rejected his offer for an official relationship together, for you to join his crew. He could give you everything you want, even your dreams, and he did try to but you still wanted to stay in your island. Even worse, you told him that you think that he's a temporary presence in your life? Oh, it didn't sit right with him. He was quiet about it at first but he became determined to change, thinking that he wasn't showing enough of it to you, and he wanted to prove to you that life in your home island isn't good enough for a rare gem like you.

During one of your usually busiest seasons of the year, you became confused when no customers appeared for a whole week, except for Shanks' crew but even then, you had stocked enough food and drinks than just them. It was as if the visitors has had enough of the island or perhaps they were scared of someone something. This demotivated you since you love to interact with others but you also found it strange how you only saw the rest of Shanks' crew during breakfast, lunch or dinner but for the rest of it, Shanks was the only one with you.

When you asked him about it, he only told you that they had some work to do, including barter for the upcoming voyage since they will be at sea for a long time this time, so you didn't think much of it. Besides, you still had Shanks to be with and listened more to his story about how he had saved a kid from Foosha Village and gave him his beloved straw hat.

"I could take you there someday," Shanks offered with that charming smile of his. He would say a few times during each adventure from different islands.

As your business continued to drop, you were beginning to get tempted with Shanks' offer. You needed to find a way to get more money, maybe even live in another village for a while until you had enough and go back to your home island. However, you didn't want to bother Shanks with your request either since he's busy until one day, you found your bar completely wrecked.

A bunch of bandits decided to steal your boozes and wrecked the place for money as well. It was the last straw for you since you didn't make much to begin with from the past month and there was no way for you to be able to afford the repairs.

Shanks comforted you and even offered to help pay for the damages using his own treasure, but you declined and instead requested to board his ship and drop you off at the next village they were going to. You didn't really want to leave but for your own sake, you had to find a way of living. After all, you were left on your own to fend for yourself all this time.

Shanks made sure to ask you several times before the day him and his crew were going to depart and you confirmed it each time, already packing all of the belongings for it.

Benn Beckham, Shanks' right hand man, was there for it all as well and right before departure when Shanks was busy carrying your belongings to the ship because he refused to let you do a single work, he questioned you whether you truly wanted to go with them, to which you just nodded.

Shanks ended up moving your belongings to his room since your room wasn't ready yet and you didn't mind sleeping with Shanks either since you have been doing so for the last few weeks. A few more nights wouldn't hurt and Shanks can be warm during those cold times as well.

However, those few nights turned into weeks with some of the crew making up excuses that the room got dirtied and wrecked since some of the guys accidentally used it during drunk nights to sleep in. Not to mention how there would be fights a few times and most of them coincidentally always impacted your supposed room. It certainly was odd, but Shanks didn't mind sharing a room with you and sometimes left you alone during the night to give you privacy while he takes over watch for the night.

What puzzled you was that as weeks turned into months and your relationship with Shanks eventually evolved into something more intimate, you never managed to arrive to the next village. Something about most of the ones around you were either in terrible states or there were no villages to begin. You could have sworn that a few years back when seeing a map, there were a bunch of villages close to your island but Shanks told you that those villages were in rough conditions from lack of resources, so they have a tight amount for the season.

Perhaps you will have luck in the next island or two? Well, for the meantime, you should really get comfortable with the Red Haired pirates because it certainly didn't seem like you will leave anytime soon.

[sineala]

Hii! What do you think of the new Iron Man run, written by Ackerman?

Thank you for asking! I was hoping someone would ask me about what I think of Ackerman's run so far! I have a lot of opinions. (As I type this, seven issues are out. When I started typing this, six issues were out. It has been a while. I wrote most of this a couple months ago and am dusting it off and posting it. The delay on me replying to asks is apparently 6-8 business weeks.)

I have complicated but mostly positive feelings about the Ackerman run. I think he has clearly done all the reading (absolutely all the reading! it's amazing!) and has a basic idea of who Tony is as a character that aligns with mine, which is something you cannot take for granted as an Iron Man fan. I feel that, given his professional background, he's going to be taking Tony on a journey to some interesting places, thematically. But I do have some reservations about elements of the run that most people would consider small and nitpicky details, that continue to bother me more as the run goes on. I also feel like they have now become bigger problems now that the run has launched into its bigger arc.

So I think it's pretty interesting that Marvel hired Ackerman to write Iron Man. I am not very familiar with his work, but I know he's a journalist focusing primarily on national security. The other week, I watched him appear on a webinar about Iron Man and Resisting the Military-Industrial Complex; he is clearly both fond of the character -- he recced some of my favorite Iron Man comics -- and also very familiar with the world he's putting Tony into, and the themes and concerns that this run is going to address, like tech companies supplying surveillance equipment to the military. Turns out there's a whole bunch of things Tony can make that aren't actually weapons that can be used for evil! So it seems like the run is going to deal with questions like that.

I think that emotionally, Ackerman has Tony down. The run opens with Tony getting dropped really hard from a great height more than once, rehabilitating himself very slowly, and refusing to take any painkiller stronger than Advil. Also a lot of the time he looks like some kind of sad wet cat.

This line from issue one is pretty much how I like Tony to suffer:

Look, I read Iron Man comics for the whump. I want horrible things to happen to Tony. But they have to be the right horrible things, though. And I think these are, generally, the right horrible things. So that's very nice. So I think Ackerman is getting that right and I am certainly glad we have him writing this rather than, say, Cantwell. The big picture is right.

But the thing is, I think he's getting the details wrong. I think he's writing an interesting story about the things one can do with money and power, and the morality of the surveillance state, and I think he's not stopping to ask himself whether Tony, specifically, would do these things with with his money and power. Whether Tony would consider these things moral. Not the big things, though. The little things. But it's a whole lot of little things.

I don't think Tony would be in favor of a lot of the things he's expressed support of in this run. At first I thought these were all just bits. Things that were happening because they're funny. And I'm sure most of them are even supposed to be funny. But they keep coming up in contexts that suggest that Tony sincerely likes them.

Basically, I think he's making Tony a techbro. And I don't like that.

This started in issue one, with the gambling. The gambling is not the only plot element I hate -- and it's certainly not the worst plot element I have ever seen in an Iron Man run -- but I think it's emblematic of a larger narrative problem.

In an issue that I otherwise very much enjoyed, part of the plot is that Tony is trying to take back his company from people who have been using it to make Sentinels, and he of course wants them out of the weapons business. So he has to offer them something to do instead, and he suggests that they get into supporting gambling on superhero fights:

At first I thought this was a joke, or something he was just saying because he thought the villains running his company were going to go for it and then he could reveal his true plan, but he seems to sincerely be into it:

The commentary from Ackerman at the end of the issue also frames Tony's gambling idea in a way that sounds positive about gambling:

And it comes up in more issues! Here it is again in #3:

I think we are actually supposed to believe Tony seriously thinks this is a good idea. And I don't think he would.

I think that Tony, as an addict, would be incredibly conscious of the fact that people become addicted to gambling and it ruins their lives; I don't think he would support that. When we've seen Tony gambling in canon it's mostly as some high-stakes undercover James Bond kind of deal where he's there for plot reasons (e.g., Vegas Bleeds Neon). And we know that the Avengers do in fact have team poker night etc etc (viz. Cap #700). So he's not entirely opposed to the practice. To me, he seems like probably the kind of guy who has acknowledged that gambling is a fun activity for him and the price tag is whatever amount he's willing to lose for the night. We don't see him having a problem with gambling addiction, and we have absolutely seen what he looks like with an addiction. This isn't it.

But I'm sure he knows it's addictive for others. And we do see Tony, in general, having compassion for other people he knows with addiction problems. He's Carol's AA sponsor! Sure, he's not personally addicted to gambling, but I think he would be very aware of the harm this would cause other people. And I don't think he'd want to be the cause of that.

Since he's a superhero himself, he would also be involving his friends and teammates, and basically monetizing and profiting off what they do to save the world. Generally, in canon, he has been portrayed as saving the world because it's the right thing to do. Now he'd be saving the world to make money off it. It just seems like a weirdly exploitative thing to do with his friendships. And Tony has never struck me as an exploitative character.

(Also, since all these people are his friends -- and him! -- how would anyone know whether people are getting paid to throw fights or whatnot?)

And also I think that morally, Tony would think that profiting off gambling isn't right -- it would be exploiting the bettors, because that's how a gambling operation works. In the long run, the house always wins, right? If anyone had a foolproof way to win, the bookmakers and casinos would not be letting you use it. Which Tony, being a guy who has definitely taken a statistics class in his life, understands. He knows what the odds of winning are like. He can calculate them. Tony would, essentially, be making money by taking advantage of people who don't understand probability, and who sincerely think that they have a good chance of getting rich. And Tony doesn't seem like the kind of guy who wants to take advantage of people who know less than he does; he generally wants to help people understand, to share knowledge with them. He's not going to profit off their naivete. That's scummy.

At this point, you might say, "Well, you're a massive Tony fan who just wants to see Tony painted in a good light" and, I mean, yes, in a sense, I am. But I understand that Tony as a character has a lot of flaws. It would be fine by me if canon represented them; my actual favorite Iron Man run is one where Tony is drunk and has lost his entire company and is living on the streets. It's just that I liked the flaws he already had, and it seems weird to give him new ones that seem to run counter to his character.

And the thing is, it's not just me who thinks that -- it's other Marvel writers! Pretty soon after Ackerman's Iron Man run started, Jed MacKay's Avengers run had an arc where the Avengers -- including Tony -- had to pull a heist at a space casino. So there's a lot of gambling happening in the background of the issue, and it's one of the themes of the overall narrative. At one point, as they are running the heist and it's looking like it's going to be a success, Tony says they've been very lucky so far, and Carol says something about how she hopes their luck will hold.

And then Tony goes on for an actual page and a half about how the problem with casinos is that, essentially, luck isn't real and won't hold:

This, right here, is pretty much exactly the opinion I was expecting Tony to have about gambling. So, you know, take that, current Iron Man run! The guy writing Avengers agrees with me!

Also, while I've got you here, please enjoy this moment from Avengers #23 where Tony fights a villain who is a giant floating baby who makes his deepest wish come true.

Hey, Steve/Tony fans, you will never guess what Tony's deepest wish is:

They're just two guys, one of whom possesses the desire to be the other one as the deepest wish of his heart. Just regular friend stuff.

So, yeah, there's that. Back to the gambling!

I will say that as someone watching American professional sports, the legalization of gambling over the past couple of years has been absolutely wild and also terrible. The companies that run the sports betting sponsor basically everything they can -- and, sure, every ad says there is a number to call if you have a gambling problem, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they make a lot of money on the people with problems. The sports news sites will list the odds. The TV will give you live odds during games! Not just gambling commercials; this is part of the game broadcast. The commentators will actually read the odds out loud! People tweet death threats to players who they've bet on who have lost! Shohei Ohtani's interpreter stole his money and used it to bet on sports! This is not good! None of this is good!

So at this point, I had arrived at the conclusion that this run was going to be generally pro-betting. Again, this is not a stance I personally think is great, but every time it comes up in the run, Tony seems to sincerely think this is a good idea. There's no sign that he actually hates it. The narrative seems to endorse this idea; nothing undercuts it, and Ackerman's joking comment at the end of #1 is positive.

So I figured that what was going on here was that Ackerman unironically thinks sports betting apps are great and has decided to pass this same desire onto Tony, because as far as I can tell, that's how it's being portrayed. Okay, sure, it's not my personal opinion, but I guess this is the thing we are doing in this run.

Except it turns out that we're… not doing this?

Because it's taken me forever to write this post, in between the time I started writing it and me getting to this paragraph, Spencer Ackerman actually did an AMA on /r/ironman, and while I am not brave enough to ask an actual Iron Man writer anything when my account's comment history definitely demonstrates that I read and write erotic Iron Man fanfiction, other people did in fact ask about the gambling.

Ackerman's reply was as follows:

"After watching practically all of sports media transform over the past 3-ish years into gambling portals or adjuncts, I had the idea rattling around in my head. From a narrative perspective, I like the idea of a Not-Good Thing (creating a gambling market for superhero fans) that is a solution to a Worse Thing (weapons manufacturing/acquisition by villains in league with netherbeings). And you clearly see the temptations such a thing poses with a character like Iron Man, so we can leave that there!"

And I just. What?

None of this is evident anywhere in the run. No one good in the comic has in any way indicated that this gambling idea might be bad. Tony likes it! The only people who didn't like it, so far, are the villains, who expressed enthusiasm but didn't want to pivot the company into gambling! Reading the jokey note from Ackerman at the end of #1 did not suggest, in any way, that this plotline was going to be about Tony doing a Bad Thing. We didn't even get to Doing A Bad Thing For A Good Reason! That's… not there. It's not being shown as bad at all. You actually have to tell us, at some point, that this is the thing you are doing in your story. You have entirely failed at conveying this!

Also, you have failed to sell me on the idea that Tony finds gambling personally tempting -- as I said, I don't think this is true, and I think he would find this business plan even more morally abhorrent if he did find it personally tempting -- but I feel like failing to show me that this is a story where gambling is supposed to be bad is a bigger narrative flaw. I literally had no idea that this was the intended plot until I read that AMA.

I can only judge the story as it is written on the page. I cannot judge the version that Ackerman intended to write in his head. He has written a story that suggests that everything about Tony getting into the sportsbook business would be great, because Tony thinks it's great, and the only people who don't like the idea are the villains. Typically when a hero in a comic book likes something and the villains hate it, that thing is supposed to be A Good Idea. But apparently it is, in fact, not a good idea! This is maybe not a great narrative choice.

Tony's other interests, much like the gambling, also seem to be very techbro, and they are once again not being presented in a way that suggests that we are in any way supposed to think these are bad. Tony has once again run out of money and has built himself a very steampunk-ish suit that is basically supposed to be extremely cheap. Instead of having his suit run by some really cool computer, he has… ChatGPT. This is clearly intended to be a joke, because it's giving him wrong information:

So I figured, ha ha, funny little joke. We have now made the joke. We are done, right?

We are not done. Tony is still using it, apparently seriously. This is weird for a couple reasons: one, being a fan of generative AI in the real world is not exactly a value-neutral choice, and if you're seriously going to have Tony use it, I would at least expect to see some argumentation for why he thinks this is a good idea. You have to sell me on why Tony believes in this and is willing to, say, discount the harm it does in the real world. Maybe this is also a thing Tony believes that we the audience are just supposed to know is wrong, like the gambling. But I have no idea, because the story is not going to tell me!

The other reason it's weird is that, universe-internally, Tony should not need this. LLMs like ChatGPT are basically the cutting edge of AI in our world. This is not the case on Earth-616. 616 has actual sentient artificial intelligence that is truly intelligent. Tony has created and/or repaired a bunch of robots and AIs. He has a lot of AI friends. He could, literally, right now, ask Jocasta to come help him run his suit, and if he looked sad enough she would probably say yes. Settling for ChatGPT is absolutely inexplicable given the resources he has! So why is he doing this? Just because it's funny?

(He also never used to need to run AIs in a lot of his suits, and honestly I would have expected that a low-tech suit would be controllable without AI just like the old ones. So it's not even clear why he needs one.)

Similarly, issue #6 begins a series of One World Under Doom tie-ins in which Tony decides to keep selling weapons to defeat Doom -- more on this in a sec -- and he is considering doing so by funding, essentially, terrorists. But the thing I would like to draw your attention to is that he is offering to fund them by offering them crypto.

Why in the world would Tony think crypto was a good idea? If this is supposed to be some sign that this (like funding terrorists) is some moral compromise on his part by doing smaller bad things to avert a larger bad thing, this is not evident in the text at any point. As far as I can tell, nothing about this particular part of the deal is supposed to be questionable. Why would Tony like this?

But the big sword? The big sword is amazing. No notes.

I think a lot of the problems in this run stem from Ackerman not primarily being a fiction writer. He's come up with a complex, detailed, thoughtful plot that clearly draws from a set of topics he knows a whole lot about. But this isn't supposed to just be worldbuilding. You have to also give me character. I want to know how Tony feels about what he's doing and what motivates him. The plot has to work on an emotional level and I don't think it is. It'd be a great, IDK, series of blog posts set in a fictional world. It's not a great narrative.

I feel like, from my perspective as an Iron Man fan, the way Ackerman talks about his conception of Tony is a portrayal of Tony I like, and he likes all the same runs I do -- but I don't think he's good enough at writing fiction to actually convey his view of the character, and I don't think he's aware that what he wants to say isn't coming across. His heart is in the right place wrt the character, as far as I can tell, but he's not actually pulling off the plot because you need to actually nail the character to do that.

In the current Doom arc, we are given zero internal access to Tony's thoughts. Ackerman has said that this is intentional. I understand that thought bubbles are passé, and not using direct narration is a choice, but then you have definitely hit Hard Mode of fiction writing. If you're not going to tell me how Tony feels about what he's doing and why he's doing it, you have to have that come up at some point in the story some other way.

And we have now hit a plot that is clearly What If Tony Had To Do A Wrong Thing (selling weapons) To Stop A Worse Thing (Doom running the world). Okay. Great. This is clearly an Iron Man theme. This is Armor Wars. This is Civil War. But if you're not writing this with any kind of emotional access to Tony, then you are basically recreating the situation where everyone reading Civil War thinks Tony is a fascist asshole and they don't read the two comics where Tony explains that actually this is all a front to save lives and he feels miserable about it. Except you aren't telling me how he feels about it. If you want anyone to have sympathy for the character, you need to actually make the reader Feel Feelings. So this isn't working for me. It could be made to work for me, pretty easily! But that's not how it's being written.

So, yeah, that's what I think so far: he has intentions that align with my conception of the character (both personality-wise and in terms of the amount and flavor of personal suffering that Tony endures), but I don't think he's good enough at fiction to actually write the plot he wants to write.

[tide-locked]

it's time for the long-threatened post about how to get subtitles (including translated ones) for videos that don't have subtitles.

in my experience, the methods in this post can probably get you solidly 75% or more of the content of many videos (caveats inside). i've tested this on videos that are originally in chinese, english, french, german, hindi, japanese, korean, spanish, and honestly probably some languages that i'm forgetting. my experience is that it works adequately in all of them. not great, necessarily, but well enough that you can probably follow along.

this is a very long post because this is the overexplaining things website, and because i talk about several different ways to get the captions. this isn't actually difficult, though, or even especially time consuming—the worst of it is pushing a button and ignoring things for a while. actual hands-on work is probably five minutes tops, no matter how long the video is.

i've attempted to format this post understandably, and i hope it's useful to someone.

first up, some disclaimers.

this is just my experience with things, and your experience might be different. the tools used for (and available for) this kind of thing change all the time, and if you're reading this six months after i wrote it, your options might be different. this post is probably still a decent starting place.

background about my biases in this: i work in the creative industries. mostly i'm a fiction editor. i've also been a writer, a technical editor and writer, a transcriptionist, a copyeditor, and something i've seen called a 'translation facilitator' or 'rewrite editor', where something is translated fairly literally (by a person or a machine) and then a native speaker of the target language goes through and rewrites/restructures as needed to make the piece read more naturally in the target language. i've needed to get information out of business meetings that were conducted in a language i didn't speak, and have done a lot of work on things that were written in (or translated into) the writer's second or sixth language, but needed to be presented in natural english.

so to start, most importantly: machine translation is never going to be as good as a translation done by an actual human. human translators can reflect cultural context and nuanced meanings and the artistry of the work in a way that machines will never be able to emulate. that said, if machine translation is your only option, it's better than nothing. i also find it really useful for videos in languages where i have enough knowledge that i'm like, 75% sure that i'm mostly following, and just want something that i can glance at to confirm that.

creating subs like this relies heavily on voice-to-text, which—unfortunately—works a lot better in some situations than it does in others. you'll get the best, cleanest results from videos that have slow, clear speech in a 'neutral' accent, and only one person speaking at a time. (most scripted programs fall into this category, as do many vlogs and single-person interviews.) the results will get worse as voices speed up, overlap more, and vary in volume. that said, i've used this to get captions for cast concerts, reality shows, and variety shows, and the results are imperfect but solidly readable, especially if you have an idea of what's happening in the plot and/or can follow along even a little in the broadcast language.

this also works best when most of the video is in a single language, and you select that language first. the auto detect option sometimes works totally fine, but in my experience there's a nonzero chance that it'll at least occasionally start 'detecting' random other languages in correctly, or someone will say a few words in spanish or whatever, but the automatic detection engine will keep trying to translate from spanish for another three minutes, even tho everything's actually in korean. if there's any way to do so, select the primary language, even if it means that you miss a couple sentences that are in a different language.

two places where these techniques don't work, or don't work without a lot of manual effort on your part: translating words that appear on the screen (introductions, captions, little textual asides, etc), and music. if you're incredibly dedicated, you can do this and add it manually yourself, but honestly, i'm not usually this dedicated. getting captions for the words on the screen will involve either actually editing the video or adding manually translated content to the subs, which is annoying, and lyrics are...complicated. it's possible, and i'm happy to talk about it in another post if anyone is interested, but for the sake of this post, let's call it out of scope, ok? ok. bring up the lyrics on your phone and call it good enough.

places where these techniques are not great: names. it's bad with names. names are going to be mangled. resign yourself to it now. also, in languages that don't have strongly gendered speech, you're going to learn some real fun stuff about the way that the algorithms gender things. (spoiler: not actually fun.) bengali, chinese, and turkish are at least moderately well supported for voice-to-text, but you will get weird pronouns about it.

obligatory caveat about ai and voice-to-text functionality. as far as i'm aware, basically every voice-to-text function is ~ai powered~. i, a person who has spent twenty years working in the creative industries, have a lot of hate for generative ai, and i'm sure that many of you do, too. however, if voice-to-text (or machine translation software) that doesn't rely on it exists anymore, i'm not aware of it.

what we're doing here is the same as what douyin/tiktok/your phone's voice-to-text does, using the same sorts of technology. i mention this because if you look at the tools mentioned in this post, at least some of them will be like 'our great ai stuff lets you transcribe things accurately', and i want you to know why. chat gpt (etc) are basically glorified predictive text, right? so for questions, they're fucking useless, but for things like machine transcription and machine translation, those predictions make it more likely that you get the correct words for things that could have multiple translations, or for words that the software can only partially make out. it's what enables 'he has muscles' vs 'he has mussels', even though muscles and mussels are generally pronounced the same way. i am old enough to have used voice to text back when it was called dictation software, and must grudgingly admit that this is, in fact, much better.

ok! disclaimers over.

let's talk about getting videos

for the most part, this post will assume that you have a video file and nothing else. cobalt.tools is the easiest way i'm aware of to download videos from most sources, though there are other (more robust) options if you're happy to do it from the command line. i assume most people are not, and if you are, you probably don't need this guide anyhow.

i'm going to use 'youtube' as the default 'get a video from' place, but generally speaking, most of this works with basically any source that you can figure out how to download from—your bilibili downloads and torrents and whatever else will work the same way. i'm shorthanding things because this post is already so so long.

if the video you're using has any official (not autogenerated) subtitles that aren't burned in, grab that file, too, regardless of the language. starting from something that a human eye has looked over at some point is always going to give you better results. cobalt.tools doesn't pull subtitles, but plugging the video url into downsub or getsubs and then downloading the srt option is an easy way to get them for most places. (if you use downsub, it'll suggest that you download the full video with subtitles. that's a link to some other software, and i've never used it, so i'm not recommending it one way or the other. the srts are legit, tho.)

the subtitle downloaders also have auto translation options, and they're often (not always) no worse than anything else that we're going to do here—try them and see if they're good enough for your purposes. unfortunately, this only works for things that already have subtitles, which is…not that many things, honestly. so let's move on.

force-translating, lowest stress mode.

this first option is kind of a cheat, but who cares. youtube will auto-caption things in some languages (not you, chinese) assuming that the uploader has enabled it. as ever, the quality is kinda variable, and the likelihood that it's enabled at all seems to vary widely, but if it is, you're in for a much easier time of things, because you turn it on, select whatever language you want it translated to, and youtube…does its best, anyhow.

if you're a weird media hoarder like me and you want to download the autogenerated captions, the best tool that i've found for this is hyprscribr. plug in the video url, select 'download captions via caption grabber', then go to the .srt data tab, copy it out, and paste it into a text file. save this as [name of downloaded video].[language code].srt, and now you have captions! …that you need to translate, which is actually easy. if it's a short video, just grab the text, throw it in google translate (timestamps and all), and then paste the output into a new text file. so if you downloaded cooking.mp4, which is in french, you'll have three files: cooking.mp4, cooking.fr.srt, and cooking.en.srt. this one's done! it's easy! you're free!

but yeah, ok, most stuff isn't quite that easy, and auto-captioning has to be enabled, and it has some very obvious gaps in the langauges it supports. which is sort of weird, because my phone actually has pretty great multilingual support, even for things that youtube does not. which brings us to low-stress force translation option two.

use your phone

this seems a little obvious, but i've surprised several people with this information recently, so just in case. for this option, you don't even need to have downloaded the video—if it's a video you can play on your phone, the phone will almost definitely attempt real-time translation for you. i'm sure iphones have this ability, but i'm an android person, so can only provide directions for that: go into settings and search for (and enable) live translation. the phone will do its best to pick up what's being said and translate it on the fly for you, and if 'what's being said' is a random video on the internet, your phone isn't gonna ask questions. somewhat inexplicably, this works even if the video is muted. i do this a lot at like four a.m. when i'm too lazy to grab earbuds but don't want to wake up my wife.

this is the single least efficient way to force sub/translate things, in my opinion, but it's fast and easy, and really useful for those videos that are like a minute long and probably not that interesting, but like…what if it is, you know? sometimes i'll do this to decide if i'm going to bother more complicated ways of translating things.

similarly—and i feel silly even mentioning this, but that i didn't think of it for an embarrassingly long time—if you're watching something on a device with speakers, you can try just…opening the 'translate' app on your phone. they all accept voice input. like before, it'll translate whatever it picks up.

neither of these methods are especially useful for longer videos, and in my experience, the phone-translation option generally gives the least accurate translation, because in attempting to do things in real time, you lose some of the predicative ability that i was talking about earlier. (filling in the blank for 'he has [muscles/mussels]' is a lot harder if you don't know if the next sentence is about the gym or about dinner.)

one more lazy way

this is more work than the last few options, but often gives better results. with not much effort, you can feed a video playing on your computer directly into google translate. there's a youtube video by yosef k that explains it very quickly and clearly. this will probably give you better translation output than any of the on-the-fly phone things described above, but it won't give you something that you can use as actual subs—it just produces text output that you can read while you watch the video. again, though, really useful for things that you're not totally convinced you care about, or for things where there aren't a lot of visuals, or for stuff where you don't care about keeping your eyes glued to the screen.

but probably you want to watch stuff on the screen at the same time.

let's talk about capcut!

this is probably not a new one for most people, but using it like this is a little weird, so here we go. ahead of time: i'm doing this on an actual computer. i think you probably can do it on your phone, but i have no idea how, and honestly this is already a really long guide so i'm not going to figure it out right now. download capcut and put it on an actual computer. i'm sorry.

anyhow. open up capcut, click new project. import the file that you downloaded, and then drag it down to the editing area. go over to captions, auto captions, and select the spoken language. if you want bilingual captions, pick the language for that, as well, and the captions will be auto-translated into whatever the second language you choose is. (more notes on this later.)

if i remember right, this is the point at which you get told that you can't caption a video that's more than an hour long. however. you have video editing software, and it is open. split the video in two pieces and caption them separately. problem solved.

now the complicated part: saving these subs. (don't panic; it's not actually that complicated.) as everyone is probably aware, exporting captions is a premium feature, and i dunno about the rest of you, but i'm unemployed, so let's assume that's not gonna happen.

the good news is that since you've generated the captions, they're already saved to your computer, they're just kinda secret right now. there are a couple ways to dig them out, but the easiest i'm aware of is the biyaoyun srt generator. you'll have to select the draft file of your project, which is auto-saved once a minute or something. the website tells you where the file is saved by default on your computer. (i realised after writing this entire post that they also have a step-by-step tutorial on how to generate the subtitles, with pictures, so if you're feeling lost, you can check that out here.)

select the project file titled 'draft_content', then click generate. you want the file name to be the same as the video name, and again, i'd suggest srt format, because it seems to be more broadly compatible with media players. click 'save to local' and you now have a subtitle file!

translating your subtitles

you probably still need to translate the subtitles. there are plenty of auto-translation options out there. many of them are fee- or subscription-based, or allow a very limited number of characters, or are like 'we provide amazing free translations' and then in the fine print it says that they provide these translations through the magic of uhhhh google translate. so we're just going to skip to google translate, which has the bonus of being widely available and free.

for shorter video, or one that doesn't have a ton of spoken stuff, you can just copy/paste the contents of the .srt file into the translation software of your choice. the web version of google translate will do 5000 characters in one go, as will systran. that's the most generous allocation that i'm aware of, and will usually get you a couple minutes of video.

the timestamps eat up a ton of characters, though, so for anything longer than a couple minutes, it's easier to upload the whole thing, and google translate is the best for that, because it is, to my knowledge, the only service that allows you to do it. to upload the whole file, you need a .doc or .rtf file.

an .srt file is basically just a text file, so you can just open it in word (or gdocs or whatever), save it as a .doc, and then feed it through google translate. download the output, open it, and save it as an .srt.

you're done! you now have your video and a subtitle file in the language of your choice.

time for vibe, the last option in this post.

vibe is a transcription app (not a sex thing, even tho it sounds like one), and it will also auto-translate the transcribed words to english, if you want.

open vibe and select your file, then select the language. if you want it translated to english, hit advanced and toggle 'translate to english'. click translate and wait a while. after a few minutes (or longer, depending on how long the file is), you'll get the text. the save icon is a folder with a down arrow on it, and i understand why people are moving away from tiny floppy disks, but also: i hate it. anyhow, save the output, and now you have your subs file, which you can translate or edit or whatever, as desired.

vibe and capcom sometimes get very different results. vibe seems to be a little bit better at picking up overlapping speech, or speech when there are other noises happening; capcom seems to be better at getting all the worlds in a sentence. i feel like capcom maybe has a slightly better translation engine, of the two of them, but i usually end up just doing the translation separately. again, it can be worth trying both ways and seeing which gives better results.

special notes about dual/bilingual subs

first: i know that bilingual subs are controversial. if you think they're bad, you don't have to use them! just skip this section.

as with everything else, automatically generating gives mixed results. sometimes the translations are great, and sometimes they're not. i like having dual subs, but for stuff that Matters To Me, for whatever reason, i'll usually generate both just the original and a bilingual version, and then try some other translation methods on the original or parts thereof to see what works best.

not everything displays bilingual subs very well. plex and windows media player both work great, vlc and the default video handler on ubuntu only display whatever the first language is, etc. i'm guessing that if you want dual subbed stuff you already have a system for it.

i'll also point out that if you want dual subs and have gone a route other than capcom, you can create dual subs by pasting the translated version and the untranslated version into a single file. leave the timestamps as they are, delete the line numbers if there are any (sometimes they seem to cause problems when you have dual subs, and i haven't figured out why) and then literally just paste the whole sub file for the first language into a new file. then paste in the whole sub file for the second language. yes, as a single chunk, the whole thing, right under the first language's subs. save the file as [video name].[zh-en].srt (or whatever), and use it like any other sub file.

notes on translation, especially since we're talking about lengthy machine-translations of things.

i default to translation options that allow for translating in large chunks, mostly because i'm lazy. but since an .srt is, again, literally just a text file, they're easy to edit, and if you feel like some of the lines are weird or questionable or whatever, it's easy to change them if you can find a better translation.

so: some fast notes on machine translation options, because i don't know how much time most people spend thinking about this kind of stuff.

one sort of interesting thing to check out is the bing translator. it'll only do 1000 characters at once, but offers the rather interesting option of picking a level of formality. i can't always get it to work, mind, but it's useful especially for times when you're like 'this one line sounds weird'—sometimes the difference between what the translator feels is standard vs formal vs casual english will make a big difference.

very fast illustration of the difference in translations. the random video that i used to make sure i didn't miss any steps explaining things starts with '所以你第二季来'. here's how it got translated:

google: So you come to season 2

google's top alternative: So you come in the second season

bing's standard tone: So here you come for the second season

bing set to casual: So you're coming for the second season, huh?

reverso default guess: So you come in season two

reverso alternate guess: You'll be participating in season two

capcom: So you come in season two

yandex: So you come in the second season

systran: That's why you come in season two

deepl: That's why you're here in season two

vibe: So your second season is here

technically all conveying the same information, but the vibes are very different. sometimes one translator or another will give you a clearly superior translation, so if you feel like the results you're getting are kinda crap, try running a handful of lines through another option and see if it's better.

ok! this was an incredibly long post, and i've almost definitely explained something poorly. again, there are almost certainly better ways to do this, but these ways are free and mostly effective, and they work most of the time, and are better than nothing.

feel free to ask questions and i'll answer as best i can. (the answer to any questions about macs or iphones is 'i'm so sorry, i have no idea tho.' please do not ask those questions.)

[ouchthathurts]

Hey, so I saw your comment on bloomingattorney's post. Might want to check out GBPatch's comments on reddit. She's doubling down on the biphobia.

See, now this is upsetting. What happened to Rose is understandably fucked up because being doxed and harassed like this is absolutely awful and never an okay or just thing to do.

It was disappointing hearing someone on the team had such amazing ideas such as the skin color chart but having a strict mindset on what it meant to be gay/pan and being trans. As someone who genderfluid, pan, and afro-latino, I was disappointed to see someone like me have such heinous views and be in a position be a hinder to the group.

My main problem comes from GPatch themselves and how they handled it, while being a face of a company and working with many others of the same community and having your audience also be a part of your community there's a responsibility you carry with such a position.

The people see how you're constantly pulling the "I trust them" card instead of listening to what people have to say and taking the time to look over Rose's actions under another lense such as trans people who share terri's experience, people who are bi/pan, people who happen to be male being into tam, and so on and so forth. rather than trying to understand the people and fix the problem which would be holding Rose accountable for what they said on the issue.

I read over the post that happened between blossoming and Rose and the way Rose handled it was not okay, even if it was before they were hired. If Rose has changed from that then that's great, that's amazing even, the problem comes from not doing a background check on someone who holds a view of a community that there in with such an awful mindset.

Rose can change for the better and be allowed another chance, the problem is that instead of holding Rose accountable, speaking about how this effected your fanbase and how Rose will be stepping down sounds a lot better than just releasing tons of statements and trying to paint with a pastel on black background.

GBPatch should've taken the time and waited for the situation, I've seen tons of people who release content immediately hurt themselves and their credibility by speaking on the subject too fast and ruining themselves in the eyes of the public.

Wait till the emotion dies down in you before responding and don't sit there and defend the person you know has done wrong with proof. I'm not talking about what Rose said about GBPatch, they hashed it out in dms and that's their business, my problem comes with what they had said how that reflects on a company's image if they're allowing someone with these views to speak on these issues for a community.

That's bad representation, and then defending them because you know them is a whole other can worms due to the fact you're not really listening to your audience. It's not about Rose as a person but about what was Rose said and how he's going to rectify it, there is no reason for him to be on a team where he represents a group, and he ruins the fun for everyone by policing and saying what should or should not be done to LGBTQ+ characters.

Rose doesn't have that experience to say that because of the mindset that shows he doesn't see it as a spectrum but instead a certain way people have to be once they've found what they are.

We understand Rose has changed and we understand that Rose is trying for the better, we understand. The problem is how you're addressing the people's concerns and instead of talking to them and hoping to get an expansion on how they feel from their favorite creator of their favorite game, you sit there and defend them just because you know them personally.

If Rose still held those views of pan/biphobia, eld those views that trans people have to dress a certain way after transition, and immaturely called everyone bigots who have a point in conversation.

Would you still be saying the same thing?

This isn't about Rose changing, or Rose being your friend, or whatever else.

This is about how Rose, as a BIPOC and member of the LGBTQ+ community, holds these disgusting views and how they should at least step down from the team until they've broadened their horizons with new people and different experiences before speaking out against something with a close mindset.

Talking about how Terri's clothes were sexual just because they hugged his body, and the many other things said in the tumblr post alongside the response was very something to behold and the response being more irritating because of how it makes communities look when trying to make a point because Rose's point was ignorant and their response only doubling down on such ignorance and using the idea of being a BIPOC and/or apart of LGBTQ+ to escape criticism is disgusting and a bad look on the community.

I get it if it was a joke but it clearly wasn't in this context.

With my final thoughts coming to mind

The main problem I had with final statement is that Rose left due to harassment, Rose should not have been harassed in the first place and doxed, what should've happened was Rose being fired or at least taking the time to learn more due to the negligence and ignorance of other people's, especially queer, situations.

The situation has definitely been thrown out of proportions, I understand people not wanting them to work on the team but doxing is never a good thing to do and harassment is never okay. My advice? Block them and report it to the creator about their worker's close minded views.

Alongside that, GBPatch in future controversies and dramas, taking a step back and reflecting on everting before making a statement instead of responding on emotion instantly. It makes it look like you're arguing with your fanbase, defending someone who is being held accountable for their actions and so on and so forth.

It's good you're calling out the awful people making the situation worse, those people should not be a part of the community to come and harm and put people's lives in danger. That's a good place to start following it with talking about what Rose did, I get the whole 'I know them' and 'They've changed' argument but save that until after you've discussed what happened.

You gotta understand that as a company, why you won't meet everyone's expectations of what they want, you have to try and salvage the part of your audience that really does want to stay and give them a reason to want to stay and that being letting Rose go and grow more as a person to come back with a wider horizon. There a people genuinely hurt and offended by what Rose said, they are are apart of the community and want to feel comfortable in this space made for all and with someone with a close mindset acting this way and publicly working alongside you it makes the game’s community not feel as good to be a part of

I get that Rose has done great things for the game, I’m more than thankful the skin color expansion, but Rose leaving the project for however long he decides was for the best, not under these disgusting circumstances of harassment and doxing, also the disgusting and childish behavior of a fan base to be jerks and bigots is not okay at all. There is a way to handle things and the situation should’ve been handled better by all sides.

That's all my thoughts, I'm open to discussions and other interpretations because everyone is different.

To qoute blossoming-attorney, "It's not about wanting them to feel bad about it. It's about how I feel this may affect the game. These close-minded (in my opinion) views on trans people's bodies are unacceptable. "

[rrtfs-official-blog]

Well Well Well...

It's been a long long time since I put anything on this blog! Mostly because well, I'd sorta forgotten about it. With no activity to remind me that hey, people wanna see this stuff it kinda fell into the background. That and well, I've been busy lately! And although it's been what? Around five months since I last posted anything here, I oughta give some updates. Because believe me, the series is still being worked on and ongoing! And thank you to @marsmarvel02 who gave me a notification here, maybe I should post the link to this on my other blogs, I just keep forgetting.

Firstly, where have I been? I've been busy. Real life stuff mostly, just little things that eat away at my time. PLUS, well, the series! I've been working on it almost religiously! Writing shorts, proofreading and editing finished ones, coming up with titles, plotlines, fleshing out old characters, and making new ones! Plus working on the general worldbuilding and mechanics as well. All has been going well! With ups and downs as per usual, and short bursts of a million things being done at once and then long periods of little to nothing. But I assure you progress is sure and steady! In the time that I've been missing, about three months, a lot has happened! Three shorts have been finished, and are awaiting proofread and the proper date to go public! Those shorts are "The Engine Under Church Hill.", "The Brakeman.", and last but not least, "Whistles And Thistles."! The two last ones I just mentioned are rather new shorts! devised and written entirely in my absence from this blog, apologies! I've mentioned "The Engine Under Churchill." Before, and it took me a while to get it done, but it's done! And probably the longest short I have! There's also two work in progress shorts that are really on the backburner, and from the looks of it going to be very very long as well! Those I'm working with my co-writer Speedy to finish! He plays at least one character in each, and they're rather main characters to the story so work is slow going simply because we don't always have time to work. Those shorts are "Silver Rails And Second Chances." and "Trans-Con Comet." I've mentioned the first of those here before, the second was started in my absence, so apologies for that! Those two are... Well we're hoping to get "Trans-Con Comet" done this summer, and we might, but we're looking more at fall or winter depending honestly considering little to no work has been done on either short. I blame busy schedules but I do have a few things in the meantime while the bigger heftier shorts are written! I also plan to start a third one in the meantime to keep me writing and so I don't run out of things to post anytime soon! Now some dates that are coming up that I'm going to be posting things. Well, hopefully within the next five days "Whistles And Thistles." will be going public! It will be the tenth short to be finished completely! Now once again I have not posted the link to the series yet, but I'm willing! I just want someone to show genuine interest before I do! And another day to mark is October 2nd of this year! That's when "The Engine Under Churchill." will be public! The first short of the second half of season one! That one will be on a new document in comparison to the previous shorts. That brings me into my next thing. I don't know if I've ever talked about this. But the series is broken up into seasons, or will be anyway. Each season should end up being about twenty shorts long. And it will be split into part 1 and 2, each one containing ten shorts. All the docs will have links to each other so you can finish one part of a season and move onto the next! So be on the lookout for new seasons and parts as time goes on! I'm still going really strong with the series and am in no way looking to abandon or drop it anytime soon! Here's to hoping for many more years of RRTFS! Then comes another thing. I actually did post a short in the time I disappeared. That one being "The Broadway Zephyr." There's a promo image for it and everything! I just... never announced or posted it here! That's going to change though! Hopefully in a few minutes after this post goes up! I should get to that, as it's the second to last short for the first half of season one and it's one I really enjoyed writing. Based partially on real events and then just nonsense. You know how it is sometimes!

[zombeebunnie]

Trembling Essence:💙Script progress + Updates💙

Hello and welcome new followers, long time no see! I was very busy most of this month, but I am back and ready to continue from where I left off on the game! This game development post might be a bit long but I tried to condense everything! :]

"How are things going so far?":

It's going slow and steady! I haven't been able to do too much these past few weeks, however, I wrote a few parts out before I got too busy and couldn't do anything else.

I want to be very careful when it comes to spoilers but, based on your choices, some of these areas will give off immersive cozy/homelike vibes that really express Noah and the player(Y/N)'s view towards each other. In the old 2023 script I was very new to writing so the small semi-hints of romance weren't the entire focus compared to the horror aspect but there's a better balance between both genres now and I'm still aiming for a meaningful slow burn versus it just being all over the place. :] I liked writing them a whole bunch which lead to a lot of these taking place in the mid/end of Day 4+, they just need to be placed in specific areas that call for it. With that being said, it felt really comfy adding key details about Noah and creating meaningful sections in the game. I was even going to draw out some of the unseen script/scenes but I believe the best thing to do is give deeper lore from the [Extended Demo] first. Even though my writing style has improved I still have to fix the multiple pacing issues I wrote last year.

"Playtester's advice":

I wanted to continue working through Noah's backstory but I kept having moments where I'd get sidetracked into wanting to fix up the start of the game again. Eventually, I talked to my play testers about it and they gave me a few encouraging pointers.

To help keep my process at ease, I will fix the beginning of the game when I take breaks from writing up Noah's backstory. :]

I talked about this during early 2024 but the start of the game that leads up to the cabin is still getting reworked. I was able to get some of it fixed for the [Extended Demo] but I wasn't done. Things are still up in the air but, I will say that I have a better view of everything than I did before. :] Another priority that needs fixing are the backgrounds! I've improved a lot on drawing and they need to be optimized. When you first start up the game, you wake up in a holed out tree in the swamp with the choice to leave this area and possibly end up in the forest. I was going for a very immersive form of symbolism that only a few noticed but, I believe I can do a better job about this. Unfortunately I don't have any new backgrounds to show right now but maybe next week I'll have some finished up! :]

"Art process/Noah's sprite sheets":

As far as Noah sprite sheet goes, it's still in sketch mode.

I didn't draw anything since I was gone so I need to do a few warm ups before I get to them. There are some old drawing prompts I wrote down and old sketches that I never got a chance to doodle so hopefully I can get to them at some point with some attached lore. :,]

My Q&A / Ask box has been reset!

Thank you to those who have sent in asks in the past, unfortunately they all disappeared except for 1 while I was gone. I have no idea what happened but I can only guess it just got reset.

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask or resend them in here please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I would really like to hear from you guys!

This is all I have to share so far, Thank you to everyone for the continued support and patience while I was gone! I was ready to accept the interest for this game to fade out and coming back to see that it didn't happen makes me happy, I really appreciate it. :,]

[softsky-daily]

4/13/2025

Vast and endless blue.

Positive thing: I got lots of things done and maintained a good mood all day.

Sleeping in multiple days in a row really works wonders, truly. I woke up and it was like one of those Disney princess scenes where the birds fly in and there's a breeze in your hair and the sun is shining perfectly. I finally had the time and energy to throw away some boxes that had been clogging up my room, I donated the bags of clothes that had also been sitting for about a month, I bought more soap and rice and got my car washed, I had a fruit tea, it was glorious. Conversation Table went well too. I even doodled stuff since I was in such a good mood. And also because OHSHC is still running circles in my mind, but anyway.

It had been a while since I got my car washed. I've had bad luck where every time I finally have some time to try to go to the car wash, I get there and it's out of order. But today my luck changed and the one nearby was actually working for once, so my poor car finally got some TLC. She's been dusty for a hot minute. I also enjoyed watching all the soap and water dance around my windshield.

Ever since I was little I was fascinated with the soap colors. They're very nostalgic to me now.

I also had fun looking for regular hand soap. Our bathroom is Pochacco themed, and most of our decor is blue, so I try to find soap that matches. As a result I've gotten pretty attached to blue soap. I wandered around Bath and Body Works admiring all the different soap names and scent notes. I always wonder how they come up with them. Some of the notes are straightforward sounding, like flowers or citrus, but other times they throw in a "sapphire opalite" or whatever and a big question mark forms over my head.

In terms of the upcoming week, I need to get a move on with my grad portfolio. It's also my last week of internship, and the last week of normal class. Everything is moving so fast and it doesn't feel real. I feel like I need to start solidifying post-grad plans too. Bwah. Can't I just hibernate and not do anything until it's over... I'll take my diploma and then curl up in bed, thanks.

Oh yeah and internship has been slowly falling apart because of shitty new management, and case in point, the manager messaged me to finish a bunch of progress notes where half of them weren't even designated as my responsibility. And the other half I swear I already did? She doesn't even remember my name or thank me or acknowledge me, and I'm not even getting paid for this, plus it's my last week. So honestly I've been tempted to just figure out the business-appropriate way to say "fuck off until you actually start treating your patients and employees like human beings, also learn my name before you ask me to do anything" and then vibe with our patients and let her flounder. I would feel bad since notes that don't get done end up the other therapists' responsibility, but I already heard they're threatening to quit, so lol. lmao even. The manager can learn the hard way that she needs to get her act together or the turnover rate is going to continue to get worse.

But anyway. Life continues to life. Maybe I was in such a good mood this past weekend because our other roommate was out. And all the background stress went away... sigh. I hate saying that someone's very presence is stress inducing, but it's just the truth at this point. I'll keep holding out hope for a maintained peace one of these days.

[fountainpenguin]

Updates

With all the rate-limiting going on with AO3, I'm so glad I got my fics downloaded in December rather than waiting 1 more month, haha.

In other news, I made myself a living dex spreadsheet plan last night, and I'm really excited. It was a lot of effort, but my living dex is much more within reach than I thought.

On Tuesday, I did a big clean of my bedroom and on Wednesday, I wiped and vacuumed everything. Feeling like I'm in a decent place now in my personal space.

Fanfic Updates: Posting a "Studying the Cloudlands" chapter on AO3 tonight, no Tuesday updates for the next two weeks, then a Dog's Life chapter February 11th. Lots of writing going on!

I expect to have the final chapter of "Kisses Full of Broken Glass" up on the 31st, and that's when it gets its Tumblr post. No FOP works after that for a bit, so I'll be posting "Studying Cloudlands" for a few more weeks.

Doing buffer-building behind the scenes for FOP and MCYT, with Dog's Life still updating once a month. "Chalaza" is next on the list to finish, followed by "Closed Door Policy" and my Guess the Author works, "Top 10 Hanahaki Life Hacks" & "The Candles We Light." There are one-shots coming this year as well as Neighborhood Watch AU updates. Also working on the bestiaries for "Herobrine's Guide to the Between Dimension."

I also think it would be cool to do 50 Words challenges for the traffic duos/teams I enjoy. No promises because those can really take a lot out of me, but it's something I've been thinking of for a few months and you might see some of those towards the end of the year.

From September to the end of the year, I'll be very busy and updates will likely slow down. 50 Words projects are nice because they can be 50 standalone scenes, sometimes just 1 sentence long, so they're handy for times I'm struggling to pull together a big emotional plot with lots of dialogue. Keeping them in my back pocket for that time of year, and using my brainpower on one-shots and multi-chapters right now.

For FOP, I have a lot to do for Frayed Knots. Origin of the Pixies is still on hiatus until Knots catches up, and then they'll alternate updates during the war chapters. Getting close!

I might get my Fairy New Year's multi-chapter out this March. No promises, but it's something I've wanted to get out every year and never made time for, so... maybe this year. I'm struggling with the next pieces in the 130 Prompts, but there are overlaps between them and "Kisses Full of Broken Glass," which is why I've been working on the latter. No regrets there, and hoping to come back to the 130 with fresh eyes.

I'm planning more "50 Words" pieces for the Dimmadome timeline (City Lights AU), and when that's done, we'll circle back with non-Dimmadome things (Ex: "50 Words of Hazel and Antony").

I have an AU I'm working on in the background called "Hazel Says Hello." Nothing to share yet, but you might see that later this year. I'd like to get the whole multi-chapter work done so I can post it with regular updates when the time is right.

Lastly, I'm planning to do more short bios and character profiles, but like the above note on 50 Words challenges, I'm keeping those in my pocket for later in the year when I might have snippets of time to throw down words, but might not have the brainpower for building nice plots, scenes, and dialogue. Prioritizing buffer-building now while I have more time and energy, especially for Knots!

Fingers crossed that I get us through the war chapters by the end of 2025. There aren't too many of them and almost everything except the Frayed Knots chapters leading up to the war has already been written, so here's to hoping!

Thanks for reading my work! I'll make a more polished 2025 Fanfic Plans post at a later time, but here's some overview info of my buffer stuff for now.

[whoficky]

A Bit of Everywhere - Chapter 1

Sequel to Neither Here Nor There. Definitely read that before reading this!

Note: Holy cow, I'm finally posting this! After years of outlining and getting distracted by other projects, I'm diving back into this one.

Rating: T

Pairing: 10th Doctor X Rose Tyler

Work Summary: Rose and the Doctor are eager to get back to their old life of travel and adventure, but it's not as simple as running off into the stars. They now have two different universes to call home, their relationship to figure out, and a lot of recovering to do.

Chapter 1

Jackie Tyler sipped from a delicate china cup and sighed when the clock over the sink told her only three minutes had passed since the last time she’d checked.  She wondered how she was going to fill the rest of the afternoon in this big empty mansion until Tony got home from school and footie practice.  She’d been foolish to dismiss the staff early today with the gloomy mood she’d felt coming on.  Now she didn’t even have the murmur of their bustling in the background to keep her company.  

She briefly considered ringing a car and going to pick Tony up early, but quickly thought better of it.  Her normally brash little boy had gotten skittish about certain things - late night phone calls, his parents picking him up from school instead of the nanny, any unexpected breaks in his routine.  The five-year-old was tough, but losing his big sister, his hero, had left its mark.  No, she’d just have to wait the extra time for Tony to get home.  She’d figure out some way to keep busy in the meantime.  

Keeping busy - that was the key to surviving this.  She’d learned a thing to two about grief when she’d lost her first Pete.  Though this new loss was so much worse, she knew the same old rules applied.  She knew if she stayed busy, if she didn’t let her mind wander, the pain of her missing daughter could be contained to a dull ache in her chest.  Sometimes she felt guilty for packaging it all up and trying not to think about Rose.  But if she didn’t keep her heartbreak and worry in check, Jackie wouldn’t be able to function.  She still had a husband and little boy who needed her.  She had to stay strong for them.    

And she could.  She could find it in her to carry on, to push all the pain down until it was hidden in the deepest parts of her.  She could do it…well, most of the time.  But in moments like this, when her socialite friends had finished brunch and left for their own errands, and it was still hours until Tony got home, there was nothing to distract her.  So, she dwelled.  At least for a little while.  She sipped at her tea and thought back on the horrible past year.  

 Jackie had missed her daughter when she’d gone back to America for her third year at uni, but the feeling had been mixed with hope as she saw Rose working so hard to build a better life for herself.  Though she worried about Rose running herself into the ground with all her studies, Jackie had thought her daughter actually seemed happy on occasion at that big fancy school.  Being just a regular girl around regular people her own age had done Rose some good.  And Jackie had thought, quite falsely, that her daughter was safe in that American college town far away from the press and Torchwood and bloody aliens.

But then her Rose had been taken.  There had been no sign of her little girl in months, and even when Jackie was fooling herself the most, she couldn’t imagine that Rose was safe.  Dead, probably.  And that wasn’t even the worst case scenario Jackie’s mind had come up with.  She’d talked to Rose’s mate Kimberly plenty of times about the night Rose was kidnapped.  Jackie knew about the bus footage of Rose fighting that goopy alien.  She knew about the blood and the busted mobile.  She’d seen the photos, though she wished she hadn’t.  They’d been in a folder she’d accidentally knocked off Pete’s desk in the early days after Rose’s disappearance.  Back then, when it had just happened and there was still hope, Jackie had spent a lot of time in her husband’s Torchwood office.  She’d wanted to be there to get updates as they came in.  

That terrible evening, Pete had found her kneeling on the floor a shaking mess, crying hysterically with grisly photographs scattered around her.  He’d sat next to her on the generic office carpet and just held her as she sobbed.  She reckons that was when she first realized she’d probably never see her daughter again.  Somehow, her and Pete had gotten themselves stitched back together before it was time to head home to take over for the nanny and put Tony to bed.  And that is what life had been ever since.  Her and Pete were just holding themselves together for each other and Tony.  What else could they do?  Any lead in Rose’s case had gone cold months ago.  Jackie knew she’d likely just have to live with never knowing what happened to her daughter.  It was just like that horrid year when Rose went missing off the estate, except this time it would last the rest of her life.

Catching a tear rolling down her cheek, Jackie wiped at it angrily and stood up, determined to find something to do.  The house was too quiet.  She was too…alone.  She needed to distract herself.  She’d bake, she decided.  She had all this obscenely expensive cookware now.  She should make some use of it.  She’d turn on the kitchen telly, get lost in someone else’s melodramatic story, and make Tony a snack that was far more elaborate than a five-year-old warranted.

And so, she was elbows deep in a batch of lemon-scented dough when she heard it.  

For half a second, Jackie brushed it off as some wind through the trees.  But as that wheezing, alien sound pulsed and grew louder, she froze, flushing with recognition.  

After all these years…  

“The heartbeat of the Universe” Rose had called it when they’d gotten tipsy off cheap box wine one evening.  Jackie didn’t know about all that, but there was something about that sound.  Rose had seemed to always be listening for it.  And since she’d lost her daughter, Jackie realized she had taken up the mantle.       

Taking time only to wipe the worst of the sticky dough off her hands, Jackie was off, running as fast as her stiff knees would allow towards the sound of the TARDIS.  If she wasn’t mistaken, it was coming from her front garden.  And wasn’t it just like the bloody alien to annihilate her carefully sculpted hedges when he landed.

The sun nearly blinded her as she ran down the front steps, but Jackie just shielded her eyes and searched for a special sort of blue out of the greens and pinks of her late summer garden.  And there it was, smoking slightly and crushing her hedges, as she’d guessed.

Jackie wheeled to a stop in front of that damned and wonderful blue box, heart pounding.  She dared to hope that maybe Rose was in there.  The last time her daughter had gone missing she’d come back that way.  It was all Jackie could do to stay still and wait for the doors to squeak open.

When they finally did, it wasn’t her Rose who greeted her, but a beaming Doctor - rudely looking not a day older than the last time she’d seen him.  

“Jackie! Long time, no see!” he grinned before sweeping her up into an unexpected hug.  She barely returned the embrace, glad as she was to see him.  As soon as he set her down, she couldn’t seem to stop the desperate words from pouring out.

“Have you come to find her?” She asked, the edge of tears in her voice, “Because she’s gone Doctor!  Rose is gone and it’s been months and we’ve done all we can and maybe she’s dead like everyone says, but now you’re here, and I’ve seen you do some ‘mazing things and -”

“Mum!” the sound of her daughter’s voice brought Jackie to an abrupt halt.  Before she had time to fully realize what was happening, her daughter, her precious little girl was rushing into her arms.

“Oh sweetheart!” Jackie cried, wrapping her daughter in a tight embrace, “Oh Rose, you’re safe.  I thought - ” 

“Rose!  No!” the Doctor cut in, sounding panicked of all things.  

A moment later, Jackie found out why.  Rose jerked with a little cry of pain and Jackie found herself struggling to support her daughter’s weight as she sank towards the ground.  The Doctor leapt forward, taking Rose into his arms and easing her fall.  He was so careful, so gentle as he cradled her in his lap.  It was a stark contrast to the anger that replaced his alarm once she was settled in his arms. 

 “What in Rassilon’s name do you think you’re doing?!” he hissed, “What part about ‘stay here’ and ‘wait for me’ didn’t you understand?  You can’t do this Rose!  You can’t keep doing this to me.  You can’t keep making me watch you - ooooff!”  Jackie cuffed him soundly in the back of the head.  

“Don’t you yell at my daughter!” she stormed, overcome with emotion and fully prepared to let it all loose on him.  That bloody alien!  Jackie was sure all this was somehow his fault.  All those months of hearing nothing - probably his rubbish driving again.    

“Mum!  Stop, ’s ok!” Rose tried to break in.

“Oh no, I’ll not have him sauntering back here, ruining half my garden and -”

“Mum, please!” Rose said reaching out towards Jackie until the motion caused her to wince in pain.

Where Rose’s pleading had failed, her obvious discomfort caught Jackie’s attention and cooled her ire.  She sank down next to the pair of them, taking Rose’s hand in both of hers.  Now that she had a moment to really look at her daughter, Jackie noticed the battered state she was in.  What she had thought were odd shadows was actually mottled bruising all over Rose’s skin.  Her eyes were dull and sunken and blimey, was she pale.  Jackie wondered how Rose had even made it out of the TARDIS with the large splint that went from one ankle all the way up above her hips.

“Oh Rose,” she gasped, “Oh sweetheart, what happened to you?  What hurts?  What can I do?”    

After a few deep breaths, Rose squeezed Jackie’s hand and panted, “’M fine Mum.”  At the Doctor’s snort she amended, “Well, not fine, not yet, but I will be.  Got the Doctor lookin’ after me,” she offered a warm smile up at the still cross-looking Doctor before focusing back on Jackie, “S’ not his fault I’m a bad patient.  None of this is his fault.  He was taken too.  I’m so - I’m so sorry I’ve been gone…” her voice cracked as her face crumpled on the last sentence. 

“Oh Rose, none of that now,” Jackie wiped at her own tears with her free hand, “Look, you’ve got me goin’ too.”

The Doctor helped Rose sit up and then gently guided her into Jackie's arms.  She wrapped her daughter in a careful hug and stroked her hair, “Oh sweetheart, it’s alright.  I’m here,” she soothed even as she cried with relief and confusion and, oh, about a hundred other things. “I missed you so much, love.  It’s all ok now though.  You’re back.  I got you back.”

Rose slowly settled as Jackie continued to rub her back like she’d done since she was a little girl.  Didn’t matter if was a skinned knee on the playground or a bloke being a prat.  Didn’t matter if Jackie was a mess herself.  She always had her arms open for her daughter.   

“Thanks Mum,” Rose sniffed finally, “I missed you too.  I missed you so much.”

“What happened sweetheart?” Jackie asked again, “Where have you been?  It’s been months!”   She met the Doctor’s eyes over Rose’s shoulder, silently pleading for information.

 “Jackie,” he said calmly, “We’ll explain everything, I promise, but we’ve had quite the bumpy trip here, and I think it would be best for Rose to go lay down.  Now.”

And just like that, Jackie was in Mum Mode.  She could fix this.  Rose was alive and here, and finally, there was something Jackie could do.

 “‘Course!” she said, leaning back on her heels once she was sure Rose could sit up on her own without support, “There’s the big sofa in the family room.  Or your room’s still there, sweetheart.  Haven’t changed a thing.  Knew you’d come back to me.”  Jackie hoped that neither of them could hear lie in that last bit.

“I think…my bedroom, yeah?” Rose sniffed, “I don’t - I can’t - with the staff hovering about, and…Tony’s not here is he?  You should talk to him before he sees me...”

“Don’t you worry about any of that.  I already sent the staff home for the day, and Tony’s still at school.  Can you make it to your room ok?”

“The Doctor’ll help me,” her daughter looked over at him and Jackie didn’t miss the love and trust in her gaze.  A look he returned, looking completely besotted.  

“Look at you two,” Jackie smiled, “Finally figured things out then, did ya?”

“Later mom,” Rose rolled her eyes, but the blush on her cheeks and the smile she was trying to hide told the story.

“Oh alright,” Jackie conceded.  For the moment, at least.  “Let’s head to your room then.”

But before Jackie got up to head back towards the house, she cupped Rose’s face.  “Oh sweetheart, I’m so happy you’re home.”

“Me too Mum,” Rose said, although Jackie didn’t miss how her eyes flicked towards the TARDIS when she said it.  Before Jackie could ruminate on that too much, she pushed herself up off the grass.

“Well let’s go then,” she beckoned.  The Doctor swept Rose up into his arms like she weighted nothing and Jackie led them both back towards the mansion.

[rickie-the-storyteller]

WIP Folder Tag

Thank you so much @willtheweaver for tagging me!

It has been a long time since I've done any tag games or anything. I've been super busy with school and work and stuff, but I finally have a bit of free time, so I can get back into writing!

Rules:

Post all the headings under the folder/section for your WIP, and people can send asks about titles that interest them.

Here's everything I've been working on:

SERIES:

Artificial Galaxy – This is the main thing I'm working on this year. Trying to actually finish this one properly for once lol. Collection of poems and interconnected stories set in this futuristic city.

Operation Earth – Prequel to Artificial Galaxy (but it could also work as a standalone since it follows a bunch of different characters from that project). Takes on more of a linear novel format, but explains the backgrounds of a lot of what takes place in the previous project.

Zeke Coleman – Working title... but I have previously posted about this project using the name of "Untitled Teen Romcom" lol.

Hope Kamani – The sequel to Zeke Coleman, but this time focusing on Hope Kamani (duh). Follows the same characters but in university instead of high school.

Steph’s Crew: The Misfit Manifesto – Book 1 of a YA trilogy following Steph and her friends during their last year of high school (I used to post about this story a lot).

Steph’s Crew: Unreported Violent Crimes – Book 2 of the trilogy. This time following these same friends, but a couple of years in the future. Some of them are in university, some of them are working, some of them are married... and they all come together after a major tragedy happens near where they live. Involving someone they used to know.

Steph’s Crew: Story of a Broken Thing – The third and final book in the trilogy (although, I have been brainstorming ideas of what could maybe happen to these characters after the events of this grand finale... I have almost enough ideas to write a continuation lol. I probably won't write another book in this series after this, but you never know...). It is even more years into the future. They've all moved on in their lives. Graduated from uni and making it in there future jobs and whatnot. Steph is happily married to a rich hotel heir and is now a young mother... but she can't fully escape her dark past... and it all catches up to her when she reunites with an old friend. The others in the group have a ton of drama, too, but it is kind of separate from Stephanie's plot lol.

STANDALONE:

Behind Closed Doors – Billionaire romance drama set in NYC (I've been meaning to post more about this one on here, actually).

The Nine Lives of Catherine Bellamy – A more recent idea I had about a former actress and model moving from place to place in an attempt to escape her past life in the industry after experiencing traumatic stuff while working there. The book was meant to be her retelling her life story to someone she's fallen in love with and is thinking about settling down with. I haven't worked out the exact format of this or anything, I've just done a rough outline of this one. But I am interested in continuing it.

That Time My Twin Fell in Love With a Cowboy – Working title. This one is more of a joke, honestly... This is the sort of thing I would upload onto Wattpad if I still had my account lol. But it follows a pair of twins moving from the city to their late grandmother's ranch to restore it (since she left it to them in her will). They agree to spend the summer there and work on the place, they make friends, and one of them falls in love with a handsome stranger who struggles to tell them apart. Chaos ensues lol.

The Threadweaver’s Pattern – Working Tile. Fantasy adventure, maybe with a side of romance? I mean, it's not the focus, but the main characters have this reluctant partnership that leads to a genuinely beautiful connection. I used magic as a metaphor for gifts/talents, and I wanted the protagonist's journey to reflect finding and following one's calling in life. It also shows how people can use their gifts to do evil (some of the bad guys use their powers to hurt others, others actively discourage people from using their gifts, and even take people's powers away). It's still in the early stages, though.

WILD CARD:

Project Willow Point – Kind of a gothic small-town murder mystery/psychological thriller. Came up with this one because one of my mutuals sent me a prompt that inrigued me. I ended up coming up with a full outline of a story concept for it... even leaving it open for a sequel lol. I got a bit carried away. Not entirely sure if I'm going to continue with it, or where I'm going to go with it. But I'm quite proud of it, so I'm open to writing it for real.

That's it for now.

Tagging these people next:

@agirlandherquill, @theeccentricraven, @gummybugg, @jay-avian, @winterandwords,

@rbbess110, @kaylinalexanderbooks, and open tag.

[chayscribbles]

chayscribbles’ monthly writing update ☆ february 2024

yes, i know, february has an extra day this year, but i'm posting this today bc i won't have time tomorrow lol

☆ STATISTICS.

projects worked on: The Gemini Heist

proudest accomplishment: i... wrote?... i guess??? *can't remember a single thing i did this month for some reason*

books read: Witch King by Martha Wells. i'm ngl, i was lost like 80% of the time, but that might just be a skill issue on my part (it's the kind of book that throws you into the thick of it without holding your hand and listening to the audiobook with the attention span that i have was... probably not the wisest idea lol)

(alhough funnily enough, it's while having this audiobook on in the background that i came up with a lot of my plot thoughts for gemini heist LMAO. either that or while playing zelda.)

☆ GENERAL COMMENTS.

although i did get writing done this month, this update's gonna be short. i don't really have much to say lol

more specific wip-related comments + featured excerpt below.

☆ COMMENTS: THE GEMINI HEIST (draft 0.5)

it's very weird to not be using word count to track my progress anymore. freeing, but weird. i have no concept of how much i've actually done for this wip this month.

i do know i've figured out a bit more stuff about the heist and the lore. i had a big plot brainstorming session and untangled a few scenes. while i know what direction i want the story to head, i still don't know how any of this gets resolved, tho.

and i wrote out a few important scenes. that's progress, right?

☆ FEATURED EXCERPT.

i've been writing so chaotically out of order based on whatever scene i feel most inspired for in the moment that i,,, honestly can't remember what i've written this month vs what i had already written before 🥲 here's a scene that i THINK i wrote in february. Leo and Illiana might be my new favourite dynamic. (for context, Illiana is posing as her identical twin at a party, and Leo is posing as a guest. they came in separately.)

With the bodyguards tailing her the entire way, Illiana slowly made her way towards [Leo]. She tolerated a few brief exchanges with other guests she crossed paths with to appear natural, then, once she was close enough, she slipped the extra comm out of the pocket concealed in her skirt. She made a show of bending down to pick up something, then strode towards Leo. “Excuse me,” she said as she approached. “I believe you dropped your earring.” Leo turned to her, smile strained underneath her veil. “Oh, thank you,” she said, holding out her hand. Illiana placed the comm into her palm, taking care to hide it from the guards. As Leo angled her head away to slip it into her ear, she added, “I must say, your Holiness, this is quite a lovely party.” “Why, thank you, Miss…” She faltered, realizing she didn’t know Leo’s alias. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe I’m familiar with you.” “I’m a business leader from Tharekkan,” Leo said, pressing her palms together and giving Illiana a slight bow with her head. “It’s an honour to be here.” Illiana was surprised that Leo, with all her meticulous planning, didn’t have a fake name ready, and now she was curious. “How may I address you?” Leo’s already tense smile tightened even more. “‘Miss’ is fine,” she replied, practically through clenched teeth.  “No, I meant, your na—” “I’ve been told much about how lovely Fiolsby is, right before the winter,” Leo cut off, an unnatural segue back to the script they had practiced. “But I haven’t had the time to properly see the city.” Now Illiana just had to pry Leo's fake name out of her. “Really? That’s a shame. You know, the gardens offer a wonderful view of the city. Would you like to see, Miss…?” She let her sentence trail off, watching Leo expectantly. “If it’s not too much trouble, I would love that,” Leo replied, to Illiana’s annoyance.

☆ TAGLISTS. let me know if you want to be added/removed to any of them.

general taglist:

@dgwriteblr @the-orangeauthor @onomatopiya @quilloftheclouds @ashen-crest @writeblrfantasy @celestepens @stardustspiral @pepperdee @extra-magichours @avi-why @lefttigerobservation @chazzawrites @bardolatrycore @innocentlymacabre @subtlefires

gemini heist taglist:

@florraisons @akindofmagictoo @cream-and-tea @memento-morri-writes @antique-symbolism @rose-bookblood @afoolandathief @pepperdee @avi-why @zonnemaagd @chazzawrites @analogued @enchanted-lightning-aes @innocentlymacabre @kahvilahuhut @celestepens @cilly-the-writer @extra-magichours @onomatopiya @outpost51 @planets-and-prose

[aluminescent]

Illuminate Book 2 Status + Fic Recs

Hi All! I know it's been pretty quiet on my end, and we're getting to the end of 2023 to soon traverse into 2024. That begs the question: Where are does Part 2 of Illuminate stand?

Well to reassure you, this is a positive post to say that there is definitely a continuation in the works. I'm more desirous than ever to post book two (title still undecided!), and every time I'm listening to a podcast or podfic/fic via TTS, these give me more ideas and continue to spur me on.

Alas, the spirit is eager, but the flesh . . . you know the rest. I have a heavily fleshed-out outline that—despite its heftiness—still needs a lot of cleaning, and I'm currently in the works of writing some scenes out. There's clear direction of pivotal events that occur in this next book—but with some significant gaps that still need filling.

However.

Between owning my own business and also having additional employment (because times are tough!), and also having had a daunting/exceedingly busy summer filled with multiple personal issues, my timeline has been pushed back significantly. I also severely underestimated how much time I'd need to write this second installment, thinking it'd be easier than the first time around since I had more background material to build upon. How foolish of me to think that; Book 1 took me—no lie—more than a decade to outline/re-plot/re-outline and write—on and off—as the show series progressed and I was given more and more canon material to work with, although the bulk of it was written in 2020/2021.

While I'm not saying that you guys won't see me for another 10 years, I am saying that more time will be needed for me to finish writing this next installment and then cleaning it up (hopefully more neatly than the first book so that there aren't massive gaps between updates). I honestly don't anticipate this taking more than another year and some months to write and spruce up. Hopefully.

I'll definitely keep you all posted on progress, and I know that I still owe some fic recs! As I type, I'm actively downloading/organizing my faves in a Google Drive folder and trying to select the crème de la crème of these for you all, but it's a huge undertaking (much like everything these days, it seems).

Also, I have a new CM fic in the works that I might need to get out of my system in the meantime, or that I might write up after the Illuminate series is done. Preferably in between so that my sanity is kept in tact. It will definitely have all the warnings needed, and I'm still debating if it'll be a complete DD:DNE or if I'll have some 'healing' or an open-ended 'bright horizon' thrown in the end. Debating on if its limited third person POV scene or if I take a stab at omniscient POV.

I hope that I can update you soon on progress, with recs, or other tidbits, but thank you for now!

[feline-evil]

Its da freaking new year baby

I mean it turned new year like 13 hours and thirty minutes ago for me i was just busy and didn't post here at the time. Anyways.

2023 has been A Lot for me! On one hand my wrist issues finally fully caught up to me and it's one of the first years i've not been able to draw as much during which has been. Very hard. It's been a year of health issues and my body kinda failing me in a lotta regards so it's not been great on that front. But it's also the first year i got to meet my boyfriend in person, twice!!! And realise how much more beautiful and kind and loving life can be, and how much i wanna survive onwards and upwards and do wicked gay shit with that man in future years, it's the year that being so loved has given me the courage to make BIG FUCKING RISKS and plan for BIG FUCKING CHALLENGES in upcoming years, and thats awesome. I couldn't be the man i have been this year without him, i really couldn't. I'm so grateful to finally have a partner and friends and love and gentleness, it is something that was so sorely missing in my life and it is something that's keeping me going even in the darker months.

It's also the year i took risks in other stuff too, which i never could've done without my bf's support, and now i've been able to work on so many things for The Hotel Podcast and thats fucking AWESOME?? I GET TO MAKE STUFF FOR THE SHOW I LOVE?? I did the artbook and we got to do the second calendar which ruuuuled, i made a postcard, i've done some other stuff ;), i made a 3d background and learnt some video editing for it; i've accomplished so much even against my body and wrist failing and i feel so so proud of that, and no matter how things go i wanna keep trying to do more. I feel like i'm finally showing what i can do. I hope people can see how much effort and will goes into what i do, i hope it pays off and that you enjoy it!

I wish i could say i left this year on a high note due to all that good that's happened to me and i mostly am absolutely. But in all honesty i also went to sleep last night filled with a palpable dread, this past week i realised someone close to me has, without getting into it to a degree i'm not willing to share online, gone down a pipeline to become a person i'm not comfortable with while i've been busy elsewhere. I went to bed knowing that either 2024 would have to be a year of potentially risky confrontation, of running, or of begrudgingly resigning myself to making sure i isolate anyone i care about away from. This. So thats a shadow hanging over me at the moment, and is one that has soured my week a little. I don't know what 2024 holds in regards to sorting this, it's a little scary.

I am going to be 27 this year, in February! And as i get closer and closer to thirty i realise that (while time isn't running out for me, for any of us) i really would like to move on into thriving rather than just surviving the years, and that part of that thriving needs to be transitioning and becoming independent from my parents. Of course the former is complicated due to the fact i am not able to be out to everyone in my life and even just starting the path to transitioning would out me and potentially destroy a part of my life that has been there for 26 years. There's also of course the fact i live in the uk and transitioning here is going to be a ten year waiting list if i'm even lucky and they deem me trans enough to transition l o l. So as you can imagine, thats complex and hard to figure out! On one hand i should start the process asap BECAUSE its such a long process here, but on the other hand i don't know how to handle my own safety and comfort in regards to being out to those i currently am not, and i'm not sure how my mental (and honestly physical) health would handle the fallout. The latter is complicated of course due to being broke, uneducated, physically and mentally unwell and a myriad of other factors; we don't live in a world where you can afford a home or to feed yourself anymore! So! Yknow!! Unlikely i'll be moving out anytime soon!

What i am doing at least is trying to thrive where i can, like dandelions growing in cracks the pavement may be unyielding to me at this moment but i can find the soft dirt inbetween; transitioning and independence may not be possible right now but i can continue to do my work and try to succeed there, i can make my room better for me (which i have done with finally getting a new bed after the one i had since i was a child grew no good), i can spend more time doing what i love out the house (visiting places, seeing my boyfriend, ect ect), and i can take what i can when i can. Maybe i'll try to learn to drive this year! I'm not sure i trust myself on the roads, but maybe i can learn to. And all of this is progress towards those final goals, even if i can't so much as step on the first rungs of the ladder towards them yet. I also take solace in knowing that for every dark cloud over me that makes my life feel so uncertain and hard to make it through there is incredible sunshine too; that even if the year is hard and cruel as they so often are i will still be loved i will still have friends and i will still get to smile. And that even if i can't accomplish big goals, a lot of small goals accomplished over many many bad years will build up, and one day i'll be free. And that's something.

My first hope for 2024 is THAT MY HEALTH GIVES ME A BREAK, NO MORE HEALTH SCARES PLEASE, and that perhaps i'll be able to even get some answer's and help for my physical health. My second is that my courage pays off and i succeed at flying alone for the first time to the states to be with my love! My third is that the year is kinder, and that i can make more art, maybe even regain some of the independence i had when my wrist was ok enough to let me do art as a job. My fourth is that i laugh a lot, and smile and have joyous moments with loved ones and indulge in what i love with unabashed and unashamed joy! And my fifth is that i get to do good for others, because even if i can't get out, even if i have to survive instead of thrive a little longer, i can at least try and help when i can.

Happy 2024, my chest hurts, my joints ache, but i'm still kicking and i will continue on forever. Bastards aren't getting free of me yet, i'm persistent. I haven't even ridden every rollercoaster in the UK yet.

[squirrelpudding]

January 1st, 2024

I'll be honest all I did today was work on my silly little media edit and go to the movies with my mom. We saw Wonka, which was really good! Before seeing it I thought Timothee Chalamet would not be silly enough to play the character well, but turns out he is one goofy guy. My mom LOVES the original Charlie and the Chocolate factory, and she really like this movie as well. Every time I go to a movie theatre with my mom she talks about how when picking seats "everyone" (her) chooses the seats that are around other people because, in her words, "what do they know that I don't?". I laugh every time she says that. We went to a theater that was pretty far away because my mom got an AMC gift card from a family member, and the nearest AMC theater was like half an hour away. It was really odd because whenever there was a silent part of the movie or the silence between trailers you could hear the screen making noise. It was like purring (?) but not. Its weird to think it is 2024. The aforementioned "media edit" that I am working on is more like a letterboxd recap. Last year everyone was posting their "me core" edits and their media edits to like "American Teenager" by Ethel Cain. I loved seeing those, and I've seen a few this year but not as many. My edit is just movies I saw this year, but I'm putting a lot of effort into it. My computer cannot handle the ~95 movie clips that I have downloaded, but its fine. Putting my favorite pieces of media to my favorite songs is just so special, I love it so much. That's why I love edits [like on tiktok]! Because I love seeing Merlin and Arthur pine for each other while Boygenius plays in the background! Or seeing Greg and Rowley dance to "Ribs" by Lorde! Also today I watched "My Best Friend is a Vampire", which I only discovered existed because a few weeks ago I was watching "Dead Poets Society" edits on tiktok, and stumbled across an edit of that movie (see attached video). I don't know how the edit is such high quality considering that the movie is from the 80s and the website I watched it on had terrible quality. To be fair, I watched on DEFINETLY NOT a pirating site, so it was bound to have been a little crappy. I think my blogging is going well so far, in the two days/posts I've done, but I think it will start to go downhill when school starts again. I think I will get too busy/tired with school and work that I will only blog like once or twice a week. I hope I keep posting consistently. I have always wanted to keep a diary, and have tried several times, but I always forget to write or I get tired of it and it becomes a chore. But with my twitter "picture of the day" threads I do, I have been very consistent, which is good! I don't know how to end this post.

[alloracart]

Well so much for updates while Art Fight was going, I guess this now a recap of the season.

So I though of making a post after my initial attack, but then I thought “no I should do work on my next one.” Three attacks later and here I’m am. I thought I could get a quick update in three weeks in just so I posted anything about Art Fight. I would do this by making a draft tumblr post and hoping I would feel the urge to complete it. Turns out I did not.

Let's get on with this recap of my first Art Fight season. I was on team Werewolves, had only 2 characters, and only 5 bookmarked characters. Unfortunately, I would not get any attacks over the month, but I can understand that. It's just 2 characters, and there's no way to search characters by creation date (other than the 8 newest characters on the front page). There's basically only a few friends that know my Art Fight stuff anyways.

Hopefully next year will be much easier to get an attack. I'll probably upload more of my characters to it in addition to the Florida Collection. Now let's get onto my attacks.

#1: Downy

Of course I would start off with a Rito. I wanted to find avians to draw, and I found this guy by @venonatt. You can see that it has a similar style to my 2 Art Fight OCs, though I varied outline thickness all around as how The Windwaker does it. and so will the next 3. I also added a more basic background with a nice, coloured in name. This was also probably the quickest drawing I made in the past while, taking just 4 days. I really like this character, especially how their hair came out. While I did take colours from the original drawings, this one took the most liberty with colour selection. The last thing I'll say about it is that the mouth was the most difficult part. It seems I cannot do open mouths or smiling for my life. The only reason their face doesn't look 200% weirder is because I put a white line to be their teeth. Otherwise it looks like they're looking at a burger.

#2: Finch

Here's my second, this is based on a character by @fimvie. It took quite longer. That was mainly due to Zeldathon, but this was a little tough to make, there were many redraws. I was initially going to have more outlines for the wings, but that looked too busy. I had to erase all the lines for the wings and redraw them. Beyond that, you can see it's mostly similar to the first attack, except the outlines don't have much varying width. I could've done an outline or not having shading or a background, but I just didn't feel like submitting the attacks that way.

#3: Rowan

So I'm not a person to draw a lot of fan stuff since I came back, but I do still like The Owl House, and this character by @coxinhadoce47-art got my attention. I kept to the same style as before, but I also did the eyes in an slightly TOH style. I was very surprised that this character used mainly purples and red. I'm not sure if any colour on the character is between orange and blue. I also really love the background I made for it. The sky and snow were amazing to make. I especially like adding the bright celestial objects which I added, even if they're small dots.

Also, at this moment, I realised that attack titles didn't need to be just the name of the OC. With that, I wanted to test how long they could be by creating a 2600-character long recipe for buffalo blue cheese hot dogs. Unfortunately only 256 characters can fit in there, so I couldn't put that in, but I didn't leave a character to waste.

#4: Tanniet

My last drawing of Art Fight, and my first friendly fire. This character is by @majoracats. While I thought it would be initially quick, fast enough to maybe do a fifth attack as an outline, I has to turn this in several hours before the event ended. I had to switch my schedule this week to ensure that. It's mainly because I had to redraw the shape of the body multiple times. Tanniet was way taller before, but I felt she needed to be shorter. I made her shorter, but that also involved changing other most other things to keep it proportional. Regardless, I'm proud of what I got to do.

This also has the most detailed background. There's plenty of stuff, textures, and shadows. Surprisingly, that wasn't what took most of the work.

Final Thoughts

Now that this is over, I'll be returning to regular art soon. The thing with Art Fight though is that it completely reset my plans for drawing. I have little idea as to what to make next now. Will I keep up the pace? Probably not, this required doing little in my free time other than drawing, and I want to do other things again. But it won't be long until the next piece.

As for next years, I think I learnt two things. First, after the next attack you submit, post it here with nothing but the credits, rather than writing a million words like me. Second, draw outlines faster. That seems to be the main slow down, I need to get outlines better quicker so I don't need to spend time doing revisions.

Beyond that, I would like to see if I'd be interested in just doing an outline drawing or just simpler drawings. The main reason I went all out on these four was because I liked doing the textures, shading, and text. It's been quite a while since I've done just outlines, but it would be a way to quickly learn them. Art Fight has also gotten me more interested in art events, I can use them to figure out how to draw more, and keep within a time limit.

Anyways, that was my first Art Fight season. I can't wait for the Art Fight postseason.