#rough draft hell

[goblin-gardens]

Researching words for Book Reasons keeps getting me in trouble because I'll start out with the question "is a hearse a thing that works in a world with a vaguely 1400s european level of technology and cultural development?"

and wind up with the answer "I have to invent a new word for this acceptable object because before hearses got wheels they were a part of funerary rites that have no reasonable allegory in the fantasy religion I made up. So for now these characters will discuss the path that the [xx corpse transporter xx] will take" and I am no closer to actually putting a word in that spot.

[lilybug-02]

Wow. That could not have turned out worse.

Part 23 || First || Previous || Next

--Full Series--

This comic will be on Holiday Hiatus this December and January! While on a cliffhanger? What a scam! >:/

[cuips-not-cute]

i hope that everyone realizes that the typos in my fics are not from lack of effort but rather the result of me being dumb as hell

[strawbie-doodle]

i was getting behind on episodes but i heard that ashton back so i caught up immediately

[gayfour]

Practicing drawing these weird little space guys (with my new favourite brush (it's quite fun)

[dovand]

how interested are y'all in my amateurish attempt to make a dnp sims–inspired rpg

[painted-doe]

WIP word search

Tagged by the exceptional @bromcommie! Enjoy a bunch of snippets from some of my WIPs based on the keywords that appear in them. (These are probably longer than they're supposed to be but hey ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

My keywords were: space, sharp, sweet, home

space

From “what the water wants”, a horror story about a poltergeist haunting Bucky and Sam (although no horror makes an appearance in this part).

The one and only time he’d ever been invited over to Bucky’s place, Sam had stood in the doorway of the barren apartment and stared. For a moment he’d wondered if the elevator had taken them to the wrong floor — if maybe this apartment was empty and waiting for a tenant to move in. Because this wasn’t a space where someone lived. 

But Bucky had pinned him with a stare that said don’t fucking say it, and had shouldered past him and thrown his keys on the counter with the familiarity and confidence of a person who did, in fact, live here. Anyway, they’d both been bleeding and bruised and covered in toxic slime at the time, so there had been more urgent things on Sam’s mind.

But later that night, once they were both scrubbed and disinfected and bandaged, each wearing a pair of Bucky’s sweatpants and working their way steadily through several white boxes of Szechuan takeout on the floor in front of the TV, Sam had turned to him with purpose. Bucky had stiffened and stared straight ahead like he’d never seen anything more fascinating than the crowds cheering for Hungary’s soccer team.

“Dude,” Sam said, not unkindly, “you know you don't have to live like this?”

sharp

From “Diptych”, a two-part Sambucky fic. Part 1: Sam and Bucky are sucked into Westview and Wanda mashes them together like a couple of action figures kissing. Part 2: The aftermath when they return to real life.

Sam didn’t remember there being any children in Westview, but he must have forgotten somehow. 

Of course there were children; there were children everywhere now that Sam was noticing them. Even Marcus and Jeannie had a son, Jack. Maybe it was odd that he had forgotten about little Jack, since they lived right next door. But it was very easy not to think about that, so he didn’t.

Jack was competing in a junior league baseball game and everyone was invited. Bucky was feeling steady enough to leave the house, and that didn’t happen every day, so they put on sweaters and dusted off their baseball caps and held hands as they walked down to the baseball diamond in the crisp air. They were entering the deepest days of autumn, with Halloween right around the corner, and the low afternoon sunlight dappled the orange-red leaves of the trees that lined their little suburban street. Bucky’s winter-coloured eyes caught and held the amber light, and it softened all his sharp edges to gold; Sam’s heart flipped a little when he met his gaze and smiled.

sweet

From the upcoming second chapter of “A Candle in the Window”:

“Hi, Mr. Barnes!” Peter shouts, waving at him.

Barnes, who has just leapt onto the metal dinosaur’s spiny back and is using a combat knife in each hand to scale it like a mountain climber, looks genuinely horrified to see him. It’s actually kind of sweet.

“Is that you under there?!” he yells. “What the — get outta here, kid!”

“Thanks for coming!” Peter shouts back happily, and promptly gets knocked out of the sky mid-swing as the thing’s big metal tail smacks him. 

Fortunately, he lands in a tree. 

Unfortunately, the tree is about to be set on fire. 

The robo-dino’s mouth opens toward him, its jaws wide enough for him to stand up between them, and those are some very big pointy steel teeth, and he can see the flamethrower powering up at the back of the throat where the tongue ought to be, and all his instincts fail as for one critical second he <em>freezes</em> —

And at that exact moment, a big ball of snarling supersoldier slams fist-first right into the thing’s metal jaw, a vibranium uppercut hard enough to knock it off one of its hinges. The jaw is now dangling by one end, like a car’s bumper after a fender bender. The jet of fire that was about to melt Peter’s face off ends up going cockeyed and blasting a duck pond instead. He hopes there weren’t any ducks paddling around in there, because there definitely aren’t now.

home

from “Lagniappe”, a novel-length TFATWS story about Bucky rescuing a dog from a dogfighting ring and accidentally rehabilitating himself along the way.

The dog didn’t have a name. That was what made him decide.

He hadn’t had a name either. Not for a long time. The electricity and heavy dizzying drugs had scraped even that last dignity out of him. Even now, years later, the person-thing he’d managed to salvage and stuff back into himself was only a messy amalgamation of bits and pieces. Secondhand stories from Steve of who he’d once been; hazy snapshot memories; habits and tastes he didn’t quite remember but had been informed he once had, and so had now re-adopted out of a weird fear of somehow getting it wrong. Getting the business of being Bucky Barnes wrong. 

He was an unabashed mess, but most of the parts HYDRA had ripped out had slowly grown back, little by little. He still lost his words from time to time, but he didn’t have to carry a knife to be able to bear a trip to the grocery store. Sometimes he still woke in distress in the night, keening and shivering from the memories, but now he could look someone in the eye and tell them no if he didn’t want to obey them. Now he could go for a walk on a frosty day without losing his breath and having to call someone to take him home. He was even making amends for the things he had done — or at least was trying to, in his bitter fumbling way.

And all of that had started with his name. His name in Steve Rogers’ mouth. “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes,” Steve had told him desperately on that helicarrier, like wedging his foot into a door that was trying to slam closed — and Bucky had still fought him, had almost killed him, but the words had worked their magic. His name had begun to reawaken him. His name.

The black dog didn’t even have that.

@philtstone, @fixing-the-boat, @possumwoodpie, @clucku, @toxiclxki, @snarkythewoecrow @writethewolvesaway @wishihadatail @shackleton2 I choose you! Your keywords are: ignore, kind, lose, silver (And anyone else who wants to play, consider yourself tagged -- sorry if I missed you!)

[goingghostcomic]

Does the fact that DP now has an official canon continuation affect you while working on the comic

Like does the new canon stuff influence your own vision or has your vision for your reboot remained the same since you started?

Sorry it's taken so long to answer so I'll match with a long answer and update in my process, I'm so sorry lol

But no, an official canon continuation will not stop me from making the comic. And while I do own the new comic and plan on getting all the future official DP merch I can get my hands on, it wont effect my story in the slightest because I haven't read it. Plus I've already written my story and I'm very happy with it. I will someday read the new comic but not anytime soon, I'm just so happy it exists and that it's in my hands either way.

What might stop me (for a little bit at least) is a full on rebooted series, not a continuation/revival because the fandom has been around so long and we've all influenced each other in big or little ways. And since we're all playing in the same sandbox there's naturally some overlap. But this started as a pitch bible/proof of concept for a full on reboot of my own and if there's an active reboot airing I'd be very sad it wasn't mine (so silly I know lol but it's true).

What has stopped me is the a back and forth issue I have on the comic in general. I have found a style of comic I enjoy making, but I have gotten in my own head about it being stiff and bad. I know practice make progress and I'm getting more confident about it and also considering making it into a fic with art and slowly adapting it into a comic just so I can have some thing to post and put out there. But my iPad is dying and outside of sketches on paper I haven't been able to write or draw to the extent I'd like. I've been saving for a new one for a while now and about half way there but life happens and it takes a toll on my savings. So I'm trying to decide what's the best way to proceed and I have a lot of options and that's also a little overwhelming, which sounds silly typing out. But it's easy for me to feel guilt every time I try to commit to one game plan because all my best options rely on me getting a new iPad

[gothsuguru]

OKAY. ACTUALLY LEGITIMATELY GOING TO START WRITING ‘PREMONITION OF LOVE’ TODAY. PROPERLY AND A LOT! reminding myself that i can literally go back and change stuff WHENEVER but i SHOULD at LEAST write more than just a few sentences 😭

[amrv-5]

Somebody should invent a working that isn't so sucks

[airborneice]

gonna just d r o p some extremely rough sketches here bc my sketchbook I’ve had on the go since 2020 is almost filled up and once it is I probably won’t go revisiting any of the sketches in it, so I may as well share some of them here

I’m incapable of shutting up abt my art so ramblings under the cut

1-3 - mattie sketches :) the last ones are recent and the 1st is one of the first drawings I did of her, back in 2021. idk I just think it’s important y’all know she’s been on her tide mouse shenanigans since the beginning

4 - I think I drew this back in last march and meant to move it to digital and clean it up there but things got busy and I never did :( they’re based on @randomwords247’s wonderful mermaid designs bc I love them

5 - unrelated to the last one, but while I was working on one of my little mermaid au drawings I tried to think how I’d approach the sequel if I got that far & ended up w. this. something something mermaids having human familiars being frowned upon

6 - I think. this is a drawing of @blaithnne’s pony!lauren that I never finished oops

7 - forgot I had this!! year before last me and @bubblekidaesthetics were planning to cosplay these two at comic con, and I got super hyped and doodled this. we did do this cosplay and it was awesome <3

8 - slightly more recent design stuff for freyja, still based on hilda-fanblog/rhombus’ design ofc but figuring out if I wanted my take on her to change anything like how many legs she has lol. also some pony!mountain king doodles on the next page

9-10- something something centaur au. somewhere in my notes app is a whole list of hilda chars and horse types/colours bc I started researching them and got so carried away. johanna’s supposed to be a bay and hilda was gonna be a shetland I think…? (the hilda one is a lot more recent and I think it shows lol). rip to dee who had to watch me talk abt this au so much and barely actually draw it

anyway tumblr won’t let me add any more pics which is probably a good thing 🤷‍♀️ I hope literally everyone feels better as an artist for seeing what an absolute mess my drawings start out as 😌 now I gotta buy a new sketchbook

[adammilligan]

also since everyone seems to like tdodl so much (still insane to me btw) is it worth mentioning that i have 52 pages of a kind-of sort-of sequel that i wrote from michael's pov that i ultimately abandoned because michael is such an incredibly complex character to write. idk. here's a snippet of it anyway because maybe someone will enjoy it:

There is little talk between them for the first couple of days. 

It might be the shock at seeing each other again. Michael had never expected to, when he was wasting away in the Empty the same way he’d done in the Cage—only alone this time.

Adam had never expected to either, if the glances he keeps throwing Michael are any indication. 

But they don’t talk. And Michael, not for the first time in his recent existence, is unsure. 

He has nothing to compare it to. Even before, when they’d first made contact, they had talked to each other. Though perhaps talk was too strong of a word—they’d snap at each other, more like. Words filled to the brim with vitriol, with hurt, with rage, with desperation, taking the hopelessness they felt out on the other and learning not to take it personally until it had stopped altogether. 

Now, there’s just a stifling sort of quiet between them, like they’re both waiting for the other to speak and neither of them is quite brave enough to do it. 

Adam glances at him, and his eyes are not of those gazing upon the miracle of someone who’d come back to life. They look at him like he’s impossible, as if Michael was something entirely new, sewn together in the spaces adjacent to the universe and spat out on the hardwood of his floor instead of an archangel crafted by the hand of God. 

Michael can’t even bring himself to bristle at it, which leaves him with the impression that he’ll fall out of Adam’s body and sink down to the center of the Earth if he isn’t careful. A flick of his wings could topple cities, a flash of his eyes could raze landscapes, and still. Still. 

The weariness eats at him. 

He isn’t sure if weariness is even the right word to call it, but—to the small, silent speck of horror that glitters somewhere deep within him—it is the only word he can come up with, in every language and every variation thereof, in Enochian and the bastardization of it that Lucifer had developed in Hell that he’d screamed at Michael in the Cage until there was nothing left to do except fight, and fight, and fight. 

Poison has no effect on him, but it spreads through him like one regardless, and he sees the slump of his wings mirrored in the set of Adam’s shoulders.

It is a small comfort, he supposes, to share their burdens even now.

[ogmaddoxtamoke]

Late, but I wanted to get this one off my chest. This was something I started more or less 3 years ago and *never finished.* Why? Because this is two unfortunate cases: One- biting off more than you can chew, and two - making such a big project mere weeks before a set date.

Will I ever get to working/reworking this again? Experience says no.

Will I prepare myself so I *am* capable of pulling off something like this? You better believe it.

Moral of all this is....don't be overconfident, but don't sell yourself short either.

All about growing and learning, so keep growing.

[punkpal]

9 people you want to know better tag

I was tagged by @aquietgirlsmess (thanks, I love doing these!)

Three Ships: #1 Malec (Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood - Shadow Hunters/The Mortal Instruments) and I'm gonna cheat with number 2 and 3 and include two sets of my OCs from a book series I am writing so for #2 i'll go with my protagonist and her eventual girlfriend/future wife - Destiny/June (should their ship name be Jestiny or Dune, I hate both) and for #3 Blu/Aims (Blaims??). Also on the subject of the books I am writing if anyone has good last name suggestions (not your own) please send them my way, I'm in desperate need of last names for most of my characters)

First Ship: I'll be honest I'd rather kms then admit who my first ever ship was so imma take this secret to the grave lol

Last Song: Anymore by Lø Spirit (it's fucking depression but it slaps)

Last Movie: 1917 by Sam Mendes

Currently Reading: Nothing, I am currently using the motivation I'd use to read to write instead

Currently Watching: I'm binging The Vampire Diaries but I'm gonna pause my rewatch to binge The Fall of the House of Usher that I'll start tonight

Currently Consuming: A kinder surprise

Currently Craving: Nasi Goreng

I'm tagging: @punkbff @revradio @spirits-in-the-dark @deathclassic @dekaythepunk @exsequi @spid3rfag @badbucky @dirtnote @tidal-wav3s @bandtrash0818 @discourselsdead @siiickbrains @sw0rds-and-p3ns @re-imagine @callingallcars (this ain't 9, my bad)

[mimicteruyo]

So will I play In Stars and Time or uphold my old Christmas tradition of replaying Iji?

*proceeds to do neither of these things nor anything productive and instead sits around reading bad webtoons*

[shhh-secret-time]

I was going through my drabbles and WIPs and found my first rough draft on Craig’s Soulmate fic. I didn't wanna share it at the time because I was afraid of the backlash I would get with it, but I think part of the "Finding fun in writing" again is to stop caring and just doing it. So here's the snippet! It'll probably stay in WIP hell, but I'm glad I didn't delete it.

Warning: Angst, Strong Language

'Come back to this when you're ready, don't push yourself okay?'

Craig reads the scratchy handwriting over and over again. The ink bled into the napkin long ago, coffee stained the corners. It's lost the scent of whatever brew it was, but he thinks he still remembers the smell.

How could he forget the smell? It was on his shirt almost every day. On his lips when they kissed. Sometimes grounds of the brown powder would be in his hair, Craig would spend hours picking out the little bits.

"You don't have to do that." He'd tell him with a feeble attempt to swat his hand away.

"I want to." Craig would say back.

Now, all is left of the bittersweet memory is the napkin in his hand. Craig presses his thumb into the napkin, grimacing at the texture. He sends a shiver down his spine that's far too uncomfortable, but he doesn't stop. The material is old, likely to tear at any moment. It wasn't designed to be kept this long. Or at all, for that matter. But he can't bring himself to get rid of it. It's the last thing he has of him that he hasn't thrown away or given back.

Tweak Tweek had a soulmate. And it wasn't Craig Tucker.

Craig Tucker did not have a soulmate. Born without one.

Funny how that works.

Except it wasn't. It wasn't fucking funny, it was cruel. That life would determine such a thing for people. What gave life the right to decide who falls in love and who doesn't?! And how come it saw fit to keep him out of the loop? Why didn't he get fancy ink on skin, stupid flowers growing out of his face, or a damn counter that counts away at the moments until you finally meet your so called forever partner?

Tweek had turned sixteen when it happened. A clock on his wrist began to count down, at first he panicked, because of course he did. It was the first time in years he had actually managed to pull his hair out. Of course Craig was there to calm him down, to put his hat over his head so he could pull the strings instead. Did he still have that hat?

After calming the blond down, they worked together to find out what it meant. Mr. Tweak explained it to his son with Craig sitting right there. Right in front of his partner, the man explained that Tweek had a soulmate. That the timer was going to keep ticking away until he found his soulmate. When it hit zero, they were destined to meet.

Four years, eleven months, twenty-two days.

That was how much time he had left. How much time Craig had left before he lost Tweek to destiny. Stupid fucking unfair destiny.

The whole town had made a spectacle about it when they heard the news, of course Richard Tweak couldn't keep his mouth shut. His gay son was going to lose his boyfriend, because Craig didn't have a timer on his wrist. The only other thing he could say about the whole situation was that the breakup was going to be bad for business.

Craig was determined to prove him wrong, that Tweek wouldn't leave him because of some soulmate bullshit. And at first he was right. Four more years went by and they were still going strong, hell Craig would have said it only brought them closer. Then on the twenty second day of the eleventh month, Tweek met a man who swept him away.

It's been almost a year since that day and he can still smell the coffee in his hair, he can still feel the tears on his face. Those angry defiant tears that came with words that shouldn't have been said. Things he could never take back. No matter how many times he drove his fist into the dirty brick wall, it wouldn't bring him back.

Fuck it.