#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

[gayghostrights]

heyyyyyy uhh, feel free to ignore this but

could you write john and arthur going to a park together!.?? please??? if you do then ill have an excuse to finally draw it <333

okay, I couldn’t not do this. It’s too cute.

“It’s fascinating, really. She was quite the prolific poet but most of what we know of her work is in fragments so—“ Arthur says, cutting himself off to pause and listen for John’s footsteps. It takes him a moment to realize John is trailing behind. 

“John?” He asks, stopping so John catch up, “are you alright?”

“Yes, I…” John says, hurrying to catch up to him,  “got distracted” 

“By what?” 

“Nothing,” he says, “let’s go,”

“Tell me,” Arthur presses, his voice filled with amusement, “you are my eyes, after all,”

“It’s a park, Arthur. There’s a set of two swings with worn rubber seats. Beside it is a small structure with overlapping, multicoloured bars. Some of the colour has worn off in parts, giving the impression that they’re well used. There are beds of flowers running along the chain link fence, although I’m not sure what kind of flowers they are. The sun has nearly set, so only the street lamps and the moonlight illuminate it. Its…interesting” 

“Interesting?” Arthur says, chuckling, “do you mean to say you want to play on the playground?”

“No,” John says, crossing his arms and huffing, “of course not,”

“Because we can do that, if you’d like. It’s cool enough that most people would rather stay indoors than walk outside and late enough that most children will be in for the night,”

John stares at the ground, trying to feign disinterest despite the smile tugging at his lips, 

“okay,”

“Okay?” Arthur says, gently teasing him

“Yes, Arthur,” he says, already heading toward the swings. 

Arthur follows the sound of his footsteps, the gravel noisily shifting underneath them. 

The swing’s chain groans when they sit down. Arthur sways slightly, rocking on the tips of his feet. 

“How…how do I make it go?”

“Oh, like this,” Arthur says, pushing himself back with his feet and then pulling himself forward. He leans back, pumping his legs to gain momentum, “you just move your legs,” 

John tries to mimic the movement, nearly toppling over before catching himself at the last second. 

Arthur laughs, the resounding growl from John more endearing than intimidating. 

“Here,” Arthur says, moving to stand behind John, “hold on tightly to the chains, I’ll give you a push,”

John obliges, his knuckles white from his grip. He jolts forward when Arthur’s hands touch  his back. 

“Okay, now pump your legs like I showed you,” Arthur says, stepping back to avoid John as he swings back, “yes, like that! Good job,” 

John quickly gains momentum, the wind rushing past his ears as he cuts through the air. 

“Jesus,” Arthur says, jumping out of the way. John slams his feet into the ground, sending rocks flying haphazardly as he drags them through the stones. 

“I don’t like it,” John says, scrunching his nose, “my stomachs feels…odd,”

Arthur laughs, “it’s called motion sickness. It  happens sometimes,”

John grumbles at him, the disappointment written across his face. 

Arthur wipes dirt off of his pants, dropping into the other swing unceremoniously. 

“We can just sit here, if you’d like”

“Alright”

They fall into comfortable silence, the only sound between them the groan of the chain from Arthur’s slight swaying. 

“I can feel you hesitating, John,” Arthur says, “what are you so loudly thinking about?”

“I… it doesn’t matter,”

Arthur sways sideways, bumping his shoulders against John,  “just say it,”

“Did you ever bring Faroe to this sort of park?”

Arthur smiles sadly, recalling doing just that a hundred times. The memory is bittersweet, her smiling face and infectious laugh vivid in his mind. 

“Yes, I—“ he says, sighing, “she loved the park, the swings especially. She was… well, she was a bit of a thrill seeker, if I’m being honest. Always demanding I push her higher and higher until I was too afraid she’d fall off ,” 

“She was like you then,” John says, 

“Yes,” Arthur says, chuckling, “I suppose so,”

John swings sideways, bumping his shoulder into Arthur’s and then moving away. He bounces back, digging his toes into the gravel to hold himself in place, unsure of what to say as he presses his shoulder against Arthur’s

Arthur leans his head on John’s shoulder, the memory still tugging at his heart 

“Arthur, I’m—“ John’s says, after a moment. 

Arthur moves away, taking a final second to feel the grief threatening to consume him. He allows himself to think of her fondly, for just a moment. 

He clears his throat, and asks “shall we give it another go?”

He takes a few steps back, launching himself forward with as much force as he can muster. He’s airborne in a second, the swing creaking with each movement. 

John breathes out a laugh, watching fondly as Arthur moves through the air, a look of boyish glee on his face as he gets higher and higher. 

“C’mon, John!”

“No,” he says, gruffly.

“This was your idea!” 

“That was before it made my stomach hurt,” 

Arthur slows to a stop, tiling his head back and laughing, “fair enough,” 

[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

[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 😭

[sharkneto]

hi!!!! I was rereading the shifting mirrors and holding it together since you finished joining together recently (it’s SO good, it’s so so SO good, your writing is always so well done and flows so well) and I had a couple questions. Sorry if this is weird - if you don’t want to answer them feel free to ignore this ask, I’m just curious!

1.) did you start writing joining together while you were still posting holding it together? a lot of the details I noticed in HIT were referenced in JT, and I was just kind of like ‘that’s a LOT of details to remember’ so I was wondering if you were working backwards !!

2.) have you ever thought about what happens at the end of HIT? do you think they would actually end up stopping the apocalypse, or would the commission try to come and correct them? I thought that was interesting - that the commission said they were done with five, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re done with the offshoot timeline ; if they hadn’t interfered prior, that would mean they were still on track for an apocalypse, right ? I like to speculate about this. with sheer strength of will I think that five would probably end up stopping it, mostly because he knows how to work through his rage rather than act on impulse again - and now he has the knowledge to try and connect the others so that viktor doesn’t feel so isolated.

3.) what was your favorite part of writing the story / what kept you motivated to keep it going ? I’ve started a couple chaptered fics, and then I get three or four chapters in and lose it completely.

I love, love, love the world youve created - I love the characters youve built and the personalities behind them. the dedication youve held on to to keep the series going is admirable; I can barely write 20k, much less hundreds of thousands of words. I was actually thinking of asking your permission to maybe write an offshoot of your offshoot (it might be the thing that gets me back into writing for tua) but idk if I’d have the imagination or creativity to make it nearly as compelling and fun as yours. Congratulations and great work on finishing it !! <333

this got long - feel free to ignore it if it’s overstepping or weird, lol !! I hope you’re doing well - have a great night, shark :)

Hey Toby! Glad you enjoyed it all so much and thanks for the kind words! It's a little surreal to have it done, JT has been a WIP almost as long as I've been into TUA.

I started writing JT before HIT. This whole series was supposed to be a Just For Me Fun Project while I rotted alone during the pandemic that I ended up sharing with permission from orsumfenix and encouragement from friends. I was a bit into JT, I think, when I started thinking about how fun it would be to get more siblings in here, and those musing became HIT. HIT got posted first because it had a lower barrier for entry, with more focus on the Hargreeves we know instead of OCs. So, because the stories were written more-or-less simultaneously, it was easy to reference one or set up something for the other. Working forwards and backwards, with the end of JT already written (in a rough draft) when I was writing HIT, so I knew where Rob, Sarah, and Number were coming off of at that point. (The tiny detail I'm most fond of is Allison in HIT noting that Number broke his nose at some point, and then in JT we get to see the stupid scenario in which he broke his nose.)

(rest under a readmore because I ramble)

I do have thoughts on what happens after HIT! More of a time jump, to Number's Apocalypse Week, and I've got words in a WIP started about that (and a few snips shared in my snip tag, although some I think I've changed some of the details, now). It goes... less smoothly than it should, for a guy who has (almost) all the details he needs. If motivation continues, I'll share that eventually. If it doesn't, I'll word-vomit an outline so at least people who are interested can know how it goes down. I don't see the Commission coming back - the people obsessed with Five are dead, and the organization is done with him. They don't have the resources to spare to keep going after him, so at least in Five and Number's timelines, they're out of the Commission's scope.

What kept me going was a combo of things. 2020-2022ish, I had a fuckton of time. I only worked three days a week because of covid protocols, I couldn't go anywhere because of covid, and I couldn't see anyone because of covid. I had four days a week to fill, and a lot of that time got filled with writing - all of HIT and the first draft of JT happened during this time, plus all the other fics I published throughout that time. What kept me going is that I was having a ton of fun writing and fun interacting with other people about my fics. Love, love, love talking about them (so never apologize for an ask like this, every fic writer is begging for an excuse to ramble like this). I liked thinking about the characters, thinking about Number doing mundane things I was doing made them more interesting, I liked thinking about Rob and Sarah's little romcom life, and I'm fascinated by Five's whole deal. My favorite part of writing these is Five (both versions of him) - thinking about him and how he'd react to x or y, how others react to him. I love that, at his core, he's kind of a loser. I love what an incredible vehicle for grief he is. He's a character of all time for me.

How to keep going, I don't have an easy answer for it. Some people outline, so they have the skeleton of what they're doing and where they're going. I'm not one of those people, I have an idea of the general shape and trajectory of the story and go from there, splitting up chapters as needed. I think it's important to not force it, or the writer's block gets worse and then you're stressed about writing instead of having fun with it, and that's no good - the point is to have fun. If you run out of steam, you run out of steam and you have to take a six-month hiatus until life calms down and you have words again (as a hypothetical example). Don't be afraid to poke at other ideas even if you have a giant fic unfinished. For having 25 fics on AO3, I have 35 other WIP files on my computer. Some of them have a couple hundred words, some have tens of thousands of words, some of them I'll come back to finish, some of them I won't. Such is life - some ideas have legs, others don't. I don't set out thinking "Oh this fic is going to be 50k words with 10 chapters". I just write until it feels done; sometimes that's 2k words, sometimes it's almost 200k words. The point I'm trying to make, here, is that we're all just fucking around having fun, and words flow easier when I'm remembering that and not stressing about being done or trying to finish for a self-imposed deadline. You've got it :)

Feel free to write in my little world! Would love to see what others are thinking about, what stuck with them. Just give me (and orsumfenix, if you use Number) a shoutout if you share it! And don't sell yourself short - I'm sure you've got great ideas and the chops to write them out. Don't compare yourself to me; you might write in a world I helped shape, but you've got your own voice and style to give it. I, for one (if you end up writing and sharing it), would love to hear your version of it all :)

[amrv-5]

Somebody should invent a working that isn't so sucks

[sealrock]

me and a friend were talking about thetinne (tauvane) and the possibility of her being half-elezen and how that'll affect her storyline

I'm still on the fence about this but look at that sweet face. thetinne in her younger years maybe

[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

[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.

[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.

[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)

[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