bagog

[bagog]

penguin pattern

#artist envy #penguins

[bagog]

REVERSE TROPE WRITING PROMPTS

Too many beds

Accidentally kidnapping a mafia boss

Really nice guy who hates only you

Academic rivals except it’s two teachers who compete to have the best class

Divorce of convenience

Too much communication

True hate’s kiss (only kissing your enemy can break a curse)

Dating your enemy’s sibling

Lovers to enemies

Hate at first sight

Love triangle where the two love interests get together instead

Fake amnesia

Soulmates who are fated to kill each other

Strangers to enemies

Instead of fake dating, everyone is convinced that you aren’t actually dating

Too hot to cuddle

Love interest CEO is a himbo/bimbo who runs their company into the ground

Nursing home au

#daylight reblog #got a couple of these #thanks!! #will start on them today<3 #hit me up with a pairing and a prompt?

[bagog]

REVERSE TROPE WRITING PROMPTS

Too many beds

Accidentally kidnapping a mafia boss

Really nice guy who hates only you

Academic rivals except it’s two teachers who compete to have the best class

Divorce of convenience

Too much communication

True hate’s kiss (only kissing your enemy can break a curse)

Dating your enemy’s sibling

Lovers to enemies

Hate at first sight

Love triangle where the two love interests get together instead

Fake amnesia

Soulmates who are fated to kill each other

Strangers to enemies

Instead of fake dating, everyone is convinced that you aren’t actually dating

Too hot to cuddle

Love interest CEO is a himbo/bimbo who runs their company into the ground

Nursing home au

#...okay this looks really fun #hit me up with a prompt #and a pairing #(if I don't know the fandom i'll fake it) #i have some time today to write #AUs welcome

[bagog]

15 Questions for 15 Friends

I was tagged by @mtreebeardiles for this meme, so thanks very much!

Are you named after anyone?

I am named after a famous Christian martyr, who is only famous for being a martyr, name chosen because he was a martyr. It was meant to inspire me on my faith journey. So. There's that. Anyway, I don't go by that name anymore!

When was the last time you cried?

Certain songs just make me cry automatically, so probably yesterday morning, doing the dishes.

Do you have kids?

Nope.

What sports do you play/have you played?

As a kid I played a lot of soccer, I also did a couple field events for a little while: shot put, disc, and high jump. I was not good at any of it, and my coaches were always happy to see me leave.

Do you use sarcasm?

I used to a lot: it is my family's primary communication style. But since I've been apart from them, I use it much much less. It's too easy, given my history, for me to encode annoyance or accusation into a sarcastic remark, so I try to avoid it.

What is the first thing you notice about people?

Their posture, I guess? I get a sense of how they're carrying themselves and how that might relate to me or what I'm saying or what I'm trying to do. It's why I really prefer to interact with people in person unless totally impossible.

What is your eye color?

Blue.

Scary movies or happy endings?

Happy endings, for sure!

What are your hobbies?

Writing, I like designing games, photoshopping and/or touching up photos, listening to music.

Do you have any pets?

I have a cat! He's orange with a big white chest.

How tall are you?

I am 6'2"

Favorite subject in school?

When I was in University, probably my favorite subject was primary transcription linguistics. But it was so much work.

Dream Job?

The kind of novelist who's well-to-do enough where I don't HAVE to write another novel, but people WANT me to write another novel.

Okay, I don't know that I still have fifteen mutuals regularly using their tumblr, anymore, so let's just say: If you have a guess at which Christian martyr my parents named me for, you are tagged.

#thanks! #ask meme #tag meme

[bagog]

Chatting with my buddy about the Legendary Edition

#mass effect #mass effect legendary edition #mele #garrus vakarian #garrus #let dudeShep romance Garrus you cowards #shakarian #mshakarian

[bagog]

Whatever you describe to another person is also a revelation of who you are and who you think you are. You cannot describe anything without betraying your point of view, your aspirations, your fears, your hopes. Everything.

James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son

#this is basically the premise of this blog

[bagog]

Okay, so now when I try to cordially re-boop people, tumblr goes "OOPS LOOKS LIKE THERE WAS A PROBLEM TRYING TO BOOP THIS PERSON YOU ASS" so. April Fools.

I do not understand the boop, what is this boop people refer to?

#honored #don't wanna seem stingy #in this boop economy

[bagog]

I do not understand the boop, what is this boop people refer to?

#is it only on mobile? #I feel like i'm coming across as boopless and aloof #when the truth is that but also that i don't know what's going on

[bagog]

Welp. It's March 27th, and probably I'm not gonna be able to post 24 stories today to make up for how many I've missed. I guess we'll see what we can get up to, anyway.

#depressed not writing #i feel like writing fanfic #i FEEL like finishing this stupid novel #but alas #all writing stymied

[bagog]

The War of the Worlds - art by Edward Gorey (1960)

#omg #edward gorey #artist envy

[bagog]

It bums me out when I see how much hate the 32nd Century Fleet from Star Trek Discovery gets. Partly, it's because it's hard to parse who hates the ships, and who hates the show and is just taking every opportunity to get some hate off.

My basic position is that: Star Trek uses aesthetics-over-practicality as a STORY-TELLING choice, as well as a design choice. The Federation is such a cool, future place, we can build ships just cuz they look cool and not cuz they make any sense.

People saying "It doesn't look like anything like ships we're used to" are like people complaining the space shuttle isn't built like a horse-drawn chariot. Technology AND aesthetics have evolved over the last ELEVEN CENTURIES, what makes you think we'd even recognize their standards of beauty OR practicality?

Images from thetrekcollective.com

#star trek #star trek discovery #Discovery #32nd century #Voyager J #Love it #ship design #space ships

[bagog]

A poem by Seamus Heaney

In Iowa

In Iowa once, among the Mennonites In a slathering blizzard, conveyed all afternoon Through sleet-milt pelting hard against the windscreen And a wiper’s strong absolving slumps and flits,

I saw, abandoned in the open gap Of a field where wilted cornstalks flagged the snow, A mowing machine. Snow brimmed its iron seat, Heaped each spoked wheel with a thick white brow,

And took the shine off oil in the black-toothed gears. Verily I came forth from that wilderness As one unbaptized who had known darkness At the third hour and the veil in tatters.

In Iowa once. In the slush and rush and hiss Not of parted but as of rising water.

Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)

#seamus heaney #one of my favorites

[bagog]

Dark Lord

Penelope struggled against the heavy chains, struggled against the grip of the orcs hauling her through the Dark Citadel. This wasn’t how she pictured her adventure going. She was supposed to be in the elves’ forest kingdom, instead, the portal had brough her to the edge of the Dark Lord’s territory. She was captured almost immediately by a garrison of orcs, and upon seeing her strange clothing, they had brought her to their lord.

Penny was hauled into a wide hall, the walls of glistening black marble, the floors of the deepest slate. The juxtaposition between the mirror-like marble and the matte slate gave the whole room a sense of weight. As if the walls were trying to crush in on her. The ceiling vaulted overhead into a dome, and twisting pillars at seemingly impossible angles rose up from the floor to support it. Before she could get a better look, she was flung on the floor before the orc who had been dragging her hurried away with a little whimper.

Penelope looked up, and saw the Dark Lord.

She was tall, taller than anyone Penelope had ever met, and she was thick. Despite her proportions, Penny got the distinct impression she was a normal human (elf? Drow?) of fantastic height, rather than a modestly sized giant. Cascading black feathers fell all about her, a cloak with a long trail, flashing iridescent like a grackle’s wing. Her hands were enormous, as she held out a finger, beckoned Penny closer.

Her face was gaunt, skeletal even, and in the dimness of the hall, Penny could scarcely tell if the face had flesh on it at all. An empty cavity seemed to sit where her nose would be, and her lips (if there were lips at all) were stretched over glistening teeth in a mirthless smile. But her eyes were bright, a glowing orange that seemed to pulse as she stared down at the girl. Penelope shakily got to her feet and took a single tiny step forward.

The Dark Lord seemed to float forward herself, her footfalls booming through the empty space though her legs could not be seen to move.

“Child,” her voice between a song and a screech. “Child not of this world. You are right to be frightened of me.” She leaned forward, one jagged finger nail lifting Penny’s chin to look her in her glowing eyes. “Tell me how you came to be here. Tell me about the world you come from.” Her face peeled into a leering smile, and Penelope felt the walls quake.

#original characters #character sketch #march of antagonists #dark lord #penelope #blehk

[bagog]

Japanese Brandenburg Concertos

Hiroto slumped against the wall, let his back slide all the way down the bricks till he sat with his knees to his chest on the floor. The music conservatory was frigid: out the massive windows, the world was a frozen white-out. Flakes were still coming down.

Hiroto cracked his knuckles and blew on them to warm them up. His first round performance had gone well—almost as well as he had hoped it would—and once the hundreds of other competing pianists had their turn, he would find out if he had qualified for the second round. Passing through the second round would earn him a master-class with C.K. Higgins. That was the kind of thing you put in your portfolio. Watching the flakes cling to the window, Hiroto shivered, then laid down on the floor. He pulled his jacket over his face like a blanket and tried not to think about how stiff the competition was going to be in the next round.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” a few voices were coming down the hallway. Hiroto almost peeked out to get a look, before hearing the same voice utter an exasperated slur. “You just know he’s going to get the master-class, the sneaky little robot.”

“You did great, what are you worried about?” Came another voice. The group was now at the lockers across from where Hiroto lay pretending to sleep, head covered.

“If only doing great were good enough! Unfortunately, I’m white, so doesn’t matter if I’m channeling Glenn fucking Gould. They’re still going to pick the Mitsubishi to win the master-class.”

The other voice laughed at the ‘Mitsubishi’ line. Hiroto barely revealed one eye to the hall to get a look at who was talking. Another university student, about Hiroto’s height. Dark, curly hair and a corduroy jacket over a band t-shirt. Hiroto recognized him from some of the competition rooms this morning. He’d been in the audience for Hiroto’s performance, and Hiroto had noticed the other student giving him strange looks when they passed in the halls.

“You kicked ass in there, Adam, you’re definitely going to get to the next round. He’s not worth your time, dude.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Adam rejoined. “You get all these foreign exchange students with their tiger moms and shit, pushing them to be perfect little musicians. But they’ve got no soul, it’s like a computer playing Bach. In fact, I would rather hear an AI perform than listen to another stale Japanese Brandenburg Concerto.” Adam closed the locker and leaned against it. He was fidgeting with a small American flag lapel pin on his jacket, trying to get it to sit right. Below it was a pink breast-cancer awareness ribbon.

“I mean, you’re not wrong!” His other companion chuckled.

“You think he even practices, or just downloads the sheet music directly to his CPU?” Adam responded, keeping his friend laughing. “It just pisses me off, is all. It’s not fair. Like… it was my ancestors wrote this music, it’s my inheritance, practically! Then in comes a Toyota or a Mitsubishi or whatever and plays it perfect, easy, but soulless. It’s not fair to me as a Western man, and it’s not fair to the music to let it be played with no soul.”

“Yeah, to me the problem is the judges are listening for accuracy, not soul.”

“You’re right about that. It still pisses me off.” Adam stretched his arms. He had the longest fingers Hiroto had ever seen, a natural pianist. He had that hunch in his back that said he’d spent more time practicing his scales than his posture. His eyes were a flashing blue, narrowed as they were, and his lip curled into a smile. “It’s like when you meet a trans and he’s hotter than you are, and it’s like ‘not fair, I’m supposed to look like a man.’”

Adam’s companion continued to laugh as the two walked away down the hall. Hiroto continued to lie there on the floor, face and ears heated. He sat up, leaned against the wall. He could still hear the two white students cackling on their way to watch someone else’s performance. Out the window, the snow fell exactly where it meant to fall, and frosted the whole world over.

#character sketch #original characters #march of antagonists #cw: racism #cw: transphobia #Hiroto #this needs tweaking to be what i wanted it to be #but it sorta plays and my time is up

[bagog]

March of Antagonists

It's March!

In March, I use this character sketch blog to do character sketches about antagonistic characters.

As always, if you have an idea you want to see, or read one you like, let me know! I really appreciate it.

#depressed not writing #march of antagonists

[bagog]

February 2024 In Review

So trying to get back into daily blog writing was difficult this month, but I got maybe 22 of the 29 days with content, so that's cool! This was de Facto Love February, and hopefully some fun little stories on love were told.

Characters Created: 27 Words Written for Characters: 5500 Words Written for Prompts: 0 Words Written for  Personal Projects: 22000

++

Failed Relationships with medications:

Propanalol Ritalin Wellbutrin Adderall Concerta BuSpar Effexor Clonepin Vyvanse

On the Job

Work Day Weekend Holiday Out of Work

Others

Burgeoning bro romance Remembering a harder time in a softer way... with CDs! Shortie about Deep Depression The polycule buys a pool table An epitaph for Sara Pine-car derby meet-cute Painting each other's nails Supporting your partner on their marathon

Well there they are, all the little shorts I wrote for this month. As always, if you saw one you really liked, or liked one of the characters, please let me know! It's good to know that, because it means I can write something I already have ideas for, lol.

Thank you very much to everyone who liked, commented, or reblogged anything. It means a lot, and I hope we're all gonna have a great March!

#de facto love february #omnibus #month in review #february in review #original characters

[bagog]

On the Job - Out of Work

How many months out of work, now? Home alone, paralyzed, anticipating the worst from day to day to day. He comes home and he says ‘thank you’ for doing the dishes, for making the bed, for caring for the cat. I have paced this house’s every inch and never found one good reason why he should come home. He does. I love him.

#character sketch #original characters #de facto love february