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ghostoffuturespast · 4 months

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Works In Progress 2023: A Cyberpunk 2077 Year In Review

I thought for a hot minute about doing one of those snazzy templates that’s been going around, but editing photos just ain’t my MO and rather than going by month I picked 12 favs that I’ve posted in 2023. Some of them were popular, some of them weren't. Overall, I think I did pretty good for just doing vanilla photomode on console.

You might be wondering why there's a picture of a sticky note. I don't remember when I started doing this, and I'm horribly inconsistent as you can see by the dates, but I'll jot down my word count for my wip chapter and then jot it down again when I remember to later.

I write slow. A lot of times I sit down to write and it feels like the wheels are spinning in place. My minutes and hours don't stretch very far, typically don't add up to much. But days, weeks, months. That's when I can at least measure the progress.

Fic: So It Goes 40/44 - 438,946 words

My V x River Ward and tinfoil hat conspiracy theory long fic. I've spent way more hours on this then I have on any of my VP.

I got tagged by @just-a-cybercroissant @therealnightcity and @wanderingaldecaldo to do some WIP Whenevers. I post my VP pretty regularly, so it’s always seemed silly to do work in progress posts for them, and I don’t know when I’ll have any new writing to share since in between work and the holidays, I haven’t had much time to sit down with anything since my last chapter update. And I've been feeling very... stingy, lately. Especially when it comes to mine and other people's writing. So take this WIP/Year In Review as my offering. Both these series, as am I, are all very much still works in progress.

I confined my reflections for this year below the cut. If you don’t want to read my long-ass essays, you can admire the pictures, maybe check out my fic, or just move along and have yourself a lovely day.

We’ll start with the easy one.

After at least a year of multiple playthroughs (I’ve played all the lifepaths, done all the endings), it only occurred to me at the beginning of this year to start taking VP. Part of the reason I never did before was because I didn’t realize it was a thing and then by the time I did, I figured I didn’t have much to offer. I play on PS5 and only have access to vanilla photomode, so seeing everyone else’s high-fidelity, ultra ray-tracing, modded, posed, full on virtual photo shoot photos, I was like there’s no way. (Not that I’m hating on PC modders, it’s just not everyone has access to mods or a PC capable of running the game, and I’m all for making art and creative endeavors accessible.) On top of that, all I’d ever heard from most other folks was how much vanilla photomode sucked. In the glamorous world of VP, I didn’t think there was any room for me.

But I started snapping pics anyway. And sure, there are a lot of limitations with vanilla photomode. But what that really translates to is opportunities to get creative. I am also a hoe for subverting people’s expectations, and very much believe when there’s a will, there’s a way.

Environmental and landscape shots were my first subjects before I started branching out into portraits and then capturing story moments. Through VP I found an entirely new way to enjoy a game that I’d already played a ridiculous number of times along with also finally being brave enough to share my V with other people too. I’d always worried about that before, if people would like her. Granted, I know Grandpa’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but whether you like her or not, I certainly think she’s made a name for herself over the past few months. Even if most people haven’t really gotten to know her the way I’d hoped.

I’ve taken hundreds of photos this past year. Most of which I’ll never share. There’s a lot of flops, a lot of weird experiments, ones that didn’t quite turn out the way I’d hoped, but I’ve learned something from every single one of them. I know how to spot good lighting, frame shots to create optical illusions, get a very limited toolkit to work in my favor, parkoured on all of the things, and heck, I even figured out how to make Grandpa smooch other NPCs. I’ve done atmospheric, mundane, down right goofy, as well as things that most people probably thought weren’t fucking possible.

I can’t say how long I’ll keep doing this, I’m sure I’ll move on at some point, but for now I’m still enjoying myself. There's a lot to explore in this game and I just can’t stop digging Night City.

Now, for the more complicated thing.

Writing

So It Goes… My peace, my war, my greedy and most ravenous of ghosts.

I’m operating under the assumption that most people following me here probably haven't read my fic or aren’t all that interested in reading it to begin with. It’s fine. But you need to understand this fic, my writing, is the main thing that brought me here. This is also Grandpa V’s story. Most of you have met her, but unless you've been reading, most of you do not know her.

I wrote around 185,000 words and posted 10 chapters this year. 2022 was about 253,000 words and 30 chapters, along with several unrelated one shots. However, I don’t think I’ve done a single chapter this year that was less then 10k, and my longest managed to hit 27k. As of the last update I posted, the fic is currently sitting at around 439k words, 40 chapters, and still isn’t done.

I have four more chapters to write. I have written a metric shit ton of words. This is, by far, the longest and most intense creative project I’ve ever endeavored to complete.

When I started writing, I was expecting this fic to be around 100-150k. That seemed to be the average for most long fics. I did not plan on being an outlier. I'm not sure you can ever really plan for that, but I guess I enjoy subverting my own expectations too.

For those of you who are reading my fic, it is my sincerest hope that it shatters every expectation of where you think it’s going. It’s not a joke that I tagged my fic “#an ode to my tinfoil hat”. An ode it has turned out to be. I’ve been sitting on this theory for two years. I have told no one about it. I hope it sticks the landing and hits the way I want it to. I don't know if it will. But fuck, I just want to be done with it so I can move on with my life, take a break, and give myself the opportunity to make and focus on other things before I have to get back on the damn horse.

I wrote less this past year then I did in 2022. I had a lot of life changes, most of which were good, but with times of change come times of adjustment. Along with some realizations that maybe you don’t understand as much as you thought you did. Looking back, I’ve been in a state of unsettled, kuzushi, for a really long time. Which is not a good place to be. It’s how your ass ends up on the ground with a knee knocking out all your teeth. I thought I knew better. Thought I had enough practice to get away from it. But bad habits have good memories.

I think given the circumstances, I accomplished a lot with my writing this year. I don’t know if my writing is exactly where I want it to be. I doubt it every will be, but it’s evolved, grown, and I wrote a pretty hefty stack of words considering I started working full-time again, bought a house with my partner, moved, and have been dealing with the millions of other beans that life tends to throw one’s way. That being said, and for full disclosure, I’ve also been dealing with some of the worst cases of jealousy and envy I’ve had since I was a teenager.

Frankly, it sucks. They walk with me every fucking where I go, hold my hands to whisper back all my doubts. Try to persuade me to my baser instincts, to be cruel and lash out. But that's not aikido. Luckily, I’m not 16 anymore so it’s at least been easier for me to identify the problem. Though I’m still coming up short in terms of actually being able to do anything about it, and will be for at least a few months more.

Yeah, I keep talking about it because I don’t know how many people know that I've been feeling this way. And I’m tired of not talking about it in a room full of creatives, because yeah, I know I’m not the only one that feels this way. And not talking about it just makes all that pent up resentment worse for everyone.

Don’t get me wrong, I love writing. But with the way I work and think, it’s a slow, tedious, and incredibly time-consuming art. With how much my fic has snowballed over the course of writing, it’s left very little room for the other hobbies in my life. And as my fellow writers probably already know, writing is an incredibly insular craft. And unlike a picture or an image, which only requires a glance, reading a bunch of words requires time and commitment.

So, when you put yourself out there and share what you wrote, it’s a lonely feeling not knowing whether or not anyone connected with what you put on the page. Especially, when the people who do read aren’t compelled to voice anything and when the people you’d hope would read don’t. And then you're stuck in the dark, not knowing, because neither of us says a goddamn thing.

I started writing this fic prior to actually joining the CP2077 fandom. And I joined the fandom because I felt alone. I’ve been here a while now, albeit in a few different places, and that feeling still hasn’t gone away. I’m still trying to find camaraderie with my fellow writers and carve out something that kinda sort of resembles a home or a sense of community. I watch my peers around me as they seem to build that with each other, except me.

I’m envious of the things that people make and jealous of the relationships those have created and fostered between said people, because for the life of me, it’s been a struggle to cultivate that since I got here. I know it’s selfish, but I also don’t know what about me makes people so hesitant. There have been a handful of strangers that have shown up for me regularly, but as far as people I call friends in this fandom that have shown up and actually stuck around, I can only name one right now. (I know we're all busy. And I acknowledge my writing's not for everyone. I know maybe some of you are quiet, or shy, or probably a thousand other things. I get it. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt any less. People will never know unless you say. Never know unless you take the time to interact or engage. Be brave. And that's true for a lot of things.)

The propensity is for the negative to outweigh the positive. I've got a lot of numbers on my fic, so you would think things would be fine, but at this point they just feel empty. They don't bring me any comfort or real satisfaction. And I hate feeling like the people I know don’t care and that most of you are just talking around me. That I’m some kind of annoyance not fit to interact with. Which may or may not be the case. I don’t know. Again, most of you have never said anything. And maybe I need to accept the fact that most of you never will.

But this is me trying to start conversation.

It’s really shitty, knowing that the thing I want the most is also the thing holding me back. I know how to work on it too, not that it’s any guarantee. The problem is I’m still writing and in a needy state of greed. And because I’m slow, I don’t have the time or the energy to be generous. I can only take right now. I can’t give.

Relationships require both.

I can’t bring myself to read other people’s writing. I can’t comment, or like, or share if I haven’t read anything. I'm desperate for conversation, but I also don't have the time or assurance to facilitate it with other people right now. And for some reason people never seem to want to talk to me, especially when it comes to writing. I want to be part of conversations, talk deeply with other people. But I can’t speak right now, I'm not in a place to offer generosity without someone first giving it to me.

And generosity and grace is what we all need.

Four more chapters and I hope my ghosts will finally let me read in peace.

#cyberpunk 2077 #2023 year in review #year in review #virtual photography #writing #from the top #fic: so it goes #long post #i can't guarantee a safe space but i can guarantee a brave space #if anyone's been feeling similarly and wants to talk about it my dms are open #the door's always open

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passportinspection · 1 year

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Remake (from memory) of this. Gordon and Borrower!Barney hanging out in Gordon's room. Poster suggestions welcome. :>

Extremely long rant about this thing's creation under the cut.

aaaAAAUUUGGGHHH okay. So imo this poster is kind of a mess and I'm not happy with the lighting at all, but if I work on it for a single second longer I will simply cry.

So there's a gordon model on the sfm workshop that has outfits like the one above, and I was quite determined to make this in gmod, so I had to learn how to port ragdolls from sfm to gmod. You'd think this would be a fairly easy task - they're both source, after all, and there are tutorials - but it was a multiple-weeks-long journey of roadblocks followed by breakthroughs followed immediately by additional roadblocks. There was vital knowledge not in the tutorials. And I didn't fully succeed, anyway - the above image is his sfm body with his gmod head so so so carefully aligned to it in-game (there is a whole additional invisible gordon body in this image). If I wanted to put him in a different pose, I would have to re-align his head. Which is, like... way harder than it has any right to be. Sooo much harder. And that's with the "reference" head I have - like, okay, sfm-gordon's body does have a head attached, but the issue is that it doesn't have the correct facial posing. So I use it as a reference for placing gmod-gordon's head. I know why getting a functioning sfm-gordon head in gmod is harder than than the rest of him (or at least I think I do), and I think I know what I need to do to make it happen (though it will sacrifice a bit of his sfm-level complexity), but I don't yet know how, and at this point spending like 2 hours getting his head aligned juuuust right in-game is so much less time and effort than figuring out how to do that, so... Later, I'll figure it out. Maybe.

But yeah, there was a hell of a lot of very frustrating trial-and-error involved in that whole process because it's very difficult to find resources for a lot of stuff unless you already have the knowledge to know what to look for.

And that was my first trial.

I liked this desk model the best, but it didn't have a bumpmap, so I generated one for it, which made me feel very fancy and tech-proficient, but really all I had to do was open up the texture in vtfedit and click "generate normal map" or whatever. Oh, yeah, I'd been looking into porting models from sketchfab and such into gmod for a while, off-and-on, a while back (and dabbled a tiiiny bit in map-editing too), so the knowledge from then definitely helped me a lot. I probably wouldn't have gotten this poster done if it wasn't for that, because at that point it would have all been too arcane and overwhelming.

But yeah, you can't even actually see anything but the top of the desk, so I could have just chosen a good texture and used a rectangle instead, and the bumpmap is barely visible in this poster, lol.

Then there's the mousepad. It's a re-textured street sign, by the way. :) I put an absurd amount of effort into that too. I got the black mesa logo off google, but the large majority of the effort to turn it into a mousepad involved messing with the texture with tedious in-game tools.

Then, that book, I got it off a free 3d models website, because I didn't like any of my already-available options. I had to learn a bit about UV maps through trial and error in blender to get it to work right, because nothing is easy. That's the first time I've ever actually ported a non-source object into gmod, so that's cool. (Gordon being the first time I've ever ported something at all. To my recollection, anyway...?) Oh, and I had to learn about how to convert a more modern texture format into valve's obsolete one. That involved being subjected to sights like this:

Thank you, developer.valvesoftware.com. (Though really, this part wasn't that hard. I ignored the scary math(?) and it was fine.)

Next was the mug. All the mug models I had were not smoothly circular enough for me (Or I think maybe there was one or two, but I really didn't like their shape either way). They were quite obviously made of a few flat planes arranged into a circle-ish shape, and that just wouldn't do. So I went and found another free 3d model, slapped the black mesa logo on it, and put it in gmod. I... Did not consider how much more complex it would be as something intended for 3d art / ads rather than video games; I think it has more vertices than Gordon, LOL. It's not so many that it actually lags the game, so it doesn't really matter, but I do find it funny.

And then those papers! I remembered that letter sent to Gordon from the PS2 Half-Life case had a coffee mug stain on it, and I wanted it on the table, but, remembering how much of a pain it was to make the mousepad, I opted to actually create my own models for them this time. They're just rectangles, after all, so it's not like the modeling part was going to be a challenge.

Well, it wasn't a challenge, really, but it did take quite a bit longer than I had expected, partially since I had to muddle through stuff I only sort of had an understanding of. Anyway, it took like, an hour and a half, or two hours? I finally get it into the game, and as I'm putting it on the table, I realize... The coffee stain is in black and white. OTL

So. I put the other page on top. Sad. I mean, I could have just added a free in-color coffee-stain png to the texture somewhere, but. *Gestures.* I had expended too much energy so far to be in the mood to do that.

And this barney model... It is cursed somehow. Or it hates me. The more you pose it, the more resistant it becomes to being posed. The posing tools just.. don't do what you ask them to do after a certain point. So I wasn't super happy with the pose but it was good enough. ToT Originally I wanted to post 3 posters with them in different poses as if they were having a conversation, but yeah, I am not posing that Barney any more, lol. It may have been the fault of the tool I used to make him Small, I'm not sure. Will need further testing.

And THEN.

I take 18 different lightbounce renders, writing down the settings I used and whatever I did differently each time, trying to feel out the tool and find a render I really like. (Last time I kinda just did whatever and settled on an early render I liked without really bothering to figure it out much). At render #18, I get one I'm happy with, so I throw it into GIMP and- oh, now it looks different and bad. Wtf. I try a different image editing program and the same thing happens. I google the issue and decide it probably has to do with some crappy default windows color settings getting imported into the program along with the image, and decide I'll go to bed and deal with that tomorrow. (Oh, yeah, I kept staying up way too late thinking I'd just finish the poster before I went to bed, but never finishing it...)

But no! As I find out the next day from more googling and experimentation, it turns out the windows photo app auto-"enhances" your photos. I'd been judging the renders by how they looked in the app this whole time, so the way it looks in GIMP is how it actually looks. All that experimentation on what looks best the night before... Done on the basis of how they looked after windows "enhanced" them without me knowing.. OTL

And so today I do some more lightbounce render experimentation. I try again and again, but I can't get it to look the way I was able to make it look before, even accounting for the auto-"enhancement". No clue what I did different that night, but okay. So I settle for the way the renders have decided to look tonight, and try to get one that I like the best out of the options it's giving me, but... This tool was created by arcane wizards. This tool is a wild, untamed beast. Even in the same session, I'll be like, "How did I do that and how do I make it happen again." Eventually I kind of gave up and just worked with the most inoffensive one I could generate. I suspect this tool wasn't designed with such small scenes in mind.

The main light source render - well, i hardly experimented with it, because I just wanted to be done with this freakin' thing already.

Anyway, that's... most of it. How long has it been? Like a month? And I was working on this nearly every day. All just for this thing. But it consumed me, man. I couldn't focus on anything else.

Maybe now I can do other things... Like I said, I'm really not happy with the lighting, but I'm so excited to just put this behind me. orz Hopefully my dissatisfaction doesn't turn into an un-ignorable need to keep fiddling with it. I refuse. I refuse! I am doing something else now!

Oh, however! In the process of all that, I may have found out a way to be able to facepose resized-barney, something as-of-yet impossible for me. Still have to try it out. Exciting stuff...

#my gmod art #half-life #giant/tiny #g/t #garry's mod #gordon freeman #barney calhoun #i guess?#anyway #good NIGHT #*collapses*

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wilanserulia · 6 months

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Just for fun, I figured it'd be interesting to post a "before and after" comparison, with the raw picture straight from the game on the left (before shaders) and my final edit on the right. I don't always do this, god I don't have enough time in the day to do this for every photo I take and in retrospect I could have probably spent my afternoon in better ways yesterday, but I think some shots really deserve the extra effort. So if that sounds interesting to you let me show you a breakdown of what goes into a shot like this!

When I decide bring a picture on the editing table, usually first and foremost I take a photo of the environment by itself, and a chromakey photo of just the characters of the foreground (I eventually cut out the rest of the floor by hand). These will come in handy for adjusting the elements of the picture independently later.

What I'll probably touch up on first is smoothing out polygons. Shoulders, knees and other joints tend to create unnatural sharp angles when bent too much, and muscles like the thigh here can't accurately simulate the way human muscles flex. Not to mention the body horror going on with that thumb.

While I'm at it, I painted over some parts of the model where the lighting got confused, and made it look a little more believable, like on the fingers of Wilan's hand here.

The biggest reason I did a photoshop pass however is the skirt. Everyone who has ever tried to pose with skirts, robes or capes knows that FFXIV isn't really built for handling cloth, and there's a lot of negotiating involved to make it look decent. I sent more time than I care to admit trying to get the best approximation possible, smoothed it out with Liquify and then painted over folds that didn't quite look believable and details that clipped in awkward places.

While I was painting over polygons, there were a handful of places where I couldn't avoid some clipping, and certain spots were more noticeable than others. For all the spots where the 3D models really wouldn't behave I resorted to just fix it manually.

Once that's done, I went over the lighting. Gpose's three posable lights did most of the work, but I still went in to take care of some details. In most places I just painted over additional highlights on shiny material, or I added subtle touches of rim lighting to make the pose more readable.

And then, for something less subtle, I sometimes just add more rim light for no other reason than to make the pose more dramatic or to further make it pop from the background. This is a photo with a strong pose and sense of motion, so it's worth taking the time to highlight it.

(speaking of which, the base pose I used for this shot was done by Nhagiri, even though as I almost always do when I use pre-made poses I spent plenty of time adjusting it and calibrating it to my two specific OCs)

This shot had pretty intense and dramatic back-light too, so since FFXIV's graphic engine usually calls it a day early when it comes to draw ground shadows I've just painted it myself.

And most importantly, the lighting was very carefully set but I couldn't manage to properly light up their faces without messing with the overall light and shadow contrast. So I carefully mixed in a different photo with better lighting on their faces, and then calibrated the luminosity and exposure to make sure they'd be the the centerpoint of the shot.

Well that's about it for the models, now off to the color correction.

Most of it was done in photoshop but a lot of the heavy lifting was made by shaders. My go-to presets are @owlincense's CandleBlooms (formerly known as Purple Cocoon), which I've used in pretty much every single one of my photos and can't recommend enough. For this shot in particular I've used her Tourmaline Colorful preset.

It looks great already, but I have some further touches in mind for the specific mood I'm looking for for this scene and I don't want to mess to mess with the shaders' interface to achieve them, so post-editing it is.

First of all I've adjusted the tonality of the background to be colder and more bluish and a tiny bit less saturated, while accentuating the reds of the two characters, bumping up slightly their saturation and contrast. I've also manually simulated bright light coming from the main hall in what's hopefully a convincingly seamless fashion, reinforcing the light source and making the strong highlights and shadows feel more justified, and a vignette to darken the far edges of the composition.

Just a little dash of particles caught in the light as the last touch, and that's about it! Wilan and Delen can enjoy their passionate tango, in a little quite corner to themselves, just outside the bustle of the celebration in the main hall.

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the-script-demands-it · 1 year

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Welcome to...

Rad's enormous pile of abandoned MetaWare WIPs/things that ARE finished but I didn't like them/WIPs that I might come back to/other stuff!

Below the "keep reading" button will be a detailing of all of these images! Please be aware that this WILL be an extremely long post, so... Just a warning. There'll be a second post after this that will also contain the rest of the art that I wasn't able to squeeze in here. (Even 30 pics per Tumblr post isn't enough for this...)

Let's start off with the most recently abandoned WIP!

I started drawing this about two weeks after Chris' birthday (her bday is January 4th) and I was really happy with it, but then I had NO idea how to pose Izzy. It's a bummer since I liked how Chris' hair came out, but alas! (Happy belated birthday, Chris!)

Possibility of finishing?: Yeah, maybe. Prob will have to change Izzy's pose if I really want to finish it though.

Oh hey, I posted this a few months ago on my other blog!

Really wish I finished it, but now that I'm looking back on it, there's definitely some improvement to be had here. I don't like whatever's going on with her face. You can tell that I gave up while trying to make the background as well. Poor Hope!

Possibility of finishing?: I'll have to completely redraw this if I plan on finishing it, but I've definitely got a feeling that I'll come back to this someday.

Hmph!

This one's actually pretty finished, I've just never posted it anywhere before because it's such a small little doodle. I like it though! Nari in a Gir tassel hat is always welcome.

Possibility of finishing?: It's already done. Don't plan on editing it!

(This happens on the rude route!)

It's basically just a proof of concept, and a VERY minimal one at that, but I think it's got some merit! Not enough people talk about that Chris Vs Aspen scene, honestly.

Possibility of finishing?: Sometime this year maybe...??? I don't plan on abandoning this forever, I just don't really know when I'll get around to it.

AUTISM BLAST PT. 1

Hey, remember that art I had pinned on my other blog for a while? I was planning on redrawing it, but I only ever managed to complete one part of it until I forgot about it... It's definitely an upgrade from the original version, though I can do better than this nowadays.

Possibility of finishing?: I'm DEFINITELY going to redraw this someday. I need a new pinned post, damn it!

Thx ^]

Okay, here's some context for these two. I got an anonymous ask on my other account saying that they liked my MetaWare PFP and I thought that it would be a great idea if I responded to it with some art and also turn that same post into an announcement for my MetaWare sideblog (this one!), but that of course did not actually happen.

Possibility of finishing?: NO.

Nari looks so... "off" in this picture.

I like how I drew Hope, but ergh... that is NOT Nari. I don't know how I managed to make her look like a completely different character in this one, but I do NOT like it.

Possibility of finishing?: Nah, I think I'm done with this pic.

Woah, scary!

I actually touched this one up a bit before sending it here. It used to look MUCH more incomplete, but it's basically done now besides from the hair being missing 'n all.

Possibility of finishing?: I might draw more MetaWare stuff with drastic lighting in the future, but I don't plan on revisiting this specifically.

Le miaow miaows.

I worked on Hope before sending this because she looked kinda off, but I think she looks OK now. You can see that this isn't really what my usual art style looks like. I was trying to mix together the original MetaWare sprite art style and the style SparkBag used in the polaroid anniversary art he made, and I think I did just fine.

Possibility of finishing?: It's basically already done! Coloring it would probably make it cooler, but I don't think I'll ever do that.

This won't be the last time I try to use eyes symbolically.

I still REALLY want to revisit this again. It's great! It's magnificent! I just did NOT have the ability to execute it properly back when I made it a ton of months ago, so I just didn't do it. Still don't know if I do now, but it's worth a shot. (This was basically just another proof of concept, by the way.)

Possibility of finishing?: Absolutely! I'll try to get to this sometime soon this year.

GRILLING START ! ! !

Yep, this was based off of Papyrus' "Dating Start!" minigame! Just another proof of concept or... Okay I don't know what else to call these. Like, they're definitely NOT finished nor are they actual fleshed out sketches, what else am I supposed to call them???? I think it's cool though.

Possibility of finishing?: Don't think I'll be ditching this idea anytime soon. Seems kinda simple to draw too, I'll get to it sometime.

Lookin' pretty cute!!

Context for this one: It was gonna be a 3 part comic or something with Hope drawing Nari's bear fursona. Never actually made the comic though, but I DID make her fursona!!! It's the one right below this one, actually.

Possibility of finishing?: Nope.

BEAR NARI BARI LET'S GO

Personally, I think this is adorable. When drawing people's fursonas I always kinda make them more animal than anthropomorphic, but I think it leads to pretty cute art!

Possibility of finishing?: It's already done!

I was just testing out a brush with this one, I think.

It's a cute little doodle, don't have much to say about it though! I WILL say that the bear plushie was a bit inspired by my own plush I have at home, though this one is much smaller than mine.

Possibility of finishing?: Nah, it's just a little doodle.

Ingo Nari... Ingri... Angry!?!

iiii really think I made the hat too big. Like... WAY too big. Don't really like how her face came out, but the body itself is pretty OK. I based it too much on Ingo's original pose though, kinda looks like I just put Nari's head on his head LMAO

Possibility of finishing?: This is basically already finished, though I might draw Nari cosplaying as Ingo again. Why not?

(Bonus Ingri!)

Nari in a hoodie!

Don't exactly remember what this was for. Either it was for an AU of mine or someone else's AU. Her front hair's kinda too far down though, I had a bit of a habit making her face REALLY small compared to her hair in my old art.

Possibility of finishing?: Nay!

Wow, Nari with an eye AND eyebrows! Who woulda thunk it.

Her hair is much puffier than previous versions in this one. Why? Dunno. She looks pretty cool AND cute in this though!

Possibility of finishing?: It's already complete.

My polar bear plush makes a cameo in this one! Say hi!

I had to edit this one a SHIT ton before sending this final picture. I wish I had a pin that said "I HATE DRAWING METAWARE STYLE NOSES" because I loathe them. There were other reasons why I didn't like the original version, but I was annoyed with the nose the most. Really happy how this came out though!

Possibility of finishing?: I just finished it right now. (I'll probably be posting this on its own sometime soon)

Some original characters...!? Unthinkable!

This features Lumi (Metolefrul-indus' fan character) and an old version of Rowan (my fan character)! I changed Rowan's design and personality soon after this, so I don't think this interaction with Lumi and Rowan will actually ever happen... Sorry Lumi! 'Twas just a little doodle.

Possibility of finishing?: NEVER.

Last but not least (for this post, anyway), is this Chris and Izzy sketch!

Some pals requested this during a stream and this was all I managed to make of it... I'm so sorry!!!!!!! They were good prompts!!! I'll finish it one day I swear!!!!

Possibility of finishing?: Soon!

PHEW WE'RE DONE FOR THIS POST. We have 20 more to go in the next one! Might post it next week because this is tiring holy hell. Glad to show these WIPs off to the world though!

P.S. I'm going to skip a few images seen in the huge pic at the beginning! Some were already completed and I'll just post those on their own orrrr I just don't want to review 'em.

#mwhsart #demo #long post #metaware #fan characters

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theycall-vn · 3 months

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successfully put the animated main menu bg into it before i went to bed last night! on to today's stuff now

worked on outline, researched random stuff i've been meaning to and made the necessary notes. drafted more of the prologue also.

did some thinking for the layout of the town and buildings the story takes place in, so i can make the bg's. even made some floor plans and built them in SL so i can get a feel for scaling n shite

edited script a lot. added a warning screen on start up too. will need to edit it again to make it less wordy. started listing the content warning stuff in my notes.

also decided to remove one of the bad ends because it feels.. inapproriate. i think i might be pushing my luck with the other bad ends already, so yes.

there's so many bad ends anyway, so its absence is not noticeable

started sketching the character art for bb. i hope i like the finished product as much as the sketch cause i cba to come up with another base pose to work off of 😭😭

did some thinking on some of the other frequent characters and considered if i'm gonna make art for the other less frequent ones. i guess it depends on how many other characters there are lol

ooor i could do what other vns have done and just make silhouettes for everyone but bb

that takes the fun out of making art of one of the other characters but maybe i'll draw them anyway, for the hell of it.

gonna work on bb art and prologue writing for another two hours then i'll go to bed

#theycallvn #theycallvn progress post

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emotori7 · 1 year

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news about upcoming Winx club CC for The Sims 3

Hello everyone I have some news about upcoming CC as you know I'm not just making CC based off the show I'm also making CC from the comic books as well

bringing back content from the comic books that we missed and didn't get to have in the show

That's right I'm not just going to by the TV show I'm also going by the comic books as well when it comes to making CC so you can clearly tell I have a really big project on my hand so I'm not working on anything else at the moment I'm only strictly working on Winx club CC because how big the project is I plan to completely create Winx club for the Sims 3 or make a Sims 3 version of it

So expect to see CC you ain't familiar with

but also I'm not just making CC I also plan on making videos and not just any videos I plan on recreating the show for The Sims 3 basically a Sims 3 version of it so naturally I basically and making a big project and even bigger project now I'm not really good at video editing I'm still trying to get the hang of making like poses and animations for The Sims 3 Because I'm not really familiar with making animations and stuff but since I don't have anyone to help me with making videos I have no choice but to familiarize myself with it so if anything once I get done creating CC the video making part it's going to be the very last thing and you will be able to find them on my YouTube channel once I finally start making and working on videos I thank God for everyone who has made animations and poses y'all help me a great deal when it comes to making videos because I don't know what goes wrong when I make animations and poses but for some reason even when I follow tutorials there's always like this issue where they don't really seem to work properly in game soto all of the creators who make poses and animations for The Sims 3 y'all are basically a godsend and a blessing because y'all make it so much easier to make videos but like I said I'm not really good at video editing I'm still trying to get the hang of it and everything and I already know that's going to be really time consuming but that's going to be for a more later on project right now the main project is making CC

so basically as you have discovered I have a really big project on my hands to wear I'm only focusing on season 1 right now along with all of the comic books that take place during season 1 and once I finish creating all of the CC that needs to be made and everything that I'm working on

is when I'm going to start working on Layla and just her once I get season 1 out the way along with the videos and everything once I get everything out of the way my main focus will strictly be Layla/Aisha

now someone recently said that she does make an appearance during the time of season 1 not in the show but in the comic books and that she's in her magic Winx form

so I am at least working on her magic Winx form as of right now and once I get done creating it I'm going to reupload my previous post that I made of the other girls magic Winx form and add hers to that post

But other than that I am not going to be working on anything or anyone that takes place in season 2

it's probably going to be some time before I upload her ferry form because I'm having a lot of issues with creating it but once I get done working on it then I'll re-uploading the post of the other girls fairy forms and added into it

but other than that I really can't think of anything else that I need to go over but if I do think of something I'll make another post but other than that I hope everyone has a wonderful day

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2jaeh · 3 years

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Body Paint | Wong Hendery

Genre: fluff, mature themes

Warnings: slight nudity, body painting ?, slight hair pulling, dirty talk

Words: 1,5k

AUTHOR SIN

Youre partnered up for a painting project with Hendery, when he has the the brilliant idea of painting each other...for the project Ofcourse.

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You set a couple canvases onto the wooden floor of the studio you and Hendery had rented for your upcoming art project. It was for the varsity final exhibition and the task was to be completely experimental while perfectly collabing with your partner. Hendery, the quirky black haired boy you were partnered with walked into the room sipping on his ice coffee,

“Any ideas yet ?” He smiled sweetly as he set down his backpack and walked over to the tray of paint.

“Nah” you shook your head and sat crossed legged on the floor, “what about you ?”

Hendery joined you on the floor before pulling out his ipad and you scooted closer to him to take a look. Your eyes widened when his pinterest board was practically filled with body painting art pieces, ranging from a back piece to a completely full body canvas.

“B-body painting ?” you raised an eyebrow,

“Yeah, I think it's interesting and it will perfectly showcase a collab as well as create something different from everyone else” Hendery explained and sipped the last bit of his drink.

You wrinkled your nose at the screen, unsure of how this was going to work, how much body would you be painting exactly ?

“Problem ?” Hendery chuckled, leaning back on his elbows as he stared up at you,

“How much are we painting ?” you scratched your head nervously, eyes still locked on the majority of his moodboard being close to nudity.

“I think full body, front or back your choice” Hendery answered calmly, “I brought my tripod and camera so we can do it now, take a few pictures and edit it for the exhibition”

You stood up and Hendery discarded his coffee cup and immediately brought his shirt over his head.

“Wait you're for real, don't we need to plan ?” you stuttered as the boy continued to strip down to his black boxers.

“We should go with the flow I think it would look better if it was freestyled” He replied as you took in his confident semi nude figure waltzing around the room.

You thanked the heavens you were in somewhat decent underwear today, especially ones that aren't too revealing. Hendery locked the studio doors and taped a piece of paper over the window just in case and began mixing paints as you reluctantly began undressing.

“Don't be nervous, remember those people who were butt ass naked in our class two weeks ago ?” Hendery chuckled as he continued doing his duties.

“Oh yeah that was really something” you reminded yourself of that dreadful experience. The only reason why you agreed to Hendery’s plan was because you were comfortable around him despite never seeing each other like this. He was an extremely sweet person and had always been respectful toward you and your peers.

“Front or back ?” Hendery asked as he stood on the plastic sheet he laid out.

“Back, I really don't want to be face to face with your uhm”

Hendery burst out laughing when he realized what you were hinting at, “noted.”

You gathered your favourite colours and got to work on his back, which was gloriously broad and honestly the perfect human canvas. Hendery hissed at the cold paint making contact with his skin but finally eased up when you began your workflow. It felt awkward at first but eventually became fun, as you watched your piece come to life against his golden skin.

“I guess you're going with a darker style huh? I've always liked your work” Hendery mused as he lifted his arm making it easier for you to cover his ribcage.

“I'm surprised you like it since your style is the complete opposite of mine” you chuckled, “its like good meets evil”

“I think that's why this idea is really going to be perfect, wow I can't wait to see the outcome of it” Hendery stretched up in turn making his muscles flex, which was quite...the sight.

You were coming close to the details around the side of his neck and the closeness made Hendery really take notice of you, like really take notice. He watched you concentrate as you worked on his skin, your tongue darting out while painting was incredibly cute to him.

Hendery had no idea you paid attention but you were definitely aware of him studying you and it kind of made you feel a bit more comfortable that you weren't the only one ogling.

“Okay i'm done!” You took a step back and admired your work, “It actually looks pretty good.”

Hendery stood at the backdrop while you snapped a few solo pictures of him and showed off your artwork. “Wow it looks dope, those demons on my thighs are kinda sexy” he teased and you rolled your eyes, “they're supposed to be creepy not sexy”

“They can be creepy and sexy, just like you” Hendery stuck his tongue out, “come on demon princess it's your turn.”

You and Hendery both agreed on a front facing canvas since it was a good contrast to your piece on him. You sucked in a deep breath as Hendery neared you with the brush and the instant contact made you flinch,

“Too cold?” he cooed, as he carefully began working on your sternum area.

“Y-yeah” you chuckled nervously as you felt his warm breath hit your chest, Hendery looked up at you, eyes slightly narrowed before his lips curled into a grin, “I'm sure you can handle anything babe.”

Where the hell did the sweet boy from earlier disappear to and why the hell did he just turn you on with just his words ?

Hendery quietly painted away, making sure to steal glances at you and his fingers danced lightly across your skin. He was gentle, making sure to touch you appropriately at all times even though you wished he wasn't so courteous for a second.

“Okay I'm all done we should take pictures before it gets messy” Hendery ran over to the camera and began snapping a few shots of you. You were about to walk over to the camera to see his work when he held his hand up to stop you. “Wait we need to take a few together! I just want both canvases to look perfect”

You nodded and stood back in place while Hendery set up a self timer and jogged over to you. Thinking it was just a normal picture you stood as you were before but Hendery moved your arm to caress his face while he faced the other way and wrapped his arm around your waist.

“Art is sexy remember” He winked as you recalled that stupid line your fine arts lecturer once said. You bit down on your lip and got into position, feeling a sense of excitement of Hendery’s grip being a little firmer than before.

Hendery set the camera up once more and this time you orchestrated a position where Hendery stood behind you, showing a good portion of his back piece, and you faced front while he and you and him interlaced fingers.

“For the finale we should make out, and kinda show the aftermath of the canvas” Hendery suggested and bit down on his lip, “are you okay with doing that?”

“Eh yeah that's actually a good idea” You agreed and Hendery quickly set up another self timer.

Hendery grabbed your face in his hands as you wrapped your arms around his waist and looked up at him. His bright eyes suddenly darkened as they drifted down to your lips and pressed them against yours. The kiss was heated, crazily passionate for two people who had no prior feelings for each other. Hendery’s lips were soft and sweet, you could still taste the coffee on his tongue from earlier. His hand moved to your hair and he surprised you by slightly tugging on it which caused you to moan into the kiss.

“Oh you into that huh?” he purred, and sucked your bottom lip between his teeth.

He made you dizzy with lust. One simple kiss and you wanted him right then and there. He wasn't shy to grab your ass either as it was the only thing he was thinking about for the past four hours.

“I think the….shutter...went off” you tried to catch your breath as Hendery’s lips already moved to your jaw and his hand gently squeezed his artwork around your throat.

“Mmm, oh yeah” He sighed and licked his lips, breaking away from you and made his way over to the camera. Hendery sat up the final shot for the messed up canvases finale and made his way back over to you.

The two of you posed side by side but you both could clearly hear the other person panting heavily after that heated kiss.

The camera shutter went off and Hendery grabbed hold of your wrist and turned you to face him, “So y/n, There's only one shower” he smirked, “...do you want to wash away our artwork together ?”

#wayv hendery #hendery smut #hendery au #hendery imagines #wayv imagines #wayv smut #wayv reactions #wayv fic #wayv drabble #nct 2020 #nct imagines #nct smut #nct reactions #nct scenarios #wayv scenarios #wong hendery

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jengarie · 3 years

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#showyourprocess !

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES — When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag up to 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Thank you, @rinielle for tagging me! She chose the piece above (original post), and oh boy this one was a whole ass rollercoaster ride! Unfortunately, I hadn't turned on the timelapse feature for this but I'll try to go through each part of the process as best as I can!

The photos I'm gonna upload are gonna be a mix of screenshots and literal photos of my screen, because I'm taking some of them from my updates to friends, since a lot of the steps got lost in my painting process.

But before that, let me tag some other amazing creators!

@dragonji: this gif art!

@candicewright: this yibo painting!

@wendashanren: this gifset!

@mylastbraincql: this gif!

I haven't been able to keep track of who's been tagged so apologies if you've already done this! Also, no pressure to do it at all if you would rather not! <3

Planning

Sometimes, I get an idea first and find reference photos to go with that idea. But for this one, I sought out a reference photo first, and built an idea on top of it!

After that, I roughly sketch out the base pose. Usually, this looks very messy, but it doesn't really matter as long as I understand which part goes where!

The idea for the background didn't really come until the creation process because I don't think I really planned this to be a full piece.

Creation

Sketching

Honestly, from this point on, it's more of trial and error.

So, I redid the the initial base pose—made it cleaner and a little bit more detailed. See: the added definition in their arm muscles, the rearrangement of Wei Wuxian's legs, and Lan Wangji's hand on Wei Wuxian's back. If you look at the second photo, I also changed the pose a bit midway—I tend to edit as I go sometimes when I change my mind. (For this, I thought, given the Lan arm strength, it would be better to make Lan Wangji look more at ease carrying Wei Wuxian. This gets covered by the robes anyway though, so it didn't matter much in the end.)

I also started adding details to the base! I usually start with the face and then the hair! I usually go for the clothes next, but I dreaded the robes in this piece so I guess that's why I ended up with a basic idea of what I wanted for the background instead LOL I also figured out how I want the final crop to look like, so I blocked out all the other areas with an extra layer!

Okay, onto the part that killed me like ten times: the robes. There are a lot of interactions between their robes here given their pose, and not to mention they also have layers upon layers on each of them! So, to maintain my sanity and to keep track of which part is which, I color coded them into the most colorful sketch I've ever made.

Another reason why I filled in each layer of robe with a solid block of color, is so that all the lines underneath gets covered. Without all of the colors, the actual outline actually looks like the one on the right. What a nightmare!

I also ignored the crop again for this part, because it's always better to draw past your borders, in case you decide to rotate or tilt or whatever your piece later on. I didn't do the feet anymore though, because that I was sure wouldn't show in the final piece anymore.

After that, I did the sketch one more time and then started adding the base colors. (I didn't have a screenshot of just the base colors, and the final CSP file is a nightmare so I copy pasted the layers into a new canvas to show you guys :') )

By the way, I drew their robes flowing this way, because I wanted it to frame the lower arch of the moon behind them for the composition. It was a little frustrating that I couldn't get Lan Wangji's robes a little higher because of Wei Wuxian's legs but I later filled in the empty space with his forehead ribbon anyway, so it all worked out in the end!

Painting

Because apparently, I was a masochist back then, I merged the base colors all into one layer and started adding shadows to the robes. (These days, I add shadows first and then, merge. It's much easier this way.)

And then, I started painting! Again, I did the face first and then the hair, before finally the robes. This was my first time painting side profiles and honestly it was quite a pain to figure out LOL but !!! I think I did a good job and I'm proud of how it turned out. I again used reference photos for this one but I can't link any because they were just several random Pinterest photos that I didn't save.

Another thing to note is that I use the mesh transform tool a lot, especially on faces. That's largely why Lan Wangji's face looks so different in the latter two!

And then I went with the robes. Somewhere along the way, I realized I didn't like how I planned to do Lan Wangji's sleeves and the flowy part of Wei Wuxian's robes and I... decided, with much dread, to do them over. So I sketched on top of the painted layers and redid the robes, again.

It was at this point that I decided to take a break from this piece because it was honestly very draining! I think it took about three weeks before I decided to open the file again and continue it.

When I did, I just finished painting the rest of the robes and their hands. The blue details on Lan Wangji's outer robes were painted on a separate layer that I put on Multiply. I probably did more adjustments to the face and hair and stuff, because my painting process is honestly a mess :')

Final Adjustments

I added some correction layers on certain areas to fix some of the colors. See: Lan Wangji's sleeve becoming much brighter and paler; Wei Wuxian's legs having less contrast. And then I merged all of the layers (excluding the background) and added a bit of blur. See: Wei Wuxian's ponytail; the entire lower part; the flowing forehead ribbon. My reasoning for this is so that most of the detail (and therefore the flow of the eye) goes to their faces and expressions!

And then, I put a blue Overlay layer on low opacity to make Wangxian blend better with the background, added a bit of shadow on the inside and the lower sections and added the glowing details for the added flair. I initially wanted sparkles and/or stars but they didn't turn out as well as this did. I also upped the contrast by a little for the entire piece!

Aaaand, that's it! In truth, I did a bit more color adjustments to the whole piece, but I was a dummy who forgot to turn them back on before posting so ... oh well.

Posting

Before posting, I upload it either on my spare private Twitter account or on a drafted Tumblr post so I can check the colors on my phone. This is because the colors on different devices can look very different, and I would at the very least want all my pieces to look nice on both of my devices!

And then, once I deem it satisfactory, I just try to think of a caption and post! Some artists wait for a certain time where most of their followers are active, but I didn't have a lot of MDZS followers at this point so it didn't really matter to me.

It still doesn't really; I haven't actually been able to figure out when my MDZS followers are awake even now.

#showyourprocess #mine #whew this was so long oops #but this piece took like #maybe 1.5 weeks sans the break i had to take #so !!#LOL #tag game

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why-the-face · 3 years

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Top 5 of 2020

I was tagged by @justsomeoneunordinary

rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

This is probably my last post of 2020, and I had to take a couple of days to think about this because I really have no recollection of which works were made this year and which ones were made the previous year. 😅

I know which one was my least fave, but the top faves are a bit more difficult. This was a year of great growth in my art for me. I'm starting to settle into a style (starting to! I don't think I've found it yet), backgrounds became more and more intricate... And each piece helped in that in their own way.

I'm gonna have to settle for 5, but just know that this list is likely to change in like 5 minutes. I'm also not counting commissions because that would make this absolutely impossible.

4 Seasons

(I didn't link to the original post because only now I realise I never actually posted the full thing here..... Oops?)

This is a bit of a cheat. I didn't START the drawings in 2020, but since it was completed this year with Fall and Winter, I'm counting it as a 2020 piece. So sue me!

It's always going to be one of my faves, I think. It's the first time I went heavy with the background... I mean, this thing is almost all background. I also forced to work with limited colour palettes for each season which was a lot of fun.

I have Spring and Winter set as lock screen and home screen backgrounds. It works really well!

Train Ride

(click link for full picture)

It is by far the piece I've done that has been the most popular, everywhere I've posted it. And I don't really know why. I guess the number of characters involved? This is by far the most characters I have ever added to a piece. And I have silently promised myself never to do that again. This just took so long, and the poses were complex, and the details, but once it was finished that was such a satisfying feeling.

Even though one of the ideas I have for 2021 involve even more characters. Uh Oh.

First Date

(click link for full comic)

We go from one of the most popular to one of the least popular. 😅 But I don't really care, I'm really happy with how this turned out. One thing I really want to start doing is little comics, building up to one day where I can make a multipage comic on my own, and this was the first step in that direction. Well, technically the second. But still, I'm really happy with this, even if it's not anyone else's fave.

Take a Break

(click link for full picture)

Ah yes, the most intricate background I've ever done. I guess my mindset after "Train Ride" was "Hey, this was pretty hard to draw. LET'S MAKE IT HARDER!"

No regrets though. I really don't have a lot to say that I haven't already said other than working on those screens and the details there was so much fun, I was gutted when I realised some of it wouldn't show because of the composition. But then again, maybe I should have planned it better so they would.

Found Soulmate

(click link for full picture)

The most experimental one out of all the pieces I've done and... it was an absolute joy to draw this, from start to finish! It's also probably the least popular art piece I've posted, but in this case I kind of get it, since it's so far from my style and so different from everything else I post.

But what can I say? I had a blast! It was a joy to draw! I want to draw more pixel art of fake 8-bit Marvel dating games with these two! I was GENUINELY considering learning some basic programming to make a mini game like this. I have them as mini prints with UV coating around Stephen and Tony and I love them too. This was the most fun I've had drawing anything this year so I had to add it here.

#my stuff #my art #ironstrange #strangeiron #marvel #mcu #this was a fun way to look back #I'm not tagging anyone because I don't really like doing it but I do suggest you all do this if you're interested #also how ironic that most of my fave pieces have been my least popular ones #lol #it's always the way isn't it?

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ckret2 · 4 years

Note

I'm probably a little bit late for the hype, but for your radiosnake fic, was sir pentious being behind on current technology because he was just really heartbroken or bc he was somehow cursed? Sorry, sometimes i'm bad at understanding, so i wasn't sure if the karma bit meant that there really was some kind of supernatural intervention or not

It is never, ever too late to talk to me about one of my fics! People talk to me about stuff I was writing over a decade ago and I love it, you're good.

It's neither one, actually. He isn't too heartbroken to keep up, and he isn't cursed. He just lost so many resources that he can't keep up with new technological developments any more.

Long explanation below the cut!!

... god I think tumblr just, fucking deleted the cut. If there isn't a cut below this line I APOLOGIZE I tried to edit it back in, tumblr sucks.

Like, say in '64 someone comes into hell with knowledge of how to make a new weapon that's gonna change the game. Sir P's got a web of like a hundred informants who know they're gonna be rewarded when he has power, so he finds out about the weapon in three days and can snatch up the soul that knows how to make it in under a week. He's got a dozen mines from which he can extract the raw materials needed to make the weapon, so that takes a week; dozens of engineers working under him to figure out how to replicate the weapon based on the newly dead dude's half-remembered math, so that takes a week; and Sir Pent himself, the mastermind of this operation, has no more pressing needs to attend to--his airships are defending his turf without any need to call him in for help, he doesn't have to worry about collecting supplies because they have control of all the materials they need, nothing's disrupting their supply train in the sky, etc--so he can turn his whole attention to improving on this weapon, and he's done so in a week. So only a month has passed between this weapon entering hell and Sir Pent becoming not only the only person that has it, but the only person with the next generation version of it.

Compare: a new weapon enters hell in '76. After getting his ass stomped by the Radio Demon a decade ago, Sir P's lost most of his allies because they no longer have faith he can conquer hell (and even if they do, they don't want to risk getting on the Radio Demon's bad side—they don't know why he attacked Sir P, how do they know he won't attack his allies?) so he's got like, five informants. It takes him a month to find out about this weapon. If another overlord finds out about the weapon first and snatched up the weapon-maker, then Sir P has lost all opportunity to replicate it until the other overlord has made and started using it and he can get his hands on a copy to reverse-engineer, by which point this weapon's probably already on the way to being obsolete.

But say he DOES somehow get to this soul before anyone else: he's got like, maybe one or two mines under his control, so it takes a lot longer to extract the necessary raw materials, and that's assuming those mines have the materials this weapon needs. He might need to attack other factories or warehouses to steal the supplies he needs—and these factories & warehouses are probably being guarded by people armed with weapons he hasn't had a chance to replicate because a different overlord snatched up the weapon-maker before he ever heard about them, so they might overpower him, might even take out one of his airships. But say his raids succeed; they could take a couple of months, between planning and carefully executing the needed attacks.

It could take a couple more months for his heavily reduced number of engineers to figure out how to replicate the weapon, especially if it's outside their fields of expertise and he needs to find and recruit someone new to help—and what if he can't recruit anyone, because Sir P is no longer a top overlord that people will want to work for?

Meanwhile, Sir P is busy viciously defending his now very small turf with only a couple of airships at his disposal, AND he's got to plan and lead the raids for supplies, AND he's got to find and recruit new followers, AND he's got to organize repairs and do damage control if another overlord takes an airship out... so it might take him ANOTHER month to get around to looking at the designs himself and seeing if he can improve them. And maybe he's so stressed and overworked and tired he can't think of a way to improve the weapon.

So six months have passed and they have a rushed weapon that they might have had to make with shoddy stolen materials... and in that time, maybe someone with a weapon designed to overpower this one has died, and Vox has already snatched them up and made that weapon in a month, and so Sir P's new weapon is worthless before he uses it. Now he's six months behind.

Except he's not JUST six months behind. All his airships—which are his main bases, his main weapons, his main defenses, and his main transportation all in one—got blown up in '66, so he probably spent all of '66 and probably the next few years airshipless while he tried to rebuild them. Except while he tried to rebuild them, other overlords were stealing his turf because he had no airships to defend it—if he hears a facility of his is being attacked fifty miles away, he's powerless to go defend it. He's got no airships he can send to fight off the attackers. He's got no choice but to lose it. And that happened over and over, and he lost the very facilities he needed to rebuild his airships. So now it's gonna take twice as long to build half as many airships. And during all those YEARS he's trying to rebuild his airships, he's NOT going to be able to expend resources on keeping up with the latest weapons tech.

So in '76, he's not actually struggling to snatch up the newest weapon maker; in '76, he's finally built five airships, and they're all running on '66 technology. How is he going to even BEGIN replicating '76 technology if he completely missed out on learning about the '70 technology it's based on? By the time he's learned about '70 technology and is ready to face '76 technology, it's now '78.

Oh except another overlord who knows he's currently weak and fears what a threat he'll pose when he's strong again goes and crushes all his airships and now he falls behind five years again as he rebuilds AGAIN. And at this point Sir Pent is getting desperate, so he starts making stupid rushed mistakes in a scramble to gain some ground. (Stupid rushed mistakes like charging into Cherri Bomb's turf right after an extermination, or stupid rushed mistakes like aiming a giant cannon at Alastor just because he happens to be there.) And those stupid mistakes lose him more airships and set him back AGAIN.

It's an endless cycle. He lacks the resources to catch up with the latest developments; without the latest developments, he can't get the resources he needs.

History lesson! The fact that Sir Pent was a top overlord for so long was part luck and part momentum. When he died in 1888, he was THE first supervillain. In life he had no peers, and in death he had no peers. He was THE ONLY ONE who knew how to make the weapons of mass destruction he made. He was the ONLY human soul that could make a machine that could slaughter hundreds. The only ones stronger than him were fallen angels and proper demons (not souls who had died, but entities like Lucifer or Stolas) who had proper borderline-godly powers.

In 1933, the Radio Demon took out the power of a vast majority of those proper demons, and that's what buoyed Sir Pent up to being in a position where he could start conquering hell properly. Again, in '33, he was THE ONLY human soul who could do that. (Except, perhaps, Alastor himself, but he has no interest in claiming turf.) Other human souls began gaining power the way he had—both in the living world and in hell, there were people specifically following his example as a supervillain—but he was doing it first, and he was doing it with a lifetime (and afterlifetime) of experience. By the 60s, there were other human overlords around who'd gained some experience and were now just as good at him... but they didn't have his resources. He had a head start on them of decades. So all of them were the ones taking six months to make a weapon because he held all the supplies and personnel they needed to make the weapons. That's the primary reason he was ahead of them. Yeah, he's brilliant... but his overlord opponents are all brilliant too in different ways. The difference was, he's brilliant AND he had ten factories already.

(And it's worth remembering that he also had the Radio Demon, who's basically a walking tornado, on his side for fifteen years; so every once in a while one of Sir Pent's enemies would just have an entire facility mutilated by this dude. Not only is that a powerful weapon to be wielding, but who's gonna wanna go work for one of the guys that might be targeted by the Radio Demon?)

So! That's why Sir Pent fell behind and stayed behind. No heartbreak, and no curse. Just mathematics. Just resources. He stayed ahead because he came into hell with more resources than anyone else and stayed behind after Alastor reduced him to less resources than everyone else.

As for the "karma" section in the fic—not one single word of that scene reflects what's happening in hell in the slightest. Every single word of that scene reflects what's happening in Alastor's head. Fifty years after screwing over Sir P, he feels so miserable that he feels like he's being specifically punished. After seeing how massive and unintended the consequences of his actions are, he feels like he must be some kind of walking curse designed to torture Sir Pent.

On the one hand, seeing everything that's happened to himself and Sir P in the last fifty years and describing it as "karmic punishment/our assigned tortures in hell" is a reflection of how cataclysmically sublimely unhappy they both are. He's like, I'm so damn miserable it's GOTTA be divine punishment because nothing else could be this awful. On the other hand, it lets Alastor push some of the blame off of himself (because this REALLY IS all his fault!) and onto fate instead, like, oh, I couldn't have avoided this, it's our divine punishment. And if it's divine punishment, then there's nothing he can do to change it, is there? There's no point in trying. There's no need for him to say "I'm sorry" and try to make up for his mistakes. Because they aren't really his mistakes. He's just acting out some sort of karmic role. Right?

(And remember that a chapter earlier he was waxing poetic about how hell's not actually a bad place, really, he and Sir Pent deserve to be in hell together because it's the place they'll be happiest. :) :) :) Like, that's a direct contradiction to his "karma" theory. In both cases, neither scene is saying true things about the nature of hell—it's just Alastor's speculation based on how he currently feels.)

The logic fueling his "Sir Pent and I are each other's assigned punishments and there's nothing I can do about that but grin and bear it" is the same logic fueling his "dead sinners can't be redeemed, they had their chance in life and wasted it, now they're in hell forever" to Charlie in the pilot. The message behind both is the same: we can't and shouldn't be forgiven for our past mistakes; why bother trying to make up for them?

#(welcome to my blog I answer questions about my fics with essays)#(it's an act of love I promise)#anonymous #ask #about my writing #meta #sir pentious #alastor

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onebangtanstan · 4 years

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Power Style - Chapter Eleven : The revenge

A/N : Ok this is shorter than the previous chapters but DYNAMITE CAME OUT so that's what I've been doing. GO STREAM! 💜

He notices me staring him down. He scoffs before coming my way. We lock eyes and start an unspoken staring contest, just like the other day. As he's getting closer to me, I feel the muscles in my body tense up. His presence is enough to piss me off.

"You're late Namjoon." He's now standing right in front of me, forcing me to look up.

"It's M.Kim to you." His eyes are shooting bullets at mine, and so are mine, but neither of us looks away. We're both way too proud to do so.

"I don't have time for this." I turn away from him, starting to feel dizzy from keeping my head up to look at him. "Go get your make up and fitting done, we're all waiting for you Namjoon." I refuse to give into his twisted game, we're here to get a job done, whether we like it or not.

He executes himself, but I sense he's not happy with that. We can all see that he's stalling, and trying to annoy us. Thank God my team knows what they're doing and isn't giving into him either.

We can finally start the shoot an hour and a half after the original time. He stands in front of the camera, and I don't recognize the man posing right now. He turns into this extremely professional guy. The harsh lines he usually wears on his face have completely disappeared, making him look even better than usually.

Even though he annoys the shit out of me, I have to admit that he is a beautiful man. He's the stereotype of the ideal guy : tall, well-built, perfect amount of muscle, a jawline that could cut you. Even when he's the biggest asshole, his clenched jaw and frown make him look good.

To my surprise, we actually finish the shoot quite quickly. The team packs up and starts heading back to the office. I'm about to do the same when I'm turned around by a firm hand on my arm. I am facing Namjoon once again. I mean, I am being towered by him once again.

"Listen to me" He spits, talking only a few centimeters from my mouth. "It's the last time you talk to me like that, do you understand me?"

I set myself free from his grip by throwing my arm down. "No, you listen to me." I feel the fury raising in my body. "We have to work together, and I couldn't care less if you don't like me. The thing is, I am in charge of this campaign so you're on my turf now. You listen to me and do what I say. Am I making myself clear enough for your tiny brain?"

It looks like he wasn't expecting this reaction from me. He's about to answer but I immediately turn around and start storming out of the room.

I walk back to the office, feeling the need to clear my mind. I can't have him disturbing my schedule, and I most definitely can't go into the meeting with the mindset he put me in.

By the time I get back to work, the whole team is already sitting in the conference room, working on the editing. We do that all afternoon and plan the group shooting for the next day. We're going to have to take unit pictures, group pictures and shoot the commercial. We will be there all day, so I let everyone go early to get enough rest for tomorrow.

I decide to chill at home for the evening. I still have a bit of a bad mood because of today, so I put on yet another cheesy rom-com.

Just as I sit down with a bowl of popcorn, I receive a text from Jin. For once, I don't have that tightening in my stomach. I open it :

J : Hey, how are you doing? We haven't talked lately..

G : Hi! I'm good, how about you? I know, I'm sorry, I had a lot going on..

J : No worries, I've just been thinking a lot about you..

We end up texting the whole evening, catching each other up on our lives, and it feels really good. We eventually start talking about deeper stuff. Jin tells me that he really likes me and can't stop thinking about me, making me blush. Thank God he can't see me right now. I start typing and send a text without thinking too much about it. I have to give him something.

"Jin I need to tell you something. One of the reasons I have been distant with you is because I have issues with relationships. I'll explain it to you eventually but not by text. I hope you understand that it has nothing to do with you, and that I appreciate the time we spend together."

A few minutes -that feel like an hour- pass before he answers, making my heart pound.

"That's okay Gina, I understand. I'll go at your pace." I smile at his text.

We say our goodnights and I end up falling asleep with a warm feeling inside of me.

I wake up in a good mood, but the group shot pops into my mind, bringing my mindset down just a bit. I feel very pressured and anxious about it. Everything has to go perfectly, because we won’t have time to redo it.

I do the usual, get ready and head to the set. I stop on my way to get a cup of coffee and also get a big bag of french pastries for everyone. We'll be needing a bit of sugar before the day starts.

The boys haven't arrived yet, but we are already going through the schedule for the day. I talk with each person to make sure they know what they're supposed to do. Of course they do, I'm just doing that to calm my nerves.

Tae and Kook are the first to arrive. They're very clingy towards each other which makes me smile at them.

"Hey guys" I say as I hug each of them. "How are you guys doing?"

"We're very good." Tae tells me, making Jungkook blush. My heart could burst, they're so cute. I haven't gotten to a point where I can talk to them about whatever is going on between them, but I feel like that will be coming up sooner than later.

"Perfect. I need you all in a good mindset today."

"Well, we'll see about that." Jungkook starts, making me raise an eyebrow. "Yoongi is riding with Hobi and Jin, he spent the night there. And to be honest, we never know what to expect from those sleepovers, especially about where their minds are set."

Tae elbows Jungkook in the arm, making him realize he spilled something he shouldn't have. He opens his eyes wide.

"Shit" He says, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.

"It's ok, I had figured something was going on there. I won't pry, don't worry." I wink at them.

I notice relief on their faces. I offer them to get something to eat before getting their makeup done, making Jungkook run towards the bags of pastries.

While they're picking out what to eat, I hear the door open. Jimin enters the room and boy, does he make head turns. He has that je ne sais quoi about him that makes his presence noticed. He barely looks at anyone, heading straight for Tae and Kook. I see him take a pastry, only eating a few bites, and leaving towards the toilet straight after. "JIMIN" Tae starts running after him.

I quickly look away, feeling that I shouldn’t be witnessing whatever is going on, and notice the door open. Yoongi, Jin and Hobi enter. Jin is first, and comes straight to me, giving me a warm hug. It feels good to be circled by his big arms. He breaks the hug with a peck on my forehead. There must be an army of butterflies in my stomach at this point.

Hobi comes in for a hug next, being his usual charming self, but something is off. The spark in his eye is not there. It almost looks as if he's cried? I hold on tight to him, sending some love through my arms. I feel him sigh.

"Fancy a drink tonight?" I ask him. He needs someone, I can feel it.

"I would love that." He speaks in a low, appreciative voice. I can see his eyes twitch for a second.

"Your coat is amazing!" I quickly change the subject, sensing he's about to breakdown. He smiles back at me and goes to say hi to the boys.

Yoongi, who was already with them, came towards me as Hobi arrived. Shit, there's going to be tension today.

"Hi Gina" Yoongi is near me now, and he looks.. Well, he looks like himself. Nothing is being let through by his face, nor his eyes.

"Hey! How are you?" I ask, trying to hide the fact that I know something is wrong.

"Okay, I guess.."

We both turn our heads as we hear Jimin's voice coming from the other side of the room.

"V, I said let it go!"

Tae walks behind him, arms hanging on each side of his body, a powerless look on his face. All the boys turn around to him with an empathetic smile, almost as if they were telling him « it’s okay, you did your best ». They seem know the struggle he’s just gone through. The whole crew is looking at them too, which is exactly what Jimin wanted. He knew that by coming in here, the conversation would stop.

"The only one that could talk to him right now is Joon" Yoongi tells me. I scoff, having trouble seeing Namjoon comforting someone. Yoongi turns to me "He's actually lovely to the people he cares about. He helped me through a lot."

"Yeah, well he made it clear that he doesn't care about me or even about making my life easier."

Yoongi is about to answer, but a loud bang resonates. It's the front door.

Namjoon appears with his leg still in the air. Everyone has stopped what they were doing to stare him down for kicking the door open.

But I couldn't care less about that. I've noticed something else. Something that could fuck up the entire shoot.

Seeing it sends me in a state of rage so intense that I clench my fists, feeling my nails press into my palms. He stands tall in the doorway, his hands in his pockets. He's proud of himself, and he's now looking at me with a defying smile.

HE IS FUCKING SMILING AT ME. I am dumbfounded by the nerve this man has.

It might not seem like a big deal for everyone else, but I know that he did this on purpose to delay the shoot as payback for what I said yesterday.

He dyed his hair white.

A/N : White-hair Namjoon is back. Hands down his best era, no argument on that (second best, now that we have Blue Namjoon)

I mean LOOK AT HIM.

#bts #btsfanfic #fanfic #jin x oc #jin #rm #rm x oc #seoul #kpop #fila #bangtan #hobi

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justin-chapmanswers · 6 years

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I'm helping my (internet) friends make an object show, and I'm unfortunately not that confident about it, as we're all under 18 and don't have the money to really afford good quality mics or animation software. I'm wondering if you have any tips for people on a budget trying to make an object show for the first time?

Working under a tight budget is tough, that’s undeniable. I think the important thing to keep in mind is that having expensive utilities available does not guarantee success in the first place, it simply makes the process easier. Having the best equipment and software in the world isn’t going to do all that much for people who aren’t familiar with the basics in the first place. If you are incredibly passionate about this work, I would consider investing your money into equipment over time, but for the time-being take your time in that department and really focus in on proving that, as artists, you can make do with what you have.

I am far more interested in consuming media that is bare-bones in its visual and audio presentation but has masterful storytelling than the reverse, and I think much more of your potential audience will agree than the average person assumes. Know your story. Know your characters. Whether or not you will have full control over when your characters come and go (per your decision), it is imperative that you treat each and every installment as its own distinct collection of story and character arcs. If you set up your show in a manner in which you can play every detail out ahead of time, even better! Within an episode, an arc of episodes, or a full season/series you are able to construct interesting narratives in which characters are given obstacles: physical, emotional or otherwise. Especially in an object show you are given a set of obstacles, be it through challenges or the emotional burden of competition. On a budget or not, this is the heart of your show. No matter how the technical presentation comes across you can garner and audience through excellent storytelling. Anyone can do it with practice. ESPECIALLY you!

As for the technical department, itself, let’s talk audio. Back in early 2009 I picked up a ‘lil $10 Logitech microphone at Target and got started on my first voice performance (as Lakitu found here) and I wouldn’t say it’s all that bad. A little bad. Tiny bit. But it worked! Plug in a cheap mic, download Audacity for free, and you’re already well on your way. Audacity isn’t top-of-the-line, but as far as free programs go it works really well, and is probably your lowest priority for upgrading beyond if you choose to bump up your equipment/software. The focus here comes down to putting in a strong, meaningful performance as your character, working around your mic limitations through setup and Audacity editing, and being open to re-recording. It happens!

I’m going to skip over talking vocal performances for the time being (I can always return to that upon request) and stick the practical here. With any microphone set up you’re going to want to do as much as you can to keep your accosting integrity in good standing. What I mean by that, firstly, is recording in a location that absorbs noise. Typically being in echo-y locations, we’re trained to ignore our own voices reverberating (unless it is to an intense extent), so sometimes noticing whether a voice echoes in a recording takes a lot of focus. It’s often not as intense as an echo you’d hear in, say, a cave, just ever so slight to break the illusion of a character being right there on screen and not someone speaking through a microphone. This is solved low-budget quite simply in recording in tight spaces with as much sound-absorbing material as possible. The best option would be hanging up clothes, blankets, or simply recording in a closet- so long as it’s safe. (The higher-budget alternative is buying acoustic foam or utilizing, specifically, a sound booth.) Watch your recording program, find your balance of recording as loudly and clearly as you can while also not getting too close to your audio peaking (the little soundy wave bois not hitting the top/bottom of your recording strip pal). The audio can be made louder or softer later, but peaking is much tougher to fix back up.

It also helps to have any sort of make-shift pop filter you can get together. They’re foam or a screen that you can typically buy cheap that will catch some of the plosives and other weird noises your mouth makes without you noticing before they hit the microphone, which is very helpful in the longterm. And, if you don’t feel like buying them, I know Adam used a sock for a while early on and it worked just fine. Just throw that boi right over the microphone and listen back to how the quality changes. If it’s roughly the same, you’re in the clear for your early, low-budget project.

There’s also plenty that can be done in Audacity to set your audio apart from the rest. I’d say top priority is dealing with background noise. I’m not speaking to parents chatting or the house’s floorboards mysteriously creaking in the background (because that should not be heard whatsoever in your area of recording, listen back to a dialogue-less track of your audio to make sure none of that is coming through), here I am talking to the consistent track of buzzzzz or variation that will come across in any cheaper microphone. The world makes noise, some you can’t hear, and your microphone eats it up. It’ll be in the back of your recording track, and getting rid of it goes a long way. Here the simplest means of going about fixing that is to, at the very start or end of your recording session, record a solid fifteen seconds of background noise without aaaaany noises on your part. Listen back, grab just the few seconds of bg noise that has the most consistent sound without your breathing or other interference, go to effects and hit “noise reduction” (or “noise removal” in other versions), hit “get noise profile,” now highlight eeeeeverything you’ve recorded, go back to “noise removal,” start by setting your noise reduction to around 10-15, and hit “okay.” Listen back and see if that did the job, you may need to make the number a bit higher (I try my best to avoid the 20s). The job here is to use as little of it as possible to get the job done, as the more you use the more of a chance it has at diminishing the quality of your recording. You can also use “equalization” in this process, lowering or boosting very specific frequencies, if you are willing to experiment and get a feel for it. Some others use “compression” to get a much fuller-sounding voice, although if anything I keep this to a minimum and save it more-so for non-narrative pieces where a single voice needs to be dominant.

In the case of audio peaking, clipping, or any plosives/pops/background sounds coming through, you have to be comfortable with re-recording. Going back into your recording spot for a minute goes a long way for a product that you’ll be putting up alone for a forever. This also goes for potentially going in for a strong performance, but that is more subjective and up to a standard you must set, yourself. After that it is your job to bring all the audio from all characters together and balance all of them out neatly volume-wise, pace the recordings out, add in sound effects and music as necessary and balance them out too (a common mistake is making music too loud for the audience to understand what the characters are saying because the sound editor already knows what the characters are saying, so there’s a disconnect). With enough time you will have an excellent audio skeleton for your animation, even with a low budget.

I’ll be honest in that I am much less experienced in animation than I am in audio so I cannot offer all the advice in the world, but here’s what I can say. With the technology available today you are able to create a lot of striking imagery. Whether you use a cheap animation program (do people still use Anime Studio?), Powerpoint, or a more typical program acquired through illegal means (which I would not say here that I condone, but I am aware it happens and people do what people do), there is no stopping you from coming up with unique visuals. I think in the object show community people get pretty caught up in keeping up standard animation conventions, simply making smooth motions and a good frame-rate and making sure everything looks “professional.” That is a luxury, and especially when you are starting out it is far from necessary.

What you want when you are starting out are visuals that are striking. Creative. Memorable. You’re working in animation, the most fluid and fun medium out there! You can spend all day getting bogged down in the basics of movement, which can be important down the line, but what is unique to you is the style that you bring to the table. Make characters do what only animated characters can do. Make characters pose in ways that people can think back on in wonder. As an object show, think of challenges that make characters do the absurd or push them to physical limits. Inanimate Insanity does not get to hit on this often but it is something I value in animation. You can impress people with or without the best animation program in town, it’s just more trying. But far more rewarding.

So much of the magic of object show community is that it works as a training grounds. Create create create! This is the time to do the weird and meaningful things that you might not have an opportunity to create far down the line when responsibilities get in the way. It doesn’t matter in the slightest if your work is perfect, so long as you are creating something and getting it out there and, above all, expressing yourself- I am impressed.

I know that most of this has been more to general show production and not more specifically to object show production, but I think it is important to note that it does work the same as any other show. People will always appreciate good, strong stories, as well as the bare minimum put into your audio and visuals. Effort means the world.

You got this.

#inanimate insanity #jay rambles #jay tutorial

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weekly-goal-achiever · 2 years

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Scary, it seems that most times I have no WINS to report.

7th January 2022

So it's Friday. Let me check my wins or misses for this week. Though it hasn't actually been a full 7 days yet, I'd like to use the days Monday to Friday as my core period to get things done. And by Friday I can see if I have achieved or will achieve my week's goals, or I can determine if I may have to carry forward some things over to the following week.

With the facial video, I'll do over a full shooting. I wanted to make up my mind yesterday, but I suppose it was only this morning that I was done deciding. This wasn't a matter that I had to sleep over, I just though that doing over the film was the better decision. I really do hope it works out this time, and I can move on.

I did my uploading to Redbubble and posting to Pinterest in the night again! I didn't schedule it the calendar until I was going to start it. This was almost 9.30pm. But I managed to complete both task in around 1 hour's time. I am glad for this. What made me move faster was the fact that the designs were already done on a previous day, so I just had to upload and do some adjusting on the products' mockups. And with Pinterest I did a little editing on a previous pin, and uploaded it.

Yesterday I said that I would go get my water botte after I finished writing my journal, and you know what - I didn't do what I said I would do. Unfortunately this is a common trend with me. I did manage to finally go fill the water botte and drink some water (but this was over 6 or 7 hours later and it was already late in the night). I didn't even drink at least 1 liter, not sure if I could have done so before the end of the day (I use midnight to mark the end of the day).

I'll summarize my weeks' main tasks/intentions and achievements below:

1) Facial Video Editing - On Hold (to redo filming due to video flaw)

2) Creating and Uploading at least 1 design to Redbubble daily - Goal Achieved

3) Posing at least 1 pin on Pinterest daily - Goal Achieved

4) Drinking 1-2 liters of water daily - Target not yet reached

I've seen posts online where people would ask - 'What are your wins for the week?' - Meaning what have you achieved that week? When I see this question, most times I can't think of any main accomplishments, or at least noting immediately comes to mind. I realize with this journal, I can see what are my hits and misses for my target goals for each week. And if I am wondering what have I achieved, I can look back at these notes.

These are some issues below I need to work on:

1 - What I have noticed about myself is that when I am doing or working on something, like if I'm creating my designs on the computer for example, I would stray off. I might find myself pausing to click and open other websites, or going to check messages and other things. Sometimes I even forget what I had started to do in the first place. I might even walk away and go to work on something else. Then, at a later time I would come back to continue where I left off, or may return to the task when I remember. So, I need to work on staying focused. If you are the kind of person who can remain focused on your tasks and not get caught up with distractions, I am so happy for you!

2- Next, my scheduling is all over the place. There is no specific time to do my tasks. Even with writing this journal. I want to get a common time daily that I can dedicate to working on my goals. Rather than it being sometimes in the mornings, sometimes afternoons or evenings, and sometimes night time. I need to take a good look at my calendar, probably do some 'time mapping' as I call it and see what realistic period during the day I can 'set aside' to work on my plans. And that includes writing this journal.

I'll end here today.

Keep well, Take care,

Peace and Love

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olderbynow · 6 years

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Some time ago the always lovely @whopooh made a post asking writers to talk about their own fics, posing five really interesting questions she’d like to get input on. And is there anything you can think of that writers love more than talking about their writing? (Other than maybe comments.) No, right? So settle down around the fireplace, kids. Get your marshmallows roasting and prepare to be bored stiff for a while as I talk endlessly about me, myself and my fics. (And most of these answers are even MFMM related.)

Pick one fic that you’ve written and talk about what makes it important to you.

For this first one, I've got to go back a bit to my pre-MFMM days and this one fic I wrote for Rookie Blue, the show I loved and then hated even more than I had loved it, but which got me back into writing again, so I'll have to be grateful to it for that. But yes, back when things were still mostly rosy I wrote this fic called These Dreams Will Haunt You, which is the only time that I can think of when I've posted something and thought, "I have no idea if this works outside my head, but I don't really care. I like it." Which is a pretty powerful feeling. I set out to write a specific thing, in a specific way, and I did. That fic is the story I meant to write when I started writing, written in the way I meant to write it. THAT NEVER HAPPENS. (I'm obviously not saying that I didn't angst endlessly about it while I was writing it, and I'm not saying I didn't sit there biting my nails as I waited for comments from my incredibly patient beta, I'm just saying: The final product is something I've always felt good about, even with all the water under that fandom bridge.)

Pick one of your older fics and say what about it you like most, and what you would do differently now.

In MFMM, I think my biggest "regret fic" (of the published ones, there are plenty of things I regret about the ones that never saw the light of day) is The Place Where He Fell When He Saw The Stars, which is one of those fics that started out as what I thought was a good idea, but then I just completely failed to do what I had wanted to with it. Which is why it turned into the one-shot that it is, rather than the full on multi-chapter fic I had been meaning to write I still like the idea, and I like the intention behind this fic, I just don’t particularly like the fic itself. If I got a do-over on this one, I think I’d have given up on the Year of Tropes deadline that I was working towards and hung onto it until I knew how to do what I wanted to do, rather than writing myself into a corner I can’t be bothered to make my way out of. (But I do think, honestly, that then the fic would never have been published at all, so I’m not sure where that leaves us, really.)

Pick a fic and say something about why you wrote it – if there was a specific inspiration, perhaps from RL, fandom life, or a theme or a trope you felt needed to be written in a new way.

I hesitate to bring attention to a WIP that has gone un-updated for more than six months, but lets forget about that for a bit and I'll tell you about Fast Times at Wardlow High, the high school AU the MFMM fandom had been pretty damn sure they didn't want until @heavyheadedgal suggested one here on tumblr and we all realised that YES, 17-year-old Jack rocking the debate team and Mac with a mohawk are in fact things that should be in our lives. And after reading people's suggestions for this non-existent AU I was so determined to bring it to life that I wrote a quick one-shot in a day, completely desperate to get it out there before AO3 was flooded with HS AUs. LOL. That one-shot turned into a thing, and although it doesn't look that way from the infrequent updating, it's my favourite thing that I've done in MFMM fanfic, because it's just my happy place in fic. There's no pressure, since I've totally given up on things like plot and character development and this making any kind of sense in the long run and am entirely focused on just enjoying writing it. I only do it when I feel like it, and I never really worry if it's any good. Because it's a HS AU, there's something about the nature of that that just allows for all sorts of badness. Basically I’ve given myself carte blanche to suck, and it’s really liberating and I should probably do that more, actually. In life in general.

Is there something you wrote in a fic that was read differently than you intended, and that made you see your own fic in another light?

I think the best example of that happening to me is the MFMM fic Back In The Ring, which was my contribution to the March Trope of the amazing Year of Tropes organised by @firesign23 and was a very poor excuse for a bottle episode fic. The fic was just meant to be a jokey bit of plotlessness, but some people seemed to take the whole thing more seriously - and in a very different way - than I had intended. They certainly took it all much more seriously than Jack had done in the fic. But it led to my favourite ever analysis of anything I've written in the history of the Universe by @whopooh, and so I can't really be sorry for the fact that a few readers were offended by Phryne's offhanded attitude to her past dalliances.

Is there a fic by another writer that has inspired you?

Okay, the thing is, for MFMM fandom, I don't have that. I have fics that I love, and I am inspired by this fandom as a whole (cue string section) but there's no one specific fic that has made me go "I need to write a story now." (Possibly this is the one downside to being part of a fandom with SO MANY writers who are just so incredibly talented? Which is not a thing you'l find me complaining about. Ever.) But in past fandoms, it has definitely happened, and this stroll down memory lane as I tried to find a good example of it was threatening to steal whole days from me as I reread past favourites from fandoms of yore, but instead of doing that, let me tell you about these two writers who used to co-write Rookie Blue fic and then edited their way into writing original fiction instead. Their style of writing was completely mesmerising to me, and I devoured, repeatedly, anything they wrote, whether or not it was a ship/au/whatever I was interested in. Because I just adored their words. They influenced my own style of writing in a lot of ways, but mostly in a way that was "Huh, so I can just write like I'm me and that's fine?" rather than feeling like you need to write like you're ~literature. I don't take that with me in all my writing, and I think in MFMM you mostly see it in Wardlow Whoopie, which was very much me trying to force this extremely contemporary sounding narrator's voice into a story set in the 1920s. I still don't understand at all how it could ever make sense, but it made me laugh as I wrote it, so I'm not going to argue any fine points here. (But yeah, that fact that I can't just do that is definitely the most challenging thing about writing MFMM fic - which I guess is also why writing Fast Times is such a relaxing thing, because I get to mostly do it there.)

I’m pretty sure people have been tagged on this already - I know I was, which makes me think everyone else must've been covered, but in case you weren't and this is the first you've heard about this questionnaire, you should definitely do it!

#what we talk about when we talk about fanfic #mfmm fanfic #rookie blue fanfic

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funkymbtifiction · 7 years

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Hi Charity as you are an ENFP I wanted to ask you how to do you see Si and Te in you? How was it clear for you that you were Ne dom and Fi aux and not the contrary? You said in the past that you cinsidered yourself socially introvert or shy, which I think is my case and I'm not sure about INFP or ENFP for me. Thanks a lot

My main way of recognizing my status as an extrovert, beyond my need for external stimulation all the time (NOTHING HAS HAPPENED IN TEN MINUTES, MY LIFE SUCKS) is that I am not a Fi-dom. So excuse me, while I once again travel into the land of indecisive Ne to illustrate my point; then I will return to your initial question.

If you compare the INFPs on this blog to the ENFPs, you will notice that the INFP’s Fi is often very prominent and “runs the show.” This is also true with real life INFPs, who as judging dominants, have and express very strong opinions. Since they are in contact with their inner self most of the time, they often know what they like and dislike, what they want to do or refuse to do, and how they FEEL about most things. There is rarely indecision on that point, especially when it comes to the strength of their inner moral focus.

While I have extremely strong opinions in a few areas, in the broader scope of reality, I am far more indecisive and disconnected from my feelings, to the point where half the time, I rationalize them out with Te, or question my “right” to feel this way at all, rather than just use them. Something I admire about INFPs is they tend to be more decisive than I am, especially in their likes and dislikes. As a Ne-dom, my likes and dislikes can change from day to day.

An INFP I know had a fight with her friends once and door-slammed all of them. She knew how she felt, that they were dissing her opinions and not respecting her true self, and after she had enough, she was done. And she did not waffle on that decision. She just quit. She made up with them much later on, but only after her temper cooled, and she had space and time to mature in her own way (and they matured also). She knew what she wanted: them gone. For now.

I complained the other day to my mother about Elizabeth of York in Philippa Gregory’s novel / miniseries, The White Princess. She is so indecisive. She changes her mind from one chapter to the next about who she is, what she wants, and answers “I don’t know” to half the questions posed to her. Some days she likes her husband, some days she doesn’t; she intends to give up on him, then turns around and falls for him again. It’s seriously annoying.

Once I got done with my rant, my mother smiled and said, “So she’s basically you, in literary form.”

Gee, thanks mom.

My mouth hung open for a couple of seconds, while my Fi had a little tantrum, and then my Te immediately snapped in and I went: “I guess. But I’d make a BAD heroine. Heroines need to be decisive! Books need plots! Heroines need to know what they want, or at least figure it out, and get there, not be lost in indecision! The plot must move forward!”

Unlike me. =P

Ne-dom makes me changeable. And it annoys me. One day, I might want this. The next day, I might not. One day, I might decide that this friend sucks. The next day, I might think I was wrong and they’re awesome. They did not change. My Ne flipped the situation around for a different perspective. It runs right over my Fi and what it wants, all the time. This means that I either do not KNOW what I want or cannot ADMIT to myself what I want, nor give myself permission to want it. It annoys me, it annoys my parents, it annoys my friends, and it annoys my cat. But that’s how it is.

I WISH I had some Fi to haul Ne’s ass into a chair and decide: NOPE. But no, instead Ne hauls me around with Fi going “Um… I don’t know how I feel yet?”

But anyway, rant aside: back to your question.

How do I see Si and Te in me?

I see Te a lot when I ‘temporarily loop’ in order to avoid dealing with my feelings. I do not LIKE my feelings. I consider them a major pain in the butt. When my grandpa died, I was a wreck before it happened. I didn’t even know him that well, but it took him a long time to die. His organs slowly shut down. I was so immersed in the pain of what was happening to my loved ones, that I cried way more than any of them. But after his death, my Te immediately kicked in. Mom wanted to clear out his house. Like, immediately. That’s how she copes.

So we did. I put aside my emotions, went into that house, and went through all my grandparents’ stuff. We filled a dumpster. I organized everything we decided to keep in piles for the family to choose from after the funeral. A lot of my decisions were people-motivated – my cousins loved playing these games with Grandma. Shall we keep them? I’ll make sure they have all the pieces and put them in nice piles. I did the funeral video. Everyone needs a Ne-dom for that. It wasn’t just about Grandpa, it was about his life. His dreams. His parents. The culture he grew up in. I managed the voice-over, without falling to pieces.

And then, I moved on.

My Si is very poor. I may be adverse to CHANGE when people announce it (and I have to deal with it a lot, my parents literally cannot live six months without changing their house around, the yard, etc) but I am not stuck in the past. Half the time it never comes to my mind. The past flows beyond me. A day can seem a week ago, and three years ago can seem like yesterday. I gaped when a friend showed me a picture recently with 2014 stamped on the bottom. That was that long ago!? My grasp on time sucks. My awareness of time sucks. My own carelessness with time… sucks. A Si-friend recently said, “You should take more pictures with your cat. You will want them when she’s eventually gone.”

I stared at her. “I will?”

See, I don’t think like that. When people, places, things, are gone, I miss them. I love them. I still think about them sometimes, but they are gone. I do not pour over pictures. I do not sit and endlessly talk about the past. I do not want to think about the past. I moved on.

Sometimes, people tell me I should slow down, or take more time with that, since they do not want me to “look back one day, and regret this moment.”

Thing is, that probably won’t happen. I rarely go back.

Unless I hurt someone badly, and never received their forgiveness, or am beating myself up about something I should have done to stop something bad from happening, I don’t look back and regret. You cannot drive a car staring into your rear view mirror. In that way, I am careless. But I don’t know how to NOT be careless. Things matter right now, and then they’re gone. I loved that show, but it’s canceled. There’s new stuff to watch. I take in so much of it (as a Ne-dom), only a few things stick longer than six months.

And sometimes, I desperately want them to stick. I sit with someone or something loving it, immersed in its beauty, and think, “How can I hold onto it? I already feel it slipping away! WHY CAN’T I APPRECIATE THIS MORE?”

Inferior Si.

This is going to sound weird, because it is weird. But, under stress… I start obsessively tinkering with sensory elements. I’ve been editing and rewriting a book for what seems like forever (forever to me is four months, but I don’t want to talk about how this is the eighth draft of the fourth version of this book in two years) which is very tedious, Si-driven work. My Te is happy to help out with deadlines, and charts, and word counts, and I have a nice little sheet of paper with things marked on it, where I enter my progress each day to keep myself motivated. But I swear on my soul, yesterday when I opened the file, my Si went nuts and said: I don’t like this font. It curls funny. Change it.

So I did.

And then I sat there for at least ten minutes, changing the font, again and again, then the sizing several times. I printed out a page to see how it will look in book form, then promptly forgot which configuration I used (poor Si!) and had to print several more sheets in different sizes. I never did figure out which was the font and what size I used for that first sheet. (Shame, I like it the best.) Then I resized the file across my screen, to try and get the font to ‘curl’ how I like it, so I could read it. I cannot read it, unless it’s the right size. And font. And I must edit so there are no paragraphs that end with one word on the next line.

(Are you laughing yet? Is that not pathetic? Welcome to my life.)

Screw inferior Si. It’s bullshit.

I never know how to say this without hurting feelings but… Fi-doms are sensitive and since INFPs have higher Si, they do not forgive you fast.

Think about two terrific insults against NFPs (from future husbands) in literature and compare them to how you process things.

Gilbert Blythe pulls Anne Shirley’s braid and calls her carrots. The little INFP smashes her slate against his head and screams at him in class. She then tells Diana “the iron has entered my soul: I shall never forgive him,” and proceeds to ignore him, compete with him, and refuse to speak to him. For years. Gibert has to grovel to get on her good side, many times. She is super sensitive and her emotions flare up immediately. “You hurt me EXCRUCIATINGLY,” she says. She means it. He DID.

Mr. Darcy insults Lizzie’s appearance (she is not handsome enough to tempt me into a dance – ie, she’s not that pretty) in Pride & Prejudice. ENFP Lizzie gapes at him, then promptly turns it into a joke. She never brings it up again. She’s mad, but more mad about what he does to Jane than his insult. She finally confronts him when he proposes, but not about that. No, it was not the insult that hit her; it was the impression she formed of his character, based on it. And when he writes her a letter that basically calls out her family for being loud, obnoxious, inappropriate trash, she is pissed but has enough high Te to realize: he has every right to feel that way about us, based on what he saw. Once she realizes WHY he thinks how he does, her anger cools. And her mind changes about him. The anger dissipates.

Did he hurt her? Sure. Deeply? Not so much.

Someone walked up to my INFP the other day and insulted her appearance. It hurt. A lot. She will probably never speak to him again.

A person insulted me to my face at dinner a few years ago. He basically implied the people I work with and the caliber of their work is poor, and I should do a better job selecting the material we work on together. (IE: Wow, you suck.) I bitch-slapped him good with a Te-snarl comeback and … promptly moved on. I was mildly annoyed by it, and it certainly colored our interactions from that point on, but I wasn’t hurt by it so much as annoyed. We stayed “friends.”

I can count the number of times people have actually hurt my feelings on one hand. My Te is strong.

How do I know this?

I’m one of the first people to come up with a rational, non-emotional “fix it” to problems. I often discount my own feelings or put them aside entirely, to get a job done. I remember one time, a friend PM’d me after I wrote a movie review and said, “But did you LIKE it?? You wrote an excellent review, but it was so non-emotional I don’t even know what YOU thought of it.” I criticized the poor elements and talked about the good ones, but there was none of “me” there.

I admit, I was a little more emotionally reactive as a child / young teeanger, but Fi still wasn’t running the show. Most Fi-dom children are very sensitive. When asked what I was like, various family members (without consulting one another) have laughed and said, “Your focus was on being a comedian. You wanted to make people laugh. But you were not especially emotional.”

I’m not. It’s true. Sometimes to my own determent.

- ENFP Mod

PS: If you get to the end of this certain you are an NFP, but you don’t know what you do in a situation in order to compare it to Lizzie or Anne’s emotional reactions, congrats: that’s shitastic inferior Si. You are an indecisive Ne-dom.

#question #enfp #infp #enfp x infp #mbti

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