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Happy early Halloween, everyone! I hope you all have safe fun on Thursday. Also, happy All Hallows Eve, or any other alternative to Halloween that you might celebrate on October 31st. Beyond that, happy All Saints/All Souls day to those who celebrate those days. And Happy Dia de los Muertos to any and all who celebrate that. If I've forgotten a holiday you celebrate this weekend, please know I wish you well during it, and feel free to let me know what you celebrate in the comments. I'd love to learn more!
Now, I want to be completely honest. I didn't really focus on writing this week. I just needed a mini-vacay before going into NaNoWriMo. So instead I figured I'd spend the time trying to work on drawing my new D&D character for Hubby's campaign. I had.... mixed results.
I started off by practicing drawing a D&D bronze dragon head. I figured if I studied them and practiced the angles I needed I'd be better prepared for drawing my character. I used a couple of references for the bronze dragon. Some were from the official books, and some were fanart based off the books. All of them had the dragon at full profile, probably to better show off the sides of the head and the neck. The cheek horns are a bit funky, and the neck seems way too wide, but otherwise I'm fairly content with my end result.
I don't know if it's an image in a monster manual, or if it were a promotional poster, but I found another reference sheet for the D&D 5e version of the Bronze Dragon. It shows the full body at profile again, then busts of juvenile versions of the dragon, as well as a baby: a wyrmling. Most importantly, there's a picture of the mature bronze dragon skull. I used that to attempt drawing something a bit more of a 3/4 profile, which is probably what I'd aim for with my character profile. I mean, full side profile is by far the easiest way for me to draw the dragon head, but it just seems weird to me to have a side shot of your character as a reference to how they look. So, anyway, I attempted the skull. I'm still a bit meh about the proportions regarding the placement of the far nostril and the cheek horns, but for the most part I was fairly content.
Feeling a sort of sense of hubris, I guess, I thought "Okay, this is time consuming, but it's not so tough. If I can get the right reference pics to work off of I think I've got this."
I then spent probably 2+ hours on Google Images using about a half-dozen search keywords - because my Google-fu is still trash - to get just the right pose for the flamboyant and over-the-top manner my dragonborn apparently holds himself. I finally decided on a flirty, anime-style, 2-finger salute and wink.
I managed to find a pose reference that was doing that salute, was at about a 3/4 profile pivot, and looked a little buffer, so roughly the muscular structure of my dragonborn. I've always been almost scary-perfect at copying images via grid work, so I attempted to do gridding on my phone, and... well... considering I can't draw straight lines, the grid was only SO good....
Figuring it was good enough of a start, since I'll have to change the legs to the more bent and stylized versions for dragonborn, and I would have to alter the hands to only have four fingers, etc., I moved on to Kriv's face.
I remembered the Disney's Gargoyles character Brooklyn had a similar beak-like face as bronze dragons, had horns, and had similar legs to dragonborn as well. I thought I could use him as a nice base reference. I could even go with Goliath or Broadway for more muscular leg structures if I couldn't figure out how to bulk up Brooklyn's.
I even stumbled upon the perfect angled profile for the framework pose I was working with.
Spoiler Alert: It wasn't....
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I must have drawn this face a dozen times, but I just can't get the angles and the proportions down properly. The neck looks like it attaches to the back of the head instead of the skull resting on it, the cheek spikes are too long, or too short, or aren't in the right spot for the bones they're supposed to end on, the main horns aren't right either...
So much for a relaxing side-hobby to destress me before going into NaNo. I think I'll stick with writing, thank you.
Speaking of, I randomly decided yesterday that I wanted to post one last thing on Halloween before I went fully into my NaNo project of One and the Same.
Yes, I do already have a "Halloween-y" story posted this month by way of Blame Fate for This, but it's not the same for a few reasons.
- That story was supposed to be for Ronoxym, not a "Halloween Story"
- It wasn't posted on Halloween - although I will most likely reblog on Halloween.
- It isn't fanfiction, and while I'm super proud of that, I have to admit that my readership is mostly people interested in my fanfiction. Besides, I haven't written anything ML related for a month or two.
- BFfT still hasn't really had much love, and maybe if I promote it along with my other Halloween stories - including a brand new one within a fandom - it would get more attention.
I also have four "fans" - so to speak - over with my writing group. All four members that were there last Tuesday seemed to enjoy my story. Two in particular - who always seem to be the ones most vocal about my work anyway - really want me to continue the story into something novel-length.
The one was a touch concerned that Colton accepted what he is a bit too quickly, but it is a short story, so I kinda had to??? But, yeah, if it were a novel I'd probably have him struggle a touch more with the reveal. The other member really stressed how he liked my original stuff more than my fanfiction.
Valid. I mean, I feel part of that is because he's one of those of the mindset that Original Content is always superior to Fanfiction, and he probably thinks I'm "wasting" my talent with fanfiction. Again, valid, but I also don't think he fully comprehends the validity of fanfiction writing skills either.
Either way, I know I'm up to at least 5 fans of my work: those four at Group, and the one person over on DeviantArt. So... that's... cool.
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- Marinette is a witch and Chat Noir is her "black cat" familiar
- One of the cast - usually poor Adrien/Chat Noir - is actually a were-creature
- Demon summoning AU
- Vampire AU
- Adrienette goodness with that LadyNoir dynamic because they're in costume at a Halloween party and don't realize who the other is
- Alternatively, a non-superhero AU where they met at a masquerade, and don't recognize each other out of their costumes. Same Love Square chaos ensues
- A masked or otherwise Halloween-themed akuma attack
My point being, that I was stuck only thinking of things everyone else already came up with. Once more, I was at my default of "parrot what others did with your own twist." On top of that, I wasn't content that the "own twist" I was coming up with were unique or decent enough for me to bother writing them out.
I moved onto writing prompts, and let me tell you, it is so hard to find Halloween writing prompts not meant for children's writing projects. At least, unless you hit up Tumblr. Glorious Tumblr knows what's what!
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By the end of the work day I didn't have much by way of inspiration for the Halloween story. So, I did what I always do, and I talked things through with Hubby on our drive home from me picking him up at work.
I should just always talk to him first.
I was rambling off the prompt ideas that I was maaaaaaybe thinking about, and the tropes that pop up a lot in the fandom. He instantly jumped in with "ADRIEN'S FIRST TRICK-OR-TREATING BECAUSE HE WAS ISOLATED HIS WHOLE LIFE!"
I nodded and told him that I was thinking about that. Especially since we know Nino and Alya have younger siblings they'd probably be walking around, even if Nino's younger brother Chris likes to claim he's "too old for kiddie stuff anymore." Marinette could also be taking Manon around so Nadja can do a news report instead or something. It would be fun to see Adrien's unbridled innocence and excitement with trick-or-treating in contrast with Chris complaining about "baby stuff."
Then Hubby amped it up with "Manon could want to go as Ladybug, and begs Marinette to go as Cat Noir because Ladybug can't be without her partner. And so Adrien has to deal with Marinette running around as his superhero self. He may even hear about it early, and agree to go as Hawk Moth to complete the group costume. No, wait! He's super extra, so he'd go as Mayura, but since he looks so much like his mom he looks like Emilie's Mayura, and when Gabe sees that it puts him in an almost catatonic state that Nathalie has to deal with all night, all while realizing Adrien is running around Paris as her supervillian persona. OOO! And The Gorilla could be convinced to dress up as a senti-monster!"
By the time we got home I was dying!
I think I'm going to cap it at "Marinette surprises Adrien when she shows up dressed as Cat Noir to Manon's Ladybug" and focus on the goofy contrast of Adrien loving Trick-or-Treating at the ripe age of 14, meanwhile Chris - who is like... 10? - is pouting that this is "kiddie stuff" and doesn't want to join in. Not that I don't love what Hubby came up with. I 100% do. However, I feel like those are more visual gags? I'm going to have to put that out to the fanartists of Tumblr to please create a fancomic of Hubby's idea, because it needs to be appreciated in art form, I think.
Still, this brings me to my next point, and that's the fact that late last Tuesday, I finally figured out what image I should conjure whenever someone asks what my Muse looks like.
In the past, I've had a vague "female Ancient Greek" image, but I now know that is 100% incorrect.
My Muse is my Hubby. And I don't mean that in a sappy manner. I mean that completely honestly. More often than not, I either have NO ideas until talking to him gives me one, or I have a vague idea that becomes refined after discussing things with him.
Case and point: the aforementioned Halloween fanfic short story idea. Also, pretty much the entirety of my "original" story Blame Fate for This. That was more-or-less HIS idea, and I just ran with it.
I do that a lot... that's kind of what happened with Please, Let Me Explain and Some Like It Flamebroiled. For PLME, Ronoxym came up with a short story about Devon trying to explain himself to Willow, only I picked up the ball and sprinted away with it.... I then did it again for SLIF. I wrote a solo-role-play scene with Trish getting excited about blowing up an abandoned gas truck. Ron rewrote the scene as an AU of Trish and Devon dating - as I had originally intended - that was a bit smutty, but not too extreme. I, once more, picked up the ball and ran off with it. I have yet to properly finish either PLME or SLIF, but you get the idea.
Someone comes up with an idea, and I go all "Hold My Beer" on it... However, as I mentioned, most of those story ideas are birthed from Hubby.
In college, when I met him, I was stupid enough to take a video production class, script writing class, and a creative writing class all within the same semester. Did I make my life easy by writing a script based off my stories for creative writing, and then film them in production? Or, even write a story based off of my script for production? Nope. Why would I allow myself to double - or triple - dip like that?
So, instead, I came up with THREE DIFFERENT STORIES each time I had to come up with something new in each of the classes. I was getting fairly burnt out, and it was Hubby - then Boyfriend - who threw out the ideas that sparked my stories. He was like my Writing Prompt Random Generator.
When creating my first ever, and most prized, D&D character Amara? Same deal. He was the one who gave me the starting info to jump off with. World building? Same. He even came up with Willow's character as an NPC, and then gifted her to me to fully flesh out and take as my own. A lot of my more recent D&D characters I had him just draw up a base and hand over to me to role play, and they grew and developed from there.
It's not a matter of "Oh, he's my husband, he inspires me so much. He is my Muse." No. No I mean this as literally as I can without LITERALLY calling him a Greek minor deity. He tees up the ball, and I hit the home runs with them. Or... at least... I can get on base....
So. Yeah. Hubby is my Muse, and who the heck knows where my writing would be if it weren't for him. So all of that love you send my way? Make sure to send some his way too.
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In the meantime, while you're waiting for me, why not check out one of the fanfics I follow?
Chapter 16 of When Duty and Desire Meet, which is also Part III of "The Bodyguard Arc," was just posted this past weekend, and man the ending of that chapter! Adrien, you love-sick nut!
For those who might not know, since it's been a while since I've talked about WDDM, the story is co-developed by midnightstarlightwrites and EdenDaphne. If I understand correctly, after their collaborative brainstorming for the story outline, Midnight then writes it, and Eden illustrates. Their concept is an AU where Adrien is actually four years older than Marinette, and when they first met up as superheroes, it was Ladybug who fell for Chat Noir. Except, due to the age difference, and Marinette being underage at the time, Chat Noir found her "cute" but wasn't romantically interested. Fast forward to a now 20yo Marinette meeting Adrien for the "first time" - as far as they know - in college, two years after Ladybug and Chat Noir have defeated Hawk Moth. Adrien instantly falls for Marinette, but she sees him simply as a best friend because she's too focused on her pining for Chat Noir. Basically, a complete flip of the Love Square. The new chaos gets even more complicated when Chat Noir gets caught leaving Marinette an anonymous rose on Valentine's day, and their crushes on each other becomes evident.
During the Bodyguard Arc, Adrien is on house lock down after receiving death threats. Even his phone is confiscated by the cops who are using it to try to find leads on who is sending the threats. Meanwhile, Ladybug is requested to be Adrien's bodyguard. They have a lot of MariChat-like interactions, but both are also concerned about their crushes: Adrien nervous about not being able to see or contact Marinette, and Ladybug worried about not seeing Chat Noir while she's on guard duty.
It's a fun AU concept. So if you haven't read it yet, go on and give it a go. The story if fun, and the illustrations are gorgeous.
While you do that, I'll see what I can do for my own story, as well as finish up my re-read of Peeping Tomcat and One and the Same so I can be good to go on Friday.
Speaking of re-reading “Peeping Tomcat,” I was re-inspired to do so this past weekend. Mostly due to a glorious FFN reader: writeringoodfaith.
Sunday morning I woke up to find 23 emails from FanFiction.Net all focused on writeringoodfaith! An even 20 of them are goodfaith reviewing my stories!
Another 2 were them favoriting two of my stories, and the final email was them starting to follow me as an author.
Writeringoodfaith started off reviewing all nine chapters of Prescription for Love, along with a favorite of the story. Then there was a review for Peeping Tomcat - Teaser, then for I Was Thinking of You, and Painfully Close, then the email letting me know goodfaith started following me, before finishing with reviewing 7 out of 17 chapters for PT. The chapters reviewed for PT? The first one, the 11th - which is the Teaser rewritten as a chapter - and the concluding 5 chapters of the story.
I'm not going to list all 20 reviews, but some highlights include:
writeringoodfaith: Ooh I love the premise and how you've done Kagami, her mother and Adrien. Lol could so see Adrien thinking these thoughts.
You write Adrien so amazingly well. The creators say that his only flaw is that he's too perfect for the outside world. He doesn't realize he's leading anyone on. He's just trying to be kind to everyone. Somehow you capture that so so well in his thought process and memories of Marinette and his present actions with Kagami.
This was the best depiction of Kagami I've ever seen. It's easy to be mad at her cos she wrecks the love square but she's got feelings too and Adrien needs to sort himself out... Speaking of which, Adrien was also a delight. He was so canonical it was crazy. This was just like an episode. Especially the part where he's all VERY GOOD FRIEND JUST A FRIEND everywhere. And his level of purity. So high. That's the Adrien we know and love and that's in the show. Now if only he could develop a tiny bit further and realise he has romantic feelings... This was an excellent fic. Thank you so much for writing it and sharing it with us!
I actually loved this teaser. It is helping me make an informed decision to commit to the long one. Yay!
This is my first Lukanette fanfic and I feel so guilty because it was perfect :') I like the song recs at the end of it too!
THIS chapter was so amazing! I loved, loved Ladybug's interview. Adrien really needed to hear that perspective. And it was so good too - I believe Marinette/Ladybug 100% mean[sic] those things! Also Chat Noir Appreciation Day. I love it.
Ah this was so cute. It all came together in the end. I am satisfied with this! Excited for the sequel but happy where it ended. Thanks for posting! I hope you keep writing :)
Bless Marinette. She was such a hero that week. She pulled off so much.
I mean. I get it. I'm proud of them. I'm loving their content. I'm glad they are getting the love they're getting because they deserve it. I also know it's easier because they were able to build up such a large followship with their artwork, and their fans want to continue to support them. That's why *I* started reading their stuff.
I get it.
It still stings every once in a while. And it's been stinging extra hard this past weekend. Probably another reason I was so focused on maybe figuring out drawing this past week.
So, for writeringoodfaith, for my loudest cheerleaders - my mom, my hubby, ChibiSunnie, Taurus Pixie, and ChubbyUnicornMama - for my other reviewers, for everyone who reblogs my stories, and for everyone who likes/favorites/follows/bookmarks my stories, thank you so much. It really helps remind me that I'm on the right path, that I'm not shouting out into the void, and that I just need to keep the faith.
I love you all. You are all amazing.
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