@texanredrose You Made Me Cry With This One, Great Work As Always!

Tol Avatar, Smol Gf

🤨

A rangshi piece dedicated to @daofeijet Happy Birthday!!💕🎉

A problematic male character that they can project their fragile egos on, and no LGBT characters. That’s too unrealistic for their tastes. 

I dont understand how people can describe RWBY as "dissapointing" like what were you expecting from it that it didnt give you?

Rwby has

Cool fight scenes ✅

Awesome music ✅

Cool and relatable characters ✅

Comedy ✅

Fun scenes ✅

Interesting and engaging plot ✅

Fantastic and unique character designs ✅

Well developed relationships ✅

Constantly improving animation ✅

What exactly are people expecting that isnt here?

A little Nuts N’ Dolts angst

A little prompt a wrote a couple months ago for a friend of mine.

Walking through the decayed ruins of Beacon was nothing if not cathartic for Ruby after all these years. The war against Salem had long been over, Beacon’s campus relocated to avoid a repeat of the past, and many had moved on from the events that had transpired on these hallowed grounds.

Ruby hadn’t.

That’s why she was here after all. On the anniversary of one of the worst days of her life.

She walked through what would have been the entrance hall, the shattered remains of the doors still lie in heaps around the door’s frame. Dust is kicked up from her steps, uncovering shards of Atleasian knights strewn across the floor.

“I can’t believe you! You never told anyone what was truly going on!” Ruby screamed.

“And I take full responsibility for that. It was a mistake…”

“A mistake that I will never forgive you for.”

“I don’t expect you to, in fact, I would prefer if you didn’t.”

“So many people died...people we were supposed to protect! They didn’t deserve to die!”

“And that is MY burden to bare Miss Rose, no one else's!”

“It is my burden when I didn’t keep my promise! I failed them…”

Her footsteps echoed off of the empty corridor leading to the cafeteria, the clicks of her heels against the stone the only sound to be heard.

“Are you okay friend Ruby?”

She spins around to find nothing there.

“Another stupid memory…” Ruby says to herself.

“Are you okay friend Ruby?” Penny asks as they walk into the main hall the night of the dance, “Your hand is shaking.”

“I’m nervous.”

“Nervous about what? We’re just going to be dancing.”

“I know, but we’re going to be dancing...together…”

“I don’t understand.”

“Hold on,” Ruby says as she pulls Penny off to the side, “Friends normally don’t go to dances together Penny.”

“So are we not friends?”

“No no Penny, I just...don’t know how to explain this…”

“Are we more than friends?”

“No, but...I want us to be…” Ruby says with a blush.

“Ruby,” Penny says lacing her hand with Ruby’s, “You deserve someone better...someone real.” She says, tapping her arm to make the metallic clang for emphasis.

“You are real! You think just because you were made instead of born makes you any different from me? You can feel, you have an aura, you…”

“But I don’t know if I can...what’s the word?...love. I don’t know what that means for someone like me.”

“I know that I care about you, I want to see you happy, and I’m going to keep you safe no matter what.”

“Is that what love is?”

“That’s what it is to me.”

“Then I think I can manage that.”

“Does that mean…” Ruby studders.

“I believe it is customary for one of us to ask the other to be in a relationship.”

“Penny, will you be my...girlfriend?”

She kisses her cheek as she wraps her arms around Ruby’s shoulders , “I still don’t know if I can be enough for you, but I can try.”

Ruby presses against her to tighten the embrace, “You will always be enough for me.”

The end of the corridor is blocked by the collapsed roof. A blinding silver glow comes from Ruby’s hand and the debris moves itself out of the huntress’ way. The dorms were only a short walk from the cafeteria, but that didn’t stop the memories from coming back to Ruby in waves.

Passing Oobleck’s classroom reminded her of the time Penny had snuck into the back of the classroom and spent the whole time trying to distract her from the lesson by drawing the two of them.

Next was Goodwitch’s. Ironwood requested for Penny to be able to attend Glynda’s class, letting her spar with students was one of the easiest ways to gauge her abilities, and Ruby was the first one selected(she suspected Penny had something to do with that.) It wasn’t as much a fight as it was a dance between the two. The constant clash of metal and spray of sparks each time their weapons met was exhilarating for the two.

Then came the dorms, and what a mistake that was.

The halls were blackened with Grimm soot. Every surface etched with the scars of the fighting that had become the school’s legacy, every surface but a single door, one engraved with four letters, RWBY. It was spotless, as if all the grimm feared to come near it. Gently, Ruby pushed open the door. A thin layer of dust covered the room and all it contained.

“Why do I keep coming back here? It’s not like this will change anything.” Ruby thinks to herself as she look over the room.

That’s when she spots it, a small glint of metal beneath what used to be Weiss’ bed. Fully extending Crescent Rose, Ruby pulls a small chain out from under the bed frame. It was a simple gold chain with a small locket attached.

“No...I was sure this was gone.”

Inside the locket was a photograph, one taken from a Scroll camera, of Ruby and…

“You don’t deserve to say her name!” screams a voice in her head.  

“You’re right. I failed her…”

The words echoed off of the empty walls, only drowned out as Ruby fell to her knees sobbing.

“Why? Why did it have to be Penny and Pyrrha? Why couldn’t it have been Cardin or anyone else?! They didn’t deserve to die!”

The silver glow returned to Ruby’s hands as her anger came in waves. The light grew from a small globe to a staff of pure energy, one she had only seen once before, the night she fought Salem.

“I DON’T WANT THIS!!! I WOULD GIVE IT ALL AWAY TO HAVE THEM BACK!” Ruby says, letting the staff fall to the floor.

As if made of glass, the staff shatters, but the pieces begin to rise and form a frame around the window.

“This has to be some kind of trick, some curse Salem placed on me, they can’t come back…”

“If they can’t,” a voice in her head laments, “then what is the harm in trying?”

She presses her hands to the glowing crystal frame only to have sparks fly from the edges pressed against the wall.

“Please, let me see them again, if not both, let me see Penny again!”

The frame filled with the same glow from before, only it began to clear. On the other side appeared to be a small house, something not too extravagant, but homely at the same time. Standing on the front porch was an older version of herself with an older Penny by her side. In Penny’s arms was a small bundle of cloth with a tuft of brunette hair.

“I can’t believe it. This is what Salem took from me. This life with her.”

Ruby places her hand onto the image.

“Ruby…” Penny on the other side of the image speaks.

“Penny?! Can you hear me?”

“Ruby…”

“Penny please!”

“RUBY!”

The sound of Penny yelling her name brings her upright. Tears roll down her cheeks as the shuddering starts.

“FUCK THAT NIGHTMARE!”

Arms wrap around her shoulders, “Was it the same one again?” Penny asks as she cradles Ruby in her arms.

“Salem’s curse yea.”

“We’ll find a way to fix it. I promise.” Penny says, kissing her forehead.

“You always bring me back. Even when I truly believe Salem won, when I believe you and Pyrrha are gone for good, you pull me out.”

“I’m glad. Sometimes I worry you’re not going to come back one of these times.”

“Don’t worry. I intend to keep my promise, I’ll keep you safe and happy for as long as I live.”

“That was so cheesy of you to put in your wedding vow.”

Ruby giggled, “It was, but I meant it, then and now.”

Penny sighs, “I know you did and still do,” She says, running her hands through my hair, “Is there anything new in the nightmare this time?”

“Nothing different than before. Though one thing about the nightmare is strange, the image I always see of the two of us that brings me out has you holding a baby. I know we talked before and you didn’t think...”

Penny freezes, “Uhm…about that...”

I look up at her, “Please tell me that is you’re about to say something incredible.”

“I talked to Weiss and she seems to think there might be a way to use dust to…”

“Let’s try!”

To be continued...

Imagining Kate’s reaction to Yelena manspreading as soon as she walks in the room

I needed this in my life a long time ago!

Hi ! Im sorry, my question is going to be very vague and I'll understand if you do not want to answer it. Here it is : I always have beginnings, or very basic concepts, but I never know how the story will go between the beginning and the end (when I have one...). Like, I've been writing for nearly ten years and I came up with hundred of idea but I only found what happens in the middle only two times. Can something help me ? Sorry again for this vague question but I'm like... Desesperate.

I think that this is probably a pretty common problem, and one that I deal with myself a lot of the time. It’s easy to start off with a great idea, it’s harder to persevere through the middle of it and get it done, right?

To me, it seems like there are a few different factors that can make it really difficult to get through the middle part of a story (aside from the difficulty in itself of just sitting down and writing the whole thing, of course), so I’ll go through a few of the main sticking points in writing that I’ve come up against.

I have a beginning, but then what?

Figuring out how to continue a story once you’ve gotten past the ‘brainwave’ section of the idea can be really hard. If the first part of the story came to you so naturally and easily, shouldn’t the rest of it just fall into place?

Well, not really. At this point you’ve probably got to look at what you have so far, look at where you want to get to in the end (if you know that) and figure out the most satisfying path to take to get there. The middle part of a story is often the hardest part, you have to expand on all the great little concepts that you’ve thrown together and you’ve got to figure out how to make them all make sense.

Sometimes brainstorming ideas will help get through this, just to figure out what could possibly happen:

What is the protagonist trying to achieve?

What is the antagonist trying to achieve?

What would be the simplest solution for these things?

What is the biggest mistake the protagonist could make?

What happens if the antagonist succeeds?

What outside forces does the protagonist have to contend with in addition to the events of the main plot?

What could tempt or force the protagonist away from achieving their goals?

Figure out the simplest path from start to end, and then throw a big old roadblock in your protagonist’s path. Make them question their own motives, their own goals, make them question whether they’re the hero that’s really needed here.

Essentially, lay out all the possible things that could happen, and then pick the ones that make the best story/ the highest drama.

Too many great possibilities?

While having too many ideas is often more of a ‘good’ problem to have, it can also wind up getting you stuck just as badly as not having ideas, because when you get right in there in the middle of the story and you realise that of the two or three or five GREAT concepts that you’ve got on your hands, only one or two of them can possibly fit in and have the story make sense, it can be heartbreaking to have to pick and choose.

If you’ve got too many ideas on hand, don’t stress. Pick the one or two that are the MOST exciting/ dramatic/ fun/ heartbreaking and go with them. Don’t throw away the other ideas – put them in a ‘for later’ folder and use them in the sequel, or in another story altogether.

It doesn’t feel ‘natural’, or I want the rest of the story to flow like the start did:

Sadly, most of the time there are going to be sections of every story that are difficult to just sit down and write. It’s going to feel like pulling teeth, but the only way is to figure out what you need to happen, and how you’re going to do it, and then sit there and type until it’s on the page. Maybe it won’t be pretty, it won’t be as fun as the start of the story was, but once it’s done it can be edited until it shines.

You can’t edit a blank page, and you can’t finish a story with only a beautiful opening.

Can’t think of what might happen next?

It happens, doesn’t it, you write out a fantastic starter and you’re just as excited as anyone to see where it goes and then it just … doesn’t. You’ve stalled out in your own story and it’s horrible.

Go back and look at your characters, at your world building, look at the direction that it was all going in before you stalled and work on fleshing things out – a lot of the time in this situation you’ve gotten ahead of yourself and the reason that you don’t know what happens next is that you’ve dived in headfirst without really getting familiar with what you’re creating. That’s okay, it just means you have to go back and do the work that you skipped in the beginning.

Other tips:

If you’re attempting to jump right into longform stories, like novels or full length scripts or comic scripts etc, and finding that you just can’t get through the whole thing, why not scale it back?

Try writing short stories, ten minute films, single page comics, to hone your craft and exercise yourself in being able to go through the beginning/ middle/ end stages of your form.

As well as that, the feeling of finishing something, even if it isn’t a ‘full’ length work, is very rewarding, and as well as the practice, it can give you the motivation to get back into the slog of working on a longer piece.

I hope that this helps, and please feel free to ask if you have a more specific question.

Some other posts that might help you are:

Post about plotting [HERE]

Post about speed plotting [HERE]

Post about three act structure [HERE]

I didn’t realize I forgot to post this. Commissioned @dlartistanon to draw my OC Sierra Grey. I’m super happy with how it turned out, and will be sharing an update on my story Ascension in a couple days(since I’m out of work for a while it seems).

The thing is with RT we might actually make it that far...

And the trend continues…

Would love to hear back from the union job I applied for 🙏

(one of many) late night kisses