Oh My! One Of The Best Clexa Fanfics Presented As A Graphic Novel? Yes Please!

This one is so beautiful :’-(

it matters how this ends

‘cause what if i never love again?

sigh. beauty in motion

Super slow mo clexa kiss. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

2x14 kiss.

from now on your tumblr nickname is whatever you get from this sexual identity generator  ☆

From Odette Annable’s instagram. Her friend Arielle’s sister JULIA KEBBEL is MISSING from the LOS ANGELES area.

I’m sharing this partly because Odette did and also because I knew Arielle a little bit before she was an actress. We went to middle school together, and although we weren’t exactly friends, she is a human person I had classes with and now her sister’s missing… so I feel compelled to share the info.

Please reblog or repost, I don’t care. Just get the info out there!!!

15 Days and 45 Authors: Day 10

Happy Holidays Clexakru! For the holiday season, I am hoping you all can join me in sending out a giant thank you to our wonderful authors. It has been over 1,000 days since Lexa left us and our authors have continued to keep Clexa alive. Without them our ship would have sailed and we would be scattered to other fandoms. Without them, the impact of Clexa on the LGBT community would have been forgotten. Without them, I never would have met some amazing people. So, in no particular order, here is a thank you to some amazing writers for whom I am forever grateful.

Jude81 ( @bae-in-maine )

Known for: Three Loves (Pieces of Us)

My Favorite: Friday Night Pizza Delivery

Hidden Gem: Tell Her

Common Tags: Fluff, Humor, G!P

Jude’s writing is smart, witty, and filled with love. Her love for Clexa is reflected not only by her writing style but also by the extensive collection of Clexa stories she has written. Friday Night Pizza Delivery is a super fun and hilarious story of Clarke trying her hardest to entice delivery girl Lexa. Tell Her is a sweet, fluffy fic but it’s confused Lexa and her bromance with Raven that made me fall in love with this fic. Also, I must confess that Jude’s smut is fantastic. She knows how to get you wiggling in your seat.

KL_Morgan ( @entirelytookeen )

Known for: (my) Destruction Within Your Mouth

My Favorite: The White Queen Running

Hidden Gem: The Red King Awake

Common Tags: Slow Burn, Canon Divergence, Parallel Universes

I am deeply in love with KLM’s works. She has created multiple versions of Clarke and Lexa, each one true to the original pairing but under different circumstances. Her characterizations are deeply complex, realistic, and fascinating. She has created the most brilliant form of Costia. A character whose self-preservation was rooted in the unwavering devotion to another, even at the cost of her own needs. KLM’s works show that she understands who Clarke and Lexa are at their core; a feat that even the show creators have not accomplished.

OForion4 ( @oforion4 )

Known for: It Takes As Long As It Takes

My Favorite: It Takes As Long As It Takes

Hidden Gem: It Takes As Long As It Takes

Common Tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn

Who among us did not squeal with joy when this fic was updated after nearly a two year wait? ITALAIT was worth the wait. OF has written a beautiful story that falls into the same category as Lover in Low Light and Except You, Love. ITALAIT is a heart wrenching exploration of a fractured relationship. OF’s writing truly shines as she uses flashbacks to examine what went wrong and move the plot forward with details of past love. This is the only work OF currently has on AO3. It is an outstanding piece and leaves me hoping to see more works from her in the future.

Clexa + Parallels Lil’ gift for you Erin, I know how much you love these. I hope it will “cheer you up”’. Thank you for everything. But this gifset is also for all the Clexa fans as well. THANK YOU FOR BEING AWESOME.

“Show, Don’t Tell!”: Using the Five Senses in Writing

This is an extended piece to my ‘Show, Don’t tell’ post. When writing the senses, I like to imagine the scene as if I were watching a movie. It’s the simplest way for me to picture and write when it comes to descriptions. You don’t want to overload the reader, but you do want to paint the picture instead of telling them. Staying aware of the five senses in your writing will dramatically improve your skill. It not only helps the reader be a part of the story but helps the writer set important scenes, without having to outright state what is happening. In this post, I will explain how I use the five senses in my writing. As always, my advice is subjective and only to show what I personally do. Whether you keep the senses in mind as you write, or you edit them in later, making sure you pay attention to keywords will help eliminate the stress of going back later to figure out what (maybe!) went wrong. 

SEE: On Sight

One of the easiest ways to go about elaborating sight is to eliminate words related to vision (look, saw, gazed, peek, etc). It also helps to stay aware of items, colors, sizes, etc. Do the same thing you’d do with words related to sight, eliminate them. Of course, don’t erase every word or phrase, but being proactive, keeping them in mind, and avoiding them will help you avoid overloading your reader with too much purple prose. (Granted, I would die for purple prose, but I understand that’s not everyone’s thing). 

Examples:

Jill saw Jack running. He carried a silver pail. He tripped and fell down the hill. 

 There are a lot of sight-words in this example. As the writer, it is your decision to choose what you want to elaborate on, whether it is one thing, or all of them. How much of the story you want to paint is up to you—

Jack’s feet blurred against the green grass as his toe caught his ankle. He rolled on his side, his silver pail flying into the air and reaching Jill first.

Jill craned her neck to find Jack staggering down the hill. Water sloshed from the sides of the bucket, swinging and glistening in the sunlight. He stumbled and grabbed for the handle with his second hand as the pail threatened to leave his grasp, and then he slipped, toppling down the hill.

In both of these scenarios, the reader can “see” that Jack is running and tripped without specifically stating that Jill saw it. They also “see” he had a silver pail and dropped it. 

Being more visually descriptive is also very important for facial expressions. It takes a simple mood and elevates it. Describing the expression also gives the reader the chance to “feel” that way too, almost like a mimic, which helps them visualize and empathize with the character.

Example:

Maxine made a disgusted face.

Think of what a disgusted reaction looks like; usually, it involves frowning, pinching your nose, sticking out your tongue, etc. Sometimes, it can help to look in a mirror and write what you’re seeing, too.

Maxine flared her nostrils and stuck out her tongue.

In the latter example, the reader is able to infer that Maxine is disgusted by how the writer described her reaction.

HEAR: On Sound

Describing sound can be tricky. It’s also hard to remember when to use it. We tend to think of sound in terms of music or voices—okay, okay, sometimes we sprinkle in animals howling or the wind blowing, too!—but sound can be incredibly important in setting a scene and is often under-utilized. Sounds let the reader know their surroundings without pulling from what is going on and adds intensity!

Examples:

Manuel sat nervously at the coffee table.

Again, as the writer, you can decide where to incorporate the use of sound. Here are a couple of suggestions, based on the above example:

Manuel’s fingers drummed against the table and drowned out the low whistle escaping from between his teeth as he exhaled. All around him, there was cheerful chatter, through which the barista’s loud voice occasionally sliced.

Manuel’s thoughts whirred and hummed, a dull grinding and the clinking of glass broke through the constant thump of his knee against the underside of the table.

In both of these examples, the reader was able to gather that Manuel was nervous (tapping knee, drumming fingers, low whistle). They are also able to gather he is in a coffee shop (or a restaurant of sorts) without explicitly saying so.

TOUCH: On Sensation

The best way to handle touch is by imagining whatever it is you are describing and what it feels like. If you don’t know how something feels, google it. Don’t describe a snake as slimy just because its scales are shiny and gives it a slime-like effect. That said, touch doesn’t just deal with what your character is physically touching. It can also deal with emotions and help to express them without saying outright how your character feels. 

Example:

Opal touched the silk blanket. She felt sleepy and closed her eyes.

Here we can elaborate on what the blanket feels like when Opal touches it and how she feels to indicate she is tired: 

The supple fabric slid between Opal’s fingers like water. Her tired muscles sagged and sharp, tiny pinpricks pressed against her heavy eyelids as she lay back.

The reader knows the blanket was very soft and also that she is tired without specifically stating she was sleepy. 

TASTE: On Flavor

Taste is a fun sense to mess with. It can show the reader so much more than how delicious the bread is (or how gross dirt is). I like to play around with taste in the weather/air, the taste of fear, the taste of cat hair in your mouth because there is always cat hair in your mouth… all right, maybe that’s a personal thing.

Example: 

The sun rose over the city.

What do you use for taste here? A city can’t taste, the sun doesn’t taste, but your character does!

Yellow light spilled over the streets, soaking the grit from the rainbow puddles into the air. The bitter grease lingered and settled in his mouth, strengthening every time he scraped his teeth against his tongue. 

Experiment with taste in your writing. Describe things you wouldn’t normally think to taste, like crude oil*. The internet is a good resource when it’s something you don’t want to try yourself, like crude oil**. Chances are, someone out there has already tried it and explained what it tastes like online.

SCENT: On Smell

Ahhh, smell. Smell lets the reader know so much: they can figure out where a character is, what they’re doing, where they are, etc., just from a few scent-related descriptors thrown around. Smell is also useful in triggering memories or past events.

Danny walked through the forest.

You can use so many of the five senses here! But since we’re focusing on scent, let’s zero in on that:

A crisp hint of pine lingered in the air and blended with the pungent decay of the brown needles underfoot.

Without stating anything about a forest, the reader has an idea of where Danny is. You can also use smell to show emotion! 

Danny was in love.

How do you smell love, K? Well, you’ve got me there: you can’t. But as a writer, you can think of what love means to you and of things you associate with love, and work from there. Personally, I imagine it would have a sweet smell, maybe too sweet.

A rush of flowery sweetness filled his nostrils as the handsome young man walked by.

There you have it. Of course, there’s a lot more to writing the five senses, as there is with anything, but this is to give you a basic idea of what I do when I’m writing. Being proactive and keeping the senses in mind while writing can be tough and exhausting, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes. And you don’t leave it all for editing! Remember: the most important thing is to keep practicing. 

Happy writing!

* Please do not taste crude oil. I can’t believe I have to type this, but some people want to eat Tide Pods, so here I am.

** Do not taste crude oil. You will die.

Where’s Metallica when you need them?

There’s a protest going on against AI art over on artstation, so I feel like now is the time for me to make a statement on this issue! 

I wholeheartedly support the ongoing protest against AI art. Why? Because my artwork is included in the datasets used to train these image generators without my consent. I get zero compensation for the use of my art, even though these image generators cost money to use, and are a commercial product. 

Musicians are not being treated the same way. Stability has a music generator that only uses royalty free music in their dataset. Their words: “Because diffusion models are prone to memorization and overfitting, releasing a model trained on copyrighted data could potentially result in legal issues.” Why is the work of visual artists being treated differently?

Many have compared image generators to human artists seeking out inspiration. Those two are not the same. My art is literally being fed into these generators through the datasets, and spat back out of a program that has no inherent sense of what is respectful to artists. As long as my art is literally integrated into the system used to create the images, it is commercial use of my art without my consent.

Until there is an ethically sourced database that compensates artists for the use of their images, I am against AI art. I also think platforms should do everything they can to prevent scraping of their content for these databases. 

Artists, speak out against this predatory practice! Our art should not be exploited without our consent, and we deserve to be compensated when our art is exploited for commercial use. 

On day 12 of this challenge @the-wip-project gave us the prompt:

Unfortunately, things never go as planned around here.

Great prompt! I’m trying to finish the first draft of a particular wip which is an original work. It was interesting as the result of that prompt could fit in so many places in my wip!