The Kintsugi Kid (ten Years)

eruri high school au

college AUs are nice and all but what about grad school AUs where the main characters go through their post-degree existential crisis as young adults thrown hastily into adult life and they don't know what they're actually doing or what they want to do but somehow find some comfort in each other's company as they go through that period of existential frustration and loneliness together

The scaraether dynamic i want is one where they don’t make each other worse, but they most definitely don’t make each other better. But if they do, its going in directions that definitely doesn’t benefit others around themselves.

Like Aether being an eldritch horror thats potentially a world eater getting courted by Wanderer, who is a living puppet.

Aether reluctantly charmed by Wanderer’s obsession, trying to go “This isn’t healthy for either of us, and is not a good standard for relationships” and it’s true.

But he’s unable to stop himself from being drawn to Wanderer’s promises, the concept of someone that’s just for himself.

Someone who would make him a priority with their own volition. Someone who doesn’t have other attachments that would stop them from helping him when he needs it. Someone who won’t abandon him. Someone who will willingly make themselves a permanent fixture by his side. (Paimon is also that, but she’s more like his child, someone he needs to nurture and also hide terrible things from).

Basically Wanderer being “I can be the hero to your damsel in distress.”

And Aether realizing he really doesn’t mind being a damsel in distress if its Wanderer who saves him.

Thanks to the Irminsul they can have a mental link, and when Aether gets trapped by the Fatui, truly put in a helpless situation, Paimon trapped in a seperate cage, he finds himself reaching out to the Wanderer almost blindly, numbly.

And the Wanderer abandons everything almost immediately to rescue him. He doesn’t keep him waiting.

time loop where i keep dying to save you but clearly the loop just wants me to accept your death. im not going to but i can tell that's what it wants

Hi there!

This is a complete shot in the dark, but my name is Ethan Willard, I was in Marietta (co-singer guy). I have a podcast called Commando Prompt, which is a show where we watch and review action movies. We are currently looking for new cover art for the podcast, and Evan (other co-singer guy from Marietta) told me about some of the art you made for Marietta lyrics, so here I am! Your art is so good, holy crap!

Would you be interested in coming up with cover art for Commando Prompt? The direction my co-host and I are thinking is emblematic of older Godzilla movie covers, mixed with the sort of retro-futuristic vibes from the Fallout series.

If interested, let me know and we can talk more!

Our email address is commandopromptpod@gmail.com or we can talk on Twitter/Instagram.

oh dude i would definitely be down to make some art for the podcast! i'll send you a message on instagram so you can give me more details + visual pegs/references re: how you want the art to look like :D (my ig username is: pietiau)

also uh i just want to say: listening to marietta got me through a lot. there's some kind of reassurance you get from realizing someone else has felt the way you do— especially when they put it in a way so painstakingly accurate to /how exactly/ you feel it. listening to marietta feels a lot like listening to what i used to never allow myself to say or feel and it made me feel less alone than i'd convinced myself i was.

anyway,,, i'd be yapping if i go on any longer lol basically i'm just really glad i found marietta!

thank you for reaching out and i'm really really glad you guys dig my art :D

hii hello hiii can you tell more about your writing process? :3c what are the stages? are there any writing principles for your process? what's the most enjoyable thing? :3c

hello eldritch!! omg im so sorry for the delay in answering... lol i didn't expect work to suddenly be so busy lol but anyway!!

so there are two main ways that a fic idea comes together for me: a) it's the theme/thesis statement that comes to me first. this comes to me in a lot of different ways... it could be a line from a song or an excerpt from a poem or a similar adjacent theme i take from a different piece of media that i feel i can apply to a certain ship/character that i am brainrotting about at the moment. ex. my favorite and most recent example of this would be scaramouche x from under the cork tree by fall out boy (lol) the theme i put together there was rly just... that desperation of so badly wanting something to be completely about yourself for once (and almost narcissistically/unhealthily so) because you've never had anything at all. i just thought it's a very specific... almost manic feeling that i can definitely picture scara experiencing.

b) it's one very specific scene that comes to me, and from there, i try to fill in the blanks/puzzle pieces in the plot (with other scenes) of how everything builds up to that one scene. when i have all of that down, it becomes a little easier for me to fill in the blanks of what exactly happens/how the fic ends after that one scene.

most of the time, it's a combination of these two ways of idea-gathering for me... mostly it's the theme that comes first, but there are other times that it's the specific scenes that come first and when it's the latter, they don't really come together /thematically/ until i'm already somewhere in the middle of writing. this ideation process is what i consider most important because honestly... i really only have two stages in writing (lol) which are: ideation and then the writing itself. bc basically, the ideation is what gets the fic plot points down... and the writing is really just... me connecting those points/weaving those ideas together...

to put things more concretely, my ideation process is really just... a lot of listing things down and it is admittedly chaotic... it could be scene ideas (or a sequence of them) as simple as 'scara spots aether in the crowd' but bc im a mess it usually becomes a long bullet that also includes the unsaid implications in that said scene like so:

scara spots aether in the crowd looking back at him and he fixates on it bc it feels like for the first time, someone actually /sees/ and wants to look at him

ideas i list down could also be specific lines that i imagine a specific character saying or even a few dialogues of script between characters. there's also just lots of random stuff related to how i want to describe dynamics and characters i list down like 'heiscara friendship with lots of annoying smart banter' or 'scara is a skater in this one' or 'aether listens to taylor swift but lumine doesn't' (lol)' or 'scara is like [insert fall out boy song here]'

~ as for writing principles... ig i only rly have this in mind at the moment: balance out poetry and prose - uhh i dont think i ever write anything that doesn't end up with a motif that ties in with the theme... i like metaphors a lot bc i feel they help describe feelings more accurately... but i also try to make sure that these metaphors are just simple but clever enough?? uhh... i kinda think of writing metaphors as cracking a joke... if it's too cerebral, the punchline might not /punch/ lol but if it's too straightforward... it might not work in capturing a certain idea or feeling... as for my personal preference in my own writing... i like to phrase things bluntly while still making metaphors in that tone so its not cerebrally intimidating... err im not sure how to explain that more elaborately here lol uhh but heres one of my favorite more recent examples from something i wrote abt scara talking about ei:

She has acknowledged me in a way that she believes it's her sister who should be alive instead of me, as if I had taken the life of someone else simply by being born into the world. (I'm not a killer— or at least I wasn't born one, and as far as I know, the blood on my hands is usually my own.)

~ as for the most enjoyable thing about it... well i would say it's definitely writing metaphors lol and then making sure how that ties coherently and cleverly with the theme and the vibe of the ship dynamic/character i'm centering the fic on... i dont think i ever write without an overarching theme or a metaphor for this reason... even when i just want the characters to kiss... its corny but i always need the kiss to feel like its situated in the grander scheme of things and feelings skksks

moving

sent a postcard to our colored pasts

Una flor para otra flor 🫧

“omg you’re so creative. how do you get your ideas” i hallucinate a single scene in the taco bell drive thru and then spend 13 months trying to write it