#sots tag

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Slips of the Stars: WIP Intro

Life can get pretty monotonous when you're stuck being a background character. At least, that's how Slips, certifiable "Background Character #14", feels about her current state in life.

In a world filled with set roles and limited opportunities, Slips finds herself constantly playing second (or third, or fourth) fiddle to dozens of main characters, side characters, villains, and love interests at the ever busy, ever word weaving web of Mary and Oswald Technical Innovation and Fine Arts College (MOTIF, for infuriatingly short.)

Despite the range in personalities, abilities, and tales that roam campus, Slips is inundated with the same matters over and over. Inciting incident, midpoint, climax, conclusion. Set up, confrontation, resolution. Same plot beats, different faces, same insignificant, boring roles, whether she likes it or not.

The upcoming once-in-a-lifetime comet sighting, just right for the characters at MOTIF to see, works as the perfect catalyst for all the mini-arcs, side plots, and filler episodes a story can dream for.

The stories lead to a big outdoor party where everyone can peacefully conclude the chapters of their latest story as they watch the beautiful comet steak across the sky, giving the troubled heroes a moment to breathe. Except, the stories don't conclude peacefully.

Everything goes wrong for just about everyone there.

And Slips finds herself at the top of the story again.

Now in unfamiliar waters, and the only one aware of the looping, Slips is tasked with discovering what's breaking her world and why. In her investigations, she discovers much about herself, those around her, and those beyond what she can see. While interrogating the new unknowns in the echoes of a mysterious day happening over and over again, Slips learns that she may finally get what she always longed for: a choice.

Now, the question is, does she still want it?

Slips of the Stars is a work in progress adult contemporary comic examining personal and perceived identities, fate and free will, loss, and making your own meanings in life. The goal is a typical graphic novel length, divided into multiple chapters!

Setting:

Mary and Oswald Technical Innovation and Fine Arts College, also known as MOTIF (or MOTIFac, if you want to annoy your friends). A place full of stories, where every sports team has an underdog arc and everyone goes to their classes way less often than they should.

Characters:

Kaasey "Slips" Marion: A sophomore college student teetering on dropout with a passion for jewelry weaving, following and interpreting fate, and the general concept that things "make sense".

Hero: Slips' roommate, a junior mechanical engineering country girl taking on the big city for the first time. Serving as an Epic Hero, she believes in creating her own path and helping others the best she can, no matter the personal cost.

"DT", or Daphne Taylor: Slips' (perhaps only) friend, a sophomore psychology major infatuated with the idea of love and romance, yet still finds herself brokenhearted by her first love. As a romantic heroine, she's searching for someone that may be The One, just out of reach.

Evan: The mysterious new boy with dark eyes and, potentially, an even darker secret to match.

Xionona: The quirky international graduate student that seems to know more than she’s letting on.

August: A horror hero with some missed connections that’s down a cat and up a monster that seems to want him gone.

Nomer: The innocent kid hero with a loose grasp on what he can do, a role to fill, and a heaping of bad luck coming his way.

Nursing Major Girl: The…hey, wait. For real, who are you?

The Audience: Can’t have a story without you, even if it’s just an audience of one. Right? Right, Slips?

[sapphic-story]

Here's the most recent story that I've been working on in my favorite presenting format of all time: powerpoint slides

(hopefully) less grainy versions of the art under the cut, click for better quality!

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page 1; Hero

Name: Hero, she/her

Age: 22

Year: Junior

Major: Mechanical Engineering

Story: Fantasy Hero

Loop Ending: took a Stab at babysitting; turns out she’s not Cut out for it (A fight. She lost a duel with some high stakes)

current roommate. seems pretty friendly, as all fantasy heroes tend to be. Too friendly. it's annoying.

comes from a small rural town, used to live on a farm. coming to MOTIF college seems to be her first time in the city. doesn't quite get it yet.

cares a lot about her family, talks about them often, but never goes home over breaks.

hardworking and kind to all. However, has a fatal flaw like any good fantasy hero; her pride. has to do things her way, and by herself.

on an epic quest to find secret blueprints known only to the school elites so she can save her family farm. somehow. maybe selling the prints?

other notes: surprisingly good with technology for growing up in the country. / hates dark mode on phones for some reason?? / likes music and cooking. / good at dancing, bad at singing or playing guitar. / drives a dirty old jeep with pink hubcaps. / i'm pretty sure she has prophetic dreams but she keeps denying it to me.

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art for the character intros of Slips of the Stars! Click for better quality :)

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page 3; Xionona

Name: Xionona, she/her

Age: I think like 27?

Year: Grad Student

Major: Astronomy

Story: still trying to decide if she's a protagonist. or a mentor. or an antagonist?

Loop Ending: Ensures we all go out with a Bang (honestly, I have no idea what she's doing, but it makes the lights go out and everything catch fire.)

International student. I think she's from Namibia?

Very enthusiastic. Especially about astronomy. president of the astronomy club and will strong arm anyone and everyone she sees into joining. suuuper smart but her people and practical skills could use work.

Doesn't seem to understand the looping day stuff, but may know some more about dolsey's comet. and about what dolsey's comet could bring or do.

other notes: a TA in the science department. her undergraduate fans like to call her black miss frizzle. / really loves tech and adaptive tech. / thinks all american food is inferior to her food at home. she's probably right. / biiig into conspiracy theories, but like. the ones that aren't incredibly offensive to minority groups. I think she just thinks the moon landing was faked or something. / may be the only person willing to go along with my theories about me and the comet.

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45, 49, 56 for Hero

THANK YOUUUU THIS WAS SO FUN

Put them all into one so that you wouldn’t get pinged three times!

Hero

45. What’s something unimportant / frivolous that they hate passionately?

Dark mode. Hero HATES any tech application in dark mode. If someone shows her a phone with an application in dark mode she will automatically set to changing it to light mode before even looking at anything else.

49. Would they eat something they find gross to be polite?

It depends! Hero is a bit of a food snob, so she’s pretty critical of meals that she thinks could be better. At the same time, though, she grew up with Southern Hospitality and not eating someone’s food is a Slight there so it kind of depends on how much she respects that person and if it was homemade or not (and how homemade it is—“from the box” is very different to “from scratch” to her). If someone, like, store bought something she thought was gross, she’d easily skip. However, if someone put their Heart and Soul into the food, she will try to politely eat it…with the most backhanded compliments possible.

She’s not an exotic eater though; if someone rolled up with escargot she’s skipping out no matter what lol

56. If they’re scared, who do they want comfort from? Does this answer change depending on the type of fear?

Her parents, though she already knows she’s not going to get that. :p In terms of who she Does get comfort from, the answer would be her dog in most circumstances. But now that she’s away from home…I don’t know if she has an answer! (She’s suffering.)

Xeno

35. What is the smallest, morally questionable choice they’ve made?

Wrote “SEE ME AFTER CLASS” on a student’s assignment (she’s a TA) and when they came she just tried to recruit them into the astronomy club that she’s the president of.

40. How do they respond to a loose handshake? What goes through their head?

She probably wouldn’t even notice LOL she seems like the type to have an over enthusiastic, very firm handshake while speaking over a mile a minute about whatever may be enthusing her at the time. If she did notice, she’d probably just make a little comment like “weak grip, huh?” And immediately move on.

43. What do they commonly misinterpret because of their own upbringing / environment / biases? How do they respond when realizing the misunderstanding?

This is a really good question lol I need to do some research to answer this tbh bc I recently decided that Xeno is an international student from Namibia, Africa (very inspired by a coworker from the same place)

The easiest one off the cuff though is just like. General language. It’s much more likely that others misunderstand her because of her accent, but there’s also times where she’s like “what. What are you trying to refer to right now.” She always believes that her own pronunciation is correct and will 100% make fun of American pronunciations that she thinks is dumb.

“Bella”

(I did actually get around to naming her, it’s “DT” or “Daphne Taylor”, but now I want to add that in somewhere LOL. Middle name? Daphne Bella Taylor? I can see it)

11. If someone was impersonating them, what would friends / family ask or do to tell the difference?

Ask about her crush of the week. Nobody could ever keep up with that other than her. (Including the friends and family asking…let’s hope they’d pick right)

35. What is the smallest, morally questionable choice they’ve made?

She keeps several things in her purse solely to drop in front of guys so that they pick it up for her and she can talk to them. The different choices are based on what she thinks will impress guys.

58. How many hobbies have they attempted to have over their lifetime? Is there a common theme?

A LOT. She’s the type of person that buys a bunch of things to get really into a hobby, loses interest in a few days, and never return. They’re primarily things that would be aesthetically pleasing, like letter writing, art, and journal keeping. I think she also likes hobbies primarily based on identifying things, such as birdwatching or looking into local flora.

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[text id:

It doesn’t get easier.

That’s the rub. The numb yet exacting pain — the sort that’s undeniable and yet hard to define — never quite subsides. It punctures you in a way that’s never specific, but it’s always consuming. And the pain, however listless it can seem, pluralizes with time. It’s just a part of you now. And you get used to the pain you felt the day before, and the one you’ll feel tomorrow.

And the next day.

And the next day.

And the next.]

5 years ago, Happy Death Day did one revolutionary thing no time-travel movie had done before