Thursday: Creator's Workshop

[cap_ironman_daily]

Need help with creating the atmosphere for that sleazy bar Tony likes to hang out in? What would a college student in the 1980s spend his money on? Looking for someone to help beta read your fic or just cheer you on? How do people draw hands, damnit? How do you make your neighbour's dog stop make an appearance on your podfic? Ask a weird question that now taints your search history but still have not found the answer to? Would you like to share a great resource that you found recently?

Here's the place to direct all your questions (no judgement, no shame!), offer help, share some advice, cheer people on, or just chat about your current projects! Are you working on your Big Bang fic, or maybe your Stony Trumps Hate piece? Finalizing your Superhusbands Anthology ideas? Let everyone know what you're working on, and if your fellow fans and creators can be of any assistance!

(Our old list of resources is still in the process of being transferred here and will be back soon!)

Comments

[erdesque]

Please remind me of how AA!FRIDAY refers to Steve and Tony? I seem to remember she referred to them as Cap/Iron Man in The Kids Are Alright, but I'm not sure. *looks it up* Oh wait, she also called Tony by name. Okay, I think I answered my own question, haha.

[faite]

(Just rewatched that episode yesterday, so I can confirm :D)

[erdesque]

Yay. :D

[winterstar95]

I don't need writers help but I would like to know a reference for drawing action of the human body. Anyone have that? I am really enjoying doing my sketches of Stony but right now I don't have a good feel for the motion of the body. ANyone have a link?

[erdesque]

faite posted a list of resources last time. Not sure if any of the links under Free Figure/Gesture Drawing help? Also, there's this.

[faite]

Here's a post about the "line of action," especially in regard to animation!

If you want more figures in motion to help figure things out (okay that pun was unintentional, I didn't notice it until I checked the comment preview HAHA), in addition to what erdesque linked above, there are the ESPN Body Issues (here's an imgur gallery to the 2016 issue), where professional athletes pose nude and in action. And two figure drawing and anatomy reference blogs I have bookmarked - figuresfordrawing and fucktonofanatomyreferencesreborn!

Hope those help! (But if you have something else in mind, I can go digging through my resources some more.)

[tripperfunster]

Holy shit! I'd never seen those ESPN ones. So amazing! Thanks for sharing.

[faite]

No problem! It's an amazing photo series, hope you find it useful!

[fluffypanda]

Is anyone good at making dialogue sound vaguely old-fashioned? Like from any time period pre-20th century? Any advice?

[dophne]

Best advice I can give is to find dialogue scenes from books that were written in the era that you want to describe or write like. Often times they do have very good examples of how people at that time would word things. Like if I wanted to write in 16th century I would read the original Shakespeare or others of that era.

The best way is to do research on how they word things. And what words they used. I do that a lot for my writings (none for my fics but for my personal stories). Hope that helps! :D

[fluffypanda]

Thanks! I'll look around and see what I can find that has the right sort of feel. I'll probably end up looking at Wuthering Heights or Pride and Prejudice. I'm not too worried about being accurate since this is an anachronistic fantasy world, but it'll be good to have something to reference to give it a non-contemporary feel.

[spikethemuffin]

I second Dophne, but I've found what really kick-starts my language brain (as well as amping up my typing speed) is actually listening to and transcribing stuff from the era you are emulating/ pastiching.

[fluffypanda]

I do love watching movies for research. If I take notes on phrasing and such...

[adarksweetness]

I'm writing a pseudo-ancient Roman AU (literally so I can dress Steve like the pic sabre posted on the tumblr bc A+ my frenz), so @anyone who is good at latin, what might Captain America and Iron Man be called?

Emphasis on the pseudo ancient Rome, it doesn't have to 100% make sense. (But is it too cringey to make Steve a gladiator called Americanus? Bc getting the etymology of America was a TOTAL BITCH LEMME TELL U). Thanks in advance for the help :)

[admiral]

haha I don't think anyone would be offended if you went with Americanus esp if you weren't going for total accuracy. if you want something that's slightly more realistic maybe pick a noun for his arena call sign and see if the Latin version isn't terrible? (my first thought was some sort of 'shield' name but they're all pretty terrible, imagine being called Clipeus or Parma.) I don't think....there's a perfect translation of 'captain' but you could always pick a Roman military rank and have him nicknamed that, like The Centurio/Centurion. "Captain America" is cheesy enough already so a cheesy gladiator nickname totally makes sense haha.

[adarksweetness]

Centurion is a fab idea! I'll have to look into bc honestly, there's no reason to be called Captain America if they're not in America.

Aaaand I'll probably leave Iron Man as it is.
*is trying so hard not to be whatever the latin version of a weaboo is* -_-

[admiral]

honestly you could probably just keep it as Iron Man or whatever you want to use in English because we're presumably assuming everyone in the fic is speaking Latin so you don't actually need to put in special Latin names for anything. but that's me being the world's laziest history-major-slash-latin-student when it comes to research for historical au fics lmao.

oh wait I just saw your response to sineala and I do love the Silver Centurion armor that would also be A+. he could use that (if you even need a 'hero' name for Tony) and Steve could be Nomad? there's always the pick a random name that means something you like route haha.

[sineala]

Keeping in mind that depending on how much you feel like being historically accurate, I think Centurio is perfectly good for Captain; since America's named after a person who didn't exist then, things might get a little weirder but if you're really wedded to Centurio Americanus, you should just go for that. I mean, dude, comics have done far worse. (The nerd in me points out, however, that Roman citizens cannot be gladiators because IIRC all gladiators are slaves; this may affect your worldbuilding, and I have the vague impression that centurions tended to be citizens even in the auxiliaries because it was an officer rank. I would have to look that up.)

If you want to use one of Steve's other superhero aliases instead, I still think "centurio" is good for The Captain. You might also want Nomad which is apparently "nomas" in Latin but then that also tends to mean people actually from Numidia which you may or may not want.

As for Iron Man, I think the last time I thought about this I went with one of the made-of-iron adjectives. Can't remember which one.

HI MY NAME IS SINEALA AND I THINK TOO MUCH ABOUT ROMAN AUS. (Yeah, I have notes for another one around here somewhere.)

[adarksweetness]

I actually had a breakthrough on IM bc doesn't he canonically have a Silver Centurion armor? Which leaves me back on square 1 with Steve *cries*

Given that I'm trying to write the Avengers as a group of outsiders and not really Roman citizens, I'm pretty sure I can get away with the dudes being gladiators. (Except for Tony, who clearly has to be a Patrician type and fund everybody!) And I did consider Nomad for Steve! But like you said, it doesn't sound cool enough. Maybe eagle...Centurion Aquilas sounds trendy.

[admiral]

ok I was looking at AvAc fic on ao3 and discovered there's no fake dating fic for that verse at all?? so now I'm tossing around possible ideas for some but thought I'd see what other people would like. Tony asking Jan or Nat to be his fake date to some party/event for whatever reason and Steve thinking they're dating for real and sulking about it? A more traditional fake dating situation where Tony asks Steve to be his fake date? Some completely different convoluted reason why they HAVE to pretend to be dating? I feel like AvAc is good for fun cracky situations haha.

also tangentially related but are Tony's parents dead in AvAc verse? I'm completely blanking on that for some reason.

[adarksweetness]

Ooooh an AvAc fake dating would be so cute! I do love Jealous!Steve. But oh, I also love Steve and Tony fake dating and Steve realizing he shouldn't wait too long to date for real (like he did with Peggy).

I do believe Tony's parents are dead in AvAc since there is a statue of Howard and all :( (Buuuut since dead people do keep coming back, maybe Howard can return temporarily? And after seeing his A+ parenting, Steve goes off about how great Tony is, so great in fact, they're dating. And it goes from there~)

[admiral]

I keep going back and forth on would I rather see more pining jealous Steve or more fake dating shenanigans with mutual pining. both are good but which is better!! Steve thinking he waited too long AGAIN to ask someone on a date would be extra angst for sure :/a

yeah the AvAc wiki says they're deceased so hmmm. well if I can't think of anything better I can always pretend they're alive and hinge the plot on them being the reason for any supposed dating drama, haha.

[lazywriter7]

Ahhhh, so. Started working on my BB fic which is going to be a Westworld fusion, god help me. Basically just all of the AI, darkness and mindfuckery - which is not a genre I'm too familiar with, which is going to be tricky all on its own. Need a sounding board/someone to iron out plot outlines, developments and character details with, but I always get really anxious about just emailing people on the active beta readers list out of the blue. Anyone got any help/advice?

[fluffypanda]

I'm not on the beta readers list, but I wouldn't mind being a sounding board. Inbox me if you are interested.

DEAD PEOPLE STUFFS

[tripperfunster]

Don't know if anyone needs this or not, but I work with dead bodies for a living (work with the coroner and funeral services) so if anyone has any questions about death/rigor etc, I'd be happy to help. (keeping in mind I'm not a doctor, but have lots and lots of observational info.)