the standard tech case files

Some Art For You

/ falconlord5

So, one of the things I’m working on this year is learning how to draw. Mostly, this is because I need a map for Fort City, Joey and Jen’s haunt.

Naturally, progress has been slow, but damn good for somebody who hasn’t drawn anything since junior high!

Remember, if you want to support my creative endeavours, you can support me on Patreon or buy me a hot chocolate.

So, here are some samples of my attempts at drawing:

My first attempt at a map for Fort City. It’s supposed to be a star fort, but I don’t think this map quite got where I wanted.

My second, abortive attempt at a map. I realized about halfway through I’d drawn the vertical lines too far out. I needed to move them in more.

My final map for Fort City! Well, not quite. There’s a lot I’m not satisfied with (and more I haven’t settled on), but it is more or less the right shape.

The extra lines are supposed to be city streets, but I think for this map at this scale they just make the map look busy. I’m going to tinker with it some more.

My first attempt at drawing a human being! And it turned into something of a robot man. Whoops.

The non-robotic drawings are my dad’s. When I showed him my picture, he scribbled out some suggestions to help me improve.

I have good parents.

My most recent attempt at a human. Still a stick figure, but less of a robot.

Lots of practice yet!

Quick Update!

/ falconlord5

Goooooood morning my fellow random response generators! Josh Stoodley here with just a short update this time.

  1. My fanfiction, The Uncanny X-Men will be finished this month. Yay!
  2. If everything goes according to plan, I will start serious work on No Blood for Business by July, Brockhold by October and Legends of Infernia by winter. And by serious work I mean writing everyday until the projects are done. No Blood for Business and Brockhold are coming out in 2023; I don’t have a release window yet for Legends of Infernia but I will keep you updated.
  3. Next week, I will discuss the philosophy behind Legends and what I intend to say with it.

As always guys, if you like my work you can support me on Patreon or buy me a hot chocolate.

Writing Philosophies

/ falconlord5 / 1 Comment

Greetings my fellow random response generators! It is I, Josh Stoodley, here to regale you with more opinions that you didn’t ask for!

Except today isn’t about opinions. It’s about the three different philosophical underpinnings of my upcoming commercial works: No Blood for Business, Brockhold, and Legends of Infernia. As all three have quite different inspirations (Film noir and hardboiled detective fiction for No Blood, Redwall for Brockhold and the Tales of series for Infernia), you’d expect all three to have quite different philosophies underpinning them!

And you’d be right, of course.

The reason I want to discuss, to lay out the different philosophies underpinning these works, is because I know people. I know they will take my work and twist it to their political and philosophical ends, that they will seek meaning where there is none, and invent out of whole cloth interpretations of characters and scenes that is completely at odds with what really happened.

I intend to combat this kind of bad faith analysis directly in the text itself, of course. But there is no way I will be totally successful; a quick perusal of Tumblr will be enough to disabuse you of that notion. So I wanted to create this post. An easily accessible resource for future analysts and fans who are concerned with the truth, not whatever their pet political theory is.

So if you want to know why I wrote these projects the way I did, join me under the cut!

And remember, if you enjoy these posts you can support me on Patreon or buy me a hot chocolate.

Continue reading →

Toothaches And Other Shenanigans

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Hi guys! I know I promised a post last week, but I have in fact been in crippling agony for the past week or so due to a cavity that I should have taken care of years ago, but didn’t.

Whoops.

But you don’t want to know about my pain, you want to know about my writing.

And, admittedly, I haven’t gotten a lot done this month. Between the American election and my toothache, I’ve been drained to the max.

So here’s a quick update.

The Standard Tech Case Files: No Blood For Business

Work on the first chapter continues apace. Originally, I had planned to have the first chapter and second chapter finished for this month, but that’s not going to happen.

A preview for the first chapter can be seen on my Patreon. Link here: https://www.patreon.com/joshstoodley

Brockhold

Introducing my newest series, Brockhold! Inspired by the Redwall series by the late (and deeply lamented) Brian Jacques, it takes place in a pseudo-England inhabited by woodland creatures.

The main character is Redfur (name open to revision) a weasel commoner recently promoted to High Constable of Brockhold. He and his best friend, Hob Short-tail, must contend with the damage done to the castle’s guard by the previous High Constable, the lord of Brockhold’s son.

That’s not all the two have to contend with, though. Lord Morchyn of Brockhold intends to marry his son off to Countess Johanna, the young and newly ascended lady of another hold. In Countess Johanna’s retinue is the Lady Ailenor Laflamme, a weasel who’s as hard-bitten and cynical as Redfur himself is.

While the two retainers clash over what is best for their lords, other victims of the previous war arise, with plans of their own…

As always, preview chapters will be posted on Patreon.

Fanfiction

This has been a slow year for updates to my fanfic, and I apologize for that.

However, more is coming!

Wonder Woman

The next chapter is going to undergo a complete re-write; currently it’s all exposition and bad exposition at that.

So that may not come out this year.

That’s it for this time, I’ll see you guys again soon!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing to my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/joshstoodley or donating to my Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/falconlord.

You can also catch me at Tumblr at https://falconlord5.tumblr.com where I post live blogs of DCAU shows, the Adam West Batman series and other shit that interests me.