schepper-wubs-wips

[schepper-wubs-wips]

I hope the SARS-2 pandemic becomes a little softer in 2024, through science and not citizen and government ignorance. I hope that maybe my life could stop being "kill myself or buy pricegouged virus treatment and die anyway" and likewise I hope I stop wishing I was dead for the first time in 22 months. I hope I find an online community where I actually thrive. And not in a distant timezone and not on Discord. I hope I see more regret from people next year, didn't see a lot of regret this year. I especially wanna see Western governments and COVID deniers and minimisers sob and whimper. Who knows what else will happen maybe I'll start estrogen, get a support worker, find some passion for work or school. Maybe I could start living and not just surviving. Maybe I'll want to become an author again. What I want most of all though, if my life comes to its end next year, is for there to be proof that I have suffered. Please remember me as suffering, no one else would believe that's truly how my life was otherwise.

[schepper-wubs-wips]

Luca Del Pia (2004)

[schepper-wubs-wips]

Yes I've heard the advice about how 'said' is the best dialogue tag but actually you can take 'snarled' from my cold dead hands because I am not letting it go. It's about the imagery. It's about characters who are also cornered dogs. It's about the reactivity, the redefining of boundary, the step back, give me space of it all. It's about the bared teeth and the ears pulled back and the stance, ready to snap. 'Said' could never.

[schepper-wubs-wips]

best advice i ever got as a writer was to pick a hobby that i hated more than writing and stick with it. i’m a runner now and it’s miserable and i Hate It and writing is so lovely in comparison. bonus: i’m in excellent shape and running gives you a lot of time to think about writing. i’ve solved a lot of plot complications while running.

This is such funny advice. Writing is so excruciating, you gotta take up Self Torture so that writing feels like a fun little break 😭

[schepper-wubs-wips]

PACING IS ABOUT LOAD BEARING WALLS.

*staples violently to my own forehead*

[schepper-wubs-wips]

22 years ago on 9/11, I was ten years old. Here's what I wrote about it in my journal at the time

[schepper-wubs-wips]

As a brown trans boy it sucked so badly to watch those “gender envy” slides on tik tok and see only white boys with fluffy hair. It was a little thing but it made me feel invisible even in my own community. So these are men that look like me and give me gender envy. If you’re POC disabled/ don’t see your self in common trans discussions feel free to add on.

[schepper-wubs-wips]

How to make the plot beautyful?

A great question worthy of an equally-great answer: how can we as writers make our plots not just good, but beautiful?

What NOT To Do:

String a bunch of random conflicts together

Start with a clear bad guy & good guy (and maintain that relationship throughout the story)

Create plotholes on purpose (then tell yourself that it adds to the “mystique” or think you’ll answer the question later)

Only create story arcs for the main characters and not the side characters because they’re “not as important”

Ignore your own world’s fictional rules without a good reason

Include subplots that don’t support your main story arc

Rely on an outline to rigidly dictate your story’s plot

What To Do:

Start with a simple, compelling premise

Choose a base plot structure to loosely follow (Freytag’s Pyramid, The Hero’s Journey, Three Act Structure, Dan Harmon's Story Circle, Fichtean Curve, Save the Cat Beat Sheet, Seven-Point Story Structure, etc.)

Set up your beginning with your end (the beginning is the question, the end is the answer)

Think about cause and effect; allow each scene to build off the beginning into the end (ensuring each moves the plot and its clear central conflict)

Including the 5 W’s ( ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘why’ and ‘when’) will give the readers a clear sense of setting and ensure the story is more solid

Most importantly: remember that your plot doesn’t drive your characters, your characters drive your plot. Their development over time with their hardships is what will separate your story from average fair.

Hope this gives you a great idea of where to start!

- Admin M  x

[schepper-wubs-wips]

Multiple truths can exist at once;

BookTok getting people into reading is good; BookTok is not single-handedly responsible for why people struggle with literacy in the internet age.

BookTok *sometimes* gives indie, self-pub, and lesser-known authors a needed boost.

BookTok turning books into a fast-fashion-esque commodity and frequently promoting a limited number of books based on aesthetics and surface-level premises alone is concerning.

A lot of people are coming away from BookTok recs disappointed by the shallowness of some of the stories they are being rec��d.

A lot of critiques of BookTok are just as shallow (“tropes are bad! mentioning rep is queerbaiting! if I don’t like it then I compare it to fanfiction! give me a full-length summary in every mention of the book or I will assume there is no plot!”)

People often use critique of BookTok shallowness as an excuse to harass small authors (who sometimes aren’t even on BookTok?) for trying to promote or discuss their books at all.

People can and should seek out alternate book rec venues to BookTok, especially if BookTok disappoints them.

[schepper-wubs-wips]

I think one of the Worst Things about wanting to find period clothing from other cultures, is trying to find fucking casual/work clothes. Like no, I do not want to see all these fancy intricate kimonos, I want to see jinbei, and field work outfits so I don't put a damn obi on this poor boy so he has a belt to hang his knife from.

[schepper-wubs-wips]

can y’all just… like or reblog if y’all are polyam-safe blogs

[schepper-wubs-wips]

When you first entered the world, did you rise from a dark body of water or crawl out for the depths of a haunted cave?

I'm a haunted cave crawler. There were some cool trannies down there but alas it wasn't my place to stay, their prayers stayed with me though. I can hear a thrumming against the earth whenever I lay down, it's gentle on my ears like the legs of a beetle on your hand.

[schepper-wubs-wips]

hey you. indie creator. get rid of the corporate execs and the imaginary writers room in your brain. the cynical youtube reviewers and disney fans who want sanitized uwu gays probably are never even gonna be even slightly aware of your existence. write those unrelatable blorbos and those messy themes and that weirdly sexy violence. you have no one to answer to but yourself. give yourself what you want and maybe some day, some 3 random lesbians from the internet whose interests you have somehow exactly hit will look at your thing and think its pretty cool, and in the end thats all you ever needed

[schepper-wubs-wips]

This shit is heartbreaking.

Hopefully they're able to sue him and win, not only so they get some of the money they deserve, but also so that the newest noteworthy win in a plagiarism lawsuit isn't from the 80s.

[schepper-wubs-wips]

Adding my own rec to this, The Girl who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill reads like a modern day fairy tale filled with mystery and tension. A secluded town believes they must sacrifice their youngest infant once a year to the witch to stay safe, but the witch takes care of them and brings them to new families. One day, she decides to adopt her own child, after accidentally turning a little girl magic by feeding her moonlight instead of starlight. Drama ensues when her magical daughter nears the age when she's supposed to unlock her full power.

What are some good fantasy standalones for when you don’t want to read a whole series?

[schepper-wubs-wips]

Sick and tired of people slapping top surgery scars on characters they headcanon as transmasc and calling it a day, so here’s some other things you can give them (based on my own personal experience):

Small hands and/or feet

Patchy facial hair (particularly scattered on the cheeks, or clumping up on the chin/upper lip

Neck hair. Please. Please give them neck hair

Light or thin facial hair

Patchy arm or leg hair

Just give them weird body hair. Please

Acne, of course on the face but also the shoulders, chest and back. Even arm acne if you think they’d get that.

A chest that isn’t completely flat when they bind!!!!!

Trans tape!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes they don’t bind at all!!!

I’m begging you just please give them some boob. I don’t care how much. I just need to see some trans guys with boob

If you think that character would have a small chest and not want to bind/get surgery PLEASE GIVE THEM THAT. IM BEGGING YOU.

Literally any of the things that are supposed to change when you start T, just……. Catch it in the middle stage, or just before it changes

[schepper-wubs-wips]

Well now I have to read this after getting a glimpse of that

the garble (violent hivemind in which life force flows directly to the centre and is hoarded and everyone else is forced to fight for scraps and do soul-crushing things for the sake of survival) is part of a metaphor for capitalism

but the garble (what it forces the individual to go through and the way it alienates one from the world) is a metaphor for disability

and the garble (garble) is a metaphor for I like crazy amounts of body horror and existential horror and hey think of how sick it'd be to claw your way to the centre of all this rot and rip it apart with your teeth because god you're just so mad. you deserve this

and the garble (monster mode) is a metaphor for big monster sexy

thanks for coming to my ted talk