#50K??????? NO WAY (that rhymed)

[kairiscorner]

GUYS WHATTTTTT NO FUCKING WAY HUH THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH AAAAAAAAAAAA idk what i'm doing but thank y'all for liking it RGHHHHHH to celebrate, y'all can participate in my 1kapalooza, don't be shy ^^ !!

i'll be accepting 10 requests for now, i'll see if i can do more after those, but i'm sorry if uploads for this + the general requests will start coming slower bc of school TT BUT THANK YOU POOKIES NONETHELESS, ILY ALL PLATONICALLY BABES 🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶

btw, babes, i'm also considering making those character x oc/reader letters soon. once i get the final poll results (if i can even find my poll 😭😭😭) imma make a post about it and get to work >:DD again, thank you guys so much for the support, i hope to be able to keep this up for all of y'all and feed you guys' delulu <333

[legacygirlingreen]

Hogwarts Legacy Masterlist

Scroll down for one shots / Farmer Seb Masterlist!

⋆｡˚𖦹 This Series was previously titled "Times in Sebastian's 5th year!!

As a reminder, this diverts heavily from Canon, using the characters from the game as foundations for a different story. Written in y/n (but slowly going back through to remove and leave only a few sparingly), it has more of a focus on Victorian standards for courting/relationships instead of just “hot and heavy” so to speak. If that appeals to you, please feel free to read and comment your suggestions for future parts.

Parts with NSFW Content are marked! Also some chapters now have AI Audios with links!

(UPDATED May 20 , 2024): 137, 000+ words

MAIN FIC MASTERLIST - INVISIBLE STRING

On AO3 here & Wattpad here

Playlist on Spotify made by @urbansaint !

Part 1: Becoming a Proper Gentlemen (SFW) Audio: X

Part 2: Christmas with the Sallow Family

\_> Chapter 1: Dusty Boots (SFW)

\_> Chapter 2: Admissions (Semi NSFW but mostly SFW)

\_> Chapter 3: Jumper (Semi NSFW but mostly SFW)

\_> Chapter 4: Sugar Plum Fairy (NSFW) Audios: X

\_> Chapter 5: A Locket and a Promise (Mostly SFW) Audios: X

\_> Chapter 6 - Yuletide Cheers (Mostly SFW)

\_> Chapter 7- Birthdays and Hogmanay (NSFW)

Part 3: Stardust (NSFW) - Audios: X, X, X

Part 4: Hero of Hogwarts

\_> Chapter 1: "Leave Me" (SFW)

\_> Chapter 2: Revelations (SFW)

\_> Chapter 3: Graphorns & Phoenix (NSFW) Audio: X

\_> Chapter 4: A Reckoning (SFW) Audio: X

\_> Chapter 5: Repository I (SFW) Audio: X , X (battle)

\_> chapter 6: repository II (SFW) Audio: X

\_> chapter 7: repository III (SFW)

OTHER WORKS:

Farmer Sebastian Series Masterlist : x

Completely separate short fic that's got 14 parts, 50k words!

ONE SHOTS

“Drenched in Magic” 💦 🌕

what happens when MC and Sebastian are running for their lives and he can’t stop flirting even for a second? Even worse what happens when a major mess leads to them needing to clean up in a small pool in the moonlight?

Slight NSFW ; Word count 4K

\_> with audio by @darch7995

“The nose knows” 👃🏻 🧪 💕

What happens when a mixup involving amortentia leads to MC accidentally revealing her crush?

Word count: 4k

\_> with audio by @darch7995

Part 1 ; part 2

“Live, Laugh… Lizard?” 🦎 💋

What happens when a fun outing turns into a slightly frightening experience for MC, and ultimately leads to Sebastian confessing his feelings?

*slight NSFW*

Word count: 4k

\_> with audio by @darch7995

“Strumming Hearts” 🎸 🥃 🚬 (Modern! AU rocker Sebastian)

What happens when MC's friends drag her into a packed night club to see a band she hates purely on principle? She meets a cute guy and in the midst of a miscommunication Sebastian goes far to get the attention of the girl who caught his eye

Word count: 6k

\_> with audio by @darch7995 : Part 1 ; Part 2

“Strumming Hearts II : Mad Sounds” 🎸 🚬 NFSW (Modern! Rocker AU)

In which the freckled guitarist of The Undercroft finds his muse…

Word count : 12k

“That time of year again…” 🎄 💕 NFSW

Sebastian reflects on Christmas’s of old as his holidays worries are put to rest by a sweet love confession, which turns into something more…

Word count : 7k

Sebastian Dad Audios 1 & 2

Brief audios about Sebastian and his life after Hogwarts where he's taking care of his child...

HEADCANONS & MISC

Sebastian, Solomon and Abuse

Random Headcanons with no rhyme or reason

My HC about Sebastian's lip scar, captured by @animasola86

OTHER CHARACTERS:

Aesop Sharp:

"Burning Eyes & Laughter" NFSW

Aesop Sharp meets a new professor whose grumpiness rivals his own. Vignettes throughout the year where he slowly begins to see the truth behind her highly build ways leading to a mix up involving a laughing potion which causes him to see her in a new light...

Audio from story HERE

Word Count: 7k

"My Undeniable Miracle" SFW AUDIO

Aesop narrating John Mark Green's poem with violin in the background

[dragon-swords-prophecies]

Writeblr Re-Intro, 4th Edition

Hi! I'm copper or dragon or whatever else you wanna call me. Minor, he/him preferred but they/them also works. My main is @copper-dragon-in-disguise. I'm queer & neurodivergent.

Asks and messages welcome! I might take a while to respond to them but I like them. I mostly write fantasy, and my current main WIP is a steampunk fantasy murder mystery called Herald At Dawn. I also have a few back burner WIPs, which are all below the cut. (also, these all have taglists, if you're interested i can add you to them!)

Post subject to updates at any time.

My WIPs:

Herald At Dawn (#wip: herald at dawn)

Synopsis: 11 years ago a woman named Marisol Ekker was murdered by the wife of her son's father, Evelyn Belmont. Despite evidence to the contrary, Evelyn Belmont was acquitted, and faced no punishment. Nearly a decade later, investigative reporter Alexandrina McLelland approached Marisol Ekker's son, Nathaniel--who was 12 at the time of her death--, to write an article about the corruption present in the case. Shortly after the article is published a string of murders begins, with no seeming rhyme or reason to connect the victims. But the timing seem suspect, and as the fallout of the articles publishing hits Nathaniel, more and more people keep dying, until the killer targets somebody much closer to home than Alex would've ever guessed.

Herald At Dawn was originally done for NaNo 2023 (I did a half nano, 25k not 50k), and its a steampunk murder mystery with a dash of fantasy. Set in a city called Volimere, it tells the story of the staff of a newspaper called The Clockwork Herald, and their adventures with a murder. The main POV character is Alexandrina McLelland (she/her), an investigative reporter. It's gay as fuck and also the first in what I intend to be a series!

Backburner WIPs:

Some context: The first three are all inspired by dnd characters/campaigns, and are in the same world/universe. The fourth is also in the same universe & dnd inspired, but it doesn't have a specific character attached to it.

Frost & Fire (#wip: frost & fire)

Synoposis: The death of an ancient primordial dragon brings the greatest (if not that well known) adventurers of the last centuries together. Enna Helder-Kromlin, half-Elf thief and contractor for the crown of Halmond, along with her sister, Anne, leader of the thieves guild Oleski. Anastrannia & Redari Galendel, twin half-Frost Dragon, half-Elves, one a shadow ranger and one a shadow sorcerer. They must work together, if not get along, to stop a evil dragon named Dizerdrat from trying to claim the power released by the death for himself, because if he does his could conquer the world—and would.

Frost & Fire is my original WIP, and I need to rework the plot a lot, but I still quite like it. Its about two twin half-elves named Anne (she/they) and Enna (any pronouns) Helder-Kromlin , and their efforts to stop a dragon from using magic (that he got from killing another, different dragon who was as old as time, pretty much) to conquer the world (this one particular continent, but despite the fact that they're spectacularly well traveled for half-elf orphans neither of them have ever actually left the continent, so its the world to them). Along the way they meet Anastrannia (she/they/ze) and Redari (they/he) Galendel, two siblings who have a lot of secrets and know a suspicious amount about dragons. This has a wip intro, though it isn't super current, but I'm linking it anyway.

One of Copper (#wip: one of copper)

Synopsis: The current god of death, Illa, came to power during a war between the gods a thousand years ago. A wizard is now trying to start another one, aiming to kill a god and take their place. Illa does not want to see another celestial war. She has no direct influence on the mortal plane, however, and so she outsources the quest to a ragtag group of heroes, when the original group of heroes sends back a memo saying that they're retired, and she can come down herself and make them go herself if she's so insistent.

One of Copper is about a bard named Kairon (he/they) and his friends, Ash (she/her, 60-something blacksmith), Joshua (he/him, quarter-elf fighter with minor nature magic and a massive crush), and Elas (they/them, elf sorcerer who is mildly (read: Very) cursed) & their adventures. Originally this was gonna be high fantasy, then it was gonna be lighthearted high fantasy, and now its gone in the exact opposite direction into high fantasy except much sadder than the original. Its about Death trying to stop a war between the gods that a wizard is trying to start, because the wizard wants to become one. (the goddess of death is called Illa. she's inspired by the Raven Queen in d&d).

UNNAMED, aka Enna's Prequel (PREV: Angel's Daughters) (#wip: ennas prequel)

By the time they were 19 years old, Enna and Anne Helder-Kromlin had been accused of murder once, imprisoned at least three times, and orphaned twice. By the time they were forty, those numbers would be changed to six, fourteen, and one, respectively. They had only ever actually committed four of the murders they were accused of, as Enna liked to remind people. Unfortunately, they had also been the targets of a blood feud, gotten kidnapped then almost killed by a necromancer, and twice had to go into hiding.

This is the backstory of Anne and Enna. Its set approx. 10-20 years before Frost & Fire, and it shows how they ended up where they are now, and their adventures. This is directly based off the original d&d campaign I played with Enna as my PC, and the main plot elements are a necromancer named Eleanor, a murdered brother, blood feuds (of a sort), and various other things. This is unnamed. It was previously called Angel's Daughters, but that rather spoiled the ending.

Silence and Secondhand Souls (#wip: silence and secondhand souls)

Fate is an interesting thing. Some doubt it even exists. Not me. Not anymore. Souls don’t rest until they’ve told their story, and I’ve got a long way to go yet. My friends are dead and so am I, haunting a narrative I never got a choice in. How exactly did that happen, you ask? Let me start at the beginning. Or the end, rather. I died when I was 21 years old.

Silence and Secondhand Souls is a first person POV story, narrated by Alexandra Rovenowa. She is dead. This is the story of how she died, set seventy years or so before Frost & Fire. It is also the story of how history likes to repeat itself, and how sending kids on quests for the sake of the world is bad, and of a kind Death, despite it all. (This is my most dramatic wip. Its a tragedy, and I really, really like it.) This does not have a current wip intro.

[dirtanddistance]

Halfway There: Run Ridge Run Race Report

Race: Run Ridge Run by Coast Mountain Trail Running

Distance: 25k, 3200ft vert

Location: Port Moody, BC

Time: 4:18:48

Goal: Don't cry, have fun - ACHIEVED

Sometimes, there's no amount of repetition that makes a challenge easier, and I'm starting to think that the Diez Vista ascent portion of RRR 25k and the DV 50k is one of those things. Having run the course twice already this winter, my trusty run buddies and I were excited to tackle it for time.... and also dreading that grinding ascent.

As any good running pod does, the three of us set out the night before for packet pick up, and a stop by Rocky Point Ice Cream for some cones before dinner in the hopes that a little treat would fortify us for the next day. After a series of road races over the past couple of months, I was itching to get back to the trails for a formal event. While the grind of an uphill slog is soul crushing, I don't think I would trade it for the nausea and occasional asthma attacks of trying to run as fast as I can down some flat pavement again any time soon. Race bibs and ice cream cones in hand, we were ready to take on whatever Saturday morning was going to bring us.

The morning was mild, and we lucked out on the rain holding off until well into the race. I had a feeling my husband was going to drop me and our other run buddy in pretty short order despite his Charlie-the-Unicorn caliber complaints that "three cheesy eggs was probably an excessive breakfast for race day", but he was still near me by the time we had dragged ourselves all the way up to the Diez Vista sign. However, the blue babbling unicorn to my pink rambling unicorn was nowhere in sight. Upon questioning, my husband reported that she'd "dropped" a while ago on the climb and then sprang off into the distance, unperturbed by the treacherous descent ahead of us and seemingly unfazed by the grueling ascent we'd just made. As I meandered along, carefully avoiding slippery spots and gingerly placing my feet to avoid sliding down deceitfully slimy rocks, I realized that 'dropped' could mean multiple things. I did not want to believe that she could have quit the race (but honestly I wouldn't have blamed her - that climb is no thoughts just vert), and vowed to wait up for her a little farther along the trail when it opened up. My relief was palpable when a familiar headband appeared in my peripheral vision, confirming the presence of my long-suffering, peer pressured companion.

Speaking of, the reason I was not at this event alone was because I had peer pressured my husband and running bestie into doing this with me, as preparation for the other race I pressured them into, the Diez Vista 50k in April. This course is essentially the front half of that race, so of course we should do it! They were probably questioning this reasoning on the way back off the ridge, but didn't voice any complaints. These are the kind of people you want to pressure into trail running with you. Absolute yes-people.

A hobby that running bestie and I have gotten into is describing our very lengthy training runs in terms of an open world video game. Being out in BC, you quickly realize that you've been dropped into an IRL Breath of the Wild type map to run around in. It starts raining sometimes. The weather shifts. You're out long enough that the daylight changes noticeably over the course of the run. There are NPCs that join you for short periods and at the aid stations that you can interact with. You're running a side quest to pick up enough trash to merit a free pair of socks at the finish line. You're snacking on health-restoring elixirs imbued with arcane energy. On this logic, you quickly devolve into letting your brain go completely feral. Thoughts enter and exit without rhyme or reason. Your internal monologue is feeding you random early 2000s YouTube video quotes and songs you haven't listened to on purpose ever in your life (I have not even once listened to Beauty and a Beat by Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj intentionally).

It's been years and years since I ran a race with a friend, and never a trail race. This is the cheat code. I think that with a good run buddy you could probably cover untold kilometers as long as you both were prepared to feed each other the most absurd thoughts from the depths of your meme stuffed Millenial minds. We decided that the Brightline train line in Florida was a worthy topic of conversation and speculation for a nontrivial quantity of the course. I have a feeling that my husband raced off from us is because he knows that he is the Charlie the Unicorn to our pink and blue unicorns, and that if he sticks around we will eventually tell him to put a banana in his ear. However, it was his words at the finish line that sealed the experience for me: "You two just looked like you were having so much fun when you got to the finish line. You looked so happy." After hours of running through mist shrouded forests, up and down hill after hill, dodging rocks and roots and small rivers, telling ourselves we were graceful fae princesses frolicking through our kingdom, I arrived at the finish line incredibly tired, incredibly ready to be done running, and happier than I though you could be at the end of a race. I collected my hard-earned Gary Robbins finish line hug, and the three of us grinned, dirty and tired, ready to tackle the second half of this training cycle and face the final boss - the Diez Vista 50k.

Bonus Chapter: The Juice Vendor NPC

Running Bestie and I finally peeled ourselves away from the refreshment tent to go get changed after finishing, leaving our partners to discuss whatever it is that brogrammers discuss by a fire on a gloomy beach, but were quickly arrested in our path by an older fellow beseeching us to wait as he had blueberry juice for us. I do not know how we managed to spend five minutes discussing how many samples each of us were to collect, but we left that baffling conversation with about 6 locally made juice pouches each. All this to say, you should always hit the dialog button to engage because sometimes, the merchant characters have elixirs imbued with arcane energy to give you.

[manysmallhands]

My Albums Of 2022 - Second Tier (pt. 2)

As previously explained, I've had to split these albums up into two posts because tumblr won't let me put more than ten links into one. This carries on where the previous one left off, recounting the second tier of my favourite albums of 2022 from July onwards. On we go!

July 

While Conway The Machine’s major label debut, God Don't Make Mistakes, got the better reception when it was released back in February, his collaboration with Big Ghost Ltd, What Has Been Blessed Cannot Be Cursed, was much more consistently enjoyable for me, if a little dense at times. There’s a gruesome feel that runs throughout the record and makes it heavy going to begin with, but Conway’s smart, edgy lyrics tend to lighten the mood and memorable tracks like "YBCM" and the Method Man guest spot "Scared To Death" meant that there were few albums more addictive released this year.

August

Trading in a kind of trippy soft-soul rumble, Mach-Hommy and The God Fahim's Dollar Menu 4 had a wonderfully dreamy sound, where the MCs who floated in and out of earshot were never quite as dominant vibes-wise as Fahim’s strange and hypnotic loops. But that's not to downgrade their contributions, as Mach and his guests' musings on food and hip-hop were always high quality, with beef of various kinds coming to the fore.

Your Old Droog (who also pops up memorably on Dollar Menu 4) released no less than six (count em!) EP/mini-albums this year and the quality rarely fell below excellent, increasingly placing him as one of my favourite underground MCs. Brooding funk beats, tenuous concepts and strikingly unusual reference points (what?!) were in full effect across every release, but the edgy bounce of Yodney Dangerfield was perhaps the best in a strong field.

September

If my first idea of Marina Allen was a kind of Shakin’ Judee Sill, the impression didn’t last long after hearing her excellent Centrifics album. While her voice has as much warmth and careworn experience as the 70s legends that she found herself compared to, there’s something unusual about the arrangements, especially the way they hang back and evolve rather than take the obvious route, which makes this album a slow burner and something worth returning to.

Rina Sawayama’s Hold The Girl spans genres effortlessly, shifting from pop-rock to club beats to wailing musical numbers and back again and then tying everything together in a bow of extreme melodrama. While there's a bit of deadwood in the middle, enough of it works (especially terrific single “This Hell") for it be worth sticking with for the long haul, as repeated plays bring ever more to the surface.

October

Armani Caesar is another fine talent from the Griselda stable and her fifth album The Liz 2 arrived late in the year with a wealth of diamond shimmer. Combining hard rhyming and opulent beats with a torrent of absolute filth in the lyrics, it was both hugely entertaining and offered a rare female angle on the bricks and hustle Griselda house style that made for an enlightening perspective shift.

Following on from 2019's slightly woolly Close It Quietly, Inner World Peace saw Frankie Cosmos return to the sweet but snappy guitar pop which made their name. While some of the more twisting elements of its predecessor remained, the immediacy of their best work was back to the fore, while Greta Klein’s bittersweet musings were as heartbreaking as ever

And that's it! More or less no one will read any of these posts, but it kept me occupied for a couple of weeks and that's what counts. I'd also be surprised if anyone actually listens to any of these records either (i only ever click on these things to see how many of the same albums I've got myself), but it would be nice to think otherwise I guess. They're all pretty good though: you really should do it, rare and unusual reader!

[frigidwife]

right now in gaza, a single pack of diapers can cost around $40.

when her baby is born, hilda will have to find a way to afford diapers, formula, food, and clothing. there's an extreme shortage of all of these items. she says worrying about how she will provide for her child has become an obsession. ask yourself what you can spare to help alleviate her burden

€43 since last night--thank you, let's keep it going and build momentum!

€1,454 / €50K

tagging for reach:

@paper-mario-wiki @nabulsi @gaza-evacuation-funds

@beepiesheepie @walcutt @schoolhater

@commissions4aid-international @sar-soor @zigcarnivorous @tododeku-or-bust @turtletoria

@flower-tea-fairies @baby-girl-aaron-dessner @sayruq @appsa @omiteo777

@malcriada @neptunerings @bat-luun

@determinate-negation @kaneverse @nightowlssleep @staretes

@soon-palestine @aria-ashryver @heritageposts

@magnus-rhymes-with-swagness-blog @khanger @kordeliiius

@mazzikah @feluka @self-hating-zionist

@a-shade-of-blue @babygoatsandfriends @girlinafairytale @mangocheesecakes

how would you continue under these conditions?

even though @hildanasr1 has been fundraising on here for several months and been vetted by mohammed ayesh w gazaevacuationfunds since october 9, her family has barely received any donations.

on top of surviving under constant shelling, losing all sense of stability, living with nine people crammed into a tiny tent afflicted by snakes and insects, struggling to find adequate food every day, and the terror of being pregnant (!!) for the first time when healthcare infrastructure is constantly at the brink of collapse--hilda has to go through the demeaning, frustrating process of navigating tumblr and twitter to ask for help. she endures constant disappointment and annoyance because it's her family's best shot to survive.

this is exhausting. these people are exhausted! what else does she have to do to win our attention and sympathy?

right now her campaign is at €1,391 / €50K. let's get hilda to €2,000 by friday! please ask yourself if you can spare even the price of a coffee.

tagging for reach:

@butchniqabi @northgazaupdates2 @thatsonehellofabird

@killjoycatlady @spelllingandthemysteryschool @brutaliakhoa

@killy @capacity2 @velvetys @dirhwangdaseul

@prisonhannibal @beserkerjewel @wellwaterhysteria @cuntylouis @sergle

[longbobmckenzie]

regrets - Rohan oneshot

Summary: Rohan watches someone else win Love Island with the one that he loves... and regrets not speaking up sooner.

Wordcount: 1,022

Read on A03 or under the cut!

“… And the winners of Love Island 2018 are… Leanne and Jake!!”

I clap and cheer with the rest of the crowd. I try to be happy for you – I really do. But I can’t help it that my heart is shattering into a million pieces. I can’t help it that the tears streaming down my face are those of regret and sadness rather than tears of joy like the ones on the faces of those around me.

I can’t help it that I’m in love with you… and I regret that I never told you.

If I had, maybe it would be me standing up there by your side. £50k richer, but even more importantly, rich in the knowledge that we overcame everything – the odds, the doubters, the fear of putting ourselves out there – to be together.

I don’t know if you love me back. I might have missed my opportunity to find out. But I have a feeling… a feeling that there was always something there between us. A feeling that if I had only spoken up, something beautiful could have blossomed from it.

But now, I have nothing left to do but wither away and watch you find your happiness with someone else. To do my best to move on. To reminisce and try to figure out where things went wrong.

We never coupled up, but from the moment I stepped into the villa – and even before then – I had my eye on you. I came in confident that I could win you over, but once I was in your presence, I lost my nerve. Lost a piece of myself that I’ll never get back.

The next day, during a challenge, we kissed. You may not have felt it, but I did. That all-important spark. I can still remember how your lips tasted – the spearmint of your toothpaste. Spearmint is my new favourite flavour. Your scent was intoxicating, and the way your hand rested on my chest, burned my skin, and ignited a fire in my belly. What I wouldn’t give to experience that all over again.

One of my favourite memories is teaching you how to do handstands. Both of you, really. The three of us hanging out in the bedroom, not a care in the world. And then that night, you coupled up together – not sparing a glance for me.

Watching you during the Pied Off challenge was… hard. Seeing that whipped cream all over your face and dripping onto your chest – I wanted to lick it off your body so badly. I spent the whole challenge hoping nobody would look over at me and see the way my shorts were too tight as I daydreamed about tasting the salt of your skin mixed with the sweetness of the cream... About placing my hands on your hips and drawing you closer, kissing my way up your neck.

I should have said something then. Should have done what I’ve only been able to dream about doing since that day.

And then there was a recoupling, and the two of you broke up. I’m not sure why; I’m not even sure you know why. If I was ever going to make a move, that would have been the time. I still don’t know what stopped me.

It’s a little scary, putting yourself out there. I’m an entertainer; the circus is my passion. Put me in front of a crowd in leotards and let me show you my moves, but in matters of the heart? I’m too delicate. Too afraid. Too shy.

The rap crew, though, that was fun. Hanging out, spinning rhymes, ignoring the drama going on around us. We were a team. I felt so close to you. Listening to you stumble on your words, watching the blush form on your cheeks. Laughing with you. I love your laugh. I would give my soul for the opportunity to hear it day in and day out for the rest of my life. The rest of ourlives.

After the dunking challenge, I watched you give each other massages. I so wished that it was my hands on your skin. And yours on mine. Watching you laugh together and share an intimate moment, feeling like I was intruding on something. I knew then that you would get back together. And still, I didn’t do anything about it.

I’m a coward.

Everyone was surprised at the final recoupling, except for me. I knew. And I might’ve had the power to stop it. If only I had thought to make my own last-minute confession of love. If only I had mustered up the courage to say what I really felt.

Instead, I was left to couple up with Lucy. Between her, and watching the two of you all loved up, I was miserable. It was a mercy when you let me get dumped before the final. Although, I wonder that neither of you fought to save me – me, one of your best friends in the villa.

Maybe you knew all along. Maybe you couldn’t bear to see me in pain.

Or maybe you waited for me to say something, and when I didn’t, you gave your heart to another instead.

You could have said something too.

And now, here you are. Standing in front of me with a flute of champagne in your hand, waiting for me to congratulate you on your big win.

Well, I can’t. I can’t do this anymore without saying something.

I move close so I can be heard over the talking, laughing, and cheering going on around us.

“Can we talk?”

You gaze at me curiously before nodding your head and directing me over to a quiet corner – as quiet a corner as we can find, at least.

“What is it, Rohan?”

“Jake… I’m in love with you.”

You suck in a breath, and a range of emotions pass over your face. Surprise. A brief flicker of happiness. And then sadness, and even worse… pity.

“I’m sorry… I love Leanne.”

But while you’re saying one thing with your mouth, your eyes tell a different story.

One of regret.

[mariana-oconnor]

So, I love your fic(s) Lost and Found // The Wolves of Timely. Clint's hope for Barney, his guilt, Bucky's terror at being injected, all so beautifully written

But I was wondering, how do you go about writing such a long fic?

And if you outline your fics at all, do you look at your outline and go 'this'll be 50k words' or whatever or what?

Thank you! I'm so glad you like that fic. I love werewolves, and that fic was really interesting to write.

Oh boy. This is a weird one because the way I've done this kind of thing has changed so much over the years and I'm still in a place where sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and there's really very little rhyme or reason to when my brain decides that 'yes, this is good' and 'no, I can't'.

I've been doing Nanowrimo for years. Since... 2002? I think? Maybe 2003. Either way, it's been a long time. And while I haven't always won it, I have always tried. And in the beginning, I just started writing and whatever came out came out and that was that. Because when I first started writing, planning stories out just took all the joy of writing out of them for me. I wrote to discover the story, and if I'd already planned it then there was nothing to discover. I still sometimes find that planning something out makes it bore me when I actually come to write it. But I have got significantly better at finding interest in the smaller details, and constructing scenes, sentences and characters. There is a joy in finding the exact right phrase to convey your meaning. The perfect phrase is an elusive beast, but when you find it...

I know some people who use the Snowflake method, or plan every single scene and just... really go hard on the planning. I cannot do that. My mind rebels. There is no quicker way for me to kill my love of a story than to overplan it. Having said that, I do now plan, and in a lot more detail than I used to.

BUT that's not what you actually asked. You wanted to know how I now go about planning fic, particularly long fic. Sadly Lost & Found was planned on a past computer, so I don't have my initial files to hand, or I'd give you examples from that. But here's a sort of description of my 'method'. (Inverted commas because any individual project might have all, none, or some of these steps.)

(Under a read more because this got loooooong).

The Basic Premise

The general method of planning that I've sort of constructed over the year is I start by just... writing out the basic premise and then expanding it. I just type it, or write it longhand if that's easier at the time. It's not exactly a summary. It's more...

OK, for an example, I'll copy in one of the ones I did for a recent Tumblr ficlet:

SO - Another sort of college age fic. Bucky’s been trying to ask Clint out but Clint is oblivious so somehow, when they’re all drunk, the subject of lapdances comes up and it turns out Bucky actually did learn how to lapdance once, from this online course, but he broke up with that SO before he actually did it. They sort of dare him to do it - otherwise it’s a waste of talent, right. And Natasha suggests Clint, as he’s the only unattached person there or something. It’s hella awkward and Clint’s all like ‘No thanks’ and things get… even more awkward.

Clint sends a message to Bucky by accident - to the wrong chat? He thinks he’s deleted it in time, because it’s about how Natasha is the worst friend because now he can’t stop thinking about Bucky… gyrating, or something like that. Bucky has seen it, though, and he gets Natasha to let him in one night and he just… there’s the lapdance and there’s the threat of handcuffs or something. And Natasha sends a text that she’s not coming back until tomorrow and they’re welcome.

I was working that all out as I went along. It's pretty much stream of consciousness. Because this was a short fic and I had a clear prompt, this is a lot more coherent than they usually are. Often I'll just have questions in capital letters in the middle of them, like "BUT WHY IS CLINT EVEN ON THE CRUISE?" or "HOW DID BUCKY KNOW ABOUT THAT??!?!", where I know where I want the plot to go, but I don't know how to get it there. This flags the earliest plot holes that I can see them and also means that when I'm stumped I don't stop writing, I just write down the question that's stumping me and keep going with the plot. Sometimes I answer the question in the next line, sometimes I go 'fuck it' Future!me can answer the questions. Current me is just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

Often there will also be things like "NO, Natasha knows before that, of course she does." and then I backpedal with an instead or something.

With some of my longer fic, I write multiple of these stream of consciousness things, because there are sticking points that I just can't get my head around. I come at it from different angles. "WHAT IF Bucky actually is from an alternate universe?" idk. Sometimes I end up just writing swear words. I try not to call myself an idiot because Postive Mental Attitude and all that, but I will not deny that I occasionally just type long screams.

Is this helpful? This doesn't feel helpful.

But anyway, that's step one. Write down premise and try to mould it into some sort of mutant zombie plot. Include all the awkward, dumb questions and comments.

Step-By-Step

Step 2, is where things get more ordered, but they're still pretty vague.

This is where I list things from the plot. Roughly in order of when they should happen, but not necessarily. Sometimes I do this in an excel/google sheet, sometimes at the start of the document I'm writing in. (I do try to delete this before my betas get into the file).

So I have this list - it might be numbered or bullet points, or every 'plot point' in a different cell in Excel. I call them plot points, but that's not necessarily true. If there's a snippet of dialogue in my head, then I put that in. If there's just a scene or an action I know has to happen. I didn't do this for the ficlet I mentioned above, because I didn't need to, that plot summary was enough. I did do this for my Cap-Ironman Big Bang last year - The Highwayman's Baronet.

That fic ended up at 125k, the longest thing I have ever written, and my step-by-step plot summary had 34 'plot points' on it. Here are a few:

10. Steve decides to become a highwayman to uncover the secret of the inn.

11. Informal meetings between Tony and Steve. Tony and the piano!

12. Obadiah and Steve are not fond of each other

13. There is a highwayman, Tony is intrigued

14. Steve sketches the landscape.

15. Balls. There are balls. Of course there are. This is a Regency drama. Netherfield hall is let at last, mama

16. Indries Moomji is introduced. At a ball? Probably?

17. Highwayman Steve is always a gentleman. Holds up Tony’s carriage. Tony chases after him. Steve is more daring behind the mask. Kiss to the hand.

As you can see, most of these are pretty vague. "Obadiah and Steve are not fond of each other" doesn't tell me any specifics, but it does tell me that I need to add in at least one scene where this is evident, preferably more than one. Ideally, every time the two of them share a scene together, this should be the subtext behind every one of their interactions.

Other things like "Steve sketches the landscape" are pretty specific scenes, but not plot related. In the end, that did tie in with the plot (which actually surprised me), but at the point when I was writing this, I was just 'Steve draws, a scene where he sits and broods regency style while sketching would be cool'. Likewise "Tony and the piano!" makes little sense to anyone but me, but I knew that I wanted the piano in Steve's house, and in particular Tony's playing of it to be important thematically and symbolically.

As I get closer to the end of the fic, I know fewer details about what's going to happen, so the bullet points tend to get... weird and more vague. I have one bullet point that is "Tony goes investigatin'" and another that finishes with "SHOCK GASP HORROR".

I don't tend to take my planning process very seriously. Don't get too precious over your plan.

Estimating Word Count

Particularly if I'm writing for a challenge, I doing my step-by-step list in a spreadsheet, so I can add a column called "estimated word count" or "EWC", and then, based on what I know of my writing, I estimate to the nearest 1000 or 500 words how long I think each of my plot points will be. I am usually wrong. I go by a rule of thumb that a standard, none climactic or pivotal scene for me is around 2000 words, a climactic scene is roughly 5000 words and other things I sort of... guess. This is almost always wrong. Things are longer or shorter. But this isn't meant for me to stick to, it's just so I can see roughly how long the fic might be.

When I'm doing this, the plot points do tend to be more specific, as well. The vaguer ones I try to work into actual scenes or merge into other points so I can get a better estimate.

When I was about 40k into The Highwayman's Baronet I did a separate spreadsheet of "Scenes left to write". Because I was already writing it, I had a better handle on where things were going, and I estimated there was about 74k left, which was actually roughly correct. Go me!

Honestly, most of the time, with estimating word counts, I horrendously underestimate. The number of times I have sent someone a message saying 'This was only meant to be 5k and now it is 20k and I'm only halfway through! Help me!', well... It's a lot. I find that I want to add in scenes to illustrate character development and especially with slow burn you need to add in more scenes to establish the relationship (often my beta reader will suggest adding in even more scenes to do this. Beta readers are great). Estimating word count is hard. Sometimes you start out with something you think will be 50k and every scene is shorter than you think, sometimes the other way around. Experience has made me better at guesstimating, but there's no real science to it. Sorry.

Actually Writing

The important part of planning is remembering that if I don't stick to the plan, no one's going to arrest me or go 'ANA! How dare you take a fifteen thousand word detour into Clint's tragic childhood?! This wasn't in your plan!'

The plan is there for me, in case I get lost. The important part of the writing is to enjoy it. My rule of thumb is that if I'm bored writing a scene, I can't expect the reader to enjoy reading it. This isn't always the case, but something that's fun to write is far more likely to be fun to read.

This means that if I find myself writing something from the plan and every word feels flat and I just want this scene to be over, please when will it end? I do one of two things. I either jump to a scene from the plan that excites me, and come back to work out why that earlier scene wasn't working for me at a later date (sometimes it's because it's the wrong scene entirely. Sometimes I need to write it from a different POV, sometimes I need to drop it as a scene entirely and just write a sentence or a paragraph to cover what happened and move on). OR, just have something happen. Something off script. Something weird and crazy.

In Lost & Found, from what I remember, I never intended Wanda and Pietro to show up. I just wrote in a coyote because I was bored of 'Clint works on fixing up the B&B', and that... turned into Wanda and Pietro's entire subplot. Often, when you're writing you'll write yourself the answers to questions you haven't even thought to ask yet without realising it. Or you'll come to a scene later on and you'll be thinking 'But how do I get him out of this?' and you realise that the throwaway comment you wrote six thousand words ago is actually foreshadowing for this very moment.

So, I guess, what I'm trying to say is plan, but the plan?

It's more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules.

And then sometimes I don't plan at all, I just have a clear idea of a scene in my head and I start writing and see where it goes. Those times are some of the best. It's like my own personal adventure into the unknown.

[emmys-grimoire]

How to skate by: a guide for the weaker decks

I’ve seen no shortage of posts of people complaining about being behind in lessons and how everyone else is forging ahead. For some of you, I’m afraid I cannot help. For most of you, I suspect I can by offering a few helpful tips that have worked out for me.

This guide is for the standard battles only. The boss battles are far more complicated and difficult.

For context: I have only three URs and I’ve been playing since March. Two of them are UR+’s, but two of them are Belphie, so there’s never a situation where I can actually deploy all three. I’ve spent my time not maxing them out at the earliest opportunity but leveling up three SSRs for every sin to level 70, but two of my slots usually are the URS. You’re probably better off than I am team-wise if you have three maxed URs with three different brothers at your disposal. But, well, until I get that third one this is what I’m compelled to do.

First and foremost, you have to be comfortable with just getting one star until you can start knocking them out of the park. I have only one two star back in lesson 38. Since all you want to do is get to the story this shouldn’t be a problem, but unless you get particularly lucky you shouldn’t expect Special Guest to pop up very often. Sad! Though they actually did pop up for me half the time in this particular lesson, strangely enough. And of course I forgot how to poke the brothers when they don’t dance well and it all went to waste. (:

Furthermore, you will need glowsticks ready for the particularly nasty dance offs. You just won’t need as many as you may think, at a glance.

As you can see here in lesson 40-9, the enemy team has a 40k+ point advantage over my team. I don’t think they’re lying to you: the enemy team ai is just typically dumb and predictable, and you can use that to your advantage if you know how it’s dumb and predictable, to make this gap irrelevant. I don’t think they factor in the amount of heart points you can nab, either.

That Asmo card is also common/old af and has a useless skill, but it still consistently shows up in my recommended deck, so idgaf

As a general rule, I think enemy teams that are 30-40k points above you are still beatable. After 50k you usually will need to use a glowstick, but I always try without one first in case I get really lucky. I’ve managed to pull it off, but it’s a crapshoot most of the time.

Think of it this way: the goal is not to be stronger than the enemy team, it’s to reach the marker in time and foil their efforts to subtract points from your score. The stronger the enemies, the more points their attacks knock off from your score, so it counts in that particular regard.

To circumvent that, you need to get those sweet, sweet combo counters. 

Anyway, no glowsticks. Lets go, bitches. You don’t skurr me.

First, you always want to combo. Combos give you more points. But they’re not the only thing that gives you more points: countering enemy combos does as well. I almost always use all three cards in any combo ever, but I typically wait until after one sprite rotation/twirl to shoot it off in hope of trying to get the enemy to fire off first so I can counter... but it’s also beneficial when they try to counter your combo in the first pass -- because that means they won’t be throwing combos at me that I can’t counter before my meters refill. They’ll still be in cooldown, too.

In this particular fight, though, I managed to bait only one enemy into firing off right away. I couldn’t counter two attacks during my cooldown... but thankfully they didn’t combine into a combo and their skills are useless. Because the ai is dumb and doesn’t strategize. I got x1.25 more points for this nevertheless, even though I was countering just one wee enemy. If you notice, I was behind them until this point.

I haven’t figured out how all the enemy types function, sadly, but I do know gluttony enemies always fire off as soon as they can, so there’s no use in waiting to fire off your cards. The others seem capable of waiting, unfortunately, but it seems random. Perhaps I will one day deduce the rhyme or reason for when they do, if there is one.

I wait until the last second to fire off my next (and last) combo because, again, you get more points when you team fully counters an enemy combo. Sometimes it can put you right over the top.

This time, I didn’t really need to, but I did so for the sake of the demonstration. The enemies who chose to attack me while on cooldown couldn’t counter me at the very end because they were still on cooldown. And, again, they didn’t really have any skills that hindered my team.

KO, I win. 

This was actually an easy battle to win, despite... 

... this. BUT HEY, IT STILL COUNTS. I earned that one whole star.

It gets trickier when the enemies have skills like confuse and stun. They can easily make what seems to be a winnable battle (by my standards at least) practically a game of chance. If you’re up against enemies that have those skills, you should always make sure you’re capable of countering when they fire off -- and they seem to have a tendency to do it ALL AT ONCE, which is a good thing if their skills don’t activate and a terrible thing when they do.

Strategy tl;dr

Get them combo counters

1. Wait a second or two after your gauges fill up to fire off your combo in hope of getting the enemy team to fire theirs off first (I let the sprites twirl once before I fire it off). Gets you more points when you counter + prevents them from throwing an uncounterable combo at you. You don’t want to wait too long trying to bait them because you want to be capable of countering an enemy combo in the last stretch, and if you wait too long you’ll still be on cooldown.

2. Nab all your hearts and stuff because you’ll be in cooldown for most of the remainder of the battle after the first go.

3. Wait until the last second to fire off your last combo in hope of getting the enemy team to fire theirs off first so you can counter and get more points.

Happy dancing!

EDIT: Apparently you get the combo multiplier added to your score even if the enemies counter you, as long as you “win” the pass (your arrow triumphs over theirs). Get the biggest combo chain you can!

[brightwanderer]

I saw that you use Scrivener. I just started using it and I'm transitioning from Word. Got any tips? I find the breaking it down into sections thing useful for my novel but I have very little knowledge of how to really use it to its full potential

For me, there are two really great aspects to Scrivener. 1. You can put everything in one place, all your notes and ideas and random one-liners and so on, and 2. It’s super easy to drag and drop stuff around and to get an overview of a project in a visual way.

The basic setup I go with for my projects looks like this (using “The Rose and the Serpent” as an example):

1. Draft - divided into folders, one for each chapter, and then the scenes for each chapter will be individual documents within those folders. I find it helpful to estimate chapter counts and create the folders at the start (though I usually do scenes as I need them). I spent some time gathering data on my own writing habits, so I have come up with some basic metrics: my chapters average 5000 words, so for a 50k fic I would expect to write about 10 chapters and for a 100k novel I would expect to write 20 chapters, etc, although I will generally assume that I’m likely to go over those counts by a chapter or two.

2. Research - where I stick stuff that I’ve copied from wikipedia etc, in a desperate attempt to avoid distracting myself on Google halfway though a scene (it seldom works, there are always New Things To Research, but it’s useful to be able to refer back to whatever I started out with for a particular concept).

3. Scraps - if I decide to cut a scene, or rewrite it in a major way, I make a copy first and drag it in here. Or if it’s just a line or two, or the odd paragraph, I paste it into a “general scraps” document in this folder. This way I never really lose anything I write, and cut scenes can often be mined for dialogue or ideas that I want to use at a different point. (Scrivener does actually have a “snapshot” function where you can roll back to previous versions of scenes, but this method works better for me.)

4. Notes - where I put the outline, my ideas for future scenes, bits of dialogue, plot elements, etc etc. You can see there’s a file called “The Curse” in there - that’s where I worked on the rhyming verse I needed for this story.

This is actually a very stripped-down Scrivener project by my standards, because I wrote most of Rose in GDocs and only moved it into Scrivener for the last few chapters. I would usually make more use of the metadata options on the right-hand side, which you can see in this screenshot of my original novel “Celestial Chronicle”:

What you can see going on there is that I’ve got a basic scene summary in the top right. Then I’ve got my two customised metadata fields that I always use - character POV, and status. The character POV one is important for me because I usually write multiple POV stories and it’s helpful for me to keep track of the balance of which characters have had scenes recently.

I’ve also got a bit in the text there where I needed to research something but was making an effort not to let myself get sidetracked, so I’ve put a note in the notes field that I’ll need to look it up later (and then I’ve come back and gone “whoops, that doesn’t work, will need to think of something else”.)

The stuff on the right-hand side comes into its own when you switch over to the outliner or corkboard views:

The corkboard particularly is a gift if you want to do the kind of visual outlining that you might normally do on index cards - the index cards are right there, and literally linked to each scene, and you can change them to your heart’s content. (You can probably see that I’m not really doing much with the summaries for individual scenes; I tend not to want to outline on that granular level.)

I find this modularity really helpful. I like getting an overview of a chapter like this, and it makes me feel like it’s easy to edit and rearrange, because it’s all in separate bits and I can just drag them around, copy, etc without worrying about losing anything.

Depending on the project (i.e. is it a completely original spec-fic thing where I have to worldbuild the whole setting), I also basically build a wiki in the file with the draft. You can see the start of one in this Scriv file for my first Starborn novel:

A lot of those “wiki” entries are just “stubs” - I wrote a paragraph where I was like “oh that thing that happened in place” so I’ve quickly thrown it into a reference file so I can come back to it later and remember any loose ends I need to tie up. For characters, I’m generally not writing extensive character profiles, I’m just noting down things I may need to refer to later - age, appearance, wherever I said they went to uni, whatever. However, if you’re someone who likes to do a lot of character fleshing out before starting an original project, this would be the place for it!

And finally, just to confirm that this isn’t solely an original fiction thing, here’s a shot of my file for my Good Omens Agency fics:

I find this particularly helpful for interconnected stuff. “Instructions Not Included” is its own folder under drafts, then chapter folders, then scenes per chapter. Then I have “Best Served Cold” and the intended third story (currently “Devil’s Advocates” but that might change) set up the same way. This way I can keep all my outlining/research/worldbuilding for the whole series together in one place, and if I need to quickly re-read a scene from INI while working on BSC, I can home straight in on it using the organiser rather than getting distracted looking through the finished work on AO3 or something.

Finally, a few things you can do in Scrivener that are super helpful:

1. When you want to get your writing out of it to post somewhere, you use the “compile” menu, which gives you a ton of formatting options, including stripping out smart quotes etc if needed. Compile by default only looks at stuff under the Draft folder - so it ignores all the notes etc - and you can select which scenes/folders you want to be exported, which is helpful for WIPs that you’re posting chapter by chapter.

2. It has a search function! It’s pretty great! It will bring up anything with the search term, whether that’s in the draft or in the notes.

3. There is also a Whole Project Find and Replace option, which is not to be used lightly as you can’t undo it, but if you’ve ever renamed a character halfway through a story you will understand why this thing is basically my god.

There are, however, also three major drawbacks to Scrivener at this time:

1. It is not cloud software. You can install it on different computers and put your files in something like Dropbox to get access to them, but that’s the extent of it.

2. There is a Mac version and a Windows version and they are not the same. Sadly, the Mac version seems to have had the most love and development put into it, and has a lot of options that the Windows one just doesn’t have (including Text-to-Speech). Version 3 for Mac came out literal years ago, whilst version 3 for Windows has been promised since 2017 and there’s still no sign of it.

3. Connected to the above: one of the things the Windows version currently does not have is a style system for text. On the surface it looks like it does - you can set styles like “default” and “heading” just like in other programs - but it turns out that these styles do not dynamically update. What I mean by that is, say you set your “default” style to Arial 14pt. Halfway through the story, you decided to change it to Garamond 12pt. You can change your “default” style so that every new document from now on will use Garamond... but all the stuff that’s already in Arial will stay that way. Not only that, but there is no way to select all the text at once and just change the font; you will have to go to each document separately and do it that way.

This has been a complete non-issue for me for many years because I was posting stuff on AO3 and the formatting would be stripped out anyway - but as soon as I started doing ebooks I realised what a huge problem it was!

Despite that major drawback, I love Scrivener and wouldn’t use anything else for big projects at this point. There’s something about the visual organiser layout that just works so well for me and gets past panic about dealing with big blocks of text, and having my own private wiki is just The Best. :)

Let me know if you have any more specific questions!

[wildwoodmage]

Nanowrimo is almost over! I didn’t hit 50k, but I’m QUITE pleased with my 35k. I’ll be continuing Dead Reckoning, since it’s shaping up nicely, even if it’s clearly going to be way longer than I bargained for.

In the meantime, here is another excerpt! Finally we get to meet the big man himself. I went back and forth on Robotnik’s character; specifically regarding whether he should be cruelly honest and over-the-top like Jimbotbik, or slick and menacing like in SatAM. I settled on the former for several reasons, but my favorite is the irony of the big bad villain being unable (or unwilling) to tell a lie, whereas Sonia and Manic as the main protagonists have never been honest in their lives. Without further ado...

The last time she had set foot in the penthouse, she'd waited for what felt like hours. Nerves and impatience mixed into a potent cocktail that had her wanting to claw at the walls, testing the limits of her impeccable discipline. It was clear long before Robotnik deigned to meet with her that he thought very little of her. Sonia learned soon after that he thought very little of everybody. In his mind, Robotnik had transcended the petty limitations of humanity, and never had much patience for those he left behind. Sonia was no exception. It was refreshing, almost, when Robotnik told her to her face that he loathed her as much as he loathed the rest of the aristocracy, that he couldn't wait to replace them with mecanical mannequins, and that her job was to keep the spoiled simpletons happy and docile until he no longer had any reason to play nice. It was honesty like that which made him such a terrible politician.

Robotnik didn't keep her waiting this time, but instead stormed down the stairs as if he, instead, had been fuming as impatience and anxiety pressure-cooked his temper. Robotnik was a huge man in every sense of the word. Both tall and wide, his sweeping coat and bristling moustache made him seem even larger, as did the way he gestured theatrically as he spoke and refused to keep to an inside voice.

"Lady Windermere!" he said, pouring such malice into the words that Sonia was almost impressed. "I have a riddle for you. No, don't interrupt, I know you're exhausted from failing at the most important mission of your lifetime, but just try to puzzle this one out. Here it is; 'Why did a government operative, the Ultimate Lifeform, and a masterpiece of engineering let the Resistance waltz out of the city with a invaluable source of limitless power?' I'll give you a hint. The answer rhymes with 'bross pincompetence.'"

Sonia ground her teeth together with the effort it took to keep her mouth shut. She briefly fantasized about breaking the Good Doctor's glasses against her knuckles. Then she reminded herself how unflattering prison uniforms were to one's figure. “Would you like me to explain, or did you have Stone drag me here so we could play riddle games? Will I be staying the night? Shall I paint your nails, Doctor?”

“Fine, how about another? Give me one reason why I shouldn’t turn you into an espresso machine. At least then you’d be useful, though I wouldn’t be surprised if you started ruining my afternoon latte as well! I shouldn’t be surprised now; see, this is what I get when I trust a spoiled upstart with something that actually matters.”

“Did you trust me with this mission?” Sonia didn’t have to feign the acid leaching into her words. If it wasn’t her life on the line, Sonia would have taken exquisite delight in cutting Robotnik off before he could reply. “Curious, because one would assume that, if expected to succeed, I would be provided with adequate intel. I had the chaos emerald in my hands, Doctor. If I had known that it would interfere with a roboticized individual’s programming, I would never have brought Leon on the mission. The emerald would be yours, right now. Tell me, Doctor, did you forget to tell me about your masterpiece’s glaring weakness, or did it simply never occur to you to research whether the emerald’s energy would disrupt the very machine charged with retrieving it?”

Robotnik’s face was beet-red, and Sonia was painfully aware of how her fate hung on a roll of the dice. Robotnik did not tolerate failure, and he hated being challenged far more. But Sonia had seen far too many try to kiss his feet, only to be kicked away regardless. Sycophants were replaceable. She was not.

[itsjustinknow]

So tomorrow begins what is essentially going to be my ten month Hell Writing Challenge.

Earlier this month I learned that some people do 100k during NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month) instead of the usual 50k to give themselves more of a challenge. Which is super cool! But I didn’t think I could pull it off myself - at least, not outright. I’ve done NaNoWriMo (and won) a few times, but what I want more is to have a more consistent writing habit so I don’t just try for a project in November and then only do the occasional short thing the rest of the year (not that there’s anything wrong with this, I just miss writing). 

So! Thus was born the Hell Challenge. Each month I will have a writing goal, beginning with 10k in August (which, honestly, will likely still be short things starting off because I need to finish the semi-outline thing for my longer project) and going up by that same amount each month until I hit 100k in May (it rhymes!). So September’s goal will be 20k, October will be 30k, and so on. Had I thought of it sooner, I would have started in July so I could complete NaNo like usual but, well, it works out either way. 

My main project for most of this is going to be the first book (if not the first and second book really) of the Arcana series, which I’ve posted about before and really need to update the page on. 

I’ve made a calendar for this. And a powerpoint. There is no stopping me.  Anyways, I’ll probably be posting updates and things every now and again so all 27 or so of you can share in my suffering. I might post excerpts every now and again depending on how I feel about my writing that day, but who knows. This challenge is primarily for me to have fun and focus on building this habit so I can actually fucking write these stories. And, you know, dying in the process, because why not? 

Hope you’re all having a lovely day. I’ll be scribbling in my notebook for the next few hours. And hoping this series sticks to the planned five parts and doesn’t get any more complicated than it already is. 

[eleganceglotihng]

Celebration Poetry And The Creative Mind Day April 19, 2021

Creative minds have led the way throughout all of histories innovations and growth. Through poetry and art, they challenge the idea of what 19s possible, and shine a spotlight on the society that birthed them. Poetry And The Creative Mind Day is set aside to honor the bright and glittering jewels that are the minds of these creative pioneers. Most of us are introduced to poetry and art at an early age, whether it 19s the nursery rhymes sung by our parents, or the combination of poetry and art in books like Dr. Suess and Shel Silverstein, the artist of Where the sidewalk ends.

Poetry and Creative Mind Day is a great time to dig up some of your favorite old poems and read them, or sing a favorite old nursery rhyme. If your talents lean more towards the physical mediums, you can take out your paints or pencils, or any other form of art you enjoy. If you 19ve never been the creative sort, Poetry and Creative Mind Day is a great day to pick up that opportunities.

There are so many great ways to celebrate it, including memorizing old poems, or writing your own. If you 19re the adventurous sort you can leave poetry in creative places today. You can leave snippets of poem on the inside of bathroom stalls on sticky notes, print them out and leave them on desks, drop inspirational poems in the collection bowls of the needy, or anywhere else. Poetry readings are another great way to celebrate, and are still a common sort of gathering of creative minds. If you can 19t find a poetry reading, you can certainly try to organize one.

There are many ideas regarding the poets role in society, as the compressed nature of information in poetry tends to directly reach into the subconscious of a people. It creates imagery and evokes memories and emotions of events going on in and around people. It has been said that 1Cwriting is where thought meets impulse 1D, allowing the conscious mind to communicate with the subconscious. It is the opinion of some that it becomes the responsibility of the poet to use this communication to reveal the truth to those unable to see it.

Poetry comes in many forms, from William Shakespeare 19s Iambic Pentameter, to the rigid structure of the Japanese Haiku, to the simple rhyming nature of children 19s nursery rhymes, poems can come in many different forms. Take for instance acrostic poetry, that form by which a word of a person 19s name is used to write poetry, using the letters of the first name to form the framework of the poem. If you 19ve ever seen poetry done in a particular shape, such as a rainbow or tree, you 19ve read examples of concrete poetry. And these are just a few of the hundreds of different types to be found throughout the world and its thousands of cultures.

For Poetry and Creative Mind Day, take your brain out, dust it off, and introduce it to the beauty of poetry again. Remember that we hear poetry every day, as every song on the radio is based off of a poem, called lyrics simply because they are placed to music. Poetry isn 19t just for High School English and Liberal Arts classes, it is a very powerful and real way to express our thoughts and emotions and share them with our fellow man, or just get them out onto paper. Don 19t let Poetry and Creative Mind day pass you by without writing one of your own, and maybe sharing it with others to encourage them to write their own!

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[artemisrae]

WIP Meme

@kaikamahine told me to talk about WIPs! And I’m in a weird place where I HAVE WIPs to talk about! WEIRD. WIP in this instance is defined as fics where I actually have words written down, and not just stories that I’m toying with writing or plan to write someday. (Thats a way longer list)

1. Roommates - (Harry Potter) After the war, Harry goes to the Aurors, Hermione goes back to Hogwarts, and Ron moves in with George. Aka my 50K word love letter to Ron Weasley. 

2. Dust in the Wind - (Stranger Things) Mike ends up in the hospital, El faces some of her deepest fears, and they both turn the corner with Mike’s parents. Set in the same universe as For Laughs, For Luck, For the Unknown?

3. Pace and Chase - (PJO) Five times Malcolm’s a good brother to Annabeth and one time she returns the favor. AKA that time I learned Malcolm’s last name rhymed with Annabeth’s and my brain exploded? 

4. Conversations - (Harry Potter Next Gen) Growing up is hard to do. Harry, Ron, and Hermione each have a conversation with Rose, Albus, and Scorpius. Because Rose Weasley isn’t Hermione Jr. people.

5. Cursed Necklace fic - (Harry Potter Next Gen) In which naive woobie Scorpius Malfoy innocently gives his girlfriend Rose a family heirloom for a birthday gift. (Spoiler alert, it goes poorly). The outline for this is spiraling out of control. I’m just hoping it doesn’t take six years to write (LOOKING AT YOU ROOMMATES)

None of these are the actual titles, just what I’ve named them in Google docs. Out of all of them, only Roommates has an actual title (and it ain’t Roommates)

Tagging @juxtaposie @percyyoulittleshit @suchastart if you have anything to share.

[cwritesfiction]

Firstly: i just found your blog and im already in love with sharks eye??? I love it and i love the characters omg Also asking as a struggling writer, when you say you have a different document for notes, what do you put in there?? What kind of things do you write and how do you format it?? I keep getting confused about everybody's chronology

Firstly: It literally makes my day when people compliment my WIP. It’s so so so exciting that other people - people who are NOT me - are interested in this half-written story. And anyone who says anything positive about my characters?

omg indeed

Secondly: Buckle in for my insane writing process.

I know some people use neat programs to write, but I use good ol’ Word. I have one document that’s exclusively for my WIP. The only writing in this document is my WIP itself, other than a random note here or there since I’m in first draft mode.

Since this is a large project and I write out of order, I created a navigation page. At the beginning of each scene, I put a #, and I link that # back to a number on the navigation page. This way, instead of scrolling through 50k words to find what I want, I can just click the link. It looks like this:

I have a separate document for random scene ideas that pop into my head. It has its own navigation page, so if I want to include one of my random bits of writing, I know where to find it. I described it in a post here.

Any writing that I don’t want I put in a document called “discarded,” partially because I might want it later, and partially to see just how many words I’ve really written. (Currently my “discarded” document is at about 6000 words.)

When I started drafting, I created a document for character notes (like names, traits, information, etc.) but I don’t really use it, and my characters decided to ignore half of what was in my notes anyway. I had a huge spreadsheet too…which was also abandoned.

What ended up being REALLY helpful was something I did out of frustration. I have a document for stream of consciousness outlines that I lovingly titled “Disaster Outlines.” It follows no rhyme or reason or format and it is really, truly terrible. And it’s what helps me write.

And no human should ever have to look at the horrible mess that is Disaster Outlines, but I included a screenshot under the cut so you can witness my shame. Fair warning: Language to end all Language.

I promise, there is not this much profanity in my writing. 

[p0cketdiary-blog]

My concert experience! [Pt. 3]

Yippee~ Welcome to the last, and FINAL part of my concert experience!! I honestly did not realize how talkative I was (even on text) until the birth of this blog. I sincerely apologize for talking so much. But I guess it kind of helps in a way - considering we have the 5k word minimum to hit. So in other words, sorry not sorry!! :( Anyways!! With Part 1 and 2 done and dusted, we will now move onto the amazing trip to the Lion City and the actual concert day!!

Note: I hate that I get sidetracked so easily, please ignore random topics that pops up mid-sentence or paragraph, my brain works that way. Thank you!

To be frank, the organizers (namely; One Production SG and LiveNation SG) were not the very best in terms of being “fair” at handling a concert as huge as 50k attendees. But, I guess that’s the tea for another day, a whole new segment can be written in regards to that (haha). However! Our focus on this post alone, is to talk about how amazing the concert was as well as what went down before, during and after the concert!!

We departed from BWN to SG on the 17th of January, a Thursday (the concert was happening on a Saturday, 19th of January). I have to admit - I missed a class on the day of our flight to our show. But! Do not fret, as I was able to catch up on all the things that I have missed via FaceTime with a group of my friends - being the good student that I am! Surprisingly, we were not the only ones leaving to the concert on Thursday as the airport were filled with ARMYs. 

Note #2: I came down with a mild fever the day before our flight and I brought it on-flight into SG up until the day of the concert (in which, I probably have sweat out every drip of fever in me).

How was I able to tell, you might ask? Well, they all had at least a piece of BTS merchandise on them. We also saw people who had suitcases that were BTS themed (in all honesty, if it were me, I would not want to let the airline throw/drag around my precious BTS suitcase - I mean they were never really the best at being careful). It was a shock to our parents too, that so many Bruneians were also a part of the fandom and are flying to watch the same show. *Meanwhile us to our parents* “now you know how much a big deal BTS are to us, huh?”.

Since we arrived 2 days prior to the concert, we have planned a visit to the National Stadium on Friday (the next day) - in order to see where everything was so we would not need to rush on the actual day. We also needed to find out where the merchandise booth was as well as the BTS STUDIO Photo Booth - in which we will get to take a photo (provided that you have won a raffle, and my sister did!) next to a holographic/CGI-ed member (?) next to you (I have no idea what the technical term or jargon is). Our main agenda however, was to hunt for their banners that were only put up on the day we arrived - so we could take pictures with and of them as there would definitely be a queue to take pictures on the actual day (haha!).

Moving on to D-DAY - the day of the concert, yay! We were up early, at 7AM and we were planning to leave to the stadium by 8AM as it takes about 10-15 minutes of MRT ride from our place. But we ended up only leaving at 9AM as my cousin could not get herself to stay AWAKE. We left to the MRT station right away and as we were about to sit down to wait for the train - my cousin mentioned about wanting to get an image picket (a huge fan with a member’s face printed on it). That was when I realized we LEFT our tickets (since ticket rhymes with picket haha??) at HOME on the dining table.

We had in mind that it was just another day while being on holiday and we are just on our way to Burger King to grab breakfast before going on a shopping spree. Did we REALLY forget the actual reason that we were here, in this country, in the first place? Thankfully the station was only 5 minutes away from our place, so my sister had to tap out of the station and then walk all the way back to get the tickets. We wasted about 15-20 minutes in the station, acting like a bunch of fools (haha!).

In addition to that, the reason why we needed to be there early was because the wonderful organizers needed all standing ticket holders to be in a holding area (at the Indoor Stadium) by 2PM before being transferred to the actual venue at 2:30PM (and if you have won soundcheck passes - you would need to be in by 1PM). Which meant that we would have less time to eat, get our merchandises and visit the Photo Booth. Although admissions for all tickets were at 5:30PM and the concert does not begin until 7PM. Bizarre, right?

So.. Yeah, I lied.. This post will NOT be the final part.. Part 3.1 will be up shortly after this, solely because I want my photos and/or videos (if I can insert them alongside photos??) to show and not be hidden under “Keep Reading” since this post has gotten too long, AGAIN. See ya!