#I actually outlined like half a whole story basically just this

[whumpsoda]

I. I love vampire hunters turned thralls. Brainwashed into adoring little pets to creatures of which they once chased down with the goal of killing… UGH just someone who used to hate the thing they now address as master… bonus points if they get their memories erased and have no memory of their hunter past :3

[thecousinsdangereux]

i just recently discovered your soulmate au and i loves it so much. so incredibly intriguing and well written and damn is it hot 🔥 thanks so much for sharing with us. in your mind, does it have a happy ending for them?

also wanted to ask if you'll be checking in to see the big warrior nun announcement coming tomorrow?

Ahhhh thank you! This ask is kind of tragic now given how everything with Warrior Nun ended up going, but I thought I'd use it as a way to share my ideas for the rest of a beggar in the morning, if anyone is interested in learning how it was going to go. Long story short, it was going to have a happy ending. :)

Here's a full outline for what I had in mind for the second half of the fic. Under the cut because it's very detailed in the parts that I'd started writing. Also in case anyone cares about spoilers? At the moment, I don't plan on finishing this fic, but I do plan on returning to writing in general, so guess there's a non-zero chance that I could come back to it. Stranger things have happened.

Beatrice keeps looking for the recipient of the Letter she's been trying to deliver and starts taking trips out into the countryside. She takes Ava's advice and takes to enjoying the journey - stopping into small cafes for lunch rather than eating in the car, taking the long way when it means she can enjoy a new view, etc.

During one of these side quests, she's told about a man who lives way off in the middle of nowhere who has the last name of Reis (the last name of the Letter recipient: Lara Reis), and she tracks him down. He had a sister who had a child with someone who was not her Match. I wanted to go more into what this looks like (and how the church is still anti-abortion in this world, because they think this could potentially ruin a future match, cue eye-roll) but in this case, the woman was basically run out of town. The man directs Beatrice to an orphanage where the child was raised.

This trail eventually goes cold because the orphanage has no records of the girl. They only know she left when she became of age.

The end of chapter six is basically Beatrice being frustrated and taking some 'advice' from Lilith to find someone to fuck hfkjshlk so she goes to the bar and ohhh nooo Ava is working that night, filling in for someone. Ava gets jealous, Bea does some shots, and it's basically a rehash of the lemon drop scene from the show, but hornier. Eventually, they make out, and decide to be friends with benefits.

Chapter 7 was honestly just going to be porn. lol. It's actually some of the first stuff I wrote for this fic - just a page of porn. Beggar came out of a Secret Santa fic exchange, and my friend Alex asked for lots of sex and a soulmate au. So... Chapter 7 was the payoff (part 2). Here's a few disjointed scenes, in case anyone is interested in reading some unedited very E-rated stuff.

A few months go by and all the nuns visit Beatrice for her bday and they're like huh so what's going on here and Beatrice has to pretend that it's not that serious with Ava (lol). I also wanted to do a conversation between Shannon and Beatrice where Shannon talks about the whole Mary thing and loving someone against the will of god (or at the very least, in the very gray areas).

The end of chapter seven is Ava finally talking about her past, which is that Ava doesn't remember hers. She woke up in a hospital without her memories and then spent the next decade traveling around trying to find something that felt like home.

In chapter 8, a lot of time passes, and the fucking continues. Beatrice is kind of losing it, poor girl.

I hadn't exactly decided what was going to happen next, but Ava was going to overstep in some way (or in some perceived way) and Beatrice was going to panic. Either Beatrice was going to have a brief thought about being in love, they were going to have reallyyyy soft sex, or something like that, but either way, Beatrice was going to have to admit she has deeper feelings for Ava than what's allowed allowed, so she goes back to Spain and ignores Ava's texts/calls/etc.

Eventually she realizes she owes Ava closure. She comes back and kind of explains why she's reacted the way she has. She gets more into why she joined the church and it's not for God or the Church itself, but because she does genuinely believe that love itself is holy. She admits she's falling in love with Ava, but she can't break her vows. She believes giving into her feelings would be putting herself above the whole history of love... the sanctity of the entire universe... and to be that selfish would be monstrous.

There's a callback to their early game of three questions, and how Ava still owes Beatrice one answer. Beatrice nearly asks if Ava loves her, but pulls back because she's scared of the answer. They basically break up, but Ava tells Bea to let her know when she's ready to ask her last question.

Beatrice takes it HARD. She buries herself in her work and starts visiting hospitals in various towns. She finds a Spanish doctor and he recognizes the number (or rather, the system behind the number) that is on Letter Beatrice is still trying to deliver. He tells Beatrice she's not looking for a hospital in Portugal, but rather in Spain - one in a small town in Andalusia. He mentions a patient who was in a coma, who woke up without her memories.

At this point, Beatrice obviously knows and she flies to Spain in daze. She visits the hospital, gives them the number, and asks for the name of the patient. When they'd brought the girl in, no one knew where she came from, she didn't have an ID, memories, etc. Nothing except for an old receipt from a restaurant in Portugal. ("Beatrice braces herself for what she already knows, but doesn't want to face.") The nurse at the hospital tells her they used a generic Portuguese name for the girl and it stuck: Ava Silva.

Beatrice visits Cat's Cradle because what else is she supposed to do? How is she supposed to deliver this Letter to Ava, who she's obviously in love with. She talks with Mary and we get the other side of the whole Mary/Shannon thing, and Mary is kind of like, okay, the Letters matter but they don't Matter. Beatrice asks Mary what she would do if she got a Letter (since Mary isn't a nun and could get one, but Shannon never could) and Mary basically says she would throw it away without opening it because she wouldn't want to give Shannon a reason to go self-sacrificial.

Of course, Beatrice doesn't really think this is her call to make. She's going to deliver Ava's Letter. There's this whole scene of her very dramatically and angstily getting ready for the delivery in the Official White Habit, then walking through the town she's come to associate so completely with Ava. And chapter 9 ends.

When Beatrice walks through the doors of the bar, Ava looks up, but doesn't seem surprised, even says 'oh, finally', which is pretty much the last thing that Beatrice expected, but then again, maybe it should have been the first, because Ava is always surprising her, and shouldn't she expect it by now? She asks Ava if she'd known that she was the person Beatrice had been trying to deliver to all along and Ava looks confused at this, like she hadn't considered that at all. "It's not that. I just knew my Letter would be coming because I'd already met you."

Beatrice is like, no no no. That's not how this works. It can't be me. I've been carrying this Letter with me this whole time - before I met you - and the Letters are only sent to a person when they've met their soulmate. And obviously, Beatrice is a nun and can't have a soulmate, etc. etc.

And then Ava says something like this: “Maybe every once in a while, God -- or the universe or whatever it is -- knows that it’ll be really hard to make two people meet organically, so it fudges the rules a little bit. Makes one girl a nun, makes another one hard to find, and sets up the dominos really early on."

And when Beatrice says she's being ridiculous/it's impossible, she says, "I know what’s in that letter. It’s you. I don’t need to open it to know it's you." and "Maybe it’s like some people say and god arranged it all. Fine. Then god chose me for you. Simple. He made me in this exact way, down to my hands and toes and whatever, so that I was perfect for his favorite creation in all of the universe. Because that has to be you."

And: "Or maybe it’s like what those other people say. You know - the past lives reincarnation stuff. Fine, then in our first lives we fell in love and then I found you in the second and third and the five hundredth. I found you and I picked you and I wanted you every time. Or okay, fine, maybe it’s what the the pseudo science people say. Even if those guys are right, I still know. It’s you because at the very start of the universe - at the very beginning of everything - we were the first two bits of something. The first two tiny little sparks. One of those was you and one of them was me. And even when we split off into a million trillion billion infinite pieces, the core of one was you. And the other one was me."

And: "In every religion or in any theory, the world exists so that I can find you again, and the world will do whatever it takes - bend the rules in whatever way - to make sure that at the exact right time, we would meet. And maybe it wasn’t perfect - maybe it was stupid hard for us to get to this point - maybe there was an easier way to make it happen - but I don’t care. Because it worked and I found you and I fell in love with you and I would do anything for that. So yeah. This Letter is telling me that I’m for you. That’s easy. It’s not faith. It’s just a fact.

And: "Besides, whatever’s on that paper? It’s going to be you. If it’s a picture of a butterfly, then it’s going to be you because of that time we went to the dam and one landed on your hand and you said “isn’t the world beautiful?” and that’s when I knew I loved you for the very first time. If it’s the notes to the first bar in At Last, then it’s you, because we used to play it all the time in the bar and I always thought it was fucking stupid to think you'd know like that right away, before everything, but it was the song that played in my head anyways when you walked in the bar that first night. There she is, I sort of thought, a dream that I can speak to."

"It could be any single word or phrase or letter and it would be you, because I love you and I love you so much I see you in every part of this entire world. I love you and I want to keep you with me always, and so you’re always there in my thoughts, slipping over and into everything else and I love it. It makes me love everything I see a little bit more, because it reminds me of you. It makes the world more beautiful."

"So, no offense, but I don't really give a fuck about the Letter. I already know it's going to be you. But I think you need to see it. So you know you’re not as selfish as you think you are."

And Beatrice admits that she wants to be with Ava anyways. Even if it makes her selfish. (Even if it makes her heretical.) Love is holy and what she feels for Ava is holy too, even if it's a sort of holy no one else will ever understand.

I went back and forth about whether they actually SHOULD open the Letter. lol. But I think I eventually settled on that they should, and that when Ava does open it, it's a blank page with like, 7 little dots and Beatrice is like??????????????? But Ava recognizes it instantly and it's the freckles on Beatrice's cheeks, the ones she's always tracing, and she does that again, following the ink on the paper.

Beatrice had been ready to give up her religion for Ava, so getting to keep it, maybe, suddenly is a LOT. She can't quite believe something divine would do something like this for her. But maybe she can believe that something divine would do something like this for Ava.

Later, I wanted Beatrice to have a conversation with Mother Superion. I thought it would be interesting to get into the philosophical bits of it. To debate if Ava could actually be right in her ideas about how this could be, and still fit into what they know about god/Letters/religion. I liked the idea of the conversation ending with neither of them really knowing, and Mother S being like, look girl, you'll never know for sure, but that sounds like faith to me. And Beatrice says no, no this is different, capital F Faith is for the divine. This is just trusting that Ava isn't lying about the freckles thing, or won't get tired of me, or won't find someone else. Etc etc etc. because it's panicking time for Beatrice, suddenly. And Mother Superion just raps her knuckles sort of in the most gentle way she can manage and says "That's love, Beatrice." in the way way someone might say "That's pussy, babe."

Beatrice does leave the church (though she eventually goes back to 'consulting' kind of like Mary). And when she does actually physically leave as well, Ava is waiting outside on a bench. Beatrice asks why she didn't just come inside, and she says something about being a little afraid of churches these days. She did steal god's favorite, after all.

And then they walk off into the sunset, with Beatrice being like wait a second, I thought you said this was all God's plan. And Ava shrugs and says that she would never willingly give Beatrice up, so god might come to her senses and change her mind.

I was going to end it there, but I did consider doing an epilogue as well. Early on in planning I had this idea where, years later, all the nuns regularly come over to the Silvas (because Ava does keep her 'second' name, though she does start to learn more about the Reis family, and meets her Uncle - the dude Beatrice learned about the orphanage from). And on one of these occasions, the nuns are all in white, and they're delivering Beatrice's Letter, which is addressed to Beatrice Silva. In the end, I decided against this, because I liked leaving it more open-ended, but nothing had been set in stone at this point, of course.

So yeah, that was going to be a beggar in the morning. lol. I plotted most of it out before I even started writing, because it wasn't the sort of story you could make up as you went and still tell it well. And I did want to tell the story well! There's a part of me that's sad that I wasn't able to, but I do think it was worth writing what I did. I really loved seeing people realize that Lara was Ava, even as early as chapter 5! And I also loved people coming up with theories about how Avatrice would be endgame. Some of them were honestly really good and maybe better than mine fhdskjhfd I had one person be like PLEASE let Ava's Letter be for someone else so they can metaphorically spit in god's face and honestly that was valid.

I don't know if anyone is going to bother to read this very, very long reply to an ask that doesn't actually ask for any of this, but it honestly just feels nice to put all these ideas together and 'complete' the story. Even if I've done it in the most half-assed way possible I am so sorry fhadskjlfhldsj

[roxazure]

Alright, just stayed looking through your stuff, and now I'm curious about your au. As best as I can guess, Tails had some sort of accident happen that removed his right arm and... sealed Amy in a chaos emerald, I think? So now he and Charmy are trying to free her, but it looks like his desperation is steadily driving his sanity off a cliff. Dunno if that's right or not, though. I'd love to hear more!

I actually didn't plan on showing much of the au apart from that single post at first, however, I might think about posting more about it in the future? ^_^

Here's just a little bit of info abt some parts of the story . There's much, much more to it. this is just a quick outline. There's also stuff still in development.

So, this is just the general first part.

Tails accidentally gets Amy killed during one of the battles against Eggman, even though unbeknownst to him, her spirit ends up tied to the chaos emerald they've been trying to retrieve. This ends up putting a lot of distance between him and everyone else, even though it was accidental, he still felt responsible. Though Sonic still obviously cares about him, Tails notices that he's avoiding him in an attempt to come to terms with what had happened.

After a lot of isolation and guilt, Tails makes it his goal to own up for what he has done in some way. Maybe it wasn't even possible, but he still wanted to try. He had a plan to somehow bring her back. At this point he doesn't know of her being tied to the emerald just yet. Starting off innocently, with hope. But failure after failure, combined with the isolation and everything that was out of his control, he slowly begins digging himself a deeper hole as the story goes on. Beginning with normal experiments, making gadgets, trying everything he could, and slowly resorting to questionable things, becoming more and more immoral. Charmy gets wrapped up in it once the chaotix go on to question others and investigate what's been going on. Tails didn't mean for him to find out about anything, but Charmy was way too impatient to wait for Tails to answer the door. So he basically lets himself in, venturing, stumbling upon something he shouldn't have. But Tails manages to convince him to keep quiet, explaining things in a way that seemed like he was doing more good than bad. And in the end, even offers that Charmy should help him, if he wants. Which is where he begins visiting Tails more often, and playing a part in it.

Tails slowly realizes he couldn't back out. Everything he has done so far only resulted in more grief and death. But he wanted to continue, to try and take it all back somehow, believing that if he pushes himself enough, he'd finally get a good outcome. And when the experiments started to become more dangerous, and he grew more desperate, a mishap occurred, resulting in him losing his arm. Which only made things worse for him, because it put everything he was working on to a halt, and he had just made everyone worried. But also shocked and confused. And having eyes on him was the last thing he needed.

Oh, and one of his half-dead, zombie-like experiments broke out the day the whole incident with his arm happened.

As I said there's actually a lot more to it , but here's just a little bit of explanation for those curious about the AU ever since I posted about it :]

[traincat]

Did you say you were working on an Ultimate Johnny/Peter fic? I can’t remember if that was real or if I dreamed it.

It's 50% an Ultimate Johnny/Peter fic, in that Johnny is Ultimate Johnny and Peter is from a 616-adjacent AU of my own creation. (Nothing against Ultimate Peter particularly, it's just that the story I wanted to write with this fic worked better with a Peter with a different background.)

(I did also recently post 13.5k of unfinished Ultimate JohnnyBobby fic over here, and it has background unrequited Ultimate Spideytorch.)

I've had this idea for ages, wrote a couple thousand words, scrapped it for a few years. Threw it out there as a WIP I was willing to post but then backed out because when I looked at it again it turns out I actually do really want to write it.

The basic premise is this: When Secret Wars (2015)'s incursions destroyed the Marvel multiverse, and after Franklin and the Molecule Man start putting them back together, Franklin stumbles upon the Ultimate version of his uncle and, instead of removing him from existence or restoring his old universe, he sends him to another universe instead, hoping he'll be happier there.

This universe is very similar to 616 canon re: around just after Peter graduates college and enters grad school, but with a few key differences. The biggest departure is that Harry is Peter's dead college love instead of Gwen. (I love to play mix and match with the college fivesome in general ngl but I think Harry lends himself to a roleswap with Gwen particularly well.) Another difference is that I wanted to pull from Bullet Points, which is a miniseries in which, among other things, the rocket launch fails, and Reed is the only survivor, leading him to a Nick Fury-esque role. So Johnny knows who Peter is, but Peter has no framework for Johnny.

Peter, having intentionally isolated himself from pretty much everyone in the wake of Harry's death, follows what looks like a falling star, and finds Johnny. I did want to play with a whole "two other worlds" thing, literally, with Johnny in a whole new universe that might be kinder to him -- and with a Peter who might look back at him -- and Peter, isolating himself in his grief, needing someone warm and bright to break him out of his self-imposed isolation.

The problem is that I like the concept but what I had written for it needs to be ripped up by the carpet. Full remodel. So right now I'm working on some other fic, including another Spideytorch fic, and I'm just kind of reassessing and building out a bigger outline for this one.

I'm probably ripping all of this up and rewriting it but a couple of snips under the cut.

Then he saw the scars. The top set was half hidden by the robe’s hem, perfectly circular. There was another set a few inches beneath. Peter couldn’t figure out what would make scars like those, but they were definitely scars, relatively new and shiny.

“Peter?” Johnny said.

Peter looked up, guilty, but Johnny hadn’t seemed to notice the staring. He was still scrubbing at his own hair, gaze on the floor.

“Can I borrow something to sleep in?” he asked.

Harry had used to wear his clothes to bed. He’d liked how it made him feel, he’d said. Safe, he’d said. “It smells like you,” he’d said, tossing Peter that grin over his shoulder.

(...)

Peter sighed, tipping his head back. “Would you believe he came from another universe?”

“There’s not a lot I won’t believe,” Felicia said. “But I’ll admit it was a shock when I came in through your window and there was a man restocking your sad excuse for a fridge. The fire show was a neat surprise, too.”

“He lit up?” Peter said, surprised.

“A little. He’s very protective of you,” Felicia purred. Her tone of voice was light; her gaze was an accusation.

“It’s not like that,” Peter said.

“He’s in your kitchen, making you dinner,” Felicia said. “He’s wearing your clothes. It looks a whole lot like that, lover.”

“He fell from another universe into this one, Felicia, he doesn’t exactly have a full wardrobe,” Peter said.

“He’s in your home,” Felicia said, dropping the pretense. Her tone was cutting. “That doesn’t happen. You don’t do that.”

It was the opposite problem, with Felicia. For once it was her, not him. He could be with Felicia for an afternoon, for a night. Any longer and her bad luck powers would start tripping him up.

The look on her face told him she was thinking the same thing.

“He knew me in his home universe,” Peter said, drumming his fingers restlessly on fire escape railing. “He hasn’t said it yet, but I’m pretty sure I died on him.”

Felicia’s face fell.

“Oh, Peter,” she said. “You can’t feel guilty over something like that.”

“No, 'Licia,” he said. “It pretty much turns out that I can.”

[nebrasska-alasska]

OKAY

HOLD UP BECAUSE

WHY ARE YOU SO GOOD AT EVERYTHING???? Seriously, your stories give me actual life and put the air in my lungs. And idk if this is weird of me to say but you actually like. Inspired me to finally start posting on ao3 even though I've been there for almost five years. Every time I tried to work up the courage, I couldn't and abandoned every idea I had but I've recently decided to just B I T E the bullet and start posting and now I'm working on my 5th fic!!

So, really, thank you so much for your gorgeous and inspiring writing. I've been following you (lock your doors) ever since around chapter 11(?) Of The Secrets In Our Quills and I will never EVER get over how you write these stupid little hedgehogs!!!! Please don't ever die

A quick question if you please. How do you write such lengthy and detailed chapters? I can really only manage shorter chapters and I feel like it doesn't give off the impression I'm wanting it to, but for the life of me I can't write long chapters without just writing the whole story in one go and then it's ruined :(

SORRY IF YOUVE ALREADY BEEN ASKED THIS I JUST NEEDED TO ASK MY FAVOURITE AUTHOR HOW THEY WRITE SUCH BEAUTIFUL AND GORGEOUS STUFF SJSHSGSAAHASJSH

First of all, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I'm so glad that you have been enjoying my stories, and have been inspired to start posting!!! Yay, that is so exciting, congrats!!!! :D 5 fics is crazy, keep up the awesome work!!!

And honestly, I LOVE hearing people share when they started reading 'The Secrets in our Quills!' Idk why it's just so fun to know when people joined in on the fic, but I can safely say that anyone who read it as it was actively updating is an OG XD (and tbh, props to anyone who was there before shit hit the fan in 15/16 HAHA)

As for my long chapters, dawg they're a CURSE I don't know why you would want to write long ones when I have so much admiration for people who can keep things brief and concise!!! My target length is usually 4-6k words, but as I'm sure you've noticed, more than half end up in the 8-10k range which I DO NOT WANT! XD

But anyways, to respond to that, I suppose I just let the chapter take me where it wants? Like I have my outline, but how long it takes to realistically achieve those things is completely unpredictable. Like for instance, the most recent chapter of 'Tethered at the Wrist' was barely 5k words, but the one before was greater than 10k. I basically don't overwrite to add things to make it longer, and I don't cut things to make it shorter. I just let it turn out how it turns out in order to maintain my pacing!

But yeah, thank you so much for the ask and for your kind words! Best of luck with your writing, and just let the story take you where it wants! There is so much value in every length and type of story, so I would just embrace what comes most natural to you!

[thegnomelord]

was thinking about drawing Ifrit from "Hell has a basement floor" and had some headcanons on his appearance.

on one hand i was thinking to make him tall and burly, built big to store all the mana and power he has, make him built like a volcano.

on the other.... what if and hear me out.... Ifrit.... skinny. tall and gangly, long limbs, underfed, outlines of bones poking out from underneath the skin, sunken eyes for that extra unsettling factor. besides magic does have a cost. maybe it's just your body that needs to be exchanged.

now i thought of the second hc because tall and skinny isn't exactly associated with the kind of brute force Ifrit has but he's still strong even if his lifestyle is gonna put him in an early grave. now imagine when he's finally part of tf 141 they notice that he's not very well in the food and weight department for his height and the amount of energy he spends so... they start feeding him (especially Price and Soap because protect and care hoard/pack)......

i've also been getting into the trope where characters gain weight as a sign of health and living a better life. so yeah tell me what you think

and maybe share your hcs on Ifrits appearance because i don't want to butcher your creation on accident

Okay 1: you have no idea how happy it makes me when I hear ppl want to draw fan art of my stuff :DD, internally I'm like that dog video where the dogs happily tapping his paws lol bc he can't contain his excitement lol. And also yeah, I'm a huge sucker for the trope and your little idea with Price amd Soap tickles my brain.

And 2: man you did some mind reading bc your hcs are actually very close to what I've made up for the lore of the whole au. While I want to overall leave Ifrit's body type ambiguous to give readers some space to imagine themselves in Ifrit's place, Ifrit is 100% underweight with more of a volleyball/basketball player type build, as mages focus on stamina and endurance rather than raw strength bc that can be augmented with magic. Also has stretch marks because their weight fluctuates a lot lol

Okay lore spoilers so if y'all want to find out through the story skip this-

Okay so— magic is increadibly taxing on the body, not just by eating away flesh and creating mage marks as a Mage's power grows, but just by simply existing inside the body magic stresses the body. Because fundamentally magic is toxic to humans, and even mages who have the needed adaptations to utilise magic are no better than our ancestors when they were first learning to stand on two legs.

The best metaphor I have for magic is chemo drugs. They're used to kill a cancer but they also damage healthy cells. Magic, similarly, damages the body by existing inside it, but also is used by mages to heal the damage as soon as it happens. This uses a lot of calories and also why mages have really irregular weights, losing 10kg in a week isn't an uncommon thing.

Someone possessing even half of Ifrit's capabilities would need to eat 3x that of a regular human of the same height and weight. Mages are literally Shaggy from Scooby Doo lol. And that's only to get the bare minimum their body needs, caloric need becomes much bigger if they're active like Ifrit is. So you'll find that many mages, but especially military ones, are underweight and need to regularly get Iv fluids and nutrients to help their body recover from using magic. They also need to eat a lot of highly caloric food, which isn't easy when one of the most common side effects of magic use is puking your guts up.

Most military mages don't reach 30. The average life expectancy is around 25, with active duty (i.e. constant missions and daily magic use) mages lasting on average 3-4 years before their body basically breaks down, but they can last longer depending on how conservatively they use magic.

Now, knowing all that, Ifrit has been actively using strong magic on par with military mages since they were 14-15 years old and while they're not the healthiest, they're healthy as a horse when compared to most mages. The reason behind their continued survival — their mage marks.

[nomsfaultau]

thank you so much for writing mandatory family reunion. i just reread it for the eighth time. i think im going to dedicate my life to life to reading your other sbi fics until you update again. also; do you have any tips for committing to fics and not leaving them half-finished?

ahhhh that’s so sweet glad you enjoyed! As for writing fics, having it be your special interest really helps. But for more general advice on finishing:

-Don’t stick to just one story. Which seems counter intuitive! But inevitably you’re going to hit a snag in one story. So instead of stopping writing at all, switch projects. Writing involves a whole bunch of thinking, and stuff needs time to percolate in the back of your head. But having a small project to work on in the mean time keeps you engaged in the writing process, gives you practice, makes you feel like you’re making progress, and allows time to work out the other story. I personally have 1-2 main projects, Fault and MFR, and then rotate a couple back burner stories that I work on whenever I get inspiration and fully expect to have very slow progress and possibly never finish. Short stories, one shots, hell even just writing little one off scenes that don’t go anywhere. It’s a way to keep writing fun and thus you’re more likely to continue working on the stuff you’re trying to complete. Don’t feel bad if there’s breaks between working on your main project. Writing involves a lot of thinking and it takes time to do that.

-Devoting time to do that thinking also significantly helps. When you’re falling asleep can be a good time to rotate stories in your head. Could also be if you’re walking from place to place, or brushing your teeth, or other little gaps in the day. Even if you’re not physically writing, it’s still part of the process and can make it easier when you actually sit down to write because you know what scene you’re most excited to work on. Also, talking over your story idea with a friend is a great way to stay motivated if you can get over the mortifying ordeal of being known. You can bounce ideas off them, and other people’s investment in a project can be a great motivator to finish. Like legit a single ao3 comment once stopped me from my plan to abandon a fic. Reminding yourself why you (and other people) like the story makes it easier to want to continue.

-Keeping a rough outline of what you envision for the story can give you a road map to how close to done you are and where to go next. Just like you can hop between projects, I find jumping around the plot time line to write what scene I’m most interested in atm keeps me going instead of writing everything in order. Though, all writers have different degrees of plot planning, so that depends on your style.

-Art! I’m an artist, and while writing definitely fuels what I draw, I find doodling cool scenes I want to write really inspires me to keep going. This sorta falls under the same category of continuing to think about the story and motivating you to finish. -I found keeping a writing journal has improved how I view my writing. Basically, I’ll jot down a bullet point list of scenes worked on that week/month. Writing is a very slow process, so seeing a timeline of actual progression on a story makes it feel like I’m actually getting more out of my head and onto paper. I also jot down what ideas for scenes I came up with since that’s also part of writing, and might include a chill no stakes writing goal for that period, like work on X or Y project, or a particular scene. Sometimes my goal is just ‘write at least one sentence’. I give it lots of leeway, and accept that the muse may just be somewhere else that week. And if the goal isn’t met, no sweat! Life can get busy at times and it’s more important that you aren’t beating yourself up if it’s been awhile since you last touched a project. Forcing yourself to write a scene that isn’t ready won’t result in a good scene or an happy writer. Switch projects, give yourself time to think about it, take care of yourself, etc.

And, legitimately, don’t be afraid to abandon a piece. Maybe you’ll come back to it, maybe you won’t. It can feel disheartening to feel like you can’t seem to finish a project, but unfinished pieces also do a lot for you: they hone your craft, allow you a creative outlet, give you scenes that could potentially be reworked for later pieces, and most importantly were hopefully fun to write! Story crafting is a hobby that should bring you joy, not frustration and shame.

Like, I have stories that will never see the light of day and are just so I can have fun and poke it with a stick occasionally. I’m 100% confident in saying that every author will have tenfold the number of unfinished wips compared to complete works. That’s just part of the creative process: exploring different worlds to find the one you want to write.

Perhaps a fic might never get finished, but in the wise words of Technoblade: “if you enjoy it, it’s not time wasted, no?”

(Now, I think he was talking about murdering people, but the point still stands.)

[sincerely-sofie]

Seeing as you have finished writing the script for your AU thingy, I wanna know, how?

Like, were you motivated the whole time? Or was it a on and off writing type thing?

i'm trying to write but I don't know if I have the motivation...

How did you keep the motivation if so?

Oh man. I have so much to say about writing and creativity that I could make an entire series of posts talking about the subject, but I'll try to keep things orderly and brief.

Disclaimer: I should let you know that I have never finished a writing project before recently finishing my TPiaG AU. Keep that in mind when reading the advice I offer— the tips I give have only been put into work in my own life over the course of the last couple of months, but they’ve proven very effective in my experience!

Sofie Creativity Tips Episode 1, go!!!

Was I motivated the whole time I was writing TPiaG / How did I stay motivated?

Absolutely not. If I hadn’t provided myself a detailed chapter-by-chapter outline for TPiaG before starting the writing process, I would have given up thanks to a mix of writer’s block and absent motivation. Motivation is a fickle muse and prone to ditching me for months on end, so I’ve adapted by trying not to rely on it, but also by creating new motivation rather than clinging to past motivation. I create motivation for myself in two ways: removing friction when writing and being my own fandom.

Removing friction is pretty simple— I create very detailed chapter outlines that remove any fear of writer’s block, set up my devices in a way to make it easy to access my manuscripts and notes, download premade writing playlists that have Pomodoro session break timers built into them, and more. Anything that makes the writing process easier to get into and enjoy doing, I make sure to incorporate into my life.

Being my own fandom is less intuitive, but a thousand times more rewarding in terms of motivation. I make memes of my characters. I write self-indulgent snippets on the side. I make AUs of my own work. I make playlists and save audio clips that suit the characters. I draw comics exploring concepts that might not get into the manuscript itself but that I want to make content for regardless. Basically, I dive in deep into the story, characters, and world, and try to do so with the enthusiasm that I give other people’s projects.

(That part is extra fun, because if I have a headcanon, it automatically becomes canon to whatever AU or original project I’m working on. I have all the power in the world when working like this, and it’s very fun.)

What changed and made it so I finished my first ever written project?

This isn’t exactly what was asked, but because I have eschewed motivation as the main driving force in my writing process, I figured I’d give another insight into how TPiaG went against the pattern of half-started and swiftly abandoned projects that came before it and actually got finished. Late into October, I adopted a new method of producing first drafts. Previously, I would spend weeks polishing the same chapter and would only move on to the next chapter once the current one was perfect. My new method is the complete opposite. I’ve started calling it Writing BFF:

Write bad

Write fast

Write fun

First up, write bad. The point of this is not to waste your time writing prettily during your first draft. Don’t bother agonizing over how to reword that one sentence to be more elegant when it does the job well enough to get its point across. Don’t go off on a 30-minute research tangent in the middle of a writing session because you want to fact-check that one detail and make sure it’s perfectly accurate when you could just put a placeholder detail in brackets and CTRL+F search and plug in something accurate later on. Don’t write pretty, write bad. And be okay with it. You can’t edit an empty page, so fill the page with as much garbage as possible so that you can turn it into gold later on.

Next, write fast. This is only effective when paired with writing bad. Don’t pause, don’t hesitate, don’t deliberate. Write as much as you can and do it as fast as you can. This idea is best illustrated by Chris Fox’s book 5,000 Words Per Hour, where he talks about increasing your WPM (words per minute) and how it makes everything about your writing better. The person who creates a beautiful first draft once every three years is doing okay, but the person who cranks out a complete manuscript every three months learns leagues more about writing than the first person does by the end of three years. The second person has practiced outlining, drafting, editing, publishing, and more with every manuscript completed. The faster you write, the better you get, because practice makes perfect and quantity begets quality.

Finally, write fun. I write what I enjoy, and if I’m not enjoying it, I pivot the project so that I enjoy it again. I like writing deeply personal stories, so pretty much everything I write is heavily based on my life and experiences— TPiaG included. Grovyle’s portrayal is deeply influenced by my experience being an elder sibling who has been a bad example of self-talk, and cleaned up my act because my younger sister started echoing how I spoke to myself. Dusknoir’s portrayal is informed by my experiences with being the therapist / mom friend in different social circles as well as attending actual formal therapy. Twig is the character that my experiences have the greatest influence on in her portrayal, and I joke about her being a self-insert, but ultimately all of the characters are self-inserts to some extent. I also enjoy low-stakes and slow slice-of-life stories that are driven by character growth. If I ever stop having fun with a project, I inject more of myself and my preferences into my work to get it back into my favor.

TL;DR / Writing advice lightning round

Write as badly as possible as quickly as possible, and have fun as you do it. Momentum yields motivation and stagnancy yields doubt. Editing comes only after the first draft is complete. Be your own fandom and your project’s biggest fan. Give yourself direction and ward against writer’s block by making detailed chapter-by-chapter outlines. Make the writing process as easy and enjoyable as possible. Motivation is a lie and if you chase after it instead of making your own, you’ll be writing on hard mode for the rest of your life. Reject perfectionism, embrace flawesomeness.

If I didn’t answer your question right, let me know! I’ll do my best to correct it.

[abyssalzones]

hey!!!! i really REALLY really love your journal 3 adaptation series... it's genuinely incredible in colour scheme matching journal 3 literally and in vibes, your art style is really good at capturing the whimsical and fantastical nature of things WHILE ALSO being grounded in reality and a sense of matureness, your ford portrayal is REALLY good, and your attention to little details is awesome. And your comic formatting is genuinely really pleasant to follow and flows really well. Also i'm just a sucker for people expanding on existing canon, especially when it comes to comics. i stumbled across the bottomless pit one first, and got really excited to see that someone else knew the tidbit that ford kept the photo of him and stan with him in his coat, and i really enjoyed how you worked it with the rest of the comic. the humour and narrative work you've got in the whole thing is extremely well made, and i had such a treat going through each one made so far !!! just out of simple curiousity, i know that it'll be focused on ford and fiddleford, but the moment with the photo had me thinking. will there be any other points where stan somewhat Narratively Haunts the comics? just with ford's complicated feelings on stanley, with him being understandably angry at him but also missing him. given how often he thinks about stanley due to all the times he writes about him in journal 3. EITHER WAY keep up the awesome work!!!! i will be seated for the next comics!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thank you so much!!! I'm so glad you enjoyed the ad astra chapters that exist, they were definitely extremely fun to execute and I love hearing that I managed to balance the tone well :]

I /did/ actually plan to have more about stan's absence haunting ford's life in a weird way, including a flashback sequence I was really looking forward to drawing. after the 1982 segment of the comic I wanted to include a sort of 2012 "intermission" following the more lighthearted antics of the twins' entries in the journal, as well as the latter half where ford returns home and recounts his adventures in the portal- basically anything that was in the journal that wasn't in the show, namely digging into ford's most important dynamics. the thing is that... uh... presently I don't have plans to continue ad astra per aspera as a full project. whoops! extremely sorry about that.

I haven't said as much officially because right now I'm in a weird place of not entirely knowing what to do with what remains of the project-- I put a lot of love into it. like, a "thousands of words of written outline" amount of love. the thing is that since writing ad astra, my priorities have entirely shifted. I planned everything out during a time in my life where I had no idea there would be more gravity falls official content, much less anything following up on ford's story. there was so much overlap in the things I wanted to convey in ad astra and the meat of tbob (namely in terms of bill's ongoing abuse of ford, which. I mean there was a scene in tbob that was eerily similar to something I had written months prior. at the time I had thought what I wrote was a little on the nose... now? not as much) that I felt too swayed to stick to my original plan of not including any of the new stuff that had been established... but the outline had already been written in such a way that changing it wouldn't have been easy. and to be honest, I felt fulfilled by what we got in tbob in a way that made the point of what I wanted to get across in ad astra per aspera moot. I had wanted to extrapolate and shed light on aspects of the story I saw in the margins of the journal so to speak, and then tbob did that exact thing for me. does that make any sense ?

that isn't to say I don't have ideas for more comics about that era in particular, of course. in fact I could definitely draw isolated parts of the outline that I still like some day! but all in all, it's a combination of feeling like I don't need to do it anymore, and the fact that I would like to focus on telling my own stories, as far as long-term projects go. hopefully that isn't too disappointing for people to hear and I really appreciate how much everyone enjoyed what I did end up making :]

[love-triangles-au]

Salutations!

I'm new to this AU and I was wondering if there is an actual story about Venuz and Bill or if it's just the little peace's of art that make it up, if so, where can I find it? I would really like to know the whole story about these two.

:D

Hi there, thanks for the ask! There is a larger story in the works, yes! A...much larger one, really. There are some scattered mentions all around the blog but I'll use this opportunity for a proper update.

So, TBoB complicated things a bit. We're currently reworking much of the second half of the story, but I'm comfortable saying that the first half is still pretty solid! The beta is in the works, so far with about 5000 words. Here are some peeks behind the scenes to showcase how things are going!

In order, here's the home page of our Milanote board, then the story outline, then the brainstorm section, then world-building in regards to Venus. Not shown here, "Basic Plotline" as seen in the first image is where I've been playing around with the revision. Its been tricky, but I think we're almost there. I'm liking the pivot!

In the meantime, there are a whole bunch of tidbits on the blog you can check out if you'd like! Feel free to browse or let us know if you have any burning questions. :]

Thanks for your interest!

~ Mod Emily 🦇

[erose-this-name]

Hey, I really like your whole universe and how you set up your lore, and kinda want some tips.

I want to finally work on a story I have been fleshing out in my head for over half a decade, but I don't know where to start, or what information is needed, or even which character to follow.

Do I start at the basics of the multiverse, a multi paragraph info dump that is basically integral to understanding the system, do I start with the character, the setting, the themes?

I can't even choose which plotline to do because I have such a backlog of cool story ideas that I basically am stuck in decision paralysis. Same exact problem with characters too. Turns out, having around a hundred characters, each mostly fleshed out and with unique personalities, causes problems when you gotta focus on one

The first step is to not be worried or intimidated. Anyone can write. It's not a task of innate talent or current experience, but of passion and willpower. If you don't have those then idk, advice givers usually just assume you do. But they're the main thing.

Writing is as easy as bleeding.

You start with world building, but you probably already have enough to get started. World building is easy, just write shit down when you think of it and keep doing that. When you can't think of something, just plagiarize Tolkien or Dune. Everyone does it.

Btw, the world building is the least important part. Never exposit on it unless it's relevant to the story, and try to do so with show don't tell. Readers are only interested in relatable characters going through relatable character development. Not even hyperfixating autistic people will read your multi paragraph lore dumps without those relatable character arcs to draw them into the world.

This is very unfortunate if you are autistic like me and care most about world building.

Where you start depends on your writing style.

If you do an episodic shonen/journey to the west style format it's a lot easier to just do all the stories, but that's a lot harder and time consuming and might not be as impactful. (I do that because shorter plotlines helps with ADD, but it has it's downsides).

You can just write individual short stories for them all and never really have any central plot. This is a lot more difficult than writing a long story, though.

If you do want a single main plot, you might have to accept most of the characters and plotlines won't get any attention.

KILL YOUR DARLINGS.

Just look at Arcane. There are 168 champions in League of Legends lore, all with varying degrees of having their own character arcs, plotlines, and fleshed out-ness. Only like 9 or 10 of them appeared in season 1 of Arcane, and I imagine season 2 isn't going to introduce nearly as many new ones in addition to that cast.

Would Arcane have been better if there were 168 deuteroganists? Hekatonhexekontoktoganists? Of course not!

Don't worry about getting all the OCS. Just pick the one or two or five you like the best. Those are your primary cast. Then picking the rest is easy because you only need the ones that would best support that story line. If they come up, you can give a few others passing mentions to give the world a feeling of being big a fleshed out, but most you can just forget as they will serve no purpose.

Cut out the fat.

Think about identifying characters that would make good narrative foils to the main cast, or could logically be involved in the main plotline. Then give some of those guys their own character arcs / b plots. Then you're done!

Well, you still need to actually write the story. Some people just start writing without really planning it out, which is valid and lots of famous authors do this. These authors are cowards.

What I do is start with a rough plot outline. Decide on the basic narrative arc, what happens at the beginning, the climax, and the end. The consequences and how/if this furthers any character arcs.

Make a checklist of all the events that have to happen between those points (don't waste time on complete sentences here, no one but you and maybe a coauthor will see this). Then think of all the other stuff that will happen between those to make sure its actually a logically possible chain of events (you will really regret it if it isn't).

Now delete it and start again because you realize it will have poor pacing or have irresolvable plot holes or just isn't very clever. Do this several times until you're happy.

Perfection is when there is nothing more that can be removed.

The whole process should only take an hour or two at maximum. (For me, one page of plot list roughly translates to 5-10 pages of short story, unless there's combat or dialogue. Then idk, it just takes longer.)

Oh, and don't forget to kill your darlings! Like, literally kill them. You're not really writing unless it's physically and emotionally painful. Painful for who? Yes.

Then you just keep fleshing that list out until it becomes your book's first draft. (You will need lots of complete sentences for this step) (it will also take quite a bit longer than an hour or two) (it's very satisfying to mark off each point on the list)

Now delete your first draft because it's terrible and painful to look at. Restart this entire process several times until you become good at writing. This will take several years, so don't put it off!

NO PAIN, NO GAIN!

So now you've finally written a story you can say your proud of? Great! The last step is figuring out how to publish it. SURPRISE! That should have been your first step.

You now realize it's virtually impossible for you to ever publish because publishing agencies hate you as a person, and also they only publish romance and mystery authors who are already famous so they don't have to spend money on marketing. Realize this is why new authors suck this past decade.

Congratulations! You are now depressed and aimless in life. Just like every great author! Use this pain to fuel yet another book!

This will be your best work yet, as it is genuine and made for no one but yourself. You will never find such happiness anywhere else. 👍

(btw, this post is an example of how important character arcs are to maintaining interest. It has a story of me slowly losing my mind for EDUTAINMENT PURPOSES. Do this when world building ❤️‍🩹)

[bonecarversbestie]

I decided to invent my own writing tag game bc I am very nosy:

(I’ll go first)

Describe your writing process from idea to posting/publishing

So it’s pretty unusual for me to have a single idea that I can turn into a whole story so my notes app is full of shower thoughts and ideas that come to me while I’m falling asleep until I have enough to turn into a story.

Then when it comes to writing fics, I like to outline and draft the whole thing and then post each chapter as I edit them. I don’t think I could keep my own story straight trying to write and edit each chapter individually. Plus I’m more likely to finish my projects this way 😅

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Plotter!! I need a detailed outline to basically act as a “todo list” while I’m writing. I need clearly defined scenes and ideas or i get too overwhelmed to actually write them.

I wish I could be a pantser but I am not cool enough 😭

What do you listen to when you are writing?

Usually I listen to “crackling fire rainy evening ambiance” on YouTube while simultaneously playing “medieval lofi beats” on Spotify 😂😂

What’s your drink of choice(while writing)?

My desk is currently covered in an embarrassing number of flat, half drunk sparkling waters and room temperature cups of tea 😂

Promote yourself! What’s your favorite thing you’ve written?

I have only written two things in my life but The Scenic Route is my current pet project. It’s my first fic and I have learned so much in the process of writing it.

Share a fic of yours that you think is underrated/deserves more love.

My only other fic is Reverie — my elucien week one shot (I feel like it is appropriately rated 😂😂 everyone was so nice)

Do you have any advice for new writers?

I am currently a new writer but my advice to myself (and others) would be this:

1. CLEAN YOUR HOUSE BEFORE YOU START A NEW PROJECT cause it’s not getting done for a while.

2. Take your time outlining and drafting. Don’t rush just bc you’re excited to “get to the good stuff”. It’s all the good stuff.

3. Don’t be afraid that it will be bad. If your story interests you, it’ll interest someone else(and you might even make some new friends).

What is a writing style/technique that others do really well that you'd like to get better at?

I would love to become more poetic with my prose and imagery. I also want to incorporate more humor into my writing. (I want regency rom com vibes)

Is there a character you were surprised you enjoyed writing as much as you did?

TAMLIN 😆 And my favorite OC: Toes the polydactyl cat

Tagging some of my wonderful writer friends (no pressure of course):

@zenkindoflove , @crazy-ache , @olenvasynyt , @the-darkestminds

[halfratsalready]

Help me figure out what fic to write next! ✨

I feel like I’m in a weird limbo after finishing the first arc of the Lose Yourself series and I have a few ideas floating around in my head for what to write next (after the Wanderrose fic exchange, at least), but I have no clue which one to focus on.

So if you happen to like my silly little stories and want a say in what my next fic is, I’ve got some ideas and a poll below the cut! 💕

Idea I: Dark & Angsty Murder Mystery 🔪

I've discussed this one on here before so it might sound slightly familiar, but this would basically be Angst: The Fanfic. If you thought any of the Lose Yourself series was angsty, this fic is probably 10x worse. Part of me worries it's a little bit too dark to be a Just Dance fic. Multiple murders (though not described in detail), an intense attempted murder (that is described in relative detail), and some of that patented Night Swan mind control, plus some supernatural elements later on. But also a sizeable portion of it is Brezziana and Disocball playing detective and trying to solve a rash of murders, which should be very fun, in a weird and kinda dark sorta way.

Wanderrose ft. best friends Jack & Brezziana. Also featuring Discoball, Sara, Mihaly, Mothigan, Cygnus, Felicia, Boss Witch, Si'Ha Nova, and Agent D

I have the first chapter and a half written of this one already. It would be 9 chapters total.

Idea II: Angsty Jack-Centric Post-JD24 Fic 🥀

This is an idea I've had for a while but haven't really gotten around to properly outlining. This is based on my theory of sorts that Night Swan exploited the wrong weakness when targeting Jack in Dance With the Swan, where she realizes after the events of JD24 that she hadn't done it right and approaches it from a different angle. Basically just a lot of Jack-centric angst, a lot of Night Swan & Jack interactions, and a world where Treasure Jack may or may not actually become more than just an illusion...

A lot of Night Swan & Jack but definitely featuring at least some Wanderrose. Also featuring the Just Dancers, Si'Ha Nova, and the Traveler, and maybe some others.

I haven't even outlined this one yet, so I have no idea how long it would be.

Idea III: Significantly Less Angsty & More Random Self-Indulgent AU (Actually a "Silly Little" Fic This Time, For the Most Part, at Least) ✨

I've been toying with the idea lately of an AU where Leda and Sara were sisters on earth and Sara has been searching for her sister. I think it would be fun to do some intentional canon divergence (and not just have my fics' canon be derailed by a new event). There's a few directions I've considered taking this in, including Jack ending up on earth (there's like two or three ways for that one to happen and like two or three directions I could take it in) or Sara's adventures in the Danceverses just going really differently.

Still a lot I'm not sure about with this one but it's been bouncing around my head since Night Swan: The Prequel dropped, so here we are. Definitely would have Wanderrose cuz they own my heart.

The Poll

I have no idea which idea I really wanna commit to following through on first. Every time I think I'm leaning towards one, I end up leaning towards another. So I'm throwing these out there in the hopes that a few of you will be able to help me out with your opinion!

If you wanna share your thoughts in the comments or reblogs also, I’d love to hear what you have to say, so I don’t have to wait the whole week for the poll to finish to be able to see which idea(s) is/are getting the most interest!

[starzzmissthesun]

Since you asked I have to tell you abt this story I came up with like 4-5 years ago and have held so deep in my heart since! The characters are literally a part of me atp. So the main character is named Margaret Lainey and the whole story is basically in the format of her diary, it's 14 entries within the month of February and let's just say I put her through it😭. She starts off the journal entry explaining how she has to start writing in the journal as recommended by her therapist who she sees bc of a suicide attempt... yeah

And towards the the first half of the entries you see her getting better up until Valentine's day, a very pivotal part of the story, where everything just starts going down hill.

A lot of it as to do w/ her unrequited love, she's head over heals for this girl Lydia, who she believes is straight, now obviously Lydia not returning her feelings isn't the only reason she goes off the deep end, it just sets back on all the things she still hasn't healed from, considering she's been struggling for a looooonnng time.

What's a really devastating part of the story is also Margaret's best friend Jamie, now Jamie is a trans, mtf, but as the whole story is told in Margaret's perspective its unknown to her and the reader which means Jamie is dead-named and misgendered the entire time (shes still super important and gets her own story bc ive always wanted to also write a sequel for her) so Jamie is like really in love w/ Margaret, a lesbian, but Margaret thinks Jamie is a boy the whole time :(

At the end of the story the last chapter/entry is a suicide note, Margaret kills herself which is definitely foreshadowed throughout even though you also think she's gonna be better by the end, but unexpectedly it's actually a double suicide w/ Jamie so after reading the 1st part ur supposed to be like hello what!?!? Hence the sequel which is Jamie's story

I love them both sm, I have story names and outlines but I never feel confident enough to do their story justice😓

The story names have been the same since I came up with it

Part one: Through My Eyes, Love Margaret Lainey

Part two: Through My Eyes, Love Jaime Blue

So now that background story rant is out the way (sorry its so long😭😭) here are some fun facts abt them

Margaret

Her favorite colors are green and yellow, she paints her nails purple and blue and black constantly and always has them chiped from picking away at them,she cuts her own hair so it's always really choppy, she's got tons of beauty marks but she doesn't like them, her favorite books are No longer human by Osamu Dazai, The Catcher in the Rye, and Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh, her favorite movies are Coraline, Heathers, Thirteen, and Girl Interrupted, she enjoys reading, photography, and collecting odd things, some of her favorite songs are Cigarettes out the window, Death of a party girl, I'll die anyway, Change (in the house of flies), Ptolemaea, she's constantly humming and writing on her arms, she's got a horrible sleep schedule and bad trust issues and horrible self perception/esteem, she loves to take pictures of Lydia whenever she sees her even though she knows it's odd and she shouldn't, her loves to hang out with Jamie, it always makes her feel content

Jamie

Her favorite colors are light pink and red, her favorite books are The picture of Dorian Gray and Speak, her favorite movies are As You Are and the Corpse Bride, she also loves horror movies even through they give her nightmares and make her keep her feet strictly under the blankets at night, some of her favorite songs are Heather, Family line, I can't handle change, Christmas kids, Heart to Heart, Out of Touch, and Sailor Song, she loves fashion and wants to have an odd shoe collection one day, she paints her toe nails red constantly with a stolen bottle of polish, she likes to sit in her closet with a blanket and a flashlight with a book like a little kid, she hates looking at herself in the mirror, she loves to hang out at the park with Margaret, swinging on the swings and pretending like it's a date just for five minutes

There's sm more to say and I also have a character sheet for Lydia cause she's actually great but I think this is all it's gonna be, if you actually read this whole thing ur kinda the best cause I ranted sm 😭

Oh my GOD!!!!!! I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!!!!! GENUINELY GOT A PARAGRAPH IN AND STARTED SHAKING A BIT CAUSE I GOT SO EXCITED!!!!!! THIS IS SUCH!!!! A COOL IDEA!!! I ACTUALLY LOVE THE WHOLE DIARY ENTRY CONCEPT SO MUCH!!!!! THIS SOUNDS SO AMAZING AND COOL!! I LOVE THESE CHARACTERS SO MUCH??? GENUINELY I LOVE THE UNRELIABILITY OF MARGARET???? AND THE STORY ITSELF IS SO COOL? I WOULD LOVE TO READ THIS ACTUALLY, LIKE COULD BE A BOOK IT'S SO INTERESTING??? AND LIKE I CAN JUST IMAGINE THE FORESHADOWING YOU COULD PUT IN HERE? I ALSO LOVE HOW YOU HAVE SUCH A GRASP ON THE CHARACTERS? LIKE THEY FEEL REALLY REAL. UGH I ACTUALLY REALLY WANNA KNOW MORE!!!! I TRUST YOU COULD DO THIS JUSTICE🙏LIKE YOU HAVE SUCH A GRASP OVER THE WHOLE THING, AND IT'S GOT SO MUCH TO IT? I THINK THAT YOU SHOULD PICK YOUR FAV CHAPTER THAT YOU THINK COULD DO THE BEST AND START FROM THERE!!!! (also if you have any character designs lmk cause I'd draw them for you totally:D) ugh this is actually so amazing, if you ever wanna say more, feel free!! Cause id be ECSTATIC!!! Also, I really love the idea that it's almost destined for her to die, but it's so unexpected when she does. :DD

[ellraiser]

Mudborne - Devlog #02

Hey everyone! Been awhile since I opened up Tumblr to write something - I've been trying not to add the pressure to make myself post every single month, as half the time I don't have much to say and the other half making it something I HAVE to do prevents it from being something I WANT to do But it's been a little while of working on Mudborne stuff in between all the final APICO update stuff, and I wanted to share where I've got to so far with your new fav frog game

Back To The Drawing Board

So if you haven't already seen, one of the main things I'm doing with Mudborne is updating the style and the art. The gamejam version was made in a week, and a lot of that was shameless art rips of APICO with some reskins - which was still cute but after working in the APICO "style" for nearly 5 years now I wanted something different. For that I'd already played with a few ideas:

The game is set in a pond, so I wanted it to be mostly water. This meant thinking about what the landmass or even buildings would be like - I've always found the land style I did for APICO really weird as it's severe top-down but all the sprites are like sortof side view? So I wanted to work with that in mind and have the land match that perspective more. I also really liked the idea of the stone slabs as the land instead of dirt, as it had a nicer overall vibe and helped the mud stand out from the "dirt" of the early ideas. I also wanted to have lots of plants and nature stuff that wasn't necessarily interacted with but added to the overall scene. One thing I really hated with APICO is it relied on the trees/shrubs for balance of the overall palette, so this time I wanted enough flora scattered across the waters to make it look pretty all the time not just before the player has a killing spree with their axe. What I ended up settling on after a few weeks was this:

As you can see it's mostly water, with some large stone slabs to act as "land" and break it up, and lots of green. I wanted a consistent darker outline for anything you can interact with, which then let me have a lot of "background" flora and scenery.

The stone slabs also felt like a perfect place for buildings - I'd tried an attempt at a few building designs, but overally didn't really like how they fit in with the world

Having the stone slabs as the buildings felt more natural and the little extra details of grates and drains and windows I think helps sell it more as lived in. Also by having a fixed "size" of the blocks in tiles, I could match that for the inside so all the spaces matched up when going in and out (and also means I'd be able to show "hidden" rooms while inside that give you a clue to how to get into them)

To finish it off, I worked on the menu designs to see how the UI would fit in - there's some similarities to APICO's basic UI style but I changed the colors a bit and added more space around all the elements. I also wanted some clearer slot stuff, so like mushrooms and their powder/magic mud to have a small icon for the mushroom, buckets to have a liquid icon - I'd made a few sprites in APICO that were far too similar, so I wanted to avoid that this time round.

I also wanted to keep the main UI as minimal as possible, just some indicators, a current quest log, and then the tooltips if hovering something - this means I've got some flexibility later to add some more stuff. Once I got this coded up I'd tweak a few things, including the design of the titular mud itself, but overall things pretty much match those final concept arts above.

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Lost In A Dream

With that done I wanted to work on the next main part of the design - the dream world. In the gamejam when you dream you visit the big frog god and they tell you your progress, but what I actually want is a whole dream world that acts as an "opposite" to the waking world.

With APICO I always felt like the gameplay was fun but the NPCs and story and exploration was pretty non-existant. In Mudborne I wanted to expand that, have a similar "maths for fun" genetic puzzle to work on as the core game but then have a much richer world to explore.

With the dream world I could have things change between the worlds - new doors and rooms appearing, broken bridges now fixed, stone lilypads disappearing. By using the big froggy pools the player can switch between the two, and access new areas they couldn't before, along with new frogs or mushrooms or NPCs. This ends up with a sort of APICO x Metroidvania in a way, you find different mushrooms, create new frogs, and based on the frog genetics you can "unlock" these gates to get to new areas - some part of the main story, others optional to learn more about the secrets of the world, but the different frogs will gate your progress and exploration. It also gives me a lot of scope to do fun things with the differences between the two worlds, whether thats trees turning into jellyfish that float around, or NPCs being different and saying/selling different things.

It also has some importance within the story itself so I think it should end up as a nice mix of fun gameplay, cool vibes, and a nice story to tell.

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Something Old Something New

With the overworld itself I'd done a lot of changes, looking at the gamejam you can see just how much differs, not just colors but the world objects too.

Some of the items I still liked, like the mushroom designs or the basic tools, some I think make for a fun "nod" to APICO, (like the frogspawn being the honeycomb sprite but modified), with the objects themselves though I wanted to try and match that new "perspective" shared by the stone buildings and the trees.

I also wanted to start using some more colors and have things less flat, so it was nice to finally move away from a lot of the stuff I'd drawn for APICO. When it came to the menus though, I still think the rough style of menus worked really well - it's been battle tested and I know what worked and didn't, but the UI has always been pretty solid. The main changes I did was update the spacing between elements to give the slots + UI inside menus more space, and then I wanted to change some of the border/header styles slightly and have the tiny lilypad icon in there too. To start with I just fleshed out a bunch of the machines I had in the gamejam plus a few extra ones (also yes thats a slightly different shade of brown to APICO, you have good eyes!)

I really liked some of the menus have these sort of "mini" interfaces inside that showed a bit more of what is going on in the overworld, so wanted to lean into that a bit with some of the other machines. I also still liked the idea of having some mechanism stuff - for APICO players I appreciate it's lost the charm, but anyone new to Mudborne thats never heard of ol' bee game can still appreciate it!

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Maths For Fun

As I started implementing the mechanics some of the menus changed a bit - for the current "vertical slice" I'm making for pitches, the main machines I needed were: - Spawner (frog+frog = frogspawn) - Grinder (mushroom = powders) - Cauldron (mud+powders = magic mud) - Nursery (magic mud + frogspawn = tadpole) - Feeder (tadpole + bugs = frogs) - Bed (skip ahead time)

The main differences to the gamejam version is the extra step with mushrooms (so that you don't have to find + pick as many mushrooms as you'll get multiple powders from one), the cauldron accepting up to 3 powders that can be the same or different (so one magic mud can have 3 buffs), and the nursery having multiple layers (so you could do 3 different genetic changes or use a +1 mushroom 3 times for a +3 in one step) The nursery change is the most important here, as being able to do 3 buffs at the same time is important as it's part of the genetic puzzle I'll explain later - but it also removes some grindyness, instead of needing to do 3 cycles for a 4 trait to become a 7 trait using a +1 mushroom, you can do just 1.

The feeder expands the process to include bugs you find to feed the tadpoles - once they grow they'll appear in the overworld as actual frogs again to catch, but this time they might be some new species depending on the genetic modifications you made with the mud. I'm still playing with what the different bugs might do or how which bugs are decided as needed, but I think it gives me a lot of room to play with from a mechanics standpoint. The final "new" machine I needed was the actual teleportation pools - these would have the genetic "lock" that you need to make a frog to match.

The puzzle starts off simple enough, get a frog that matches the 7 traits the pool requires. Putting a frog in the pool starts the little coloured lines to "move" from left to right, stopping if the number the frog has doesn't match whats needed. Once you have a frog with all numbers matching, all the dots can join up, and the pool unlocks to be used to travel between worlds.

"That's easy" I hear you say, and yes! To start with this is easy enough, sure you might need to combine different mushrooms to counter certain modifications you don't want, but you can cycle frogs as much as you want to keep modifying until you get there. However this is me making a game so obviously I need to then show you something that makes you cry - which is when I introduce the concept of ancestors to the genetic locks

Instead of just looking at the traits of the frog, it also looks at the traits of the frog of the previous generation, and maybe even the generation before that! So starting from the first "column" you need to jump to the next one in a single frog cycle, using the right mushrooms to modify the numbers in one leap (ha). 

You then might need to do that again (and again) until you have a frog that has each previous generation matching whats expected. There'll be some tools to help you "predict" this, as well as lots of different mushrooms you'll find as you explore that do different things, +1, -1, *2 AND -1 etc. Planning this out is a nightmare as you can imagine...

Also having 7 traits each with 7 values means a lot of combinations (823543?!?), which means I can "hide" a lot of frogs to be discovered. For example go scroll back up and look at the "finished" concept art without UI for both the waking and dream world - notice that piller on the left? By travelling to the dream you can get the missing numbers that give you a trait "key" you could make to find a new frog.

In this way there can be a bunch of frogs you have to find to progress through the pools to new areas, some frogs you can get through experimenting (what if I do 777777?) and some found through clues in the world. 

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What Next?

So right now I've planned out all the mechanics and I've been starting to implement them into a prototype of sorts (in my new favourite engine LÖVE) to make sure it all feels fun and has the right vibe, so lots of little bugs/critters roaming around, a cute day/night cycle, weather etc

I'm trying to spend more time on little details and effects in the world, all very small stuff but all adds up without the player realising, reflections or pollen or subtle movement. 

The goal is to then finish that as a vertical slice I can use to pitch to publishers, cos although APICO did well that was a couple years ago now, and outside of this final update I essentially have no releases until Mudborne is done so money is pretty tight :')

While doing that, I'll be continuing on with the game, starting with the first "training" area that will essentially become the demo. My plan is to release the demo later this year showing that first area, while I continue finishing the game to release in 2025 - right now the demo on Steam is still the gamejam version, which while it has some of the vibes it's not the full concept of what I want Mudborne to be, so I'd like to get that updated to really show people what they can have to look forward to.

I have a lot of the full game mapped out now, in terms of the story, areas, npc, general mechanics etc. I'm also literally mapping it out, each area on some graph paper, so will be interesting to see how closely I follow this for the demo + full game, esp. as I've already changed the houses (and is a nice analogue break for my poor eyes)

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As I mentioned at the start, having to force a devlog every month didn't work great for me, I'd rather do larger devlogs now and again to catch you all up with what I've been doing over a couple of months otherwise it feels like I'm scraping the barrel some months when I've been busy on other stuff. I do share the odd video + sketch in Discord now and again, so if you want to come chat about it I'd love to see you there, but I'm committing to do devlogs when I can so you can keep up with everything <3 ~ Ell

[muirmarie]

this is just me being curious, so you definitely do not need to indulge me by replying! but! would you be interested in talking a bit about your writing process 🤔 like do you outline and what do you do after you've finished a draft, how is your editing process, things like that...

You asked this in, literally, October of last year, and I am very, very sorry I didn't reply until now. I'm not very good about talking about writing, tbh! But given it's the thing I am Most Passionate about, I wanted to at least Try. And yet I've spent Months starting different versions of this, and not finishing. So uhhh once again, here goes.

I don't outline, first of all. At least not a traditional outline.

I write everything in one document, as one living draft, and I outline as I go.

Basically when I start a fic, I have some general ideas about it.

Like for the Avery one, all I knew was:

to fulfill the prompt, McCoy was going to be denied food as punishment

I didn't want the crew of the Avery to be the bad guys

something was wrong with the crew

I wanted McCoy to save the day—this was the big one for me

When I start writing, I almost always start with a scene that will end up as the beginning or, more likely, extremely close to the beginning. I usually jump into that scene with zero hesitation or planning, and whatever names I jot down there will almost always stay (although I try to remember to google them before posting to make sure they're not real words with unpleasant meanings lmao).

The way I write the story is kind of like an outline—I jump around a LOT when I write, and as I jump around I figure out what I'm actually writing.

For the Avery one, the first scene I wrote was the one where McCoy was backhanded by Hayes. When McCoy was thinking about what could've happened to Hayes, that was me considering my options, too! I didn't know yet! I didn't know the Berovian flu had anything to do with what was happening, either—I didn't figure that out until McCoy did, and McCoy only figured it out there because I wanted Spock and Kirk to have a presence in the first half of the story, and so I needed to give them something to do, and the something they did was help McCoy and me figure out what was going on, haha.

I cannot stress enough how much I jump around, and how much I figure the story out that way. I find it really lets me thread things through, because I'm not editing to change things in the story, I'm back-filling in spaces I purposefully left empty until I knew what went there! I also reread the story a LOT as I go, which is why it all ends up turning to mush for me by the time I finish a fic lmao, but it means I edit some as I go, and it's what helps me keep the plot straight and what lets me know what threads to pull all the way through a story.

I've mentioned this on here before, but I'm not great at descriptions, or at least, they very much don't come naturally to me. SO I tie my descriptions into my plot and character work. That's something I have to keep an eye on as I write and edit, to make sure I know where everyone is and what everyone is doing. I can't picture things in my head, so I have to track it through when I reread it.

I don't actually change a whole lot between my first and last run through—usually even the very first scene I write will come through almost entirely intact, unless I really badly fail to trust my gut. (aka the Vulcan massage ritual one where I was too in my head about writing again and wrote a, I don't remember, like 800-1200 word intro of McCoy saving Spock from the river and then getting them to the cave, an intro that I had to fully discard, because it undercut all the emotion I needed, and then instead I had to back-fill Spock putting together what must have happened to give it that emotional weight I needed—that was VERY unusual, and VERY frustrating, because I knew better, I just didn't trust myself.)

Usually, though, 99.9% of what I write stays in the story, it just gets moved around and rearranged a lot. I'm a fairly lean writer, so while I very much understand the concept of kill your darlings, my problem is almost always the opposite—if a scene won't lay flat for me, it almost always means that I need to add something earlier in the story, to give it a more solid and balanced foundation.

My final edit is a full read-through, and that read-through consists of three main goals:

I'm looking for the same words and phrases too close together. Because I write out of order, I'll have a paragraph I wrote an hour ago next to a paragraph I wrote two months ago, and I have specific words and phrases I overuse way too often, so I have to go through and attempt to catch all of those that, now that the story is finally in the right order and strung all together, are now sitting way too close together.

Movement, expressions, and emotions. Similar to 1, but this is specifically watching for the way people move and react and feel—I need to make sure those are also not overused, and more importantly that they're not contradictory. I need to make sure the mood and movement flow together in the right order, with the right build. Build is something I care a lot about when writing—it's the way a fight builds, the way cussing builds, the way embarrassment or teasing builds. If anything feels too much too fast, or oscillates between levels instead of building, I'll rearrange or change the wording.

is the big one. That's just listening to the story and feeling the flow. It's looking for paragraphs without enough variation in sentence length, it's listening for awkward phrasing, it's just...hearing and feeling if the story flows right. This is the thing writing advice will tell you to read your favorite stories and listen for, and the advice is right for me, at least—I don't really know how to explain it besides I know if it feels right or not, and that's just from, what, fifteen years of practice and knowing what my writing should sound like, and a lifetime of listening to it in the things I love to read. Flow isn't usually a problem on a final read-through, but when it is, it's a massive problem, so I always look for that.

Some other things...I leave a lot of little hooks in my writing as I go, things that I can pull through if I need to, later on. I love callbacks, I love a good repetition, I LOVE a good payoff if I can swing it. For the time loop one, one of the very last things I wrote was the through line of McCoy having put together Kirk's lunch, and I threaded that all the way back through to the start of the story, because I wanted that eleven course payoff.

Let's see...people are funny, so I want my stories to have humor, but usually don't want humor to be the focus, so re: the build of it all, that's something I'm very aware of when I'm writing—I try to make sure the humor is between the characters, not between the story and the reader, because that allows me to better control the emotions of the scene? As in: I want any humor to be inside the story, not outside it.

Which brings us to the thing I always feel silliest saying: my goal is to make my writing as invisible as possible. I want to coax the reader into an empty plot, and then build the frame of the house around us, and my goal, when I'm writing, is to have the reader focus on a painting I've hung on a wall, and not even notice the wall itself, the wall that wasn't there a moment ago. I want to build the story around the two of us with you knowing. I want to buy in so fully to the story that you can too, and by doing so, I want you to ignore the construction zone we're in and instead focus on eating the homemade meal I just cooked us in a kitchen that's still actively being built as we eat.

I know that sounds silly, but I've never yet figured out a better way to say it! I want you inside the house, not looking in the windows. So everything I do when I write is with that goal, that the seams will lie flat, that the frame of the house will be solid, that I will buy into the story so fully and so absolutely that you'll trust me enough to do the same. That maybe you'll do it without even realizing.

That you'll believe the house has always been here, and that all I'm showing you is a pretty picture I've hung on the wall, a warm rug I've put down on the floor, a glass of wine I've just poured and set down on the kitchen island, the kitchen island that must have come with the house.

It's always been there. We've always been here. Sit down and stay awhile.

(someday I'll sound normal when I talk about writing, but alas, today is not that day. But I'm not keeping this in my inbox for another month as I desperately try to get to better at talking about writing lmaooo, so this is me attempting to learn by doing and all that)