#I did more stuff than usual this week so

[claritys-silly-things]

Something something Sunday, something something headcanon post

- Ponyboy loves mint chocolate chip ice cream, but dally hates it. He claims it tastes like toothpaste and every time he says this, the group has to hold pony back from attacking the guy (fair)

- (modern) Someone show the curtis brothers Steven universe sobs

- The curtis brothers have dimples and smile lines and other facial things. like Darry has crows feet and pony has worry lines on his forehead because I think it’s cool and I have those even though I am like. Young.

- What if Dallas had an older brother or someone that’s like how he is to Johnny but to Dallas and that person died and then his mom died and he hated his dad and had no reason to stay in New York so he left

- I just painted my nails with random ass old nail polish I found and every nail is a different color and I think that’s something cherry would do

- Pony, soda, and twobit are all double jointed in different areas of their body and they’ll just do shit to creep the rest of the guys out, especially dally and darry

- Dally is fine with gore n shit irl but cant handle weird body contorsions

- Johnny will randomly say the most horrifying things like “doesn’t everyone wish they could go to sleep and not wake up” and it just traumatizes ponyboy. Twobit is also like this but a bit more goofy. Pony ends up doing the same thing post-book but says it to sound like it’s a joke like two bit and when people tell him to stop he’s like “it’s true tho🧍🏽‍♂️”

- Since dally is so pale, he gets “red” so goddamn easily but he looks more pink. Every time he feels too much of any emotion, he’s pink. If it’s too hot he’s pink. Two bit makes fun of him for this and has been punched in the face at least twice for it. Pony is the same but that mf turns like BRIGHT red

- One sided dalbit bc Dallas is fucking aromantic but it’s funny for giggles and shits cuz twobitch just keeps embarrassing himself trying to flirt (vox and alastor core) (someone make a fic about this cries sobs)

- (Modern perchance) Pony is in like advanced classes n shit but fucking hates it. He’s still good at it and will cry if he gets a bad grade, but he doesn’t like it

- (Modern) Pony fucking hates Miguel O’Hara and is absolutely positively disgusted bc like half his friends simp so hard over that man (may or may not be based on me) (it is)

- two bit unironically believes so many conspiracy theories and spreads it to pony and Johnny

- I randomly made mozzarella sticks rn on a whim and soda would 100% impulse make food all the time and just figure out the recipe himself. It’s usually decent.

- Pony loves back to school season but hates actually going back. Like he likes the idea of going back to school and getting new school supplies, but within like, two days, he hates all his classes besides English

- Soda will burst out singing out a lot no matter where he is. Even at night. You can’t stop him (me)

- Rip sodapop you would’ve LOVED musical theater sobs

[fuck-kirk]

Wait i just saw your tags that your job is the "do list of tasks until complete then leave" type - what sort of job is it? Bc that sounds amazing tbh

I will say my job isn’t like this ALL the time…maybe like 50-60% of the time

I’m a “pottery operator” at a community art center—but essentially I’m the assistant to the main teacher. I also teach classes, but that’s only a few times a week. The rest of the time my boss gives me a check list of studio chores to do. She is often not there bc she owns her own gallery, so for example every Monday and Friday I spend the whole day just checking off tasks on a to-do list. Things like cleaning and organizing shelves and cupboards, loading kilns (which I LOVE to do, unironically), mix clay, prep clay and tools for lessons, etc etc… and then when I’m done, I can either “lesson plan” which is usually me looking at pintrist, writing a bit, or working on teacher samples to see how I would demo it (which is very fun to me) or I leave, because I get paid salary, so if the work is done I’m good

So basically it is literally the perfect job for me. The perfect mix of social interaction (and it’s usually with other artistic people), teaching (which I also love to do), and mentally and physically engaging but NOT back breaking menial tasks that I can just check off on a to-do list (and I usually listen to an audio book the whole time..)

So, like, a pretty niche kinda job I guess….but it’s seriously the perfect fit for me

[rosenbraut]

🌹Utena inspired🌹 - loving and moving my body this week

Monday. rise and shine yoga [13 mins] // fencing footwork at home practice [16 mins]

Tuesday. power pilates [15 mins]

Wednesday. neighbour-friendly ballet cardio [12 mins]

Thursday. Yoga sculpt [14 mins] // pilates for balance [13 mins]

Friday. beginner ballet cardio [10 mins] // deep stretch for beginners [24 mins]

Saturday. ballet pilates workout [20 mins]

Sunday. pilates for strength & flexibility [24 mins]

___

This week (24.06.-30.06.), I felt inspired to try something new: A selection of workouts inspired by the masterpiece that is Shōjo Kakumei Utena. The inspiration here wasn't the body image of 90s Shōjo, but rather the ways the characters move. The idea was to pretend that I was preparing to fight those hyper mannerist duels. Since I'm very limited in what I can do at home (no kendo, no fencing, not even basketball...) AND since the duels themselves are metaphorical kaleidoscopes of dance, fencing and freudian shenanigans, I picked a selection that combines factors that would go into this way: focusing on strength, flexibility and endurance, as well as balance, grace and control.

[mcalhenwrites]

Still alive, writing and editing a lot and even drawing (mostly dragon sketches at work). Seasons has some new chapters now... I saw something earlier about writing being something you can hone by doing lots of reading and writing. I wonder when that will apply to me. I've read a lot of books this year. I have almost hit my goal of 90 books, and while a couple are nonfiction and half are comics, the rest are novels. I expect that to increase again, now that I'm going back to the library. (I stopped with the bed bug scare.) Then I'm setting aside time each week to write. I work on stories at work, even if it's mostly just planning. (My laptop is falling apart so I just gave up taking it to work.) Yet here I am, still the same idiot who doesn't have anything appealing enough for most people to read. I can't get 99% of my followers interested. Sales of Geckos have dropped to next-to-nothing. Nothing else I put out there matters either. The fault lies with me. I'm not good enough. After having this stupid blog for 12 years, I want to delete it. I want to delete my twitter account. I want to delete every single account and shut up for good. There is nothing I can offer. My writing is a good hobby for me. I can get pats on the head for doing a little thing for myself. Aww, look at the cute little dumbass adult doing wittle storwies!!! Isn't that silly!!! They're not good, but he's having fun during the process. Too bad he hasn't figured out that not even 39 more years of practice can save what he's handing out.

[stereotypical-jew]

okay. so. i did not vibe with the latest doctor who episode a lot? and idk why exactly. i did still enjoy it for the most part! do love that we're getting more explicit queer romance on the show, but idk it didn't feel...genuine? especially with the doctor saying that ruby's his best friend but then abandoning her to aliens for most of the episode. i'm like really feeling that the overarching plot must be about storytelling. like especially all the blatant references to bridgerton INCLUDING the bad guys and poker face covers. and the teaser line about it being the doctor's life they're playing out. i'm hoping that the arc is kind of about how something (pantheon character?) is kind of controlling the doctor/ruby's story to hit the beats it's supposed to bc its tv but is doing so in a non-organic way which is why the season feels so disjointed and very telling-not-showing. also the weird 6 month time jump between Space Babies and Boom. otherwise i'mgonna feel like it was just kind of poorly written. like! to be clear! i am still enjoying the show! but not as much as i have other seasons

[mejomonster]

I hate panic attacks

[izzy-b-hands]

Got all excited last night bc i saw a post from a mod on the gta o subreddit abt the Halloween update being set to drop today around 5 AM (backed up by at least two gaming websites that had stories also stating the same start time and date)

Went in today ready for Halloween and uh. Nothing lol

Checked the actual Rockstar website and there's no mention of it, just that RDR o is getting a Halloween update this week

If i was a betting man I'd start a pool on how late in the month it'll be by the time the gta Halloween drops lmao

(also a pool on how likely it is the mod is lying; as they continue to insist they have access to all the usual Halloween stuff in GTA o today and that everyone who doesn't must not know how to restart their game to see if that changes anything, or maybe they didn't click play on GTA but a different game in their library? Which is insulting af, especially to the guy with the flare that shows he's at a level so high in the game that i frankly didn't know existed, who called them out and asked if maybe they didn't get confused and thought gta and rdr were both getting the update at the same time. Person was nice abt it, just asked plainly and said it was ok if that was the case, but that it would be helpful for others to know. poor dude immediately got piled on by the mod for it but like. he's right lmao. if that's the case it's fine! mistakes happen! but stop insisting you have access to something seemingly no one else trying to play online does!)

[thundertide]

Just a quick note that I've got a new theme up! <3 Was kindda time for a refresh, among other reasons, so @yoroiis and I spent a couple days working out a new look! Everything is still how it was for links, and in the next day or two I should have Ayaka's temp about up, too - Some things came up, including the loss of our other dog, so being productive lately has been... Kind of difficult and made this the first real project I've been able to focus on in days that wasn't simple edits over on @sakurarisen and my multi-blog-wide lore. If there's any issues with the theme, feel free to hit up my inbox and let me know so I can get them fixed! <3

~Pom

[zincbot]

first workout after top surgery had me flying high all day

[springcatalyst]

Song shuffle game

tagged by @hamburgerslippers thank u bestieeee I've been listening to SO much music lately because of work

Rules: shuffle your ‘on repeat’ playlist and post the first ten tracks, then tag ten people.

i'm sorry but you know i dont know 10 people. I would if I could

AHEM

1. Break by Three Days Grace <- FUCKING slaps

2. Monster by Starset

3. King by The Amazing Devil

4. Careful What You Wish For by Bad Omens

5. Icarus by Bastille

6. I Will Fail You by Demon Hunter

7. Wrong Side Of Heaven by Five Finger Death Punch

8. Riverbound by Comaduster

9. Ghosts by Nathan Wagner <- I think you'd like this guy hes very dramatic and I think his voice is neat

10. Me and Mine by The Brothers Bright

as always if anyone wants to do this literally just say I tagged u. do it. give me new music to listen to

[archaeren]

How I learned to write smarter, not harder

(aka, how to write when you're hella ADHD lol)

A reader commented on my current long fic asking how I write so well. I replied with an essay of my honestly pretty non-standard writing advice (that they probably didn't actually want lol) Now I'm gonna share it with you guys and hopefully there's a few of you out there who will benefit from my past mistakes and find some useful advice in here. XD Since I started doing this stuff, which are all pretty easy changes to absorb into your process if you want to try them, I now almost never get writer's block.

The text of the original reply is indented, and I've added some additional commentary to expand upon and clarify some of the concepts.

As for writing well, I usually attribute it to the fact that I spent roughly four years in my late teens/early 20s writing text roleplay with a friend for hours every single day. Aside from the constant practice that provided, having a live audience immediately reacting to everything I wrote made me think a lot about how to make as many sentences as possible have maximum impact so that I could get that kind of fun reaction. (Which is another reason why comments like yours are so valuable to fanfic writers! <3) The other factors that have improved my writing are thus: 1. Writing nonlinearly. I used to write a whole story in order, from the first sentence onward. If there was a part I was excited to write, I slogged through everything to get there, thinking that it would be my reward once I finished everything that led up to that. It never worked. XD It was miserable. By the time I got to the part I wanted to write, I had beaten the scene to death in my head imagining all the ways I could write it, and it a) no longer interested me and b) could not live up to my expectations because I couldn't remember all my ideas I'd had for writing it. The scene came out mediocre and so did everything leading up to it. Since then, I learned through working on VN writing (I co-own a game studio and we have some visual novels that I write for) that I don't have to write linearly. If I'm inspired to write a scene, I just write it immediately. It usually comes out pretty good even in a first draft! But then I also have it for if I get more ideas for that scene later, and I can just edit them in. The scenes come out MUCH stronger because of this. And you know what else I discovered? Those scenes I slogged through before weren't scenes I had no inspiration for, I just didn't have any inspiration for them in that moment! I can't tell you how many times there was a scene I had no interest in writing, and then a week later I'd get struck by the perfect inspiration for it! Those are scenes I would have done a very mediocre job on, and now they can be some of the most powerful scenes because I gave them time to marinate. Inspiration isn't always linear, so writing doesn't have to be either!

Some people are the type that joyfully write linearly. I have a friend like this--she picks up the characters and just continues playing out the next scene. Her story progresses through the entire day-by-day lives of the characters; it never timeskips more than a few hours. She started writing and posting just eight months ago, she's about an eighth of the way through her planned fic timeline, and the content she has so far posted to AO3 for it is already 450,000 words long. But most of us are normal humans. We're not, for the most part, wired to create linearly. We consume linearly, we experience linearly, so we assume we must also create linearly. But actually, a lot of us really suffer from trying to force ourselves to create this way, and we might not even realize it. If you're the kind of person who thinks you need to carrot-on-a-stick yourself into writing by saving the fun part for when you finally write everything that happens before it: Stop. You're probably not a linear writer. You're making yourself suffer for no reason and your writing is probably suffering for it. At least give nonlinear writing a try before you assume you can't write if you're not baiting or forcing yourself into it!! Remember: Writing is fun. You do this because it's fun, because it's your hobby. If you're miserable 80% of the time you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong!

2. Rereading my own work. I used to hate reading my own work. I wouldn't even edit it usually. I would write it and slap it online and try not to look at it again. XD Writing nonlinearly forced me to start rereading because I needed to make sure scenes connected together naturally and it also made it easier to get into the headspace of the story to keep writing and fill in the blanks and get new inspiration. Doing this built the editing process into my writing process--I would read a scene to get back in the headspace, dislike what I had written, and just clean it up on the fly. I still never ever sit down to 'edit' my work. I just reread it to prep for writing and it ends up editing itself. Many many scenes in this fic I have read probably a dozen times or more! (And now, I can actually reread my own work for enjoyment!) Another thing I found from doing this that it became easy to see patterns and themes in my work and strengthen them. Foreshadowing became easy. Setting up for jokes or plot points became easy. I didn't have to plan out my story in advance or write an outline, because the scenes themselves because a sort of living outline on their own. (Yes, despite all the foreshadowing and recurring thematic elements and secret hidden meanings sprinkled throughout this story, it actually never had an outline or a plan for any of that. It's all a natural byproduct of writing nonlinearly and rereading.)

Unpopular writing opinion time: You don't need to make a detailed outline.

Some people thrive on having an outline and planning out every detail before they sit down to write. But I know for a lot of us, we don't know how to write an outline or how to use it once we've written it. The idea of making one is daunting, and the advice that it's the only way to write or beat writer's block is demoralizing. So let me explain how I approach "outlining" which isn't really outlining at all.

I write in a Notion table, where every scene is a separate table entry and the scene is written in the page inside that entry. I do this because it makes writing nonlinearly VASTLY more intuitive and straightforward than writing in a single document. (If you're familiar with Notion, this probably makes perfect sense to you. If you're not, imagine something a little like a more contained Google Sheets, but every row has a title cell that opens into a unique Google Doc when you click on it. And it's not as slow and clunky as the Google suite lol) (Edit from the future: I answered an ask with more explanation on how I use Notion for non-linear writing here.) When I sit down to begin a new fic idea, I make a quick entry in the table for every scene I already know I'll want or need, with the entries titled with a couple words or a sentence that describes what will be in that scene so I'll remember it later. Basically, it's the most absolute bare-bones skeleton of what I vaguely know will probably happen in the story.

Then I start writing, wherever I want in the list. As I write, ideas for new scenes and new connections and themes will emerge over time, and I'll just slot them in between the original entries wherever they naturally fit, rearranging as necessary, so that I won't forget about them later when I'm ready to write them. As an example, my current long fic started with a list of roughly 35 scenes that I knew I wanted or needed, for a fic that will probably be around 100k words (which I didn't know at the time haha). As of this writing, it has expanded to 129 scenes. And since I write them directly in the page entries for the table, the fic is actually its own outline, without any additional effort on my part. As I said in the comment reply--a living outline!

This also made it easier to let go of the notion that I had to write something exactly right the first time. (People always say you should do this, but how many of us do? It's harder than it sounds! I didn't want to commit to editing later! I didn't want to reread my work! XD) I know I'm going to edit it naturally anyway, so I can feel okay giving myself permission to just write it approximately right and I can fix it later. And what I found from that was that sometimes what I believed was kind of meh when I wrote it was actually totally fine when I read it later! Sometimes the internal critic is actually wrong. 3. Marinating in the headspace of the story. For the first two months I worked on [fic], I did not consume any media other than [fandom the fic is in]. I didn't watch, read, or play anything else. Not even mobile games. (And there wasn't really much fan content for [fandom] to consume either. Still isn't, really. XD) This basically forced me to treat writing my story as my only source of entertainment, and kept me from getting distracted or inspired to write other ideas and abandon this one.

As an aside, I don't think this is a necessary step for writing, but if you really want to be productive in a short burst, I do highly recommend going on a media consumption hiatus. Not forever, obviously! Consuming media is a valuable tool for new inspiration, and reading other's work (both good and bad, as long as you think critically to identify the differences!) is an invaluable resource for improving your writing.

When I write, I usually lay down, close my eyes, and play the scene I'm interested in writing in my head. I even take a ten-minute nap now and then during this process. (I find being in a state of partial drowsiness, but not outright sleepiness, makes writing easier and better. Sleep helps the brain process and make connections!) Then I roll over to the laptop next to me and type up whatever I felt like worked for the scene. This may mean I write half a sentence at a time between intervals of closed-eye-time XD

People always say if you're stuck, you need to outline.

What they actually mean by that (whether they realize it or not) is that if you're stuck, you need to brainstorm. You need to marinate. You don't need to plan what you're doing, you just need to give yourself time to think about it!

What's another framing for brainstorming for your fic? Fantasizing about it! Planning is work, but fantasizing isn't.

You're already fantasizing about it, right? That's why you're writing it. Just direct that effort toward the scenes you're trying to write next! Close your eyes, lay back, and fantasize what the characters do and how they react.

And then quickly note down your inspirations so you don't forget, haha.

And if a scene is so boring to you that even fantasizing about it sucks--it's probably a bad scene.

If it's boring to write, it's going to be boring to read. Ask yourself why you wanted that scene. Is it even necessary? Can you cut it? Can you replace it with a different scene that serves the same purpose but approaches the problem from a different angle? If you can't remove the troublesome scene, what can you change about it that would make it interesting or exciting for you to write?

And I can't write sitting up to save my damn life. It's like my brain just stops working if I have to sit in a chair and stare at a computer screen. I need to be able to lie down, even if I don't use it! Talking walks and swinging in a hammock are also fantastic places to get scene ideas worked out, because the rhythmic motion also helps our brain process. It's just a little harder to work on a laptop in those scenarios. XD

In conclusion: Writing nonlinearly is an amazing tool for kicking writer's block to the curb. There's almost always some scene you'll want to write. If there isn't, you need to re-read or marinate.

Or you need to use the bathroom, eat something, or sleep. XD Seriously, if you're that stuck, assess your current physical condition. You might just be unable to focus because you're uncomfortable and you haven't realized it yet.

Anyway! I hope that was helpful, or at least interesting! XD Sorry again for the text wall. (I think this is the longest comment reply I've ever written!)

And same to you guys on tumblr--I hope this was helpful or at least interesting. XD Reblogs appreciated if so! (Maybe it'll help someone else!)

[minglana]

every time i think im finally moving on i think something or read something that makes me realize that i am, in fact, NOT moved on yet

[iras17514]

i can't wait to get my own retainer

[kawaiianimeredhead]

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[sylveriasarcana]

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[izzy-b-hands]

I keep forgetting I can't seem to get the current version of xkit to work on my new laptop and going to do stuff that it let me do fjldksafjdlsaj