#I just want to drink tea and WRITE

[whumpty-dumpty-doo]

Whumping for creatives is just looking at the clock and feeling miserable as it gets closer to the time that you have to put down what you're writing or drawing to go work at your actual job.

[bittsandpieces]

thanks so much with your answer about wine, I didn't know how else to phrase it but I agree with savouring it as well ;gslfdmsg

I've only had wine a handful of times but so far white wine is my preference :3 esp with dessert

yeah of course!! I think a lot of people are intimidated by wine because there's such a wide variety to it and a lot of pretentious vibes (especially with people who are super into wine) but I'm of the belief that there's a wine out there for basically everybody, and I love being able to help people feel more comfortable navigating wine as a whole!

[macaulaytwins]

Mornings at Hampden College

[citrine-elephant]

headcanon:

give leon a pot of coffee and 5 energy drinks and he'll pass out a few minutes later

give chris 1 energy drink and he'll swallow the can, too, but he'll be complaining about his heart racing

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

💌 just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who’s left such lovely feedback on my latest chapter of four walls. it’s been a weird and emotionally draining week for me, and getting to come back after a long day and read all your kind words has been such a solace. it’s truly hard to put into words how much it means when people connect with something you’ve created (and i’m far too exhausted to even attempt it tonight), but trust me when i say nothing grounds me and keeps me writing through all the difficult stuff more than knowing that what i’m creating means something to people other than just me. thank you so much for your generosity in sharing that with me via your lovely comments and feedback 💌

[caffemochachoco]

i want to go for matcha ice cream

[mashmouths]

save me mango yogurt

[freya-ulfsdottir]

sigh... ok fine, i'll do a work. but i did like 50 works yesterday

[brokenmachinemusings]

drinkijng water is so weird bc how do i know this isnt holy water meant to harm me

[mittenlady]

4 credit college course where it is a comfy room with comfy chairs and scented candles and it is quiet and warm and the course is eepy 101 and the final exam is writing essay about why nap good based off scientific research (napping in aforementioned course)

[bakatenshii]

i'm just so weee! that you are writing again, but ofc no rush, take your time<3333 how is your weekend goin, my favorite shig fucker?

aaAAAAAA NONNIE THANK U FOR BEING HEREEEEE!! I’m also so so happy to be writing again, I honestly enjoy it so much and I’m happy my brain’s providing me enough juice to get me through it hehehhe

but youre so so sweet thank you!! for being so understanding and patient (ノ﹏ヽ)

MY WEEKEND IS GOOOOD @blahkugo finally finished her assignments for the year so I’ve been over cooking for her HAHAHA I’ve been seeing everyone freak out over the new bnha leaks too tho so I need to go take a peeeksies and see ahats going on :3cc

[sleaze4sleaze]

Homemade sweet tea :] tastes like childhood

[yu3s]

** i want to write so badly i can feel it sitting on my chest and its so heavy sometimes. i want it to be fizzing and popping and sparkling out of me like pop rocks candy or fireworks but its just so heavy and its so sad and its so tired and its all curled up in there like a creature that's forgotten how it used to fly.

[mystic-mae]

i need some motivation to do shit, so like... notes thingy i guess

100 notes - water consumption for the body. marching band season made me realize i dont drink enough fucking water out here. (alright, i guess i need water now... I WAS DRINKING TEA EARLIER. THATS CLOSE ENOUGH, RIGHT??)

200 notes - food consumption, i guess. i'll try to eat 3 full meals a day. enough to make my body full and stuff. (gods dammit. well, i already ate breakfast and lunch, and i have leftovers from lunch, so, i guess dinner's all set for me.)

300 notes - homework completion. i've been lacking in my homework game, and i definitely need to improve it this semester. (...i'll start my chem homework tomorrow since saturdays are my rest days, okay??? MOST OF MY WEEKEND HOMEWORK IS DONE BUT THANKS FOR CARING, CHAT)

400 notes - writing hobby. i need motivation to write lore for my dnd campaign (#runaway ruler dnd / #convict ruler dnd / #ruined ruler dnd universe if you want to follow along my shitposting for that) (i already started shitposting for runaway ruler again, so check it out. I WILL WRITE LORE FOR EACH ARC DONT WORRY IM JUST BARELY GETTING STARTED ON THE SECOND ARC SINCE ITS VERY LONG)

500 notes - animation gift. i'm making a little valentine's gift for my spouses, and it's gonna be 1:34 seconds long... I need motivation to actually animate lmao. (i'll do bits and pieces throughout the week. don't worry, i plan to figure this out [i haven't animated in months, and even then i barely scratched the animation surface])

1000 notes - script memorization. i uh... need to memorize my silly little script for a production coming up in a month. im performing in front of kids so like... the script's pretty short and easy. im the antagonist in my cast >:]. (sick, let's go. i love myself some memorization.)

2000 notes - chest binder shopping. i'll ask my parents if i can get a chest binder. ive been meaning to get one for myself for some time now. im getting desperate for one. (i suppose i'll ask today or tomorrow... or over the weekend- that's when most of the shopping happens, anyways.)

3000 notes - leaving the closet. i'll come out to the rest of my family that i'm trans, aromantic, all the nine yards about my lgbtq+ identities. i'll definitely have to schedule a good day to do that. (HELLO??? WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN?? OKAY FINE I'LL FIGURE OUT A DAY. I'LL COME BACK TO YOU WITH THAT-)

4000 notes - researching possible colleges across my state and outside my state. because i wanna get out of here.

5000 notes - order a suit. preferably black or purple. because i need more gender affirming clothes in the formal department.

EDIT: do however many notes you want. i know i said 10 notes per person earlier, but like... go wild i guess

[malusokay]

Little things that improved my life 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

Accepting my sleep schedule. I'm a night owl; I focus at night, I'm calm at night, I'm motivated at night. For a long time, I tried to fight this since everyone always preaches getting up early, but since I started accepting my natural sleep schedule, I've been feeling a lot better and have become way more productive.

"drink more water". TEA. Tea is the secret here. I will be honest, I hate drinking water; it doesn't matter if I have a cute water bottle or a cute glass, I still hate it. TEA.

Replying quickly. I used to be one of those people who get a text message and think, "Oh, I'll reply to that later", and then just forget about it entirely. Now, I text back as soon as I see the message. This has not only improved my texting anxiety (which I cause on my own by now replying and then feeling bad) but also deepened my connection to my friends. <3

Keeping my circle small and being okay with that. Over the past months, I've had this sudden urge to expand my social circle and get to know more and more people, especially after I moved in August. However, this quickly ended in what I like to call my "social burnout". I was tired, annoyed, and overwhelmed. It took a few weeks for it to settle, but I've come to the conclusion that I would much rather have a smaller circle of people who I trust and love deeply than a huge group of friends, and that's totally okay.

Wearing what I like. Even though I live in a big city, I'd still say that my style can sometimes be a bit more extravagant than what most people wear, another point is that I'm very uncomfortable with pants so I only wear skirts, which is also considered a bit odd where I live. But over the past years, I've come to accept that and have become so sure of myself and found such comfort in my style that I now just wear whatever I like, and it makes every day a little bit nicer.

Reading and writing for pleasure. Reading books outside of my studies and spending time researching topics that simply interest me is such a great way to calm your mind. Same for writing, I always like to say that to write is to think; putting your thoughts on paper in cohesive and well-crafted sentences that you can then reread and think over again is such a liberating thing to do.

Reaching out more. fuck the whole "double texting" and "no contact" thing. If you want to speak to someone because they mean something to you, then just do it. Unless they specifically asked for space, you shouldn't feel bad about wanting to be in touch with them. Many even really appreciate it when you show that you truly care. Let's stop the nonchalant act, and instead, let's face deep emotions and true vulnerability. <3

As always, please feel free to share your own little insights and things that helped you improve comments! <3

my insta: @ malusokay

love ya ･:*₊‧✩

[aethersea]

another thing fantasy writers should keep track of is how much of their worldbuilding is aesthetic-based. it's not unlike the sci-fi hardness scale, which measures how closely a story holds to known, real principles of science. The Martian is extremely hard sci-fi, with nearly every detail being grounded in realistic fact as we know it; Star Trek is extremely soft sci-fi, with a vaguely plausible "space travel and no resource scarcity" premise used as a foundation for the wildest ideas the writers' room could come up with. and much as Star Trek fuckin rules, there's nothing wrong with aesthetic-based fantasy worldbuilding!

(sidenote we're not calling this 'soft fantasy' bc there's already a hard/soft divide in fantasy: hard magic follows consistent rules, like "earthbenders can always and only bend earth", and soft magic follows vague rules that often just ~feel right~, like the Force. this frankly kinda maps, but I'm not talking about just the magic, I'm talking about the worldbuilding as a whole.

actually for the purposes of this post we're calling it grounded vs airy fantasy, bc that's succinct and sounds cool.)

a great example of grounded fantasy is Dungeon Meshi: the dungeon ecosystem is meticulously thought out, the plot is driven by the very realistic need to eat well while adventuring, the story touches on both social and psychological effects of the whole 'no one dies forever down here' situation, the list goes on. the worldbuilding wants to be engaged with on a mechanical level and it rewards that engagement.

deliberately airy fantasy is less common, because in a funny way it's much harder to do. people tend to like explanations. it takes skill to pull off "the world is this way because I said so." Narnia manages: these kids fall into a magic world through the back of a wardrobe, befriend talking beavers who drink tea, get weapons from Santa Claus, dance with Bacchus and his maenads, and sail to the edge of the world, without ever breaking suspension of disbelief. it works because every new thing that happens fits the vibes. it's all just vibes! engaging with the worldbuilding on a mechanical level wouldn't just be futile, it'd be missing the point entirely.

the reason I started off calling this aesthetic-based is that an airy story will usually lean hard on an existing aesthetic, ideally one that's widely known by the target audience. Lewis was drawing on fables, fairy tales, myths, children's stories, and the vague idea of ~medieval europe~ that is to this day our most generic fantasy setting. when a prince falls in love with a fallen star, when there are giants who welcome lost children warmly and fatten them up for the feast, it all fits because these are things we'd expect to find in this story. none of this jars against what we've already seen.

and the point of it is to be wondrous and whimsical, to set the tone for the story Lewis wants to tell. and it does a great job! the airy worldbuilding serves the purposes of the story, and it's no less elegant than Ryōko Kui's elaborately grounded dungeon. neither kind of worldbuilding is better than the other.

however.

you do have to know which one you're doing.

the whole reason I'm writing this is that I saw yet another long, entertaining post dragging GRRM for absolute filth. asoiaf is a fun one because on some axes it's pretty grounded (political fuck-around-and-find-out, rumors spread farther than fact, fastest way to lose a war is to let your people starve, etc), but on others it's entirely airy (some people have magic Just Cause, the various peoples are each based on an aesthetic/stereotype/cliché with no real thought to how they influence each other as neighbors, the super-long seasons have no effect on ecology, etc).

and again! none of this is actually bad! (well ok some of those stereotypes are quite bigoted. but other than that this isn't bad.) there's nothing wrong with the season thing being there to highlight how the nobles are focused on short-sighted wars for power instead of storing up resources for the extremely dangerous and inevitable winter, that's a nice allegory, and the looming threat of many harsh years set the narrative tone. and you can always mix and match airy and grounded worldbuilding – everyone does it, frankly it's a necessity, because sooner or later the answer to every worldbuilding question is "because the author wanted it to be that way." the only completely grounded writing is nonfiction.

the problem is when you pretend that your entirely airy worldbuilding is actually super duper grounded. like, for instance, claiming that your vibes-based depiction of Medieval Europe (Gritty Edition) is completely historical, and then never even showing anyone spinning. or sniffing dismissively at Tolkien for not detailing Aragorn's tax policy, and then never addressing how a pre-industrial grain-based agricultural society is going years without harvesting any crops. (stored grain goes bad! you can't even mouse-proof your silos, how are you going to deal with mold?) and the list goes on.

the man went up on national television and invited us to engage with his worldbuilding mechanically, and then if you actually do that, it shatters like spun sugar under the pressure. doesn't he realize that's not the part of the story that's load-bearing! he should've directed our focus to the political machinations and extensive trope deconstruction, not the handwavey bit.

point is, as a fantasy writer there will always be some amount of your worldbuilding that boils down to 'because I said so,' and there's nothing wrong with that. nor is there anything wrong with making that your whole thing – airy worldbuilding can be beautiful and inspiring. but you have to be aware of what you're doing, because if you ask your readers to engage with the worldbuilding in gritty mechanical detail, you had better have some actual mechanics to show them.