#IF I ADD THE REWORK TITLES IT'LL BE

[astros-arts-inthestars]

Why do some Persona characters have two names.

[felassan]

Snippets. 🐺💜

John: "one of the funnier quirks of game dev is you will never remember missions by their real names but instead by the name you called them by for several years of development it will never be 'In Your Heart Shall Burn' for me, it'll always be Setback" [source] / Blair: "there was that awkward period where half of the DA:V ones had "gods" in the title, so discussions were always some variant of: "Did you mean 'Gods Are Back' or 'Gods Are Bad'? I've heard people mention 'Egads! Gods!' but I'm not sure if that's new or a rework."" [source] / Malcolm (in reply to John): "I have one like this in DA:Ve and I can't share it yet because spoilers but I promise you it's delightful" [source]

John: "the only one i can ever remember is 'Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts' and it's because it seems to be the only DAI mission that people constantly reference by name online" [source] / Mary: "It's proper name is "Ham Ball." I put that in the file names, even." [source]

John: "idk how widely it’s been advertised but a reminder we are doing another Veilguard Q&A on Discord this Friday noon Mountain time (so 11 Pacific)" [source] / Malcolm: "Make sure you don't tell them about that one thing that happens in that place, with the guy." [source]

Trick: "BioWare released a new screenshot of Taash! I love how it captures the amazing detail work the character artists did." [source]

Image description on the Taash screenshot in Trick's post of the cap:

"A screenshot of Taash looking off to the side. The lighting is warm like either late afternoon or an interior with a fireplace, and it catches in the gold on Taash's armor and horns. Taash looks pensive or vulnerable -- not the deadpan stare or badass determination we've seen in other shots."

pensive or vulnerable.. ohh Taash. 🥺 Trick!!

User on the screenshot: "Taash looks *completely the fuck over this shit* in a totally exhausted sort of way, here. which is, mind, amazing detail work on the character artists' party!!" / Trick: "You know, it's a spectrum." [source]

Trick on DA:I - "Miss May is amazing in many ways, and especially in finding the balance of sweetness to pain for the Solas scenes. ❤️" [source] ((thankyouuu Miss May!!))

User: "it must be basically impossible to resist putting at least one extra moon around your fantasy world" / John: "if dragon age didn’t already have two you’d better believe I would’ve added another one. sitting next to a dial titled ‘number of moons’ and every so often I add another one. anyways the thing about Satina is- (a large hook drags me offstage)" [source, two, three] ((omg.. THE SECOND MOON shfuehfuehdbdh)

User: "i've been thinking about bellara's pockets and i need to know what her thoughts on cargo pants would be. would she be a fan for the utility." / John: "she wouldn't wear them all the time - she's a firm believer in a distinction between 'work clothes' and 'at home clothes' - but she is always in search of more pockets to carry more things into the field. she'd own at least three pairs" [source]

User: "The next two months are going to feel like the Fade section in DAO 😭" / Dragon Age: "Good thing we have a Veil Jumper to help you out! 💜" [source]

User: "MY SON LOOKS SO CUTE" (re: the new pic of Manfred from today) / Dragon Age: "MY BOY MANFRED 💀💚" [source]

User: "Can we change the armor/gear on our companions?" / Dragon Age: "You can!" [source]

User: "thank you for the food 🙏🙏🙏" / Dragon Age: "Enjoy your meal!" [source]

[bonesandthebees]

well since you said we could ask i recall you saying you planned to make it a romance right? maybe im misremembering but either way do you have any specific plans on scenes that youre either going to add or rewrite to fit that plan? does that make sense lets pretend it does

anyways im so excited to hear the rambles i havent been nearly as active (life has been really crazy) but ive been happy to see all the travel updates and hear about what the other anons have been up to!!!! have a good day!

- 🪿

yes I do plan to make it a romance! I like a lot of the scenes in glass and plan on reworking them to have more of a romantic atmosphere/vibe rather than a sibling/found family one. like for example, when the Seer (yes, I'm using a slightly different title now) first takes off her blindfold while having to keep her eyes closed, that'll be a scene full of romantic tension as Ana (that's the name of the deathling who kidnaps the Seer, although I'm not using the term 'deathling' anymore either) sees her full face properly for the first time. I don't know if it'll be in the same context (with the hair washing due to a head injury bit) but either way there's going to be a lot of unsaid tension going on between those two when that 'face reveal' happens lol

so good to see you here still goose!! hope life is going well for you :)

[olrinarts]

alright so let's go on a tour of my current writing folder (or at least the part devoted to cotl, the full writing folder which includes my original projects is. a whole lot. and not actually a thing y'all are here to see)

tl;dr: let's just say there's enough fic that i had to zoom out a LOT to keep these to single screenshots, so this whole thing is me making fun of myself for my hyperfixation (it's all in good fun)

buckle up my friends, prepare to view the sum total of human normalcy

let's begin with two numbers: 52, and 582,499

52 is the number of different files with writing that isn't a 'discard' - so completed projects, projects in progress, and projects waiting for editing. 'Discards' are essentially the parts i've cut, because i really rarely delete a draft, diverging plots i've rejected, or paragraphs i'm cutting, etc

582,499 is the number of words in all 52 docs combined. i did the math. i am simultaneously proud and deeply concerned by this number. (with the most easily counted discard docs, that number becomes 694,737.)

also of note is that the earliest doc was created on the 2nd of February 2024, aka this year

normalcy is off the CHARTS, lads

so this is the main folder and where the projects that are either incomplete or in the process of being edited:

docs crossed out are excerpts from other fics for that zine application, and red dots indicate at least some nsfw content (i just wanna make the point from earlier lmao). I'm not counting fade-to-blacks in that nsfw marking. Also ignore the titles, other than chimes of bone and ashes ashes they're largely silly pretentious placeholders

from there we have:

'phone tag' (a collection of v short fics that won't be posted bc they specifically jump off a fic i read early on and wanted to rewrite bc i liked the concept, but i'm not gonna go posting something that's a reworked vision of something another fic author wrote, that's just bad etiquette and it's okay to write things just for you); these docs aren't pictured but add 6 docs to the total list

'extras' (where i put the discards and such, as well as fics that have already been posted for organisation purposes)

and 'complete', which is our next destination

So here's the 'complete' folder, which is more of a storage for things that aren't actively being edited but are otherwise complete drafts:

red dots are again at least some nsfw content, and the 'old' folder is essentially just the waiting room for getting moved to 'extras'

Next folder being 'pwp', but inside is actually this:

for these two folders assume it's all got nsfw content. the difference between the two folders is whether or not the fic required multiple scenes, not whether it's actually pwp (it is a liar of a folder)

'actually pwp' (again, ignore the doc titles, they're basically meaningless):

then this is 'has a story':

and lastly, pulled from the depths of the 'extras' folder due to being complete fics that have already been posted, is the 'posted' folder:

So what are the takeaways from this?

i have far, far too much time on my hands and use it extremely responsibly

i am very normal about the things i like (and also type very fast)

i'm picky about cleaning fic up and having my partner look them over before i post, so there'll be long dry periods, but i won't be running out of material any time soon

feel free to send asks about anything here (assuming you can read the text for ants and can glean even a particle of what it might be about from the vague titles)

i'm always willing to ramble a bit and it'll be a WHILE before some of these end up anywhere near posting

[dogwaterdish]

for the fic writer ask thing- 3, 4, 17, 18, 20, 21, 28, 32, 34, 40, and 74 :D SORRY THAT'S SO MANY i'm just really curious jshdjsf

3 - First, I usually spend a lot of time thinking about my writing. whether or not I've started it or not, I think over the overall plot, along with the part I'm writing at the moment. This isn't something I consciously do most of the time, my mind just wanders and I think about my WIPs.

When it comes to actual writing though, I'll typically write down my ideas in a notebook or in my writing organizer google doc. Sometimes I'll get really specific and other times it'll just be an overview of the whole idea, maybe with a song or two written down if I've thought of something that fits with a scene.

I try to sit at my desk when I write, so that it's the same area and I can get into a writing mood, and I've started using that sprint bot in some discord servers to have writing 'cycles', and it's been really helpful.

I dont always write in a linear way, and in early drafts it's common for me to add a line and start an entirely new scene of the fic below it - I mostly write when I get inspo, and sometimes the inspo isn't about the scene I'm writing currently. Sometimes I'll listen to something while I write, but recently I've been writing more at night / when it's quiet, so I've just been listening to the clacking of my keyboard.

For chapter fics, I don't start a chapter until I'm finished with the one before, unless: it's like TCoE where it shifts between two storylines (midoriya // all might & the class), or I'm writing a prologue or smthn. my chapter fics will usually have some sort of foreshadowing or little details someone could catch, and if I wrote them out of order that would be executed a lot more poorly. Along with that, I want the progression of my writing skills to be linear in the fic, so I write the chapters in order for that reason as well.

I like to make my ao3 draft almost immediately after I lock in an idea to write, but sometimes I'll try not to if I think it'll take longer to write!

I'll usually try not to take breaks when I get into the writing groove, which usually means I'm very focused and am writing a lot. I already said this but it usually happens when its night out, not sure why though!!

I dont know if all that is covered by writing process, but have that!

4 - Lots of it is music, other writing, or random thoughts (like visions) I have. music will typically give me an idea of a specific scene or sequence, then I build a fic around that; others writing (whether it's fanfics or other books) will give me more specific ideas or just general inspo, and I'll rework the idea I got from that so it'll be a separate piece; and random ideas can range from REALLY specific to REALLY general, and they just spawn from me thinking about mha, watching mha, or literally just existing.

17 - I usually watch or read something (a lot of the time it's mha), go outside, or sleep. For me, those are usually "resets" that can help me get back to a normal vibe about writing, but when its long term things get more difficult. I'll try to tackle any mental blocks I might have, like if I'm feeling insecure about my writing, or I'm holding myself to a too high standard. If I can find the root of the issue, my problem is basically solved, since I've gotten some good strats to deal with writers block. If I'm at too high of a standard, I'll either read other fanfics to compare my writing to and remind myself that this is just for fun, and/or I'll turn the doc into comic sans font and just write dumb shit that I can go back and edit into smart shit. If none of that works and I just dont want to write, I'll usually just take a break and die

18 - I title my fics whenever I get the divine gift of a good title. for the rest of the time, I'll have the title be something dumb, a synopsis of the plot, or just a keyboard smash. Sometimes I'll go the synopsis route for a real title, I also like to pull out a funny one sometimes (like math always leads to tears, or free tour of all mights agency 101), sometimes it's like a dialogue thing, and finally I'll also just pull out a couple words that relate to the fic (like untethered and chilled breeze).

TL;DR: My titling is all over the place, and I have no specific way I do things

20 - Yes I have!! sometimes it'll fuck me up, because I'll be writing multiple wips at once, and I'll think I've used a phrase or word sooo many times, but I've only used it like twice per doc. I like to use sparkly or fun action verbs, and tend to go into lots of description at times. my biggest repeating trope thing is hurt/comfort and found family (hi dadmight!!), and I personally feel like I put a LOT of cliffhangers into my writing... along with that, I often use the weather or sky to show some feeling, and I rely on it Heavily for mood in some fics!!

21 - YES !!! I would love to do a collab! I'm not super sure how it'd work, but I would love to find out :D

28 - man I'd have to say like ... 500ish words a day?? roughly? when I write?? I try to write every day, but I don't always do that, and a lot of stuff happens in bigger bursts, like how I wrote a 3.2k word fic in 14 hours yesterday. it really changes but if I had to guess I'd say around 500 words a day...?

32 - I really like @savetheirhearts-midoriya (aka: danideservedbetter on ao3), @createandconstruct , and for third I'm tied between @way2gowillow and @princelyre :]

34 - I'm hoping that I'll have started writing an actual story I want to publish, and I'm also hoping to have completed a few other mha series fics as well ;) ... giving y'all a bit of an idea of things I have planned after TCoE

40 - honestly I would probably cry if someone made art for ANY of my fics, but for specific ones, I'd really appreciate anything from TCoE , and either of my cozytober fics (please dont let go & amidst the rains) !!! but seriously though any of my fics getting art would make me scream and cry and throw up in a good way

74 - I have actually orphaned a fanfic SO DONT USE THIS TO FIND IT (jokinggg) but:

74a. description of the scene, usually pertaining to natural elements. I tend to tie the weather, natural lighting, or other natural things into my writing a lot, and I can go on paragraphs of description about them with very pleasant action verbs. however just any paragraph of description that ties stuff together is probably one indicator -- describing is one of my favorite things

74b. If midoriya uses one for all, I describe it in similar ways throughout my fics. usually sparking, firing up, burning, or rushing for verbs of it activating, and I describe the light as well and sparking or flashing!

74c. so many commas, dashes, and semicolons. I dont like to end sentences, but this is common with a lot of writers I think

Thanks for all the numbers!!! this was really fun to write out :D

original ask post here!

[the-eyes-of-andyserkis]

"Bringin' Home the Rain" Chapter 5 progress update + some WIPs, why not!

Klaue

"Bringin' Home the Rain" - Chapter 5 - Foundations

It's definitely still a ways off from being finished, but progress is being made! I'm happy to say that it's pretty much all on the page, so to speak, and is also already just over 6k as a rough draft with plenty of filling out to be done, so it will easily be the longest chapter. And it's pretty well, uhh, all smut. 🥴

At any rate, there's no set date for this yet but at least I can really get going with the "macro" edit!

"Salvation is a Deep Dark Well" - Part two of the BHTR series

We're definitely not done after chapter five! I realized pretty early on after starting to rework this that Klaue and Reader were going to keep at it (😉), but rather than add more chapters to what is now "part one", it felt like it made more sense to create a separate fic since there will likely be a small time jump, and it'll be spread over a longer period of time as they continue to get up to ✨️shenanigans✨️.

"Find Me in the Air" - Part three of the BHTR series

I'm planning on this essentially being a sort of extended epilogue (and I do basically know how this will end). While it's still rough at this point, it will definitely be at least three parts/chapters, like a series of one shots over an even longer period of time before I wrap things up.

"Hiding From the Sun" - sub!Klaue one-shot

Self explanatory. 😉 *raises eyebrows aggressively* Also, shout out to The Next Big Franchise discord for, uh, awakening something in me/us. 😈

Alfred Pennyworth

As yet untitled Alfred x F Reader series

Set in "The Batman" universe

This one keeps changing it's damn shape on me, and the title continues to elude me, but I think I've settled on a sort of "established relationship" series. Maybe. 😂 Either way, I'm not going to settle on a specific number of chapters at this point, as I feel like this may be more open-ended. Listen, I have thots and they need to go somewhere, so I'll figure it out eventually!

"Lotus" - Yoga Instructor AU Alfred x F Reader one-shot

Inspired by the lovely @tarabyte3's AU PT!Kino idea! ❤️ Also by going to my first class in ages and after internally debating for about two seconds which Andy blorbo would make a good yoga instructor before immediately realizing that Alfred would be perfect.

Alfred started exploring yoga to help with his injury and enjoyed and appreciated it so much that he started teaching. You're taken aback by the handsome, and older, new instructor who's very much outside of the usual demographic, and when he starts offering private sessions you nervously sign up.

This will be either one or two parts, we'll see how it shakes out!

"Fealty" (working title) - Arthurian Legend inspired AU Alfred x F OC series

I just got inspiration for this one yesterday! Plot twist: Alfred is the Lord/King and OC is a Knight (so is Bruce, of course), and in this universe both women and men are Knights. I'm lightly planning for this to be three to five chapters at this point, but again this is very new and liable to change. Mutual pining, forbidden love, slow burn, all that good stuff.

I'm making a list of some books and movies for research, and if anyone has recommendations for some universe-building inspiration, I'm open to suggestions!

Damn, five months ago I had no idea I'd actually be almost finished my first fic in years (and first multi-chapter fic, period), let alone have a list of WIPs/ideas! Thank you to everyone who has commented and encouraged me thus far, it's means more than you know. 🥰

Header by me | Divider by @saradika.

[doubleddenden]

Also while I'm putting off sleep, I have some mental notes for my would be Quasar fan game if I ever got around to it.

I didn't really have much in the way of plot before other than the evil team being sort of a band of descendents of rebels from a previous civil war in the region, but that's kinda boring in the grand scheme of things and also leads the way to too much misinterpretation depending on where I base it. I also have legendary dragons from space and a title about space, but there's not really much to do with it

Then I came across an archived 4chan post that was basically a supposed "leak" of canned plot ideas for XY. The long and short of it was that Megas and Fairy types were aliens and Yveltal and Xerneas were as well, with Team Flare sort of serving an MIB motif and the fairy type gym leader being an alien was well.

Idk if there's proof to it, although I will say it's funny that there was a movie sub plot in BW2 in the movie making area that involved aliens and such.

Anyway, I'm thinking of maybe taking that idea and doing some tweaking for my region, reworking the evil team and making them sort of a group of aliens trying to conquer the planet via assimilation/possession all DBGT Baby style.

I'm also debating rebranding my dragons to the starters you, a rival, and the evil team leader would have, and have the other starters be available to obtain later. That would require some extra stages or forms, some new type matchups, and honestly some pallette swap (although it would take care of shiny pallettes).

Then I think it would be neat to try and put the region somewhere aliens mightve had a lot of influence over, although that does limit my ideas since I wanted it somewhere with a bit of everything geographically speaking, although I'm a bit more partial to somewhere northern. But, it does need to be somewhat isolated so I can explain all the variants and fakemon, and the scarcity of official variants and mons. The variants I think are the main deal of this region since I've made so many and there's still a fair bit more I gotta or wanna do.

Unfinished but started variants and evos,

Rock type Sceptile

Some Fairy variation of Swampert

An alternative evolution to the Gardevoir line, which blends elements from Gallade and Gardevoir to a Steel/something type.

A remake of my dragon type eeveelution

An unnamed, not yet typed quadruped dragon monster leaning towards electric

Not started but planned:

Sinnoh starters

Dragonite line

And of course the unfinished pre evos to everything I've started

I'd love to do variants of 6th, 7th, and 8th gen mons, but I'm not quite skilled enough to make sprites for those myself and I'd rather not take from hard working fan artists, so I'm limited to the 5th generation. If I weren't limited, I'd add the 6th, 7th, and 8th gen starters, and personal favorites like Corviknight, Mudsdale, Noivern, and Golisopod.

I have an idea for how I might attempt it if I decided to try doing it, using swsh menu sprites as a sort of reference point, but that does leave out the gen 6 starters unfortunately.

Mind you none of this matters because it'll probably never to to fruition, but on the off chance it does. There's a space for it.

[erik-the-creator-mainblog]

After years of refining my process, I have a pretty good idea of what works for me. I still struggle to actually finish projects, but I'm doing a lot better so I'll share my process. Keep in mind that with my adhd, some of these steps are done out of order or skipped entirely depending on the story. But if you're working on a particularly long story,, these steps will only make your process easier. Maybe it'll help :)

Idea dump:

This is what I always start with. I dump all of the ideas that were rattling around in my head onto the page. Sometimes it's just a sentence or two, other times it goes on for pages. Length here doesn't matter, neither does quality. This is just getting the idea down so I don't forget it. Every once in a while I'll write the whole story in one go on this step. It typically needs to be reworked with a lot of editing.

Usually the next day or so (or whenever the next time I open my notebook), I look over it and see if the idea has any potential. I'm thinking about character ideas, plot, my excitement about it, ect. If it's good, I move onto the next step.

Brainstorming: Once again, not stressing about quality, just potential. Vauge ideas about the story line, personalities, interactions. Often times, I have question marks at the end of them. Ex: Villain point of view and is sympathetic? Good guy is actually a jerk? Maybe the villain has to save the world or something because the "good guy" refuses to without being paid.

Character sheet: If I feel I need it to get a solid grasp of what they're like. Personality, motivations, greatest fear, how their past affects their mindset, ect. This one is kind of new but I like doing it.

World building: Depending on the story, you might not need to spend a lot of time on this step. Questions to ask. How does this world differ from ours? How does the environment effect the characters? (A New Yorker is very different from someone who lived in a galaxy far far away) Are the characters a fish out of the water in this world?

Outline: For the longest time I skipped this step, I used to hate it but now I love it. Its made my life easier. The main things I do is figure out the character arcs first. Most of the time my stories are character driven so this is very important. I also write out what happens and work backwards to add foreshadowing leading up to that event in red ink. I label the chapters too.

Outlining makes it easy to see if I have any holes in characters or plot so I don't get blind sided by them later. If I can't fill it, I try not to stress too hard. Some of my best ideas occur when I'm doing something else.

Then, writing! This occurs both after the outline, and at any time I'm hit by an idea. If you get hit with an idea, ALWAYS WRITE IT DOWN! You won't remember later. I never do.

Editing time: I look for clunky wording, over used words, weak verbs (ran vs sprinted), places I need to add foreshadowing, and where I can make characters drive the plot forward rather than being dragged along by it. Later, I'll review it again to make sure that the pacing works and that the individual scenes still work in the overall story. The question I always ask is, "Does this further the plot or the characters? If not, can it be reworked?"

General tips: Get a thick notebook. The worst thing ever is getting in a groove, running out of space, and having to flip back and forth. Often times I don't open an old notebook and end up having to reinvent what was in it. I bought an 800 page notebook called The Colossus so I would run out of space far later than a normal notebook and I love it.

Table of contents and numbered pages are your friend. Make columns for the title, description, and page number. This makes finding stuff so much easier.

Wait a day to review your work. Immediately after you write it, I always feel like everything is terrible. That day is enough distance to look at it more objectively

To avoid getting stuck, remember: It doesn't have to be perfect. Any progress is good progress. One sentence on a bad day is more than you had before. You can always edit it later. No biggie.

Learning about sentence structure will help you improve.

No knowledge is wasted! One time, electrons made me have a massive break through for my world building.

Not all of these tips will necessarily work for you. We have different brains, different stuff works for different people. If you try and it doesn't work, you still learned something. Eventually you'll get there.

Good luck on your writing adventures!

Neurodivergent writers: Please share your struggles, questions, and experiences pertaining to the writing process.

I’m working on a special article specifically directed to writers in the community who struggle with mental illness, addressing specific struggles and experiences and offering some of my advice as someone who struggles with it as well. 

I want to format it as somewhat of a Q&A, so feel free to contribute by leaving your struggles and questions about writing that you feel are directly related to your mental health. I hope I’ll be able to create a helpful resource that is specially designed to help others who face difficulty in their writing process that are outside their control.