#PRAYING THAT IT DOESNT END IN DISASTER SOMEHOW.

[vividbeast]

<-it has a day off tomorrow (it hasnt had a day off since monday last week)

[graffitibible]

Do you have any advice for writing or creating regularly? That’s hard for me and I’d like to get better at it.

it boils down to what works best for you personally tbh. i’ve got a system to write semi-regularly (or i did......restricted movement hours have kinda forced me to restructure that lol) and it works for me but that’s just how my brainyot works. i’m a routine-based creature so working writing into my routine was how i got myself to write semi-regularly. 

ive also had significant Brain Junk for most of my life and was gradually able to navigate how best to create in spite of that but im also like, medicated for it and the like so self-care was a factor. i couldnt create shit while i was too busy lying in a pool of my own filth having fits of paranoia about the nature of reality so i was hardly about to make myself try and create stuff when that wasnt even on my radar. 

i can share some of the things i do to keep myself writing though! like again this isn’t something that’s for sure gonna work for everybody cause everybodys wired differently but i hope some of it helps!

1. daily wordcount - i’ve mentioned this before but i have a daily wordcount that i do for my original fiction. i don’t apply the same standard to fic-writing because that risks making it an arbitrary barrier that puts too many numbers on my internal list. that being said, it’s very small. i make myself do 200 words per day. if that gets me going and writing more than that, awesome. if not, i still got a little bit done. 200 words is small, and it’s not overwhelming to catch up on if i miss a day. no matter how shitty im feeling i try to get in 200 words.

2. routine - since i’m a routine-based person by nature i basically found ways to finagle creative processes into all that. it’s not hard and fast because that kind of rigid structure makes me balk and i’m not that disciplined lol, but it’s usually something like “i have an hour-long lunch break at work and literally nothing else to do during it so i’ll write in that time period” or “i have thirty minutes of sitting by the stove making dinner so i’ll write until it’s ready”

3. momentum - or what my housemate fondly calls “The Juice.” if i have The Juice of inspiration i keep that going for as long as i can. if something’s not working for me i don’t scrap it or toss it right away. if i’m having trouble with a scene i make a note to myself and move on to a different one. example of this from my latest wip, which is part iv of mayhem

i hadnt worked out what was gonna go there and nothing was coming to me easy in the moment so i stuck the note there and kept going. my works are full of this shit. if i can’t think of a name or if there’s a statistic or a character i haven’t worked out yet i don’t wanna break my focus and momentum so i slap a note in the first draft and keep going. at a first draft stage the important thing is getting the words Out so it doesnt matter if theyre perfect. ill go back and fix them later, revise all i need to. first drafts dont need to be good, they just need to be there so i can spruce them up later.

on the flip side do not be like me and commit to this momentum so bad that you forget that you are a human being who needs to eat and consume liquids. i do that sometimes because of who i am as a person and it is a serious flaw of mine, do not be like this. sometimes getting some food in you is what you need to get The Juice flowing again and that sounds kinda gross and i am sorry

4. planning and hangups - this ones dependent on how you create. i forget where this analogy came from, but i’ve heard it said that some writers are architects who need a blueprint of where they’re going before they end up there and some writers are gardeners, who don’t need a set plan so much as they need to keep going. i’m definitely an architect - a lot of my works start out as bulletpoints of what scenes i wanna cover, what topics i wanna explore, etc. - though i have on occasion simply Written without any set destination, usually to force myself out of a creative slump. me being a big planner used to be one of the biggest barriers for me creatively because i’d spend hours agonizing over minute universe details and never start the dang story. this still happens from time to time. like heres what my organizational folder looks like wrt “pray for disaster”

that is not even all the files in there. why do i have two dictionaries. jesus. like i make these giant ass fuckin....tomes of stuff i like to keep track of, which i like to call “bibles” lol. except i could tell that getting too organized was gonna be an uphill battle with very little payoff so by the end i just made a “MISCELLANEOUS BULLSHIT” doc and for now i throw everything in there if it doesn’t fit into something like a dictionary or timeline

shit like this is why i like to just sit down and write without a clear destination in mind if i’m having writer’s block. that’s one of those things that goes hand in hand with the way i take advantage of my own momentum - if i reach a certain point where i’m just picking at details and not doing any writing i just go “ok motherfucker sit down and write shit. we will work out the details later.”

5. motivation - the ways i tend to motivate myself are weird so idk how true this is for anybody else but i’ve been writing for a pretty large part of my life. i went to college for english/creative writing and got a whole dang degree cause i still wanna make this my vocation somehow. one thing i cannot ever turn off is the writer part of my brain that’s going “oooh huh that’s not how i would’ve written that” in literally every piece of art i consume - tv, movies, books, songs, etc. sometimes that’s enough to inspire me into doing something on my own time. most of the time though if i’m feeling stumped i tend to crack open some of my personal favorite works, like books or fics that have really resonated with me, to fall in love with the art all over again. seeing the way different authors and artists do their craft helps me get in the zone of wanting to write more cause i get this nice feeling of “damn, these people really did those things with those words.....that’s fuckin amazing.....i wanna do that.” 

you do risk falling into the trap of “ugh i can’t write like them though” but that’s the beauty of writing. nobody can write the way anybody else does. ofc i can’t write like terry pratchett, only terry pratchett can write like terry pratchett, and if i compare myself to terry pratchett i’m only gonna get sad and mopey. but i can write in a way thats totally unique to me so i should not try to write like terry pratchett because that’s just impeding my own creative energy in the interest of trying to cookie-cut myself into someone else’s zone. only terry pratchett can write like terry pratchett but only i can write like zero graffitibible.

i hope that was helpful? like this is all stuff that works for me so no guarantee it’ll work for everyone else.

oh right and idk how many of yall are minors because let it be known that i do not condone underage drinking; i am an adult who occasionally will get crunk because i like to write drunk and edit sober. if you too are an adult who can legally consume alcohol feel free to write while buzzed because that is a nice way to write with zero fuckin inhibitions. i dont get blackout drunk or nothing just a little buzzed and sometimes what i write makes no sense but i am at times at my most productive at 2am while mildly buzzed. its a thing.

like again i’m not really an authority on this by any means - this is just what works for me. but if it works for you too, great!! find your zone and all that

[foegold]

can i get 23-30 for uhhh that lil blue bastard

one blue bastard, as ordered

How organized are they? How does this organization/disorganization manifest in their everyday life?

he always cleans his room up nice before he leaves home to go out and Do Things for weeks on end with the guild, but aside from that he’s not the most organized. he just sort of shoves all his stuff in the bag of holding and then fishes out individual items he needs later. when he’s chillin during down time he’ll start with only having one item out that he’s occupied with, but tends to slowly pull out more and more items without putting anything back until he has to pack up and go, so by the end of a 2 hour rest there could be anywhere between a handful of little trinkets to nearly the entire contents of the bag all haphazardously scattered on the ground around him. hes always careful to pack everything back up when he’s done, though

Is there one subject of study that they excel at? Or do they even care about intellectual pursuits at all?

he’s not good at school related shit but he really enjoys learning from friends. he’s eager to pick up whatever his friends offer, especially if it’s presented in a way thats easy to get his head around. in the last seven(ish) months alone he’s finally learned how to read and write, started learning draconic, and gotten actually decent at spellcasting.

How do they see themselves 5 years from today?

o that’s too far ahead for him to really....have any sort of feeling or idea about how things are. he sure hopes it’s nice though and that he’s still with his friends. he doesn’t want to be without them, he’s not really sure what he’d do without them now

Do they have any plans for the future? Any contingency plans if things don’t workout?

he doesn’t plan very far in advance so as of  right now the plans include “be with my friends and family”. there’s no contingency for if the guild falls apart for any reason, he’d be at a complete loss and also he just doesn’t want to think about that as a possibilityfor the less nebulous troubles the guild faces though he’s marginally more prepared, picking up spells and trying to figure out go-to (and as nonviolent as possible) plans in case any given member of the guild’s maladies becomes Really Pressing. like the werewolf thing (getting used to it! and not a big issue if john can just have space) and the whole. Passenger issue. (casting an abjuration spell and praying)

What is their biggest regret?

immediate answer off the top of his head would be ghosting Averone there for awhile, but if u gave him more than a second to think about it he’d get caught up on every little thing he could possibly regret and get too tied up in it to actually give any final answer. hes got a lot of doubt in his lil head

Who do they see as their best friend? Their worst enemy?

he loves the whole guild, they all sit in the best friend spot. worst enemy kind of fluctuates from situation to situation, but Leo still holds a special place of anger and fear and contempt in his eyes, even though he’s not a present issue anymore

Reaction to sudden extrapersonal disaster (eg The house is on fire! What do they do?)

depending on the situation, maybe a few seconds of hesitation and then action. if he’s with other people he’d rather wait to follow someone else’s lead, but if it’s only him or if theres no time to wait, he just goes with the first thing he can think to do, whether its a smart or good idea or not.

Reaction to sudden intrapersonal disaster (eg close family member suddenly dies)

shock, muddling through denial/insisting that it can be fixed (re: resurrection, etc), and then if the muddling and the shock doesnt last long enough before its fixed, or if it cant be fixed, then wildly overwhelming grief and aimlessness, and an unshakable feeling of guilt. he may eventually return to some form of normalcy, but it would leave a lasting and devastating impression on him. he’s never had to truly deal with the death of a loved one, and bc of how frequently the party is together it’s likely he’d be present for it and feel that somehow, some way, it was his job to stop it and his fault that he didnt

[isitstraightvodka]

so buckle in: so way back when i was 21 (.. so three years ago) which i know doesnt seem young when you're it, but looking back im like HOLY SHIT i was a BABY, i was at uni (still am) and when i was picking my classes for the semester found it amusing that two of my classes were with the same professor. i'd had him before, he was pretty chill, and ugly as all fuck. like. he was known for being the professor that all the good professor's chucked their shitty classes at bc he'd never published (1)

and anyway it was all good! u know, the classes seemed interesting and i was coming out of a really bad depressive period that had lasted about a year or so and i was, to my mind, Recovered. so that semester i put in a lot of effort into…. pretty much everything. my grades were sky high, i was dressing nicely and doing my hair and makeup, i was moving out of home, i was On My Shit. and it had been a bit of a joke among my friends and i that the prof seemed to quite like me (2)

he was always joking about with me, he handed out extensions to me like candy, and one time he was caught staring down my shirt which. was just sort of Funny at the time because??? this dude is in his late thirties and a bit sad, so whatever you know. it just became a running joke amongst my friends and i that i was going to fuck my professor. until, of course, end of semester came about and he invited the whole class (for one of the units) out for end of semester drinks (3)

and so my friends and i trundled along and got…. fucking obliterated. he did too. and then as the night goes on people start leaving and it somehow ends up just being he and i as i figure out how to order an uber (i’d never used uber before at the time, it was still relatively new in perth) so i can get home. anyway my phone died so i was like… well. Fuck! and he invited me to come to his office and charge my phone. anyway ended up fucking him because im a Disaster who wants validation (4)

and he’s a dickhead in a position of authority exploiting that position and also out relative drunkenness to get a fuck. anyway all good, all fine. the next morning im freaking out like holy shit CAN’T HAPPEN AGAIN to which he’s like. it’s chill, i really like you and im already planning on notifying the university that i cant teach you again which had me like. oh. oh okay? cool. that’s pretty great, thanks.  and he’s like… so like, would u be interested in going on a date? (5)

and im like…… in for a penny, in for a pound right? so. sure, ig, as long as you. file that paperwork, that would be nice i suppose. anyway we end up dating for eight months, i meet his friends, some of his family. it’s all cool, but also im not actually sure if i like him or not or if i just like the fact that someone’s into me? and then i meet a girl through a friend of mine who is like oh man i met this girl i think you’ll get along with you should join us for dinner tonight (6)

so, i do. and while we’re at dinner i mention something about the prof just casually to my friend and the girl stops and goes “oh, you know x?” and im like oh yeah we’ve known each other a while and she sort of went quiet. and then later on she’s like “hey, dont take this offensively, but do you know if x has a history of sleeping with his students?” and im like. alarm bells ringing. like yeah! my dude he sure does! in fact, i’ve been fucking him for 8 months (7) 

and she goes “that motherfucker, i’ve been dating him ‘exclusively’ for five months” :) and so we confronted him and it turned out! he also had a chronically ill fiancee at home! who none of his friends or family that i’d met had said anything about! anyway someone ended up reporting him to the university without our consent and he ended up getting away with the whole thing (and! he never submitted that paperwork lmao). that’s the story of my shitty ex! who i still have to see around campus (8)

tl;dr: don’t fuck people who are in positions of authority over you. even if you think you’ve got control over the situation, you don’t and they Will fuck you over and destroy your mental health!!!!! (9) 

well THAT was one hell of a rollercoaster! men ain’t shit, he is disgusting and I can’t believe you still have to see him, that must be horrible. and he’s a fucking professor, it’s wrong and foul to take advantage of students like that, and he’s engaged too?? like wtf dude, he sure is fucked up for thinking all this is/was ok. i’m fuming, this is why i don’t trust many men bc they’re act in terrible ways, I hope you’ve had/will have better experiences, lo, it’s what’s best for you, and you deserve everything good when it comes to relationship. I pray you never go through something like this again, but thank you for sharing! xx

let’s chat about shitty exes!

[tumblunni]

aaaa im getting stupidly inspired to work again on my old Dating Sim Ghost Tragedy Game since I had that dumb idea today about a new Dating Sim Ghost Tragedy Game I’ve had like five separate ideas for different tragic undead datey games :P Lets talk about this particular one!! I’m pretty tired so I cant really write it a big post like i did with today’s new idea, but I’ll try my best ^_^

The idea is that it’d be sort of a traditional medieval fantasy setting but its more like a slice of life tale of the regular citizens in these sorts of worlds, rather than a big destined hero thing. Sorta like the appeal of the Atelier series? I’m thinking the protagonist could maybe be a blacksmith or a gardener or some other down-to-earth job? I just feel like he’s a hardworking chill sort of dude, sometimes kinda comes off as emotionless to others, kinda depressed but devoting himself to his work helps him smile again. He’s really passionate about whatever he does! And i think deciding his job would be a big step towards developing this idea, because having it as a minigame would help add structure to the plot and some relief from the sadness. I dont wanna make it too similar to Atelier though... So yeah, the protagonist is this cute mid-twenties relateable fella who’s just trying to do his job. I think I wanna give his outfit dungarees or something? I feel like he’d always look a bit work-uniform-style even when he’s off duty, he’s kinda too lazy to change clothes. A perpetually bored and disinterested guy. Or, at least that’s the impression he gives off to people who don’t know him, he only brightens up around the few friends he has. AND HE PUTS 100% INTO THAT SMILE, GODDAMMIT

And then his childhood friend is someone who actually was sort of a ‘standard rpg hero’, but a really sad subversion of it. At the moment he’s currently the main love interest, and he’s still sorta the catalyst for the plot and the mysteries and all, even if you don’t pick him. or I dunno, maybe I’ll just make it only one love interest but many multiple endings, but I think this character would be happy if his love interest was happy with somebody else in the endings where they dont get together. He’d be crying but happy. Anyway, my mental image for him now is this really weary chronically shy cinnamon roll who’s like a big ol tall beanpole knight with long rapunzel hair that he hides behind. Maybe white hair cos that’d fit thematically with his plot, but is that too sephirothy? When they were children, knight-guy used to be this bright and uplifting figure who always protected protagonist and had such great dreams of being a hero who could save everyone! And he went off to join the army at a young age, and then he just... shattered. He came back disgraced as a deserter, the decade of loyal service ignored by all his former neighbours just because he’d quit in the end. He had a complete breakdown and just couldnt take the violence anymore, now he’s barely 23 years old and already retired. And completely alone. No family, just trying in vain to take care of his fragile self as he locks himself away in his house and everybody gossips about him. And the thematic thing is that his biggest fear is spiders. The moment he snapped was when he was left injured on the battlefield unable to move for hours, trapped under a pile of bodies of his fellow soldiers, trying to play dead to survive. He just remembers seeing a spider crawling across the face of the man next to him, the man in pieces... So everyone horrid in the village likes to mock him by scaring him with spiders, and I havent decided on his name yet but he probably has a spider-based nickname. He’s unlucky enough to even look spidery :P

Ooooooohhhhhh and for extra irony, the village is next to a magic forest populated by demon spiders. WHOOPS, FATE HATES YOU! They’re kinda like both the gods and demons of this village, they’re seen as morally bankrupt dangerous trickster spirits that’ll do whatever they want regardless of good and evil. Everybody talks about how horrible they are and warns that anyone who does [insert sin according to our religion] will be cursed by them, but they also make offerings to them and consider them entirely responsible for the success of the harvest, etc. Its like if you knew your gods were unpredictable dicks but you still tried to placate them with gifts! (like most old european pantheons I guess) And even though this setting is indeed a magical one, the existance of the spider spirits is kind of an unknown mystery similar to real life gods. People very rarely see them in times of need, and nobody can ever prove it really happened. The forest is indeed the ‘forest of spiders’ but the only proven fact is that it has a lot of (as far as we know) completely ordinary spiders in it. Nobody knows why so many spiders cluster in this one area, so making up a legend about gods seems like a possible thing that could happen. or maybe this one area really is the centre of the world where the One True Spiders weave the webs that tell the future, and these are their mortal followers praying in worship much like the humans do... Anyway, its just a cool aesthetic thing of a cobweb-encrusted forest where entire trees get coccooned annually as the seasons come and go~ And a cool civilization that has a lot of trade in silk and weaving! Kinda based on the old ps1 game Jade Cocoon, though that revolved around magical spirit silkworms instead.

At the time the story starts, best friend knight guy has been back home for a fair few years now. Him and protagonist met again, and protagonist is goddamn determined to take care of his ill friend and somehow manage to convince the town to take him back! Its basically two depressed people holding on to each other as their lifeline, and helping each other compensate for the things they’ve each been robbed of. Protagonist struggles with expressing emotion and being a complete pushover who can never tell anyone what he really wants, so its helping him a lot that for once he’s determined and won’t just mindlessly obey his parents. You cant tell me to cast aside my best friend! Plus best friend just generally thinks the goddamn world of him and helps him be happy! And best friend suffers from seeing himself as worthless and being anxious about disaster at every turn, feeling that nobody loves him and nobody SHOULD love him. And not being capable of taking care of his more mundane day-to-day needs because he doesnt believe he deserves to like.. eat, sleep, leave the house, etc. Poor guy... I’m so glad I invented a protagonist character that can be there for him! And seriously they both just renew each other’s self worth and I’m getting so emotional about this pairing before I’ve even developed it... GAHHHH

SO YEAH LETS GET DOWN TO THE ACTUAL PLOT It was kinda necessary to establish the history leading up to it, because that’s why it’s so tragic :(

Last year, the protagonist’s best friend vanished overnight and never came back. Everyone says he just ran away again like a coward, nobody even looked for him except you. They say he was last seen walking into the forest, and nobody will listen when you say that’s IMPOSSIBLE! His biggest fear was the spiders! The protagonist frantically tried to find him.. tried to find his body... tried to at least investigate this murder mystery and find some closure... tried to at least convince people that it WAS a murder mystery.... With the loss of the person he cared about most, the protagonist has slunk back into his own shell again, and starts to give up hope on life. Facing the same pariah treatment they gave his spider-fearing friend, he eventually learns to stop asking questions, to stop searching, to just do whatever his parents said. And his parents said he has to have an arranged marriage, to restore their reputation, after his STUPID STUNT of causing so much FUSS over the death of some stupid deserter... Each day blends into the next, as life becomes once again just going through the motions of being a ‘proper man’. Then... One day... He comes back. The spider-haired best friend comes walking though your door like nothing had happened! But.. he isn’t quite right. Your joy starts fading to a growing dread. He doesn’t remember what happened? He walks straight past the people heckling him? He seems more peaceful than he’s ever been, he’s fearless again and he keeps answering your questions with exactly what you’re desperate to hear. Sometimes you swear you see him talking to spiders whenever you turn your back... So you have to adjust to having him back, and try and figure out the mystery of his dissappearance while worrying whether you can trust him or not. You even entertain irrational thoughts that the legends are true, and maybe you’ve invited a forest spirit into your home because it mimicked the voice of the man you loved. And... what will you do about that love? For the first time ever he’s recipricating your feelings, he knows all those words that went unspoken, as if he could hear you every night as you wished you’d confessed while you had the chance. Is this really him holding you close, or is it a cruel trick to offer you everything you wanted, so the forest can claim you just like it claimed him?

So yeah, gameplay would be like exploring around each day searching for clues, doing a certain job-based minigame, and having chances to either go down the dating sim path or mistrust this man that may or may not be the one you knew. Even options perhaps to develop a romance with other characters instead? But will there be consequences for instilling jealousy in something otherworldly...? I think maybe if you just jump right into romancing possibly-friend-possibly-doppelganger, then you get a bit of a bad ending. Agreeing with him 100% and never solving the mystery is bad, regardless of whether he’s actually trustworthy or not. Either way it ends tragically, but there might be possibly a way to get a true romance ending with him if you actually do keep on top of resolving the main plot as well as just smooching. I... won’t say whether his romance is good or bad though :P And there’d be one not-romance route, where its kinda like you have to work hard to avoid romance! The protagonist’s arranged marriage is a big problem, he’d resigned himself to that fate but now he’s starting to hope he can confess to the one he really loves instead. But he’s gotta go against the whole damn world trying to force him into this ‘destiny’... Oh and I wanna make the most of the spider aesthetic! I was thinking that ‘fate threads’ could be a big gameplay element, with the possibility of getting these out-of-context flashforwards and clues that can help you avoid a bad ending. (Like in Until Dawn!) And romance meters would be a silk thread connecting the two of you, because pretty interface elements are awesome :)

POINTLESS RANDOM DEVELOPMENT TRIVIA This is actually a super old idea that’s remained undeveloped for many years! Back when i was a lil teen I originally imagined sort of a similar thing but with mermaids/water spirits instead of spider ones. And a lake instead of a forest, naturally. Also it kept flip-flopping on the genders of the characters. Ultimately i decided delicate spider aesthetic would fit better with a m/m couple and terrifying swamp creatures of fierceness would be better as sapphic. And the het idea died quickly cos it was based on dumb gender roles that the shy one has to be the girl, blablabla :P Oh and for some reason the whole spider idea came from reading one particular case in the manga adaptation of Ace Attourney. Weird, huh?