#You will get paragraphs of information

[writingwritewrite-storymaker]

What are you writing at the moment?

this is a very dangerous question are you sure you want to hear it?

[bacchuschucklefuck]

you get riz gukgak so well 👍👍

thank u!! he really kinda is all of my favourite character things rolled into one package (negotiation of principles/investigator-truth seeker-negotiator with reality and the narrative/obnoxious character whose narrative reward for participating in the story is getting to be even more authentically obnoxious/deeply and hauntingly aroace

[mastersoftheair]

an interview with kai alexander for airmail news

[dicaeopolis]

Am not against indie RPGs. But their sourcebooks are all so poorly structured. God bless

[noisesfrombeyondtheuniverse]

I'm using my kindle's notes thingy for the first time but im just writing 'GET THERAPY' every time Secunit; shows extreme disregard for its own life, has a trauma response so bad it redacts its own thoughts, or ties its worth to its usefulness

[psqqa]

if they wanted me to edit these research guides in a timely manner they should have written them better

[isocrime]

Isozyme, your hrpf is so tight and snippy, you pace it all so well. Yoy have the plot so well tied to each scene. My question for you is, how do you do it,? Is it a matter of planning the end to end story before starting to writing? Thank you for your ficts!

Thank you!! This is a good question and very gratifying because one of the things I aim for with my fics is to always be compulsively readable no matter where in the story you’re at.

I don’t actually know the story from end-to-end at a high level of detail when I start out. Usually I know about how long the story will take to tell, the setup, and then the next couple things after that. As I write I sort of build the track ahead of me, so I’ll often have a detailed outline for the next scene, a couple bullet points for a handful of scenes after that, and then a sort of general vibe for anything farther away. (With a few exceptions, like I knew Matthew was going to get a supportive phone call from Sid in LMLAY for ages and ages before I finally got to write it.)

Basically my pacing philosophy is that every scene should have a job to do, and ideally also have some side hustles, and I sort of build it up layer by layer as I come up with each upcoming scene.

Let’s spitball a scene as an example. Hypothetically let’s give me a mcmattdrai wip where they’re all training with Scary Gary and in the scene in question Matthew is trying to figure out if Leon is sleeping with Connor. Maybe they’re waiting for the elevator together after a workout, that’s a good setting for two people who sort of know each other to have a stilted conversation. Matthew can joke that his legs are too tired to take the stairs and Leon can complain that he doesn’t know where the stairs are yet (this establishes their different levels of comfort in the setting in addition to giving some character notes). Leon probably also looks hot and sweaty, Matthew can notice that several times during the scene to amp up the sexual tension while he asks Leon awkward questions. A nice thing about elevators is that they have a timer, so I get to control when the elevator arrives and cuts off their conversation; probably right around when Leon reveals that he’s not sleeping with Connor (one mystery tied up, that’s the big job done by the scene) but now Matthew wants to know why Leon’s not sleeping with Connor (another mystery opened). They could keep talking about that inside the elevator but I don’t like that because I think that mystery should stretch out into the next couple of scenes, so to fix that (and add comedy) just as the elevator door is starting to close Connor can obliviously run up and join them. Now Matthew can’t ask Leon any more questions about Connor but he can observe the two of them together and start making some theories. However now that I have Connor in the scene, I should give him something to do from his plotline as well. Maybe I can make him talk about his struggles with a fundraiser for sick kids he’s trying to organize. Naturally Matthew volunteers Leon to help, which leads to Leon volunteering Matthew to also help as revenge, and that leads me neatly into the next scene (3 idiots struggling at event planning together in between their workouts).

I don’t know anything else about this fake story or where it’s going, but the scene is still dense and feels connected to a plot because all the elements are doing some kind of work on behalf of the story. And that’s pretty much how I do it when I’m actually writing something with a lot of plot — come up with what the main goal of a scene is, and then while achieving that goal try to have the stuff happening in the background work to move along side plots and set up the next thing.

Pacing is like a tricky little puzzle and it’s hard but I think it’s worth it when the work pays off; very glad you’re enjoying my hockey fics!

[lunadreamsdespondently]

Fuck you to that one teacher who sent me to the therapist because they looked through the document history on one of my assignments and went through all the effort of google translating a whole ass paragraph I had written IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE about how I was feeling vaguely like killing myself. Like, I was having a bad day and wanted to talk it out with myself. I didn't want OTHER PEOPLE to see those thoughts, there's a reason why i DELETED IT! And I wanted to be able to CHOOSE when I talked to an actual human about it, not be forced to suddenly talk about it out of the blue. I hope she never gets tenure and fails her next teaching inspection.

[frobby]

okay so ive been into jeweler richard for a while now, i watched half of the anime when it came out and found it unremarkable (now it fills me with rage) but i didnt start actually thinking about it until the manga came out and i actually read it. I stand by my reccomendation of the manga and in still looking forward to reading it when more volumes come out (volume 6 got delayed till next year). I knew OF things in the LN and they intrigued me but i wasnt really into light novels cuz i read on my phone but i didnt know how to get books(for free) on there. Untill i started reading orv that is(thanks dokja). Its really not that important for the story but recently ive been ravenously reading the jeweler richard LN (im on volume 5 now in the past like weekish)

And uhhhhh wow its so good. Like acutally good i totally get what people say about seigi now he is absolutely unreliable about......everyone around him. This is my reccomendation if you watched the anime and liked it or read them manga pleaseee read the light novels. It is the ideal JR experience

[shentm]

outsider still doesn't feel complete to me but i'm leaving it here for now. blade pov, no beta we die like baiheng, check tags for trigger warnings

dreamwidth mirror, which by the way is the more updated and also likely more permanent version of this piece, as this tumblr post always runs the risk of deletion anytime i'm awake past 11pm

The dream catches itself on those at the center of the tragedy, locking on to the minds already half-emptied by mara. It watches, as the nights repeat, as the hunt grows farther from its purpose.

He's covered in it, clothes slick with blood, the moonlight sliding off of it and watching him through the reflection. Every time he shows up, Jing Yuan has to stay awake for hours afterward, scrubbing at the floors to rid his home of the stains and the stench of mara-stricken beasts. It doesn't help that he likes to trail his sword behind, leaving gouges that the blood flows through, pooling in divots and seeping into the cracks between. But it's not like Jing Yuan expected him to be different.

An Outsider, who participated in a horrific ritual, and became tethered to the merging of paths, a creation of a collector who found the occurrence too interesting to resist. Who was given the abundance emanator's blessing, transforming him into something thought of as prey by most of the Xianzhou Alliance. It's strange that he's still sane sometimes, occasionally managing to break the contradictory resonance of intertwined paths where the hunt and the abundance intersect.

In the shared dream he sees the echoes of those he once knew, dead beings recreated in a perfect recollection of the waking world. It's just how he remembers, an everlasting reminder of what they did. He's drawn in when asleep and awake, unable to escape the repetition of memory.

In that intersection of paths he sometimes finds the shadow of the Imbibitor Lunae running away and away, too afraid to face his crimes. He finds the corpse of a dragon protected by its unborn kin, and tears it apart instead of looking back. He fights through the same landscapes again and again, always waking up in front of the same dim lamp. The only reason he can think of for this endless repetition is that someone out there likes these memories, wants to see the moment of the sin done right.

Skin melts against skin, fire burning through hair. The wet noise of a blade squelching as it rips through meat is the only sound that interrupts the guttural screaming of those beasts, displacing the cries with blood down their throats. Their pathetic existences mirror his own. Eyes press against his brain where they grow inside his skull, amplifying the beats of his heart. A constant high pitched whine carries through the sky, staying with him wherever he goes. Physical discomfort keeps him in the dream, afraid of what deeper pain awaits with the dawn of wakefulness.

He sees her too, sometimes, guarding the path before the corpse. She sees him in return, and they always meet in a clash of swords, the moon almost close enough to touch. It watches next to them, the blue light of her own weapon brilliant against the clouded orange sky. There was never any other choice; a recreation can only travel down the path of the original, like wheels in a rut on a dried dirt road. They tell each other that the dream will end. He continues the hunt again.

The dream is an awful thing to endure. He wonders about its purpose when cleaning his blade that Jingliu so kindly returned.

Dan Feng never acknowledges him, never admits to what he did, never even calls him by name. But it's clear that despite the physical differences, he's still the same arrogant coward that lives in the dream. How else would Dan Feng manage to kill him every time with the weapon he forged with his own once-deft hands, buying useless time before his inevitable judgement?

When he wakes up it is only a brief moment of respite from the dream as clear-cutting pain reminds him of his immortality. Sleep comes with the soothing promise of comfort, but also with the knowledge that it will not be restless.

Later he joins the Stellaron Hunters, gets taken in despite being on the brink of insanity. Feels the frenzy slipping away with Kafka's words, feels the understanding leave his mind. Turns him into a docile puppet, waiting for the next command. He names himself Blade. She gives him the first genuine rest he's had in seven hundred years.

His senses are diluted with her influence, not enough to render him completely useless, but enough to clear his mind. It's mostly just his sight that's a problem, and it's easy enough to counter with his other senses. The other one is touch, but he doesn't expect that to really be important. He does most of his hunting with a sword anyways, distanced enough from his prey.

He's never gone back to the Luofu personally. Once or twice through the years he hears news of its whereabouts, and soon has those reminders taken from his mind, rendering his sleep dreamless yet again.

He doesn't go back because he's not done hunting.

But at some point it was bound to happen, the meeting of three tragic sinners and that other guy who was also there.

A mission brings him back to the Luofu, and he doesn't complain because his mind is too empty to think. He tries to think of himself as just a simple vessel to help Elio carry out his plot. A stagehand for the endless show that they try to put on. It's quite nice, being like this, the desperately needed reprieve from the eyes that always try to crawl their way back into his brain. It's not easy to forget once your body has learned.

Kafka says the mission went well. Elio says he can break the tether now. He doesn't remember any of it, except from the brief moment of clarity when Jing Yuan asked him if he was done, and then the consciousness when he wakes up later.

Jing Yuan looks the same now as he did all those years ago, except for the young shadow he keeps at his side. He's still just as radiant as the sun, the center of everything he joins. Of course a comet like himself was never meant to stay long in Jing Yuan's orbit. The sun does not need to change when a dirty snowball cuts through its orbit after centuries of desolation in the universe; the sun burns bright on its own, without a need for a secondary light.

None of them are, were, like that, just a product that reflected their surroundings instead of the magnetic core that shaped their era. Maybe that's why they're all criminals wandering the stellar seas now, shot out from the gravity well and driven by their own definitions of the hunt.

But eventually he feels the searing pain start to fade when he chokes awake on drying blood, glances over at the dissolving bodies next to him. The eyes can no longer see. Kafka helps with her lightning, and soon the only physical links left are those burning wounds inside his brain.

Between puddles of blood and dripping black stone he wakes up, and the night grows deeper but the streetlights start burning. He collaborates, strangely, with Dan Heng (a new trailblazer) to force Jing Yuan back into his bed. He sees the artificial sunrise a few times, occasionally with Kafka, and sometimes just on his own. The sight of a celestial object rising behind the clouds has been one he's not seen for a while, even if it is still a false sun.

It's done, the dream has an end. The hunt is over, its conclusion long since found.

He meets the one who couldn't let go in the waking world, both of them more alive than they should be. Neither of them deserve to be here, yet they sully the Luofu with their presence anyways, carving and gouging out a place where they no longer belong.

She meets him with the same intensity she always carries, unable to be diminished by time or a dream's veil, and he feels alive as they dance the familiar battle once again, for what may be the last time. Unlike the cycles before them, this time it feels like a breaking of bonds, like something being set free.

On the last night of his stay on the Luofu he ends up at Jing Yuan's family home after he manages to separate from the dream, and he's lucky that Jing Yuan still stays here even after seven hundred years. Conveniently, Dan Heng mentions that Yanqing would be dragging the Luofu's heroic trailblazer on some sort of sword-hunting adventure on that day.

"Yingxing," Jing Yuan says when he enters civilly through the window, "please stop dripping blood on the floor."

It's that name that breaks him into the clearest state of mind he's had for centuries. That and the newfound control over his own mind, now that the moon no longer watches him. Jing Yuan still sounds the same, calls him with the same tone of voice. When's the last time anyone's referred to him as Yingxing? When's the last time he's been able to hear that name without his consciousness slipping through the cracks?

"Jing Yuan," he responds, and he's suddenly aware of the winds outside, carrying with them a fine mist of pollen that coats everything in a layer of grit, sticking to the drying blood on his clothes. He's aware of the artificial moonlight that gazes into the room, blue in tone and so much softer than the harsh orange red in his sleep. He can feel the silence of the home, where four others once gathered and where only one stays now.

"That's not my name."

The dream tries to call to him, but its voice is quiet here.

Jing Yuan reclines on the mass of pillows he calls a bed, and when he shifts he can hear the sound of feathers scratching at their confinements. He hears his pulse in his head, reviving nerves once thought to be dead, and he can feel the tingling sensation where it creeps through his limbs.

The air is cold where it hits his skin. It's been so long since he's been able to feel the temperature. He looks at Jing Yuan, and he can see the shine in his eyes, the strands of his hair where it was only a blurred image before. The world is clearer than it's ever been. It's like getting glasses. Do they still have those?

Jing Yuan grounds him in the present, the physicality distracting him from the broken link between his mind and that all-seeing eye disguised as the moon. The moon here on the Luofu is fake, as is the rest of the sky over most of the ship. The mara-stricken here do not scream as they claw at their faces, nor do they tear apart their prey with overwhelming strength.

He can touch and be touched now, acutely aware of the blood on his face, his body, his hands, the stains across the sheets and the fabric where he dares to rip them apart, but it doesn't matter in the moment. Cauterized wounds of foreign eyes that once grew inside his head start to make their presence known again, but they don't try to regrow. Flesh, not his own, knits itself together when he lets go, and the scent of iron permeates the air.

He's never been a particularly selfless lover. He bites down again.

"Ren," Jing Yuan says, quiet with an edge of something else. The false moon silently hangs behind the clouds, diffused into a hazy shower of light. The metallic taste of blood fills his mouth.

Jing Yuan is just as pliant for him now as he was centuries ago, body remembering and opening its vulnerabilities for him so readily. The heat in his head is easily ignored in favor of the heat beneath his hands. It's easy to get lost in the chase to consume and feed, but he reins himself in with the control he thought he'd lost a long time ago.

An Outsider, on equal ground with the Luofu's general, if only for one night. An Outsider, carving his own mark into the Xianzhou's history.

He finds Jing Yuan again after all these centuries, and he's still just as passionate as he's always been, fervent energy and primal fear driving him deeper into the desperate desire to stake a claim of his own.

[lyriumsings]

its companion WEEK. theres more to come than just the cards. we dont even know if this is all for today. chill bro

bro literally it’s my blog i’ll post what i want block me or go away lol im allowed to be disappointed sometimes by a game ive waited over a decade for

[thethingything]

also shoutout to the hospital for sending us a bunch of PDFs with information about preparing for surgery and what to expect, except the information was all generic stuff where most of it does't actually apply to wisdom tooth removal, so I had a huge panic attack where I nearly threw up because a bunch of the stuff mentioned in there is extremely triggering for us, only to then find out that stuff literally doesn't apply anyway, but now I feel like I have even less of an idea of what to actually expect because it's so hard to figure out which information does apply

[paimonial-rage]

I was thinking about this while helping my friend beta something yesterday like… I vaguely remember that at one time, I felt (punctuation) periods were too harsh. They had a sense of finality about them. They were too loud and vibrant. Commas were more comforting to use. They felt softer and not as exact. And then I look at my writing now and there's nothing I love more than a period. I love how sharp it is. I love its finality.

Like I can't understate enough how much a period makes a statement. Like that's what it's supposed to do, yes, but it's more than that. It tells the audience that what precedes is true. It's a fact. And when you yield a period properly, it emphasizes and highlights what is stated. It stands out. It's final. It has weight. It's such a powerful thing that it's addicting to use.

[xthunderbolt]

New fanfic pet peeve unlocked: sentences and ENTIRE PARAGRAPHS in parenthesis.

[illiendicnonnagon]

Hey... hey wanna read something silly with how much I over think things? I rried out cutting my own hair for the first time today and it mostly worked out, I'd like to think (at least initially it could become a disaster later, I suppose). But that got me thinking about the concept of self. Cutting hair is often seen in media as like, sort of pivotal moment in character growth, and I think that's because of how it very simply and easily conveys that character's agency as well as changing their look more dramatically without needing a whole new wardrobe. And I find that very appealing. Not the whole changing drastically thing, although yes that's good too, but the fact that You are the one in charge of it. It's a romantic way of looking at it, I suppose, but given gender stuff, it's easy to feel that lack of agency and thus, like my own body is not really my own. And as silly as it is, the act of cutting my hair is a rejection of that idea that my body is not mine. By cutting my own hair, an not having others cut it, I filter more of my self through its Stylization , in a way. And that got me thinking that I feel the same way when I make my own clothes to wear, too. Every single flaw and every single bit of strength is informed by how I view things, no matter how small. And I think it makes sense that I would be drawn to that stuff. Doing things, regardless of my confidence or predetermined skill hits that counter culture vibe for me, but also it's kinda like HRT in a way? Like, hell yeah, despite entropy and the chaotic nature of existence I take control of what I can and reject those things, even if just in tiny amounts.

[beholdthemem]

The universe saw fit to gift my grandmother with a lovely case of covid for Christmas because of course it fucking did, so the past few days have been, uh...

Busy.