#also idk why gale gets highlights in my game

[themaskstayson]

One moment with you

could sate me for a lifetime

[pouroverpaloma]

yellow and white!! :)

Hey thanks, this was fun!

💛 Yellow: Do you ever alter, highlight, or de-emphasize certain canonical traits in a character? If so, why and describe how.

Oh, god yeah. I feel like I give SO much energy and space to Gale’s trauma—it’s something only touched on in the game that I wanted to see explored narratively, and I felt like I could do it well.

I grew up in a pretty intense, charismatic kind of Christianity that was focused on experiencing the divine as a two-way personal relationship. Gale’s relationship with Mystra reflected a lot of the anxieties and fears I had growing up as an evangelical teenager—what if I was so good, that God chose me for something important? What if it was awful? What if God is cruel, actually, and I don’t find out until it’s too late? How could I escape someone omnipresent and omnipotent? Idk, his story hit me VERY hard as an exvangelical, and I feel like that heavily colors the way I write him. I just want to make him a spicy margarita and play him Ethel Cain’s entire catalog; it would fix him.

Also, I think anyone who’s read my stuff, especially this beauty that pleases too well, has probably guessed that the way I portray his survival of intimate partner violence is born from experience—but this is a tumblr post about a fictional wizard, so I’ll leave it there, except to say that I got my happy ending and it brings me a lot of joy to do that for him too.

Also also: his crow’s feet. If I’m writing him, you WILL see and appreciate the eye crinkles.

🩷 Pink: Do you find a certain character (or characters) easy to write? More difficult -- and if so, do you avoid writing that character (or those characters) when possible?

Shadowheart is so difficult to get right!! Done well, she’s dry and haughty but secretly having a great time fucking with you. It’s so easy to steer too hard into the skid and make her either boring or so snarky she’s unlikeable. You have to write her well enough to get her timing. She’s too much fun to leave out entirely, though, so I’m working on it.

I find Gale extraordinarily easy to write, probably because we’re both terminal nerds who overtalk to fill time. It’s like confronting my fucking Jungian shadow self, but in a horny way that I am in no way prepared to unpack.

I like writing Astarion, but I just never feel like I make him enough of a bitch. He deserves to be full bitch. The height of his powers. I can, should, must, and will find a way to let him be an emotional terrorist (affectionate) moving forward.

[thedawningofthehour]

Hi!! Yes, hello, I cried again, thank you for that. Even though you said we „shouldn’t expect too much“, my heart is still very much cracked haha

ANYWAY, since the guessing game is still on, I was thinking a lot during this chapter. My guess is, either Raph has a really stupid idea that he‘s thinking through right now and that‘s why he‘s been so quiet OR smth happens to the Hueso place and he like sacrifices himself to get his family to escape like idk maybe EPF or smth knocks at the door and he holds them off

And so I was wondering if you could tell us when this stupid thing is gonna happen, I have a feeling it might be like the book 2 finale or somewhere close to that??

ALSO, I was wondering how you organise your chapters and the plot you write about. Do you have like a pinboard and put the NYC map on it and connect the dots with red yarn? (Detective style) or do you use some program or are just…weird and memorise it all?

Maybe he hasn't actually had the stupid idea yet, but he's definitely ruminating on everything that eventually compels him to make that decision.

The stupid thing will be a direct consequence of the final climax, so it'll be coming up here soon. I'm going to put up a poll probably after the next chapter.

I'm giddy that we're getting there, honestly. There's a foreshadow I put in literally in the single-digit chapters of Book 1 and when I wrote that I couldn't imagine actually getting to that point. I always feel like I'm going to die or something before I finish stuff, like, I was shocked when I finished doth.

Oh my goooood I am so terrible about plotting and outlines and stuff. I always, always feel like I'm in elementary school filling out a worksheet. I am basically this guy

except there is no paper because I haven't written anything down I'm just sleep deprived and rambling and smoking copious amounts of weed. (I have never smoked weed)

I know generally how the plots go, and as chapters draw closer I start thinking more specifically about where parts should go and where they would fit best. The whole war kick-off thing, that originally was going to happen after the third reverse-kidnapping, (the mall with the mercenaries one) but Gale and Mikey were still having their library trips, and that just seemed like an...awkward thing to have hanging over them. And it just didn't have to be. I could have cut that arc short, delayed the third reverse-kidnapping until after after the library meetings were discovered, or I could push off the war. And the war didn't need to happen then-if anything, it complicated the other plot points that needed to happen. And I think it worked out for the better this way.

I'm not totally satisfied with this method though. When I was writing Book 1, I had probably about half the fic written before I started posting-it was all in one document, Donnie's scenes were all together and Leo's scenes were in some incomprehensible order and often unfinished because I wasn't expecting to post anything and would just stop when I felt like it, when I finally committed to putting it to order I think I had like eight documents open at one point and three different highlighter colors to denote what I'd done in the master document, it was an ORDEAL-but it meant that I could group scenes together based on what was most effective, move things around very easily. The fact that Leo and Donnie's chapters were pointedly not happening at the same time helped a lot too. In Book 2, I end up writing with two, maybe three chapters planned ahead in my brain, and I feel like that forces me to sometimes rely on short-term climaxes that add to the word count but don't really do much for the story overall, or put off certain things that I don't particularly feel like writing at the time or don't know would work there. Book 2 would probably be significantly shorter if I'd plotted it out the way I did Book 1.

...What were we talking about? Oh! I do actually have a map of NYC open pretty much constantly in my fic window, it probably shows when they were driving around last chapter that I was literally going along the border with my pointer finger. But I'm terrible and I don't write any of this shit down. I usually remember, but there have been occasions where I've completely forgotten what I was going to do, and I think it was chapter 32 where I had pretty much finished the rest of the chapter and then realized I'd forgotten the final Leo scene-which was a pretty major scene. So I guess...yeah, weird and memorize sounds correct, but I don't actually do it that well.

[sirdeathsheadmoth]

A fun lil game

So back in freshman year of high school (5 years ago now) I wrote a little questionnaire for a friend of mine at the time, bc she loved questionnaires. 

And I just found it. 

Let’s see how my answers changed.

1.  favorite Color- said blue, now i really like some yellows, but blue is still cool.

2. favorite Planet: said Earth, i guess that’s cool.

3. favorite Scent: said vanilla, right now it’s Hyacinth bc mine are blooming.

4. favorite Quote: it’s too scribbled to read (story of my life), but now I guess it’s “THEY’RE MARIGOLDS” - flowerbed vandalized in  The Gay Deceivers

5. favorite Dead Person: again too scribbled; Robin Williams.

6. Role Model: i said P!NK, now I’d say I’m more of the way of Harry Potter acting like Remus Lupin in Order of the Phoenix.

7.Greek or Roman: said Greek, now I like both for their bitchin art.

8. gold or silver: said silver, still silver.

9. platinum or bronze: said platinum, that’s cool i guess.

10. favorite letter (wtf???): said K, i don't even know. 

11. favorite shirt: said tank tops (I have never worn a tank top but i assume I was talking about how it look on other people), sweater i think.

12. eye color: blue, but it’s more green now 

13. favorite hair color: said red, and by red i think i meant cherry red, but I'm gonna say i don't care now. 

14. Cougar or bear; i am entirely certain i wrote this not about animals and decline to answer. 

15. light or dark: light, idk yellow. 

16: hogwarts house: Slytherin now and then

17. hot dog or hamburger: said hot dog, both are great tho

18. would you ever skydive: NO (then and now)

19. Drag queen name: i meant to write it in later but never did, now my name would be Pussyfoot or Karen Compassion.

20. highlighter or sharpie: sharpie, i have no preference now

21. Irish or Scottish: said Irish, now I really don't care

22. roses or violets: said roses, now BOTH I WANNA GROW BOTH

23. summer or winter: said winter, now I like summer more #freeballing 

24. Twilight or Hunger Games: fuck me sideways i said Twilight, now I like neither.

25. team edward or team jacob (sorry that was the sound of my dignity perishing): I said team edward, now i say team get-the-fuck-away-from-supernatural-creatures-trying-to-sex-you (really tho, it was set in Washington, it was only going to be a matter of time before Bigfoot showed up)

26. (falls to the floor in shame) team gale or team peeta: i said team peeta, now i’m more interested in an analysis of gardening themes in the series (really tho, that would be fun)

27. chocolate or cheesecake; said cheesecake ( i was enthralled by the Golden Girls at the time, now i say why choose bring me both

28. Blanche or Sophia (told you): i said Sophia, but I definitely try to be more like Rose now.

29. Glitter in the Air or Good Old Days: I said Glitter in the Air bc it used to make me cry, now I say these are both fantastic P!NK songs and I recommend listening to them. 

30. Drarry or Snarry: I knew this was going to go south eventually. I say Drarry but a healthy Drarry. 

31. SSHG or Dramione: (pauses in shame) i plead the fifth

32. Bennefrost or Damien/Colin: i had forgotten how many obscure pairings i had been into. I'm gonna say both as friendships.

33. Dick,Jason,Tim,or Damien: legit I'm getting whiplash for how much this takes me back. ummm, tim i guess. 

34. corset or bustle (WTF???): i said corset???

35. cut or uncut: (face crumbles in cringe) i said uncut, still a virgin tho

36. Jack Sparrow, filthy in a good way or a bad way: i said good???

37. One Direction or the Wanted: i never really did get into 1D

38. ice cream or cake: i said ice cream and this is still so

39. decaf or caf (i meant regular): this was back when i was first getting into coffee, and there was about a month where i would stay most nights and sleep from sunrise till noon. i like both now, but i know the dangers of caffeine. 

40. what comes to mind when i say “prostate”: i said sex, now i say still not found.

41. diamonds or sapphires: i said diamonds, but i’ve seen neither so idc

42. boxers or briefs: i said briefs, now i say boxer-briefs

43. speedo or skinny dip: i let you guess what i said. 

44. abs or butt: you’ll never guess what i said

45. Jersey Shore or Honey Boo Boo: i declined to answer then, and now. 

46. Classes in Life or Taming Snakes: these were fanfics that i was obsessed with at the time, since then classes in life was taken down for “maintenance” and taming snakes hasn't been updated since like 2014. RIP unfinished fanfics

47.Rise of the Guardians or Teen Titans: I said Rise of the Guardians cause i thought Jack Frost was so hot (pun fucking intended)

I left off a some because they were too embarrassing, but now is the short answer section. I’m not going to type up the questions, but instead just give you the answers i wrote down as a 13 year old. 

- something that would be for the both of me

- yes!

- Monica Monroe

- Yes, constantly ask for the meaning of his works.

- talk to god not me.

- an atheneum?

- (name removed for protection)’s bed: new were up all night partying, eating, and plotting

- Ask god, IDK THAT ONE YET

- Dick Grayson, whatever we did you know it was FUN

- Snarry (actually mortified)

- True! H.S. TY!

- HAWT!!!!

- Dorothy

Well this was a journey. I’m a very different person now, but also scarily still the same.