#at some point I'll figure out tags and the use thereof

[horridporrid]

A (not-so) brief introduction...

I thought it might be interesting (for me, anyway), as I take tentative steps out into the Tumblr world, to share a little of my fandom history. (This got a bit long; I've been fandoming for longer than I'd realized!)

I started off in the long, long ago when the internet was young and gentle and everyone was on list serves and... whatever those circle things were? That linked a bunch of different webpages together and you were never quite sure what you'd get when you'd click in on one? I was a fresh-faced graduate stepping out into the world so this was all tied up to a bunch of firsts. First apartment. First "real" job. First water bill, etc.

I'd begun reading The Wheel of Time books and was hungry for more content (I think "A Crown of Swords" was just releasing in hardback?) and the online fandom delivered. But Tor and Jordan were both death to fanfic and I could only pour over the various in-book mysteries for so long. So I ended up in X-Files fandom with its more timely content and deeper well of fan-works. (Interestingly, I participated in WoT but lurked in XF. The creativity of the fic-writers and analysis of the essayists in XF fandom impressed and intimidated. Very, who I want to be when I grow up, energy.)

Then came Harry Potter and fandom fully took me by the throat. I joined the highly organized Yahoo group, Harry Potter for Grownups, and that led me to the freewheeling world of LiveJournal. This was the halcyon days of actively queering and interrogating the text, of hurt/comfort bingo and the Pornish Pixies. It was a wild mix of the intellectual and the erotic and that led, of course, to Strikethrough.

So LiveJournal began its slow death (Ao3 bursting from its still smoldering ashes like a phoenix) and somewhere in there a weird fandom Venn diagram led me to Stargate:Atlantis. I bounced back and forth between HP and SG:A for a long while as LiveJournal users slowly trickled out to freer fields. I think part of me was waiting to see what field would win (I recall Dreamwidth and Tumblr as the biggest contenders). But also, life stuff was happening and I was pulling back from active fandom involvement.

Anyway, HP concluded. SG:A got cancelled. I got into k-dramas and went to Wordpress for a bit. Then life stuff happened even harder and I stopped fandoming entirely.

Voltron: Legendary Defender pulled me back in. Sort of. I was still leery of too much fandom commitment so I ended up on Reddit. I did lurk on Tumblr (mainly for the delicious fan-art) but V:LD fandom brought the drama, unfortunately, so I wasn't tempted to join.

Then WoT arrived on Prime and everything changed. I got excited about fandom again. I'm still leery of going too hard on fannish things but frankly, Reddit WoT on Prime fandom hasn't been enough. (Also, between the racism and the misogyny, it's the Reddit side of fandom bringing the drama this time. So even when it's active it can be exhausting.)

My feelings about The Wheel of Time book series is... complicated. (A post for another day?) But I'm adoring the direction the show seems to be taking things and I've had thoughts and shared thoughts (on Reddit) and expect I'll probably have more thoughts I'll want to spill out into the world (for better or worse) when new info drops. Tumblr seems like a cool place to do it.

[get-wr3ckered]

|Cuyan- (Mandalorian!OC) Prompt Piece|

Prompt: "You look... different. Hair cut?" "I lost an arm." "I know. The haircut thing was a farce. I just didn't want to be rude. But since you brought it up, what the hell happened to you?" Credit for the prompt goes to @prompts-in-a-barrel

Summary: A simple job for Cid goes very wrong. Warnings: Severe injury, loss of limb, mentions of blood/gore, SW cursing, canon-typical violence. Wordcount: 700+

Notes:

Any Mando'a will be translated at the end.  

I think I've added all the appropriate warnings and tags but if I've missed something or tagged it incorrectly feel free to let me know and I'll fix it asap! Masterlist Iliana's oc information

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'It's simple enough,' Cid had insisted. 'A quick in and out job,' the Trandoshan had shrugged off Iliana's scepticism.

Nabbing data from an abandoned outpost, the Batch could do that in their sleep. It wasn't some new, wild task they'd be embarking on. In comparison to half of what they'd faced, it was a rather rudimentary job.

Or at least it would've been if the outpost in question had actually been abandoned.

Arriving at the outpost only to be met with nothing shy of a small army of scrappers setting up demolition charges had been less than ideal. The pointed look Iliana had thrown Tech's way hadn't gone amiss. Had several dozen blasters not been aimed their way, she wouldn't have bitten back a bitter remark about him having brushed off her intuition back on the ship.

When the firefight began the Batch had been forced to separate, breaking off from one another in order to find cover. Omega and Iliana had lost sight of the others, the pair having taken up position behind a rundown terminal as they laid down their own barrage of fire. They'd held their own well, Omega grinning despite the situation as she'd landed several shots with her new energy bow while Iliana had fired off her phase rifle in quick succession and with all the skill of a seasoned warrior.

The scrappers' numbers had been dropping steadily, offering the pair all the evidence they'd needed to know the boys had been holding their own just as well as they had. Things were looking up and with only a handful of scrappers left it was all but certain that they'd have the outpost in hand soon enough. And then the charges were blown.

If the scrappers couldn't have it, then nobody could.

The 'how' of their escape was lost to Iliana. A vague blur of falling rubble, Omega being shoved ahead and the painfully obvious lack of movement in Iliana's lower arm was really all the Mandalorian could make out. She couldn't recall when they'd made it to a rocky outcrop, using it for cover as the remnants of the outpost shifted and they waited for the smoke to clear. Even as Omega tore up her jacket, tying the shredded fabric around the elder's arm, or lack thereof, in a bid to stifle the bleeding until the Batch found them, Iliana only vaguely recognised that the lower half of her left arm was missing.

"Echo! Wrecker!" Omega had jumped up from her spot beside Iliana, waving erratically at the two figures breaking through the smoke. "We've gotta get Illy back to the Marauder!"

With hurried steps, the two clones had joined the girl's side in an instant. Wrecker was tasked with checking the youngest of the group over, listening eagerly as Omega animatedly rattled off the tale of their daring escape, explaining almost too quickly how their Mandalorian companion had been pinned and resorted to hacking off her own arm to ensure Omega made it out. All the while Echo had taken to assessing Omega's attempts at binding Iliana's open wound, only half listening as the young girl recounted how 'awesome' their escape had been.

They'd be having a talk about their definitions of 'awesome' once things had settled down, that was for sure.

"Easy," Echo had mumbled as he helped Iliana up. leaning a majority of her weight against his side. A pained grunt fell past the woman's lips at the movement, and Echo silently cursed Hunter and Tech for not being quicker at bringing the ship around.

"You look... different," He'd posed, in a feeble attempt to distract the brunette from the incoming waves of pain. "Haircut?"

A near-indecipherable snort escaped her despite the pain as the ship came into view. "I lost an arm."

It astounded Echo how deadpan Iliana could be regardless of the downright agony she had to be in. As the Marauder landed a little ways ahead of them, he eased her forward taking on as much of her weight as he could, shaking his head at her blasé attitude to losing a limb.

"I know. The haircut thing was a farce. I just didn't want to be rude," He admitted with a barely there upturn pulling at the corner of his lips. It quickly fell to worry once again. "But since you brought it up, what the kriff happened to you?"

Cue Omega's overly excited rendition of events, the sequel.

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Additional Notes: I'm not 100% satisfied with this so I may revisit it later, but using a prompt was a fun exercise to get the ol' writer juices flowing. (ew, why did I phrase it like that) Not proofread, I refuse to suffer my mistakes alone. Mando'a: Cuyan- survivor Taglist: Feel free to drop me a message to be added to the taglist!

[beck-a-leck]

Do you have any writing tips? How do you come up with all these drabble settings? How do you get rid of writers block? (Sorry if this is too many questions)

The long and short answer to for writing tips and drabble setting is: I use the resources at my disposal.

If tumblr works properly, there should be plenty of posts I've reblogged over the years under the tags "writing" and "writing tips" you should be able to find so more than I could ever summarize in one reply. a couple tips that come to mind, though:

1. Learn grammatical rules. Learn story structure. Learn the technical, nitty-gritty, so that you have a good understanding of the rules. And then. Break the Rules. You have to know the rules to break them effectively, and to know when is a good time to stick to the rules and when is a good time to break them.

1a. When you see those big long posts of people in all caps saying DON'T USE THE WORD SAID/ADVERBS/PASSIVE VOICE/ETC. pay attention (learn the rules) but also selectively ignore them. ''Said" is not the worst dialog tag. Adverbs are not the root of all evil. Passive voice is necessary sometimes. Again. Learn the rules, break them more efficiently.

2. If you want to write better, you need to read better. Read More. You want to learn storytelling, read more stories. Read lots of different authors and genres. Listen to fictional podcasts, watch TV and movies. See what you can learn from all the different ways people tell stories. Try and take note of what they do that you like in particular. Figure out the tropes and see how they can be handled well and how they can be done poorly. Don't let your fun reading become homework, but let it be something you're aware, so when you see something the piques your interest you can take note of it.

3. Have Fun! Seriously! Having fun while writing is actually the most important thing. I think. Particularly when it comes to fic, which is my hobby. It's fun for me to write, to come up with stories, to share them with folks. Find some kind of joy in the writing process, and it's much harder to get caught in the slippery slope of comparing yourself to others, and getting disappointed about feedback or lack thereof.

Write the stories you want to write. Tell them how you want to tell them. and Have fun with it! Everything else is just bonus.

As for writing prompts. I got all of mine from posts around tumblr. There's several pinned at the top of my blog that range from Dialog prompts, AUs, Smooch Prompts, and more. You're free to go to those posts and reblog them, and there's lots more floating around tumblr free for the reblogging. If you just want to write something, but can't make up your mind on which prompt to pick, I like using a random number generator to pick for me.

Prompts like those are great for writing exercises, and kicking off points for fics, and having lots of fun with readers and blog followers.

And to get rid of writers block. The age old plague upon creatives. There's no single, surefire way to do it. What works for one person might not for another. But here's what I do:

Work on multiple projects. I can't focus on a single story to begin with (yay adhd) so I always have multiple Works In Progress across 2 or 3 fandoms at a time. If I want to write, but I'm stuck on one story, I'll skip over to another one and see if I can find inspiration there.

If writing isn't happening at all. Do something else, preferably something also creative to keep your brain in the creative zone. But honestly, doing anything else than staring at a blank document can do a lot for you. Exercise, gardening, some chores, a hand craft, art. A lot of times I find the bit I'm stuck on will work itself out in the back of my mind while I'm focusing on another problem.

Putting your stories in time-out can do wonders for getting past writer's block.

If you absolutely have to write only the thing you're stuck on. Try changing the weather in your story, that can help move a scene along.

Try picking the right music to work to, something to set the mood/scene, something you find relaxing, movie and video games soundtracks are great for staying focused and motivated on a task without getting distracted by lyrics.

And usually, when you're stuck in the middle of the scene, your problem is probably several paragraphs upstream. Backtrack, reread, see if there's something to change or fix that unblocks things.

Also. There are lots of other blogs out there, specifically meant for writers and advice. Look around and you'll find them. Use them, use the resources at your disposal. Use google, see if any authors you like have done things like ted talks or other kinds of video lectures about writing. There is so much to learn from all the writers out there.

Happy writing!

[bakugouscentedcaramel]

Ah yes, the time has come.

It's time to get your pen and paper because class is in session!

There's plenty of things I could talk about and I pretty much covered the basics down below, but I'm more than willing to help y'all out with anything specific!

I have to preface that I'm not an English major by any means nor do I have any experience writing professionally, the things listed below are purely based on my opinions and submissions I have received.

Writing is forever a learning process, there really isn't a right way of writing but there are definitely some things that will hinder your readers. Here is a list that I compiled both with my own experiences as well as some user submitted issues when it comes to reading works:

•Big blocks of text

° Typos/wrong word usage

•Using the same words

°Too spaced out/not indented where needed

• Dialogue runs into normal sentences

° Speakers/POVs change without notice

• Inconsistencies, either in general or story inconsistencies

°Lack of description/Too much description

• Bland/Artificial actions/dialogue

° Misuse of punctuation/lack thereof

• Capitalization errors

° Long winded sentences

• Using italics for actions

° Confusing formating

• Changing in Tenses

° Using wrong tags/falsely advertising (ex. Reader x Blank should have Y/N, not an OC/Authors name)

• Author notes/comics/pictures in middle of fic

° "~This is a transition~"

• Forcing a character to be OOC for sake of story

° Filler characters

• Not sticking to a specific genre/jumpy moods

Now don't be intimidated by this list! Some of these are pretty self explanatory so I won't go into a few of them. There are plenty of ways to avoid these and in some cases it is perfectly fine to use any of the above. 

Let's start off with the basics!

Sentence structure is the backbone of writing, but it's a very flexible rule. Obviously you have your subject, verb, object and whatnot, but the true art lies in word choice and length.

When it comes to sentences, size does matter. If your sentences are too short they will seem choppy and unfinished, whereas if they are long they will seem winded and unnatural. The biggest tool you can use to find out if a sentence is too short/long is by reading it aloud! If you run out of breath it's too long but if you finish abruptly it's too short.

Word choice is my favorite weapon to work with, I could describe a blue jay as a normal bird or as a mythical animal just by picking the right words!

"The blue jay flew across the field while it sang it's melody."

Or

"A creature with wings made of clouds swooped across the field whilst roaring out a devilish tune."

Word choice can easily convey tone/feeling so it's definitely an important element to writing! If you ever have trouble finding that perfect word try googling for synonyms! Also this website might help you find that one word that you just can't think of!

Grammar is also a very important part of writing. Using the right words and punctuation can be difficult sometimes but there are some easy fixes!

Spelling is an easy fix, if you forgot/don't know how to spell a word consulting a dictionary or Google is a surefire way of solving your problem. You can even find synonyms if you feel like you've used a word too much. 

Punctuation on the other can be a big more difficult, however. 

Here's a couple of sentences that helped me learn basic punctuation:

A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink then leaves. Commas are a means of sewing two sentences together to form a compound sentence. These are mainly used to list out things and to add fluidity to your works so they don't sound as choppy.

A question mark walks into a bar? Question marks are pretty self explanatory. They either raise a question or form uncertainty.

Two quotation marks "walk" into a bar. Quotations are used for both dialogue and metaphors. I personally love using them for sarcasm!

A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to drink. This one is a tougher one that I personally never learned from any of my classes. A gerund is basically a word that can act as a verb or a noun which would be "drinking". An infinitive is the base of a verb, in this case it's "drink".

The bar was walked into by a passive voice. A passive voice is when you emphasize the action and object of a sentence rather than the subject. You can find that a passive voice tends to use past tense where as an active voice uses present/future tense.

Three intransitives walk into a bar. They sit. They drink. They leave. An intransitive verb is an action verb, expressing a doable activity like arrive, go, lie, sneeze, sit, die, etc.

Some other things that I commonly see are the wrong usages of words. For example:

They: a group of individuals/pronoun "Yeah, they said he'd be here thirty minutes ago."

Their: a possessive pronoun "Leave their stuff alone!'

There: location "What's that over there?"

Then: event/action "Val went to the mall then skittered to the park."

Your: possessive "Your self esteem is lower than the Mariana's Trench!"

You're: a conjunctive "you are"

Affect: caused by actions "The fallen french fry really affected Val's mood."

Effect: caused by events "Climate change has a negative effect on my Cheerios."

Peaked: a summit "Val has peaked at 10:19pm"

Piqued: stimulate interest/curiosity "You have piqued Val's interest by mentioning food."

Do time: "Val is fixin' to do time if she keeps slacking."

Due time: "Val will come with hydration in due time."

Per say: not a thing

Per se: by/in itself "She didn't write this late at night, per se…"

There are different tools you can use to spice up your writings, from metaphors to innuendos, all the way to zeugmas! Let's go over the basic definitions of these bad boys.

Metaphor: a figure of speech that is not literally applicable. "The darkness surrounded us like a shroud." Obviously the darkness can't physically shroud anyone.

Innuendo: a sentence with a hidden meaning "Is that a gator in your pants or are you just happy to see me~" 

Zeugma: a sentence containing words that can be used literally and figuratively, like a love child of the two above. "Val and her coupon expired last week." This implies that not only did my Colgate coupon expire, but I died as well.

Paragraphs are a necessity when it comes to writing. Big blocks of text are an eyestrain to readers and it's easy to lose your place, even if it's only 150 words. It's always best to use Tab or at least 5 spaces when indenting. A paragraph should only be 5-7 sentences long, this is so it's not just multiple blocks of text

When to add a new paragraph:

° A new person comes in

• New idea/context

° Setting changes

• New person is speaking

° Time changes

• The "camera" moves

° Tone shifts

• 5-7 sentences has been reached

Paragraphs help you organize your work in a way and they make it easier for your readers' eyes!

POVs are also very important. First person and third person are by far the most common ones so I'll only touch on these two. It's very important to write a story in one strict POV as to not confuse the readers. You can however jump perspectives like Heroes of Olmpyus by Rick Rodian, as long as the ready can easily tell who is telling the story.

First person is a story that is told from first-hand experience. It's the same as if I told y'all the story on how I almost chopped off my thumb in woodshop class back in middle school. First person tends to use a lot of I's and my's

Third person is a story that is told from a narrators' point of view. Such as "Once upon a time" type of stories. I's and my's should only be used in dialogue

Dialogue is probably one of the most important features of any fic/story. Dialogue can push plots forward as well as add life to a character. Here's a simple exchanged:

"Hiya 'Splodey," Val chirped.

Katuski smirked, "M'dumbass."

Dialogue should always come with a pair of quotation marks. Commas and periods generally go inside the quotation marks whereas dashes, colons, and semicolons almost always go outside the quotation marks. Question marks and exclamation marks however can go either inside or outside, it goes by a case by case basis. Always indent whenever a different speaker is talking, running quotes into each other is a no-go because it causes confusion and eyestrain.

You have to be wary of using simple dialogue exchanges though, if they seem off try saying them out loud! Dialogue is one of my favorite things to write because you can weave personality into them, not to mention you can always hear people talking to get a better idea on how to write dialogue.

For example, I have a southern dialect, meaning I sound different than someone from the north! I use words like "y'all", "fixin'", "finna", "ain't" and have a different vocabulary than that of my northern friends. This means that the characters you're portraying should have their own way of speaking! This will not only add flavor to your dialogue but it also adds to their personalities/backgrounds.

Describing things can be just as valuable as dialogue, but it is a bit more complex. Sure we've all heard of the "show, don't tell" rule. Which is a good rule to follow, however too much showing is just as bad as telling. Again, reading out your work is a great way to tell if you're focusing too much on one thing. Another thing to keep in mind is importance, such as do we really need to know that the grass outside was bluegrass? Which in certain situations it would be! For example:

The grass around the disheveled house was brown and straw-like, with the exception of a ring of grass. Bluegrass. Which wasn't even native to this location.

This paints a pretty good spooky picture in the readers' mind and even adds the element suspense by the implied uncertainty.

I've only covered a small portion of writing so if y'all have any questions or need any help feel free to slide into my DMs or send in an ask! I love getting questions about writing and I'm always willing to help a fellow writer!