#btw I'm not saying the book is bad

[4rtsymugzzz]

I'll be reading a book and all of a sudden a character starts m@sturbating like wtf homie I didn't ask???? 💀💀💀

[liesmyth]

All your TLT posting is making me questioning if I should try it.. The only thing i'm worried is that I don't want to start a series and then finding out in the third bookthat the author made the antiheroic genderbent mao protagonist throw the metaphorical atomic bomb on the japanese because the author is an american descendent of a Chang Kai Shek general and wanted to absolve the yankees to grant herself a career (it worked greatly). So should i still try TLT as an olde commie? Love your blog btw, please continue reblog all those TLT fan art they look great! Thanks!

whew lowkey glad I couldn't get past the first book in that other series. anyway *clears throat*

If you like LESBIANS, Locked Tomb is the fandom for you. If you like BONES and FAILWOMEN and ARE ANGRY AT GOD, Locked Tomb is the fandom for you. If you like BAD JOKES and SHITTY MEMES, we have those in spades. If you love EXCELLENT FANART and DIVORCES that last TEN THOUSAND YEARS and LOCKED ROOM MURDER MYSTERIES, if you think EVIL COUGARS are SEXY, if you think PLUTO totally COUNTS as a PLANET, Locked Tomb is the fandom for you!!!!

[here's the rest of the tlt manifesto on ao3, podficced by @/wilfriede ]

On a serious note! I think TLT is definitely informed by leftist politics, and it has many themes that lend themselves to juicy interpretations on top of a really meaty worldbuilding and characterisation. Also the fanart SLAPS. And if you read the books you can check out my fics which, not to brag, are some of the weirdest I've ever written! featuring such tropes as: "bodyswapped man sucks his own dick" "vagina dentata" "ritual sex to have a baby during a mass death event" "in-universe academia" and "orphan girl meets her parents for the first time and they suck"

tldr please read the locked tomb <3

[oui-maitre]

god you know this whole show has been building up to the trial. in episode 6 we briefly see Claudia and Madeleine being happy and then the trial starts and you can't help but think 'Claudia had barely left the nest, she deserved to have more time'. but of course that's the tragedy. the parent burying the child, a perversion of natural order. Claudia was inspired (at least in part) by Anne Rice's daughter who died at 5 from leukemia. there is no version of this story where Claudia lives.

[tamaruaart]

Shout out to Scylla. my girl deserved everything but punk ass Circe decided to be a bitch. All the power to you sister

[crystalkitty1220]

Man I wonder where the leader of the fear realm could've gone, it's alMOST LIKE NEVIN HAS AN

[astrxealis]

if i do "?" in text i'm genuinely tilting my head like a dog if i do "!!" my eyes are sparkling and i am figuratively wagging my tail if i am IN ALL CAPS i'm screaming from the top of a mountain with all the power i can with love and the strength of RAGHHH within me

[repotting]

people who don't normally read sci fi have such bad taste in sci fi 😭

[biromanticwritergal]

What if my booktok was just a front to get people to read Anne Bronte? :)

[fitzrove]

WHAT'S THE POINT

[lulousims]

It's been officially longer than a year since I last posted gameplay pics...

For the most part of 2022, I couldn't play The Sims because I shared a computer and we couldn't agree on it. Then I played it for like, 2 months (in 2023!) on my bf's computer, but I couldn't take any screenshots 😭 And now, since October of 2023, I've been in England working as a volunteer, with no access to a personal computer. My friend was kind enough to lend me his laptop a few weeks ago so that I could finally play a bit, but it's not ideal because, well, it's his, and he needs it for work outside of the volunteering. I might be able to get my hands on a new laptop soon though (!!!!!!), and I'm really excited about finally being able to remove the "hiatus" from my bio! Or at least replace it with "semi hiatus", you know lol

I obviously won't be able to even remember what's gone on in my households, but at least I'll be back to playing once every few weeks and documenting my stuff. If everything works out, I should be here in one or two weeks, posting unedited screenshots of my game, like I used to, and getting 2 to 5 likes on each post <3 Just how I like it!

[dootznbootz]

How exactly did you fall into the Odyssey Rabbithole™?

Short answer? I won't lie, I kept seeing "The Horse and the Infant" on Youtube and finally decided "Alright, I'll give this a shot" and then realized "Oh wow, this music is fantastic" but when I heard that first "Penelope~" my hopeless romantic ass was SOLD. And then I looked further and fell further in love with the Odyssey and Greek Mythology.

What's kept me in the "Odyssey Rabbithole™" and made me just burrow further towards the center of the earth like a rabid rabbit is just how HUMAN everyone is. Everybody, even the people who I find "annoying", is endearing in their own way and I love that so much. Because they're so real!

Psychology, History, Literature, and just HUMANITY have always been things I adored and had fun exploring and learning more about so the Epic Cycle as a whole is PERFECT for that. I love people. I love seeing what makes them think, love, learn, grow, and just see them LIVE. And while we only get snippets of these heroes' lives, they are so complex and rounded and have a MEANING to EVERYTHING THEY DO sdlkfj and I just want to SCREAM because of it sdklfj

The Iliad is very human as well and while I still adore it, since it only gives glimpses into so many different people it's hard to pinpoint it all sometimes but with the Odyssey, you have a smaller "cast" of characters to look into and it's SO FUCKING FUNs dlkfj People have always told stories about love and life and joys and sorrows and I love seeing it. It makes me so happy

[chussyracing]

does lestappen still deserve your attention? what bothers me most is that they lestappies always claim they're charles stans but when charles took pole and literally made history in a f1era all they care is the previous lap he made which is just mid

it doesn't, which is why i have it filtered, any lestappen blog i came over blocked and YET somehow it still sweeps through and manages to find me

[bonyato]

I just realized we didn't get Death Game this season either. i see .. Well that's okay *deflates like a balloon*

[petiolata]

Boring and bad advice from someone whose only qualification is "I've written!". Volume =/= quality or qualification. There are millions-word long garbage fics.

"400k in fanfiction" yeah me too. Along with pretty much every fanfic writer I know.

"Professional beta reader" lol. Seriously, lol. A beta-reader's job (including ones who are paid) is to give insight from a reader POV. While there are definitely better or worse ones, there is no required skills or skill level to be paid to beta-read. It's not like being an editor. (While in the fanfic world, the more editor-y the beta is, the better, when it comes to *pro writing* and paid roles, the editor and beta reader are intentionally distinct and beta readers serve the function of a focus group; they're a preview into how your actual audience will perceive the book. If your target demographic is LGBT young adults who reads queer YA novels, then a beta reader's qualification is being an LGBT young adult who reads queer YA novels. They don't have to know anything about the craft of writing.)

My #1 piece of holy grail advice is don't take advice from OP or the thousands of nobodies like them. Find authors with real qualifications and proven chops and read their books on things like showing vs telling, plotting suspensefully, etc.

The endless amounts of crap writing advice posts that gets reblogged and sharing is nothing short of amazing.

As for OP: your books don't sell. There's a reason for that. Stop giving advice and start reading it. Hopefully from some authors who actually know what they're talking about.

my 10 holy grail pieces of writing advice for beginners

from an indie author who's published 4 books and written 20+, as well as 400k in fanfiction (who is also a professional beta reader who encounters the same issues in my clients' books over and over)

show don't tell is every bit as important as they say it is, no matter how sick you are of hearing about it. "the floor shifted beneath her feet" hits harder than "she felt sick with shock."

no head hopping. if you want to change pov mid scene, put a scene break. you can change it multiple times in the same scene! just put a break so your readers know you've changed pov.

if you have to infodump, do it through dialogue instead of exposition. your reader will feel like they're learning alongside the character, and it will flow naturally into your story.

never open your book with an exposition dump. instead, your opening scene should drop into the heart of the action with little to no context. raise questions to the reader and sprinkle in the answers bit by bit. let your reader discover the context slowly instead of holding their hand from the start. trust your reader; donn't overexplain the details. this is how you create a perfect hook.

every chapter should end on a cliffhanger. doesn't have to be major, can be as simple as ending a chapter mid conversation and picking it up immediately on the next one. tease your reader and make them need to turn the page.

every scene should subvert the character's expectations, as big as a plot twist or as small as a conversation having a surprising outcome. scenes that meet the character's expectations, such as a boring supply run, should be summarized.

arrive late and leave early to every scene. if you're character's at a party, open with them mid conversation instead of describing how they got dressed, left their house, arrived at the party, (because those things don't subvert their expectations). and when you're done with the reason for the scene is there, i.e. an important conversation, end it. once you've shown what you needed to show, get out, instead of describing your character commuting home (because it doesn't subvert expectations!)

epithets are the devil. "the blond man smiled--" you've lost me. use their name. use it often. don't be afraid of it. the reader won't get tired of it. it will serve you far better than epithets, especially if you have two people of the same pronouns interacting.

your character should always be working towards a goal, internal or external (i.e learning to love themself/killing the villain.) try to establish that goal as soon as possible in the reader's mind. the goal can change, the goal can evolve. as long as the reader knows the character isn't floating aimlessly through the world around them with no agency and no desire. that gets boring fast.

plan scenes that you know you'll have fun writing, instead of scenes that might seem cool in your head but you know you'll loathe every second of. besides the fact that your top priority in writing should be writing for only yourself and having fun, if you're just dragging through a scene you really hate, the scene will suffer for it, and readers can tell. the scenes i get the most praise on are always the scenes i had the most fun writing. an ideal outline shouldn't have parts that make you groan to look at. you'll thank yourself later.

happy writing :)

[sepiasys]

Btw btw btw

Maybe. A couple days ago? Idk but it was when clownsona stuff was being made by frens

We realized "oh! Oh we're acting like. Like how we used to!" Which was dramatic and silly and full of mischief

And yeah I'm pretty sure that's an alter 😭 in fact I'm pretty sure that's THE altee that became our puppetsona when we first got into WH fandom :33 and then I kinda came along and ruined it just a lil bit bc I'm so silly lil uwu baby /silly (/hj, I dont remember but I think we actually did kinda blend myself with this other alter a lil bit?? But it was mostly them :33)

SO YEAH THEY GOT LOGGED INTO SP

Oh

That just reminded me of the "haha I'm not a logged alter" post they made 😭

Well :3 Can confirm that we recently (re)discovered them post-syscovery? XD

Gonna have to go to sleep sooooon bc get used to wake up earllyyyyy specifically for uhh. To get used to it for orientation :33

It still feels unreal to think we'll be going to work, like WORK work, paid job -._-.

But its a good thing!! ^^

[light-wrath-paradise]

*potently insane* I should re-read Monster by Naoki Urasawa