#but hopefully something helps

[inklore]

hi my love! do you have any writing tips? and words of encouragement when fics flop :(

hi darling <3 i feel like i always suck at giving writing tips but i'll try my very best for you ok. i hope some of these help! also very honored you'd even ask me 🤎

first and foremost: don't compare your writing to anyone else. everyone writes different, everyone has a certain style, a niche. if you're worried you don't have a 'style' don't, because you do. everyone does. it's not something you can make yourself have or take from others, it comes naturally with how your brain works and how it curates words and prose and scenes. that's why no book, no writing, is ever the same even if it's the same source material. it's a beautiful thing so don't stress about trying to make your writing sound or 'read' like other writers. it'll only ruin the enjoyment of how you write!

if you want to write more detailed just remember that not everything in a scene needs to be put down. the more you give the reader room to fill in the blanks and set the scene themselves the better experience for them (at least that's the case for my brain, others may feel different, but doing it this way makes me feel like i'm not adding too much detail or being repetitive). but visualizing, setting the scene for yourself through music or daydreaming is another great tip to write more detailed.

when it comes to smut i am a huge stan of you don't have to say the anatomically correct part they're using (like the p words or c word), and describing what it feels like to have that part touched, grazed, etc is really great. i struggle with fear of repeating myself so i try to find creative ways to describe body parts without actually calling them like flowery/nouns/different synonyms. i hope that made sense lmao.

don't worry about edits or making everything flow completely well in the first take. i highly rec everyone editing their own work and reading it back to themselves, yes it's tiring but it helps you find flow mistakes, add more detail, take something out that you thought fit in the moment but doesn't really. that's why i get everything out the first get go in a kind of fever dream manner and then when i go back to edit it then i buff out everything, add more, take away something, add more details that will make a scene pop off more.

now for the encouragement when it comes to flops: it's going to happen. there's no secret to making something do amazing or something failing. there really isn't and someone who says there is has just had a few lucky posts. because having a big following means nothing, writing a long fic, a short one, only using small font, being super aesthetic, really means nothing. i've seen writers with the most amazing aesthetic and beautiful prose with 100 followers write something and get 2k notes and then get 90 notes on their next post. same with someone who doesn't have a big aesthetic but a big following and writes short fics get 100 notes on their last ten posts but then that eleventh post randomly gets 1k. like it's really just up in the air on here if something is going to do good or not, unfortunately. so that's why i don't let it get to me when something i post gets 100 notes or 1k because i'm happy with both, less, or more. i don't expect anything anymore because that only leads to disappointment and i'm here to write and to have fun.

that's not to say i don't rec curating your own little community on here. make friends, block ppl with bad vibes, join discords of supportive friends. talk to writers who encourage and understand your feelings and discourse and who keep you going, give you inspo, etc etc. if only my friends ever rbed and read my stuff and there was only 10 of them? i'd say hell yeah and that'd encourage me to write more. having a good space of friends and community is amazing and can do a lot to fight off the writer scaries and the feelings of obsessing over numbers and success.

now this is just something i do but it always works for me; i post something and then force myself not to look at it for a day or two. i post it and move on to the next thing i want to work on. i do not dwell on how it's doing. i may q up some rbs for it but i don't even look at the notes when i do that. i deliberately never look at it because yes while it matters in the sense that we love encouragement, we love seeing people love something we spent hours on, we wrote this for ourselves but hello we want that validation too and that's okay, but like i said above and i'm going to say again notes mean nothing in regards to talent. these notes are not simon cowell judging you on your performance. so when i finally do go back to rb comments and reply to things, or if i just want to look at how it did, and the number is low i'm just like ok shrug at least those 20 people enjoyed it and that's better than 0. and if no one commented or rbed yeah that sucks and is disheartening but i can either dwell and be sad on it or i can continue to do what i love and write more. why let the annoying little brats on here who refuse to show their love on a work they read get you down? because there's a dozen of them out there and they're not going away. and you may have made someone's day for this little fic even if they didn't say something about it. it does suck that content creators on here don't get the rbs and comments and credit they deserve, and unfortunately if you want to keep doing what you love you gotta work around it and remind yourself why you're creating, continue to feel that joy. it's hard, believe me. but don't let your creativity be repressed because of it, because you'd be doing a disservice to yourself!

i'll say it again though: a high note count / following doesn't mean the fic is good or bad, neither does low notes / no following. no one's talent is ever in question here. we are here to write, have fun, fill the void of the rl scaries.

[pokeberry5]

girl experiences gender euphoria and is immediately slammed by grief

for @litttlittt <3. this was supposed to be a portrait of caroline hill, but litta mentioned tim looking like janet when dressed as caroline and identity issues and angst and things spiraled

something about tim not knowing if he's his mother's child or bruce's or neither's.

figuring out the looks:

i wanted janet to have that poofy 70s hair

[starry-bi-sky]

Out of Context Stuff for a Danyal Al Ghul au i haven't posted - Pit Beast Danyal

Damian, 13: Look, Danyal, -- I am so sorry for everything that happened between us in the League, I hope you can forgive me.

Danny, 10 (allegedly): (has been secretly plotting to murder Damian this whole time, is still gonna do it obvs, but is going to make it significantly less painful now)

Danny: I-- of course, older brother. :]

--------

Bruce: what do you have there, Damian?

Damian:

Danny: (a hulking 10ft pit beast standing beside him, growling idly with ram horns gouging out his eyes and a second set of horns jutting into the air, spines down his back, and a long, spiked tail with an animalistic, skull-like face)

Damian, who smuggled him in (they've made amends): a smoothie, father

----------

Damian: this is my little brother Danyal, i murdered him when he was five. He festered in rage for the last half-a decade, took over a League mountain base in Switzerland, murdered everyone inside and then tried to murder me when I went to investigate with Drake.

Danny: hello!

Damian: we're cool now

----------

Damian: thoughts on resurrection

Danny, (a full ghost): i will succeed in murdering you if you try it

Damian: we'll put a pin in it then

----------

Danny (still instilled with League values): why don't we just murder him??

Damian, on patrol (Danny followed him): we don't murder people, Danyal

Danyal:,,,,are you sick, Dami?? Have you been possessed? Why not!?

(There is raucous laughing through the comms)

----------

Danny, five, pre-death: Dami! :D

Danny, dead, vengeful: Older brother (:

Danny, post-forgiveness: Dami! :]

-------

For some actual context: Danny is fully dead in this au, its a result of the classic DPxDC Demon Twins "death duel" trope but instead of Danny getting revived, he stays fully dead. Danny was five, Damian was seven. His ghost lingered though, and due to the proximity of the pits his ghost steadily absorbed the ambient energy it was letting off. The pits are not corrupted ectoplasm in this au, it's just liquid ecto.

Which means Danny's corruption from an angry and hurt little ghost boy to an unrecognizable monster is from his own doing. It's a result of him stewing in his hurt and anger for years, it physically warped him. He's very powerful. Danny can travel between League Bases but chose a small, out-of-the-way base in the Swiss mountains to fester in and then just. Never Left.

His influence steeped into the very foundations of the building, allowing him to transform and warp the rooms and hallways for his own bidding, Meaning he could turn it into a seemingly unending labyrinth if he so wished to, and block the entrance.

Eventually, blinded (both metaphorically and physically) by his own rage, Danny grew powerful enough to appear physically in the living realm and attacked everyone in the base, slaughtering them all and leaving the base abandoned. He attacks anyone who dares enter -- whether that be other league members, or the unfortunate hiker who stumbled across the base. His conscious is steeped into every nook and cranny of the building, there is nowhere you can hide where he can't find. Nobody leaves without his explicit say so. Nobody ever does.

Him appearing as ten years old before Damian in the skits above is his own physical doing. First it was to prevent Damian from being suspicious of him. Damian initially thought Danny was revived with the pits, he was too busy with his own training afterwards to notice that Danny never showed up again, and when he did notice, he assumed it was because Danny was too ashamed of his loss to face him. He'd always forget to ask about him.

Then it becomes a personal choice to appear as ten. It's how old he would've been had he been alive.

danny forgiving Damian is kinda for an offshoot branch of the main au. Whereas the main au takes the form of a ps4 first person horror game where Damian and Tim are investigating the Base for Plot Reasons. There's no sign of the rumored "monster" living inside until the end, where Danny, who was found inside the Base and has been happily "helping" them look around, manages to persuade Damian into splitting off from Tim in order to "show him something."

This something turns out to be Danny revealing that he never really forgave Damian for that fight, and he reveals through a horrifying transformation, that he was the monster the whole time. Which the game subtly hints at throughout as Danny's strange behavior becomes harder to ignore.

First from his insistence to only refer to Damian as "older brother" (when before the duel he always called him Damian or Dami), to him right off the bat denying the existence of a monster when questioned. ("There's no monster here, older brother. It's just me.") To other various things, like his knowledge of the outside world not matching up to modern times or things going on with the league outside of the base, or what happened to the other league members.

This whole idea was inspired by the song "Scylla" from Epic the Musical, with Danyal being the voice of Scylla as well as Odysseus, while Damian stands as Eurylochus. The instrumentals after Scylla says "hello" is him turning into the pit beast, and Scylla's "drown in your sorrow and fears" part is danny, as the pit beast, snarling at Damian while he attacks him.

There's a Good Ending, a Bad Ending, and a True Ending. The Bad Ending results in Damian being killed by Danny, it happens when Damian decides not to question or suspect Danny and treats him kindly. The Bad Ending is a cutscene, where Danny kills Damian quick and painlessly.

Meanwhile the Good Ending is Damian killing Danny. This is a boss fight, and it happens when Damian treats Danny coldly and suspiciously the whole time. Danny as a result, decides to make Damian's death painful as he had planned to, which is why it's a boss fight because it only causes him to double down on his anger.

The True Ending is Damian escapes with Tim. It happens when you treat Danny warmly up until the last minute, where when Danny proposes to Damian that he wants to show him something, Damian goes to talk to Tim and finally, reluctantly agrees that something is off with Danny, and that he'll be careful going in. It starts off with the boss fight until a third through, where it then changes to a cutscene where Tim manages to get the door open and Damian escapes out. It's then a chase scene down a never-ending hallway as the building actively works to keep you trapped inside. But you eventually make it to the exit so long as you avoid all the projectiles and doors.

Remember when I mentioned that Danny only lets people leave when he wants them to? That's where the treating Danny kindly throughout the game comes into play. It causes him to second guess himself and, eventually, reawaken and strengthen the love and admiration he had for Damian prior to his murder. It's why in the Bad Ending he kills Damian quickly -- because by then, he loves him enough that he doesn't want him to suffer, but is still so consumed by his rage and need for vengeance that he kills him anyways. That quiet part is what allows Damian (and Tim) to find the exit, because some part of Danny still loves Damian enough that he wants him to live.

The True Ending ends with a cutscene of Damian and Tim tumbling out into the snow/grass outside of the base. Damian looks up back to the entrance to see Danny standing there. But rather than a ten year old boy, there's a little five year old Danyal Al Ghul instead. He stares at Damian emotionlessly, blood seeping from his chest, staining his clothes, and little, bloody sword in his hands and tearstains on his cheeks, before he turns away and disappears back into the building.

[itty-bitty-sunshine]

Happy holidays <3

They are fine. Probably

[pangur-and-grim]

Hello! Thank you so much for the help with border check declaration info. My stuff finally arrived today. Belphie pin is now safely attached to my backpack.

I'm really happy w the quality of the pin and art prints - they're all gorgeous! The prints are being straightened out under some books rn since they spent so long in the transport tube.

I'm so happy they made it to you!

[fumifooms]

Chilchuck analysis speedrun: As a hardworking half-foot who grew up poor and discriminated against and had his gullibility taken advantage of multiple times in his early adventuring days, Chilchuck thinks optimism is a dangerous flaw. He’s stressed and strict all the time because his job is noticing details like traps that could get everyone killed before anyone knows it, he takes the lives of everyone to be on his shoulders, and with the way he speaks about it that probably partly reflects how he felt about taking it upon himself to provide for his family too. His life’s always been pretty centered around work and has become even moreso now that his wife left and everyone is independent, and due to past events he’s very iffy with bonding with coworkers. He thinks feelings and job are a disaster mix. Like with his wife or with parties hiring him as sacrifice, being open or having good faith is vulnerability which can get you hurt, so he processes and shows all his stress as anger instead of worry. Doing strict dieting probably isn’t helping the irritability what with hunger, and on top of being a hunger suppressant alcohol might be the main stress reliever he has.

His grey hairs are so earned

[thedemolitionderby]

RULES OF BEING OTHERKIN #1

Being authentic and true to yourself is the only way you are 'supposed to be/act like' (insert entity). If anyone else disagrees it only tells you about them.

[remma-demma]

I’m actually scared of alienating some of my followers and moots with all the trans discourse I’ve been steeping quietly in and contemplating, but… I’m trying to not let being scared shut me up about this. That, in and of itself, is erasure and silencing.

Fuck staying quiet. Trans men and mascs deserve a voice, and we, as a group, are not oppressing or invalidating anyone else by using that voice. (Obviously there are shithead exceptions!! Anyone can be an asshole.)

I really hope that if I ever speak about any of this in the future, that people recognize that it’s not ever, ever trans femininity as a concept I have an issue with. It’s people who

- try to divide the community

- are reinventing gender essentialism from the ground up but make it trans

-police other people’s identities and decide for them what oppression they must face because of a tiny set of superficial traits

- simply. Don’t understand what intersectionality means.

- disregard and invalidate anyone who doesn’t fit a very specific (binary, rich, white, abled, flawlessly passing) idea of what it means to be trans.

None of those things are specific or exclusive to one identity. There just happens to be a community of transfems who are currently espousing many of these ideas as gospel. They are understandably defensive because of real actual transmisogyny they face. But other trans people are not your enemy. Accusing anyone and everyone who tries to point these flaws out as radical transmisogynists is simply not true. Pointing out bigotry is not bigotry in itself.

I don’t want the trans community to constantly be at each other’s throats. We each have to sit down and think if we ever catch ourselves blaming an entire other marginalized group for our issues. That’s just fascism babes.

[hay-bails]

you’ll see my face in every place / but you can’t catch me now

[pop-idle-ultimate]

i am curious about why Vassago is so on Stolas' side and hyped for him.

especially since in-universe, a lot of characters are kinda annoyed by Stolas, nor really pay any (positive) attention to him, leading into his loneliness, being touch starved and all of that.

i doubt they really know each other, much less were friends or something. so i wonder if he's a fan of sorts? he clearly knows him indirectly in some way.

maybe he took interest in Stolas since Vassago is supposedly also a well natured demon?

that would also make sense why, even before Stolas was there, he looked like he felt like something was off/unjust at the trial for Blitzø

and he looked confused by what Stolas was saying (singing ✨), then maybe disappointed at the situation, as if he's aware that Stolas is more of a passive demon, and something like this is "out of character". he also looked like he still wanted to defend him dispite the confession

[flowerakatsuka]

" just know that i'm always here for you, okay? "

i'm finally finishing up my s2 rewatch and getting to the 24th episode awoke a beast in me. so i wanted to make a fake screenshot based on some of their lore that takes place during that episode. i think they'd end up having a heart-to-heart moment since kuroba went through similar struggles after their grandfather's own hospitalization...

also have a bonus doodle bc i need to even out the balance between serious & goofy with these two.

[future-supertuna]

this is very in-text but i love that zoro gets attuned to kiku from the get-go not only because of this sword wielder code that he's followed through all extremes of the practice, from brook to kin'emon -- recognizing and respecting all masters -- but because her existence is the solid evidence, the living proof that kuina was wrong

[potionbarrel]

science team-tober day 8: misfire

(you can read the accompanying fic for today's prompt here!)

prompt list | science team-tober sideblog

[scissorcraft]

so. rescuing kittens, huh.

[imma-bunni]

The Untamed ep. 43 screencap redraw

In my head I've been calling this "Lan Wangji wishes he was a bunny"

[the---hermit]

My Study Method

I have quickly mentioned my study method in several posts through the years but I don't think I have ever written a proper post about it, so here it is.

I have to say that overall my study method is quite time consuming, but in years of experience it's what works best for the type of learner I am, the materials I have to study and the type of exams I have. I believe these three elements are the fundamental things you should figure out when creating your own study method. Let's go over these things quickly. Firstly I am an history student, tho not all my exams are history based (I have taken some language, philosophy, anthropology and litterature classes) so my method is proofed for most humanities. I am a learner with terrible memory, if you give me a list of things to learn by heart expect me to fail because my brain simply cannot do that. So I have to train myself to learn things when studying for an exam. As for the type of matherials I have to work with when studying for an exam, they are mostly full non fiction books, sometimes I have to work on articles as well, and depending on the class I have lectures to attend.

The fundamental element of my study method are the notes I write. That's why in my daily posts I am constatly mentioning them. The lectures I attend are turned into notes, the books and articles I have to read are turned into notes, everything you leave me with for too long will be turned into notes. The very act of writing is what truly helps me get into the topic, understand it, and memorize it. I might write an indepth post on how I write notes in the future, but for now what you must know is that the goal of my notes is to be the only material I actually study in the end. As I mentioned the very act of writing is itself a huge part of my study process. When I am listening to a lecture I try to write down notes as tidy as possible, and then try to fix them at home if needed. So there's not much to say there, as for the materials I have to read here's how I do it. When I get a book I have to study I usually read a chapter and underline all the important bits that I will be transferring to my notes as I am reading. When I am done with the chapter and have the topic still fresh in mind I write down by hand all my notes. The goal is to write everything I need to know, in a direct and easy way using my own words. By re-elaborating the original text I am making sure I am not blindly copying things, and actually understanding stuff. Once the entire book has gone through this process, the book goes back on the shelf and as I said I only work on my notes from then one.

Once I have all my notes ready a long time has probably passed, but in reading and writing I have already started to memorize things in general. I try to highlight my notes as I am writing, but in case I don't I go back once I am done writing, doing a quick reread and highlighting important stuff. I usually use two different colours: yellow for the important dates and another colour for the other informations. At this point there's two more steps left. Repeating and writing key words.

If writing notes can be counted as half of my studying, repeating outloud is the second half. Since I have oral exams I have to make sure I am comfortable with exaplaining things, showing I have understood things and I am not just midlessly reciting a list, and using the right terms. I am a very lucky person because my dad is both retired and quite interested in the topics that I study, which means that I get a lot of help from him in this phase of studying, because basically what I do is following him around the house for a few days exaplaining my notes to him. If you do not have someone to annoy with your study, talking to yourself works too but you have to speak outloud and honestly pretend you are giving a lecture. If you just go over your notes and read them it is not the same thing, it's way less effective. I usually do two rounds of repeating. The first one looks a lot more like reading and saying things outloud in my own words. By the second one I am usually much more comfortable with informations so I have my notes there only to guide me through topics making sure I don't miss anything. Having someone who actively listents to you is definitely a bonus because if they ask you questions they challenge you in the exact same way an oral exam does, and you make sure your exaplainations are as clear as possible.

The very last step is going through my notes one last time with the goal of writing a long list of key words. This is a tool I specifically use to review things quickly the day of the exam. Usually during my commute I reread the list of words in my head and I mentally make sure I remember about everything.

As mentioned this is a longer study method but it truly locks things in your brain, and paying that much attention to note writing also makes them a tool that lasts in time. If I am interested in the informations of any of the books I read during my degree I can pick the notebook in which I wrote those notes and find the information right away without even having to open the actual book. I usually dedicate a whole notebook to each book, in order to archive and find them easily. I will be writing a specific post on the way I write notes, maybe including a few pictures, but in the meantime I hope this was somewhat helpful.