#but i want to save that for a personal project

[mercurygray]

Advice for a Long Fic

Someone asked me recently for advice about writing a long fic, and I started making a list before realizing this was probably a post rather than a message.

I know I've said most of this before, and none of it is new advice. As with any advice, take what you think will serve you and leave what you think will not. Everyone's process is different.

-*-

Start a new folder in the place where you save your things. This is your new big project folder. You are going to save all the things here.

Decide whether you are going to write the whole thing and then post it, or post it as you go. There are benefits to both of these approaches. I am a post it as you go person, and I have friends who think this is the dumbest approach imaginable. It is whatever works for you and causes less anxiety.

I have a spreadsheet for all of my characters. While I didn't reference it too often while I was writing, the act of making the document helped solidify people in my mind a little. It was also nice to have in case you felt like doing an askbox game on a slow day.

Come up with a naming convention for the things in the big project folder. When your chapter is 'done' it should be switched to the naming convention. Mine was Darkening Sky - Working Chapter Title (for things that were still in progress) and Darkening Sky - 35 - Chapter Title for things that I'd finished. This helped me find things later after I'd been working for three years and would not have remembered what was in a document.

I personally like the model of doing a separate document for each chapter. This allows me to move these episodes around at will without the danger of possibly deleting a large chunk of text. This does not work for everyone! If you like one big document, use one big document.

The other reason I liked lots of little documents is that it gave me the opportunity to slot in other things that I didn't think were originally going to be chapters. When I first started working on TDS, I had a lot of flashes of ideas for different things throughout the whole story, and I wanted to get them down all at once. Some of those made it into the final story. Some did not. Some of them were written for one part of the story but got recycled into a different part. But they are all in the big document folder in case I needed them.

I also did something for TDS that I've never done for a story before - I wrote down all the different story beats and show beats on notecards and I laid them out on my floor underneath cards that had the show episodes on them. (You may have seen pictures of this.) By putting the plot points on notecards, rather than a list, I had maximum flexibility to move them throughout the story and could visualize over a larger space where the story was going. This also allowed the story and the characters to go places I did not think they would go.

Give yourself grace and time. It will not all happen overnight. It does not need to all happen overnight. The people who are expecting it to all happen overnight are not the people you need in your life.

Having said that, a schedule can be a wonderful and valuable thing. I was trying to post a chapter every two weeks during the pandemic, and then when work picked up again I scaled that back to once a month. The schedule was not for the readers. The schedule was for me. Having something to keep myself accountable was helpful to me to prevent burnout (a chapter a day, no thank you) but keep myself moving forward.

I am going to say something provocative here: There is Writing the Fic, and there is Doing Fandom On The Fic. Doing Fandom On The Fic is the "New chapter coming soon!!!" sorts of things. I would be very cautious about feeling like you need to do the second thing. Work on it first. When it is done, it will promote itself. (If you have already created the Doing Fandom thing as a part of your creative process - great! share that! But don't go out of your way to Make Something Just To Have Something.) There is a time and place for the second thing, and it fills a specific need, but there is a different and I would argue more effective way to do that, which is -

Find a Pit Crew. This is an endurance race, not a sprint, which means at some point you are going to look at what you have on the page and you're going to want someone to tell you that you are doing a good job. You're going to need someone to change your tires and change your oil and talk to you at ten o'clock at night when you want to rip everything up. This is not a big public server - this is one or two trusted friends who will listen to your bonkers AUs and what your characters ate for breakfast. Create a server for you and those two people and go have fun. If no one else shows up to this party, you and those two people are still having a great time, and that is what counts.

[girl-mercury]

ukraine aid post

I'm not able to fully express how furious and how saddened I am by all that has happened with regard to Ukraine this week. I will choose only to say that I wish an enormous transformative change of heart in everyone who this week chose cruelty and bullying to people barely surviving instead of offering security and allyship.

This war began in 2014 as Russia began occupying Crimea and the Donbas and disregarded Ukrainians' right to make decisions for themselves, just as Russia has disregarded the sovereignty of other nations in Putin's expansionist, maximalist goals to make something of a new Russian empire; the full-scale invasion began in 2022, and immediately started doing an encyclopedia's worth of war crimes. Russia-favoring corruption drained Ukraine of the funds it needed to defend itself and so this war has been fought largely on crowdfunding and aid. Just imagine, having to protect your home and right to make decisions for your country based on on a GoFundMe.

I know people working in the Ukraine security space and so a lot of requests for help come through my inbox, and I'm going to share some of what I've received. For the more direct requests for aid, they have been verified by someone I know who is not just an online activist but working with Ukrainians, and I can probably get you connected with them if you need that and want to reach out to me.

Razom - Obviously, this is probably the most well-known org and I regularly donate to them. Razom initiates short and long-term projects, or collaborates on existing projects with partner organizations, which help Ukraine stay on the path of fostering democracy and prosperity. I personally believe that strong institutions are overwhelmingly critical in ensuring that people don't fall through the cracks and that predatory organizations don't take advantage of power vacuums, and Ukraine will need to rebuilt its capacity to have a society once the war ends, along with delivering immediate medical and tactical items now.

Global Response Medicine - GRM travels anywhere in the world providing emergency medical care for people displaced by conflict or disaster. GRM is currently raising funds to kick off the Invisible Wounds program in Ukraine to support those with PTSD and TBIs. (If you have larger-scale resources to get involved with this initiative, I can probably put you in touch with the executive director.)

Insulate Ukraine - Since the full-scale invasion, millions of windows have been shattered by bomb blasts. During winter, temperatures can plummet to -20C or below, putting people's lives at risk. Thousands of Ukrainians remain in frontline towns with nowhere else to go. Insulate Ukraine has developed an innovative and affordable solution to the urgent need for warmth: a $20 triple-layer shatterproof window made from polyethylene. The organization helps those most in need: low-income families, the elderly, and disabled.

Dzyga's Paw - A well-known charity that buys Starlinks, drones, and de-mining equipment for front-line defenders. I think my friend can get individual messages of support to some of the defenders if you feel motivated to do so.

Ukraine's Women's Battalion - Not a battalion but a group that works to support and fundraise for the military as well as provide things like care packages.

PDMSh - For a decade, The Pirogov First Volunteer Mobile Hospital (PDMSh) volunteers have been rescuing and treating wounded on the front lines. Hundreds of PDMSh volunteer medics have cared for and saved thousands of military and civilian lives.

Dignitas - Dignitas has several initiatives supporting Ukrainian fighting and post-war development. They currently are focused a lot on raising money to build drones, which are highly needed for surveillance to find out where civilians and injured combatants may be.

Protez Foundation - Provides prosthetics for those who lose limbs.

Weatherman Foundation - Provide medical transportation and supplies to Ukrainians, repatriation of those KIA, support for orphans and elderly.

Superhumans Center - Rehabilitation for Ukrainians suffering major injury.

Prevail Together - They do the very importnat work of bomb disposal. They also do trauma care and humanitarian aid.

Osprey Relief Foundation - A US veteran-led, global disaster relief, and medical & humanitarian aid non-profit organization. Their mobile "Train the Trainer" course is focused on Search and Rescue operations and lifesaving capabilities in support of civilians on the battlefield.

Liberty Ukraine - Direct donation to Ukraine projects; currently quadcopters, evacuation vehicles, generators, children's hospital renovations, thermal clothing production, therapy camp for children of killed soldiers. *This org has no salaried employees and 100% of funds go to projects

Ukraine Front Line - Currently raising money for lifesaving medical aid in the form of Hyfin vent chest seals that are immediate needs for people with penetrative chest wounds.

Invictus Global Response - Working in conflict zones around the world, their mission is focused on the clearance of landmines and explosives, teaching civilians to identify explosive risks, and providing capacity-building support in the areas of mine action, stockpile reduction, and humanitarian assistance. Our vision is to empower local organizations, partner forces, and affected communities through impactful, cost-effective, and sustainable support.

Ukraine Front Line - President of this org, Robin, highlights needs that have no social media presence. Looks like they're taking individual donations right now for tourniquets, hospital care packages, first aid supplies, and more.

Protect a Volunteer - Get signed up to directly connect with a volunteer fighter through a donor matching platform. I personally know someone who is connected and donates though this partnership.

Safe Passage 4 Ukraine - Assists people in gaining safe passage in, around, and out of Ukraine. This war has turned millions of people into refugees both inside of and outside of their country. Many of them have complex medical needs. Safe Passage ensures transportation, lodging, and other needs as they leave for safety.

Other things:

Friend of a friend of a friend - Eddy, a volunteer fighter, got hit by drones while doing a civilian evacuation January 2025 and lost an arm and a leg, donation page and his instagram via reddit

Ukrainian artists to support: RainbowOnThePipe Lebid Ceramics

A note for those, like me, who hate war and will work as much as possible to use every other pathway to avoid it:

Look, I know some of you are not comfortable directly supporting front-line warfighters, and there are a lot of orgs up there where you don't have to do that. But I would beg you to consider that sometimes you don't have a choice when war comes to you, and more than that, when it comes to you from a country that does not believe your society should exist, that everyone with your culture should be destroyed and forgotten. Every success Putin wins, in 2008 in Georgia, in 2015 in Syria, in 2014 in Ukraine, even in the 90s in Chechnya, persuades his ruling gang that they can opportunistically keep conquering. If they are not stopped in Ukraine, they will look at more of Europe, more of the Caucasus, more of central Asia. Hell, even Alaska was part of the Russian Empire at one time. They will keep sending their mercenary groups to disrupt peace and self-determination in African nations. They will keep trying to disrupt democracy in every country that doesn't give them what they want. They are bullies, and the people of Russia deserve better leaders than ones that will send 800,000 of them to be killed or injured and then consider that not to be not that much of a loss.

Sometimes the price of ensuring human security is working with military organizations. I wish that it were not. But I don't value abstaining from that reality and keeping my hands perfectly spotless if it comes at the cost of denying rescue to civilians in a highly populated war zone they could never have consented to live in.

Please help.

[lord-squiggletits]

Y'know I kind of feel like when Megatron killed Tarn and said 'I want you to spend your final moments thinking of this: that everything you've done has been for nothing' he was kind of self-projecting onto Tarn? Mainly because at Megatron's statue, M and T had a conversation where Tarn explicitly asked if all the Decepticons in service to Megatron died for nothing, if HE did everything he did for nothing. (And I think M even gave an answer along the lines of 'idk I think we basically did'). And then after Megatron killed the DJD and Rodimus teleported in to rescue him, there was that silent moment where Megatron just stared at Rodimus not moving at all before he finally took his hand at the last moment.

It honestly feels to me like for a while, Megatron fully intended to murder-suicide himself. Murder the DJD, his monsters and his creation, and then take himself out alongside them, because he is also a monster. Because he also feels that everything he's ever done has been for nothing.

Goddamn it's no wonder I liked that scene so much LMAO, as someone who thinks villain Megatron > Autobot Megatron, literally one of his key traits is that Megatron basically took his pain/trauma/worldview and used it to lash out at the universe and try to subjugate it to his vision. So the fact that he took his own pain and brutally murdered the DJD while telling them the very same thing that puts him through so much agony is so very deliciously ironic. And a return, however brief, to the Megatron characterization that I know and love.

[necrotic-nephilim]

in lieu of having posted any writing/headcanons/asks in the past few days because i have been *so* busy and unable to do anything fandom-related which is terrible and evil, i have a poll out of morbid curiosity and self-indulgence. i've been meaning to ramble here about how i feel about DC's lack fo Deaf representation and which Batfam members i would personally make Deaf, but i am mildly curious about the larger opinion and now i will subject you all to the question, i would love to hear thoughts/opinions/headcanons on any specific choices. (would love d/Deaf/HoH opinions esp but i'm mostly expecting this to reach the hearing crowd, so opinions from hearing ppl are ones i'm very curious about. if you've never given it thought before you are going to now or else /lh)

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

One day

One day I hope people realize that Kitsunami already "broke through his programming" back by issue #56 of Idw Sonic

He had an entire mini arc where he dealt with being without Surge for the first time, and in the real world. He met Sonic and his friends directly, tried to work out what his purpose would be without Surge in his life (gave it a shot trying to devote himself to Sonic, seeing him as the next best thing after Surge). And when it was all said and done, he decided after experiencing more that at Surge's side is where he wanted to be.

As of the recent IDW issues, Kit isn't sticking with Surge "because of programming" and "because he just needs for other characters to friend him and turn him into a better person". He is at her side because he wants to be. He protects her and aids her because he cares about her, not just because he's serving the strongest guy in the room. And he's not interacting with others because he's decided not to give a shit about anyone else other than Surge (because from his pov, even the "good guys" are fake. From his pov, everyone is someone trying to lie and manipulate their way into pulling him and Surge to their side)

Kit already has decided what he wants to do with his life. And he decided it on his own. Not because of anyone else's wants or wishes. That's the whole point of his speech at the end of #56.

He's burying whatever his and Surge's past is and moving forward with his conviction to be with Surge because it's what he wants.

[deoidesign]

I need to know if I'm delusional and projecting onto random characters or if Adam and/or Steve are neurodivergent

You can project whatever you want on them, and I don't know that it's "canon" so to speak but I write them with neurodivergent intent in mind just based on my own life experiences!

so I'm projecting on them too, but it's up for debate whether that's coming across in the text.

Adam is autistic and Steve has ADHD. To Me.

[floorpancakes]

who should I use as the model for a delicate petal + animal themed outfit (think bows, soft browns and pinks, mochi, cute and elegant)? this is for the outfit contest btw

edit: added my draft so people have a reference for picking since it’s far enough it’ll work as reference lol

its a blooming sakura stag!

[liesmyth]

Your last rb on the John Gaius post how much John is the OPPOSITE of what that reblogger implied. Because like - we rag on him for not using his magical girl powers for C--'s "Good Wizardry", but it's specifically because he *doesn't* want to rely on a new untested "technology". He tries to incorporate it into the old project, make it better, make people trust it and give him money. Slow down the people who are trying to actually do the "promising new technology" bit without proof of concept.

It's "We all came up with trials to figure out what I could do, what I couldn’t do" vs

"...they were taking one discovery and acting like it changed the whole ballgame when really we now needed ten years of funding to discover whether it was any use, i.e., academia functioning as normal."

And I think that's neat, actually.

[post for context]

Ok actually #discourse aside, I think a lot about how John WAS a scientist, and that was the approach he used in his cryo project, and that was ALSO the approach he used when he started displaying magic powers. He tried to do experiments. He tried to make up scientific terms. He tried to write papers.

And nobody would listen and then he had to cosplay a wizard on youtube.

I think about that SO MUCH. Like... I think John never had a high opinion of the "cultists." He's obviously annoyed that one of the first guys who gave them attention was a flat earther. He only started calling himself a necromancer so that people would listen. It was a last resort and personally, I think he wasn't keen on it.

Like... I think John, an educated scientist who has successfully pioneered a potentially revolutionary new technology (the cryo project, not the magic!) AND is also an indigenous man of colour, might have felt some kinda way about putting on a cape and eyeliner and recruiting a gullible cult of followers because he wasn't being taken seriously in ~intellectual circles. I know we make jokes aboout God being a twitch streamer - Taz put that in for a reason! I think it's funny, I think the cult aesthetic is fun, I think the pre-Res gang HAD fun with it, eventually. But I also think that there's a lot to unpack about John going from the lead research on a project that had serious corporate and government backing ("We cannot keep diverting three percent of the country’s electricity to your vats") to putting on a cape for the memes.

Also! You're absolutely right that the FTL fleet IS "the special technology that shows no promise." John, Mercy AND Augustine all it as hooky because it's SO new that it can scale up to what they need, if it even works as advertised. I'm very curious if / how / on which scale it was tested, and I think Augustine was right to suspect that the FTL propulsion was just an initial kick and the fleet was gonna generation-ship it and never come back.

Also speaking of people wanting an "immediate fix" - John also explicitly brings up that some of the cryo project backers nagged at him because they though an imperfect technology was good enough but the team thought the chance of damage was too high, and worked to reduce it.

Like, the whole point of the cryo project is that it worked, but it wasn't an easy fix, it required literally global cooperation, and there was no priority access for first-class passengers.

I am once again pointing a huge neon sign in John's direction that says HE ATE THE SUN!! That's plenty enough! We don't have to directly contradict canon to sue him for ethics breaches.

[mortellanarts]

The passage of time was sooo normal and kind to me this year guys qwq

[galehowl]

Been passively thinking about my Digimon pet project and realized what a nightmare it'd honestly be for the Tamer characters in the setting to just exist, due to social media rip.

I can just imagine constantly having videos and pictures of them plastered all over the internet and every soc media site and app, whenever they have to go out and do their job, not to mention the total lack of privacy and some people definitely finding out where they live and all your information and being unhinged about it. Since that's kind of the reality of things as is.

Not to mention that people would probably try to film everything on their phones or whatever, whenever there's a rogue/wild Digimon spotted, or something interesting ( read: dangerous ) is going on, with no regard for their own safety

Should probably consider giving the characters some kind of disguise or something, now that I think about it lol

[thewhizzyhead]

hi its me so back when wattblr was at its peak (2020), watt basically gave me a drug that made me really fuckin creative and want to do a bajillion musicals. 4 years later, warriors has now force-fed me this drug again. Welcome back to me being annoying as fuck woo here's the Izzy Original Rambly Musical Masterlist - Part 1

+ Misfits - been developing this SINCE I WAS 13 and um its Basically A Show Within A Show idea inspired by my past experiences with my former church and their Christmas musicals. TO UNDERSTAND THIS HERE IS SOME BACKSTORY: so when I was 10-13 I used to be in Christmas musicals staged by my sunday school. These musicals were Pilipino translations (the songs stayed English) of Typical American Children Christmas Musicals found on youtube (check out A Rocking Royal Christmas on YouTube yes we did a Filipino translation of that and I played the narrator when I was 11 I'm not kidding). When I was 13, I wanted to make something more resonant to the teen crowd as um to be quite honest the stuff my fellow Sunday school people were going through were Fucking Heavy and i wanted to feature that + I always knew that the Very Kiddy Musicals we set up were mainly a show for the parents and all that. I wanted a message of faith that actually resonated with my age group - and i developed it far enough that at 14, i was commisioned by my sunday school teachers to work with the church's orchestra in actually having this developed! But 15 happened and I started questioning a lot of the stuff my Sunday school and church does in terms of like politics, mental health stuff, sexuality and identity and pressuring me and my fellow teens to become something we were not, and it really felt alienating, almost as if I was simply putting on a show to appease all those that look to me and want me to be the Best of Young Christian Soldiers

So the concept of Misfits is um okay just read this ramble i wrote 3 years ago that is MUCH MORE COHERENT AND COHESIVE than the descriptions ive been whipping up for three hours now:

There is more to this like I have been developing this for 7 years now and there IS A TRACKLIST and each character has a storyline and a certain dynamic with all of the characters - like all are connected one way or another - but the basic gist is:

1.) The Narrators Put On A Show For The Religious Audience, then Start Crumbling at The Questions Presented and Prompted by The Misfits, but also Upon The Realization Of How Much Pressure They Are Under in Supporting A Narrative They Are Conditioned To Unquestionably Trust + the reveal of the secrets they hide and deny about themselves in order to seem as the Perfect Model Christian (sexuality, mental health issues, parental/pastoral pressures, abuse, psychological trauma as a result of Putting On The Show - the Time Travel element is not just there for the purposes of the show, it has a very important plot element too that connects the leader of the Narrators with the defacto leader of the Misfits) + how do they deal with these secrets being slowly revealed when They Know They Are Being Watched

2.) The Misfits Try To Navigate The Strange Musical Scenario and Why The Narrators Seem Preachy, While Also Being Forced to Address Their Pasts and Presents on why They Are Deemed "Misfits" in the First Place (outside of Christian conservatism, there exists undeniable concern for the wellbeing of the "Misfits" aka juvenile delinquency and poverty, mental health issues, and um the defacto leader being a Former Member of the Narrators wHICH WILL BECOME THE RUNNING THREAD TO THE PLOT TWIST which is why they were chosen in the first place), so basically The Misfits Are Challenged to Acknowledged that They Are Indeed Troubled (especially with carefully planted plot points and script prompts used by the Narrators to have these in the open) - but the original Producers Approved plotline has them Turn Back To God, but how can they do so if the problems they face are rooted in the current religious institutions in place? That is the question presented by the Misfits to the Narrators - which is what causes their show to fall apart

3.) Through Questioning The Mission They Were Given and the Environments That Mandate Them To Do So Despite Their Own Struggles (Narrators), and Through Questioning Themselves, Their Struggle, and The Acknowledgment That They Do Need Help (Misfits), the two groups face what I want to be the ultimate thesis question of the musical: when you grow up, where does one find hope? This is my attempt at breaking down the concept of religion because ultimately, people look to a higher figure in the dream of hope and the want for answers - thus, religion cannot ultimately be taken away from people who truly want and seek it. But we gotta deconstruct the narrative that hope is only limited to these religious institutions - and criticism must be relayed to the institutions that mandate that people serve them for the hope they supposedly provide but subsequently break because of prejudice, conservatism, and close-mindedness towards the people the Bible says to serve above all.

So yea the thesis slogan is basically: grow as you go, redefine your mission, and break the script if needed be.

Also it's pop rock, very inspired by SPRING AWAKENING, we are the tigers, and a dash or rent. The songs are English when They Are Part of the Producer's script, and Tagalog when They Are Not Part of the Script (like the characters being honest or unexpected rebuttals to the narrators' preaching moments or when the narrators themselves reveal their secrets). Otherwise, dialogue is taglish YAY

[cent-scratchnsniff]

doodle dump

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

y'all i've been upset about nanowrimo's shenanigans since last year, when kids weren't safe, and now there's this AI shitshow, and i want to cry about it again, because nano has been SO IMPORTANT to me since 2008--it helped me hack my writing process and make a bunch of cool shit, and i've written so many stories i love using it as a jumping off point. but. we gotta protect kids, and we gotta get the fuck out of here with AI bullshit.

so. the decision i have come to is that i will still be participating in nano. but now it stands for "now a's [that's me] novel writing month." i'm still going to write a book in november, and i'm still going to shoot for the 1,667 words/day (even though my finished projects wind up way longer than that, invariably), because i've structured my creative life around this routine, but i won't be using their site any more.

i will also not be tagging my november project posts as nanowrimo, but i WILL still be tagging them as "nano[YEAR]" (because that's been my tagging system for untitled projects for uh. years.). and it's now a's novel writing month :)

[du-hjarta-skulblaka]

Some mild existential dread in the house today

[canyouhearmeow]

does brady ever feel guilty for bringing anna to typhon. does it keep him awake at night

[maryasmorevna]

now that i've finished my fist original novel (plus the additional material like the epilogue and the male co-protagonist's letter to the main character, which is a dive into his - very troubled - psyche* and a sign of his atonement...), it'll be difficult to leave it all behind ngl. i grew so fond of the characters, the themes i tried (and probably failed) to explore... i'm going to miss them. thankfully i have other projects to focus on, but still - it'll be hard to turn the page once and for all.