#but that's also my motivation to get other things done because the new shiny is waiting to be written

[redstainedsocks]

For everyone who's interacted with this post, you should know: there's a story coming

I have a plot, I have characters, I have Begun

I know there's a well loved niche for royal whump, but lately I've been thinking a lot about royal *guard* whump.

Hurt for being loyal to the old king, punished for doing the thing they were trained to do. Grief-struck at the loss of their fellow guards in combat. Guilt at failing at their most important task: protecting the heart of kingdom.

[thechekhov]

Hello! I'm a big fan of your work. I wanted to ask for advice / thoughts about an art problem I've been struggling with that you seem to have at least some sort of solution for?

So basically I'm an animator and digital artist (hobbyist), and I'm constantly coming up with new ideas for things to make. Only problem is that most of these ideas would take up to or longer than 2 months to make because, yknow, animation isn't quick, especially if you want to take your time to make it good. But with so many ideas that all take so long to complete, I often find myself tied and frozen as I can't decide what's most worthwhile to start first. I passionately want to complete all these projects, but my inspiration for each one waxes and wanes in a way I can't control, and I've just been stuck for several months. You juggle a lot of projects- not all of them art, but it still seems applicable here. This is excluding other life responsibilities like work and stuff, I don't have problems with getting that stuff done. This is purely within my creative hobby.

If u can't say anything thats fine I'm just curious- You have a massive output with great quality. Thank you!

This is a very kind message, and one that humbles me a lot, because although I'd love to bestow upon you some sort of advice that might help, or give words of wisdom..............I feel like that would be fake of me because

I also suffer from this very same thing

That is to say, this part of your message:

my inspiration for each one waxes and wanes in a way I can't control

It rings true for me too! I think it might ring true for many others as well.

There are stories in my head all the time. There are stories, and concepts, and IDEAS and they are all so shiny and new in the beginning, and then they slowly peter out and, since I frequently don't have time to do anything about them, they fade into the background.

I have enough trouble with this in terms of COMICS (also a lengthy medium, though less so than animation, which, OOF, you have my condolences, you are stronger than I) that I have started to just come to terms with the fact that some things are not meant to be.

Which is, I think, one of the small bits of advice I can give.

1. Some things may just be ideas, and that's okay.

I think one of the best ways that I've learned to deal with Idea-Death is making it count towards something in the future. That is to say, using them as compost.

In order for this to work, you have to actively put your ideas into the compost pin instead of the trash. That means maybe investing in either a notebook, or a sketchbook, OR just a discord server for yourself where you organize ideas and dump them all into a channel to scroll back through later.

It may seem useless at first, but honestly, it can be satisfying to PUT them somewhere instead of letting them fade away.

Plus, you may one day scroll through them and rediscover an idea at just the right time. OR you may be inspired to take parts of an old idea and repurpose it for a new idea that you DO have motivation for.

However, there's also this part, right?

I've just been stuck for several months

I.......feel this. Sometimes I, too, feel stuck for several months. There are times when even if I WANT to work on something, I just don't have the time. It takes too long to finish!

.........which is why I recommend the following:

2. Don't finish. Just start.

Now, this is the toughie. I can't exactly say that it would work for everyone. But I have learned that I am WAY more likely to return to a project and work on it again sometime in the future if I actually DO something for it the first time I get inspired.

I have SO MANY things that I have not published in my folders. I have sketches of gifs that are 10 frames long. I have concept art sketches boldly labeled with project names that will likely never get off the ground. I have Googledoc files with summary and plot outlines for stories I'll probably never write. I have discord channels with random ass concepts and a few sketches for characters.

And what I have found is that if I just WORK on these ideas when I feel like it, they are more likely to survive, even if they don't thrive right away.

I'm also a huge proponent of Procrastination Rotation.

That is to say, I have so many projects I COULD be working on, that if I ever feel frustrated or stuck on one thing, I just shift myself slightly to the left and do another thing instead. I almost never force myself to work through a block (save for a few money-motivated deadlines) just to complete a thing.

Stuck on a comic? I'll go write a few lines of fic. Unsatisfied with where the fic is going?

I'll go sketch out an illustration. Incapable of finishing an illustration?

I'll go google some references for another comic project and slap them all into an image file for later, so that I have SOMETHING in place for when I want to do studies.

And so on and so forth.

I have comic ideas, and comic sketches, and 30+ pages of original comics sketched. I don't know if they'll make it. It would take a lot of work.

But it also takes very little work - just a few extra pages sketched while I'm bored for an hour. Or a bit of lineart while I listen to a podcast. Or just a doodle somewhere which I snap a pic of and add to my discord channel for that project.

Will it work for everyone? Probably not. But I think that our creative culture is sometimes too attached to a linear production style. The truth is that art, or illustrations, or animation, or comics - none of it has to be on an assembly line. It can be tinkered with and put aside. And then, maybe, picked apart for scraps.........or maybe made into something new!

I don't know if that helps you at all, but I hope it at least helps someone.

And good luck with your animating!

[grandlinedreams]

Hey hey hey! Your writing captures these characters in ways that I could never. I’ve had this idea wracking my brain, of Ace as a mechanic for some reason- but, hear me out. The shop owner is Whitebeard, and Ace meets Pops daughter when she comes in to help out one day at the shop not knowing who she is, and I honestly think you can bring this vision to life.

Thank-you, it really is an honor to hear that and I appreciate it!! But also BESTIE UR BRAIN MWAH MWAH MWAH that is SUCH a good concept and I hope that I can do it justice!!

[Heads up!: mechanic!au, afab!reader/gendered terms]

ㅡ

It's sheer luck that lands Ace the job. He's been looking for a while now, desperate to land something that pays more than pocket change an hour because even with Sabo and Luffy also employed, they've been barely making ends meet.

He won't tell them that though, swipes bills out of Sabo's hand before his brother can even open them. "Not your job to worry about it," he tells him when Sabo glares. "It's mine."

He doesn't want them to have to worry about things like that, not when Sabo's found a good balance in college and Luffy's finally considering college at all. So when he finds the ad for the position while aimlessly scrolling through one of the many job application sites, he offers up a plea to whatever god might be listening and applies.

And he gets an interview.

The shop, aptly titled 'Whitebeard Mechanics' is surprisingly in the nicer end of town, situated at the very edge just before the road leads into the sprawling heart of stores and gated communities.

The smell of motor oil is what he catches first, the muffled sound of voices overlapping from an open garage bay and undercut by the whirr of machinery.

"Are you Ace?" He pivots to find the speaker watching him, a man with an interesting cut of blond hair and blue eyes that evaluate him in a way that makes Ace's nerves all the worse. When he nods, the man holds a hand out. "I'm Marco, co-owner of the shop."

"Nice to meet you," Ace says, shaking his hand. Marco's grip is firm, his fingers calloused and seemingly permanently stained with axel grease.

"Pops is waiting for you," Marco says, jerking his head for Ace to follow him into the main building. There's a waiting area with worn chairs and a coffee machine set onto a wheeled storage cabinet, the only decor that of a tropical plant in the corner. "He's in his office."

Ace follows his gesture, a door with a shiny gold plaque that labels it as such and swallows, moving towards it. Steeling himself with a breath, Ace steps inside.

The man sitting behind the desk is Edward "Pops" Newgate ㅡ or at least that's what the little desk tag says, and Ace can tell that the older man would tower over him if he stood. 

"You must be Ace," he greets, gesturing to the plush chair in front of his desk. "Have a seat." 

Ace does so, hands resting on his knees to hide the nervous tremor of them as he watches the other man rifle through a folder ㅡ his application.

"Your references are acceptable," Pops says, and tosses his folder down. "Background checks out, no criminal history…" He leans forward, staring at Ace over steepled fingers. "But why do you want the job?"

Ace blinks. The threat of my brothers and I going homeless and hungry is a great motivator, he wants to say, but he doesn't. Instead he thinks for a moment, shaping his words carefully. 

By the time he's done, Pops is smiling. "Congratulations," he says, "you've got the job." 

ㅡ 

Settling into his new job is surprisingly easy. There's a natural camaraderie when there's no hierarchy to be found ㅡ and friendship comes naturally.

So it's to be expected when Ace comes into work and stops by one of the garage bays, he makes a beeline for the pair of familiar boots sticking out from beneath the undercarriage of a vintage car. 

"Marco," he says as he approaches and knocks his own boot against the one closest to him. "You should come out with me and my brothers for drinks sometime." 

He expects the blond to answer and when he doesn't, Ace frowns and nudges his boot again before stepping back when the dolly begins to roll from underneath the car.

It's only then that he realizes that the boots are not Marco's, and the person on the dolly is not his friend. "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't kick my feet while I'm working."

Ace stares for all of thirty seconds before his mouth starts working again. "You're a girl," he says and immediately kicks himself for both how dumb he sounds and how your eyes narrow. "I ㅡ no, I just mean ㅡ I've never met you before."

"It's because she only shows up when she wants to," answers Thatch from behind him, and he watches you roll your eyes and scrub a hand against a smear of oil on your cheek as you get up from the dolly. 

"More like whenever dad decides he wants me to come in and lend a hand," you huff, taking the towel that Thatch hands you to wipe your hands off before you turn towards Ace. "So you're the new guy, huh?" 

"Yeah, I'm Ace," he says, mentally patting himself on the back for not stuttering. Your eyes flick over him, assessing him with a curious gleam to your eyes.

"Nice to meet you, Ace. I'm [Name]." Your attention shifts to Thatch as you clap him on the shoulder and begin walking away with him. "Please tell me dad hasn't killed that plant in the lobby while I've been gone." 

Watching you go, it's only then that Ace registers that you've called Pops dad.

ㅡ 

"So…is Pops really your dad?" 

Weeks worth of tentative exchange and working together has afforded him the chance to eat lunch with you when you're at the shop and with the way you look at him over your sandwich, it's clear that you still think he's a little strange. 

"It's what it says on my birth certificate," you answer, and Ace catches himself watching the movement of your mouth as you talk, hurriedly averting his gaze before you can call him out. "Most of the guys are like brothers to me since I've grown up around them. Dad has a habit of pseudo-adopting the people who work for him." 

He knows that well, the parental warmth with which Pops has a way of talking to him making him try not to think about his actual parents. It doesn't matter, not when he has Sabo and Luffy. 

"And what about me?" The question is out of his mouth before he can stop it. "Am I a brother to you?" 

For one horrifying moment, you stare at him as though he's grown two heads ㅡ and then you laugh. Not mocking, not teasing, a full bodied genuine laugh that Ace swears sounds better than anything else he's ever heard. 

"You're still the newbie," you say, but your tone is colored with affection even as you raise an eyebrow. "Thought you already had brothers."

"I do," Ace answers. He's mentioned them to you a couple of times, entertained the idea of introducing you ㅡ and then immediately scrapped it for fear of the resulting potential disaster. 

But he wants to know where he stands with you, aware that his own feelings for you are a little deeper than just that of coworkers. He's also aware that his boss is your father, and that there are a thousand ways this could go very, very wrong. 

Doesn't stop him from wanting to try, though. And it gives him hope for the fact that you're not immediately writing him off, compelling him to continue, "Let me take you out on a date." 

Of all the things you'd expected Ace to follow that up with, asking you out is not one of them. It's rare that anyone isn't spooked off by your circle of pseudo-brothers, and even rarer still that they don't tuck tail and run when your father is involved. 

You should say no. You should make it clear that there's a boundary not meant to be crossed, even without the fact that your father is his boss. But you can't deny that he's grown on you, with his spatter of freckles and loud laugh, a magnetic charm that draws people to him, yourself included. 

"Okay," you say, surprising both him and yourself. "But you better not disappoint me, pretty boy." 

Ace grins. "Wouldn't dream of it." 

[myfandomrealitea]

Ahh I think the second ask I sent responding to your "how are you" got eaten. I actually don't know how often that happens, but I didn't want to leave you hanging.

But! Home renovations! I have very little experience with that (as a younger teen thru my parents), so other than cost of labour I always imagined it as great fun but now I see that's a pretty dumb assumption to make, I don't think I'd enjoy having to go through all that on my own with my own finances 😬. However in my country homes are built with cinder blocks and cement and stuff. I heard most houses in USA are wooden?? I have a feeling that makes home renovations even worse and my heart goes out to you, hope recovery is treating you right after all that stress lol.

And thank you for asking! Ah, I've been doing pretty I think not-great? For a while. Mostly because I just don't understand how other people are able to live life and carry responsibilities and complete tasks and do hard work instead of procrastinating, I don't know how to put my phone down, I don't know how to force myself to put my book down when I have work to do; and sometimes I end up just running away on the deadline. Pretty infamous for it atm, wondering if I'm just not cut out for adulthood and should just spend my life under my parent's thumb, they're pretty overbearing.

Ah but life is hard you know, we get by the way we can. I also just got into Star Trek through one of their newer series and am Very Excited to be a new Spock/Kirk shipper!! Can't wait to participate in a community built by ppl so infuential to fandom!!!!

Hope you have a spectacular day, Tea<333333333 in fact, can I ask. What's your favorite ship dynamic, if you have one! I'd be happy to know and listen if you wanna talk extensively about it :D

Home renovations can be fun, its definitely not a 'it sucks always everytime' situation, but unfortunately in my case it went from 'I just need to fix this door' to 'my entire house basically needs to be gutted and re-done' and on a very tight schedule because, y'know. Christmas. Nobody wants to me playing hopscotch over exposed floorboards on the day of merriment.

The worst thing about home renovations is when there are larger jobs where you really need appropriate knowledge and experience to do and do well, and its not really something you can afford to keep re-doing to get to the point where your attempt is Good Enough. Installing flooring, for example. A lot more complicated than many people expect. Especially when you're spending $300 on floorboards and there's not really that ability to just throw another $300 at it if the first go comes out wonky. But you also can't afford the $700 professional instillation, so.

But, ultimately, the majority of the renovations were pretty easy. Stripping and re-painting wood gloss, for example, very easy to learn and very easy to do if you actually have the right materials and prepwork done.

And the end result of all this stress is, of course, I have basically a brand new house for Christmas! Nice new flooring, super smooth walls, shiny new gloss everywhere, ect ect. And devil permitting, I won't need to do any of that again for at least another 5+ years.

Onto you, though, my first advice (assuming you're open to it) would be to first address any possible medical causes for feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and extremely de-motivated. Poor diet, poor quality of sleep, stress, deficiencies, dehydration and many other causes can result in these symptoms or outcomes. Its definitely not a catch all, but addressing the big MC (medical causes) is always beneficial as a first step.

But, those aside, that's actually a pretty normal way to feel when things are getting Too Much. Its not really normal as a permanent state of existence, but trust me when I say that pretty much everyone will go through periods like this. Life has a habit of stacking up and stacking up, and I like to explain it in terms of weight. At a certain point, you start to struggle with carrying it. And beyond that point, it becomes crushing and impossible to move or breathe.

There are a lot of different ways you can work through this and combat it, and its going to be extremely unhelpful of me, but ultimately its something you personally have to trial-and-error to see what works for you.

There is no 'right' blanket way to do something or function as an adult. There are simply ways that work for you and ways that do not work. And while its ultimately true that now and then we have to do things we don't want to, or complete tasks in ways we don't like, we do not actually have to fully live that way if its not something that is over-all conducive and beneficial.

For example; if you like to listen to music while you work but often find you get distracted by 'going to change a song' on your phone and then finding yourself 'just checking Tumblr quickly' or 'just answering this massage' and then two hours later you're still on your phone, buy a cheap solo music player like an old MP3 or an older iPod which physically doesn't have all those distracting other features. Leave your phone in another room and just listen to music on that device.

If you're putting off calling the doctor or dentist to make an appointment because you don't really know what to say, write a script. There are even pre-written script templates available online for calling for the doctor, dentist, a job interview, ect. Rehearse it a few times. Think about what questions they may be likely to ask you and pre-prepare your answers.

Maybe you're someone who does things in a staggered process, or someone who would benefit from just chunking out a day or a few hours to getting things done. Personally, I'm the sort of person who swings between them depending on what all needs to be done and what my motivation is like in the moment. Some days I'm like an animal weaponised with disinfectant and laundry pods and the next I'm putting away half my laundry and getting the dishes done and then falling asleep at 4pm like I'm actually 90 years of age and retired.

Having motivation only for things we find pleasing or enjoyable is not uncommon, but it can also be a sign of burnout. You may need to take some time to just have a break and 'de-adult' or you may need to find ways to incorporate and balance personal enjoyment and personal obligations.

For example if you enjoy reading, you might want to try audiobooks while you clean or work. I personally don't use audiobooks because I'm a very fast reader and I often quickly get frustrated with how long some of them take just to go through one page, but audiobooks work well for a lot of people, especially people who enjoy reading but may not have the time or ability to sit down with a book itself.

Structured plans and lists might work better for you than just winging it as you go. For example; you could write out a table of all the things you need to do and order them in terms of urgency and/or effort.

Putting the dishes away is generally a low effort, low urgency task. Whereas something like a work deadline could be a high urgency, moderate-high effort task.

All in all, unfortunately, other than offering suggestions and examples like above and attempting to help you understand any contributing possible causes to your de-motivation, support and encouragement are really the only other things I can offer.

Adulting can suck, but there's definitely ways to make it suck a little less. A lot of people don't even recognise when they're in a slump, so honestly, you're doing great already. You're a step ahead of a lot of people.

As for a favorite ship dynamic, I do love 'psychotic feral dog and controller.' Its a pretty 'out there' dynamic which not a lot of media really explores in a lasting or overt way aside from being a by-produce of 'villain x other' dynamics, but god. I just love feral people. Give me a raging little psychopath who'd stab someone over the last slice of toast and the person who points and says 'kill.'

I also love amplifying the feral aspect of characters who aren't canon psychopaths/similar. Billy Hargrove, for example, and Kai from Fermat's Cuisine. Its just such a fun, spicy dynamic to play with. I've actually recently got into Black Butler and shipping Sebaciel, although at the moment in full transparency I'm struggling with a lot of the recent fics for it not really being appealing to me, or being written in ways I don't enjoy.

Spock and Kirk is a fun ship, though, and probably one of the ships where there's a relentless and infinite amount of content, so 10/10 choice I'm excited for you to start diving into it! Lots of fanart and fics and fun meta to explore.

[forget-mad-not]

is the coming back era happening? its been long 🥺

It's definitely on the way, even if mostly in the background for now! I'm heartwarmed by your firm but still patience, whoever you are, thank you very much! Unfortunately, it takes time, like everything else, if you have just a little bit of confidence, and even that comes in like the tides - rushing forward and then receding. (Writing itself can indeed be like riding a bike, but you still need to get your muscles in gear, and, as you said it, I haven't done that in such a long time now. But we are making progress. It helps a lot that @mindemenyedelmem lets me spend Saturday afternoons on the couch in their apartment, banging on the mental brick wall of the writer's block. And by 'let' I mean they usually 'insist'.)

So. To show my gratitude, under the cut I've collected a few snippets from some of the writings I've started. Some new, some ancient, but generally these are the stories I've been thinking about lately and haven't shared yet (I reserve the right to change them, of course). If you're interested in any of these in more detail, or... You know, if you're not interested in any of them and would rather know something else, feel free to write again, dear asker, I'm happy to ramble, it motivates me too! :"D

TLDR; the coming back era is still coming (... heh). ✨

Who Killed Markiplier? - KOllOK | God of Day/Celine (Soline)

Jacksepticeye - IRIS | Dr. Henrik von Schneeplestein/Antisepticeye (Antistein)

Genshin Impact | Dottore/Pantalone (Dottolone)

Honkai: Star Rail | Sunday/Gallagher (Galladay) | alternate universe

Genshin Impact | Neuvillette/Wriothesley (Wriollette) | alternate universe

Naturally, there are dozens of other story seeds sprouting in my head, because I've never had a problem with ideas. These are just the ones I can show you actual sentences for.

Also, my very pretty Notion page for these things:

(Sorry, but I'm quite proud of how shiny and aesthetic it looks. :"D)

[ooops-i-arted]

I keep forgetting to post about my Eowyn cosplay... in my defense things are busy.

I have finished the mockup since this picture, including drafting new sleeves (basically making the original pattern a rectangle and longer). I had a hard time for a while because I picked a terrible fabric for the mockup (wanted something silkier since that's what I would probably end up buying, chose old lining fabric from my Bilbo jacket, got frustrated constantly with it being too slippery and not being great at all for this). And I've just been overwhelmed with life, and all the things that need to get done lately, and my house is a mess and doing anything rn requires moving 3 things to do the thing I want to do. Honestly I considered giving up, but hearing The Rider, the song from War of the Rohirrim, and seeing the ridiculous collectible popcorn bucket that I 10000% will be buying reignited my urge to be a crazy LotR fan.

I got a lot done this weekend. Thanks to my dad providing feedback I chose a poly satin described as "sanded white" so it has a bit of shimmer and texture without being too shiny and it's very pretty and flowy. I had to buy the whole bolt and thought I would still be short, but I cheated a bit with cutting two of the big pieces and was okay. I've tested a piece with sewing and ironing and I don't think it should be too difficult to work with. I cut all my pieces out after putting Arwen on and comparing the sizing to make sure I'd be good with shortening the hem a teeny bit. I had thread that matched so I'm ready to start sewing this week, which is good because the movie comes out December 13 so I need to get my butt in gear (when I'm not decking my house out in a stupid amount of decorations).

On a personal note the reason I was struggling the most is because the last time I used this pattern and made Arwen, it was my first big cosplay and my mom helped me the whole way. Now because of the cancer in her brain she can't talk or hardly react. I can't ask her questions or get feedback. It's just really brought home what's happening for me. On the other hand, it's also motivated me to make this and show her. Kind of a culmination of all she's taught me for well over a decade about sewing. Of course on the other other hand, that's a lot of pressure and I cycle back into being overwhelmed.

But Lord of the Rings has always been my spiritual compass, and there is light in dark places when all other lights go out and not all tears are an evil. I am her legacy, I am continuing this art and skill she taught me that her mother taught her. And that is something no darkness (or cancer) can blot out.

[darkx-the-dragon-kn1ght]

Pokémon Reborn Screenshot Let's Play: Chapter 44

Time is still not on my side, but not for the same reasons as last time! Hello everyone, welcome back to my humble Let’s Play- were the holidays good for you all? I hope so, we’ve still got several to go and a few more weeks left in 2024, so the holiday vibes aren’t quite done yet.

Regardless of whatever you celebrate, I’m celebrating getting this chapter out! Yeah, the thing is, I was actually able to finish prep work for my Fire Emblem TTRPG adventure in a very timely manner- and then I had to cancel the session for Reasons. Both of these circumstances gave me a lot of time to do the play session for this chapter and start writing for it- and yet, it still took me more time than usual to get this chapter posted. I think it’s because I got an extended weekend from work because of Thanksgiving, and the following week was me just trying to get back into the groove of things, so that probably tanked my writing motivation and productivity.

Luckily, my motivation couldn’t hide from me forever, and so here we are. Now then, before we get into the main festivities, it’s that time for the recap! Although last chapter was very eventful, given how long it’s been since I posted it, a few reminders will probably do all of us some good.

Xera travels across the Reborn and Chrysolia Regions to catch some new Pokémon, namely: Charge the Blitzle, Neon the (Shiny) Tynamo, Carnation the Corsola, Nekko the Hoppip, Fuwa the Drifloon, Pan the Nuzleaf, Midnight the Murkrow, Guava the Tropius, Apollo the Helioptile, and Poly the Porygon.

Xera catches Pan after defeating a Shiftry, who was the leader of the Nuzleaf tribe causing mischief in Rhodochrine Jungle. She catches Fuwa while helping a little boy return to his home in Lapis Ward, saving him a second time from a Venipede swarm in the process.

While Laura and Charlotte are still gone, Xera and Noel decide to go ahead with their Gym battle. With Shelly as the referee and Anna’s encouragement, Xera faces off against the Normal-type prodigy.

After a very, very, VERY hard-fought battle, Xera is finally able to defeat Noel and earn the Standard Badge. Just as they finish, Laura returns, though Charlotte has gone off on her own for some alone time. 

Laura explains that her and her sisters’ parents were killed years ago in a house fire caused when Charlotte snuck outside to play with her Vulpix- all the plants and grass around, it was all too easy for fire to spread. She goes on to explain how Saphira has looked after them ever since, and she grows tearful at the thought of anything happening to either of her sisters.

At Anna’s insistence, the group heads back inside to help Laura calm down. Noel takes Xera aside to tell her about his doubts regarding Saphira surviving that fall from Tanzan Mountain. He believes someone needs to go out and look for her, alive or dead- and since Anna won’t let him leave, it falls to Xera.

Suddenly, another tremor shakes the area. Noel and Xera return to the living room to hear the others discussing an explosion that just took place at the top of Tanzan Mountain, where the Meteor base was. Additionally, Charlotte has yet to return.

So yeah, a lot of stuff from last chapter, even if the actual summary is actually pretty short. Thanks to the weathermod password, I won’t be held back from catching event Pokémon anymore (I think), so that’ll be nice. Less nice is how much trouble the Noel fight gave me, by far the most difficult boss battle I’ve had to deal with in this game so far- does that bode well, considering it took me until the seventh Badge to get truly stuck like that? Or is it a terrible omen of the fact that the difficulty is going to continue ramping up in such a way? 

I guess we’ll find out in this chapter, because arson is also real! Not sure what the deal with the Meteor base is, but that’s what we gotta go investigate I suppose, in addition to investigating what became of Saphira. Heck, maybe they’re related, maybe Saphira went back and finished the job! Or maybe that’s where Charlotte ran off to, she went to take out her tragic backstory turmoil on the Meteors- honestly, I can see it go either way.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Part 16

[eolewyn1010]

Downton Abbey Fashion 65 - evening dresses in 1924

Cora has so many new evening gowns this time around, twelve altogether, a lot of which she brings over into season 6. Did they suddenly make a lot of money with Mary’s pig-farming or did she just get tired of how unflattering sack top dresses look on her?

Presumably the former, because she still does the drop waist sash, as uncomplimentary on her figure as it may be, and this one is a keeper for the next season. Admittedly, this dress is one of my favorites because the silvery golden lace over ice blue looks wonderful and I’m weak for slit sleeves. But it still suffers the baggy top effect, and I think it would look more flattering if the front was allowed to flow down loosely as the back does. That sash also perhaps shouldn’t be quite so shiny; it looks like a plastic ribbon on a Christmas present. Nevertheless, this is a lovely dress, and Cora has some lovely hair jewelry to go with it in the second picture.

Why can’t I get a shot of this with Cora standing still, preferably in a well-lit room? It’s such a nice dress – look how well that cream-golden glittery damask top pairs with the burgundy velvet skirt! Said skirt has been draped asymmetrically to gather up on her left hip, and I wish they would have done with a smaller buckle on that ruching or none at all. The lace sash looping around twice would have been enough there.

A dream in turquoise, this dress is layering one of those deep V wrap tops in 100% glitter over a silk satin rectangle. Since industrial glitter as we know it today wasn’t a thing before 1934, I have to assume the glitter here is (in-universe) either ground glass or silicate or crunched metal sequins, which means this little beauty here is potentially rather heavy. Which would explain why the upper layer doesn’t go all the way to her ankles and why they made the wing sleeves of chiffon – otherwise, Cora probably could not walk. However, I’m trash, so this makes my fave list.

I hope you’re not sick of pale blue silk satin yet, because that’s what you’re getting. This time, it’s got golden lace over it and a pair of gorgeous velvet sleeves that I cannot easily describe. They are wing sleeves, reaching down to the hip, but they don’t flutter loosely there but are instead looped into the drop waist. It’s massively gathered, which can’t be a joy with such a heavy fabric, and it doesn’t dress the arms so much as frames them. So far, I’m on board. And then there’s this strange skirt construction of velvet strips down the sides, splitting over the base layer, and this bottom-heavy embroidered arrow element that makes the skirt fall really weirdly. This does stay into season 6 though. I’m grateful for the sleeves, I guess.

This dress is just all damask. The under layer with the half-long, fluttery sleeves is of a very flowery, shiny champagne fabric, and then the sleeveless dress over it is a dusty pink just covered in roses and leaves. But despite the weave motives being different enough, it took me a second look to realize that they did differ beyond the color – because they match up so nicely. And then it’s flowing down smoothly without a drop waistband and with wonderful drapey sleeves; I love it.

One of two dresses that stick out from Cora’s other evening wardrobe this season, most of which is either shades of blue or an off-white color paired with a red of some degree – this one is a golden orange of the sort Edith often wears. It only shows up this once, and the black beading doesn’t do anything spectacular, so the only comment I’ll allow myself is that the black gloves probably make this look vaguely like a Halloween pumpkin costume.

Back on ice blue, albeit in a darker, greyer configuration because I cannot have decently-lit velvet around here, we have another dress with some ruching on the left hip (why is it always the left?). This one, thankfully, doesn’t do the sash nor a heavy brooch there; it’s just the gathering working in tandem with the gathering up on the little chiffon wing sleeves. The chiffon peeking out asymmetrically in the neckline confuses me though; it doesn’t end up looking so much like a design choice than sloppy even though it probably isn’t. What gives? Cora does have a pretty pearl tiara and some pretty necklaces to this, so it was nice enough for a season 6 comeback.

Cora loves her velvet, doesn’t she? This dress comes in a very dark blue and with a sash around the drop waist, and then the interesting stuff is all going on above her chest. I love this yoke bit; seems to be a fairly strong and stiff golden lace, but embroidered with what I think is a pretty geometrical, art deco-ish take on lotus flowers.

The other dress that sticks out, the only green one for the season. It’s not quite as generic as the orange one, but it also doesn’t look like it’s been lovingly designed for Cora. No complaints about the white beading; I just feel this could have done a little more structurally.

A pretty cream-golden dress with a large flower motif, this one stays into the next season. It’s got the deep red as a contrast point again, albeit reduced to a few diagonal strips of chiffon. Worth it – I like how they frame her neck. Her right shoulder has a little additional ribbon of the same material as her dress, and it’s barely visible and therefore not really contributing to fashionable asymmetry, so I’m wondering why it’s there.

Blurry shot of a very pretty dress, but the other frontal picture I have of it is from season 6 when the poor lighting eats up all the color. Not that the back is bad to look at; this is honestly put together so charmingly. It keeps the baggy part entirely in the back where it can serve as a little cape, and the front is smooth until it flares out with the skirt. The way the blue lace drapes around her arms and shoulders? Lovely, zero notes.

Ending on her Christmas dress and, in season 6, regular evening dress, my opinion of Cora in white or cream has not improved. This is not the worst; she has a healthy complexion here and the dress stands out with endless rows of glittery embroidery, but it could have done with that circular ornament on the hip.

[whumpbug]

Hello Bug!! I'm the anon who wrote the Christmas fanfic, and I'm so so glad you liked it!!! (I was actually super nervous about your reaction so all the positive things you said about it were very reassuring)

Gonna reread what you said about it so many times because it is such a source of serotonin

Anyway, you asked a few questions!!! which I would be happy to answer :)

Reference to the hypothermia fic?

Yes!!! Good job catching that!!

Both the old lady and the brother were intended to reference that fic. However what I didn't take into account while writing was that this would make Quinn and Temo related and my intention was to have a bunch of people Who Don't Necessarily Know Each Other coming together for a common goal

So YES they were both references but I'm gonna go with saying that the old lady was a different old lady but Temo's brother was indeed the kid from the hypothermia fic. if you want that to be canon that is

What's in the box?

I'm gonna be completely honest, the reason why I initially left it ambiguous was partially because I thought it'd be sweet to leave it open ended and partially because I. couldn't think of anything

I was gonna let you decide

BUT I have done some thinking and out of all the ideas I had, there's one I like the best. It's a new Vigil suit.

The nurse and all the kids gave a little bit of money to be able to afford it, the nurse with wages and the kids either with allowance or what they could persuade their families to lend them for a good cause. My idea is that Archie's original suit got super messed up (torn, stained et cetera) so they wanted to get him a shiny new one. The way they did this was by commissioning someone (who was willing to make it for half price because. cmon it's VIGIL) ahead of time so it would be ready for Christmas. All the kids have been patients at the hospital for at least a month, unfortunately. But FORTUNATELY, it gave them lots of time to plan this!!! Yes they have been planning this since before Archie was even shot. No they did not expect him to be shot. They actually had no idea how they were going to get the suit to him

The other gifts weren't planned though. They came up with those after the incident because they thought he deserved a little more :)

---

Alright!! Now that that's done, here's a little something extra

NATALIE Fifteen years old. Her favorite thing about Vigil is his kindness. It really is that simple. She loves how he's always been so openhearted and willing to help anyone who needs it. He's patient, compassionate and remarkably selfless. He saves people from disasters, but he also stays with them afterwards to make sure they're okay. She understands how thin he spreads himself, and she really appreciates it.

QUINN Five years old. Her favorite thing about Vigil is his bravery. She's absolutely amazed by how much he does every day. She notices how courageous he is, how strong someone has to be to do the things he does. When she grows up, she wants to be exactly like him.

CUAUHTEMOC (Temo) 10 years old. His favorite thing about Vigil is his resilience. No matter what happens, he's always back the next night. No matter how hard he's hit, he gets back up. Temo's life hasn't been a walk in the park, but Vigil gives him so much motivation to be strong. He's his idol. (He's been making crayon drawings of Vigil since Archie first started out as a vigilante. A lot of them are hung up in his room)

ESPERANZA 7 years old. Her favorite thing about Vigil is his enthusiasm. She can tell how passionate he is about helping people. He reminds her a lot of her late older sister — someone who seemed to put everything she was into what she loved. Vigil is brave, and he's willing to keep going no matter how hard it gets, but he's also happy. Esperanza wants to achieve that happiness someday. She's a little worried about him, though, which is why she has so much appreciation for the people who return the favor and go out of their way to help him. People like Simon.

THE NURSE (whom I have spontaneously decided is named Fred) 35 years old. His favorite thing about Vigil is the happiness he leaves behind. The kids who get to go home to their parents. The lovers who would have died, but instead they're strolling down the street hand-in-hand. It's the kind of thing that can never be truly repaid. But Vigil deserves a city that tries.

And here's a collective note they left for when their beloved hero woke up (Fred wrote Quinn's addition, but she drew the smiley face and signed her name) "Hi Vigil! I hope you like our gifts. Thank you so much for everything. -Natalie" "We love you Vigil!!! Get well soon 😄 -Quinn" "You probably get this a lot but you're my hero, Vigil. I hope you like my book -Temo" "Hi Vigil you're the best! REMEMBER TO HAVE A COOKIE -Esperanza" "Take it easy, okay? You only have seven lives left -Fred"

As always I love your ocs so much Bug :)

HI AGAIN ANON!!! i'm so glad i was able to be encouraging because you deserve it!!! the fic was so so so good!

✮⋆˙

thank you again for such amazing piece!! i was going to respond to everything BUT. expect my addition to the fic shortly. my "responses" are there!

the little note and the reasons they love vigil are so CUTE ANON i hope you know that. i love these characters so much. i truly plan on trying to incorporate them into future fics as little easter eggs because they are so well fleshed out and definitely important to archie now!!!!!

okay thats enough of me yapping! i'm going to go edit my fic so hopefully itll be up in at most a few hours! thank you again anon!!!

✮⋆˙

[nixmcretro]

New Year, New Something That Rhymes with Year

Technically I’m still the same, but my hammock is weirdly outdoors. For the first time in years I have an outdoor area. I’m no longer trapped in a box. I hate apartments. At the same time, urban sprawl isn’t good from an environmental standpoint either. Maybe the answer lies in population reduction? I’m doing my part!

We’ve got cicadas out here in the wastelands. The floury baker cicadas are still about, the one above was intercepted from a noisy miner (Manorina melanocephala) but had catastrophic wing damage at the joint. He was laid to rest that same afternoon. Just because something can suffer, doesn’t mean it should. Rest easy little one.

We’ve also held our first barbecue without incident. My diet remains mostly vegan, thanks to reduced pressure on rent. The only big exception is salmon which will probably be replaced eventually again.

The garden though, and being able to have plants outdoors in the sunlight. What a game changer. I’ve made an active decision to let dandelions take over the buffalo grass. They mow down quite well.

Looks better than any buffalo grass I’ve ever seen. Function over form I say. When they are at full growth, they provide pollen for the bees (native and European), harbour lots of little bug jumpers, which in turn feed the lizards that roam the grass. A little sad when a common blackbird (Turdus merula) snaps up a few, but as long as I can keep the bugs plentiful the lizards should thrive.

Not everything has been rosy though. My first plant casualty, lavender. I had high hopes for it, but since I don’t really know what I am doing it kind of died. Farewell lavender.

My native beehives have been doing well, attracting a few different species of native masked bee (Genus Hylaneus) as well as native wasps (possibly Genus Pison). Both are ridiculously tiny and harmless to us.

Then you’ve got the other bugs, like the pictured assassin bug nymph, Pristhesancus plagipennis. It’s ready to drink the brains of the next honeybee that lands nearby.

And now I’m back on the Apple Watch train with my shiny new Apple Watch SE 2. This time around I’ve picked out the smaller of the two and went with the 40mm. And I have to say, I do not miss the bulk of the 44mm. The Apple Watch is a great motivator to stay on track with new year health goals.

Wait that’s not the image I was looking for… that’s more dandelions!

Whoops, that’s another floury baker cicada. I think the several that were in this tree were eaten by the local bat population as they’ve been silent for a while now.

And that’s Stumpie. Tail growth is coming along well. If I find him running about while I’m mowing the lawn I’ll move him into a lizard hotel plastic tub until I’m done.

Don’t look at me like that Stumpie. We don’t want any repeats of how you got the name Stumpie after all!

Then we’ve got this little guy still rocking about, a bar-sided skink (Concinnia tenuis). After being trapped by a redback spider (Latrodectus hasselti). Luckily for the lizard I noticed…

And here’s the data I wanted to show. Weight loss is beginning again. You might notice a drop almost immediately after becoming unemployed, then a spike to >100 kg when I ran out of money thanks to Sydney’s rental market being unaffordable for a single person – let alone an unemployed single person.

Sure, I could have killed myself easily enough but chose to do the paradigm shift thing. Is it enough of a shift? That’s still an unknown at this point. At least for now, there are real life distractions everywhere which seems to leave very little time for uploading videos. Not such a bad thing I guess. That’s not to say I haven’t been recording new footage.

Better go and check the garden is still there and get my 30 minutes of exercise in. Target weight is set at 75 kg this time around. Roughly 20 kg of weight loss to go, and while transitioning. Should be one heck of a ride. 🤷‍♀️

[tactician]

my absolute fav mythic pokemon in its shiny forme is finally here with me - shiny manaphy from pokemon ranger!!! i named mine reides after my beloved dnd oc, who is another sea prince!!! and i'm going to try to make it a 'ribbon master' as well (prob minus a few battle tower related ribbons but We Will See), so i'll be transfering lil reides up through multiple generations. i'm starting off in pearl, where it'll be part of my official storyline team!

i definitely have a lot to say about this hunt. it was absolutely CRAZY from start to finish, by far the craziest one i've ever done, so i'm gonna slide some ramblings about it under a little cut here...!!! i’m gonna try to keep it brief but i just know i’m gonna end up writing a ton LMAO

ok! so! manaphy has actually been shiny locked in every single game that it's been featured in. the pokemon ranger manaphy is no exception to this. :( the manaphy egg that you get from pokemon ranger is specifically programmed to NEVER hatch as a shiny in the game you receive it in. but thanks to a little programming oversight, you can actually hatch a shiny one if you trade the egg that you received in one game over to another one. then you hatch the egg in that other game and it has the potential to be shiny. that's how people do this hunt: by ensnaring themselves in the union room and trading over the eggs repeatedly until one hatches shiny.

but let me tell you. getting one legitimate manaphy egg alone requires sooo much preparation. you need a copy of pokemon ranger played to the point where you can transfer the egg over (aka post-game), and you can typically only get one single manaphy egg per save file of pokemon ranger. even if you select 'new game' in your copy of ranger, the manaphy egg would always be marked as claimed. so if you look into the process of this shiny hunt, you'll find out about a method involving four copies of ranger and 'reverse hunting', wherein people shuffle the same four eggs from these copies around various gen4 games for the whole hunt, restarting their games and playing through the whole opening sequence repeatedly in the hopes that their new trainer ids will eventually match up and result in the egg hatching as a shiny. luckily, though, people eventually found out that the 'one manaphy egg per cartridge' thing is actually kind of a misconception. if you have a way of wiping that cartridge's .sav file BEYOND selecting 'new game', you can actually get as many eggs from one cartridge as you like - and, most importantly, these eggs will not be clones of each other. since i only have one copy of pokemon ranger AND i had the means of doing the .sav wipe, i decided to take this approach to the hunt. i also got really lucky because the friend who gave me his copy of pokemon ranger (SHOUTOUT TO JM) had played to the point of having the manaphy egg on the cartridge but hadn’t sent it out yet, so i didn’t have to take on the pokemon ranger plot grind at all. this was a huge motivator for me when i decided to take on the hunt bc it was just so incredibly convenient! 

at first, i started off with two systems, but at this hunt's peak i was using four (4) systems to transfer and hatch eggs. after doing that tedious back-and-forth for a good ~700 eggs (averaging at around 45 eggs per day and using up like 90% of my free time to get them - transfer speed was SLOW, to the point that i feel like doing the reverse hunting method may actually be faster), my friend cody randomly brought up the concept of rng hunting. i'd heard about rng hunting before, but it always seemed like a really convuluted process with lots of Numbers (and, y’know, Numbers Scary) - so i stayed away from it for years. but i offhandedly looked into it again and saw that a lot of people had success with it for their manaphy hunts... so i ended up looking into the process in a way more in-depth manner than before. and i'm not gonna lie... it totally gripped me. in EXTREMELY simplistic terms, rng hunters use (external) timing programs which assist them in loading into a specific seed of their game. they then advance the frames of that seed to a targeted one with a shiny, then catch that shiny. it's a process that requires a whole lot of precision - especially if you're doing it on an actual console vs on an emulator of some sort - but the more videos i watched, the more hype i was to try it for myself. not gonna lie, attempting it seemed almost fated bc the night before i had been randomly gripped by an urge to find as many of my old consoles as i could, which included my ds lite. i ended up needing to use that for the rng process, as i needed a copy of leafgreen slotted into the ds while i tried to get the right seed. the timing of that was seriously so weird. destiny fr.

anyway, there were a lot of setbacks initially - mostly because the transferred manaphy egg is received in a mart, and, in dppt, all of the marts have moving npcs which mess with your frames SO much - but after a bunch of attempts, i ended up prevailing in the end. i was pretty sure that i messed up and advanced my frames too far but i took the egg anyway, traded it over to platinum, hatched it... and there it was. a lil brave-natured shiny manaphy!

that egg was my 713th egg, and so this manaphy took 713 eggs to get home and gained another special element of being my very first successful rng-based shiny!!!

i'm really so thrilled with how it all turned out, this is definitely a shiny hunt that i won't ever forget!! i made so many crazy memories during it with friends and i feel like i know soooo much more about pokemon as a whole now. i'm super happy to have this ribbon master challenge to focus on now, too. it's what reides deserves!!! <3

[likegemstone]

I HAD AN IDEA

Context: Last week I had the worst depressive episode I've had in years, and I was feeling incredibly discouraged and unmotivated to work on HBM and/or do any art. I traced the source of my lack of motivation back to the fact that my ADHD needs a new shiny-challenge to interest it because "just write/edit HBM and do art" is not giving it the good brain juice. I talked to friends and also my therapist and realized that 1. setting clear goals and 2. making those goals shiny-new-gameified would help a lot.

AND I THINK I HAVE FOUND THE SOLUTION. It took lots of pondering and list-making (list making gives the good brain juice, for me) and also realizing that my new goal deadline is going to have to be before Tears of the Kingdom comes out because that's definitely going to take over my whole life for 1-2 months, but here's what I came up with:

I get a jar and fill it with scraps of paper. Each scrap has a Task on it--and a reward. We're going Real Life video game side quests here. When I have the time-energy-motivation to Do a Thing, I pull a scrap of paper. The goal might be like "edit Ep. 2 for one hour" or something and the reward might be like "go get some ice cream" or "watch an ep of X show". I still need to come up with a varied list of rewards so it will stay new-fresh-shiny until the things get done.

And if I'm really not feeling whatever the Task is, I can just replace it in the jar and pick a new one. If I go through all the scraps before the deadline/before the goals are complete, I just come up with new tasks and rewards. This continues until my ADHD gets bored of this too and I have to find a new way to entice it once again.

I'm also telling y'all because accountability and such. So--

The deadline: May 12

The goals:

Finish editing Episode 2

Finish writing Episode 6

Make a new cover for Episode 2

Considering how long episodes of HBM are, that's a lot to do in just a little over a month, so it's not a big deal if I don't hit all three. As long as I get one done and make some headway on the others, that's a-okay. I will keep y'all updated on how this goes.

[sproutingliliums]

rambling and braindumping first thing in the morning, but it’s so interesting how in BSS the show pits zuko and jet against each other while also reestablishing conflict between jet and katara. and then the season finale just so happens to throw katara and zuko in a shiny cave together. alone.

jet’s insisting that he’s changed, but katara doesn’t believe him, and he wants her forgiveness but then it’s too late. the change she’s seen in him, the possibility of starting over. violently ripped away from her. and it’s sad because no matter what jet has done in the past, they’re all so young. they’re all victims of this cruel war. they’re just kids.

meanwhile zuko is literally going through some kind of metamorphosis. vigilante activities, trying to release himself from the expectations of his father, coming to grips with the fact that he is a traitor to his country, trying live a new life with his uncle, and maybe regain his honor in a way that is true to himself (or discover that his honor was something that could never be taken from him).

then zuko gets tossed into the catacombs and katara is vulnerable and frustrated and alone. then they have this moment of clarity and mutual understanding—recognizing in him something she sees in herself. and maybe there’s a part of her that’s hoping that this time she’ll get it right, and this time no one has to get hurt (mind you, she saw jet dying not too long ago).

katara wants to believe that people can change. that her empathy, kindness, and willingness to trust in spite of everything she has experienced won’t blow up in her face for once. that she can give people hope for a better future. that she can help this person who also lost his mother to the nation that violently took hers from her as well.

…and then he doesn’t throw it all away for her! and then aang basically dies! if i were katara, i would’ve lost my fucking mind!!! and if i ever saw zuko again, i would also want to wring his neck because how dare you, like i would be pissed.

but it’s so clear to me how knowing about jet and zuko’s grief allows her to recontextualize their motivations and also their anger. it humanizes them, makes her look at them from a new perspective, for better or for worse. and she is drawn to those traits because she, to some degree, is the same! she, too, carries this anger within her.

zuko in the catacombs is foreign to her. it’s a zuko with no fight left in him. just sitting there in silence, not even fighting back when she’s yelling at him (lol). and when all of that anger has been stripped away, katara is able to see him for who he is: a boy who is lost, conflicted, and hurt. a boy who wants to go home but can’t, and even if he could, it’s not like his mother will be there waiting for him.

[midnightstargazer]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thanks for the tag, @celestemagnoliathewriter

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

42

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

336,066

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Harry Potter

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Toujours Vivant (457 kudos)

The Enemy of My Enemy (308 kudos)

Reborn from the Ashes (203 kudos)

May These Memories Break Our Fall (117 kudos)

The Disowned Heir (86 kudos)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Sometimes. I try to, but a lot of the time I don't get around to it or can't think of what to say. I do always respond if someone asks a question, though.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I've written a lot of angst, but probably Midnight Rain or The Auror's Wife. Both are canon compliant Alice Longbottom fics, and it's hard to get angstier than that.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably Something Borrowed. It's ... not unambiguously happy: it's in the middle of the war, Lily's parents are dead, her relationship with Petunia is not in a great place, and canonically she and James will both be dead in another couple of years. But it's mostly a fluffy wedding fic, and it ends on a very sweet and happy note.

(I would say I'd Marry You With Paper Rings, but that's a 96 word drabble and more of a snapshot of a single moment than a story with an ending).

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not yet, thankfully

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

No. I've done a couple of fade to black and waking up in bed together type scenes, but that's the closest I've gotten.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I'm pretty sure I did a long time ago, but not recently/under this pen name

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

No

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

My favorite HP ships are Tedromeda and Jily, but I'm not sure if I'd call either of them my all-time favorites. I'm coming up blank on what else I've shipped. You know how, when someone asks you what you want for Christmas, all of a sudden you can't think of a single thing? It's like that.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I've got an outline and some notes for a multi-chapter Dorlene-centric fic that takes place toward the end of the first war. I'd like to write it at some point, but it's really not a priority right now. I like the ship and the characters, but I probably don't love them enough to carry me through a longer fic, and I have too many other ideas that I'm more excited about.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm pretty good at capturing emotions and character motivations in my writing.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Getting distracted by shiny new ideas at the expense of my current WIPs. Also, I usually struggle to describe the setting.

18. Thought on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I've used small bits of French, which is the only other language I know well enough to write in. I would be hesitant to use something like Google Translate for a language I'm not familiar with, because it does make mistakes that I wouldn't be able to catch, which could be distracting for someone who actually speaks the language. I have looked up Latin words for new spells, though.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I don't even know. As a kid, I used to make up new stories about shows and books I liked all the time, without even knowing what fanfic was. And then I went through a period of writing stuff down, but not showing it to anyone else or sharing it anywhere. So even if I still had the FFN account I used as a teenager (which I don't), looking at that wouldn't even tell me where I really started.

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

Toujours Vivant. This is the idea I couldn't get out of my head that pulled me back from my "I'm an adult, I don't do fandom anymore" phase, and I love it for that.

Open tag for anyone who wants to do this!

[lees-chaotic-brain]

Ahhh tysm for the tag Ann! I haven't done one of these in a while!

Describe your writing process from idea to posting/publishing

Um. It's actually quite simple.

1. Get idea

2. Tell you guys about it and promise I'll write it

3. Sudden burst of shiny new wip motivation! Write between 100 and 1000 words

4. Forget about shiny new wip for months, only remembering it when someone goes "hey, what happened to that fic you said you were going to start?"

Or alternatively,

Lose all motivation to write and blatantly lie to people by telling them I'm working on it when I haven't even clicked into the doc tab in weeks

5. Suddenly remember it/regain motivation and swear to all of you that it'll be out that day/week

6. Not finish it by when I said I would

7. Spend three consecutive sleepless nights writing it in my head as I do things I don't even need to do, not typing a single word until I reach a state of semi-consciousness and have transcended the reach of procrastination (this is also how I go about writing essays and doing important assignments)

8. Finally sit down and write it

9. Post! That is, if I don't accidentally save it to drafts instead of posting and forget about it for another month or so

That's it! If you can't already tell, I have adhd lmao

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Depends on the fic tbh. Sometimes I just go with vibes, and sometimes I'll have been working the idea out in my head for some time. But most of the time I just jump in with no idea what I'm doing and post it when I feel like it's reached it's natural ending.

What do you listen to when you are writing?

Again, depends. I have a ton of different playlists so it really just depends on what I'm feeling at the moment. If I'm writing a song fic I listen to the song on repeat, and when I'm writing I tend to lean more towards quiet indie songs but I also will write listening to the most random things so idk.

What’s your drink of choice(while writing)?

Tea. Tea tea tea tea tea. I LOVE tea. Just ask @cheesypuffkins87

Promote yourself! What’s your favorite thing you’ve written?

That's so hard, what? I have so many that I like, and I honestly can't pick a favorite. (I also hate everything I've ever written on some level but that's a completely different story)

If I HAD to pick one, it would probably be Attractive with Yuuji just because i love the crack.

But i'd say two close seconds are Quiet with Inumaki (i love me some angst) and "No. You're Not." with Megumi because reader is so me coded lmao.

Share a fic of yours that you think is underrated/deserves more love.

Oooh probably Call You Mine with Nanami. I didn't mention it in the above question because I was going to add it here, but it's definitely in my top five, if not maybe even my top three.

If not the above one, then Can't Help Falling In Love With You with Gojo. I just really liked this fic and would love to see it get some more attention!

Do you have any advice for new writers?

Literally just what Ann said. If you get an idea, write it!! You never know what's going to happen. I posted my first silly little idea a little over a year ago, not expecting anyone to notice it only for it to get well over 500 notes on it's first day. Now I have over 500 followers. And even if that doesn't happen, that's okay because someone out there read it and enjoyed it <3

On top of that just be gentle with yourself. It's okay if you go months without writing. It's okay if your fics don't get as many notes as other people do. It's okay to take a million years to finish a request. You're only human :)

What is a writing style/technique that others do really well that you'd like to get better at?

Probably using less verbs and having more variety in my sentence structure. Also smaus, because I feel like I have some ideas that would EAT, but I lack the capability.

Is there a character you were surprised you enjoyed writing as much as you did?

Not really. Maybe Toji? I thought I wouldn't enjoy writing for him, but in the one fic I wrote for him (You and I) I actually had way more fun than I thought I would!

No Pressure Tags: @m-ilkiee @romantichomicide95 @crescentmoontsuki @batterygarden @pseudowho

@kimkaelyn @writingcroissant @seireiteihellbutterfly @kimkaelyn @andypantsx3

@irisintheafterglow @ponderingmoonlight + whoever wants to join!!

Writing tag game by @bonecarversbestie <3

thank you @sunshinebingo for tagging me ily pookie 🥹

Describe your writing process from idea to posting/publishing

sleeping. like thats the first step. i sleep a lot and i love it. before i fall asleep, i obvs am in my delulu lala land thinking about either my future husband or my fics and og books. from there i think about the weirdest unrealistic plots and then i keep thinking about them so i can remember them in the morning.

and then i write after im done helping with house chores and my work. i usually post the thing as soon as its done or shcedule it lol

(or in case of my og books, i keep em there hehe)

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

pantser 😭 but recently ive been trying to become a plotter. wish me luck 🥲

What do you listen to when you are writing?

anything i can think of lol. sometimes its kpop, sometimes japanese or arabic songs. sometimes sabrina and taylor, sometimes skz and new jeans.

i usually add random songs i can think of in my playlist i listen to while doing chores, and then i continue listening to thos songs while writing.

What’s your drink of choice(while writing)?

nothing tbh. water ig? i need to go get my new stock of capri sun tho ive been dying to have my stock refilled 😞

(gonna find some way to whisper in my dads ear that i want caprisun and it will be at home lmao)

Promote yourself! What’s your favorite thing you’ve written?

cursed is something i love a lot because that plot is like. auasadh so good. also my i didnt ask for this series. its so close to my heart my god its my child. my baby 🥹

Share a fic of yours that you think is underrated/deserves more love.

to love and cakes it took me months to write kinda but like. its a lucien fic and its 10k long lmaoo what did i expect. but its also my baby i love it heheh

Do you have any advice for new writers?

WRITE. THAT. DUMB. IDEA. YOU. THINK. NO. ONE. WILL. READ.

👏🏻WRITE👏🏻IT👏🏻

almost all of my most loved fics have been ideas i thought no one would care about enough to read. and then the morning after i posted them, id wake up to people telling me how much they loved the fic and end up with me sobbing because everyones so lovely 🥹

also. people can sometimes be mean. 👏🏻IGNORE👏🏻THEM.👏🏻 ignore them the way you ignore maths when studying.

ive seen so many new talented writers either stop writing or lash back out at these clowns, but you need to understand that replying to these people who are just trying to get a rcton out of you is not worth it. your happiness matters more. put yourself before them and ignore thei comments if it hurts you. that will prick their egos more than you arguing with them.

What is a writing style/technique that others do really well that you'd like to get better at?

i kinda wanna learn how to describe rooms. that bitch truly be bitin my ass 😞uh also how t write poetically kinda

Is there a character you were surprised you enjoyed writing as much as you did?

honestly, maybe lucien. i only ever thought about writing for batboys when i had begun but then i fell in love with him and i couldnt stop writing about him 🥹

tagging: @bubybubsters @separatist-apologist @assassinsblade @animezinglife @acourtofladydeath

@daycourtofficial @lucienarcheron @sapphicmsmarvel @berryzxx

@riddlesb1tch @throneofsmut @throneofsapphics @tadpolesonalgae @writingsbychlo

@fieldofdaisiies @moonlightazriel @harrystylesfan2686 @mika-no-sekai-blog

@itsphoenix0724 @lyssasdrafts @flickering-chandelier @lees-chaotic-brain

@hellcat8908 @ceoofyearning @potatoplace

[dailyadventureprompts]

DM Tip: Better Loot

Treasure is ubiquitous in D&D, it’s presumed to be one of the default motivations, if not the only motivation behind many adventures, despite the fact that very little thought has been put into the systems by which the DM generates the treasure and the party plays around with it. After nearly two decades of being a DM I can’t count the number of times I’ve made a treasure horde and handed it out to the players while feeling as if the fun game we had been playing had suddenly been put on pause. 

It took me a while to realize that this was because unlike combat ( the favourite child among d&d’s many subsystems) very little attention had been made to making loot feel good at any stage of the process whether it was down to the mechanics or even the presentation. 

While below the cut I’m going to get into systems about easier ways to generate treasure,  rebalanced magic item prices, and how to get your players in on the fun, for now I want to focus on this element of presentation when it comes to handing out loot.

Here’s some of my findings, in no particular order:

Just like combat has “ Roll initiative” and “how do you want to do this?”, handing out loot should have codified phrases to indicate that the party is entering into a specific period of game time. It’s a ritual that will not only get them excited but have them in the right kind of headspace required for absorbing new information. The phrases I’ve been using are “ You spill out your plunder across the table/dungeon floor and there you find_____”  and “With that sorted, you pack away your spoils, and return to the adventure at hand”

I completely ignore art items/gems, they’re a neat idea for flavor but they slow things down at every turn ( coming up with them during loot generations, players recording them) and are almost always junked for gp at the first possible opportunity. The exception to this is valuable trade goods/collectors items, which I mention being worth X gp in value but worth MORE if the party can find an associated merchant ( as a questhook)

GP comes first, followed by the names of the items and a brief as possible physical description. Players can ask questions generally on what items do but either have to call dibs then or divy them up on their own time.  Listening to the dm dispassionately read out the stats of an item is boring as hell, only eclipsed by the dm describing the indepth  LOOK of various items and then asking the party to roll checks to identify/figure out of the items work. Speed in divvying loot keeps the momentum of the game going and you want to tap into the “OOOH, SHINY” impulse of your players before their eyes glaze over.

I HIGHLY suggest keeping a party doc with the stats of all your items copy/pasted into it. Divide the doc up by characters/in the cart, so your party can always remember where shit was. Ask one organized player to be the one to keep track of the party doc and share it with the others. Call them “quartermaster” they’ll love that shit. 

Unless the item in question needs to be used immediately “ It’ll be in the party doc” is your answer when they ask for stats. Update the partydoc after session so your group can have the whole week to look at it and get used to things between sessions. Gearing up with new loot is just as much homework as leveling up a character, and is best done away from the table.

After you’re done checking out the treasure generation rules below, also be sure to check out my systems on handling shopping trips, making identifying items more interesting, and managing party wealth. I’m sure you’ll find something there that can help improve your game.

The magic item chart to rule them all

Figuring out a better way to generate magic items was actually pretty simple once I had all the pieces in place, though it took me a many attempts to realize what I actually wanted in such a system:

It had to be simple and time saving, requiring the least amount of math/chart references as possible

it had to be relevant at every level accommodating to 3rd party material

d&d already divides items and adventuring parties into tiers, and the game already allows lower level parties the chance at finding items that outstrip their tier.  

Absolutely no effort should be spent generating items wroth random amounts of gp when players are going to instantly sell them.

Which led me to this thing of elegance:

To generate a hoard of items, roll a single set of dice (1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 2d10, 1d12, 1d20) and compare the numbers rolled against the chart above. Every 0 represents an item relevant to the party’s adventuring tier ( so a lvl 1-5 group would get common, lvl 6-10 group would get uncommon and so on). +1s represent an item of a grade above, -1s represent an item of a grade below. I had to invent a tier below common, but d&d already has rules for “trinkets” as fun but mechanically useless items that were easy to adapt.

After I’ve got a string of -1s, 0s, and +1s, it’s only a matter of comparing them against whatever list/books I’m using to supply items. For sake of ease, I’ve got multiple google docs where I’ve sorted my collection of 3rd party and homebrew items by rarity and theme, but if you don’t hoard material like I do you don’t have to worry about that. 

New Magic Item Prices

having several thousand GP worth of wiggleroom for high level items helps no one, so instead we’re going with a base 5 system that’ll guide us through the rest of this doc. These prices are meant as an absolute baseline for things like crafting and haggling down to, as well as determining the value of non-magical rewards later on.

Trinket: 10 , Common: 50 , Uncommon: 250   Rare: 725 , Very Rare:  3625 , Legendary: 18,125

Having a concrete price also lets you use my chart to generate raw GP in coinage:  too many items cluttering up your list? run out of ideas? convert the leftover item slots into thier price in GP and worry no more.

Other Uses for the Chart:

If you’re the type to run magic item shops ( and you should), using a set of dice to generate treasure is a great way to pick out the inventory.  Most shops are going to be at common rarity, but for major shops the party is going to return to over several levels, I do a new inventory drop every 5 levels.

Since Overthinking d&d is my passion, I was caught up in weighing the value of treasure that was scattered throughout the dungeon  vs treasure that was all in one place. The former encouraged the party to explore (which is the entire reason for going into a dungeon) but risked the party missing out on important rewards if they didn’t figure out a clue or feel like fighting a particular beast.  The latter felt like a proper reward for overcoming a gauntlet of challenges, but encouraged players to race to the end. The answer was to do both, One hoard at the end of the dungeon, one scattered around in nooks and crannies for the party to discover on their own. That meant that a party could count on almost doubling their plunder if they explored the content I’d made for them... which is exactly where I want them to be.

Frequently my parties will do a bit of unexpected looting I haven’t planned for: They’ll pick through the ruins of a destroyed town looking for salvage, harvest alchemical components from a garden of feywild flora I’ve only intended as set decoration, or load up a cart with the contents of a bandit armoury and hit the market with it. I want to reward players for taking the initiative, but I always feel like raw gold is too flat a prize and I don’t like making up stuff on the spot. My system offers a solution: every time they do that they get a stack of loot ( graded common to very rare, based on who or what it is they’re looting). When they hit the market, they can cash in any number of loot stacks for the roll of 1 dice, scaling up. If they hit 7, they get to roll the full array and get themselves a loot drop. This is always done in the aftermath of a session, so that I have time to tell them what they’ve won. ( 5 stacks of loot is worth 1 of the next grade up and visa versa). I similarly let my players attach a wishlist to this loot drop ( vague things like “ healing potions” or “ I’d like a new spell focus” to guide my search through my item lists.