#czargasm yaps

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nothing will make me close a fic faster than someone being referred to by their nationality or hair color

WHY😭 I can’t call them by their names the entire time, what is wrong with ‘the brunette said’😭

BECAUSE THEY’RE ALL BRUNET /j

Idk I fundamentally disagree that you can’t call them by their names the entire time. The names disappear into the background whereas epithets usually stand out and can be very jarring. If it happens once or twice it’s one thing, but the lengths some people go to not use a character’s name is something.

ALSO epithets usually require you to know something about the character that hasn’t been previously mentioned in the story. Like “the taller” means you know the heights of every person in the scene even though they haven’t been specified. Unless you’ve specifically mentioned a person’s hair color, you shouldn’t use that as a descriptor. It’s easier to get away with in fanfic where we can assume the reader knows some things, but even that isn’t a certainty.

This is also just a very specific thing I feel unreasonably strongly about so 🤷🏻‍♀️ It is my hill to die on but it doesn’t have to be yours.

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Gonna start sharing snippets and stuff from my fairytale once I get back from vacation.

✨🦑🗡️

Just a reminder to all writers and artists, you are now allowed to post snippets and sneak peeks of your own works, if you wish to do so!!

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The part where we read about what happened with dnf on K2 always literally shatters my heart like George went through almost dying and bearing his soul to dream and Dream left 😭😭😭 how did he even get up like

I feel like it’s been long enough that stuff like this no longer counts as a spoiler so I can post this kind of ask. SORRY if you still haven’t read this fic from MAY (please read it).

RIGHT??????? George is so strong! He went through the most capital T traumatic day of his life and still found the strength and courage to get up and climb down a mountain? (Believe me, climbing down K2 is not easy.) And then to make the decision that not only does he want to keep climbing these mountains, but he wants to help keep people safe while they’re climbing them.

Some people were upset that George completely shut Dream out of his life after that, but honestly? How else could he make it through? He funneled all of the trauma of that one little day into the Dream Situation so he could survive the rest and move on with his life.

I just really love this version of George. (Tbf I love all versions of George.)

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I’ve been trying to find a way to explain it but you wrote the story so surely you’ll get what I mean 😭

The way the chapters and story mirrors each other in the chapter where we see what happened between them vs when George saves Dream and the reconcile it’s so good like the order of events like I just love reading it

Oh my god, just picture poor @scoops404 sitting across the table from me in a coffee shop while I explain in excruciating detail the very purposeful and meticulous structure of the story and how everything was organized in a really specific way. She suffered for my art.

But the short version is, yes, that is all very on purpose. The story is structured as a mountain. The first three chapters are like a hard climb up—trying to figure out what’s going on, how everyone got to this point, what the f happened on K2. Then chapter 4—where we finally learn all the backstory��is the peak. And it’s important to know that in mountain climbing that the climb down is just as treacherous as the climb up. So the last 3 chapters are climbing down the mountain—we’ve achieved our “goal” of finding out what is going on, but now we have to do the work of fixing things, of finding a happy resolution, all while knowing the wrong move could destroy everything. And the last three also serve as a mirror of the first three since it’s the same path, but just approached differently and from a different place in their lives.

So thank you for commenting on the story structure because I put a lot of thought into it and it was very important to the story but not something people would necessarily notice.

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God, now I can’t stop thinking about my mountain climbing DNF AU and fic in general and how much I miss writing it, so I thought I’d give you an update.

1) I got a new job and the first few weeks were INSANE like 12 hour days and then wrapping up freelance work on weekends. I actually STILL have freelance work that I contracted before I got the job that I have to finish. Adulthood is super hard guys. Do not recommend.

2) To go along with this, I am so amazingly behind on comments. If you left me a comment in the past month, please know that I saw it and appreciated it so so much and I am going to reply to it soon. Like soon! Not Soon™️.

3) The final chapter of The Glow Squid Hunter is coming THIS WEEK. I promise. @scoops404 specifically requested it and I am not letting my scoopsie down.

4) I don’t have time to do (unbranded) NaNo this year, so I’ve pledged to post two new fics in November. One will be DNF and I think it will be fun. The other will be Dan and Phil, which I know most of you aren’t here for. But maybe some of you are?

5) Maybe a DNF multichap in late December or January but it is dangerous to make promises at this point. I am super excited about getting back into things, I just have to adjust my own expectations about how much and how fast I can write right now.

If you have any questions, feel free to hit up my ask box.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

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Hi, @scoops404 found me in her comments and forced me to be her friend (this is a joke, but it is also the truth). Then we found out we live in the same city. Later we realized we live a mile apart. Now she’s the first person I tell when I have an idea for a story, and she’s my biggest cheerleader. I only started writing fic again because she told me to.

Sometimes we get coffee and breakfast sandwiches and work on our stories together at a local coffee shop. The internet is weird.

hi scoops!! love your fics!!

question for you: how’d you find such amazing beta readers/writing friends? did you meet them over time as you posted your fics? curious as someone who has zero friends interested in writing, let alone dnf… :/

Hi there!!

The best way to make friends interested in writing is to comment on people's fics who are actively writing, follow them here or on twitter, and ask questions about their fics. Let them know you're interested in writing too and then see what develops. My friends have fluctuated and people leave for other fandoms but I'm always making new friends :D A good place to start is to ask someone to beta your fics. Try to get someone you admire and respect because they're going to be seeing your writing at its most vulnerable.

First and foremost, I'm a fan of my friends' writing. I love to squeal over what they're writing and either help as a beta, be a shoulder or ear for them, or sometimes they've leaned on other friends and i'm completely surprised when I get to read their fic, and that's just as lovely.

I'll admit, it's much easier to make writing friends when you already have some, or when you're well established as a writer in a fandom. But I suggest, if you haven't already, have some fics published (even something small) so that people who know you are interested in writing can go read your stuff right away when you meet them.

Additionally, my pride has never let me do this, but you could make a post saying you're looking for writing friends and see who responds.

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i’m subbed to you on ao3 and the email i got looked like this: “definitelynotczargasm posted here kitty, kitty”

i thought ao3 was trying to lure me in. like “new post, here kitty kitty!” 😭

thought you’d enjoy that lol

I LOVE that!!! It’s me, trying to get people to come read my new fic.

“Here kitty, kitty. Pspspspsps. Come on. New fic for you.”

Thanks for sharing!

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I haven’t read Dan and Phil fanfics in a long time, but today I decided to check out yours.

And it was well worth it.

You captured all the reasons I initially fell in love with the phandom: the quiet voices, the nicknames, the tenderness, everything.

I’m def adding this to my bookmarks and treasuring it :) well done

I'm so thankful you gave it a chance and enjoyed it. Now is such a great time to get back into Dan and Phil. The phandom is thriving and we're being so well fed.

I actually feel like Dan and Phil is such a natural fandom for DNF shippers because so much of what makes DNF compelling is also there in Dan and Phil. Like obviously they are completely different types of people, but the way they love each other, their weird rituals and secret languages, banter as a love language, and they way they are each other's person in every possible way. It's just such a similar vibe (though Dan and Phil have been around longer so there's so much more history and lore). The same things that drew me to DNF draw me to Dan and Phil. And they're also what makes it fun to write both pairings. My weird boys. 💜

Right now, though, it's just so nice that with Dan and Phil I get such a delightful variety of consistent content. I enjoy their humor and personalities and banter so much that it doesn't matter what they're doing--playing the Sims badly (I love them), making stupid cocktails as part of an elaborate ad read, dressing each other up in weird clothes and then giggling over how cute the other person is, telling stories about nearly dying from bleeding out of the ass, watching TikToks, reacting to twitter/Tumblr. Their friendship and relationship is at the heart of everything and it's such a delight to watch.

Anyway, thank you so much for giving my fic a chance! I'm so glad you liked it. I'll definitely be writing Dan and Phil more (but I have not abandoned DNF at all and there's more coming there too).

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I reread every mountain a lot bc it’s my fav and it never gets easier reading chapter 4 😭 I’ve even anoned about this recently but oh George

I love that you keep rereading it. That means so much to me! I think this will always be my favorite thing I’ve ever written, to the point that I wish I could show it to my irls because I think they’d enjoy it so much (except maybe for the fucking, sometimes we just need to know less about each other). Alas.

Poor George, indeed. He really went through it on that mountain. Though he did his best to emotionally destroy Dream for the next three years, so I guess it evens out a little.

I miss writing in that universe so much, but I feel like anything I could add would be unnecessary. They’re very much in their happily ever after right now, even if their happily ever after involves them trekking to the north and south poles for “fun.”

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hello just stopping by from your dan and phil fic to say oh my god you’re so talented and amazing!! your fic was perfect and I loved it

omg thank you so much! I'm so glad you enjoyed it. Believe me, I put the poor people in my writer's group though hell listening to me whine about how terrible it was while I was writing, so it's so gratifying to discover it actually turned out well. Thank you for letting me know!

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wait i just noticed this is ur pfp a draw phil naked or did i misinterpret that 😭

Haha no, it isn’t, but I can definitely see why you would think that!! It’s from some art that @bluishfrog made for my fic here kitty, kitty (this is DNF/DreamNotFound fic, not Dan and Phil).

I just loved the art and the perfectly positioned cat and the startled cat face so much that I needed to be able to see it every day. Plus, someone made ART for my FIC, which never stops amazing me.

You can see the full art piece here.

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Omg Call Me Kevin!!! I love his videos!

Kevin was the first individual YouTuber (like not part of Buzzfeed) that I got into in a big way. His daily uploads got me through the pandemic. I don’t watch him nearly as much anymore but he’s still in regular rotation—especially his Bitlife and Project Zomboid videos. (And Jim Pickens of course.)

He was also the first person I ever watched playing Minecraft. I was SO confused when I first saw a Dream Minecraft video because it was very different vibes.

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7. your preferred writing fonts

8. if you had to write a sequel to a fic, you’d write one for… (I know the answer to this, just wanted to give you a chance to gush about your brokeback mountaineering fic because i love it so much)

7. Boring, but I mostly just write in arial. I used to write in Trebuchet, but got tired of it. When I was at the beach I word vomited 1000 words of omegaverse mpreg (it will never see the light of day) in Optima and I really liked that. Maybe I will switch to that for a while. Some enrichment in my enclosure Scrivener folder.

8. You know this because I literally talked about it at the coffeeshop on Saturday, but yes, a sequel to Brokeback Mountaineers. NOT because I have a plot or an idea in any shape or form, but just because I love that universe and those characters so much and I’m sad to see them go. If did, though, it probably wouldn’t be a full fic, though. Just a short little story about one of their post-Everest adventures, or even just a soft slice of life set in that universe.

(Go read Every Mountain Tells A Story now if you haven’t. The final chapter is posting on Monday.)

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Really looking forward to that fic ngl... Poor Sapnap though 😭 just wants to eat in peace

He’s got to be used to it by now, right?

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Oh my gosh, I just realized the parallels between the first time where dream saves George on the mountain and they’re in their sleeping bags and they confess to each other when George saves his dream on the mountain they have their confessions again and I just realize that that’s so parallel and I also can’t imagine the way that George must’ve fell thinking. This is the exact same thing happened last time And he’s telling him he loves him again! Like they’re confessing again and then of course he says tell me this after we get off the mountain, which makes sense because how could you trust it? Oh my gosh, I’m like reeling and everything after I reread the story. 

YES EXACTLY! Those scenes are parallel on purpose. As angry as George is at Dream, he still deep inside loves him and WANTS for the things Dream is saying to be true. He’s wanted it for three years! But he doesn’t for a second believe or trust any of it. In that moment he’s just assuming it’s another one of Dream’s adrenaline-fueled impulsive confessions post near-death experience (if I had a nickel for every time etc etc). He’s completely closed off from Dream in that moment, just trying to protect his heart, which is why he’s so cold. (I mean he’s also freezing on top of a mountain but that part’s normal for him.) He really only starts believing Dream might be telling the truth when they’re far removed from danger and Dream’s had time to reflect on the things he’s said and NOT walk away.

There’s another similar parallel that’s smaller/less noticeable, but that I love. In chapter 2, the note that Dream leaves in George’s tent asking him to talk is the exact same format and the same number of words as the note he leaves for George at the K2 base camp. Dream hasn’t seen that note in years and doesn’t realize how similar they are, but for George (who spent hours staring at that original note), it’s like ripping an old wound open and stabbing it a few extra times. That’s part of why he reacts so strongly to it and yells at Dream (and has his moment with Austin). He just for one second wants Dream to hurt like he does, not realizing that Dream’s been hurting all this time too.

Thanks for all the asks today! It’s been so fun thinking about this story and remembering all the little details.

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You reminded me of your mountain climbing fic and now I must reread it

YAY!!! It means so much to me that I have a fic that people like so much they are willing to reread it. Life is so busy and there’s so much to do but you’re willing to use some of that precious time to read about MY little mountain climbing dnfies? What an honor!!!

Thank you for letting me know!