#did i FINALLY remember i drafted these

[street-corner-felines]

Zero Day (2002)

[purgetrooperfox]

🙏Doth thou have eine liste of your OCs??? So we may ask questions about them?? bitte

I don't,,,, YET but this did give me a kick in the ass to put together a decently comprehensive one (bc I've been meaning to for ages)

if tumblr's search functionality works at all, I do tag all of my oc posts here and on ao3 as follows 💃 idk how populated these tags are but they're the ocs I think about the most

#leocs - is my catch all oc tag

this is my ao3 collection of fics featuring my ocs

star wars ⬇️

#clone medic nocte - is my most developed oc, he is corrie guard cmo

#arc trooper uj'alayi - he is arc trooper, he is mostly corrie guard but I also throw him at the shadows

#bastra vargdan - he is jedi investigator, he absorbed so much of my personality that he's almost a self insert

#lān'drien "lane" hurosa - they are journalist on coruscant

#clone commander bones - he is commander under bastra, he is severely underdeveloped

cyberpunk ⬇️

#desmond "eyes" gallagher - he is ripperdoc for maelstrom

call of duty ⬇️

#atama "nocte" te rangi - he is nocte starwars transplanted into cod, he is field medic with tf141

mortal kombat ⬇️

#danver "jag" hakka - he fell in with the black dragon and may or may not have a redemption arc, he mostly lives in my gdocs drafts

[gingerpeachtea]

🦀🧳🦀

YAY AIRPORT CRABS have 10 sentences from burning suns!!!

She fixed her hair while he worked, a feeble excuse not to look at him, though she also wouldn’t want him seeing her like this regardless. Sweat stuck wisps of hair to her forehead. She should’ve long since caught her breath, and her heart had calmed, but not entirely—a state that should be reserved for the company of aching thighs and pillow talk, not a poor stage performance. He placed her shoes neatly beneath her vanity, where she always kept them. Christian wrapped a loose hand around her ankle, his thumb slipping beneath the crosses of her fishnets to rub small circles over the bone. She looked down at him, still knelt before her. Her eyes fell to his hand [before he could/before he had the chance to meet her gaze]. “What is it?” she asked. She knew the answer. For all the ways he’d changed, Christian still hadn’t lost his boyish avoidance of directness. She considered some kind of physical comfort, perhaps a hand on his shoulder or cupping his cheek, but didn’t move.

(make me write!!)

[quietlyblooms]

i swear once i get through this week, i'll be more active writing-wise! it's just been stressful bc of some ooc things, like both my best friend's kid and my mom having their birthdays this weekend :' ) i'm just running low on battery as a result, so i appreciate y'all's patience with me!!

[haeroniel-doliet]

Holy hell the jumpscare of the timer I set to go off 5 mins before midnight made me think it was already midnight and I was about to be too late to submit my thesis but it wasn't!! And I fucking did it, with a few minutes to spare even!! Second thesis of my academic career done and dusted and miles better than the last one no matter what!!! Holy fuck I doubted a lot if I was gonna be able to pull this off but, I suppose theres nothing I've quite mastered from uni like pacing my work always right to the very deadline :')

[unfortunatelyilikebnha]

Thinking abt kazuma,,, thinkng abt how he has silver eyes compared to kazumi’s gold,,, as if even kazuma’s character design is telling the world he’s in second place, & that he’ll never live up to his brother’s example </3

[sidewalk-scrawls]

Wondering if I left the line in my fic where Izzy was like, "Edward can take as many of my toes as he likes" cause if so. Ooof

[quarks-pussy]

THIS IS THE OLD VERSION OF THIS POST AND I ASK YOU NOT TO USE IT ANYMORE!! Please use this remake instead!

Scenario: You enter a mess hall. Despite being one hall it's visibly segregated into two sections that have separate food getting areas and it seems highly discouraged to take food from one side to the other. There are a number of occupied tables on each side and you see that the food very much corresponds to the species of that side's occupants. You, a human, realise you will have to pick one of the sides and stick with it for your lunch break, both consuming their food and experiencing their company. Luckily, you're not important enough for either choice to cause any trouble so it's truly up to your own preference.

Feel free to tag or comment your reasons!

[velvetjune]

Spoilers for Alan Wake 2 Final Draft

[ID: Screenshot from Alan Wake 2 that is completely blank apart from the text ‘The journey through the night continues’. End ID.]

*chanting* alan wake 3 alan wake 3 alan wake 3 alan wake—!

[strrshine]

i didnt get a new selle francais but in honor of them being removed heres some pictures i took of my already owned one, airstar <3

[watercolorwench]

!!

tune into today’s episode of meet my ocs! here’s ten (ish) facts about isaac, everyone's favorite time traveler!

his full name is isaac andrew rafferty, he's currently 379 years old, and he's a scorpio. he's also a bisexual disaster, uses he/they pronouns (i think)

he's half-elven warlock, pact of the blade, great old one patron (if we're being technical) with a lovely cork accent

he's not quite immortal but his weird powers and his curse seem to have afforded him some strange measure of pseudo-immortality and if it gives him more time in this world, he's really not going to complain

in a past life (or just one absurdly long one), he used to be the cabin boy on a sailing vessel with his older brother (read: pirate ship). other occupations over the years have included: barkeep, mapmaker, fence, a sell-sword, an honest-to-yeehawness cowboy, a glorified mailman (herald), and a part time carpenter. current occupation? temporal assassin for a syndicate, though he's very tight-lipped about it.

he's got a small family — blood relatives are his mother, paloma, and his older brother, ash. but he'll tell anyone that thea is family. and annia too, though he's less vocal about that.

his dating life is...complicated but!!! he's madly in love with the aformentioned (and absolutely wonderful) thea seabright, AND they eloped by the sea and exchanged little tokens of love a few centuries back. he regularly brings her trinkets he finds (seaglass, smooth rocks, bits of pottery, even bits of gold here and there! anything he can stash in his pockets til he sees her next). though his curse keeps him from seeing thea as often as he'd like, he'll always find his way back to her, fight it back to her if he has to. he loves her and always will. little more difficult to pindown but he and annia have...something or could have had something...at some point...idk he's as confused as you are. immortals, amirite?

his sleep schedule is royally fuckt. you've never met a more tired man. but when he can grab some sleep? it's naps here and there, for whatever time he can afford, always in the strangest places. he has a habit of falling asleep clutching a compass tightly in his good hand

isaac love love loves film photos and hand-written letters. his handwriting is atrocious but he's been known to write very heartfelt and romantic letters (he'll deny this to most who ask). similarly, every letter he's ever gotten from thea he keeps bound in a leather journal in the breast pocket of his coat. he's never misplaced a single one, not even the time he was in the path of an errant fireball. dumbass immediately put the flames out and made sure the journals were safe. whenever he is, wherever he is, he makes a point to check the little safehouses and safeboxes they have around the world, both to pick up things from thea and to leave her notes and little presents. two crows in love.

sand. so much sand. his hair, his eyes, his clothing? sand-coloured and also often he's shedding sand. it's part of the weird magic he possesses or maybe it's part of the curse, we're not sure. but he's a very nondescript and colourless individual. almost completely unassuming, unless you have a reason to be looking for him

he's fairly skilled with herbs (centuries of knowing two very capable women have helped him immensely) and any time he runs into annia, he tries to convince her to make some poultices and things of the like for him, to help ease the aches of his joints. turns out, even near-immortal half-elves ain't immune to osteoarthritis! impacting mainly his hands/wrists (with the right being worse) and also his left knee, which caused him to limp slightly when he walks. he wears wraps or braces, depending on how he's doing.

okay wait one more! he's most often found appearing in the most liminal sorts of spaces. train platforms, gas stations at night, empty laundromats first thing in the morning, etc. and when he appears/disappears, there are always more grains of sand left in his wake. what an eerie bitch we love him

thea belongs to @tazunari and annia to @shutokushintaro (thank u for the ask i love the chance to ramble about my ocs)

[archaeren]

How I learned to write smarter, not harder

(aka, how to write when you're hella ADHD lol)

A reader commented on my current long fic asking how I write so well. I replied with an essay of my honestly pretty non-standard writing advice (that they probably didn't actually want lol) Now I'm gonna share it with you guys and hopefully there's a few of you out there who will benefit from my past mistakes and find some useful advice in here. XD Since I started doing this stuff, which are all pretty easy changes to absorb into your process if you want to try them, I now almost never get writer's block.

The text of the original reply is indented, and I've added some additional commentary to expand upon and clarify some of the concepts.

As for writing well, I usually attribute it to the fact that I spent roughly four years in my late teens/early 20s writing text roleplay with a friend for hours every single day. Aside from the constant practice that provided, having a live audience immediately reacting to everything I wrote made me think a lot about how to make as many sentences as possible have maximum impact so that I could get that kind of fun reaction. (Which is another reason why comments like yours are so valuable to fanfic writers! <3) The other factors that have improved my writing are thus: 1. Writing nonlinearly. I used to write a whole story in order, from the first sentence onward. If there was a part I was excited to write, I slogged through everything to get there, thinking that it would be my reward once I finished everything that led up to that. It never worked. XD It was miserable. By the time I got to the part I wanted to write, I had beaten the scene to death in my head imagining all the ways I could write it, and it a) no longer interested me and b) could not live up to my expectations because I couldn't remember all my ideas I'd had for writing it. The scene came out mediocre and so did everything leading up to it. Since then, I learned through working on VN writing (I co-own a game studio and we have some visual novels that I write for) that I don't have to write linearly. If I'm inspired to write a scene, I just write it immediately. It usually comes out pretty good even in a first draft! But then I also have it for if I get more ideas for that scene later, and I can just edit them in. The scenes come out MUCH stronger because of this. And you know what else I discovered? Those scenes I slogged through before weren't scenes I had no inspiration for, I just didn't have any inspiration for them in that moment! I can't tell you how many times there was a scene I had no interest in writing, and then a week later I'd get struck by the perfect inspiration for it! Those are scenes I would have done a very mediocre job on, and now they can be some of the most powerful scenes because I gave them time to marinate. Inspiration isn't always linear, so writing doesn't have to be either!

Some people are the type that joyfully write linearly. I have a friend like this--she picks up the characters and just continues playing out the next scene. Her story progresses through the entire day-by-day lives of the characters; it never timeskips more than a few hours. She started writing and posting just eight months ago, she's about an eighth of the way through her planned fic timeline, and the content she has so far posted to AO3 for it is already 450,000 words long. But most of us are normal humans. We're not, for the most part, wired to create linearly. We consume linearly, we experience linearly, so we assume we must also create linearly. But actually, a lot of us really suffer from trying to force ourselves to create this way, and we might not even realize it. If you're the kind of person who thinks you need to carrot-on-a-stick yourself into writing by saving the fun part for when you finally write everything that happens before it: Stop. You're probably not a linear writer. You're making yourself suffer for no reason and your writing is probably suffering for it. At least give nonlinear writing a try before you assume you can't write if you're not baiting or forcing yourself into it!! Remember: Writing is fun. You do this because it's fun, because it's your hobby. If you're miserable 80% of the time you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong!

2. Rereading my own work. I used to hate reading my own work. I wouldn't even edit it usually. I would write it and slap it online and try not to look at it again. XD Writing nonlinearly forced me to start rereading because I needed to make sure scenes connected together naturally and it also made it easier to get into the headspace of the story to keep writing and fill in the blanks and get new inspiration. Doing this built the editing process into my writing process--I would read a scene to get back in the headspace, dislike what I had written, and just clean it up on the fly. I still never ever sit down to 'edit' my work. I just reread it to prep for writing and it ends up editing itself. Many many scenes in this fic I have read probably a dozen times or more! (And now, I can actually reread my own work for enjoyment!) Another thing I found from doing this that it became easy to see patterns and themes in my work and strengthen them. Foreshadowing became easy. Setting up for jokes or plot points became easy. I didn't have to plan out my story in advance or write an outline, because the scenes themselves because a sort of living outline on their own. (Yes, despite all the foreshadowing and recurring thematic elements and secret hidden meanings sprinkled throughout this story, it actually never had an outline or a plan for any of that. It's all a natural byproduct of writing nonlinearly and rereading.)

Unpopular writing opinion time: You don't need to make a detailed outline.

Some people thrive on having an outline and planning out every detail before they sit down to write. But I know for a lot of us, we don't know how to write an outline or how to use it once we've written it. The idea of making one is daunting, and the advice that it's the only way to write or beat writer's block is demoralizing. So let me explain how I approach "outlining" which isn't really outlining at all.

I write in a Notion table, where every scene is a separate table entry and the scene is written in the page inside that entry. I do this because it makes writing nonlinearly VASTLY more intuitive and straightforward than writing in a single document. (If you're familiar with Notion, this probably makes perfect sense to you. If you're not, imagine something a little like a more contained Google Sheets, but every row has a title cell that opens into a unique Google Doc when you click on it. And it's not as slow and clunky as the Google suite lol) (Edit from the future: I answered an ask with more explanation on how I use Notion for non-linear writing here.) When I sit down to begin a new fic idea, I make a quick entry in the table for every scene I already know I'll want or need, with the entries titled with a couple words or a sentence that describes what will be in that scene so I'll remember it later. Basically, it's the most absolute bare-bones skeleton of what I vaguely know will probably happen in the story.

Then I start writing, wherever I want in the list. As I write, ideas for new scenes and new connections and themes will emerge over time, and I'll just slot them in between the original entries wherever they naturally fit, rearranging as necessary, so that I won't forget about them later when I'm ready to write them. As an example, my current long fic started with a list of roughly 35 scenes that I knew I wanted or needed, for a fic that will probably be around 100k words (which I didn't know at the time haha). As of this writing, it has expanded to 129 scenes. And since I write them directly in the page entries for the table, the fic is actually its own outline, without any additional effort on my part. As I said in the comment reply--a living outline!

This also made it easier to let go of the notion that I had to write something exactly right the first time. (People always say you should do this, but how many of us do? It's harder than it sounds! I didn't want to commit to editing later! I didn't want to reread my work! XD) I know I'm going to edit it naturally anyway, so I can feel okay giving myself permission to just write it approximately right and I can fix it later. And what I found from that was that sometimes what I believed was kind of meh when I wrote it was actually totally fine when I read it later! Sometimes the internal critic is actually wrong. 3. Marinating in the headspace of the story. For the first two months I worked on [fic], I did not consume any media other than [fandom the fic is in]. I didn't watch, read, or play anything else. Not even mobile games. (And there wasn't really much fan content for [fandom] to consume either. Still isn't, really. XD) This basically forced me to treat writing my story as my only source of entertainment, and kept me from getting distracted or inspired to write other ideas and abandon this one.

As an aside, I don't think this is a necessary step for writing, but if you really want to be productive in a short burst, I do highly recommend going on a media consumption hiatus. Not forever, obviously! Consuming media is a valuable tool for new inspiration, and reading other's work (both good and bad, as long as you think critically to identify the differences!) is an invaluable resource for improving your writing.

When I write, I usually lay down, close my eyes, and play the scene I'm interested in writing in my head. I even take a ten-minute nap now and then during this process. (I find being in a state of partial drowsiness, but not outright sleepiness, makes writing easier and better. Sleep helps the brain process and make connections!) Then I roll over to the laptop next to me and type up whatever I felt like worked for the scene. This may mean I write half a sentence at a time between intervals of closed-eye-time XD

People always say if you're stuck, you need to outline.

What they actually mean by that (whether they realize it or not) is that if you're stuck, you need to brainstorm. You need to marinate. You don't need to plan what you're doing, you just need to give yourself time to think about it!

What's another framing for brainstorming for your fic? Fantasizing about it! Planning is work, but fantasizing isn't.

You're already fantasizing about it, right? That's why you're writing it. Just direct that effort toward the scenes you're trying to write next! Close your eyes, lay back, and fantasize what the characters do and how they react.

And then quickly note down your inspirations so you don't forget, haha.

And if a scene is so boring to you that even fantasizing about it sucks--it's probably a bad scene.

If it's boring to write, it's going to be boring to read. Ask yourself why you wanted that scene. Is it even necessary? Can you cut it? Can you replace it with a different scene that serves the same purpose but approaches the problem from a different angle? If you can't remove the troublesome scene, what can you change about it that would make it interesting or exciting for you to write?

And I can't write sitting up to save my damn life. It's like my brain just stops working if I have to sit in a chair and stare at a computer screen. I need to be able to lie down, even if I don't use it! Talking walks and swinging in a hammock are also fantastic places to get scene ideas worked out, because the rhythmic motion also helps our brain process. It's just a little harder to work on a laptop in those scenarios. XD

In conclusion: Writing nonlinearly is an amazing tool for kicking writer's block to the curb. There's almost always some scene you'll want to write. If there isn't, you need to re-read or marinate.

Or you need to use the bathroom, eat something, or sleep. XD Seriously, if you're that stuck, assess your current physical condition. You might just be unable to focus because you're uncomfortable and you haven't realized it yet.

Anyway! I hope that was helpful, or at least interesting! XD Sorry again for the text wall. (I think this is the longest comment reply I've ever written!)

And same to you guys on tumblr--I hope this was helpful or at least interesting. XD Reblogs appreciated if so! (Maybe it'll help someone else!)

[thewirewitch]

OKAY I got past the scene I was kinda stuck on writing lol.

Now...I need to figure out if I still have my old checklist of events for this story, because frankly, I do NOT remember the order everything happens in lol

[drjdorr]

hey I'm trying to get back into doing art so I decided to start off with a character that has no defined proportions, ease my self in before I leap into the deep end right after anyways😅

any ways this is just a rough draft but enjoy Blob enjoying a post battle treat

[xxasphodelxx]

And for the love of all that is good and holy, it's could've and should've, as in could HAVE and should HAVE, not "could of" or "should of"!!! That makes NO SENSE!!!!

IT’S NOT ‘PEEKED’ MY INTEREST

OR ‘PEAKED’

BUT PIQUED

‘PIQUED MY INTEREST’

THIS HAS BEEN A CAPSLOCK PSA