#few years timeskip

[shootingstarbit]

evening jog 🚀

[datkat08]

Hello Zosan community. Would anyone like a preview of a little something I’m working on? :)

-

“We should get married.”

Sanji chokes loudly, hurtling into a coughing fit that brings tears to his eyes.

“WHAT?” He sits up fully and faces Zoro, eyes wide in horror.

“I want to marry you. So let’s do it.”

Sanji’s face is a mix of terror and incredulousness. His eyes feel like they are about to pop out of their sockets.

“Mosshead!”

“What??”

“Agh- God damn it!” He reaches into the drawer of the bedside table and pulls out a small, velvet box. He shoves it into Zoro’s arms and huffs.

The swordsman sits up to examine the item properly. Zoro’s confusion quickly turns to a soft surprise as he slowly opens the box to reveal a brilliant, golden ring with tiny green gemstones running along the outside edge.

“Oh.”

[corntired]

Fanfiction is so goated actually

No monetary incentive, just writing in one's free time. Some incentive for like kudos and comments, because who doesn't want to hear that someone else enjoyed what they wrote. Just writing a story that is good and/or enjoyable, no real-life pressure to keep it going because god forbid you and other people are depending on it financially.

Writing a story because you want to write a good story, so you can write what they want the way you want, at a pace that is realistic for you, with exactly the plot pacing you want there to be.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

just noticing lwjs bunny-ear hair ribbon. that's so cute

Good eye! Here's another little character design detail.

[lavenderscented-stories]

HIIIII HEEY HEELLOOO!!!!! :D

Subspace angst no comfort, no specific scenario but I want that man to SUFFER.🙏💥

Hello! I hope you are doing well yourself, here is your request.

cw // hurt no comfort, inaccurate portrayals of explosions

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Subspace was smart enough to not bring you anywhere near his line of work as you were much too important to be subjected to such dangerous situations, yet you kept poking and prodding about it everyday.

Much like his skin, his resolve slowly corroded overtime as the comfort he felt in your presence grew. He wanted to share the deepest parts of himself yet he knew the risk would be much too taxing for the reward to be worth it, yet despite that knowledge he took the gamble.

It felt so liberating to talk about it!! From small mundane things like an annoying coworker to extravagant breakthroughs like the crystals he told you everything, and you seemed to be so enthralled it somehow made him fall for you more than he already had.

So when you brought up the idea of actually going to his workplace he was most certainly skeptical, but after mulling it over he gave into the temptation.

He wouldn’t realize that it was his worst mistake yet until it was too late.

Subspace strutted through the halls as he prattled about his reputation in his line of work, while he knew you adored him and everything he did he still wanted to brag about his achievements before getting into the finer details of his work.

“Oh yes- I know my work is absolutely enthralling but make sure not to touch anything!! I wouldn’t want my dearest to accidentally explode a… Darling??” The scientist looked behind him to see you yet was met with nothing, his heart sank in worry as he started backtracking through the halls to find you.

He walked through the halls as he called out your name, going from room to room in an even pace filled with more confusion than anything.

Yet you never answered back.

Slowly the dread started seeping in as he quickened his pace and called for you more urgently. Why hadn’t he asked a Biograft to accompany you!? How were you able to slip away so quietly- when did you leave?? Why didn’t he notice that you left?? He was always so attentive so why had he failed now of all times??

Finally he found you. You had somehow found yourself in one of the rooms that held the more dangerous experiments, yet despite regulations it wasn’t locked off. He sighed in relief and was about to call out for you when he noticed that you were reaching out for something.

His eye widened in panic but before he could warn you about the crystal, it was too late.

A catastrophic explosion rang out as Subspace flew back from the impact of the explosion- his head hitting the wall. After a few seconds of recovery he shakily got up and clumsily ran into the room as panic and adrenaline fueled him.

He hastily looked around at the now messy and ruined room trying to look for you. His eyes finally landed on you as his heart skipped a beat and he looked down at you in horror.

He quickly kneeled down and cradled your body in his arms and tears formed in his eye.

A small crowd formed in front of the room- each gazing upon the scene in realization and horror. Subspace hadn’t cared for his reputation as he whipped his head to face them and screamed.

“SOMEONE- GET A DOCTOR!!” His voice was raw as it cracked with desperation, he gasped as sobs threatened to spill out from his throat and he turned back with his head hung low as he clutched you like a lifeline.

As paramedics came to the scene he reluctantly let go of you before being escorted to treat his own wounds, he prayed for you to be alright yet deep down he knew the revolting truth.

You were already dead.

[primeministerofantarctica]

do you think kazuki and rei ever told miri they used to be hitmen or is she just going to have a VERY interesting family research project

[quixot1sm]

this took me an embarrassingly long time to finish

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

I JUST FINISHED READING CHAPTER 17 OF WOBBLY HEARTS AND WAYSUWHWHFHSH??? WHEHRHEHRH???? WAH

KAI'S HOME!!! KAI FINALLY WENT HOME!!!! AND SKYLOR!!!!!!! it's sad we won't get more of skylor here but i am so happy that she's finally taking the step to change and WAUGH. MY SOCKS HAVE BEEN KNOXED OFF

L O L RIP TO YOUR SOCKS HHDJFJGG

[immamapletreekid]

every day I wake up and pray to whichever deity is out there blessing demon slayer and bnha with a gazillion seasons for haikyuu season 5, haikyuu movies, and haikyuu post-timeskip full adaptation

[acaciapines]

Skimmed a little and I’m so interested in the sraf epilogue fic (can you tell that I’m a collector lover /j), but them and also learning how to be an owl? And also school… the constant… Ough, amazing. Such a good concept

NO THATS WHY IT EXISTS.....i love sraf SO much im like even if it doesnt make sense thematically w. what if. what if :).

as of now i havent written it but i DO think about it frequently. i'll see how i feel when i finish editing the series lol but. even if i do write it i truly CANNOT justify it like i have SUCH a good ending and am i really going to break that for sraf.

and the answer is like 67% chance yes. i will. i might just not have it in the main series on ao3 lol and just link to it nfgkjdfg ITS WRONG TO END THIS SERIES ABOUT LUZMARI WITH SRAF. BUT CONSIDER. I LOVE THEM...

[regallibellbright]

WIP Sunday! In the hopes that posting something about it forces me to get back to this one sooner rather than later.

—

“I suppose not,” Joshua says, back to his normal smirk. “And if I said ‘oh, that’s the only reason’ and left, what would you do then? You already knew about my ‘evil plan’ when you called me here.”

“I wanted to know what you wanted,” Shiki says. “That doesn’t mean I’d take any offer you made. Some things aren’t worth selling your soul for.”

“But apparently, some might be?” Joshua fiddles with his hair again. “We don’t actually do that, you know. It’d be a waste of a perfectly good soul.” Like Shiki cares? But Joshua just laughs and continues. “I admit, you have me curious. What kind of deal would you sell your soul for?”

She should tell him to knock it off. She should run. She should forget this whole stupid plan and tell Rhyme she was dumb for even considering it. (But Yamasaki’s Partner thought he should put the jacket back on. But even if it was cheating, it might be worth it, for Neku. But a favor for the evil plan just doesn’t feel right, after this many months.)

[oars]

i swear the queen died in like april or something

[pencilofawesomeness]

First of all I want you to know that your fic helped me to like FT again. Not sure if this can be taken as a compliment or not but for a while I was interested mostly on Edens Zero (great story btw) but after reading your fic I started to feel that warmth when I think about FT so thank you! You are taking everything I love in the story and leaving behind all the stuff that made me move on from it in first place, such as characters being only for shipping or comic relief or lack of proper planning. And now for my other question, I've seem some art made based on your fic, can I ask which ones are your favorites?

akjshfklsjg thank you XD I'll take it XD

Fam I 100% understand where you're coming from because I have bones to pick with the original canon too. Half of this fic is fueled from spite and the other half love. Fairy Tail became my comfort show in a rather low point for me, so it has a special place in my heart for that, but mostly I became instantly drawn towards the characters. So... it was a bit disappointing to see those same characters get tossed around as the show progressed and lose some of that dynamic flair.

I really wasn't planning on writing anything like this but I found the acnologias-ass's papalogia au and was immediately drawn in by the possibilities, because I am a sucker for that kind of found family. After reading a few fics based off of the premise I went "wait no I can do this plot and keep them in character and hint at an overarching plot watch" and then I slipped and fell and tumbled face first into an entire series rewrite because I can't resist touching things I want to fix. But anyway.

Art based on my fics you say? I don't know if you mean the few pieces I've gotten from other people, or just all artwork? Because I make most of it, lol. Hard to pick a favorite, but I am fond of my Dragon Family Naptime (aka my banner picture) and then these silly sibling doodles because they bring me pure serotonin. For angst, there's this old rough sketch of young Jellal that I actually really enjoy. The heavy pencil style pleases me.

But if you wanna see even more artwork or extra stuff just peruse my htryds tag at your leisure XD

[starry-simming]

It’s easy for Lilith to fall into her usual routine. Get up at four to work at five. Come home and spend the day running odd jobs, taking care of Prince, or working on her video game. Progress was being made, and she honestly felt excited about it. 

It was easy to just ignore everything going on and do her thing. Act for a couple months like the most interesting things in her life are her game and a couple promotions at work. 

She visits Erwin at work fairly often, but they don’t talk about the kiss or the lab. Lilith can guess that he just wants to live his life too. It’s always a bit awkward, but it’d be worse never seeing him. 

Alison and Jesse have big news; Alison is expecting. Lilith doesn’t know the first thing about babies, but she does her best to follow along as Alison talks about the doctor’s visits and the things they’re buying for baby. All it really does it make Lilith never want children even more, but she’s happy for her friend. 

It’s nice to leave Strangerville too, go places that don’t have doom looming over them like a literal storm and talk to people who haven’t even heard of that town. The job is paying well, Lilith hasn’t worried about bills in a while. She could move. But like Erwin had said, Strangerville is her home now. How many years had she lived there by now? She’d always be out of place anywhere else now. 

[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!)

[animelibera]

Imagine a roller coaster slowly climbing the first hill. Then once it finally gets to the top, you have to get out and walk across a playground that has that deep gravel that's annoying to walk in. "Oh well it'll be worth it once I get to ride the rest of the coaster". Then you go down the shortest straightest plastic playground slide imaginable. And also it's kinda damp. A single firework goes off in the distance, but there's some trees blocking the view. Then the ride's over.