#i have no idea i just put words down on a google doc and copy pasted

[thebubblyship]

I got permission. And so begins my ranting. Strap in fellas.

So I recently got into printing out some fanfics physically, and the first one I had to tackle was the first 25 chapters of an amazing fanfic called Yuuei Survival Guide. The art and the writing are not mine, but I do plan on actually drawing a custom cover for the last 25 chapters so I don't feel guiltly snagging someone else's art for it.

So that's the front cover! The story heavily focuses on Oboro and Izuku's growing relationship so for the first book (I can only print so much in one book), so I knew right away I wanted for the two of them to be seperated on the front and back of the covers for the first book, and for them to be together for the second book (symbolizing their friendship growing).

That's why I threw Izuku onto the back cover with the description, along with them having the day/night theme. I feel like the day/night cycle symbolizes them pretty well.

Obviously, required spine with title on it so I don't lose it amongst my other books. I meshed their sky colors together with a blend tool and changed their opacity in the middle so they come together for the spine.

Book title with author, very required very cool.

And here is the second page, because I wanted the first page to be the gap page (if that makes sense) in case printing went wrong. I also included a cute piece of fanart I found for the fic along with a quote because I found it rather adorable.

Following is where it gets messy. I was able to download the full fanfic off of Ao3, but the file was so large word just died out on me so I switched over to just copy and pasting, editing while I go. Especially since I wanted to go through and format. That's when I noticed the author has begun to go back and re-edit through the book to update it to their current writing style, because I have such convient timing lmao.

I indented the chapter titles down a good few lines, made the first part of every chapter a bigger font than the rest, and just went to town. I also found a very lovely page break online that I added, since it fit the theme and looked rather nice.

In total, this physical version totalled to about 650 pages for the first 25 chapters. The end page down below, along with some more fanart:

I think in total, making everything took me about a week or two to do? Since I put it into a google doc, I was able to work on it during slow hours at my job and knock it out. Obviously printing and shipping added onto that time, so in total I'd say around a month to produce it?

I absolutely adore it, it came in this morning and I was grinning like an idiot while I checked it out. I plan on editing the last 25 chapters and making some art myself for it, since I: A. Need to actually draw fanart for this platonic duo, love them, and B. Have a very specific idea for them I want to do for the cover.

Definitely made some mistakes along the way for this first one, but there's only up to go in doing this! I love being able to physically hold it and it's definitely going on my self for a constant read. It's so beautiful!!!!

@lowlywriter I'll figure out how to condense down instructions on how to print it, along with getting a zip file of the cover layout and everything for it. (And I mentioned this earlier but I definitely did see the writing changes, last I checked you finished chapter 4 I believe? So there definitely is a writing tone shift in the book but I don't mind lol).

I'm so happy with the final result and I can't wait to tackle the last 25 chapters aaaaaaaa!!!!!!

[asexual-spongebob]

What are some tips you have for writing fanfics?

I have some! I hope these are helpful!

Tips for writing Multi-Chapter fics, as someone who has written multiple:

Have an idea of how many chapters + the word count range for the chapters. Some fics have shorter word counts but have more chapters (like my fic, The Waves That Lap The Shore for example, was usually in the 1k to 2k range when it came to it’s chapters, and had a lot of chapters. However, my other multi chapter fic, Wail Of The Siren didn’t have many chapters, but was longer when it came to word counts for chapters. The chapters usually being 2-5k words. Every fic is different.

I also recommend having some kind of plan. I doesn’t even have to be a detailed one. It can literally be just a document full of thought dumps. My planning/outline for Wail Of The Siren was literally just a document on my notes app full of my ideas.

If you’re about to scrap a scene, put it in a document for scrapped scenes and dialogue. That way, later on, if you decide that you want to include that scene or dialogue, you wouldn’t have to rewrite it from scratch, you can just copy and paste from the scrapped scene document. I can think of so many times that I’ve scrapped a scene or piece of dialogue and ended up using it later.

Write the story you want to read.

The first draft will not be perfect. It’s okay if it’s a bit of a dumpster fire.

You don’t have to write in chronological order! Have a scene/chapter you are really excited to write but hate having to power through others just so you can write that one? Write it first! You can fill in the blanks later!

If you are having trouble finding words to use, then go to sites like word hippo and thesaurus! I’ve found some great words there.

It’s okay to use said, sometimes a character just says something and that’s okay.

Show instead of tell, like instead of saying, “she was angry as she watched him walk by, wishing she could punch him” can say “rage boiled inside of her at the sight of him, she clenched her hand into a fist and clenched her teeth as she watched walk by, wishing she could just punch him in the face.”

DO. NOT. TYPE. THE. FIC. DIRECTLY. ONTO. AO3’s/WATTPAD/FF.NET’S ETC’S TEXT BOX! You run the risk of your hard work being washed down the drain if you forget to save it. Or if it gets deleted. Always write your chapters somewhere other than your fanfic site’s text box. You can literally use anything. Google doc’s, libree office, word, your notes app, hell even apps that’s intended for grocery lists. Always have them saved somewhere else.

Oh and I also recommend using a spell checker to fix any grammar mistakes! You can find them online if the program your using doesn’t have one!

honestly i love answering asks like this. Thx 4 sending! :)

[buggywiththefolkmagic]

Personal Do Not Read Witchy Author List

There will be a google doc with updates as I find more authors to avoid. These are all my own personal opinion and I do take the author's actions into account when judging their ability to write legitimate information.

TW: Slavery, serial killers, racism, TERFs, creeps, neonazis, asylums, and a slew of other super unsavory things. I tried to make this list as PG as possible while highlighting the issues with these individual people. 

*Alestier Crowley. *

   He's a literal piece of garbage. Misogynistic, thief of a toooon of closed practices, has entire cults still dedicated to him, called himself a voice of God (both Abrahamic and apparently like 5 Egyptian deities??? I mean excuse me sir how about no??) He also declared himself ‘above’ Gods back in 1922 calling himself Ipssissimus. I hate Crowley so much I have literally stuck a picture of him to a dartboard before. He can suck an egg in the afterlife. He also put his own wife in an asylum for 'alcoholism’ because she wanted a divorce. The only thing he ever did right was get kicked down a flight of stairs at a temple once by a poet.

*Anastasia Greywolf*

   Appropriates at least Jewish practices if not every Indigenous practice there is. Wholeheartedly encourages people to use magic instead of going to a doctor for things like oh I dunno EPILEPSY And claims she has spells for like Marvel-level super powers which uh no Ana. You don't. Lots of Christianity for a supposedly FULL pagan and wiccan author. Her spells are all controlled like...so wrong. So, so wrong. Don't ask please. I can't begin to describe it. Advocates for smudging and uses phrases like "Cherokee Rituals", and the Romani G-slur. 

*Gerald Gardner*

   Made his own branch of wicca, the first technically, and his own coven had to make rules just so he wouldn't spill everything to any reporter that asked. Used Crowley as a main resource.

*Jason Miller*

   Claims to do Hoodoo. A horrible formatter, and generally super dismissive of being a rootworker and other potentially closed practices, has not been initiated. Has claimed that anyone can petition/pray to Papa Legba without initiation because "Vodou is a congregational religion/practice". From the Vodou and Haitian Vodou practitioners I have talked to that is VERY incorrect, it may be congregational but you still have to be involved in the community to be trusted with those practices because so much of it has been bastardized for media and racism purposes. He is also a student of Catherine Yronwode, who is another SUPER problematic figure in the Hoodoo/Rootwork community.  

 A link of his own words on culture appropriation which includes mild inaccuracy towards Indiginous Peoples and that they don’t ‘own’ certain practices when it’s very clear the wording of those practices DOES in fact come from those peoples. He’s fine with people being Yogis, or Shamans, or calling satchel spells mojo bags, and other such phrases and won’t correct people if they use such words out of context because “language changes”. Also says if someone within a practice says it’s closed to go to ANOTHER AND ANOTHER until you find someone willing to teach you??? That’s not how it works sir.

Source: https://www.strategicsorcery.net/on-cultural-misappropriation/

*Lisa Chamberlain*

   Not an actual person. This is a ghost writer name for a bunch of garbage literally copy and pasted from wikipedia into books. I wish I was kidding. 

*Lisa Leister/Lester/whatever other spelling she's used.*

   Such a major TERF. Like JK Rowling level TERF. Claims magic comes from a womb so anybody that doesn't have one isn't a real witch. Like WTF lady.

*Raymond Buckland*

  Where to start...uses the G-slur often. (His grandfather was romani so it blurs the line of blood quantum.)  Very sexist and obsessed with the idea of a woman getting uh...undressed for rituals while men stay dressed and more things I cannot say ina PG space??? As magic?? VERY anti-minor and LGBTQA+. Toxic, just plain toxic. Can't do it. I have read his Blue Book and it's the least problematic thing he wrote. I'm alright with it.

*Silver Ravenwolf*   WhOOO boy. So super anti-christian, which is fine and dandy...if you didn't claim to be in a lineage of braucherei/hexerei. Wiccan, like the type of wiccan that says no other witchcraft exists and yet has written folk magic books??? She really needs to make up her mind. Claims Satanists don't actually exist. Claims most Jewish powers worshiped "the Goddess" (whoever that is)??? Very cult-like language about "not telling friends and family about your new life/reality/experience/whatever". Also SO MUCH APPROPRIATION. SO SO MUCH. She also gets her history wrong, on a lot of basic information that most non-witches know about like say the Salem Witch Trials.

*Catherine Yronwode* Ooh man. So Catherine Yronwode’s career started as a comic book artist. She’s worked on such things like the Elvira comic, DNAgents, and a gaggle of super controversial trading cards which included the Kennedy Assasination, a serial killer collection, and the AIDS epidemic. Of which she was sued for using one half of the Hillside Stranglers duo in said killer trading cards without his permission, the judge sadly threw the case out because and this is a quote, “ If Bianchi had been using his face as a trademark when he was killing women, he would not have tried to hide it from the police.” There were two more from her comic days, but those aren’t super relevant besides the one that pushed the envelope of what sort of trading cards should be sold to children. On the magical side of things, I will be blunt here: As one of the ‘big bads’ of the Rootwork/Folk/Hoodoo community? I really REALLY dislike her. She has made numerous false claims about New Orleans/Haitian Vodou and that it’s only a very recent practice, non-religious, and slaves never used it because it didn’t exist yet??? History books and entire generations will disagree. An example would be this link of an open letter to her written by a New Orleans Voodoo practitioner and someone she wrote a whole article about: https://conjureart.blogspot.com/2013/10/open-letter-to-cat-yronwode-and-lucky.html

She owns a few different websites namely https://www.luckymojo.com/, has written numerous Hoodoo based books, and actively has accused numerous people who have asked her for sources and or disagreed with her of plagiarism and has slung more mud that you can shake a stick at. 

She also praises a book on Marie Laveau and yet discredits herself by calling New Orleans Voodoo a new religion/neopractice??? She’s just confusing as all heck to me.

*Christian Day*   This guy’s just a creep. One stuck in the early 2000s mall goth phase even though he’s over 50. He also appropriates Hoodoo and owns two Hoodoo shops as well as multiple other witch shops in Salem and recently New Orleans on the French Quarter (Which is pure tourist fodder and not a reflection of true New Orleans Voodoo/Vodun/Rootwork). He has also harassed ex-employees so badly it’s landed him in court. His book The Witch’s Book of the Dead also reads very much like a list of accomplishments rather than anything useful. All about his television spots and experiences doing that. (Did I mention he was in an episode of Ghost Adventures? Yes, that one with Zac Bagans??? And it did not make us witches look too great, honestly speaking.)

Sources for Harassment Claims: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/salem-witch-gets-protective-order-against-warlock/

https://www.wcvb.com/article/warlock-christian-day-ordered-to-stay-away-from-salem-witch/8228072

*Yvonne and Gavin Frost*   I dunno how else to say this, I really don’t. These two? Pedophiles. Multiple writings of theirs included not-safe-for-work-or-children rituals that must include minors. Avoid. AVOID AVOID. AVOID ANYONE WHO USES THEM AS A RESOURCE! This should NOT be okay in any circle. They are VERY used within the Wicca religion so please be careful!!

*Orion Foxwood* Some of his information is very sound! I can’t fault him there. He does have a tendency to blend different traditions without actively TELLING you he’s blending them though. He’s and this is a direct quote, “He is a witch and Elder in Romano Celtic-Traditional Craft, High Priest in Alexandrian Wicca and teacher of the Faery Seership tradition. He is also the founding Elder of Foxwood Temple and a primary founder of the Alliance of the Old Religion, a national network of covens in his line that have united to preserve the ways of his Elders. He was the co-director of Moonridge, a center for metaphysical, Craft and Faery studies in Maryland” That’s an awful lot of traditions to juggle and not only write on but actively teach. He also performs conjure, which in of itself might not be an issue but Conjure usually blends into Hoodoo really quickly if one isn’t careful! A lot of the traditions he talks about from his family sound quite familiar, he’s clearly from Appalachia but his books on the subject blend in his other practices instead of keeping them separate. 

*Starr Casas*   She’s in the same category as Orion, only she doesn’t necessarily give her credentials to be teaching Hoodoo, and even wrote a whole book filled with Hoodoo love spells. She also co-owns a French Quarter Conjure Shop, which if you ask any practitioners from New Orleans...is catered to pure tourists and not a true example of the crafts from the area. 

*Shawn Engel*   I’m gonna be blunt here. More appropriation of the Jewish practices, Hoodoo, and other information that is just plain UPG without saying it’s UPG and encourages throwing hexes at political party members solo. I read The Power of Hex and had to put it down numerous times just to gather myself and not throw it away, I don’t know if it was tone or sheer level of appropriation...likely both.

*Kate Freuler*   Of Blood and Bones is chock full of Hoodoo, full stop. Only acknowledges that something comes from Hoodoo once and also gets basic mythology information on the Deities she mentions wrong in some cases. Also a lot of the book seems to be UPG because the bibliography is super small for a 300 page book.

*Dorothy Morrison*   I picked up Utterly Wicked once. A very odd book full of Hoodoo and Vodun spellwork and misinformation, the author is also Garderian Wiccan so even the writing of a book full of hexes is slightly...concerning compared to the Wiccan traditions and redes. Odd is the best I have to describe how I personally feel. I will say this again: Voodoo Dolls are not used to cause pain, stop bastardizing that single aspect of the practice. Thank you.

*Helena Blavatsky*

 I dunno how else to say this either, her philosophy and occult knowledge, called Theosophy is a portion of what inspired Hitler. Pure unadulterated racism veiled in a ‘Atlantian Race Theory”. Horrible stuff, read for a class project once and felt disgusting.

*Christopher Penczak*Whoo boy. On the surface he seems alright, one of the first ‘male’ witches I had ever heard of except for Scott Cunningham. But the more you dig into his work the more inaccuracies and Christian bashing you see. For example: Christianty was the first patriarchal society. Uhm...I believe you’re kinda forgetting the men who ran Rome and Greece there sir. He also fully proposes the ‘burning times’ were like a ‘witch holocaust’. NO! NO IT WAS NOT. You can’t compare the hundreds of years and MAYBE a thousand-ish people dying to the millions that died in the short timespan the Holocaust was a thing. Fuck Christopher for that comparison and also for claiming it was a ‘burning time’ to begin with. (History says that most were hung...or tortured. Burning is a very small number of that list in general. 

He makes a lot of sweeping statements and sees witchcraft as a religion and NOT a practice. He whitewashes, fully harps on the Wicca = witchcraft = religion thing and THEN hones in on the difference between “white and black” magic and how cursing is evil and yet highlights certain practices that actively practice...cursing...as they have for generations??? He (atleast) doesn’t demonize Satanism but does still backhand the idea anyway, that they CAN’T be witches because witches only ‘heal’. Cultural appropriation and fetishization of ‘Native’ practices while calling them primitive all in the same breath, I just can’t with this guy. I really can’t. 

*Amy Blackthorn* 

Owns a tea brand called ‘Blackthorn Hoodoo Blends’ she is white. When questioned by BIPOC individuals she complains and blocks them instead of explaining why she chose the name Hoodoo for just teas. TEA. She is also the author of Blackthorn’s Botanical Magic, Sacred Smoke (A book on smudging yikes on trikes), and Blackthorn’s Protection Magic. 

Proof of blocking: https://thisblackwitch.com/2016/04/01/blackthorn-teas-whose-culture-is-it-anyways/

*Tarl Warwick *

Is more commonly known as Styxhexenhammer666 on youtube and other social media sites. Has written a pile and I mean a PILE of occult based books including ones on Hermetic magic, ritualistic magic, demons, solomon, folk plants and healing, Kabbalah, and many MANY more. 

He makes no claim to being Jewish, and given his political wishy washiness, and multitude of controversies which includes claiming the Holocaust wasn’t ‘that many dead’, Charles Manson deserved release because he was ‘extremely innocent and didn’t kill anyone’, and fairly recently also wrote and published a book on Critical Race Theory and why it’s ‘garbage’. I can’t support him no matter how accurate some of his information may be (if any at all). 

*Temperance Alden* This really pains me to say, Temperance in her Wheel of the Year book made a claim that birth control “stunted her magical abilities” because it affected her hormones…in OTHER words unless you are a perfectly hormone producing WOMAN you don’t have great magical power. AVOID. AVOID. AVOID. That is a slippery slope to claiming medication will harm you, not to mention how TERF-y it is AND completely disregards that magic is for well…everyone. Such a stupid gatekeep-y concept. 

*Sarah Kate Istra/Dver*

Advocates for using ‘spirit animals’ regardless of Indigenous beliefs and concerns. Is also a known ally with the Piety Posse, a neo-nazi group of pagans who claim the term polytheist can only apply to them and if you aren’t a Hellenistic pagan…you aren’t pagan at all. They also advocate for animal sacrifices, blood tests to prove purity, and other horrible HORRIBLE stuff. 

*Sannion/H. Jeremiah Lewis*

Obvious Neo-nazi, keeps images of swastikas on his personal blog, and not the ones that the nazis stole from, the nazi one. And super SUPER transphobic.

*Edward P. Butler*

Major persecution complex, spends half his twitter complaining about how monotheists are destroying…I dunno…everything? Also defends Krasskova quite heavily. Antisemetic as well.

*Galina Krasskova*

Hellenic pagans watch out. Defends the AFA. A ringleader of the Piety Posse. There’s a lot more horrific stuff about her and I won’t go into extreme details. But TW: Romanticizes SA with deities, human sacrifice, animal sacrifice. Compares debating to the holocaust, lots of victim blaming, gatekeeping, and screams folkish. 

*Diana Cooper*

Racist. Hard stop. Also appropriates chakras. Has a weird belief that food controls skin color and that Africa will never be a good country because it’s the solar plexus of the universe…or something like that. I got 20 pages into the book and literally couldn’t go any farther. Did I mention this book was supposedly on dragons???

*Judika Iiles* So much appropriation, advocates for making altars and working with closed deities. Lots of incorrect information including dangerous spellwork like obsession spells. And one in particular that has roots in a racist stereotypes. Avoid please! 

[velkynkarma]

The book you binded looks so cool!!! I've been meaning to get into book binding as well, especially for One Piece fics and I love the format you did it in with Zoro's logo. How did you edit it? Would you be willing to share tips on how you did it? Did you watch book binding YouTube videos?

Thanks, anon! I'm glad you enjoyed! And I'm absolutely willing to share what I learned!

For the general book-binding, I used a couple book binding how-to videos.

Turning Fanfiction Into the Hardcover Book it Deserves by Jess Less

This one helped with:

How to use an old book cover/used book for the cover of the fanfic (you can also MAKE covers, and she has another video on this as well, but I love the idea of recycling old unwanted books into something new and loved)

The basics for formatting the pages (her bit about adding a compass design for the chapters is what inspired me to use Zoro's flag logo)

How to print and prep the pages/signatures

How to finish putting the whole thing together and add some interesting design elements

I especially liked this video because it's very beginner-friendly and casual, which helped the whole project feel a little less daunting. You can get special tools for book binding (there are kits online) but as shown, it's also simple enough to do with a thumbtack and some corkboard if you're low on cash.

That said, I found the stitch in this video a bit confusing, so I used the stitch from this video instead:

Folding & Sewing - Rounded and Backed Cased Book // Adventures in Bookbinding by DAS Bookbinding

Stitch prep is specifically around 7min in if you just want to skip to that. But the whole thing is an interesting watch too. This is more professional bookbinding and he has a lot of other interesting videos if you want to do some more complex things. However I found this stitch to be very straightforward and easy to follow and assemble, so I ultimately used this one when I put together Seven Deaths.

As for my personal tips and things I learned while doing this project?

Turns out Google Docs is kind of useless for this. You'll want actual word processing software like Microsoft Word. If you don't have the cash to spend on Microsoft's ridiculous subscription policy, you can use LibreOffice which is free (I did, and it works very well).

Fics are way longer on paper than they are digitally. Seven Deaths is 'only' about a 50K fic (less, in fact). But it still makes a 200+ page book. Pic a smaller fic to start with while you figure out everything you want to do.

Do some research on good book fonts for the body of your text. You can get crazy with other things (chapter headers or title pages) but pic something recommended for your text body so it's legible.

To add character symbols (like Zoro's flag) you'll need a transparent copy of it to save as a png. Once you pull it into the word doc you can resize and arrange as needed.

Also look at other "real" books you have lying around for ideas for things to add to your book! I turned an author's note into a "Forward", added an "about the author/publisher" section at the back, put in a table of contents, etc. There's other things I want to experiment with next time. Go wild! Have fun!

Test print a couple pages before printing the full project, just to be sure it's actually the right page size, your font is legible and spaced well, etc. If you don't have a printer and you don't want to pay a print shop for some expensive test pages, try your local library! Many let you use their computers and printers for an extremely low cost.

If you don't have a printer (or not one that can do quality printing for 200+ pages) you'll need to go to a print shop. DON'T bother with places like Staples or OfficeMax. I tried this, but their machines automatically staple "booklets" out of your signatures, which messes up your paper and costs extra for this "service." Instead, track down a local print shop in your area. It's easier to talk to them directly about what you want and the quality is better anyway.

On that note, this is an expensive hobby! Printing for Seven Deaths was about $87USD. The quality was worth it, but definitely do not start if you don't have your own printer or a little bit of spending money.

You do not need as much glue or thread as you think you need. Go less. Waste not.

A lot of the end stages is just...waiting...for...glue...to...dry.

You will inevitably, invariably, mess things up on your first project. I sure did! I underestimated the sharpness of some tools and put holes places I didn't mean to; some things glued in a bit sloppily; I didn't set up my page organization exactly right my table of contents ended up on the left page when I envisioned it on the right. But you know what? It doesn't matter! Because at the end of the day you have a book that YOU MADE. And it's still fucking awesome! And now you've learned some things for next time. Do it anyway and have fun with it!

Happy crafting, anon. I hope you are able to add some personal favorites to your bookshelf soon :)

[wholoveseggs]

Hi Lissa! Was wondering if you’d share some of your writing process. I personally can’t choose if I should write on my phone or computer atm lol. But I’d love to get some tips on how you write such great stuff

Ahh jeez, firstly my writing process is chaotic ~lol. I usually start on my phone, mostly for convenience. Then, I edit it and post it on desktop. I just use Google docs when I'm writing

My first step is to write out whatever ideas I have, then I flesh them out into something a little more readable. And then I keep writing until the thing is finished or I get stuck.

If I get stuck, I just let it sit for a while and work on other projects. Then I go back, read it over, copy and paste the things I like and trash the rest. Then go from there. Often repeating the process until I'm happy with it.

Know your weaknesses! I love to ramble, so I cut out a lot of things to make it all flow better. Sometimes you just have to save ideas for other fics just because it doesn't feel right for your current project.

The first thing I've ever written was Bloodbath, (I'm very proud of that title, it still makes me laugh) I was really in the trenches with that one, re-writing paragraphs over and over. Pulling up thesaurus.com like I'm doing my dissertation.

I've learned to relax and just let my thoughts flow instead of getting bogged down with trying to find the perfect word or describe every little emotion with precise detail. Sometimes less is more and you can't put everything you want into one fic.

I'm also terrrriiibbbllleeee at endings, I tend to write just different versions of 'and then they lived happily ever after' and just leave it at that. Like... I'm mostly just writing smut, it doesn't need to be life changing.

Lastly, know what you want to get out of your story and then try to think how you'd best achieve that. Personally, I always have two main objectives in mind: stay true to the characters and have it sound as natural and realistic as possible.

The most important thing is that it has to feel fun and exciting for you to write. Because if it's not fun for you, it won't be fun for the readers either.

Anyways, I'm rambling again, hope that helps you! If you or anyone reading this wants to bounce ideas off me, my DM's are open! My Elijah fixation is eternal~

~Lissa ♡

Ps: this may seem obvious, but always title your work! Especially if you are writing multiple versions. Don't be like me and have 18 untitled documents...it will haunt you…

[g4l4xy-qu33n]

Hi hello I saw your ask where you showed Inky your printed copy of DWM and I need to know how you did that n o w. I want to do this for both my own fics and my fave ones by other authors. Obviously I have to finish writing my fics first but this is very motivating.

OMG?! SILCOITUS??? MY OTHER FAVOURITE SILCO FIC WRITER????? (next to Inky ofc) TALKING TO ME???

Excuse me I gotta go freak tf out

Anyway,

How I printed DWM

just a warning, this is gonna be kinda long

Well, the first thing I did was transfer the fic itself onto an a5 word document! (a google doc would work as well; pretty much anything that you can write on that can be set to a5, or a custom paper size if you want)

Then after copy-pasting the entire fic, I set the margins to 20mm for the top and both sides, and 25mm on the bottom, then added a page number at the bottom using the add page numbers feature. (You can manually type them if you really want to, but DWM was 599 pages long soooo)

I used the font Garamond set on size 11.5, with the chapter headings being size 12 btw

Then I scrolled through the whole document to check for any spacing errors. I also moved the start of every chapter onto a new page (just pressed enter a bunch until it moved down onto a new page-)

After that, I found some art that I would like to use for the cover page, then put text onto that art using a website called Canva (I’m Australian, and this website may not be available to you. Some alternatives are: Procreate, Photoshop, Ibis Paint, or literally anything that you can use to add text on top of an image that can be set to a5, or your chosen page size; make sure that the covers are the same size as the actual pages with the writing on them)

Then I designed the covers, and put the fanfic description on the back to use as the blurb.

I downloaded the covers next and put them at the start and end of the word doc with the actual fanfic on it. Some printing companies may not want the covers as a part of the main document tho so keep that in mind.

Then I created the spine, but I had no idea of the width needed, since I didn't know how thick 599 pages would be. (The website/company I used to print it out automatically sized the spine to be the right width-)

I also wrote out a disclaimer for the publishing/copyright page, but it's not necessary at all, I just didn't exactly feel like getting sued.

Then after I finished allll of that, I found a website/company that would print it out for me, called ePrint Online, but thats an Australian website so it may not ship to where you are? I'm sure there are alternatives to the website in your country tho. (unless you're an Australian)

If you want to, you can print and bind the book yourself, but the spine may not be perfect.

TLDR; I copy pasted the fic onto an a5 word doc then designed covers then used a printing website to print it out :)

hope that makes sense, and sorry if you didn't want it in that much detail, the autism told me to write it out in full for you <3

[jjunieworld]

hi lovely !!

i just have a quick question (as someone who wants to start writing fics), what’s your process with writing? i usually struggle to actually START after coming up with the basis of an idea and it really puts off my motivation :c

especially with longer stuff with more of a plot, i really don’t know where to start. do you find it easier to set up a full storyline beforehand or do you just go with the flow?

i really enjoy your writing style and the way you word things it’s just so poetic ugh :( it motivates me a lot to start myself hehe (especially the lighthouse ☹️ ily lighthouse keeper hoonie ☹️☹️)

i’d also like to know how you started on tumblr? this space is a little bit scary and overwhelming for me, and i’m not really sure how to get stuff out there once i’ve written it TT

i hope you’re having a wonderful day/night !! <3

hi honey!!! ♡♡ this is is gonna be long and kinda rambley i’m sorry so i’ll but everything under the cut!! (>人<)

okay the first thing i recommend doing is writing everything down, whether that be in your notes app or in a google doc!!! and i mean EVERYTHING, down to the smallest scenes or dialogue you want to include to super quick ideas you want to implement — WRITE IT ALL DOWN!! if i don’t write literally everything down i will forget😭 it makes it 100x easier to have all of your ideas in one spot, especially if you struggle with adhd like i do

as for setting everything up, it’s kinda 50/50 for me! for the lighthouse i only had specific scenes i wanted to include written down (more specifically the ending and the first kiss scene) for the rest i didnt outline it or anything at all i just went the first thing that i thought about! for other fics like meet me at our spot and the salt under the sea, i had a whole dedicated outline!! sometimes the outline just makes things very overwhelming for me (especially if it’s super long) and then i start to hate it so i’ll just scrap it

but outlining definitely does help!!! the only thing is that sometimes when writing what you have outlined, i feels like you’ve already written everything which makes me at least not want to write anymore😭 as for starting, honestly start with the scene you’re most excited for, whether that be the ending or a scene in the middle of your fic! it makes things WAYYY easier and helps you get into the mind space of writing so you’re able to start from the beginning! i’ve been testing this out a little and i’ve found that it really helps!! (along with just writing a little of whatever fic you have in your head if it isn’t the one you’re currently trying to work on. it’s okay to put one fic down and pick up another!! it also helps to get you into that writing mindspace!)

all in all i would really recommend having an outline that way it’s a lot easier to know how you want your story to go rather than it all being a jumbled mess of ideas! it will make everything less overwhelming by having it all already laid out

the way i started on tumblr was actually through smaus!! the main one being all for a bet! you can start by smaus or even full fics, it really depends on what you want to do going forward! it does help starting small (like i did with smaus) because you can practice writing and how you want your writing style to be and everything, but if smaus aren’t your thing i would start with drabbles that way you put your account out there before fully plunging in!

the number one thing i tell everyone who asks it to make sure you tag your fics correctly!! the way i first learned to tag my fics was looking at all of the popular ones of the person i’m writing for (let’s say yeonjun x reader) and seeing how other authors tag their fics then copy it! tagging is very very important cause tumblr sucks pushing content out so you really have to do everything yourself :(

also if you’re looking to develop your own writing style or work on grammar or diction or whatever else the READ OTHER AUTHORS WORKS!!! i don’t mean just here on tumblr but published books as well! if you like the writing style of an author and want your writing style to be similar to theirs, then READ!! it’s literally impossible to grow your own writing if you don’t consume other’s. think of it as a forest, we’re all trees sharing the same water and sunlight and helping each other grow ♡ (that being said, don’t just straight up copy other author’s works!! that’s plagiarizing and really shitty no matter if you’re inspired or if they’re your favorite author or not. this goes for here and published works!)

it also helps to have a nice setup for your fics (again, not copying other authors!) if your set up is aesthetically pleasing, especially on here, more people are gonna wanna read it! i would suggest avoiding using any hard to read or distracting fonts, honestly just using the regular tumblr text is good enough! throw some colored text in there that matches your pictures and you’re golden!!

a little wrap up since this is so long lmao:

write down ALL of your ideas (including any scenes or dialogue you want to include)

start with whichever scene that you’re the most excited for so you get in the headspace of writing and then work around that

MAKE. SURE. YOU. TAG. YOUR. FICS. PROPERLY!!!!! tumblr sucks and won’t push out your content if you don’t!! it is up to you to promote your own works!!!

having a nice and aesthetic layout will draw in readers!! avoid using any hard to read or distracting fonts! try matching the colored text to the pictures you use to have everything be cohesive!!!

again, so sorry this is all just word vomit and super long😭 i hoped that this helped you and if you have any more questions then feel free to ask!! ♡ and thank you so so much!! you’re really sweet that just made my day ( ◡‿◡ *) i’m so happy that my work motivated you to start writing and posting on here!!! hehe make sure to send me your fic when it’s posted, i would love to read it!! (´ε｀ ʃƪ)♡

[spockandawe]

Hello, your work is beautiful! Forgive me for I've fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole and I'm not sure if this is an appropriate question, but I was wondering how you gathered and typeset the text for all the danmei/baihe you do? On ao3 there's an epub & other download options, but on most danmei translations I've seen there isn't.

Sorry if this is a silly question or I worded it weirdly! I've been wanting to get into bookbinding for a long time but it seems like such an overwhelming hobby to get into haha

It's plenty appropriate!!! So there's a variety of different methods I've used depending on when I was making the book and how the translations had been shared online. It's kind of a nightmare in how there isn't a one size fits all solution. And after jjwxc did that whole thing about offering to pay (mainland citizens) for translations of novels, a lot of the options got more complicated, unfortunately. And locked google docs are a thing I understand, but I hate them so so so much, I'm in this hobby because The Ephemeral Nature Of Internet Posts And The Looming Fear Of Lost Media, and locked google docs are a nightmare.

(the practical parts of making books are also overwhelming, just because there are so many pieces that go into it and so many ways to do it. I recommend sealemon on youtube as a good place to absorb the basic elements of how a book is assembled, then das bookbinding once you feel like you've outgrown sealemon. or on tumblr there's renegadepublishing as a place to see a lot of other fanbinders post their work, and they also have a number of resources on the process!)

Once or twice, I've functionally retyped a novel. This sucks. I don't recommend it at ALL if you have better options. You almost always have better options.

The usual approach is that I've gone to a website, copied the text chapter by chapter (usually adding footnotes as I go, it's easier to do them four or five at a time than to wrangle like sixty when you have a huge document and 'footnote 1' x30 to place). This is tedious, but meditative. I don't mind putting in the work at all, I frequently harvest ao3 stories that are being turned into anthologies in a similar way.

Some sites are now password-protected. If you have the brain space, identifying groups you're interested in that have sites like this and doing the steps you need to get into their discord group or whatever and have access, that's a GREAT chore to cross off the list. Some groups make this very easy and you can do it on the fly, and some groups are a fucking NIGHTMARE, and it can be hard to tell which is which from the outside.

Some websites have copy protections as well. Some of them will let you copy and paste, but a paragraph or two in the middle will be jumbled up a bit, just a simple cipher. I think it may just be shifting the letters, not even swapping them at random. There may be a coding way to get around this, but I barely know the first thing about coding, so I copy and paste and retype these paragraphs by hand. Some sites bluntly refuse to let you copy and paste, or screenshot, and I resent these sites deeply because a huge part of the fun of reading these things is sharing choice bits with friends to try to bait them into the pit with you. Circle back to this with the same solution as I'm about to get into.

And then there are the locked google docs. At certain points, there have been workarounds, like loading the whole page and then disabling javascript, which lets you select and copy. But last time I tried that, the workaround no longer worked. There are other people who care about this kind of thing, it's a question that comes up on forums, but much like questions about how to break amazon's drm stranglehold on kindle books, old solutions frequently stop working, and I have no idea what the current best practices are.

BIG CAVEAT here, that.... I get it. Translation is hard fucking work, and it's really easy for other people to put in a fraction of the same effort to scrape a translation and repost it. Or worse, sell it. I think translators deserve MASSIVE credit for what they do, and I try to support them the same way I support authors whose books I work with. I don't want to divert any traffic or appreciation from them, but at the same time, I've got google docs, I know it takes about two seconds for me to delete any given document I've ever posted. I am here because I adored mxtx and was very afraid the translations of her books would disappear someday and would be unrecoverable, which is kind of sadlarious in retrospect.

But that worry still applies very much to a lot of other talented authors who haven't been licensed, and hell, it applies to the fan translators who were forced to take the hard work they did for free offline after licenses were secured by someone else! It's a niche community thing, but I witnessed a SCRAMBLE to preserve those documents before they disappeared from public view! I don't think the ExR mdzs translation was perfect, but nuking it from the internet is still a huge loss, and nuking the newer in-progress translations was fucking heartbreaking. It still upsets me to think about that too hard. And for translations tucked behind copy protections, yeah, it's harder for scrapers to steal and repost, but it also becomes so much more difficult for someone with archival intentions to preserve the silly things.

So..... there are sites where free epubs of books can be found for the downloading. I'm not advocating for or against piracy, I passionately do not want to take a moral stance on this, every person has to work it out for themselves. Don't ask me why I own gideon the ninth as a purchased hardcover, audiobook, and kindle book and as an illicit epub and mobi. Maybe I need five copies of one book, don't look at me. But standards for uploading on these sites are kind of lax, and once, I noticed that hey, waitaminnit, these don't look like published translated novels, these look like scraped fan translations. First, they were, second, when jjwxc did the thing, this became much, much more relevant to my workflow.

I'm not going into specifics on my blog, because really, I am very anxious not to divert attention or credit from translators. These ebooks are usually not formatted with much love or care. The footnotes are generally a formatting nightmare or missing completely. When a translator site jumbles the text via copying and pasting, a lot of these don't correct it, there's just a patch of gibberish. The places translators post are usually MUCH more pleasant ways to actually read the goods. But. In the event that the original translator suddenly yoinks their page, if there's that kind of emergency, I can still decode that cipher and reconstruct the original goods. It's not usually PRETTY to format these things, but it's still easier than retyping a whole novel, which I am stubborn enough to do, but I'm pretty sure that's how I killed my last laptop's keyboard.

I won't go into more detail than that on the public-facing part of my blog, but hopefully that's enough to go by! I can answer private questions as well off anon, but I do realize that I should have probably expected questions like this sooner, considering my hobbies XD I wanted to make it very clear why I'm doing this, and elaborate on the tricky line to walk between supporting the fans who do this hard labor for free and (understandably!) don't want their work stolen, and preserving these works so that they can't just disappear overnight. I am constantly aware (and lowkey anxious) that it would be easy for someone unfamiliar to take a glance at what I do and accuse me of being a dirty filthy pirate who's ready to destroy this community with my Thieving Ways, but I have a genuine passion for the archival aspects of this hobby, and it really is a driving force in what I do. Capturing and formatting these cnovel translations isn't easy, and if I wasn't passionate, I would have stopped ages ago. I do it because I think it's important, I think it would be genuinely tragic to lose these stories, or to lose variations on these stories when fan translations are taken down in favor of official ones, and I passionately want to see them preserved.

[just-a-carrot]

with the character asks lore maybe you could compile it all in a searchable text file of sorts? like google doc or word or something, copy the text of the ask and the answer, n then put some like searchable 'tags' above or below it

like:

'hey whats the casts jobs?' - anon iggy web developer genzou bike repair shop etc. etc. - careers professions

i use this system to organize my stuff usually ^0^ the tags are because i know ill forget what specific wording it had and would just search things generally around the topic that might not be in the base text itself. like if its a more in depth description of my characters appearance, ill write tags for synonyms for appearance, phrases like 'looks like', and certain features id probably mention like a mole on the foot or something. i also put the date on things sometimes, seperated so its searchable like 'october 7 2021'

it could also be sorted by categories of ask? like if its about something outside the game, a writing process or your own thoughts on a part, then another category for in-world facts and things, so on and so forth

this is just an idea of course, but i thought it might help maybe? >.>;

ohhhhhhhhh

something like that's not a bad idea

although it all really comes down to tags. like i just need more tags. even if i had more tags then it would be a lot more easily searchable here on tumblr too 💦 right now i only have ow: asks and char info asks that i added more recently specifically for char info. but i wonder if even just creating a better tag system for types of questions, char specific info, etc., would be helpful even as a first step for helping people look through old asks more easily...

THERE ARE OVER A YEAR'S WORTH OF ASKS THO SO IT MIGHT TAKE A WHILE LMAO (hence why i can never find anything anymore if i need to go back in and search 💦💦)

i will try maybe just coming up with better tags first. then i'll need to ofc spend all the time actually going through and adding the tags sob... and then decide if it's something i should eventually take off tumblr. but i kinda hate making ppl leave. it feels like it could be a hassle for ppl, unsure tho ahhhh

[mothfables]

I have a potentially stupid question. Simply put: How do you write? T-T I have ideas, I have an outline/timeline, I know what I want to do, but I have no idea how to actually write it out. Every time I try, the writing is so stilted and it all just feels...wrong. Do you have any tips or tricks or anything?

it’s not stupid at all!! let’s see... outlines and knowing what you want to happen are good! i write down as much as i can so i don’t forget and can go back to it when i actually start writing.

unfortunately, the rest of it is what anyone else is gonna tell you: practice! if you get an idea, write write write! it’s okay if it’s not good the first, second, or fourth times. you just gotta keep going! get that scene out of your head and into words! even now, looking back at stuff i wrote even a few years ago, i find things i would have done differently, or added to, or not done at all. but then i remember ‘hey, i can actually do that now! i can more easily tell the story i want to be told!’

it’s taken me *years* to find a system that works for me: after i get down everything i can in bullet points, i write a physical first draft. then i go to google docs for the second, then tumblr for the third, and then ao3 for the last. the first draft is to get everything out of my head that i can; every draft after that is fine-tuning until i’m happy with it. sometimes i cut out entire parts!

another thing is read as much as you can! find inspiration in all sorts of things! i love going through fics and finding a line or scene or description that hits me straight in the creative part of my brain. there’s all sorts of writing styles out there- like with drawing, taking inspiration from other creators is natural! not to mention it can help expand your vocabulary and make you think about the way you structure your sentences or scenes (just, y’know, don’t straight up copy someone else’s writing. that’s not cool).

also, don’t be afraid to take a break if things aren’t working out or you get stuck. there have been times where i’m writing a story i’m really excited about and then all of a sudden i just get. stuck. i don’t know how to move on from that one part and i don’t want to skip it because that will throw me off the planned course i have in my head. so i find something else! sometimes i start writing out the next draft, and figuring out the changes i want to make from the previous one can help me get through it. other times i just need to walk away from it for a bit and focus on other things, or go over the scene again in my head, either so i remember what i want to happen or from a different angle/p.o.v.

so to put it shortly: read all sorts of things to expand your knowledge and get that first draft out of your head. don’t worry about it looking pretty or stilted or weird, every time you write you get a little bit better, a little bit closer to that version in your head. and if it changes along the way, that’s fine! that’s a natural part of the process. take a break if you need to. but above all, just keep writing!!

[rindomness]

what do you like about Carlos? (jackdaw) ( grdhgfyg my questions are basic because I do not know much about wtnv but don’t mind being spoilt)

FAIR WARNING: this is, like, really long? it is five pages long and that's on 11pt Arial in google docs, where I had to copy and paste it so I could fix paragraph spacing so it would post. Also, I like, legit cried while writing this? So there is that also. like thank you for the blorbo talking enabling but also i do not know if you fully grasp what youve unleashed. idk if i fully know what youve unleashed

Because what don't I like about Carlos? He is my chief blorbo. He is the Guy I think the most about. I'm a little bit beyond just blorbo thoughts about him.

Okay let's break this down a little bit 'cause there's, to put it simply, a lot. Like, fifteen thousand words and counting of fic a lot? Also, I'm gonna be getting into, like, super recent stuff and also It Devours! here so just heads up on that

So. Carlos. Carlos shakes up the entire status quo, helps put the world back together, and becomes a critical element of Night Vale. That's on a narrative level. I'm gonna start with that because that's easier for me to talk about and also won't get me called out quite as quickly!

Carlos is a driving force in the narrative, in the world. Carlos shows up in town at the very start of the podcast, says he is here to study the most scientifically fascinating place in the U.S., and proceeds to uproot every single bit of Night Vale's centuries-long status quo. Carlos shows up and turns the entire universe on its head, at least in Night Vale. If I'm going to talk about how powerful, exactly, Carlos's impact is, I need to talk about Cecil. Of course I have to talk about Cecil.

Cecil announces, on live radio, that he fell in love with Carlos immediately. Cecil instantly attaches his attention to Carlos. I talked about this a little bit more in the Night Vale essay (over here) but Cecil is vital for the continued functioning of Night Vale. In mundane terms, Cecil on the radio serves as a giver of instructions and updates and ways to stay safe in this unbelievably dangerous town. In a less mundane sense, he's the Voice of Night Vale, which is an actual title, and sort of... represents his place as the center of Night Vale's community (which contains that more mundane element) and also as the center of this weird little pocket universe Night Vale is stuck in for the first five years at least. Because Huntokar loves Night Vale and Huntokar loves Cecil and Huntokar is a god and a god's love can be a dangerous thing.

But Cecil falls in love with Carlos. Carlos, who is a scientist, who deals in observation and acknowledgement and recording information and learning from it all. Things which Night Vale, a town with a very tenuous grip on its own reality, is innately allergic to. Night Vale is built upon the necessity of ignorance and denial for survival and continued existence. It depends on Cecil, the Voice of Night Vale, not changing, not growing, not looking, not for real. And he falls in love with a scientist, and he changes.

Narratively, it's absolutely insane how much power Carlos holds. Given the rules of the universe, Carlos is incredibly powerful. In Night Vale, perception is reality and acknowledgement becomes a threat to the powers that be. If it were anyone except Carlos, there is absolutely no way that any of the enforcement entities in town would let him get away with even a little bit of what he's able to. But Cecil loves him. I fully ascribe to the idea that Carlos's miraculous rescue and survival in One Year Later is because of Cecil, and Cecil refusing to accept that Carlos was dead. Cecil is powerful. And he's been protecting Carlos, in ways he might not even realize. Which means that Carlos is free to acknowledge Night Vale's weirdness, and because perception is reality in Night Vale, it changes for him.

I'll get back to this more later, but you see this a lot with the University of What It Is. If anything, that's what the UOWII arc is about. It's been a thesis since at least Who's A Good Boy? and Cecil wandering through the ruins of Night Vale, announcing that he must bear witness, even though he is sure his mic is not broadcasting to anyone. Perception is reality and acknowledgement is what is keeping Night Vale together post-Matryoshka and what kept it from toppling into the abyss to begin with. Carlos becomes unbelievably powerful in this way, in this understanding of the power of observation and recording. (I promise we will get back to the UOWII but I want to spend actual time on that and I have other stuff I wanna talk about first.)

Carlos does not seem to realize this, though, not for a while. I personally don't think that it really clicks for Carlos entirely what perception is reality means in the case of Night Vale until somewhere around Toast. I do not think it really clicks for Carlos how important he has become here, how much of an impact he has had, until reality itself starts to fall apart. The key of Carlos, and Carlos's impact, and what makes this Night Vale the True Night Vale as opposed to any of the other Night Vales we learn about, is the presence of Carlos. Every Night Vale has a Cecil, because the existence of Night Vale hinges on the existence of Cecil. There is only one Carlos, though.

Carlos only exists in this one reality. Carlos only exists in this one version of Night Vale. And we see how much that has changed things! We see it in The Missing Sky, when we hear the miniature city's Cecil and how sad he is. This Cecil is despondent, and cannot see any reason to keep going. He is deep, deep in a terrible dissociative depression, reporting on a pointless war and a missing sky and a god he believes has abandoned them. We see it in Cal, with the version of Cecil who never met Carlos, either, and Cal himself. The simple, stated question of "do you have a girlfriend yet?" sets all the scene we need for Cal. This Cecil does not have a Carlos, and he does not even have the safety in the knowledge that Night Vale is a safe place for him to announce, loudly, to the whole world, that he loves another man. And it's... depressing.

The podcast is from Cecil's point of view, so we get most of this information from listening to Cecil talk. We don't really see Carlos's perspective often, if ever, if not filtered through the way he interacts with Cecil. For that, I take us now to It Devours! because oh boy. It is very clear that Carlos loves Cecil very very deeply. If only from what we get in voicemails and phone calls. I haven't listened to it, but my understanding is that he's very clear about his love for Cecil in Condos, too. And we get it from his actions in Taking Off/Review and the way he picks up everything he's been doing for a year in the desert otherworld to go back to Night Vale and to Cecil because he loves Cecil and wants that to be his home.

Except, it wasn't a year. It was ten. And this information is revealed right alongside Carlos cares about the people he loves more than anything and the book-long element of Carlos trying, despite the wishes of City Council, to investigate the desert otherworld. I have written so much about the desert otherworld, and I will write more, because holy shit. Holy shit. I'm not going to tell you what it is because it made me almost scream for real in the very early hours of the morning when I heard it, but the information that is revealed in the very end of It Devours! is heartbreaking. Carlos cares about the people he loves more than anything, and it brings him right to the brink of destruction, because of how much he cares about Cecil and this new family he has found through Cecil. And throughout It Devours! you get such a clear idea of just how much Carlos loves Cecil, how much knowing Cecil has changed Carlos right back.

And, like, the autistic coding. It is blatant. It is obvious. It is much harder to overlook it than to notice it. It is intentional. We're getting to the part here where I might be calling myself out a little bit but like. The way that it weaves into how he expresses his love for Cecil and for Night Vale. It's the way that it is channeled through his science, and how his science helps him make sense of the world. I love him, and I love how he is written in such a way that his science has become the lens through which he navigates the world and this step-by-step justification of his existence. The way that this plays into the ongoing belongingness element of his arc throughout the podcast. 

He starts as an outsider, and he stays an outsider, and just as he's starting to think he might not be an outsider, well. The desert otherworld happens. And I've definitely worked through a lot of these thoughts already but that's what it comes down to! I cannot help but read his belongingness arc as innately tied into how he is written as autistic because that's just what it's like to grow up autistic! You don't belong anywhere, or at least that's what you're told. If you're a lucky one, that message isn't stated explicitly, but it's there. Of course he's cautious with his assertion he belongs in Night Vale! It would be a wonder if he wasn't!

So he does not know how important he is until he is forced to see it and then as soon as he is forced to see it it becomes his whole world. And every time I think about how there is only one Carlos across every single Night Vale in existence (or tentative non-existence), I have to think about how he believed he should not return to Night Vale because the door had shut for him, and how this led to spending a full ten years in a lonely and empty desert otherworld while Cecil fell apart back in Night Vale. I think about Cecil's sobbed I am still holding the trophy in One Year Later, and I think about Carlos grounds me in Delta and I think about how, in The Promise of Time, his joy at the end was for himself and Carlos, and I think about his panicked I have to call Carlos as soon as the warrant goes out in The Heist Pt. 3. And because of that... Night Vale attaches its reality to Carlos, too.

Night Vale cannot exist as it is now without both of them. There is only one version of Carlos across every single version of Night Vale. Carlos makes Night Vale what it becomes, because he witnesses. He witnesses and he records it all and he investigates and he understands. Besides Cecil, I do not think there is a single person in town other than Carlos who truly understands Night Vale. He understands it through scientific observation and archival and experimentation. Carlos pokes the boundaries to see how they'll react to him but he never crosses them, never breaks them. He does not feel the need to explain why Night Vale is the way it is now, because it simply is. He is observing the laws of this town (both legal and physical) and he respects them and nods as he passes.

Which brings us back to the University of What It Is. I said we'd come back to this, didn't I? I don't know how much I can say that doesn't lead to speculative conclusions here, because the UOWII arc isn't finished at the time of writing, but there are some things that have been laid out clearly. Janet Lubelle does not stop for anything or anyone. Janet Lubelle is what the UOWII considers to be the height of a successful scientist. Carlos used to also be considered a successful scientist, and then he came to Night Vale, and he lost whatever quality it was that the UOWII considered a qualifier of success.

Janet Lubelle does not respect the rules of Night Vale. It's very, very easy to see Dr. Lubelle as a foil for Carlos, especially since they came from the same institution. Only, Dr. Lubelle tramples over those boundaries, those unspoken (and, arguably, spoken) rules that make Night Vale what it is. She is here for an explanation for everything and she will not stop until all the mystery, all the wonder, is gone. And she calls it science. 

And if you go back far enough, Carlos talked like this too! He was looking for an explanation to Night Vale's temporal weirdness, an explanation for its weird seismic activity, an explanation for the house that does not exist. But he adapted, and he learned, and he observed, and he took his time and did not simply enforce his way of things onto the world without its permission.

Carlos feels like a love letter to science and the scientific way of observing the world and falling further in love with it through that scientific inquiry. I'm going to get a little, uh, sappy and personal here, so fair warning, but I likely have that reading because that's been how I've lived my whole life. I was talking to someone even just today about how, when I was little, my dad would take us out onto the back patio and we would set things on fire and see what we could burn to make the fire different colors. 

I've grown up with parents who deeply, truly love science. My mom has a physics degree. My dad has a math one. He still texts my family group chat every day to inform us it is pi time at 3:14. Every day. So maybe it's that, and maybe it's growing up with an understanding of the world that is rooted in scientific inquiry and questions and exploration, but Carlos feels like a love letter to science to me.

Carlos comes in and he turns the entire world on its head as he does it and he finds, at the end of the day, that he loves Night Vale. He loves Night Vale because it's so weird. It's the most scientifically fascinating place in the U.S. and this becomes his way of saying I love you. I want to understand you. Science, through Carlos, is its own sort of faith in the world and the way it is all put together, how everything connects. And Night Vale loves him back for it. He'll poke and prod at the edges but he will never cross them if he knows crossing will do harm, even if he does not fully understand why, because following an ever-growing series of whys is what science is about. Not having one single explanation at the end of the day. 

Carlos's exploration of Night Vale changes it, because it must change, everything must change eventually in order to continue to exist, and Carlos does what he can to help it not fall apart completely as it does. Carlos becomes more Night Vale as time progresses, and Night Vale lets more of Carlos in, until he is so enshrined in it that it is just his life. Night Vale lets him rest, and here, in this weird, weird town that is so incredibly hard to find, he finally finds a place he belongs. I don't know what isn't to love about that.

[lordoftablecloths]

vent post i guess i dont know i just wanted to write stuff down instead of just go ing to bed and crying over it you can just scroll past it

im fine im sane im noramal im so unbleiveably cringe ,, the only person i have irl- fuck, or even online for that matter- to show the dumbass things i write is my silly little dumbass younger brother who doesn;t understand what im trying to get at and i guess its not his fault, i seriously doubt he's spent unhealthy amounts of time making various short scenerios in his head about charcters he came up with and eventually trying to give them a story and write little things about them in google docs because where else am i supposed to put this and its just ,, he doesnt know wht im trying to do and i dont know how to explain it to him because the "history" i gess behind it is so fucking complicated by now that these characters arent even the same characters as they were when i originally created them, other than some physical attributes and their names and he just knows them as the random cringe shit i made up in middle school but so many years have passed by now that these stupid fuckers whose only purpose to serve is to make me stop remembering that i exist and ive gotten too attatched to them because who else was i supposed to get attatched to when i was going through an identity crisis at the time- and, quite frankly, still fucking am- and it was so much easier to pretend i dont exist and just project my flaws and insecurities and underlying subconcsious thoughts into these charactes that no one knows about except me and oh god im just created a long ass vent post on tumblr that no one's going to read and no one understands the story behind fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck whatever ill go ahead and post this unfinished thing because no one's going to get it either way ill probably delete it later if it doesnt get buried under reblogs

dont think too much about this i just got sad because my brother was giving me a bunch of criticism on an outline of a story i was working on- which is fair, i need to take criticism- but he only knows the characters in it as their semi-formed cringe versions so i chickened out half way and now i feel bad because i was really proud of this thing for the whopping span of like one day before i decided to show it to another human person instead of letting it rot away inside of me like i usually do and now i feel bad about my writing skills

im trying so hard to just take his words with a grain of salt because this kid does not have nearly as much experience with writing as i do, but i feel like im copying too many of my inspirations (DnD, generic fantasy story about defeating evil creature, silly tropes, etc,,) which sucks because that was just like the first two pages of the outline and theres nine fucking pages and like the second half of it was what i put the most effort into and i felt like the ideas were really origianl but i could make myself let him naturally get to that part of the outline because i was starting to feel really bad and wieerd and oh god he is looking at ideas i havent ever expressed to another human person even though i am very familaiar with because i came up with them and they havebeen in my head for at least a year or two by now and have been haunting me ever since so instead of skipping ahead to the parts that were really good in my opinion but would have made no sense without context i just told him to piss off i gues s

i dont know. i feel dumb. i feel stupid. ive put so much effort into this stuff and the concept that ive been wasting my time feels like too heavy of a weight to handle. god none of this porbobably nmakes any sense ,,,,,,,,, i guess this is why i feel miserable when the fanart and shitpost memes i post get a comically larger audience and attention than the art relating to my silly goofy ocs, because these stupid fucking characters are all thats keeping me going . call me cringe, but is it still cringe if the concept that maybe i too can be around people that love me and instead of having to like me in spite of my faults love me for them keeps me from fucking killing myself is it still cringe?

if a tree falls in a forest and no one's around, does its fall even make a sound? (shit piss fuck sorry i dont remember the original quote and all i can remember is tha t one line from that one musical i dont remember what it was)

if an autistic moron that cant even talk to a cashier without having a panic attack makes a universe full of fictional characters of his own cfreation then an alternate universe, then several alternate universes, then a spin off from that original universe and etc etc but its all just on google fucking docs and no where else except deleted excerpts from a dead wattpad account, did he ever even create anything at all?

its pointless. its all so fucking pointless. its a waste of time. why do i do this at all. its so fucking pointless. it makes no fucking sense. you cant just make a story with characters in it, then make a fucking fantasy au of that universe with the same characters but with different designs and wildly different personalities and then make a whole fucking complicated lore-filled story about the fantasy au version while the original universe's story is still left mostly unfinished like forget about a first draft of the text i havent even finished the first ddraft of the outline yet buckarooooooo

okay fuck you guys thats all i want to tell you im going to go pretend to myself to try to go to sleep and then cry now

[birlwrites]

how do you keep track of all your planning, like what programs do you use

google docs and trello!

i have several components so i'm going to bullet point them out:

lore/characterization/high-level planning document: this is a google doc containing. well over 100 subsections agjskhdjfk. where i keep track of worldbuilding, characters and their relationships and history, and talk through plot arcs and structure. it has topics that range from as broad as 'the dark network' to as narrow as 'how evan's flirting with regulus changes over time relative to his own Feelings Onset.' this is where all the rambling and talking myself through the story goes

spreadsheets: this is where i keep track of just like, elaborate lists lmao. which characters are taking which electives; all the characters in each house, who the prefects are, who's on the quidditch team, and (sometimes) who's friends with who (that's in notes on spreadsheet cells lol); list of characters and their height, birthday, birth year, year of entering hogwarts, year of graduating from hogwarts, and year of marriage if applicable; class schedules; all of the sacred 28 families (plus some other 'good families') arranged by rank with members listed in notes; you get the idea

trello board: this is the outline, on a much more granular level than the high-level plotting in the google doc. for atfhv, it's broken down by month, with scene cards in each month organized chronologically (and some cards that are just like, things to remember to reference, etc) and color-coded according to the arc they belong to. i have a 'Completed Barline' which is just another card that literally says those words, and i put it between the scene i just finished and the scene i need to do next. i have YEARS of the story built out in here, although the further into the future we get, the broader the outline becomes - i do a lot of the specific scene planning as i go, so the outline gets more filled out over time

the bonus is that all of these are free, although they do take some time to load because they're just pretty large files at this point. i occasionally download archival copies of my lore/planning doc just so i can delete stuff i think i don't need basically freely from the google doc without permanently getting rid of it

[midnighteraser]

Just curious but what's your writing process? Like how do you come up with an idea and how do you start writing it and such

My writing process is a whirlwind, that's for sure! I'll put it under a read more because it's very long!

Usually, I'd get inspiration for something and instantly go to write the idea down in a Google Keep note I call the "Idea Bank". I'm very forgetful, so these help me brainstorm and add detail to ideas. I have an Idea Bank for all of my main AUs and ones for random stories/AUs I come up with, and at the moment I have 22 of the latter. (Thanks to Keep's word cap.) I often go back and add new ideas/little details if I think of them.

I recommend having wherever you keep ideas easily accessible so you can note ideas down the moment you get them! Google Keep has this cool widget you can access from your phone home page! (The line of Keep applications is because they removed the part of the widget that let you quickly go to the app. :( )

This is where my process changes dependent on my mood.

If I suddenly get inspiration, I tend to write in any important parts out and stick them in the idea bank. If this gets too long, I open a new Keep note and copy and paste it there for me to flesh out later.

If I have no inspiration, I jot down very briefly a description/summary of what the idea is about. It's often a summary then the notes are taken underneath the idea. For example, it could be something as simple as this:

Or a long-ish summary/scene with details underneath, like this:

Now onto the actual writing.

I said, onto the writing.

Why do I have so many empty Keep notes.

As you can see, I have a bad habit of starting a note, adding the title, and then imagining what happens rather than writing it down. It happens! Sometimes I get a cool title and then don't know what to do with it.

Most often than not, I start by opening up an Idea Bank and skimming through the ideas I have. If one sticks out, or if I already knew what I was writing from the start and just needed reference, I start to plan out what happens in my head. (Unless I already have a timeline of events or very vague notes on where the story goes, which makes life 10x easier.)

Sometimes, rarely, if a piece of writing is dialogue-heavy, I write up a script first.

Then, I flesh out some parts.

And I'd go back later to detail it. I often go back and flesh out parts I really like then revert back to script format for the parts later.

However, my main way of writing is what I like to call "Let's goooo". I have a vague idea, I kind of have an image in my head, I can wing this, surely! That's probably why half of my stories get stuck at a point and I don't know how to continue, but sometimes I get a streak of inspiration and write a whole story for me to edit and make sense of later!

I have a few Keep tabs open. These often include:

The Idea Bank for what I'm currently writing

The story I'm writing

The random ideas Idea Bank (in case I get inspo for something else)

Random other thing I'm using to procrastinate (Chatfic, other story, etc.)

Keep tab that isn't on a note, in case I need to use Keep for something and don't what to lose my place in my other tabs

So my window often looks something like this:

The issue with me is that I have a million ideas and can't stick to one for long enough to finish writing a story for it. It's a miracle if I finish one!

Sometimes I'm too lazy to swap tabs and have the description/script of what happens in the story in the same Keep note, separated by a divider of sorts. I may also have what comes next underneath what's already written.

But most often than not, I have random important scenes held together by dividers! When I feel more inspired, I go back to connect the scenes together with whatever happens in between.

This example is a sort of mix between those styles!

If I ever actually end up finishing something, I put it onto a Google Docs note to edit! Because the red lines under words doesn't appear on mobile Google Keep for some reason, if I'm writing on my phone I move to computer.

I'd usually check through with Grammarly to be extra safe (but I often have it off because it annoys me), then reread and add/remove words. Sometimes I end up adding entire paragraphs!

Then, I'd add the "Finished" tag on Google Keep, so I know the story is finished and I don't have to continue writing it. I also have "Ao3 Posted" so I know what I've posted and what I haven't.

Even then, sometimes I go back to finished stories to read and edit them! You can never be too thorough!

That should be everything regarding my writing process! The only other things I can think of mentioning is how I often write with music on! It gives me lots of inspiration, which is why I often write song fics! I also often write crossover and AU fics, but these never go posted because there's so much hidden lore that I can't explain it all with one fic! You see, I start in the MIDDLE of an AU, not the start. I have so many stories that are so far into the AU that they literally don't make sense to anyone else. (Which sucks D:)

I also tend to write at unholy hours of the night. For some reason, my brain decides the best time to come up with ideas is when I'm trying to get some sleep.

Brain please. I want to sleep.

Also sorry for the late answer! I've been thinking about this ask a lot and wanted to get everything about my writing process in!

[jellogram]

Hi! I really like your ADHD writing tips! Do you know of any good programs or sites to organize your writing. I'm a visual person, but don't have the space to have a physical copy..

Hi!!! Glad I could help! I mostly use Google docs for everything and I sort things into color-coded folders based on when they were written and what they were for. Drive lets you change the color of the folders so my work ones are all bright red and my personal ones are pastels.

I also keep a running doc for jotting down bits and pieces, like random scenes or story ideas or short poems. If anything on that file becomes a real story or article, I copy it into a new doc and sort it accordingly. Something about typing into a scratch doc makes it easier to put words down.

In terms of organizing concepts for a specific writing project, I like to use notecards. I'll write the points I want to hit (or story events I know will happen) on each card and then lay them out on the table and move them around to decide a logical order. Sometimes I'll do something similar on a whiteboard. Outlining is my best friend, especially for articles.

Lastly, I always have a bookmark folder on my web browser labeled "Sources" and that's where I keep all the references for whatever I'm currently working on. Sometimes it gets subdivided for different projects. When I'm done with something, I clear out its Sources folder.

Hopefully this helps! As messy as I am in general, I like to keep my writing stuff pretty neat. When you're dealing with all the ADHD mental walls around everything (or even just regular writer's block) it helps to be able to open Drive and see everything I need laid out.

[ltleflrt]

Helllo 🙂

Alright so the whole ao3 tos violation drama is ongoing on twitter and since your name is somehow what these people are using to legitimise their arguments, I’ll super appreciate it if you could clear up a couple of things for me.

Do you also believe the person they’re calling out is behind this? There doesn’t seem to be much proof about it except for the “everyone knows” and the google doc and some unknown insider. I’ll basically take your word as proof because I trust you.

And second, were any of your fics ever in trouble with ao3 because of this thing? It’s very hard for me to accept ao3 deletes fics because someone in the comments mentions getting a physical copy. The whole spin these people have put on this is just *shakes hands*

Thank you and I’m sorry the trolls try to stop you from making physical copies of your work. Their “well someone’s making profit” sucks!!!

I'm going to preface this with a reminder that I'm not active on Twitter, so I do not know everything that's going on there.

Do I believe the person they're calling out is behind it? Well, I believe she started it. Or at the very least was extremely vocal about her opposition to printed fics in a forum where she whipped up people who respect her opinion into having the same opinions.

I don't have proof. It has been several years since I was targeted, and I did not save receipts. I'm bad enough about doing that with things I buy in the store, so I certainly don't keep track of shit like that for fandom drama. Everyone who attacked me was on anon, and at the time I was naive enough to think it was okay to share my links publicly, so I have no idea who decided to impersonate CW/WB and report me for copyright. (I seriously doubt it was actually someone at CW/WB doing the reporting.) Someone came to me privately at the time and explained that she saw the drama go down in this person's FB group and showed me some screenshots. Here's the first anon message I got about it, and as you can see that was 5 years ago. If you check the comments you can see that someone mentions thinking they knew who it was.

I have also seen a recent screenshot where someone posted pictures of printed fics that they purchased on FB, and she responded negatively to it and said that she didn't think that the author getting zero profit was good enough since Lulu makes a profit. That's basically the same thing she and her groupies were talking about 5 years ago when they were bitching about me, so the tune has not changed in all this time. And during the conversation that followed they were patting themselves on the back for just printing their favorite fics on their home printers instead. That's what set me off on this rant. That screenshot was shared in a private discord server, and I don't intend to make it public. There are people in that FB group who don't share that person's views, and they'd like to remain anonymous.

So back to the original question. Do I think she's behind it? Yes. I've seen her name on things. And I've also seen how she has a little group of super-fans who take her opinions to heart without actually thinking about it very hard.

After the anons jumped all over me several years ago and reported my Lulu account, I just created a new account and moved on with my life after that, and am more careful about letting people buy prints than I was in the beginning. (I also stopped doing free giveaway drawings, because I didn't want to risk an unknown hater getting a free copy. Fuck them.) I didn't call anyone out, and just kept things to myself. However, when another author friend of mine had a similar experience a few years later, we compared notes and found that it was the same person whipping up outrage. My friend happens to be active in the FB group, where I am not, so she sees more of the drama there. Based on the fact that she told me the name, and I was like "oooh that person", I'm inclined to believe my friend about what she witnessed.

Any time I see another author deciding to make their prints available, I make sure to warn them about keeping their info secure, and that's the extent to which I generally get involved. Unless someone asks me about it privately, then I'll name names.

On to your second question. I have not been reported for anything on AO3 (yet, *crosses fingers*, cuz the trolls try really really really hard to punish those they disagree with). I don't think I've mentioned my printed fics in any comments. I had it in my profile for a while, with all in caps ZERO PROFIT to cover my bases, but eventually took it out to be better safe than sorry.

I'm speculating, but I suspect the AO3 reporting might have gained traction because one author got sick of having their Lulu account get stealth reported (because the trolls will pretend to be your friend and will pay actual dollars to access the links in order to report them), so they made their own website. They order the books in bulk, and then take orders through their direct website. Due to this, it's nearly impossible for them to avoid some kind of profit, due to being unable to accurately determine how much everything is going to cost to the penny, so they round up a little to make sure everything is covered. It's possible (again, SPECULATION), AO3 went ah that's the Forbidden Profit, and slammed the ban-hammer down.

Another author eventually rewrote one of their fics as an original and is selling it. I don't know if their AO3 got reported too, but that might be a potential connection to profit as well. I do know that when I first started getting angry anons 5 years ago, a few of them didn't like the idea of filing off the serial numbers of an AU and selling it as original fiction either. So it wouldn't surprise me if the Reporting Trolls still conflate Fic For Profit and Fic Rewritten As Original For Profit and went on an AO3 reporting spree for that author too, even though the situation is slightly different.

I don't work for AO3, I don't know what they're specifically looking for. But I do believe they'll delete a fic if they find something against their TOS. But I also think they're not going through it with a fine tooth comb until Reporting Trolls do it for them and find the teensiest scraps of evidence to supply them.

My take on all of that is that I hate everyone who disagrees with zero-profit fic prints, and I hope they all develop a nasty, incurable toe fungus. And until I see that one person who I believe is the ringleader of the anti campaign go "y'know what I changed my mind, here's my fic printed on Lulu too!" I'm going to think she's sus based on the screenshots I've seen and the conversations I've had with people in her FB group.

Also, why do you need proof? What's your stake in all of this? Are you planning on printing your fics and want to avoid drama? If yes, just keep it off FB. If no, then why does it matter? Continue reading that person's fic if you enjoy it, and ignore the drama. Don't report your fellow fans for zero-profit fic prints.

Anyway, I hope this answers your questions. Feel free to come off anon and message me privately about it, and I'll be a little less vague. I still don't have any proof if you want it, but I'm happy to talk about it with people.

Edit: the "you" in the proof paragraph isn't necessarily You, Nonny. I'm sorry, my brain got pissy at hypothetical requests for proof and I got carried away lol...