#i actually do have a bunch of posts in my drafts i need to add there but havent had the time to go thru them lol

[merilahna]

ive been too lazy and distracted to fill up my queue so unfortunately it will run dry soon........ try and survive without me on the dash :/

[tlbodine]

Stuck? Try junebugging.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but we're 5 days into nanowrimo so maybe this will be helpful.

Do you want the safety and surety of knowing what happens next in your story but can't stick to an outline? Does knowing in advance what will happen suck the joy out of discovery writing? Do you try to wing it through plots but get tangled in plot holes or have a story that runs out of steam because you can't figure out what went wrong? Are you at your most creative when you have a little bit of guidance? Do you tend to under-write? Do you get ideas in your head for random scenes and snippets that drop from the sky without context?

If any of these apply to you, junebugging a draft might be for you!

What Is Junebugging?

Since you're on Tumblr, you might already be familiar with the concept of junebugging as it relates to cleaning. If not -- I think the idea was first introduced to me by @jumpingjacktrash.

The basic idea is that you tackle cleaning by way of controlled chaos. You pick a specific area you want to focus on, like your kitchen sink, and then wander off to deal with other things as they occur to you, but always returning back to that area. You end up cleaning a little bit at a time in an order that may not make sense to an outsider but which keeps you from getting overwhelmed and discouraged.

How Does Junebugging Work in Writing?

OK, so that's great, but how does this work with writing? Well. In my case, the general idea is to jump between writing linearly, outlining, and writing out of order. It usually looks something like:

Start free-writing a scene, feeling my way through it and enjoying the discovery process.

Thinking, ok, now I have this scene, did anything need to happen to lead up to it? Do I need to go back and add some foreshadowing? Does this scene set anything up that needs to be paid off? And then jump forward/back to make those adjustments.

I'll usually have a bunch of disconnected ideas of ideas that have popped into my head, so I'll write those down in a list somewhere and then try to figure out what goes in between them and what order it goes in.

I'll write what I call "micro-scenes" which is where I'll just sketch out a few essential elements of what's going on without worrying too much about details, description, etc. -- just he did this, she said that, the setting was this, real bare-bones script. Then I can come back through and flesh out each of those microscenes into an actual scene later.

Got a story that has a complex structure? No problem. Write through each storyline one at a time and then chop them up and weave them together afterward. Write all the B plot scenes first then come back through to do A plot and C plot. Move the pieces around like legos. No one ever has to know.

This method works for me because I can't "decide" story elements in advance. I have never been able to just sit down and "figure out" what happens in a story beyond a couple steps ahead -- I have to discovery-write my way forward. But at the same time, that gets really daunting. So I zoom forward with micro-scenes, roughing out the beats in the most bare-bones way possible, then when I run out of clear vision for what happens next I backtrack, flesh out those scenes, build in connective tissue, etc. and by then I will probably find more inspiration to jump forward.

It's basically folding drafting, outlining, and revising all together into a single phase of writing, which is chaotic and goes against everything people teach you, but if it works? then it fuckin works.

Anyway, sorry for the jumbled-up post, I'm dashing this off quickly while I heat up a pizza and I'm about to dive back into my WIP -- but I hope this was a little helpful. If nothing else, take this as my blanket permission that it's 100% OK to jump around, write out of order, write messy, outline sometimes, pants sometimes, and do whatever else it takes just to get through the story. You've got this. Good luck.

[romanceddawn]

i talk about yandere seto sometimes but in season 0 it is pretty much canon, like he is actively stalking yugi throughout the show and i think its really funny so heres a bunch of evidence of that:

the first time we see it is when he sends that first game master out, he's not only hiding to listen to the duel in the nurses office but its heavily implied that he's been stalking yugi for a little bit before that too

like at the end of the day anzu tells yugi not to go to the arcade and yugi kind of rushes off despite knowing he doesnt have the money, meaning this is a frequent thing he does, but whats more is that he's going specifically that day because someones told him theres a new game being unveiled. when he gets there he cant find it and has to ask about it, which is when we see a disguised kaiba lead him to the back alley to kidnap him (this killed me to watch btw, yugi has no self preservation, but it was cute that kaiba seemed to stutter when talking to him)

but this all means that he was watching yugi long enough to know he always goes to the arcade after school and that yugi wouldnt be able to resist coming, even if he didnt have the money, as long as there was something new to play. it also means he had someone plant the information that thered be a new game OR that kaiba just disguised himself and told yugi this which is what im choosing to believe

of course, then we get to see him actually stalking him in the triplets episode, literally driving by and watching him (which is so funny to think about cuz his driver must be so tired of him lol)

at first i honestly thought he was stalking the triplets but at the end of the episode there is no reveal that he wanted them out of the dueling scene or that he was even worried about them getting the card they wanted at all, he beat them extremely easily. his only reason for doing the duel is because he couldnt stand the thought of someone (that he hadnt sent himself) beating yugi before he could, so i think he was watching yugi, recognized the triplet, and got bothered by them trying to encroach in on his rival

he also apparently records yugi? this recording is just the first game master playing him that he shows to aileen, but who knows how many other times he's recorded him just in case he 'needed' the footage

this moment of him lamenting about being connected by fate is ooc for him and not really stalking but it is very yandere of him so im throwing it in here anyways

and of course i have to add the death t invitation because you know he was watching yugi and his friends that whole day just waiting for the perfect moment to hack into something and invite him as dramatically as possible (however i wont add any of the death t stuff cuz like. we know what happens and how obsessive he is there)

since having this in my drafts, the season 0 movie has been restored and posted to youtube and in it kaiba is technically looking out for rare cards but even then he's managing to get in some time to stalk yugi (also the way his employee says "i know sir" i just know they're so tired of his obsessive ass)

TDLR: yandere seto is canon thank you for your time

[jojo-oliver]

How to tumblr for artists… my own version

A collection of things that have been working for me, but may not work for everyone

~~~ your posts ~~~

!!!reblog your own stuff!!! you need to reblog your own stuff, there is nothing morally wrong with reblogging your own stuff regularly. in fact, it is morally right to allow the chance for more people to see your artwork.

~~~ queue it!! ~~~ my queue is 500 posts strong. maybe don't try to make your queue hundreds of posts strong in the same day omg but like… once every month or two i'll go through my whole blog and just scroll and "add to drafts" to every one of my own posts i have. then i'll use the "mass post editor" to add content warning tags. and add to queue, and shuffle. and then I write down what the date was for when I last added my posts to be reblogged on queue. this is helped by turning on timestamps for posts in tumblr "dashboard preferences" settings.

queueing is necessary and life saving for me. It takes out so much work with decision fatigue and the anxiety around posting. It also guarantees that even if I suddenly need time off or away from my phone, I don't just disappear and lose all traction. It also breaks the instant-gratification cycle that you expect when you finish an artwork. It's hard to keep creating when you post something and, when you're expecting to get that gratification, you get none... If you queue your new artwork to come out at a later time, you've separated that expectation - with time. It hurts less and contributes to a more consistent gratification thing instead of peaks and troughs.

~~~ tag ya stuff ~~~ when you're making a new post, the first 20 tags are what gets put into the searchable tags. do not feel shame for using lots of tags. shame is the mind-killer. tags are hard. hard to know what to tag a post with. hard to remember the tags. so I found some ways to help myself. maybe they'll help you too. dedicate some time towards just figuring out what tags you want to use. i have a list in my phone notes that i add tags to and reference whenever i'm making a new post. i have the phone right beside the laptop while i'm tagging so that i can just look at it and scroll. tags are the only way for people to find your artwork, other than people manually coming to your blog because they saw you somewhere. there is no algorithm. posting without tags, until you have an established fanbase, is throwing something into the void.

When I'm doing tag research, I look at what people seem to use - when you put something in the search bar, tumblr recommends you some that have a higher following, typically. Looks like this on desktop:

if you like one tag, look at what other people who use that tag also tag their posts with. Observe and learn how this tag is used. search through a bunch of them and write them down.

here's what i got in my notes, for the specific kind of art I post and look for:

these tags are sort of specific to me and the kind of art I make. You'll want to research your own tags, but this is an example of how I keep them organized to make posting more effective. I generally only write down a tag when it's got more than 2k followers. You might be tempted to use the tags with millions of followers, but I've actually found those a lot less functional for small artists. If your stuff doesn't immediately get a bunch of notifications, you're drowned out and pushed to the bottom much faster. But the bigger tags are better than no tags, so I keep them if I can't think of anything else to tag something with.

~~~ post at the right times….? ~~~

fridays and saturdays is when I post fresh new things... usually. every website has it's own peak hours, and you can find those hours in many different online articles that try to sell you social media growth services. tumblr is unique in having later hours.

here's some random graph from google images:

please don't over think this. please don't let this consume the idea of when to post, preventing you from posting at all. it doesn't mean too much - if you post during very active hours, maybe your art would just be pushed down the feed faster. if you post at the end of hours, maybe everyone's going to sleep… if you post at inactive hours, maybe there's less 'competition'… if you post at the beginning of active hours, maybe that's just more time for your post to circulate for the day, if you have enough people reblogging it once it drops....

this also is in EST. So fuck the other time zones, I guess. I'm over here in europe knowing that the "best" time to post would be like 2-3am or something. It's like this for most english-speaking majority sites - higher traffic in north american time zones.

it's also worth mentioning that this is scattered as heck, compared to other social media sites. and it's not like, the activity times of your followers. it's not the best time to post for your niche. this is just tumblr, broadly. all of tumblr.

~~~ Plan ahead for annual dates ~~~

Your artwork will get more circulation if it's posted on a celebratory day. You could just put them on your calendar and if you're wondering what to make, look on the calendar for what's coming soon. For example, asexual awareness day, trans day of visibility, location-specific holidays, etc. Here's my phone notes thing with my own recorded annuals:

I got these dates from googling and reading different articles, but I find that I still miss dates, and then I add them for next year. If you know of some I missed, tell me and I'll add them please <3

~~~ reblog other people's stuff ~~~

tumblr is sorta about ecosystems. things get passed around within groups of people that are all following eachother. to enter this ecosystem, you must engage and reblog other people's stuff too.

if you reblog other artists' stuff, sometimes they'll come over and reblog your stuff too. sometimes they'll follow you back. this is called becoming a mutual. I'll search specific tags for the kinds of people I want to follow and the kind of art I like - those are listed in the screenshot of my tag note under "Tags for finding new people".

I see a lot of blogs out there that are very clean, posts are tagless, and are only for the artists' content. like scrolling through a portfolio. I imagine this is good for people who are migrating to tumblr but already have their own established fanbase from elsewhere.

you don't need to do reblog other people's stuff on your art blog, you can do this on a separate blog. but if the two don't look very closely correlated, it's hard to tell who you are when you're interacting. and hard to make sure people know that you are the same person as your art blog. and you gotta remember to promote yourself on your personal blog.

~~~ have an art tag ~~~

make your blog easy to search!

if i go to your blog, and you've written 'artist' or 'sometimes art' in your bio, i wanna see it… it make me so sad when i don't get to see it. i want to reblog it. please let me reblog it :(

to make a tag on your own blog searchable, you don't need to repost it to add a tag. you don't even need to reblog it. you can actually just go back to the original post and edit it to add your tag. I've seen post people just have their art tag be something like #(blogname)art . you can see my own in my tags image above. if it's very unique, then it'll work tumblr-wide. I think that's good, since the tumblr search function is really weird. Otherwise it should still work if it's not entirely unique, people just have to make sure they're searching specifically your blog to see only your stuff.

I like to have a link in my pinned post where people can click to have immediately searched for my art tag. Convenience is king. Keep in mind that most people are on mobile, and if something isn't immediately clickable, they often won't find it.

~~~ be consistent and be patient ~~~

!!!this time will pass anyway!!! how many notes you have is not correlated with how good you are as an artist. wanting to earn something from your art means you essentially have two jobs. two potentially full time jobs. this shit's difficult. most of the job is promoting yourself. don't undersell how hard it is to do… don't feel bad for not immediately succeeding. I would write about how hard it's been to promote myself, but it would just be long and sad I think.

This isn't a full guide, please feel free to add more!!

I'm sure in another year I'll disagree with a lot of this, it will become irrelevant with time, and I'll have a lot of different opinions. Chip in and share what you've been doing? Teach me? This is very overwhelming. Don't do it all at once, just like, try one thing at a time, and see how it works for you. Your niche might be different. One size does not fit all. If you're confused about some of the things I talk about in here, you might be on mobile. I do most of my queueing and posting from the desktop browser version.

I will update this with more as things change, but I think you'll have to click through to see the updated post

[feedthefandomfest]

Hiya!

I love this blog and just wanted to ask- do you know any advice on formatting and tagging for AO3?

Or just general etiquette!!

I'm not new to AO3 (reading or writing) but I haven't interacted with the actual community much and would love to know more :)

oof, I still feel like a newbie posting stuff on ao3, and tagging is something i've always struggled with. and actually formatting is also on ongoing issue 😅 so with that in mind, here's what i try to consider:

TAGGING

relationships -> tagging the main is obvious, but i'm sometimes torn about tagging side relationships that feature in the fic, especially since it's annoying to be searching for that pairing and get a bunch of results where they're not the main focus; unless the other pairing is a prominent feature, i leave it out of the relationship tags and at most add it to the additional tags

characters -> i remember updating the character tags on my early fics every time another character popped up in the story, but now i'm of the same mind as the side pairing issue; unless the character is prominently featured, i leave them out of the tags

content warning/advertising -> if i know the fic features an element that some people might wish to avoid, i always tag it and also always fret that i've forgotten to tag something in that regard. when it's more about advertising what's in the fic, especially sexual content, i sometimes feel silly listing every flavor of physical encounter unless the fic is pwp/smut (in which case i gleefully list all the depravity); i sometimes worry that over-emphasizing the sexual content in the tags is misleading? like of this 100k fic, if 15k is spent fucking, how do i get the tags to reflect that while also tag cw appropriately? is there an established tag for that?

sometimes i see fics with TONS of tags, like an exhausting amount, and sometimes i see fics with very minimal tags... sometimes frustratingly few. i also know some writers add chapter-specific warnings in the author's notes. in the end, so long as you're making it possible for people to find or avoid your fic as needed, then you're good. Here are some good posts that dive into it more!

(i remember when people on tumblr would scold writers for monologuing in the tags on ao3 like we do on here, claiming it was a strain on the system, but i believe that's been debunked?)

FORMATTING

i've noticed some MEGA annoying quirks with copy & pasting over from Google Docs and Word, and I know there are some tricks to get around them, but i tend to just slog through the Rich Text window fixing everything manually 🙃 OKAY I FOUND SOLUTIONS LINKED BELOW.

spacing problem #1 -> pet peeve of mine, but i dislike it when the paragraphs have massive spaces between them (ditto for indented paragraphs). idk why, but it's tiring for my eyes to constantly leap the chasm between paragraphs. so whenever i copy and paste from Word, which for some reason ALWAYS appears with double spacing between line breaks, i go in and manually fix it. SOLUTION

spacing problem #2 -> when copying over from Google Doc, whenever there's a punctuation mark following an italicized word, a random space appears between them. and yep, i have to go in and fix every one because typos make me twitch. (this might not be an issue for everyone; i overuse italics and dashes like it's my job) SOLUTION

spacing problem #3 -> again probably a me issue, but i tend to include song lyrics a lot, and it's always a headache to format because when pasting from the doc, ao3 embeds these spaces between the lines that i can't remove by backspacing. only fix i've found is to copy and paste lyrics directly from a website, and then it formats fine. random and annoying and weird. (no solution 😔)

since this section has just been me whining about finding SOLUTIONS for formatting issues, i'll offer one tip that's more about general editing: i try to proofread best i can in Word/GDocs, but it's always easier to spot errors when i'm reading the draft on my phone. the typos always jump out at me from a phone screen. it's now my favorite way to edit!

every writer has their own preferences on formatting, and every reader has their own level of tolerance for formatting quirks. in the end, so long as the formatting doesn't interfere with the reading experience, you're all good.

[minecraftbookshelf]

Marriage of State Housekeeping note

So given that it has taken me ten months to actually start posting fic for this, I feel like I do need to add a disclaimer so no one is surprised and disappointed when the first chapter of of the first fic goes out in the next week or so.

Its current wordcount, in the draft form that I sent to my beta, is almost exactly 3k. I am not and never have been a long form writer.

The past ten months have mostly been occupied with outlining, worldbuilding, and screwing around with the characters to get a handle on their voices and arcs and themes.

So yes hopefully now that we’re getting started on the fics themselves there will be a fairly steady output, but it will not be fast and it will not be large.

For the most part. Sometimes there will be a surprise longer one-shot XD.

I just want to warn everyone that this won’t exactly be a bunch of 10k multi chapters, but I hope that my smaller format is still enjoyable!

See you all soon with chapter one of…[Still untitled fic, lord help me]

(Also if you want to be tagged when it goes up just let me know in the replies of this post, I won’t be doing a full taglist for the whole thing but for the first installment I am willing)

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

@mk-writes-stuff you sent an ask but Tumblr has eaten this so many times but I WILL ANSWER IT

I'm just trying it in a normal post.

It's called the shop talk ask game (here)! Thanks so much for the ask!

🌓- Show us a snippet of a before and an after between drafts! What did you change and why?

This is a good one! Since TSP has been around for so long, I have five main drafts to pull from! One of the scenes that has always stayed is, of course, the discovery of the portal. I posted a WIP Wednesday a while back that went over the five different ways, but as a treat I'll post longer excerpts and go into detail about what changes.

This should be long, so it's under the cut!

Draft One (2013)

The beautiful blanket of May flowers stretched out all the way… to my house. <3 I sighed. Nothing was better than… “AAAHHH!!!” I whirled around. Aurora had disappeared! I moved the grass where she had been standing. A rock. A metal rock? I stood up, confused. I put my bag down, next to Aurora’s (which she probably dropped) and felt the rock with my hand. “AAAHHH!!!” I screamed. EVERYTHING WENT BLACK

In my defense, I was ten. No paragraphs, a random heart, no ending punctuation, random ellipses-- it's a mess! The action goes way too fast, the first sentence does nothing to convey the imagery I was going for, and Alexia and Aurora's personalities are not given a chance to shine at all in this. It's unclear what happened when Alexia touched the portal or why she passed out. Obviously, when rewriting this I decided to add a bit more detail and pondering.

Draft Two (2014)

I was so busy daydreaming that I wasn’t talking to Aurora like I usually do. I snapped out of my daydream just in time to hear a scream. I turned around as fast as I could to see what Aurora was so scared over. But all I saw was a backpack. I didn’t even see Aurora. [Chapter break] I stared in the place that I was pretty sure Aurora was standing. I stared at the backpack. I was pretty sure that it was hers. I looked at the name plate. Yup. Her handwriting. Aurora Austin Where was my friend?!?!?! I looked all around. Nothing. The only place I hadn’t looked was the ground. Why would she be in the ground? I have no idea. But it’s worth a try. I moved the grass. The only thing I saw was a rock. As I looked closer, the rock seemed to be metal. I crawled a little closer. It still looked metal. I reached out to touch it when…. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I was falling through nothingness. All I saw was a bunch of rainbows swirling around me. I kept falling and screaming. Then everything went black.

Technically, I succeeded in my original goal. The pacing is still fast, but slow enough for the reader to process that something has happened. Alexia gets the chance to look around and wonder where her friend was, but instead of authentically noticing the backpack or looking at the ground, it's like the book is forcing her to do those things so the plot can happen. The portal itself gets more description, now with the addition of rainbows swirling around Alexia, but it's unclear what happened when she actually touched the portal or why she passed out. We don't get a lot of her personality here, since most of her actions could've been done by anyone. In revisions, I knew I needed more character, descriptions, and dialogue in order to make the pacing better.

Draft Three (2015)

I had been so into daydreaming I hadn’t realized we weren’t anywhere near the meeting place. Instead, Aurora and I were in the middle of the field. I looked around, but I didn’t even see the school. “Where are we?” Aurora shrugged. “I was just following you.” She set her black-and-white backpack on the ground and started to go back where we came from. “I’ll try and find the school! I’ll come back if I do!” I watched her go for only a few feet. Then she disappeared! I ran to where the last place she was, but the only thing there was a rock. [Chapter] I stared at the spot where Aurora was standing. The rock was still there, and a few feet away was her backpack, but Aurora herself was nowhere to be found. I set down my backpack and violin and crept forward. I looked at the rock. It looked metal. I got out my metal detector just to check. Yup! Definitely metal. Then I thought of a crazy thought. What if the rock was a portal? I knew it was impossible, but it was the only explanation to why Aurora disappeared. If it was a portal, what was on the other end? Air? No air? Well, whatever was behind it, I knew I had to go. Aurora was in danger. Possibly. Actually, I don’t know. It might be Band Land over there with all the boys you can crush on. I slowly crawled away from the portal and shuddered at that thought. Band Land would be anyone who wasn’t in band’s nightmare. Band is just noise to me, so Band Land must be torture. I shook the thought away. That was a stupid thought. Maybe this was a dream. Well, usually in dreams you don’t think they are dreams, but I actually did have a dream inside a dream, and I knew I was dreaming then, but in the dream, the edges around my vision were a little foggy, and I could see perfectly fine here. Well, except for the fact I wear glasses. Without them, I can’t see worth crap. I crawled back to the rock. Last year, we learned metals rusted after rain. And it was super rainy this year. So, why was it shiny? This was frying my pour brain. Despite whatever was behind there, there was still a chance Aurora could be in trouble. Without thinking, I reached out my hand and touched the rock. I watched as the field dissolved around me. It soon seemed like all the color didn’t matter anymore, and soon, rainbows were all around me. I stood up and looked around. The field was gone. Rainbows were in its place. I looked at my feet and saw that the field hadn’t disappeared completely. I was standing on the only patch of grass above a long tunnel. A tunnel that was going down. “Oh, crap,” I said as the grass disappeared. I hovered in the air for a moment, then I started falling. Then the millions of color all came together in a blackness.

Now we finally have the addition of what I now call The Gateway before the girls find the portal. This was mainly added to help with pacing so Alexia and Aurora could react to weird things happening together (which means I had to play catch up with the world building aspect of it but yes that's why it's so convoluted... PACING!). Already, the addition of dialogue helps break up the narration and add more variety to the story. Alexia does get more character moments here, with her inner monologue and tendency to overthink (in this draft mainly), though the tangent about Band is quite weird. She did figure out the rock was a portal, so at least that's out of the way. The portal forming gets much more description than it has. However, despite her character moments, Alexia doesn't get a lot of emotions regarding the situation, and Aurora gets two lines of dialogue. Still in need of improvement! Next draft!

Draft Four (2017-2020)

Ash laughed, then stopped. “Um, Lexi…? Where are we?” I looked around. The tennis court wasn’t anywhere in sight. In fact, neither was the school. Ash and I were standing in the middle of a seemingly endless field. And as far as I knew, there were no fields anywhere near Falcon, except for the football field. I set down my backpack, binders, violin--all the crap. “I don’t have any clue.” Ash set her backpack beside my stuff, and the two of us surveyed our surroundings. “Where did—how did we get here?” Ash soon asked. I had no answer. All I saw was grass, and more grass...and more grass…. “Okay,” I said. “Maybe if we go back the way we came, we will return to the school.” “Right,” said Ash. The two of us retrieved our stuff and turned back the way we came. We walked a couple yards, but nothing. We dropped our stuff again, and sat down on the grass, our backs facing one another, though not touching. “I can’t believe this,” I said. “I’d say we were dreaming, but that’s a little cliché, and I’m never aware that I’m dreaming in my dreams, so either we’re experiencing a very strange reality, or we’re hallucinating.” I laughed weakly. “Verisimilitude. Remember that word? ‘The appearance of being true or real’. That took forever to memorize on that quiz, right?” I waited for Ash to answer, but she was silent. “Ash?” I asked, making sure she was okay. I turned around, about to say something based on her reaction, but she wasn’t there. “Ash?” I said, standing up. I looked around in all directions, but there was no sign of Ash. “Ash!?” I said louder. Still no response. “ASHLEY!” No answer. I fell on the soft, green grass and tried to hold back the tears, as I often did if I were stressed and felt lost, not a clue what to do. I had no idea what was happening, and frankly, wasn't even sure it was happening. I fell on my back to contemplate what happened when I hit something hard with my head. I cried out in pain, and shot up, rubbing the back of my neck. I turned to see what I hit, and jumped when I saw millions of colors shoot up from the ground and wrap around me. I looked around and watched the endless field disappear around me. I must’ve hit my head hard. I looked down at the ground and watched as the colors started to erase the grass around me. “Oh, sh—” The ground disappeared completely and I fell through a tunnel of millions of colors. I never knew there were so many in the world. I would’ve been in awe if it weren’t for the fact that I was falling to my death. I ended up spinning around somehow, which caused me to fall headfirst down the tunnel. At the end, I saw a bright white light. Was it Heaven? Was I dead? The light became bigger and brighter and whiter as I fell closer, and closer, and closer. Soon I landed in the light, and I felt it enclose around me, sucking me up in its brightness. I felt content, safe, and warm in the light. But then I felt a cold wind at my feet. I felt cold air-like ropes tie themselves around my ankles. I was suddenly yanked down. Then everything went black.

For the first time since Draft One, this scene doesn't have a chapter break, and I think it flows a lot better like this. The pacing is better, and we have much better characterization for Lexi. She has a constant inner monologue with her thoughts, opinions, and emotions about what's going on. There's even more dialogue now to help make the scene feel more natural. Now, where would I improve it? Well, the rope things for the portal is a weird addition. Ash still gets no true characterization. While Lexi emotionally reacts to things, I wouldn't mind more. The descriptions are bare bones, and while I can see what's happening to an extent, it's hard to feel like I'm there. Also, why did Lexi black out? Very unclear. So let's do this one more time.

This is all they're letting me post so to be continued....

[puppy-wife]

(I made this it's own post so it wouldn't get too long cause I know I'm gonna yap)

so there were a lot of ways I jumped in and just started doing shit, but I think the very first thing I did was make a first draft map of like, a general landmass (I actually based the initial landmass on the shape of Spain) and then I just started adding my own features and deciding climates and weather types and biospheres and created my primary landmass first (I went into it knowing I was designing one kingdom, not the whole world)

then once I had decided what the general shape would be, I was able to figure out the most likely places for major cities to be (one at the southernmost coast, one in the lagoon/bay, one deep in the forest high on a cliff easily defensible, one built into the mountains, one on the eastern shore, one in the middle by the giant lake, etc.

I think it was around then that I took a break from geography and created a pantheon of major gods and wrote a creation myth for the world. From there I had a few major historical events I knew I wanted, so I wrote down a very vague timeline.

at this point, I had enough places to start that I was able to pick a major city or location and I just wrote out a page of information. super basic stuff at first, name of the city, city leaders/nobles, notable features, notable shops, notable NPCs, and I would usually go ahead and create a number of threads for stories based in those locations and keep those in my DM Eyes Only document lmao

Then I kind of bounced around and did that and then I found some really good resources online for like, what do major civilizations need to have? and when I did a lore sheet for Castletown I wrote down a TON of information, cause it's a big city!! the biggest in Arcanum.

honestly from there I just kept bouncing around, never staying on one topic or location too heavily or for too long, and kind of followed a (chaotic) path led by my ADHD. Now at this point I have a map of the neighboring kingdom Ilshara, a custom calendar, it's own zodiac, a fuck load of minor gods and some gods from other realms, a bunch of fics for lore and worldbuilding, I even wrote a whole psionic system for d&d 5e that i never used lmao.

my biggest piece of advice as a GM is to follow the three layers rule. for any piece of lore you need three layers of Why to explain it. you can usually get away with less, but the more layers you can add, the more depth your world will have. so for example, why are these kobolds attacking travellers? well because they work for the dragon who's cave is nearby, and they need the gold because their dragon patron is sick and wealth is the only thing that helps them, and the dragon, well, it's sick because it's cursed by a witch that it slighted in the past, etc etc. that's what I did at least. most of my world isn't super well defined, and that's on purpose! I want to flavor it to fit the story I'm telling at that moment, and because I have sort of a natural understanding of the pattern of storytelling, I just sort of create without thinking too hard. so I like to give details to the major locations, and make everything else up as I go along (mostly)

lol this is so fun to talk about, thank you @valkyr-3 and if you (or anyone else really) are interested in seeing some of my lore documents, I do have them written in such a way that my players can access them anytime and probably find the information theyre seeking

[booksandchainmail]

Goals for the rest of the year (fall resolutions?):

Online:

Finish watching and liveblogging Oniisama e

Finish reading and liveblogging my volume of Anne Lister's diaries

Get my tumblr drafts down to <100: they're currently at 176. A bunch of those are reblogs I want to add commentary to, so either add it, skip the commentary, or don't reblog it at all. There's also a few liveblog related posts in progress, which should be clear-out-able. The one added difficulty is I have some number of drafts from ~2018 that I no longer stand by and so will not post, but want to keep for memories

Food (aka expanding my vegetable repertoire, preferably in ways that don't involve making a side dish of vegetables):

Continue spinach: this has been an unexpected success mixed into things, find more of those things

Try peas, presumably starting with adding them to pasta. I've had mixed experiences in the past, but trending upwards, and my partner likes them. I am cautiously optimistic.

Cauliflower? It's good roasted. Need more recipes than just putting misc spices on top.

Social (I need to do more in person things. I have a houseguest now, and more planned at two times this fall, but I need to get local connections and not rely on travel):

See [group of people I am friendly acquaintances with] at least twice. Logistics is probably the main issue here, and that I am always the one who reaches out, while I am also very bad at reaching out. Growth mindset! There is a newly local person in this group I want to see! Also the extant ones are good!

Hang out with [person I've recently hung out with] moreso. I am hopeful that this is going from a "once a year we do a shared activity and then say we should meet up more" type of friendship into one where we actually meet up.

Try a bookclub or something through meetup. I technically already tried this a few weeks ago, and that bookclub sucked, but I don't want to give up on the concept prematurely

Reading (I've already met my general number read goal, as well as my summer reading bingo cards):

Read 10 nonfiction books (goal for entire year). This is currently already at 9, and I have 2 more in progress. Very manageable.

Finish reading a very indulgent selfpublished series I'm midway through. This will also not be a difficult goal

Get the stacks of books on my windowsills/tables down to 15. When I get new books I stack them rather than shelving them so I don't forget to read them, and they've been piling up. I need to read them down sufficiently before I am again exposed to used book stalls. I've already made some headway here, mainly by tidying away the ones that I had already read, so currently there are ~25 books in stacks.

[im-a-king-baby]

Hey, I love ELYN 😭❤️

So my two fave scenes/ moments were the 'keep of the lake house for now' and 'I've been in love with him since' so any commentary will be amazing. Any extra stuff will be amazing so 🪻please 😊

Hiii <3

Gonna put these 3 under a cut because length

“So hold onto that lake house for a while longer,” he says. “Okay?”

Context: i wrote the majority of the first draft of ELYN for Nanowrimo in 2022 (basically a challenge where you write a 50k novel in the month of November) and then I rewrote and edited it over a bunch of months.

So this chapter was actually very similar to the original draft, except that in Draft 1 all of the vote fallout was in one chapter which had the Simon scene first then the Nils scene. In the editing/developing process all the non-Wilhelm characters grew a lot so I knew I wanted to expand Nil's role, and add some more Felice which meant I could bump Simon into his own chapter.

(there was absolutely not meant to be a giant posting gap between the Nils scene and the Simon scene. To be completely honest if I'd known I was going to need that long to finish the fic off I'd probably have chosen to put the gap immediately after the debate because... tension 😈)

The main places where the Simon scene got extended was in the details - Simon's life and career was not well thought through in draft 1 and a lot of the extra length across the whole fic came from building that up - but the lakehouse beat was always there because it was important that Simon's rehab process had to be something he did independent of Wilhelm, so this idea of Wilhelm offering up this house and Simon rejecting it, then clarifying that it's a 'not yet' but hopefully one day when he's in a better place.

Wilhelm's 'I keep thinking about the last time you went to L.A.' was not in the original and was one of those character beats that didn't come to me until months later, but that really pulled together Wilhelm's feelings at that moment and his reluctance to let Simon leave, and that then led really nicely back into Simon saying hang on to the house, because hopefully its not goodbye this time.

“Keira asked what was different about you,” Simon says. “I said: I fell in love with Wilhelm when I was sixteen, and I have been in love with him every day since.”

Okay so this part was possibly the slowest part of the fic to write mostly because I was still figuring out how to articulate this ending which was meant to be optimistic but not magic-wand-everything's-fixed-now. This line in particular came about because I was trying to find where Simon was sitting emotionally and ended up writing a very short therapy in L.A. scene in which Simon dropped this line and I was immediately like 'well, that has to get into the main story.'

It's a nice parallel to Wilhelm's 'I'm never going to stop being in love with him.' in chapter 8, and it highlights that the issues between them have never been a lack of love or not wanting to be together, it's always been these outside forces that they need to break away from.

Also its one of those lines that you write down and then you read it and you're like 'people are gonna quote this one back at me' and its nice when you get that right 😅

And on that theme, your 🪻 is:

“Do you want to tell me what you’re thinking about?” This is the worst part of therapy. “Wilhelm.” Keira’s eyebrows twitch slightly, which is the only reaction he ever gets and means he’s surprised her. “We haven’t spoken much about Wilhelm, not since you asked if you could text him. Are you ready to tell me more about what happened between you?” “You could check the tabloids.” Her ‘you know that’s not what I meant’ look reminds him of Candace, except that she hasn’t figured out how to also convey ‘and I’m disappointed and you’re exhausting and you’d be nothing without me.’ “I’d like to hear it in your own words.” Simon absolutely can’t look at her. “I fell in love with Wilhelm when I was sixteen,” he says. “And I’ve been in love with him every day since. He’s the one I think about every time I sing a love song. Still. I have slept with - I don’t know, hundreds? - of people since I left Sweden and none of it meant anything, compared to him.” “What was it like, seeing him again?” He’d been drinking steadily in the car on the way to the benefit concert so that he’d be able to smile and read a teleprompter and not just stand there staring but it was a close thing. After his performance they’d swept him into a room where he drank champagne and smiled for the cameras. Wilhelm had touched a fingertip to his bare shoulder and Simon had wanted him so badly it hurt in places he’d thought could no longer feel anything. He doesn’t have words for that, except that it was like being in love. “He showed me I could do this,” Simon says instead. “That I could get out. That these systems we were caught up in weren’t infallible.” She frowns very slightly. “Do you think he spoke out against the monarchy for you?” Maybe? He offered once. On a cold night in his ridiculous scarf in so many words that it was Ayub who figured out what he was getting at after he’d walked away. But, no. “He did it for him. Because he needed it. And I did this for me. But there couldn’t be an ‘us’ before. Because of all those things getting in the way. And now… and maybe we both did it a bit for that. For love. Or whatever.”

[13leaguestories]

March 2023 Forecast

The break is over and I'm back to faithfully working. With that being said, this doesn't mean Superstition is off of a break. I'm going to of course attempt to write it but the few times I tried to write anything, it failed and my brain just pointed to other works. So, we'll see. I'm not posting a return date until the majority of the season is done anyway.

Throne of Ashes

Makaio's demo (fingers-crossed) should be out this month. She is so close to being done that it's not even funny that I'm not done with her yet. Otherwise, Nour is still receiving the bulk of the love as I try to get their chapter five up and out and then working to complete their story. Along with Makaio's demo being released, Ozara and Zarik fixes will be pushed out to relieve them of some bugs and fix some story shifts.

Insight

I'm still working on editing the last chapters of Insight, only chapter five is needed. Once I get that out then any bugs can be sent to me and I'll just be continuing trying to update Insight so that next time I look at it, I can actually add to it.

For the Crown

Has been taken down from itch.io. It still exists but it makes little sense to keep it up when I know I won't be editing it in its current form. The story is going to have to be completely rewritten and probably in a different way. Whether that's me doing routes like how ToA is or something else, don't know.

Sea of Stars

Nothing much on this as it ended up being met with a bunch of editing needs to bring it out of a rough alpha draft and more into a beta area. It may be worked on this month but unless my brain shifts to it, it's not my focus right now. But I will continue to post the last two species that's coming out as well as the LI art. By the time they're all out, maybe it'll be ready.

[zuppizup]

Hiiii I just finished the first two chapters of Fuel the Pyre! I'm super excited for it, it's very well done!

I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about your writing process. How do you outline? What kinds of things need to be in an outline in order for you to visualize the story? Do you outline the entire story, one chapter, or just one scene at a time?

Thank you for your time!

Hello! Thanks so much for your kind words! I’m so happy you’re liking the fic so far.

This is a super fun ask. Not sure how coherent or helpful my response will be, but I’ll give it a try. 😆

So, stories like Purgatory, Fuel the Pyre or my WIP dark magic AU, always start out as a bunch of questions.

What if Ezran hadn’t interrupted Callum and Rayla in Viren’s study…

Could a human/elf halfling do primal magic? Can all of them or just a few? What would control that?

What would the world be like if dark magic actually was controlled and regulated.

I usually don’t start out planning a fic when I ponder questions like this, it’s usually just my mind wandering. For me, while I love big, wonderful, imaginative worlds (like the world of The Dragon Prince) what I’m really more interested in is how these things affect individuals. I actually tend to visualise the story before I outline. In fact, I often visualise far beyond where I think I’ll finish the story. (I say where I think I’ll finish because both my current long fics are now firmly in the “after the end of the planned fic” territory)

So, in Fuel the Pyre, for example, I imagine there’s a lot of unknowns for the people involved. Halflings would be pretty new on the scene, all things considered, so the characters themselves wouldn’t have the answer to these questions, which felt like a great excuse to add tension and drama.

Once an idea has got me and I can imagine how that conflict is going to affect the characters, the general outline tends to sort of write itself. I am a planner, so I by the time I start putting pen to paper (so to speak), I’ll usually have a beginning, a rough middle and an end. There will be plot points, tangents, twists and sometimes side stories that I haven’t figured out, but I’ll have a plan for the general flow of the story.

From there, I’ll come up with a pretty messy draft. So, I just sort of go wild in a document. Usually, when I’ve decided I want to write a longer fic, it’s because certain scenes just play on repeat in my head, so I’ll indulge myself and write those out. Then I’ll go back and make rough chapter/arc notes, which usually leads into some other fun scenes I get inspired to write, and slowly, piece by piece, I sort of string the fic together like that.

I used to outline more linearly, starting at the first chapter and working from there, but I found I’d get stuck on transition scenes (the bane of my writing life) and then avoid the fic. (If I put my fingers in my ears and sing very loudly, the transition scene can’t hurt me). I find letting myself write the scenes I’m excited for makes me much more productive. They usually give me ideas for other fun (I use the term loosely, I generally mean “angsty”) scenes and I essentially build my story like that. I do like adding foreshadowing and twists, which is made a lot easier by writing like this too.

In Purgatory, for example, I tried to drop a lot of subtle hints about Callum and his slowly building arcanum connection. It’s so fun when people pick up on that stuff, but I also don’t want it to look like I just pulled a twist or a revelation out of my rear. Nowadays, I do prefer to write the bulk of a story before posting, which this method obviously works better for.

Often, when I start a fic, the beginning and the ending are the most defined parts of the story and the middle is the area that requires the most work, but by stringing the various elements together, I sort of “discover” new conflicts and fun elements to explore, which (hopefully) makes for a richer, more entertaining story.

So, not sure if that was what you’re looking for, but if you could describe the stream of consciousness that is how I write, a process, this is mine. 😅

[bellysoupset]

I should be sleeping but I can't, so let's do this. You asked for my comments; it's only fair I deliver.

I decided to go in the order you posted the fics - focusing on the Max + Vin + Wen trio for now -, and the first one I'm going to comment on is the Vince's low blood sugar, 2-part masterpiece.

His reason for oversleeping? This man LOVES his girlfriend. He must have been exhausted but stayed up until Wendy herself was yawning 🥺

Then Soph came with the sharing clothes question. It was hilarious. I love her character. She is so mean sometimes and tries her best to act like she doesn't want to be associated with Vince, but if anyone was to hurt her family, I know she would come after them like there was no tomorrow. Poor girl was so worried when Vin fainted. She didn't want to leave him alone and even touched his cheek despite not being a touchy person. Baby 💔

I loved the build up until the collapse, but all those little details after the collapse had me melting. Like Max being soft with Soph to get her out of the room asap before he focused on Vince. And I live for Vince calling Soph and Liv bambi. That is so sweet. No wonder she melted. I love nicknames and petnames so much. I use a bunch with my own siblings all the time too.

Also Max pulling Vince's hair into a pony tail with his very own hair tie. Then telling Vin he didn't see him in the cafeteria. Max wanted to have lunch with Vince, didn't he?

Don't even get me started on the 'you remind me of my friend' 'a handsome one?' conversation between these two. Like okay, I know Vin and Wen are in a happy relationship already, but I'm rooting for Max. They might be happier as a trio, just sayin' 👀😂

I don't think I ever mentioned this, but I love Vin as a teacher. History is not my absolute favourite, but I kinda love it. I'm sure his classes would be cool to attend. I have seen Jojo Rabbit, will he accept my essay too? Joking aside, he is also great at it because he understands the kids' needs and actually listens when they ask for extended deadline or something.

Btw, I need to ask. Was Max knocking on the door and coming into the classroom because this time it was Vince who (accidentally) held the students back and made them late from Max' class? Because that would be so funny.

Oh Gosh, I've just realised how long this already is and I haven't even commented on the second part yet. I told you I won't be able to shut up.

Anyways, I love Max' humour and his absolute(ly adorable) cluelessness when it comes to caretaking. I'm not worried though, he is going to learn it pretty soon with the rest of the dumbasses coming into the picture.

But like, he brought Vin to the infirmary, drove him home, and tried his very best despite being distracted a little, so he is already on the right path.

Btw, I am sooo in for the idea of Mama Monacelli inviting Max to dinner and going all out not to make his sensitive tummy hurt, and just basically adopting him like she did with Leo. 🥰🥰

Alright, I'm shutting up now. Gonna come back in further asks to comment on the other fics later though. You are going to get so tired of me by the time I finish flooding your inbox 🙈

Have a nice day / evening Soup 💞

- 💜

I'm SO not sorry I deterred your night, I wanna be but I'm really not 😂

Vince is so in love with this girl, I sometimes think I don't make it clear enough because they're not as dramatic about it as Luke & Bell are.

Also yes, Sophia would tear anyone who hurt her family to shreds!! I love writing mean girls sooo much, its the best of fun.

Vince would absolutely let you hand in your essay on Jojo and maybe even add a sticker or some funny notes on the edge. In my head Vince is not meant to teach teens/adults though, not at all. He's made to teach the little ones!

Max WAS outside because Vince held up the teens! In my first draft of the story I actually switched POV halfway through, because I really wanted to have Max annoyed that Vin had held them up and going there to rescue them, only to see Vince collapsing and freaking out.

I solved that by keeping the "flashback" in part 2, but I guess it makes part 1 a bit confusing 😂 I also had a whole line that I forgot to add, that was Max staring at Vince and just being 🤨🤨 "why is your shirt so tight? Whore" since Vin/Luke do not wear the same size!

I imagine Mama Monacelli is going to be very very mindful of Max's sensitive tummy and then he'll get sick either way, because he winds up eating too much 😭

Oh btw, I downloaded the movie, gonna watch tonight! I'll let you know tomorrow what I thought, but I looked at letterbox and it was SO WILD compared to what you described lol

[vinceaddams]

top five clothing items you wish you'd wear more often, please! and the five you do wear the most, please!

Oh heck! I still have asks from that ask meme thingy I reblogged 2 weeks ago, sorry for taking so long!

Hmm, tough to choose specific things I wish I wore more often. I do have a bunch of fancy 18th century things that sit in my closet most of the time, but usually when I leave the house I'm either going to work or to the grocery store, and I don't feel like being super fancy for that. Cuff ruffles would get in the way of all the hand washing and such, and breeches would be annoying at work because I use machines with knee levers.

I guess I wish I wore my nice shoes a bit more often than just for photos, but they were expensive and I don't want to wear out the leather soles. Maybe I ought to get little rubber soles added.

Oh, and my embroidered monster waistcoat! I wish I wore that more, but it's from an older pattern that doesn't fit me very well. The embroidery is also a bit worn out in places, alas.

It's a bit difficult to know which things I wear most frequently, but here are my best guesses for right now. (My summer answers would of course be different.)

1. This brown wool waistcoat from early 2019. I wear it all the time in the cold half of the year.

Just like the monster waistcoat, it's made from a pattern I drafted before top surgery, so it really doesn't fit me anymore. It's also getting pretty shabby. I've been meaning to make some new everyday plain wool waistcoats for a while now.

(I wear that green shirt pretty often too.)

2. This cap. It's just two pieces of linen, and I made it in 2018. I like wearing caps indoors when it's cold, and also under my wool hat outdoors. It adds an extra layer of warmth, is softer than the wool hat, and protects it from my very oily scalp.

I have 3 of these caps, but this one is my favourite. It's also something I ought to make more of.

3. These pants. They're just plain black cotton fall front pants.

I could pretend I'm wearing them the most because they're fully lined and therefore warmer than my other pairs, but the fact is I've got 3 other pairs of pants with holes worn in them that I need to patch and have been avoiding for a shamefully long time. It's a pretty easy thing to fix, and I will likely put it off for several more weeks, if not more.

I feel the need to point out that not all of my wardrobe is in such a miserable state, I at least have a good amount of shirts!

4. I don't think I have any pictures of it, but my winter coat is just a plain medium grey modern (by which I mean at least a couple decades old) wool one. Here's an image I found on google of approximately the same coat.

It was my grandfather's, and is a bit too big for me, and the lining is getting pretty worn out. Someday I want to completely pick it apart, recut it, and re-sew it with a new lining, but I can't do that until I have a backup winter coat.

5. This poor flannel nightgown which has finally worn out! Just a few days ago it developed a huge hole in the back panel, and a small one by the button placket, so it's destined to be cleaning rags and/or firestarters.

The buttons might end up on another nightgown though. So I guess this is no longer a thing I can wear frequently :( In the linked post I actually made 3 nightgowns from the same pattern, and that was the medium weight one, so now I'm down to the very heavy fish print flannel one and the light rayon one, and need to make more. (A very common theme with my wardrobe things, alas. I am slow.)

But I did just finish a new nightgown this week, made from a completely different pattern that I'm quite excited about! I'll get some pictures soon!

[thatdesklamp]

WAIT OMG-

been reading intrinsic warmth for a WHILE and your writing is top tier!! i always wondered to myself every time i’d read a chapter why the writing just STICKS, yk? i’m a MAJOR book girlie, i read 24/7.

AND THEN IMAGINE MY SURPRISE WHEN I READ ONE OF YOUR TAGS THAT YOU PUT UP ON ONE OF YOUR POSTS WHERE YOU WERE ANSWERING A QUESTION FROM ANOTHER LOVELY READER AND I SEE THAT YOU TOOK AN ENGLISH A LEVEL?

first of all (not 100% sure on this) but i’m pretty sure only british ppl take gcses, a levels, etc. YOU’RE BRITISH?

i feel like i’ve met my other half rn over something so tiny but yeah. IT LITERALLY EXPLAINS WHY YOUR WRITING IS SO GOOD:

i could point out the NUMBER of times i’ve seen juxtaposition, symbolism, foreshadowing in your fic to someone if they’d asked me to point it out for them. at first i thought you might’ve done it unknowingly, and then i decided that nope, bc foreshadowing is such a BIG writing technique that it simply couldn’t have been by accident.

it’s one thing to know about a writing technique and another to actually be able to SUCCESSFULLY incorporate it into your writing. if it isn’t clear enough, i’m saying that you did it AMAZINGLY. you’ve got a natural talent and i’m envioussss (in a supporting way ofc 😭).

you should really look into making your own book, and i think you EXCEL at the supernatural aspect of plot in stories. your writing is so unique and different yet so warm, it reminds me of autumn (my favourite season).

idk how to end such a long message, ultimately i don’t have a reason for typing this up and shit. ik you have tons of people probably saying the same thing and it might just get repetitive for you, but i wouldn’t feel comfortable not being part of said bunch-of-ppl-probably-saying-the-same-thing.

oh! and take your SWEET TIME updating. it’s your story, your fic, your writing. the ONLY thing we readers can give you as a payback and thanks is time, patience, and understanding <3333

RAHHH BRITTANIA 💪💪💪💪

Agh. Yes—I’m British (English to be precise, sweet sweet caroline etc), hence the use of ‘u’s in words like ‘colour’ and ‘humour’, and also why everyone’s parents are their ‘father’ or ‘mother’ and not mum/dad. ‘Mom’ feels too American but ‘mum’ feels too rah engerland, yk? I’ve mentioned previously that I’m looking forward to writing fics where the characters are actually from England and where I’m actually allowed to write them the way I talk, mostly. Good lord am I excited.

And yes lol I took English for an A-Level. Bloody smashed it too, if I get to brag, mwahaha. Didn’t take it any further (I’ve also previously said that I’m a # woman in stem uni student, which is true), but I still write a killer essay imo. Give me 10 minutes to do a refresher on ‘Othello’ (it’s been a while okay) and I can talk for donkeys about his tragic fall and how much of a wanker he is. Which he is! I’m a Desdemona defender for life.

You say ‘natural talent’. PLS. No!! God no. Not at all. I wish—that would’ve made it a lot easier, but whatever I can do rn is down to bloody years of toiling away on my shitty little laptop, I promise. I’ve got another anon ask that asked about some writing tips so I’ll do the bulk of them there but my number 1 will always and forever be to practise. Whatever skill I have now has been earned over the many years. You don’t even want to see some of the stuff that will never grace my ao3 page (atla had me in a chokehold through covid and I have never been the same).

But you are genuinely so complimentary: this is so so lovely of you. Thank you?? It’s really weird being someone who writes and also someone who enjoys analysing literature; you’re right, half of the ‘techniques’ are intentional (the number of times I’ve flicked through some chapters’ drafts and thought, ‘fucks sake none of this makes sense, I need to add some decent foreshadowing or none of this will make sense in two chapters’), but also so much of my writing is just thinking, ‘hmm, this doesn’t really feel right. No no, I don’t like the vibe of this. I want this to feel more GRAAHHH and less lalalala. Lemme change this up a bit’. Whether that leads to the whole, short sentences->speeds up the pace of the reader when reading the section->increased tension, mimics actual fight encounter, etc etc (all the stuff you blag on about in eng lit), then maybe that counts as intentional? And maybe not.

Making my own book? That’s lovely of you to say but I also really don’t have any ideas for anything non-fanfic’y! Lol. I love a good bit of canon compliance, that’s my issue. That being said—hey, another eng a level reference—I’ve made multiple references here to being the world’s #1 ‘Atonement’ hater. Unfortunately, it also lives damn rent free in my head and I’ve got the bare bones of a WW2-era, perhaps epistolary, longform fic buzzing around. (Fandom: Marauders. I’m a disgrace but here we go). I’ve written nothing for it and maybe I never will, but that’s one of the only things I can see as being more standalone from original canon. Anyway: it’s the fanfic life for me. Ali Hazelwood’s life is but a distant dream.

But anyway! Thank you again for your lovely words. The next IW chapter will take a very long time, I have to be frank, so thank you for the reassurance that that’s not absolutely disgraceful lmao T_T Thanks again!! <3

[thefringespod]

Okay I know I already reblogged @the-sassy-composer 's post about story inspiration but I would like to expand upon things because I went back to some of my earlier notes and I left off a major player in the original inspiration of this show

Starting with the more average inspirations, we've got The Adventure Zone and Dimension 20. I'm looping them together because a lot of my inspirations for this show are d&d based and my love of d&d comes from these shows. This show was originally set in a planar system like in d&d (specifically the one that features heavily in TAZ Balance). It also was originally going to have ttrpg elements to the creation and execution of the show (side note: if you wanna see a show that's actually *doing* that, check out @souloperatorpod) There's something about the way that TAZ and D20 weave magic and sci-fi (see TAZ: Balance and D20: A Starstruck Odyssey for the best examples, though most of my D20 inspo was actually The Unsleeping City) that has always really spoken to me and greatly influenced the magic systems I used on the Fringes

Like every depressed 15 year old on Tumblr, I watched a LOT of Doctor Who. It's a huge part of my sci-fi-ish inspirations (the multiple realities and ways to travel between them mostly. Yes in DW they travel through time but the feeling I'm trying to evoke is similar). Sci-fi that deals with traveling between worlds or time or realities has always been something I've loved and a lot of that fascination stems back to Doctor Who (and also Marvel comics but they're less of an actual inspiration and more of a fix for my multiverse needs)

And then there's Between the Lions

If you were not a USAmerican child watching PBS between 2000-2010, Between the Lions was a children's educational puppet show (more like Muppets than hand puppets but not official Muppets) that followed a family of lions who worked/lived in a library. It was like an anthology series for kids, each episode featuring a different children's story being read

The original drafts of the Fringes very heavily followed the idea "what if Between the Lions had a psychological horror element"

Before it was on the Fringes, this story took place in the Library. The Library (she/her) was a sentient and infinite library where our Storyteller (any) lived. The Storyteller would read stories from the lives of those living in the realities outside of the Library to the Wanderer. If you've listened to the Fringes, you can probably see that the Library became Minerva, the Storyteller became the Keeper, and the Wanderer has always been wandering. And if you've listened to the Fringes you can probably figure out what the Library had done in my original drafts. In addition to kidnapping, however, the Library also fully consumed anyone who came into the library by absorbing all of their stories and leaving them nothing but bones. Between the Lions! With kidnapping and horror implications!

I left the Library because I kept getting stuck there, eventually finding the room to breathe and create on the Fringes. That said, my first introduction to anthology was Between the Lions and it did still influence a lot my creative process and what ended up becoming the Fringes

I'm going to close this out by returning to The Adventure Zone and one of my favorite quotes of all time "See, there’s magic in a bard’s song. They call it inspiration, and it tells the listener what they need to hear right when they need to hear it. And right now, you hear it too." Inspiration is a form of magic. In d&d it helps you add to your roll. In real life, it helps you create things that you never thought possible until it *happened*. Seeing a bunch of other creators talking about their inspirations for their shows has been so much fun, especially when you know the stuff well enough to see it reflected in their work