#i find myself using this on tasks or projects i hate

[silcoitus]

I understand this feeling so much and my advice to you is to do a 5 minute sprint. The urgency of the timer means you have to throw out any thoughts of insecurity and just do it. Just write.

Even if it's shit. Even if there's spelling and grammar errors or continuity errors or whatever. And after the 5 minutes, maybe you will get in a groove. Or maybe you'll realize you're struggling uphill, but at least you gave it a shot. You can always try again later. But for those 5 minutes—

Just.

Write.

Get the ideas down. You can edit and finesse and polish it later. Get your story out of your head and down on something tangible.

Anyone can have an idea.

Be a doer.

And let go of the idea of perfecting your story. If it's your first one, chances are it's not going to be because you haven't put the practice in.

LET YOURSELF FAIL.

It's how you improve.

The most frustrating experience as a writer is having a clear vision in your mind of the story you want to tell but being too afraid to put pen to paper for fear of failing to do the story justice. I’m so scared that my actual execution will fail to meet my expectations that I’m paralysed to even start.

[somewhere-at-the-burrow]

𝐵𝒰𝑅𝑅𝒪𝒲 𝒮𝒰𝑀𝑀𝐸𝑅𝒮

⤹ 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐖𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲

(( what the summer has looked like in my recent shifts! ))

(( this is a long post I'M SORRY I RAMBLE A TON))

✯ Ginny and I always read the new editions of Seeker Weekly when they are delivered on sunday mornings. this usually consists of her running into my room and flopping onto my bed, teasing me with the magazine if I am not awake already. otherwise, we read it together at the kitchen table while keeping it away from the boys until we are done reading!

✯ in the first two weeks of summer, Bill was staying at the Burrow and telling us all about his adventures in Egypt. let's just say that every single breakfast with him ended on a super mysterious note or with Molly (mum) passing him more food and giving him a look of "motherly protection"

✯ with Arthur's (dad's) help, I have been building my own broom over the summer. I have always had the idea in mind, and with the collaboration of many different wizarding families, it is turning out really well!! I still have no idea if anyone will actually allow it in quidditch games though :')

✯ this might be very mundane, but I always help with the farm chores every morning. we have lots of chickens (and we have had pigs in the past), and it is so refreshing to use grounding techniques while listening to the radio through the open window

✯ speaking of radio... that is one thing that is always going in the Burrow. I look forward to walking downstairs in the morning and hearing the latest hits or listening to the WWN news broadcast.

✯ also, mum always has the Witching Hour (with Glenda Chittock) going in the mornings. in the wizarding world, there is kind of a love-hate with that talk show, as many younger people see it as something that only older women listen to.

✯ however, the Witching Hour was one of the first things I listened to in my first shift, so the memories are all positive and I find myself listening most mornings (despite the incessant teasing from the boys)

✯ in my first shift, I found out that the Holyhead Harpies made it to the League Cup against the Kenmare Kestrels. Ginny and I are obsessed with the Harpies' new seeker (grace belling my lovee <3) so you know I had to script that we would go to the game!!

✯ because this is the first summer where Fred, George and I can do magic outside of school, they have been tinkering away at new joke projects while I work on magically designing the labels and packaging! many late nights with that one!!

✯ my best friend Iris has visited many many times, and sometimes we invite Angelina too and we all bunker down in my room reading our silly witch magazines and looking at photos until the late hours. usually this ends with Ginny knocking on my door and she too curls up on the floor to talk <3

✯ Ginny also found this antique book of muggle victorian slang in the work shed, and she has been saying extremely ridiculous things in random conversation and it has honestly become a bit at this point. we are all on the edge of our seats wondering what that girl is going to say next, especially during meals!

✯ Hermione and Harry visited once, but Ron has such a sporadic schedule and he ended up doing the most random things and dragging them with him. I kid you not, they went and looked at the garden? for no reason??

✯ between Ron and Fred, those two would sleep past noon if we let them. mum will absolutely not have that though, so after she has called them down for breakfast multiple times, she tasks George and I with waking them up. some days we are kind and we gently shove them awake, but those are becoming very rare and I find absolute joy in being a morning menace <3

✯ when Bill was over, we had these fake broom races at dusk in the back field, but they were mostly so we could see the sunset on the horizon and that was a moment when I felt the most alive.

note:

talking about the burrow is my favorite and my mum is tired of hearing about it every time i shift back! so, i guess you all will be graced with my rants AND I HAVE A LOT OF THEM

thank you for reading if you have made it this far!

[the-100-days-of-junkan]

THE 100 DAYS OF JUNKAN

Hello everybody! I’m Carbonated-Jem! 

I sincerely hope you’re having a good day as this post finds you.

You’re probably wondering what this is. Well this my good compatriot is the result of a very ill advised task I put upon myself at the beginning of this year. There’ll be a TL;DR at the bottom for those who don’t want my full ramblings (sorry about that btw, not very good at this), but I do appreciate anyone who’ll give a silly person like me the time of day.

You see, I am a fan of Danganronpa, and as a result I like to read a lot of gay fanfic (and if I’m feeling daring I’ll even look at fan art, shocking). This series for all its ups and downs is quite important to me and becoming who I am today. Tokomaru especially helped me through a period of a lot of stress and depression, among other things. 

But as you can tell by the name this isn’t a Blog Dedicated to Tokomaru, it’s a blog dedicated to Junkan. Which might be very surprising to anyone who I haven’t divulged this info to personally. 

I try to make it a habit to not delve too deep into fandoms for the sake of my mental health, I look up fanart, read some appreciation posts on tumblr, read fics, and depending on the series make art for others to enjoy. However one thing I tend to become vaguely aware of regardless of whether I want to or not is what ships are and are not controversial. So I am very aware of the fact that saying I ship Junko and Mikan is bare minimum getting some weird looks from a lot of the people reading this.

Before I give a reason why I’m doing this let me just make clear what this is in the first place.

This is the 100 Days of Junkan, a project I undertook (Kind of as a joke) at the beginning of the year. I have made 100 Pieces to post across the next 100 Days. Some are finished art, some are sketches, some are sketches I added color to later, some are multiple images grouped into one day, comics, and far more. I’ve learned a lot through this project artistically, and some of the surprises I have in store will hopefully be worth the effort. I don’t know 100% for sure what day this post will be on, however the event itself will begin October 1st, and if I did the math right will continue all the way till January 9th. 

Why would I put this much time and energy into this ship, knowing that there are a lot of people who downright hate it? Simple, I just like the ship a lot, and wanted to make more art for it.

And I should further note, there are plenty of fans of this ship as well, however they may be disappointed to hear that unless you’re very much like me, you probably won’t enjoy what I’ve made with these two. In canon (much to my chagrin, because I’m not partial to the direction it took in DR3) this is a very abusive relationship. This is not really my thing, anyone who has seen the ship art I’ve done on my main page will know that I much prefer to draw soft, fluffy shipping art. I try to make art which will leave a positive vibe on people for the most part.

That said I understand why there are people who like this ship for how it is represented in canon. Shipping Junkan has taught me to stop being judgy of people for what they ship (I used to really hate Togami x Toko for example, and while it’s still not my thing I can totally understand why people are into it now). Everyone has their own reasons for shipping something, whether it’s an interesting dynamic, they just like seeing the characters kiss, as a coping mechanism, and plenty of other reasons. I have my boundaries of course, but at this point I try to be open minded towards peoples proclivities.

So if I’m not drawing a Canon Compliant Depiction of this ship, what am I actually doing here?

Well I’ve decided that I’m going to draw niche art for an already very niche ship. I like Junkan on the softer side, where regardless of where it's supposed to be in canon or an AU they just actually love eachother, I've seen and have been inspired by a decent amount of Fanfics depicting this exact thing. It's the dynamic that I find the most interesting personally, as I like the directions you can take it with the characters.

So that’s the deal, for 100 Days starting from October 1st you can expect this blog to post a constant flow of soft Junko x Mikan art. If that’s your thing, I sincerely hope you like all this! It’s been my number one goal to give some art to the people who share a similar desire for softer depictions of this Ship, along with all the people who have already made amazing pieces of writing and artwork depicting the same. If this isn’t your thing, I hope you’ll at least stick around to give it a chance, and if I can’t sell you on it like I have with some of my friends, I hope you can at least walk away from this with a shrug.

Apologizing in advance to all those who peruse the Mikan and Junko tag, because this is gonna be flooding those for awhile I imagine. I fully understand if you wanna block me for this, hope you have a lovely day after that! 

Now dear viewer, please watch this long road unwind and behold such sights as: Me slowly memorizing these two to the point that I can draw them almost entirely without reference at this point, inconsistent colors schemes,  inconsistent heights, so much goddamn blushing, AU’s galore, and the unspeakable things I learned how to do for this project! (And by unspeakable I mean I don’t wanna spoil the surprise!) 

Oh! And as an extra bonus to all this, go check out my AO3 account. I have a singular Junkan Fic on there right now, however as a little bonus for this event (and sure, thematic for Halloween) I’m going to be posting a Vampire AU Junkan Fic periodically throughout October. Partially inspired by the fact that Day 30 depicts a scene I came up with way before the actual fic, and I really want to have it written out and available to read before that post comes out.

The other reason is that if I say i’m going to post it here, that means I am required to actually do it by the law of my brain. Which will likely outweigh my complete lack of self confidence in my ability to write anything making me too paranoid to actually let it go public~

Here’s the link!

And if you stumbled upon this post through the Junkan Tag and not my main account, here’s a link to it!

You’ll find plenty of other Danganronpa Art, including Junko and Mikan on their own. I do other stuff but I imagine that’d be the most immediately interesting, but hey you never know. So hopefully if this blog doesn’t provide anything you’d be into, my normal works will catch your attention! 

I’ve also opened an Ask Box for this blog, why? I dunno. I’ll be real it just seemed like the thing to do. But feel free to ask questions and I'll try to respond best I can!

And finally here is the TL,DR for those who didn't wanna read through my mind numbing rambling.

I like Danganronpa, I like drawing Soft Junkan art for a lot of reasons. I’m posting 100 Pieces for 100 Days of this ship, and hopefully ya’ll will enjoy it. If not, that’s okay! I hope you have a great day! 

Reblogs Appreciated!~ Stay hydrated Everyone!~

[tyuninthemirror]

— valentine: k.th

— pairing: rival!taehyun x fem!reader — genre: fluff — word count: 3186 — disclaimers: university au, one-sided rivalry. mentions of food. — synopsis: all taehyun wanted was for you to give him a chance. — series masterlist

— author's note: for a tumblr that has taehyun as its muse, took me quite a while to get to him. >:( i hope you all like one, i really appreciate all the feedback and support on my last few fics ♥ (edited 7/22/2024)

You've always envied Kang Taehyun. Since middle school, he's always been praised for doing well in school and community activities without trying while you had to work twice as hard to keep up. He was so naturally talented at everything that to say you were jealous would be an understatement; it made your blood boil.

Since middle school, you've considered him your rival, but he didn't care and let you continue your one-sided rivalry until the last semester of your senior year. You remember throwing a fit in the teacher's room when Taehyun was chosen instead of you to give the speech at your graduation.

Taehyun finally confronted you about your behavior after learning about it from your teachers.

"Why do you hate me that much? I can't change anything about myself," He bluntly said, staring directly into your eyes, "It's senseless to be resentful and bitter about something I can't control."

His bluntness caught you off guard, and you were at a loss for words. From then on, you stayed away from him.

Even after graduating and ending up in the same college, you avoided him at all costs. You were shocked to find out that you had a few classes with him, but you decided to act like you didn't know him.

As the semester comes to a close, you and Taehyun sit in your media arts class, anxiously awaiting Ms. Park's final assignment. She announces that the task is to create or recreate a music video with a partner, using any song of their choice. This project will count towards your final grade.

Your heart races as Ms. Park explains the details, reminding the class of all they have learned over the semester to make a good video. You raise your hand and ask, "What if we can't come up with ideas for the video?"

Ms. Park replies with comforting smile, "This is where your imagination comes in. Use what you've learned to create something that represents you and your partner."

One of your friends, Jake, asks if you are okay with him and Lily being partners. You give a nonchalant response, not wanting to interfere with Lily's obvious crush on Jake.

When class ends, Ms. Park encourages everyone to put their all into their projects and reminds them to have fun. As Jake and Lily rush off to their next class, you take your time knowing you have more time before yours starts.

As you try to leave the classroom, your arm is suddenly grabbed from behind. You turn around and see Jay, the school's popular jock, blocking your path. You had a feeling this would happen, as one of your classmates had warned you that Jay often gets others to do his work for him.

"Hey Y/N," he says with a smug smile. "I heard you need a partner for the final project. Well, look no further because I'm your guy."

"Thanks, but no thanks Jay," you reply, rolling your eyes and trying to pull away.

"What, I'm not good enough for you?" He sneers, his expression turning hostile.

"It's not about that," you say calmly. "I just don't think we'd work well together."

"Well tough luck, Y/N," he steps closer, his face inches from yours. "I get to choose my partner and I choose you."

Your heart beats faster as you take a step back. "I said no, Jay. Now move out of my way."

But instead of moving aside, Jay shoves you and sends you tumbling down the stairs. Just as you close your eyes in preparation for impact, a strong hand grabs your waist and pulls you back up.

When you open your eyes, Taehyun is standing there, having witnessed the whole thing. He glares at Jay and demands, "What do you think you're doing?"

"I didn't mean-" Jay starts to say before taking a few steps back in fear.

"You didn't mean what?" Taehyun interrupts. "To push her down the stairs? You moron, you could have seriously injured her.

Jay stammers out an apology before quickly scurrying away without looking back at either of you.

"Are you okay?" Taehyun asks as he turns to face you with concern in his eyes.

You nod slowly, still processing what just happened.

"Kang Taehyun," you breathe a sigh of relief. "Thank you. I owe you one."

"You don't owe me anything," he replies. "But if you insist on repaying me, how about being my partner for the final project?"

You're taken aback by his sudden offer and pause for a moment before nodding in agreement. As you do, you can't help but wonder if your hesitation was due to the shock of the incident or the fact that this is the first time in a long while that you and Taehyun have spoken like normal friends. Regardless, you agree to be his partner.

"Well, what did you say?!" Lily shrieked. You met up with your friends after class, updating them on your rather eventful day.

"I said yes," you sighed, closing your eyes and leaning back on the library chair. "Better Kang Taehyun than Jay."

"True," Jake muttered in agreement. "Why do you hate Kang Taehyun again? He's pretty nice. He helped me with my essay once."

You groaned, sinking deeper into your chair. You told Lily and Jake this story when you started college, but you couldn't say it now. Was it because he kinda saved your life? For the trouble and ruckus you've caused in his life, you never would've expected him to save you.

"I give up," you muttered, a scowl on your face. The next day, after you gave Mrs. Park your names, she gave the class the whole period to decide and discuss what each pair wanted to do for the project.

After barely talking to each other, you and Taehyun chose to make two different lists and find a match, only to find out that you both like completely different types of music.

"Kang Taehyun, how the hell are we going to make a music video for SHINEE's Ring Ding Dong?" you asked as you shoved his paper back at him.

"We could dance," he said, shrugging as if it was the most obvious answer.

"No."

Taehyun was about done with you after another fifteen minutes of you rejecting all of his ideas.

"Y/N, do you really dislike all of the songs I chose, or is it because I suggested them?" Taehyun asked, clearly tired of your tone.

"A bit of both," you agreed. Hey, there's no shame in being honest. He chose you to be his partner.

"If I choose a song I know you'll like, do you promise not to shut it down?" he asked. You sit up at his words, wondering what song he would mention. You nodded once but kept your fingers crossed in case he suggested something terrible.

"Some by Soyou and Junggio."

"So? What's the big deal?" Lily asked as she did your nails. On Thursdays, Jake has baseball practice which allows you and Lily to have your girl time at your dorm.

"I sang that song with a senior I had a crush on in high school," you explain to her, thinking back at the time you spent alone time practicing with Chenle to perform at the opening of the school fair. "Brings back memories, that's all."

"So you guys have all your filming schedules set?"

"Yeah, he said to shoot at five locations, but I said I'd only meet thrice. We're meeting this Sunday to do the first take," you answer her, checking out the hand she had just finished coating. "He suggested we feature in the video ourselves to save time and that he would do all the scene planning."

"Damn, Y/N," Lily grinned. "Taehyun is such a gentleman for giving in to your demands. Meanwhile, I have to sing and dance to Dynamite with Jake."

"Shut it, Morrow. I know you want to spend alone time with Jake."

On Sunday, you and Taehyun meet at the café he picked for the first scene. It was tucked away in a back alley near campus. You were impressed that Taehyun knew about a place like this, and you found yourself liking every aspect of it, from the cake display to the furnishings. He smiles and waves you to the chosen table when he sees you.

"Hey, Y/N! I'm glad you could make it," he says, standing up to meet you. Despite rolling your eyes in response, you can't help but be a little taken aback by his charming demeanor.

"Yeah, yeah, let's just get this over with," you mumble as you sit down.

Taehyun laughs. "Come on. It'll be fun. I promise."

"I doubt that," you snorted in response.

He orders two coffees, and you set up the camera and other things. As you work, you laugh and joke with Taehyun when he makes too many mistakes. His face turns red with embarrassment when he admits he doesn't know how to use a professional camera.

Peering out the window, you notice the sky has turned a shade of orange. It must be getting late. Checking your phone, you both realize you've been sitting in the cafe for over three hours. Taehyun glances at his watch and expresses concern. "It's getting late. Would you like me to walk you home?"

Feeling unsure but also experiencing a strange flutter in your chest, you respond with a hesitant "Sure, that would be nice."

As you make your way down quiet streets, Taehyun talks about his favorite bands and movies. You find yourself opening up to him and sharing details about your own interests and hobbies. However, as soon as you remember that you despise him, you clamp up and stop sharing so much.

When you finally reach your door, Taehyun turns to you with a smile. "Thanks for the day, Y/N. I really enjoyed it."

You have a strange mix of feelings. On the one hand, you had to admit that you liked the day more than you thought you would. But on the other hand, you still couldn't get rid of the irritation you felt toward him.

"Yeah, it was… fine," you reply, trying to keep your tone neutral.

Taehyun's smile fades a little, but he nods. "Well, I'll see you in class then."

"Sure," you say before opening the door to your dormitory building.

You can't help but think about the day's events as you walk up the stairs. You expected to be bothered by Taehyun the whole time, but he made you laugh and have fun. And when he offered to walk you home, it felt like a date.

But you quickly tell yourself that you can't let yourself get too comfortable with Taehyun. You've spent years building up a wall of hate for him, and you can't just let that go because you worked with him for one day on a music video.

A few days later, you and Taehyun meet up at the arcade for the next scene of your class project music video.

You can't help but feel a little nervous as you wait for him to arrive. Even though you've been trying to stay away from him since you met on Sunday, you can't help but think about why Taehyun wanted to work with you on the project.

When Taehyun shows up, he waves and smiles at you. You swear your heart missed a beat.

"Hey, Y/N, you ready to shoot?" He asked with a small grin on his face.

You nod, trying to control the butterflies in your stomach. "Yeah, let's get started."

While Taehyun set up the camera and equipment, he suggests you play some of the arcade games to collect some footage for the video. At first, you're not sure, but he talks you into playing a few games with him.

As you play together, laughter and good times fill the air. Taehyun surprises you with his skill in some games but also isn't afraid to let loose and act silly. At one point, he accidentally bumps into you, and both of you end up on the ground, laughing uncontrollably. As you look up at him, you realize that maybe he's not as bad as you thought. In fact, he might even be likable.

Throughout the day, your time together is filled with joy and fun. You're still a bit cautious around him, but your opinion of him is changing drastically. He's not the flawless robot you first saw him as; instead, he's a real person with feelings and imperfections. And being around him feels nice.

When filming for the video ends, Taehyun turns to you with a smile. "Thanks for today, Y/N. I really enjoyed it."

Your heart feels warm as you return his smile. "Me too. And I'm sorry for always being rude to you."

His smile grows wider. "It's alright. I can understand why you didn't like me before. But I'm glad we got to know each other better."

You nod, feeling slightly awkward. "Yeah, me too."

As the two of you leave the arcade together, you can't help but feel like you just went on another date with him.

Halfway down the street, Taehyun tells you he has to meet someone at the cafe you just walked by. As you walk back to campus, you say goodbye. For the first time, you're a little sad that you have to part ways, and you're not sure if you want to keep up the wall of dislike between you two.

"Taehyun! Over here!" Huening Kai's voice rang out across the bustling coffee shop, drawing Taehyun's attention. A wide smile spread across his face as he made his way over to the table where Kai was sitting.

"Did I just see you walking by with L/N Y/N?" Kai asked, his shock palpable in his tone and written all over his face. Taehyun simply nodded in response, trying not to let his own excitement show too much.

"Did she get amnesia…? Doesn't she hate your guts?" Kai continued, unable to contain his curiosity.

"Yeah, I'm working on that," Taehyun chuckled nervously, scratching the back of his neck as he thought about how best to explain the situation to Kai.

"Dude, don't tell me you still have a crush on her?" Kai prodded playfully, a mischievous glint in his eye when Taehyun's face turned a light shade of pink. "Hilarious, you know she's hated you for as long as you've liked her. Crazy how you both ended up in the same college too. Maybe that's what they call fate."

"Fate…" Taehyun mused, letting the word roll off his tongue as he looked out at the bustling crowd of people around them. The thought of it all being predestined or meant to be seemed almost unimaginable, but then again, so did the idea of you and him actually becoming friends after years of animosity. "Maybe you're right."

You and Taehyun stood on the rooftop, overlooking the bustling campus below. The sun was setting, casting a warm glow over the two of you as you sat on a blanket laid out on the ground. Taehyun had prepared an afternoon picnic for your final scene, complete with sandwiches, fruit, and a bottle of sparkling wine.

He had suggested that for the last scene, you'd film a time-lapse of you two sitting side by side and the sun setting in the background.

You couldn't help but feel conflicted as you looked at Taehyun. You had always disliked him, but as you worked together on your project, you realized that maybe you had been too immature to try even to get to know him. Taehyun was kind, funny, and incredibly talented but never tried to rub it in or show off. You found yourself drawn to him, even though you weren't sure if you were ready to admit it yet.

As you chatted and ate, Taehyun suddenly turned to you with a smile on his face. "You know, Y/N," he said, "this is my dream date."

"What? A picnic on a rooftop?" you looked at him incredulously.

He chuckled, shaking his head. "It may seem simple, but it's the little things that matter to me. Just being here with someone I care about, enjoying good food and great company," he explained, leaning back against the rooftop ledge. The setting sun cast an orange glow over him as he gazed at you with adoration. "That's all I've ever really wanted." The warm breeze lifted his hair as he spoke, adding to the romantic atmosphere of the moment.

Your heart fluttered as you listened to Taehyun, feeling emotions you had never associated with him before. You clenched your fists, realizing how much his actions and words had affected you. You couldn't keep pretending that his gestures were just friendly.

"Can you stop playing games with me, Taehyun? I don't know if you're trying to lead me on or if you actually have feelings for me, but I can't ignore my own feelings anymore."

Taehyun's expression softened. "Y/N, I'm sorry if I've been unclear. I didn't want to pressure you or make you uncomfortable. The truth is, I've had feelings for you for a long time now, back when we were still in middle school, I just didn't know how to tell you."

Your heart skipped a beat at his confession. Did Taehyun feel the same way about you?

"I'm grateful that we worked on this project together," Taehyun continued. "It gave me a chance to show you who I really am, and I'm thankful for that. But Y/N, I'm not doing all of this just to change your opinion of me. I genuinely care about you and want to be with you."

"You liked me all this time?"

"Yes," Taehyun shyly chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "I think it was back in middle school when you helped Chani redo his homework that had fallen into the school fountain. It sounds kind of creepy now, doesn't it?"

Tears welled up in your eyes as you looked at Taehyun. This was something you never expected, but now that it was happening, it felt like a heavy weight on your shoulders. How could you have treated someone who felt this way about you so unkindly?

"Why are you crying?" Taehyun asked in concern, reaching for a napkin. Did he say something wrong?

"I-I'm sorry for everything," you apologized, tears streaming down your face. "I've been so unfair to you, and you've been nothing but patient and kind to me."

"Don't dwell on the past, Y/N," Taehyun comforted. "I hold no grudges against you."

"Taehyun, I promise to make it up to you and do better," you said softly. "I don't know where this will go, but I want to find out. Thank you for being patient with me."

A bright smile lit up Taehyun's face as he leaned in to kiss you. The sun had set completely, but for the two of you, the world was just beginning to light up.

[solar-tl-27]

OH HEY WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT I’M BACK

Yall never get regular posts from me omg you guys I’M SO SORRYYYY

but but but but but ya’ll wont believe it

I have been… DOING ART?! youuuuu heard that right folks i me MYSELF AM d-doing art.

Ok soooo i got a few updates

Life is still incredibly hectic i swear i feel like one of those fanfic writers tha5 post like

Hey sorry it took 8 years i was in a coma! But thankfully that’s not… entirely the case?

I’m on the list for an appointment to see if i have adhd because hearing my friends who are diagnosed and medicated talk about literally MY EXACT ISSUES AND IT HELPING i was like… damm maybe it is the good ol case of audhd … so hopefully hopefully i can get something to help with that!

Uhhh in other news I’m saving for a laptop so i can get into video editing and idk make some animation memes and animatics!

But ofcourse

Ofcourse

I promised art let’s not dwindle any more!

First of all we have some art i did for my story quest for the moon (i did blur out a bit just cuz well idk my audience that well so i’ll be bluring it even though it takes away a bit of context)

Then another piece for that series and then… omg.. no way is that?! Is it?!

Hehe surprise let’s get into the first art!

3 GOT ANOTHER REDESIGN AND MIGUELS’S FIRST FULL ART

Welcome welcome to my sweet sweet sweet baby angel boy Three that’s right he’s been on my mind again so i drew him… kinda like a splash art? If he was in a gacha game very cute very demure (if that meme’s old already… no it’s not)

And then we have THE VILLAIN of quest for the moon

Miguel also our main character ash in the corner hiiii ash

Miguel is basically like the mentor that’s secretly just try to steal your powers type he’s very much an opportunist and i love to draw him and loooove to hate him! This piece is basically foreshadowing extravaganza that will… eventually be clear i swear I promise I PROMISE but for now enjoy the piece it took sooo long

Next art!

This is still a work in progress it’s not done yet but I’m incredibly proud of it soooooo I’m showing it anyway and then we’ll get into the surprise

MEET MY SON ALEXANDER

ohhh my goodness after being in art block for so long it feels so nice to just get a solid redes out i’m soooo happy with how he’s turning out AA that’s my son MY BOY one of my oldest oc’s from so so so so long ago and fun fact i drew both pieces with the exact same brush heheheh the headshot next to him is his brother phoenix

Ok NOW FOR THE SURPRISE

Guess what! That’s right i have actually ACTUALLY started finding my way into the new project reignited

That’s right we got a MAIN CAST now

Now obviously some are.. easy to find the original inspiration for but they won’t be that similar to the redesigns they used to be no no no

Welcome the new crew of project reignited!

Muse, Plume, Thea, Orianne & caelusss

Muse is the main character a human boy who is just trying his best who gets swooped up into helping a dragon girl save her kingdom and the magical dimension while also fighting to preserve his home town!

Plume a dragon girl (plume, bloom you get the gist) who somehow ended up on earth is now tasked to find help to save her people and mother while also discovering the beauty of earth

Thea the daughter of an urban development company ceo and the love interest of muse (did i get myself this invested into a ship that i made it canon here… yes.) she’s a frail girl but is forced to step in as her fathers ideas turn from helpful to greedy and destructive

Orianne Thea and Muse’s friend and the more motherly of the group but faced with difficult circumstances and changes in her life can cause her to lash out as her life is completely steered of its course by magic and her dad remarrying.

Caelus! Muse’s closest friend a pretty chill guy that works at an icecream parlour during the week and helps his family with their market food stand in the weekend, he really wants to be a culinary chef but doesn’t know if he can truly achieve his goals in his hometown.

That’s the gang this will from now on be an original concept and no longer a winx rewrite yes winx will be an inspiration for this work but i do not intend to go the fairy route nor make the world building as big as i had made it in my rewrite… what you will see is me taking my rewritten work as a basis for this story considering i have basically rewritten my version of domino, zenith and solaria from scratch sooooo SWEET BABY BOY CRYOS MY BABY will be making a return later on in this story he’s mine he’s my son my boy i can do with his character whatever i pleaseeee ok ty

That’s the update that’s the post thank you all for enjoying my content and my terrible upload schedule life had beeeeeen hectic ty ty hope ya’ll stay for more and if this was your first post of mine you saw…. Check out my other work pls and thank u

Oki

BYEEEEE

[highlordofkrypton]

I am going to ask way to many of these

2, 3, 5, 7, 20, 31

I want to ask many more but I am restraining myself

PLEASE ASK AS MUCH AS YOU WANT, I'M IN A YAPPING MOOD!!

Linking to the ask game in question!

2. Anything you want to write but feel like you're unable to?

Porn. Straight up raunchy multiple thousand words for just filth. Feelings get in the way, we're all laughing or crying. I think it's an art to be able to focus on just the kinky stuff in a way that's engaging but not too anatomical. That's dirty but in a way that isn't gross, but just right, if you know what I mean?

I love smut, but the mental toll it takes on me to write pure smut is wild. I can usually shoot out 1k words in 15 minutes if I'm focused. It can take me three days to figure out like... where the character should kiss next 😭

3. How would you describe your writing style?

Oh gosh, are we supposed to use real writing terms? I don't know what styles there are out there, but my way of describing my writing would be: lived in.

I always say I'm a lazy writer, so I don't describe anything more than I have to. Usually, I will describe what matters to the character. I live in their shoes at that moment, and when I write, I embody their emotions as well. If the character is crying, my ass is sobbing over the keyboard. If they're angry, I'm rolling my eyes.

I do think that my style also means that the details I do include are a bit miscellaneous. It's natural to describe the setting, and clothes and items, but I feel like if you're really living in a universe, you get attached to the really random, if weird, shit.

5. What's a tag you never want to use for your works even when it applies?

THIS IS A TRICKY ONE!

Okay, let me start off by saying I am both pro and against tags. I think tags are a great way of searching up fics to make sure that you get exactly what you want, but I also think that for some fics it does a disservice to the fic. Disclaimer: I'm new to AO3 and I don't think I tag well enough.

So, on the point of disservice, I'll use my fic for example because I've been thinking about it for a while. So for Wildflowers, I consider it an ACOTAR prequel, first and foremost. While Tamsand is the main ship, I think by tagging the ship, it does the fic a disservice because the world is so rich, it doesn't just focus on the ship. There's so much more I want to gush about with people, and I find it answers so many complaints I see from ACOTAR fans who were disappointed by the rest of the books, but people will stop at the ship tag.

Also both characters are so polarizing in the fandom that if you hate one, you won't give this fic a shot which is FAIR but one of my goals was to convince readers to fall for the one they might not have thought they would, but yeah, I played myself with that idea.

I also tag to be safe than sorry so not to trigger anyone, but I'm very much a reader that is in for the ride no matter what, and I feel like tags can be spoilers, etc. Still, I do want to be respectful of others, but for me, I worry that if I tag 'SA' the fic might be misconstrued as it focuses on that topic whereas it's one scene that impacts later character development.

I wouldn't use the term never tag, but that's how I feel about tagging.

7. Your favourite AO3 tag.

Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne.

That's it. That's the whole tag LMAO.

20. Do you work on a single project or many at the same time? How does that work for you?

I've tried both and HOLY CRAP, I'm bad at multi-tasking. A SINGLE PROJECT. DO NOT LET ME START OTHER SHIT AT THE SAME TIME, I WLL FORGET TO UPDATE THE OTHER PROJECT.

Hyperfocus or bust, apparently.

31. What was the most difficult fic to write (but in the end you made it)?

Pick any of my smut oneshots, except Regrets and that is probably one of them.

I would say that my Lucien x Elain (Elucien) fic Warmth was difficult because I knew the setting and how I was gonna start it, but I don't know Elain very well (I haven't finished reading the series) and I don't write Lucien enough. It's one thing to know the character, but another thing to know how they are when they are being intimate. That was really tricky.

I always try not to re-use the same tropes, positions, expressions and wording in my smut, but since I don't write enough of it, to me, it reads like I'm writing more or less the same and... I hate that.

MY GOD I RAMBLED SO MUCH I'M SORRY

I STILL LIKED IT IT WAS FUN!!

[bettsfic]

Honestly, I guess I just need some validation here.

I am struggling with writing solely because I don’t believe in myself. And I don’t see me gaining confidence any time soon. But I don’t want that to stop me from finally finishing a novel idea this year(I have a whole goal). I have decided that even if I feel nothing for the story, majority of the time, and make myself feel bad about my abilities or begin to compare myself, I’ll write through it. If I can’t fix my confidence, I can leave that worry at the door and bill doze to finish line until I reach my goal.

I know this doesn’t sound pretty but I really don’t believe in myself and I rip apart every story before it’s finished and kill morale. And I hate it. I type this ask to get a second opinion. Is this feasible?

i guess my question is, if this is a miserable process for you and you don't feel anything for the story, why did you set a goal to complete the novel? i mean this sincerely, not as a question of doubt. what inspired you to start writing this particular story? what compels you about it?

on just a basic cognitive level, unless you have high stakes external motivation (like a professional athlete, for example), it is nearly impossible to use internal motivation to complete a task that doesn't offer you some kind of positive/affirmative feeling. as humans, we are simply not built to put ourselves through pain without a potential reward commensurate to what it takes to achieve it.

for some writers, the reward is pushing through the shitty feelings of the process so they can be pleased with what they've created. for other writers (like me), the pleasure is in the process itself and we don't really get any of those "a job well done" feelings at the end. (i wish i did, but by the time i finish something i'm already knee-deep into the next thing.)

but if you don't have good feelings while you're writing, and you don't have good feelings when you're finished...where are the good feelings? i think before you buckle down and put yourself through what seems like a very painful and demotivating process, you should reframe your perspectives somehow. instead of your goal being to finish a project, what if your goal is to find joy? figure out exactly how and what you want to write that can override some of what you're going through. or learn how to self-affirm so you can push back against what's keeping you down.

i've made an entire career out of motivating people to write and helping them overcome self-doubt and low confidence. and even though it seems complicated and maybe even impossible, everyone needs at least one of two things: internal motivation via play/discovery/progress, and/or external motivation via encouragement from someone whose perspective you value. finishing a novel is almost never a result of gritting your teeth and grinding out words. it's a result of social support and fun.

[mangodestroyer]

Not that I want to talk about it too much or anything, but now that I'm actually leaving retail for real (because I finally secured something else and can afford to leave), I'm kind of thinking a lot about how shitty this job actually is. And how I sort of just got used to it after a while.

I mean, first, there's the obvious of retail being a hella toxic environment. You're constantly facing the public, and have zero ways of standing up for yourself and avoiding it. Companies also push for you to reach extreme goals and push for workers to be super competitive over the metrics. All this micromanaging, as well as the bs from the customers, can easily cause co-workers to become burnt out and bitter. Leading to toxic work relationships as well.

Secondly, it's so much physical labor. And my job in particular also requires a high level of social intelligence. I mean, you have to actually SELL things to customers, on top of balancing a thousand different tasks (and completing them within a certain time frame while also putting out other people's fires). I mean, seriously. It's difficult to draw the energy to have a whole-ass sales pitch, individualized to the customer you're speaking to when you've been rushing to complete three projects.

It's also the scheduling. You can never have the same schedule every week. And the shifts are always all over the place. One week, you might have six four-hour shifts, the next week, you have an eight-hour shift where you work till nine at night, and then have another eight-hour shift the next day requiring you to come in at five or six in the morning. Maybe you worked nothing but evening shifts for the past three months. Now you're suddenly being scheduled morning shifts after you've gotten used to going to bed at four a.m. because you hate waiting to go to your job during the day. Maybe you're scheduled two 35-40 hour weeks because it's a very busy sales period and there is A LOT OF WORK TO DO. Then you're scheduled for nothing but 8 to 16-hour weeks and there's nothing to do/you have no money. You're scheduled for every weekend and holiday. You can no longer feel excited about those while everyone else is having a blast. In fact, you forgot that going to the store is something that people sometimes do for fun. If you ask to limit your hours and have certain times/days off, you'll get heckled for it. Sometimes, you're asked to cover shifts and people get annoyed if you decline. You're asked to find someone to cover your shift if you can't make it in. People get mad at you for being sick or for just wanting to use vacation days.

The pay. The pay is shit. All this for the lowest pay they think they can get away with giving people.

It is... exhausting! Even a simple four-hour shift leaves me feeling like I can't decompress. I have to take things to help me relax after work and to help me tolerate it the next day. Even then, I can't truly get myself to focus on my hobbies or anything. It's also made going to school difficult. It's so hard to think after being worked like that. Or to have the energy to stay on top of things. Also, I've gained weight since working this job. I was... 125 lbs when I started. I got all the way up to 165 lbs in three years and struggled to get down to 157 lbs these past few months. I feel like my stomach can't even digest a lot of food these days. Like, if I eat too much dairy or fruit or something, it feels like it just sits in my stomach for a long ass time until I get cramps and feel bloated. I never used to be like this. I also feel like I have more inflammation in general. And God forbid you have issues happening in your personal life. It makes all of this so much worse! Back when I was in a toxic relationship, I straight up wondered if I was developing b*polar/sch*zophrenia, d*mentia, or c*ncer. The stress was affecting me both physically and mentally THAT MUCH.

I spent three weeks away from my job a few months ago. I actually started feeling like I had some energy. I started feeling human again. It was pretty telling. Before then, I thought I'd finally gotten used to working that job and that maybe it wasn't so bad. Then I came back and was like, "Holy, fuck! This place is shit!" I started putting in job apps like my life depended on it for ANYTHING that wasn't retail or food service. ANYTHING. Even if I was underqualified.

And that's that. I will never do a low-paid customer service job again. If things ever get rough in the job market and I don't have a choice but to return to shitty work... I will literally do the actual SHITTY work of scrubbing toilets before I return to retail. I'm DONE.

[mihai-florescu]

i think i feel pretty similar to you in that the world is terrible, depressing, it sucks. that’s it’s natural state and we will always return there. but i thank that even though it hurts there are ideals unhampered by reality, stories we can create where that cycle ends for a moment in a happier direction. it isnt our job or duty as there isnt any grand purpose like that, but there is an opportunity out there to create a story with our lives. whether it’s a well known story or lost by the wayside, those who acknowledge the layer beneath the cheery “reality” that is peddled can be writers of their own. i might be delusional and there really is no hope but i hope to create stories for people to enjoy that elusive dream in if only for a temporary respite and cant give up until i well and truly fail. i don’t know if any of my thoughts speak to you in any meaningful way, but i felt compelled to share as while i think we share beliefs we seem to have come to rather different conclusions. i want to give my life to a story, an art, that will hold ideals the real world can never truly embody and thus cannot really give up as every taste of the real reality only strengthens my resolve. is there something like that for you? i’ve read your blog for a while and in my mind (which is an inexperienced mind so I apologize for sharing its fallible perceptions) you seemed like a fascinating person who holds ideals the world refuses to embody and is slowly sinking under that weight. i know it’s not really my place, so i apologize for my audacity, but i believe that you are the sort of person who can create a true happiness for yourself eventually. well, i mean i kind of have to if i believe that for myself. i have more to say, but it seems this is become a ridiculously long message. i apologize, my words likely have crossed between ideas and lost sense at times. i hope they help, or at least don’t harm. i hope you find loveliness loveliness in your day as you deserve it.

I've been journaling about this yesterday... my entire outlook on life i guess? I know i used to be creative and make projects that i found fun, but i cant find this drive in me anymore, i'm more than ready to give up (if only upset at the way it ended so im pressuring myself to make a good Last Project, but nothing is good anymore. It's all so...plain. useless. banal. there's no wit or multilayer to anything i can come up with anymore. I cant develop an idea anymore. There are enough stories, enough artworks, plenty of them bad, theres no need for me to add to it). Im sure it's just burnout stacked on top of depression and general worsening misanthropy and paranoia, but i don't think i will ever feel more hopeful again.

However i do think art, literature, games, even just stories from other people are keeping me grounded. They're also humanity's only redeeming quality - imagination will save our souls... but my position isn't to be an artist anymore, i cant spare the energy and i dont see a point in it either. I cant do a single basic living thing anymore that others seem to be able to do? I very much feel like an npc trying to do my most necessary tasks as best i can, failing more often than not. I hate getting asked what i'll do on a day off (it used to be often at my internship. I dont even want to imagine what they thought about me, that's another can of worms that still haunts me and contributed to why i became like this). The answer is quite literally Pretend I Dont Exist. I will not do anything. I cant do anything. I stop existing the second you stop seeing me, im just in bed dreading the next time i have to be human. I think when other people say they didnt do anything it's a hyperbole, but i can go weeks, and i have gone months even, without leaving the house, if i wasnt expected to.

Part of me wants to think, hope, i could maybe even get interested in making things again if there was no expectation for me to be a person for a few years, completely disappear off the grid (the expectation to be a person that just doesnt come natural to me anymore... and a specific one at that - achieving goals and moving forward, working, with ambitions or any sort of drive, young and energetic, an only child with a good education earning a living... i despise the idea of making money. I despise consumerism too. I want to fund artists, family owned restaurants, bookshops, cafes, and i do, i spend so much money without realising, but i'm really worried i'll run out and not be able to make any to survive once im older and wont get funds from my parents anymore. So i try to save and fail... My family friends, same age or even younger, are buying their own cars and apartments, successfully working multiple well paying jobs at the same time, with plans for the future...? Id like to know both how and why. How do you have the energy and why do you care. But even if they tell me the answers it doesnt change how i feel in my own life)

But this also has skewed my perception of other people... it connects to how i dont actually understand friendships anymore, im sure i mentioned it recently. Like with being an artist, there was a time i did understand and had deep friendships, i think, but it's quite alien to me now? In the way im not real until i have to interact with someone else, and even then, debatable, theyre not real to me either. Like i know this isnt a good mindset to have but it's either everything is real and i genuinely believe we need to disappear, to put an end to this sad species soon, or nothing is real and everyone's just playing a role in a story i get to watch. In a way taking away people's humanity and making them characters in my head is out of kindness, im being delusionally optimistic and quite frankly parasocial even with "friends", but it keeps me floating, stable. Ish. Still kind of empty but entertained enough. But then actually having a conversation outside my head with them is scary, unpredictable... on good days that can be fun too. My roommate always says i end up on side quests a lot if i leave the house, i think im just open to witnessing new stories... just on good, no, great days though, i cant stress that part enough. Great days are getting rarer and rarer. Most days pass by while im in bed and in my head trying to process anything, where i can barely have a coherent thought, and i wait for the day to end. Today was good for example but i still didnt manage to do anything to earn me the title of person, yet it was good because i 1. Ate, and 2. Didnt cry.

The part of your ask that hit me the most was when you said i seemed like a fascinating person, past tense. Im sure i was, but nowadays im very little even a person. Cant be helped. I hope i managed to explain how and why. If you ever want to share your art, my dms are open, i can maybe tell you about my gallery of failure wips i cant stand to look at anymore. I saw the followup ask with your personal info but im not quite sure what else to say... even this ask took too long to answer and now i need a nappp

[afniel]

Ten years after the end of the Maverick War, X—unarmed, unarmored, disabled, and retired from the Maverick Hunters—takes on a missing person case in what used to be downtown Abel City, until it was destroyed and walled off from the rest of the world. It should have been a simple enough task, but nothing has ever been simple for X. He soon finds himself drawn into a conflict between two groups of Mavericks living in the Abel City quarantine zone, making friends he desperately needs but isn't so sure he wants, pretending to be a version of himself he doesn't hate, and confronting the fact that he has spent so long sacrificing all of himself for a world that gives him nothing in return that he doesn't even know who he is anymore or what he wants out of life. A nap, mostly, but that missing human isn't going to find himself.

I did it. \o/

3½ months, 164,906 words, approximately a bajillion hours of lost sleep, and quite a lot of ADHD medication taken as directed. Entirely finished and posted so you don't have to wait around for updates. I'm proud of me. I think it's a pretty alright story, hopefully.

It actually doesn't require a ton of series knowledge to read and I tried to write it such that most of what you do need you can infer readily enough, so if you don't really even go here, meh! It might still be at least a little entertaining.

I feel like my summary was actually really good, so I'll just steal some of my tags for the rest:

X is old as balls and disabled as hell

found family but it's a bunch of Mavericks?

Don't Worry About It

based on a dream at least originally

X is basically the world's most burnt-out gifted kid ever

everyone repeatedly fails the Stop Picking Grandpa Up 2211 Challenge and X is so over it

the world needs more disabled characters who stay disabled so I made some

also contains a metric ton of aroace relationships

SO many original reploid characters. too many. put some of those back.

contains an absolutely excessive amount of worldbuilding

because Capcom couldn't be bothered and I have to do everything around here myself

featuring reploids as a metaphor for minorities and outcasts

and going Maverick as a rational reaction to an irrational world

no gods no masters no alphas no betas no editors we die like Mavericks

isn't X tired of being nice? doesn't he just want to go ape shitt?

Gods tho I was so nervous actually hitting post on this. I will love you forever and ever and ever amen if you assuage my nerves and leave kudos or comments or even just hits. 🙏 I am super not used to anybody reading my writing and usually in the past it's been a guarantee that I can't continue doing it so I'm really stepping out of my comfy zone here.

[redux-iterum]

Do you have any advice to help or prevent writer's block? I have a terrible habit of starting but never completing what I write. Also really excited for the Charred Legacy!

Hello and thank you! My advice splits into two categories of writer's block, which I'll call here Classic Block and Progression Block. Classic Block refers to the block people usually mean, especially when drawing: that you can barely write three sentences before erasing it all because it's awful and you hate it, leading you to sit around stewing in frustration that your skill level is so low. Progression Block, meanwhile, is the block where the actual work of writing something to completion is a Herculean task, even if you don't hate your writing style. The distinction DOES matter, as you’ll see.

To start off, Classic Block sources from your standards of writing not matching what you perceive to be your level of ability. Maybe you used to like how you write, but now all you see is the flaws. Your skills have leveled out or lowered instead of steadily increasing in quality – at least, that’s how it feels. This leads to you not writing at all, or only getting a bit done and then abandoning it because it sucks and what’s even the point and you’ll never make anything good anyway and so on. It’s the same thing as artist’s block, just with typing.

This brand of block has similar advice in every medium of art that it appears in, which is “study and practice”. The only way to get better is to examine where your faults are at and work to fix them. If you find how you write dialog unnatural, for example, you take a look at books or scripts you enjoy the dialog of and pay close attention to how the characters talk, or you find as many advice posts on the web as possible about how to create natural-sounding conversations, or even just listen in to people chatting in the real world. Like an artist studies anatomy and feels more confident about their improving work, a writer studies all the advice they can get and applies it to their story, and continues writing for practice until they get somewhere they’re okay with. It may not be as easy as artist’s block to conquer, depending on who you are, but it is doable.

Progression Block is a different beast, and I’ve certainly felt it before on my comics and writing. This is when you’re at the beginning or starting the middle of your project and you find yourself unable to continue on to the end. Maybe you’ve lost the adrenaline that the start gave you; maybe the prospect of a long-term story is too daunting; maybe you ran out of ideas or passion; maybe you don’t like the start now and you want to rewrite it before you continue; maybe (and this is the most common one) you’ve found yourself at a part of the story you’re not that excited about and it’s difficult to get through it. Whatever the case is, you’re good at starting ideas, just not finishing them. This is extremely common, so don’t feel bad about it. I can’t count how many webcomics or fics I’ve seen left to rot after about a month of work on them. I’ve done it myself, multiple times! We’re all at risk of it.

The biggest thing to address here is that, sadly, writing is not always going to be exciting. That’s just a fact. You are not going to be riding a high the entire process. You WILL get to something that feels more like homework than fun. This is a guarantee for every single project that goes on longer than a couple pages, and sometimes even the short stuff isn’t safe. This is not a horrible thing, it’s just something you need to develop methods to overcome. Discipline is important if you want to take writing seriously. There are ways to get through this: dinner-before-desert (the promise of “I have to write this dull chapter and I’ll get to write the scene I’m really excited about”), setting small goals to get the unfun part done a bit at a time (writing 200 words a day, or a couple paragraphs, etc), finding things to appreciate (like that joke you threw in or how pretty this scenery is), and having something occupying the senses to keep flow going (listening to music, mainly) are all tools I use myself to get past potentially weeks of writing that I’m not excited about. You do need to be a little stern with yourself, but the reward of getting to the thing you’ve been dreaming of since the start is completely worth it, I can promise that. You just gotta eat your dinner first, and then we’ll get you some ice cream. One carrot at a time. You can do this.

Something that can get to people is the prospect of being “stuck” with something for months or potentially years. The size of a project can be intimidating, I understand that. You’re doing this particular thing for god knows how long, and you have to do it on a regular basis if you ever want to get anywhere with it? That’s a little scary! I get it! But that does not mean you won’t have fun, or won’t ever be finished. It took me six years to complete a comic you can read through in one day, I’ve started one I know will take me at least ten, and Iterum itself is going to be a long fucking ride I don’t dare to guess the length of. I have had the occasional sensation of leaning on a table, bracing myself on my arms, staring down at a drink and thinking “Jesus Chirst” about how long all this shit will take me.

With that issue, I’ve personally found that taking joy in the process is the best solution. “Well, I do love writing these particular characters, I’m excited to see how they’ll grow over time!” “Planning chapters is a very chill way to spend my evenings while still giving me something to think about.” “It’s so exciting to have all these secret plot developments no one but me knows yet!” And so on. Like in life, you should appreciate the Now, not constantly be fretting about Later or Before. Learn to love typing out dialog and prose! It’s doable.

Of course, you should have a few thoughts about the future. That’s where planning comes in. Some people can make up shit on the fly and write a complete, excellent novel. I am not one of those people, and not many are. Some architecture is generally necessary. When I don’t have a set general path ahead of time for me to take as I write, I give up on things because I don’t know where to go next. Create your path, however vague or exact it needs to be! My advice on planning is to start with only the most major of story beats, arrange them in the order you want or need them to happen, and add smaller connecting lines to them, then connecting even smaller lines to those lines, slowly getting more and more specific and detailed as you zoom in on the story beat-by-beat.

Another thing that might help you keep at it is finding an audience – at least, it worked for me. When I started writing for real, I was doing choose-your-own-adventure threads in forums, and then a choose-your-own-adventure webcomic, where people got to send in commands to move the story forward. I could not get anything completed on my own to save my life, but having people participating and actively waiting for me to continue the story helped me develop the discipline and work ethic required to do the projects I’m doing now (and taught me how to improvise extremely well, as a side benefit). Your audience could be one person, or ten, or a hundred. Even if they don’t comment or regularly engage with the story, just knowing that someone is there waiting to see what happens next can be a good motivator.

One final thing: you may fall into the trap many do of looking at the small bit of stuff you’ve completed, not liking it, and wanting to go back and rewrite it, because this time you’ve got the skills to do it right.

DO NOT FUCKING DO THAT.

All that’s going to do is trap you in an endless cycle of “improving” what’s already there at best, and wear you out from going over the same old ground over and over and drain your love for the story at worst. You will not be fixing anything. Put it out and move on. Don’t keep trying to rescrub the same plate until you put a hole through it. You’re going to look back and think it’s shit. That’s normal. Doesn’t mean it’s true, or that you should waste time “fixing” it. Learn to go “well, I don’t like it, but I gotta keep going”. Get it done. It will never be perfect, and the sooner you understand that, the sooner you can get this project done.

That’s about all the advice I can think of for now. I hope this prattling helped you, at least a little bit!

[foggynitefic]

Drop Them Bones Chapter 8: Devil to Pay

Devil to Pay

Today the expression "devil to pay" is used primarily as a means of conveying an unpleasant and impending happening. Originally, this expression denoted a specific task aboard the ship such as caulking the ship's longest seam.

The "devil" was the longest seam on the wooden ship and caulking was done with "pay" or pitch. This grueling task of paying the devil was despised by every seaman and the expression came to denote any unpleasant task.

OOF. This chapter took a minute to write. It also just kept growing and comes in at a whopping 10,587 words. Most of the other chapters are between 5k and 7k words. If you're worried about this ending anytime soon, let me reassure you that I have bitten off enough to keep me chewing for quite some time. But I already have another 15k written, including the ending, so as these chapters grow like fungus, there is a road map, I promise.

Notes:

1. Not gonna lie, I made myself so hungry writing this, that I ordered sushi, takoyaki, and hamachi kama at 2200 two nights in a row on a holiday weekend. Pretty sure that restaurant either loves or hates me now, dudes.

2. How to fillet a tuna for sashimi:

3. I debated having Usopp's net catch go into a barrel of seawater, but I couldn’t find a lot of reliable research (quickly) as I was writing on the actual employment of that practice, just nostalgic tinged references to "oh yeah they did that in Ye Olden Days" without corroboration (yes, I know OP is about fantasy pirates on another planet). I did learn that Roman sailors may have used tanks to transport live fish over long distances.

4. The etymology of the terms “starboard” and “port”.

5. Applegators = alligators. Bananagators = crocodiles.

Recipes distressed in the making of this chapter:

Maguro no Zuke-Don: If you're working with raw sushi-grade fish, use it the day you get it, or cook it if you use it later. It will not taste the same once frozen and thawed. If you don't want to put too much effort in, there's multiple brands that do microwave sticky rice, and you can just buy a good furikake instead of cutting roasted seaweed (although that's pretty easy with cooking scissors) and sprinkling sesame seeds. Scallions make everything better. The marinade takes the most time - but I also cheat and use Otafuku okonomiyaki sauce from the Weee! app. Go lazy!

Seaweed sheets: You can do this. This is a life choice you can make. I haven't made it because ref. above paragraph on being lazy and outsourcing.

Roasted seaweed: If you want to try experimenting with different flavors, this is a good basic recipe to start.

Spanish Tuna Steaks: I'm not sure what noise my partner and Alton Brown would make at the instructions to press down on the tuna steaks to get a good sear, but otherwise this recipe is pretty standard and easy. Sanji embellished/supplemented with a bell pepper - you can probably put in any veggies that are about the same consistency of tomatoes' liquid/flesh and have it work.

Sauteed Green Beans: Usopp's reaction is mine. Green beans are a punishment. Just roast the clove of garlic in the oven and I'll eat that instead, don't waste it trying to flavor inedible grass. I included these to show their supply status and what would happen if someone didn't want to eat in Sanji's kitchen.

Mugicha: Much like making your own seaweed sheets, roasting your own barley is a life decision you can make. Itoen makes a highly convenient teabag version, if you're more inclined to outsource...

Soundtrack:

Sensing a theme this chapter??

[canmom]

brain operating notes

the thing with ADHD is that it's super paradoxical. I've spent the last 72 hours or so doing almost nothing but making minute tweaks to this fansub, stuff like hand tracking signs in perspective at 800% zoom. it's the 'hyperfocus', and it can feel like a superpower. only the thing is I have no control over when it kicks in and what it chooses to focus on.

I had work to be done on Friday, work I enjoy and is novel and interesting, but this fansub project just jumped into my brain and took over the wheel and said 'you will not do anything else until this is finished'.

this is why the notion of 'executive function' is useful. I think of it like a unifying thing required to both get myself to do a thing that is not particularly novel or engaging in this moment, and to stop myself doing a thing that engages the hyperfocus because I have to eat or whatever. this feels like a finite resource, that gradually replenishes over time.

of course we're all in metaphor here. I don't actually think there's a finite reserve of some substance that I can use to get me to do things that aren't immediately stimulating. but being equipped with this metaphor lets me think of it like... ok, I will let my brain just do its thing and ride the rollercoaster now, so that I can have the wherewithal to do (difficult but important thing) down the line. or, I've been really pushing myself to do stuff recently, I need to take some time to recover the reserves. how good is this model? i'm not sure. probably not great, but it is a model.

anyway things that trigger hyperfocus are a bit arbitrary but common features tend to be...

novel: a thing that I haven't done before is intrinsically exciting - as long as I have some idea of how to get going. in my previous job I'd find excuses to do stuff like 'animate in Blender' or 'hack the graph drawing tool' just to add a bit of spice to rote tasks. thankfully my current job is full of new exciting things.

a steady drip feed of small successes: a big, daunting task is hard to get started on. something that has a clear avenue for recognisable, steady progress is a lot more manageable. 'write the animation controller' is unclear. 'make another animation' feels like progress, and I know where I'm at with it, so I will tend to choose that one given the option.

urgent: if the deadline is imminent and there really is no other option but to crack on with it, the anxiety gives a force multiplier on executive function. which results in a lot of procrastination leading up to mad last minute crunch. it's a pattern that I hate, not least because it's hard to say how long anything will actually take, but is hard to shake.

social: if it is for the benefit of a friend, or I get to show off a bit, it is way easier to get going with it. is it because I am kinda lonely and any time someone wants to spend time with me it feels like I dare not refuse because who knows when they will again? is it because I love to be praised for doing an impressive thing? idk maybe. however this is double-edged because if I feel I'm making something unimpressive I will be motivated to try and make it bigger and more complex, dragging things out, which might lead to not finishing the thing at all.

you can probably kind of see how computer games are a bit of a cognitohazard. especially open-ended games that don't have a finite built-in endpoint. I've gotten better at managing that now.

there are degrees of hyperfocus. there is the maxed out 'I will not eat or sleep until I finish this' mode. there is also the 'I have a new obsession' mode, which is a bit less intense.

the other thing with hyperfocus is that it is time-limited. at some point you just burn out on it and after that it's really hard to jump back into a thing. the unfinished projects on my hard drive are in most cases things I went nuts over for a few weeks and then dropped like a hot stone. this sucks because making anything worthwhile requires sustained effort over a long period.

I've been trying meds but so far no luck. they've currently got me off the meds taking baseline measurements while they figure out what to try next. though apparently the dose of dexamfetamine they had me on is like... so low that it's not surprising I didn't feel it.

gonna have to ask them about it next time I see them. because right now this whole thing feels like a bit of a mean joke. I'm staying in London for the sake of meds that could help, because it would take upwards of a year to get into another clinic, but what's the point if they're not even giving the meds a real shot?

but if there is any chance I can get working meds, I've got to try for it, because I don't think I'll ever achieve much of anything within the limitations of adhd, at least not without finding some new mechanisms to keep me on track. (though 'if I don't do this I might lose my job/the game won't be as good as it could be' works a bit as an extrinsic motivator)

[cocklessboy]

Executive Dysfunction Strategy: Find Something

A disclaimer: this strategy (like any executive dysfunction strategy) will not work for everyone. I’m a freelancer who works from home with no set work hours whose work is inherently broken into chunks of 20-40 minutes each. It is perfectly suited to me, but it might not be suited to you. Still, it might help some of you, so I want to share. Pass it around in case it helps one of your followers, and feel free to add helpful tips of your own.

For Ideal Results:

Be at home (or in the environment you’re trying to keep tidy).

Be able to get up from your computer/workspace for 20+ minutes at a time (ie not tied to a work schedule where you must be present for a series of hours without interruption).

Be able to break your work into chunks (20-40 minutes is best, but any kind of work task with built-in stopping points is ideal; ie after one meeting/call, after 1-2 tasks, each time you finish X pages, etc.; if your work has no built-in stopping points, a series of timers/alarms can work, but this is less effective since you’ll be changing gears mid-work and the disruption might cause more harm than good; test it out and see if it works for you).

Find Something:

When you reach the end of a chunk of work (in my case, every time I finish a batch of “episodes” that I’m editing, which is usually 20-40 minutes in total), GET UP and WALK AWAY FROM THE DESK.

FIND SOMETHING to clean. Literally anything.

The critical thing here is that you are NOT trying to clean an entire room or anything. You are looking for ONE thing you can clean. Look around. Is there some trash on your desk? Pick it up and throw it away. Task complete. Are there clothes on the floor? Pick them up and put them where they belong. Task complete. Is the shelf dusty? Get a damp cloth and wipe it down. Task complete. Are there dishes in the sink? Wash them, dry them, and put them away. Task complete. These tasks can take anywhere from 1-30 minutes depending on the task and your schedule.

Go back to work and do another chunk. Repeat the cycle until your work day is done.

This can also be used when you’re working on a project or playing a video game or what have you, just pick a good stopping point rule (every time I finish a page or chapter / every time my character dies or levels up or finishes a level / etc.).

Instead of cleaning, this can also be used for exercise. (I try to alternate between cleaning tasks and sets of push-ups or leg lifts or stretches or physiotherapy exercises or whatever.)

I was diagnosed with ADHD earlier this year and am now properly medicated. This strategy works best when I take my meds (obviously). However, even on days when I am unmedicated (because my psychiatrist is somehow convinced that taking meds every day is inherently bad even though they are not addictive, have no side effects, and days off are always a misery, but that’s another discussion), I find that this strategy helps tremendously. So if you do not have any kind of medication helping you with executive dysfunction, this is still worth a try. It might work for you.

Before I started working like this, I lived in a mountain of mess. Not because I didn’t care or hate cleaning or whatever, but because I didn’t see the mess until it was overwhelming, couldn’t figure out how to get it clean, and couldn’t make myself start even when I had a cleaning plan. I was trying to tackle a large project head-on from scratch and getting overwhelmed.

Flipping it around so that I have to find SOMETHING to clean, multiple times a day, even something very small, means I’m no longer trying to tackle everything. I’m just doing one small thing. Anything. I’m actively LOOKING for something to tidy, which, shockingly, makes the mess easier to see. It turns it into a little game. I’m not allowed to sit back down until I’ve completely a tidying task. The whole system has built-in triggers to start tasks. I’m not trying to work up the strength to Start Task, I have something external saying “ready set GO” which makes it easier to Do The Thing.

And since I’m doing it consistently, over the course of a couple of weeks my entire flat has become pretty tidy. It’s getting harder to find something to clean each time. I’m doing maintenance now instead of trying to tackle huge projects. I’m washing the dishes even when there’s only one thing in the sink. I’m wiping off the table and vacuuming the floor even when they’re mostly clean. I’m taking out the trash and recycling before they overflow. I’m getting the cobwebs and dust bunnies out of the corners before my cat has a chance to eat them like the little freak he is. And the cat’s litter box gets cleaned out and the floor around it swept every day, because those are quick, simple tasks I always grab first.

There is also the advantage that I’m not SITTING in a CHAIR for the ENTIRE DAY anymore. I’m standing up at least once or twice an hour and walking around and moving my body (and sometimes doing full-on proper exercise instead of cleaning). This has helped with my back and hip pain, my chronic neck and shoulder pain. I have a little more energy because, yeah, cleaning is exercise, even if only light exercise. I’m even very gradually starting to lose some of the extra padding around my thighs and backside and building a little muscle.

If you have the ability to try this strategy even just on the weekends or whatever, give it a shot. I really hope it helps some of you.

Also I’m trans and queer and aroace and I’d appreciate it if any transphobes and other exclusionists could make themselves known in the notes so I can report and block you. 😘

[steelthroat]

for the fic ask game, because your concepts are so delightful:

☔Is there a fic concept you have that you'd like to just explain and share because you're not sure you'll ever write it? If so, what is it?

or if you prefer

🌤️Share your favorite piece of dialogue from your WIP.

Oh hiiii and thank you 🥺💕

So yeah there are a couple of them:

The first one is a time travel/loop fix-it fic. So it would be based in the idw continuity and there are Megatron, Optimus and then also Rodimus stuck in their own time loops and they have to find a way to get out of them. The thing is they don't know how and they think they are alone, at some point they find out that in certain specific moments there are some "windows" in which their time loops meet and they can interact and make meaningful decisions that change the timeline. At some point there's also time travel involved because of their guilt and so they say "hey we're already stuck why Don't we try to go back in time and stop everything bad from ever happening?" And when I say everything I say literally everything, so Brainstorm is involved (and the rest of the science team lol). This is my most ambitious project, but it would require me to reread all the idw continuity and crossovers, take notes of a fuckton of things and then develop my plot while also not making it boring/prevedible/unrealistic\out of character. So yeah if I'll ever do this it won't be now because I definitely lack the time, the knowledge, and the maturity.

This one I started writing it a year ago and stopped because it was a big project and I needed to develop it more. So it's a new continuity, takes inspiration from the idw one regarding the society but with differences and the characters are in different settings kind of. So it would be a series retelling the story of how the war/revolution started and ended but from different points of view and different writing styles varying from character to character. So yeah we're going psychological/thriller/unreliable narrators. I think I can do this one, not now but one day it must be done.

Another new continuity this time taking inspiration from G2, very dramatic, but fun, not as big as the other two but still a multichapter. Also knowing myself and the fact that the characters gain their free will and things don't go according to plan when I write I feel like it would become big.

Okay, so this one is set in the bayverse continuity. It's a hate-mail to the movies, really. I'm gonna take the concepts I liked more and use them, I'll know I'll have done a good job if you feel the misanthropy-levels rising while reading. I also think I can do this one, it shouldn't be too long (?) Like idk it's a rewriting of the movies, basically.

Peace time/post war but Optimus and Megatron's mental health is in... dire state

Gladiator Optimus Au! I WILL do this one but I'm still deciding how.

Okkk now onto the dialogue... let's see:

From: Task failed successfully

"So what about Autobots? Can we interface with them?" Vortex asked

Optimus shifted uneasily at the question "I- ahm... If there's consent involved- ah. Ahem, what is Lord Megatron's policy regarding cross-factional ah- interpersonal relationships?" he looked at Megatron, who was now frowning at Vortex... he had been frowning the entire time. Everyone turned towards him eagerly waiting for an answer.

"If anyone decides to act that recklessly, at least be smart enough to keep quiet about it, and if you get hurt, and I get to hear about it, then I'm going to finish the work said Autobot started," Megatron was now glaring at the mechs with poorly hidden disgust and disappointment, his stance was clear.

Optimus cleared his vocalizer. "Please, follow Lord Megatron's orders, but if something happens to you, go to a medic or come to me"

[diezmil10000]

when and how did you start to really get into love live? since you watched sunshine or did something else make you start loving them? :] do you have any recommendations on what to watch or listen to or read for baby aqours fans? ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و i finished sunshine recently and i loved the positive energy of the show (and chika! lol) 💕

i actually first got into love live when aqours wasn't even a thing (late 2014), so i got really attached to µ's and mourned their final live for a long time. so long that i didn't even care about sunshine until the anime started, and even then i was very hesitant about moving on. but the fact that it was a direct sequel, that chika loved µ's as much as i did... that deeply resonated with me and i fell in love with everything surrounding aqours. and, of course, the storyline of the 3rd years altered my brain chemistry forever.

my first recommendation would be to watch love live if you haven't already. if you liked sunshine, i think you will like the original show as well. sunshine references a lot of love live events and it's very cool to see them diverge from the path of µ's to become their own stars :)

then, i would listen to the aqours discography, which may seem like an overwhelming task considering they have over a hundred? two hundred? songs, but it really is the easiest way to get brainworms in your head. going in release order may help, and i'm sure you will be pleasantly surprised at how good a lot of side tracks are ("deep resonance" from mitaiken horizon's cd, "aqours pirates desire" from fantastic departure's cd, "game on!" from genjitsu mysterium's cd...)

with all of that done, you are ready to watch some concerts!! love live tends to do "numbered" lives, as in "aqours 1st lovelive step zero to one" or "aqours 4th lovelive sailing to the sunshine", and i highly recommend watching at least those. they also have fanmeetings and other smaller events, but the numbered lives are regarded as the peak of love live for good reason. the staff are very strict about not letting fans record the concerts, and this is because they release blu-rays with high quality. they are so beautiful and immersive that i genuinely feel like i'm there in the venue just from watching them on my computer. here's a very helpful piracy site in which you can search by keywords, and here's the website of the best group of fan translators of all love live (they have posted torrents of all the aqours concerts with high quality subs <3 love you team ONIBE)

lastly, the final stepping stone to becoming a true love liver: watching the seiyuus livestreams. they barely do them nowadays, but i often find myself rewatching old videos because of how HILARIOUS they are. they talk about love live events, including concerts, so they may help you get a grasp of the timeline of the group if you watch them in order!! a lot of people have reuploaded them with subtitles on youtube, but i vividly remember being a teenager with zero knowledge about japanese, watching them live and feeling that language barriers weren't a problem for enjoying these 9 girls being stupid on stream. if you don't get good results with searching "aqours livestream", try searching for "aqours niconama" (from "niconico namahousou", since they used to do them on niconico douga/nicovideo back on the day)

aaaand i think that's it! it's been 9 years since the project of love live sunshine officially started, so there's a lot to take in, but i'm glad that you're interested in it ^^ the love live wiki is also very helpful if you get lost - as much as i hate that it's part of "fandom" now, it has a lot of useful information about songs, seiyuus, live events and basically everything you need to know.