#i have revised this chapter too many times and just need to post it

[mariyekos]

Okay so I reblogged this once before with some ideas but the post-DMC1 Qliphoth idea I mentioned in the tags of that other reblog is taking over my brain so to expand on that-

Dante beats Mundus in Hell but is so keyed up that he just keeps mowing through things. Bloodlust/rage

Comes across Vergil who he realizes is not dead, but was teleported

While Dante freaks out because Vergil may not be dead but he's clearly *dying*, Trish shows up. She came through the portal

Dante begs her for a way to save him. Maybe Dante tried a vital star and it didn't work

Trish mentions the Qliphoth. It is said to grant ultimate power... and demons have a natural healing factor, so if Vergil becomes more powerful, his healing will improve, and he may live

Dante doesn't want to harm humans. It's not right and he swore to protect his mother's people. But...he swore to protect Vergil too. And it's not like people don't die sometimes. Earthquakes and hurricanes and tornados and other natural disaster kill hundreds or thousands at a time. This'll just be like one of those. They're unfortunate, but the world will move on. And it's not like Dante will permanently unleash the demon world on the human world, he just needs to open it enough to save Vergil, then he'll go and clean up the mess and everything will be normal! It'll be fine! Totally!

So Dante searches for the Qliphoth fruit. Maybe Mundus has the seed since he ate the last one, and he was just waiting for it to germinate, so Trish retrieves it from Mundus' vault while Dante guards Vergil

After a few days (time uncertain in the demon world) Dante decides to start feeding it his blood because hey he's part human maybe that'll make it react. After ??? time (a few weeks) it finally does. Dante gives it some of Vergil's blood too, apologizing to his still-unconscious brother, then plants it.

He returns to the human world. Hides Vergil in the shop, calls Lady, and tells her she should really go on that vacation she's been talking about for months. His little vacation to Mallet Island was nice. He's sure the sunny Bahamas will be way better.

Lady leaves for her trip because sure why not. She doesn't want to deal with the headache of Dante fixing his shop anyway. And it's just in time, because the Qliphoth bursts from the ground like 2 days later.

Dante takes Vergil in, and the empusas don't attack bc it was germinated by their blood and they recognize their master. But the other enemies do. Trish protects Vergil while Dante cuts them down. There aren't that many yet thankfully.

Dante sits Vergil down on the throne and essentially hooks him up to the tree. Dante just patrols but...Trish notices that when he sleeps, the tree feeds him too. Dante doesn't seem to notice how invigorated he's feeling or connect the dots between why he's fine without eating.

Lady shows up almost 3 weeks later, makes it to the throne room. (Since this is pre-cell phone era and the Qliphoth might not have shown up on international news at least at first, Lady was blissfully unaware until it either DID finally hit international news or she got home from her trip). Vergil is still unconscious, so Dante defeats her. He has the tree make her into Artemis for her own protection. That way the demons won't hurt her, and if she's unconscious, she can't hurt herself either. It's for the best. Artemis can take out any hunters that get in deep. He justifies it more by saying he'll free her once Vergil eats the fruit and everything can go back to normal and they can be friends again and it'll be fine!!! Yeah!

Dante feels it when the fruit is ready. He brings Vergil (who is finally starting to wake up, though he's too weak to move and Dante is too excited about the fruit to notice. Plus both of their energies have been distorted by the Qliphoth, so he can distinguish between his own Qliphoth-changed energy sparking and Vergil's).

Before feeding it to Vergil he hesitates. What if Trish tricked him? He'll just take a small bite to confirm. The rush of energy comes and it's so, so hard but he doesn't eat the rest and shoves it into Vergil's mouth instead, who is awake enough that the rush of power overwhelms his normal thoughts and he eats it right away

Once Vergil is healed, Dante is overjoyed. Finally, finally he has his brother back! He didn't kill him a third time! (Childhood by making Vergil leave the house and be attacked alone, Temen-ni-gru, Mallet).

Vergil meanwhile is horrified. While hooked up to the Qliphoth he dreamed a lot, and thought over what Mundus had done, and what their father wanted. He realized he had fallen after the Temen-ni-gru to join their father's world, but the world their father *chose* was the human world, and after everything he'd suffered he decided he should choose it too. Rejecting humanity had only brought him suffering. It was in those few years of childhood that he lived as a human that he prospered and was happy.

Dante is confused why Vergil isn't happy. He saved his life. Shouldn't Vergil be happy? Trish shows up and Vergil says that she corrupted Dante, just like she tried to corrupt him. Stripped away Dante's humanity just like she stripped away Vergil's when she helped Mundus break him enough to put him in the armor. (Remember when Dante says: "That last bit of humanity you had? You just lost it." or something like that when Urizen eats the fruit?)

(Maybe Vergil is also upset because Dante forced something onto him (the fruit) just like Mundus did. Vergil hasn't had a say over his body in nearly a decade. Dante is extremely shocked and offended by Vergil comparing him to Mundus, because he is *nothing* like that bastard. This was the best for Vergil. The armor was for the worst. Dante only wanted to help, Mundus only wanted go hurt. But Vergil argues that they're the same anyway, because they both wanted something that Vergil didn't. They both took his bodily autonomy away from him. They both used Vergil to further their own selfish desires; Mundus to prove his superiority to Sparda and inflict his anger on Sparda' son, Dante to reassure himself that he was a good person and didn't kill his brother. Mundus liked to say he was helping Vergil by making him stronger too. But he wasn't. Vergil didn't want that. Either of them. Dante used Vergil as an excuse for his own gain and he cannot forgive Dante for that.)

Dante also gets upset at Vergil accusing Trish of being bad bc Trish's knowledge is the only reason Vergil survived. He should be grateful. But Vergil argues the cost wasn't worth it. Wasn't Dante upset about the Temen-ni-gru? What changed? Why is it okay now?

Dante argues it's because he's trying to protect Vergil. He didn't do it for power's sake. But Vergil argues that he didn't do it just for power either, he did it for the power to *protect* which means Dante has made the exact same mistake as Vergil.

Dante disagrees. So, there's only one way to settle the argument. To fight.

Who wins? Well Vergil ate more of the fruit, and he was more hooked up to the Qliphoth than Dante. But Dante had a bite, and he was fed by the Qliphoth a little too. And Vergil is hesitant to kill his brother, while Dante is so upset (and has spent the past month plus trying to convince himself that everything he was doing was justified, and is so far in that he can't accept that it *wasn't* bc then he'll have to face the horrible things he's done) that he is able to put so much more of himself than Vergil is. So when you have a stronger guy who isn't trying versus a weaker guy who is giving it everything he has...

:)

This probably isn't as much Vergil turning over a new leaf as you intended since he's pretty absent from most of the story (as in, he's a plot device but isn't awake until the very end) but it sort of fits the bill? Eh, it was fun to think of either way. If I haven't gotten swept up in another idea once I finish my current DMC longfic, I might try to turn it into a proper fic one day!

Role swap AU but not in the typical sense where Dante and Vergil's positions were switched on the day of the attack. Instead it's Dante fucking snaps at some point and when Dante snaps is about the same time Vergil turns a new leaf.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I read your rewrite of Chapter 2 (which was great, by the way) and would like to clarify some things. Of course, you wrote that the fixes were just you exploring possibilities, so you don't need to justify anything if you don't want to. 1. How would Leona join the investigation? Correct me if I am wrong, but Leona didn't seem to know about Yuu and co. until Riddle and Qater confronted Ruggie. For him to know about them so soon, someone (like an injured Savanaclaw student or a Savanaclaw student who overheard Yuu and co. questioning others) would need to let him know. Even then, would he be able to join without looking suspicious? 2. How does Leona plan to frame Diasomnia and get it to stick? He can point fingers all he wants and use the circumstantial evidence they gather to prove it, but Diasomnia has no reason to sabotage others when they have Malleus. Leona would most likely be aware of Crowley's biases, so is he just hoping casting enough suspicion would force Crowley's hand? Does he intend to convince students from other dorms to demand their disqualification despite the lack of motive?

[Referencing this post!]

Wow, people are still reading that?? 😭

As I said in the original post, my book 2 rewrite was more of a compilation of shower thoughts without much care given to fleshing out the finer details. It is by no means perfect, nor is it meant to cover everything.

There’s enough wiggle room left for various different interpretations using my book 2 rewrite as a basis. It’s meant to be flexible!

Just for fun, here are my thoughts:

To your first point, I don’t think Leona would come off as suspicious if his introduction was framed a certain way (which I’m sure he could plan around). Yuu and co. would be investigating all the dorms (since they’re all suspects), which includes Savanaclaw students. Leona could easily hear it from Savanaclaw mobs and then reintroduce himself to the group, claiming he also wants in on the investigation to seek justice for his injured students. Since Riddle is already investigating with Yuu, Leona could easily use that to distract from his true intentions. He would come off as just another pissed dorm leader trying to stand up for and avenge his dorm members. (And if we really want to get technical, we could reason the other dorm leaders are not getting involved due to other reasons, like Azul being busy with the inter-dorm event organization, Jamil not trusting anyone with Kalim but himself, Vil preoccupied with his professional gigs, Idia being Idia, and no one knowing where the heck Malleus has wandered off to now.)

To your second point, I think Leona definitely has the capacity to trick/manipulate other students into believing Diasomnia is responsible. He could set up situations which incriminate certain Diasomnia students (based on their unique skillsets), then leave the other dorms’ students to come to their own (false) conclusions based on that. Obviously, it would look too suspicious if he and Savanaclaw students are the only ones pointing fingers, so he has to convince the others to parrot the rhetoric he wants them to. If it was done this way, we achieve many things: 1) Leona comes off as way more intelligent than in the original book 2, 2) it sets up more parallels between him and Jamil (who also tried to get a lot of people to side with him under false pretenses to convince someone of higher authority to change their mind) for delicious book 6 payoff, and 3) it adds to the sense of betrayal the other students experience at the end when it turns out Leona deceived them.

Something I feel that the main story fails to do well is to define the rivalries between each dorm. It’s only mentioned a few times off-handedly, like how Octavinelle and Scarabia students are intelligent and are thus always neck and neck in terms of grades. In my revised book 2, an opportunity arises to utilize this untapped potential. Think about it: what if the other dorm members are more likely to suspect Diasomnia because the main story calls more attention to how the dorms do NOT get along with each other?? Diasomnia is described to us as a place where skilled all-around mages go, and this has resulted in the Diasomnia students being more arrogant than your average NRC student (which by itself is already very arrogant). From that point of view, it’s not too hard to believe that the other students could think Diasomnia is injuring other students “just because they can”. They’ve grown too arrogant and think they can get away with doing whatever they want because they won’t face the consequences of their actions. (Malleus himself is THE poster child of that across multiple events and vignettes too.) There doesn’t necessarily need to be a motive in the traditional sense; people could suspect that Diasomnia has gotten too high and mighty, so they are conceited and feel entitled to doing whatever the hell they want. It would be a perfect way for Leona to weaponize the preexisting animosity and pride of the NRC students against them. The injured students would then feel slighted because Diasomnia are being held up as the metaphorical “golden children” (despite their theoretical unethical behavior) while their suffering is looked over. These feelings ironically also parallel how Scar feels cheated of the throne because of his careless older brother and son, or even how the hyenas are not seen as part of the Pridelands.

[steamberrystudio]

07/07/2024 Tumblr Devlog

Hallo everyone!  Time for the tumblr update! Whii~iich I think I may have skipped a couple - it looks like I did that annoying thing where I wrote up an update and *forgot to post it*. 

Sorry about that! 

So what have I been doing lately? Well. Lemme tell ya.

I wrote 23,000 words this week, for one. I am ded. ┗( T﹏T )┛

But let's jump into the details because in the most recent update I see, I was still revising chapter 10.

Summary:

Finished revising, proofreading, and formatting chapter 10

Revised Asher ending sequence

Revised Daaz ending sequence

Finished drafting Kav's endings sequence

Finished drafting Noel's ending sequence

Finished drafting Raif's endings sequence

Worked on a ton of UI changes and improvements

Worked on some sprite tweaks

Received some new BG art!

Writing:

So as you can see, lots of writing progress since my last update. 

I finished revising chapter 10 and coding it. It turned out to be 88,000 words coded.

I revised and formatted Asher and Daaz's ending sequences into the game. Those two were already drafted and just needed to be cleaned up and put into Renpy.

The remaining four character still needed to be drafted but I had paused to revise the entire script so I could make some necessary plot fixes before I tried to draft the remaining endings. 

With that done, I've moved into finishing up the draft.

Currently I have Kav, Noel, and Raif drafted and Yren in progress.

And that will be all the main game content complete!

The current un-coded word count amount is 625,000 words. 💪

Art:

So I have completed some CG work since my last update but the main thing I've been working on art-wise is UI updates and changes. 

A lot of small changes to the general aesthetic as well as implementing a lot of small additions I've been contemplating for a while as QoL improvements.

Such as a little indicator that shows when you are in a "character branch" and things like that.

I've also made a few small tweaks to some of the sprites - mostly just making their expressions a little more dramatic since they were reading a bit flat to me. And, of course, adding new outfits. Always new outfits. LoL

And of course, new BGs from both artists.

Background are around 76% complete currently.

Other Stuff:

I guess UI goes in here too since in addition to the "art" aspect, there's the implementation aspect as well.

Once you change the look of something that has to be coded in, of course. 

I ended up deciding that I want to experiment with moving the sprites around a bit more - mostly moving them a bit closer and then further away depending on the scene, what's happening, and how many characters are on screen in a given moment.

There are several benefits to this including keeping the screen from being static for long periods but also, there are a couple of characters that the player will really benefit from being able to see their faces up close (mostly Raif and Yren).

So yeah - in addition to redesigning some of the screens, I have also been implementing those changes bit by bit.

The game definitely looks quite different now. I recently saw a playthrough of the current prototype that's on Itch and was astonished because I forgot how it looked when it was first released. Ha ha. It's gone through a lot of changes. 

Noel no longer matches the ceiling, for one! Amazing.

Upcoming Weeks:

I will be working on finishing up Yren's ending sequence and hope to get that done in the upcoming week - which means another heavy writing week. 

As I've said elsewhere, I have been calling them "ending sequences" but in reality this is the last three chapters of each route which is about 20,000 words total for each character. I have about 3000 words of Yren's done and I'm actually only shooting for about 15,000 for the rough draft because I invariable add dialogue and variations when I edit, which means I have to undershoot the draft so I don't overshoot the word count during revision.

So yeah, I'll be completing Yren's final three chapters, then revising Kav, Noel, Raif, and Yren and formatting them into the game, which will give me the "final" word count for the project.

And then I will be "done" with the writing (in quotes because...you're never done with the writing until it releases. LoL

I should definitely be done with drafting and revising by my next update here but I can't really say what I'll be working on by that point. Probably...UI and CGs. Not sure.

We'll find out in the future I suppose! See you then!

[jalenay]

Nothing's Wrong with Dale - Publishing Update May 4 2024

So my work work is starting to relax - it'll be 'normal' working hours after May 15, but i'm manifesting some early additional free time (by ignoring some of the things i still have left to do) and i thought i'd give an update on my current NWWD plan to fill you guys in (if anyone wants to know) and to motivate myself to, you know, do it.

let me know what you think and if you have any questions! or if there's anything else you want to know!

So the overall plan is as follows:

First Rough Edit - this is basically just changing the POV from 2nd POV to 3rd POV. This is very tedious and currently what I'm doing right now. I'm also making a list as I go for high level updates/changes i want to make. Just thinking about the story as a whole and what tweaks i want to make now that the whole thing is finally done (primarily moving exposition around, if there's anything extra i can remove, timing of when certain things are discussed, and so on).

My Main Edit - this will be more time consuming but probably more fun as i do my main revise and edit of the story as a whole. i'll likely print the entire story out, make edits on hard copy, and then type up all the edits. I will also probably be sending the updated chapters to my main beta, for her opinion. (this would be the person i first texted about Dale in Dec 2021, she deserves first look lol)

Editor - After I'm happy with what I've done, i'll send the entire thing over to my editors, the main ones who worked on DSM. This will likely take a good amount of time (DSM took one month) but in many ways involves less effort from me lol. Just nerves.

Cover, Self-publishing Details - while my editors have the manuscript, I'll be narrowing down what I want the cover to look like and hiring a cover artist. (i've got a short list of artists right now, but i'll probably continue to refine that). I'm bad a visualizing covers and so this will be hard for me, although i have some basic ideas. i'll need to gather reference photos too and then work with the artist. I also want to publish more widely than just Amazon and will hopefully get DSM out to other places as well as a test run before NWWD. Look into more marketing? This is the most miscellaneous of the steps.

Process Edits - actually go through all the edits and notes given to me by my editor. This takes a lot of time (and is mentally taxing - no one likes to read pages of people telling you what you need to fix about what you wrote even if its overall extremely helpful and necessary)

Finalizing - I'll send the edited version to my first beta and another ARC reader/friend. I'll work on the formatting for the book. Coordinating where it will be published and when.

Publishing!

This is a loose list of steps that I mostly defined right now, but are similar to what i did with DSM. As i said, I'm in step one, currently just finished Chapter 25 of 36 of that rough edit.

I'll try to provide some updates on the process at it moves along, if people are interested in hearing about that. I'll most likely keep those updates on this blog, along with any other publishing specific commentary. if any one has any questions or thoughts on the whole thing, please feel free to send them to this blog or comment on this post.

I'm very excited to really dig into publishing NWWD and looking forward to sharing it with you!

Thanks to everyone for all their support - I wouldn't even be considering this (i probably wouldn't have even had a finished draft) with you!

[mydearestbeloved]

okay chapter 5 review here bc word limit.

amazing how your very first and latest draft can change how I feel about your story as a whole lmao. ngl the jinwoo in your first draft reminds me of those daydream yandere!jinwoo fics lolololol so imagine my whipslash when i read the revised and expanded draft of this.

i love those to death i will be honest here but sl reader fics that depicts jinwoo more closely to his canon counterpart always hit different fr. i love how jinwoo isn't trusting of reader and constantly trying to figure her out. he's so inquisitive and smart when trying to piece everything he can find about reader (that makes a lot of sense since he becomes a detective in the revised timeline).

i really appreciate you writing him like this and it's a shame canon kinda stop writing the strategic and observant jinwoo after over the half of the story. of course if you wanted to be more canon compliant (and an excuse to keep reader involved), jinwoo would have to be more suspicious and distrustful of her and monitor her (such a jinwoo move) bc yk his deep trust issue (that has been forgotten or somehow resolved on its own in the canon story just bc. no im not bitter about it nope). therefore, it's so intriguing to read fics where his issues being addressed and his worldview being challenged. i know solo leveling is a power fantasy but it's frustrating to see our protagonist keep proving right about his very flawed and detrimental outlook, carrying the world on his shoulders alone and all that and the story acts like none of that affects him negatively or has any long lasting consequences. again it's a power fantasy but i think i can overlook this very real potential issue only if the story isn't set in a modern and semi-realistic urban setting.

anyway i skimmed through all the drafts you have and i love how they are mostly about him slowly opening up to reader. my god i cannot wait until jinwoo becomes absolutely whipped for our fae queen like in the old drafts. i know it will be absolutely satistfying and worthwhile. (can't believe all the chapters are still drafts???)

?System¿:

[ Review of (14/11/2024) has been submitted.

We thank you for your feedback, Reader.

System will now connect you you to 《AUTHOR》 ]

.

.

.

Thank you for sending your review, this genuinely made my day! 💞

Now onto your review:

Original vs Now

Funny story, this Trial Player AU's original idea was just supposed to be a single, one-shot thing. So, you're not wrong to think that it feels like a daydream yandere!Jinwoo fic, because IT IS.

I even format it like so because I didn't want to get overboard, and that I was afraid of losing interest if I held onto it for too long just because I don't have enough time to write it as long and detailed as I would've liked.

But as it turns out, I just fooled myself, because here we are with a full blown series. And me with too little time still.

The original concept of a trial player isn't even mine. I was inspired by one of @circeyoru's fics, where I just wanted to write a similar story but with a Reader that have different powers and personality.

I ended up having too many interesting ideas to expand this after posting Imagine #1, which now became the summary of this series instead of its original purpose as a one-shot, one-time thing.

To simplify: I hyperfixate. Drafts started piling up. I wanted to work out the details little by little but they were too messy for me to find the time to sit down and edit them. New method: try posting it. I can edit them as I go as long as I gave warnings beforehand to Readers that my writings can change. If this goes well, there's a chance I can receive feedbacks to improve further. Two birds with one stone. A win-win scenario for me.

I mostly write when I'm stressed out from studying and needed a temporary escape. So, it brings me extra joy when people actually enjoy my stress-induced vomit of words. 🥰

How I write canon characters

I LOVE Reader Inserts/x Reader stories, and one of the things that most of the time ruined them for me personally is if the canon intended act too OOC.

Like, I get it, we Readers aren't in the canon story, of course the canon characters will act out of script since they literally are. But if they act like a different person all together with little to no explanation, no reason that can tie them back to the essence that make them just them, then what's the point of canon x reader when it's just the same as oc x reader?

At least add a warning/note/anything else to inform readers if you're going to do that, or if you're not too sure you can write them to stay true to their canon counterparts (like me 😓).

In real life, we already proven that we are fickle beings. We kept changing for one reason or another, but we can still stay true to ourselves or be recognize as just us.

And that is what I tried to do in writing the canon characters, especially the MCs since we readers follow their story the closest, which resulted in us knowing about them more then the side/supporting characters.

We don't truly know them, we never will, but we can predict them when we put those characters in different scenes/scenarios/settings because they already have a pattern that we know.

That is what we readers of Readers Inserts ultimately sought after, to be able to imagine interacting with those same characters that we know through the pages.

At least, this is what I want. Different people, different views and opinions. This is mine.

How I write Sung Jinwoo in this alternate scenario

I only know of Solo Leveling through its webtoon/manhwa and anime adaptations. I know little no none how they are in the original webnovel/novel and game, and the little that I know are form spoilers, tidbits of them.

With this in mind, I do feel that the manhwa are missing some things, and as it turns out (from the spoilers I read), it does skip many scenes from the novel.

No hate for the artist though, if it were not for him, I wouldn't have known Solo Leveling. And I could only imagine how hard it would be to draw everything from the original.

As for Jinwoo, I'll try my best to stay true to his character from the manhwa. But note that I also added the 'Yandere' element. So, to make him not too OOC, I'll explore his thought process from the start to then falling in love to the point of madness with someone like Trial Player!Reader.

Back to the topic, this Trial Player AU of mine will mostly follow the manhwa, and I'll be using the manhwa-specific plot-holes/gaps to further integrate Trial Player!Reader into the story.

That said, I won't write/in detail all scenes there are in the manhwa. I'll only detailed scenes where I can show Trial Player!Reader's impact, while the rest are either skipped or summarized for the purpose of smooth transition between one scene and another.

I don't want this to be a slowburn, but I also needed to work out the details to Jinwoo's feelings if I want to execute this as smooth as I can get.

Hence, I apologize for the later instances of Jinwoo acting not himself, I'm still figuring out the details for those scenes, that is why I still labeled them as drafts.

Extra related topics

There is two points I shared that can be tied back to Player!Reader's personality:

One, she is a casual fan of Solo Leveling. To make this easier to write, what she knows about the original story is what I know. Reader reads the manhwa, watches the anime, and knows little of the game and original novel from spoilers only.

Second, her view of the Yandere trope. I already I wrote it somewhere in the (for now) unknown chapter 0.1, the only writing that I managed to finish.

I explained there how Reader views this particular fiction trope. It is in many ways similar to mine too. It's just so interesting to see how different people with different personalities spiral down to the far end of the emotion called love, more often associated with warmth and healing.

Emphasis on 'how', I want to see the process. Tying back to how I write Jinwoo.

It is just such an fascinating concept to imagine. And fiction have less restrictions to express that ideas than in reality, as long as we can (and should) differentiate which is true or not, which is good and bad, even if the line that separated them often blurred.

I DON'T condone yandere, toxic and extreme behaviors and actions in real life. All of my works are purely FICTION.

---

I think that's all I can say for now. Thank you once again for reading my stories and for sharing your reviews. I really means a lot! 💞

Also, a piece of advice:

Perhaps you should hold off reading the last two chapter for now (9 and 10) until I updated them. Because they are of the newer drafts, there are certain 'too-fast-of-a-development'/OOC instances there that you might find a bit weird if I assumed through this review of yours.

I just feel responsible to point this out.

You're still free to read them, of course. After, you can just keep watch if I updated them, though by then you might want reread them. Hopefully, this is not too much. This is the downside of posting drafts. I apologize for the inconveniences.

I'll always inform a major draft update in my Masterlist. So there is no need to check each draft individually everytime.

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  Pricklywhicket/@messessentialist ! Prickleywhicket has four fics published to AO3 -- All in the Steddie tag!

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by pricklywhicket:

so let's sneak in from the cheap seats, honey

it's supposed to be fun (turning twenty-one)

start by pulling him out of the fire

"Sadie is so super talented in the way she describes literally everything. She is so good at writing and it's a shame that she's flown under the radar because she's not the quickest at putting things out there." -- Anonymous

Below the cut, Pricklywhicket answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

Why do any of us write anything? Because we want the story to exist in the world, and it doesn’t yet, so we gotta hike up our pants and do it ourselves!

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

Hurt/Comfort. I’m always a sucker for the blorbos taking care of one another, in whatever form that takes. This has always been true, across a truly astronomical number of fandoms I’ve found myself dabbling in over the years.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

…actually, probably hurt/comfort! I just need to get those little dudes some validation and unconditional positive regard, okay?

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

I’m sure I won’t be the first one to say this, but: I HAVE TO PICK ONE????? Okay, alright. I can do this. I’m gonna say…Sanctuary by SpicedSage.

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

I’ve only written canon or canon-adjacent fic so far, so I’m eager to work on something that’s completely AU. I think there’s a unique challenge to keeping characters recognizable as themselves in a world that might not have all the same contexts that made them into that person.

What is your writing process like?

I would love to say it’s super organized and well-planned, but the truth is it’s mostly about routine and responsibility. I set aside time to do it every day, even if I can only tap out a few sentences. I’m not very strict about writing in a straight line - I can stop a scene if it’s giving me trouble, write a note about what I think happens in some [brackets], and move on to something that I have more fully fleshed-out ideas for. Sometimes writing the next scene helps you know more about what needs to happen in the current one. 

Do you have any writing quirks?

I'm sure my betas would say yes 🙃 I tend to write a lot of dialogue - a lot of my revision process is going back through and realizing I have two pages of a conversation with no indication of what’s physically happening in the world around the speakers.

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

Definitely when I’m finished. Prior to my ‘23 bang fic, I had never written anything chaptered. I knew going in that I could NOT start posting if it wasn’t finished, because I’ve been burned too many times by abandoned works. I didn’t want to do that to people reading my fic, and the best way to avoid it is to finish before you post.

Which fic are you most proud of?

Easily start by pulling him out of the fire. The biggest, most ambitious thing I’ve ever attempted - I still kind of can’t believe I wrote 85k.

How did you get the idea for start by pulling him out of the fire?

Like most terrible ideas, it was spawned in a fandom discord chat. We were discussing the tendency of Steddie fics to centralize the party at Steve’s house, because his parents are never there anyway. And then someone mentioned what if the parents came home and found their house occupied, and someone else mentioned Wayne being there, and it just sort of…spiraled out from there.

When writing start by pulling him out of the fire, what was something you didn’t expect?

I had no idea, going in, that I was going to write a comprehensive history of the Wayne and Eddie Munson relationship. I started writing it where I did to give some background on Wayne’s existing distaste for the elder Harrington, and then I just…kept writing. Over the course of a month or two I wrote 20k of WayneAndEddie that I had no idea was in me - it just kept coming.

What inspired it's supposed to be fun (turning twenty-one)?

@wynnyfryd. It was a gift for her birthday. We were talking about our mutual love of Letterkenny, and she mentioned that the episode was her favorite and wouldn’t it be funny if someone wrote�� and the rest is history.

What was your favorite part to write from it's supposed to be fun (turning twenty-one)?

I had an unreasonable amount of fun with that one in general. But I think my favorite part was Eddie polling the party about what Steve means to them all. It was fun to sort of put myself in each character’s shoes and think about how they would answer. Plus y’know, any excuse to unironically love on Steve Harrington.

How do/did you feel writing so let's sneak in from the cheap seats, honey?

I believe my exact words upon deciding to write it were “jingles miserably to a blank google doc.” This was a classic case of saying “god I wish there was a fic where—” and having friends tell me that it was now my responsibility to write it. I’m glad I did, though. I love that story, and it proved to me that I could write sex and publish it and not burst into flames. I also just really, really love summer storms. And Wayne’s use of the singular ‘herpe.’

What was the most difficult part of writing so let's sneak in from the cheap seats honey?

Getting over the fear of publishing something E-rated. It was just something I hadn’t done, and I had a lot of anxiety that people were not going to respond well to it. I made three people individually review the sex scenes before I even asked anyone to beta the full fic. Of course I was worried for nothing, the reception for that fic was super lovely and gave me the confidence boost I needed to attempt start by pulling him out of the fire!

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

This is like asking me to pick a favorite child. I’ll say this: most of my favorite lines in start by pulling him out of the fire were taken directly from conversations @wormdebut and I had about the fic. She’s my number one cheerleader and sounding board, and sometimes she’s so goddamn funny that I just have to include it. You have her to thank, for instance, for Steve quite literally dropping his croissant when he first sees Eddie in glasses.

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

I have a couple of irons in the fire, but nothing I’m ready to share just yet! I’ve been taking a breather from writing (blame baldur’s gate 3, okay) but my WIPs are still very much IP. Stay tuned!

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

Not that I can think of!

Thank you to our author, Pricklywhicket, and our anonymous nominator! See more of pricklywhicket's works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[writingwithfolklore]

Hey there, wanted to ask some advice for writing. Apologies if you've written this before. I searched your posted links, but didn't find quite was I was looking for. (I may have missed it!)

Let's say you're revising a scene, and something about isn't working, but you're not 100% sure what's off.

What steps do you take to try and understand why the scene doesn't work? What should we be looking for?

Thanks!

Hi! This is a great question, and something I don't think I've really covered yet.

How to Fix an "off" Scene

There are so many things that can make a scene feel 'off' so it might be helpful to begin to narrow it down or try to pinpoint the part that isn't working.

So first, I would read it out loud.

Stop to take notes if you need to--notice where you're running out of breath, where you stumble or stutter, sentences you read wrong the first time or that aren't making the sense/impact/feel you want them to. Sometimes a stutter is just a stutter and doesn't necessarily mean anything is wrong, but sometimes a stutter is from odd word choice. Little things like that can have a big impact on how the scene feels.

The problem may jump out at you already. If not, there are 3 big things to watch out for:

The pacing

I just did a post on controlling pacing here, and here so I won't go too in-depth now, but a good 70% of the time when I rewrite an off scene with pacing in mind, it fixes it. Try rewriting the scene a few times--make different choices, change the weather, change the room, change the people who are there. These little details might just jog something loose here.

2. Intention

A scene may also feel off because the characters are acting strangely or the events are propelling without a propeller. Ask yourself why the characters in the scene are there--both in their purpose to add to it, as well as the 'narrative sense' it makes. Would Character A drive half an hour to join in on this conversation in person? Does their presence add something unique/essential to the conversation?

If it's a dialogue heavy scene, the problem is likely in the dialogue. Think about what each character wants out of the exchange, and how they're going to try to convince the others to give it to them. (Check out more dialogue tips here, here, and here)

3. Placement

It may just be a bad time in the story to have that specific scene. Maybe the flow is a bit off--the last chapter was super intense and now they're suddenly sitting down for tea and the momentum had to screech in its tracks. Try going back and reading what just happened and feel out the transition between scenes--they should have a similar but evolving feel to them. If they are starkly different, that's probably the "off" that you're noticing.

Otherwise, leave and come back to it. There's a chance a scene feels off because you've written it too much and you're looking at it from the lens of the author who knows all, rather than the reader who knows very little and is learning on the fly.

Good luck! Let me know how it goes!

[thecorvidcurio-if]

For as long as you can remember, no one you've loved has ever lasted very long.

The moment you come to love someone, no matter the type of love, tragedy befalls you both. In a desperate attempt to escape this cycle you've been moving from place to place, uprooting any time you start getting too close. This new city shouldn't be any different. It wouldn't be any different, if not for your new neighbours.

The more time you spend around these bizarre people, the more obvious it becomes that there's a layer of reality you've previously been unaware of. As you discover more of what was previously hidden from you, though, it begs the question:

Is there something more to your tragic circumstances than an unfortunate run of bad luck? Could it be the result of some power you don't understand? If so, does that mean there's a way out of it?

Does that mean there's someone to blame for your suffering?

Or click here if the image link doesn't work.

PLEASE NOTE: This game is in very early development. Only the first two chapters are posted, the writing will be continuously revised as I write, and there may be bugs or glitches. If you run into any issues, please let me know.

Cursed Ambrosia is an interactive fiction novel that deals with topics of death, loss, and love. It's a supernatural fantasy with a focus on interpersonal connections. There are six relationship routes, two women, two men, and two non-binary options. All romance options will have a platonic route as well. More info on them under the cut.

Note: Though these characters are romanceable, you do not need to romance them to play out their routes. On the platonic route, you still get the same plot content, just minus the romantic bits.

Vicente - An exceedingly polite and seemingly put together man who values kindness and compassion, but struggles to accept those things himself. He's keen to look after others and encourage them to accept help, yet insists on handling his own troubles alone.

Abby - An overwhelmingly enthusiastic and eccentric "person" who values curiosity and freedom, but struggles with moderation. He has more energy than he or anyone else knows what to do with. He's got a talent for mischief and is incapable of going very long without causing trouble, intentionally or not.

Kaida - A bitterly jaded and taciturn fellow who values knowledge and secrecy, but struggles to trust others. He's always many steps ahead of everyone else, and always knows more than he lets on. He's someone very useful to know... Or, he would be, if anyone could get a straight answer from him about anything.

Marina - An unapologetically loud and rambunctious woman who values rebellion and individuality, but struggles to let her guard down. She's brilliant, but easily bored. If you tell her she can't or shouldn't do something, it's just about guaranteed she'll be doing that thing in the near future.

Thea - A theatrically elegant and captivating woman who values loyalty and honesty above all else. On the job she's glamorous and confident, captivating any who hear her hypnotic voice. Off the job, though, she's something much different, and hopes to find someone who can appreciate both sides of her.

Shiloh - A cripplingly shy and skittish entity of uncertain origin who values privacy and comfort, but struggles to leave the safety of what it knows. Shiloh enjoys observing others interacting, and lives vicariously through witnessing the connections other people form with each other. It is quite sure that it will never manage to make such connections itself.

[selfindulgentpixies]

Part three is here and so begins the hidden inventory arc! This is extremely spoiler heavy and also jumps around a lot. Being caught up on the episodes or having read Gojo's past arc are a must for this to all make sense because while I will be covering some of what’s been shown just with reader now being there some stuff will get glossed over since I value my sanity.  Contains canon typical violence.

Satoru x Reader x Suguru

(GN!reader Be warned that reader is referred to as pretty and adorable at different points, as well as being notably short. I know for some that can cause dyphoria though it applies well to my own experiences and this at it's heart is very heavily self insert. Reader's CT is also talked about and used based upon what I imagine what mine would be and is part of the plot. I hope people are still able to enjoy this though since i've worked hard on it and it's the biggest project I've posted on here. Links to other parts are at the end.) Edit: Liek parts 1 & 2 some small revisions have been made but nothing major

Chapter 3: And so it begins

You’re flat on your back staring up at a clear blue sky, your chest heaving. “Tell me again why I can’t even use practice weapons when we train? Cause you know using weapons is kind of a big part of my cursed technique, Suguru-senpai.”

He chuckles at you and reaches for your hand to help you back up. You take it and he pulls you to your feet. “Because you might have to fight someone at some point who’s able to disarm you like I am, or who doesn’t give you a chance to summon your weapons, among the many reasons I could give you.” 

You puff out your cheeks and pout. “Not everyone is as good at hand to hand combat as you are, you’re one of the strongest-” 

He shakes his head. “There are plenty of strong opponents who will be able to put you on the back foot. I just want you to be prepared for that.” 

The look he’s giving you is a serious one and it makes you want to squirm so you rock back on your heels and shove your hands in your pockets. “That makes sense, I guess,” you relent and he gives you a small smile. Reaching out he gives your shoulder a small squeeze.  

“Suguru, you comin’? There still hasn’t been any word from Mei Mei and Utahime so we’re gonna go check it out.” Gojo’s voice calls down from the stairs leading down to the training field. Shoko is with him and she gives you a wave which you return. 

Smile widening just a bit, Suguru lets go of your shoulder. “Sounds like I’m needed elsewhere. Think about what I said and keep training alright?” And with that he’s walking away. 

You watch him go, and your eyes linger just a touch too long.

An arm rests on your shoulder. “You’re sure spending a lot of time training with Geto-senpai aren’t you,” Haibara says with an almost conspiratorial tone. 

Your face heats up. “He’s just helping me out. Like you said, it's training.”

Haibara hums and you hear another pair of footsteps approaching that you assume are Nanami’s. “I also heard you got invited to a movie night by him and Gojo-senpai.” He glances down at you with a knowing look that you don’t like. “Annnd that they were awfully touchy with you.” 

You wish the training field would swallow you whole or that a curse would appear and just end this conversation. “And who told you that exactly?” 

“We were out in the hall when Shoko-senpai came grumbling past us. We asked what was wrong and she said something about it.” Nanami says from behind you. 

Betrayal complete and utter betrayal. Your face burns with embarrassment. “So it’s true!” Haibara cheers. 

“Oh shut it, Haibara!”  

“Aww come on I want to hear about it from you! What happened after Shoko-Senpai left?’

“Personally I’d rather not hear about it.” You can practically hear Nanami’s eyeroll. 

Haibara turns to him with a pout. “Aww come on it-” he pauses and looks all around but doesn’t see you anywhere. Somehow you’d pulled a vanishing act. “Did you see where they went?” 

Nanami makes a noise in the affirmative but doesn’t say where you went. “Neither of you are being fun today,” Haibara says with a pout and puppy dog eyes that fail to sway the blonde boy. 

___

It’s a couple hours later you find yourself with a textbook balanced on your knees and scribbling notes on a notebook off to the side. You’d been doing your best to not to think too hard about that night. You probably were just reading too much into some teasing. The two older boys were together, you were sure of that much. What would they want to do with you as anything other than a friend? You’re grumbling to yourself with your chin tucked to your chest when you hear approaching footsteps and then your textbook is being lifted from your legs. Your head snaps up in time to watch Gojo snap the book closed. 

“Gojo-senpai, what are you-” You start to protest but he interjects “How’d you like to go for a lil trip with us?” Suguru is standing a little ways off behind him smiling and shaking his head.

__

Thus you found yourself trailing after your two senpai having the mission explained to you. Your brow furrows not really liking the sound of it. “She’s not that much younger than us.. I can’t imagine being told I have to just.. Cease existing and be okay with it.” 

“We talked about it a bit already. If she doesn’t want to, we won't make her.” You blink up at Suguru in surprise.  

“Bu-”

“Don’t worry, we’re the strongest so if she doesn’t want to we’ll make sure she doesn’t have to.” Gojo says ever confident. 

You truely hope they’re right. 

“Oh by the way… Does Yaga Sensei know I'm with you?”

A beat of silence. 

“Suguru-senpai, does he know?” You figure he’s more likely to tell you the truth. 

“Wait, you're calling him Suguru now?” Gojo’s voice sounds indignant, maybe even a little hurt. “You never call me by my first name.” He stops walking and fully faces you.

“Oh.. well uh he told me to, the other night.” 

Gojo looks back at Suguru who’s giving him a smug smile like he won something. Gojo whips his head back toward you, giving you a serious look and you stand a little straighter. “From now on you should call me Satoru,” he declares, thumb pointing at his chest before turning and beginning to walk again. 

You stand there in confusion for a moment watching the older boys walk away before it occurs to you. “Hey neither of you answered my question!” you yell and run to catch up with their long strides.

___

It turns out that no, they hadn’t asked permission to bring you along and Yaga hadn’t known you’d gone with them. How’d you find this out? Given how you’d been sticking to Suguru like velcro lately, which Yaga was partially to blame for, he’d had a hunch and had called when you hadn’t shown up with the other first years for a lesson. When you’d answered your cellphone and the two older boys heard you greet Yaga they both froze. 

“Ah yes i’m with them. Is something wrong?” A pause. You blink and pull your phone away from your ear to look at the screen. You tilt your head to the side. “He hung up on me?” 

Then Satoru’s phone begins to ring. He definitely looks like he doesn’t want to answer but does so reluctantly. Before he can even say anything he has to pull the phone away from his ear because Yaga starts yelling on the other end.  In the end he wants to tell them to immediately bring you back since he thinks they’re out of their depth already without having a first year with them but this mission is too time sensitive for that. You’ll just have to listen to them and be careful. Really they knew Yaga was going to find out and get mad at them for taking you along, they'd just kind of hoped he wouldn’t find out until after the fact since now he got to stew on it. They didn’t know what led to it but he’d become your guardian at some point before you enrolled at jujutsu tech and was particularly protective of you. You were always evasive about it when asked though.

___

You pout as you walk away from the sweets shop. “Is sending me on errands while we’re on a mission part of keeping me safe or was this why they brought me along in the first place,” You grumble to yourself as you put the nicely wrapped package of mochi and other goodies in your bag without stopping. Satoru should be right around here you think to yourself, tossing the bag back over your shoulder just in time for a large explosion. Your head whips toward the source of the noise and panic grips your chest when you see a girl flying through the air, that panic soon turns to relief though when through the smoke and falling debris you see Suguru catch her while riding one of his curses. You let out a little cheer but then suddenly someone is gripping your shoulder. 

“You’re another one of those jujutsu high brats, aren’t you?” A voice rumbles behind you.

You glance over your shoulder with narrowed eyes, not dignifying him with a response. He was dressed strangely like the men in the pictures you’d been shown of Q members.

He��s about to say something else when you grab the hand on your shoulder and bend back and break several of the man’s fingers. He pulls back with a howl of pain and surprise clutching at his broken fingers. ”You fuckin lil shit-” Before he’s even able to finish speaking you summon a lance that looks like a series of small linked hands and smack the blunt end across his head before swiping it under his feet on the back swing making him crash to the ground.

“Oi, __-chan you okay over there?” Satoru’s voice calls over to you. You look over and he’s leaning against a railing surveying you and the little scrap you’d just had. 

“Ah yeah I’m fine, Gojo-senpai.”

“I said to call me Satoru,” he whines in a way unbecoming of his age.

As you’re about to respond the man on the ground begins to get up only for you to bonk him on the head without looking. “Right.. sorry, Satoru-senpai.” You hop over the now dazed and prone man and make your way to Satoru who immediately ruffles your hair looking between you and the guy on the ground. 

“Don’t see why Yaga was so worried about you. You hold your own well enough,” he says with a grin. You swat his hand away and try to fix your hair though you can see from your reflection in his dark glasses that you’re only partially successful.Then you look around him and see another strangely dressed man, though this one has long hair. He’s already sprawled out on the ground along with dozens of twisted knives scattered about.  Satoru follows your gaze and grins. “If they’re all this weak we won’t have any problems.” He jerks his head toward the smoking building. “Let’s catch up with Suguru.”

Perhaps foolishly you thought he meant walking to the building and taking an elevator like a normal person. But no, suddenly you’re airborne, tucked under his arm. When you reach the smoldering hole in the building it’s with you flailing and telling him to warn you next time. 

“What're you scared of heights?” he looks down at you with a raised eyebrow.

A beat of silence is all the answer he needs before a big grin splits his face. “Oh you so are! That’s adorable. Don’t worry I’d never drop you-” You kick him in the shin which results in the two of you bickering until Suguru reminds you both of the situation at hand.

From that point on the mission feels like a bit of whirlwind, meeting Amanai, the attack at the school, Kuroi’s kidnapping. Things don’t seem to settle into a lull until now with you lightly dozing against Suguru’s shoulder on the beach. Truthfully you hadn’t meant to fall asleep but Suguru didn’t mind, he found it cute how you’d curled up against him in an oversized hoodie and bathing suit you weren’t even putting to use. He brushes a bit of hair off your face as he speaks to Kuroi. The world is all a muffle to you as you drift somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, at least until Suguru calls out to Satoru about it being time to go followed by him gently nudging you awake. Then softly in your ear, “You need to get up now, time for us to get on with the mission.”  You blink groggily and then as it occurs to you just where you’d been napping you sit up straight about to apologize, his smile tells you that you don’t need to and so the words never reach the air. As he stands he reaches for your hand and helps you to your feet. He looks toward your companions in the water as he releases your hand after giving it a gentle squeeze. “Satoru, it’s time.”

“Oh, it’s that time already?” He replies, stopping whatever game he and Riko had been playing. Even from where you’re standing you can tell she’s disappointed. Satoru is quiet for a moment as he looks her over. “Let’s head back tomorrow morning instead.” And just like Riko’s disappointment you can also see her elation. 

Suguru frowns. “But…”

 Satoru makes his way toward the two of you. “The weather’s holding steady, right? Besides… there are fewer curse users in Okinawa than there are in Tokyo!”He turns with dramatic flair. 

Both you and Suguru give him an unimpressed look and in unison admonish him. “Let’s keep it a little more serious, Satoru.” “Please take this seriously, Gojo-senpai.” Your use of his family name earns you Satoru’s hand on your head vigorously messing up your hair. 

“It’s better if the time limit on the bounty runs out while we’re still mid-flight, right?” His hand is still on your head while you try to swat him away.

“Satoruuuu-senpai!” Those seem to be the magic words and he lifts his hand off your head. 

Ignoring the antics going on between the two of you, Suguru leans in close to Satoru so only the two of you can hear him. “Satoru. You haven’t released your technique since yesterday, have you? You haven’t slept either. And you don’t plan on sleeping tonight, do you?”

This gets your attention and suddenly guilt curls in your gut for not having realized. He must already be tired.

“Are you sure we don’t need to go back to jujutsu high?”

Satoru’s fist lightly smacks into Suguru’s chest before he starts to walk away from the two of you.“It’s not a problem. Playing through 99 years of momotetsu was far more draining and besides, you’re here too.” 

You watch the small smile play across Suguru’s lips and sense how he seems to be reassured. For you as much as you have faith in the two upperclassmen you still worry. Particularly now that you know Satoru hasn’t taken any time to rest. 

All the same the only way you can describe the rest of the day is blissful. Not just spending it with the older boys but also seeing the wonder and joy on Riko’s face. It makes you wonder what her life before was actually like. 

Even for you who deals with what can only be called magic, the aquarium is otherworldly. It makes your chest swell with wonder and you take both Satoru and Suguru by the hand when they hang too far back and get them to hurry along with you. You chatter excitedly as you pull them along. With them behind you you don’t see the look they share or the look they send your way, a look full of fondness. Truly they both think that getting chewed out by Yaga later will be worth having brought you along.

Edit: Link to master list

I could have probably stretched this out further but I really didn't feel like writing out hidden inventory scene by scene when a lot of people will have probably just watched it. I hope it's still enjoyable. I Admit I was super tempted to combine part 3 and 4 together but I'm gonna work on part 4 a bit more and will probably release it this friday. I'm really excited for it. Hopefully this part stands well on its own.

@strawberrystepmom @nanamikentoseyebags @gojoest

@icy-spicy @porridgesblog

[roomwithanopenfire]

Six Sentence Sunday

Happy Sunday everyone!! Thanks for the tags @blackberrysummerblog and @artsyunderstudy!!

This week I’ve done the big three: writing, editing, and ignoring my wips, with perhaps a bit more of the last one than I’d like. Most of my writing this week has been for an exchange fic for a different fandom, which I finally finished the rough draft of. Cue the celebration. However, even if I wanted to share anything from that, I can’t, it must remain hush-hush, but I am getting pretty excited to share it (and way more excited about receiving my own exchange fic back, this whole thing is very fun).

I’ve written less than 300 words on my COBB this week, and none of them are good, but I have gotten some editing done of Proof of Life. I can’t share any more snippets of the next chapter though because I’ve shared too much already. So instead, I figured I’d do a bit of a process post this time around, because I always love reading those. Check that out under the cut! (and i'm sorry this is long, i still have not learned brevity)

So my editing process isn’t too crazy, and is brought to you almost entirely by google docs comments. I also use the word ‘editing’ very loosely to encompass rewriting, revising, and proofreading. Sometimes editing means completely rewriting a scene/section, sometimes it just means switching around a couple of words or cleaning up a sentence. 

Mostly, I try not to take everything so seriously, because I know that I could edit something forever and ever and never post it if I let myself get too carried away. So I try to keep everything pretty chill. So here’s my steps I go through for each chapter that I edit. 

Step One: Reread the whole chapter. While I do this, I’ll leave comments on big picture things. “Maybe move this scene into the next chapter” or “The dialogue in this scene feels stilted” but I don’t add a lot of comments at this point. Once I’m done with this I’ll copy over any comments I had on the first draft or the beta reader copy over into the ‘draft two’ document. 

Step Two: COMMENTS. Again, my fics are brought to you by google doc comments. I like to go through from the bottom up, reading scene by scene and leaving comments on pretty much every single sentence. 

A lot of the time (read: most of the time) these are really vague like:

And sometimes these are more detailed like:

And occasionally these are compliments

Step Three: Once the whole chapter is filled with comments, I go through scene by scene (in whatever order speaks to me), and rewrite, edit, or fix sections. This part I find really fun, because I’m taking parts that aren’t good yet and I’m making them better. I love fixing things and getting rid of all the comments. It typically ends up being a lot of  rewriting, but I always finish a scene feeling better about it then when I started.

For example, here’s the draft one vs. draft two version of a snippet from the first chapter of Proof of Life. This is one of the scenes I pretty much rewrote. Others look a lot more similar to their original versions.

Original:

Edited:

Step Four: Then before I post a chapter, I’ll read through the whole thing and sometimes find smaller bits to fix. Then I’ll run it through a grammar checker and ignore half of their suggestions in the name of ✨style ✨.

Overall, I feel like I have a pretty basic editing strategy and I’m really pleased with it. Even though sometimes I feel like more robust edits would make everything way better, it’s a good mix of fixing things but not spending too much time on it. I remember I spent like a month on editing the very first fic I posted at that was only 6k words. If I kept doing that for everything, I'd never post anything at all. With fanfiction, I know that y'all will be nice to me even though it's never perfect <333

Tags and Hellos!! (I'm unsure if we still need the spaces, but i've been burned too many times lol)

@you-remind-me-of-the-babe @m1ndwinder @facewithoutheart @run-for-chamo-miles @raenestee

@onepintobean @prettygoododds @noblecorgi @hushed-chorus @angelsfalling16

@thewholelemon @monbons @shrekgogurt @brendughh @hertragedyconnoisseur

@beastmonstertitan @valeffelees @horsesarenotdeer @drowninginships @supercutedinosaurs

@fiend-for-culture @rimeswithpurple @cutestkilla @alexalexinii @ileadacharmedlife

@arthurkko @rbkzz @skeedelvee @bookish-bogwitch @brilla-brilla-estrellita

[thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai]

Last weekend, I've caught up on my revision of my YOI post-canon story In Love and War. Now, all chapter that I've written on that draft went through a first thorough revision and I can finally start plotting the second half of Yuuri and Viktor's husbands-and-rivals season (and add some evil ideas in the process because I love making my characters suffer).

There are 23 chapters left to write, but I've already decided to take out a few and put them into the sequel (yes, I have plans for at least two more sequels after Did My Heart Love 'Til Now and In Love and War because I have too many ideas to fit them all in just two sequels!).

In addition to that I've prepared the chapters of Can You Hear My Heartbeat that I'll post in November, so that I can focus on writing during my NoAIWriMo.

Still on my Preptober Todo-list:

prepare the chapter of CYHMH that I will post on December 4th, so I won't need to rush that when NoAIWriMo is over.

maybe and only if I have some spare time left next week: prepare Chapter 7 of Thousand Spotlights to be posted on November 4th (see also this post).

Do any of my mutuals and fellow YOI fans plans for writing in November, too? And will you boycott NaNoWriMo like I do?

[bleachbleachbleach]

10/26 - 10/27/2024

I have spent an actually obscene amount of time this weekend reading my own fanfic, because I think it looks pretty on AO3, and because I want someone to read it, and I guess that someone will be me. (You can read it too if you want!) But reading the posted chapters makes me want to read the other chapters, so I just end up doing that, too. The *whole reason* I decided to go ahead and post the first chapter was because I figured if I posted it I'd stop tinkering with it, and I was spending huge amounts of time on that as a procrastination technique against a work deadline that is ruining my life that I needed to stop myself. But joke's on me because that has only intensified the procrastination via all this READING. I'm tired of working weekends and evenings and also frankly of working any time, ever. ToT

Am I enjoying reading my fanfic over and over? I mean, yes, but I do have like, more revisions to do and quite a lot of WRITING I would like to do. So I'm writing this post in the hopes that I can put a stop to myself and start writing again. The reading was nice, particularly because October@Work wasn't going to let me write anyway. But now I've gotten my stupid work deadline extended, thus the nine billion hours spent reading my own fanfic this weekend, to be followed by this work deadline continuing to ruin my life for an even longer period of time. On the other hand, I did also take this opportunity to catch up on Celebrate Bleach!! (Now, to catch up with the rest of the month of October)

An additional silver lining here is that I do now feel like I have an exceptionally strong grasp of Part I of this fic, and have already found many random things in Part II that don't align to it because I didn't previously have uhhhh every one-off line lasered into my eyelids. Which is useful information to have when you are revising. And I've tried to keep out of the Part II chapters in my reading binges, because I want them to be as unfamiliar as possible when time comes to identify revisions.

In the course of all this reading, the dumbest global edit I decided I wanted to do was, rather than make uniform whether I was referring to it as the "Living World" or the "World of the Living," to use both depending on who was speaking/narrating.

So now the characters more familiar with the contemporary Living World call it the Living World and the others refer to it as the World of the Living, except for Rukia and Rose, who still call it the World of the Living, because they're Like That.

I questioned whether I'm thinking about this as an English-language opportunity to add back the characters' differentiated Japanese speech patterns, or if the characters calling it the Living World are legit using some kind of trendy short form in Japanese, too, but it's already only two kanji to begin with, so idk how they could possibly make it shorter. Speak it in katakana I guess lol. But I think it's probably Option 1.

[steamberrystudio]

05/05/2024 Devlog

Hallo everyone! It seems like it's been a while since my last update here which is weird because I have an update from mid-April all typed out in google docs but apparently I never posted. 8D Oops!

Anyway, for those who are not following the weekly updates on Patreon or the monthly updates on Itch...I shall fill you in!

Writing:

I think in my last update, which was back in March, I was editing chapter 6. I am now at the end of chapter 9 and am about to embark upon chapter 10.

But Esh, you may ask. Why is taking so long to edit these chapters? Why, for example, chapter 7 is about 75,000 words (coded). These chapters are...huge.

Ch 6, 7, 8 and 9 together are about 200,000 words of content. 

I've also been proofreading and then formatting each chapter into Renpy as I go so I can get a feel for how long each chapter actually is (by 'formatting into Renpy', I just mean that I'm dumping the writing into Renpy and formatting it properly so the game runs. I'm not coding any assets in. Just dumping the text in. So the word counts I give are the actual final word counts!)

So yeah, it's pretty time consuming! But I am making progress. I think I have about 70% of the script edited at the moment. 

But Chapter 10 is...a really big chapter. So I'm not sure how long it'll take me to get through it. 

😭 We'll be finding out though! 

Art:

Since my last update, I've received several new BGs and sketches. The BGs are currently about 60% complete. The artists are making their way through them all slowly but surely.

Other Stuff:

Well...I did release another game as a collaboration with some of my developer friends.

We worked on the game over the course of a couple of months and just managed to get out for Amare Festival!

If you haven't checked A Faerie's Tale out over on Itch.io but are up for something cute, wholesome, funny, and pretty short...please do so!

We think it turned out quite well!

Upcoming Weeks:

Well in the upcoming weeks I'll be focusing on revising Chapter 10. And there's a lot to be done in Chapter 10. 

Asher's path and the "common scenes" have had one edit. I'll have to re-read them to refresh myself on the content so I can properly edit the others. Hopefully I won't have to make too many revisions though.

The remaining character content will have to be fleshed out. This is a really important relationship chapter (which also has steamy scenes in it so there is a lot of smoothing, fixing, and fleshing out that has to happen.)

Additionally, there are some ending sequences that happen in this chapter and while they are functional right now, I really want to expand them and make the endings feel a little better situated into the story and less abrupt. 

Sometimes haven't an abrupt game-over really works with the story but in this case, I feel the endings need a little more build up to feel properly earned and to really be satisfying for players. That means expanding the lead up to those scenes by a fair amount.

So overall, this chapter is probably going to end up as the longest chapter in the game by a pretty significant margin. 

And that means I may be at the revision for the better part of this month. 

And then after Chapter 10, it's just the ending sequences for each character. I'm really looking forward to revising those and fleshing them out properly. 👀

I think I'm about to descend into the lowest depths of editing hell for a few weeks but I'm hoping after that I can slowly start to climb my way back out. 

We'll see how it goes! 

[topazadine]

"How Do I Make Myself Start Writing?" (Tips to Get the Damn Thing Done)

Estimated Reading Time: 9 Minutes

I have complained previously about people telling newbie writers to "just write!!!" as if this helps at all. In that post, I was more assessing the reason why people ask how to start writing rather than the mechanics of beginning to write.

Now I am going to come back and give you some basic, nuts-and-bolts tips on how to actually start writing something.

In this post, we will discuss how to develop a good framework for writing. Because I am a plotter, not a pantser, I will be focusing on plotting rather than just going at it willy-nilly. This is just my opinion and my process, so some things may not apply to you; take what you like and leave the rest.

Here's the outline of what we will discuss. I will be including links to previous posts that cover each aspect in more detail if you need more advice on each step:

Plotting

Outlining

Titling Sections

Writing Out of Order

Getting Started by Section

Using Google/Word Comments While Writing

Tools for Motivation

Tools for Concentration

Tools for Revision

Plotting

When plotting, you are not coming up with a play-by-play; that is the outline. People often confuse the two when writing, which leads to them getting overwhelmed.

With a plot, you only care about these components:

The inciting event

The MC's goal

The summit or climax

The end

You can think of your plot as the elevator pitch you'd give to someone when explaining your story; it is a general overview of the piece.

So, if I was looking at my 100k+ fanfic, "A Tale of Two Citadels," I would describe it as this:

"Two Yamanbagiris get mixed up and sent to opposite citadels: one good, one bad. They then have to find their way back to their own home. Omokage steps in and cuts a hole in space-time to rescue his citadel's Yamanbagiri, bringing back Manba from the other citadel."

Now we can move on to the outline, where we figuring how to go from inciting event -> summit -> end.

Outlining

Outlines are tricky because if you add too much detail, then you get demotivated, as I have discussed in my Double Outlining method.

As I explain there, I like to come up with a very long outline, which contains everything I want to have in there, and then drastically cut it down to my actual planning document I use while guiding my work.

When I am outlining, I do not always use chapters, unless I am 100% certain that I will have exactly that many chapters. Instead, I organize things by different scenes.

Sometimes it's possible to use chapters; for example, if I have dual POVs and am switching back and forth every chapter, then the amount of chapters I have is mostly locked in. But if you're doing a single POV, you may find you need more or less than you expected.

Anyway, you'll start with these main components:

Beginning

Inciting event

Climax

End

And then go and fill in the rest. If you are using my Plot Mountain method for adventure stories, then it will look something like this:

Base Camp: Beginning.

Base Camp -> ABC: Lead-up to inciting event.

ABC: Inciting event.

ABC -> North Col: First challenge.

North Col: First break/plateau.

And so on ... you can read the Plot Mountain post for a better understanding of what I am talking about.

Once you have a basic understanding of each scene that will be included, it's time to develop your draft.

Titling Sections

I like to start out with headers for each section or scene, as this helps me know what I will need to work on.

It's easy to forget that your first draft is not your final draft and you do not have to use "Chapter 1," etc when doing it. In fact, I discourage this, because you may very well find you need more chapters, and then you get yourself confused.

Instead, consider using descriptive headers and organizing things by scene when you are writing.

This is an example of what I am talking about, from the first draft of the sixth part of the Eirenic Verses series, Poesy.

Those are the "titles" of each chapter. Once I was actually done with the book, I went in and fixed these headers into actual chapters.

This method is helpful because of what I will discuss next (writing out of order) and because it helps ensure that you're staying on track with your plot points.

If I have already done most of the writing and then realized that I need a new chapter, I make a new header, highlight the "Chapter" part, and then add a comment to it reminding me of what this scene needs to include.

I do not highlight the number of the chapter, because I may very well find that I need another chapter before this one. Then I'd have to renumber it, nuking my comment in the process.

In general, I try to keep all sections within about 200-500 words of each other (depending on how long the chapters are), unless there's an extremely good reason for a given chapter to be much shorter than the others.

This helps the reader know what to expect and how to pace themselves when they are reading. If they're just about to go to bed and say "one more chapter," and then that chapter ends up being twice as long as the others, they might be a bit annoyed.

Writing Out of Order

Sometimes you are stuck on a section for whatever reason; maybe you're not feeling it, maybe you need more research, maybe you're not quite sure where you're heading with it. And that's fine! Just don't let it demotivate you.

Write what part you're most excited about when you are most excited about it.

I usually write the beginning, the climax, and the end first. Then, I add the "sub-climaxes:" those smaller sections of tension, like a fight scene or whatever.

After that, I stitch them all together with the downtime scenes, which will have a bit of momentum but a slower pace.

In many cases, a downtime scene is combined with a moment of tension to make a full chapter.

Getting Started by Section

If I am very stuck on a particular section and just can't get myself to do it, I tell myself to write 200 words in the section, and if I'm still not feeling it, then I can stop and do another part, or give up for the day. In many cases, I end up continuing for a few more hundred words.

Even if I still give up on the section for the day, I have given myself to something to work on when I pick it back up again: I am not confronted with a blank page with no understanding of what I am supposed to do next.

Sometimes, if I am really, really stuck, I'll stop writing right in the middle of a sentence, which gives me an even stronger anchor when I'm ready to continue.

Using Google/Word Comments While Working

Google or Word comments are an immensely helpful tool while you are working, as they help remind you of things that you know you need to add but don't feel like doing right in the moment.

They don't have to be very long either, just enough to tell you that you still have some more work to do on this part.

Then, as you finish, you can either delete them or resolve them, depending on whether you want to remember what you had to fix. I tend to delete them, as resolved comments can still be visible on a completed Word doc when I send it to a beta reader.

Tools for Motivation

Word Count Spreadsheet. Keeping track of your work every day helps build intrinsic motivation and encourages you to keep going, even on days where you don't feel like working.

StimuWrite. I explained this in great detail on my other blog, but essentially it gamifies writing for you.

Pomodoro Method. You've probably heard of this already so I won't belabor the point, but it makes you work in 25-minute-ish chunks where you do nothing but what you're meant to be doing. Because I use Cold Turkey, I don't tend to need it, but sometimes I'm really, really distracted, and then I will put a timer on to keep myself honest.

Tools for Concentration

Cold Turkey. I don't see this get mentioned a lot by writers and I'm not sure why, as I literally use it every single day of my life. It blocks whatever websites you shouldn't be looking at so that you can focus on your work.

Binaural Beats. While binaural beats aren't some Hail Mary thing that makes you into a super genius, they can be helpful sometimes. You can find lots of versions of binaural beats on YouTube or your favorite music playing app.

Tools for Revision

Microsoft Read Aloud. I really like this tool for Word, though it does tend to butcher fantasy names (especially Uileac, I'm sorry honey). This makes it easier to catch typos or notice where you used the same word twice in a sentence. You can find this under the "review" section. Be sure to put it on normal speed or even below normal speed so that you can really capture missing words.

ProWritingAid. I will say that since I have started using ProWritingAid more frequently, I don't find as much value in it anymore, especially with the critique feature. They changed it recently so that it's not quite as thorough. Still, if you're a newer writer, you can definitely find benefit in its suggestions, particularly the "Inspiration" element. It is also good for letting you see an immediate overview of problems so you can just click on them and fix them all at once. I also like its sensory feature so I remember to actually add all five senses to my work.

Beta Readers. Yes, of course, beta readers are very helpful. But you need to find good ones! Ask if a writer on Tumblr that you like and admire will be willing to take a look at your work; they may say no, but there's no harm in asking. Fiverr can also be a good resource. I have found r/betareaders to be hit or miss. A lot of the beta readers on there are unexperienced and don't know what they're talking about.

And that's about it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

I've created a masterlist of writing resources that you can peruse at your leisure, all for free.

The posts I write can sometimes take me hours - they're always intricate, always thoughtful. This one took me about 1 hour to write.

I do this as a labor of love for the writing community, sharing what I have learned from almost 15 years of creative writing.

However, if you'd like to support me, maybe you'll consider buying my book?

At $0.99, that's about 0.11 for each minute you spent reading this post.

9 Years Yearning is a gay coming-of-age romance set in a fantasy world. It follows Uileac Korviridi, a young soldier training at the War Academy. His primary motivations are honoring the memory of his late parents, protecting his little sister Cerie, and becoming a top-notch soldier.

However, there's a problem: Orrinir Relickim, a rough and tough fellow pupil who just can't seem to leave Uileac alone.

The book features poetry, descriptions of a beautiful country inspired by Mongolia, and a whole lot of tsundere vibes.

You can also check it out on Goodreads for a list of expanded distribution.

If you do purchase my book, don't forget to leave a review!

Reviews are vital for visibility on Amazon and help to support indie authors like me. Whenever you love a book, be sure to let the author know! It's much appreciated.

[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....

[moonlight-blue-rose]

Part 4 of my journey with the 1863rd arc, yesterday I didn't even realise I've spent 4 hours on 4 chapters....

ch 295

… h u h? huhhhhh?????

This,,, makes sense actually. I wondered how she would kill yjh but never guessed it would be through such means…

Oh. Oh. It was Yoo Joonghyuk, wasn’t it? He was the one who told her to protect the people he loves until the end she thought of. That’s why he promised to die, didn’t he…

Ahhhh the back and forth, “some call it salvation” – was that a dig at kdj’s modifier? Because it sure feels like one

And what does she mean “it isn’t the world I made”? Is it because of the Covenant? Or is it because it is a world reached after 1862 regressions? I really don’t think kdj is right about his guess for hsy’s Covenant. Something just doesn’t add up

Of course he didn’t haha

Oh Kim Dokja you sly little- So that was the decision he reached in the end

... holy-…

Ch 296

Wow, just, the description… I have already spoiled myself yjh’s sponsor but every time they are referenced in the story is with such mystery and ‘otherness’ that leaves a big impression. Just, wow…

Snow… reminds me of the snow garden between the letters, the space only a reader can hide in…

Oh Yoo Joonghyuk… (╥╯^╰╥)

It’s a very faint voice… A voice suffocated underneath all the others… But it’s still there… Kim Dokja heard it…

The whole scene that feels like slow motion… Kim Dokja’s determination, his desire to see the ending, an ending, even if it’s not the ideal one he wanted… Why does all of this feel like defeat? And yet at the same time like a culmination to everything he has ever wanted... Even if he is not part of that story… he still wanted to see it…

I want to go there and shake him, ask him why is he giving up? The Kim Dokja I’ve read about didn’t give up, even if everything looked impossible. I want to tell him there is another way. But there isn’t, is it? He tried. He gave his best. There is nothing he himself can do anymore… And it’s just so unfair, to see him bow down like this, here and now… But at the same time, it’s a decision only he, the person who loves this story the most in the world, can make… The decision of a Reader… God, this arc is giving me too many emotions

Hahaha, of course he would throw himself on the path of an attack meant for yjh. He did the same with the 41st sys too after all

"Director of the false last act" such a fitting name

It does! It does… It’s a world only Kim Dokja could create…

Ch 297

It’s what you deserve for making yjh eat soil lmaooo

Honestly, the whole orv feels like that one post here on Tumblr “I’m asking you to endure it.” Yes, it may be incredibly selfish. Yes, you will suffer and it will hurt so much. But, still, please, endure. Orv just has this particular taste…

*crying* It’s the first time he admitted that he just doesn’t want Yoo Joonghyuk to die…

Honestly, it felt really strange since we got wos’s revisions but, the original text of wos disappeared forever. It was the story he grew up with. It was the story he fell in love with. And yes, it means so much that he can influence the third turn so they can reach the end but… But the original text disappeared. If I was Kim Dokja, I would feel heartbroken. Your memories can remain for only so much, that why losing the original text hit me hard. Yes, kdj has his strange mind library thing but can he go there at will? Maybe he could in the future. But it still makes me wonder whether kdj represses these feelings. I wonder whether he reread the text again and again in the 1863rd round not only to find a way out but also for himself. As a last attempt to keep this story with himself just for a little longer…

This whole arc is just pure pain, I understand why everyone is crying about it

… I knew it but having it confirmed hurts a lot more… Yoo Mia… His only baby sister… and his mother figure too… (╥╯^╰╥)

…. Everything until the end of the chapter… I need a moment… Yoo Joonghyuk…

At this point I can’t even explain what I’m feeling (╥╯^╰╥)

BOTH, BOTH ARE REAL!

He picked Kim Dokja’s coat… He abandoned the person he was and turned away so he can become someone new, someone who isn’t “the protagonist”… Yoo Joonghyuk, who found a different answer altogether

One of them is gone forever… I can’t believe this. I-

At this point I’m just crying- He isn’t a character, he isn’t a character

Ch 298

Kim Dokja having a panic attack is really understandable, with the way everything ended. Dissociation time yay! *sighs*

Of course he would want her to be honest with the rest of the party… He loves them too much not to do at least this for them…

Yeah… Maybe it was finally a time he did that… Not being chained down by the “protagonist” title but just being Yoo Joonghyuk…

A baby?? Is this referencing yjh’s sponsor? There was the sound of a baby laughing when they were described earlier. Uhhhhh I don’t know at this point

Hahaha of course she got attached. No matter which one it is, hsy has such a big, bleeding heart

I don’t think I can finish the arc today, these few chapters were just so draining. Hopefully there won’t be much to cry about in the next chapters, I don’t think I’ll be able to bear so much emotional damage in such a short time…