#i'm definitely a plotter lol

[wastemanjohn]

ite guys i am once again consensus seeking but not in a horny way for once - i'm having a very good convo with @amiwritesthings about writing processes and plotting vs pantsing and it made me curious - writerly mutuals what is your process like? do you plot all the tiny things out or just sit down with an idea and see what happens?

[redrandomposts]

ooo clarifications for the alnst x orv crossover

- i wasnt calling till "secretive plotter" as his constellation name owo it was more like "florist!character" where the word before the exclamation mark describes what the character is like in the au hehe

- constellations dont need to sponsor incarnations to watch their channels! they can simply come and go as they please. hades is also very likely to still watch ivan regardless of sponsorship since ivan is connected to dokja and hades is like a doting, concerned father for dokja LMAOOO

suitor vs grandfather lowkey fighting to sponsor ivan 😭 ivan gets an unholy amnt of coins sponsored to him by both sides and hes like lmao better get some use out of these ...

two paths for this au : ivan gets sponsored by hades, or ivan gets sponsored by till

- ivan being sponsored by hades also means he's getting sponsored by persephone in extension and gets skills and stigmas that stave off death like theyre cheat codes but aren't technically cheat codes 🤔 puts a stop to all his dying but it also means he's now more reckless w himself bc "undying stigma lol ✨"

- ivan being sponsored by till gets him spammed with [Constellation <insert name here> is looking at you.] at the most random times. his skills and stigmas would be related to ivan's themes/imagery in alien stage (the planet saturn, meteors, stars etc). they would also definitely get a shared fable called <Constants Till The End> or something because they ARE each other's constants am i right haha

as for till's constellation name... i was thinking something like <Unbound Songwriter of Bygone Times> or simply <Unbound Musician>

(i also have constellation names for ivan and sua since i have this OTHER alnst x orv crossover where ivan and sua are the outer gods disguised as constellations this time, just throwing it out there LMAO)

— 🌦️

hi again 🌦️!!

i seee... but also, i'm pretty sure constellations have to pay more to send "messages" for unsponsored streamers.... maybe i'm tripping, but also i'm clearly refusing to reread orv, so.

sometimes grandparents love their grandchildren more... like mine. if my father and grandparents didn't have conflicting political views, it'd be different, but alas. i'm more loved. thus, ivan's more loved, because im pretty sure the grandparents are convinced kdj did some fucked up shit to pass down his self-sacrifice. which, fair, shattering your soul is pretty fucked up.

why do i love unbound musician?? unbound is a really nice term for till...

a shared fable... forever attracted forever doomed... haha jk actor au exists and they're together (copium??) so.

some skill ideas from till:

-meteorite escape: a recreation of the night till and ivan escaped, except till stays. this gets rid of negative effects, but their mentality becomes childlike.

-muse: an investigative skill that can tell you about something in the form of song.

-another us: watch a potential outcome of an action in third person.

-obsession: mark a person or thing to track them until they die or something lol

-shallow emotion: force another person to be obsessed with you, even wanting to die for you.

my god i'm tired and its showing it's time to pass out

[potatoplace]

Writing tag game by @bonecarversbestie !!

I was tagged by @thelov3lybookworm 💖 thank youuuu

Describe your writing process from idea to posting/publishing

Normally an idea will pop into my head while I'm at work - my job is physical and can be pretty mindless, so it's perfect for coming up with entertaining stories! I normally end up running through the plot of what I want to happen a few times before I even get to writing, so I have a good mental outline of the story. When it comes to the actual writing part, I tend to go full speed ahead for hours. Also most of the time I'm smoking a lil bit, I find being just a lil stoned can help move the writing process along. I veeeery rarely edit my works except for mistakes I notice as I go. And once I'm done, I post right away, pasting it into the app and editing it to look how I want. I give myself as little time as possible to second guess my writing lol

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I'm normally a plotter, I like to know what I want to happen, but if fun ideas come to me in the moment then I go with them! Very rarely will I have an idea that I don't think about and plan for at least a few hours beforehand.

What do you listen to when you are writing?

So many things... Taylor Swift, Halsey, Chelsea Cutler, Blackpink, and more, but those are the main artists I listen to while writing. I also end up having stuff on in the background, lately it's been between Grey's Anatomy and Gilmore Girls.

What’s your drink of choice(while writing)?

I love me a monster ultra, strawberry dreams has been my fave since it was put out! Coffee too, and water of course (I'm a big water hoe)

Promote yourself! What’s your favorite thing you’ve written?

Probably You Can Have It! It's such a fun, cozy world that Reader lives in, and I'm sooo excited for all the plans I have for her, Feyre, and Rhys!!!

Share a fic of yours that you think is underrated/deserves more love.

This was tough... You guys give all of my stories so much love, none of them ever really feel left out! The only one that I think deserves more love is probably Omega Needs, it's my first fic on here and I love how I've changed the dynamic between Feyre and Rhys, and all the shit going on in the Spring Court. I just love them 🥹

Do you have any advice for new writers?

Just! Keep! Writing!!! I have been a new writer at so many points in my life, and every time I've enjoyed myself, but this time feels different. I've pushed myself to keep writing and not reread my fics to death before posting, and that has helped immensely with how I've approached writing this time around. Also! Write what YOU want to read! I know that I don't feel motivated when I'm not very interested in the story, so make sure that you like what you're writing!

What is a writing style/technique that others do really well that you'd like to get better at?

Ooo definitely the style where the pacing matches so well with intense emotions, like the punctuation and everything changes to match it. And also poetry! I love the way people can capture a feeling so perfectly.

Is there a character you were surprised you enjoyed writing as much as you did?

Definitely Shitty Azriel from my tears ricochet. I'd thought I might have a problem making him hateable but still like... acting sweet to reader even with all the lies that she didn't know about. But I didn't, and the response was an overwhelming "fuck you Azriel" (which I delighted in, thank you guys 😂)

I'm tagging @mira-says and @icey--stars, don't feel pressured or anything tho!!

[ofmermaidstories]

Let me preface this by saying I did check your FAQ but I didn't see this there yet I still find it hard to believe no one has asked you this at least a thousand times so if they did and I just missed it I'm sorry and you can delete this ask but—

You write such beautiful, detailed fics with lots of foreshadowing that often starts from the very beginning of the story. I think you made an author note once about only posting the first chapter of a fic after you've written the whole thing (or maybe that was Andie...?). If so, is the time between updates just you going through and rereading / editing like 100k words?

Basically, I want to ask: what is your fic planning process like? From the moment you get a first idea to posting the last chapter, what does I look like? I think you're a really, really amazing (one of the absolute best if not THE best) author but I cannot fathom how one human being can write such mammoths of fanfiction and stay motivated enough to finish them.

Also you're already planning Halloween stuff ?? You plan things literally half a year in advance?? Are you even human? We don't deserve you. 😭

You called yourself lazy in the webcomic post but I think you must work unbelievably hard to make such high quality stuff and without even getting compensation for it. You're amazing and I'm very thankful to exist in the right timeline and fandom to read your work. :,)

(oh my god this became such a ramble I'm sorry)

Oh Ari. 🥺 Hello.

I update as I write! So that was probably Andie, lmao, who’s definitely the better example to follow when it comes to plotting/completing a fic. 🥺 She’s amazing and if I could fashion myself after any other writer in our niche, it would be Andie hands down!

But okay, let’s get into it. 📝

A little disclaimer, before we start; I did not go to school for any of this lmfao. The most relevant education I have behind me is a extra-circular literature class I had during my last two years of high-school. The only reason the following works for me is because I’ve cobbled it together from years of trial and error. You can read advice and watch youtube videos about the writing habits of famous authors, but you have to tailor everything you hear to suit you and the way you work. The best advice in the world from the highest paid author in the world won’t work if you’re not wired in the same way! You have to take everything about yourself and what you like and what you want into account!

Part I—first we take Manhattan

start ur fic lol

First thing’s first; I’m a plotter. I don’t pants. If I pants, I lose interest—I need to have the final vision in front of me, even if it’s just a bullet point. I have to know what I’m working towards. That is crucial to literally everything I do. Every fic you see on AO3, every WIP I’ve mentioned working on or wanting to work on—I have always known two things about them, immediately: the hook that gets us in there, and how they end.

So for fics in particular, the start might look something like—I get an idea (I want Reader and Bakugou to kiss). And then I sit there and I brainstorm to myself (What’s stopping them from kissing? Why does Reader want to kiss someone so rude when there’s so many other nice boys out there? Is Reader particularly kissable?). And then, if I’m lucky, I think of an ending (Reader and Bakugou finally kiss, but he’s the one that initiates it, because he’s always wanted to, because he likes that Reader always wears a yellow coat to work—it’s ugly and it sticks out among the black and tan ones of the crowd but he comes to associate it—and thus Reader—with routine and his mornings going well).

This is often the most fragile time of an idea. That hook (Reader and Bakugou kiss) might fall apart with a bit more prodding (why would they kiss? Reader’s a stranger to him; most of us don’t go around kissing random strangers just because we like their coats). Or maybe the hook sticks (they spend almost years in orbit around each other, a constant near-miss) but the ending doesn’t work (I don’t know how to move Bakugou to a position where he can kiss Reader, where he has the opportunity to). For every idea you see in action, or listed, there’s like three more that died during this stage and are now being cannibalised for spare parts.

Part II—running up that hill (a deal with fic)

work work work

If our idea survives, we then move to the “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” stage; which manifests itself in this case as a doc, where I’ll just write any and all ideas I have for this little world so far.

For fanfics, it’ll generally look like—

TITLE

SUMMARY: Bakugou and Reader kiss.

(in which Bakugou first notices you because of your ugly yellow coat)

📝 Reader is allergic to diary products; for ages Bakugou thinks of her as That Cheesy Extra, because of the colour of her coat. She laughs when she eventually learns about this. (“I can’t even eat cheese,” you complain)

📝 Reader stops walking past the coffee shop Bakugou gets his coffee at, one day; moves??? Leaves the city to help a friend out for a few months. Despite himself it throws Bakugou off-kilter, and when he sees someone (not Reader) in a yellow coat during a villian attack, he momentarily loses focus—gets injured???? The news of his injury makes the news, Reader sees it in Bumblah nowhere.

📝 Her coat is donated accidentally by a roommate, in a mix up, for a charity she’s volunteering at; when Reader returns to the city, she has to make do with a new one, a more neutral colour. Bakugou recognises her anyway and that’s when he realises it was never about the coat (!!!!)

Like, this is actually a pretty good approximation of what all my current fics have looked like, at that stage, before I tidied them up and refined them into proper outlines. Because that’s what will happen next, once we have a rough idea of what we want! Things get moved, or removed—tightened. A rough plot outline takes shape! If I get any ideas for a sequel or a spin off that I might want to do, I’ll note them here (Reader’s roommate, Roomie, who’s working at a charity—eventually meets Shinsou, who’s working on a case. She thinks he’s homeless; he doesn’t realise. They carry on like this for a while.)

Once I have a rough outline (rough meaning in bulletpoints), I’ll start on my more in-depth outlines—I do these chapter by chapter! I say this a lot, but they’re basically a really rough version of said chapter. So it might look like:

Reader’s walking to work; it’s cold enough that’s she’s wearing her coat. There’s a new coffee-shop opened on the corner—it’s full, popular, you think it might be because it’s at a crossroads between two different Pro Hero agencies. Reader glances at the window, interested, but then a friend calls out and you hurry along. Bakugou, inside the coffee-shop waiting for Half and Half to get his order, is affronted; your coat is ugly as shit, and he complains loudly about it to Shouto, who mentions something about Baku. having no room to complain about ugly colour choices.

The swap between Reader/You happens a lot because I’m not using my brain properly, at this stage—I’m just shovelling the sand I need into the sandbox. Once I finish my shovelling, I go back and I rewrite it—but better, LMAO. I flesh things out, I throw things away as needed, I add things in. It’s basically really, really intensive handholding and I would not recommend it for anyone who’s already daunted by the idea of plotting; I do it because if I don’t have a chaperone there (aka my outline) then I’m prone to getting distracted. I am basically the fanfic equivalent of the undiagnosed ADHD kid at the back of the class that only gets work done when they’re sat right in front of the teacher (and even then, there’s like a 50% chance it’s not actually work that’s happening but doodles of that weird pointy S thing over and over again).

Once it’s done, though, we have a completed chapter! I then post it and wait like a little crab under some rocks for people to be tricked into being nice to me, and then I dig back in and think nice thoughts about repeating this process to get chapter two. Eventually I will—and viola! Another chapter! We repeat that over and over until we get to the end of our original outline and we have a finished story. 😌📖

Part III—you’re on your own kid

motivation

No one ever likes this part, or what I’m about to say, because at best it sounds like saccharine fodder and at worse it’s out of touch with most people’s experiences in fandom, but—the only way to stay motivated when doing a long-haul fic is that you have to do it for yourself.

People are so kind to me, about the fics I’ve done; it’s part luck and part what I choose to write and part how I write it. And I mean—I share them because I want a little bit of attention, lmao, that’s natural because we’re humans, we all want attention. But here’s the thing, here’s the secret—I take these fics 110% deadly seriously. LOL. That sounds like a joke, but I do! I do that because it’s how I’m built and how I keep myself interested in them—because taking them seriously means I’m more invested in realising the ending I’ve imagined for them since day one.

If other people stopped being so nice about what I was writing, I would be sad—anyone would. 🥺 We all want to be told that we’ve done a good job. But I’ve had the ending for the Deku fic, for example, in my head since it’s predecessor was on-going. That is literal years of knowing how I want Izuku and Scribble’s story to end. If everyone disappeared tonight I would sulk, hardcore, and then I would finish that last chapter anyway. I would finish it because I’ve spent so much time and energy working on that story that not finishing it is a disservice to the world I built around those characters and most importantly to myself. I probably wouldn’t stress as much about it, LOL, if the audience shrunk back down to just me, but I’d still do it. 🥺

I write—and try to finish—these fics because I deserve to see them finished. I want the completed tick, on ao3. I want to look at it and know that I can do it—that I can start something as simple as Bakugou hating on some rando’s yellow coat, and bring it to the finish-line where they finally come together, and see each other, without the yellow coat or through a coffee-shop window.

And this is what I mean by like, tailoring things to suit you—because I know others might be perfectly content to imagine the ending for themselves, without writing it. Or maybe they don’t want to treat fic seriously, because it’s fun escapism. Maybe disappointment that it’s not received like they thought it would be sours the whole experience of fandom for someone—there’s no right or wrong to this. I know I can write for an audience of just me because I’ve done it before. The satisfaction has always come back to the same thing—knowing I finished it, and wrapped that world up as best as I could. You have to pick and choose your poison—and then you have to run with it.

I hope that answers at least some of your questions, Ari. 🥺 Thank-you for such a thoughtful ask; for being so sweet. 🥺 You’re amazing, and I’m the thankful one—I’m glad we’re here, together. 🌷🌾✨📖

[zipegs]

twenty questions for fic writers!

tagged by @cedarbranch thank you so much!!

tagging: @valentinsylve @wastrelwoods @shachaai @chaotic-plotter @thedarkmongoose

@luvbef @abstracteeveewrites @det395 no pressure though!!

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

28! back in the good old days (especially when i was mostly writing oneshots) i used to be able to do one work a month but now i'm a lot slower and much more sporadic. definitely think i can break the 30 mark this year though!

2. what's your total ao3 word count?

212,146!

3. what fandoms do you write for?

right now it's hannibal and the heu. i have also written for star trek aos, the terror s1, and supernatural, and will probably revisit some or all of them at some point in the future

4. top five fics by kudos

A Treatise on Touch (or Lack Thereof) (Star Trek AOS) - 883 Murphy's Law of Cohabitation (Supernatural) - 594 to the victor go the spoils (Hannibal) - 578 of all acts for which you must atone (Hannibal) - 554 kalos kagathos (Hannibal) - 522 my two crack fics coming in first! lmao. just goes to show that being silly and self-indulgent can pay off 😂 especially considering that top kudos'd fic is rated T! also was a surprise to see my terror yuletide fic coming in the number six spot, since that's a much smaller fandom compared to the others i've written for (or it was, at least. i know it's grown a bit since i started there)

5. do you respond to comments?

yes, all of them! unfortunately i'm an even slower comment responded than i am a writer but i do respond to each and every single one eventually. i appreciate people leaving the time to let me know they enjoyed my work so much and i definitely want to show that. plus i just enjoy the conversation!

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

well! the book of jonah (hannibal) is definitely high up there, as are some of the oneshots in take the longing and give it a name (the terror). oh also ad finitum (the terror) and maybe elegy (the terror)? some of those (and a few i mentioned) are more bleak horror endings but the hartnell death oneshot in take the longing and give it a name and ad finitum are definitely just straight angst

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

a lot of them have happy endings, and some are just fluff oneshots! but i'm gonna say A Treatise on Touch (or Lack Thereof) for its very slight angst and eventual supremely happy ending.

8. do you get hate on fics?

i do not! i've found a nice little niche i suppose lol

9. do you write smut?

yes! i used to hate it but since joining the hannibal fandom i've started enjoying writing smut and dabbling in pwps. actually most of my recent work has been pwps dkfhdgh

10. craziest crossover?

i haven't done anything crazy i fear! my only crossovers have been heu.

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i've noticed! i've had one suspicious incident of concept-ripping BUT it could have very well been a coincidence, so overall i've made out well!

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

yes i have!! Stacy_likegravity translated A Treatise on Touch (or Lack Thereof) to Chinese and Jane_Ka translated i am my beloved's (and my beloved is mine) to Belarusian.

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

i have not. i used to be too much of a control freak to consider it—the thought alone was off-putting. now, though, it's something i'd love to try with a writer i'm comfortable and have a rapport with.

14. all time favorite ship?

you can't ask me that because my current ship always is my all-time favorite!!! so, yeah, gotta say hannigram.

15. what's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

mmmm i have a bunch! there's an old supernatural horror fic i had about anna milton being a terrifying and off-putting child (thanks to, you know, once being an angel) that i'd love to finish and spruce up bc i felt really good about it at the time. that's five years ago now though so who knows if i'd feel like the writing held up!

16. what are your writing strengths?

i think i'm pretty good at setting and description—establishing a place and/or feel/tone for a piece. i like to think i'm pretty decent at capturing speech patterns but i do find dialogue a lot harder than narration personally.

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

i tend to get rambly and overexplain when it's unnecessary (and sometimes gloss over what i should space out a bit)! pacing isn't always the easiest for me and i'm not great at story structure.

18. thoughts on dialogue in another language?

i don't mind it, as long as it's easily navigable! i used to be all for the hover-translations people would do but now i love linked footnotes. scrolling up and down for translations can be a little taxing for me personally.

19. first fandom you wrote in?

phantom of the opera. i tried my hand at writing a phantom/christine sex scene way back when and got about as far as "her corset 'magically' became undone". needless to say that never saw the light of day! first published fandom was a galadriel lotr oneshot i posted on ff.net (completely forgot about that until right now, actually lol)

20. favorite fic you've written?

i think i have to say the book of jonah, because i'm really proud of that one!

[acacia-may]

Hi Acacia! 💕

For your 100 writer's ask game what about 2, 16, 31 and 78?

Thank you so much for the ask, Lola and for playing the ask game for fic writers! I'd love to answer these for you. Sorry my responses got so rambly 😅🙈 I've gone ahead and put them under the cut.

2. Talk about a notable time a narrative or character has looked you dead in the eyes and said “f*** your plan, here’s what we’re actually doing.”

So in my very first big fanfiction project ever (which thankfully was never posted to the internet & we can all just forget about...or we could if I just never brought it up lol), I had an OC completely change his personality from what was in my head in the minute I started writing him. He was supposed to be serious, principled, driven, and intense, but when I put him in the scene, he just kept cracking jokes and was charismatic, outgoing, and kind of goofy. I was stunned but kept going with the draft not really knowing what to do and thinking I'd just fix it later, and when I gave the draft of the chapter to my friend (irl) who was Beta-reading for me, I shared my frustrations with how this character wasn't anything like I imagined in my head and she said, "Acacia, he is my new favorite character, and if you change his personality from what it is now, I will stop reading this and never talk to you again" so he stayed lol 😂 (And eventually became one of my favorites too!)

That's probably the most dramatic example I can think of, but as an extensive plotter, I have definitely had my fair share of scenarios where my stories take a turn during the actual writing process that I wasn't expecting and I have to readjust (which is never fun but I think is often for the best). For instance, in my role-reversal/magic-swap Astelle fic "Broken Angel" Liebe just randomly showed up towards the end when Noelle tapped into her Anti-Magic and that was nowhere in any draft, outline, or even a thought I had had about the story before he just appeared there, but I think getting to explore the connection between him and Noelle was an important addition to that story in the end. It can be good to deviate from our original plans sometimes, even though I do struggle to stay flexible & tend to get frustrated when it happens. 😅

16. Where is your favorite place to write?

I write in my room more often than not [or sometimes I'll write while I'm undergoing medical treatment because there's nothing else to do 😅], BUT my favorite place to plot & walk through scenes in my head is outside in my yard or on my porch swing. Not sure why but I just always feel really creative there, especially when I listen to music.

31. Tell us about one of your characters who’s an absolute joy to write

One of my characters...like an OC? 😳 I mean I'm pretty biased but I have an absolute blast writing Zoey. She's so dry and quick-witted (at least I hope she comes off that way) and writing her bantering with the other characters is just so much fun for me to write, especially when she's such a foil to the POV character (Hero) who is so reserved and sincere. That said, we get to see in the canon that he likes to tease to show affection to his friends & family too--he's just shy about it so I like to think the two of them can play off each other really well, especially when they become closer friends and feel more comfortable teasing each other, like in "Under the Weather" which is the self-indulgent story I wrote for my birthday.

Apologies but I'll allow myself an excerpt here just to show you what I'm talking about. I had way too much fun writing all these jokes about Hero's "grandpa pajamas" (which he actually wears for a big portion of the actual game/canon 😂) and having the two of them banter about it. (A/N: this story is a sick fic & he has the flu which is why he is in pajamas in the first place):

"It’s just…that’s not what I meant. I was just…embarrassed. I mean you’ve already had to see me in my pajamas.” Hero stared down at his pajama shirt and pulled on the collar as his face burned and not just from the fever. “Your grandpa pajamas?” Zoey teased dryly. His face flushed, but he nodded. Chuckling lightly, Zoey shook her head. “You do realize I’ve seen Kyle in his underwear more times than I’d care to admit, right? This is nothing. And besides, I’ve already seen them before.” “You’ve”—Hero’s voice cracked—“seen my pajamas?” “Well not in person, but Sunny drew me a picture of you in them.” “Sunny drew you a picture of me in my pajamas?” Hero repeated incredulously in a disbelieving, hoarse voice. Zoey shrugged but answered matter-of-factly. “He only draws you in your pajamas. He draws everybody in pajamas. You know, the last time I saw him he asked me about my pajamas so he could draw me in pajamas too.” “Why—?” Hero’s voice hitched—cut off by an awkward laugh and wheezy coughing. “Why would he do that?” “No idea. You tell me.” She paused, but Hero could only shrug his shoulders. Sunny was a talented artist, but Hero would be lying if he said he understood a lot of his abstract pieces or the reasoning behind them. Zoey’s guess as to why Sunny wanted to draw everyone in pajamas was as good as his, he supposed. “But I’m pretty sure he always draws you in these exact pajamas—long sleeves, button down shirt, stripes. I remember thinking ‘why does Sunny think Hero wears grandpa pajamas?’ but clearly it’s because you do.” Hero chuckled lightly but tilted his head at her. “What’s wrong with my pajamas?” “Nothing—if you’re over the age of 70,” bantered Zoey.

78. How do you choose where to end a chapter?

I'll admit I struggle a lot with endings, especially in the chapters of a multi-chapter fic. I usually know how the story or chapter will end in a general, vague sense, but it's always a struggle to decide what exact sentence or sentiment to end with. Sometimes I'll accidentally stumble into writing the perfect ending sentence which is always such a relief or I will have those "last words" in mind from the time I start writing. But most of the time it's more of a struggle to determine that cut-off point and I'll just start rambling until I find something I like. More so than anything else, endings are probably what I rewrite the most between drafts before posting. Some stories will have the ending written 4 or 5 times before I finally find something I like.

I hope I manage to write some poignant endings. I think the ending of "Tell Me Where It Hurts" is probably the one I'm most proud of, but that was a one shot. I think ending chapters of an ongoing story is a lot harder because you have to wrap up the main ideas of the chapter while also setting up the next one. I'll admit I get a little overwhelming by how daunting that is sometimes. I don't have a lot of multi-chapter works to choose examples from, but I think my favorite ending to any chapter in "When Sun Shines Again" so far was this one from Chapter 6 because it got really deep & philosophical (A/N: I don't think there are any big/specific OMORI spoilers in here, but uh...if you know, you know I guess...):

His chest ached—hollow and panging with a pain that would never really go away. He almost wanted to say that all of his experiences with the butterfly effect had been negative, painful…but then he thought about Kel…thought about him knocking on Sunny’s door three days before he was supposed to move away. He thought about Sunny opening it for him and venturing outside for the first time in four years. He thought about Aubrey suggesting they all stay at Basil’s house on Sunny’s last night in Faraway Town. And venturing deep into his memories of that long, distant past that often felt like nothing but a dream now, Hero thought about Mari again—her insistence that they help Aubrey when she was just a crying little girl who lost her shoe or that they take care of Basil and his garden. Or long, long before that…he thought about his dad buying a potted cactus and suggesting they take it over to their new neighbors. People never seemed to think of the impact of their smallest decisions. Hero certainly hadn’t before, and even now, he wasn’t really thinking of it, wasn’t really expecting Kyle’s assertions to be anything more than impassioned attempts to get him out of the house and to play ‘designated driver.’ But as it turned out, years later, whenever Hero would mentally list those seemingly insignificant but life-altering decisions, he would always throw in this moment when his mouth twitched into a conceding smile and he sighed, “Alright, Kyle. Just let me go change my clothes first; then we’ll head out.”

[novemquadragintillion]

Feb 15, 2023 I FINALLY FINISHED ORV AFTER FOUR MONTHS 💖💖

My favorite scenes (⚠️novel spoilers!!⚠️) and thoughts:

Yoo Junghyuk and Uriel sprinting to the demon world because they got a vague hint about Kim Dokja's possible whereabouts

KDJ's modifier becoming the Demon King of Salvation. KDJ telling everyone that he had explained how to kill a demon king before, so... *cries*

KDJ making 1863rd YJH eat dirt literally (it was sad but really funny too)

Yoo Sangah making the first fake revelation from the hole in the Library

YSA shoving YJH onto the chest of unconscious KDJ, making him read part of the Library during the Isle of Reincarnaters arc

YSA and KDJ's conversation in the dark right before she reincarnates

Persephone stroking KDJ's head and telling him, [You're our son. That is all that matters.] (Chp 389)

KDJ, for the first time, desperately wanting to live. And sent Jung Heewon and YJH (and Han Sooyoung if I remember correctly) the message that he wanted help, that he wanted to be saved. (During the War of Demons and Angels, and KDJ was inside the Indescribable Distance)

YSA taking the monkey king's headband off his head and PLACING IT ON KDJ'S HEAD HAHAHA

Secretive Plotter sincerely smiling <3

Literally every time Sun Wukong/ monkey king referred to KDJ as maknae /maknae-ah in a brotherly affectionate tone of voice

The Librarians seeing KDJ+co. off at the subway train. Their voices being cut off from the door closing.

KDJ+co.+Outer God Kings meeting the Most Ancient Dream. the line, [Please end the 'Most Ancient Dream'.] BROKE MY HEARTTT

YJH becoming an astronaut!!!

KDJ waking up in the hospital at the end <3 At least I like to believe he did wake up. HSY and YJH did an amazing job <333

I just can't believe it's over now. I can't wait to see all the scenes drawn in the webtoon!! (But I'm scared about the health of the webtoon artists. It's gonna take ages)

The scenes that are most vivid in my mind are YSA's fake revelation, Secretive Plotter (and later, KDJ's companions) being chased by the Hounds Chasing After the Abyss, the [Please end the 'Most Ancient Dream'] scene, the Outer God Kings holding the Most Ancient Dream, Persephone stroking KDJ's hair, and KDJ being a demon king with his wings and horns.

Someday I want to reread now that I know what happens.

I guessed that tls123 was Han Sooyoung (I couldn't figure out how, though, until it was revealed). I definitely didn't guess correctly who Secretive Plotter or the Most Ancient Dream were. I thought SP was Dokja of the future, and I can't remember what I guessed for MAD. Pretty sure I was thinking of YJH, but very tentatively lol

I have so many other thoughts, but I'll just say, what an insane story overall. Honestly with all the time looping and regressing and stuff, things got confusing for me, so as I got nearer to the end, I was repeatedly shocked at how well everything was being connected together. How HSY and KDJ and YJH were all interconnected and there wasn't a beginning nor an end. But it all made sense!! And there were so many funny and extremely heartbreaking moments. I'm so happy and excited that I get to delete the orv spoilers content tag now and see all the fanart I want without spoiling myself.

I think the thing that will stick in my mind for a long time, is 'Write something on the wall, because maybe someday, someone will read your message. Even when you're long gone, even when communication is impossible'.

Thank you author (authors??) for writing this story. It's definitely one of my favorites now💖💖💖

I hope the ongoing stories I'm reading and love, will end as amazingly as ORV. Like Tower of God, Witch Hat Atelier, Inso's Law (webcomic), Survival Story of a Sword King in a Fantasy World (webcomic), Blue Period, Houseki no Kuni, Seraph of the End, and lots more 💖💖💖

[esther-dot]

GRRM's treatment of Ratgar is something I go back and forth on a lot and is a prime example why Death of the Author is a thing lol. I saw one fan say that anyone with critical thinking skills (so let's remove Targies from the equation) would see R as a douchebag but she was annoyed because she thinks GRRM himself does not see R that way and I kind of agree lol. I keep seeing some meta writers saying that GRRM "definitely thinks badly of R and R/L is some commentary on grooming", etc., and I'm not saying I totally disagree, but I 100 percent believe when GRRM conceived of R/L he meant for it to be a romantic, completely consensual star crossed lovers situation and R was meant to be a tragic, but Capital R romantic figure. However, that fan also said that because so much time has passed since he wrote the first book (90s to 2023 lmao) a lot of the shit GRRM romanticized is now seen as problematic and would need to be "fixed" or retconned. That being said, I don't think ADOS will see the light of day so we may never get the full R/L backstory or GRRM may choose to have what happened with R/L forever be some amorphous mystery (the more I think of it the more I think this will be the case for various reasons). I also don't think GRRM himself has a lot of what happened worked out in his head as he is not a plotter, but a seat of his pants writer and changes things as they go. He's the type that puts things in his writing that look/sound cool or interesting and then needs to find a way to bring it together which is one of the reasons it's taking him forever to get the second to last book out.

(in reference to this ask)

I agree we need to remember the impact of his style of writing. He made a blog post last year talking about that, how he can reach a dead end or explores and finds something wonderful, how he’s discovering things as he writes, so it’s good to strive to be as open minded to revelations as the author is. Although yes, we should all feel free to dislike and criticize some of those developments!

My hesitancy to believe Martin has changed his perspective on Rhaegar is that in AGOT we get Lyanna’s anti Robert stance (anti unfaithful husbands) which imo is the biggest “Lyanna wouldn’t have wanted to go with Rhaegar” sign we have. And then it is in ACOK I believe, that we get prophecy baby as an additional motivation for Rhaegar to pursue Lyanna, not love. It’s later, ASOS (I think), when we learn she wept while he sang which to me would be where we see the “love story” theory really enters the picture. That’s why I feel like Martin’s version is likely “complex” rather than one thing. As in, to me, he’s adding layers, making us understand the initial story isn’t entirely correct and slowly unraveling the truth, not changing directions.

Agentrouka has talked about parallels between R/L and Jon/Ygritte, with Jon in the “maiden” role being moved by the singer, but Jon believed he loved Ygritte, and Sansa believed she loved Joffrey (another Stark maiden charmed by someone who sang to her), which is why I think Lyanna willingly went even if in the end, she regretted it. But even that...when I read Ned’s memories of her dying while holding the crown of roses...idk. It’s definitely romanticized. Like, holding a lock of hair or a dry flower from a lover as someone dies is something I’ve read before, so perhaps we’re meant to read that and damn Rhaegar for being the cause of her death, but I’m not sure. Whenever/if I ever do a reread, I’ll be open to being swayed in either direction.

I’ve said before that I think Martin has a much more expansive view of people than I do, as in, he truly doesn’t want us to allow one bad thing they do to negate the good, and on the one hand, cool, we’ve all made mistakes so we can appreciate the concept, but on the other, I’m not sure I agree with him on what is or isn’t a forgivable wrong. Based on things he’s said about Dany, I know that we don’t have the same view of teen girls, and that has impacted what I think he’s capable of writing.

I do agree that there will be a lot of things that we have conflicting views on without getting a clear cut answer. It might feel like a cop out, but it’s interesting to deny the reader an emphatic, authorial “here is the truth” and leave them to determine it themselves. For a series utilizing the POV structure, that seems fitting, and I’m sure that will be true for some prophecies as well. What is the truth? We have to determine it. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[pinkfestivalpeanuttree]

omg i finally remembered to ask this X_X, anyways i remembered you left some interesting tags on one of my posts and i wanted to ask, how do you view yjh's gender identity?

i personally went with the masc-presenting trans lesbian angle since that felt the most "in character" and also had a lot of comedic potential in my au but im very curious about how you've characterized her since it seems like you see her as more feminine so to speak (feel free to make your answer as long as you want jdhfshfdsj i love talking about gender)

omg it's betawooper from transfem yoo joo au 😳 hiii!

Firstly I want to say that I ADORE your au!!! It's definitely influenced some of my headcanons on yjh's gender identity. I did see her as more feminine before but now I see her as comfortable with being masc-presenting and more androgenous. Secondly, I am biologically female and been comfortable with she/her pronouns and presenting femininely my entire life. However, after learning more about the lgbtqia+ community and doing some self-reflection, I realized that I may be under on the non-binary umbrella. I haven't really experimented with my gender identity much. Unlike my romantic and sexual orientation (aroace spectrum), which I felt a connection to as soon as i learned what it was, and felt the urge to do more research on it, my gender was more ambiguous to me. I didn't really feel a strong connection to it, or rather, I felt a strong disconnect to it. I feel like I should insert a cool metaphor here. It's like a cloud? I can see different shapes from it, but I can't get closer or touch it. It's amorphous and not solid, and I can't get a good grip on it. I like being feminine, but I like being referred to with they/them pronouns, and also get gender envy (?) from more androgenous male characters. I'm comfortable with having no labels as of now, but I'd like to experiment with my appearance and pronouns more irl if I get the chance.

All this to say that I started projecting onto Yoo Joonghyuk lol. Kinda funny because usually i project my aroace-ness and neurodivergence onto my blorbos, not my gender identity, but between Breaking the Sky Swordsmanship and the Punisher it was just too perfect. (actually I've noticed i've been projecting my gender onto more characters since I've fleshed out my headcanons for yjh. It's not a conscious decision, but if someone were to ask me what I thought of [character's] gender, I'd have to pause and go, 'Well, I'm not sure, but they're definitely not cis.' It's actually the same way I come up with my aspec headcanons: 'not sure where exactly you are on the spectrum but I like you way too much to make you allo.')

Another fic that inspired my interpretation of yjh's gender is this fic, https://archiveofourown.org/works/42593688/chapters/106989912, which I love dearly with my entire heart but might not be up your alley. It has a more feminine yjh and romantic yoohankim (if i may dump some more lgbtqia+ headcanons here I hc both yjh and kdj as aspec and yoohankim as a queerplatonic relationship but I am okay with romantic yoohankim mostly because there is so little qpr/aro representation in general. I am also a multishipper and I love your sapphic seolhyuk so much!) and it's a post-epilogue fic with yjh figuring out her gender identity with the support of Kimcom.

So to me, Joonghyuk's gender is similarly ambiguous in nature, the Amorphous Untouchable Cloud of Gender™️, Definitely Not cis, and she's androgynous-presenting. I think she would keep her hair short throughout the scenarios for efficiency, but post-epilogue she'd grow it out. Not a lot, but she would absolutely use her androgyny to fuck with strangers. I think Secretive Plotter with long hair would be great because she'd give me more gender envy than I already have. I don't think she'd have labels for herself. I think she wouldn't like makeup the one time she lets Seolhwa put some on her but everyone agrees that she looks amazing with eyeliner. I think she should be allowed to use Breaking the Sky Swordsmanship on transphobes. I think she uses any pronouns but prefers she/her. I think, had it been canon, her being trans would have added a whole new layer to her character arc and the meta-ness of ORV and its themes of breaking free from predetermined roles, to her role as "protagonist" and the way she breaks free from being a "character" and just... it would have been super cool and I can't write an entire essay on how trans yjh would have improved ORV but I want to.

Thanks for the opportunity for me to infodump about my headcanons lol! Just curious, what tags/post was it that made you ask?

[mermaidsirennikita]

I'm only halfway through s2 of vikings: valhalla but I'm so glad they separated harald and freydis because these 2 didn't have any chemistry, anytime they were together on screen it was always boring land to me. And I could say the same for leif and his dead girlfriend from season 1 that they tried to convince me he was super in love with when she was so forgettable I couldn't even remember her name

Lol her name was Liv and I liked her just fine but she definitely didn’t do anything especially exceptional. I think that you could make an argument for her representing like��. Leif feeling like he’s a flop pagan Viking, which he kind of is, but yeah she was not this grand love.

The thing that has always been an issue with this franchise is building love stories over time. Even when they have pairings with a compelling hook and chemistry between the actors, they don't allocate a lot of story time to them, and the actors have to fill in the gaps--which means that when the writers take sudden turns, it's even more jarring. Take Rollo and Gisla, a ship I think was fairly popular, that actually did have a multi-episode "falling in love" arc that most of the show's ships didn't get, with actors that had chemistry. She basically hated him until suddenly she didn't and they fucked like bunnies, and it was fine because a lot of people, myself included, liked them--but then a time jump happened and they had huge issues and it was like "oh, this is sudden".

Now, Michael Hirst (who I think...... is prone to this kind of relationship writing or lack thereof) is not as directly involved in the new show. I think he's largely involved in a capacity wherein he came up with the concept, but it's not really something he guides; at least, that was the case last I checked. But I think you see his fingertips in the relationship writing. When you've got a good hook and chemistry, you can make it work--Leif and Mariam, I found really charming because of chemistry, and because I liked Leif, who seems to be very torn about his place in the world and his relationships with people who have big ambitions and opposing religious stances (Freydis as a pagan and Harald as a Christian), forming this romance with this learned woman who helped him grow. Even if it's like, oh wow, Leif, who is mourning a woman, is now falling in love with a woman who's dying from the outset lol. It's Vikings. Women Big Dying.

And I think this approach also works pretty well with Emma and Canute, who really don't have a lot of screentime together... But the actors have chemistry and their entire bond is really compelling. They're both plotters and schemers and politicians, and he's super into her big brain while having a different approach to governing.

I actuallllly really like the romantic alternative they set up for Harald in season 2, even though there was way less screentime devoted to development than I'd like. I loved where it ended in the season (what a hook) and it made way more sense for him, imo, than Harald and Freydis.

Like, I have no idea why Harald is into Freydis. She really doesn't seem to align with his vision (and at the end of the day, Harald is all self-centered ambition and we love that for him) and she has like... zero respect for his religion. And don't get me wrong, I am not saying "Christians good", but the show's huge "pagans good, Christians bad" thing is.... boring lol. Like, Freydis really hates Christians, Harald is a Christian, and like. She's right in the premiere. They should just stop.

I don't get Freydis as a character at all. The performance doesn't do it for me, to be honest, and she's basically incredibly disconnected from EVERYONE in the main cast. Like, yeah, the England arc is disconnected from the BIG ARC (which is Harald and Leif) but.... There's way less time devoted to it than there is to Freydis, and there are several established mains involved--Emma, Godwin, and to a lesser extent Canute. Whereas Freydis was mostly on her own last season, with characters who really didn't end up carrying over to this one with her, and this season they basically had to make people up to interact with her. And the only one I cared about was Bradley James, who SOLD EVERY DAMN LINE LOL.

And the show did such a NOTICEABLE 180 in s2 (which I definitely enjoyed) versus the end of s1. You end s2 with Leif and Harald split and Harald with Freydis. Suddenly, by the end of the s2 finale, Harald and Freydis are big broken up, and Leif and Harald are back together and have an entire BRO ROAD TRIP the whole season, during which Harald is set up with another woman who I suspect will be pretty important to his ambitions. Yes, Freydis has Harald's baby, but I'm 90% sure that this was largely because the show super wants a kid with Harald and Leif's DNA in it.

Like, clearly Freydis was written to be a Lagertha 2.0, and as much as I hated Lagertha by the end of the original series, she was a very popular character and basically the face of the show for much of its time post-Travis Fimmel. I feeeel like they basically have to have that locked in so that they can promote their "ooh woman roar shield maiden rah rah" bullshit that got them viewers with the first show... But they know Freydis individually didn't play as well for viewers in the first season as Harald and Leif, lol. They know the thing that's most fun about this show is watching This Hot Guy Who Thinks He's Kinda A Big Deal and His Zen Friend Who Somehow Is Going Along With This have zany adventure with wacky hijinks. Like, Leif and Harald will never kiss, because Vikings, but the show is investing more time and development into that relationship than any canonical romantic relationship. Much like... some other... homoerotic relationships... on the original show... pick one of 500.

(Sidebar: I like Emma and Canute together a lot, but I also think that Emma and Godwin have a similar deal going on where they don't canonically have a romantic thing happening, but because they are not romantic the show actually devotes more time to their, in this case contentious relationship, so you wanna see them kiss. And Godwin has fabulous chemistry with Emma AND Canute, and Emma and Canute have chemistry, so it's like whenever they're all together I wait for Canute to be like "you guys fight so much, you know how we can resolve this?" before pushing their faces together. Canute seems like the type of guy who'd initiate a threesome that way.)

Anyway, I really enjoyed s2 but that was something I noticed a lot. Freydis basically having an arc you could totally fast-forward through without missing anything related to the main plot (again)... While Leif and Harald have the meat of the story. She's supposed to be as important as them, but I don't think the writers have their hearts in it with her. So she's basically a total cypher. She's the Keeper of the Faith, and it's like? Cool? Harald is like, going to be an actual king and Leif is gonna discover America, but they need a Strong Viking Woman because they can't let Emma be the Strong Woman rep because she's not a viking and also wears dresses a lot, which means she is not actually strong.

Also, everyone who is against Freydis needs to be a super legit bad person because she gets to be Cool and Good, whereas Emma must be Cool and Treacherous. Because she does not fight with a sword (straightforward and masculine), she fights with politics and her brain, which are bad (subversive and feminine). Though I really had fun with Emma's arc this season and I don't think they were like... trying to make us hate her the way they used to try to make us hate Aslaug, it was kinda funny to watch the contrast.

Anyway. Bring on season 3 and for the love of God, continue to lean in to with Leif and Harald shenanigans versus Freydis like. Midsommar singing.

[eledritch]

hi ele!

i’m a fan of your writing, mostly your voltron fics but i’ve also read your dragon age, critical role, and captive prince stories, they are all so fucking good. where do i go to join your cult? /j

you’re insanely creative in your AUs or plot ideas, from plant porn to beauty in the beast with vampires but also magic schools with magic goddesses and incubi and cambions!

i was just wondering what inspires you when you’re coming up with ideas for fics and what normally comes first to you, the setting or plot or something else? plus, how did you develop such a strong sense of characterization? because across alternate universes and in every different life, your characters are so consistent and recognizable.

another way your creativity shines is the world building in your fics, it is always so fascinating and effortless, it’s a tantalizing background that really hooks me into the world of your stories. i don’t know if you have more notes on world building that didn’t make it into your fics but please know i would sell my soul for a napkin of extra notes for your fics. do you world build as you write or plan it in advance? and do some things you consider fic-canon not make it into the final edit or do you try to work everything you have in?

i know this is a lot, i’m very interested in your writing methods and how you develop so many amazing stories sorry! thanks for your many years of amazing writing and the time it took you to read this ask XD

Hi wow this is all so kind of you to say!! I'm so glad you enjoy my writing <3

so, I would say that usually when I am starting on a new story, I start with the characters and think about what kinds of situations, settings, conflicts, genres, themes, etc I want to write them in. Fantasy is one of my favorite genres because in many ways it feels the most flexible -- I am probably halfway between a pantser and a plotter in terms of story-planning, so I enjoy having space in my plots for them to change if I feel like they need to. I usually know the ending early on in the process tho.

Worldbuilding is one of my favorite aspects of writing and partly why I am so partial to writing AUs. I tend to do more planning for the worldbuilding up front than I do with the plot: my story worlds are scaffolds on which I can build the plot, if that makes sense. I've loved worldbuilding since I was a kid, and I think the best advice I can give for how to build story worlds is to read a lot of books. Books I read as a kid still influence how I worldbuild today (a few that come to mind are the Redwall, Series of Unfortunate Events, Narnia, & May Bird books), as well as videogames (Dragon Age always), places I've actually been, and honestly my academic reading/writing also definitely influences my creative writing, i.e., when thinking about how to write about social conflicts and cultural norms and especially colonization/empire in the worlds I write stories about.

For writing both characters and worldbuilding, I think it's really key to figure out how to suspend your readers' disbelief, and this starts with suspending your own disbelief. You have to believe in the worlds and characters you create. This means being comfortable with writing your characters in all kinds of situations, because people only show a lot of aspects of themselves (and therefore seem like real people, because people & their personalities & motives & backgrounds are complex) if they experience a lot of things. This may be why I gravitate towards writing stories with more dramatic tones and plots, because I find it much more fun to figure out characters by stressing them out. Seriously, I think characters solidify when they're placed in wild situations lol! And these don't necessarily need to be really serious perilous situations, but rather events and conflicts that fundamentally challenge the characters and force you to imagine how they might react in ways that feel true to how you've written them.

For example, one of my favorite character types to write is "kind of a bitch but like, a complicated bitch and kind of justified in their bitchiness because they're going through some stuff." Laurent from Captive Prince definitely falls under this; Keith from VLD, Essek from CR, and Astarion from BG3 also fit into this category (albeit all in really different ways and shades of bitchiness haha). I find these characters fun to write because they're characters who should probably change -- they also have clearly defined flaws and desires, which is great when you have to create a conflict and keep readers engaged/make readers get attached to these characters.

It's tough to root for a character who is consistently a bitch, never feels bad about it, has no reason for being that way, is never critiqued by other characters about it, and is not influenced to change by the narrative at all. It's a lot easier to root for a character who has some kind of inner conflict going on which is complemented by the outer conflict/s of the story. I'm especially fond of characters who have trust issues, because this is a flaw that obviously lends itself well to romance plots, but also can have some very interesting backstory implications and lead to really dynamic yet believable character development, as trust can be built incrementally and also wax and wane in a way that feels natural and builds narrative tension in a compelling way. It also allows you to work on other characters, since trust requires at least two people :)

Thank you for your questions!! I'm sure this is all over the place (it's finals week and dear god grad school finals week is actually hell) but best of luck in your own writing and I hope to share more fic soon~

[ack-cough]

I desperately need to ask about the lps horror ocs, please tell me everything and anything about them, what happened to the dog to make them(her?) Like That, and how does the rabbit play into all this?

(And also how do you combine horror so well with childhood nostalgia because this idea fucks so severely that I'm on the verge of digging through my old toybox to find my lps to make art about)

Idk how to word it so take the answers to a character builder from an app called story plotter(sorry I'm very scatter brained lmao)

Skylar Reed (yes this is a lps popular joke) is a girl from a small town coping with both adulthood, an injury and the loss of a close friend all in the same day

The bunny is the close friend on question.

I wasn't planning to write a whole story just build a world and characters to play with lol

The town is very welcome to nightvale vibes where horrors and anomalies are seen as normal. Just instead of taking place from the pov of a radio host, it's a pack of college age adult's.

When it comes to putting horror in old children's media thats harder to explain lol.

A lot of "hehe what if :)" and growing up on shitty creepypasta and MLP gore spwedpaints definitely played a role.

[dementedspeedster]

What are some wishlist plots you haven't gotten to do yet?

@chaosmultiverse

//This probably isn't a big surprise, but I'm not actually that big of a plotter! I don't have wishlist plotsor really think about plots that much (lol whoops guess that's why it's a bit of a weakness on my part) and instead I'm more interested in characters and getting to interact with certain characters at some point, etc. I'd definitely like Thad to meet a Max or even a Bart who is or was the Flash. Stuff like that.

[flickering-chandelier]

Writing tag game by @bonecarversbestie

Thank you so much for tagging me @thelov3lybookworm you're the best 🩷

First of all, I am SO SORRY I've been so inactive 😭 Life has been insanely hectic but I promise that I am still cranking away and will have new fics for you all soon!

Anyway, onto the tag...

Describe your writing process from idea to posting/publishing

Gosh, is it dumb to say I don't really know? 😅

If we're talking about my own ideas, I truly don't know where they come from sometimes. A lot of times I'll be reading or watching a scene in something and it won't go exactly the way that I want it to. So then I'll start imagining how I would've done it, and then it kind of takes on a whole new life of its own.

For requests, I try to brainstorm a little more and really focus on the prompt so I can hopefully make the requester the best thing that I can.

Once I've got my idea, I honestly just sit down and write. I do get stuck, and then I'll have to go for a walk or take a shower or something and try to figure things out.

I edit and proofread as I go, and usually just post it when it's done.

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I am a pantser alllll the way. For better or worse!

What do you listen to when you are writing?

Almost always Taylor Swift. She always makes me want to write, especially her moody, sad ones.

What’s your drink of choice(while writing)?

I'm not usually drinking much while writing, but once in a while I like to go to a coffee shop and get myself a latte.

Promote yourself! What’s your favorite thing you’ve written?

Ooooh, this is hard. One of my favorites is definitely Was Any of it True? and all of its sequels. I wasn't expecting to love this one so much, and it got a lot of traction which was really exciting. I also just love the characters in that one.

Share a fic of yours that you think is underrated/deserves more love.

Maybe Second Chance? I feel like Cassian doesn't get enough love sometimes 🤣

Do you have any advice for new writers?

I know everyone probably says this, but...Literally just sit down and write. Don't worry about if it's good, or if people will like it, or if you're formatting things correctly.

Just go for it! The best way to get better is to just do it and keep practicing.

What is a writing style/technique that others do really well that you'd like to get better at?

I am SO BAD at setting descriptions. What does the meadow look like? What does the room look like? Don't know, don't care.

(Cuz idk how to do it lol)

Is there a character you were surprised you enjoyed writing as much as you did?

Azriel! I was really new to the fandom and wasn't sure if anyone would even be interested in reading about him, but he was intriguing to me so I went for it... and now he's like my bread and butter!

Tagging: Anyone who wants to do it because I don't have writer friends lolol sorry

[hotelyamato]

Knowing your partner well can potentially make writing together a lot easier.

Repost, do not reblog!

NAME : Hanafuda

(I don't have a faceclaim for OOC posts, so have a Yukiho with the "deal with it" sunglasses.)

PRONOUNS : The male ones (I'm pedantic). My dumb conservative side gives me a dumb psychological complex that keeps me from just answering with a simple "he/him" (dammit).

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION : Discord. Notifications about answered asks, reblogged threads, and messages sometimes fail to reach me. Discord simply doesn't have that problem. But when messaging on Tumblr works, it works.

Also, I tend to forget who people on Discord are. I'm dumb, and bad with names.

NAME OF MUSE(s) : Yamato, Aya Shameimaru, Toyosatomimi no Miko, Hieda no Akyuu, Utsuho Reiuji, Fu Xuan, twenty-one OCs (too many to name)

BEST EXPERIENCE : I can think of two. Both happened back when I still wrote muses from Hetalia (yikes). One was a royalty AU set during the French Revolution, which was tons of fun, and the other was based off a mission from Sniper Elite 4, but more on the comedic side (think Hogan's Heroes).

RP PET PEEVES / DEALBREAKERS : If your blog consists mostly of NSFW, then I won't be interested in writing with you. I hope that this can be respected.

I know that Google Docs is a convenient place to put your rules and muse list, but it still bothers me just a little having to go there to find them. Privacy stuff, I suppose. I guess Carrd is better, but I don't use that either. I'm retro.

MUSE PREFERENCES : Characters that I know well and like! It's always nice to see a well-done OC, too (God knows mine are terrible).

PLOTS OR MEMES : I don't think that I'm the best plotter, and I've always found threads from memes fun and interesting. (I just like getting asks, what can I say?)

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES : Whatever I think the thread demands. I don't want it to be so short that it's difficult to reply to, but I don't want to pad it out with fluff, either. I prefer to show, not tell, though I was much more rigid about this rule years ago, and less so nowadays.

BEST TIME TO WRITE : When it's still light outside, though I definitely have a lot of experience writing after midnight, too.

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S) : My OCs embody certain personality traits/quirks of mine and share my hobbies (they're split up, of course). I think that Yamato is like an ideal person that I want to strive to be: smart, friendly, and good at cooking. Aya speaks to my investigative side, Miko is laid-back like me, Akyuu is the bookworm, Okuu obfuscates stupidity... and Fu Xuan is well-read, too, which I'd like to think I might be.

Actually, I spend a lot of time researching things I'm into, so it's more like my head is filled with a bunch of (useless?) fun facts and anecdotes, so, you know...

tagged by: Stole it from @shallliveoninsong, deal with it.

tagging: @everyone (lol)

[halfawitch-willow]

Silv's Resolutions 2024

(Yes I'm using the same header twice leave me alone I worked hard on it lol)

Write your RPer Resolutions for 2024! (What are some goals for yourself as a writer? Improve descriptions? Plot with more members? Etc.)

Plan ahead a little better. I’m a very in-the-moment kind of plotter, which works for like day to day stuff, but for bigger plots it’s kind of a pain. I really loved doing Willow Shop, but it was super last minute and I would love to have more time for a plot like that to really come together.

Write at least one resolution, or “goal,” that you have as an RPer for your character(s)

Willow: Be more confident! Willow’s starting to come out of survival mode and her personality is starting to come through more, which I’m so excited to explore. I also want to fully expose her as a Magick and have her stop using her concealment stone. Enough people know and she’s slowly letting more people in that at some point keeping the secret is kind of impossible.

Clarion: Get messy. Clarion so far has been really composed and put together, and I really want to explore more of who she is underneath that. I also want her to become more active in town politically and really throw her weight around, so to speak. She came in too late to really do anything about the Eboshi situation, but I definitely want to get more involved in politics with her.

Write at least one resolution IN CHARACTER for your characters. What do THEY want to accomplish or change in the New Year?

Willow: Pass all her classes, keep working hard, don’t fuck up her friendships, figure out this whole fairy thing???

Clarion: Same as it is every year; protect the Hollow and do the best she can for her fairies. 

List one or more characters you have never interacted with that you would like to do so

Maximus - His unintentionally-hilarious-Stick-in-the-Mud personality has captivated me lol

Emira - Willow has had it too good for too long with these Boiling Isles characters lmao, make her cryyyy

Bullseye - I Just Think He’s Neat, and my next character is a Horse Girl so they have so much to bond over lol

Paul - Look he keeps liking Willow’s tweets I need them to meet she needs a mentor with the same fucked up relationship w their magic that she does

Jessie - She and Clarion need to hang out and form a Queens Who Are Too Old For This club lol

Talk a bit about your plotting style – what plots are you most drawn to? Do you prefer to come with a fully-formed idea and plot off that, or throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks?

It honestly depends? I’m a pretty flexible plotter. I do love throwing things at the wall, especially since it gives me a bit of flexibility to add and change things if I feel they’ll fit better. Most of Willow Shop was kind of off the cuff, and as stated above, very last minute. I’m trying to get better about planning out in the long term what arcs my characters are going through instead of just going off of vibes alone.

Talk a bit about character relationships – what relationships are you most drawn to? How do you prefer to approach shipping (if at all!)? What, specifically, are you looking for right now for your character relationships? 

Can I just say how delighted I am that Willow has found like her little group of people? I love the Weed Killers and her relationship with each of them is so lovely. I want her to start to branch out more from that little group she feels safe with and start to blossom into the chaotic lil extrovert she was always meant to be lol.

Clarion needs friends. Just in general. Being a 140+ year old monarch is fucking lonely, man, and there’s like one other fairy that’s even close to her age lol. All of our fairies are babieeeees. Also, she needs rivals. Serious or just for the Bit. I think that could be fun.

Oh boy, I love me a good romance. I have Plans for the coming year that I’m so excited for, especially since I haven’t had a proper RP Romance in a *while*. I’m a romantic at heart and I love the pining as much as I love the domestic stuff, and I really love AU shipping bc it just gives the opportunity to explore more beyond the realms of canon! That being said, I tend to avoid break ups when I can because they’re depressing as hell, and as much as I like to torment my characters, I really don’t want to be stuck in that headspace for too long, so I’m usually in it for keeps when it comes to ships unless we go into it together like “yeah they’re not gonna last, but it’s going to be fun!”

Plotting Exercise! Pick one of the resolutions/goals in #3 and plan a rough guideline to how you could accomplish it. Here’s an example.

Wing It Like Witches - Spring Break Edition!

The Boiling Isles comes to Swynlake! Specifically a bunch of uni students come to Swynlake for Spring Break, including the infamous Boscha. They cause General Mayhem all over town.

WILLOW and EILONWY run into Boscha and her friends in town and get into an argument when Boscha starts on Her Bullshit again, and Eilonwy challenges the visiting students to a Grudgby match to get them to back off once and for all. Stakes are if Willow’s team wins, Boscha and Co leave her alone. If Boscha’s team wins, Willow has to return to the Isles for the summer to be Boscha’s personal water girl.

WILLOW and AMITY work together to teach their friends how to play Grudgby for the match and Willow has a panic attack brought on by Boscha’s reappearance and general Grudgby Trauma

JESSICA helps calm Willow down and they talk about being out Magicks that aren’t necessarily liked or approved of in their respective homes

The Weed Killers get LILITH to act as referee for the match, as well as help them make an approximate Grudgby field near Atlantis Lake

WILLOW, AMITY, and EILONWY face off against Boscha and her team in front of the tow, with HUNTER having to sub in after Eilonwy gets injured. Boscha rips off Willow’s concealment stone, exposing her to the town, but Willow then uses her Talent to pull off the Thorn Vault and beat the opposing team.

WILLOW is now an Out Magick in town and does not wear her concealment stone anymore