#in order to make a comment ON WORLDBUILDING ITSELF

[dingodad]

to be fair i think the reasons why i believe quadrants r fake versus why i believe classpects r fake are pretty crucially different. like homestuck kind of goes out of its way to trick you into thinking classpects could be real whereas i genuinely dont think hussie ever expected anyone to read about moirallegience and think wow... so romantic.. i want that in my life ❤ LOL

[blackkatdraws2]

[Original Characters] One of the Tower Residents (who is usually very stoic) is acting strange. Did the Missiontakers trigger something? (-or is this an unscripted scene?)

[More Info under Read More.]

These two are fan-OCs for a webnovel titled [Being an Extra Actor in an Escape Game]

Quick premise for the novel: There was an apocalypse that trapped the whole world in a game-like tower. Missiontakers need to go into a Tower Resident's Nightmares and solve them in order to progress higher up the tower [and maybe escape.] What the Missiontakers didn't know was that the Tower Residents are actually also real people just like them, but they're more limited in what they're allowed to do because the tower forces them to become Actors and pretend like they're NPCs.

The older man is called Kim Seung-Jun.

He's a Tower Resident that's trapped on the higher levels of the tower.

He's never acted out any major roles for a Nightmare and is always in the background.

Even among the other Tower Residents, he's a hard man to talk to, only voicing a curt reply that doesn't leave any openings to continue the conversation.

The other man is called Nick Fuentes

He's a semi-well known Missiontaker that wants to climb all the way up the tower to find the escape.

He's usually the helper of the group and he's good at being flexible with adapting and making quick decisions in tough situations.

Gets attached to people quickly if they're nice to him.

Basic OCs premise: Nick Fuentes sees the usually stoic Kim Seung-Jun acting unlike his character. He starts to get more curious about the older man, and their slow development but eventual close relationship made him unravel a different point of view about truth of the Tower and everyone who was trapped in it.

-------------✦

KOREAN PEOPLE, please tell me in the reblogs and comments if I got the old man's name right!! I'll change it into something more appropriate for his character and age if it sounds silly. I'm a huge fan of Asian webnovels, the things I always consume are Chinese/Korean webnovels that I find in illegally English translated websites HAHAHA. It affected the way I named my characters because Chinese/Korean names are the only thing I'm constantly being exposed to. [But I have no idea if these names are actually correct or not. Sorry!]

Oh MAN, I have not re-visited this novel in YEARS. Literally one of my biggest worldbuilding inspirations [not to mention it has all my favorite tropes in it] and I will continue loving it forever.

I found the novel by pure chance. At the time, there was only one website that translated it into English. I thought the premise was interesting and decided to give it a try, thinking it was just another one of those garbage junk food novels that I'd drop half-way, but no, it was actually really good.

I'm not gonna spoil anything about the novel itself lololol I'm only gonna be working on my OCs.

To be honest, I'm probably gonna make an original world and story for them soon. I like this idea too much, I'll make it mine someday. For now though, I will have a minor hyperfixation.

Go check the novel out, by the way!! It's great.

[johnbierce]

Hello kind sir!

I have read your Mage Errant series many a time, and finally decided to try something that I've been wanting to do for a long while now. Write my own book. I was hoping to ask you for some advice on how to build my own magic system, as books like yours and He Who Fights With Monsters have some of the best magic systems I've ever read in any book. I personally like your magic system over any of the close seconds I've seen, honestly just because. Could I ask you how you thought up such a good magic system, and some dangers I might fall into?

Many thanks,

AncienRaven124

Oooh, this is a topic that I can- and have- write thousands of words on. Here's a post I wrote on the topic almost six years ago now on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/cg9az5/the_problem_with_the_hardsoft_magic_scale/ I did a lecture on magic system design for Elegant Literature magazine last year (as well as another on science-inspired worldbuilding), though those are only available for subscribers to the magazine. https://www.elegantliterature.com/authorhq/#all

I am, in fact, planning an entire nonfiction worldbuilding book, with extensive magic system sections- though that's likely a couple years off.

I'm... kinda in the position of having too much to say on the topic, honestly. It's hard to think of what specific advice to give you. My process tends to be deeply research-heavy- Mage Errant's magic system takes inspiration from sources as diverse as geology and chemistry to Foucault's description of medieval "linguistics" in The Order of Things. I build highly complex magic systems that are emergent processes from alternate natural law, and it's a ton of fun for me, but it's hardly the only good way to do it. I think, more important than making a complex or original magic system? Is figuring out how it would impact the setting. Not just fight scenes and epic battles (though those are certainly fun), but everyday infrastructure, logistics, engineering, art, agriculture, even entertainment. One example I used in the Elegant Literature magazine? A magic system that has only one effect- altering the compressibility of water. In real life, even in the ocean depths, water compresses by less than one percent. It's ridiculously resistant to compression. If you could alter that property, you could do some crazy stuff! Create hyper-efficient water hydraulic engines, where the magic makes water compressible on the down-stroke, then deactivates on the up-stroke, gaining a disproportionate quantity of mechanical energy as the water violently decompresses. Or, use the magic to create non-incendiary explosives by filling up a metal tank with far more compressed water than would otherwise fit, and when you release the magic... bang. You could have some absolutely bizarre effects on water sports- I have trouble even fully figuring out how fast a swimmer could go by selectively making water compressible in front of them. Heck, you could probably design a fire-free technological civilization with that magic, with enough engineering and hydrology know-how. (Hence why I'm not using that magic system for anything- I'm a neophyte in engineering, and fluid dynamics is... look, the less said, the better. I'm bad at normal math, let alone math for modeling fluid dynamics.) As long as you keep your magic system consistent, sufficiently comprehensible, and fun, the specifics of the system itself are frankly less important than the applications. It's the creative ways that you use magic in your society, the way it alters culture, language, civilization, history, even art, that really are going to matter the most, far over the properties of the magic itself. And readers don't need to fully understand the magic system- nor do your characters! Having a magic system that is still being researched, that people are still discovering principles of or uses for, is the approach that I prefer and recommend! Just... play fair with it. Don't introduce random new magical principles as a deus ex machina. Foreshadow, build groundwork, etc.

Oh, and above all else? Make sure your magic system serves the story, not vice versa. Whether you're making up the rules as you write, and only fixing them up during editing; or starting with a hyper-strict magic system and forcing yourself to come up with creative solutions to magical problems that follow the rules? Make sure it all serves the story.

[roseaesynstylae]

Star Wars: Republic Commando: Triple Zero, Chapter 6

I had a nice vacation.

I visited family. I soaked up the sun. I created an AO3 account and have been collecting bookmarks and posting short fic, so when I feel confident enough to link it, there'll be something substantial. I began reading my way through the High Republic. I started refining OCs that I might post fic about in a year.

And now I'm coming back to this.

(Hand to God, instant burst of rage when I opened the book.)

"In five millennia, the Mandalorians fought with and against a thousand armies on a thousand worlds. They learned to speak as many languages and absorbed weapons technology and tactics from every war. And yet, despite the overwhelming influence of alien cultures, and the absence of a true homeworld and even species, their own language not only survived but changed little, their way of life and their philosophy remained untouched, and their ideals and sense of family, of identity, of nation, were only strengthened. Armor does not make a Mandalorian. The armor is merely a manifestation of an impenetrable, unassailable heart.

-- Mandalorians: Identity and Language, published by the Galactic Institute of Anthropology"

That right there is complete bullshit.

No culture exists that long and interacts with others without being influenced in some way. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, they would pick up something. I know Star Wars doesn't necessarily involve itself with the nitty-gritty of worldbuilding, but...

Part of this feels like I'm overreacting to something small, but over the course of my vacation, I have lost what little willingness I had to be nice to Karen Traviss, her Mando Sues, and all the bullshit in this series. I'm sorry, but I'm going to be a bitch going forward.

Anyway.

There's something about this excerpt that really makes me feel like it's lording its (unrealistic and impossible) linguistic "purity" over everyone else. This is a case of "If this were a different author/book/series, I wouldn't be bothered."

Mando-Shilling: 2

I haven't even gotten to the actual content of the chapter yet and I'm metaphorically throttling this book. This is a bad sign.

"'General,' he said. He paused to nod formally at Etain, which -- given Skirata's general contempt for anyone not in armor -- seemed quite an encouraging start, Fi decided."

We are not pleased.

"'In here, ma'am.' He could make ma'am sound like girl somehow; he could do the same with General. But as a Jedi she had no right to feel affronted by the lack of deference. She realized that she simply wished he would like her. 'Just a little chat and you can find General Jusik and catch up on events.'

Yes, Skirata gave the orders."

Okay!

This isn't lack of deference; this is just being an asshole.

Oh, he can make ma'am sound like girl? Well, I can make Kal Skirata sound like eat shit and die.

"'In urban operations, a woman is always useful, Jedi or not. Another aid to invisibility -- old di'kute like me and females like you.'"

I hate you so fucking much.

It's a Man's World: 2

Like I said above, I have lost all patience for this series' bullshit. I'm going to go look at some pro-Jedi/Bad Batch content (my version of touching grass) and possibly assemble romantic prompts.

My last comment on this chapter?

Jedi-Bashing: 9

Mando-Shilling: 2

It's a Man's World: 2

Shut the Fuck Up, Kal: 1

Deltas, Move Out: 4

Mird, My Beloved: 3

Is This The Bad Batch?: 2

Main Post

[ballinandcantgetup452]

I Genuinely Do Not Know if Gege Akutami is a Good Action Writer

Don't get me wrong, when Gege works, he REALLY works. The cursed energy power system by ITSELF is proof that Gege is bare minimum a genius when it comes to worldbuilding. But, I don't think that Gege Akutami knows how to write a story with a big cast using that system.

I'm specifically referring to how Gege has a really bad habit of benching people that are too powerful. Now, this isn't entirely a bad thing that Gege does. When he benched Gojo, it made narrative and thematic sense. I'm considering Gojo to be the exception to this problem that Gege has. But, let's look at every character that Gege has benched for what I could see to be no other reason than they were too strong in order of most to least justified.

Fumihiko Takaba: This one is definitely the least offensive benching on this list. I can imagine that Comedian is a very tough CT to choreograph in a group setting while keeping your overall serious tone. The Shinjuku Showdown for just about its entire runtime feels tense. Comedian is not only an overpowered CT, but it's also a tonally overpowering CT. You can write Comedian to be scary if you have no idea how it works; but, that's still making the Shinjuku Showdown all about Takaba and not Sukuna like Gege intended. So, having Takaba being on the Sukuna Squad would be a lot of work on Gege to properly balance. You were going to have to bench him in some way. I'm fine with him being in charge of taking down Kenjaku. That fight was probably my favorite fight in all of JJK, and, it makes complete sense as to how and why he got benched.

Nobara Kugisaki: While I'm ecstatic that Nobara's alive, it does kind of hurt the story in retrospect, even if her return was properly built up. If Gege had simply killed Nobara, then I wouldn't be putting her on this list. Because sure, Nobara had a technique that would've allowed her to damage the soul from a distance-something that proved to be INTEGRAL during Shinjuku-so killing her could make the Shinjuku Showdown a whole lot harder, but her death meant a lot to the cast. It deeply affected Yuji and caused him to grow even more as a character. So, I was willing to let it slide. But, the fact that Gege kept her alive is proof that he knew that he had made her too powerful and he wanted to use her for later. If he had built this up more instead of one passive "well she might be alive" comment, I wouldn't be complaining. However, here we are.

Hiromi Higuruma: This one is definitely the most egregious in my opinion. The fact that he is alive significantly hurts this story in retrospect. I wouldn't even be making this list in general if he was alive. Something to keep in mind is that I'm trying to look at this story from both a powerscaling and a narrative perspective. So I get why Gege killed him. Anybody with an insta-kill weapon has to be dealt with in some shape way or form. And, once again, killing him gave Yuji more motivation. I honestly don't even get why Gege did it this time with the knowledge that there isn't going to be a JJK2. Keeping Higuruma alive exclusively hurts the story. Especially because he had already mainly served his narrative purpose in the Culling Games.

I know that this is a pretty small list. However, keep in mind, this all happened in one arc. At the very end. So, it overall hurts the package. In making this list, I have gotten to thinking about it, and, I don't think that Gege is a bad writer. I think that he does phenomenal with smaller casts. I genuinely believe that Hidden Inventory is one of the best arcs in the series. I just think that Gege got a little too ambitious and he couldn't wrap things up in time because of mangaka fatigue so he got sloppy at the very end.

[domokunrainbowkinz]

my productivity at work has been tanking...anyways here are my recent reads:

how to survive as a maid in a horror game (manhwa)

the black mirror (18+) (manhwa)

the other world's books depend on the bean counter (manga/light novel)

I will become the villain's poison taster (manhwa/webnovel)

the villain's savior (manhwa)

turning the mad dog into a genteel lord (manhwa/webnovel)

cherry magic! thirty years of virginity can make you a wizard?! (manga)

how to survive as a maid in a horror game: honestly not sure how to feel about this one bc I was expecting more horror, but the ratio is more like 70% comedy, 30% horror. I do think horror and comedy can work well, but I almost wish this one went more hard in the horror direction. the tone is also a bit too light for my taste so I don't think I'm gonna continue this one.

the black mirror (18+): RAAAAAGH I WISH THIS HAD SIDE STORIES OR SOMETHING I NEED MORE!!!!! really scratched the horror itch for me, but I wish it was a bit longer or more fleshed out (its only 62 chapters so like i finished this one Fast). I really like how it slowly feeds you pieces of what happened in the past to let you connect the dots, it actually kept me on my toes!!! I also really liked how some of the panels were drawn and framed, and i also liked how it conveyed tension in certain scenes. I think this would really tickle someone with a mirror phobia, bc oh boyyyyyy it is CHOCK full of creepy mirror imagery. my only gripe is that I would've liked some more fleshing out of the MC and ML's backstory, they showed us enough to tie the story together, but I think if they gave it a little extra oomph it would've helped me be more invested in the characters. however I still thought this was a great read and I really enjoyed it!!! psychological thriller, supernatural horror, toxic4toxic couples who have nasty kinky sex my beloved....

the other world's books depend on the bean counter: I started reading this manga bc I saw a YouTube comment describing it as "a bl manga where an accountant gets isekaid into a fantasy land and he decides to still work as an accountant there bc he's so worn down by the Japanese work mentality" and like Boy they are not wrong, my guy does NOT know wtf a break is. you can tell that work has consumed his entire life bc he literally cannot think of anything else but work and everything he does is motivated by his desire to work and prove that he deserves to essentially exist in the world. he was accidentally summoned alongside a teenage girl, who's the prophesied holy maiden, and even though the kingdom is providing him with food, money and shelter no questions asked (as compensation for him being accidentally summoned), he still feels the need to provide labour in order to justify this treatment. and the thing is he refuses to do the bare minimum and runs himself into the ground for a place that essentially kidnapped him bc he literally doesn't know how else to function. and in addition to this, the actual worldbuilding itself is so interesting!!! bc he's an accountant, he carries out audits and budget proposals and whatnot, and through this pov you learn about the power structure, politics, and the system the kingdom is based on, idk I just found the dissection of the resource allocation and magic system so fascinating. all the characters are also so fun to read about (YES EVEN YUA EVERYONE IS SO MEAN TO HER!!! SHES A 16 YEAR OLD GIRL HOW ELSE DO YOU EXPECT HER TO ACT) and I also love the rship between the 2 leads bc the ML is like "good god you live like this????" and forces the MC to live a healthy lifestyle. there is also a very bullshit reason for why they need to sleep together that can only ever happen in bl and it was so stupid i was like "god i love bl (affectionate)". overall I really enjoyed this!! I also heard it's getting an anime adaptation and I WILL be on that shit once it comes out.

I will become the villain's poison taster: very fun and lighthearted read, it was giving villain x henchwoman in the beginning but it slowly grows into "oh he's down Stupid bad" and then by s2 he would blow up the entire world if anything happens to her. we love to see that in a man <3 the banter was so much fun to read and the 2 leads have such funny interactions. the FL is also extremely stupid and ditzy but in a way that's fun to read about. this story is also definitely for the villain enjoyers, since it's from the pov of the villains and the plot seems to be following the "white magic = black magic but the white mages pursue the black mages bc they're deemed 'impure' and 'evil'" which like yes pretty cliche but hey this is a "no thoughts head empty" read for me. I'm probably just going to stick with the manhwa since I love how the artist draws expressions in this, and also again bc it's a very turn-off-your-brain type of read.

the villain's savior: idk how else to describe this except that it was hypnotically heterosexual. this is very VERY much an "I CAN FIX HIM!!!!" type of story. I honestly don't know why I even continued reading it bc nothing about it stood out to me but the interactions between the 2 leads had some very tender and loving moments, and I guess that's why I continued??? I usually don't like these types of stories but the way this was written had me like "yeah...I can see the vision actually..." personally the only feelings I got from this were that it's definitely a manhwa that I read lol...this one was for sure a "no thoughts head empty only vibes and feelings" type of read

turning the mad dog into a genteel lord: THIS ONE IS SO FUNNY i love love LOVE the art in this one, ESEPCIALLY how the ML is drawn like i am being SERVICED. AND I LOVE IT. the way the jokes and humour are set up and portrayed is so good that I'm actually gonna wait for the manhwa chapters rather than reading ahead in the novel. I also love the characters as well, the FL is very likeable and the type of heroine I like to read about...I love how she's not naive to the world but also willingly keeps herself ignorant of issues that are essentially above her pay grade (even tho the plot Will Happen whether she wants to or not). she also is very realistic about her situation and imo is emotionally mature, it's so nice to read about someone who...you know...acts like an actual human being lol.... her rship with the ML is also very sweet, however it is a "taming a wild beast" type of story for those who may not enjoy it. i personally am eating this UP. the ML gives me cuteness aggression he's soooooooooooo babygirl. I'm also like 99% sure I've already guessed the ML's true identity since it's pree obvious but I am very curious to see where the plot takes them!! very fun read, I was smiling thru the whole thing

cherry magic! thirty years of virginity can make you a wizard?!: YO this was so cute??? I think this would he a perfect read for me whenever I'm in the mood for something light and fluffy, I don't think it's gonna be something I binge. this was also extremely funny, especially scenes where adachi is like "wow look at kurosawa he's so calm and cool and collected" and then he accidentally brushes up against him and kurosawa's thoughts are just "if adachi was my man I'd fold him into a dumpling and set him in a soup at the perfect temperature so he'd be nice and warm all the time" like my guy u r insane. and they are both so down bad for each other. I'm honestly not sure where the plot is going bc I'm now at the part where (SPOILERS) adachi loses his mind-reading powers (SPOILERS), but from what I've gathered it seems to be a very character-driven, slice of life story, which is why I dont feel the need to binge it. overall I can see why it was so popular it has 2 (TWO) live action dramas, and anime, AND an audio drama.

[squarebracket-trickster]

Hey I’m new to tumblr and want to start posting some of my writing for people to read and comment one. Do you have any tips on WIPs, drafts and how to get attention on it? Very new to this space so I don’t really know how things are done.

Hi! First of all, welcome to Tumblr (and Writeblr)!!

The first thing I recommend you do is make a Writeblr intro post and tag it #writeblr intro. Introduce yourself, what genres you like to write, who some of your inspirations are, what your WIP(s) is/are about. You can scroll through the tag to see what others have posted if you need ideas.

You can also make WIP specific intro posts and tag them #WIP intro. These tend to include images that match the vibe of your WIP and will also contain a blurb of what your story is about and a snippet or two of your writing.

For any writing you post - snippets, full chapters, WIP intros, OC intros, single sentences from your WIP - you can also make use of tags like #writing, #writeblr, #writers on tumblr, #fiction writing, #creative writing, #original writing, and genre specific tags like #fantasy writing. Put the five highest trending tags first to guarantee your post shows up in them.

Another great way to grow your blog (and help your writing find an audience) is to interact with other writeblrs. Follow the people who reblog your intro post, send them asks (and ask games like Story-Telling Saturday (STS) or Worldbuilding Wednesday (WBW)), reblog their WIPs, jump in on open tag games. My post for how tag games work can be found here. The more people get to know you the more people will send you asks back, tag you in games, and most importantly reblog your WIP posts so they can reach a wider audience.

You can also specify in your bio if you are ask/tag game friendly. You are more likely to get tags/asks if other writeblrs are certain they won't be annoying you haha.

In general, posts containing links to original writing hosted on other platforms (google docs, wordpress etc.) tend not to do as well as posts that contain the writing itself. I've also heard that posts with images and interesting titles tend to do better. Same with formatted paragraphs and dialogue as opposed to a single, huge text block.

Another thing you can do to help readers find your work is make a master-post for all your WIPs and pin it to the top of your blog. List each WIP, then add hyperlinks below (in reading order) to each post containing snippets/excepts from it. [To make a hyperlink: click on the three dots on the top of the post you want to link to, select "copy link", then go to the post you want to link from, select the text you want to link, then ctrl+v. This will be your end result.]

In settings, you can also feature up to 10 tags that you use for all content on your blog related to specific WIPs. This will help make it easier for readers to search for and find your content too.

My last bit of advice is to talk about writing on your blog (and use the tags). Make little jokes and memes, those "oof relatable" kind of posts, and make and reblog writing advice from time to time. It is the hard truth of WriteBlr that these posts get a lot more interaction than original writing does but they do serve to get your blog seen by more people because they are short, relatable, have wide appeal, and/or low-effort to read. Strangely, they seem to prompt people to check out your blog. I tend to get a small wave of new followers every time one of my posts reaches 100 notes or more. I can only speculate as to why this is.

I hope something in here helps and good luck!

If anyone else has any tips feel free to add on!

[garmgeyr]

Introduction & Interaction Notes

// Hello hello, Ree here with a second muse o/ I couldn't resist joining the HSR boom, but more importantly, I wanted to get elbow-deep in Penacony's history and worldbuilding. I've been in love with this planet and its cast since 2.0, but Penacony's founding figures are by and large my favorites.

To kick things off, as GH was first a Genshin RPC, I thought that it might be helpful to write some sort of brief (lmao) overview for interacting with Gallagher with Teyvat muses and muns who haven't played HSR in mind. This character is a little (a lot) complicated as of 2.2, but I have both a spoiler and spoiler-free summary. All of this is also written up on this blog's notes page.

Spoiler Free (if you haven’t played HSR’s story through 2.2)

You can find Gallagher just about anywhere in Penacony's dreamscape. He has the uncanny tendency to show up at just the right moment. However, all threads with him will need to take place in the dreamscape and/or within the Asdana system for story reasons. Fortunately, Penacony’s dreamscapes are massive. There’s plenty to do.

The impression he gives off is that of a tired, middle-aged man, but he’s generally friendly toward visitors. Inexplicably, characters will believe him to be reliable from the moment they meet him, and - unconsciously or not - will trust him as one of Penacony’s security officers. He’s also a drinksmith, which he clearly enjoys more.

I base my characterization mostly on his JP VA’s performance, who slurs his words more to sell the image of a drunk old man. Gallagher himself says that he’s been called a number of names, “drunk” included, so this trait is free game for any character to comment on. He also tends to lean more crass and blunt than the ENG loc.

There’s little else you need to know about him prior to an interaction. Let him make you a drink and spin you a few stories.

Spoiler Version (if you’re caught up with HSR as of 2.2 and/or just don’t care about spoilers)

FITTING GALLAGHER INTO GH

Gallagher is implied to disappear at the end of 2.2 because of the concept that a lie that’s been discovered as a lie can’t exist anymore, assuming that something must be perceived to be true in order to exist in the first place. While the loading screen explicitly says that “Gallagher” breathed his last, he talks in the story as if this isn’t necessarily certain and that it’s beyond his control, so I’m taking this as an excuse to give him an ambiguous period between his last scene in 2.2 and his actual end. He knows that his end is coming, but it hasn’t happened yet. (conversely, he could still exist in the minds of those who never discovered the truth, but “died” in the mind of the player/the Trailblazer, but that theory overly-complicates things so we’re leaving it at this).

Gallagher is a work of fiction, created by a History Fictionologist. As such, he doesn’t technically exist outside of the dreamscape. To get around this and allow him more freedom within GH, different “versions” of Gallagher will be created for different planets and nations in Teyvat. * I'm aware that Penacony itself is unique and the Fictionologist likely can't create different avatars outside of its dreamscape, but this is a compromise between consistency with the game's lore and allowing a recognizable canon character to leave Penacony for GH's purposes. His character stories point to a base personality that seems consistent with that of the Fictionologist’s, so these different versions will more or less have the same personality no matter where they are (I’m not interested in creating OCs, and this goes against GH’s rules anyway). They will also all be some sort of bartender or (retired) security officer. The difference between these versions and the original Gallagher is that they’ll 1) have different names and 2) have different false backstories to suit the environment.

As an Emanator of Enigmata, the fictionologist is capable of influencing an individual’s impression at a memory level, so all versions of Gallagher will appear to the locals like he’s been there all his life. For example, if he were to show up in Mondstadt one day, Mondstadt characters will believe that he’s more or less an unremarkable local, and may even think that they’ve had some meaningful interaction with him before even if this is technically the first time they’ve met. For this reason, I - as the mun - give explicit permission for my partners to use any non-italicized prose in my posts as information that their muse already knows. This would ordinarily go against metagaming etiquette, but this is an experiment I’d like to try.

Even though Gallagher himself is a kaleidoscope of traits gathered from 52 different Family members in Penacony, for the sake of this group, every version of him will retain a similar appearance. But more often than not, you can just imagine him as a “generic older brown-haired, brown-eyed NPC” from the region that the thread is taking place in.

To note, all of the above is specific ONLY to threads taking place outside of Penacony. For some special characters, like the Trailblazer, past memory may allow them to recognize and therefore see Gallagher with his canon appearance.

FOR TEYVAT SPECIFICALLY

History Fictionologists are said to travel the cosmos, altering the history of civilizations in order to change their trajectory into the future. Since Teyvat is hinted to be trapped in some sort of samsara, this gives the fictionologist behind Gallagher an easy reason to want to come check the place out. However, I’m leaving the plotting and scheme designs to the hoyo writers. There will be no underlying plan mentioned here.

NOTES ON WRITING

I’m approaching writing Gallagher as writing the fictionologist acting as Gallagher. Gallagher is a dreamscape avatar, and this can be equated to an online persona. Physically, they are not the same person, but they don’t exist independently of one another. In other words, Gallagher isn’t like the memetic entities in the dreamscape who can develop independent of their creators.

This is, as a result, something of a writing experiment for me. Most of the content in my thread posts will be objective. All details can be known and observed by all characters involved (in other words, no inner monologue or ramblings about Gallagher’s emotions/past that the other character can’t also access). However, I do intend to include occasional snippets from the fictionologist (in interactions where my partner doesn’t mind spoilers), written in italics. These parts cannot be referenced by other muses unless explicitly mentioned by Gallagher himself, in dialogue.

This concept may evolve and change if ever new information is released in canon.

[bunnakit]

it is lore-anon back to scream in your inbox again. Thank you for the second link! Yes, I can see it if the individual tweet is linked directory (otherwise twitter bans you from seeing comments and retweets and threads if you're not logged into an account and I continue to want to pitch them out a window for it because I refuse to make one). I read the other four entries but then it was 2AM and I needed to go to bed. But now I am back and

OH NO. I don't know who's entry hurts the worst, (its not supposed to be a stomp on my heart contest guys)

When I watched the Work mv for the first time I had a little moment of 'ha ha Hongjoong and Mingi are out there fighting A Monster Of Capitalism' moment with the money-kaiju. But they really are out there literally fighting A Monster of Capitalism akjghlkadjhgla. My heart. (This is why I am here, for the brilliance of how they can play something off as silly or casual in an mv but they've layered so much metaphor, foreshadowing, and worldbuilding up at this point that if you're a lore person suddenly a lot of little casual throwaway things are the OPPOSITE of casual)

Because, ok, I got an arts degree right? So when they first announced the name of the new era was Golden Hour I was like 'as in the photography term Golden Hour?' because this was a very interesting choice given Golden Hour, and then the names of the album versions came out and instead of A-Diary-Z suddenly it was Blue Hour-Diary-Golden Hour I flipped my shit because that basically confirmed they DID mean the photography concept. And they're SO intentional about everything I was like 'ok, where does golden hour lighting vs blue hour lighting show up in past mv's, out of curiosity?'

(Because, like. I have an offline 'lore' playlist I've setup on my comp so I can watch all the teasers-intros-mvs-outros for all of the mvs together in one place back to back in the order they were released so it makes it easy to check when something new suddenly ties back to something previous. It's over 5 hours at this point. I love them, they feed us so well).

Go back. Watch everything from Pirate King in order. Unlike other kpop groups that go ham on the coloured gels to create mood and atmosphere, ATEEZ basically, dead-on consistently, all the way back to 2018, through Every. Single. Video have essentially 5 types of lighting they shoot scenes with for 95% of the mv shots: that really warm-cast sunrise/sunset golden hour light, the extremely cool-cast twilight blue hour light, a neutral light that is incredibly bright to the point of almost over-exposing the scene, black and white, and BATHED-IN-RED-cast. (The only exceptions are a couple shots that use coloured gels in Turbulence especially Wooyoung PETER-PANNING INTO THE SKY ON THE AIRPORT RUNWAY THAT HAS NO NEW CONTEXT WHATSOEVER NOW, Hongjoong's part in Halazia with the background purple lighting, a couple of shots in Deja Vu, and the deliberate use of gels to simulate all the neon lights in Bouncy. But even then the use of gels in these places REALLY stand out because it is NOT their norm).

And, I would argue, given looking at WHICH scenes in each mv use which type of lighting, because they have been SO consistent about it-

That they have been using lighting temperature to separate something happening in the A world vs the Z world vs dreams vs memories vs recorded-electronically-transmitted messages vs the points where one or more of these has met a point where its merging with a different one, (they have referenced mobius strips TOO MANY TIMES for me to treat the A and Z worlds as separate universes. Oh no, we are playing with 1 or more magic relics at this point and timelines are starting to bleed, Halazia-universe being a created as a literal side-effect in itself,) and the mvs haven't just been telling ONE timeline of events for that mv, but MULTIPLE. At. The. Same. Time. (I swear I could write a 10k essay on how they've used their lighting for world-building up to this point that went unnoticed until they took a megaphone and basically went 'hey, golden hour? blue hour? maybe pay attention to that ho ho' and wrecked me).

Because, like, for fever forward, the mv and the diary version always reference each other, right? but in some mv's I have to look at the mv and then back at the diary version and something on the screen

Whereas the diary versions have only ever been from the A-world pirates perspective. So we know which events are THEIR timeline from their point of view.

and the parts from the mv that don't "fit" as creative interpretations of the diary's contents? They DO tend to make sense if you take it as how the main themes of the diary are/were playing out but for the Z-world pirates at potentially a different point in THEIR personal Z-world timeline.

Maybe its my deep-in-the-lore-sauce-analysis delulu, but like, maybe the Z-world pirates are dead as far as the A-World pirates are currently aware, in their part of their timeline. But I would bet my hat that the Z-pirates are not dead-dead in the larger fabric of the multiple connected universes. There are way too many pointed bits of foreshadowing and too many deliberate loose ends from past mvs that have not been tied off yet for me to believe we've really seen the last of them yet, (this is probably another unhinged 10k essay on my part).

I mean, I am currently convinced that Answer timeline-wise takes place AFTER whatever happens in the Golden Hour era, (that most of the events from the Treasure-era mv's actually belong much later in their timeline than we currently think they do, actually).

And we know who's at the table toasting in Answer.

hey lore anon! sorry, i've been fighting a 2 day headache and work and my brain is basically sludge~ please don't ever apologize for getting excited tho! seeing people get excited about stuff they're passionate about is my fav thing and i've definitely been in my friends dms theorycrafting and spewing some insane shit lmao

i could NOT believe how much of the work mv became lore, especially with hongjoong and mingi!! like!! and the food truck theme! ugh, ugh, ugh. ill never be over how they can take insane shit like bouncy and work and turn it into actually gut wrenching lore. like how??

i absolutely love all your theories and my god you're way smarter than me on the filming and lighting lmao all i have to guide me is literary devices and narrative patterns (written word is the only place i excel in life RIP)

i cannot WAIT to see the path the lore is taking, they really keep us guessing at every turn and that's what got me hooked and ruined my life in february lol

please ALWAYS feel free to climb in my dms either here or discord or wherever if you want! or pls always feel free to send me asks!!

happy golden hour!!!

[prince-liest]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤

Aw, thank you so much for sending me this! <3 I've written a lot of fics, but my favorites have definitely changed over time... some I still adore, some I have a hard time looking at for a variety of reasons. These are in no particular order, but I'm especially fond of:

Calcium Carbonate, and Other Things That Run Bone Deep - Genshin Impact, Kaeya/Albedo, Rated M for Gore

Fondly nicknamed "vivisection makeouts fic" while I was writing it, this one was a very gratuitous "Albedo's (in)humanity clashes with Kaeya's desire to save Mondstadt" meet-ugly fic that I still really enjoy as a way that I got to wring both of their brains out like sponges. I was a little nervous when posting it due to the, y'know, vivisection makeouts, but it was received with overwhelming positivity that still makes me happy to think about.

How To Lose 800 Years of Cultivation - Heaven Official's Blessing, Feng Xin/Mu Qing, Rated E for Sexual Content

At one point I discovered how good of a method intimacy is for digging around in characters' brains, and this is the fic where I truly went ham with that. Like, there's a lot of sex in this fic, but there's also a lot of picking apart Mu Qing's issues with intimacy and sexuality, class inequality, and his perception of Feng Xin, who has his own shit to deal with but still fields it all like a champ. I've reread this like five times after publishing it and will definitely reread it again.

Dish Duty - Avatar: the Last Airbender, Zuko & Katara, Rated G

This is constantly threatening The Sword of Damocles is Swinging for being my most popular SFW fic (it has fewer hits but more kudos), and I like it because I think I did a really good job with capturing the canon tone of ATLA, as well as digging into the parts of Zuko's character that I was interested in excavating in it. Plus it had a fun little plot and adventure! It just turned into a really nice, self-contained fic that did everything I wanted it to.

Meng Yao's Guide to Sex and Love - MDZS, Lan Xichen/Meng Yao, Rated E for Sexual Content

I literally just finished writing this so obviously it's fresh in my mind, and I do actually have some things I find unsatisfying about it (the chapter arrangement, mostly), but I REALLY loved writing Meng Yao's modern AU version bag of cats brain and using this fic to learn more about both his and LXC's characterizations. Also, I just really like packing in canon-parallel worldbuilding into modern AUs for xianxia danmei series, and writing JGY & WWX friendship in general. Plainly, this was fun to write. My only #ragret is that now I'm really sick of writing cis smut and want to write trans!Meng Yao.

Smolder - Genshin Impact, Zhongli/Xiao, rated E for Sexual Content

I loved this when I wrote it, but now it's been forever since I've reread it and it's one of my favorites not so much for the fic itself but for how ridiculously popular it got. Very legitimately, I was wary of writing this ship at all in a way that was explicitly Not The Healthiest, and furthermore did not expect fandom to be so positive about trans characters (especially in smut). So it's just pleasing and also hilarious to me that my self-indulgent power imbalance smut ended up

And, as an aside: I think that a lot of my favorite fics have ended up comfortably in that 20-30k word range, which is interesting. I don't really write novel-length fics anymore (and only really did so one time, though it got very popular), and I think it's partly because I really just like to concentrate on the bits I'm interested in and write around everything else, letting people fill in the blanks based on what characters think and say.

Honorable mentions:

Both of the Xue Yang fics for having pretty few hits but extremely enthusiastic comments because the SXX community is baller like that.

The Beast of Pont Vanis, the only Witcher fic I've ever written, based on a song I've enjoyed and wanted to make a story out of since literally high school.

The Shinsou's Bad Days series, may I one day have the motivation to finish you.

The fic where I buried Albedo in an avalanche and let people do the math for how many days he was stuck there based on how many heartbeats he counted and how panic-tachycardic he was.

[ilikekidsshows]

The order in which the writers reveal more about Bishop really works well for building up Bishop’s role as a villain. First we learned how formidable he was (winning every fight he was in), then we learned his goals (basically taking over the world for the sake of “protecting” it), and in between are all these things hinting at just how despicable he is until the reveal that one of the monsters he made was once his friend and Bishop ruined him with no remorse. Now we’re learning about a weakness, something he can’t control. The fact that he has to manipulate his higher ups to get funding was teased at earlier in the series and now we saw it in full force. But, we also learned from Stockman’s comments that Bishop’s body is falling apart. This creates a new tantalizing mystery of what’s going on with Bishop’s body and what he will do to avoid falling apart.

We also got some set up with the rushed alien invasion plan leading to some weird, yeah, ooze spilling into the sewers, the final shot of the episode making it clear that this will be relevant at some point. All in all, this episode is really heavy in worldbuilding information, for all that the plot itself was just about restoring Bishop’s status in the eyes of his superiors, something the heroes aren’t privy until the final moments of the episode.

[yellowocaballero]

HEY!! Your trigun swap au is so very good!! I've always loved roleswap aus as a concept, and yours is the perfect example of why. it's all about the balancing act of twisting the (swapped) character's background/mentalities for maximum domino effect while not actually *destroying* the character ya know? you still gotta recognize them, it's half of the fun. just some little nudges here... and there... with the delightful result of a changed plot/world that you can discover anew

Also I surprisingly vibe with Dr Knives. a lot. what can I say I guess it's the fucked up superiority-inferiority/guilt complex with a dash of imposter syndrome. also the transgenderism. he's just like me fr fr (minus the speciesism and bloodlust) 1/3

SPEAKING OF! I'm literally a week late for that but chapter 4 may be my favorite so far. it's got it all: Ww's bloodlust coming through and being given a GUN, M&M being #JustNormalGunsmokeKidsThings about it, Knives being incredibly tired and enthusiastically murderous in turns, TRANS PEOPLE!! Funky morally dubious trans men ! Intersex nonbinary Knives (in humans terms) !! small internal rants about ecosystems!

I particularly like that one bc I too found myself twitching whenever I see (in fics or fandom at large) Gunsmoke being shown as a ~hostile, barren~ planet when, like.... *waves agitedly at the Tomases* *waves frantically at the WORMS, in all their INCREDIBLY DIVERSIFIED sizes and shapes* tell me there isn't an entire ecosystem supporting and including these bad boys. And god do I wanna know about it. Terraforming this terraforming that. Enough. I want bio-worldbuilding fics that are just as weird and unhinged as the rest of trigun (2/3)

To go back to Nicholas : I loved his discussion with Knives about fate and predestination and stuff (esp since -I may be reading too much into it, but it’s interesting that Knives says he doesn’t believe in predestination anymore, and just a bit later goes about how his personality is Like That bc he’s Biologically Programmed for it), and his last words in it are especially ominous. WHAT were you gonna say about Vash. How does it concern Nicholas. This is gonna bite them in the ass later isn’t it.

Also ur last asks/answers REALLY doesn’t reassure me about woowoo’s fate. Is he gonna die. Is he gonna end up going thru the same things than his canon counterpart (concentrate of medical-and-general unethicality). Idk what those flags are for but boy They Are There.

Aallll that to say I absolutely love that fic and can't wait to see what you do next with it, thank you so much !! (3/3)

This is so nice thank you so much :D :D :D To comment in order:

Roleswaps are no fun if you can't recognize the character. You're absolutely right - the funnest part is to make the smallest changes possible, and see how they cause the biggest differences. That's true of every AU, honestly - you guys know those 600k shonen manga aus where something major is different but every story beat is identical to canon? Or they're identical to every other au? They're addictive but without substance. Also sounds boring to write.

It's so funny that you (and others) vibe with Dr. Knives! From my end, he has my own very wry deadpan and self-esteem problems. Characters who have both a ridiculously inflated ego for comedy purposes and some real self-esteem problems for drama purposes work great.

I was surprised that so many people enjoyed the trans thing so much! I didn't expect it to make people so happy. Of course it's a nice surprise. I don't remember why I made the BDN decision (funny, probably) or the 'Knives invented gender reassignment surgery' thing (funny definitely), but a very active decision and something that made Knives above every other character fun to write is that he is not a human being and does not think of himself as such. The way his body experiences emotion is different, his body itself is different in a way that probably includes genitalia, and there's no reason for him to experience gender the same way. As I'm about to talk about in the upcoming chapter, he casually refers to himself as a thing and with it/its and it doesn't affect his superiority complex whatsoever.

I...would not have said that this is trans by myself, if that makes sense, because I wouldn't have wanted to say "in order to really hammer in how this character is INHUMAN then I'm gonna make him not male or female and prefer neopronouns!". It's just the shape of the character, to me. BUT LIKE IF Y'ALL LIKE IT! NO PROBLEM! I was just worried I might be saying the wrong thing, so I didn't want to say it, if that makes sense. Y'all can say it though.

Trigun worldbuilding is nonsensical and hideously vague and as a writer if you stop and think too hard about silly questions like "where does the wood come from" or "why is Vash eating salmon sandwiches" then you go insane. But...yeah, Gunsmoke's like any other ecosystem, and its worms and thomases seem to be doing great! It's not Gunsmoke's fault it is almost completely uninhabitable to humans. It sucks for us, but...does Knives care about that??? Lmfao???

There is a shitton to say about Knives' relationship with predestination and inevitability, because it's why he made the worst decision of his life. I think of it as...reasonable, in a lot of ways. If all you knew about humanity was what you read in history textbooks, and human history ended with the destruction of Earth and themselves, how would you feel? Everything humans have done, they do again. And if they dissected your sister, in an act of cruelty that they had done to even themselves...of course you'd worry. Of course. If you're young and scared and you can hear the screams of the dead in your ears, of course you feel like it's going to be you or them. And if you're.........Millions Knives.......and reverse!Vash.....then eliminating the threat is just good business sense.

And you aren't reading too much into it - Trigun in so many ways is about choices, and the impact of your choices. Your decisions are you own, and you must take responsibility for them. Decisions have weight in Trigun. I think what ppl miss sometimes about Vash is that he also wants to fuckin' murder people sometimes. He wants to be violent, he wants to hurt. He just chooses not to. Sometimes choosing pacifism is a hard fucking choice, and I think wiping that away does a disservice to the character. So if Knives would say, "Well, it's just who I am, I had no choice, I had no control, I just go nuts and murder it's not on me..." - what does that mean, in Trigun? It's??? Like??? A pussy thing to say???

But, the way I thought about it - what Knives is fighting is his internal sense that he is predestined for cruelty. He knows "who he really is" and any attempt at goodness is futile, because he's secretly bad and will always be bad. And he fucks up sometimes and starts exploding worms. But Knives chooses goodness, and I don't think he's really cottoned on that his choice to do good is more important than his internal desires to do bad and his history of badness. Because he hates himself.

I think what Knives knows now as an adult is that our lives have paved a path for us to tread. Sometimes that path is innocent, and sometimes your life paves a very nasty path. But it's our choice if we walk it or not. Knives knows what his path is, and it gives him extreme shame - but he chose which one he walked, and that's what I judge him on. Still funny how much he loves murder though.

[refugefm]

REFUGEFM PRE-OPENING PLOT DROP #1 — NEWS FROM RIDDLE'S ENGLAND

ARTICLE ONE:

UNDESIRABLES CAPTURED: AURORS HOLD SIX INSURGENTS AND TRAITORS... "A huge sucess for our brave auror force occured on Saturday night. In a remarkable and highly organised operation, Head Auror Abraxas Malfoy managed to capture six traitors and insurgents who have been working against the Minister for Magic and the Magical community as a whole. These prisoners are being held in an undisclosed location of the highest security. When asked for comment, Mr. Malfoy named the prisoners as: Caradoc Dearborn, Gideon Prewett, Amos Diggory, Edgar Bones, Mary MacDonald and Peter Pettigrew..." ...discover more on page 8

ARTICLE TWO:

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE NAMED UNDESIRABLE #1: DISCOVER THE LIES BEHIND THE MAN... "Breaking news from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement today, as Albus Dumbledore is named Undesirable #1. All aurors and citizens are warned to be on the lookout for Albus Dumbledore, as he is believed to be the figurehead of the terrorist organisation known as the Order of the Phoenix. Interrigations with captured insurgents reveal that Dumbledore has been sending his agents across the boarder between Scotland and England in order to try and undermine the Riddle Reigime. Our Minister for Magic, Tom Riddle, expresses sorrow that so many young souls are being swayed by the lies of Albus Dumbledore. This is not the first time that Dumbledore has used a countries youth to do his dirty work for him. Newt Scamander gave comment to this paper about his involvement with Dumbledore's capaign against Gellart Grindelwald, headmaster of the Grindelwald Academy, which led to the death of several friends and acquaintenaces. It seems that history is repeating itself once again with this Order of the Phoenix. Grindelwalds once partner is known for painting anyone who rivals his power as public enemy number one, and it has been clear from Tom Riddle's first day at Hogwarts that Dumbledore was uncomfortable with his power..." ...discover more on page 11.

ARTICLE THREE:

BLACK FAMILY HEIR COMMENTS ON BROTHERS DISAPPEARANCE: WHERE IS REGULUS BLACK, AND WHAT ARE THE AURORS DOING TO FIND HIM? "Regulus Black has oft been considered a darling of Pureblood High Society. A bright young man who has often graced the society pages of this newspaper. Those of you who have been keeping up with current affairs will know that Regulus Black was reported missing by his sibling, Sirius Orion Black, eight days ago. The aurors have thusfar found no leads as to where Regulus Black may have disappeared to. Though there was no sign of struggle in his private flat, they do suspect that there may be foul play involved. Sirius Black insists that their brother is not the kind of person who would leave for weeks on end without any word to his family or his friends..." ...discover more on page 14.

REFUGEFM will be opening for interactions at 6pm GMT on Tuesday the 14th of November. The above articles are part of our first plot drop, to be used for worldbuilding and lay the seeds of future plots within the roleplay. Your characters make make reference to these events at any time when you start playing. Feel free to plot with one another before we open and consider your characters feelings about the affairs laid out in the daily prophet.

**Please note that characters listed as being captured by Riddle may be picked up by players in the future. If you have any interest in taking up one of the captured players, please discuss this with the admin.

[imaginarydragonling]

💞 🕯️ 🧿

💞what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language

I'm not sure how to call it, but the "history of the characters" or the "character backstory" I guess? It's sort of the reasons and motivations for a character to do certain things or to behave and be a certain way.

It's not something I actively prioritize to do. I just find myself constantly questioning why a character is Like That or trying to answer what a character would do or say next. I think it's just that I like things to Make Sense 😅 and if things Don't Make Sense, I can't move on or put it down on paper. This has the happy effect of many wonderful hours of worldbuilding and imagining backstories in my head, and hopefully a good portrayal of In Character characterization, but it does mean that I find it extremely difficult to write Porn-Without-Plot and crack type fics 😅

🕯️-> 🔥was there a fic that was really hard on you to write, or took you to a place you didn't think it would take you?

A few, but I am going to point to Watch Me Catch the Sky for this ask /)_(\ This is an unfinished (if we're going to be honest here) YOI Fantasy AU fic with dragons and magic and prophecies. I wrote it for a Big Bang (my first big bang in any fandom) and while I am proud that I finished it to where it was, this is maybe the fic I've agonized over and rewritten the most.

To be fair, I think a lot of my feelings about this fic are coloured by my experience with the event community, which was...not great. The YOI fandom was a whole other level of drama tbf, but just how much reality fell short of my expectations was quite the learning experience and really made me think about my writing process and what what works for me personally.

Also, in reference to my answer about my writing style in your previous ask, I was constantly worried that my prose was not flowery enough for high fantasy so that didn't help in terms of stress 🙃

🧿what steps do you take to not take things personally if a fic doesn't do well, or if your writing/posting/sharing experience isn't going how you'd like it to?

Hmm. I respond quite differently to the writing experience not going how I'd like it vs the posting/sharing experience not going how I'd like it.

For the latter, in the best way possible, I'm pretty used to being ignored so not getting enough attention isn't too big of an issue for me?😅 But, some things I've done to mitigate the disappointment of a fic not being received as well as I would like after posting are:

So having fewer hits/kudos/comments on a fic on Ao3 isn't too much of an issue for me anymore (tumblr has trained me well, you're the only one who really interacts with me on this hellsite lol) BSome things I've done to mitigate the disappointment of a fic not doing as well as I hoped after posting are:

Write for the sake of writing, not for the reception. I do gain enjoyment from simply writing like I appreciate the mental break from work/real life; I like the sense of accomplishment I have when I manage to create something and bring it into existence; I like the effort it takes to order my thoughts in order to put them down into words (it makes me feel sane and makes things Make Sense eheheh).

I get feedback while writing and cheerreaders to spur me on! This means that the itch/need to be Validated TM is already partially/mostly scratched, so when I do post, the need is lessened.

Ultimately, I recognize and acknowledge that how other people receive my work is something out of my control. So I try not to overanalyze the stats on my posted fics (I do enough of that for a living and also having zero interaction on a post is nothing new. Tumblr has trained me well lol).

However, when the writing experience doesn't go how I like it, I tend to:

Cry

Scream

Beg my fic to write itself

Complain to friends

Do something mindless like wash the dishes so that I can think through whatever is blocking me from writing

Change up my writing process like write on paper

Just copy over a WIP into a new doc (it just gets me typing and editing and is surprisingly effective in kickstarting a writing session)

Accept that my draft is going to be shit but who cares it's a draft

Make a blood offering to the writing gods

Disclaimer: Some of the things I listed above are jokes and I don't actually do but you can decide for yourself which ones :)

Let’s Get ((REAL)) fic writer asks

[not-poignant]

Hello!

While reading your March writing schedule, I found myself wondering about your WIP process.

If it’s been a while since you last worked on a WIP (say, more than a month), how do you approach returning to it? Do you reread the last chapter to recapture the tone and flow? Spend time immersing yourself in the mood again? Or do you find it easy to slip back in?

Also, does it ever feel like a chore, or are you eager to return to it? Do you typically have the chapters framed and structured in advance, or do you prefer to let the story flow as you go?

And lastly, does writing fan fiction feel more like a hobby to unwind with compared to your other works, or do you approach it with a similar mindset?

It will always amaze me to see an author maintain so many works in process.

Best of luck with everything and hope things get better.

Henlo anon,

If it’s been a while since you last worked on a WIP (say, more than a month), how do you approach returning to it? Do you reread the last chapter to recapture the tone and flow? Spend time immersing yourself in the mood again? Or do you find it easy to slip back in?

It really depends on the story! Some stories I hold very 'fresh' in my head, others, like Smoke in Autumn I can forget about so much, I once wrote two versions of the same chapter and got 2,000 words in before I realised I'd already written a bunch of the next chapter and just never finished it. (My bad, I should have read it back first). What amused me the most is that the content of both was nearly identical, I'd been imagining 'what happens next' and locked it in, but thought I hadn't written and welp.

Most of the time I will check back through the previous through chapters. Sometimes it's just a skim to remind myself where I am, and sometimes I'll actually properly sit down to get in the 'feel' of where a story is at. Some stories need this more than others. Underline the Red has a very specific atmosphere that I associate with Faber, and his story needs deeper reading.

(It got long and kind of serious - TL;DR a look into the process of an author who has been working on too many stories for 2 years and the costs of that.)

Some stories require a lot more work to get back 'into' - Palmarosa because of all the worldbuilding elements, for example, and because there's so many moving pieces right now. I'd like to write a chunk of that this month and just immerse more. I often have to actually reread a few worldbuilding articles I've written as well as the dialogue notes I've taken. Raphael and Astarion have a similar mannerism of speaking, re: their language, so it's important that I remember that their tone is very different. Raphael never gets that many vulnerable or emotional lines in the game, except for when he's angry, so sometimes I'm guessing with him.

It's probably the story I'm most insecure about because it's attracted the most criticism. So I simultaneously do a lot more legwork to get back into it, and sometimes dread writing a chapter and like 5 people pointing out something I've gotten wrong. Most of the commenters have been amazing, but it's definitely been an experience in... learning that the Forbidden Realms (or BG3) fandom is broadly not that fun to write for. Which is a shame, because the story itself makes me super excited, and there's some particular readers who I've met through that fandom who I think 'oh I hope they read and like this chapter' who I specifically think of and enjoy, but then I think of the less fun pockets of fandom (that have found my fic) and pause a bit. I have to kind of forget that aspect of it in order to get back into it again. (Which is funny, considering it's fanfiction and it is my most 'this is for fun' kind of writing. Just goes to show that different fandoms = different experiences). I think the combo of 'this story is one of the hardest I've written in years for worldbuilding commitment and development + this fandom is one of the most exacting and critical of all the fandoms I've been in' makes it feel like I have to climb a mountain to get to wanting to write chapters again.

(I'm sorry to most of the commenters, because truly, most of you are incredible. I need to save your comments off AO3 so I don't stumble into the less wonderful comments - many of which I've ended up deleting).

Meanwhile stories like Underline the Blue are incredibly easy to slip back into, lol.

Also, does it ever feel like a chore, or are you eager to return to it?

As you can tell from Palmarosa, sometimes it can feel like a bit of a chore. That's very frustrating because I have a few disparate parts of me in conflict. I have high fidelity to my stories and refuse to abandon the story because I think it has the potential to be really good especially upon reread, but it can't be a priority as it's not on the official schedule and it has to be after the writing that helps me eat food and pay bills.

Sometimes I'm also just tired. I can't like, just disappear for 2-3 months. I know I do on some stories, and if a reader only reads one of my stories, and that story is Smoke in Autumn, then they must feel like I go off and live my best life for 8 months at a time, lol. But whenever I'm not working on a particular story, it's because I'm working on like 8 other stories, or editing those stories, or making graphics, or thinking about marketing, or trying to find good excerpts, or replying to comments, or replying to asks, or looking after myself / my sick dog etc. Like I'm not actually on a break this month. I'm just on a 'posting regularly on a schedule' break. I have about 13 chapters I need to edit, I need to write a couple of chapters for April and ideally May to have a buffer in case I get really sick, etc.

That being said, the vast majority of the time I'm excited to return to multiple stories, often at the same time. (Decision paralysis has affected my ability to choose when I'm excited about a bunch). All the Underline stories make me excited, Stain does, Second Star is a bit intimidating right now because there's so much I need to figure out about Kadek, lol, but I'm mostly excited, and I'm very lucky to be writing so many stories I love. Even Palmarosa once I start and get into it, makes me super excited, that one I'm just less eager to start.

Do you typically have the chapters framed and structured in advance, or do you prefer to let the story flow as you go?

I don't structure anything in advance until the very end of a story (and even then, not always, like Constellations never had a structure).

That being said I like the advice of 'don't finish when you run out of things to say, finish writing when you know the next sentence or paragraph, or have an idea of what's going to happen next. That way when you open the document the next day, you aren't sitting in a state of frustration, you already have a place to start.' I usually have an idea of what is taking place in the next chapter based off the chapter I've just written and foreshadowing/plot I've been introducing.

And lastly, does writing fan fiction feel more like a hobby to unwind with compared to your other works, or do you approach it with a similar mindset?

Fanfiction can be my fun writing, it's also my experimental writing, and my 'I wonder what happens if I do this' writing. It's my 'I want to put these two together and see what happens' writing. Sometimes it's harder than anything original I'm doing. Some of the most involved stories I've ever written that needed the most research have been fanfic - Stuck on the Puzzle, the Beast that Chose its Own Bridle and Palmarosa have all required more work and time in worldbuilding and research than anything original I've ever written except for canon Fae Tales.

Now that A Stain that Won't Dissolve is on the schedule it gets treated kind of as professionally as most of my original writing. Anything 'off the schedule' is treated as writing for fun. That includes original writing like Smoke in Autumn which has so few readers comparatively I know it would be a useless story to try and monetise through Patreon/Ream so I don't bother, and update it when I feel like it / when I have time. Palmarosa is 'fanfic for fun' in the sense that yeah, I hate that I can't update regularly but it's also what I'm doing in my spare time as a hobby, and my spare time isn't exactly...generous. :D

It will always amaze me to see an author maintain so many works in process.

I don't like maintaining this many works in progress. This kind of happened as a result of getting medicated for ADHD for the first time in my life and suddenly being able to develop a more efficient system that didn't take into account how sick I was. It was like I planned to always be writing on my best days.

And now I'm disentangling myself as a writer who often writes 2 long stories at a time. For a decade that was all I did, pretty much. This is not normal for me. The last 2-3 years have been kind of a very big and hard lesson, because I didn't feel right putting any on 'until this story is finished I can't come back to this' hiatus. Especially because, in the 'best problem but still a real problem to have' ever, I love every single one of those stories. I love them. I enjoy writing them. I enjoy the characters. I'm not burnt out on the stories or the characters, I'm burnt out on having so many of them going at the same time.

I will never - I hope - work on this many stories ever again. It's overwhelming, and it is challenging to carry so many different worlds etc. in the air. On my good days I can do it, but ngl, I don't think it's a coincidence that my growing burnout / writing less overall / handling less over the past 2 years and needing more breaks coincides with mentally having to hold 8-9 different stories across 5 different worlds in my head.

It's one of those 'I can do it because I know it will end one day, but if you told me I'd have to keep working on this many stories at the same time forever, I'd quit tomorrow.'

I love writing so so much, but it's been a rough 2 years.

Ironically growing more ability to handle things that I never used to be able to do - idk if many readers know this, but for the vast majority of me being on Tumblr and AO3 I never had a schedule, I never posted excerpts, I never had graphics, y'all just got chapters when I had them, sometimes 5 a week, sometimes none for a month. Like for 8~ years of my life and the life of some of the readers here, that was just how it worked - actually has made things much harder on the bad days and the mediocre days.

Stuff that I can do when my executives are functioning (I like to imagine them like a bunch of mostly incompetent besuited idiots in a boardroom who can only very occasionally get their shit together with the help of prescription meth), is still stuff that makes me want to scream and tear my hair out sometimes.

It feels like it has actually taken so many spoons away from my writing (which is, upsettingly, I think why I feel so awful when people say I'm not posting enough excerpts anymore, or get upset when people say the schedule doesn't have enough on it, or is missing a story they really want, and I want to say 'well ironically all this stuff is why I can't write like I used to, but it's also why I can probably pay the bills now, because more readers find my stuff than they used to, so I'm in the Catch-22 of 'yay I can afford more healthcare' and 'now I need more healthcare because of this').

Anyway, I'm sorry anon, some of your questions have a very simple answer of 'yes sometimes I do read back through old chapters to get back into the feel of that story!' :D And some of your questions have a more existential 'the thing that feels most like a chore is this many stories, this much executive functioning, and pockets of this one fandom that will not hesitate to point out that Mephistopheles shouldn't be blue because of that one campaign they read that one time.'

I'm figuring it out. I'm very lucky to have the best readers in the world broadly speaking (truly, I have literally gotten some comments that make me open up a new word document to immediately start a chapter of something, that's a miracle), and stories I love to write, because like if I truly felt writing was a chore, or that the people I was doing it for made it a chore, I really wouldn't be here. This isn't a job you do if you want an easy job dsafflkjdas (retail was way easier, I'm just too physically sick to do it, lol).

[holfelderwrites124]

Author Ask Tag

@goodluckclove tagged me, and I really like these questions. I’m going to answer on my current main WIP, Wardens of the Veil: Haunt Club (working title). It’s a project that I am cowriting with a close friend. I am super excited about it!

Wardens of the Veil: Haunt Club follows Emmaline Byrne as she discovers the world of the Ancients and the Skilled – a world that her Aunt Kathy has hidden from Emmaline in order to protect the young woman. Emmaline must decide what to do when faced with the truth of her Ancient nature. Along the way, she is helped by a ragtag crew of Ancients and Skilled – including a displaced Cajun man with a penchant for staking vampires and a jack-of-all trades who is fluent in Pittsburghese and “changes genders like Emmaline changes shoes”.

What is the main lesson of your story? Why did you choose it?

Lesson?  Hah. As if I planned any of this. I didn’t. We’re here because some friends and I started an RPG and I fell in love with the characters. The rest of the story has built up around the characters. I would say, though, that we have some overarching themes that my wonderful cowriter has been able to pick out. I’m a tree planter, she’s a pruner and planner. We work well together, because I plant ALL THE TREES and she prunes them back and teaches me to see the forest. These themes include facing your fears, healing from trauma, and accepting yourself. We did not choose these themes. The characters revealed them to us.

What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding?

Everything started with a RPG named Fiasco, the Supernatural Files. We created our characters around a fictional swamp town in Louisiana, but eventually moved to Pennsylvania. The setting change was mostly to “write what you know”, but soon sparked a massive plot overhaul that led to vibrant characters and legends. Anyhow, to answer the question … the worldbuilding scheme has been based on an amalgamation of all the fantasy and magic systems that either of us have read throughout our lives. There’s a touch of this and a touch of that. I somehow managed to create a Big Bad that resembles creatures from at least two different series that I have never read, so that’s fun.

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, or help the reader grow as a person?

Emmaline – who fits the category for Main Character, I suppose – is trying to understand her heritage and how that affects who she is now, when you strip everything else away. There’s a lot of personal growth, trauma healing, and learning to trust others that goes along with it.  If I’m being completely honest, my Main Goal here is to give readers an enjoyable and meaningful escape from “real life”. Yeah, there are themes of forgiveness, redemption, healing, growth, and love (familial, platonic, romantic), and I do hope that readers will walk away feeling like this book was a fulfilling read. I don’t have a message to spread (other than acceptance of diversity) or a goal to fulfill (other than for the readers to have a good time). I write what I want to read, which is a fun, meaningful adventure story for adults. I’m here to write something that queer and racially diverse individuals can enjoy and see themselves in.

How many chapters is your story going to have?

*laughs in never-ending chaos* You expect me to know that? Hah. Nope. *shrug*

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

OG Ba-by! I’ll be posting snippets, character blurbs, and other thoughts on Patreon and occasionally here (feel free to comment or send asks!). The book itself is slated to go to various literary agents. I’m hoping this will be my debut – I believe in it so much and honestly? It’s shaping up to be pretty awesome. 😊

When did you start writing?

That’s a long story. I’ll try to make it short. I started when I was a preteen. Tried to write a book when I was a teen – that book was the foundation for Tapestry of Hope/Severed Threads – but abandoned it when I was fifteen or sixteen. I assumed I was terrible and writing and would never make it, so I quit writing for years. I took a creative writing class in my senior year of college (2016), but focused mainly on my poetry. Then in late 2018, I discovered the world of fanfiction. I published my first fanfic on AO3, and just … never stopped writing.

Do you have any words of encouragement for fellow writers of writeblr? What other writers do you follow?

WRITE. WRITE. WRITE. The more you practice, the better you become. Try your hand at fanfic, honestly. It gave me a safe, fun space to practice my craft until I felt confident enough to start brainstorming original content. But also? Take a break. Don’t be afraid to put your projects down some times and let your brain rest. I should have other writers that I follow, but honestly I am shit at social media. I get real distracted with writing and forget to … you know, promote stuff. Whoops. (Don’t be me. Follow other authors.)

No pressure tags:

@nondelphic

@oliolioxenfreewrites

and an open tag to any authors who see this