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nicromancytarot · 8 months ago

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HOW I GOT STARTED IN TAROT AND MY TIPS FOR ANY OF YOU WHO ARE NEW TO IT!!!

I love to offer advice if you can’t already tell, and I also love tarot, so let’s talk about things that I have learnt from my journey as a tarot reader.

My journey

I started tarot at 14 years old while living with a family member who was shut off to the idea of spirituality, as it had hindered the life of my own mother, and caused her mental health issues in the past.

I decided to go against their requests and start practicing in secret, I didn’t have my own income so I wasn’t able to buy my own deck, instead I decided to make one. (Tarot is a tool, you don’t need “actual” tarot cards to be able to read.)

I used old train tickets that I had since I would take a couple of trains 5 days a week, which would give me 1, if not 2 tickets per day.

I was mainly focused on love, so I created little tarot cards with small details about love on them, and I would use these on my friends just for a bit of fun.

Eventually these got taken away from me, so just after my 16th birthday, after not doing tarot for around 3 months at that time, I decided to buy my first tarot deck as I was now living back with my mother, and although she was sceptical about the idea, she allowed me to have my first deck and supported my journey as I dove deeper into divination.

I practiced every so often, one time I had a crush on this guy and I wanted to know how he felt about me, every spread I got for him would give me the 4 of cups… yeah, I used to think that meant he was just a little demotivated, until I realised like a year later that it meant he was absolutely not interested in me, lmao!

But this is good, learning always comes with mistakes, so do not let that discourage you.

My decks

- the Rider-Waite tarot (my main deck)

- Spirit song tarot (my favourite deck)

- (I had a purple one that I spiritually didn’t need, so it went missing and never returned like a week after I got it)

- Ethereal visions tarot

- The nightmare before christmas tarot

- Angels of abundance oracle

- Casanova tarot (for 18+)

I also use little pieces of paper that I wrote 18+ stuff on, which I now use for any explicit readings to highlight the things someone would do to my collective sexually!

Having multiple decks

I personally love having this many decks, and I 100% will be getting more, as soon as I’ve finished learning the meanings of some of the casanova tarot!

Tarot is a tool, sometimes I read explicit stuff off my main deck, and I still get very accurate messages using that, you do not need to splash out on extra decks to try and read one specific theme.

I enjoy having multiple decks as they’re all just so beautiful, and I feel blessed to be able to have them.

Having one of my decks fall off the face of the earth a year and a half ago, proved to me that I needed to really make sure that I wanted a deck and felt connected to it before buying. This deck itself was 1 actually instinctively didn’t want to buy, but went back to get for other reasons.

So don’t impulsively buy, if it’s meant for you, you’ll know.

How I do my readings

If I decide that I need to cleanse my own energy, I will do a 15-30 minute meditation, but I normally only feel called to do so when I’m doing a really intense reading that I feel I need to protect my energy from.

I start off with a simple affirmation, welcome my spirits to help guide me through the session.

“I am calling upon my ancestors and spirit guides to make sure I am protected during this reading, and that I get the most accurate and concise messages.”

Then I knock on the deck twice before doing 1 shuffle thrice, knocking twice and doing the final shuffle thrice, knocking twice.

That is my own personal way of cleansing my deck after other energies have been channelled through it. I let my decks rest with some crystals every night, and they see the moon when it’s full for an extra cleanse.

I personally find the knocking to be very simple and cleansing for my cards, and it has proved well.

After I’m done cleaning, I ask my spirits the question out loud, and then I knock twice before shuffling to get the spread.

I only take 1-2 cards at a time, if there’s more, I put them back and start shuffling again.

If no cards fall after a while, I do a final shuffle and pull from the top.

The spread varies for every reading, normally I pull around 15 cards from my main deck, and then I pull an animal from the Spirit song tarot deck, and sometimes around 12 from another deck if there’s anymore questions needing to be answered.

When reading for other people, I personally only pull upright, unless we’re doing yes or no questions (which I do upright for yes and reverse for no), I’m not a fan for reverses, although I’ve started off with them, I just find it easier to do only uprights.

I pull reverses for educational purposes when I do my own readings, that way I can make sure I learn them more than I already do, and so I can get quicker with identifying them.

As of the beginning of April 2024 I started a new spread, this is my new favourite one for mainly advice readings or something to do with the future.

I like to grab 16 cards, you can take 15, but 16 is my personal number, then I line all the cards up into 3 groups, until I pin the negative cards, this is just something I do instinctively (doesn’t have to be death, tower etc, it could literally be the 2 of cups which seems negative in the reading), on the left I set up the negative ones, and then I add a present feeling or reaction card to do with these negative things, then between the negative and feelings, I put a card to describe why the person feels like that. Then for the rest I basically branch down like the roots of a tree, it’s very sporadic and random, but it creates a story, whichever card is next to another relates to the situation, thoughts and feelings of those cards, then when you get to the right bottom side, you end up with the future energy.

LEFT —> past MIDDLE —> present RIGHT —> future

Random things that I believe in

- The star and the 4 of cups are connected, the 4 of cups represents being fussy and ungrateful, and in the the Rider-Waite tarot, the illustrations are all connected, the star happens in front of the tree which is where the 4 of cups is set, so I like to think that the star is letting go of fussiness and allowing yourself to be free.

- Death and moon are connected, death tends to talk about something you need to let go of, and you already intuitively know about it. This is since death happens in front of the moon.

- The temperance happens in front of the tower, so when you pull the temperance, it means to make a decision before the universe makes it for you, bringing you a tower moment. A good example for this is pulling it in a “how does he feel about me” reading, if you get the tower during this, I would say he feels like you’re his last option, like a plan B if his A falls through. (People hate when I tell them that.)

- The queen of cups represents stability, this is since in the the Rider-Waite tarot, she’s chilling on her throne on a small island, meanwhile the king of cups is floating in the water, showing to me that he’s just going with the flow (weirdly, when I see the king of cups, I associate him with Aquarius energy.)

- The empress is all about loud and proud energy, she’s totally the one to boast about her achievements and what she’s working on, knowing that she will succeed. The emperor is the opposite, he works in silence, he only tells everyone about his newest achievements after he’s sure about them, he likes for people to be in surprise over his success.

- If I pull some cards to check energy for the reading, and the emperor upright, or the empress in reverse comes out, probably means the person I’m reading for isn’t ready to hear this message. This is because the emperor is physical (3D) realm energy, meanwhile the empress is spiritual (4D) energy, this is because spirituality is feminine energy, if you take part in spirituality, you are tapping into your devine feminine.

- The knight of wands represents exes. The night is going to the left (the past), the wand represents fire, fiery passion/fiery ending.

Does this mean my spread may be explained differently if the illustrations are different?

In short, yes. I love symbolism with my whole heart, so when I can make something symbolic out of the illustrations on the deck to describe a reading, I absolutely will.

What does channelling and visualising look like for me?

On a good day, I’ll hear another voice that sound identical to my little internal narrator inside my head, this can be identified as my spirit guides. They will use this to tell me things I need to know, but clairvoyance isn’t really my strongest, so normally I just hear the word “catapult” over and over again, since my main spirit guide seems to love that word.

I honestly channel the most through writing, it’s like I gain so much more information when I start writing down readings, whether it’s in my notes, on tumblr, or in a notepad.

Visualising is interesting, again back with the symbolism, it comes to me in a little story for me to unfold and find a moral of, it’s very time consuming, and I often get confused and think I’m insane, so I’ll pull some cards on it just to be sure I have the story right.

Important notes

- communicate to your spirit guides, I like to tell them exactly how the reading is going to go, just so they understand the format and what, I am looking for.

- Don’t do readings when you don’t feel like you should, if you’re mentally not doing ok, don’t feel bad if you need to step back and away from it, forcing yourself will just give you confusing readings.

- Your spirits hide answers from you, one time I asked my spirit guides how life works, and they refused to tell me (and then had a silly moment and told me like 3 months later for whatever reason.)

- This is not future telling, I cannot tell you what your future will be like, but I can tell you what it might be like if you make certain decisions.

- Don’t use tarot to intrude on someone’s personal life, like no sex readings on your ex for the love of God.

- If a reading doesn’t resonate with you, remember what it said and then come back to it to see if it does now, an example of this was when someone gave me a past life reading that didn’t match up until I reversed it and realised that I was the second person in the reading, rather than the main.

- Have fun with readings, it shouldn’t feel like a chore.

- Allow yourself to make mistakes, that’s the only way you will improve.

- Be patient, don’t think you will know everything about tarot after like 1 week of learning it.

- There’s always more to learn when it comes to tarot, you will never have enough knowledge.

- You can buy yourself decks, even your first one. You don’t need to have another person buy it for you.

I hope you enjoyed this! It took me an hour to write up lmao, but I had fun.

#pick a card #tarot #tarot reading #tarotblr #tarotcommunity #free tarot #tarot witch #daily tarot #pick a pile #tarot cards

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zeta-in-de-walls · 2 years ago

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Transcript of Dream’s message

Hey, here’s a Transcript of what Dream said regarding DSMP. Where he confirmed S2 would not happen. I tried to get it accurately as I could while still being pretty clear.

DSMP... okay let’s talk Dream SMP. I’ll just be completely, blunt, I don’t think there will be a season 2. I mean, That’s not 100%. Obviously that could change, there’s been so many discussions about it and there’s a lot of people. Even though its called Dream SMP, it’s not just like a me thing, there’s a lot of people that are part of it, contributing and who have contributed to it. I feel, I’ve discussed this in discord and expressed my opinion on it... and a lot of people have expressed themselves about it. I want to do what everyone wants to do but at the same time I also don’t want to do anything that doesn’t feel like me. Dream SMP was originally started with just me and my friends f*cking around on the SMP but it’s different now. There’s a lot more to it with the DSMP. And the DSMP obviously was iconic and had so many awesome things to it. So I think realistically there won’t be a Season 2. If there was it’d be different and it won’t be for a while if there was. But, I think realistically there’s not so don’t get your hopes up.

And again that’s another thing that’s like hey you know I’m sorry. That’s something like false expectations. But The thing is, everything was done everything was ready. Everything was coded for DSMP Season 2. I had a whole document with all the new features, all the new plans, we had came up with the initial story etc etc. And just like, it didn’t happen. And then after time passed, stuff wasn’t happening, the finales and stuff. The finales took a lot longer than expected and there was stuff that didn’t ever come through with the finales.

And I honestly lost motivation. One thing I said when we discussed it later on was like definitely once it ended up not happening it was my fault but the reason that it got to that point was because nobody was as motivated and nobody was as into it for a long period of time and everybody got busy with irl stuff. There were periods of time where I would message people and people wouldn’t reply about doing stuff and periods where I got messaged and wouldn’t reply. But then there was a multi-month period where I didn’t know what to do. I was sitting there like ‘I don’t know if we should reboot, I don’t know if we should do fresh stuff’.

And then of course Techno and obviously that complicated things. Our plan for a while unfortunately before Techno passed was to do like a memory related thing in order to have new relationships and friendships and stuff. But then obviously that was something that Phil pointed out like something he didn’t think about then mentioned later on was like oh that kinda sucks because you know it would be erasing stuff Techno had done and stuff. That kinda affected the plans. Do we change what we do? Do we whatever?

Yeah. As far as I know the server’s still up and has been up. Anyone’s that’s on and whitelisted can do what they want and stuff. I know Karl’s talked about doing lore outside of the SMP for his final stuff and I think Quackity’s talked about the same. Because It’s less reliant on other people to do things. Yeah, I don’t know, that’s kinda my thought process on this so I don’t want to whatever.

And again I just want to go back to a time where we were all saying it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen. It was. Everything was done, everything was ready and then. It wasn’t really, it wasn’t just a me thing being like ‘well guess we’re not doing it’ There’s like a lot of stuff that happened and obviously stuff that happened which complicated things, like publicly as well. Some of the stuff... I’m sure you know what I’m referring to. That happened right around when Dream SMP season 2 was in the works and being finished. And so that obviously genuinely demotivated me a lot and made me like alright well whatever. I don’t care. I just want to hang with my friends and go back to my roots and do what’s fun for me.

And everyone that did reply whenever I kinda said that stuff fairly recently on the SMP, like a month ago or a month and a half ago at this point, everyone that replied was very positive like ‘oh yeah it sucks but we just want to be able play an SMP with our friends and stuff. And like yeah, that’s totally fair but that doesn’t necessarily have to be the Dream SMP, that can be anything.

#dream smp #dream situation #(alluded to)#dsmp #transcript #aah he says kinda and like so much #i cut a lot of that out

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sourpeachsayshi · 6 months ago

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writer rant / q for writers in the end: I am wondering if the lack of engagement in terms of what I write on this blog is because it’s a new blog, or if it s because engagement has been sucking generally.

I’ve noticed massive dip on reblogs & comments on my main (and I don’t like to complain because I know I have a decent following for it) but a majority of my notifs are just likes and nothing else. Closing up requests, I’ve noticed a difference in inbox messages I receive. But if I open requests, they are instantly flooded for me to write ideas. When I post a fic, the reblogs / feedback are minimal, but one of the most common comments I will receive is “part two?” or “I need more!”When I get requested to continue a story or one shot - it’s the same viscous circle in regards to interaction.

I am just so bored of opening up my notifs and only seeing likes 😩 it just feels so lifeless. Like to give you an example, my most recent gojo post on main is sitting at 204 notes - with 184 of those just likes. my recent choso piece on this blog is at 300+ notes with 299 of those notes only likes! like these ratios are so drastic, I can’t even imagine the struggle it must be for smaller blogs or new writers who are just starting >.>

Idk it kind of just feels like the fanfiction community isn’t running as a community at the moment. There are mutuals/followers who I love speaking to - and their interaction is where I find a lot of inspiration to engage and share stories. I don’t want to stop writing…but I definitely don’t think I will be accepting anymore requests once I finish what’s in my drafts.

I’ve pretty much lost all motivation to write up requests if I am being completely honest which is why they take me forever and a day to get through.

Any other writers struggling or feeling demotivated? Any changes you’ve made to your own rules / writing because of it? I am genuinely just curious if it’s me just hyper-fixating or if this is happening across the board..

#[notes.⛥]#fandom things

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kosmicdream · 2 months ago

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I got this ask on curiouscat but.. the site wont let me post my reply?? so i just decided to put it here since i dont get a lot of questions these days. so i like to answer them when i actually have something more to say. this one also went kinda off topic but w/e.

Q: How do you keep the motivation to work on all your long comics? I always start and then abandon a project cause another distracts me or I feel unsatisfied with the result... I admire your commitment so much!

===

Aw, thank you! I really appreciate it. But don’t get too discouraged.. I get distracted too! I currently have 9 ongoing comic projects with 2 more i eagerly want to start drawing, and at least a dozen concepts on the backburner that have been around for sometimes over a decade. I think that what I’ve found, is that starting a new comic takes so much time. It takes a lot of time to get a story really rolling, time to learn how to draw the story how you want and in a weird way - having a longer comic you’ve had more experience with, you can pull a lot more things from. I generally find that FFAK and NRD are much easier comics for me to work on because of all those years of experience with them. But it still can get demoralizing if i focus too much on the faults or how long I still have to go. Sometimes its easy to feel that readers have lost interest and moved on, or its just not as good as you wanted it to be, ect. If you look for reasons like that, reasons to demotivate you, you’ll find them in spades.So i try my best to NOT do that, because working on a comic is hard enough.

In a weird way, when i sometimes find myself in the pit of struggles like this - i realize every author ive ever read has been in the same shoes as me. There is no artist that just magically has it easier and never runs into some challenges like this, some challenges can never be overcome because they’re part of the experience of making the project. There’s limitations involved and things change overtime. You won’t always have the same experience with the same story as you make it, or the same feelings involved. Sometimes that's really hard to let go of, if you feel the earlier years were so much better than the struggles you have now. I know I faced that hurdle with FFAK and I am currently going through that with NRD, but even the harder times do change too. It never gets easy to make a comic, but it changes.

With FFAK, i don’t honestly know how I will finish the complete story. I often struggle too, especially with the third (final) arc, if it really is good enough. In a way, a lot of places of it feel incomplete and rushed, so I tend to worry a lot about how that will go. However, I never thought i’d have a comic like FFAK in the first place, so i feel really lucky to have made it this far at all. Endings do scare me, as there’s just so much pressure involved to deliver and even reach it at all, that it feels almost like an impossible fantasy to pull off in a satisfying manner to yourself or the readers. However, I do think I’ve gotten more excited to reach endings than I used to be even a couple years ago, and I have gotten more forgiving of myself for not being perfect at it. No matter what I manage to make, I’m going to have my own critiques of it because there’s improvements to be made in all aspects of the story. I’m looking forward to seeing what I can actually do so I can learn from it and be more confident in the future.

FFAK also has such a huge cast, it can be a technical nightmare to figure out. I dont envy authors like GRRM that have a seemingly endless cast to deal with. I already have so much of my hands full with what is essentially one family. And I know for my other comics that I’ve made, the cast has never gotten as out of hand as FFAK’s. But I dont mind having FFAK be like this, because it has been part of my enjoyment of writing the story too. FFAK is generally very motivating because I always have something I’m excited to share about it, and every small progress is a big reward for me. I’ve put a lot of years of work into ARC2 and i am desperate to get to share it with everyone, so I hope readers will enjoy what is to come for the future of the story even though it already is a decade old at this point.

#ffak #feast for a king #asks #idk if i have a tag for questions anymore #ffak faq

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neonscreenlight · 2 years ago

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ok so i was Thinking and then i came up with an idea: what if the new ivory video is a metaphor for burnout/demotivation. hear me out:

the first half of the video is formatted exactly like a typical minecraft video. ivory said on stream that it was meant to be a "playful jab" at them (something along those lines). now, the reason why so many youtubers make videos like this is because, well, they're popular right now, the algorithm gods bless those videos in particular, until it becomes oversaturated and people move onto the next trend. and having to constantly make things you don't like because it's your only source of money, and having that thing you need to make be constantly shifting without you realizing, is like, prime burnout fuel.

so halfway during the video, ivory's persona breaks down a little. she doesn't really like the clickbaity character she's put on and and doesn't even feel convinced by it herself. there's a quote from the video right after this breakdown that i think exemplifies this: "you and i have both seen this a thousand times before. the same thing regurgitated, like a landfill of sodden ideas." as if ivory is recognizing that she wants to make different content, but the algorithm isn't going to like that content, as well as the fact that every other youtuber is probably in the same boat.

and then ebony comes. ebony is actually pretty interesting in this interpretation, because she seems to be trying to make ivory do the good thing in this situation and take a break. she feels the same way about ivory's content being unoriginal ("wow, you take over the world! how inspiring, i haven't seen that one done before.", "but you agree! it's not what i want."), but is also trying her best to get ivory out of the situation ("i'm doing you a favour. just rest, you need it.") there's a few more interesting things in the forest world scene, such as ivory saying she's tired and "this is the part where you try to justify yourself". but despite ebony trying to get ivory to rest, ivory says that she wants to get out. she hasn't killed god yet, hasn't finished making the video. right before ivory hits the candle and the epileptic scene starts, ebony says "last time you did this you nearly tore yourself in half", which implies that ivory has already worked herself to death and experienced the consequences of that, and yet she's doing it all again, because she needs to do that for money.

the epileptic scene could represent something like a moment of over-stress or having a mental breakdown? as you might be able to tell, it's slightly hard to figure out what it means exactly. but it's obvious that ivory is in pain, and trying to keep working when she was exhausted was her tipping point.

and then flashing lights and breakcore and stuff and then bam it's a normal minecraft video again woohoo! for a few minutes, at least. the video ends with a mini glitch effect, which i think could symbolize that ivory has not broken free of her pain, she's just pushed it to the side so she could finish.

yes i have gone insane

#i have watched the video like three times now and it only came out a day ago #why is it so good #why did ivory slay #ivorycello #ivoryblr #neon rants about fandoms

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amadeusgame · 4 months ago

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July Devlog - Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee ~ Episode 1 ~ Waltz

Quick overview of all changes/updates implemented this month:

MUSIC: wrote almost all remaining music for Episode 1, and recorded some live parts for certain tracks

MYSTERY: created a "glossary" menu in the backlog notebook for reference (including things like the terms of the Witch's deal, etc)

SAVE/LOAD: system can now handle loading from multiple "progression points" within each scene

AUDIO IMPLEMENTATION: code for seamless audio looping (with reverb tail) exists now and works

TEXT SYSTEM: scrolling text can now support rich text codes, including font style changes mid-text

POINT-AND-CLICK SYSTEM: there is now a visual change to the background image when hovering over an interactible object

UI DESIGN: started reformatting main menu - still in progress

The rest of this development log is a lot more personal than usual, and is quite long. This month has been a lot, and I want to talk about how that impacted my ability to work on this game.

Read on below the cut.

More on Amadeus: linktr.ee/amadeusgame

The fact I have still done so much is a testament to how much this game means to me, and how much it helps to acknowledge when I just can't do what I planned to do and need to re-prioritize.

I was severely set back this month because of health issues. This resulted in a compounded setback because the health issues made me more easily frustrated by life in general, so any development issues ballooned into perceived catastrophes.

I eventually identified that I was really stuck on a few particular aspects of the finalfinal-final-forrealfinal vision for the game:

Design - I hadn't sat down with my overall art direction since finishing the demo. It was still feeling rather demo-y from a design perspective and I became self-conscious about this. On the other hand, I was really stressed about whether changing anything about the design philosophy this late would create exponentially more work for me as an artist, and feeling like I might have to choose between quality and finishing.

Narrative - although I'd written Episode 1 in full, I wanted to do more foreshadowing of much-later reveals. As I started considering how to do this, I began to worry about being so heavy-handed with it that I would give everything away and completely undermine the whole project before it gets going. I was too afraid of striking the right balance to make any actual progress.

Build/Implementation - a lot of mechanics were still buggy, and in addition to fixing them, I still needed to do a lot of tedious and very manual work to build the remaining scenes of the game. This work felt so mind-numbing that I had no desire to do it, and yet it still needed to be done. A perfectly demotivating combination.

Over-fragmentation - at this point in the game's development, the fact that all of my tasks for it were separated by category in Asana ("art"/"audio"/"mechanics," etc) made it difficult to see the dependencies in how these all come together, which in turn made it difficult to manage the remaining tasks to ship the game. It seemed like my to-do lists were all invisibly interconnected and felt impossible to track progress.

Once I realized I was stuck, and was stressed out by my to-do list but not actually working on it, I ignored my actual planned tasks for that week and gave myself a new assignment of figuring out how to get un-stuck and feel less overwhelmed. This mostly came in the form of asking friends for advice. It also involved following my own advice I love to give other people, which is "acknowledge when a system isn't working for you and change it." I went from feeling frustrated, lost, demotivated, and stressed to really excited after some self-reflection and 2 conversations.

Over-fragmentation

...Technically 3 conversations, as the fragmentation issue was solved thanks to an earlier conversation I had last month with a different friend about my narrative workflow. After talking with her, I started using Notion to manage the writing side of things. I built out different projects for each particular scene so I could have not just the text embedded, but also additional notes on metanarrative information, links to BGM inspirations, checklists, and more. This was something I did just to make it easier to finish writing the full script of the game, and it was definitely a game changer (hah).

I initially built it out as a writing tool, but now that the game is in the final stages of development, I find it is useful to think about all of my remaining tasks like this. It helps to consider them holistically in terms of the multimedia scene(s) they relate to, not as discrete and disconnected art/audio/mechanics needs. Once I realized this, I spent a weekend migrating all of my Asana checklists into the scene-based projects I'd already made in Notion. This was a lot of work, but it is now much easier to see a direct path from the current state of Amadeus to a finished game. And it gives me achievable goals on the way there: discrete checklists for finishing individual scenes, which are playtest-able while I work on the rest!

(I still use Asana to manage big picture stuff as well as recurring reminders and what I plan to do each week, but the specific tasks pertaining to the build of Amadeus Episode 1 all live in Notion now.)

Narrative

To address my narrative bottleneck I first had to get over the thought that spoiling my narrative to a particular friend would ruin it for them. Once I actually asked them if they'd like to be Amadeus Spoiler Friend #2 (because I was desperate and knew I needed more help workshopping the narrative), they were so enthusiastic I regretted not asking them several months earlier. We set up a voice call, I told them everything, and we bounced ideas on certain Very Important Topics.

I know that the more I have figured out from the very outset, the stronger the whole series will be; so I am very excited about this.

This friend also asked some questions that I hadn't thought to ask myself before (even though, in retrospect, they seem obvious) - and answering those questions gave me solid direction for finishing this installment in a way that's fun and also should pay off really well later. Then after our conversation they also offered to proofread certain sneaky things I am doing from the lens of their Forbidden Knowledge.

Talking to them has made me feel much better about my reveal/foreshadowing pacing, and I have someone I can ask directly about my "is this too on-the-nose" concerns, which helps a ton. Also, it just felt good to hear someone say "oohhhh, that's really cool!" about something I can't talk about until way later, because I THINK SO TOO I'M GLAD YOU ALSO THINK SO.

Build/Implementation

As for build issues, I talked to a friend (listen, the power of friendship got me through this month, I'm not going to lie) who is a career game developer, and who previously worked in Unity although he doesn't anymore. I used to worked with him on game jam games... the first of which was in 2016... when I was fresh out of undergrad composing exclusively in MuseScore. In a roundabout way, it's partially thanks to him that I eventually built a portfolio to go to grad school, which in turn got me to make Amadeus and also become a (much worse) Unity developer myself. Funny how things work out.

Anyway, I really enjoyed talking to him. He is non-judgmental - he knows I've taken exactly one Unity/C# course and have learned the rest by trial, error, and StackExchange.

He gave the best possible advice for where I am currently at in development: since I've built almost everything, even if I've done it with the world's jankiest spaghetti, the most important thing right now is to Just Finish It. But once it's done, we're going to have another call where we can discuss how to refactor everything to make my life a million times easier making Episode 2.

But it wasn't all about planning for Episode 2. He also helped me identify how I can slightly tweak some of my existing structure to automate more things that I've been doing incredibly manually. We effectively made a list of "here are the things to do NOW to make things simpler, and here are the things that are not worth fixing at this stage but we can talk about for Episode 2." (Example of a quick NOW fix: instead of dragging a reference to my Menu Settings script to every single slider and button in my menu, just have a script in the parent for all of those menu sliders/buttons that automatically grabs the sliders and buttons in its children and assigns it that reference. Then I only have to assign the reference ONCE to the parent. Seems so obvious now! I need to be doing a lot more stuff in scripts to just make my own life easier.)

In the grand scheme, though, that advice wasn't the most helpful thing he told me by a long shot.

In our conversation, since he is a developer who chose that career because he enjoys it, he started talking about focusing on what I LIKE about building the game. When I open Unity, what do I find fun, and want to do more of? Obviously I should also take note of the major pain points so we can reduce the amount of time I have to deal with them in future episodes; but he also told me to pay attention to what I really like to do.

I'm going to be completely honest. I'd completely forgotten that building the game itself was something that was, at one point, fun. When I was first building the game, it involved a ton of interesting problem-solving. It was asking myself "I wonder if I can figure out how to do this..." and being excited when the answer was "yes." It was showing off by doing way beyond what the Unity class homework assignment asked. It STOPPED being fun after I'd built all of the baseline mechanics I wanted to use, and then my to-do list slowly - so slowly I didn't realize it was happening - shifted from "stuff I want to build," into "stuff I think other people will want me to implement."

And while many of these mechanics are indeed important and good, it is not particularly motivating to build mechanics just because I think someone else will want me to build them. For the past several months I have been programming for other people and not for myself.

I really, really appreciate this next bit of advice this developer friend gave me. He prefaced it by saying "now I don't usually advise people to increase scope, but..." and that's how you know it's good advice! It is clearly tailored to ME and what I find motivating. His point was: this is MY game. I'm building it entirely myself. So if there's anything that I'm curious about, anything that's made me think, "hmmm, I wonder if I can figure out how to do this?" - then I should just do that. It's my game, I'm not building it for anyone else. I can build stupid mechanics for no reason. I can, and should, try building stuff just because it would be cool.

And that was so incredibly motivating. I actually HAD been thinking of a particular "what-if" mechanic, a mechanic I'd actually literally said "man, it would be cool if..." to my writer friend in our conversation from a few days earlier! But I'd given up on it because it seemed not as important as other things I "should" be working on. This new advice gave me permission to prioritize self-indulgence, not just in writing/art/direction/music, but in the programming of the game itself. There's a reason I am making a game, and not another form of media! I find the process of building the (janky) mechanics myself fun, interesting, and rewarding! It lets me play with the part of my brain that watches math YouTube videos for fun, in addition to the part of my brain that likes making music that goes dugga dugga and drawing pretty pictures.

Opening up the engine and writing code is supposed to be something that makes me feel like a cackling evil wizard, not a bored and frustrated person going through the motions because they have to. There is no obligation. I am making this because I want to make a game.

Soooo after this conversation I immediately built three things that I'm really happy with.

Text now supports rich text codes, which means I can be REALLY tacky with fonts and colors and all sorts of stuff.

(Obligatory this-is-a-WIP disclaimer but the finished game will probably be comparable in terms of how much psychic damage it deals to graphic designers.)

Now, Unity's TextMeshPro supports rich text by default, so you may be wondering why I haven't been doing this all along. Two reasons: one, I didn't realize that until recently. Two, the way my text-auto-scroll mechanic worked was NOT compatible with this. I had to completely re-work the entire logic of that mechanic so that it wouldn't also visibly type out the characters " <style= " in the textbox. But after making the necessary changes, which was a headache but it's fine I figured it out finally, I HAVE BEEN HAVING SO MUCH MORE FUN IMPLEMENTING TEXT!

BGM with a reverb tail can now loop seamlessly, which I really wanted for a very important later scene I've been working on.

This was one of those things I'd been putting off as a "nice-to-have" and figured I shouldn't spend time on until I finished working on "essential" stuff, but after this conversation I decided to just sit down and make it. It was really easy! It only took me like an hour, including time to research! I'm actually really excited about this because I hate basically every audio middleware program in existence (Wwise, I'm looking at you) and it's so much easier and more convenient to just do this in Unity.

In fact, this is pretty much the only script I have that is super generic and not tied up in lots of other Amadeus-specific spaghetti, so if you have a use for it I put it on GitHub here: https://github.com/ArcanaXIX/UnityScripts/

Hovering on interactible objects now visibly changes the appearance of the object, in addition to the existing cursor changes.

Actual implementation needs to be tweaked a lot, but this was my first time using sprite masks in Unity and it was very fun getting it to work. "Background objects visually change on hover" was another mechanic I had been considering for a while, but I was thinking about doing it very manually by rendering a unique sprite for every single interactible and then activating that sprite when it's active. This would require so much extra art and very hands-on implementation, so I had given up on it.

Once I turned it into a question of implementation, it became less manual (I no longer need to redraw every single interactible object) and also a fun challenge to learn more about Unity functionality. The only additional art assets needed are something with roughly the right shape to use as a mask, and then an alternate version of the full background art which can be really easily made by just applying a filter.

Here is the version of that background art that I'm using as a proof-of-concept, which was made in about 2 seconds by just converting the existing image to a 1-bit layer:

I will be experimenting with what exactly I want the highlighted areas to look like, but once I've found a process I like, it will be really easy to just apply that to all of the background images.

After importing the asset, I just added some very simple code to reveal part of this alternate art using sprite masks when you hover over interactible objects. The only detail work using this process is in the sprite masks for each interactible, which don't have to be perfect for it to look good, just approximate. Pretty straightforward and feels good.

I'm really satisfied by how well it works even as just a functional placeholder - this is with using the "N" key sprite as a mask for testing purposes. I intend to do more than just add a black outline, but again, functional placeholder:

(I'm too lazy to make a GIF, but imagine the window there is brown pencil like everything else until you hover over it and then the black lines appear. I'll definitely be making a new gameplay trailer once this is in better shape, so look forward to that if you want to see it in action.)

Which brings me to...

Design

...except not really! I just needed to realize from my playing around in Unity that "Design" is not a separate and distinct thing that can be tackled independently from implementation. Implementation is a driving force of design. By approaching implementation with joy and excitement, I have also found an avenue to address the game's design needs. I'm going ham with fonts and figuring out what visual direction I want to take the interactible mask layer.

Instead of treating the "design guy" and "implementation guy" in my brain as two coworkers who vaguely dislike interacting with each other, if I imagine them as two coworkers who are both stoked and insane about this project and each other's work, the collaboration becomes really fun. The implementation guy shows the design guy this mechanic they built and the design guy goes "oh, I can have SO much fun with this. I'll be right back with some placeholder assets so we can see what looks good!"

Motivation

I think the actual message of this devlog, at its heart, is exactly the same as last month's. I've just been repeatedly coming to the realization that I keep trying to make a "good" game, by some generic "objective" definition of "good," and it's made me miserable. What I really should be doing is making an incredibly self-indulgent game. That means a game I find fun to build, too!

Amadeus is not going to be a broadly marketable smash success. It has a chance, when it's completely finished, of gaining a cult following by word-of-mouth via people going "you have to just trust me and play all 5 episodes of this. We can't talk about it until you're finished though." But, as its sole author and artist and musician and developer, Amadeus is something that I need to make in a very certain way to prove a point. It's coming entirely from within, and I am absolutely determined to finish it, so I must be self-indulgent.

Let's not get it twisted, though: I don't believe that self-indulgent and good are at odds. Spending a couple days making mechanics for fun actually made the game better! But in a project like this, where my primary goal is personal artistic expression, and my secondary goal is proving I can finish a major project... motivation is the most valuable currency in the universe, and therefore self-indulgence matters more than anything else.

I am speaking so passionately about how motivating it was to talk to people who understand my priorities and are excited about meeting me where I'm at, because without motivation this game would never be finished, and I want to be very honest about the fact that finding ways to stay motivated has been crucial.

I would also like to contrast these motivating conversations with how demotivating it is to receive feedback from folks who, shall we say, are missing the mark on what this game is and seeks to be.

While I sincerely believe that Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee is going to be good, there are a few things to keep in mind about it. These are things that I think are pretty obvious, but just in case they aren't:

It is made by one person.

With a budget of $0 and all of my spare time.

With a very strong professional background in audio,

And the scrappiest DIY skillset in everything else.

That's not to say it can't still aim to have smoother player experience, to have stronger visual cues, to be better written, to be a better work of art. Those are in fact all things that I have been constantly working toward and seeking feedback to improve, because I do want other people to engage with it and have a positive experience. I am making this to share with other people. But I will occasionally receive feedback that seems to want to steer Amadeus in the direction of your average Kickstarter-funded publisher-backed title with 15 people working on it, and not a solo passion project.

The remainder of this devlog is written as objectively as I can while very demonstrably being upset about it. I debated removing this section entirely, but I think it's important to discuss, because this kind of thing can really impact development when you're a team of one person.

I also know that normally this kind of feedback wouldn't bother me so much, but since I received it after going on 2 weeks of dealing with the onset of a new chronic pain issue (which has been a massive stressor), it utterly tanked my mood.

Dismissive, Demotivating Feedback

I received the following feedback as "things to work on" from an anonymous juror evaluating my game for an indie game event.

When first meeting the witch the dialog is just incredibly long and boring and I ended up skipping through most of it. Given how linear this story seems to be, I think it would be better suited as a webcomic or a motion comic, not a visual novel. The interactivity hinders, rather than helps, in this case.

All due respect: who are you writing this critique for? For me, to make my game better? Or for you, to validate your own preferences? I think the answer to that is clear.

This is an obvious--and egregious--example of particularly demotivating feedback, but since it is real feedback I have really received, I want to talk about it. Specifically, I want to talk about how much it sucks to hear this.

This isn't actionable, unless you count "throw everything away and do something else" as an action worth taking. This makes no attempt to meet me where I'm at or consider my reasons or motivations for making the game as I have. It does not even consider that there may be aspects of the interactivity that are crucial to how the story will unfold; I'll acknowledge that the currently-live demo does not do much to showcase this, but this feedback has already decided that there is no such intention and I've wasted my time making a game.

My actionable feedback is to go make a webcomic instead. It also insists that my writing is boring, but doesn't tell me how to make the Witch dialogue more engaging (which, I have received other feedback from others addressing the same topic, who did give me specific and actionable feedback that has since been implemented). It just tells me that it's boring and they didn't like it.

And what's worse, this was feedback submitted by a juror evaluating my game for an indie games event. This kind of feedback sucks no matter what, even if it's just somebody leaving a public comment. But this is an individual who, in a certain context, was given some manner of influence, authority, and merit; and given this authority and merit, their feedback amounted to, "why did you even make a game?"

The rest of this juror's feedback was similarly dismissive and made it clear they did not like the game. That is understandable. However, it made no attempt to acknowledge that this game does have an audience, even if it's decidedly not this juror. Every single other juror's feedback at least understood that Amadeus has certain priorities and gave feedback that was more or less aligned with those priorities, but this one did not seem to think I've ever so much as had anyone else playtest it. In fact, they effectively said as much:

I get the feeling that this is an experience that makes a perfect amount of sense to the developer but that there hasn't been any attempt made to make it playable for someone who doesn't already know the garden path.

And this is feedback from before I decided to become more self-indulgent! This was the reaction to the game in a state I was actually trying to make even slightly marketable! I suppose in a way it validates my current priorities, because even when I try to prioritize quality over self-indulgence, people like this will still assume I've prioritized self-indulgence and write dismissive feedback about it anyway.

This feedback sucks so much I've dedicated a full segment of my monthly write-up to discussing it. Because as I've already mentioned, when you are one person making an entire and incredibly ambitious game entirely by yourself, motivation is the most valuable currency in the world. In that currency, things like this are expensive.

Further, when you are one person, you are ill equipped to handle things like "100% of your development team suddenly has a new health issue" and can't delegate the role of Accepting Bad Feedback With Grace to someone else in a better mood. I probably wouldn't even be mentioning this if it weren't for the pain that came on this month, but the pain happened and it has tangibly impacted my ability to work on this game, and put me in a place where this kind of feedback was the single last thing I needed to hear.

I know very well what the professional wisdom on this kind of topic is. The professional wisdom is: if feedback hurts, that's because part of it may be true; don't use "it's a solo project" as an excuse for shortcomings of your indie game. If you can't do something, form a team with someone who can cover your weaknesses. The player doesn't care how many people made it, they only care if it's good. Don't whine when people point out that your scrappy indie project feels scrappy.

That's valuable wisdom for someone trying to make a profitable career in games. That's also precisely what I intend to do after I finish Amadeus: take on a more collaborative project with a group of people I trust - we have a tentative team, but I've told them all they have to wait until I've proven I can ship this whole 5-part game. I'm not ready to lead a collaboration until I first finish Amadeus and prove that I know how to manage a project of this scope from beginning to end. Beyond that, of course, it is personally important for me to share Amadeus's story before I worry about other projects.

"Put together a team to cover your weaknesses instead of making excuses" is not valuable wisdom when the entire point of a particular project is that it derives meaning from being one person's vision. That is what Amadeus is. It's far more about expression than quality, even if in my opinion, good expression is quality.

I sought feedback from this indie event because I hoped that indie spaces would understand that "indie" can mean anything from "personal multimedia art piece" to "modest budget and team of folks who quit their AAA careers to follow their passions." I've also really enjoyed attending this particular event myself, and have made meaningful connections with developers who have showcased at it previously. That's a big reason I took this feedback so personally - I had higher expectations that my work would be respected for what it is from this feedback.

Oh well.

At any rate, the lesson I learned from this was not that I should go make a webcomic, or that the music in Amadeus is too dissonant.

(I got that feedback as well, but it's easier to shrug off critiques related to audio because I am extremely confident in my abilities as a musician. I have an ego too big to deflate on that front.)

The lesson I learned from this was that my intentions are always going to be dismissed and misinterpreted by some people. There's nothing I can do about that, so I might as well make what I want to make with full authenticity, and hope the people who are interested in listening will hear what I have to say.

#devlog #Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee #indie game development #visual novel #indie game

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studentbyday · 1 year ago

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don't ask me to analyze poetry but sometimes i get the last lines stuck in my head bc it's a long road to get to where i wanna be in life...

D-37 & D-36 DAYS TO FREEDOM

yesterday i studied for 3h and 36 mins. i was supposed to study for 6+ hours. today i will try to make up for it bc yesterday was just not enough time to finish everything i was supposed to. i wonder how long it will take me to figure out (and be okay with) a reasonable to-do list. i really feel like i keep overwhelming myself with things to do that i just keep feeling defeated and demotivated every day bc it's impossible to finish it all in 1 day...

learning:

finish 2nd biochem discussion reply (took 2h 😑) ✅ (why is it *so* *hard* to read and understand biochem papers without reading at a snail's pace?? 😩)

finish 1.5 psyc ch for this week ✅ (OMG THE NEUROSCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS IS SO COOL and also really freaky bc many different brain regions are so dependent on each other so damage may mean you don't actually perceive smth??? unfortunately to allow my brain to osmose the info, i need to slow down 🥺 i wish i could go faster.)

finish biochem sec 1, start sec 2 ✅

self-care:

physio exercises x2 ✅

journal x2 ✅

laundry ✅

update: i could not stick to pomodoro for more than 3h today and i didn't study anymore after that. i could not focus very well after the first hour and a half. i think it's because i didn't sleep well last night. so i'm gonna finally try to be consistent for a week and go to bed between 9-10 even if i don't feel like it and even if i can't fall asleep right away for the first couple of days. also, i think i'll try to reduce the amount of stuff i write on a day's to-do list. i'll still be aiming for 6-8h of studying per day, but we're gonna go with 4 or 5 tasks a day if 2 or 3 of them are small (takes an hour or less) and 3 if all the tasks are big (i.e. takes 2 hours or more) and if i finish early, then everything else i do will be a happy bonus, and if not, that's fine as well bc i'm still gonna get it done within the week, just not this instant. maybe tmr's update will feature a new bujo spread? (i changed it from the 2-page weekly to a super basic 6 column thing that would allow me to timeblock my days but...ofc that didn't help for very long bc all that space allowed me to overwhelm myself every day!)

🎶 liebesleid/love's sorrow - kreisler/rachmaninoff (yes the same set of songs keep getting stuck in my head. it seems to stay like that until i'm able to play them myself. so we're gonna be with this set for a while 😅 as a sidenote, this was a great song to listen to as i journalled about imposter syndrome 😂 it really fit the vibes 😎)

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woman-for-women · 1 year ago

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How do you make your infographics if I can ask, and how long does it normally take you to design, do the research, find what quotes you like, etc. I’m very interested in making my own, especially about the drag queen issue but I struggle with adhd and staying on task and get unmotivated easily.

What I use to make Infographics/Posts

You don’t need anything fancy to make infographics! I’m familiar with Adobe InDesign and the Adobe design suite, but those tools are expensive and are hard to learn.

I use Canva to make my material. I don’t pay for their premium account, so my account is completely free! It gives you templates and design elements to work with. I really like Canva because it helps me quickly design and post material.

How long does it take?

Making posts with just a quote usually takes me 5 minutes per post, so they're pretty fast to make.

My infographic posts take the longest to make. My Intersex and Sex Binary posts took me over 30 hours to research, plan, compile, write, design, and edit. Some smaller infographics like Transmasculine Individuals and Binding took ~4 hours.

A lot of the time is spent on the research stage. The good news is I've compiled a lot of my research into this ~300-page master document! It's full of studies and facts, grouped by topic as a resource for other women. It's so big I've really only scraped the surface in terms of what I've been able to adapt so far.

Feel free to take a look for yourself if you want to make your own posts/material, or if you're just curious! If you're interested in making posts about any of the topics listed, this might help shorten your research. I've also named/linked all my sources, so you can click the hyperlinked sources or Google the name of the study and read the whole thing if it interests you.

Work Process & Motivation

I also struggle with motivation and finishing projects. The key (for me) is to organizing my digital workspace.

If I see a statistic or study that interests me, I stick it into my masterdoc. If I see a Tumblr post with an interesting idea, quote, or fact, I save the post as a draft

When I have time, I go through my drafts and pick a few posts I feel like adapting.

On Canva, you can search for keywords like "Instagram Post", "Instagram Story" or "Quote" and Canva will give you suggested templates.

I have a Canva document saved of a bunch of templates I want to use for quotes, for example (you may recognize some of the backgrounds/fonts from my posts):

When I pick a quote I like, I copy and paste the template square into a blank page on my document where I keep all my quotes and I just edit the text and mess around with the design elements until I'm satisfied.

I can then easily export my posts!

My process for infographics is similar. I search "Infographic" and save infographic templates I like, then just add in the information when I have the time and motivation.

I get demotivated sometimes, so it helps to do a lot of posts back-to-back when I'm motivated and have time. I then add the posts to my Tumblr queue, so my blog is posting daily, even on days or weeks when I don't have the time, energy, or motivation to make material.

I know online activism can get really tiring and it can be easy to burn out. Stickering, flyering, reading feminist/woman-centered books to educate yourself, signing petitions and writing letters, meeting with like-minded women, and volunteering for women's shelters/causes are great ways to help women in real life that don't feel as impersonal as a Tumblr blog. If there's a topic you're passionate about, make that infographic or post, but also think about what you can do in real life to advocate for or advance the cause!

I find mailing women radical feminist stickers (which you can order for free here!) is a great way to remind myself that I'm not alone and there are other women like me. Every envelope I pack makes me feel really connected to other women. I also work for an organization that helps women in the Global South and try to read feminist books in my spare time.

TL;DR - Use Canva, spread the word, and try to help women in real life!

#w4w speaks #w4w asks #w4w infographic #w4w how to

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bettsfic · 8 months ago

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Hi betts, I would love any advice please 💜 I've been writing original fic for myself for many years and it's been fun. But I want to publish my writing, and now I've got 2 issues: 1 - I have never stuck to an idea once I decide to write something that others will see. It's like stage fright and I'm throwing away idea after idea. And 2 - I'm literally not used to "trying" to write well anymore. There are moments in my writing that are much better than others, just a flow or getting into the zone, whatever, but I don't have to try. It's easy to write 10-15k words a day without the pressure to do it well, but now it's grinding and fussing over every sentence and paragraph, the pressure chokes it and my writing reads strangely no matter what I do or tell myself. I studied writing at university and always seriously choked when showing people my work then, too.

Would drafting/editing practice help this at all? Publishing fragments to loosen up and "test the water" before attempting a finished story? I'm a perfectionist and am rarely if ever vulnerable with others, which has me questioning why I even put myself in this position!! I'm so demotivated and wondering whether I'm a writer who really wants to do this, or just an escapist. Thank you for reading 💜

hmm, perhaps i'm missing something. if you've been writing original fiction for yourself for years, at 10-15k a day, that means you have a portfolio of work. a large portfolio. you don't have to make anything new. i would just go through what you've already written through the lens of an audience seeing it--which will suck and feel awful--and pick out the stuff that has merit. somewhere in there has to be something you can punch up. find the piece or excerpt or chapter that you feel is the least terrifying for someone else to see, then go through the revision process with it. identify the weakest sentences and play around with them. do some major developmental revision and rewriting. i don't think you have to start from scratch.

churning out 10-15k a day is an insane feat. even if you think the writing isn't any good, it is an exceptional skill to even be able to generate that many words. my 10-15k days are pretty rare and i usually have to sleep 9 hours to get my brain back. the thing is, the process from down draft to up draft is a slow one. you might be able to *revise* 10k in a day, and that might look like one good paragraph, and that's just the way of things. if you have a 100k project you wrote for funsies, it's possible that maybe 5k of a subplot may end up developing the premise of a different story that you end up fully rewriting anyway. but it's a lot easier to give yourself the task of revising an existing idea for an audience to read, even if you're embarrassed by it, than it is to generate a completely new one.

#writing advice #revision

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spider-man-199999 · 2 years ago

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Web love || Spider-Man 4

Summary: Spider-Man saved you that one time when you needed him and now he comes and checks up on you every single day.

Author's note: I'm honestly so demotivated to write this part since the whole series flopped and idk why

previously on web love: part 1 part2 part 3

this pic is a representation of how Peter feels about his mixed feeling in this fic

"...Life often times opens doors we never really expected to ever be open. And often times these new opportunities lead us to experiencing things we never have dreamed of. And these experiences shape us into the person we become. But sometimes the person we see in the mirror is not the person we want to be. Taking particular roles in life bring us misery, especially when we are not mentally prepared to meet other's expectations for this "social role". And now that we have grown up, we have gone this far, who do we owe it to? When you look back on your life you realize that it's not the groundbreaking turning point that has made us who we are but it was the little everyday things like meeting someone new, doing things you have never done before and generally having the courage to put yourself out there in the world are actually the things that really change us. Those are the things that speak for us the loudest in society and those are the things to which I owe who I am now." Peter's voice rang in the classroom as he read his English essay, his palms sweaty and his cheeks rosy. After he finished his speech the teacher thanked him and told him to sit down and as he walked down to this seat he flipped Ned off, who was filming him with his phone the whole time.

"What are you doing, nuthead?" Peter whispered to him

"I'm going to send this to Y/N, she helped you write that and wanted me to tell her how it went. But we live in the 21st century so I thought it would be better to show her instead''

"Sure, fine, even though I probably look like a dumbass-" he started saying as the teacher shushed them. Peter shook his head, getting a text from you.

Killsforpills: So, I heard the reading went well.

Spywalker: Not bad, not bad

Killsforpills: PUBG after school?

Spywalker: I have work

Killsforpills: Ok, I'll be playing if you decide to join at some point

After the last time Spider-man had come to visit he had vanished once again. You would spend most of your free time just playing videogames and doing school work. Keeping your thoughts occupied was the best way for your to not go insane after everything. Deadpool stopped showing up as well, which left you thinking that maybe this insanity was finally over for good. Maybe it was time to turn the page and try to find a boyfriend or something. Everyone around seemed occupied with someone else, Peter and MJ, Ned and some girl from their school. You felt left out, crying yourself to sleep more times than you would wish for.

Spidey, of course, was not happy about the fact either. He would always check up on you when he could, come see you as much as possible. The issue was that he felt like he had made a really big mess when he visited the last time. He was feeling like a hot mess as well, all these things happening to him. The pressure of being Spider-man, the guilt of lying to MJ about his feelings, the pain from seeing you hurt. It was all piling up, making him slowly lose his mind in all the stress. He would get injure more often than before, do worse on his test. He even seemed to space out often enough to make Ned and MJ worried about him. He would brush it off and tell them not to pay him attention ‘’it’s just superhero things’’ he would say and put on a fake smile for them. It got to the point where Ned had to call and make you try and get something out of him

“You have to call him and make him play a game together! Please, he refuses to talk to us! We need you to find something out....’‘ Ned whined through the phone, convincing you to help him.

“I don’t mean to be rude but why don’t you ask MJ? She’s his girlfriend, surely she’ll get more out of him than me.”

“We tried everything, you’re our last hope! Maybe he needs someone he doesn’t see every single day to open up to! Just try, ok?’‘

‘‘Ok, fine, I’ll try’‘ You agreed with a sigh escaping your lips.

The ringing sound was filling your ear as you had already dialed Peter, trying to reach him. After a few rings you gave up on the call, throwing your phone on the bed behind you and messaging Ned.

Killsforpills: He’s not picking up

Iamfriendswithsidey: Call him again. PLEASE

Killsforpills: Surely he would have picked up if he wanted to talk, maybe he’s busy.

You heard the vibrations from behind you, turning to see Peter calling you. Rushing to pick up you stumbled in the bed, groaning as you hit your leg and rolled on the bed, picking up.

‘‘Hey, you called’‘ You barely heard the boy’s voice from what seemed like wind

‘‘Yeah, I was wondering if you wanted to play some Minecraft, ouch’‘

“What’s wrong?’‘

‘‘Fuck, um nothing, I hit my leg in the bed and it’s bleeding’‘

‘‘I’ll be over in a bit’‘

‘‘Wait, I....’‘ he had already hung up.

You felt kind of bad, maybe he thought it was a serious injury and that’s why he was rushing over but in reality it was just a scratch and he was going to go out of his way for nothing. After what seemed an eternity you heard the doorbell, walking over to open the door. Peter walked in with a worried expression on his face, scanning you to see where the injury was.

‘‘What happened? Are you alright?” He asked as he threw his bag on the couch and grabbed your hand, pulling you towards the bathroom.

‘‘Peter, it’s literally just a scratch, you shouldn’t have walked all the way here! I can take care of that’‘

He didn’t even bother to listen to you, sitting you down on the edge of the tub and looking through the cabinet for rubbing alcohol and bandages.

‘‘It’s going to sting’‘ He said in a serious tone, cleaning the wound.

‘‘You don’t need to do this for just a scratch’‘

He looked up, his gaze piercing right through your body, making you shiver.

‘‘You’ve done it too many times for me’‘

‘‘I haven’t?”

‘‘I mean you would have done it for me too’‘ he said suddenly embarrassed, placing a plaster on the scratch and getting up.

‘‘Hey, what’s with your hands?’‘ His hands were all covered in plaster and bandage

‘‘It’s nothing, work stuff’‘

‘‘Peter, I’m serious, what’s going on? Ned and MJ are very worried about you, you cut me off every time I try to spend time with you, what’s wrong? You know you can tell me. You’ve been acting kind of odd lately.’‘

He looked up, one eye squinting lightly because of the light above you. He put on a fake smile, packing the things he used back.

‘‘I really do think it would be best for you if you didn’t know’‘ he said softly and got up, walking out of the bathroom and sitting on the kitchen counter (like Spider-man used to do every time he would hag out), grabbing a glass and pouring himself a glass of orange juice. Everything felt oddly familiar when you saw he scene. The way his legs hung, the way he threw his head back as he drank, his jawline. Even the way he wiped his mouth with his sleeve sparked some weird sensation in your chest. You tried to brush it off, trying not to think about it and sat down on the couch, turning the tv on. You two spent the evening playing Minecraft together but by the time Peter had to go it felt like you made little to no progress with him. I guess talking about feelings was not his thing.

***

After Peter left your apartment that night, you couldn’t sleep well. After hours of spinning and tossing around in your bed, all the memories of Spider-Man kept rushing through your head, his voice, the way he talked, the way he moved, everything was adding up in your head, it felt like you were about to explode. You never really spent much time with Peter, especially alone, so you never really had a close observation on his behaviour. Yet, somehow, everything clicked. The clock was striking 2 am when you decided maybe it was finally time to confront the situation. Your feelings were getting caught up in the mix as well, making it even worse. It really did feel like your head was spinning, you couldn’t breathe well, your heart was beating so fast it was going to explode just like your head. A panic attack? You’d didn’t know what to do. The only person you knew you need to talk to was Peter. So, almost on impulse, you picked up your phone and dialled his number. You heard the dial in your ear, it was so loud you had to pull the phone slightly away form your face. Just as you did that, the dial stopped and you heard a faint voice from the small device.

“Hello?”

Your breathing got heavier, your heart started beating faster and the room really started spinning.

“Hello? Y/N, are you alright?” The words echoed in the room, a bit more clear this time, you felt tears rolling down your cheeks.

“N-no” you managed to whisper through heavy breaths

“Where are you?” Peter asked, starting to panic himself, which made you more worried.

“Home” you said softly, breaking down in a cry at this point

“Okay, listen to me. I want you to breathe slowly, follow my lead” he told you, voice still panicked as he started taking deep breaths, listening closely to you as you started copying him. “I’m on my way to you, okay? Just keep breathing”

“I’m so sorry” you muffled out, through soft cries, handing up form the panic and breaking down. You didn’t expect to have a panic attack when you called him, or for it to get worse when you did. You didn’t expect him to actually come around, but he did, at 2:30 am, he was knocking on your door.

You had managed to calm down a bit at that point, opening the door a bit hesitantly. His heart shattered when he saw you like that, immediately hugging you and closing the door behind him.

“What’s wrong? What happened? How can I help?” He asked as he held you close, his scent filled your nostrils and eased your nerves a little bit. You could hear his heartbeat. Why was it so fast? Was was this so scary?

“I want you to be honest with me.” You said against his chest, pulling away shortly after so you could look at his face. “Are you… God this sounds so crazy, I promise I’m not crazy! Are you Spider-Man?”

The words spilled out and it suddenly became silent. Peter let go of you, hands going through his hair as he nervously paced around. He didn’t really manage to put a much of an outfit, he was in sweatpants and a loose white T-shirt that moved up with the motion of his hands and exposed his lower stomach. He seemed like he was having a crisis, walking around, squatting down. He looked very nervous and overwhelmed. Was he the one having a panic attack now? The boy stared at the floor, his hair was all messed up, remaining squat down as he exhaled heavily.

“How… did you find out?” He asked coldly, not looking at you.

***

Iamfriendswithspidey: Did you talk to Peter?

The messaged popped up on your screen as you were in the middle of a fight with Peter. You both looked at the phone that was on the couch, the screen showing 3:45 am. Shit, you had been arguing for more than an hour now. The nervous pacing continued for a while from both of you, but the tiredness and the emotional drain was so bad it made you sit down, him on the counter and you on the backrest of the couch, looking at him.

"What did you tell him?" Peter asked, feeling defeated already

"Nothing at all, he asked me to check up on you because you were acting weird and distant. Never got to the point of figuting out what was wrong with you." You replied, voice filled with anger and sadness. The text message was followed by a call, with both of you staing at the screen as it rang, so you could gather your thoughts.

"So..." You broke the silence after Ned gave up "We're set on how you became Spider-man... Care to explain everything else?" You crossed your hands in front of your chest.

"I-" he started, looking down at his lap almost like he was building up the courage. "Well... you see... I don't even know how to explain something I don't understand myself"

"You can try, becuase I'm dying to know why you would do something like this"

"What did I do exactly?"

"Peter...What didn't you do?" You said in frustration, getting up and pacing around again "You would come here, spend time with me for a month straight, every fucking day. You would make me laugh and comfort me and get to know me and all of that bullshit and then leave like it meant nothing! Did it really mean nothing to you?''

"Of course it meant something!'' he jumped off the counter catching up to you to grab your arm "I wouldn't have done any of this if you meant less. I overstepped all of my boundries to be here with you.''

You looked at him, tears starting to stream down your face.

"So you could abandon me? Like you didn't care? Like I was nothing? I spent weeks crying, trying to figure out what I did wrong to push you away" You pulled away from his grip, breaking down in front of him. You could see his emotions getting the better of him as well, his breathing rapid and sharp, his fist clenching.

"You thought it was easy for me too?" He asked, anger bubbling up in his chest. "To have so many people dependent on you? To be constantly scared that the people you care most about could end up hurt because of you?"

"So you thought disappearing on them would make it all better?"

"No, not at all" He let out a sigh, looking down at his lap again. "It just got so complicated, the more I came over, the closer we got and then I just-" He looked back up, looking at your teary eyes "I couldn't help it, I really couldn't, we clicked so well and it was so easy with you and I... I just fell for you, so hard, I was terrified, I couldn't tell you as Spider-Man, I couldn't tell you I was Spider-Man... I had to find some other solution"

"You know what the worst part about this is" you said between sobs "It's that I feel in love with you too''.

He pulled you in after that, hugging you tightly. You tried pushing him but he was much stronger. You cried into his chest, gripping his shirt. He didn't say anything, hot tears streaming down his cheeks as he rested his chin on top of your head.

"Stop" you begged him "Please stop doing this, now that I know it's you, it hurts even worse"

"Why?" He asked, trying to keep his voice as steady as possible

"Because you're dating someone else" you said, helplessly hitting his chest with your fist, trying to make him let go. "Please let me go, I can't do this"

"I'm not letting you go" He shook his head, kissing your forehead "I'm never letting you go, I'm sorry for everything, if I were more of a man, none of this would have happened''

You continued helplessly hitting him, crying in his arms. He hugged you tighter, crying into your hair.

"I would understand if you never want to see me again" he whispered.

"I don't hate you, Peter'' you whispered back. "I just need some time to process all of this"

#marvel imagine #marvel fanfiction #spiderman imagine #spiderman fanfiction #spiderman x y/n #spiderman #fanfiction #creative writing #writing #peter perker imagine #peter parker x y/n #peter parker x reader #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker x you #peter parker #imagine

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the-13th-battalion · 1 year ago

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I've said it before but I'm gonna say it again, but louder

If you want a fic updated, the best way to do it is to offer support and love

This does NOT mean commenting, "Any updates?" or "Are you still updating this?" or something similar, or messaging something of the same lines like, "When are you updating this fic?" That's actually a way to push the fic update even farther back. That's demotivating and frustrating as an author.

We love writing our fics! And honestly I've never written a fic I didn't intend to finish, and I don't know any other authors who don't feel the same as me! All our fics are intended to be finished! What kills it, in my experience, is namely a lack of enthusiasm from readers.

Let me explain.

I write the fics I want to read. I write the fics I want to be canon. I write my heart. I share it because I want to feel a connection with people. I feel boosted and accomplished when someone shares the experience of my story with me. Even when it's only one or two people commenting on details they loved or sending me incoherent screaming, I am filled with joy and connection and I want to keep sharing!

So why are the "Any updates?" comments not the same feeling? Simple. No connection. They make me feel sour and disheartened, like the person only cares about getting more content and not sharing a story with me. What use is there writing a fic, spending hours and hours crafting a story I love, when all people care about is getting new content for their fandom?

I don't mean to sound pretentious or like I'm begging for positive feedback. I'm not, really. I'm saying that if you really want those updates, go back to that fic and leave a comment telling the author something you enjoyed. If you want fics similar to that one, even, go back and leave a comment about something you loved.

It takes thirty seconds to type, "I loved when (character) said (this thing) about (character). So cute!! Thanks for sharing!" This will earn you more chapters, more fics, and the undying love of your favorite fic authors.

Go forth and comment.

#important #fic writing #ao3 #I'm just really tired #if you want more fics then share joy with your fave fic author #you will be blessed trust me #this has been a psa #love and peace #emma speaks

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inevitably-johnlocked · 1 year ago

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Hi Steph, how do I get people to care about my fic? I know it isn’t about hits and kudos but I can’t help but feel demotivated to write more and see it as a reflection on me that I don’t get that many. I have even stopped writing for a few years and every time I have an idea I think it isn’t worth it to write it. I feel embarrassed to tag people in my fic posts also

Hey Nonny *HUGS*

I get this question often, and it hurts my heart that my lovelies think that they aren't worth peoples' time!

Honestly Nonny, there's no "magic formula", and it is part luck, part self promotion and part tagging a lot of people. Never feel embarrassed about that at all! There are plenty of people who are always on the lookout for new stories, so they love being tagged! And adding your fic to other people's lists! I mean, I don't know about other people, but my blog encourages interactivity and I WANT people to self-promo on a list if they see it relates to their fic. I go back and add notes to the main post so they're seen! Send me you new fic as an ask, and I'll promote it. Seriously, Nonny, it is mostly about self promo.

When I first started in this fandom, my meta took traction because I added it on reblogs of post. That's really it. My blog evolved to a fic rec blog because there was a gap at the time, and people kept suggesting fics, or asking what I personally read, and then word of mouth spread to my blog being one of the main places to go for Johnlock fic recs because my approach to recs was unique at the time (I used to ONLY rec fics I personally read). And yeah, I feel a bit braggadocios when I refer to myself as a top fic rec blog, but my understanding comes from other people, that's all. It's my brand at this point, honestly, LOL.

So yeah, Self Promo, Nonny <3

Here's some past asks similar to yours that may also help:

Do You have advice for people just starting out writing fanfics?

I’m writing a long fic but I’m worried no one will read it. Am I writing the characters wrong?

Some Tips on How to proceed with fic writing

I’m New to Fandom and No One Comments on my Works (Tip List)

Should I Continue Writing or Delete my Stories?

I Want To Write a Story… What If Someone Already Wrote it?

English Isn’t My Native Language; Would Anyone Read My Fics

My Writing Advice for Focusing on the Work (Goals)

Failure Nonny; I’m not feeling better about my writing

How can I stop feeling like a failure as both an artist and a writer

I’m mediocre and worried that other people will think I am a mediocre writer

Any Advice for fic writers who post their work and immediately begin to equate their self worth to the response?

How do fic authors deal with negative comments?

I deleted my fic because people were trolling. Should have I left it up? (A talk about haters)

Any advice for new authors? (With a big bunch of advice from author JBaillier)

I’m new at writing but not good at criticism. What should I do?

How Do I get People to Comment on my Fics?

Am I the only Writer who is concerned when commenters stop commenting?

REPLY: As a commenter who used to do this

And when you finish your story (or start the WIP), Nonny, PLEASE let me know! I would love to promote it my usual way (6 times minimum on viewership posts) and help you get some eyes on your writing :) EVEN if it's not Johnlock! I have a lot of multishippers who follow me here, and they're always looking for new stuff! <3

#steph replies #my advice #chatting with nonnies #writing advice #my thoughts #fandom love #fandom life

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poupeesdecirque · 10 months ago

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Photo Challenges - Why I do them & why I do them alone

Time for a new blog, my topic this time: Photo Challenges!

With the new year a lot of people attempt to do the "A Doll A Week" a weekly photo challenge, some are even that ambitious to do the 365-Challenge, a photo for each day.

Back in 2014 I started my very first attempt to do a photo challenge, I got a DSLR as gift 1 1/2 years in before and kinda wanted to do more with it than just taking photos here and there. The weekly challenge of the ADAW seemed fun. On the top of this entry you can see my very first entrance for it. As you can see it started with a quite random photo.

I can tell I didn't make the full 2014 according to the ADAW but as I checked my files I noticed I indeed took photos each week?! Therefore I failed but .. also did not. It was somehow weirdly motivating for me to see that I can do it.

2015 was the first true attempt for me to finish the ADAW, this time with more effort. Because just taking photos is boring right? Aside taking more photos I wanted to feature each doll I had, around that time that was still very much possible with 52 photos for the 52 weeks of the year.

I was prepared, this was the first pic of 2015 .. well.. no. It wasn't I took it in advance and this is one of the points I later on disliked how I approached the whole thing. I was in a flickr group for some time and the same theme was going against my own liking, that people just took 20 photos at a time, posted them (all looking alike) and were finished with the whole challenge within half of the time.

I asked myself if this was what I wanted? The whole thing started to frustrate me, as I tried to come up with cool ideas and I saw other people half-assed their entries. Of course each to their own but no passion for the project, 'cheating' with multiple photos from one photoshoot just to make it "full" that seemed wrong for me.

But I managed to finish 2015! My first year with 52 weekly photos taken. The next year started with a photoshoot as well but I didn't use it for the ADAW.

Instead I took a break to regain and started with another idea:

Names! Like this one was named "ADAW 01 - Frost Pattern" I made it into an own challenge to add creative titles to go with the photos, also I added more and more photos, not just one but multiple. This was to challenge myself more and more. Still I tried to be motivated by others and motivate them but somehow... it still was turning me off that people approached the whole thing less .. uhm.. strict? I can't really put it into words, I just can tell as I later on within the years tried to build up a guide how to do the ADAW I got so demotivated seeing others doing it that I had to put the thread in the forum on full ignore and do my own instead? It's super weird.

What really got me going though was that I started to print my photos. 2 Photobooks for one year, having my photos printed made them more precious to me. I still make photobooks and last year I reached the maximum page count for the books and uhm.. might need to do three a year if that continues.

I can tell I got hooked by photos. Sometimes it felt hard to start over though, to start with "nothing" all over again, as I tend to null & void my own progress in my mind and well.. "new year, nothing done" got me hard sometimes, that's why the first days of the new years were hard for me to find ideas.

Also the fact that I still tried not to feature a doll twice got harder and harder even given I had more than enough dolls. But you know how it is, right? When you restrict yourself you want to do exactly that what is restricted.

Did I feel drained in the process of taking photos weekly? Oh yes, I did. Especially because I decided I have to take WHOLE PHOTOSHOOTS and sometimes even posts with outtakes to share fact about the characters. Some weeks I was so demotivated.

But a thing that helped me going was ... routine. And the photobooks. I picked a day during the week I was taking photos, which for me is Saturday, and it's still mainly Saturday to be honest.

It was 2019 already and you can see I returned to taking new year's photos, 2020 was similar. But I got tired of the ADAW thing, because it was kind of still setting to close borders for me. Taking photos weekly was becoming easy for me because I did it for so long. I still kinda tried to keep up with other hobbyists but in 2020 with the pandemic I cut ties with my local community and decided that 2021 would be the first year of me not doing a 'A Doll A Week'

Wait? What? Yes, you read that correctly.

Welcome to my own challenge the ... Weekly Photo!

This might seem not much of a difference but allows me to take photos, not just of dolls but of landscapes, people, animals and that was important to me. I still mainly use it for dolls but I wanted to do an own challenge, without any link back to the 'rules' of the ADAW and without the mental connection to the community I had left behind.

With the Weekly Photo I started to thrive. No more (own set) boundaries, every doll could be featured, even 20 times in a row, no rules, no titles, no themes, just me and my camera. For the sake of being creative.

And that's what I can tell you about my challenges... do it for the creativity, do it to challenge yourself. Don't be that dumb like I was and think you have to stick to what everyone else does or that you have to do it a certain way.

Now taking photos became so easy for me I see it as challenge to use the seasons as canvas to come up with something, to learn what light/time is the best.

I can tell my photography has envolved because I dared and tried, I challenged myself, revisted ideas but didn't try to set boundaries to my own creativity.

To be honest I now see photo ideas everywhere and almost have to stop myself from taking TOO MANY PHOTOS because .. I still need to sort them out :')

Oh a little thing that still is a rule for me ... I didn't bury them all: the first photo has to be taken in the actual year. Yes, I stayed up super late to take Tamani's photos as the first set of 2024 just to be sure I have that done.

I'm not sure if this entry is helpful for someone, for me looking up the old photos (I put in one for each year of a challenge) was super interesting and with a super busy week and weekend behind me I wanted to do a lighter topic for once.

I can tell writing down really helps me to reflect the hobby and to think through some decisions.

#bjd #ball jointed doll #hobby meta #blog

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