#just realized I'd never posted it here

[asterwild]

Walrus (Odobenus rosmarus), a large pinniped found in the arctic and subarctic.

created for the first @polarlightszine

[titaniumions]

awhile ago i made that one reverse 1999 x tma entities post and now that i think about it more i realized that those two pieces of media have something oddly specific in common (they are centered on a traumatized brit involved in an institution in which they must play a pivotal role that is Greater Than Themselves and also related to unnatural happenings. oh and the institution itself is responsible for inflicting this trauma upon them)

[schnaf]

23 days until jungsu's 23nd birthday

day 9 - mi gente

[unwritten-fanfiction]

I did a fanart

There's no path of trampled flowers around so I guess they all flew down while in whimsical laying position idk, just don't think about it lol

[erdarieldraws]

Wounded Warrior's Dream

[simsmadegeeky]

TS2 DEFAULT HAIR REPLACEMENT

All natural hair colors are Vidcund's Sunshine System and retextured by me unless otherwise noted. Credit and links for mesh, original defaulter, hair texture, and sims used can be found in the .rar file, if I could find the info.

barrettearmuffs_brown replaced with Anto Ainhoa

barrettearmuffs_black replaced with Simpliciaty March

barrettearmuffs_white replaced with Newsea Weed Flower

barrettearmuffs_pink replaced with Anto Marble

barrettearmuffs_blue replaced with Skysims 120

[wundrousarts]

hi I hope this doesn’t sound like a demand lol but I love how you draw jupiter and I hope you draw him more

your art is so cool by the way I really like your character lineup 🥺

Thank you so much!! I literally never draw Jupiter, on account of my inability to draw 1. adult men and 2. beards, BUT it’s something I need to / want to get better at. The only other time I’ve drawn him was that lineup which I did super quick, so it was fun to try and think of an actual design so I can try to draw him more!

[ID: Three half-colored digital sketches of Jupiter North from Nevermoor. They show him as a kid with messy hair, a young adult with a mullet and mustache, and an adult with longer hair and a fuller beard. End ID.]

Details on my Jupiter design / headcanons (?) for his life under the cut:

I started with the middle— in my layers, I dubbed him to be “teen” Jupiter, originally intending for him as a senior scholar, but as time went on I figured he was more like, early 20s young adult Jove. The Wunsoc sweater is just still there on the adults because I didn’t want to redraw <3

I feel like Wunsoc, especially with Dearborn and Murgatroyd prowling the halls, holds its student’s appearances to a certain standard. Sure, society members are representatives of the society for the rest of their lives once they graduate, but their time in school is their first introduction to that life. It's their debut as society members. We see this in a lot of stuff with Holliday, in Hollowpox and in the one Silverborn snippet, how she's manufacturing an image for Mog and co. and physical appearance plays a part in it.

Going with this: I feel like Wunsoc would expect their students to keep their appearance clean and approachable somewhat. Jupiter gives me a vibe of the kid who had a crazy growth spurt, and was able to grow a beard before graduating– BUT I don't know if Wunsoc (really just the Scholar Mistresses) would be crazy for that. So I imagine that he's relatively clean-shaven for the most part, nowhere near modern Jove, and then starts to grow out his facial hair a bit more as a senior scholar where I imagine things would lax a bit, and then just commit fully to growing a beard once he properly graduates.

So young adult Jupiter is perhaps in his early 20s, a somewhat recent Wunsoc graduate. I'm a mullet Jupiter truther, where his hair is longer in the back, and had to represent that. Younger Jove's is messier and more fun; he's not too concerned about his image as he hasn't quite reached that laundry list of titles and accolades yet.

Present-day adult Jupiter is still rocking the mullet style, just now it's longer and styled a bit more professionally. But let's be real– it doesn't stay this way. It totally gets easily messed up from his hats, and Jove loves to have fun and entertain people, Plus, he's a busy man, constantly stressed and running around. While the hair here might be great for say, a formal meeting or a magazine cover, the hair most folks end up seeing him with tends to be a bit more wild. He definitely starts to resemble his younger self's hair more after a rowdy night or a stressful endeavor.

Kid Jupiter– not much to say here, tbh. I figured I'd stick with the longer hair he has as an adult, kinda rowdy. Not a mullet yet, though! I was thinking of the part in Nevermoor where he starts talking about the rules he broke and stuff he got up to as a Wunsoc student, and how Hawthorne started taking notes, and made his hair similar to the rowdy hair of our favorite bestie. However, while Hawthorne's hair is curly, I'm of the belief that Jupiter's hair is definitely pretty straight. So no curlicues for him </3

Hopefully now that I've started to nail down a design for Jupiter, I can draw him more!! I always have soooo many Nevermoor ideas circling around in my brain. I love thinking about designs for various characters and the reasonings behind different aspects of their appearance.

[sn0wbat]

braids :)

[hollowflight-propaganda]

Me: has my sixth sudden crying spell of the week

Also me: "yeah but I'm probably not ACTUALLY depressed"

[theconfusedartist]

ok, so

there’s two posts I’m gonna be making for the assassin’s creed rewrite au. one which is just a long post about how the Toba catastrophe happened in the rewrite, as well as some supplementary info about the PoEs and why Desmond was chosen for his specific role.

and the actual chapter I’ve been vaguing about all this time. tbh, it’s not going to be the full chapter, just about 30 pages worth simply bc I realized that in striving for perfection, i wasn’t actually making any more posts about protocreed bc i didn’t either want to spoil anything or get people’s hopes up. but. the chapter ends when Desmond and Alex part ways, rather than when Desmond goes back to pick up Elijah like it was originally meant to, as it transitions a lot better into the next chapter which is in Alex’s PoV

honestly, I was making an assassin’s creed only rewrite before I got back into prototype but it was ideas from the wonderful @teecupangel @wolfofartblock and @neroangelus that made me rethink my entire rewrite to make it protocreed (as well as the art and fic that they had on their blogs that made me feel less like i was going crazy for even having the idea, god bless!) and @zero-saito @dezmondmyles @kingbob2-0 for asking me questions about the au when I started to get a bit lost in the overall process.

Like, if it weren’t for y’all and the entire protocreed community on tumblr, as well as my irl writers group, I probably would’ve never shared anything about this au and would’ve only spoken up about it once the game itself was complete (which is at the very least not coming out for a year, bc I need to make sure all the new mechanics i have planned work out when in testing and are fun to play) and that would’ve been kinda a bummer.

special shout outs to @saturnineaqua who was one of the first people (and my mutual!! :D) who liked my posts about AC and stuff, I was honestly so nervous about posting anything about it, I was about to delete the post minutes after making it, but your initial like was what got me to keep it up.

also, i know i didn’t tag every single person that liked my posts but I just wanna say y’all are amazing! seeing that people actually like this content made me feel better about posting it.

since AO3 is down, i’m gonna post the chapter here on tumblr and ff.net simply because it’s not nsfw and i have little chance of it ever getting taken down or anything. i’ll make a follow up link to it in the following reblog

[aeide-thea]

thinking abt like. there's so much fiction out there that makes me feel bad! sometimes really deeply bad! and like, in many many cases i could present a whole argument abt how it makes me feel bad bc it's pressing on bruises inflicted by some systemic prejudice that has deeply wounded my psyche—and that argument would be true!—and still i don't want that fiction erased from existence, or modified to suit my taste, or anything else that enacts my will on it, rather than the artist's and the artist's alone; i don't even want the artist erasing it because my argument ultimately convinces them it's Bad! produce a revised edition of it, fine; stick an asterisk or other warning on it, fine; but i still want the original to be available somewhere, because i don't want to be responsible for blotting creation out of existence. even when it's a creation i hate, i don't think that should be my place (or indeed anyone's).

mind you, i absolutely do want to feel that i've got somewhere i can analyze/vent about fiction like that, and people who will take my analysis/venting both seriously and sympathetically;

and i want fiction to exist that doesn't make me feel bad;

and i definitely shouldn't have to put up with discussions around fiction in which fellow discussants further express a prejudice towards me, or justify it, or whatever;

but it just seems so obvious to me that a world where framing yr discomfort with a work of fiction in sufficiently sympathetic (victimized) terms leads to its deletion [not that i think this is what all leftists who complain abt offensive fiction are looking to have happen! but i do get the impression that at least some of them might be?] is a frightening world—

a world where, to choose a sufficiently sympathetic (victimized) example, authors who have themselves been harmed by prejudice become unable to explore the workings of that prejudice in their fiction, unless they're doing it in a way that's unambiguously, didactically condemnatory—isabel fall is the obvious example here, but i'm thinking also of all the women and transmasc authors who write fic that, quite frankly, eroticizes misogyny and abuse of power, and how sometimes i think stories like that are hot and sometimes i don't feel particularly strongly about them one way or the other and sometimes they leave me furious or fucked up or both! but like. even when i hate it, even when it offends me not as a matter of abstract principle or allyship but right in my own personal gut—i still do feel that people have to be allowed to write, and to publish, fiction that strikes me personally as being in bad taste!

because the minute you let anyone's taste dictate what's allowable to express, even if it's leftist taste, you're going down a bad road; it's like saying monarchy can be a good system as long as the monarch is a good person. no! because (a) no system that relies on good actors to be good is a good system; and also because (b) no one who's happy to have power over others is actually a good person! [that's an awfully strong statement and i'm open to the idea that it may have some asterisks, but like. as a general rule: cincinnatus or bust.]

and similarly i feel like. if you personally want not just to critique other people's fiction—valid and good and i do it all the time—but to crush it out of existence because it expresses an ideology you may not (i may not!) like? i don't trust you. i think you're trying to substitute pain for principles, and like. i have huge sympathy for pain! i live with a lot of my own! but pain doesn't actually, in itself, necessarily constitute good moral guidance—it can lead you towards valuable sensitivity that helps people we should care about, but it can also lead you towards impatient reactivity that harms people we should care about; and ultimately it's thinking abt our pain, imo, not the pain itself, that steers us towards the former outcome and away from the latter.

[cynocardia]

(images described in alt text)

the light in the tunnel has been privatized

[heavenaintaniceplace]

“oh sorry you can’t just Apologize for being culturally christian because thats also culturally christian💖our standards are different💖you have to do work for the rest of your life to make up for any harm have or havent done because our standards are different and even though you dont adhere to them and arent a part of any group that adheres to them and arent obligated to💖we expect you to agree and do this or youre a bad person💖you are inherently guilty and need to make up for it 💖i dont care if you were a brainwashed 8 year old in a high demand cult and you were a victim you need to repent💖for the rest of your life💖“

[mouth-dreaming]

So I wrote this story back in October and I didn't finish it until November because I had no motivation. Anyways, this story was inspired by the deranged comments under Ryan's video "how to cause a traffic accident" enjoy this spooky nkotr story :0)

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How to Undo a Traffic Accident

It was a sunny, chill autumn day in Plymouth. The new kids were enjoying their day by setting up Halloween decorations around the rock. Earlier that morning, they had just uploaded their newest video where Ryan explains how to cause a traffic accident. "Boy, I'm sure glad we were able to upload that new educational video!" Ryan said. "Yeah, and all it took was the loss of childhood innocence and a stuffed bear!" Neil replied. As Neil was carving out the top of a pumpkin, he opened it and found a letter inside. Neil pulled out the letter and examined it, pulling away pieces of pumpkin guts from it. "Hey, it must be a letter from the studio!" The new kids looked at eachother in excitement. "Well what does it say?" Kevin asked. Neil unfolded the letter and read. "Dear, New Kids on the Rock - Hey that's us! - We love your newest video..." The new kids looked at eachother confidently. "Well that's great!" Kevin said. "What else does it say?" He asked. Neil turned back to the letter and continued to read. "However, we've saw many interesting comments under the video, so we ask if you review some of them for yourselves, signed Plymouth Rock Studio." Neil paused and looked at his friends in confusion. "Well, it's good that they like our video, but what do they mean about the comments?" Kevin asked. "Yeah, all the comments were positive, I don't see why the studio has a problem with them!" Ryan continued. Neil folded the letter and slid the paper in his pocket, then jolted up in excitement. "Well there's only one way to find out! To the computer!"

The elevator in Plymouth Rock opened. The new kids quickly stepped inside and rushed towards the computer after it lowered. "Ok Neil, you're the tech expert, turn this thing on!" Kevin said. Neil fetched some tools and opened the computer to get to work. After an hour of messing with circuts and wire, the computer still didn't turn on. "Sorry guys, I don't think this thing will turn on-" Neil was interrupted when Ryan pushed a button that said "power" on the computer. It turned on with a click. "Oh, well that works too I guess." Neil said. The new kids huddled up around the computer. Neil and Kevin on the keys, with Ryan on the mouse.

"Ok, time to look at those comments!" Ryan said eagerly.

The new kids started scrolling through the comment section, but nothing seemed unusual at first, until they started reaching the bottom. "Wait, hold on, look at this one!" Ryan pointed at the screen and read one of the comments. "Ryan, you're the...smex?" Ryan looked confused at first, but then a bit of confidence perked up inside him. "Well, I guess I AM the smex! Thank you!" But the farther they scolled, the more deranged they got. One of the comments caught their eyes. Ryan pointed it out and read "HAHA! I recognize that intersection! I know where you live...Ryan..." Ryan turned to his friends in fear. "Don't worry Ryan, there's plenty of intersections in the world! How on earth would they find you just by recognizing some random intersection!" Neil said to Ryan. Kevin nodded and replied. "Yeah, what Neil said! It may not even be the same intersection they think they're talking about!" Ryan looked up at his friends and chuckled in relief. "Yeah, I guess you're right, guys! How could one commenter pose such a threat-" but right before Ryan could finish, he was interrupted by a knock on the rock.

The new kids looked at the security cameras to see who it was. They all let out a sigh of relief. "Oh thank goodness, it's only Max! Wait- MAX?!" The new kids headed up the elevator and creeped around the rock. "Shhh...no sudden movement. He's like a t-rex from jurassic park; he has a taste for blood and any sort of quick movement could trigger his primal rage. Follow me, guys, and stay close behind." Ryan and Kevin followed behind Neil. As they almost got out of the woods, a leaf crunched, which caused Max turn around and catch them. "Hey, new skids!" He yelled. The new kids paused in fear and slowly turned to face him. "M-M-Max! How lovely to see you at our r-r-rock!" Ryan said, trembling. "W-What brings you here?" He asked. The new kids looked at eachother in dread, wondering how Max knew about their secret hideout. Max looked up and down at the rock in confusion and then at the new kids. "Why are you guys hanging out by a rock?" He asked. "Is this your secret hideout or something?" Neil looked at him and was stunned but tried to hold back his fear. "Secret hideout? What?! nooooo!" He said. Then Kevin chimed in. "Yeah, there's no secret hideout here, are you crazy?!" He said. "Y-yeah, no secret hideout whatsoever! Haha!" Ryan continued nervously. Max looked at them, more confused than before. "Ok?..." He said. "I guess that makes sense, only LOSERS hang out by rocks! See ya' new..uh...new LOSERS on the rock! Haha!" He laughed and walked away. The new kids let out a sigh of relief. "Wow, I'm sure glad that worked." Ryan said. "See, Ryan, all that crazy stalker stuff is a bunch of bologna!" Kevin said. "Yeah!" Neil chimed. "You've got nothing to worry about!" Ryan smiled and felt more relieved. "Yeah, I guess you're right, but wait, what did Max come here for?"

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot!" The new kids heard Max shout from the distance. He walked towards them and introduced a cloaked figure to them. "So this kid, uh.. asked me to bring 'em to you suckers so uh, here ya go LOSERS! HAHA!" He laughed and walked off again, leaving the cloaked figure with them.

Neil stepped forward to the figure. "Hey, so uh...what brings you here?" He asked. The figure chuckled and whispered "I recognized that intersection, Ryan. I finally found where you live!" The new kids jumped back and gasped in shock and fright. The cloaked figure raised their hand and the fall leaves twirled around them like tiny dancers. The figure's eyes glowed as they levitated in the air. "RUN!!" Kevin yelled. They tried to make a run for it, but they were forced at a stop by some kind of magical force. They were turned to face the figure, mumbling some ancient incantation. "I curse you, new kids on the rock!" And just as they spoke those words, the figure disappeared in a flash of light. The new kids fell to the ground and slowly sat back up. "What was that?!" Kevin asked. "I-I don't know...wait- Ryan, what did you do?" Neil asked. "ME?! I have no idea wh-" Suddenly a little wet, unstuffed bear fell from the sky into Ryan's hands. "Ryan...the-the BEAR?!" Neil stammered. The new kids stared at the toy, stunned. "Oh my god...Ryan, did you really steal this little kid's stuffed animal?!" Ryan looked at his friends, who expressed great disappointment in him. "Well..."

The Next Day

Neil was making breakfast at his house, yet he still couldn't shake off the memory of what happened yesterday. "I curse you, new kids on the rock!" Is all that he's been thinking about since last night. What form will these curses come? And most importantly...when?

Ryan sat down at the table. "Oh boy, pig ribbons!" He said in excitement. But before he could eat, he looked up at Neil and saw that he wasn't doing so well. "Neil, are you alright? You look like you haven't slept a wink." Neil turned to Ryan and let out a tired yawn. "Yeah, I'm ok, Ryan. I just- I've been thinking about yesterday and-" Ryan stood up from the table and put his hand on Neil's shoulder. "Hey, don't worry, Neil. We'll figure out someway to break this curse. And besides, the witch cursed me, not any of you two-" Ryan was quickly cut off when he heard Kevin screaming from the other room. "AHHHHHH!!!" Ryan and Neil looked at eachother in horror and rushed to Kevin's aid. "Kevin! Kevin, are you alright?!" They asked. Kevin grabbed Neil and shook him, trying to explain what horror he woke up to. "Woah, woah, Kevin slow down! Tell us what happened!" Kevin paused and lifted his hat. "I'M....I'M.....I'M BALD!!!" Neil and Ryan gasped and screamed in horror.

Suddenly, there was a cold chill in the air. Ryan could sense another curse was coming about, and then...there was a dead silence. The gang looked around for whatever would spring up next, but just then Neil looked at his hands, which were replaced with rat paws. "AHHHH!! WHAT THE HELL?!?!?" POOF! There was a puff of smoke. Kevin and Ryan looked around the room. "Neil? Neil, where are you?!" Suddenly, they heard squeaking coming from below. They looked down, only to find a rat standing at their feet. "EEK! Ryan, get the broom!" Ryan tossed Kevin a broom, which he used to shoo away the rodent. He chased the animal all through the kitchen in a Tom & Jerry style fight, knocking over pots, pans, and kitchen utensils just to get rid of it. "AAAH! GUYS, STOP! IT'S ME!" The rat squeaked. Kevin looked at the creature and gasped, tossing the broom onto the floor. They found that Neil had not dissappeared, but instead, turned into a rat. Just as the fighting stopped, a purple keyboard appeared in front of him. "NEIL, I'M SO SORRY, I HAD NO IDEA IT WAS YOU! ARE YOU OK?!" Kevin asked. Neil looked up at his friends in horror, and then down to the keyboard, where he saw an even more horrific sight: there were 8 keys on the keyboard, and Neil hates the number 8. "NOOOOOOOO!!!" Rat Neil squeaked. "Oh no, this is all my fault!" Ryan said in anguish. "But maybe it's not too late to save the day! Follow me guys!" Kevin picked up rat Neil and marched off with Ryan to the witch's lair.

Later

Ryan led his friends through a dark and spooky forest where the supposed witch's lair is found. "Ryan, how do you know this place?" Kevin asked. Ryan shook his head and chuckled. "Oh, silly, silly, Kevin! This is where my cave is!" He replied. "Cave?" Kevin asked. "Neil looked up at Kevin and squeaked "Yeah, Kevin. Don't you know that every year on Pig Day, Ryan awakens from his cave after his one week hibernation to howl and screech at the moon and prepare for the Pig Day ritual?" Even with Neil's explanation, this only gave Kevin more questions than answers. "Pig Day? How come you guys never tell me about these holidays?" Ryan chuckled once more and shook his finger. "Ah, Kevin, you'll understand once you're older!" He said. "Ryan, I'm in my 30s." Kevin replied.

After journeying through the cold, dark forest, layered with fall leaves, the new kids had finally found themselves at the witch's lair, which was an old, abandoned shack in the middle of the woods, covered with moss and vines. "Wow" said the new kids, who were in awe of the building. "Woah guys, this is a really old building, we need to be careful where we step." Rat Neil squeaked. "Pfft! Don't worry yourself too much, Neil! We know what we're do-" Ryan was interrupted as a leaf that fell on the floodboard caused the wood to collapse in. "Or we can just listen to Neil!" Kevin said. "Great idea!"

Ryan pulled the stuffed bear from his coat and placed it on a table with lit candles, in order to summon the witch. "Oh great wickedness, arise to claim our offering for you!" After a few minutes of silence, Ryan and his friends felt hopless, thinking the witch would never come. Right when they were about to open the door to leave, a strange mist had flooded the halls, and the leaves danced through the air. Suddenly the house shook, the floorboards parted, and the witch had risen, leaving the boards to seal up once more. "New kids on the rock..." the witch spoke. "If you wish to undo this wretched curse, you must complete three dangerous tasks, each more horrid than the last! First you must-" the witch was interrupted by Ryan, who held up the stuffed bear to her. "Oh, well we actually came to give you your toy back." He said. "Oh." The witch picked up the newly stuffed, dry bear. "Ok, well nevermind all that stuff then. Curse is undone." She snapped her fingers and disappeared with her stuffed animal. In a puff of mist, Neil suddenly turned back into a human and Kevin finally got his beautiful hair back.

The new kids thanked the witch as they walked out of the house, heading back to the rock.

Later that night

"Hey guys, I'm really sorry I messed up back there and caused you guys to be forever scarred for life, boy was I sure dumb!" Ryan said. "Don't worry, guys! I promise to never steal from a witch or any other magic bearing entity ever again!" Ryan said, as he finished stitching together another voodoo doll for his collection. "Well atleast you did the right thing, Ryan. And the studio loved the video!" Neil said. "Hey, why don't we go use our paycheck and head down to the local theater!" Kevin said. "Yeah, let's watch Ernest Goes to Hell!" Ryan replied. "Or maybe we could go to the arcade! I heard they've got a brand new game called Polybius!" Neil suggested. "Or we could go to........http://HollywoodEastTv.com!"

The End

[cinemachronicles]

Lily’s Movie Challenge

Hi everyone!

I wanted to make a movie challenge for myself to watch a LOT of movies, some of which I’ve seen ages ago but have been meaning to re-watch, the large majority of which I’ve never seen!

Feel free to create your own gigantic movie watching list as I have! I would love to know what movies you select, but I also know that this is insane - I have 370 films on my list sooo

without further ado, the list is as follows:

LILY’S MOVIE CHALLENGE:

5 movies from the 1930's

5 movies from the 1940's

10 movies from the 1950'a

10 movies from the 1960's

10 movies from the 1970's

10 movies from 1980-1985

10 movies from 1985-1990

then 10 movies for each year that I've been alive!

You can find my list here!

I'm finding the movies by going to Letterboxd's most popular films of that specific decade or of that specific year and selecting them from the first page.

I’m currently watching them out of order, and making gifs as I go through! Join me as I descent into movie madness. Movies I’ve watched for this challenge are tagged as lmc.

[archaeren]

How I learned to write smarter, not harder

(aka, how to write when you're hella ADHD lol)

A reader commented on my current long fic asking how I write so well. I replied with an essay of my honestly pretty non-standard writing advice (that they probably didn't actually want lol) Now I'm gonna share it with you guys and hopefully there's a few of you out there who will benefit from my past mistakes and find some useful advice in here. XD Since I started doing this stuff, which are all pretty easy changes to absorb into your process if you want to try them, I now almost never get writer's block.

The text of the original reply is indented, and I've added some additional commentary to expand upon and clarify some of the concepts.

As for writing well, I usually attribute it to the fact that I spent roughly four years in my late teens/early 20s writing text roleplay with a friend for hours every single day. Aside from the constant practice that provided, having a live audience immediately reacting to everything I wrote made me think a lot about how to make as many sentences as possible have maximum impact so that I could get that kind of fun reaction. (Which is another reason why comments like yours are so valuable to fanfic writers! <3) The other factors that have improved my writing are thus: 1. Writing nonlinearly. I used to write a whole story in order, from the first sentence onward. If there was a part I was excited to write, I slogged through everything to get there, thinking that it would be my reward once I finished everything that led up to that. It never worked. XD It was miserable. By the time I got to the part I wanted to write, I had beaten the scene to death in my head imagining all the ways I could write it, and it a) no longer interested me and b) could not live up to my expectations because I couldn't remember all my ideas I'd had for writing it. The scene came out mediocre and so did everything leading up to it. Since then, I learned through working on VN writing (I co-own a game studio and we have some visual novels that I write for) that I don't have to write linearly. If I'm inspired to write a scene, I just write it immediately. It usually comes out pretty good even in a first draft! But then I also have it for if I get more ideas for that scene later, and I can just edit them in. The scenes come out MUCH stronger because of this. And you know what else I discovered? Those scenes I slogged through before weren't scenes I had no inspiration for, I just didn't have any inspiration for them in that moment! I can't tell you how many times there was a scene I had no interest in writing, and then a week later I'd get struck by the perfect inspiration for it! Those are scenes I would have done a very mediocre job on, and now they can be some of the most powerful scenes because I gave them time to marinate. Inspiration isn't always linear, so writing doesn't have to be either!

Some people are the type that joyfully write linearly. I have a friend like this--she picks up the characters and just continues playing out the next scene. Her story progresses through the entire day-by-day lives of the characters; it never timeskips more than a few hours. She started writing and posting just eight months ago, she's about an eighth of the way through her planned fic timeline, and the content she has so far posted to AO3 for it is already 450,000 words long. But most of us are normal humans. We're not, for the most part, wired to create linearly. We consume linearly, we experience linearly, so we assume we must also create linearly. But actually, a lot of us really suffer from trying to force ourselves to create this way, and we might not even realize it. If you're the kind of person who thinks you need to carrot-on-a-stick yourself into writing by saving the fun part for when you finally write everything that happens before it: Stop. You're probably not a linear writer. You're making yourself suffer for no reason and your writing is probably suffering for it. At least give nonlinear writing a try before you assume you can't write if you're not baiting or forcing yourself into it!! Remember: Writing is fun. You do this because it's fun, because it's your hobby. If you're miserable 80% of the time you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong!

2. Rereading my own work. I used to hate reading my own work. I wouldn't even edit it usually. I would write it and slap it online and try not to look at it again. XD Writing nonlinearly forced me to start rereading because I needed to make sure scenes connected together naturally and it also made it easier to get into the headspace of the story to keep writing and fill in the blanks and get new inspiration. Doing this built the editing process into my writing process--I would read a scene to get back in the headspace, dislike what I had written, and just clean it up on the fly. I still never ever sit down to 'edit' my work. I just reread it to prep for writing and it ends up editing itself. Many many scenes in this fic I have read probably a dozen times or more! (And now, I can actually reread my own work for enjoyment!) Another thing I found from doing this that it became easy to see patterns and themes in my work and strengthen them. Foreshadowing became easy. Setting up for jokes or plot points became easy. I didn't have to plan out my story in advance or write an outline, because the scenes themselves because a sort of living outline on their own. (Yes, despite all the foreshadowing and recurring thematic elements and secret hidden meanings sprinkled throughout this story, it actually never had an outline or a plan for any of that. It's all a natural byproduct of writing nonlinearly and rereading.)

Unpopular writing opinion time: You don't need to make a detailed outline.

Some people thrive on having an outline and planning out every detail before they sit down to write. But I know for a lot of us, we don't know how to write an outline or how to use it once we've written it. The idea of making one is daunting, and the advice that it's the only way to write or beat writer's block is demoralizing. So let me explain how I approach "outlining" which isn't really outlining at all.

I write in a Notion table, where every scene is a separate table entry and the scene is written in the page inside that entry. I do this because it makes writing nonlinearly VASTLY more intuitive and straightforward than writing in a single document. (If you're familiar with Notion, this probably makes perfect sense to you. If you're not, imagine something a little like a more contained Google Sheets, but every row has a title cell that opens into a unique Google Doc when you click on it. And it's not as slow and clunky as the Google suite lol) (Edit from the future: I answered an ask with more explanation on how I use Notion for non-linear writing here.) When I sit down to begin a new fic idea, I make a quick entry in the table for every scene I already know I'll want or need, with the entries titled with a couple words or a sentence that describes what will be in that scene so I'll remember it later. Basically, it's the most absolute bare-bones skeleton of what I vaguely know will probably happen in the story.

Then I start writing, wherever I want in the list. As I write, ideas for new scenes and new connections and themes will emerge over time, and I'll just slot them in between the original entries wherever they naturally fit, rearranging as necessary, so that I won't forget about them later when I'm ready to write them. As an example, my current long fic started with a list of roughly 35 scenes that I knew I wanted or needed, for a fic that will probably be around 100k words (which I didn't know at the time haha). As of this writing, it has expanded to 129 scenes. And since I write them directly in the page entries for the table, the fic is actually its own outline, without any additional effort on my part. As I said in the comment reply--a living outline!

This also made it easier to let go of the notion that I had to write something exactly right the first time. (People always say you should do this, but how many of us do? It's harder than it sounds! I didn't want to commit to editing later! I didn't want to reread my work! XD) I know I'm going to edit it naturally anyway, so I can feel okay giving myself permission to just write it approximately right and I can fix it later. And what I found from that was that sometimes what I believed was kind of meh when I wrote it was actually totally fine when I read it later! Sometimes the internal critic is actually wrong. 3. Marinating in the headspace of the story. For the first two months I worked on [fic], I did not consume any media other than [fandom the fic is in]. I didn't watch, read, or play anything else. Not even mobile games. (And there wasn't really much fan content for [fandom] to consume either. Still isn't, really. XD) This basically forced me to treat writing my story as my only source of entertainment, and kept me from getting distracted or inspired to write other ideas and abandon this one.

As an aside, I don't think this is a necessary step for writing, but if you really want to be productive in a short burst, I do highly recommend going on a media consumption hiatus. Not forever, obviously! Consuming media is a valuable tool for new inspiration, and reading other's work (both good and bad, as long as you think critically to identify the differences!) is an invaluable resource for improving your writing.

When I write, I usually lay down, close my eyes, and play the scene I'm interested in writing in my head. I even take a ten-minute nap now and then during this process. (I find being in a state of partial drowsiness, but not outright sleepiness, makes writing easier and better. Sleep helps the brain process and make connections!) Then I roll over to the laptop next to me and type up whatever I felt like worked for the scene. This may mean I write half a sentence at a time between intervals of closed-eye-time XD

People always say if you're stuck, you need to outline.

What they actually mean by that (whether they realize it or not) is that if you're stuck, you need to brainstorm. You need to marinate. You don't need to plan what you're doing, you just need to give yourself time to think about it!

What's another framing for brainstorming for your fic? Fantasizing about it! Planning is work, but fantasizing isn't.

You're already fantasizing about it, right? That's why you're writing it. Just direct that effort toward the scenes you're trying to write next! Close your eyes, lay back, and fantasize what the characters do and how they react.

And then quickly note down your inspirations so you don't forget, haha.

And if a scene is so boring to you that even fantasizing about it sucks--it's probably a bad scene.

If it's boring to write, it's going to be boring to read. Ask yourself why you wanted that scene. Is it even necessary? Can you cut it? Can you replace it with a different scene that serves the same purpose but approaches the problem from a different angle? If you can't remove the troublesome scene, what can you change about it that would make it interesting or exciting for you to write?

And I can't write sitting up to save my damn life. It's like my brain just stops working if I have to sit in a chair and stare at a computer screen. I need to be able to lie down, even if I don't use it! Talking walks and swinging in a hammock are also fantastic places to get scene ideas worked out, because the rhythmic motion also helps our brain process. It's just a little harder to work on a laptop in those scenarios. XD

In conclusion: Writing nonlinearly is an amazing tool for kicking writer's block to the curb. There's almost always some scene you'll want to write. If there isn't, you need to re-read or marinate.

Or you need to use the bathroom, eat something, or sleep. XD Seriously, if you're that stuck, assess your current physical condition. You might just be unable to focus because you're uncomfortable and you haven't realized it yet.

Anyway! I hope that was helpful, or at least interesting! XD Sorry again for the text wall. (I think this is the longest comment reply I've ever written!)

And same to you guys on tumblr--I hope this was helpful or at least interesting. XD Reblogs appreciated if so! (Maybe it'll help someone else!)