#next chapter has a pretty solid outline

[midnight-mourning]

First of all, wowza

second of all HOW DID I MISS IT I DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE HOW CLOSE TO 1,000 WE WERE 😭

shame on me 😔😔 But anywho, thank you for 1,000 KUDOS and 26,000+ hits!!!

It's a crazy milestone and I appreciate you all very very much ^-^

I wish I had something special planned for just this but I do not >_<

HOWEVER, I do have some stuff already in the works for when I hit 100 followers (which again, is WILD) so I'll probably combine the two for extra fun :)

Thank you all again, can't wait to share more soon <3

[ann-chovi]

It's always when I decide to take a break from posting comic updates so that I can slow down and breathe when inspiration hits and suddenly the next three pages are scripted and planned

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[zenkindoflove]

Fanfic Writing Tag Game

Thank you for tagging me in this fanfic tag game, @bonecarversbestie!

Describe your writing process from idea to posting/publishing

Generally I start with a inspiration scene. A moment that stands out in my head that I can't stop thinking about. Then I design a story around that scene. If I'm writing a one-shot, I tend to be very loosey goosey with planning and just sort of write what is coming out with a general trajectory in mind. For multichapter fics, I'm much more meticulous. I always come up with an ending first so that I have a beacon to head to. I then do a high level outline which is usually what are the things that need to happen each chapter. Then as I get into the chapters, I will do more detailed outline of what things need to happen per chapter. I end up redoing the outline a few times as the story progresses.

I write the whole first draft from start to finish of either a one-shot or a chapter. I then do a major edit where I focus on bigger changes like adding in scenes or taking away whole sentences. It's my "does this make sense" edit. Then the next two edits are more wordsmithing/looking for typos. I tend to read out loud for these edits.

I'm also pretty big on writing in order. I almost never write out of order. If I do get inspo/idea for something that happens later, I'll write down lines of dialogue or details but I don't delve into writing the whole the scene then.

When I post multichapter fics, I write as I post. So when I post a chapter, usually I haven't started on the first draft of the next chapter.

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Both. See above for my plotting process. But so much happens as I write that surprises me. And I end up making on the fly changes and redoing the outline often as new things arise as I'm writing.

What do you listen to when you are writing?

Depends. Sometimes I listen to music to focus. Often instrumental or something that will put me in the mood for the scene. Other times I listen to nothing and that helps me focus.

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

Coke Zero which I often forget about as I get into the groove and then it gets flat/warm.

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

I think Summer Heat (Elucien + Erixius) is probably my favorite fic because it has a lot of characters that I really enjoyed writing and exploring and it's two romance stories occurring at the same time. I'm excited to get back into it. It's also just a really fun fic.

I also am really proud and always excited when I talk about Dear Lucien, Dear Elain: an Epistolary Fic because I wrote it with @crazy-ache and I think it's super unique and very fun and romantic.

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

I'm going to cheat and choose one Elucien and one Erixius fic.

Dancing Barefoot (Elucien) - This is the first modern AU Elucien fic I've ever written and I think it's a really solid, smutty one shot. I also have some Jassa in it who were surprisingly really fun. I think you should read it because I did a great job capturing that feeling of forming a crush in a night and falling into exploring those feelings with a total stranger.

The Jewel of The Forest House (Erixius) - I really love this fic because I think it's a good blend of comedy, fluff, and angst. And I think if you're a dog lover, you will love it too.

Do you have any advice for new writers?

I was listening to a podcast last night with the comedian Matteo Lane. He was talking about advice he received in art school that he applies to all creative things that he does. It was: You are not working on the masterpiece. You are working towards it.

Basically - do not get stuck in the fussiness of perfection as you write. You always will have chances to change and alter your writing. A lot of good writing happens in the editing. And just because something doesn't feel perfect, doesn't mean it isn't worth sharing. Especially in fanfiction, this is a hobby where we are all trying to have fun and support each other. It's natural to get in your head, feel vulnerable and insecure, compare yourself to others, etc etc. But you can't let that pull you down and suck the joy out of writing. Write the things that inspire you. Things you want to read, and the process of writing will become more fun. And the more you write, the easier it gets. It takes time to find your voice, and the only way you will find it is to write a lot.

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

I'm always looking to improve my metaphors and lyrical prose in a way that feel authentic, natural, and appropriate for the scene. There are some writers I really admire who do it so well and every time I read their work, I get inspired.

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

Jurian!!! And Vassa. Actually in that fic, Dancing Barefoot that I recc'd, that was the first time I ever wrote them and I really had a crazy amount of fun with their dynamic. I also surprisingly enjoy writing Rhysand because I like playing between his nurturing side and being a shit. I thought about saying Eris, but I think it wasn't a surprise once I dived in. I always loved that man, and I danced around him for a bit out of intimidation, but I always knew once I dug in and found who he is inside of me, I would love it.

No pressure tags: @jules-writes-stories , @lucienarcheron , @starsreminisce, @sapphiresandgold, @lovely-vanserra-sunshine, @avabrynne , @highlordofkrypton

[fuckyeahdindjarin]

Behind the Seams: Part III

Welcome to the first instalment of Behind the Seams! Thank you everyone who has responded so positively to this slightly self-indulgent idea I had. I know I take so long in between chapters, this seems like a fun way to keep you guys in the loop, and also to keep myself motivated and productive while I work by sharing my thoughts as I go.

This time, I'll be rambling about focusing on the characters as I'm still in the thick of developing personalities and interpretations in the Seams universe, and I'd love to put all the thoughts that have been rattling around my brain into words to help me process it.

I will be tagging these posts as 'behind the seams' together with the chapter number 'seams iii' so you can filter this out if you don't want to see them! For those who are interested, let's dive in below the cut!

Current status: 3.2k written, fully outlined rough draft with most of the dialogue drafted.

Initial thoughts: This chapter wrote far more easily than I expected to so far. Each story is different, but I tend to find the 3rd to 5th chapters hardest to write, when you're building up the shape of the arc of the whole series.

I'm still keeping my options open with regards to what Seams is or can be, but I'm still thinking 'loose fit series' i.e. there won't be a solid, overarching story arc or ending to the series since it's not a plot-driven story. It will be interesting to see if my approach changes after a couple more chapters!

The challenge: The first two instalments were so hyper-zoomed in on Joel and Pin, I knew that the challenge for this chapter is pulling back the camera and seeing how they interact with each other outside the safety of the Outfitters, and how they fit into the wider community.

Joel and Pin: I was re-reading Threads in preparation for writing Part III, and what strikes me is that these two really don't know a lot about one another. They've barely had a fully formed conversation despite the forced proximity and some very charged moments in the last two chapters. I've tentatively written most of their dialogue in this chapter, and it's interesting that a couple of times, I've stopped myself and thought - is this too playful for a shy person like Pin? Is it too familiar with two people who are practically strangers, despite their chemistry? It's a balance that I'll have to find as I edit, and I'm excited to see how it turns out.

Tommy: For some reason, Tommy comes fairly easily to me, a testament to Pedro and Gabriel’s chemistry on screen. Without giving too much away, I'm really happy with the angle I found for Joel and Tommy in this chapter. There's a lot to unpack between the two brothers, but the happy occasion means that I can focus on the good part of their relationship for now. However, I am keeping the tensions in their history in my back pocket because I don't want to gloss over the very real and three-dimensional relationship we saw in the series.

Ellie: I've talked about how I'm nervous about writing Ellie. My Pedro boys are all lone wolves - sure they have their best friends (Teak to Palomino!Jack, Santi to Grays!Frankie, Pete/Rebecca to Consent!Dieter), but Ellie is Joel's kid, and she's part of his life more than any BFF is to my other Pedro boys. Luckily, I have found an in with Ellie that I think works well with the story in Part III, and also fits in with the broader direction of the fic. It's going to be nerve-wrecking, but I'm ready to write her into Seams!

Tess: I'm not in a place to say too much yet about Tess, but it's so important to me that she isn't erased from the Seams universe despite her not being there. I've been thinking a lot about Tess lately, about how she will fit into the story, how Joel will fit Pin into his and in relation to Tess. There are no easy answers, and it will be something to mull over in the next few chapters.

Something fun: Ok, all this character stuff is pretty heavy, so I want to end on a light-hearted note - Joel's tummy makes a cameo in a white undervest 😌

And that's it for Behind the Seams: Part III! I feel a lot lighter having found a space for all the things I have been thinking about while drafting the chapter. I hope this was a fun deep dive for you guys as well, I'll be hitting Google Docs hard this weekend to try to get all of the writing done for Part III so that I can start editing next week. My askbox is always open if anyone wants to chat 🥰

[pebblysand]

Hi! Thank you so much for writing Castles, it’s the Harry Potter post we’re story I always wanted to read. I love your characterization of the Potter kids, I especially love your take on Lily Luna, do you have a headcanon of what happens next with the kids, regarding their careers and personal lives, or do you want to leave it open to interpretation?

aw, thank you so much ❤️. so glad you enjoyed!

so: yes to both. i've obviously spent a lot of time thinking about the kids so i do have my headcanons (as far as the castles universe goes) but i'm also more than happy for people to have their own. IMO, i'm not the gold standard here. anything that happens in my head that i chose not to put in the fic is not castles-canon. you can totally have your own versions of this.

having said that, here's what i think:

(moodboard from my outline. yes, they're all ridiculously hot.)

career-wise:

you already see this at the end of castles, but i think james joins the WWW family business, but opening up an "events" side of things, which he runs. he's 100000% a nepo-baby who uses his parents' fame to build up his address book and be the star of the show, lmao. but... we still love him hahaha. he's got a good heart 😅. i sort of see him as the david guetta (lmao) of the wizarding world. i think he likes to entertain people, allow them to have fun and forget their worries, etc. he's very into quidditch but like his father, he's not really interested in making it a career. it's too much hard work/investment. i think james is generally more interested in having fun than in... working 🤣. i also headcanon he lives at his parents' past 30 because it's just convenient. he's that kid who's always asking for money to invest in a potential business venture - has 50 new ideas per hour (not all conclusive) - and ginny's always kind of kindly but firmly bringing him back down to earth. harry would give him the entire contents of his vaults to open a solid-gold-cauldron business 🤣.

personal life:

friendships/family: as described in the fic, he's got a lot of friends, he's a people person, and someone who loves to bridge wizards and muggles. he truly cares about people - i think he's got a bit of teddy's hufflepuff side in that. he's got great relationships with his parents and his siblings, beyond the standard, mild-rivalry that is normal in kids that age. i think he gets on with al because underneath their obvious differences, they have the same sense of humour. i think he feels very big-brotherly and protecting towards lily, and they have good banter. he also massively admires her.

love life: this is hinted at in text but james has a bit of a rough time in his mid-to-late 20s. i headcanon that he gets a Serious Girlfriend pretty early on (probably around 18/19), who he madly falls in love with. i kind of think underneath the whole chill/party vibes, james is a hopeless romantic so when he falls, he falls hard. he's got his parents example in his head of what relationships should look like, and obviously harry and ginny have such a strong relationship, that he wants that for himself, and gives it his all and thinks it's Forever. that girl ends up cheating on him and i think he takes it pretty fucking hard, especially because this happens while lily is in mongolia, all of which sort of sends him spiralling. you kind of see that between the lines in chapter 24: the partying, the sleeping around, etc. kind of like his mother... kind of like his father, too, possibly, had he not met mia. as said in text, there's a lot of press about him, and it's not always nice. without the nazi-costume wearing (i don't think james is stupid enough to do that kind of shit) i headcanon him a bit like prince harry in his early days. in a weird way (as is also hinted at in castles), i think lily coming back re-anchors him. they play video games and have each other's back and heal together, in a way.

later, i headcanon him meeting someone else, maybe in his late 20s and early 30s. i think he's pretty cautious at first, due to past experiences, but she is The One. i headcanon she's a squib or something, or the muggle sibling of a wizard, someone non-magical but who is aware of the magical world, perhaps a doctor or a nurse, someone very out of the spotlight, who's not really interested in who he is or who his parents are, who's there for him, but also understands the pressures he's under. i don't know if they have kids. i can't decide. i strangely headcanon that maybe she doesn't want them? like, she's this doctor who loves children and loves helping people but also feels like she'd rather dedicate her life to others than to have her own. i think james would be happy either way, she's pretty much his world and he loves her enough for that not to matter. or, maybe they have one later, in their late-30s early 40s, once their careers and lives are really established? i'm not entirely sure.

.

(yes this was done with AI. you would not believe how hard it is to find black-haired guys with green eyes that aren't trying to be harry potter himself online 😅)

career-wise: oh, al becomes a professor. obviously. i sort of see him do a PhD in muggle history, then specialising in the study of war and parallels between muggle and wizarding history. i think that's the way he manages to wrap his head around and understand what happened to his family. he's in a perpetual search of meaning and patterns, understanding how history repeats itself. i think that sort of study reassures him and provides him comfort, knowing that it's not just him, not just them, that there's meaning and purpose behind all of it. i see him teach (i think he's a great teacher, like his father) - maybe in hogwarts or maybe in a post-grad setting, i'm not 100% sure. i kind of lean towards the latter cause i don't think binns is ever giving up his seat 🤣.

i also see him as rather CASHCOW-involved. like, i think studying war like he does makes him want to do something. he's not necessarily the flashy, loud kind of brave, but he is still very brave, and very opinionated. i do think he's also very close to his mother and cares a lot about the things she started with #metoo and the book, so perhaps he gets involved in that side of things.

personal life:

friendships/family: i think his relationship with his family is pretty much established in castles, i don't have much else to add. he's independent, sure, but still very close to them all. i think he's the kind of person who, unlike james, has a small but very tight-knit circle of people around him, and that suits him fine. he has a few but very close friends.

love life: oh, scorpius is the love of his life. that's it. they have the kind of relationship we all dream of: easy and supportive and loving. i think the main difficulty they probably have is scorpius struggling to come out to his father a bit, but i reckon that happens eventually. i 10000% headcanon them having kids. i think they adopt. i think al has his mother's faith in people and the future, and so it makes sense he would want to pass that on.

.

(my CHILD!! my war hero!!)

career-wise: i think that's hard. for her. coming back. i headcanon her taking care of the museum for a while. i think she's back and forth to mongolia quite a lot in the early years as well, because she cares about the people she left there. she probably works at the shop, or with james for a bit as well, helping out. i do think eventually (maybe a few years later - she is almost 20 when she comes back to england, so maybe when she's 23/24), she takes her NEWTs, and albus helps her study. i think that brings them closer. i could see her getting into politics later on. being a wizengamot member or something, not someone who's ever going to really get into power, but more of an agitator, someone who says the hard things and truly tries to change the world.

personal life:

friendships/family: all of this is pretty much established in the fic/above so i won't come back on it. i will say that sadly, because of POV constraints, i couldn't quite explore her relationship with her mother, but i think they have a pretty good one (as much as mothers and daughters can - lol). i think although it's hard, she has a lot more support coming back and healing than harry and ginny ever had.

love life: this sort of ties in to the above but i think lily is someone who values friendship and platonic love a lot more than most people, and a lot more than society does. i'm not sure i entirely headcanon her as ace/aro, but i do think she's someone who doesn't really need romantic love to be happy. she cares and loves very deeply, but she doesn't need to be in a Relationship like most people do. i do think she's generally attracted to men, and i think there are a few lovers in her life that are very, very important to her, but she never feels the need to put a label on it or be someone's Person. she is the world's Person.

in a weird way, though, i do headcanon her having kids. i almost see her as having them and raising them in a commune sort of setting (lol), with friends and people she truly cares about. i headcanon the father to be someone she... loves, even they're not in a conventional sort of relationship. i think she's happy, though. i think lily's happy.

.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS:

Teddy Remus Lupin:

i never made a moodboard for teddy, i think because his face constantly changes lol. i either see him as becoming a musician or a wandmaker. i couldn't decide, so i hinted at both in the fic. you can pick one lol. or, maybe, he starts out with one with the other as a hobby, then switches things around when he gets bored. i think he's just a creative person, who loves making things. i think romantically, he's probably with victoire, they have cute babies.

Naran:

i sort of headcanon naran as moving back to england eventually. it's heavily hinted at in castles but, in a strange way that most immigrants will recognise, mongolia is her home but it's also... not her home. she says it to harry in chapter 23, she's in between spaces, neither truly english nor truly mongolian. most of her formative years are spent in england, and i think, a little bit like ron who, after the most urgent rebuilding is done, quits the ministry, she, i think, moves back to london, probably in her mid-twenties. i do think she's back and forth a lot, very involved, but ultimately, her home is lily. i'm not sure whether she marries or has kids, that's up to you.

[zepskies]

Hey Lovely! For the ask game, I'm requesting #4, #7, and #24.

Thanks!! ❤️

Well hello there, friend! 🥰

Oh my, good questions...

Hahaa oh lord. I mean, how much time do you have? 🤣 I have entire files worth of ideas from different fandoms that I've even gone so far as to outline, but have never gotten around to writing.

I think the first ones that come to my head are two series ideas in the Smallville fandom:

Hanging By a Moment - Clark Kent x OC

Summary: The path of Clark Kent’s life changed drastically after he turned sixteen. It was choice, it was happenstance, it was destiny—all in one. He didn’t know it yet, but it was always going to be her.

(Yes, title is based on the song by Lifehouse. 😂)

Keep Holding On - Jason Teague x OC

Summary: Try as Jason might, he just couldn’t compare to Clark Kent. Not in Lana’s eyes at least. Elena is the casualty of war, caught in between.

Both sound very melodramatic now that I read the summaries next to one another. 😂 The main reason why I haven't written these, I guess, is because I feel like the Smallville fandom has mostly died out. Tumblr especially doesn't really support OCs as much as reader inserts, and these stories both needed to be OCs to give me the freedom to create as much backstory and character as I wanted to.

Oh a DEEP CUT you say? 🤣 Oh God, I've been writing since I was about 10 or 11 years old (and let me tell you, it was heinous).

I think my very first fanfic was for an anime called Rurouni Kenshin. It was an AU set in present time. It was that cliché thing where the heroine is sitting at a bar and is getting hit on, but she doesn't give the guy the time of day until her boyfriend (the main male lead of the show) shows up.

That character was known for being a spitfire, so she was good at putting people in their place lol. Her boyfriend is the more mild-mannered of the two, but still very protective, so I guess that's where the idea came from in my kid brain. I've long ago deleted that story off FF.net because it was so damn bad.

My first SPN fanfic, however, can be found here on Ao3. It's also pretty rough because I wrote it back in high school when I was first watching the show, first on FF.net, then transferred it over later to Ao3.

Another interesting question... 🤔

It can take me a bit to get myself into that creative headspace, but when I'm working on a one-shot, I tend to power through the draft until I finish it in a day, maybe two if it's long (5,000+ words let's say).

If we're talking about a series, I try to knock out at least a chapter at a time in one writing session, which could take me a couple hours or several more, depending on length and how detailed my outline is, if I need to do additional research, etc.

If I really have a good flow going, sometimes I can knock out 2-3 chapters in a day. I'll have a solid 1-3 hour writing session towards the beginning of the day, take a break for a few hours, run some errands, go on a walk, have a meal, and come back to it later. I tend to do the bulk of my writing in the afternoon and throughout the night.

Thanks again for asking these questions, lovely!! 😘💜 Always happy to answer.

[sanddusted-wisteria]

An update on my fics

hey wow it's been 4 months

Nearly six months on both longfics lmao. I've been busy and will continue to be busy, unfortunately. Grad school is a different beast entirely to undergrad (be careful taking 3 grad classes in a semester. 2 heavy ones can really make you regret it), I need to prepare for job interviews and PhD program applications, and this summer I've been wrangling an internship and research work.

Even so tho, my MTAS brainrot is far from dead. It takes a lot of time and effort, but I still have a lot I want to do with the My Time verse and my OCs, both art and fic. So here's a quick update on where I am and what the plan is with my fics and fic series going forward, and some previews of what I have so far (on a separate post bc this one's already too long lmao)!

TL;DR: busy, but still writing! WIP snippets on the next post.

[Long post and rambling belowwwwww]

Earth and Sky

Currently my primary focus. E&S has evolved a TON since I decided to rewrite it. How much? Well...

[Drafting = first draft is in progress; Revising = draft is plot-complete, set aside for future editing passes]

In fact, I haven't even outlined the ending chapters since I recently had a change of heart in the kind of resolution I wanted. I got stuck on it enough that I decided to forego outlining anything for now and playing that one more by ear. I think any more time I spend tweaking these outlines might put me off this fic altogether :P

As someone that started writing with nameless/generic builders, writing for an OC is a different kind of challenge. I'm working to try and strike a good balance of focus on Wis vs Qi vs them together, and making Wis a very human, if not enjoyable character. Still, I think that this is one of those projects that if I can get right, it will be VERY right. It'll just take a bit to get there first :>

At minimum, I'll wait until most if not all of the chapters in the first third/quarter are done (chapters 1-16) to start posting, though hopefully I'll also have a solid idea for how some of the later chapters will go as well. Those are the really (internal) conflict-heavy chapters and I want to make sure it won't come out as shallow :P But I am excited to show you what I've got cooking!

A Cosmic Garden

This is the broader series for Wis and Qi. E&S will be the biggest fic, but it only goes up to a little beyond MTAS's Act 2. Beyond that, my plan is to write some side stories that go into Wis's Lore(tm), namely her origins as an Old World clone and her interactions with other Wis clones around the Alliance.

Why side stories? Well, a) any plot involving Wis as a clone is relatively spread out across the timeline of MTAS's story, since it's actually not that closely tied to her "main" storyline (being the first clone I made when the clone story was just kind of just a bullet point on their lore descriptions, it's less involved), b) it therefore doesn't really affect the story of how she and Qi get together, and c) I know that people might be far more interested in just the romance story with Qi (which is totally okay! I understand, I'm pretty much in the same camp with OC-centric stories a lot :P)

As for the equivalent of MTAS's Act 3, this won't be one cohesive fic, but a small series of smaller stories, since I don't really have too many ideas for a fully fleshed out telling of Act 3 that doesn't just walk through the main missions without much deviating from that. Some of those stories include:

A series of conversations between Qi and Miguel post Act 2

A Nia/Mi-an story

A silly little oneshot of Qi and Rosie interacting (tentative)

The original idea that Strangeness and Charm sprouted from; Wis and Qi conducting a methodical study on non-sexual intimacy (tentative)

The finale of the MTAS main story

A Builder, a Researcher, and a Rooftop

Currently on pause. For now, there's just too much OC brainrot for fics and on OTAS that I just need to get out. Don't worry! I'm absolutely not abandoning this one. I just can only really focus on one big project at a time lol. We're close to the end of this story's act 2, though not much of the remainder is written. In fact, chapter 34 is already done, but not chapter 33, so I can't quite post it yet. I think after I get the first part of E&S done (or I suppose whenever I feel like picking it up), I'll switch gears to at least get to the end of Act 2. Act 3 will need some reevaluation...I've hemmed and hawed over it forever, but I do want to finalize the plot for that one, and also potentially get started on that as well.

Others

To the...5 people that read my Grace/Wis miniseries, I really do still want to get that done a;sdlasdralsdrkj It's been hard since my thoughts on how Grace and Wis interact after Act 2 have changed a lot. But even so, I hate to leave it hanging there, so I've started working on it again. It's already outlined, I just need to get it filled in.

Someday I should come back to Quiet Moments in Sandrock... My art's gotten a ton better since then and there's a few ideas I still have leftover that I never got to. Unfortunately I need to make room for it somewhere in the 13438525 other art ideas I have that I can only do like 1 per week at MOST asdlrkasdasdrjksdrj

Sitting on the back burner forever in my writing folder is a fusion of Junji Ito's Uzumaki and MTAS... An MTAS version of Uzumaki's story works SURPRISINGLY well, and Wis and Qi I think make for stronger protagonists in this setting than Kirie and Shuichi in theirs if I do say so myself lol. It's fully outlined and everything, but that's gonna forever be on the back burner until either my longfics get done or I figure out how to write horror, whichever comes first 😂

So all in all...still cooking! Thank you if you read all this, and thank you for your patience, especially if you've been closely following any of my in progress fics. Hopefully once the interview and application cycle is out of the way this fall, I'll have more brain capacity to really plug away at all these and share with you all! :>

[corndogninja]

Photo editing step-by-step semi-tutorial

Trying something new here on the blog... I don't do much tutorial writing but wanted to share a little behind-the-scenes on how I typically edit my cosplay photos. A lot of this is cobbled together from various tutorials or trial-and-error over time but I think the results are pretty nice. I use Photoshop but a lot of these tips are generalized enough you might could use them in your editor of choice.

Let me know if this is helpful or cool, if you'd like to see more of this sort of thing!

First off I just use the default photo editing tools to clean things up a bit. Tighten the crop and adjust the levels and white balance... mostly just "eyeballing" it. Notably I already like the pose, lighting, and composition - anything you can take care of in-camera rather than post is preferable! Then I gotta black out the gun tip - select the tip, tint orange toward blue, lower the saturation way down, then tweak the levels. Of course it still looks like a cap is on the tip, but the focus of the photo is kind of off the gun barrel anyway so who cares.

Next up we're going to swap out the background. In this case I want it to feel kind of indistinct - not a "scene" Wick is actively interacting with but more just scenery he's in front of. Wet nighttime streets are pretty prominent in the opening of Chapter 2 so I selected this photo. I try to use sites like Pixabay that offer free-use photos rather than just pulling whatever from Google Images.

Once I have the photo, I crop it to where the horizon line looks good, add a Gaussian blur to imply depth, and mask it in the background. Photoshop's auto-select has gotten pretty robust, I tweak the cutout just a bit for clarity and to add some light leaks around the outline

In this case I set the transparency to 92% to get it a little lighter. In any case, I then add an Exposure layer to darken it for mood lighting.

Next bit is color correction. In this case I wanted to evoke the look of Chapter 3 promo art... pulled a few reference images and took note of the orange/purple contrast and gradient they use:

I don't recall if I used the eyedropper tool but I created a similar gradient, set to split on my face so the two halves of the background ended up as different colors. Set the layer to "Soft Light" (in this case I actually duplicated it and set that duplicate to 25%), and I masked out some parts where the light is hitting particularly hard (left of face, hands, edge of gun) to keep a more natural look.

Since it's raining, I added a subtle "fog" look to the background. Created a single-layer duplicate of everything so far, masked the background, Gaussian blur - then set that layer to "Lighter Color". You can see it in the building lights, mostly - brings back some brightness after the multiple darkening we've done.

Finally bringing in some rain, again referencing the poster above.

To make the rain layers, I first make a solid black layer then "Add Noise" (monochromatic). Tweak the "Levels" so you get pockets of pure white against black (with a couple mid-grays layered in), then resize the layer so the dots are bigger than single pixels (it's fine if they get blurry). Finally, apply a motion blur to get the "falling" motion.

I do this twice to get a sense of depth. First layer is set to "Overlay" at low opacity (~25%), which also slightly darkens the image.

The second layer is set to "Screen", again at low opacity (~20%). Combined, it gives the effect of rain in front and behind throughout the scene.

Finally I add a cooling "Photo Filter" layer, masked out to points like my face and hands, to add a little contrast. Sometimes I'll do a final pass with "Levels" or "Exposure", "Add Noise", or use some subtle Instagram filters to make sure it looks good on the small screen, but not really in this case.

All said and done, I usually spend less than an hour per image. Despite ending up with 10+ layers it's not too complex and I find the results quite satisfying!

[elsiebrayisgay]

For the ask game: 3, 16 and 17 😊

um yeah! 3. Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic so this has changed a lot since i started writing prose, tbh, but there are some hallmarks of my process that have stayed the same. the absolute first thing that has always remained true whether it's been more academic, poetry (which is what i did for my degree,) TTRPG stuff, or now prose fanfic, is that no matter what no matter where no matter when if i have an idea i do my best to write it down. i have lost too many good ideas to not being sure what i had thought up and being certain i'd remember it. so often when i am laying in bed drifting off to sleep and thinking about my work, i will grumble and sit up and unlock my laptop to type out some notes.

another thing that was true for a while and still holds up somewhat today (with caveats) is that when i get inspired by something, i *write*. the first chapter of sourceless bruises was written in one evening after i got home from being out at dinner. i'd had vague concepts and ideas floating around for months before then but when it finally hit me i just sat down and wrote. this doesn't really happen as much anymore because even though i have the inspiration and the hyperfixation, i just don't have the energy to be up and in such high gear for so long, so i need to break it up more. this was true of my poetry and essays for school as well, though; i would just sit down start turning work out when i wanted or needed to.

16. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

alright so i've been kind of trying to figure out what i want to write after sourceless bruises. i took kind of a long break between my first fic and my second fic (more of these queer feelings... it's probably nothing on ao3) because i was just sort of waiting to have an idea i felt really solid about working on and that's how long it took. partially because sourceless bruises is a bigger project and is taking longer, these days i have a lot more ideas for what to work on next kicking around. none of them are really formed into anything super cogent, because i pretty strictly keep myself to one involved/long-term creative project at a time. however, things i have been interested in developing once i have wrapped up sourceless bruises in no particular order:

i have a draft started for a sequel to more of these queer feelings. it's mostly outlined, but i hadn't really gotten far into the drafting process.

korrasami modern au. this kind of setting adaptation is my bread and butter, if you couldn't tell. i posted a joke about this sort of idea on tumblr a while back but it actually got a lot more traction than i was expecting and so honestly i'm thinking about putting some more work in on it.

cait/vi (vilyn?) has been really interesting to me recently. i dunno, something about those girls. so i've been thinking about early stages of what i might want to do with them, whether to give them my normal au treatment or try something else.

i have also been working a bit on a premise for some original fiction. i will only say at this point that it will be horror/mystery and probably be a fair bit bleaker than what i tend to write for ao3 (though honestly i have no idea how i would go about publishing original fiction.)

17. What do you do when writing becomes difficult? (maybe a lack of inspiration or writers block)

okay so at this point it's time to circle back to the first answer in this post because honestly the truth of how i go about writing chapters these days falls a lot more under this question than that more general one. the first thing i'm going to say is that in my opinion, writing is labor. there's an old interview with john darnielle and john k. samson (among others) where JD talks about how there's no such thing as convenience store clerk block, or coal miner's block, so writers shouldn't get blocked—they should just keep sitting down to write, and to some extent i believe in that idea, but i want to add nuance. i think there probably is such a thing as convenience store clerk block, and coal miner's block, it's just that society doesn't allow or expect them to take breaks, or go on sabbatical or whatever. so they end up working through, and maybe burning out. i think that labor is something that any person, in any field, needs to take at their own personal sustainable pace. it's really easy, as a writer, to compare yourself to others. word counts on ao3, stories published, etc. but i think it's very important to listen to your mind and body about what you need as a creative person and also just as a person. if you've got nothing right now, i think it is important to try allowing your mind to simply lie fallow. there's that post about mental crop rotation, and about letting your mind have time where it isn't expected to turn out anything that needs to get put on a page. i think respecting that need is pretty important. this philosophy is how i've been going about writing since i got out of school.

this ties into the actual difficulty i've mostly been having with sourceless bruises. around late 2022/early 2023 i had some life circumstances cause my chronic illness to get a lot more severe, from which i have never fully recovered. this has meant that my pain is a lot worse, and my energy levels are a lot lower. what i used to be able to do with turning out thousands of words a day when i was really inspired happens only very rarely now, when those moments line up with my good days. there's another post on here (somewhere in my reblogs) talking about what to do as a fic writer when your capabilities change, and a lot of the advice on that post has stuck with me. accepting my limits and working within them has definitely meant that my process is a lot slower, especially during flares (and once the weather warms up in the spring i am mostly stuck in one big flare until fall) but it also means that i get to maintain the quality of what i produce and my own quality of life. in these periods, i mostly just try to carve out a bit of time every day when i am able to sit up, usually only fifteen or twenty minutes or so, to peck away at my draft. i sit down, get a paragraph or two dealt with, maybe look at a bit of research, maybe not, and at the end of it i have maybe two hundred more words than i did before. some days, i don't even feel up to this. sometimes i go a week without doing it. but i try to just carve out some time when i can to peck away and eventually i end up with a finished chapter. that's really what my creative process looks like these days.

[wizisbored]

11. Do you write scenes in order, or do you jump around?

a few years ago i was awful about sticking to chronological order but that was mostly because i wasnt actually posting fic, just fucking around with my Situations, so i kinda didnt have a reason to write anything that wasnt the scenes i was most interested in. once i got into actually posting my stuff i got into the habit of writing in order a lot more because im actually trying to tell the full story chapter by chapter now. i do sometimes still skip ahead to different chapters and write scenes im particularly hyped for or have a really solid mental picture of in advance but more and more often im just doing it in bullet-point outline form. i think thats actually because my idea of characterisation and motivation and all that changing throughout a story has improved. most of my stuff is very much focused on characters and character dynamics, and because my outlining is pretty loose if i try to skip ahead i dont know exactly where that characters attitude towards the situation and other characters is going to be by that point. to take netherborne as an example - its hard to skip ahead in that fic because i dont know exactly what lydia and beetlejuice's dynamic is going to look like at any given time. sure, i have a rough idea of how it evolves, but i cant pin down exactly how theyd talk to each other or what theyd tollerate from one another. i kinda just let these things naturally evolve as i write them, so skipping ahead puts me in a bit of a void. hence, i mostly only outline.

i do do small jumps fairly often though, as in a paragraph or two. if im getting really stuck on writing a particular moment in a chapter ill often just stick a bookmark there and skip to the next part i feel like i can write, and come back with fresh eyes later. i use a table of contents extention in google docs so its pretty easy to just put a header called 'bookmark' wherever im currently writing. the first chapter of runnign iorn actually has three right now - one because i havent properly figured out how to open it, one because i havent fully figured out how to finish beetlejuice's first scene, and one where im up to with lydia

(from this ask game)

[ceph-the-ghost-writer]

Writing Log Aug. 23

This seems like a fun and neat habit that the more responsible writblrs I follow have. So let's give it a shot.

Word Count Roundup

Apophenia Rewrite Attempt #1: 10,521 (like 3k more than the original! :O)

Phagophobia Rough Draft: 39,714

The Primrose Path: 7,291

Target(s) of the Week

Finish sketching out final chapters of Phagophobia

Write a little bit of Primrose Path. Something. Anything. It's been too long.

Some spoiler-y rambles for Apophenia/Phagophobia under the cut

What I naively believed would be just a little polishing or adding a few scenes to Apophenia has completely changed the entire story. Oops. This isn't a bad thing, mind you. It just means there was a lot more work to be done than anticipated.

Renato's motivations have been the biggest driving force behind all the changes. Ever since he stopped just wanting to drink Isaac dry I've had to come up with a lot more complex worldbuilding and personal history. His cruelty towards Isaac in the rewrite comes from his job as one of the Unseen Hand's thugs. As does his guilt when he realizes he grabbed the wrong agent.

This revelation is rapidly setting in on Part 5 of Apophenia. After escaping from the shapechanging ouroboros, the boys have holed up in a motel room while Renato calls for backup. Which is where my outline went careening off course yet again. Rather than let Isaac go for various reasons (one of them being so Apophenia can link up with what I'd written for Phagophobia), Renato has decided to hold on to Agent Soto. It looks like they'll be going on a messed up roadtrip a lot sooner than expected.

Which means most of Phagophobia is moot. I mean, the general shape of some events will remain (Kinslayer showing up to bail Renato out, Renato going to Dorian for help, etc.). But pretty much everything is going to have to be redone. Again, not a bad thing. I can already see a lot of ways this will improve the story.

In light of all this, I've gone ahead and replaced the next chapter or two of Phagophobia with simple explanations in brackets. I simply don't want to spend time on writing out scenes I don't have clear motivations for. However, I am writing the final scenes of the story. While these may completely change in the future as well, I think the general concept is solid enough to give it a try. Anyway, I'd like to at least say I brought Phagophobia to some type of conclusion before continuing with any more rewriting.

Or outlining rather. Which, if you couldn't tell, I'm terrible at.

Anyway, have the first tidbit of that final scene.

They took him out to the woods to die. Isaac wondered if it was meant as an extra layer of cruelty or just the most practical place to murder somebody. Maybe a little of both, he decided. Zamora sat with him in the backseat, gun in her lap, while Quinn drove. The sound system remained off. Nobody talked, not even to gloat. Isaac wished he could come up with some last words. An epitaph that would haunt them forever. Empty fantasies, of course. At best, the enforcers believed they were doing the Coven, the world, a favor. At worst, they just didn’t care. No matter where their reasoning fell, he was trash to them. Something to be buried and never thought about again. So, he stared out the window at the dark trees flashing by and didn’t waste his final breaths. “Seatbelt.” Isaac started at the voice. His eyes darted to Zamora, then Quinn, but neither were looking at him. He tugged on the strap across his chest. The connection point. Both secure.

[ramblyngrobyn]

Juvenile (Pkmn/Prsk crossover) Prologue notes extended

Okay! So! This is the start of a little big something I've been sitting on for a while. For the last several months (since at least April 2023) I've been occasionally poking at this ever-expanding AU in my phone's notes, adding ideas for story beats and things to do with the characters and world. I always figured I wouldn't actually turn this into a real thing and figured I'd just keep it to my own imagination but the brainworms eventually won, so here I am!

Uh, so I don't know how "good" this is gonna be? Hell even this first chapter I'm already worried that maybe I tried to do too much at once. As I was writing a lot of extra ideas hit me for how I could better build this as a solid foundation of the rest of the story. I wanted every scene to like, matter, yknow? It might just straight up be too long! But any time I considered cutting a scene just to make things more brief I was like "no, no, I need that part". I could have also cut it into multiple chapters but it's the same amount of content so like, what would the point be. If you're wondering, the break points for a 3-chapter version of this would have been Mafuyu showing up at Kanade's place and Kanade seeing the others off at the train station.

Right off the bat, the prologue is a bit different tonally and I wanna talk about that. There's not a super high saturation of Pokemon stuff in this opening! I hope that isn't too weird considering this is a Pokemon AU! I wanted to ease Kanade into it before dropping her in the deep end for the last chunk. When the next chapter hits, we’ll be in full on Poke-mode. This chapter also has a handful of more serious moments, which is par for the course since y'know, Niigo. I actually cut out or edited some bleaker moments because I thought they felt out of place, lol. It's gonna get a lot more consistently lighthearted from here, I promise! (Mostly!)

I have the broad strokes of this story outlined, both in written notes and a map that I scribbled out. I don't have all the details in-between locked in, I'm being flexible there, but I know where I want this to go and generally speaking what I want to do with the whole cast.

I'm not aiming for anything super profound with this, and I have no practical experience in long-form storytelling. Hopefully that doesn't bite me in the butt too hard. Going forward, some chapters might end up being mostly choreographed action, some might be the characters sitting around talking for a few thousand words. At the end of the day, this is just me having fun with my favorite characters in one of my favorite fictional words. I'm trying to not think so hard that I corner myself.

On that note, I think it's worth noting up front that this is very much my version of these characters in my version of Unova. Not in a "my fic don't like don't read" kind of way but like... you might not agree with every choice?

For the most part character origins will have to be built from the ground up, though as you can see from this first chapter I've tried to keep bits and pieces from canon that I think naturally fit. Niigo's origin story is honestly pretty easy to write and intuit around considering they first met remotely. And while I did do a lot of expositing in this opening I think that instead of every character getting an airtight, perfectly laid out backstory, I'll leave some things to the imagination.

As far as the laws of the Pokemon universe goes, it probably goes without saying that I definitely won't be following strict rules from the games. Some Pokemon might end up learning moves that aren't in their learnset, for example (or at least, if they make sense for the Mon in question). Some moves and abilities might have their function tweaked for this context, or I might go for a different interpretation of how the move manifests physically. There’ll be Pokemon that have more than literally four moves. Stuff like that. I'm inserting some headcanons, some ideas that I think fill in gaps in the world building, and there'll be a lot of changes to the design of the world. I joke to myself that this is a "post-globalism Unova", because there's some locations that are really different, a couple totally original locations, and Pokemon here that don't show up in Pokemon BW/2. You could call it "anime logic" if you want, I just think loosening the rules makes things more interesting and fun to write and read. 

One more little nugget: In case you didn't recognize it, the title is from the Jin song made for the Project Voltage collab! It's my favorite song so far from the crossover, it makes me feel so many things. It just felt like a perfect fit for this story vibes-wise, as well as a fun coincidence since I’d been imagining Kanade with an Eevee for months beforehand.

I may run out of steam eventually, but I'm publishing this first chapter because I'm currently feeling fired up about it. Even if the current enthusiasm wanes over time this'll be here for me to poke with an update whenever I want.

I'd love for you to join me on this silly journey, and I hope you can enjoy it!

[celestialtitania]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

thank you @kasienda for the tag!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

The current number is 51 and honestly? it still blows my mind.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

151,239, made up almost entirely of one shots lol.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

There's a lot of them but in recent years, it's mainly been miraculous ladybug, my hero academia, and the occasional percy jackson.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I'M HIS BEST FRIEND (no, it's me!) (MHA)

A Preposterous Predicament (ML)

Mind Outta Body (FT)

Ma Douce Souffrance (ML)

my colours on you (ML)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I'm really good at responding right after I publish a fic. It's afterwards that I sometimes forget to respond, or simply don't have enough time to respond. I always appreciate every comment I get though!

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Angstiest ending huh? A bunch of my fics are angsty but the one that I think ends in the most angst would have to be dance with the devil, drink with the demons, without it being outright whump lol.

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

Happy? Happy. Um....I'm gonna say party like it's your heroes' birthday just because there's a party and it's sweet and yeah lmao. It also has the wholesome family/friend vibes that keep me from forever being confused about the correct fluff to angst ratio.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've been extremely lucky and have been able to avoid it for the most part. That's not to say I've gotten no hate ever, but it was minimal enough that I pretend it doesn't exist. Fervently hoping it stays that way!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

No. Maybe. No. The idea has crossed my mind but I haven't been able to write it as of yet. Maybe I never will. Who's to say really?

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Kind of? I did it exactly once. But not in the traditional way, it was more of a, "take the world-building idea of percy jackson and put it into a fairy tail quest" so I'm not sure if it actually counts.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so. Or at least I hope I haven't!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I was asked once, many moons ago, but then they never got back to me, so I assume they dropped the idea.

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

No? Unless we're counting those fic fights/telephone things where one person starts and another takes over. There was also this one time, I was writing a fic with a few others but we never managed to finish, so I don't really count that one.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

All time? And I'm only supposed to pick one?? Next time, give me a tough question, will ya? Wow uh, I don't know if it's my favourite ship, perse, but it is the ship I've shipped the longest + one I've actually written for, so I'm gonna go with lovesquare. *shrugs* probably typical of me, but it was the only ship to get inside my head so badly that I've written over a dozen fics for them, instead of more gen stuff, which is my usual go-to otherwise.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Well, if we look at my gigantic list of unpublished fics, there's probably plenty of WIPs to choose from there. As for published, well I don't want to say I never will but yeah Forsake the Divine (If You Can) seems to be a pretty solid choice, if only because there are only 1 chapter and a half left to go and it's all outlined too, but I've kind of fallen out of the fandom (it's very dead) so idk if I'll ever manage to put it together.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Characterization is definitely a strong suit. And judging purely from my comment section, I feel okay assuming that I'm pretty good at making the emotional beats land too.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Description definitely. It's been pointed out to me more than once that I'm so focused inside the characters' heads that I forget to interact more with the world around them. Nature wants to be incorporated and I'm working on that.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I hate it. It feels so strange to me to have a few words in a different language and then abruptly switch back to English. The only thing that I feel I have to do in another language though, is honorifics. Whether it be -san, -kun, or Madame, I think I get super extra about it. I once delved into such a rabbit hole trying to figure out what honorific even a side character uses, just for a throwaway dialogue!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Ooh, officially? Fairy Tail. Unofficially, hidden in the depths of my laptop? Yeah, it was Percy Jackson. My childhood favourite that still haunts my thoughts to this day.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Ironically? This is the second time I've been asked that today and the choice is still just as difficult. Or maybe it's that my actual favourites are still unfinished and hence unpublished. For now, I'm going to say Enduring, it's the fic that was most different genre-wise from what I usually write, and I'm very proud of how it turned out. If I ever manage to finish it though, my favourite will probably be a life unlived or maybe I'm just doomed to never have a favourite, because there will always be something new I'm looking forward to reading (meaning I have to write it to be able to see it). Tagging (no pressure!) @shortmexicangirl @rosiesared @ck2k18 @heartfulselkie @coffeebanana @mdelpin @kiliinstinct @lady-charinette

[livebloggingkidshows]

"Richelle's been on Dancing with the Stars for the past several years, but this year her partner is far more infuriating that in years past.

Jude's only real experience with dance is TikTok dances, and as it turns out they're significantly easier to learn than ballroom.

Jacquie is a basketball star, stepping out onto a ballroom stage has her terrified, but maybe it won't be completely horrible.

AKA the Dancing with the Stars AU"

It's finally here! I've been working on this AU since July I think. Got a pretty solid backlog and fingers crossed my outline is fully sorted. I'm so excited for you all to finally get to read this.

[time-to-write-and-suffer]

IF writers write one single book/game that's good first before you plan a series of barely coherent fanfic tropes mashed together instead of an overarching plot challenge <3

I like series personally. I mean not wayhaven length long series but I like duologies and trilogies. I feel like it gives the romance more depth and time to be fleshed out whereas in some stand alone IFs I've read the romance was barely developed before it actually happened, but at the same time the story I tend to like more in the standalone because sometimes in multiple book series it can be dragged out. But Wayhaven is on another level of dragging out, I think it would have done well with being 3 or 4 books long. Idk what other plot will be able to make it seven. I think it would have also made for a solid duology if the story was better paced and the characters and story beats were better written though. One of my main issues with some IF finished or unfinished is the way the romance is written, idk how to explain but a lot of them and how they develop I'm not the biggest fan of or either that or some of the romance options feel 1 dimensional and the mc has no sense of agency whatsoever. On the other hand there are some ifs I've also really enjoyed so I guess it depends. I would love to know more about your opinions on this topic. I think it's a really interesting point and I enjoy reading your thoughts on different topics.

Thank you, that's very sweet of you to say! ^^ And enables me to do more self-important rambling. Although I would love to hear more about why some romances work for you and others don't, since I'm maybe gonna try my hand at writing an IF eventually.

Ok, back to the thing.

Honestly my main issue isn't that there's series, it's that it's often pretty blatant that they're a series solely for the sake of being a series? And not because the author actually has enough material to justify having multiple releases. You feel me?

So like, yeah! If you're using the extra time to develop characters and plot and flesh out the world, if there's a clear progression of events and things are evolving and happening, then obviously write a series! But if you just go "Oh I have all these fun ideas but there's NO way they'll fit into one or two books, it simply MUST be a trilogy/quadrilogy/pentalogy etc etc" without even planning shit out? It's like ... Ok you have a lot of ideas but did you ... do anything with them? Do you have a plan of where you're going? A lot of the time I see announcements of "This will be a trilogy/series!" before the first book is even finished so like ... How do you know. And then you get to the second book and you realize, oh, you didn't know. You just made that up.

And you can say that "Omg Eff, you don't KNOW how these authors operate, maybe they did plan and figure stuff out and your standards are just different and snobby and rude!" and maybe you'd be correct. But I've now read several multiple-book series where you could remove entire chapters, subplots, and yes, one entire BOOK, without changing the status quo or disrupting any character development at all, by just tightening up the writing and shuffling events into previous or next books. I've also read books that were firsts in a series and came away thinking "Okay? Um? Where is this going, exactly? What's the overarching plot? Why should I keep playing this?"

When it gets to that point, I just feel like ... What are you doing, ya know? How are you outlining this shit that things are just randomly happening for no reason. Subplots dropped entirely without a word. Character development stagnating because you've planned all their progression for a different book so in this one they can't do anything to evolve at all. Why is this a series if you're wasting so much time faffing about in one spot until you've stamped the earth into a flat circle.

Also, if you'll allow me to get pretentious for a moment, as a Gamer who's studying Gaming for my Gaming Degree, I feel that the medium of IFs isn't as close to books as people believe just because it's primarily a written medium. You can have plenty of books where people faff about doing fuck-all. Those are generally not good books, but it's excused because of the medium. The author has complete authority over the progression, and the reader is along for the ride, their only choice is whether they engage or not.

However, with IFs, because you've added player interaction into the mix, the things that you put in front of the player need to be justified, need to be worth interacting with. You've already sacrificed a portion of your authority for the sake of player empowerment, so you need to give the player something to DO with the authority you've given them. If you have entire sections of a game where the player becomes too aware of how little their actions matter, how little thought you've put into what you're presenting, how the only thing they're able to change is the replies to a character's words, it becomes less of someone enjoying reading a story and more of a chore to click through the pointless options and watching your character do fuck-all to change any outcomes.

When you write a book where characters faff about, that's your choice as the author. You have absolute authority and can decide when the faffing stops.

But when you write a game, you need to engage the player, you can't faff about forever. The story does not exist without them. The things you put in need to be there for a reason, because someone, by definition, by design, will be on the other end poking and prodding at it, and if you put in shit that doesn't need to be there, then you're wasting your own effort and also the player's time.

Idk. Does that make sense?

I also disagree that single-book romances tend to be worse, IMO they usually work better for me because they're actually planned and structured as stories, as the rest of the books. If you need to rely on word counts in the millions to tell a romance, that's not great, methinks. IFs also give you plenty of time and word count for romances, as well. Like, a 100k fantasy romance is on the longer end for a book, but an IF with a 100k word count would be considered on the shorter end, so readers are plenty ready for much longer word counts and it's even a selling point, usually.

So there's really no reason to justify having multiple books to write a good romance. An IF has no material reason to fit standard tradpub guidelines, so if you need bigger word counts, it's like, go wild. One counterargument would be that IFs romance routes are generally shorter than romance books, because all that WC doesn't actually go to the individual romances but is split up between regular plot, variations and other routes, but again, there's nothing really stopping you from writing as much as you want.

There's also the problem of most IFs having a lot of romance options, but they all tend to be different people with different romance timelines, so stretching out every romance to a slow-burn in different ways just for the sake of giving every route something to hook the player in each book becomes kinda tedious and transparent eventually. So I think multiple-book romances aren't a guarantee to be better than single-book romances (not that you were claiming this, I'm just out on a mind journey rn, apologies).

Anyway, that last bit got a bit off-topic and I'm already seeing some holes in my argument that I don't wanna think about lest this post becomes infinite, but, uh ... There ya go! :')

In the end, I think it's not about what's better, but about structuring, and having a vision, and not wasting my gotdam time and attention and money just because someone couldn't write a proper outline or self-edit. Single-book IFs have just been better at showing restraint and artistic vision in my experience, hence why I generally side-eye any upcoming IF or demo that advertises itself as the first in a series.

Cuz I just don't trust like that anymore.

[practically-an-x-man]

And finally:

Paper, Canvas, Photography, Film, Cricut, Finger Painting, and Creative! :)

And here's number three!! Thank you again, this has been a lot of fun to dive into!

OC/Writing Art Asks

Paper: Who do you feel is your most two-dimensional or underdeveloped OC? Why is this? (including those that are still in development/haven't been written about yet)

So I have actually answered this one here, but the short answer is that I want to write something that incorporates Sean Cassidy, but all I've got for an OC so far is their mutation: the ability to visualize solid matter where there is none, like the inverse of Kitty Pryde's powers. Most of my OCs go through development very quickly, so there's not much that feels two-dimensional to me

Canvas: Do you ever "prep" your fics with outlines or warmups before you start writing, or do you just dive right in?

I don't usually do warmups (unless I'm REALLY hurting for motivation), but I sometimes do a bit of outlining. Usually, I'll outline by chapter, and do the outline of the next chapter right after I finish writing/posting the current one. I also tend to use the top of my document as a dumping ground for character information, ideas for future scenes, and other outline-based things. I think Desert Song actually has the most tangible outline of all my fics right now, since there's a lot of chaos that I need to keep in order.

Photography: What's one moment from any of your fics that you feel is preserved in your memory?

Oh man... how do I choose? For one thing, I'm kind of a walking encyclopedia of my writing. Honestly speaking, you could probably pick any line at random from any of my fics, block out the names, and I'd still be able to tell you which fic you pulled it from and the scene that surrounds it. So in that sense, it's all pretty well-preserved. But that being said, there's a few moments that I just can't get out of my head:

Chapter 42 in Smoke and Mirrors

Chapter 37 in Bolts and Blasters

The second half of Chapter 7 in Desert Song

Chapters 47, 56, 66, and 69 of A Love Once New

Both endings of Secret Worlds

Chapter 15 in Catch and Release

(and yes there are individual moments within these chapters that I'm also referring to, but describing them would take forever. And this isn't even all of them. There are so many more, now that I'm thinking about it, including a lot of moments that I haven't written yet)

Film: Which one of your fics do you think would work best if turned into a movie? Who would direct it?

Hmm... So, I'm going to discount the ones that are physically synced to the source material (a good chunk of Catch and Release falls under No Way Home, Who Waits Forever Anyway? is based on NATM 3, etc.) and say that the most likely candidate is either Desert Song or Nom De Guerre.

6 Underground was supposed to have a sequel anyway, but it got cancelled due to poor reviews. Both of these fics are written based on what this sequel could have been, so they'd translate well as a continuation of the story

They're both very fast-paced and action-packed, and while the stories are/will be somewhat complex, they follow a fairly linear path that would translate well to the big screen.

I feel like my writing style is fairly "cinematic", but most of my other fics are either too complicated to fit into one movie, or simply work better in writing. These two are modeled after 6 Underground itself, and therefore are designed in the same action-movie way

As far as directors, the simplest answer is Michael Bay, since he directed 6 Underground itself. I'm not the biggest Michael Bay fan as a general rule, but I feel like it would be best to maintain the style of the first movie.

Cricut: are there any characters you've had to "cut" from a story? Are there any moments/chapters/stories you've had to "cut" entirely?

Hmm... obviously, I'm not afraid of long stories, so I don't end up cutting a whole lot. If I want a scene or character to be present, either it'll find a place somewhere in the original, or I'll post it on the side (I've done this with Bolts and Blasters as well as A Love Once New).

I did have to cut out one story entirely, sadly. After Wednesday came out, I had an idea for a fic and even got a couple chapters written (but not posted), but then there was some backlash for a few of the actors and even the show itself, and I didn't want to place myself in the middle of that. I was proud of the OC I made, and ended up hybridizing her with a character I made for an AHS fic I have planned.

Finger Painting: share a small snippet from your earliest work (or the earliest that you can get back to). How would you rewrite it today? Either share the rewrite itself or just describe how you'd do it.

Oh boy, alright. My earliest completed fic is called I'll Be There to Catch You, and it could certainly stand a rewrite now that I've improved as a writer... but this isn't the earliest thing I've written. There's actually a super old AHS: Roanoke fic still floating around my AO3, abandoned after like 6 or 7 chapters. I want to delete it and rewrite it, but I don't want to get rid of it until I've started the rewrite. So uh... second-hand embarrassment, here we come!

“So how’d you get into acting?” you muttered, still mostly focused on a piece of stubborn scar wax that refused to stay stuck to his skin. His blue eyes flashed up to yours, and his mouth twitched like he wanted to smile - but he was trying to stay still so you could do the makeup.

“Hmm. I don’t really know.” he let out a short chuckle. “I know that sounds weird. I just got done touring with the Army and figured it would be an interesting job to go into.”

“You were in the Army?” you asked. Your eyes flicked down to his collar, looking for dog tags.

“Yeah. Two tours in Afghanistan. Took some pretty nasty shrapnel to the chest but otherwise I’m alright.” His eyes went distant with the memory.

“Well, lucky you don’t have to take off your shirt until next week.” you joked, trying to bring him back to the present. It worked...but not in the way you hoped. His eyes flashed up to yours, and his cheeks went red.

“I mean...your costume.” you backpedaled, feeling your own face go hot, “You have a different costume next week and it shows more of your chest so-” You cut yourself off, realizing you were babbling. You ran a hand through your hair, looking utterly mortified.

“Mind if I dig myself into an even deeper hole?” you muttered sarcastically, busying yourself with a bruise wheel. You were sure that your face was still beet red, probably your ears too.

You kept working, keeping your idiot mouth clamped shut as you finished up with the scars on his arms and face. You weren’t even paying attention to the music anymore, just trying to get through the makeup without any more major embarrassments. Of course you’d screw things up with the hottest guy on set (sorry Rory) after barely having a single conversation with him.

And as for the rewrite: say goodbye to second-person (I've made it work before, but not for this), dress up those descriptions, and just make it less cut-and-dry. Let's see what I can throw together.

"So," Wren asked, a desperate attempt to fill the silence with anything more than the dull drone of the radio, "How'd you get into acting?"

"Ah, I dunno. Just got lucky, I guess," he replied, and she caught a flash of crystalline blue as his eyes met her own. Dylan kept himself close to frozen, his lips hardly twitching even as he spoke. It reminded her, again, of how terribly close they were. Wren fiddled a bit more ardently with her airbrush, returning her focus to what was necessary. Filming was due to start in just a few minutes, this was no time to get distracted by his eyes. No matter how brilliantly blue they happened to be.

"Lucky?"

"Oh, sure." Dylan replied, stifling a low shrug as he once again fought to keep still, "Got out of the Army, no degree, wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with my life. But Hollywood's got no shortage of action heroes, I suppose. Or... colonial settlers."

"Well, you do rock the colonial settler look," Wren joked, biting down a smile of her own. She realized a moment too late that her eyes had left her airbrush and were now scanning his chest, searching for the telltale glint of dog tags. "And you were in the Army?"

"Two tours in Afghanistan," he said, a barely-perceptible hint of darkness slipping into his voice. He shrugged it off awfully quickly. It must have been common practice for him. "Ate some shrapnel on my second trip over, discharged on injury."

Wren didn't quite enjoy the shadows behind the words. And she didn't enjoy the way his hand had ghosted across his chest, over the memory of those old wounds. It was a little strange, she thought. She'd pegged him as a military man from the moment he walked in - something to do with his strict posture, his deeply-ingrained sense of discipline, the way he seemed up and ready to go even at the ass-crack of dawn - but this ran so much deeper than she'd expected.

"Well," she found herself muttering, chasing away the fog in the only way she knew how to, "At least you don't have to take off your shirt until next week."

She hardly processed what she'd said until his head snapped upwards, candid shock blinking across his face like a bolt of lightning. And her words were the thunder, catching up to her a moment too late.

"I mean-" Wren blurted, feeling heat pool in her cheeks, "Your costume. We're shooting the poisoning scene... there's a different costume and it- it shows off more of your- and Sidney wants some scarring so I'll have to-"

She huffed out a sharp breath, ready to melt into a puddle of mortification right then an there. She pitied the janitor who'd have to mop her up when all of this was done. But at least it would spare her the embarrassment. Wren let out a wordless growl, stapling her tongue to the roof of her mouth so it wouldn't run away from her again.

"Mind if I dig myself an even deeper hole?"

Creative!: free space! share something you've been dying to share about your writing! Could be an OC that never gets the limelight, a moment you were proud of, or anything else you'd like to share

Looking back at that old snippet of my writing has actually made me appreciate how much I've grown as a writer in the past 2.5 years since I started. I began writing fanfic both for fun and as a way to hone my skills to a usable level, since I had (and still do have) a couple ideas for genuine novels of my own. I feel like I'm at a position now where I could actually write them, which is exciting! I just need to find the time to start.