#server making advice

[ghostofpolaris]

Aesthetic & Accessible Discord Server?

Hi friends! Just curious and am hoping to find advice on the matter but I see a ton of different tutorials on how to make a Discord server look aesthetically pleasing, but the main issue I have is that I am visually impaired and struggle to see fancy fonts that almost every tutorial seems to gravitate toward. Does anyone know how to make a Discord server be aesthetically pleasing but also accessible still for people like myself who cannot read fancy fonts in posts and channels? I don't have any issue organizing stuff within a server for myself without all the aesthetics, but I wanted to gain some perspective on how maybe both could be doable for a server that had myself and others in it some day. Thank you for any info you can pass along!

[ghoulbrain]

bummed myself out looking for some fallout servers to hang out in bc all the shippers hate each other and i ship everything lol

[popcorn-plots]

long rant incoming, I'm just fed up with a certain person right now

OH MY GOODNESS is it too much to ask for just a LITTLE respect?? I drive this girl to and from school, every day. I'm going to call her Laura. Laura is an only child and the only reason I'm taking her to school is because she refuses to bike to mile and a half from her place to the school in the cold. Which is fine. The arrangement was that I drive her and she pays gas money. The problem is, she's been super annoying about it. Every morning for about a month, she would text me "are you picking me up today". every single morning. Until I snapped one day and told her that I have been picking her up every morning for the past month, of course I'm picking her up. not my proudest moment, but it works. Now, however, I have to text her every time I'm at her house and she still takes maybe 4 minutes to get out the door. Which, okay, I can understand the texting thing, but I would like her to be ready. and then every afternoon, she tells me that she can't find my car, so I have to tell her where I parked it in the morning. or she won't text anything and I'm sitting in my car for five or ten minutes after I text her for a response that's lik "oh I was with friends" or "I thought you were still in the school, I'm coming out now" which. okay. I understand, I like talking to my friends, but we all leave pretty quickly because no senior wants to stay at school longer than they have to. But there have been more than a few times where I'm sitting in my car for OVER HALF AN HOUR waiting for her to text back with "oh btw I forgot to tell you, I have a club meeting" or "i went home with a friend" or some bs. So every day I have to text her "do you need a ride home" because I'm waiting, in my car, for 15 minutes after school, waiting for this girl. And today, I'm sitting there for 25 minutes. and I'm like, okay I can wait, because I have some fics to catch up on. But then I'm finished with my fics

and I text her because she's still not there and it takes another five minutes for her to respond, word for word, "oh, sorry, I thought you would text me when you got to your car" after I've REPEATEDLY said that I typically leave school as soon as I can. I'm willing to wait for her, but I'm usually gone within five minutes of the bell. I waited half an hour for her to tell me that she was waiting for me to text her, informing her of my location, after I've told her that I'm always at my car. I even text her when I have something going on! Club meeting? I pick her up and before we get to school "I can't drive you home because I have a club meeting." If I have somewhere to be, or if I have to stay after school, I tell her before school or during lunch. Every single time, without fail.

not to mention the fact that the original arrangement was that she would pay me 10 dollars every 2 weeks for gas. I've only gotten 20 dollars in the past three and a half months. she keeps asking if I have venmo, and then never bringing up payment when I say that I don't. and she always complains about being too broke to afford anything, then goes and buys pizza and donughts during lunch. she's been flaky for everything else, too and it's so annoying. I've been trying to be a nice friend, because I didn't have friends, let alone kind friends growing up, and I've becoming known as the rich friend who's always willing to help in my friend group. I try to set boundaries, but then people stop talking to me the moment I do. and this has gone on throughout my entire life. Laura's behavior is even what happened in all of my previous relationships, I'd be giving 100 percent and they're giving 50, at best, until I wear myself out just trying to spend time with them and make it work, including talks where I set my boundaries and tell them, literally say "I would like it if you could just do this". If you could just get work off for a single evening or just look away from the computer for half an hour during lunch so we can have an actually conversation, then they never even try and don't understand when I'm all out of juice and can't keep going, then are confused when I stop giving my all

it's infuriating and I hate it. I really want to set boundaries, but guess what. I was raised to walk on eggshells around my mom and let people walk all over me because that's the only way that I would ever get attention from my PARENTS. because I was told to shut up and do what I'm told so that my siblings could get the help that they needed.

[zoroara]

you know, there's a reason I don't post things too often and that's because I am afraid of people learning how fucked up i am about accuracy to characters(just holding myself to that of course, even then i can't be perfect) but you know, probably fucking blew that cover with the "literally counted every single Voi in the series and categorized them" post.

[theforestknowsmydreams]

playing Minecraft would be a lot more enjoyable if I was good at building. Instead I have unexplainable skill at being bad at building

Do I know what I want it to look like? How it should feel when walking through it? The way block palettes work and which one would be good for this build?

Yes to all of these. And yet I will spend hours upon hours in creative only to end up with Not What I Wanted (And No It's Not Better Than What I Wanted)

[risingsunresistance]

joined balatro AND cryptid's discord and couldn't really find any modding help despite everyone on reddit saying "just check the discord" so uhh fuck me i guess

might just make him do something else entirely, i'll have to think about it. having his description not actually fit what he's doing bugs me. and having a card upgrade for every time a card is destroyed AND scored just feels clunky

i cant find anything wrong with what i've done at all. the only thing i can assume is that remove_playing_cards also includes scoring them even though it specifies that this means destroying them. but there also isnt a joker in cryptid using that code (at least not one i can find), it's just there i guess incase you need it? so there's a non-zero chance that's an issue that has gone unnoticed. i'm not gonna ask the discord about that and feel stupid though kjhfg

[stimboardboy]

Question: how do you find videos to make into gifs?

oh its different for most of the sites! I use Etsy these days a lot for gifs and I tend to just use the search engine with prompts I think of, and then look through similar products or other people’s collections. for stuff like instagram the search engine doesn’t work in a way that’s easy for me so i usually have to either follow people or just use my for you page (a few time I’ve found reallyyyyy old videos on archived stim blogs to gif but not very often)… and I’ve made a few TikTok gifs but I usually find those through google bcs I don’t have a tiktok… I hope this made sense, I know it’s might not be very helpful… a lot of my sources I stumble upon on accident while looking for other things

(bonus: I use ezgif to make my gifs if it means anything!)

[synthaphone]

its very easy for public discord servers about unrelated low stress activities to eventually become health issue support and vent servers and it makes me so uncomfortable

[robindrake93]

I guess I'm choosing violence today but after ten years of observation, here's the writing advice no one asked for: if you write fanfic, don't join a server.

I know how desirable it is to have a community to talk about your interests with and that's absolutely fine. Just don't do it as an author. Use a pseudonym.

You've heard that people are talking about your fic in a server and you want to see? They will stop talking about your fic as soon as you join. Yes, even if they're the ones who invited you in the first place.

The people who comment on every chapter of everything you write? Are going to stop commenting on your fics once you're in a server together. They may still comment in the server, but that's a big 'may.' And eventually those too will stop.

[angel---eater]

ohhhh my god WHY are animation students the snobbiest goddamn people alive. holy shit. you cant say that shit and then also say to lower your standards wrt your own art what the fuuuuuck

like holy fuck im about to pull out my 'my dad was working in animation decades before i was born and only very recently left' card. you wouldnt survive the asylum i was raised in. i was playin on the floor of animation studios before i could walk. you dont know the hells ive seen theyre gonna boil you alive sis

[fearcicada]

HOW DO PEOPLE LIKE just like. Meet others. And then talk to them. And like make friends. And like speak to others online and just like make relationships....and they like. Make friends and have friends. How do. how

[itsjustbowsart]

Hey can I get some advice, my first danganronpa mootie on TikTok has a server that I decided to join because I wanted to be involved in the community more (and to stop being socially awkward lol) and everyone was nice and chill and I enjoyed it, everyone was funny, I showed my art and I got more compliments then I’m used to. Im enjoying my time till a 🌸🌙 showed up and it just wasn’t the same.

Tw: r—p, 🍕, 🌸🌙 (comship), proship

Like explain to me how you as a mootie before you met that person, liked ALL my post about not liking proshippers and anything related to it, and then when they show up then it’s “oh people Don’t aCtually know what proshipping is” like I can see the switch up. Oh it gets better, they always complain about their gf and it was at first like “oh that’s normal, no relationship is perfect” then it just kept going and going and going and going and going until I think they broke up with them or something, I don’t know, but I think they have a bf now. Oh and btw, that 🌸🌙 person gave them horrible advice! And I couldn’t say anything because I didn’t want to be the “StUpid aNti” so I just kept quiet and rarely talked on that server after that. Oh and it gets better, during that, that 🌸🌙 person literally posted p—n of servant Nagito and one of the warriors of hope, which are children, my mootie didn’t do anything about it, and she knows it’s bad too, since they won’t let their gf back to the server because they would have banned the 🌸🌙 person (understandable for the gf to do) and gets what, no one blinks an eye, no one even questions it, and that’s when I knew I wanted to leave, but the only thing that’s stopping me is the fact that my mootie will probably notice. I don’t want to be talked behind my back, so I guess I’ll stay here until something happens, but every time I stay is more minutes and hours, and weeks, and months of torture

A little example (I literally made a private tt post about me being 🍇 and assaulted by my family but when it comes to this person it’s “Oh ITs Ok it’s (name here)” AAAAHHHH I WISH I NEVER JOINED THE SERVER HEKP MEEEEE

[birlwrites]

what's your advice for writing longfics? i literally cannot for the life of me.

ok so i stumbled into writing longfics by accident - there was a long time in my life when i too was like 'there's no fucking way i could write one of those,' and then i started coming up with story ideas that i literally could not fit into under 100k words, and now here we are

there are 3 big categories of 'things that will help you,' imo, which are:

keeping your ideas organized, so you don't have to worry about forgetting things

giving yourself flexibility, in case your story starts to go in a different direction from what you outlined

staying motivated - absolutely 100% the hardest part. i'll talk about that last, since the first two are very important for the last one

i think the most important thing to consider is what length will genuinely suit the story you want to tell. that's a matter of things like how intricate the plot is, how many things happen in the story, basically just how much space you need

longfics aren't going to be right for every story and if you try to expand something that really is like 20-25k worth of story into something that's like, 50k+, you're going to struggle a lot

but let's say you have a big story idea that will need a lot of space in order to work! next step: figure out how you're going to keep track of everything.

(this is a LONG POST)

Keeping Your Ideas Organized

if you're writing a shorter fic, you can just scroll through the whole thing looking for a particular detail you want to reference. if you're writing a long fic, you don't want to be wasting your time on that. and you will forget things! i guarantee you will. so you need a way to keep track of plot points and details, in order to make sure you aren't abandoning plot lines and you have continuity

for me, i do this in a few different ways - and i'm speaking about my process for atfhv, which is different from my process for stga, which is also long but has a much simpler plot (so there was less to keep track of)

your mileage may vary, but this is what i do when i have a lot going on (complicated plot, many characters and moving parts):

keep an outline of chapters, in which i write down where i put certain exposition/information, so i can refer back to it quickly.

things i generally include:

plot points/things that happen in that chapter/section (this includes character arc developments)

exposition/worldbuilding/backstory/lore

characters that are introduced in that chapter/section

foreshadowing/setting up future plot points

keep an archive of lore for continuity purposes, by which i mean your worldbuilding, your plot ideas, character information, the little details - e.g., in my doc for atfhv, i have stuff like character mannerisms and backstories, the layouts of important buildings, lists of magical items, plants, and spells, worldbuilding, etc etc etc.

this is so that you don't have to rack your brains trying to remember some specific detail - you always have something to refer to! (you'll also need a way to search through that archive quickly - personally, i have a very detailed table of contents with hyperlinks to section headers, but i can also just search up phrases if i don't remember what sections they're in)

keep an outline - you don't necessarily have to have everything planned out (having a super precise plan may actually cause you problems later - i'll get into that below), but you need some way to keep track of all the plot arcs/points you have in mind - otherwise you will forget some of them. and make sure that however you organize that outline, it can be changed later

which leads me very neatly into the next part!

Giving Yourself Flexibility

there is a long-running joke about how writers will have a plan for what their characters are going to do and then their characters will decide to do completely different.

this is because when we're writing, our brains are thinking about the story on both a conscious and subconscious level - you may pick up on things subconsciously that you didn't intentionally put in there, and now all of a sudden your plan doesn't feel like it fits anymore

and that is a good thing! the last thing you want is to try to jam a story into an outline that doesn't fit.

so, there are multiple ways to do this. if you're writing an entire draft before posting any of it (in which case i commend you for your restraint), then you can pretty easily just go back and edit what you already wrote, or even re-draft if you decide things are going in a really different direction. so you're in a position where it's easier to have a detailed outline because if you need to throw large chunks of it out the window, you can just do that

if you're posting as you go, like i generally do, you need to approach this a little differently. the first question you should ask yourself is: how willing are you to make changes to things that have already been posted?

there's no right/wrong answer to that question. i will say, just as a warning, that you probably don't want to make drastic plot or character changes to what's already been posted after the fact - people who are reading update-by-update will be super confused. but consider how much you're willing to change.

if it's a lot, you can get a little more fine-grained with your outline.

if it's only a little (like me afjshgksjdf - i will fix grammar/spelling errors but basically Nothing else), then you should be giving yourself more flexibility with your outline, to prevent future you from spinning in circles trying to figure out how to make everything fit

which doesn't mean you can't have ideas about how things will go, long-term - it just means that you need to be comfortable with the idea that things will definitely change, and they might change very dramatically from your initial vision. that's perfectly okay, and you can always write another version if you want to!

to that end, i really, really recommend having some sort of document where you put things you like that you have to cut or get rid of. it makes it much easier to get rid of them, emotionally speaking, and you can also refer back to that document if you find a place for those things later

if you're posting as you go, i also recommend mostly writing the fic in order, because your subconscious will pick up on things better that way (plus, less editing later on - as we've established, editing is harder to do when you're posting before the whole thing is completed)

if you're doing the entire draft before posting anything, then it really does not matter what order you write scenes in (although you'll definitely want to read through the whole thing for continuity)

all of this means that in your outline/ideas document/however you're keeping track of plot and character arcs, you need to make sure there's room for you to make changes.

when i was writing stga, as i said above, the plot was much less complicated. i ended up using a private discord channel to keep track of what i was thinking, which worked pretty well because i could pin the key messages, edit messages, delete them if they were no longer relevant, etc

for atfhv, that wouldn't have worked for me, because there's just way more to keep track of (and just because that wouldn't work for me doesn't mean it can't for you - i'm more trying to explain what i've needed for different stories so you can decide what to try)

so for atfhv, i have a trello board for plot points, which works well for me because i can build it all out as i go (i have a column for each month and then the cards in each month are organized chronologically)

i also use color-coded labels to classify plot points (some examples: 'war,' 'school,' various relationship arcs), which is really helpful for me because then i can see all the different plot arcs and note if some color just vanishes randomly - that means i need to check to see if i've abandoned that plotline

and then i can move cards around really easily, archive ones that don't work without getting rid of them forever, etc - so i like that a lot

once again: it is absolutely, perfectly OK to change your plot. if that means you have to cut something you really wanted to include, i highly recommend writing another fic that does include that - don't just cut yourself off from things you want to write because they don't fit into your 'current' or 'primary' wip (if you have such things)

aaaaaand now we get into the hardest part.

Staying Motivated

longfics are super daunting. like. super daunting. i don't think there's really a way to get away from that feeling. it'll come and go.

so i don't have a perfect solution for how to stay motivated on a long project. but here are my suggestions for what will help:

write it because you love it. nothing else will be enough to get you to see it through. write story ideas you really enjoy. put in things you think are fun or interesting. make the actual writing process as enjoyable as possible for yourself, rather than something you're forcing yourself to grind through because you think other people will like it

make it bite-sized. don't tell yourself 'i have to write this massive longfic.' break it down into smaller pieces. i usually break it down into chapters. that is how you write any long story - piece by piece. it's much less intimidating and it's also just how long projects work lol

take breaks. if you post as you go, i recommend setting up a posting schedule where you post chapters slower than you write them. that way, you can take breaks when you want them. and there's no shame in putting a project on hiatus. unless you have a literal actual deadline you have to meet, there's no reason to rush it. do not force yourself to write if it feels like a chore. you don't want to drain all the joy out of something you're doing for fun

don't fall in love with your statistics or activity or any other measure of engagement. this one is hard for me afjskghksjdf. here's the thing: if you're at the point where you know exactly how many comments or kudos or subscriptions or bookmarks or hits your fic has, you are paying too much attention.

that means if you notice some sort of dip in your statistics - maybe some people unsubscribed or un-bookmarked, maybe you didn't get as many comments on a chapter as you normally do - it can feel really heartbreaking. you're pouring a lot of time and energy and effort and love into this story, and it can be very upsetting to feel like you're not getting anything back.

this is why it's so important to make sure that all of that work is for an end product you will actually enjoy, with a process you enjoy. if you're only creating it for engagement, then when you hit a slump (which is inevitable), it'll be incredibly demoralizing.

and i won't lie - even if you *are* creating something you really enjoy, it can still be upsetting to realize people aren't engaging with it. we share stories because we think others will appreciate them. it's okay to want some sort of reciprocal engagement.

and that's why it's so important not to look too much at your numbers. can't get sad about a drop in subscribers if you don't know how many subscribers you have in the first place!

of course, it's basically impossible to really have no idea, unless you're having someone else post your fic for you so you never have to look at it - but just pay attention.

if you notice yourself reflexively checking your statistics, or refreshing your email inbox looking for ao3 emails about comments or kudos, it's time to step back.

write the parts you want to write. i know i advocated writing mostly in order earlier in this post - this part is why i don't advocate writing ENTIRELY in order. in any story, there are the really important parts, the parts we're super excited to write, the parts we really love - and then there's also the connective tissue that makes those parts make sense. if you feel like you're slogging through connective tissue, take a break and write one of the parts you're really excited about

(and, yeah, if you're writing it super ahead of time you may get to that point in the story and realize you have to completely rewrite it - this happens to me ALL THE TIME. that's another good reason to keep a document where you store things you had to cut!)

remember that it's normal to feel unmotivated sometimes. everyone goes through highs and lows with creative projects. if you feel like it's all bad and you don't want to work on it and it wasn't even a good story idea in the first place, you may just need to eat, sleep, shower, go outside, take a break, do something else, etc. take a deep breath and come back to it when you feel ready. it's supposed to be fun.

getting comfortable with change is also a way to help with staying motivated - if you feel like something isn't working anymore, change it, rather than forcing yourself to stick with it

work on other stories when you want to. you're not OBLIGATED to do this, but having a longfic in progress doesn't mean you're forbidden from working on anything else.

i absolutely prioritize working on ttdl over other stories - it's the only one i'm actively posting, and it is also the one i'm most interested in lol. but i have a lot of side projects! so if i want to write in a different style, from a different pov, about something different, i can do that, instead of forcing myself to slog through something i'm not feeling in the moment.

this is the equivalent of taking a stretching break. don't burn yourself out on your story by chaining yourself to it. that doesn't help anyone

don't strive for perfection. it will never be perfect. never ever ever. 'perfect' is this static thing that doesn't actually allow for any nuance, and attempting to write something 'perfectly' can be super demotivating because it's... not actually very specific?

if you want to improve your writing (a completely valid and admirable goal), pick specific skills you want to improve. one or two at a time. look up tips on how to write those things effectively. practice by writing snippets or one-shots or shorter fics. but don't aim for 'perfect,' because 'perfect' doesn't actually mean anything.

lastly, trust yourself.

this applies to everything from pacing to plot ideas. you know the story you want to tell. trust yourself about how to tell it.

and remember that 'writing longfics' isn't some sort of innate personality trait or characteristic - it's not something you're either capable or incapable of doing. there's no benchmark or standard you have to meet in order to be 'qualified' to write a long story. if you want to try it, then try it! worst-case scenario is that you don't finish it, and having unfinished stories is the most normal thing in the world.

i hope that's helpful! if you have more questions, please do let me know. best of luck with your writing endeavors!

[fuckingrealityshifting]

Hey I understand and respect that you don't shift or believe in shifting anymore but I really wanted to know if you could still help me with the link for these shifting communities

And maybe more populated ones

Please

What are you looking for? Do you need links to those aminos?

[cat-madhouse]

sunny gamer moment!! i actually haven’t played much of minecraft but i could always ask my brother for advice if you want ^^ also visual novels are nice since they’re a lot less complicated! i actually started watching a let’s play of higurashi recently btw ^^

OH REALLY?? PLEASE tell me about your theories/thoughts about the game if/when you're done with chap1 (if you do it in the game channel in the server someone will be Very Happy About It). I'm playing chap 5 right now, I think I'm almost done with it? Starting with chap 5 the chapters get much longer... Also whose let's play are you watching? Someone in the server participated in a podcast from a streamer/youtuber who played it recently and did little. recap streams(?) to discuss theories and such... It's really fun, I've been listening to all of those after finishing the corresponding chapters (although they're like, three hours long on average so far sldhskhs)

[whimsyprinx]

it’s admittedly very pathetic that my more recent reoccurring dreams are ones where people just want me around and want to talk to me, my plans don’t fall through and i haven’t like become entirely unlikeable