#so they won't be POV characters

[cubbyhole-for-flea-bee]

Once the theatre monkey discovers angsty broadway musicals its all over y'all

or: I got a new personal project I'm workin' on! I'm at the first pass on the animatic rn! I forgot that 'generate matte' is a thing you can do in SB Pro for a whole hour!! I'm suffering!!!

[bayetea]

there's something really bizarre about what may or may not be excessive wariness of adultifying black girls that's resulted in not only treating hazel like some moronish baby but sweeping oversimplification of the person that she is. by refusing to observe hazel in a more mature light (and by this I only mean taking her seriously) there's a pervasive dumbing down of her character in the fandom that really does not occur as much for other characters. she's 14 in hoo. not 13. she's 15 in toa. for comparison the second youngest member of the prophecy 7 is jason, who was 15 himself for the first half of hoo and does not experience nearly as much character infantilization by the fandom at large

as a hazel enjoyer it's all pretty disappointing; I see so much to appreciate and unpack in the frankly gothic nature of her story but when I go looking for hazel fanworks (not just fanfics but fanart, headcanons, hazel ships, textposts to reblog, etc) I can't help but sense an unwillingness to just THINK about how her experiences might impact her. there's little more regard for hazel in the fandom than her merely being nico's cute and sweet little sister. and she is cute and she is sweet that much is true. she also grew up during jim crow while black and was violently bullied and killed herself and her mother when she was 13 years old. genuinely I don't understand reading horrific parts of her story like this and thinking that she's just a cute and soft tweenaged girl and not much else

like let's just be candid about this - abused and neglected children are forced to grow up fast (something that will almost inevitably have consequences in their adulthood). they are forced to be mature in ways that other kids aren't. hazel is not written like a "normal" 14 year old in part because she is not a normal 14 year old. you don't spend your life consciously wasting away in asphodel surrounded by ghosts and rejoin the living as a normal teenager. she was mistreated her entire life by everyone but sammy and then she died. and upon her resurrection the nature of her quest is more horrific than anyone else's - she has to "redeem" herself for helping gaea+giving her mom asphodel in the eyes of the underworld judges by killing herself again. that's literally what going on the son of neptune quest is for hazel; freeing thanatos = he takes her back to the underworld. there could not be a more literal confrontation of her discordant mortality than this. the only reason her life doesn't end that way is because of pluto's leniency towards his own children, and the narrative does nothing to justify something so objectively unjustifiable. even positing this as pluto's self-redemption of his failure to protect her in her first life, rather than hazel's own self-redemption, would have been something but hoo simply doesn't resolve this glaring conflict about its messagings on the unchangeable nature of life/death. but that's a post for another day

I cannot emphasize enough that hazel is every bit as deep and angsty as popular SadBoy™ characters like nico and leo but the interest in her sorrow and complexities is simply not there. this is not an insult to nico/leo themselves but a notation of how SadGirls™ (especially black girls) will never receive comparable acknowledgment of their miseries or the way said miseries have impacted them. hazel is deeply contemplative and world-weary and struggles so much with alienation from the world around her - alienation from the modern world as a person of color from the segregated past, alienation from the living as an undead girl, alienation towards her own powers because they ruin lives, including her own. if you just observe her character and her story I think you'll find more meaning about how life is a thing to be cherished than anywhere else in the franchise

[starry-bi-sky]

writing about Bruce's speculations in chapter 5 of WTNS was the best part of his POV hands down. It meant I got to force everyone to listen to me infodump about my in-world lore and in some cases character studies, and they couldn't do anything but listen because it was vital to the chapter.

Danny isn't gonna go on an in-depth internal monologue about blood blossoms because he already knows what they are and what they do. So unless prompted, he's not gonna explain them in detail. He's also not gonna go into detail about what Vlad does or what his motivations are because he already knows Vlad and has a pretty good grasp on why he does shit. (although the blood blossoms did absolutely throw him for a loop)

BRUCE meanwhile doesn't know any of this stuff. So he's got to research Vlad and Blood Blossoms and all this stuff and then form his own conclusions and theories from that. It also makes an extra challenge for myself because i have to remember not to meta and keep in mind that he doesn't have the same knowledge on ghost stuff as Danny, and thus everything he knows is from a limited lens.

It's great, it's fantastic, it's my enrichment. Coming up with conclusions for Bruce to come to with the info he's got on hand is delightful. It's like im playing logic puzzles.

[doodlejoltik]

my favourite writing device is having an un-Rei-liable narrator

[cheriafreya]

done with Vereinsamt, holy fuck this was even better than the previous chapter 😭😭 don't think they'll ever surpass this whole arc (the prisoner in the cave - e lucevan le stelle - vereinsamt), it was so amazing, I have no words.

[chaoticbooklesbian]

Someone yell at me to just power through writing this damn fight scene, it's crucial to the plot but because it's entirely to do with physical actions instead of conversation my brain Doesn't Want To.

[anendtopursuit]

so like. what is the general consensus abt getting gale's orb tattooed on u. bc i relate to him n his backstory a fuckton and Really Want It (no promises i'll listen to the general consensus, i just wanna know what it is)

[doodlingwren]

It's 2024 can we please stop saying it's normal to trace or copying an entire drawing and pretending it's 100% your work? Just bc you changed the character or added clothes on a base you found on pinterest it doesn't mean you created original art

[theshalesky]

How far would you go for someone you love?

How far would you go for someone you once loved? How far would you go for someone who ruined your life?

A long time ago, she loved them. She was young and stupid and innocent, and still believed the world was a good place. She had a job and a friend and a father, and why would anything disturb that peace?

Then she met her. A bright and flaming blaze, so full of life, full of beautiful chaos. They convinced her to join this life: A night at the tavern, ending with a broken window and all the plates shattered against the wall. The next night outside in the cold streets, decorating the walls of stangers' houses with stolen paint. Every night ending with her wiping the dirt and the blood from her lover's face. She didn't enjoy the destruction like Azari did, but when she saw her eyes light up with that beautiful burning joy, it was all worth it. She could have lived like that forever.

Until she couldn't. Every day, as Azari chose the chaos again and again instead of simply choosing her, she felt the flame in her own heart fading. Every morning, her lover sound asleep in their bed, she sat at the window with her guitar. She stared into the distant night and waited for a song that didn't come. For months, the music inside her had been silent.

In the end, it was Azari who told her to leave. Who told her they could never love her like she deserved to be loved. And she felt it too, felt that neither of them could make the other whole anymore. So she left. And then there was emptiness.

Had there been light in her life before that fire? Even if it had been there before, now, there was nothing left. Nothing to warm her. Nothing inside of her - that was the real problem. Because her life had stayed the same. She had her father and her work, and also her friend, to some extent. She even found a new lover, a starry night that gave her comfort. But nothing more. She had fallen out of love once, and now she was incapable of feeling it again. Azari had taken away her ability to love. For a while, she tried existing despite it - despite the nagging feeling that there was now something wrong with her, something broken in the fabric of her soul.

But living like this just wasn't possible. She had to cut all the ties, destroy what had destroyed her so she could glow again. So she went to their house, and she burned it to the ground.

That was a few months before she decided to travel to hell for them.

[kvetchinglyneurotic]

the next scene in the hedgehog's dilemma is just described in my outline as ted and jamie having "a classic unhelpful ted-talk"

[benjineedssleep]

i just saw a blog with sebastian and a cat and i think i need to pick up my long fic again instead of fighting demons zombies with other stuff. i have Ideas ™️ but have several chapters before they can actually come into play. so i need to write. idt i can finish the whole thing before the spring semester starts but if i can finish summer y2 i'll [insert profanities here] and maybe buy myself a concert ticket or smth XD

[writeblrfantasy]

my 10 holy grail pieces of writing advice for beginners

from an indie author who's published 4 books and written 20+, as well as 400k in fanfiction (who is also a professional beta reader who encounters the same issues in my clients' books over and over)

show don't tell is every bit as important as they say it is, no matter how sick you are of hearing about it. "the floor shifted beneath her feet" hits harder than "she felt sick with shock."

no head hopping. if you want to change pov mid scene, put a scene break. you can change it multiple times in the same scene! just put a break so your readers know you've changed pov.

if you have to infodump, do it through dialogue instead of exposition. your reader will feel like they're learning alongside the character, and it will flow naturally into your story.

never open your book with an exposition dump. instead, your opening scene should drop into the heart of the action with little to no context. raise questions to the reader and sprinkle in the answers bit by bit. let your reader discover the context slowly instead of holding their hand from the start. trust your reader; donn't overexplain the details. this is how you create a perfect hook.

every chapter should end on a cliffhanger. doesn't have to be major, can be as simple as ending a chapter mid conversation and picking it up immediately on the next one. tease your reader and make them need to turn the page.

every scene should subvert the character's expectations, as big as a plot twist or as small as a conversation having a surprising outcome. scenes that meet the character's expectations, such as a boring supply run, should be summarized.

arrive late and leave early to every scene. if you're character's at a party, open with them mid conversation instead of describing how they got dressed, left their house, arrived at the party, (because those things don't subvert their expectations). and when you're done with the reason for the scene is there, i.e. an important conversation, end it. once you've shown what you needed to show, get out, instead of describing your character commuting home (because it doesn't subvert expectations!)

epithets are the devil. "the blond man smiled--" you've lost me. use their name. use it often. don't be afraid of it. the reader won't get tired of it. it will serve you far better than epithets, especially if you have two people of the same pronouns interacting.

your character should always be working towards a goal, internal or external (i.e learning to love themself/killing the villain.) try to establish that goal as soon as possible in the reader's mind. the goal can change, the goal can evolve. as long as the reader knows the character isn't floating aimlessly through the world around them with no agency and no desire. that gets boring fast.

plan scenes that you know you'll have fun writing, instead of scenes that might seem cool in your head but you know you'll loathe every second of. besides the fact that your top priority in writing should be writing for only yourself and having fun, if you're just dragging through a scene you really hate, the scene will suffer for it, and readers can tell. the scenes i get the most praise on are always the scenes i had the most fun writing. an ideal outline shouldn't have parts that make you groan to look at. you'll thank yourself later.

happy writing :)

[ourskiesaboveus]

dsbehy you say

acronym for "dating sim but everyone hates you"

i think i posted the placeholder title screen on the usher server once?

it's a visual novel that has a cast of characters all based off of dating sim archetypes, but you guessed it-- they all hate you. your task is to perhaps make them not hate you in various ways-- setting them up with a crush, helping them in business, proving your innocence, et cetera.

tbf not all of them hate you. some of them just dislike people in general and that's fair.

it kind of got pushed to the sidelines because of the other visual novel i started that i got much more invested in (it had inspiration from several mythologies! c'mon i can't be blamed!) but i do work on it from time to time

[junipaca]

claws at the walls....where are the pokemon desolationers.....theres so much pkmn reborn and rjuv art i need to shake someone over tristan so bad. i have to do the work myself .....

[tiredandoptimistic]

Yeah, as much as I talk about wanting TST, it probably wouldn't have worked (which is most likely why CC scrapped it). More than anything else, I think the issue is that the Circle generation is a tragedy stretched over several decades, rather than an adventure/romance about teenagers.

There's about eight years between the Circle forming at the Academy and their downfall at the Uprising. I doubt that CC would set a series over that long a time period, and if she focused on any 1-2 year period, she would leave out a lot of what people love about the Circle. So many of the things we want to know more about are set years apart from each other, or don't come to fruition until the characters are adults. Luke and Jocelyn couldn't have much of a romance, because that happens in TMI, and we know for sure that Jocelyn was fully unaware of Luke's feelings until then. We've already been shown a lot of their big turning point moments ("The Last Stand of the New York Institute," "The Evil We Love"), so if anything was set during those periods, then the books would have to either repeat stuff we already know, or skip over these big important plot beats.

For example, an Academy era story could be set before The Evil We Love, but that would be before Valentine got particularly extreme, when it was still just a friend group. Plus, characters like Celine and Hodge would be too young to really participate. It could be set after that story, but then Michael and Robert would have graduated, and the story would be weirdly split. And anyways, why would we need full novels set during the Academy era? We already have a short story that gives a perfect snapshot of what things were like.

I definitely want more from the Circle generation. I want to know about Michael, Stephen, Amaris, Celine; all the characters whose stories we haven't really heard yet (also Robert and Maryse are two of my favorites and I need more of them even though they're in plenty of books already). A full book series just wouldn't be the way to do it. Their story isn't structured like that, and I'm worried that it would either feel weird as a single long narrative (so many plot threads unresolved because they don't come to pass until TMI, lots of characters spread across different lives who don't really like each other), or get squished into the more traditional hero's journey -> tragic downfall structure (no longer fits in with the established canon).

Short stories really are the perfect solution, because they can hone in on those turning point moments, while giving a snapshot of an entire era and hints to what came before and after. I'd love to see one about Michael's life with Eliza and how he felt about Robert and the Circle from afar, or about Stephen choosing to leave Amatis on Valentine's orders, or how Hodge came to reconnect with Valentine in the 2000s because he felt abandoned by the Clave. These things probably couldn't fit into a cohesive series of novels, but they could definitely work as brief stand-alones. Each character could get their own mini-arc that shows something important about them, even if it doesn't fit into some kind of smoothly overarching plot. We wouldn't need to worry about every plot threat reaching a climax at around the same time, or every character getting their narratively satisfying resolution. It could just be what it was, scattered and unresolved.

i love the bits of lore we have about the circle and i think it's a really underrated and under-discussed aspect of tsc, but i dont think the secret treasons/any other story which focuses solely on the circle could ever be something that fits into tsc as a whole, and i know that any real version of it would only ever disappoint me. so i while my curiosity for what tst wouldve been like will never go away i unfortunately do ultimately prefer the circle as this background story which only ever leaves you wondering about what truly happened

[planefood]

Everybody's saying 'you should get more autistic about your hobbies" until its like a guy drawing a despicable me background minion over and over again and not someone following the current internet hype train media because thats too weird and not massively appealing

I make my artwork and stories for myself and people liking them is just a positive side effect but I won't change my stories to be appealing to a mass market because that's not how my brain functions, and honestly I feel like my approach to stories and characters is pretty conventional from my POV so it boggles my mind when people say my approach is too weird. My art and stories is just my way of processing the world around me without going bonkers, it always has been, I process the world in a relatively odd way though. I just wish people would embrace that more instead of trying to speak over me about it but it's something I can't change people will always be like that