#story-monger

[bonesbuckleup]

Hi, random q. I saw in your tags that you swear by Scrivener for original fic. I’m still plugging away in ye olde Word and now I’m intrigued to know what about Scrivener you like so much. I’ve def heard about it but never used it, so I’m curious :)

YES I would love to tell you about my lord and savior software Scrivener. I hope you don't mind I published this long, long answer publicly.

So. The main issue I have with Word and Google Docs is that you hit a certain length/word count, and it starts to lag and load kind of jerkily. You know? Also, navigating chapter to chapter or scene to scene is awkward for me--you either have to have a whole bunch of individual documents and multiple windows open, or you have to use headers and the table of contents...which is fine for quickly finding chapters but less so for scenes within those chapters.

Messy, basically. Does not spark joy for me.

Enter Scrivener.

Now, before I evangelize a bit, I will say that Windows Scrivener and Mac Scrivener are not 100% created equal. They are both better, I think, than Word or Google docs, but the Mac version is a bit slicker and a little nicer to look at. I only say that for if you're using Windows, because if so my screencaps below won't exactly match what you see if/when you download the program.

ONWARD.

So, the #1 thing that Scrivener has over Word is that it's a one time fee, not a subscription. So while it is a little pricey (Just went and looked, $59.99 USD), it's only the one payment. All updates and such are covered and available as free downloads. I will also say that Scrivener gives you a 30 day free trial. That's not 30 consecutive days, but 30 days of use--if you only use it every other day, you'll have the trial for 60 days. They make it really easy to figure out if it's for you or not.

This is also going to feel like a lot, but there are built in tutorials and it's actually pretty intuitive, depending on how your brain works. Anyway! The basic gist of Scrivener is that it's a digital binder. You can keep all your book stuff in one place:

As you can see, there's the manuscript (aka my book), notes, research, more. Tbh, I mostly just use notes and Manuscript, but if it floats your boat, you can store maps, place names, worldbuilding, playlist links, moodboards, a whole ton of stuff, all in one menu that's easy to access and in a single window. You can organize it however itches your brain the best way.

But like I said, for me, the best is that Manuscript part, which I'm going to go into now. I use a three act structure for books (but break the big ol' middle act into two pieces because it makes my brain happy), so each act gets a folder.

When I click and expand that act, each chapter has it's own folder. However, it also shows quick-reference index cards, so I can have an at-a-glance at what's going down in each chapter. (I'm using a outline system called Save the Cat for this book, which is why all my chapters have titles like 'Catalyst', feel free to ignore those...I also have a very compact timeline, so to help me stay organized, I labeled each chapter with when it happens.)

You can do the same with each individual chapter and the scenes, where when you click on the chapter folder, each scene gets a card. If you don't type in a summary, it'll just auto-populate the start of whatever content you were writing. You can see this in the 'Copper's Candids NEW' card.

And, of course, it is writing software. When you click on the individual scene, it opens the blank document, and you can get cracking.

So. This system is nice for a few reasons. My favorite is that it makes navigating, reorganizing, and/or rewriting scenes extremely easy. It's just point and click, drag and drop. You can also open two docs in the same window at once, like this:

Which is a nice feature for several reasons--you can work on a new version of a scene with the old one pulled up next to it, or if there's something you wrote earlier or that comes later that's important to what you're working on now, you can have them both up for quick referencing.

Another slick thing is each doc has a notes section off to the right side of the screen--which is optional! I use it for future revision notes/descriptions of how I want the scene to go:

My other favorite part of Scrivener is that it makes it very easy to hoard your deleted scenes like a deranged dragon in case you want them later. My garbage looks like this:

There are SO MANY FILES hanging out in my trash, and you know what? I so rarely actually need them, but my god am I glad they're there on the rare occasion that I do. Word, again, can make it more difficult. I always had a massive 'cut' document that was longer than the actual project and again, awful to navigate. This just makes it easier.

Scrivener also makes it easy to compile the manuscript into other doc types--pdf, doc, docx, etc--for easy printing and sharing.

ANYWAY. I'm sure there are approximately 1 million other things I'm missing, but basically Scrivener takes all your book/long project bits, puts them in one centralized file, and makes it super easy to navigate. I've also found that outlining is easier, because I can just make the folders and scenes and drag them around while I noodle through the plot.

10/10, would recommend to any long-form writer. If you have any other questions, please let me know! If anyone has read this far and has a thing about Scrivener to add, please do! I love Scrivener, and a lot of my writing buddies love Scrivener, and it really kinda has revolutionized the way I write original fiction. I'm always happy to yell about how great it is.

[dragontamer05]

What do you think their history says happened to Silver/ The Dawn Knight's child

Was it never written and people just are led to believe that both the King and Queen died childless? That they had a Prince but the prince perished with them?

Or is it left unknown.

Some believe the baby prince died while others argue they never had a kid cause there's little evidence.

People start making up rumours that well clearly it was one of the (Nocturnal) Fae who kidnapped and whisked him away never to be seen again

(Also are the Diarunal Fae that rescued/protected him still alive somewhere? are they dead?)

[princeofuchiha]

Time travel au with Shizuma where he ends up in the past and attempts to join the Akastuki by offering them information on the future. Giving them intel he learned in school/from stories to avoid their eventual defeat (/eventual 'peace' in the mist). And being horrified as a good chunk of the organization is like "Maybe we should speed run this if we have a clean shot to achieving peace actually" while he is there going "no no no listen that is NOT the message I am trying to deliver"

[infernal-lamb]

LOVE that they used that one old concept design for the Lamb, the weird goat-esque one, for the co-op character in this new update. They’re so cute I want to engage in playful head butting games with them

but also. sits in my velvet contemplating chair. What is their lore

[niftukkun]

i have an outline of a story written about these two. the summary of it is 'two guys wander around trying to find their parent and get caught up in sidequests' and its a fix-it of sorts for rain world (hunter gets unrotted, pebbsi gets an idea of how to cure the rot, moon gets a rarefaction cell early). one day ill sit down and write it out but i am more of an artist than writer so more likely than not ill just post sketches about them and bits of plot. the story is called Finding Myself Homeward Bound btw

(have i mentioned monstera and monger are based on slugpups i found on one of the campaigns? i fucking lost them because ending a campaign means losing your pups apparently but hey i remember vaguely what they looked like and how i got them and thats enough for a plot)

[soullessjack]

conservative X-men fans will see a franchise about an oppressed group of people who fight for their civil rights and freedom in a world that sees them as freaks and monsters and imagine themselves being on the mutants’ side but then can’t even handle masculine cis women in sports or a man with painted nails or cisgender teens on puberty blockers for health issues.

conservative X-men fans will see that oppressed group of freaks and monsters constantly facing the threat of an apocalyptic future specifically caused by hate mongers in powerful positions who very blatantly will and do destroy the same humanity they claim to be protecting if it means destroying Those Freaks and think “wow cool robot.”

conservative X-men fans will agree with the villain who was based on Malcom X and specifically came to hold his beliefs through surviving the Holocaust and claim that he can’t even be considered a villain anymore because his ideology makes sense and is consistently proven right by the humans’ unwavering intolerance, but go into hysterics the minute a real life minority holds any sort of hatred or resentment toward their oppressor.

conservatives in general will always pretend that the media they consume doesn’t have any deeper meaning or purpose other than being entertainment slop because they almost always retreat into media for some type of “comfort” or escape from having to acknowledge reality and their own bigotry. they want the freedom to be bigots without any pushback or consequences so they surround themselves in an echo chamber of fictional characters and universes who can’t argue with them or tell them they’re wrong and bad.

conservatives have to constantly and deliberately turn their brains off to consume a specific piece of media because they know that they would be the villain in it if they gave it an ounce of deeper thought and that’s exactly why they push back so hard against anything that drags them out of their comfy echo chamber, anything that threatens their blissful ignorance.

they thrive on the idea that their media isn’t “that deep” or based in/affected by reality; that there’s no such thing as representation or allegories or coding in media (and alternatively, that representation doesn’t matter or is just propahanda). they thrive on willful ignorance and they want to convince everyone else to be just as ignorant and the death of media literacy is exactly how they’ll achieve it

[squishymochithethird]

So it seems that azaleasdolls fell down the alt right pipeline…

[jamethinks]

Do you think Donovan could be like, the sxf equivalent of Hitler? Because sxf is set shortly after WWII and Ostania & Westalis are loosely based on East and West Germany.

Hitler famously died at the end of WW2

[dr-jem-nutcase]

MvA: The M Files, take-a-peek pt. 3

For starters, thanks to all the likes, shares, & comments. I hope you've been enjoying this

Chapter 3

fake foods from Counterfeit Chemicals: a lot of fast food joints & every other generic food product in America. At least it tastes good...a lot of times. Like, Taco Bell is in no way authentic Mexican food but I LUV it 🌮

This place was Old Man Carl's in the movie and the same company that later brought BOB that ill-fated hotdog stand in San Francisco

That chart lol

Root beer flavored spinach. Sounds gross. I'd also be deathly afraid to try it. Reminds me of the late 1990s/early 2000s when Heinz made purple ketchup, which was NOT a success. But nowadays, different flavored snacks & desserts (particularly ice cream) can be hits every now and then. fake foods (or Old Man Carl's) could've been on the brink of creating a new trend! Okay, moving on

In case anyone has a hard time reading some of the text in the second panel, it says, "it doesn't taste any different from a real tomato". Sorry for the kerfuffle

Designed or created?

Btw, there IS actually a limited edition ranch flavored ice cream

Ranch-flavored tomato. Sounds great with a salad or some types of pizzas

Red 7 lol

This would be. mildly. terrifying. Wth was even in either one of those foods?

Runs away & claims BOB is homicidal. So judgmental & assuming! *fake shocked face*

How'd he grow an eye out of all this?

BOB's quite eloquent for being a "newborn"

Ooh! Monger's a sergeant now!

Eating the building isn't too different from both Blob movies but a much lighter tone than eating people alive. I never saw the newer one but I watched the OG one years ago. A guy walks into a doctor's office agonizing in pain and fear because his arm's covered in this goo that's eating up his arm and in a few minutes the guy is gone before the doctor could amputate the arm. Very G rated

Welp, so much for eating a police car (movie) or a city block (video game)

The third soldier's mouth is missing

Evidently they eat lead. Sorry, wrong story!

So BOB's eye is just part of his anatomy? Not some specially made artificial eyeball?

Like Link's chapter, this is a total jump away from the origin story in the movie. It's a good explanation for the genetically altered tomato & chemically altered dessert topping but a slightly censored telling of BOB's origin. That explosion on the two scientists was a bit satisfying. Again, kids' book *sigh*

Monger's hands are black

So...BOB named himself?

Big lips Monger isn't real. Big lips Monger can't scare you

"Lots of people don't have brains...a politician..." DW, is that supposed to be a burn? Hot dang! Let's get out some aloe vera, cold water, and maybe a trip to the burn unit at the nearest hospital

Some day, son. Some day, you will contribute to society. Just not today

I'm kinda surprised that this building hasn't toppled on top of anyone. Istg, Monger isn't afraid of anything

Now where's BOB gonna go? Also, is Link still on dry ice? Will BOB be on dry ice too? At the end of the OG Blob movie, the blob is frozen/encapsulated in ice and dropped off in the artic/antarctic. Did Monger go in this direction? Capture a monster and then freeze it like Han Solo? Hopefully that monster prison will be in the making soon. Like, REALLY soon. You can only freeze and store so many monsters! Btw, can you imagine trying to freeze the Invisible Man?

Again, this piece of work isn't mine. It all belongs to you know who. See you soon!

[anissapierce]

At this point im hate following these pirate show actors

[fishmongeringstudies]

#40092: woxer won’t stop texting me in all caps about its incredibly bad black friday sale and it’s starting to stress me out but i want new underwear eventually, just not right now, so i can’t unsubscribe yet

Do you remember those big red bags they gave us in freshman year? They had square bases reinforced with a layer of cardboard and fabric so we could put our takeout boxes inside and not worry about them sliding open. Everything was takeout-only that year. In the fall everyone sat in big circles on the grass outside and when I arrived in the spring I would take my food home in that big red bag, my hands shoved all the way down my pockets. It snowed hard that winter. I have photos on my old phone of Mertz field turned completely white, of pockets of water in the grass that had frozen over. The brick flooring of the patio behind Willets stayed frozen for so long, you had to pick up your feet when you walked on it or you’d fall over.

The Saturday of Thanksgiving break I looked up on my way to get dinner and saw a clear blue sky. It was cold that evening, three degrees Celcius and steadily falling. Maybe the cold had scared all the clouds away. The sky yawned wide across the domed world to the other side of campus, where it was slowly turning pink. The air was still.

When I got back I watched Dan and Phil from Youtube play a horror game about really liking golf in the first floor lounge and picked at my rice. I read the last four chapters of Kakukaku Shikajika and felt my eyes water like they did every year when I read Kakukaku Shikajika. I did a handstand.

Do you remember when campus was a ghost town without ghosts and you had gotten off at the wrong stop? Looking at Google Maps on your phone you thought to yourself, this must be the wrong place. You rubbed dust from your eyes.

From year to year to year I learned to associate quiet with nothingness. We’re the ones that got here when the fire was still burning, after all. It makes sense that we didn’t know how to be people to each other, let alone ourselves. Burning and freezing and burning and freezing in each other’s dingles in Willets with too much furniture and not enough of anything else.

That winter I spilled chicken pot pie in that old red bag and forgot to clean it up. By the time I found it by sheer smell alone it was molding hard and would cost too much effort to save. So I threw it away with all the other things I didn’t need anymore.

[dudethatsmyundeaduncle]

Not Cannon and Not Fannon, a secret third thing called I desperately misunderstood/misinterpreted this charcter as a child and now everyone else's charcterization is wrong because it doesn't fit my specific decade old hallucinations.

[shadowofthehost]

"People are so messy. I love the smug look on the face of the other person who thinks they won something when the cheater gets dropped in their lap. You sure did win something."

[notdeadyetnatural]

Um. The addition of Tad O’Malley to the X Files is possibly worse than literally all of season 8 and 9.

[brightsuzaku]

Also, minors, adult fiction and adult entertainment is NOT FOR YOU.

But, that's not going to stop teens from knowing what sex is nor will it stop them from looking at things they shouldn't. It's not going to stop someone from keeping sexy magazines stuffed under their mattress or from reading weird yaoi online.

A teenager isn't always going to think, "What if I don't read this anyway", because that stuff is forbidden and forbidding stuff is VERY exciting. But it's just "fuck around and find out" in fiction, with significantly less harm than getting entangled with Actual Adults.

But please, for your safety, while I'm not (and can't) stopping anyone from reading weird shit even as a teenager, PLEASE don't try to drag adults into your fantasies or desires. That's where stuff crosses the line.

Real Talk: responsible adults are not going to encourage teens from pursuing any kind of relationship with adults. We'll actively tell you to stop trying to play with fire, I swear. Don't lie about your age, that's a can of worms nobody wants to open.

IF YOU'RE A MINOR, AND SOMEBODY IS NOT DISCOURAGING YOU, THAT'S A RED FLAG. IF SOMEBODY IS SAYING, "You're mature for your age", BACK THE FUCK OFF.

I don't care if they say they're also your age, you can't trust that. You can't trust that someone saying you're "mature" or isn't discouraging you from even just having cybersex or whatever isn't an adult.

BACK THE FUCK OFF.

Protect yourself first by BEING CAREFUL. If you know there's actual adults talking, you probably shouldn't engage, because we don't want to get you or ourselves in trouble.

Also, dating sites aren't for minors, they're for adults. They're for people who can legally consent. DO NOT DATE SOMEBODY ONLINE IF YOU ARE GETTING ENCOURAGED ABOUT THAT OR ABOUT SEX.

RESPONSIBLE ADULTS DO NOT WANT TO DATE TEENS. WE REALLY DON'T, IT CROSSES A FINE LINE, AND IT'S SOMETHING EVEN FREAKS DON'T WANNA MESS WITH.

Your personal triggers and squicks do not get to determine what kind of art other people make.

People make shit. It's what we do. We make shit to explore, to inspire, to explain, to understand, but also to cope, to process, to educate, to warn, to go, "hey, wouldn't that be fucked up? Wild, right?"

Yes, sure, there are things that should be handled with care if they are used at all. But plenty more things are subjective. Some things are just not going to be to your tastes. So go find something that is to your tastes and stop worrying so much about what other people are doing and trying to dictate universal moral precepts about art based on your personal triggers and squicks.

I find possession stories super fucking triggering if I encounter them without warning, especially if they function as a sexual abuse metaphor. I'm not over here campaigning for every horror artist to stop writing possession stories because they make me feel shaky and dissociated. I just check Does The Dog Die before watching certain genres, and I have my husband or roommate preview anything I think might upset me so they can give me more detail. And if I genuinely don't think I can't handle it, I don't watch it. It's that simple.