#this is a huge dump of my stream of consciousness LOL

[shisens]

thinking about the accents of everybody in pelican town,,the older adults who have spent a long time there having thicker ‘countryside’ accents (whatever they would be), while the younger adults like seb, sam and abigail have less obvious ones from growing up using the internet a lot (i am projecting). sebastian has the most ‘neutral’ of them all. penny has more of a twinge, picking it up from pam. lewis, marnie, willy, george and evelyn probably have the most noticeable accents. if alex sounds too ‘city’ george makes fun of him. george does that to all the younger adults. harvey came from the city, has picked up a thing or two but still sounds distinctly like he’s from zuzu. i think it’d be funny if vincent had a thicker accent. he gives ipad kid vibes but i think jodi would restrict his screen time a lot. haley would 100% try to hide her accent, emily less so. it slips out when haley gets mad/drunk. the wizard has his own accent. nobody knows where it’s from. elliott, demetrius, shane and maru don’t have the countryside accent too because they’re also from out of town. maybe if shane did grow up in the valley and then moved away, he’s like haley, starts turning country when he’s drunk. or maybe when he’s relaxed, like around his chickens!

[morningsound15]

hi! i’m a major fan of yours across several fandoms (bechloe, fuffy, hermione/anyone 👀) and i’m always really impressed with your ability to jump around fandoms while telling these very complete stories with awesome characterizations. any chance you’d be willing to share what your process is like for preparing to write a story? thank you for sharing your work! really enjoy it.

asks like this are so so sweet! compliments AND writing process questions at the same time is just *chef’s kiss*

i got a similar question to this in a comment on one of my stories a few weeks back, i hope you don’t mind that i’ve lifted some of this from that answer!

when i’m starting a new fic, these are the 3 basic things i focus on (not always consciously, this is just how my brain works):

characterization (who is the story about/why is the story being told)

plot (what story is being told)

and form (how is the story being told)

(this is long! more under the cut)

CHARACTERIZATION: the first thing i do is try to get a feel for how the characters think and speak. so the first thing i’ll write is usually something light and banter-y between two main characters. i find that story beats, reactions, emotions, etc. (all important parts of scenes) flow from me much more easily if i have a good feel for the characters and how they interact with each other. for example, the first scene i record in a voice note on my phone or dump in a word document might be: character A and B are eating breakfast the morning after sleeping together for the first time. they haven’t talked about it yet. they are trying to hide what they did from the other people in the room while trying to subtly see how the other one is acting

writing a scene like this would help me figure out a few important things about my characters, like how they interact with each other when they need to be covert (are they embarrassed? flirty? ashamed? cold? nervous? blushing?), how their friends might or might not pick up on their dynamic, and most importantly it lets me practice the pace of how the characters speak and the basic nature of their conversation styles with each other (do they crack jokes, are they unnecessarily cruel, do they openly flirt, is there a competitive undertone, exasperated fondness, etc.?).

people should be able to understand everything important about your characters from the way they speak and hold themselves in a scene. having the characters’ voices, rhythms, and interpersonal banter down is really important in making sure that whatever is happening in your story is compelling. if the characters feel real, the plot will feel real, and you can hook people into reading stories for fandoms they otherwise wouldn’t.

PLOT: this is kind of cheating, since i GUESS technically ‘plot’ is the first step to preparing to write a story, but to me, the most fundamental thing you need to have down to write fic is an understanding of the characters. you can use whatever tried-and-true soulmate/fake dating/bed sharing/alternate universe tropes you want, but the thing that makes or breaks a story is its characters, so that’s why i put that part first.

but okay, talking about plot. for me what comes first is less ‘plot’ than ‘situation’. 

here’s an example: i decided a while back that i desperately want to write a sansa x margaery hogwarts au. has it been done before? yes. does it sound fun? yes, and also, i love writing hp universe, and i love sansa stark. but the idea’s been done before, so what am i hoping to write that contributes to the genre/trope? what’s my hook? what’s my angle? what’s my read of the characters and how do i want to get them together?

i settled on this: Sansa is the first Stark in five generations to not be sorted into Gryffindor.

suddenly bam, i’m off and running. i’ve got a story universe, i’ve got a couple of characters whose voices i’m starting to settle into, i’ve got a whole cast of characters i have to suddenly squash into this alternate universe, think about what roles they should play, how THEY should speak and interact. suddenly i’m drafting scene ideas to make sure that i highlight the sibling dynamics i want between the starks, the tension between sansa and arya, sansa’s alienation and the family’s pride.

the next step is thinking about story beats. what are good tropes in hp universe stories (spell casting scenes, hogsmede scenes, quidditch scenes) -- how can i write some of these with a new fun twist? similarly, what are good tropes in romantic stories (jealousy/pining, being forced to work together when you don’t want to, romantic rivals) and how can i use these characters to pull off these tropes in a way that feels natural and novel? and of course, hugely important — when should the characters kiss for the first time? (every story’s gotta have a good first-kiss scene.)

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i like my stories, generally, to have 2 main plots going: the romance plot between the two main characters, and the maintext plot/situational hijinx they’ve gotten themselves into. figuring out how to weave those storylines together (and ideally to have the Big Climax Scenes Converge Somehow) is tough. so i write in bursts, jumping around between chapters and paragraphs and scenes, cutting whole sections and shuffling them around constantly.

FORM: the first drafts of my chapters are mostly dialogue; i go back in and add actions and internal monologue as some of the last things that i do. scene transitions are also some of the last things i write, or beginnings/endings to scenes. that’s just a personal preference.

i don't tend to write linearly. i guess you could say i write in a vignette style; that’s why most of my fics are organized with individual scenes divided by a textual break, rather than long continuous stream of consciousness/linear time. this allows me a lot of freedom in my writing; if something isn’t working at the end of a scene, or if i can’t figure out a way to transition between moments/times of day, i can just add a text break in. easy as pie. it keeps my stories tighter (lol i know they’re so long who am i kidding) and lets me move things along.

while i jump around a lot, writing scenes that strike me when they strike me, filling in the gaps here and there as i go along, i do like to make some important decisions early on. i think about tracing the arc of the main relationship — are they interested in each other right away, what are the obstacles to them being together, is there going to be an issue with sexuality/queerness or is that a non-issue in this universe? — stuff like that. i think really important scene ideas to have early on (if i’m writing fic, obviously this applies strictly to writing fanfiction romance stories, which are already pretty trope-filled (that’s not a read i love tropes)) are the scenes that Change the direction of the story: the get-together scene and the plot climax. having an understanding of how those crucial scenes are going to play out means that i can make sure that all the writing before those scenes is building in the correct direction.

that doesn’t mean i stick to my outline, or that i’m afraid to change things up! on the contrary. i like to have an idea of where my story is going to end up as i'm writing, because then i can shape the characters and let them grow in a way that naturally arrives at the conclusion. but of course the conclusion is usually just an idea, a vague notion (‘they break out of the curse dimension’ or ‘they’re going off to college uncertain but hopeful’). i avoid writing the end of the story until the very end because the natural conclusion changes as my story goes through more drafts and i get a better feel for the characters. i also like to see how the readers are reacting to the story, what they're noticing, what questions they still have that i need to answer, if there are any scenes that aren't coming across the way i want them to, that sort of thing.

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and one last note for fic writers -- this is what i always think about as i’m writing/about to write a story: why am i writing this story? what am i trying to say, how am i trying to better understand the characters or deepen my understanding of canon with this? am i adding to canon or just repeating it? is this personal catharsis, meaningless smut, a bittersweet fix-it?

readers are smart, and most importantly, they’re fans! they’re coming to fic from consuming the original product! they don’t want what they’ve just seen regurgitated to them. take risks in your stories! know the characters, dig deep into their relationships and get inside their heads. if you’ve got the characters down you’ve got everything you need to write a good fic.

mostly i just hope people come away from my stories satisfied by what they've read.

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you all know me, i write for any fandom i want to with no rhyme or reason. i have a lot of ideas and varied interests. but i don’t speak a TON about my role as fanfic consumer, so i wanna do that.

fanfiction, for me, is a way of better understanding these things that i love. i come to fanfiction after i finish a show or video game, if i’m revisiting childhood movies or books. ao3 is one of the first places i go after i finish watching something, because i am enchanted by the way fans take characters that exist and with just a few twists of a word or a look, they change the meaning completely, elevate canon, or flesh out side characters that basically had nothing going for them. and because when i finish something i love i don’t want it to be over. sometimes that means i write, sometimes that means i read, but i always go to fic. i love it, it’s comforting and beautiful.

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phew! that was long-winded. thanks for the ask!! sorry for the word vomit

(also yes hermione/anyone aka hermione/happiness)

[omgkitteas-blog]

on discovering myself

tl;dr - a dump of a long stream of consciousness with maybe nauseating or irrelevant details about my life that i only care about so, beware

my theme for the year

It is half way through January, and everything considered, this is arguably one of the only times I have been very conscious about living purposefully day by day, and that makes me happy. I decided that this was going to be a huge goal for myself in 2022: feeling fulfilled and living purposefully. Last year’s theme for myself was self-care, getting into routines to take care of my physical body, and proactively find coping mechanisms for my stress and anxiety. This is still equally important, but I feel like I sometimes drift through days, weeks, months of my life, blasting through a lot of work, obligations, and priorities, accomplishing a lot but still somehow feeling a bit empty. 

my haven

During the Omicron surge, I’ve recently spent a lot of time around our apartment. This apartment we have here in New York has honestly become one of the most favorite things about my life. It’s become such a safe space; we keep it fairly clean, it is incredibly spacious and aesthetic on its own, the kitchen layout makes it feel like a home, and we aren’t completely getting shafted with rent price (knock on wood the realities of inflation doesn’t come crashing down on us as hard as they say it will). For the first time in my life, I feel like I have a home to always come back to, as wild as that seems. During college and in our first apartment in the city, I always viewed the west coast as where I could feel entirely at ease, but over my last visit back with family, while I was happy to come back to our house, I felt a bit sad to leave our place here in New York.

my new balance

Over the first two weeks of 2022, I can definitively say that I’ve had as close as I’ve ever gotten to a normal work-life balance, and feel more like an adult rather than a semblance of the grinding young college student I was for 4 years. We cook more at home, and have been experimenting with different types of dishes for dinner, such as charcuterie board samplers, poke bowls (!) and hot honey chicken (who knew you could make a hot sauce with sriracha and raw honey that tastes really great), and have more seriously embraced the idea of meal prepping. (And we only caved with pack ramen one time) Our coffee pour-over (thanks to my parents!) has become a life saver, and has been a really good way for us (mainly me, lol) to save money on highly overpriced coffee drinks. There’s also something incredibly therapeutic about making your own coffee. 

I’ve also been dreaming on doing a whole 365 day / 365 second video vlog of every day in the year, and this year I’m optimistic it might actually happen, or it’ll be the year I’ll get the closest to that. I also have really cracked down on myself and forced myself to do a 10-min ab/leg workout at the very least every day for the most part. I guess people do good in order to look good. (hard truth on vanity, but it’s true for me as well) 

Outside of food and drinks, we’ve also binge-watched Attack on Titan in the evenings (I refused watching that show due to its gruesome nature for the whole time I’ve been dating, but this month I caved.) as well as Temptation Island (S1), watched S3 last year and honestly same old plot lines but still some nice trashy TV to indulge in. Before work started up again, I also started reading the Percy Jackson series (not sure why I never read it in the past) and re-read Prisoner of Azkaban. The fact that I could get buried and that invested in fantasy books like this is actually really shocking to me, because even when I was younger, no one would have called me a reader. I’m honestly not complaining though; reading in my spare time has given me so much peace that I almost wonder why I didn’t think about doing it sooner. 

I try to carve out time for these little things that make me happy, and write it down in my planner (one of the most aesthetic things and most helpful items I’ve gotten for myself that helps me stay accountable for a balance in my life). The fact that it’s a doodle planner so far has been the biggest motivating factor to getting me to write and plan in it, while also being a little book for all my creative energy. Props to people who design these “bullet-journal-esque” type of setups. I failed epically attempting something like this on my own in a blank journal in 2021.

things i notice 

When I look at my mood changes - and I’ve had data on this for about 2 weeks from my planner (yes, a very quantitative way to phrase this), I notice that my anxiety comes in waves. I have higher anxiety levels about 2/3 times per week - mostly caused by me not feeling like I’m as productive or me reacting off of the reactions of others (the latter is definitely not ideal). But what’s important that I keep having to remind myself is that my anxiety is not a constant. 

Something that I’ve also actively noticed when being more purposeful and thoughtful about my day-to-day, is the fact at how much brain space and energy I truly use at my job. Now, I’ve always been passionate about tech, but when I sometimes notice how time for my hobbies slips away, I now start to recognize that I shouldn’t blame myself for not actively trying to make time for hobbies, but accept the reality that my job is challenging, and not trivial. I am working on embracing how amazing I actually am (seriously), for juggling technical responsibilities and performing at a level that does not seem humanly possible. I always knew I spent a lot of time and effort on growing technically and working on projects, but only when I started habit tracking in my planner, did I only truly become conscious of how much of my all I pour into my job. With that being said, I also am now trying to make an effort to pace myself a bit better so that I have room to develop and grow in other aspects of my life. Even though I think my passion for tech will always be an integral part of who I am, realizing this huge effort expenditure has also made me want to find ways or make changes to my life where I appreciate and honor my self worth even more. 

Something I also realized as I’ve navigated some new changes in my life was how highly emotional and how invested I am in things and people. I think that’s something a lot of people don’t know about me. I feel emotions very strongly, and often times don’t show it. For the longest time, I always thought that I was governed more by logic rather than my emotions, but my opinion on that has slowly been changing. I think I was often required to make rational decisions, and while it’s often good, I think for a really long time, I have packed away the emotions that come with some of these decisions, but as I become more in touch with driving the direction of my own life, I think I need to lean in a bit more to my own emotional side, and subsequently make choices that make me feel more emotionally at ease, even if they don’t make sense to others. Something that I’ve struggled with last year but am truly internalizing this year is that I don’t have to justify the direction my life takes to anyone.

on self-confidence

This is a weird one. I think over the last year, I have become an expert at asking people for advice - career, life, you name it. And every time I’ve asked people for their perspective recently on things, I ended up leaving the conversation either still confused or feeling upset that it was--albeit helpful--not more helpful. And I think this stems from that the questions that I’ve been asking others are questions I should not be asking others, but rather be trying to figure out on my own. It’s overwhelming. No one person in this world has a silver bullet pathway to how they’re fulfilled in their life. That road looks different for everyone - everyone has different goals, obligations, things they’re interested in, etc. And recently, I’ve accepted, rather narcissistically but! realistically I’d like to think, that there is no one person (who has my exact limitations as well as capabilities) in this world that has obtained all of my specific life goals in a way that makes complete sense for ME to replicate. So the tl;dr to this is I won’t get all the answers from others, but I have to figure out my own way.

I’ve also struggled with justifying why I live a certain way to people over the last year. Last year I’ve ruminated a lot over how to come across as “not weird” or how to “fit in more” with a certain lifestyle, and not be labelled as a freak who is lost and directionless. I think it’s undeniable that I am really different from a lot of people I interacted with on a daily basis at least last year. And, the more I’ve kind of been more in touch with myself in other areas of my life, the more I feel like if other people seem to think I’m weird in some areas, that’s their problem. I don’t think I’m fundamentally a bad or deficient person. I actually have a lot of good qualities, and it is on other people if they choose to not see me for who I am, or just blatantly refuse to come to their own opinions about who I am with all the information very clearly in front of them. I think I’ve also made up my mind that I don’t want to be plagued or affected by people who are so conflicted in their own lives that they find every opportunity to inject instability or negative energy into mine. I will not let anyone write that narrative for me or make me feel like a walking bundle of self-conscious and fearful thoughts - when it is really them who is, the problem.

in short

I want to continue in this year with this newly found confidence and this zest for life because of my new balance. I cannot forget that I live every day for myself and the way I choose to live and drive my life is entirely in my control.

[vide0-nasties]

Rags show me ur *poses* sexy writing process >:3c (if u wanna ofc xx)

The fact that you’re interested in it at all is probably the most thrilling thing I’ve heard in weeks?? Thank you??

So my writing process is deeply unsexy and disorganized (I’m trying outlining now that I’m venturing into the deeply terrifying land of slow-burn longfic, pls pray 4 me). Like so deeply unsexy I call the way I write Frankenstein-ing lol.I’ll be referencing ’whatever a moon has always meant’ (moon) ’if you were an ocean, I’d learn to float’ (ocean) and my infrequently mentioned x-files-ish dragon age au (XFAU) and how I wrote/am writing them!

So, usually I get smacked with something first–a line of dialogue, or an image, or I’ll see/hear something and go ‘YES.’ For Ocean, it was Eustacia coming home during a rain storm, and an anon request that I build on a drabble of Asra getting pegged, sun/shadow imagery, and this line that popped in my head burned the dinner I was cooking to write down: “He’s the sun, and he burns away the shadows she hides herself in.”

For Moon, Robin (@pinkrobins) said something about killing for mutual masturbation ft Julian, Julian asking Eustacia if she’s ever killed someone, and the lines “I carry your heart / I carry it in mine” from [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] by ee cummings. XFAU was born because I was watching the X-files, then I imagined my Warden Amell and Alistair hanging out at hotel pool, and an image of Morrigan and my Hawke (it’s a big fat clusterfuck of an au) hanging out in the rafters of an abandoned big box store.

Usually I have additional scenes to go with them (the entire ending sequence of Moon, Eustacia stopping in the middle of sex to get Asra to look at her in Ocean), so then I’ll go digging through my brain or my tags (insp, aesthetic, quotes) for more inspiration.

After that, I start writing out chunks in note apps on my phone, because it’s handy and my music is right there (THE MUSIC IS A BIG PART OF MY WRITING). I prefer Evernote and WriterPlus, and when I start something new, I make a new folder in the relevant oc’s folder. I have a lot of OC’s.

Here’s a screenshot of Moon’s folder:

You’ll notice that: #1, it took more than a month to write (probably 2 or 3, Moon really kicked my ass, not to mention my private life and the climate of the fandom was really tumultuous around then). And #2, it had a different title. I very rarely have concrete titles at the beginning.

I’ll write the bulk of the story in my notes–some of the ones in that screenshot were easily 2k words.

THEN I move onto a grown-up word processor and start sewing up the meaty chunks with connective tissue plot structure.

On Moon and Ocean, I used Microsoft word (now Apache OpenOffice bc my MSWord license ran out RIP me), but with XFAU and a Fallout 3 longfic I’ve been picking at for literal years, I use Scrivener bc it’s a really vast program with a ton of ridiculous features.

(Please note, this doc is ridiculously old, it’s just an example of how Scrivener works in the hands of an amateur, and how upsettingly cluttered I am lol.)

I go into my notes and re-type everything. EVERYTHING. It’s annoying and cumbersome and a huge time-sink, but it’s much easier to feel the flow, and I can do on the spot alterations, additions, and edits. 

So if something isn’t working (Moon had a passage where Eustacia washed Julian’s hair, and Ocean had one where Asra asked what she did to earn the money she brought home when her), I cut it out immediately and dump it in a scrap document for cannibalizing later. I always save my scrap docs, and they end up being either as big, or bigger than the finished work.

I don’t have a beta, so once I’m finished I back off for a couple of hours and do literally anything else until I can come back and scan for typos or missed words. Then, because I’m an impatient bitch lol, I usually go ahead and post after a last minute decision on a title (usually poetry or lyrics bc I’m unoriginal: Ocean - All I Want is You by Barry Louis Polisar, and Moon - [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] by ee cummings), IMMEDIATELY getting off tumblr so I don’t stay up all night waiting for feedback.

And that’s it! Tip-to-tail, that’s how I Frankenstein my “proper” oneshots lol. For other things, like ask prompts or anything under/around 2k words, I write stream of consciousness in one go over one-three hours, then do some Lite Frankenstein-ing before giving it the green light.

It’s probably not helpful even a little bit, but it’s an evolving mess, and I hope it satisfied any curiosity you had! Thank you again!! 😙😙 

[sofficsss]

The bit from Miss Graham is beautifully put. Couldn't had word the feeling of creation better, thank you for sharing it!

Social media are at the core a big russian roulette. 50% and 50%. I know very well they don't determine much, sure is a bit more easy to find work with huge numbers, but there are plenty of wonderful artists out there that aren't on the spot, work etc. And you are right, is luck, and you need tough steel nerves or else, these platforms can be real black holes.

Off topic but now I am thinking about another aspect I reflect on sometimes. It is great to have now access to great artists' works so easily, really. Back when I was in high school socials were very uncommon, I only had my dear art history keeping me company with some manga and some italian comics. Very small world to look upon, in terms of modern "professional art", pro illustration, vis dev or whatever. But now is the contrary, there is too much to look at, and can be very overwhelming sometimes. Big obvious brain tip: Like, stop always comparing your stuff with so many different artists you see online, -I know you do it, I can see you fellow artists- is very bad for you and your growth, in my experience.

For me honestly, I just want a place to dump my stuff freely, I started doing so this year to fight my overly exaggerated shyness I had with showing my drawings around lol

Sorry for my english and this sort of stream of consciousness I guess ;-;

How can a sketch done in 10 min can blow up over a finished illustration is something I still need to study for research 🧐

Or how the drawings I consider bad are usually the fav of my friends XD is something sometimes I like to reflect on. It is a sort of math theory by now.