#to me writing stories is an example of making art
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so your crow strider au gave me inspiration for my own au, but i've built up the idea in my brain so much that now im scared to try to put it to paper (oops) did you ever deal with this while making crow strider? (and if you did, how you got over it would be much appreciated thanks fhdjks) also your art is cool :]
Hi, sure, i encountered a few blocks when writing CSAU and other projects. I think my method comes down to a couple rules
You need to know how the story ends from the start, so everything in the story leads to the end. Things can change about the contents of the story as you write it and you change your mind about the events that will transpire in it, but you need an end goal you can build your story towards. Most importantly, this is what allows you to add foreshadowing for said ending and structure the narrative in a clear direction. Otherwise, you might come up with a cool ending too late and regret some choices from past chapters that now don’t help this new ending you want
On that same note (and i’ll proceed to copy and paste from an old post) You need to have a Word document with a rough timeline of the events from start to finish. You need to know how it ends from the beginning and how they get there. It can be really, really vague, but it has to be there. It can go like
. They start the game, the trolls bother them.
.both games go to hell
.scratch
.trip, develop relationships
.new set of kids/teen drama
.old kids they get there
.to hell again
.John retcons everything
.new timeline
.they win
And that's homestuck simplified, Those are your Acts. With them, you will know where you're going and if you need to change something earlier. Everything will be constantly up to change of course, but you will be going from point A to point Z more easily.
From there, you go to every point in that list and create a Word document for all of them. I have them in different folders to have every act separated and in order.
A folder for each Doc for every Act, Numbered, and in each one make more lists like that one telling what happens, for example
WordDoc1 - ACT 1 "They start the game, the trolls bother them"=
.John needs to get his game
.introduce Rose
.introduce the trolls on pester chats
. John gets the game
.introduce Dave
.etc
And those are your chapters. Now you can know the extent of what you want to do and if it makes any sense.
I addition to that, every Folder can contain not only the Word document for the Act but also relevant texts and art that are connected to the Act, so evey folder is all about that specific act and any inspiration for it.
Another piece of advice I can give you is to hint at anything important. That's a rule of comedy; actually, the comedian usually closes the show with something related to the first things they said.
That works for everything, and makes people go, "Oh the thing! The meaningless thing they said earlier, it was a clue all along!"
Interconnect it like a web, and that web will stop the story from falling
Homestuck is so ridiculously interconnected that you lose track of the stuff and objects that repeat that have no way to be where they got to be, songs and people and events that are too similar to not be connected but nobody addresses, things like that make it feel like you're dealing with a universe and not just a line of events.
3. Yet another thing, it's something I'm still trying to assimilate, and is that less is more, sometimes things don't need to be said, specialy not bluntly, and an expression, a gesture, a flinch can summarize them. Backgrounds can be reduced, and ideas can be conveyed.
one example is, In homestuck, it's never said that Dave was raised with lack of food. He never sais it, but it's shown in how happy he was to find a warm bottle of juice in his closet, how there is only weapons on the kitchen and no sign of food, how he later sais he never learned what the purpose of a fridge was until he saw it on tv. If someone is lacking something, don't have them say, "i grew up without X thing" show what filled that space in the absence of X thing.
Instead of some character saying, "My dad was never there for christmas" have them say how they thrited for presents at the local goodwill, payed with their lawn mowing money and put the presents under the tree themselves for their siblings and mom.
4. Something that I always have in mind when writing the dialogs and sketching the scenes, is
"I have an idea; what's the easiest way for someone to get the idea, to get the feelings i want to transmit from the idea?" I made the art something I could handle drawing hundreds of times, simplified the coloring, the aspect symbols, the way I draw backgrounds, the way I write dialogs, etc.
That will save you time and work and could prevent you from getting stuck with a project too big to handle
5. This is the most important one: The first draft’s only purpose is to exist.
Writing is like playing darts sometimes; you only get closer to hitting the center by missing it and learning what not to do. That’s an actual rule on animation and a motto on the Disney office. “Get it wrong as quick as you can,” because when you learn what you’re doing wrong is when you start learnign what doing it right means.
If it helps, title your first draft “the dumb version,” because that’s what it is—the version to get the idea out of your head, and then you built over it.
On the same note, once you write "the dumb version" don’t correct it. Rewrite it. It’s annoying, I know, i know, but fixing and fixing a text only carries the mistakes from the first draft, and everything looks kind of disconnected, because it ends up being a Frankenstein text of all the versions of the story mixed together.
This also applies to art; that’s how I handle both writing and drawing; if it’s not working, hold onto the core idea, new page, restart.
Rewriting it puts it in perspective; it feels like a text of its own, with a clear intent in mind.
I think that’s all I have. Making a story is mostly about managing your strengths and weaknesses, organizing and not being scared of it not being perfect.
Hope this helps.
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2024 fandom review!
thank u for the tag @willesredlights sorry it took me literally ages to get to it
lets pretend we're not almost two weeks into the new year ok? and what a year it has been. holy shit.
~ Fics written ~
I'll be honest I did go a little batshit crazy this past year. 314k words across 19 published works, plus god knows how much more unpublished on tumblr. listen, I was deep in the ??? phase of my master's (still am, lets be honest) and desperately looking for a new creative outlet. I've always been a writer, always loved dreaming up stories, but I have never quite connected to a universe as much as I have to this one. I resonate with so many of the characters, and i just feel like there is so much room to play and explore. i will continue to add in old people OCs to my fics wherever and whenever i get the chance.
First fic: for the tree's sake (M, 48k) aka tree boys inspired by the trip that eventually led to my discover of young royals in late '23, and my darling baby. yes, that airplane ride that seems weird and random is based on truth!
Fav fic: just if for a minute (T, 53k) aka fake married idiots i greatly enjoyed making Wille suffer for just under 53k. that confrontation scene took days off my life and yet i am so proud of how it turned out.
Honorary mention to Growing towards the light, which was a dream to work on and create with my dear sweet friend Lia. there is one braincell between the two of us and it's full of nature facts and dick jokes. and beautiful stories about getting lost in the wilderness and finding yourself along the way. and tent-dick jokes.
Last fic: Wille på Hyllan (T, 13k) aka christmas shenanigans! another collab with my dearest friends which was hilarious to write and so silly and imo an example of one of the greatest perks of being in a fandom: meeting some of the most incredible people ever. also, dick-lights and dick-tomtar and dick-cookies. what more could you want?
~ Fics Read ~
if i tried to go through my history and tell you how many fics i read this year i would never make this post. i'd be here counting and trying to copy links forever. i read hundreds of fics. i enjoyed all of them, thoroughly. i got a lot better at leaving comments (sometimes). i was consistently and repeatedly blown away by the genius brains we have in this little Swedish corner of the internet.
if you are a writer i love you and i give u a kiss on the forehead.
also: i recently made a lil rec list here.
~ Other Stuff? ~
i had two big, busy months this year. three? : May, Wille's month & July, Simon's month i cannot believe i wrote 62 stories in 62 different universes (give or take a few). that's kind of stupid! but oh my god it was so fun!! some of my favs: -> Food, where Wille and Simon meet and embark on a mistakenly booked couples food tour in Barcelona -> Fashion/Style, aka the Met Gala AU aka the thing that turned into something so much bigger than i could have ever imagined. literally i thought people were gonna hate it. so, thank u for not hating it. and for letting it become 15k+ of pwp. -> Secret, friends to lovers RAHHHHHH -> Home (Improvement), aka grumpy home renovator Simon idk i just feel like this should become a full-blown fic one day
and oh boy who can forget about Kinktober from wax kinks in 17th century Italy to desperate love confession in the middle of wildfires to... whatever that was in the confessional (idk, that's between them and God).
2024...
I did some painting: x x I wrote some real weird lil ficlets: x x and I met dozens of incredible people. thank u for liking my stupid rambling posts from 3am and my silly little ficlets and for reading my stories and telling me about your stories and saving me from the Frankfurt airport and yelling with me about stuff thats definitely not in the Bible and sharing your time and space and art and care.
@bigalockwood @hergrandplan @gulliblelemon @saynomorefic @pagegirlintraining @skibasyndrome @sobadbad @impossibleknots @piebingo @theaviatorthatcouldnotfly @misfithive @sillylittleflower @zee-has-commitment-issues @purplehoodiesandclementines @justfriendsbestthings
giving u a big hug. and! this is by no means an exhaustive list. if ur reading this we are bffs. send me a message ok? ok. y'all keep me sane and happy and i am so grateful for you! live love wilmon
#i hate vulnerability but i had to tell yall how much u mean to me#and wow what a year it has been#all laid out like this its crazy#300k+ and no plans on stoppin 😎#you can pry my laptop from my cold dead hands#yr fandom review#jay reflects???#nosy hours
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Hypnosis as a symphony.
I saw some discourse on here recently (link here) about a good litmus test for a skilled hypnotist is whether they've had discipline in another art form. That really stuck with me, and I began wondering about my art form of choice, music, and how studying and pursuing music and composition creates my particular flavor of hypnosis -- and I found something interesting.
(Forgive me, it gets a bit rambly from here.)
I found that, to me, effective hypnosis has a lot of the same qualities as effective music. I'm a bit more biased toward a classical approach, as in, symphonies and sonatas as opposed to pop music, but the same principles apply.
At a bird's eye view level, good music is well structured. Whether you're writing something in sonata form or a song for your first album, there are certain conventions that are expected and, for the most part, adhered to. Sonata form is strict and rigid, with rules on rules (and heaven help you if you break them). But even with pop music, we have a generally expected format: intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro. It's nearly like clockwork.
Coherent hypnosis, too, also has a similar sense of structure, though not quite as rigid as sonata form, and even not as rigid as pop music. But the way that the hypnotist establishes rapport, sets the tone, cadence, and rhythm (all of these music words coming up so naturally, I love it), drops the listener like EDM, and brings them back up again, whether on the listener's own time or in a guided manner, reads to me the same way.
Of course, these expectations can always be subverted. Maybe we start with a chorus. Maybe we change keys, change tempo, change styles halfway through the piece. Maybe we pull a Beyonce and have several key changes. Done effectively, this isn't a jarring effect (at least, not in a negative way), but can greatly enhance the piece or hypnosis session.
Getting into the weeds a bit, great music to me makes use of motifs, or uniting ideas throughout a piece. It can be a hook, a lyric that comes back, or even the four notes that open Beethoven's Fifth (the universally recognizable dun dun dun duuuuun). I love listening to symphonies or large scale works, and finding hidden instances where these ideas come back. It's such a treat, and even when I know it's there, the piece doesn't lose any effect -- in fact, I have a deeper appreciation for it.
In the same way, we see this similar "motivic" idea with great hypnosis. The repetition of a word or phrase -- even, to an extent, the idea of triggers as motivic material -- makes the listener feel like they know the tune, can hum along, can dro-- ahem, be lulled into that sense of familiarity. Those who can do this on the fly and make it sound natural have the same virtuosity to me as jazz greats, who use the exact same principles of structure and repeated, recognizable ideas in their solos. And that's the key, isn't it? Repetition legitimizes, and it should be recognizable enough that one could get that lightbulb moment (or, you know, that dizzy, glassy look in their eyes) even when it's not in the exact context presented originally (think a trigger out of trance, for example).
Finally, a piece of music to me is truly exceptional when you can tell every note is crafted with intention. Some of these instances the audience may never know. For example, why did they choose a particular key? A particular time signature? Why this specific set of notes for the recurring idea? Was it someone's name? A word? And how does the changing of that idea reflect the story arc of the piece?
I'm reminded of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, and the Idee Fixe (fixed idea) that occurs throughout the work. The occurrence, reoccurrence, and manipulation of the Idee Fixe isn't immediately recognizable. I didn't get it my first few listens. But after reading it (being forced to read about it) in school, I developed a newfound appreciation for the piece and the story that it follows, even if Berlioz was a total nut.
Exceptional hypnotists, those who seem to command the craft like it's breathing, do exactly this. Some of these things, again, the listener may never know -- how the hypnotist is analyzing changes in breathing, or using imagery that they know will resonate with the listener, or even using details about the listener that they don't consciously realize, but the hypnotists includes it in their composition anyway because they know the resulting effect is one they will want to listen to again, and again, and again. Of course they will. Of course they will.
If this all comes across as gobbledegook, oops. I've been tossing this idea around for a while, and it could be that it sounds better in my head. I would, however, be curious to hear how these ideas translate to painting, sculpture, or hell, even computer science. I'd love to hear what gets you excited about your craft and hypnosis, and how they come together to form something truly unique. That's what makes this world so special, after all.
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🍊🫐 throughout time!
#splatoon#splatoon oc#sydney (oc)#other's ocs#shades (yen)#lizzy does art#good morning tumblr dot com. (or afternoon. or evening) behold another example of me being perfectly normal about fruit shrimp.#THEY MAKE ME SO!!! 🥺🥺🥺 yen and i have talked. soso much about the different activities that encompass their relationship...#and also how the way they emote/express themselves around each other changes over the course of their rship progression!#it's fun to play oc barbie i hope everyone can play toys with a friend. THE WHIMSY AND INSPIRATION IT GIVES!! YIPPEE!#and so i've channeled my love and appreciation for that aspect of them in this composition.. it was fun to play with colors for this 🙏#this is one of those pieces where i felt more intentional and deliberate with things. hopefully it comes across even if you dont know-#the specifics of what bonks with these two... i love finding ways to tell stories!!! yippee!! and i will keep on getting better!#im having fun drawing again i am rediscovering that sillay little whimsy...#also why is captioning so hard. nooo lizz haha nooo you can write more than orange and blueberry emote right?? right?? (im trying my best)#AND TO ANYONE WHO TAKES AN INTEREST IN WHATEVER is going on with my friends and i's ocs. thank u. i love u. mwah. have a great day.
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We need to start treating bad writing like bad art and im not kidding
#now theres a lot more nuance to this#because “bad writing” is SUPER general#so i have to add a disclaimer#i dont mean propoganda. i dont mean biased and biggoted#i mean writing decisions u dont like!#ppl are very quick to just sit there and shit on writers#its okay to not like an ending. its okay to not like how a character was treated#and its okay to be mad about it if u like them very dearly#but at the same time sometimes we're a little too mean.#and sometimes they deserve it#but sometimes it's a little mean#this is. in truth. because of the lumine ending#on webtoon#its pissing me off how ppl are getting super upset and being rude to kabu#even tho so many ppl are explaining its because she grew out of the story. she didnt have passion for it anymore#she gave us an ending! you dont have to like it but stop acting like just because she COULD write more that she HAS to write more#art is tiring. sometimes you lose passion for it. sometimes you dont do it perfectly#sometimes your idea of good isnt the same as someone else's#i dont like romance for example. several tropes will turn me off it#but some ppl do#sometimes you make a pretty shitty plot or make plot holes#and yeah those arent super great to read!!! but a story is an art. its all different#its not all good and its not all bad#its made from a persons head therefore it'll reflect a person in a way#i just think its important to remember that writers are not machines#artists and writers aren't actually as different as everyone treats them#we're all making art. we're all making mistakes. i just think we should be a little nicer about it#its okay to criticize. but can we be nice about it#also i dont like the “professional author” argument#picasso was a famous artist his paintings are in meuseums and there's still people who don't like his art. i dont think its fair to go
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Ohhhh i now remember why i got shy about talking abt ocs
24/7 fear that someone will tell me my ideas are cliche/stupid/bad in some other and it will hurt more bc these are my own creations and not just fun and play
#kurjatxt#i was trying 2 explain some stuff and i was immediately like#:/ does this feel like some kinf of weird hype for ancient mysticism and does that go into promoting the current day false ideas plaguing#people that make them drink unpasturized milk :/#is this too based on my view on magic from my enviroment bc it is based on my personal experience on seeking safety in#nostalgia and playing w the idea of balancing what you get from the past and integrating it into the future vs. just being stuck in the#past vs. the danger of completely rejecting the past told through the lense of smth i loved as a child: fantasy/magic/fairytales :/#and could be alienating and immature and demeaningly simple to other people who grew up in an enviroment already more inclined to#this kind of balance :/#or is me thinking about this demeaning to people bc i should be able to trust them to see what i make as silly ramblings by some random#tumble user just exploring their own experiences through story instead of trying to make some large sweeping statements about#the world and its reality :/#or is it bad of me to be careless about bc of COURSE i should put the upmost care into what i put out into the world and make sure that#everything i make is inclusive and as accessible to as many different types of people to relate to :/#or is that dumb is that limiting to art and am i giving a bad example and furthering the idea of people#havibg to make everything as palatable to everyone as possible JUST in case that nobody gets even slightly hurt or annoyed :/#man being a creator is hard OOPS that is also an evil thing to say being a creator is the luckiest thing you can ever be and ur just beinh#a whiny bitchbaby :/#<-#all that just. a small portion of the overthinking#and yk what it started from?#thr statement '<#in this world magic can be kind of more compared to how modern science is approached'#THAT SENTENC3#I AM SO STRESSED ABOUT#WhY IS MY BRAIN LIKE THIS!!!! I DONT KNOW!!!#sorry this is prolly the longest tags ive ever put on a post sorry to whoever opened the see more for this#its just. i think tj3 first tim3 ive been able.to expresw the circles my brain does and its kind of therapeutic#maybe i should start writing these circles down more often so i could see how dumb they rly are on paper#instead.of fretting inside my heae
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🌟
I reblogged this ask game and then failed to finish the answers to any of the asks i got. whoopsie. better late than never.
Anyway let's try the director's commentary of the train king scene from pez dispenser debris.
I love the train king intro. it's so fun and goofy. it's just got some really fun humor to it in my mind. I had so much fun writing it.
it is a completely pointless scene.
It has no plot relevance. Train king is not the chekov's gun hanging bravely on the wall of that fic. It will have no overarching effect on the plot. So why the fuck is it there?
Well, because it was fun.
Pez dispenser debris has lived in my head for at least two or three years now. Not in the exact form it is now, but it's a very old and much-adored story of mine. I was incredibly fond of it. I tried to write it years ago, and got as far as the first scene, which was originally Izuku and Mirio walking along the street and running into the bus hijacking, which led to the rogue quirk.
It was a good starting point. It's where the action actually started. But it just didn't feel right to me.
So it sat in my drafts for a long time, collected dust, and I spun my wheels on other projects for a while. I went back to it, and tried again, and the new first scene was Izuku rushing in late for the meeting with the realtor. It still didn't feel right. it gave more development to Izuku and Mirio's relationship before we hit action, but something just wasn't right.
Train King was just a silly reason i made up for why he was late. The scene originally wasn't shown, only mentioned in a single sentence. And then I decided--fuck it, it would make for a fun scene. just do it for shits and giggles.
And I had fun writing it. Which means it's probably the only reason why i hit publish on pez dispenser debris to begin with instead of leaving it in my drafts. Because I was in a state of extreme burn out when i started writing that fic, and the train king scene led me to realize what that fic needed to be for me: just something fun and silly to write.
Technically speaking, pez dispenser debris is very sloppy. There's a huge amount of pointless asides and flashbacks that don't contribute to the plot in any way. the entirety of chapter four could be deleted and it would be the exact same fic if i just slightly edited the conversation between aizawa and izuku in chapter six. I legitmately wrote chapter four, said "wow, that was pointless," and hit publish
because I liked it anyway. Like, what the fuck is the point of the backflip treaty? Dabi's extremely reluctant semi-redemption? Absolutely nothing. I just had a good time writing it and thought other people would have a good time reading it.
it wasn't meant to be """"good"""" art. it was meant to be fun, and that's what it was. I had so much fun writing my silly little flashbacks and asides. All of my fics have those kinds of background stories and scenes that exist in their "universe," and most of them never make it into the fics because it wouldn't be plot relevant and it wouldn't make for """"good""" art. With pez dispenser debris, I wanted to just give myself permission to write something fun and silly with as many pointless scenes as i wanted. And train king started that.
#pez dispenser debris#this isn't abandoned by the way i just have majors writers block on my everything right now#we are beating chapters with sticks#god pez dispenser debris is so fun#it was never meant to be the sort of story that i'd consider “”good“” writing#i did a lot of things in it that I'd never do in one of my original works for example#because i just wanted to make silly art for a while#and it was just so so fun#i think writing advice for the most part is bullshit but if you take any from me it would be to give yourself permission to make bad art#if i was trying i could probably cut 40k words off that fic and have the exact same plot but it wouldn't be nearly as fun
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Just a heads up that I’m going to be taking a break from making fandom content.
I’m at a point now where I want to express myself and fanart just doesn’t seem to cut it. At one point I’ll come back to doing it but as of right now, I can’t give a time frame for when that will be.
Be patient cause I know when ST5 comes out the Jancy brainrot will return, Trust me on this.
Idk about Scott Pilgrim stuff cause I’m very invested in two characters only and they aren’t very popular (ok Neil’s kinda in the middle tbh, Stacey though no). Also I feel kinda alone in my rarepair. I know there are others but even then I still feel lonely in it. It’s difficult making rarepair stuff and atm I don’t have the energy to continue doing it. Very sorry about that!
I will sometimes make text posts about random headcanons in relation to my ships if I have any cause it’s bound to happen. So fandom stuff won’t be completely gone.
Anyways expect to see some poetry and more original illustrations coming from me. Heck my ocs may end up becoming a big part of my art who knows!
I hope you all can understand. I must let my creative voice scream and give me a chance to figure out who I am more. This is something extremely important to me as a soon to be art major.
I do hope you will all support me in this new era of my blog. Original content isn’t as big as say fandom stuff I know but I do hope you’ll enjoy whatever I make :]
Ok bye! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Sending hugs if you need one <333333
#btw I’m#also I’m tired of the fandom environment I just wanna vibe in peace with the moots#i know my main reason for coming here originally was to express my love for my many interests#but now I wanna use this blog to express myself in a more personal way#an example being illustrations relating to my intense interest in ocean aesthetics#and writing poetry about nature and things that make me happy (I will not be sharing vent poetry at all as it’s far more personal)#also my ocs story I want to develop it more#i might also start doing art studies on posing cause it’s something in struggle with a lot (alongside anatomy)#and also style studies on my favourite artists from history#anyways I’m going to stop talking in the tags now#the explanation is kinda messy and I apologize if it’s hard to understand#emily has a very important message to share!
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hello everyone! a quick break from your scheduled art posting to talk about this incredible fic i think ever bloodweave enjoyer should read.
i know it'a already very popular, but imo it's a must-read. i could not praise this fic enough for what it is, the amazing ideas it brings to the table, the incredible execution of the timeloop trope. it's by far the fic i look forward to seeing in my inbox the most (not that other fics aren't absolutely gorgeous), because every chapter is just. a delight to read. it's got angst, fluff, and an amazing romance, but the plot is what really makes it stand out. it's tight, packed with great characterisation and has perfect pacing. please give it a shot if that sounds at all interesting to you. oh yeah, and did i mention that it's got art for every single chapter? yeah, read it. bask in its genius.
#pythoria.txt#turn on the laugh track#if anyone who follows me is already reading it don't hesitate to message me i'm in love with it and could sing its praises all day long#i also think it's a great experience to read it as it updates and the wait between each update is almost part of the experience#because you never know what will happen next and thinking about every chapter for a few days and letting it sit and marinate is the BEST#i'm ngl if this was pay-to-read i would not hesitate. every chapter could be behind a paywall and i almost wish they were just so i could#support the author and show them how much better they make my day with more than just positive comments#luckily for everyone it's free and an absolute joy to read#binge it or read one chapter at a time and let the story sit in your brain#to me this is a fantastic example of how you can sometimes tell a story better with fewer words#nothing about this fic is superfluous#a perfect example of efficiency in writing and how 2 sentences can sometimes wreck you harder than thousands of words#and the art follows the same pattern. it's simple; thematic; emotive#it's beautifully done without being perfect realistic renders. it's BETTER for it even.#it's got great composition and unbelievably touching facial expressions and poses#i just think. the person who created this fic is a bottomless well of talent and creativity. it is GENUINELY fantastic in every way
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Are there any fic ideas that you'd want to see but don't want to write?
Oh boy! Of course!
To be honest, the Green Lantern story is one of the big ones lmfao. It would be a massive undertaking for an audience of maybe five people. A niche audience normally doesn't stop me, but for such a long story, there's other uses of my time. There is also the fact that it just feels made for television. Same with my Legion of Superheroes Zoobomafoo thing - it just doesn't feel right in a text format. It's webcomic coded. I wish I could draw sometimes!
Then there's the story ideas for my AUs and other fandoms I've moved on from. There's still a few ideas for the No Chip AU in my back pocket (Cody redemption feat. Boba Fett following him around Tatooine yelling at him; Fox as the vigilante sidekick to his insane PA) and my normal Roleswap (Luke & Leia embark on a Great Father Mystery Hunt and bother Fox in the woods). There's also the continuation stories/sequels I've started but haven't finished and don't know if they will get finished (Roleswap Obi-Wan meets his birth family; my Buffy fic Angel and Cordelia through the years). There's other unfinished stories there (the Frenchie story which is literally only missing the final scene, the Heroes For Hire meeting story which is literally only missing the final scene) which I'm pretty sure I'll finish when I feel like it. I don't consider those WIPs so much as 'when I care again I'll go finish them'.
Then there's the stories that I just couldn't make into a decent story (the Naruto fix-it; the roleswap(ish?) story with adult bounty hunters Boba and Omega teaching runaway clones Luke and Leia the power of family and incredible violence). Not every idea is good outside of concept lol.
TL;DR: If I have a fic idea but haven't written it, it's because of one or more reasons: a) the idea itself is too big, b) the idea just doesn't seem right for fic, c) I've moved on from the fandom and don't want to work on it at this moment anymore, d) it just wouldn't make a good story.
If you notice, these are all active choices on my part. I only mention this because a lot of my friends can't relate, so I don't know how common it is even though I assumed it was common, and it's kind of hard to describe: there's no barrier between me having an idea and writing it. Does that make sense? If I have an idea and it'll make a good story and I want to write it I'll write it, at least until I realize that it wouldn't make a good story and I scrap it. If I think about something for too long I write it [this is why I am easily egged on][this is also why I write things I swore never to write very frequently].
Writing is like. It's easy. You just write stuff. You just think something and then you write it. It's uncomplicated.
If it's bad. Writing is easy if what you're writing is bad. It's easy to write 100k if the 100k is bad. There's a ton of shortcuts you can take, which are really useful for beginning writers and was really useful for me a few years ago. I can describe those if you'd like. It's much, much, much harder to write something good. It's hardest when you need something to be good. Writing a good 100k is really hard. I am constantly telling people not to jump into the novels kjlsdf.
Double TL;DR that has nothing to do with the topic: You can write whatever you want if you're okay with it being bad. Making bad art rocks and is a lot of fun and completely necessary towards my emotional well-being. I highly recommend it.
#for example: new wave is 117k and took 2 years and covid puppy is 120k and took 1.5 months.#wow I really digressed there lol#it felt like the most important thing to mention though#to be absolutely clear: for every one high effort good story#I NEED to write three low effort bad stories#I think making bad art is necessary for your creativity and if you want to make good art#im not joking#i struggle explaining this to people in a remotely succinct way but like#skill scaffolds#there's a lot of skills you have to develop and for a polished work they need to stack#and it took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to develop those and you can track that skill development thru my AO3#and reading fanfic I can usually pick out what skills people have finished developing and which ones they're still working on#it has a lot to do with like The Two Different Ways To Write Fanfic#which aren't like better or worse than each other#but one is muuuuch easier to write than the other and as a result is harder to do well#and is an excellent palate cleanser of writing in between doing it the other way#which is really hard#(the difference is like 90% pacing -.- )#my writing#my asks
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This is a dangerous sentiment for me to express, as an editor who spends most of my working life telling writers to knock it off with the 45-word sentences and the adverbs and tortured metaphors, but I do think we're living through a period of weird pragmatic puritanism in mainstream literary taste.
e.g. I keep seeing people talk about 'purple prose' when they actually mean 'the writer uses vivid and/or metaphorical descriptive language'. I've seen people who present themselves as educators offer some of the best genre writing in western canon as examples of 'purple prose' because it engages strategically in prose-poetry to evoke mood and I guess that's sheer decadence when you could instead say "it was dark and scary outside". But that's not what purple prose means. Purple means the construction of the prose itself gets in the way of conveying meaning. mid-00s horse RPers know what I'm talking about. Cerulean orbs flash'd fire as they turn'd 'pon rollforth land, yonder horizonways. <= if I had to read this when I was 12, you don't get to call Ray Bradbury's prose 'purple'.
I griped on here recently about the prepossession with fictional characters in fictional narratives behaving 'rationally' and 'realistically' as if the sole purpose of a made-up story is to convince you it could have happened. No wonder the epistolary form is having a tumblr renaissance. One million billion arguments and thought experiments about The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas that almost all evade the point of the story: that you can't wriggle out of it. The narrator is telling you how it was, is and will be, and you must confront the dissonances it evokes and digest your discomfort. 'Realistic' begins on the author's terms, that's what gives them the power to reach into your brain and fiddle about until sparks happen. You kind of have to trust the process a little bit.
This ultra-orthodox attitude to writing shares a lot of common ground with the tight, tight commodification of art in online spaces. And I mean commodification in the truest sense - the reconstruction of the thing to maximise its capacity to interface with markets. Form and function are overwhelmingly privileged over cloudy ideas like meaning, intent and possibility, because you can apply a sliding value scale to the material aspects of a work. But you can't charge extra for 'more challenging conceptual response to the milieu' in a commission drive. So that shit becomes vestigial. It isn't valued, it isn't taught, so eventually it isn't sought out. At best it's mystified as part of a given writer/artist's 'talent', but either way it grows incumbent on the individual to care enough about that kind of skill to cultivate it.
And it's risky, because unmeasurables come with the possibility of rejection or failure. Drop in too many allegorical descriptions of the rose garden and someone will decide your prose is 'purple' and unserious. A lot of online audiences seem to be terrified of being considered pretentious in their tastes. That creates a real unwillingness to step out into discursive spaces where you 🫵 are expected to develop and explore a personal relationship with each element of a work. No guard rails, no right answers. Word of god is shit to us out here. But fear of getting that kind of analysis wrong makes people hove to work that slavishly explains itself on every page. And I'm left wondering, what's the point of art that leads every single participant to the same conclusion? See Spot run. Run, Spot, run. Down the rollforth land, yonder horizonways. I just want to read more weird stuff.
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I tried to write a novel. Not once. Not twice. But about 12 times. Here's how that would play out: 1. I sit down and knock out 10 pages 2. I share it with someone 3. They say "It's goooood" like it's not good 4. I ask for critical feedback 5. They say, "Well....the plot just moves so quickly. So much happens in the first few pages it doesn't feel natural." So I'd write more drafts. I'd try to stretch out the story. I would add dialogue that I tried to make interesting but thought was boring. I would try including environment and character descriptions that felt unnecessary, (why not just let people imagine what they want?) Anyways, I gave up trying to write because in my mind, I wasn't a fiction writer. Maybe I could write a phonebook or something. But then I made a fiction podcast, and I waited for the same feedback about the fast moving plot, but guess what??? Podcasts aren't novels. The thing that made my novels suck became one of the things that made Desert Skies work. I've received some criticism since the show started, but one thing I don't receive regular complaints about is being overly-descriptive or longwinded. In fact, the opposite. It moves fast enough that it keeps peoples attention. I always felt I had a knack for telling stories but spent years beating myself up because I couldn't put those stories into novel form. The problem wasn't me. The problem was the tool I was trying to use. All that to say: If, in your innermost parts you may know that you're a storyteller but you just can't write a book, don't give up right away. You can always do things to get better and there's a lot of good resources. But if you do that for a while and novel writing just isn't your thing, try making a podcast, or creating a comic, or a poem, or a play, or a tv script. You might know you're an artist but suck at painting. Try making a glass mosaic, or miniatures, or try charcoal portraits, or embroider or collage. You might know you're a singer, but opera just isn't working out. Why not yodel? I could keep listing out examples, but the point is this. Trust your intuitions when it comes to your creative abilities, but don't inhibit yourself by becoming dogmatic about which medium you can use to express that creativity. Don't be afraid to try something new. Don't be afraid to make something new. You might just find the art form that fits the gift you knew you always had, and what it is might surprise you
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An incomplete list of TMA fics I adore
-beacuse of this ask
(If you liked the fics I previously recommended/made fanart for, I think you'll gonna like these as well, but you know, read the tags, know what you are going into)
Yesterday is Here by CirrusGrey @cirrus-grey
Time Travel Fix-it! Slow burn! So good! So much sass from future!Jon- I doubt I have to introduce anyone this amazing author, but if you somehow missed them till now, this is your time! I highly recommend all of their other fics as well, for example one of a more recent one, The Stranger I Know Best is also a lovely read.
enthralling by Prim_the_Amazing @primtheamazing
Vampire!Martin!! I have no words of how much I love this concept, this story, everything about this. I think I'm going to repeat myself through this list, but I also recommend everything else they've written!
to fill... my heart with music? by godshaper @godshaper so their Martin and Jon design are different from mine, also they made a way better art for this- but still, I wanted to include this really good fic in this list.
Do It All Anew by inkfingers_mcgee or @crit20art
You know the feeling when you read a book that makes you cry, and after that you recommend it to your friend? Well- there is no reason I mentioned this, I'm just so normal about this fic. Or any other fic from inkfingers_mcgee... like Strange Manner of what I made another fanart way back. Also, check out their art!
Anyway, here is Aamal- she is not going to cause emotional damage.
And they were sidekicks (oh my god, they were sidekicks) by arthureameslove @arthureameslove
A lighthearted series where Jon and Martin are sidekicks of supervillains- it's just a really fun fic, also recommend everyting from this author - I previously draw fanart here for an other fic of theirs Like a Lighthouse, Call Me Home
neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well by saintbleeding @saintbleeding
To quote the aurthour: "Post-divorce Jon and Martin in a wedding-based romcom" It's such a comfort read, also has a Tim/Sasha wedding, and lots of cameos! I realised most of these authors I made fanarts for before- like this one for some kind of miraculous bind, this one is oneshot and a bit more serious in tone.
Give Me the Words by rakel @rakel-on-ao3
"Jon and Martin try to make the most of a bad situation in the Scottish Highlands. The situation is worse than they realised." You know that one post about wanting to write PWP, but it keeps turning into character study? Well, this one comes to my mind each time I see that.
i wanna find a home (i wanna share it with you) by heartshapedguy @transgenderboobs
So what would have happened if instead of the cot (tm), Jon offered Martin his own flat to stay? There is no way it's going to change their relationship, right? Such a good read, if you want some fluff, I highly recommend it!
Lucky Stars by magnetarmadda @magnetarmadda
Martin has a lovely family (except his mother) but still, he needs a fake boyfriend, and Jon comes to the rescue. It's one of the first fics I remember reading after I finished the series. It is such a comfort read of mine~
(+enjoy a rare tall Jon from me)
There are so many more fics that also deserve the spotlight, these are just the ones I read multiple times and/or didn't made fanarts for before. If you find something here you like, give them some love! Kudos and comments! They deserve it. (Also, just an extra disclamier some of these are PWP or rated T- just mind the tags)
I tried to link and tag everything, I hope it works.
#occudo's art#tma fanart#jonathan sims#martin blackwood#fic rec#so many fic!#thanks for every author who made all of these#and sorry if I forgot to include someone#I tried my best#but sometimes my goldfish memory wins#anyway#good reading!#if you find something here you like give them some love#comments and kudos#long post
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In Defense of Shitty Queer Art
Queer art has a long history of being censored and sidelined. In 1895, Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray was used as evidence in the author’s sodomy trials. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the American Hays Code prohibited depictions of queerness in film, defining it as “sex perversion.” In 2020, the book Steven Universe: End of an Era by Chris McDonnell confirmed that Rebecca Sugar’s insistence on including a sapphic wedding in the show is what triggered its cancellation by Cartoon Network. According to the American Library Association, of the top ten most challenged books in 2023, seven were targeted for their queer content. Across time, place, and medium, queer art has been ruthlessly targeted by censors and protesters, and at times it seems there might be no end in sight.
So why, then, are queer spaces so viciously critical of queer art?
Name any piece of moderately-well-known queer media, and you can find immense, vitriolic discourse surrounding it. Audiences debate whether queer media is good representation, bad representation, or whether it’s otherwise too problematic to engage with. Artists are picked apart under a microscope to make sure their morals are pure enough and their identities queer enough. Every minor fault—real or perceived—is compiled in discourse dossiers and spread around online. Lines are drawn, and callout posts are made against those who get too close to “problematic art.”
Modern examples abound, such as the TV show Steven Universe, the video game Dream Daddy, or the webcomic Boyfriends, but it’s far from a new phenomenon. In his book Hi Honey, I’m Homo!, queer pop culture analyst Matt Baume writes about an example from the 1970s, where the ABC sitcom titled Soap was protested by homophobes and queer audiences alike—before a single episode of the show ever aired. Audiences didn’t wait to actually watch the show before passing judgment and writing protest letters.
After so many years starved for positive representation, it’s understandable for queer audiences to crave depictions where we’re treated well. It’s exhausting to only ever see the same tired gay tropes and subtext, and queer audiences deserve more. Yet the way to more, better, varied representation is not to insist on perfection. The pursuit of perfection is poison in art, and it’s no different when that art happens to be queer.
When the pool of queer art is so limited, it feels horrible when a piece of queer art doesn’t live up to expectations. Even if the representation is technically good, it’s disappointing to get excited for a queer story only for that story to underwhelm and frustrate you.
But the world needs that disappointing art. It needs mediocre art. It even needs the bad art. The world needs to reach a point where queer artists can fearlessly make a mess, because if queer artists can only strive for perfection, the less art they can make. They may eventually produce a masterpiece, but a single masterpiece is still a drop in the bucket compared to the oceans of censorship. The only way to drown out bigotry and offensive stereotypes created by bigots is to allow queer artists the ability to experiment, learn through making mistakes, and represent their queer truth even if it clashes with someone else’s.
If queer artists aren’t allowed to make garbage, we can never make those masterpieces everyone craves. If queer artists are terrified at all times that their art will be targeted both by bigots and their own queer communities, queer art cannot thrive.
Let queer artists make shitty art. Let allies to queer people try their hand at representation, even if they miss the mark. Let queer art be messy, and let the artists screw up without fear of overblown retribution.
It’s the only way we’ll ever get more queer art.
_
Like this essay? Tip me on Ko-Fi, pledge to my Patreon, or commission an essay on the topic of your choice!
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The Great Trans Girl Exodus Commission Post
Hello once again! To make a long story short: My darling wife and I are trying very hard to be able to move from Texas to Colorado ahead of how bad legislature is getting here. We have savings and a plan but its shaping up to be a very expensive and stressful finding a place to actually move in to. Our lease here is up at the end of June so we're starting to really crack down on trying to find places to apply to. I'm making this post because we would really appreciate some extra funds to add to what we have saved to make this move possible and if its an option: comfortable. We're a pair of trans lesbians trying so very very hard to make a life for ourselves in this country that hates us. Below I've attached some basic pricing and examples of the type of pixel art I do as well as some of my writing as I'm A-Okay writing for other folks if you like my prose or brand of article jank. If you have any questions about anything here please feel free to send me a DM on here and we can talk more about what you want and what I can do for you. Thank you so much if you end up commissioning anything or even if you just share this post. Examples and pricing below the cut:
Y2K Stylized Piece: $50+ (Price can range based on piece complexity desired)
Flat colour piece w. basic detailing: $60+ (Price can range based on number of characters desired and background complexity, basic BG is included in piece)
Detailed/Low-Poly Style piece: $75+ (These ones take the longest due to the by-hand editing needed to ensure the style is cohesive or detailing is done on the whole piece. Price can range based on complexity desired.)
Pixel Chibi: $20 (Pixel Chibi pricing is locked at $20)
Emote Suite: $35 (Price covers up to 9 custom emotes sized for usage in Discord and other messaging use cases)
Doodle: $25 (A flat simple piece with a simple concept done on a small canvas)
WRITING EXAMPLES:
Fiction: Tactile Sensations, a Sci-Fi short story Article Writing: Bloodborne PXS: One of the best fanworks on the web Writing prices start at $30 and can fluctuate upwards based on piece length. Thank you so much for checking out my work and/or sharing it. We're trying to start a new life for ourselves in a safer place, and we really do appreciate any help. Thank you!
#my stuff#pixel art#my art#digital art#art#commissions#trans#mutual aid#moving help#commission post#commissions open
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there is only one sentence you need to know as a manifestor:
the 3D/physical world isn’t real. only the mind is.
disclaimers:
this is slightly rant-y though i don’t attack you, i uplift you
excuse any grammar errors!
credit to all the artists whose art was used!
let’s get into it.
you do not exist/live in the 3D, you simply perceive your own mind and assumptions in three dimensions. the 3D is an illusion. it isn’t real. the phone you’re reading this on, your surroundings, me writing this post, “other” people, they’re not real.
this will literally answer all the questions you have about LOA. examples include:
“what if what i’m doing won’t make anything manifest in the 3D?” then boo-fucking-hoo? it wouldn’t even matter because that’s not where you live. you’re 4-dimensional. if it’s happened in the 4D, it’s fucking happened! put it in your success story list. rejoice now that it’s happened. because it has! the 3D is NOT real, the 4D is so you should be checking the 4D! think about this question: “what if it doesn’t manifest in the 2D (a world of only length and width)?” i bet you’re like “womp womp? the fuck would that have to do with me? it’s not real and i don’t live there!” give that SAME energy to the 3D. you live in the 4D.
“where is it in the 3D?” why do you care? it’s not where you live. CONSCIOUSNESS is the only reality. you heard me. you shouldn’t give a fuck about whether it will manifest in the 3D or not because the 3D doesn’t determine reality, YOU do. why do you want confirmation from an illusion when you can have confirmation from what’s actually real (the mind)?
“but if i stop caring about whether it’ll manifest in the 3D or not, it might not manifest in the 3D!” first of all, womp womp then? you don’t live in the 3D. second of all, that’s literally impossible unless you directly/intentionally assume that it’s the case. the 3D literally EXISTS as a reflection/limited perception of the mind. it’s LAW that it will come. and the last time i checked, “i don’t care whether it comes or not” and “it won’t come” are different statements. but what i just find so hilarious about this one specific doubt is that you’ve literally just PROVEN your THOUGHTS create the 3D.
“i can’t manifest abc! it goes against the laws of physics/circumstances etc” lemme just get this straight. the MIND is the only reality yet you are lying and saying it has limits based off of 3D “law”? and the 3D is not real meaning the “laws” of the 3D aren’t either? the 3D doesn’t and will never be able to tell the mind what to do. that being said, you can manifest pissing a million bucks, teleporting into a villa in italy or becoming wanda fucking maximoff and developing superpowers. you can manifest hulk hogan flying across the pacific to your door and proposing to you, hell, you can even manifest BECOMING hulk hogan. you can manifest your SPs buying you three million bentleys then making out with you in each of them. you can manifest going back in time. you. can. manifest. ANYTHING. you. can. manifest. anything. you. can. imagine. you’re OMNIPOTENT.
this one is very interesting cause it’s a response to doubts! “if i keep doubting, it won’t show up in the 3D!” the reason your doubts persist is because your mind thinks they actually mean shit and are an issue worth addressing. so what if it doesn’t show up in the 3D? it’s already happened.
“but what if im one of the odd ones out? what if i can’t manifest?” despite the fact that it’s scientific law, the rebuttal for this doubt is very simple. you wouldn’t be alive lmao. being alive is a constant act of the 3D reflecting your mind, that’s literally its only purpose. it’s an inanimate, mindless, limited perception of your mind that instantly conforms to your beliefs. you are CONSTANTLY manifesting. what you’re doing is just learning how to control WHAT you manifest. (just to set the record straight. this doesn’t mean you are to blame for your problems since you didn’t consciously choose them).
“the 3D isn’t showing me what i want!” well it isn’t real lmao? why the fuck would that matter?
one of the WORST beliefs you can have as a manifestor is that the goal of manifesting is changing the 3D. i know you (probably) came in thinking that but i want you to shed that belief. the 3D is not real. the goal is to get it in the 4D, where you live. to fully experience something, all you have to do is change your mind as that’s the the only reality. when you accomplish that goal, rejoice and move on.
this is why i very, VERY heavily dislike the statement that “an assumption persisted in will harden into fact”. no, an assumption IS a fact. only regarding something as real when it manifests in the 3D (which isn’t real) is fallacious.
“thoughts create reality” i bet you’ve heard this before in this community but i don’t like this either for this simple reason: thoughts (that you accept) ARE reality.
my biggest piece of advice to you as a manifestor is this: realize that the 3D doesn’t mean shit.
when you DO get your manifestation in the 3D, it’s perfectly fine to be happy but don’t jump up and down saying “it’s finally happened (in reality)!”. NO. it happened in reality ages ago, the 3D just caught up.
i’m gonna link some really sexy posts that will help you understand this better. most of these are scientific.
https://www.reddit.com/r/NevilleGoddard/s/AmlHe5oipA (the post is up, i don’t understand why tumblr won’t embed it)
if you liked this post, leave a like, reblog, engage, follow, let me know if this helped 🫶😭
#law of assumption#manifestation#loassumption#loa tumblr#loa blog#neville goddard#dream life#manifesting
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