#well. there goes my plan for finishing my project by 6 lmao

[simonnebethel]

Writeblr Introduction

Just learned what a writeblr intro is so I'm gonna make one before I go to bed lol

I've already done something like this a few days ago but that was when I had no clue what I was doing lmao, so might as well make a more in depth one

About me:

20, she/her, bi

American

I write mostly fantasy and urban fantasy, and honestly i dont think i've ever written a story that was non-fantasy lol

Started writing when I was 10, but it was mostly Warrior Cats fanfiction on Wattpad lol. I went through a writing slump for most of highschool but last year I decided to get back into it since I'm not doing anything else lol

I like to read fantasy and classic lit, also anything with vampires. I also have a soft spot for slowburn romances where the main characters dont kiss until, like, the 4th book heehee

In love with anything gothic, vampire, and wlw 👩‍❤‍💋‍��

I think one of my more niche interests is any early 2000s fantasy/sci-fi movie with a nu-metal/rock/alternative soundtrack like Queen of the Damned and The Crow. They are just...*chefs kiss*

My current stories:

A Chant for Blood (Formerly known as Account of Calamity)

Account of Calamity is a gothic victorian fantasy about a Grand Marshal, Karliah Helisende, and a blood-drinking fiend, Yorick Gwynplaine, who work together to investigate the mysterious portals that spawn dangerous creatures into the city of Isarnan, all the while Karliah is being haunted by the mysterious ancient temple that watches over her every move.

I'm currently working on the second draft, and I may start looking for beta readers once I'm finished, although I know I'm not far from finished with this novel. I also plan to make it a 4 or 5 book series, and slowly add a slowburn romance.

12/30/24 - Second draft has been finished!!

Looking for beta readers! Look here!

Our Demonic Hearts - The Craven Pact Series #1

Our Demonic Hearts is a urban fantasy about a cambion woman, Ana Kravens, haunted by her past. Taking place in a small Mississippi town, a man she went through a traumatic incident with, Beau Motloe, shows up on her doorstep one day with a deal; help him find his missing mother, and he'll give back the memories she lost during the traumatic incident. Her father, a demonic creature of unknown origin, wants nothing more than the Motloes dead, claiming that they were the very reason his daughter was almost killed 6 years ago. Ana goes against her father's wishes and accepts Beau's deal, suspecting that her father isn't telling the whole truth about that fatal night.

It is completed and available on Wattpad and Royal Road!! It was just a small project I had done for Nanowrimo, and has been edited at least once before being published. However, I plan to make it a trilogy and maybe have some spin-offs. This story is fairly new, but most of the characters are at least 5 years old and I love them very much <3

What I plan for 2024:

Finish the second draft of A Chant for Blood and look for beta readers(In the beta reader phase!) ✅

Start the second novel of The Craven Pact Series(Outline complete)

Write a short story/novella or two taking place within the A Chant for Blood universe. My brain is currently exploding with ideas rn ✅

Write a short story about Ana Kraven's mom and how she met Marchosias, Ana's father.

Plan something for Nano?? Idk where I'll be in November lol (Finish a project I started in february, which is To Hear a Lovebird!)

I'm interested in following other writers and reading everybody's stories! I would also be interested in a beta read/beta swap ^^

Other sites I'm on:

Wattpad: LillithOfBees

Royal Road: SimonneBethel

18+ Writing discord!!!

[elizmanderson]

Hi again. You made a few posts about first drafts being ridiculous and cleaning them up later. And I desperately need more writers talking about the writing process as they are writing it (like 'making of' posts/ videos, any creator who does those gets me obsessed with them)

Anywho, I was wondering how your revision process looks? How different is your first draft from your last and how did you make the decisions of what to cut vs what to expand on?

I know for myself, my MC is a constant-overthinker and all of faer POV is stream-of-consciousness, and fae goes on a LOT of unnecessary but characterizing tangents that I don't know how to work with, given the corner I wrote myself into.

TLDR - Any info about your revision process would be much appreciated.

Thanks :)

hello and thanks for asking!

first of all, in case anyone is curious about the original post, it's here. also, there are many ridiculous things in this draft of NettieWIP, but that post was brought to you specifically by this line that I wrote even though it's completely tonally wrong for both this book and this character lmao

okay, revisions. this is gonna get long, but I'm breaking it up into sections that will hopefully be helpful.

general process

so the first thing is, my revision process and how much I cut or add is different for every project. but here are some general principles I follow. keep in mind that ymmv with any and all of these! you have to find what works for you. this is just what works for me.

1. finish the draft first

I will never finish a draft if I'm focused on editing while I go. I've been hardcore resisting with NettieWIP because I keep having ideas about how to make it better mid-draft. but I know if I don't finish the draft as-is, it's not going to get done.

2. let it breathe before diving in

sometimes I have the urge to rush right into revisions after finishing a draft, but I do force myself to wait at least a month or two before returning to it. it gives me the emotional distance I need to be able to make decisions about what to cut, no matter how much I like things that don't serve the story.

(again going to have to fight this urge hard with NettieWIP in particular lol)

3. read it before diving in

the one thing that stays consistent from project to project is that I always do a full readthrough before I start revising. highly, highly recommend this regardless of what else works for you! reading through my entire manuscript gives me a big-picture view of the whole story and how all the parts work together (or not), as well as what the problems are.

note: when I do my readthrough, while I do make general notes of my thoughts, I do NOT focus on line-level details or edits. which brings us to...

4. fix big things first

okay jk actually this stays consistent from project to project, too. when approaching revisions, I always start with the biggest changes and work my way down. line edits are the last thing I do, because I figure it wastes my time and energy otherwise. what if I put all this energy into line edits or scene-level changes only to cut half those lines or scenes later when I make structural changes?

5. this is the time to plan!

I'm a plantser, which is somewhere halfway between a plotter and a pantser. while the amount of planning I do before a first draft varies, I always dedicate time to planning before revising. the exact process varies, but it's kinda like this.

read the entire manuscript, making note of plot holes and problem areas

brainstorm potential fixes and where they might fit in

write an outline, synopsis, chapter map, whatever (for me it's usually either a synopsis or chapter map because I simply cannot with outlines)

6. start rewriting

...and as discussed in a different post earlier, I always start the new draft in a new document! you never know when something from an earlier draft could come in handy.

7. use beta readers

I typically do a second draft on my own, because I typically have at least some idea of what needs fixing when I'm done with a first draft. I bring beta readers in once I hit the point where the story's cohesive but I know more work needs to be done, but I'm not sure what that work is.

you specifically asked how I decide what to cut vs. what to expand on, and beta readers are one important way—especially for what to expand on. while I have a habit of overexplaining in many areas, things in my head frequently fail to make it onto the page.

(I think this is because things are obvious to me bc I thought them up. but readers cannot see inside my head, so they may be confused or think a character or plot point is underdeveloped even though I have a lot more information about it mapped out internally.)

if readers feel like information is unnecessary or overexplained or like I'm patronizing them, that's a potential area for cutting. if readers are confused, lack insight, or feel like a reveal came out of nowhere, that's a potential area for expanding. that said...

parsing beta feedback

while outside feedback is important, it's at least equally important to be able to decide what feedback to listen to and what feedback to ignore! not all feedback is good feedback. and even feedback that's technically good may not be good feedback for your story.

for example, I had feedback on the manuscript that's now on sub that was drastically different than the rest of the feedback I received on that same manuscript. I love the beta who gave it to me and I respect their opinion a lot, so I took this feedback seriously. but I couldn't make it work, felt deeply frustrated, and spiraled a bit over my ability to write a book even though it was far from my first.

then I got into Author Mentor Match which I applied to mostly because I need some guidance re: this feedback. my mentor basically said, "I think this is good feedback, but I think it would change this book into a pacier, more action-packed book. and I don't think that's the kind of story you're trying to tell."

and my mentor was right! I think this friend and I are simply interested in different kinds of stories. so as much as they love my stories and as great as they are at giving feedback, their feedback may not be a good fit for me.

usually, I like to look at patterns of feedback.* the more readers agree that a plot point is weak or a reveal doesn't have enough build-up, the more likely it is that I really do need to worry about that.

BUT if a single reader's feedback makes me go oh and I really vibe with it, that's also good feedback to listen to! as long as you know what the heart of your story is, you can follow feedback that helps your story do more of what you want it to do and do it more effectively.

*in my experience, patterns are most helpful when your readers share aspects of your identity. for example, I'm neurodivergent and queer. when most of my readers were neurotypical and straight, I'd get told "this doesn't make sense" "no one thinks/feels like that" "this is unrealistic." and I'd be told that by multiple readers, so I'd decide that meant I had to change the story, even though something deep down told me I was wrong about that, that my betas were wrong about that.

now, most of my readers are neurodivergent and/or queer, so they understand when my characters do or think or feel certain things. and at the very least, they never tell me a character is being "unrealistic" or assume that characters' feelings aren't based on things I have really felt. so particularly for marginalized creators, patterns of feedback may NOT be helpful if your readers do not share your marginalization.

examples of changes to my drafts

cutting and combining

The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher was drafted over a year and a half as part of a last man standing-style writing challenge, so the first draft was 160,000 words. it was pretty obvious I'd have to cut SOMETHING, since I was planning on querying agents.

(recommended for adult fantasy if you're seeking trad pub as a debut author: 120k max word count. better to be lower if you're writing contemporary fantasy, while you can be on the high end if you're writing epic fantasy. other subgenres may fall in between.)

I cut...a lot, in some cases through actually cutting while in other cases combining things. for example, there's a scene now where a dragon attacks Detroit while Our Heroes are delayed there. It used to be separate scenes: Edna & Co. delayed in Detroit, with not much happening except the reason for the delay, and a later scene where they came across a random dragon attack elsewhere. additionally, the secondary antagonist runs around with an old friend who used to be two separate characters: the character he is now, and another old friend of theirs who was just sort of a generic asshole who didn't serve much purpose in the story.

thanks to cutting and combining scenes and characters this way, the story moves along faster, the stakes involved in those scenes and characters are higher, and everything is more tightly tied together. when I finally queried, Remarkable Retirement was down to just 98,000 words (published at 99,000 words).

similarly, in the book now on sub (Buried Things aka GroundskeeperWIP), I cut most of a short chapter from the antagonist's POV. I tried it as a prologue but didn't like that I don't do prologues in general although I know some folks love them, then tried moving it later but didn't like that either, and finally ended up just using bits of it that I felt were particularly useful in a chapter focused on a different character. I also cut a chapter from the POV of a friendly ghost/wingman from beyond the grave (but have it saved in case a future editor's like "you know what we need—")

worth noting that Buried Things wasn't massively overwritten. I think the longest draft was 104k or 106k, while it's on sub at about 90k (and the entirety of the last 4,000 words I cut from it was through line edits, not plot changes). however, both chapters stalled the story without adding much. what they did add, I was able to incorporate into other chapters instead.

expanding

while Remarkable Retirement's need for cuts was more obvious, some things were also expanded upon, especially with my publisher! my editor felt that the romantic subplot needed a little more build-up—not in terms of what happens or how it happens, but in terms of making it clearer why these two people start to have those feelings. similarly, a friend who read Buried Things thought it was great overall but that a particular character wasn't fleshed out enough.

in both cases, I think it was that instance of "things in my head do not always make it onto the page." when my friend had questions about the character in Buried Things, I had answers; those answers just weren't on the page. same thing with the romantic subplot in Remarkable Retirement. so it was a matter of taking what was in my head and making sure it actually came across on the page, although in other cases I may realize I don't already know that stuff and need to brainstorm to develop it more.

both together

in the case of NettieWIP, even though I'm not done drafting yet, I already know some stuff I'll need to cut and expand on! I find I'm repeating myself a lot in this draft, plus it's very dialogue heavy. so I'll need to cut back on some themes and emotions I keep bringing up, as well as trim down the dialogue and let the murder investigation not be entirely conversation.

conversely, there's virtually no setting description or atmosphere, so those are things I'll want to expand on in revisions.

tl;dr: in conclusion

okay this got really long because if you get me talking about writing it is impossible to shut me up, but here are the major takeaways for everyone playing along at home:

my general process: (1) finish the draft; (2) let the draft breathe; (3) read the entire draft; (4) focus on big-picture changes first; (5) plan your revision/rewrite; (6) rewrite/revise; (7) use beta readers

knowing the heart of your story helps you figure out what to cut, what to keep, and what to expand on

knowing the heart of your story helps you figure out what feedback might be useful and what feedback might not be right for this book

it can also helpful to look for patterns of feedback, but this is mostly helpful when your beta readers share your identity, particularly if you are a marginalized creator

thanks so much for giving me an excuse to drone on and on about writing your question!

[tendercoretroglodyke]

kind of annoying how ppl on here are just SO eager to advocate for the outright culling of all introduced (aka "invasive") species and act like anyone who is concerned for the welfare of the introduced species are painfully naive and/or PETA members (I usually see this regarding feral/outdoor cats, but w other species too)

tl;dr there's SO much more nuance when it comes to introduced animal control methods than simply a TNR/culling dichotomy, and some of you NEED to learn that reading some reactionary rants against animal rights activists doesn't make you an expert conservationist!!

Source: I'm an animal behavior & conservation master's student who recently took a class on human-wildlife conflict and wrote an 18 page term paper reviewing the massive invasive species problem in Australia, all the control methods, and the various perspectives regarding those control methods--which earned me an "It was a pleasure having you in class!" from my professor 😌

strap in lmao this is a crash course in my term paper

the longer these people rant about it the more blatantly obvious it becomes that they're just jumping to the opposite extreme from animal rights activists bc they think that makes them good environmentalists or makes them seem smart. like I GET the appeal, ofc it would be NICE to have a simple answer to managing introduced species by telling yourself "the health of the ecosystem comes before the welfare of the dirty rotten invasive species, so let's just kill them all"

but like. first of all it's almost DEFINITELY a more complicated situation than 'introduced species overpopulates and eats and/or outcompetes the native species and causes them to go extinct' (there are MULTIPLE forces at work here). second, culling is NOT always the effective cure-all you think it is!!! for ex/ culling of cane toads in australia ends up just.... making room in the ecosystem for more cane toads!! ALSO! encouraging people to go out and kill every "invasive" animal they find can often lead to NATIVE wildlife being killed accidentally, AND killing methods that are extremely painful and drawn out!

then there's the issue of animal welfare, which yes, introduced species ARE entitled to. the terminology around the discussion of how to "combat" the tides of "invasive" species only encourages us to see this situation as a war with an enemy hell-bent on destroying our ecosystem. but that's bullshit. they're literally JUST animals, which have been displaced by HUMANS, and for some reason their population ended up thriving in this new place. they aren't evil, and they DO deserve some compassion.

that said, obviously control measures often need to be taken against introduced species when they become a significant problem for the endemic species, and often TNR isn't an effective or practical method on its own. but TNR and culling aren't the ONLY control options--there are actually several control methods, each with its own levels of efficacy and welfare, each of which differs depending on the specific species and environment. these include methods like immunocontraception (high welfare, moderate efficacy), releasing species-specific viruses (extremely effective in australian rabbits, but VERY poor welfare), or hunting & trapping--for actual USE, unlike with culling (moderate-high efficacy, relatively moderate welfare if done properly)

then there's the question of whether introduced populations SHOULD be controlled, and if so, how much, and should they be completely wiped out just kept at a manageable population, etc etc etc. the concept of battling invasive species is VERY much a western preservationist (earlier trend in conservation) concept. this idea that the ecosystem would run in perfect stable harmony if not for humans (and the species we introduce around the world), and it's our moral obligation to keep the ecosystems around us EXACTLY as they were when we found them... as much as possible. but that's simply not true!! yes obviously humans have had a... significant impact on the environment and its animals. it's hard to overstate this point! but that doesn't mean that we are supposed to play impartial gods over our local ecosystems and make sure things stay exactly the same.

the fact is, many indigenous cultures DON'T view introduced species as a significant problem, barring more extreme circumstances. in my research I found surveys of aboriginal australian opinions on invasive control measures and many had said they DON'T see them as invasive, because they grew up on this land and therefore have a right to be there, just like any of them. indigenous cultures, to my knowledge, also tend to have a stewardship over their land not based in CONTROL (like western conservationists) but as an equal PART of a functioning ecosystem. rather than trying to "fix" the ecosystem like a benevolent god, they are a PART of the ecosystem and they adapt to the changing balance of it just like all the other creatures must.

that said, when they DID believe it was time to take some control measures, those surveyed were much more likely to prefer control methods like hunting for use over things like poisoning or culling, calling those methods a waste of a natural resource.

anyways. I've spent way too long on this instead of doing my project lol. I gtg but please know you don't HAVE to advocate for culling invasive species to get ur conservationist cred!! there's a lot of nuance in these situations and it's not a bad thing to care about the wellbeing of ALL animals--it's actually a good thing!!

[walker-lister]

Fic writer review

Tagged by @picnokinesis thank you Taka! 

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

Twelve! (I’ll have to write another to make it 13 lol!)

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count?

665,232

3. How many fandoms have you written for?

Just the one that I’ve posted online- Doctor Who, and specifically Thirteen! 

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

1. Rising Tides (270)- I’m incredibly touched this has the most kudos as this was the first that I put a lot of effort into, I had with my previous works but this one was longer and covered complex themes, so it’s very touching! 

2. Timeless (214)- This is the first fic I wrote! I remember doing it right after the series 12 finale as I was so compelled by the ending! I’m very pleased it’s been appreciated, a very kind way to be welcomed into the writing community!

3. On Hallowed Ground (127)- This one I also find so touching and I’m so pleased this many people enjoyed it as I became consumed by this and wrote it over 6 days so to know so many others also enjoyed something that quite literally consumed me and basically wrote itself is just fantastic! 

4. Ipseity (123)- I have a soft spot for this one, too, my first longer (ish) fic that I planned out and I’m really pleased people enjoyed it! I think it all started because I wanted to see 13 in a leather jacket and was very intrigued by the prospect of her having past lives she didn’t know about! 

5. Heaven Sent (110)- Ahh, I’m so happy this has made it to this list! I’m writing the final two chapters now and it’s been a passion project, my whole heart’s gone into it so to know this many have enjoyed thus far and we’ve still got a while to go (just coming up to halfway!) is really... ahh, I’m chuffed! 

5. Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

Absolutely, they’re so precious to writers and I really appreciate people taking the time to leave one! Also, it’s nice to chat with your readers and it’s how I’ve made many friends! 

6. A fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Hmmm I had to think about this for a while, I don’t really think I’ve got any with an angsty ending, I think bittersweet might be the closest, in which case I’ll say ‘On Hallowed Ground’ as it’s angsty with the circumstances but also hopeful at the end.

7. Do you write crossovers?

No, although sometimes my mind wanders over doing a Doctor Who/Merlin crossover fic, all for the bants of seeing those characters interact (Graham and Gauis immediate besties), but I don’t think I’ll ever write it!

8. Ever received hate on a fic?

I have not, which is nice! 

9. Do you write smut?

hahaha nope! I do include sexual themes in my work, but do that annoying thing where it cuts away before they get to the actual smut bit! I just can’t do it, it’d be terrible, although I know someone who wants me to ( @ivyinspace 😉)

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Wait that happens? 

11. Ever had a fic translated?

Nope but if anyone wants to please don’t hesitate to get in touch!

12. Have you ever co-written a fic?

I have not, although had talks about it!

13. All time fav ship?

All time?! Gotta be the Titanic. Lmao no I’d say Thasmin, although I am partial to some Thoscei 

14. WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I’ll be honest, I don’t think I’ll ever finish Cosmic Fireworks. I wish I’d left it as a one shot tbh but I don’t want to delete the second chapter off ao3. But I can’t see myself finishing it, I wasn’t into it as much as I am normally with my fics, but we’ll see, who knows, perhaps one day I’ll wake up with the inclination! 

15. Writing strengths?

*mind goes blank* 

ermm... I think I’m quite good at taking complex themes and exploring them well- I find that the pieces come together easily in my mind and (provided I write it all out and plan first) it’s like I can lay out a problem and carefully craft the solution. I suppose that might make me good at characterisation? I also think that I’m good at setting the scene and describing places maybe.  

16. Writing weaknesses?

I write way too much, I need to be more concise. Also I think I have a habit of needing my characters to show they’re good people, and that means sometimes my own voice carries over into theirs, and perhaps I could be better at exploring the complexities of characters, if that makes sense (something that goes beyond characterisation is what I mean, like maybe I’m making the point too hard sometimes). I also think that sometimes I need to chill- there doesn’t have to be a big point to scenes sometimes, no great narrative or thing to take away, sometimes it’s just the pleasure of reading something that’s important, even if it’s silly. 

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I wish I could speak another language, but alas I cannot, otherwise I would, but I would then put translation. 

18. First fandom you wrote for?

It was actually Merlin, I never published it online but it was when I was about 13/14 and first discovered fanfic and was a huge fan of Merlin I thought, ‘that sounds fun let’s do it’! I was already writing little silly stories anyway so it was like a whole new concept which also felt familiar, although they were awful so I’m glad they never went online! 

19. What’s your fav fic you’ve written so far?

Agh idk! In terms of a story I think is good quality and engaging, I’d say ‘On Hallowed Ground’ as it’s concise, the plot and emotions mix well, I think, and overall I’m really proud of it. But in terms of my favourite one to write, I’m not sure if I can pick one. I enjoy writing them all, although tbh with some there are chapters I just have to grit my teeth through to write (by my own fault because I make things way too complicated!), but enjoyment is what it’s about! But maybe I’d single out my aus because they’re more my own invention that the others, in particular Heaven Sent- so that and Rising Tides, final answer! (see, this is what I mean, I write too much jfc...)

This is open to anyone who wants to do it!! 😊

[setsureadsshit]

Lost At Sea: A List of WIP’s I am finally letting go of [ Part 5 ]

[ Part 1 ] [ Post 2 ] [ Post 3 ] [ Post 4 ]

*see posts 1-4*

I’ve had this sitting in my drafts for.....probably half a year now, it was a project I took up at the start of the Covid and then I, like the rest of the world, sort of lost interest in everything for a little while. And then I threw myself into projects I could do around the house and hanging out with my housemates and slowly mourning our lost year. So, here’s THE LIST. And uh. Yeah.

The Soldier In The House Of Birds by Bonnie131313

Summary: A young acolyte finds himself paired with a young soldier

Last Update: 2018

Fandom & Main Pairing: Person Of Interest ; Rinch

Personal Notes: I really wanted to like this fic, I really wanted to but just...something about the style of the writing just doesn’t grab me. But like, I KNOW it’s really good, I can tell it’s well thought out even if it’s not finished but I just can’t...get into it and I’m letting it go.

Sucker For The Classics by nisolex

Summary: Scott was such a bad friend. Stiles only agreed to go on this stupid "pack bonding" trip so he and Scott could spend some time togehter. And what does Scott do? He invites Allison: and he gives her Stiles' seat in the car. Now Stiles is stuck in the Camaro for a 6 hour car ride with Derek Hale. This is gonna be a long week.

**With the show coming to an end, I wanted to write a Sterek fic to take us back to the beginning. This is an ode to the classic Teen Wolf fanfics. It will feature tropes as old as time, and is set sometime around season 3. If nothing else, get ready for some nostalgia, angst, and eventual sexy times.

Last Update: 2018

Fandom & Main Pairing: Teen Wolf ; Sterek

Personal Notes: Ah man, this fic is so good and tbh it leaves off at a moderately satisfying spot so still worth a read.

Where the lost get found by Ninjanervana

Summary:  The Nogitsune took a lot of things from Stiles: Allison, his peace of mind, his consent, his sanity, even his Spark. Maybe it’s time for Stiles to start taking things back.

Last Update: 2019

Fandom & Main Pairing: Teen Wolf ; Sterek

Personal Notes: I’d hold onto this - if all 7 chapters hadn’t all been posted at the same time and there hasn’t been so much as a peep since. Which is sad because it’s REALLY good but I have a harder time holding onto things that don’t have an update track record I can fall back on you know?

Can’t Hide From The Moonlight by Flarrow

Summary: The semi-unintended sequel to Might As Well Be the Sun, by reader request. One take, a potential telling of part of their married life together.

Last Update: 2016

Fandom & Main Pairing: The Flash ; Flarrow

Personal Notes: I just recently reblogged the first part of this series because I didn’t realize I hadn’t until I checked this, lol. The first one is really good, you should read it! A bummer this second part has kind fallen to the wayside but you know how it goes.

carpe diem by imadoki

Summary: The trials and tribulations that one Tsukishima Kei faces in the events leading up to spring graduation.(aka they're all third years and Tsukishima just wants to give Hinata his second gakuran button but there's a whole bunch of feelings in the way)

Last Update: 2015

Fandom & Main Pairing: Haikyuu!! ; Tsukihina

Personal Notes: I really love this idiot pairing. There...aren’t really any Hinata pairings I don’t like, he’s just so shippable, lmao. It’s a bummer that this one didn’t really get off the ground, it’s always so interesting seeing this pairing from Tsuki’s side of things.

Condo In The Woods by Strangeredlantern

Summary:  Scott gets here in four weeks, hopefully bringing some supernatural answers with him. That leaves Stiles four weeks to figure out Isaac. Why he’s here in Bear Valley, why he’s a werewolf, and why his eyes changed from blue to gold and back again not fifteen hours ago over Camden Lahey’s dog tags.

Last Update: 2014

Fandom & Main Pairing: Teen Wolf ; Stisaac

Personal Notes: I HAVE HELD ONTO THIS FIC. FOR SO FUCKING LONG. IF YOU CAN’T TELL. I REALLY FUCKING LOVE IT, I HAVE HOPED AND HOPED AND HOPED FOR SO LONG AND I AM SO GUTTED TO FINALLY BE GIVING UP ON IT. I LOVED IT. I STILL LOVE IT. STRANGEREDLANTERN, IF YOU’RE OUT THERE, IF YOU SEE THIS, KNOW THAT THERE IS ONE PERSON ON THIS EARTH WHO LOVED YOUR STORY. WHO STILL LOVES YOUR STORY. WHO HOPES YOU’RE HAVING A GOOD LIFE AND STILL WRITING SOMEWHERE.

Dead To Rights by askanasshole

Summary: Stiles is picky when he chooses his jobs. Can't hurt anyone, can't end the world, can't end with him a different species or trapped in an alternate dimension. Can't be face to face. Simple. Easy. Necessary. 

Of course his entire life goes to shit when he's forced into a face to face with a werewolf pack stupid enough to get their Second's heart stolen by a witch. Now if their Alpha would stop being so stupidly hot and he could get this job over with, that'd be great.

Last Update: 2015

Fandom & Main Pairing: Teen Wolf ; Sterek

Personal Notes: I really enjoyed this, it was such a wildly different take on things, I was really interested to see where it was gonna go. Sad to be finally throwing in the towel on it.

Destiny Knows Best by TaliskerMortem

Summary: It was supposed to be just an ordinary one-night stand. A quick tumble in the sheets and then good-bye. Derek’s wolf however, had other plans.

OR: The one in which Derek and Stiles do the do and a certain part of Derek’s wolfish anatomy decides they should be bonded for life.

Last Update: 2018

Fandom & Main Pairing: Teen Wolf ; Sterek

Personal Notes: Again, the start was pretty promising and it kinda leaves off in a satisfactory way even unfinished but I’m not interested in it enough to keep holding on it.

Dirty Dealing by lookslikenico, winglesswarrior

Summary:  Stiles had a plan for his final summer before college. He was going to intern at the Sheriff's station, get ahead on the plans for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, his dad had some hazy idea of him having 'one last summer' as a lazy teenager. Now, he's stuck cooling his heels and feeling very out of place at some stuck up country club, where he feel he has more in common with the staff than the other members. Of course, that could be because the staff include his new 'how have we never met before' best friend Scott and the 'it should be physically impossible for someone to be that perfect' new crush, Derek. Who apparently hates him - but not enough that he won't swallow his pride and put up with Stiles' presence when he's needed to help get Erica out of trouble...

Last Update: 2016

Fandom & Main Pairing: Teen Wolf ; Sterek

Personal Notes: I honestly don’t remember anything about this fic. So. Enter at your own risk.

[cavernsofdarkness]

I'll ask all the rest of the questions for the story asks lmao

The remainder of the questions from this post for ‘Edgerunners’ (pt. 1 here) and for some questions just my general thoughts/approach.

Buckle up! Answers below the cut.

2. Describe your story in three words or less

   COD’s cyberpunk dreams

5. How do you choose your characters’ names?

   This goes for all of my characters: I start by looking to their ethnicity/culture and background for context and within those bounds search for names that I like the look and sound of and feel fits the vibe/personality/looks of the character when I say it/see it written. Very rarely do I use names as a literary device. In the cases that I do, I look for a name (still fitting the above criteria) that I feel adds something or reveals something about the character’s personality/attitude. 

   For Ex: D34dL0CK. This is her hacker name/street alias. I mentioned in this post that her given name is Alexandria Gray (and how she feels about it). No one calls D34dL0CK ‘Alexandria’, if you’re close enough to her you can get away with calling her ‘Alex’. The name Alexandria serves as a character foil; it was a name her parents-- people who D34dL0CK sees as ‘uptight’ ‘history buffs’-- gave her and her disdain for it tells you something about her character whilst implying that she is not those things and begrudges those things. 

6. How long have you been working on your story for?

   The first ever Edgerunners post was in 2019. I can’t really say I’ve been “working” on it since then, because I jump between my characters and stories so often, that I’ll not touch something for a year and then come back to it. 

8. What about your story are you proud of?

   I suppose (considering everyone’s responses) being able to believably convey the cyberpunk aesthetic in TS3.

9. What about your story are you looking to improve on?

   This doesn’t just go for Edgerunners, but in general I am always looking to improve my sims, sets/shots/editing and my writing. Soooo...everything?

10. Is your story fully planned or are you still working things out? Is there a definitive end?

   Not exactly? I have all of the major plot points/scenes that I want to show listed, but other than that I do all of the writing/set design etc. as I get to it. 

   There is a definite end to this main “storyline” that I’ve presented, but I plan to continue doing things (like what I do for the rest of my characters) in this universe well after. 

11. Why have you decided to tell this story? Are there any messages or meanings within it?

   No esoteric/transcendental reasonings here: I got obsessed with the cyberpunk aesthetic. Whenever I become taken with something it inevitably becomes a sims project. This story is what I saw in my head. 

  Cyberpunk as a genre is chock-full of commentary on capitalism, technology and society at large. Did I personally aim to add any messages/meaning? No.

12. Do you actually play the game or do you just use it as a storytelling medium?

   Ha! Absolutely not. I would occasionally start a gameplay save, but from the jump the sims has always been an art medium for me. 

13. From basic planning to a finished post, how long does that take you?

   I actually have a post talking about this more generally in terms of my editing process, here. 

    The larger questions are: is the set built yet? and have I written the story part yet? 

 If the answer is yes: I can take pictures, edit and have it up all within a day’s time if I felt so inclined, but I usually do it over the span of 1-3 days.

 If the answer is no: sometimes days, sometimes weeks. 

   14. Do you have any regrets about your story so far? If you could go back in time, how would you fix these?

   Eh, I can always look at a post and not be satisfied with it. The fact that I posted it means that I was done with it and will not be going back to fix it. 

17. What about the process do you hate?

   I have a love/hate relationship with all of it. Making sims, building, writing. All of it. I continue to do it because, at the end of the day, the love wins out. 

18/19. Choose a song that reminds you of your story/character.

   I don’t have a song for a particular character in Edgerunners (or even the story as a whole) at the moment. However this playlist/compilation in particular I’ve listened to when doing things for the Samurai (and I suppose Hikari by proxy).

21. Choose your least favorite shot so far

   The pictures in this post as a collective. 

22. Choose a favorite character from your story so far.

   It would have to be Hikari. Ohm is a close second. 

23. Choose your least favorite character so far.

   E. It’s definitely E. I like his backstory and how I plan to write him. I don’t like his face. It objectively looks fine, but I hate it and it doesn’t speak to me or interest me and that’s an issue. If my characters don’t look good (good meaning how I want them to, not “objective beauty” good), I don’t care how cool what I’ve written for them is, I lose interest. But I need him for the story. So. Anyone want to volunteer to fix his face? XD 

24. Are there any characters who remind you of yourself?

   Oddly enough, not really. Arguably, when writing, characters inevitably get little pieces of yourself. However, compared to the rest of my characters (with whom I can very clearly point out commonalities), with the Edgerunners crew I don’t really find myself particularly identifying. That being said, they also haven’t gotten the full “fleshed-out” treatment that most of my mains get. 

26. Have other sim stories inspired you? 

   “Stories”? Not really, but in terms of pictures/posts/shots (more generally) in the cyberpunk aesthetic there are a lot of sims 4 creators whose work I like: Junipasims, Toskasimz, Hinikutan, Vertseta and 8-794 to name a few. I wish we had more ts3 creators who dabbled in cyberpunk. 

27. What genres would you describe your story as?

   *laughs in cyberpunk*

28. If you could reproduce your story in another medium (movie, novel, comic, etc.) what would you choose and why?

   MOVIE! Movie. Movie. Movieeeeeee. Everything I do in the sims, every story/all life events for all of my characters, I see in my head as a movie. I see the scenes in my head and then deliver my feeble attempts to translate the movies I see in my head. 

29. What would your story’s rating be? (G, PG, M etc.)

   If we’re using TV ratings it would probably fall under M (mature), but in terms of movie ratings somewhere between NC-17 and R. 

30. If you were leaving simblr and had to choose another creator to continue the story for you, who would you ask?

   I wouldn’t. If I ever decide to stop producing sims content, then that’s it. I will leave my blog up for all to see, but I feel no need to have anyone continue my work. 

31. Drop some random trivia about your story.

   When I first started making the characters and thinking about Edgerunners, I’d initially slated Ohm and Hikari to be love interests. They’re not. 

32. Give a light spoiler

   I sense betrayal on the horizon. 

[katherinewilliams221b]

For A Greater Good Fun Facts and Self Assesment (spoilers)

Long Post

What worked and what didn’t:

I think the overall structure worked pretty well. The most difficult part was, with the plot and subplot already created, scattering all those ideas throughout the text in such a way that at least made some sense. I regret not writing more about Mer Yankelevich, I feel like the crumbs I left on the way were not enough; in my attempt to make it subtle it lacked information about her. The key piece was of course her sister, and I should have introduced her sooner.

MC’s evolution. I feel like Kate’s learnt a lot with this experience (I’m not only referring to the Deathly Hallows or Grindelwald) When it started, she was very discreet and kept a low profile, not knowing what to do really, not taking more risks than necessary. And then she ended poisoned and splinching just to protect a document she thought was important. I hope her evolution is noticeable for the reader.

Worldbuilding. Grabbing HP concepts that were forgotten and full of potential, plus a dash of original ideas from me and blending them with muggle features was my absolute favourite part of the process.

On that note, I dont own these concepts: Durmstrang, Igor Karkarov, Nerida Vulchanova, umbrella flowers, fanged geraniums, billywigs, Appare Vestigium, glow-worms, trick wand, chamaleon ghouls, 

If you’ve read the fic and thought: “everything happened so fast” or got a general odd feeling about the timeline it's because I made a series of  monumental mistakes: setting a chapter limit, telling you about it and then tried to stick to it.  At first the idea sounded nice: this is my first “big” story  with complicated components. I should (and I did) do an outline of what I want to happen in each chapter and stick to it methodically so I don't forget what's happening or lose track of the plot. Well...it kind of backfired. So I wrote the first 3 chapters and at that point I thought “okay everything is going as planned, I’m going to put it out there”, bam, instantly cursed. After that it got ridiculously difficult to make the story that I wanted. Why? I needed chapter space that I convinced myself I couldn’t add. Dumb.

The major consequence of this was the lack of character backgrounds. It started out good, but as I kept writing and publishing I realised that I missed some great opportunities to make amazing ocs. That’s Corentin’s fault in a way: he wasn't going to be a major character, really, just a piece to help Kate a bit. But we all fell in love with him so what was I supposed to do? Also, Sheyi Mawut owns my heart and he got just a bit of spotlight. A shame.

I wish I had written more about them, but I think I wasn’t ready just yet to make it even more complicated.I just wanted to prove I could concoct a mystery plot and now that I know I can manage a fair amount of information I think I can take it a step further and deepen new ocs a little bit more.

I’m thinking about the datura series and I know why I got blocked and tired of writing it; it wasnt going anywhere because I wasnt prepared, and I didn’t do the months of outlines and planning that I did with this one. I’ll come back to the datura story one day, subjecting it to a sever rewrite. The ideas are there, I just need to be organised.

Although the chapter limit was problematic it was also a good exercise of managing space and deciding which things were unnecessary for the story. I dont think there’s any filler chapters, perhaps the last ones, but there is important information there too so... However this sentence  from the blog  wordsandstuff reassured me (and I think I did a good job at that?)

If you set out to write 10 parts and you write a fantastic story in 8, you haven’t failed and it’s not too rushed. Concise writing is an underrated talent. Focus on how effectively you engage the reader, not for how long.

I spent more than year writing this! When I started, I had a lot of ideas, I wrote the last two chapters then the first 3 and I really thought it was going to be that way with the rest of the story... okay... lesson learnt. #humbled

Other thoughts:

I received a couple of comments on ao3 that said that they were pleasantly surprised. Maybe I should change the tags because they are misleading? Clearly this wasnt what people were looking for lol.

One particular comment stood out to me and quoting it said:  “You did not choose the easy way with a fiction with so few characters from the fandom.”  And I’ve been thinking about this since I read it. It didn’t occur to me that there were few mystery fics (maybe I should write more things like that? Maybe throwing some power couple detective work 👀 ) In any case, I’m glad  I contributed with something different to the fandom, and the fact that the Charlie bits are very scarce but people who read it still liked it is really flattering.

I wanted to make sure that all the characters had strengths and flaws, I didnt want to severus-snape them so maybe I overdid it with that bit of introspection kate does at the end...

Also, I did the kiss and fade thing twice to mention sex. I know some people dont like that but since it wasnt the point of the story and I havent done research on how to write sex scenes I didnt include them. I have that on my “to learn” list.

Conclusions:

Writing the whole thing was incredible. It's my first ‘big’ project and its not a great work (there are some things I wish I did better, thats what you get when you are an agatha christie wannabe) and not writing more character backgrounds will haunt me to this day,  but I think it's at least good for a first series and I’m proud of it. I loved spending hours doing research and trying to piece together this puzzle. And of course I’m not an expert and I dont want to sound pretentious (like this is my first story) but if you are planning to write this type of genre I can be another source of tips and tricks for you.

If I read the story after a while and I dont cringe, I would call that a success.

FUN? FACTS!

Bakunawa really belongs to Filippines mythology

Snapdragons have different meanings, one of them being: “grace under pressure or inner strength in trying circumstances”

The entrance to Grindelwald’s room was going to be in the duelling classroom, strangely shaped as a triangle. I had this system where one of the round candle lamps descended and lined up with a line on the floor (serving as separation for duels) it created the Deathly Hallows symbol. I couldn’t make that work because it wouldn't make any sense for Nerida Vulchanova to shape a room like that.  Here are some sketches:

Lucius Malfoy was going to appear as the Ministry employee that goes to Durmstrang, but after revising the events of the OoP I realised it was impossible.

Kent Jorgensen was going to be around Kate’s age and the charms teacher and he would have a small crush on her. After seeing some pics of Pen Medina, I rewrote the character completely.

The series was going to be 6 chapters long (I’m glad I decided not to) one for each month. The chapter names were ridiculous: January of Beginnings, February of reputation, March of Students, April of Discoveries, May I? and June of Endings. #tragic

The Dolohov family was going to be a part of the plot but I had to erase that part because it was unlocking another layer of complexity that I just couldnt handle.

I dont remember exactly the chapter but I got really confused with the names Rhode and Hodges and there’s one chapter where I accidentally mixed them (I corrected it I think), but for a while I could stop calling Rhode, Hodges, and vice versa lmao

Here are some sketches that helped me describe and imagine things

Thank you for accompany me in this journey, especially if you endured the process with me lmao. You’ve been here for over A YEAR! <3 Mindblowing

Also I’d love to know your opinions about the way you read the story, I mean, I know some people read it as I published, and some other readers found the story already finished, what are the differences? Should I stop the updating system and drop a story all at once? I know it is difficult to keep up with a complex story if there’s a lot of weekly or monthly gaps between the chapters, so I wanted to know.

Sending you a virtual hug 💜💜

[zirkkun]

What are your views on UT!Chara? Are they good, neutral, evil (in your opinion) (No need to answer this ask if you do not want to)

hoo boy let me just. you’ve activated a Secret Essay(tm) of mine anon fbdshabl sorry i’ll try to keep it short LMAO

(under a read more just for a) length b) ut spoilers.. even tho im p sure most of you have beaten the game but who knows lol c) uhh Chara’s story is pretty dark so this has mentions of abuse and whatnot so please be aware of that ^^;;)

Morality alignment wise is like. Idk. I’m bad with assigning that half the time because it’s all subjective in a way right oh no my true neutralness surfaces like for example I wouldn’t do something I think is bad right? But someone else might think it’s bad. (Like my 16 yr old self might consider me today a terrible person just bc I like Undertale lol 16 yr old me is rude don’t listen to them) If I were to put them on a kind of DnD like alignment scale though, I think I would probably put them in a lawful neutral kind of alignment, maybe leaning a bit towards lawful evil.

But here’s the thing. Without Chara having any sort of backstory as to why they hate humans? It’s very hard for me to gauge where their motivation lies for the things that they did. Based off of what Asriel tells you when you talk to him in the Ruins, the genocide route, and the bits of narration we have, we can pretty much assume:

- Chara was pretty abusive, this is undeniably a fact even from just watching the videos in the True Lab; and while Asriel recognizes this, he didn’t want to lose them because they were the only one he felt close to. Which is likely part of the abuse they dealt by making him feel alone without them. - Chara hated humanity for reasons they would not disclose to Asriel, but it’s pretty implied that they attempted to commit suicide by jumping into Mt. Ebott. This could mean that they were abused in their past, which could in turn provide reason for their abusive nature (because, with Chara being a child, it’s very likely that they took in the personalities of those around them to make their own person up. Even though they were hurting, they didn’t exactly know why, and even still, many people with an abusive history that end up abusive themselves might not even recognize that they’re being abusive, which might be the case for Chara as well.) - Chara probably cared for Asriel. There’s a lot of things to indicate that they may have faked it or maybe it seems like they didn’t by their abusive nature towards Asriel, but it’s unlikely that Chara would fake caring about someone. If they jumped off the side of a mountain because they hated the people they were around so much, there’s very little reason for them to pretend they liked someone at the potential expense of their own happiness. More likely than not, Chara desperately wanted to keep Asriel close, but ended up being really controlling in an attempt to keep him close. Additionally, when you hug Asriel at the end of the True Pacifist route, the line “Hah... I don’t want to let go...” is said by the narrator, indicating it may have been Chara who said it. But considering how Sans also has lines that are spoken silently and in the default font, this may not be entirely accurate.  - Imma go off for a second about genocide because i have a pet peeve about when people suddenly decide that Chara is the one that caused it. This doesn’t make any sense -- but at the same time, with little to no games considering the Player and Player-Insert character to be two seperate characters, it’s no surprise to me that people i guess “projected” onto Chara. However, if you seperate the player from Frisk (in the same manner that Kris and the Player are seperate in Deltarune), it becomes easier to understand. Chara had nothing against the monsters. They liked monsterkind. It’s extremely unlikely that they would have the motivation to kill all of the monsters on their own. This wasn’t created until far into the genocide route, where the player has done most of the work for them. Chara is now living on pure Determination, which as we know is void of care and purely puts a person on a path of achieving their last desire, and once they wake up like this, with most of monsterkind already dead... well, what else is there to live for? They already attempted to kill humanity, failed, and now the only people they treasured have fallen like flies. Nothing matters in this world. Might as well delete the whole thing to finish the job. (also Frisk doesn’t have any motivations of their own either... unlike Kris they are shown to have no specific motivations (that i’m aware of?) one way or another and don’t reject the player ever so the idea that a canon frisk would reject the genocide route doesn’t make sense to me either. obvs au’s are exempt because they’re free real estate lmao anyway this is unrelated) - Chara’s a very calculated and observent person as well -- just look at how they died? They weren’t even afraid of death. They poisoned themselves with full faith that Asriel would take their Soul and bring them back to life (which also goes back to my point about how much Chara cared for Asriel, since, if they didn’t trust him, they would not have left him with that huge responsibility) by absorbing their Soul into his own body so they could exist as one. Chara saw their death as a stepping stone in their plan. All this from just seeing Asgore accidentally eat buttercups once and getting sick. A whole plan to get revenge on the people who hurt them from that. They even made a statement about wanting to be placed back on the Surface just to cover Asriel’s ass when he eventually took Chara on his own to the Surface. - okay this is probably just more of a me thing, but I’ve never gotten the whole “Chara hates Sans” concept. But considering I also don’t really think of Chara as the one who attempted the genocide route, I guess it makes sense. Chara probably doesn’t care about Sans one way or another, really, and Sans probably has very little idea who Chara is. I’ve always seen Sans’s statements during his battle said directly towards the Player, more or less using Frisk as the messenger -- like, for example (yes I have this on hand don’t judge me):

“sounds strange, but before this i was secretly hoping we could be friends. i always thought the anomaly was doing this because they were unhappy. and when they got what they wanted, they would stop all this. and maybe all they needed was. i dunno. some good foods, some bad laughs, some nice friends. but that’s ridiculous, right? yeah. you’re the type of person who won’t EVER be happy.”

- (cont) At this point it sort of taps into something I was gonna write for that Sans essay but here we go. I bolded “the anomaly” because this is the point where he directly refers to the player as their own individual in the game. What’s the only thing that’s different between Undertale and any moments of his life previous? The player. Hence, anomaly. Even Chara would have existed before the player showed up, right? Chara fell sometime within the 2010′s according to the opening of the game, and in between that time and when Frisk showed up, 6 other humans fell into the Underground. Clearly none of them had the same powers Frisk did, because otherwise, they would have not died and left their Soul behind for Asgore to use. That leaves one thing different -- player interference. Chara even directly states that the player is the one who woke them up with Determination, meaning they were asleep (or dead) for every year previous to their arrival. Sans probably only knows them as “the first human” like every other monster in the Underground (aside from the Dreemurs, of course).

i could probably go on for a while. but i will save you the time you probably didn’t want to spend reading this already by shutting up fdbshafb

[mcrmadness]

Madness draws: Behind the Scenes of the Bela/Farin: “Widumihei” comic.

A few months ago I posted here this comic:

CLICK HERE for the original post about that comic where you can see it in better and bigger size, and also reblog it ;)

And this post is just a deep dive into how I plan, do and draw my comics.

Let’s start with sketchbook things...

So every comic needs a story, right? My comics usually are born from either some dialogue I imagine in my head or by an impulsive inspiration that happens when I see something or talk with people and a random idea is triggered. I’m very good at coming up with new ideas solely based on just one word or so which is why I often ask people if they have anything they would want to see/read because I suck at coming up ideas on my own. Or I do get ideas, but not as often as I’d want to.

This particular idea was very old and I have tried but I cannot find the piece that was my inspiration but it was in some of my old German books because I remember laughing at it with either my brother or even with the German teacher in 2011 or 2012. I was only able to find my first “sketch” of the story:

This is in the notebook I used for writing down some comic ideas and even had one comic in it, plus it’s also my fanfiction writing notebook. It has no date but I know for sure it was either 2011 or 2012 because that’s when I did my last Bela/Farin comic and pretty much started my (unintentional) 6 year pause from drawing altogether.

I have always been trilingual when I do these plans for my comics, often writing the “narration” in Finnish and the dialog either in English or German because I just cannot imagine them to speaking Finnish. The translation of that text goes as:

COMIC (sarjis = sarjakuva = comic book in Finnish)

1. The phone is ringing. 2. F: “Widumihei?!” B: ? 3. B: “Farin wtf?” 4. Farin walks from another room. 5. B: “Widumihei?” 6. F: “It means, “will you marry me?”“ 7. B: *wtf* REPLAY:

1. Bela is sitting/laying somewhere. 2. The phone is ringing. Reached with his hand? 3. Looks at the phone, “wtf?”, a thought: “von Jan: Widumihei?!” 4. Bela: “Farin?” / “Jan?” 5. F comes from another room, looks in from behind the door frame or something. B: “Widumihei?” 6. F: “Widumihei: “WIllst DU MIch HEiraten”“ 7. B: “WTF”

So when I then started to draw these comics again in 2018, I kept thinking about this one too and still wanted to draw it one day. If you have read the finished comic, you may notice something different in the old plot versus new: I switched Bela’s and Farin’s roles. Back then I didn’t know too much yet but over the years I have learnt much much more about them and I just figured that asking to marry him even as a joke would be too much for Farin and that it would fit Bela’s persona much much better.

***

I had a bit of problems with getting started with this one, mainly because the last times I drew a dä comic was in June 2020, in April 2020 and before those in October 2019. Because of so long time between the comics, I just always forgot about my methods and in which order I do things and what works for me the best. So every time I started to work on a comic, I had to start completely over because all I had was blank paper and I somehow needed to get my thoughts in order and out of my head, into a physical form aka as text and images on the paper, and it’s easier said than done.

So pardon me but from this on the text is going to get a little bit confusing for a little while from now on - but it’s also a very good look over how the life with my suspected ADHD be like sometimes...

I started working on the plot once again to my sketchbook... I think it was somewhere in the beginning of 2020. Because the next idea there is from the summer. This is what the plot looked like at that point - here I had already switched their roles:

Shortly, the texts go: 1. Farin is reading a book. 2. A phone makes a noise. 3. (Farin) looks at it/read the message. / 6. B appears into the doorway. / 11. F spits out the tea.

And underneath it you can see one of the stick figure storyboards I often do in order to kinda see the text in pictures better, and I will write down or draw important aspects like expressions (Farin’s eyebrows) or things like *facepalm’* or *eyeroll* so that I remember to add them.

Next I was struggling with the era. It needed to be an era with the old mobile phones with SMS options but still not too early because I feel that Farin would have not been the first in line to buy a brand new technology object, especially not when it’s a phone. I was even googling when did Germany get their first mobile phone - I remember I got my first phone aka Nokia 5510 in 2000 or 2001 after my mom got a new one and gave her old one to me, so the story shouldn’t happen too many years before the Millenium.

Originally I planned 1997 for that - I needed to think about that based on their styles because shorter hair is harder to draw. Here’s me trying out some hairs and how they’re to draw and which era would suit my needs the best. I actually find the text hilarious altho it’s mine but this is what it’s in English:

Time period -> 1996-1997? 1998 I’ve never drawn 1999 is not that much fun to draw 2000 is already a bit too late? Bela not that much fun to draw. -2001 moustaches are not fun to draw?

I think I was struggling with my thoughts because the next thing in that sketchbook is yet another storyboard:

Or actually I think this was just to see how many sheets I’d need and how many panels I could fit on one sheet.

Anyhow, I then did other things for some time before I got back to this project this year. Including finishing with the sketchbook I had been using since 2010 (and the half of it since 2018!) and I had to get myself a new one. So when I started to think about this comic again, one night I was just thinking about some Bela/Farin scenarios as usual and suddenly I just felt that I NEED to do the comic in the 1998 style!!! So suddenly we jump from the original 1997 idea to the new era, only because of the colors. 

So asap I grabbed my sketchbook and started to look for the proper colors for the hairs:

This one I posted here before too as I was struggling a lot and just felt that I didn’t know how to draw, again. Sometimes when I feel like that, I start drawing with my non-dominant aka left hand because it doesn’t have all that in muscle memory so drawing and writing with it feels more free and it feels almost like pressing a refresh button in my brain. Suddenly the right one know again how to draw because left isn’t too well in control. The below part of the image is done completely with the left hand, including the coloring.

And because I had now a new sketchbook, I somehow couldn’t... deal with the plot and plans being in a different sketchbook than everything else so I had write the plot/dialog AGAIN, into this new sketchbook, along with the storyboards and everything:

Translations: kirja = book, puhelin = phone, oviaukossa = in the doorway, teet suusta = tea(s) out of a/the mouth. “Puhelin zoom” just means “close up to the phone screen” in Madness.

You can also see that I found out that I don’t need to do the stick figure storyboards to imitate a sheet when I can just draw this rectangle and smaller rectangles inside of it and write there numbers to match the things in the dialog to make it much easier for me to plan the pages. And here’s also a small easter egg: there’s 13 panels overall in this comic :D I almost did 12 but then felt that no, I really need to do 13 because, you know, the hairs, the era, the album title. And also because I like the number so much lmao.

So from there we get to the second storyboard which is not just stick figures anymore but just me planning how I want the panels to look like. To get the imagery of the rooms and facial expressions etc. out onto the paper so that I can see them in real life instead of my shady imagination that sometimes isn’t as vivid as what I could be.

Also have you ever tried to draw a beach chair? It’s more difficult than you’d think:

I tried to draw the same thing from the same reference photos so many times and still I always felt like I was trying to draw that impossible triangle or some other illusion image. And it just went on and on here:

Originally I also had planned the second panel to be a close up of the phone so that Farin’s face would be left at the background from the frog perspective. That’s what I was trying to with that weird-ass face on the left but turned out that I have never drawn these characters from such angle and I just... couldn’t see it in my head clearly enough to be able to draw it. So I dismissed that idea and that’s why the angle changed from a phone close-up to a side view to the room and at Farin.

As I was in the middle of planning the second page, I suddenly wasn’t happy with my original plot anymore. I wasn’t sure if it would work and needed to think about it one more time. So I wrote two other dialogs here, along with a storyboards for them both. I ended up choosing B from those two options eventually.

I don’t remember anymore if I had already done the first sketch of the comics or not but at some point I just felt that I no longer knew how to draw in my style. Sometimes you just draw and learn wrong things and wrong methods that you get used to and then you have to take a break and actually do a little bit of studying over your own style to find again the way how you want to draw, and get rid of the bad habits and find the good ones again. In my case it was to draw the eyes way way too big when they originally never were THAT big, so I had to learn how to draw them small and normal again. That’s why I did these, as I really needed to pay attention to the faces and remember how to draw them again:

The front-side views were another big readong for this “study” because I have drawn that perspective only once or twice before and I needed to figure out how I want to draw that. Also, I don’t know if it’s just me but for some reason the front-side Farin reminds me of one of the parent characters from this cartoon called The Rugrats which I watched as a kid. It was totally unintentional, but you can google The Rugrats if you don’t know how the charatcers looked like in the cartoon.

The things below are just me testing something. The red Farins were just to test how the colored pencils work on each other and how the fineliners work with the colored pencils, and which way is the better way to do the shading. And the red colored pencil was the only one available at the time so that had to do.

A little bit about the heads btw: You might notice some difference between the left and right faces. It’s because I have always, always struggled with drawing anything that is looking at right. Most of the animal portraits and all I have drawn so that they look at left because I just find it so much easier to draw. I think with comics it’s because I always start with the eye (and the eyebrows if I don’t forget it) and then do the forehead, nose, mouth and chin, and after that I either continue from the hair (from the front) or do the ear first. But when I am drawing them to look at right, I have to basically draw the mirror image and starting from the hair is not the key because it can easily mess up with the perspectives. I still usually draw everything in the same order but it really is difficult because I’m doing a mirror image and my own hand is on the way, too. Basically I’m drawing from right to left instead of left to right! (I think I should try drawing those with my left hand, then...)

And from here we get to the first sketch of the comic. From here on the images are from my phone’s camera so they are sometimes illegally bad but no can do, I again didn’t think I’d post these to anywhere:

Here you can see I was mainly just focusing on the shapes and the space inside those panels. Just trying to see the perspective and how everything is. The only thing that I drew more precisely was the third panel, with the hand and phone. I had quite a nice memory of old phones in my head but I still googled for some reference photos of Nokia 5110 phones as that was my first phone (as I mentioned earlier), and I also happened to have some of my other old phones on the table nearby so I took my own hand reference photos too:

They always say there’s a little bit of the artist in their art and this one literally has that - “Farin’s” hand is actually my hand! :D And I think the size is kinda on point too because this phone was like 2-3 times smaller than Nokia 5110 and I have small hands, and I believe Farin must have much bigger hands, so the 5110 probably would have looked about the same size in his hand.

After the first sketch, the next step was then - the second sketch:

I also wanted to add more action to the panels so that it’s interesting to look at and not just basically the same panel over and over again with just different speech bubbles, so I came up with the idea of Farin spitting out his tea not being as cartoony as it could be and that he would have to actually clean it up instead of just leaving it there just because in cartoons/comics everything is possible. That way I got more depth into the panels and it was also interesting for me to draw because I drew lots of new postures I have never drawn before, and I’m surprised how well it went despite me not even looking for any kind of reference photos! The only things I used reference photos for were the beach chair, and the phone in a hand. (I have actually always been quite good at drawing 3D objects and spaces, especially if they are rectangular.)

So yeah, this is the phase where everything is then finished with pencil and what follows next is drawing the lines with fineliners - I use Sakura Pigma Micron fineliners for everything else, and black Promarker for doing the lines for the panels (and also if I need bigger pitch black areas done).

Here are the panel lines done but I only had a photo of this first sheet.

And here are both sheets with the finelining done and all pencil marks etc. erased. I really like this part because it looks so clean when all those sketch marks are gone. It’s also crazy to think I literally spend hours drawing something in pencil only to erase it all away later :D

And here’s one photo of the coloring process, the first one has only the base colors done but none of the shadows yet (apart from the shirts), and the second one has some of the shadows done but not everything yet.

Usually after coloring, I will then go through everything with the fineliners one more time to make sure all the lines are dark enough as it just gives everything the finished yet a bit “sketchy” look that what I really like with my comics. The actual last detail is always adding my signature along with the date or year.

And here’s the finished comic one more time for comparison:

Don’t forget to check and reblog the actual post about this comic if you read this post all the way here. I’d appreaciate that a lot since art and artist on Tumblr are not really that much appreciated.

[inkwell-attitude]

Liebster Award

The ever-wonderful @ettawritesnstudies nominated me for this! Thank you so much, it means so much to me that you would consider me for it! I always love any way to spread some positivity and encouragement through the community :D

Etta explained the award as “similar to a writeblr tag game meant to introduce you to new blogs and get to know the authors behind them!” She was the one who brought it to tumblr, since it originated in blogs/writer’s websites.

Rules: 1. Thank the blogger that nominated you 2. Answer the 11 questions the blogger asked you 3. Nominate 11 bloggers 4. Ask your nominees 11 questions 5. Notify your 11 nominees

Questions: 1. What’s your favourite part about the writing community?

I love the support everyone always gives to everyone else! Everyone I’ve seen has given nothing but support and enthusiasm for both their writing and others writing, and it really makes me happy to see such a wonderful community. 

2. Do you prefer writing dialogue or description, and why?

I prefer description because I love the whimsy I can add to it. Being able to concoct a scene and describe things in ways other than “the sky was blue, the grass was green” is lots of fun. I’m also kind of bad at conversations irl (between my ADD and my minor stutter, I don’t tend to finish a lot of sentences lol) and I think that rolls over into my writing a little bit and makes dialogue a bit harder for me to figure out.

3. Do you have any creative hobbies outside of writing, and how did you get into them?

I am a self-proclaimed proud jack of all trades because I see a craft or activity and MUST try it out. My brain sees a tactile hobby and goes feral. I just really enjoy learning new things :D The recurring hobbies are drawing and very minor animations, but I also have been into embroidery, polymer clay, woodworking (miniatures eeeyyy) and cake decorating? 

4. When was the last time you had a good night’s sleep?

Two nights ago? I usually get 7.5-8.5 hours of sleep because I just can’t function without sleep. Idk if you can call it a good nights sleep because I tend to wake up several times during the night (how many times is too many?) but I don’t usually have trouble falling asleep.

5. Are you reading/watching/listening to anything right now that you’re excited about?

I’m watching Ann with an E with my mom right now and it’s delightful! it’s a very very lovely show and it’s made me want to re-read the book.

I’m also keeping up with the Dream SMP minecraft series, and lemme tell you I have not been this emotionally invested in a story for a LONG time. Sure, I’ve been excited about some things in the last few months, but I don’t think I’ve really been attached to a story and characters like this for a while. (Plus, every single fanart and fan animation I’ve seen has been tremendously well done and more often than not gets me emotional lmao)

6. What’s your favourite YouTube channel?

I don’t know if I have a favourite? Because I hop around between interests so often I tend to change up my subscriptions a lot, too. Currently, I really like Cheyenne Barton, Technoblade, GeminiTay, and Annika’s leaf

7. What writing advice would you give your younger self?

DO WRITING SPRINTS! This is one of my favourite things now and it’s helped break the habit of “write one sentence, edit it, write another sentence, edit it, delete the first and re-write it” habit. Plus, it’s just a really good exercise to stretch your creativity.

8. What’s your opinion on color coding?

top notch! I think sometimes it can be overdone (throwback to jr. high me color coding everything in my notes to the extent that it was detrimental to my studying) but it really helps me out with things. I color-code vocab words and important persons in my class notes now :D

9. Is there a specific theme or aesthetic that underlies all your stories?

If there is, I haven’t seen it. I think it’s funny that Odds & Ends and The Paths That Bind are actually kind of similar (so far) except one is lighthearted feel-good comedy, and one is corruption and angst and trauma :��) Maybe there will be similar themes, but they’re both in the beginning stages so it hasn’t shown up yet.

10. How many WIPs do you have?

I actually only have two WIPs! I have a few other concepts I’d like to explore in the future, but they’re currently sitting as one-sentence explanations in my notes folder and will probably stay that way until I figure out a more solid plan for Odds & Ends and The Paths That Bind. My irl schedule is very hectic and I’m an inherently tired person, so I’m trying to be more intentional with creative projects and realistic on which ones I want to be able to dedicate my time to.

11. What’s your wildest dream as a creator? (For example, do you want to see fanart of your ocs, have a movie made of your book, etc.)

I adore the idea of someone making an animatic or one of those lyric comic things (idk what they’re called) for The Paths That Bind. So much of it is inspired by music and I’d love to see other people’s takes on the history and events of the story and which songs they would associate with it.

Questions for my wonderful nominees!

1. What’s the earliest story you remember writing? How old were you? 2. Are any of your characters “comfort characters” for yourself? 3. What’s your go-to snack? 4. How do you visualize your wips? Movie-format? Animatic? Comic? 5. What’s your favorite part of each season? 6. Would you rather one (or all) of your wips be made into a movie/tv show or a graphic novel series? 7. Is there a particular form of imagery or symbolism that recurs a lot in your stories? 8. What’s a book (or book series) that you absolutely adore and wish everyone would read? 9. Tell us about your favorite video game and why you love it! (If you don’t game, tell us about another hobby you adore!) 10. What’s the last dream you remember having? 11. How has your writing changed from when you first started? (We all get better, but have you noticed any distinct changes? More/less dialogue, different kind of descriptions, different narrative styles?)

Here are 11 wonderful, talented writers I’ve met here, and everyone should absolutely check out their blogs!

@aelenko 

@uraniumwriting

@hueynomure

@writingamongthecoloredroses

@musings-and-writings

@stardustspiral

@druidx73

@eurydice-is-gone 

@atomic-insomnia 

@chloeswords 

@hannahs-creations

[dillydedalus]

april reading

oh yeah this is a thing. anyway in april i read about uhhh.... first contact (twice), murderers on skis & victorian church politics

the yield, tara june winch a novel about indigenous australian identity and history (now and throughout the 20th century) in three narrative strands. imo the narrative strand that consists of a grandfather writing a dictionary of his language (wiradjuri) in order to prove a claim to some land is by far the strongest, but overall i liked this quite a lot. 3/5

land of big numbers, te-ping chen a solid short story collection focused on modern china and young(ish) chinese people, both in china and the diaspora. i particularly liked the stories that had some slighty surreal or speculative elements, such as one about fruit that strongly evoke emotions when eaten and a group of people stuck in a train station for months as the train is delayed, which imo use their speculative aspects in effective (if not super subtle) ways to talk about society. 3/5

the pear field, nana ekvtimishvili (tr. from georgian by elizabeth heighway) international booker prize longlist! a short, fairly depressing read about a 18-year-old girl at a post-soviet school for developmentally disabled childred (but also orphans, abandoned children & other random kids) who is trying to get a younger boy adopted by an american couple. there seem to be a lot of novels set at post-soviet orphanages etc & imo this is a well-executed example of the microgenre, with the pear field full of pears that are never picked bc they don’t taste right as a strong central image. 3/5

the warden, anthony trollope (chronicles of barsetshire #1) ah yes, a 6-part victorian series about church politics in an english town, exactly the kind of thing i’m interested in. not sure why i committed to at least the first two entries of the series but here we are. despite this lack of interest (and disagreement with most of the politics on display here) i found this quite charming; trollope has a gift for an amusing turn of phrase & making fun of his characters in benevolent ways. 3/5

the lesson, cadwell turnbull first contact scifi novel set on the virgin islands, where an alien ship arrives one day. the aliens seem benevolent & share helpful technology, but also react with extreme violence to any aggression. they claim to be on earth to study.... something, but it’s never entirely clear what. the book makes some interesting choices (like immediately skipping over the actual first contact to a few years in the future, when the aliens are already established on the islands) but i thought much of it was kinda disjointed and confusing. 2/5

the heart is a lonely hunter, carson mccullers look, i get it, it’s all about the isolation & alienation (& dare i say loneliness) of 4 miserable characters projecting their issues on the central character singer, who is kind and patient and also deaf and mute, thus making him the perfect receptacle for their issues without really having to connect with him as a person and how that isolation hinders them socially, artistically, emotionally, politically, but like... i didn’t really like it. i didn’t hate it but i just felt very meh about it all. 2.5/5

acht tage im mai: die letzte woche des dritten reiches, volker ulrich fascinating history book about the last week(ish) of the third reich, starting with the day of hitler’s suicide and ending with the total surrender (but with plenty of flashbacks and forwards), and looking at military&political leadership (german and allied) as well as prisoners of war, forced laborers, concentration camp prisoners, and everyone else. very interesting look at what kästner described as the “gap between the not-anymore and the not-yet.” 3.5/5

firekeeper’s daughter, angeline boulley) i’ve been mostly off the YA train for the last few years, but this was a really good example of contemporary YA with a focus on ~social issues. ANYWAY. this is YA crime novel about daunis, a mixed-race unenrolled ojibwe girl close to finishing high school who is struggling with family problems, university plans, and feeling caught between her white and her native familiy when her best friend is shot in front of her and she decides to become a CI for an fbi investigation into meth production in the community. i really appreciated how hard this went both with the broader social issues (racism, addiction) and daunis’ personal struggles. there are a few bits that felt a bit didactic & on the nose (and the romance... oh well), but overall the themes of community, family, and the value of living indigenous culture are really well done & i teared up several times. 4/5

the magic toyshop, angela carter i love carter’s short stories but struggle with (while still liking) her novels so far. this one, a tale of melanie, suddenly orphaned after trying on her mother’s wedding dress in the garden, coming of age and awakening to womanhood or whatever. carter’s really into that. it’s well-written, sensual as carter always is, and the family melanie and her siblings are sent to, her tyrannical puppet-maker uncle, his mute wife and the wife’s two brothers, both fascinating and offputting (& dirty) make for an interesting cast of characters, but overall i just wish i was reading the bloody chamber again. 3/5

barchester towers, anthony trollope (chronicles of barsetshire #2) (audio) lol tbh i still don’t know why i am committing to this series about, again, church politics in 19th century rural england, but it’s just so chill & warm & funny (we love gently or not so gently - but always politely - mocking our characters) that i’m enjoying it as a nice little trip where people do some #crazyschemes to gain church positions or fight over whether there should be songs in church or whatever it is people in the 19th century fought about. it’s very relaxing. there also is a lot of love quadrangleyness going on and that’s also fun. trollope has weird ideas about women but like whatever, i for one wish mrs proudie much joy of her position as defacto bishop of barchester, she really girlbossed her way to the top. 3.5/5

semiosis, sue burke (semiosis #1) i love spinning the wheel on the “first contact with X weird alien species” & i guess this time we landed on plants! plant intelligence is interesting and the idea of plant warfare is really cool. i do like the structure, with different generations of human settlers on the planet pax providing a long-term view but this allows the author to skip over a lot of the development of the relationship between the settlers and the plant and locating the plot elsewhere, which i think is ultimately a mistake. i might continue w/ the series tho, depending on library availability. 2.5/5

one by one, ruth ware a bunch of start-up people go on a corporate retreat to a ski chalet in the alps, avalanche warning goes up, one of them disappears, presumably on a black piste, the rest get snowed in & completely cut off when the avalanche hits and then they get picked off *title drop* (altho really not that many of them). nice fluff when i had a miserable cold (not covid) but fails when it tries to go for deeper themes... like an attempt to address classism and entitlement sure... was made. also like what kind of luxury skiing chalet does not have emergency communication devices in case internet/phone lines are down...  i’d have sued just for that. 2/5

fake accounts, lauren oyler the microgenre of ‘alienated intellectual(ish) probably anglophone person has some sort of crisis, goes to berlin about it’ is my ultimate literary weakness - i almost never really like them, they mostly irritate me & yet i can never resist their siren call. this one is p strong on the irritation, altho at least the narrator does not ascribe much meaning to her decision to go to berlin after she a) discovers her boyf is an online conspiracy theorist (probably not sincerely) and b) gets a call that said boyf has died, it’s really just something to do to avoid doing anything else. but other than that it’s so BerlinExpat by the numbers, like she lives in kreuzkölln! put her somewhere else at least! there is one scene that elevates the BerlinExpat-ness of it all (narrator asks expatfriend for advice on visa applications, expatfriend assures her that it’s really easy for americans to get visa, adds “especially now” while literally, as the narrator remarks, gesturing at the falafel she’s eating) other than that, the novel is.... fine. it’s smart, but not really as smart as it thinks it is, which is a problem bc it thinks it’s just sooo incisive. whatever. 2/5

the tenant of wildfell hall, anne bronte this is reductive but: jane eyre: i could fix him // wuthering heights: i could make him worse // wildfell hall: lmao i’m gonna leave his ass anyway i enjoyed the part that is actually narrated by the titular tenant of wildfell hall, helen (which thankfully, i think, is most of it) because the perspective of a woman who runs away from her abusive alcoholic of a husband is genuinely interesting and engaging, while gilbert, the frame story narrator who falls in love with helen, is.... the worst. i mean he’s not the worst bc the abusive husband arthur is there and hard to beat in terms of worseness, but he’s pretty fucking bad. imagine if helen had found out that gilbert attacked her secret brother over a misunderstanding, severely injured him & LEFT HIM TO DIE & then (when dude survived & the misunderstanding got cleared up) apologised like well i guess i didn’t treat you quite right! she’d have to run away from her second husband as well! poor girl. 3/5

[smallblueandloud]

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 for the writing ask- I AM SO SORRY I COULDNT STOP!!! xoxo

aaaah these questions look SO GOOD thank you so much <3 <3 for this ask meme, which will be open all weekend!

1. tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

i pulled open all of my WIP google docs for this and my laptop started whirring ominously, lmao. this is going to be a Little Long but i love talking about my wips so who cares!! (under the cut because EXCERPTS)

guys and dolls but gay - very, very casual rewrite of guys and dolls if sky masterson was a woman. i’m loving how chill i’m being about this one because it’s so much fun to not have to worry how i’m going to write lyrics in a not-weird way and just focus on the story. this one’s first because it’s theoretically closest to being finished.

sky, laughing: “oh? people. all the people you turn down every day. well, i imagine there’s someone out there that’ll catch your eye.”

sarah, stiffening: “...yes, there will be.”

sky: “and what might this person be like?”

sarah: “he will not be a gambler, for one.”

sky does not miss the pointed pronoun. “i’m not interested in what he won’t be, i’m interested in what he will be.” she sits down on the desk, in a pointedly masculine pose, and sets her fedora next to her - at her most Hot Queer, basically. “how will you know when he gets to you?”

my fic for the aos rarepair fic exchange - i can’t give any plot or ship details, for obvious reasons, but it’s 1.3k and i’m having fun with it!

steven roadtrip of destiny - canon divergent fic set at the end of steven universe future where steven goes on a roadtrip instead of... canon. it deals with some heavy emotions and it’s also a character study so it’s tentatively shelved until i get around to rewatching suf. but i am projecting on steven like crazy and it’s really, really cathartic. it’s taught me a lot about myself too lmao.

He’s never been anonymous before. He kind of likes it. It means he can fold his arms on the table and put his head down without Pearl worrying about his posture, or someone asking him if something’s okay.

In the last few months, he’s grown to hate people asking him how he’s doing, or if he’s okay. He always ends up lying, because he doesn’t want to worry them, and he ends up feeling worse.

Probably because it’s more of him supporting other people without supporting himself.

He should have told someone how he was feeling. He should have reached out. Sadie could’ve helped him. Lars would’ve listened. Connie would have hugged him and then found him the appropriate mental health professional.

(God, Steven wants a hug. Also the appropriate mental health professional? Whoever that would be.)

untitled aos fic - i don’t want to give a lot of details because :eye emoji: and also i don’t know much about what the plot of this is going to be anyway, lmao. but here’s an excerpt:

daisy “that actor who doesn’t shut up about data harvesting” johnson (@daisyquake) tweeted: two weeks :eyes emoji:

Elena Rodriguez | Seven Cents S2 Streaming On Netflix Now! (@yoyorodriguez) retweeted and added: the problem with being friends with daisy is that you SHOULD have some insight into what her tweets mean but you still have no idea

Fitz (@justfitz) retweeted and added: Try being married to her

untitled star wars twins fic - because i am a total and massive nerd. i’m just kind of stuffing everything i have feels about from the post-anh era into this and planning on figuring it out later? i’m really loving talking about the culture of alderaan (and the culture of the survivors) and also i just love writing luke and leia’s relationship... so much......

(no excerpt for that one because i’ve basically posted all of it in various posts lmao)

aos ds9 au - i’ve posted a LOT about this already and i want to keep the plot a surprise but fsk is in this and married and half the cast is aliens, what else do you need in life.

“Good morning,” says Jemma, coming into the room with her hair wet and her uniform crooked. “Hello, darling.”

“Hi,” says Daisy, turning her face up for a kiss. Jemma obliges absently as she walks past, looking around the room.

“Has anyone seen my hair clip?”

“No,” say Fitz and Daisy in unison.

and of course, last but never least in my heart, chapter 3 of the magnum opus - writing this is on hold until my brain decides to stop hitting me over the head at every possible moment, but there’s like... 2k written so far? it’s. it’s going.

“Yeah, yeah,” says Coulson, and makes quick work of the right gauntlet. It’s only halfway through the left one that his fingers slow and he says, quietly, “Simmons designed these, didn’t she?”

She lets out a quick breath. “Yeah.”

He stays quiet for a few more seconds, finishing up the last of the straps, making sure they’re tight enough. Finally, he says, “She should be helping you with these.”

Daisy pulls her arms back and swallows down some words, or maybe a couple of feelings, or maybe a sob. “Yeah, well.”

2. tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

the last sentence of the magnum opus!!!!!!!!!!

no, lmao, i’m gonna try to be serious. i really, really want to write some librarians fic in the near future? also MORE OF THE SENSE8 AU. i’m DYING to write some stuff about that. especially sam’s cluster, for some reason? Let’s Make Him Suffer (Comedically)! one day i’m gonna finish that list of what cluster/situation each song is about and then it’ll be over for all of us!

3. what is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

i spent about eight months imagining a scene where riza hawkeye was really injured and mustang was holding her in his arms (basically the promised day scene but with more privacy) so does that count?

hmm, just for some other possibilities: glinda telling dorothy about elphaba, laura somehow seeing or speaking to natasha during catws, a good omens au of the good place (specifically the ”i don’t even like you!” / “you doooooooo” scene), kencyrath au of star wars (ESPECIALLY THIS ONE, except setting up the first scene alone would take 7k, but i want to talk about leia and luke and their MESSED UP TRUST ISSUES in this au).

oh, also, something about star trek tng where jean-luc and beverly and jack were in love and then jack died and picard left. more specifically a scene set during the pilot episode where jean-luc very cordially offers beverly the option to transfer off the enterprise, that he wouldn’t dream of holding it against her, and beverly very cordially telling jean-luc to go fuck himself. i want to write 30k of that broken triad. i want it so bad. i dream of that fic. maybe one day when i find myself with a completely empty month or two, i’ll binge all of tng and Write Some Stuff.

4. share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

since you and i have tww in common, i’m gonna do a tww fic! otherwise i’d have to reread literally every fic i’ve ever written, lmao.

(this is long but i put this post under the cut so i have RIGHTS. also consider this a sneak peek for the j/d fic in the sense8 au?)

“It’s okay,” says Helen. She sits for a moment in silence, seeming thoughtful. “The Congressman and I are in the same cluster,” she says eventually. “I’d- I supposed that’s easier on the Secret Service?”

“Yes,” says Donna. “The-”

She stops herself from saying anything further. President Bartlet and the First Lady aren’t exactly quiet about who’s in their cluster, especially with senior staff, but that doesn’t mean she should go talking about it in an unsecured room in LA, of all places.

To cover for her blunder, she gives up something else: “The same with Josh. They got really lucky with him, actually. It’s just him and me, so they won’t have to worry about anyone threatening the Chief of Staff through the barista in the local Starbucks.”

Helen looks up from the Ohio numbers she’d drifted back to, a slow smile creeping up on her face. “Josh is in your cluster?”

“Uh-” says Donna, feeling like national security wasn’t worth whatever she’s just blundered into. Oops. “Josh- Josh is my cluster, ma’am.”

She catches her mistake the second it’s out of her mouth, but Helen doesn’t call her on it, more focused on other revelations. “No wonder you two look at each other the way you do!” she says, sounding delighted. Donna shuts her eyes, praying for this to go away. It’s not that she’s ashamed of Josh - it’s just so, so complicated, and other people never think about how difficult it was. Still is.

i’m just... i really liked the idea of donna fumbling and having to reveal this to cover up for what else she was going to say? i don’t know why i’m so charmed by this. i think it’s because it would be impossible in the show - you can’t show what someone was going to say on television, not without a lot of setup and very careful scripting. it’s just a really fun situation to write about and i’m really proud of this conversation in general.

also helen santos was a dream to write and i love her a lot. i kind of want to write one of the fics in the series about her and her cluster solely because like... look at her. she’s a delight in literally every scene. i love her.

5. what character that you’re writing do you most identify with?

daisy johnson!!! i love writing daisy johnson!!!! she is the most adhd character i’ve ever written and i literally just have to transcribe my own inner monologue and it works perfectly!!!!!

Swing shift: 1600 hours to 2400 hours. Daisy always ends up getting back to her quarters at like 0030 hours, when Jemma is asleep and Fitz is reading some kind of technical journal. Then she has to eat replicated pizza, alone, and freshly replicated pizza is actually pretty hot but it feels cold at that time of night, like, spiritually.

6. what character do you have the most fun writing?

...whoops i literally just answered that lmao. uh. i also really love writing sky masterson in the guys and dolls fic? she’s just weaponized hot queerness in a suit and i love her for it. she is intentionally trying to seduce this repressed lesbian and it’s really funny and also really hot of her and it’s so much fun to write.

also, i wrote chidi for the tgp fic and it was possibly the most fun i’ve ever had with a pov, although that was also because i was purposefully trying to mimic the tone of the show. i still think that line about michael and a grenade is, like, the funniest i have ever been in my life. but chidi’s panic was surprisingly easy to write? all of tgp’s characters have such STRONG voices, it makes writing fic ridiculously easy as long as you don’t get stuck on a plot for six months.

7. what do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? would others agree?

oof, this one is ALWAYS tricky. uh? uhh?? i’m going to ruin everything by saying this but i basically alternate between the same two sentence structures and i am really frustrated about it. i also alternate between the same two styles of endings and i always use the same beginning (set scene, main character pov, thoughts-as-exposition, back to scene).

BUT ON A MORE POSITIVE NOTE i like to talk about emotions and relationships and character development!! i have my “queer subtext goggles” superglued to my face, lmao. i like to think about how characters must have felt about things in canon and how it must’ve influenced them. i like making people deal with the consequences of their actions, especially how it’s influenced they themself. i also just really, really like writing people who love each other, whether it’s romantic or platonic or anything in between. i just want them to be happy! i just want them to stick together! doesn’t matter what fandom, i stand by it.

[ohmystarsy]

all the tag games I’ve been tagged in in the last few months

as the title says - I’ve finally found some quiet time to do all of them, thank you all for tagging me!!! it is always a pleasure and I LOVE those tag games, just life has been really busy recently, even more so during that whole pandemic thing.

I put all of them under read more, bc there’s  A LOT of text. the tag games include:

name ten favourite characters from ten different things, tagged by @majoris

name your seven comfort movies, tagged by @majoris and @natowe

quarantine Q&A, tagged by @ithilnarmo

20 questions about yourself, tagged by @jennyyfishh

I was tagged by @majoris​ for name ten favorite characters from ten different things (tv, movies, books, etc.), then tag ten people.

favourites are the worst! but I will try my best neverthless.

Eames from “Inception” (idk, he is flirty af but also has rly bad taste in clothes and I love that; it might be also Tom Hardy thing tho)

Thor from MCU (just. the kindest of Avengers? says women rights? struggles with what it means to be “worthy”? pls)

Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach from “The Witcher” (I just love evil blonds with redemptions arcs who suffer throughout the whole series bc they made some bad mistakes in the past; also yes I have always headcanoned him as blond, idk why)

Leia Organa from “Star Wars” (an Icon, what else should I add?)

James Flint from “Black Sails” (gay pirate disaster that we all deserved and it was given)

Clara Oswald from “Doctor Who” (idk I just always related to het the most from all companions that I’ve seen. I love her fearlessness, her bossy side and that she takes no bullshit from the Doctor)

Sansa Stark from “Game of Thrones” (I hate what the show did to her, but I always loved her in books; how she starts as this silly, annoying girl and then grows and grows and outgrows everyone else)

Phryne Fisher from “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries” (I just love this show and this woman; I’ve never seen a characterisation as this one; at one side she is never serious and she often plays silly woman, but that is only a facade for the world??? and she never cares about what others think of her, I’d love to be like her when I grow up, if I wasn’t already a grown-up)

Roy Mustang from “Fullmetal Alchemist” (I mean. I’ve never knew a manga character could be so hot. Also he’s a snarky bastard, but that’s what we love about him don’t we.)

(Purple) Hawke from “Dragon Age” (idk I just like this sarcastic little shit)

I was tagged by @majoris and @natowe​ to name my seven comfort movies (and god it’s gonna be difficult bc I rarely watch movies but here we go)

Inception

King Arthur: A Legend of the Sword

Lord of The Rings: Two Towers

Brooklyn 99 (I know, not a movie, but this is actually what I usually watch for comfort - I think I’ve seen season one like 10 times at this point)

Thor Ragnarok

Mamma Mia!

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

(generally when I’m in need of comfort movie I just look for some action movie this is how I roll, fighting on the screen makes me calm *shrug emoji*)

I was tagged by @ithilnarmo​ for quarantine Q&A

1.  Are you staying home from work/school? Yes, I am, although there was some battle with this (long story). Luckily the project I work on is on the final stage (it’s already being built), so it’s actually possible to do everything from home and also a team I’m on is super communicative and it all goes rather smoothly.

2.  If you are staying home, who is there with you? I live with my sister, who is now finishing her Master’s Degree, so we are in this together! (There is also occasionally a dog on our neighbours’ balcony just next to us and it’s always a highlight of a day.)

3.  Are you a homebody? Before this pandemic I thought I am, but now I think I just don’t like clubbing and partying lmao, bc I just ITCH to travel or just go outside and walk in the city and I CAN’T.

4. An event that you looked forward to that got cancelled? Well, not an event, but several of my plans for spring and holidays got cancelled. I was supposed to go the Baltic Sea and Gdańsk in spring (on seperate occassions) and then I and my friend had to cancel our holidays to Faroe Islands in May/June, because it will probably be still too early to travel.

5. What movie have you watched recently? I think it was “Escape from the ‘Liberty’ Cinema”, which is hella weird Polish movie from 1990, just after end of communism. It tells a story about a censor who starts to question his job bc suddenly the actors in the movie that is being shown in one of the cinemas rebel (inside a movie) and don’t want to play it anymore. Really weird. Really.

6. What shows are you watching? Brooklyn 99 for like tenth time.

7. What music are you listening to? Same as usual.

8. What are you reading? I’m reading “The Waves” by Virginia Woolf (my fav book ever), for a month now, bc 1) I don’t have much time now I just work all the time, 2) I read it in English and can only read like 10 pages at once. but it’s SO GOOD, guys. so good.

9. What are you doing for self care? lmao don’t have time for that. I try to take breaks from work, sometimes go outside or at least step outside to balcony (and stare at the neighbours’ dog), I cook dinner every two days and a NICE stuff, so at least food brings me joy, and I try to sleep regularly, although I do a poor job on that.

aaaaand I was tagged by @jennyyfishh for 20 questions about myself

1. Nickname: I actually don’t have any, it doesn’t work like that in Polish (Kasia is already what you’d call a nickname from my full name Katarzyna, but this is just how we call all Katarzynas) (sometimes I wonder what is the point of the full names if we never use it in speech lmao)

2. Zodiac Sign: Scorpio!

3. Height: around 170cm

4. Languages: Polish and English; I was kinda conversational in German some years ago but now forgot all of it, I’d probably understand some of Ukrainian and Russian if I really tried (was learning Russian for three years and Ukrainian is just similar enough to Polish) and learnt some Swedish too, but again, don’t remember anything rn

5. Nationality: Polish

6. Favourite season: spring

7. Favourite flower: daffodil and tulip

8. Favourite scent: verbena, petrichor, sea

9. Favourite color: yellow

10. Favourite animal: dog probably

11. Favourite fictional character: look at tag game number one on this long list : )

12. Coffee, tea or hot chocolate: coffee!

13. Average hours of sleep: 6-7, but my body wants 10

14. Dog or cat: both, actually; now I’d rather take cat than dog, but that’s only bc I live in small apartment and am out of it for too long

15. Number of blankets you sleep with: one??? second blanket is for really freezing winters only (like -10/-20 celcius degrees)

16. Dream tip: what does it mean even? idk man, sometimes if you wake up from rly good dream, if you think about it hard and fall asleep quickly you can still return to it

17. Blog established: probably somewhen in 2011? idk what is time anyway

18. Followers: 2051

19. Random fact: oh god idk, ok I will maybe say sth I’m rly proud of, which is that my short story was published in an anthology in year 2017. I still can’t believe my name is printed there.

(where is 20th question tho???)

ok, I am tagging for all of those above: @shirewalker @sorrydearie @natowe @cptnjaneway @iaskier @spectralarchers @majoris @jennyyfishh @ithilnarmo @ohhelga @marsza @stupidape just choose whichever of those above you’d like to do or just ignore it completely : )

[pennywise-chenle]

50 Questions Tag

Letsgetit✊🏼

1. What takes up too much of your time?

P: Watching kpop mvs, listening to kpop, watching kpop broadcasts, watching kpop interviews, watching kpop- yeah you get it

K: anything that isn’t productive tbh

2. What makes your day better?

P: If I get to eat dark chocolate🤤

K: nct 🤩 they’re such crackheads I love them (also when my friends hype me up)

3. What’s the best thing to happen to you today?

P: Pressed shuffle on my phone, the first song that came up was CLC’s No (it’s really good, highly recommend)

K: I ate two eggs

4. What fictional place would you like to go to?

P: Marvel or DC universe? But maybe just visit for like a week I don’t think I could handle a new super villain popping up every week

K: the Harry Potter verse,, wielding magic sounds pretty cool

5. Do you give good advice?

P: I think I do sometimes, but rarely do I ever actually listen to it

K: only when I’m knowledgeable about the topic/have experienced it before. Other than that no lol

6. Do you have a mental illness?

P: not one I am consciously aware of...

K: nope

7. Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis?

P: No, never

K: not that I remember.. I do however have a weird recollection of dreaming about bert and ernie from Sesame Street shuffling around my room when I was like 4 (lmao I just laid there in bed and watched them in the semi-darkness it was freaky)

8. What musician inspired you the most?

P: Oh god uh Sunmi because she is an artist in every sense of the word and Ateez’s Hongjoong because of his work ethic and dedication

K: this is going to sound weird but Johnny from nct. his confidence and perspective on life is something that I look up to and respect (also I feel like he’s pretty hardworking cause dam 9 years as a trainee)

9. Have you ever fallen in love?

P: with myself, love yourself babies you deserve it🥰😤✊🏼🌸

K: Me and wonhos man tiddies are in a very committed relationship rn

10. What’s your dream date?

P: Oh you know nice walk on a beach, watching movies cuddled up on a couch~

K: we’re def hitting the arcade, eating out at a nice restaurant, and if they’re also into art we could draw/paint together 🤩

11. What do others notice about you?

P: My hair and the way I look, I’ve been told (even by my own mother) that I look intimidating which I DONT GET

K: poeple comment on my deadpan humor 💪

12. What’s an annoying habit you have?

P: Procrastinating and then having to go to sleep later than I need to

K: turning off my alarm in the morning and oversleeping

13. Do you still talk to your first love?

P: Yeah- every morning in the mirror, late at night when the procrastination has become too much, etc

K: I’ve stopped playing otome games

14. How many exes do you have?

P: one

K: none 😎

15. How many songs are in your playlist?

P: I have one playlist and it currently has 416 songs in it

K: 716 (I also have only one playlist)

16. What instruments can you play?

P: I’m pretty good at playing the recorder

K: I used to play the flute and piano

17. What do you have the most picture of?

P: kpop memes :)

K: memes 😔

18. Where would you like to go before you die?

P: Greece, Australia, SoUtH KoReA

K: Japan, Maldives, Europe

19. What’s your Zodiac?

P: I’m living that Sagittarius life

K: Libra

20. Do you relate to it?

P: yes? But I’m also a cusp so I’ve been told that I have Scorpio qualities🦂

K: yeah but I’m not “social” I’m like the opposite of that

21. What is happiness to you?

P: We going✈️ deep hours -being content with where you are in the moment and being able to smile for any reason

K: unabashedly being yourself while doing things that you love

22. Are you going through anything right now?

P: I’m going through something new everyday, but recently it’s been questioning my future

K: aren’t we all tho,, that’s the essence of life

23. What’s the worst decision you ever made?

P: I can’t say it’s the worst but the most glaringly bad decision I’ve made is not taking history earlier cause now I have to take it during the summer🙃

K: not being assertive enough

24. What is your favorite store?

P: probably ulta💄

K: Hollister lol

25. What is your opinion of abortion?

P: Well that escalated quickly- to each their own, if that’s the choice you take you should be able to make it

K: if u can’t properly support the baby why subject it to that type of life?

26. Do you have a bucket list?

P: Travel the world I guess

K: id like to hone my artistic skills

27. Do you have a favorite album?

P: Hell yeah, Ateez’s Treasure: All to Zero and Zero to One album (Say My Name, Treasure, and HALA HALA are BOPS)

K: EXO’s EX’ACT album

28. What do you want for your birthday?

P: To be acknowledged😪, no but my birthday often falls on Thanksgiving so it’s like me vs. turkey day

K: a macbook

29. What are most people’s first impressions of you?

P: I kinda already talked about this but intimidating

K: extremely quiet 🦶 it’s the biggest thing about me that I wish I could change

30: What age do you seem according to people?

P: I don’t actually know, but I will always be 5 in my own eyes

K: yo I actually have no idea

31. Where do you keep your phone while you are sleeping?

P: Next to me charging which is probably dAnGeRoUs

K: across the room so I can attempt to get my ass out of bed when my phone alarm goes off (spoiler alert: it doesn’t work)

32. What word do you say the most?

P: My daily vernacular is just littered with “yeehaw” and “oh my god” and “hahah”

K: “dude” and “like”

33. What’s the oldest age you would date?

P: Probably 3 years older than me

K: depends but nothing extreme

34: Whats the youngest age you would date?

P: Anyone more than 1-2 years younger than me is a no-go

K: same answer as the last question

35: What job/career do most people say would suit you?

P: A psychologist

K: art-related career

36. What’s your favorite music genre?

P: kpop and alternative

K: R&B, hip hop, lofi, kpop

37. If you could live in any country in the world, where would it be?

P: I don’t actually know, I would need to do a comprehensive search of all my options

K: ^^^

38. What is your current favorite songs?

P: Say My Name by Ateez, Noir by Sunmi, Thrilla Killa by VAV, Victory Song by Stray Kids, Beautiful by Monsta X, and Yestoday by NCT U

K: Don’t Hang Up by Suran, Light by ATEEZ, Trauma by EXO, Home by BTS, V by Jay Park

39. How long have you had this blog for?

P: Since late November I think?

K: ^^^

40. What are you excited for?

P: I got tix to see Monsta X!!🤠

K: school ends soon 🤠 can’t wait for summer letsgetit

41. Are you a better talker or listener?

P: Neither, I’m just a mess all around

K: listener, but if I’m comfortable enough around the other person I become a lot more talkative

42. What is the last productive thing you did?

P: I ate breakfast

K: I petted my dog

43. What do you want for Christmas?

P: That’s too far in the future man, idk

K: a macbook

44. What class do you have the best grades in?

P: French and Anatomy

K: art (does that count?) and Physics

45. On a scale of 1-10, how are you feeling right now?

P: Like a 7, it’d be a 9 but I have some projects that I need to finish :(

K: 6 cause I have so much work that I need to finish

46. What can you see yourself doing in ten years?

P: Getting swol💪🏼😤

K: managing an empire of meme accounts

47. When did you get your first heartbreak?

P: We going ✈️sad hours- when someone very close to me passed away

K: I actually don’t know if I’ve ever had a proper heartbreak

48: What age do you want to get married?

P: I don’t plan on getting married I’m gonna live forever

K: it depends honestly

49. What career did you want as a child?

P: You know the usual- actress, singer

K: a doctor/ smth health-sci related

50. What do you crave right now?

P: A full 8 hours of sleep

K: more free time to watch my kpop boys

P: Wow that was a lot of self reflection

Thank you for tagging us @jenoration !

Sorry if you’ve already been tagged, but we tag-

@lushnct @ed3en @softforseo @renminculture @crackteez @jaeminjubescrack

[suspendrs]

annual writing self-evaluation 2018

thank you @lululawrence for tagging me!! also i know nobody even really reads these things but i like to do them for my own reference year to year so if you’re actually interested in my answers they’ll all be below the cut!!

ALL FICS MUST HAVE POSTED ON AO3 IN 2018

1. Number of stories (including drabbles) posted to AO3: 7

2. Word count posted for the year: 231,933

3. List of works published this year (in order of posting):

thrills don’t come for free (feb. 1)

keep this love in a photograph (apr. 16)

it ain’t right, but isn’t it amazing (may 5)

there are no atheists in foxholes (june 12)

sugar in a plum (july 24)

satellite (oct. 5)

what’s inside your imagination (is as real as anything else) (oct. 20)

4. Fandoms I wrote for: one direction

5. Pairings:  harry/louis

6. Story with the most:

Kudos: satellite (556)

Bookmarks: satellite (441)

Comments: satellite (53)

9. Work I’m most proud of (and why):

satellite, without a doubt. that fic took every ounce of my heart and soul and was absolutely worth every second i spent on it. i’ve never written something that took a mind of it’s own like that fic did, and it was so fun to be able to use myself as the mouthpiece for that story to tell itself.

10. Work I’m least proud of (and why):

probably thrills don’t come for free, only because it was something i wrote years and years ago and let sit in a folder for a rainy day, and i only posted it because i felt like i needed to get something up to remain relevant. that’s definitely a mindset i’m planning to leave in 2018 and i’m learning how to write and post for me and me only, which is a cool place to be in.

11. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

from satellite (bc it’s freshest in my mind and this was the first thing that came to mind when i saw this question):

“If you’d told me a year ago that I’d spend the next year sleeping in the same place every single night, I’d have told you the only way that was possible was if I was in the ground,” he says. “People like me don’t get things like this.”

“There aren’t people like you,” Harry says quietly. “You’re the only one, and you’re so much more special than you’ll ever admit.”

Louis huffs a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “I hope you’ll always think that way,” he says.

“I will, because I’m right,” Harry says, sticking his tongue out at Louis. “I know the world has made you feel like excess, like you don’t have a place to belong, but that’s not true. You belong everywhere, in the sunshine, in gentle summer breezes, in soft snow flurries and in the color the leaves turn in the fall. You belong in the sparkle in the ocean and the sound of a birdsong, and I wish you could see yourself in all of those places the way that I do. You’re every cozy rainshower in spring and every electrical storm in summer, you’re everything, and the world’s done itself a terrible injustice making you feel any other way.”

(I actually turned that piece of dialogue into a sonnet for my poetry workshop class last semester that’s how much i loved it dsjdbssda)

12. Share or describe a favorite review you received:

honestly any and every positive and/or constructive comment tbh. my favorite comments are the ones that tell me exactly what and why they liked my work, and the ones that analyze and connect my work to their own lives. my only goal in writing and in having an audience is to mean something to someone, to hopefully string at least a couple of words together that change the way someone looks at the world, or at themself, or at anything, tbh. i just love being able to impact people in any way and i love being told how i made someone feel something or think something or realize something. that’s the good shit.

13. A time when writing was really, really hard:

writing is always hard, especially when you’re not sure that you’re writing what you want to be writing. i’ve been feeling the pressure to move away from fanfiction and onto original fiction, and i even started writing my novel last month, but i’m having trouble pulling away from harry and louis, even if my original characters are still just harry and louis with different names.

14. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you:

the entirety of satellite. like i said before, that fic wrote itself, and i was only a bystander. when i first got the idea for that story, it was absolutely nothing like the finished product. originally, it was just a short piece, something a little more witty and funny and disastrous in nature, but it turned out really deep and heartfelt and philosophical. i’m very very pleased with it, obviously, but it’s absolutely nothing like how i pictured it would be.

15. How did you grow as a writer this year:

i figured out how to let a story happen instead of making it happen, and it made all the difference in my writing. i think my new favorite method is going in with a loose outline and some key plot points and just seeing where the characters want to go with it, because that’s when the story feels the most natural and those are the stories i’m happiest with.

16. How do you hope to grow next year:

i hope to keep learning and growing and producing more things that i’m proud of, and i hope i keep losing my interest in the numbers and gain more interest in the process.

17. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

all of my amazing friends and their encouragement and all of the lovely people who left comments and sent messages to let me know they enjoyed my work are my biggest motivators so thank you everyone who’s ever said a single positive thing to me!!!!

18. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

i think that my writing is a pretty accurate documentation of where my head is at at any given time tbh. my work reflects me and my life at the time of writing and i think it’s pretty easy to track my highs and lows through the quality and content of my work lmao

19. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

don’t force anything. if you don’t feel like writing today, don’t. if you don’t feel like writing all week, don’t. don’t let writing become a chore, let it be a fun hobby and something you look forward to doing.

20. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

my fic for the dystopian fic fest!!! it’s coming along v well so far and i’m excited to see where it goes dbsjbjas. i also have a bunch of other ideas and i’m about 160k away from hitting a million words on ao3 so that’s my goal for 2019!!!

21. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read.

@foolsholouday @harrytum​ @lesbianharrie​ @louwus​ and everyone else in the funfic gc i’m so tired i can’t remember everyone’s urls goondihgt

[sarenhale]

a funny, shitty work experience that lasted 1 week (luckily)

(VERY LONG POST)

Oh anyway. It’s 5 am and I can’t sleep and gotta be ready for work in a hour, so... you want to hear a long, ridicolous story about the job offer in Spain I had like 10 days ago? Ready for a wild ride? HERE WE GO.

Basically. A guy that my dad knew due to business (my dad sells vintage stuff) asked about me since my dad told him I did graphic design at Uni and I do illustration/drawings etc, and he reached out to me and asked me to do some illustrations for his brand. The guy is super rich and has a company that do a lot of stuff branching from fashion, to perfumes, to wine bottles, cars and other stuff. I knew I didn’t have a lot of time to work on the job he asked me, but decided to try it anyways just to see how it was like. 

I meet the guy with my dad. We talk. In the end, he changes the work totally from illustrations to... graphic design for his website? Ok, I’m slightly confused by the sudden change of plans, but I studied graphic design for 3 years at Uni and I know my job and also like it, so decide to go with it. He says he wants to meet me in Spain at his office so we can talk freely about the work and decide the job contract together etc. With NO NOTICE he tells me that I have to fly to Spain in 3 days to meet him. Since he pays everything, plane & hotel included, I accept because I’m an extremely open to travel person and very adaptable to situations, and also I tell to myself ‘why not, this could be a good possibility for me, never turn down a job’.

We meet in Spain, everything is normal, but I realize the dude has absolutely NO IDEA what he’s doing and what he wants for his brand, also he apparently never had a graphic design for his brand despite it being kinda a big deal. I’m very concerned about the... irresponsability for his brand’s seriousness and identity, and on top of this, he keeps jumping from topic to topic like he wants illustrations, than graphic design, than posters, than photos and videos... and I’m ONE PERSON. 

Important: in september, I’m flying to America to follow my dream as a concept artist/illustrator and attend classes! Of course I tell him this THE FIRST TIME I see him, and warn him that despite being up for the job, I have little to no time due to the fact I have a part time job at the restaurant and also have to fly in America in like, 3 weeks. He plays it off like it’s all cool and gives me the ‘Don’t worry, you just work on this whenever you can, when you have time, no rush, I will follow your pace and time’. Also says he will give me a certain amount of money as payment every month to do graphic design for his site.

Important terrible fact: his WIFE, that knows absolutely nothing of graphic design/art/web design whatsoever, is apparently managing this side of the brand. So he tells me like, last minute, that I will have to keep in contact with her for this job. I’m already sweating and feeling like this is all going downhill pretty fast into ‘unprofessional’ waters. 

When I’m back home, she IMMEDIATELY writes me to do a huge amount of work despite knowing that I have work (and shifts that are 11 hours a day average!) because ofc I told her and him (and clarified my situation from the beginning). But she wants all the work done RIGHT NOW. She’s also super anxious and pressing me via messages (cause I made the mistake to let her have my cellphone number) and, through the week, keeps sending me texts at 2 AM ASKING ME ABOUT WORK. 

She continues writing me everyday multiple times, when I am home doing the work and even when I’m at the restaurant at work. Despite explaining this to her, and reminding her that the plan all along was that I would work on their blasted websites when I have the possibility (so when I’m off work from my part-time job), she... gets mad at me for not keeping in contact and answering??? And I’m just here like. BITCH. 

At this point, I’m already deep in shit and I know this is a shitshow of a job and I want to quit, despite ONLY A WEEK of effective work. During like, 2 days, I already did two WHOLE websites for them and also 2 logos for their brand, a job that normally a graphic design would require like... 2 months or so. All of this because of the huge pressure. 

In the meantime, he writes me (the dude that asked me for the job in the first place) that he can keep my pace, I have all the time I need, no pressure etc, he respects my work, etc... and I’m here like ???????????? You are doing THE POLAR OPPOSITE of respecting me and my work, by absolutely shitting on the contract we had. Because we talked about this together, about the amount of hours I would have to work and the job I would have to do, and decided TOGETHER everything. It’s not I’m making all of this up, he was the one that came to me in the first place with the proposition of working when I could off my part-time job. 

Last part of this shitshow: his wife texts me they NEED 4 DIFFERENT D I F F E R E N T WORKS done for the next week, asap. 

I’m speechless. The 4 works she talks about are not only too much and not even remotely doable in a week (lmao not even a team of graphic designer could pull off doing 4 different whole works in a week), but ARE NOT RELATED TO THE JOB THEY TOLD ME ABOUT IN THE FIRST PLACE!! They’re asking for graphic design for a restaurant menu and merchandising for the restaurant (????), logos for ALL their websites (that are 20), posters for a music festival and other not-related jobs I honestly can’t even remember due to the ridiculousness of the proposal. I am in AWE for the COMPLETELY ABSURD REQUEST. 

This is just the shit on the top of the shit cake. Also, gotta love how she texted me ‘Marina we need this done in a week’, not even apologizing for the short notice, or for giving me orders. The whole time she texted me for work, also, she was terribly rude and unprofessional, checking on me like she was my wife or something, and just being overly stressful.

Of course I know I won’t do this work and accept this proposal, because 1 It wasn’t in our contract and it’s not a job I should do since you hired me for other things, 2 It’s such short notice it’s HUMANLY IMPOSSIBLE for me to do it, 3 You’d have me working like a slave for your shitty last minute pretends, 4 Even if I wanted, I don’t have the ACTUAL TIME to work since I have another job and this week you’re giving me to work would sum up to the total of 3 days (since I work 4 days a week at the restaurant with daily shifts of 11 / 12 hours) 5 You’re not respecting our original pact, and literally are shitting on the promises you made to me, of me having time to work at my pace on your project and even saying stuff like ‘Your studies are more important!!! So focus on those this is just a job you can do when you have time on your week!!!’ So, HUGE HYPOCRITE, 6 YOU’RE FUCKING CRAZY DUDE. Period. 

So I text him asking to talk about the latest work he asked, and tell him I can’t do it in time. He DOESN’T EVEN CALL ME but just texts me shit like ‘oh ok you have 10 days’ and at this point i’m there speechless and decide to straightforward call him at the phone. 

At the phone, I tell him I can’t do the job because I would have no time to work, and also isn’t literally possible for me to fo 4 FINISHED DIFFERENT PROJECTS in three days. He responds with vague shit like ‘oh well I can give you three more days’ like that would be sufficient, and also completely changes the version from the one his wife texted me, and at this point, I just know he’s a huge liar and hypocrite and basically fucking with me. So I tell him that I just can’t do that job in time, but that I can keep working on the sites I was already working on for them, of course explaining to him WHY and HOW I can’t work on that huge amount of projects he just shoved down my throath without to previous warning or discussion. 

He agrees on me and we left on these terms. Later, I text his wife about all the final touches I made to the websites. (I already knew I was going to drop the job at one point, so I wanted to finish the content so I had no unsolved business or work that could later come back to bite me in the ass- just even for personal satisfaction, cause I like finished things.)

Despite me making a HUGE amount of work on that blasted website, she doesn’t even respond to my text. 

LATER, I GET AN EMAIL FROM THE DUDE. THE MOST RIDICOLOUS EMAIL I HAD EVER GOTTEN IN MY LIFE FROM SOMEONE. 

I swear, if it wasn’t in italian, I would really have posted the photo of the original, cause it’s just... too baffling and hilarious at the same time. 

Basically, he tells me he’s sad I talked to him at the phone with an ‘harsh tone’ and don’t want to do the job because he’s offering a huge opportunity for me. (I even asked my mother about my tone during the phone call: she told me I was absolutely neutral and polite. And I KNEW I WAS BEING super calm, so he’s just assing it up)

He then goes on how he respects me as a person and respects my work (HOW? H O W are you respecting me as an artist and even as a person after how you and your wife have treated me??) and he’s sad to see me go. (I didn’t even told him ‘I’m quitting the job’ or something, I was EVEN willing to finish the websites for him no problem!! So he’s just a fucking huge irresponsible baby for acting like I dropped him suddenly cause he totally COULD HAVE BEHAVED in another way and gotten a better deal with this!!) 

He also felt like adding how good as a person, boss and business man he is to this fucken email like this man is literally a huge egocentric baby (I had a hint when I saw his brand image consists of photos of him and his name everywhere on his wines, perfumes, cars and spaghetti lmao), and also... my favourite part. THAT I FEELS LIKE I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM YET!! :( And all because I told him the truth and didn’t like being a slave for him! Figures! Absurd! Absolute fool I am for throwing away such a proposal!!! A LIFE-DEAL!!! Oh man I’m such an hopeless fool!

And then goes on paternalizing me, and analyzing my life, telling me also things like ‘at your age I was starting business everywhere and had success’ LIKE LMFAO This man I can’t even

Also tells me that the estimated time for the job could be ‘discussed very easily’ when his wife and him were the first and ONLY people telling me with an imperative tone they needed the work done in a week  😂 😂 😂 😂 LMFAO

And... finishes the email off with... ... ... PAYING ME THE EXACT HALF OF WHAT HE PROMISED! ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. ABSOLUTELY CRAZY DISPLAY OF KINDESS AND GENEROSITY, MY DUDE, And also showing how much of a hypocrite and piece of shit you are! 

In the end: I was so enternained by the absolute absurd way this man and his wife managed their job (and in particular the final ACT) that I’m not even bitter, I’m just genuinely remembering this experience as a HUGE JOKE. Because It’s what it is. 

I know I started this post with a serious and detailed way of describing things and the end is just... me laughing my ass off, but hey, it’s now 6 am and I didn’t sleep and also remembering this experience is causing some funny flashbacks. So I’m sorry for the phrasing or whatever... hope you could even understand what I wrote. English is highkey compromised, at this hour and when talking about such absurd MEMENTOS. 

And this is all, cause I’m never writing such a long story ever in my life. But It felt important to share this shitshow with you all... even for remembering that, just because you need job, money, or experience in life... you should NEVER be someone’s slave and be treated so badly. N E V E R.