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chronicallycouchbound · 5 months ago

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PSA: Please don’t ask participants to do grounding/mindful/somatic/etc practices at your events

Grounding exercises should not be an activity in large group settings, especially unsolicited and without warning, especially if you’re not aware of every single person in the space’s mental health conditions, physical health conditions, and personal relationship to their body.

Practices such as mindfulness, grounding, somatic exercises, breathing techniques, body scans, etc. are very helpful therapeutic tools to help manage stress. They can (and do!) help plenty of people– when taught safely and used effectively!

HOWEVER for people with conditions that cause psychosis and/or dissociative conditions such as depersonalization/derealization, these techniques are contraindicated and can make their symptoms significantly worse. They should only be used with guidance from their mental health team and adapted to their needs. For people with conditions like anxiety and PTSD, being aware of breathing can trigger a trauma response or anxiety attacks.

And for people with conditions that cause chronic pain or other uncomfortable bodily sensations, becoming re-centered with their bodies can cause more awareness of the pain they are in, which a level of (ideally functional) dissociation is actually helpful. For people in wheelchairs and powerchairs, touching the ground beneath their feet isn’t always an option. For people with cardiac and pulmonary conditions, deep breathing can be impossible or can trigger asthma attacks. For disabled people in general, doing body scans can be impossible due to paralysis or limb differences. They can bring awareness to things the person wasn’t aware were wrong to begin with (which is helpful in certain spaces, but not a great ice breaker at a retreat!)

And for trans people, binders and other garments can restrict breathing, and taking repeated deep breaths while binding can cause rib damage (which is why you shouldn't bind at night, while coughing from sickness, while exercising, etc). Becoming centered in a body that makes you dysphoric can be deeply distressing, again, a level of functional dissociation helps.

This also goes for plenty of other people in marginalized bodies, such as people of color, people who use substances, queer people, and more. Becoming grounded in your own marginalized body can be a heavy weight to carry, and needs appropriate and individualized care to be a beneficial experience.

As an alternative, I suggest doing a round of gratitudes instead, it allows for people to choose their level of vulnerability in spaces, while not being generally contraindicated for many people. Doing fun (and appropriate to the setting) icebreakers are great. Ask what brings someone to the space. Check-ins about basic needs such as if people need to use the restroom, eat, drink water, are rested, etc. can be more appropriate body check-ins for folks to do.

I don’t recommend doing these exercises even with a warning beforehand. If I'm in the room while someone is leading a breathing exercise, even if I try to ignore it, I (and most people) would automatically become aware of my breathing. The same goes for any other techniques. These techniques can cause real, life-threatening levels of harm for some people, and can even just be deeply uncomfortable or distressing for others. Dissociation is not inherently evil or bad or harmful. It is the way the body and mind naturally respond to adverse experiences (note: it can also cause distress and at higher levels, can be disordered) it is best to allow people to exist as they are in communal spaces. Let people show up as they are.

Most spaces are not equipped or appropriate to respond to emergencies, difficult feelings, and all the varied responses that can come from folks doing mindfulness in group settings.

I personally do some things before large gatherings and events to feel centered on the activity I’ll be doing, and afterward, I decompress. Encourage participants to lean on their natural supports and offer suggestions for it! Be creative in your caring!

This also doesn’t mean to discourage these practices! If you see someone doing deep breathing, check in with them, offer a space for them to decompress, care for them! Worksheets or posters on techniques like square breathing and 5 senses check-ins are great for a quiet room or spaces where participants can decide if they want/are able to engage with those tools. It should be a fully consensual opt-in, rather than being forced to opt-out. Having to leave a room when a group leader says “We’re going to start a mindful breathing meditation, please feel free to leave if you have psychosis, chronic pain, or are trans” is obviously othering and outs people.

Sincerely, someone who has psychotic symptoms, dissociation, chronic pain, is trans and whose body is marginalized in many ways and is really tired from trying to explain this at every event I go to

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innerfare · 3 months ago

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You’re Sick - Part 1

Summary: How do they act when you come down with a bad fever?

Characters: Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, Ace, Sabo, Law, Kid

Genre: Fluff

CW: None // SFW

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Luffy:

Don’t expect him to look the other way when you blow snot all over the place. He’ll laugh and even poke a little fun at you. One thing he won’t do is fuss over you. Sure, he’ll bring you something to eat, and he’ll tell you to get under the blanket if you’re so cold, but he won’t be a mother hen clucking. And it’s comforting, actually. If there’s one thing you can count on from Luffy, it’s for him to remain calm, and he does just that when you come down with a fever, showing up for you without smothering you.

Zoro:

He’s not very good at the nurturing gig. The main thing is that he doesn’t want you to think that he thinks you can’t handle yourself. But… well, he worries. He’s never seen you this way, and the fear of loss is never out of reach for him. He takes to hovering by the door with his arms folded over his chest, even lowering his head to rest his eyes but never once sitting down. It’s not even a conscious thing, him staying on his feet the entire time you’re sick; his instinct is just to protect you, and this is the way he knows.

Sanji:

Soup. Of course he’s going to make soup. And then he’s going to make more soup, so much soup that the entire crew will be eating soup for at least the next week. Sanji doesn’t know what else to do with himself. He has to keep himself busy, though, has to keep his hands moving, or else he’ll find himself in a dark place. Luckily, he knows he can place his faith in Chopper to nurse you back to health. In the meantime, though, he’s going to keep making soup because he knows the power of a good meal.

Ace:

He brushes it off so easily you would think he wasn’t worried- if you didn’t know him, that is. What hits him the hardest when you’re bedridden, though, is how much you take care of him, followed by a fear that he won’t reciprocate well enough and you’ll be cross with him. He never would have imagined his fear of abandonment would rear it’s ugly head at such a time, but there he is, sitting on the end of the bed feeling like his most precious treasure is about to slip through his fingers. He wants to run from it, but he manages to grab your hand and give you a smile, teasing you about your messy hair.

Sabo:

He babies you- the man who rarely picks up the transponder snail and usually hangs up in the middle of the call when he does, the man who can’t be damned to remember most people’s names, the man who seems so utterly blasé most of the time. He drags a damp cloth across your forehead, he takes your temperature every hour, he reads and rereads the label on the medicine you were given by the doctor to be sure you get the right dose at the right time and don’t show any of the adverse side effects listed.

Law:

You expect him to be gruff with you. After all, your boyfriend hasn’t struck you as a doctor famous for his bedside manner. That’s not to say he’s mean, he’s just not very sappy. But when you come down with a fever, you notice a line in his brow you’ve never seen before and quickly realize the depths of his worry. Law is more gentle with you than he’s ever been, even going so far as to quietly spoon feed you. And he holds you the entire time, any risks to his own health be damned.

Kid:

If you didn’t know him so well, you’d think he was mad at you, or at least trying to disturb your sleep because he doesn’t want you to rest. But he snapped at you to sleep in his bed, not your own, and when he comes into his cabin every fifteen minutes, you recognize his extra loud footsteps and irate muttering about you coughing all over his sheets as concern. Eventually, he sits in a chair by the bed with a hunk of metal in his hands that he fidgets with while he watches over you, barking at Killer to bring you something hot.

———

Hope you enjoyed it! If you want more, you can check out my masterlist here!

#one piece #one piece headcanons #one piece fluff #luffy x reader #zoro x reader #sanji x reader #ace x reader #portgas d ace x reader #sabo x reader #law x reader #trafalgar law x reader #captain kid x reader #eustass kid x reader #one piece x reader

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sunderwight · 1 year ago

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Crack SVSSS Mpreg AU where when Shen Yuan transmigrates in, the system impregnates him with the displaced soul of the original Shen Qingqiu.

For the purposes of this AU, we'll say that male pregnancies or trans men being pregnant in the PIDW universe are uncommon but not especially noteworthy concepts.

So now not only does he have to deal with recovering from his qi deviation and of course being pressed into the role of the scum villain from the novel he was just reading, he's also mysteriously knocked up, can't explain it, and doesn't even know for sure if the baby will recollect being Shen Jiu when its born -- and of course hate him for stealing the Shen Qingqiu life.

What's more, Shen Yuan can't bring himself to get rid of it, because he does have mixed feelings about stealing Shen Jiu's life as well. Even though he knows it's probably the best tactical move, and he doesn't even like Shen Jiu, and the system has said there wouldn't be any penalties because it wouldn't impact the major important plot milestones, he opts to just... keep it. And not think too hard about it.

Luckily(?) cultivators have a lot of control over their bodies, which means a pregnancy can last however long they want it to, so Shen Yuan doesn't have to worry about giving birth in a hurry. SJ seems fine in utero, stalling his development doesn't have adverse effects, so Shen Yuan just swears Mu Qingfang to secrecy and figures out how to keep his pregnancy at the early stages for as long as possible while he hashes everything else out. So apart from internal freak-outs, most of the early plot proceeds as usual.

Unluckily(?), this state of affairs changes when Shen Qingqiu gets infected with Without-a-Cure, as that makes it so that putting off the inevitable is no longer a viable course of action. He can't spare the extra energy and doesn't have the stability of cultivation required to mess around with his pregnancy anymore, so things have to proceed at a more normal rate.

Which means the other peak lords and the disciples on Qing Jing find out that Shen Qingqiu has been harboring a secret pregnancy for an undetermined length of time. Shen Yuan has to bite the bullet and use the amnesia excuse to explain his lack of insight to the existence of any other parents (he's surprised it works so well, because he doesn't know that the rest of the sect has already figured out he doesn't remember some things after his fever), which inspires a lot of behind-the-scenes chaos because everyone has ALSO figured out that Shen Qingqiu's amnesia seems to pertain to things that must have traumatized him in the past.

So if he's pregnant, and he lost his memories of how he got that way...

Well. Cang Qiong is now on the hunt for an attacker who might already be dead and doesn't actually exist.

But everyone agrees that Shen Qingqiu doesn't need to be troubled by these details, so if he's okay with not remembering, then they're okay with letting him not remember. The only one who tries to bring it up is Liu Qingge, and that's mostly in the context of wanting clues so he can track down the culprit and stab them until they are dead.

Luo Binghe supports the quest to find the persona responsible and violently murder them, but as a disciple he has no resources to actually go on some wild goose chase for a mystery rapist. Besides, he has more important things to do on the peak, like making Shizun's meals, keeping Shizun's house, and preparing to help raise Shizun's baby. Luo Binghe is not going to be the stepdad, he is going to be the dad who stepped up! (Binghe please cool your jets you're like fifteen you're going to give your future shizun whole new inner turmoil about whether it's possible to accidentally babytrap your own teenage disciple via immaculate conception reincarnation pregnancy...)

Anyway eventually baby SJ arrives, and Shen Yuan immediately decides to block all recollections of the childbirth process and never dwell on it again. Something happened, he's no longer going to think about it, oh look a baby! A potentially evil villain baby. With cute widdle toes and tiny fingers and a squished, grumpy baby face that gets all red when he cries...

Yeah. Despite his reservations, there's no way he's not getting attached.

He gets Binghe to help him pick out a name for the baby, partly because he feels terribly presumptuous when he actually knows this kid's real name (but he can hardly call his son "Shen Jiu"), partly to encourage Luo Binghe to have some fondness for the kid so that if he someday hates his old shizun, he might still spare his "son" from his revenge. Even though it's actually SJ's fault. Well, he's a baby now. He probably doesn't even remember anything! He sure does cry a lot! Would the OG villain cry and fuss and settle down only after being sufficiently cuddled?

Turns out, yes. Shen Jiu remembers everything from before his fatal qi deviation. He's just also still an infant. So what can he do but cry? And maybe pee on the beast and that body-stealing creature that has reduced him to this. He spends most of his early infancy waiting for someone to come smother him with a pillow, but the conspirators must want to keep him alive for some reason, because it doesn't happen. Instead he gets looked after and soothed and taken care of in a way he never has been. Also, his stupid baby instincts keep insisting that the creature which stole his body is actually the safest person in the whole world.

It's like a cruel joke. SJ finally gets the childhood he always wanted deep down inside, but the one giving it to him is some kind of monster.

#svsss #scum villain's self saving system #scum villain #bingqiu #mpreg #long post #sj's gonna be a toddler by the time the abyss arc rolls around #that's gonna be a whole entire mess

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becomingthatgirl111 · 1 year ago

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organize your week like this to be closer to the best version of yourself

i interpret the process of becoming our best version as climbing a ladder, on each step, we learn something new that serves us, and the next we complement it with something new, and so on until we reach the end and after many small habits we have become that version we wanted to be. little by little we are learning and although sometimes it is complicated to climb because of the adversities that may arise we can always take up the path again and put into practice what we have learned. that said, today i want to share a method that i have created to organize our habits and thus fulfill them more effectively and feel motivated. in this post i will only present some examples, you have to apply it to your own situation and my recommendation is to start now even with small habits that will be the ones that will lead you to success. i recommend that you try it for this week and write down your results, if it has worked for you keep using this "organization method" and adding new habits or increasing its time.

organize by categories.

create groups to categorize the habits you want to implement in your life, for example like this (the habits are examples, use your own)

🌿 health (body and nutrition)

10 minutes of exercise every day

30 minutes of walking every day

drink a lot more water

start eating consciously

one self-care day a week, for example on friday. we can take this day more relaxed and take more care of ourselves, dedicate more time to our personal and mental care.

do massage with the quartz roller and gua sha

make an appointment for nails, hairdresser, spa, eyelashes or even go to a coffee shop with yourself.

use a face mask and hair mask

🌿 personal growth

read 10 pages a day

listen to personal growth podcasts or audiobooks (choose one and listen to it all week long)

choose an affirmation and write it down every day

record in a diary or an app your mood and what you did during the day.

create a to-do list of what you will do for the day (the night before)

choose a video of affirmations and listen to it every day at a time that suits you best

🌿 studies

study about what you are studying or training for.

dedicate e.g. 20-30 minutes each day to study or review.

study a new language, 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week.

🌿 hobbies

1 - 2 hours to what you enjoy doing (depends on the day and your schedule)

you can write down in a notebook the groups you want to choose for yourself and then the habits you are going to implement, even if they are very small, for example 5 minutes of daily exercise, that is a good start.

to stay focused and not fall into old habits we can also replace the old habits with new ones that we want to implement in this way.

old habit: too much time on instagram new habit: reading or listening to an audiobook while i take a walk. or even just 15 minutes of social media a day.

other examples:

drinking soda or alcoholic beverages > drinking a lot more water and starting to drink natural juices.

watch a lot of series on netflix (or any streaming platform) > read or listen to podcasts/audiobooks that nourish my mind.

overthinking, worrying > meditating for about 5 minutes

lying in bed without doing anything > organizing my room

think in negative > think about the things you would like to happen to you

other tips to connect with your best version

write in your diary how you would act, be and what habits your best version would have. this will give you clarity about what you want and you will feel closer to that because you will know how to act.

establish small habits to start with and take it as a kind of game or test during this week. don't push yourself too hard.

at times when you don't know how to act or react, think about how your best version would act and what it would do.

write down things you are proud of or would like to be proud of.

if you are easily distracted or do not know what to do at any given moment, set alarms to know what to do at that moment.

if you use social media a lot, set a limit of use.

choose habits that you know you will be able to do easily, that will make you gain confidence and little by little establish those habits in which you have procrastinated or which are more difficult for you.

think big, open yourself to the possibilities that life offers you every day and keep a positive attitude towards any situation.

apps i recommend: habit: it serves to keep track of your habits and also get organized, it's a kind of to-do list. daylio: you can record your mood, what you did during the day and your habits, it also allows you to write and add photos. it is very complete, it can be used as a digital diary. notion: to get organized.

duolingo: if you want to learn a language a few minutes a day will be enough. i learned a lot of grammar in english thanks to this, which works if you practice daily.

and as always my blog is about this and there will be many more related posts in addition to the existing ones, all to be our best version 🤍 in fact if you try it i would love to know your results.

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deadpresidents · 8 days ago

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President Trump took action to "protect civil rights" today by rescinding Executive Order 11246, which was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in September 1965.

Just to be clear, the Executive Order signed by LBJ -- who did more for Civil Rights than any other President including possibly Abraham Lincoln -- nearly 60 years ago, prohibited government contractors from, and this is an exact quote from the Executive Order: "discriminat[ing] against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin" and ordered that government contractors "will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex or national origin". It also ordered that government contractors would be required to "in all solicitations or advertisements for employees placed by or on behalf of the contractor, state that all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex or national origin."

By rescinding that Executive Order today, Trump -- who was sworn in on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, by the way -- is effectively clearing the way, in 2025, for government contractors to discriminate against people because of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. This government, which was elected by a majority of Americans in November, is rolling back the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT.

Oh, and don't forget that Trump also instructed federal employees today that there would be "adverse consequences" if they did not "inform on colleagues trying to dodge" the Trump Administration's crackdown on diversity. So there's also a culture of fear being built into following these (now legally protected) discriminatory practices.

This has always been the country we live in. People have been looking for permission to be okay with it -- and your fellow Americans gave that permission in November when they re-elected Donald Trump. He never hid what he was going to do this week, and we allowed it to happen. Another disgusting day in America.

#ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES #Donald Trump #President Trump #Trump Administration #Lyndon B. Johnson #LBJ #President Johnson #Civil Rights #Diversity #Diversity crackdown #Executive Order 11246 #Politics #Fuck you America #Civil Rights Movement

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derinwrites · 2 months ago

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Do you have any advice for writing in a web serial format?

Let’s look at this in two sections – the business part, and the actual writing part.

The Business Part

1. Consistency. Consistency in updates. Have a schedule and STICK TO IT.

If your schedule is too hectic and starts affecting your health or otherwise adversely affecting your life, change the schedule; update less often. Don’t update in spurts and then randomly stop. The audience will far more easily tolerate a slow schedule than an inconsistent one; an inconsistent one will lose many readers. You’re not Andrew Hussie and you can’t get away with that bullshit.

There may be times where you need to take a hiatus due to some emergency, life event, or health condition. This is fine – your wellbeing is more important than your story. But you need to be up-front with your audience about this; tell them you’re taking a hiatus and tell them exactly how long it’s going to be. If you can, you should tell them in advance (this isn’t possible for things like a car accident, but is very possible if you’re planning to, say, move house in a month). If you’re taking too many hiatuses, then it’s better to slow down your schedule and update less often. Audiences prefer fast and consistent, but if they have to choose, slow is better than inconsistent.

The #1 helper to consistency is having a big buffer – that is, have several weeks’ worth of unpublished chapters. The length of your buffer is personal taste, but I like to keep mine as long as possible so that if there’s some problem that stops me from writing for several weeks, it won’t upset the schedule. It keeps my stress down to know that I have that leeway. Other writers prefer to only write a week or two ahead, though, so different things work for different people.

2. Decide on your monetisation system early and prioritise it.

The most popular and most effective method for monetising a web serial seems to be the patronage method, which is the one I use. You set up a patreon, ko-fi, or whatever sponsorship system you prefer, and offer rewards to those who support you. Having their names in a credit list and getting access to advance chapters are very common rewards. Some people also lock access to their discord behind a paywall, or offer extra stories or let supporters name story characters.

This model is not the only way to make money from web serials. Some people make money via advertising, or selling merchandise, or use the web serial itself to advertise stories that they sell. You can of course use several revenue streams – you can have both a patreon/ko-fi and run ads on your website (I don’t because I hate ads, but you can), or start selling merch related to your story once there’s a demand for it. Many web serial authors (including myself) sell their completed works as books. But the important thing here is that one of these systems will be your main system, and you need to know what it is and behave accordingly. If you run ads AND have a patreon, are you more focused on ad revenue or patreon revenue? You’re going to have to put your time and attention into one of them over the other. You’re going to have to make decisions that will help one and harm the other. So know in advance which one is most important to you.

You don’t have to monetise your story at all, of course. Plenty of people write fiction on the internet for free every day with no thought to making an income at all. But if you’re serious about this, I would recommend monetising it, because that makes a better and more consistent product. The reason I’m still able to keep writing these year after year is that my supporters pay my mortgage; without Patreon and ko-fi, I’d have to get a different job, and wouldn’t have time or energy to write consistently. Also, the reason I can write and update even when I don’t feel like it, and the reason I always push to make my stories as good as possible even when I’m not interested, is because I owe it to my supporters who are paying me real actual money to read my work. If I didn’t owe my readers anything, none of these stories would ever get finished, because writing is only fun about half of the time.

3. Don’t expect to be able to turn this into a career.

This advice sounds silly coming from me, who has through sheer luck, as well as the generosity and passion of my readers, somehow turned this into a career. But I need to emphasise that that luck is not typical. Most web serial writers will not be able to support themselves solely with their writing. It can make a good side hustle, but if your primary goal is “low barrier to entry work-from-home career where I don’t have to answer to a boss and can support myself comfortably,” then web serial writing is usually all of those things except the last one. There’s no harm in trying to turn this into a career – I did it, as have many other web serial authors – but don’t expect that result, is all I’m saying.

Still, if you can do it, it does have a lot of advantages.

4. Don’t expect to make money fast.

I remember when I finally started making an entire $100/month on Patreon. It was a fantastic day.

It was when I’d been writing web serials for four years.

5. Your most valuable resource is your readership.

Your readership will grow and gather momentum over time. The best business decisions you can make are those that grow your readership and allow your readers to participate in community, even if you have to give up opportunities to make money to do it.

A good example of this is discord. Some people have private discords that only their patrons can access; while this is a useful anti-spam and anti-harassment tool, I don’t recommend doing this if you don’t have a major spam or harassment problem. Some people will pay for discord access, yes, so you might get a handful of extra dollars per month that way – however, you will also get a far less active discord. When it comes to readers, population density is critically important; the more activity, the more people talking about your work together (or talking about anything and bonding with each other), the better. Plenty of people have joined my free discord just because it was there and only read my stories after seeing people talk about them there. Then they go and get their friends to read the stories. Enthusiastic readers are inherently valuable, and the best thing you can do is give them the resources they need to talk to each other and share their interest.

This principle applies to a lot of things. I have a lot of free stories on my website that aren’t the usual web serials, and more than once I’ve considered whether they should be paywalled. The answer I always land on is ‘no’; I couldn’t tell you how many readers have been roped into my web serials because they liked Copy <|> Paste, or The Void Princess, or Drops of Blood. These readers may or may not then become monetary supporters, but even the ones who don’t will increase activity and discussion about the stories, have fun and tell jokes in the discord, and may even produce fanart. A thriving community is always going to be more valuable to you than a few extra dollars; make sure to support them accordingly.

Your readership will start very small. In terms of marketing, this is your hardest time. A big readership does the majority of the marketing for you, but when you’re on your own, it takes a lot to convince anyone to give your stories a shot. It helps if you have an existing readership to leverage, which is what I did – I’d been writing Animorphs fanfiction on AO3 for years, and many of my first readers followed me over from there. If you have such a community that already has faith in your writing, leverage it. If you don’t, you can gain one my writing in a place where people go to read stories similar to your work, such as an appropriate subreddit, or a web serial site like Royal Road or Scribblehub. You are looking to gain as high a number of enthusiastic, engaged readers as possible.

And now, the fun part – the actual craft!

The Writing Part

1. Always remember that you are writing for two audiences

A web serial author has to keep two audiences in mind; the serial readers, and the bingers. You are writing a story that needs to be fun and engaging when read very slowly, at the pace of whatever your update schedule is, but that also needs to be interesting when read all at once.

This is not an easy task.

It’s something I fucked up pretty significantly with Curse Words, which was my first attempt at this. Curse Words has a lot of complicated political stuff happening throughout pretty much the whole story, as well as a complex save-the-world plot that’s reliant on a lot of secrets, mysteries and extremely speculative information. With so many wheels spinning, I decided to make the protagonist not particularly smart and move him very slowly through the plot to make sure that the reader would be able to keep up.

This was a mistake.

‘Pretty slow and simple’ at a novel reader’s pace is torturous at a web serial pace. Readers got a full week to discuss the mysteries and implications of each chapter with each other, doing the detective work of ten chapters between each one. The frustration with Kayden’s slow pace was clear, and he came across as an outright idiot rather than an average teen. Personally, I think this lesson was one of the biggest reasons for the difference in quality between Curse Words and Time to Orbit. Don’t slow down for your audience; they’re already slowed down by your update schedule.

At the same time, though, you don’t want to move so fast that you lose the bingers. You can’t assume that your readers will have time between chapters, or that they will discuss each chapter with other readers, or that they will go back over previous chapters looking for clues. Interested people reading update by update will do this, but bingers absolutely will not. So you still need to make sure that everything is comprehensible on a binge read with no backchecking or outside investigation.

My advice on this matter is to move as fast as possible, but take care to make sure that readers are reminded of everything important a few chapters before it comes into play. That way, both audiences can keep up. If you have to make a decision, it’s best to favour your update readers; they’re your most active community. They’re doing the up-to-date discussion, and probably doing the most word-of-mouth and fanart, although binge readers will do that too (I have plenty of dedicated readers who wait five or six weeks to binge a bunch of chapters on purpose, just because that’s their preferred reading style, and they’re still very engaged). But if you plan to publish your story later as a complete work, you also need to keep in mind how it’s going to read as a binge – and also, new readers will binge the earlier chapters of your story to catch up to the current one, so make sure it’s a good experience for them or they won’t get a chance to become update readers.

Two audiences. Mind your pacing and information reveals accordingly.

2. Chapter length

The general rule of web serials is that the more often you update, the shorter your chapters should be. The generally agreed ‘sweet spot’ is 1-1.5k words, 3 times a week, but this depends heavily on individual style. I update once or twice a week (depending on what stories I’ve got going) and try to keep my chapters between 2 and 2.5k words. If you update once a month, your sweet spot is probably about 10k words.

Don’t hold religiously to what other people tell you the ideal word count is – this will vary drastically with genre and personal style – but it’s best to try to stay fairly consistent. It’s not always possible to stay exactly on target because the best break points between chapters will vary (I’ve got 1.8k chapters and 3.5k chapters), but readers like to be able to predict about how long an update will be and they like it to not vary too wildly too often. As with choosing your update schedule, choosing your chapter length will depend on what suits your personal schedule, and what suits the story you’re writing.

“The shorter the chapter, the more frequent the updates” is a good rule for attracting the widest audience. Short, infrequent chapters will have a lot of readers losing interest between updates; long, frequent ones will have a lot of readers feeling overwhelmed. But the most important thing is finding something that you can consistently output year after year (remember, it took me 4 years to make $100/month; this is a long game).

3. It’s a TV show, not a movie

This advice is less useful in our age of Marvel movie franchises and made-to-binge Netflix series, so pretend I’m talking to you in the year 2010 or earlier. If a novel is a movie, a web serial is a TV show. What I mean by that is that a novel is shaped primarily as a complete experience, whereas a web serial is shaped as a chapter-by-chapter experience.

It’s best, in both cases, to have a well structures and paced story that is made of well structured and paced chapters. But sometimes you have to choose between the structure or a chapter and the structure of the story as a whole; making one better will cheapen the other. When you’re writing a novel, you should choose the structure of the whole, but when you’re writing a web serial, you should choose the structure of the chapter. Web serial readers will prefer a chained series of excellent chapters, over a beautiful story of chapters with mediocre individual structure.

In fact, whether you want a structure to the overall story at all is personal taste. My stories have strong overall structure and move towards a planned conclusion because that’s how I prefer to write (and it also makes the story bingeable, since it’s basically a novel being released really slowly), but plenty of web serials out there have no real planned ending and will wander about for years and years in no obviously consistent direction, occasionally throwing in a big twist or major change to freshen things up. These would make absolutely horrible novels, but make very popular web serials. Whether you write like me or like them, the rule is the same – the experience of each individual chapter takes priority.

Come to think of it, this might be why people call my stories “ADHD crack”…

4. Okay, so how do I structure a good chapter?

I generally try to do three things in every chapter.

- Hit the ground running

- Give them something new

- End on an open question

Hit the ground running – Unless it’s the very first chapter of the story, you don’t have to be coy getting into the action. Open the chapter as if it’s the middle of the chapter; start at full momentum. Catch the high point of the last chapter before it falls. It your last chapter ended with “We checked the fingerprints on the candlestick. It’s Colonel Mustard.” then you can start this one with “But he was in the library at the time!”, you don’t need to recap or slow down or anything.

Give them something new – Every chapter should give the reader at least one thing to talk and think about. A new choice, some new information, a shift in perspective, whatever. People are reading these updates one at a time so it is vital that they feel like they got something out of the experience. A chapter in which nothing is learned will make readers feel like their time was wasted, and they have all the time until next update to reflect on that.

This is also true of a novel, but it’s much more critical in a web serial. A novel with nothing chapters in it is just frustratingly slow-paced; a web serial with nothing chapters in it leaves the reader feeling cheated for long stretches of time.

The thing to talk about doesn’t necessarily have to be a big plot reveal or major advancement. An incredibly cute scene, or sad scene, or funny scene will work just as well. But you have to give them SOMETHING. If you’re giving them nothing, consider cutting the chapter entirely and integrating any important foreshadowing or whatever into the next chapter.

One major hurdle of mine with this rule is recap chapters. If you’re writing a very complex plot over a long period of time, you need ways to occasionally take stock and make sure everyone is on the same page and nobody’s forgotten or misinterpreted anything important. This information can be recapped or conveyed in the middle of an action sequence or something, but I personally find that putting other stuff in the scene makes it too distracting and therefore less effective. I like to literally just sit the heroes down in a room and have them go, “okay, we’re spinning a lot of threads at once right now; what do we know, what are we trying to figure out, and what are our next steps?” This is the literary equivalent of the save point or room full of health packs right before a boss battle. Game designers don’t put that room there to be nice; they do it so that they know exactly how much health you’re going to have going into the battle, and can structure it accordingly.

You can make these chapters entertaining with character banter, but you can’t really introduce new threads to talk about, except possibly as a twist right at the end. Introducing new information mid-recap distracts from the recap and makes it pointless. You might have something similar in your stories, chapters that are essential but don’t give the reader anything new to work with.

My advice for these is to just bite the bullet on this one. Release the chapter with nothing new to talk about. You can get away with doing this occasionally, if the chapter has a clear purpose (I get a lot of readers tell me that they appreciate my recap chapters). Readers who get nothing out of the chapter will shrug and talk about older stuff instead, so long as you only do this occasionally. But a chapter with no new information has a cost in opportunity and in reader patience, so only pay it if the chapter’s worth it.

End on an open question– End the chapter with a reason for the reader to come back. You want them to think about the story afterward and be eager to read the next chapter when it comes out. Adhering to this principle is probably why I have such a reputation for cliffhangers, although truth be told I don’t use nearly as many actual cliffhangers as people say, I just try to end by opening a question. By that I mean, the audience should always end a chapter asking a question, which can be something that will span dozens of chapters (“How can Colonel Mustard’s fignerprints be on the candlestick? Is he being framed? Does this mean that the candlestick was in the library and isn’t even the murder weapon?”) or span a single paragraph (“How will the narrator react to learning that Colonel Mustard lied about never touchign the candlestick?”) This could be the emotional height of a scene, or the point at which new information recontextualises everything. It could be the moment where the stakes are raised or an important assumption turns out to be false. Anything that makes the audience eager to learn what happens next will do.

There should always be at least one open question in your story, more if it’s thematically appropriate. You know how mmorpgs and crafting games and suchlike keep you playing for hours and hours by making sure you’re always near the end of an activity – keep playing til you reach the next level, oh but now we’re nearly at the end of this quest so we should complete that, oh but now we’re just 20 gold short of being able to buy that cool new armour so we should just… same trick. Readers should always have at least one ‘quest’, an open question that they’re following, and should always be close to an answer.

You don’t have to dramatically introduce an entirely new question each time; you can end a chapter by reminding the reader of an existing open question. I tend to be a fan of the Big Dramatic Reveal On The Last Line method (cliffhanger reputation), but you don’t have to do it that way. Indeed, it’s a good idea not to do it that way every single time, lest you get stuck in a rut; every chapter ending doesn’t have to be incredibly tense and snappy. Somebody mentioning that they wish they knew how they could get enough food to make it through the winter before a full paragraph of cuddling and falling asleep in their mother’s arms works just as well.

5. It will help if your story is good, but it isn’t required.

You don’t have to be very good at writing to do this.

It helps to be good at writing, of course, and I assume that since you’re asking me for tips, you’re the sort of person who wants to be as good at writing as you can. But there is some true hack garbage out there doing absolute numbers in the web serial circuit. I try not to harp on about this too much because Curse Words fans get really upset at me when I do, but I think most of us can agree that Curse Words kind of sucks. And that just sucks in an ‘author is still learning how to do this’ kind of way; there’s much worse writing, real bullshit Ready Player One-level writing, trucking along out there brilliantly.

The point I’m trying to make here is that this isn’t an industry where there’s any value in hesitating and wringing your hands and asking yourself if you’re a good enough writer to do it yet. You are. You can just start writing a web serial right now and so long as you consistently update, you’re probably already above average for the market. And your first one probably will suck (mine did), but it’ll teach you how to make a better one. I think that Time to Orbit: Unknown is passably okay, and it absolutely would not be passably okay if I hadn’t written Curse Words first. Just go for it. Try to write a quality story if you can, but if you can’t, it’s honestly not that big of a deal. What matters, truly matters, is that you are committed to improving your craft. And that means actually practicing your craft. Which means writing some chapters and setting up a release schedule.

Good luck.

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immortalmrwavell · 16 days ago

Text

Wavell’s Vacation 1

(Original story posted August 23rd 2022) This story has received mild edits and corrections

Read the Origin of Mr Wavell here!

It’d been quite some time since I first took this body as my own and adopted the name Mr Wavell. I’ve gotta say though, with my full power finally within my grasp along with a hot dilf body to go with it, it’s easily been the best years of my life. Swapping men left and right. Transforming their bodies. Giving them the means to possess each over. I’ve made hunky dads trade bodies with their jock sons. I’ve forced skinny twinks to grow into thick hairy bears. I’ve enabled lowly workers the chance to possess or swap bodies with their powerful bosses. Even allowing women to transform themselves into hot beefy studs. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

As much as I love my ‘job’ however, I thought it’d be good to take a short break. A holiday of sorts. You see as much as I mess around with the bodies of other men, I don’t really change my own that much. Part of that is due to the fact that I can’t transform myself without risking my health. I took this form and absorbed its mind into my own because it was compatible with my power but if I mess around with it then I fear that may no longer be the case. That said I can still possess others…

Once again however possession is a bit tricky. Not so much for me but more for the person I’m inhabiting. Most people’s bodies aren’t built to contain the insane amount of raw magical power I possess. All this means really is that I can’t be inside one body for longer than about a week. Any more and it will start to have some heavy adverse effects on my host. Because of this I don’t often bother possessing people. I liked my body after all so I don’t really feel much of a need. But I suppose if I’m going on a vacation I might as well go the full mile right?

With that in mind I’d decided to take on three different incredibly hot men for a week each.

Week 1

For my first target I wanted to go big. A man who was not only hot but also well known and beloved by many. There were a bunch of different industries that contained men like this. A big one being the TV and Film industry with all its sexy actors and another being the sports industry with its wide array of hunky athletes. After some thought I decided to go with the latter. And what better sport to cherry pick a hunky body from than good ol’ American Football. I might’ve been English myself, or at least my host was, but I could never deny myself the delight of American athletes.

Initially I considered going for someone more current who was still very active in the sport today. That is until I was hanging around and observing some football fans. They mentioned the name of a certain retired player that caught my ear immediately. Tim Tebow. Yes I’d heard of him. He was a handsome fucker if I remembered correctly. And once his name was in my head I just couldn’t get it out. That’s when I knew what body I’d be taking first.

It didn’t take long for me to find the Ex-player’s house and luckily for me he was completely home alone. I found him just outside his house talking to some neighbours. Fuck did he look delicious right now wearing that tight navy shirt and those fitted jeans. Oh I just couldn’t wait to jump inside!

I waited around for awhile until he finished talking to those neighbours. I didn’t want to make a scene after all. Not that I wasn’t tempted. Thankfully though it wasn’t long until he was waving goodbye and heading back into his own garden. Practically the second that Tim was out of sight from anyone else, I made my move.

Watching as he stretched his arms and yawned, I couldn’t help but smirk. If that wasn’t an invitation then I don’t know what was. I wasted no time diving my ghostly body head first into his open mouth. Tim’s eyes went wide as suddenly he couldn’t close his mouth while my invisible form forced itself down his throat. There was nothing he could do as my being slipped inside with ease despite his attempts to somehow stop me and pull me out. Before long the last of my form pushed its way down his throat and settled inside.

I didn’t take immediate control. Instead i left him to freak out for a moment in wonder of what the fuck had just happened. Only then did I start to flow some of my energy into his limbs starting with his legs and feet. Suddenly Tim found himself walking against his will towards his house with me as his puppet master. Due to his upper body freaking out we almost fell a few times leading to me taking control of his back as well to keep us upright.

Before long I’d managed to walk us up to his door where I took control of his right arm to let us inside. Tim began to panic more as he lost further control of his body. Soon enough we made it to his bathroom where we looked into the reflection. I took control of the rest of his torso along with his left arm and neck so I could begin flexing a little show off.

“AGHH Stop! Stop please!” Tim begged without even knowing who he was pleading to. “What’s happening to me?!” He wailed.

Just then Tim’s expression switched from worry and panic to calm and devious. “I’m taking your body for spin, that’s what’s happening.” I said using his own voice.

His face returns to its prior worried expression. “W-what! No! Why did I?… Oooooahhhh…” Tim began to groan out as I finally took control of his cock and balls, flooding them with my raw sexual energy as the bulge in our jeans grew substantially. “Noooooo… Get out of my… body!” Tim grunted as his cock began to pulse rapidly until…

“Ooh… FUUUUuuuuuuuucckkk!” I moaned out as I forced us to blow a massive load, soaking the inside of these well fitted jeans. After a short cool down, I groped my wet, sticky bulge a little before announcing “Sorry my man, no can do. For the next week I’m gonna be the new Tim Tebow..” A grin broke out across my stolen face as I claimed it. I could feel Tim panicking from within but there was nothing he could do now. I was in the driver's seat.

After that I jumped in the shower to get a proper look at the ex football player body I now owned. Tim had clearly made sure to himself in marvellous shape with these juicy pecs and sizeable arms. Can’t say I wasn’t happy to be groping it all from the inside. And all the strength it contained was exhilarating. Sure I had immense magical power but the physical power this form held was a whole different ball game.

Once I was done I stepped out, got dried and began raiding Tim’s closet. After all, as fun as it would be, I couldn't be seen wearing those cum-stained jeans. I didn’t want to completely tarnish his image after all. What would be the point in that?

After that I tried live the week to it’s fullest. I must’ve tried on almost every outfit Tim owned (which was many) and loved seeing how each item was perfectly tailored to his body. I would’ve had to use magic to resize most of this to my regular body but now it stretched over my new muscle in all the right places to show off. Of course I had fun in many other ways too though. One of which was tapping into Tim’s memories and personality to trick his family, friends and fans into believing that I really was him! Such a rush I gotta tell ya. I mean I’ve done this very thing to so many other men, allowing them to possess or switch bodies with the man they desire but doing it myself is just a different kind of pleasure.

I’ve gotta say though one of my favourite parts was sneaking out during the evening and hooking up with some hot dudes. Needless to say they were more than surprised to see the straight christian man Tim Tebow cheating on his wife for some hot gay sex but they certainly weren’t going to decline the opportunity. Had so many dudes pretty much salivating over the chance to wrap their lips around my celebrity cock or to press their faces into my jock ass. Each encounter went like a dream. For them and for me.

Unfortunately Tim’s wife did get suspicious eventually. She wondered why I wasn’t being as affectionate and why I was leaving the house so often. I was hoping I could get through the week without this but I didn’t want anyone to think something was up. And so what I ended up doing was digging into Tim’s subconscious and begrudgingly connecting myself to his heterosexuality. The second I did, I saw his wife in a whole new light.

Before long we were on the bed together, kissing and pulling off each overs clothes. Suddenly I can see why straight dudes are so fascinated with breasts, I couldn’t keep my hands off her jiggling tits. And before I knew it I’d plunged Tim’s cock into her pussy and started plowing away. I’m not gonna say it felt better than fucking a hot hairy ass but it still felt pretty damn good. I continued to fuck her like animal, making it as passionate as possible for *her sake*. What do I mean by her sake? Well during this I had a very fun idea that I was going to put into action later.

Soon enough I found myself unloading Tim’s balls inside her, filling her up in a horny haze. She looked satisfied and so was I. Once that was done I let out a sigh of relief and detached myself from Tim’s heterosexuality. Being a straight man was weird. I mean I didn’t hate it I suppose but it definitely wasn’t me. I was gay through and through and I wanted it to stay that way.

By this point I had two more days inside Tim’s flesh before I had to vacate so I was sure to make it count. Getting in as much delicious gay sex as I could inside this formerly straight christian body. I even had one guy with a fantasy of fucking me while wearing Tim’s old football gear. Thankfully he still had it stored away and it fit like a glove. Let’s just say by the end of that night there was a cock sized hole in the back of those football pants where my aching asshole had been fucked relentlessly and filled to the brim with cum.

Eventually however, my time came to an end and I had to leave this beautiful body. It was a fun ride while it lasted. I got to meet a bunch of Tim’s fans, loving how they reacted with such excitement upon seeing me. I got to live out the life of a well known celebrity. And most of all I got to pop this body’s homosexual cherry. Speaking off…

After I launched my soul back out through Tim’s mouth, I watched as he fell the ground unconscious. Of course I could’ve just left things like that but I just couldn’t help myself. I reached inside his mind and found his heterosexuality. After which I linked Tim’s mind up to a gay dude not far from here who had a bunch of Tim Tebow posters around his room. Then all I had to do was close my eyes and focus. Tim and this other miscellaneous gay man, who’s name was Nathan, had a surge of energy run through their bodies. And just like that, they had switched. Not bodies but rather they’d switched sexualities. When Tim awakens he’ll start to notice an absence of attraction to his wife and will soon start popping boners for hot dudes he sees either online or in real life. It’s certainly gonna be interesting to see if he remains faithful and tries to make it work with his wife or if he splits from her and embraces his new orientation.

On the other hand, I might have to check up on that Nathan dude at some point as well. Suddenly no longer being interested in dick and dude ass, instead finding himself with a craving for pussy and a fascination with tits. Oh I can only imagine how he’ll cope.

But for now I’m off to find my next body��

Read the Second Part and Third Part here!

#mr wavell #male body theft #identity theft #male possession #forced possession #hunk possession #celeb possession #male takeover #magic #gay to straight #jock

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