#working on an actual project but just wanted to write something short and descriptive to blow off some steam

[hetakinkmeme]

Welcome to the revived Hetalia Kink Meme! This will be hosted both on Tumblr and on Archiveofourown as a prompt meme challenge. I noticed that trying to only host on Tumblr led to some issues, and a lot of people don't know how to use Dreamwidth nowadays so attempting to host it there doesn't work anymore either.

Now, the Hetalia fandom isn't as big as it once was, but I'm still hoping that we manage to get some participation going.

Collection link:

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Hetalia_Kinkmeme

Please note that this is NOT affiliated with the original Hetalia Kink Meme on Dreamwidth or its corresponding collection on ao3. Their collection is named Hetalia Kink Meme(heta_kink). Ours is HetaliaKinkMeme(Hetalia_Kinkmeme).

Now, here's a quick FAQ and list of rules:

What's a prompt meme?

It's a place where you can suggest things you want to see written in your fandom, or write people's requests if you happen to see one that strikes your fancy! As a requester, click on "prompt form" and fill out the form. The fields with a * next to them are required fields, but you may choose whether to leave the other fields blank or fill them out.

Required fields: Characters(at least 1), Description(Describe what you want and don't want). That's it!

As a writer, you may click "claim" on somebody's prompt to announce your intention to write it.

But OP!! I thought prompts aren't allowed on ao3!!

You're correct. Usually. Many people don't know that there is actually a special collection challenge type on ao3 that is designed for hosting prompt memes just like this one! There is a separate section for prompts where you can upload prompts/requests. Here's a link to ao3's prompt meme FAQ:

How many prompts can we request?

I made the limit 15 per account. I think this is more than enough. Of course I can't stop you from requesting from multiple accounts but come on man... (If you want to add another prompt that badly you could also delete one of your old prompts.)

How long should our fills be?

I am unlikely to enforce any minimum, but I personally recommend at least 400 words.

Can I write a fic for a prompt that someone has already claimed?

Yes! Multiple fills per prompt are allowed. Two cakes and all that.

Are requests anonymous? What if I want to de-anon a request?

Requests are anonymous by default, but you may de-anon by unchecking the "semi-anonymous prompt" box at the end of your prompt form.

Are the collection works anonymous? What if I want to de-anon the fic I wrote?

COLLECTION WORKS ARE NOT ANONYMOUS BY DEFAULT. When uploading a fic to fulfill a prompt, you may add it to the "anonymous" collection on ao3 to keep yourself anonymous.

NOTE: You won't be able to click claim on a prompt without revealing your username. Unfortunately anonymous claims aren't possible without making the entire collection anonymous. A work around is to just upload your fic to the collection the old fashioned way and then state the prompt you're filling in your A/N.

I heavily debated whether to make the entire collection anonymous, but I ultimately wanted it to be up to the author as to whether to anon or de-anon without them being forced to leave the collection in order to de-anon.

Rules:

1. Your prompt/request must have at least a BIT of description as to what you want. Posting only something like "cat boy!Ivan x dog boy!Alfred" isn't going to do much to get anybody's imagination running. A prompt as short as the above will be considered spam and deleted. Aim to describe a bit of what you want(just a sentence or bullet points is fine, just at long as it's something) as well as what you DON'T want(any squicks etc.)

2. Requests must be for Hetalia. I'll allow crossovers if it seems like a popular enough property. (I.e. Hetalia x Harry Potter). Hetalia AUs such as cardverse are more than welcome!

3. Both requests and fills may be anonymous as stated in the FAQ. To make your request anonymous, click the "semi-anonymous prompt?" box at the bottom of the prompt form. It should be auto selected already. This will make sure your prompt is posted under "anonymous".

To make your prompt fill anonymous, upload your fic to the "anonymous" collection along with this one. Unfortunately clicking "claim" on a prompt will reveal your username and there's nothing I can do to change this. You can make note of which prompt you fulfilled in your A/N.

4. All characters & ships welcome. All kinks and types of prompts and works welcome.

5. Be nice to each other. Mean-spirited asks, prompts, or fills will be deleted.

Have any questions? Send in an ask!

Prompts and fills may be submitted onto this tumblr as well, but the same rules as above apply. You may submit the same prompt on both ao3 and Tumblr or on only one of them as you wish. Prompts that do not follow the rules will be deleted.

Update: In case it isn't clear, you don't have to specifically fulfill an ao3 prompt to upload to the ao3 collection; it can be a fill for a tumblr prompt as well! You can also send the fic link here and I'll post it.

[wholesalemagnesiumoxide]

The Simslops Afterword

hello everybody! thank you for reading my book. seeing people talk about it has been very gratifying & encouraging.

i was going to write this up essay style, but doing it as a q&a is more fun and still lets me cover everything i wanted to, so let's begin.

q&a

first off, a question from @aminoasinine which i'll address in parts:

I really enjoyed Simslops, and in particular I think the "dwarf fortress event log" style of writing is a great way to showcase the machine/algorithm aspect of it. What software was used for this? Did it have trouble keeping track of so many characters? I noticed the centipedes and other numbered masses were accurately tracked throughout the text, which is something that I know AI tends to struggle with. I'm also curious to know how much of the chapters' 'plot' was laid out in advance by the prompting, and whether any major events were the result of emergent narrative. In particular, the coffin + Maude's Salvation plot towards the end definitely felt like direct intervention on your part, but was the AI reacting to you inserting those things, or were you editing the text around them after the fact?

the simslops is the product of a custom program written in nodejs. the source code is available at the download page if you want to examine it in detail, but the core of the framework is as follows:

there are actors, items, and rooms with names and numerical flags.

there are actions, each defined by their conditions, effects upon the scene, and chance of being selected.

each chapter is defined by its starting conditions and available actions.

each round or tick (whatever you want to call it), a random available action is applied to the scene.

this is repeated until an action ends the scene or there are no more actions left to perform.

each action narrates itself when applied to a scene. for example, the source code for the "pick up an item" action looks like this:

hopefully this is at least semi-intelligible if you don't know javascript. the first parameter defines what the action acts upon: in this case, an actor and an item. the second is the condition: the item must not already be held, and it must not have the pickupAttempted flag. the third is responsible for how the action affects the scene, and the string it returns is how the action is described in the text. when an actor goes to pick something up, if that something is immovable, this is noted. (otherwise every scene devolves into everybody struggling to pick up a couch.) if it's not immovable, the actor picks it up. the first case is described with "actor tries to pick up item, but it's hardly portable." (a reference to the inform 7 default responses) and the second with "actor picks up item." the fourth parameter says to multiply this action's weight by ten if the item in question has a description and has yet to be examined.

each action is defined similarly. a handful use grammars for more varied output, but the majority just have simple fill-in-the-blank sentences. all together there's nearly 6k lines of nodejs to define the whole book. this project started as a test case for this framework, actually. i was outlining a short story and hating it and had a thought: what if i wrote a program to generate an outline for me? then i could have a skeleton to work from and could get to the fun part, the actual writing. out of whimsy i decided to put some simpsons characters in a room and make them fuck. this is a more exhaustive test case than you'd expect. it handles solo actions (moaning) and pair actions (lustful looks & sex.) sex only happens when both participants are horny, which requires setting flags for each actor. kramer's appearance is an action not tied to anything in the scene, and giving birth is an action that creates new actors. a great deal of my motivation here (and in many other things) was "wouldn't it be funny / fucked up if..." but it also did its job of test case pretty well. once i added items, that necessitated inventories; theft & picking up & putting down all require certain types of checks.

it's funny that you mention emergent narrative, because i really think the simslops really became what it was in the telling. early in the process i became enamored with the image of one of the characters descending through text adventure geography, lost and alone. thus came the turn to pathos. i had read "does marge have friends" some time prior, which inspired maude's inclusion and the role she plays. from there i built things out with twin eyes toward thematics and "funny/fucked up". i do find it interesting to what extent all that was emergent from the implementation. it's a framework that tends towards reducing things to mush. a semantic satiation machine.

anyway, i hope this answers your question --- it's not LLM-based, it uses older, more "traditional" procgen techniques. the plot of each chapter is roughly scaffolded by the actions i attach to it. it's really incredibly authored; it's difficult for this framework to surprise me except by juxtaposition. under this framework it's also pretty trivial to track any number of actors. so, to answer this question from @zedogica:

how much of simslops was embellished from the original generated text? a few moments stood out to me

none of it. you can download the source and get your own personal simslops. the only human embellishment was done during development. in an ideal world, this would live on a server somewhere and everyone could download a unique generation. unfortunately, i don't have the knowhow for that kind of thing. (my understanding is that you need to do a lot when writing server-side code to make sure you don't expose a million security vulnerabilities.) i've contented myself with doing what i can client-side: releasing the source code & setting up the download button to give you one of five pre-generated outputs.

returning to aminoasinine's question:

I also really like the difference in language used during the Deviltongue chapters. It's interesting to see what changes when the tone is explicitly defined as 'horror' or 'scary', and how that seemingly translates to those bizarre compound words like tribulationmalice and torturefrenzy. I think it's my favorite chapter(s) in general because of how it takes a much different tone and hammers it into the same monotonous nothing as the other chapters despite its more 'active' and ostensibly 'less boring' setting than your standard centipede sex house. everything shakes and moans and howls with blood-malice, lymph and spines standing on end, over and over until it doesn't mean anything anymore. everyone and everything is trembling in fear of a grim finality bearing down that never actually comes, because nothing ever ends. It's the same nothing-emotion as all the unbearable passionate lust in the sex scenes, an emotional signifier that signifies absolutely nothing.

thank you! the strange compounds are a product of the aforementioned grammars, as are the shaking and moaning and howling. writing the dungeon & horror chapters made me realize i really like broad, dumb pastiches. there's something very satisfying about taking cliches and mangling them.

Anyway, the choice to have 'pet the dog' in every scene did not go unnoticed, I think the last three lines are my favorite part, and finally, I think every book from now on should open with a horoscope chart made from out of context quotes. Thank you for making this, I will be watching your neocities with great interest :)

thank you for reading it! two fun facts about the horoscopes:

each entry's text is taken from a random item description.

the dates are wrong, each offset by a day. due to my strong personal convictions i wished to stress that this novella in no way endorses the practice of astrology.

an anonymous question:

So Marge crying during the video game sequence show the reduction of feelings into simple fun, even though the human experiencing the games in question might feel other emotions when playing them. But what do the horror sections represent? I got the gist of most parts, but as I don’t engage with horror medium often I feel like the commentary is lost on me. What were you trying to say with the horror sections, in other words?

first: one of the major benefits of the framework i used here is that it's very good at creating unintended juxtapositions. the only prerequisite for weeping is if the actor in question is holding part of a corpse, but depending on the context, it can take on a number of different connotations.

second:

a lot of usamerican horror films (particularly aliens and predator) are sublimations of the anxieties surrounding the vietnam war. both are about big grizzled soldier guys getting picked off by an unseen yet omnipresent foe who can strike from anywhere. hell, one of them is even set in a jungle. slender: the eight pages, being a game about the Scary Getter following you around in a forest, feels of a type with these.

seymour skinner was a us soldier in the vietnam war.

in that vein, another anonymous question:

also I understand almost all of the references in the chicken’s names but how does sylvester stallone figure into colonialism?

one of sylvester stallone's two big roles is the rambo series, where he's a heroic us soldier rescuing prisoners of war in vietnam, repelling the soviets in afghanistan, or performing other jingoistic acts of horrendous violence. the other is rocky where he plays a white boxer (the "italian stallion") who's built up as a contender to the current reigning champion, Black boxer apollo creed. he's of a type with the other americana culture slop included, i think.

another question from aminoasinine:

Damn, I thought of another question right after I sent that long-ass ask. What was the thought process behind making The Bart such a minor part of the story? Is it out of a desire (or the AI's internal rules) not to have a child present in the gore/sex chapters, or is it more about how Bart as a character seems almost /more/ of a product or symbol than any of the other characters? Like, he can't really mingle with the other 'people' in this setting, because he is something beyond, having transcended any semblance of characterhood to become ONLY product? Is this the end state of every simslop, to eventually be reduced to a series of identical stimuli on a conveyor belt of endless content?

i settled on the cast of characters pretty early. homer and marge are obvious. ned is also pretty obvious. maude is the emotional core. "kramer bursts in" is a pretty common meme. and i had steamed hams edits on the brain, so seymour gets to come, too. i scaffolded out my story with a focus on these six and whatever pathos & resonance i could wring out of them.

i don't think i had any plans to include bart until i came up with that pun. "the work of bart in the age of mechanical reproduction." that + the factory itself is a very good illustration of the funny/fucked up philosophy & dichotomy. (i think i also had the bart doll from the trash meteor episode of futurama in mind.)

anyway, to answer your actual question: yeah, i didn't want to put bart in the main story because i didn't want to put a child in the mix, and he didn't fit in the outline i had drawn up. i think the intermissions pretty accurately capture the pathos of bart & milhouse, though. the funko pop scamp and the perpetual punching-bag.

this next question is from @where-your-eyes-dont-go:

I'm curious about the reason for "_ pets the dog" being such a frequent refrain in so many sections. I could read it a few ways— it's an action that's often used to humanize characters, and it occasionally does seem to give the characters more apparent personhood, the action almost automatically being interpreted by the reader as affection showcasing an internal life—but its repetition seems to force the reader to instead view it as just another merely automatic process. It also could be a bit of commentary on the common claim that a "pet the dog" button in video games automatically makes such games better. I'd love to know more about your thought process here.

early in the development process, i added "actor votes blue." as an inane flavor action. rqd suggested they pet the dog, and i thought it was brilliant. "can you pet the dog" is exactly the kind of empty posturing i want to satirize. i thought it would be best if the dog is never simulated otherwise. just as petting the dog is an empty gesture in games, in the simslops the dog only exists "in flavor", not mechanically. there is no dog actor or dog affection flag, it's just implied there's a dog around for each scene. the suggestion of something cozy and wholesome and cute happening without any actual substance. (and bob was there, too.)

(a friend had to dissuade me from adding "actor realizes why they're called Kojima games" as another flavor action.)

this anonymous question befuddled me a bit:

have you read Marge Simpson Anime?

"marge simpson anime... what in the world is marge simpson anime?" and then i looked it up and found a tumblr blog with a bunch of drawings of marge and went "oh yeah! marge simpson anime!" i haven't read it, but i've definitely seen it around, and i'm definitely at least in conversation with it.

(on the subject of things i'm in conversation with, i realized recently that i absolutely should have put too many cooks and the simpsons au where homer is in pain in the further reading section.)

a question from @theoretically-questionable:

I'm curious as to why the choices of both explicit sexual acts and disregard for consistent anatomy within said acts were made for Simslops; was it simply a transgression, influenced by the (surprising) amount of actual simpsons porn, or something else?

this one also befuddled me. my original intent had been to generate oddball descriptions of a consistent set of genitals, but, like. on further reflection, that super isn't borne out by the text. i think my mental image of things changed when i added the "adverbly-verbing" snowclone to the sex grammar. (score one for emergent narrative.) my initial motivation was that i think over-the-top, too-mechanical-to-be-erotic sex is a fun thing to write a generator for, and i find kramer and homer doing obscene things to each other amusing. the end result is a lot more mastaba snoopy in a way i really like.

here's a question from @txttletale:

why the simpsons? as opposed to, for example, family guy

i've had to think for a while on this. my instinctive response is "it was essentially random, an act of whimsy," but that's not a very good answer. surely something drew me to the simpsons, even if it was subconscious. let's try and peel it back a layer. my next theory has to do with pathos. it is very difficult to wring anything remotely poignant out of peter griffin. you put peter griffin in a scary cave and he goes "this reminds me of the time i was in the descent" and we get some inane cutaway gag. i can't imagine lois expressing anything more sincere than a scott the woz video. there's an obvious pathos to meg, the constant butt of the joke; treating her with any degree of seriousness gets you pathos in spades. similarly, that comic where chris griffin and bart simpson go to couples therapy is genuinely affecting. there's something there, but it's a very different something from what the simslops ended up being. (for one, i wouldn't feel comfortable doing all the centipede sex stuff if my principal characters are kids.) there's a similar issue with trying this with south park (which was also something i don't have much familiarity with). while the fandom has bafflingly devoted a great deal of time and energy to the emotional struggles of those little weirdos, i don't really see much potential there.

on the other end, we have futurama, a show with perhaps too much emotional weight to go in the blender in the same way. like, there are the episodes with fry's dog and fry's brother and leela's parents. similarly, bob's burgers and bojack horseman (and i'm sure many other shows) draw their characters too realistically. the simpsons hits a sweet spot. its characters are cartoon-enough, commodified-enough, and emotional-enough. they're in the goldilocks zone along all these axes.

in the simpsons movie, there's a bit where bart and ned go fishing. bart messes up somehow, ned goes to assist, and bart flinches away, expecting to be strangled. what was once a comedy routine, a subversion of the "father-knows-best" sitcom family, is treated with real emotional weight.

how did they ever come back from that? by the end of the film homer had redeemed himself as a person and as a father. it was the emotional climax of the movie or whatever. roll credits. there were a million billion more seasons and despite the increasing age of the voice cast, more simpsons are extruded every day. why bother? the rotten heart was laid bare nearly two decades ago.

finally, a question from @fattyopossum:

have you seen any interpretations of it youd consider like. unexpected, in either a good ro bad way? any takes on it now that its been out that youw erent expecting people to get or new interpretations people brought to it that really resonated with you

a lot of the thematic weight of the simslops feels post-hoc to me, like a new interpretation that wasn't there when i wrote it. again, it really became what it was in the telling; technical decisions lead to thematic weight. all characters who have sex have the same genitalia. i decided this because it made writing the sex grammar easier. however, it's also a huge thematic boon. casting marge and maude as transfem makes maude's abjection and their love for eachother much more impactful. it's really easy for me to get chicken-or-the-egg about it. which came first, the High Artistry or the Funny/Fucked Up?

(the real answer, of course, is that it doesn't matter. the text exits anyway and i must shepherd it as it exists, not as i intended it. ego death of the author.)

as for other people's interpretations: i'm quite pleased about the reasoning that anon expressed earlier for why marge was crying while platforming. i was also happy to hear a friend's read that kramer had finally found peace in the meadows, that she's with the girls and relaxing and having snacks. it's not really borne out by the text, but it's such a comforting thought, right? maybe if we imagine kramer happy, she will be.

trivia

the first commit hit my git repo in september 2024, and the simslops released march 2025. all in all it took about six months of on-and-off work.

the name "deviltongue" comes from a character i played in a game of neptune's pride. he ended up getting betrayed and dying badly. so it goes. (on a similar note: as a kid, i thought his name actually was "slideshow bob".)

originally, the sundervalley chapters were going to feature more of the classic cozy small farmer simulator tropes. homer was gonna go fishing and chat up the town's eligible bachelors: crow, tom, and cam. it would've distracted too much from the real core of the chapter, though, so it never got implemented.

my original design for the cover looked like this:

i'm still not sure i made the right decision switching to the final composition. i like the oddness of eyes on the hair in that version, but the lines over the hair in the this version remind me of one of the ways you see dicks censored in hentai, which feels thematically appropriate.

on that subject, this texture:

is a heavily mangled collage of a bunch of ai generated images, each of which was created by using the name of a simpsons' character as both prompt and negative prompt. it shows up in the download buttons and (in heavily desaturated form) on the final version of the cover.

the blurbs were slightly modified grammar output. i was pretty fried the day of release & wasn't able to think of anything, so rqd suggested i use a relevant wikipedia extract and use a grammar for the blurbs. i think it turned out pretty well.

there are six secret characters in the simslops. have you found them?

future work

i think i've taken this framework as far as it will go. the system of numerical flags got bent when i stored the farm workers' country of origin as text. the more linear plotted segments required a set of flags trading off each other, which is fiddly to coordinate. generally, everything is very siloed off. the clearest example of this is in the grammars for generating the various bits of procedural text. they're fun to write, and i'm always delighted by the results, but there's a lot of duplication of effort in my current approach. each chapter that uses procedural text has its own grammar with its own set of words and phrases. this is basically fine in this case, but it's not something i want to deal with for future projects. writing grammars is fun, like building a shipyard in a bottle, but it gets mind-numbing after a while. you can only come up with synonyms for laugh so many times, yknow?

my dream is a single massive grammar all output text runs through. since my grammar system can handle conjugating verbs and adding a/an in front of words, integrating all text output with that system would simplify all sorts of things. then i could have big lists of words to query for relevant adjectives or nouns with specific associations, procedural sentence structures, referents that know what adjectives apply to them...

it's really easy to get feature crept in this sphere. we'll see how much of this i'll be able to implement. i don't think all that is necessary to make the simslops framework useful, really. the only thing it urgently needs is some kind of event emitting & handling system. currently all the little special cases have to be implemented specifically. for example, there's a check in the "drop item" action for if the item in question is fragile. if it is, it breaks. if the item is also smoky, we get the "orange smoke pours out" effect. it'd be a lot cleaner (and make me a lot happier) if i could just say "when a smoky object breaks, emit orange smoke" and similar things.

thank you to everyone who read the simslops, and an extra thank you to everyone who asked me questions. now it's time to go back to work on the next issue. it's going to be a very different beast. i hope you enjoy it.

[judasgot-it]

It's Love, That's It

Scenario: You wake up to a nicotine patch on you. But you don't smoke? (bad description but like)

There was something special about your boyfriend. You couldn't place your finger on it, but something about him had kept you addicted.

It wasn't his looks. He wasn't ugly, but his face wasn't on the top of the charts, definitly not on the cover of a magazine. Not his smell either, since laying next to him right now, you could smell the oils coming from his unwashed hair that had leaked through onto his pillows.

His frame was small as well - skinny, with sharp edges that dug into your sides as you currently held onto him. He rather short for a man as well, although it never really bothered you.

Nothing about him bothered you, actually. It probably should have - his bad breath in the mornings, the way his skin was always cold, how his personality was so cold. But for some reason, every night when you fell asleep by his side, you found yourself alieved to be laying next to him.

Sometimes, you would be mad - almost angry, because it had been days without Fyodor. It was like you were addicted to his presence, when he hadn't done anything at all. Just be there in the same cramped apartment as always, with his six monitors and work on the same projects he always was.

“Have you ever thought it might be love that makes you feel that way?“

His words rang around your head, the way his cold purple eyes simply stared at you - as if they saw right through your neediness in that moment. You would come home from work, seeing him home from whereever his job was - and just beg to be held in his arms.

For some reason, his arms had become a sort of cure all for you - when you felt like crying, it would almost calm you down instantly.

It was insane. You were never like this before.

No relationship you had before was like this.

You shifted on the bed, pulling the blanket higher over Fyodor's shoulders. He was so skinny, you could see his spine sticking through his thin white shirt. It likely did little to stop the AC of your apartment, doing wonders for his anemic body.

Pulling him closer, you felt a sharp pain on your hip. That was weird.

You moved slowly this time, feeling as something was stuck to your skin. Did you have a stain on the blanket and not realize?

Slowly you pulled, feeling as the blanket realsed itself - leaving something still sticky, and rather painful against your skin.

A sticker?

Tracing it over with your fingers, you could feel a rectangular outline along your skin, with a small tab breaking the seal. Picking against it, you could feel how strong the seal was - it was strong, which was odd.

What kind of sticker was this? Did Fyodor order something?

Slowly you got up out of bed, careful not to wake up your boyfriend - he wasn't one to rest well through the night, so disturbing his sleep always felt like a taboo. You weren't one to wake up easily, so this was a rare occasion anyway.

But this was simply strange.

Giving your eyes a moment to adjust to the bathroom light, you let your eyes adjust to the shitty flurescent lights. Squinting, you peeled your shirt back, finding where the sticker was on your body once again.

It wasn't a sticker. A normal one, at least. It was a square - plain, almost bandaid like. But you could feel how there was no cut, and it lacked the cotton to be a proper bandage.

This was something else.

Ripping it off, you winced but ignored the sting of pain that came. You forced your eyes to focus quickly, staring at the patch pinched between your fingertips. It had faint writing on top - 21 mg. Nicotine.

It took a moment for you to process it. A fucking a nicotine patch. Why was this on your skin? You weren't a smoker, and you knew Fyodor would die if he even smelt cigerettes.

You didn't even know where to buy these.

Should you wake up Fyodor? He could definitly figure this out.

It was just so...bizarre.

Tell me if you want a part 2 where Fyodor gaslights the fuck out of you and idk maybe exposes himself for fucking a dude but dw its not gay its just a part of his master plan (100% it's Nikolai)

[lithopus]

Hi! I’m the anon who asked about ur thought process, sorry for making it such a broad question. I just wanted to know how you figure out how to write dialogue. Uhm if it’s too broad of a question it’s okay! I just personally have a hard time figuring out how to make some characters feel like they’re having a real conversation. The way you write characters talking flows so smoothly and I just can’t get it to feel right. ((I especially like the snarky quips kaveh and alhaitham share, it’s very old married couple like)) This might be more of a personal thing and since everyone thinks/writes differently I understand if it’s something you can’t really explain to me!

Also! When you write do you usually start with an outline and fill in the rest? Sometimes I just write what I feel like and I get stumped after a while. But thank you for taking the time to help me! Sorry if this just made everything more confusing.

No worries, and no need to apologize! Like I said, a lot of writers probably could’ve easily answered your initial question, but my brain sometimes struggles to articulate a response for things like that. And thank you for sending this follow-up—I understand now!

For both of your questions, I’ll separate my answers into two sections: 1) describing how I personally do those things, and 2) providing actual suggestions/recommendations for doing those things. That’s because I wouldn’t necessarily recommend my personal approach to writing, lol—my very loose “process” can be rather haphazard due to how my brain works, so I’m mostly just sharing examples of my notes in case anyone’s curious about what my drafts look like.

(Also, I think I’ll make a SFW version of this post at some point. Although there’s nothing too sexually explicit here, I do reference several examples from NSFW fics I’ve written, since this post is aimed at the asker and my followers—but because my writing suggestions themselves aren’t explicit in nature, I’d prefer to eventually make this advice accessible to all writers.)

Table of Contents

A. Dialogue 1. How I Plan Dialogue 2. My Actual Suggestions for Planning Dialogue 💡 Know the “arc” or “goal” of the conversation 💡 Listen to actual conversations (and transcribe them) 💡 Writing banter B. Outlining 1. How I Outline 2. My Actual Suggestions for Outlining 💡 Know the goal (or the “point”) of the scene you’re writing 💡 Identify the characters’ goals 💡 Identify the “key elements” of the scene or chapter 💡 Consider rewinding or backtracking a bit 💡 Take a short break from that project

A — DIALOGUE

1: How I Plan Dialogue

So, my answer to your first question actually overlaps with my answer to your second question. I don’t take a strict approach, but I do often outline the main “beats” in a conversation before I actually write a scene. Sometimes that looks like a bulleted list or summary—although, I couldn’t find a good example of that in my files, so I created this example based on some (very lengthy) notes for Chapter 6 of my fic “testing, testing”:

Kaveh is complimenting Alhaitham more in this chapter. For example, maybe he says he prefers coffee made by Alhaitham over the coffee made at Puspa Café.

Alhaitham doesn’t realize Kaveh is complimenting him, and responds in a way that unintentionally undermines Kaveh’s compliment.

Instead of getting upset, Kaveh clarifies what he was trying to say, and the two of them continue talking.

At one point Kaveh asks a genuine question and Alhaitham nearly responds indirectly/sarcastically like he usually does, but lately he’s noticed that things go more smoothly if he directly answers Kaveh’s questions, so he gives Kaveh a straightforward response

Kaveh is flustered by the honest response, and the two flirt a bit before the scene ends

Other times, it’s more of a “play-by-play” description. The notes I used to create the above example actually look more like this mess from my notes for the first scene in Chapter 5:

And Alhaitham kinda eyebrow raises like hm. Okay. You need to get in the mood, you mean? (Saunters over to him, backs him against the wall. Kaveh instantly turned on and starts/tempted to crumble.) Touching him and murmurs you know, it’s not [a den of sin there. People conduct themselves properly/it would be inappropriate to mess around there. Better get it out of your system now if it’s going to distract you etc. Etc.] And Kaveh’s like that’s not what I meant! Alhaitham smirks. Kaveh adds and you KNOW it, you know what I meant, this is just an excuse for you because you’re insatiably horny [maybe: says the man who nakedly accosted me on the couch and demanded that we suck each other off at 10 in the morning—] Kaveh’s face BURNS. I—I—I—that was—because— (He’d been confident enough for 10 seconds to request it & wanted to do it before he lost his nerve.) Alhaitham maybe softens ever so slightly and points out that if he’s confident enough to finally ask, maybe he should just maintain that confidence and go while he’s still in the mood. Kaveh sighs. Like, yeah. (Shit maybe he should have asked in the morning when the place wouldn’t be open.) Alhaitham maybe also reminds him that it’s not like they have to use whatever they buy as soon as they get back. Heh. Unless he wants to.

And other times the dialogue does play out naturally in my head, so I jot down a much “cleaner” play-by-play, like this dialogue from Chapter 2 of “hard-edged, hard-earned”:

Comes back. Asks to sit on couch. No. Can I sit on the floor? No. That would hurt your back. Can I sit on any piece of furniture in this room?! No.

I will say, whenever I end up with “clean” notes like that, it’s often because I spoke all the dialogue out loud (or mouthed it)—as in, I’ll literally be having conversations with myself as the characters. Sometimes I’m talking to myself in front of a mirror, and other times just turning my head back and forth as I jump between characters 😅 It’s not a technique I adopted intentionally, but my brain doesn’t really have much “internal” dialogue/narration in general, and that trait extends to creative stuff. I pretty much have to talk through everything out loud, or physically type out my stream-of-consciousness brainstorming.

So: I plan some of the dialogue ahead of time, and I also plan dialogue throughout the writing process. That is, I might start writing a chapter with a certain conversation already outlined (like the “clean” play-by-play I shared), but other parts of the chapter will be more like a brief summary—e.g., “Kaveh compliments Alhaitham during this scene, and Alhaitham responds positively.” Once I reach that part of the outline during the actual writing stage, I’ll usually pause to hammer out more specific conversation beats.

Not necessarily because that’s the best way to do things, but because my brain moves too fast for my fingers when I’m trying to write a scene. An unpolished “stream” of the scene allows me to follow the flow of the whole conversation as it happens. (Otherwise I’d forget where the dialogue was going once I was halfway through writing the scene 💀)

There are times where I don’t have to do the play-by-play, and can just figure out the dialogue as I write the actual scene…it just depends on the scene and how my brain is working that day, I guess.

**BONUS: For anyone who’s curious, please check the end of this post for a horrifying look at how my play-by-play brainstorming often looks 😂

2: My Actual Suggestions for Planning Dialogue

I’m not saying that these are things you must do, for the record—these are just some ideas you could try, if you think any of them sound useful.

💡 Know the “arc” or “goal” of the conversation

In other words: “Where will this conversation start, and where does it need to end?”

Traditionally—from a “story structure” perspective, or whatever—in every scene, the characters have a goal they’re trying to accomplish. (I say “traditionally” because of course there are some stories that don’t fit this rule—e.g., a story consisting of several vignettes where the character is reminiscing about things.)

This general rule is also true of the conversations in a scene. Even if the characters don’t consciously register it, they each want to accomplish something during their conversations with other characters. For instance, one character might be trying to convince another character to pursue a particular course of action, or they might feel upset and be seeking out a lighthearted conversation to lift their spirits. (Phrased differently: Characters generally want to get something out of talking to each other—but, to clarify, that ���something” can be as simple as the characters wanting to enjoy each other’s company.)

I’ll use Chapter 5 of “testing, testing” as an example. In the first scene, Kaveh’s goal when talking to Alhaitham is to ask him about shopping for sex toys. Kaveh is communicating with the goal of making that request, so his dialogue is going to (in theory) move him toward that goal—although of course he might get distracted, or other goals might arise during the conversation, but that’s the starting point, at least.

Alhaitham—who knows that Kaveh was looking for him, but doesn’t initially know why—has a primary goal during the conversation, along with a secondary goal. Alhaitham’s main goal is to find out what Kaveh wanted to ask him, and here are some possible ways he might communicate in order to achieve this goal:

Calm Kaveh’s anxieties so that he feels comfortable enough to make his request

Avoid upsetting Kaveh, since that might cause him to storm off without telling Alhaitham what was on his mind

Remind Kaveh to stay on-topic if his mind starts wandering to something unrelated

But Alhaitham’s secondary goal is to flirt with Kaveh, of course, which guides his initial interactions with Kaveh during the beginning of that scene, and periodically resurfaces throughout the conversation.

Kaveh’s (temporary) goals during the conversation shift in reaction to what Alhaitham is doing. For example, if Alhaitham’s teasing starts to make him feel too flustered or awkward, Kaveh’s temporary goal will be to stop feeling flustered and awkward, which means that he’ll communicate with the goal of getting Alhaitham to stop his teasing. And if Alhaitham stops teasing but seems upset about it, Kaveh’s temporary goal will then be to figure out what’s wrong and find a way to reassure Alhaitham.

Put more concisely:

The “flow” of the conversation comes from the goals that the characters are trying to accomplish at any given point in their discussion

The characters communicate either to 1) respond/react to something another character has done, or 2) address their most “immediate” goal

The characters develop new “goals” in response to what the other speakers say, or how the conversation makes them feel—but they (typically) still maintain their primary goal, as well

I’m not sure whether that makes sense, but hopefully if you look at the first scene in Chapter 5 with this framework in mind, you can “see” how Kaveh’s and Alhaitham’s shifting goals determine the flow of the conversation.

And, at the risk of making my explanation even more confusing, here’s a break-down of the beginning of that scene:

Kaveh’s main goal is to ask Alhaitham to go shopping; Alhaitham’s main goal is to figure out what Kaveh wants, and his secondary goal is to get in Kaveh’s pants.

Kaveh seeks out Alhaitham in order to ask his question, but Alhaitham startles him.

Kaveh reacts to the surprise he’s feeling. His temporary goal is now to compose himself.

However, flustering Kaveh helps Alhaitham achieve his goal of fooling around with him, so Alhaitham starts flirting to prevent Kaveh from regaining his composure.

Kaveh realizes that Alhaitham is proposing sex—but having sex right now would prevent Kaveh from asking his question and accomplishing his goal, so he tells Alhaitham not to undress, with the goal of refocusing the conversation on his request.

With sex off the table, Alhaitham reverts to his main goal and asks Kaveh what his question was.

Kaveh still feels flustered, though, so now his (temporary) goal is to make sure that Alhaitham isn’t going to mock him and make him feel insecure; otherwise he won’t be able to accomplish his main goal of asking Alhaitham to go shopping, since he’ll feel too anxious to make the request. So, he tells Alhaitham not to laugh at him for his question.

Alhaitham’s main goal is to encourage communication, so he responds in a deadpan manner instead of teasing Kaveh more.

Basically, characters aren’t just talking for no reason—there’s a specific “direction” that they’re speaking in, though of course this direction can shift and change as the conversation progresses. If you listen to conversations in real life—on a phone call, or a podcast, or whatever—you’ll hopefully see a similar sort of “flow” in those discussions. People don’t speak merely for the sake of producing frequencies; anything they say, they’re saying for a reason (that is, a goal), and those “reasons” are naturally generated by the progression of the conversation.

Or, looking at it differently…I’m not sure if this is helpful, but when you’re trying to figure out the flow/direction of a conversation, maybe you could approach it as if you’re selecting dialogue options in a visual novel or RPG game. As in, whenever it’s Character A’s turn to speak, a few different options “pop up” depending on that character’s personality and current goals—and then different options are unlocked throughout the conversation depending on the choices made by Character A and the other character(s).

For instance, at the beginning of Chapter 5, Alhaitham’s speaking options would be:

◆ Question Kaveh ◆ Flirt with Kaveh

The conversation continues—but then Kaveh gets upset, so Alhaitham’s default options become unavailable, and these new options appear:

◆ Question Kaveh ◆ Flirt with Kaveh ◆ Comfort Kaveh ◆ Clarify misunderstanding ◆ Rile up Kaveh

Meanwhile, Kaveh’s “Ask Alhaitham to go shopping” option might become inaccessible whenever it’s overridden by other goals/concerns. For example, maybe when Kaveh is upset because Alhaitham teased him, his menu looks like this:

◆ Ask Alhaitham to go shopping ◆ Defend self against insult ◆ Warn Alhaitham to stop teasing ◆ Criticize Alhaitham

When a character’s emotional state changes, that might “unlock” certain dialogue options—e.g., maybe Alhaitham normally wouldn’t have the option to snap at Kaveh, unless Kaveh said something that really upset him, and then Alhaitham would be able to “access” a harsher dialogue option.

Or certain dialogue options might be connected to specific goals, meaning that a character needs to be actively pursuing that goal in order to “use” those dialogue options. For example, if Kaveh doesn’t feel comfortable enough to ask Alhaitham to go shopping, then he can’t access any dialogue choices that are connected to that goal; instead, his options will be limited to whatever his current concern is.

Of course, there’s a lot of room for interpretation with something like this. Going back to one of my examples in this section: I said that if Kaveh gets upset, then Alhaitham no longer has an option to flirt—but depending on the characterization/story, that might not necessarily be the case. For instance, if Alhaitham doesn’t realize that Kaveh is upset or mistakenly thinks that flirting will fix Kaveh’s bad mood, then that “dialogue option” might still be available to him, even though it’s probably not a good idea for him to choose it.

And if I wanted to write a scene where Alhaitham and Kaveh get into a fight, then I certainly might allow Alhaitham to pick that (inadvisable) dialogue option—which is basically what happens during one of the scenes in Chapter 4, where Alhaitham misreads the situation and Kaveh turns down his advances. But if that sort of dialogue choice would send the scene in the wrong direction or completely divert the characters from their conversational goals, it’s probably not the most effective option, writing-wise.

That’s why I like “prewriting” a play-by-play of conversations before I properly write a scene, because that allows me to figure out if certain dialogue choices will make the scene stray too far from its purpose. If I’m outlining the beats of a conversation and the characters start to get a bit distracted—for example, maybe they’ve started flirting instead of focusing on the main point of their discussion—then I can look at that and say, “Okay. Sometime in the next few lines, we need to find a good place for the characters to pivot back toward their main goal during this conversation.”

(And that won’t feel forced, because the characters themselves also want to return to the primary goal of their conversation; it’s perfectly natural for them to conclude their off-topic discussion and then refocus on the main point.)

Or, if the characters have strayed too far from the main topic of their conversation—as in, there’s no “natural” way for the discussion to transition back to where it needs to be—then I’m able to see during the prewriting stage that the dialogue needs to be reworked. I’ll either need to delete the section of dialogue that wandered away from the main point of the conversation, or I’ll need to find a different place in the conversation where I can insert that dialogue and maintain the flow of the discussion.

If you ever get stuck while writing a conversation between characters, that’s possibly happening because the characters have forgotten or abandoned their conversational “goal” and can no longer find their way back to it. Or, similarly, it could be because the mood/emotions of the conversation have evolved too drastically, to the point that any “dialogue options” advancing a character’s primary goals have become inaccessible or unavailable. By retracing your steps back to when things got off-track and picking new dialogue options that move the characters toward their main goal(s), you should be able to get the scene flowing again.

And, ah, if everything I just said makes zero sense, that’s fine. I’ve never approached dialogue-writing that way, so I don’t actually know if something like that could help—it’s just an idea that occurred to me while I was answering this question.

One final note: Knowing the characters’ goals can sometimes help me figure out when a scene should end, too. Once the characters achieve their goal during that scene—or hit a setback and are no longer able to achieve their goal for the time being—that’s potentially a sign that I should move on to the next scene. (Not necessarily a scene break—it could just be that the conversation ends, and then it’s time for the POV character’s internal reaction/reflection to begin.)

💡 Listen to actual conversations (and transcribe them)

I admit, I haven’t really done this, myself—dialogue has always been the easiest part of writing for me, and I’ve been practicing writing for…ah, a while. (Fifteen years, at least. I mean, I wrote little poems and short stories starting from a very young age, as many writers do, but in terms of intentionally studying and practicing long-form writing, it’s been about fifteen years.) So, I can’t recall a distinct “process” in terms of how I learned to write dialogue; all I know is that I’ve gotten better at it by practicing for so many years.

That said, I do remember that “try transcribing actual conversations” was one of the suggestions I encountered back when I first began seeking out writing advice.

Of course, fictional dialogue is different from real-life conversations in some ways, so those transcriptions aren’t necessarily going to work exactly the same way as a fictional conversation, but this is still a potentially useful tool for learning to “feel” the flow of how people speak to each other, in addition to helping a writer make the characters’ voices sound more natural. Real-life conversations typically don’t have the “stilted” feeling that unnatural fictional dialogue has—although of course there are exceptions—so studying human speech patterns might help you identify ways to make your dialogue flow more smoothly.

**As a side note: When I’m writing characters that aren’t mine—as in, writing fanfiction—I’ll often study their voice lines and takes notes on the ways they speak (e.g., tone, vocabulary, sentence structure) and the specific phrases they use.

For fanfiction, you can also analyze conversations between characters in the source material in order to get a feel for how their particular discussions flow. Like this moment from Alhaitham’s story quest:

Kaveh: Oh, so the pot’s calling the kettle black, is he? Hmph, well, having said all that, are you okay? Alhaitham: I’m doing quite well — much better than that painting you’re trying to hang on the wall. Kaveh: You…! You don’t understand anything! Stop criticizing my taste in decoration!

Reading that, we know that one potential “template” for an exchange between Kaveh and Alhaitham is: Kaveh snarks at Alhaitham, then softens and seriously asks if he’s alright; Alhaitham responds, but then immediately goes back to trying to rile Kaveh up again; Kaveh takes the bait and gets worked up, having now entirely forgotten his previous line of inquiry.

💡 Writing banter (???)

As for writing the “married couple” banter…I don’t have any advice for that, unfortunately. I’m a quippy person in general, so my brain generates wordplay and snappy/sarcastic comebacks easily. I assume there must be some method(s) that writers use to figure out those types of conversations more deliberately, but I don’t personally know how to manually do that sort of thing.

I guess my suggestion would be the same as my advice for other things: try analyzing any banter you enjoy, and identify what elements make that banter “work”. I’ve never really tried to do that sort of analysis, but I’ll attempt to provide some examples:

During Alhaitham’s story quest, Kaveh says “Alhaitham could have stayed home where it’s safe”, and then his brain immediately jumps to the thought that if Alhaitham stayed home, he could have cleaned up his books while he was there → Kaveh tends to snark at Alhaitham about the state of their shared living space and nag him about minor annoyances, so he looks for opportunities to bring up these things during their conversations. If there’s some vague word/concept that could connect a piece of dialogue to Kaveh’s latest grievance, then he might use that as a jumping-off point for a jab about Alhaitham needing to do chores.

Kaveh asks Alhaitham to help him with hanging a painting at the very beginning of the scene, and then way later on in the conversation, Alhaitham suddenly makes a dig at Kaveh’s attempts to hang that painting → Alhaitham likes to circle back to things that were mentioned earlier in the conversation in order to catch Kaveh off-guard and rile him up.

The two of them seem to have some preferred “topics” of bickering/teasing—for example, Kaveh likes to harp on Alhaitham for his lack of appreciation for aesthetics, and Alhaitham enjoys mentioning his “financial freedom” (i.e., the fact that he consistently spoils Kaveh).

Along the same lines, there are topics that they don’t tease each other about. Neither one of them makes jokes about the other person’s family situation, and there’s not much lighthearted teasing about their philosophical differences, either.

Again, I can’t really provide much help there, since the banter is just something that “happens” while I’m writing. If anyone has advice for this, feel free to chime in via the replies or by sending me an ask 😅

B — OUTLINING

1: How I Outline

So, yes, I do outline, sort of. It’s messy and haphazard, though, and I don’t end up with a coherent list of scenes and plot points until way later in the process—and even then, I still have to reference my chaotic notes when I’m writing the scenes on my “organized” outlined list.

Typically I start working on a story by jotting down all the random ideas I have for that fic concept. Maybe one day I think of the concept and a few lines of dialogue, and then a few days later I think of a scene that would take place at some point in the story, and so on. (Ideally, these notes end up in the same file on my phone or computer; in practice, they end up scattered across various devices and documents, lol.)

For instance, the other day I thought of a concept for an omegaverse fic with an omega/omega dynamic. (Sorry for anyone who doesn’t enjoy this AU—it’s the most recent “in progress” example in my files, and therefore the easiest to reference.) My initial note-taking more or less went like this:

I jotted down part of an opening scene, and when I ran out of steam (partly because I was typing on my phone lol)

I summarized how the rest of the scene would go

A few more ideas for dialogue occurred to me, so I made a note of those

I thought of some omegaverse “science” to explain things, so I wrote that down

Then I had an idea for a flashback scene, so I described how that would go and wrote a few lines of that

I started to get a really clear image of how that scene would go, so I sat down and started properly writing a potential iteration of that scene

For a fic like that—one that isn’t too complicated, I mean—I won’t necessarily take time to organize all of those notes before I officially start writing. There’s a short and simple “arc” in my head:

Beginning of story: Character A announces that an unexpected heat is starting; Character B says there’s a way he can help, but Character A refuses

Middle: Character A thinks back on a time years ago when the two of them tried to platonically help each other and then things went wrong, hence why he turned down Character B’s present-day offer

End: Character A reconsiders and accepts Character B’s help

In this case, I don’t need to know a lot of details before I start writing, and there’s no need for me to make a “formal” outline organizing the random notes I’ve jotted down; I can easily consult those notes once I reach the relevant scenes in the story. All I really need to know is the “arc” of the plot, and I won’t need to write that down if it’s simple/straightforward enough.

It’s kind of similar to how I might need to print out directions or use a GPS to navigate somewhere I haven’t been before, or somewhere I’ve only visited a few times—whereas for a short trip or a route I’ve taken often, I won’t necessarily need a visual guide.

Now, for a story that’s more complicated—like “testing, testing”—I definitely need to take a more structured approach. (Well, “structured” by my unorganized standards, anyway.) When I began writing that fic, I made a rough outline that sketched out the progression of both the sexual exploration and the romantic relationship. It wasn’t super detailed, but it essentially told me:

What kind of sex the characters are having in each chapter

What “domestic shit” happens in that chapter

How the two characters are feeling about each other at that point in time

Uh, actually, here. You can just look at the first page. (My handwriting is usually neater than this 😅)

The current fic doesn’t 100% match that outline—for instance, the whole “good boy” thing didn’t exist at that point, so the “praise kink” sex scene intended for Chapter 5 was actually a different scene, which I’ve tentatively moved to a later chapter. (And my current outline for the rest of the chapters has rather substantially deviated from that original outline, although the overall arc and most of the sex scenes are still the same.)

In general, I outline so that I’ll know “where” a story is going while I write, and which milestones I need to hit on my way toward the end of that story. I need to know the major ways Alhaitham and Kaveh’s relationship changes throughout the fic, and how those changes are reflected/affected by the sex scenes. I still have a good deal of flexibility—I can add or move scenes, alter plot points, add new story arcs—but I do need to follow a (loosely) predetermined trajectory, in order to make sure the story ends up being cohesive.

Of course, that initial outline for “testing, testing” isn’t what I’m currently using…but I don’t have an updated outline for the entire story, either. I just have a lot of notes for individual chapters, and I know the general direction of the plot—as in, I know that the story will eventually reach the fic’s “Getting Together” tag, and I know which major developments need to happen in order for Kaveh and Alhaitham to reach that point.

Those major developments are:

Alhaitham and Kaveh need to reach a point where they can communicate openly and honestly

They need to realize their feelings for each other

They need to decide to act on those feelings for each other

Notes and outlines for individual chapters help me figure out the smaller-scale developments for that arc, but even without those, I always know that by the end of the fic, Alhaitham and Kaveh will be in a position where they’ve done the three things on that list.

(Examples of “smaller-scale developments” for the arc: specific scenes that improve Alhaitham and Kaveh’s communication skills, the exact moments they realize their feelings for each other, their specific reactions to those realizations, the manner in which they discuss their feelings, et cetera. Basically, the major developments are “what” the plot requires, and these smaller-scale developments are “how” those parts of the plot happen.)

I think I would probably get stuck when I’m writing if I didn’t know where a story was going to end up; I need to have that clear “end point” in mind so that I can anticipate things like plot/character arcs. I basically want to know “what are things like at the beginning of the story?” and “how have those things changed by the end?” before I start writing. I can wait until after I start writing to figure out which specific developments happen in the middle, but I need to at least know the starting position that the characters/situation are changing from, and the ultimate position that they’re changing to.

2: My Actual Suggestions for Outlining

So, outlines can be helpful organizational tools, but they won’t instantly solve everything. That is, if you’re getting stuck when you write, the lack of an outline—or the way you’re currently outlining—isn’t the root cause of the problem. This means that simply making some sort of outline, with your sole intent being “to make an outline”, won’t solve the issue; you need to first determine why you’re getting stuck, in order to know what kind of outline will benefit you. (Like needing to identify a specific type of poison in order to know the correct antidote for it, or whatever.)

I’m probably being Captain Obvious here, lol, but I think it’s potentially useful to note: if I’m stuck and I don’t know what to write, then how am I supposed to make an outline that organizes the things I’m going to write?

In general, an outline is a way for you to see the structure/framework of a story. It allows you to keep track of different developments such as story arcs, character growth, and relationship progress—which is to say, the outline gives you a “structure” within which you can write, but it won’t generate the things that get organized inside that structure.

That said, once you do get around to making an outline: Every writer has their own preferred organizational methods and tools, so you’ll need to figure out which ones work best for you. (Heck, some people are just “seat-of-the-pants” writers who don’t make outlines at all!)

And, at the risk of being Mr. Obvious once again—the best outline is one that enables the writer to keep track of whatever information they personally need to reference while writing, which will depend on both the author and the story. For example, if I’m writing a silly crack one-shot, then I likely don’t need an outline that lays out character arcs. But if I’m writing a slowburn about two characters gradually falling for each other, then I probably want an outline that breaks down the progression of their relationship development, so that I can organize my thoughts and figure out which scenes need to happen in the story, and when.

That doesn’t mean you need to know everything when you make an outline, though. Outlining can also make it easier for you to figure out which “gaps” in the story need to be filled. For example, say I’ve just finished writing Chapter 4 of “testing, testing”, and I know from my outline that an internal conflict is going to occur in Chapter 8. This tells me that the next few chapters need to contain certain plot/character developments building up to the eventual conflict. I can figure out the specifics as I go, but already I can see (in a very general sense) what will fill that gap in the outline:

Chapter 5: Something happens that affects how Alhaitham feels/thinks about his relationship with Kaveh

Chapter 6: We see this reflection in Alhaitham’s POV; more developments occur that push him closer to the problem in Chapter 8

Chapter 7: Some sort of continuation of these developments

Chapter 8: The story arrives at the conflict

Having said all of that—if you get stumped when you’re writing, I can’t say for sure what the solution is, but here are some things you could potentially consider.

💡 Know the goal (or the “point”) of the scene you’re writing, as it relates to the story overall

As in, what does this scene accomplish, in terms of storytelling? Does it demonstrate an important aspect of a character’s personality? Does it progress the plot in a significant way? In general, why is this scene happening and being shown to the reader? (I should note that, especially with fanfiction, your answer doesn’t need to be elaborate—it could be something like “I wanted to show how domestic and disgustingly in love these two characters are” 😂 And you might also have multiple answers to that question, depending on the scene.)

For example, this line was in my preliminary notes for Chapter 5:

How is Kaveh feeling / what part of his emotional development do we want to explore here?

So, when I was planning (and writing) certain scenes in that chapter, I was focused on how I could use those scenes to depict important changes in Kaveh’s perspective and in his relationship with Alhaitham.

💡 Identify the characters’ goals during that scene, and the story as a whole

This is partly repeating what I said before about writing conversations—but, again, it’s often useful to know the direction/destination of what you’re writing, and one way of doing that is to identify the characters’ goals during each individual scene (and throughout the story as a whole).

For any scene you’re writing: What is the character trying to accomplish during this particular part of the story? In general, they will say and do things that move them closer to that goal. (Or closer to some other goal, if their priorities shift during the scene.) Characters are typically pursuing something, whether it’s a concrete goal or a more abstract one like an emotional need. And the goal might not necessarily be a conscious one—as in, the character may not specifically think to themself, “I am pursuing this goal”—but you as the writer will know it.

Knowing the characters’ goals will hopefully give you a direction and endpoint for both the scene and the story. The scenes you write—and the characters’ actions during those scenes—will (in theory) involve accomplishing their goals.

To clarify, I’m not saying that this always has to be the case; every writing “rule” can be broken, after all. And of course there will be scenes where a character encounters a setback or ends up being pushed farther away from their goal, instead of moving closer to it. But if you don’t at least have some idea of what the characters are trying to accomplish in a scene, then you might have more difficulty writing the story.

It’s akin to me offering to give someone a lift, but when I pick them up and they get into my car, they don’t tell me where they’re going. I’m sitting behind the wheel, the keys are in the ignition, and I know that I need to drive the car somewhere…but I can’t proceed or reach the destination without receiving some sort of directions, first.

Mind you, those directions don’t need to be perfectly accurate or 100% complete when the car first starts moving. There’s time during the trip for the person to change their mind about the destination, or to amend the directions they gave me, or to pull up more specific directions on a GPS, et cetera. I just need some sort of preliminary instruction, so that I can at least start driving the car. If the person I’m driving doesn’t give me even the slightest bit of information, though, I’m going to be stuck sitting in an idling vehicle with no way to progress.

(And, to extend the metaphor: Sure, sometimes you might pick up a friend and decide to just aimlessly walk/drive around town until something catches your eye. There’s nothing wrong with taking that approach to writing, so I’m not saying that you absolutely must identify the characters’ goals at the outset of a story. But if you’re specifically stumped while writing, then you might benefit from taking some time to consider that question.)

So, I’m sure there are some folks—like seat-of-the-pants writers—who truly write with no specific destination/direction in mind, and if that works for them, excellent! I am not one of those people, though 😂 And if you’re getting stuck while writing, then that approach isn’t going to be effective for you, at least not for that particular story.

(Also, many writers—like me—do fall somewhere in the middle, in terms of whether they plan nothing or plan everything before writing. I don’t meticulously plan every detail, and I pretty much always end up deviating from my outline somehow, with unexpected plot points and scenes cropping up while I’m writing…but I generally don’t start writing a story without doing some sort of note-taking or planning beforehand.)

💡 Identify the “key developments” that need to happen in the scene, chapter, or story

I probably made that sound fancier than it actually is—I just mean that you can try making a loose checklist, basically.

For instance, when writing Chapter 5 of “testing, testing”, I knew that certain plot points needed to happen in order to progress the kink exploration storyline, and that certain character/relationship developments needed to happen in order to progress the romance storyline. So, my list might look something like this:

Kaveh and Alhaitham go shopping; this scene needs to set up some of the experimentation they do in later chapters (kink exploration)

Kaveh finds out that Alhaitham wants to be called a good boy (kink exploration)

They have sex with Alhaitham submitting and Kaveh calling him a good boy (kink exploration)

Seeing Alhaitham so vulnerable/agreeable in this chapter makes Kaveh think about their friendship as students, and Kaveh tries to mentally sort out the differences between Past Alhaitham and Present Alhaitham (character/relationship development)

Kaveh realizes he’s been dehumanizing Alhaitham and overlooking his feelings/needs, and then Kaveh resolves to stop doing that (character/relationship development)

Once I see the most important elements listed out like that, I can then try to figure out how to include them in the chapter. For example, the shopping scene is fairly straightforward—but which items do Alhaitham and Kaveh need to purchase for future scenes? Can I work in mentions of Alhaitham being more vulnerable/agreeable during that part, or things that remind Kaveh of their friendship as students? Is there a moment during the shopping trip when Alhaitham feels particularly “human” to Kaveh? How might other necessary plot points, conversations, or exposition fit into this shopping trip? (E.g., the explanation for why Kaveh abruptly asked Alhaitham to grab his throat during sex in Chapter 4, or the existence of the commissioned outfit that Kaveh will be wearing in Chapter 6.)

If I really wanted to neatly organize my thoughts—which I rarely end up doing, lol—I could maybe make an outline with two main sections: 1) events in the chapter, and 2) developments in the chapter.

The first section (List 1) would consist of things that physically happen in the chapter. For Chapter 5, that would be:

Kaveh asks Alhaitham to go shopping so that they can buy a dildo

The two of them go shopping at an erotic marketplace

They have sex when they get home, and fall asleep together afterward

They have sex again the next day, during which Kaveh calls Alhaitham a “good boy”

Aftercare & end of chapter

The second section (List 2) would list out the internal/emotional developments that occur in the chapter. For Chapter 5, that would be:

Alhaitham is communicating more straightforwardly and being more outwardly supportive of Kaveh

Kaveh doesn’t misinterpret Alhaitham’s words as much as usual

Kaveh gets closer to realizing that he has romantic feelings for Alhaitham

Kaveh realizes that he’s been dehumanizing Alhaitham and disregarding his feelings and needs

Kaveh realizes that he was mistaken in thinking that Alhaitham is disdainful toward him

From there, I would figure out how the developments from List 2 can be shown during the events of List 1. That is, what “moments” could be included in these events to demonstrate the developments that occur during this chapter’s arc?

You could maybe think of it like playing a trading card game—or a deckbuilding game, or something like that—where:

The match you’re playing = the chapter you’re writing

Each “turn” in that match = a specific event or plot point from List 1

Each card in your hand = a specific development from List 2

During each “turn” in the “game” (during each scene in the chapter), you’re holding those List 2 cards in your hand, and you’re trying to figure out the best way to play those cards. If you can play multiple cards in one turn (one scene), great! Or if you want to focus on playing one card at a time, that works too. Your goal is just to make sure that you’re playing some sort of card each turn (scene), so that the emotional/internal arc of the chapter unfolds via the events of the chapter.

Since that analogy might be a bit confusing and difficult to visualize, below is an extremely unartistic representation made in MS Paint. (Please forgive me for these aesthetic crimes, Kaveh.)

**Also, I wasn’t sure where to mention this, but—the parts of Chapter 5 involving Kaveh’s crisis about sadomasochism actually weren’t in my original plan for the chapter; that storyline spontaneously came up while I was writing. With how I outline and approach writing, though, it was pretty easy to incorporate that new plot thread into the chapter.

Basically, the sadomasochism subplot just meant that Kaveh had a new emotional need and chapter goal, so I added the scene(s) that his new need/goal required. And because I knew the main developments that would occur during the chapter, I was also able to see how this plotline tied into those existing elements and arcs. For example:

The development where Kaveh relies more on Alhaitham for support/comfort was originally only demonstrated when Alhaitham calms Kaveh down during the beginning of their shopping trip; with the new plot point, Kaveh’s attempts to address his kink-related crisis became another event that demonstrated this relationship development

This plot point also fit the chapter development where Kaveh thinks about his feelings toward Alhaitham and realizes that he’s been dehumanizing him—for example, there’s a connection between that and Kaveh’s concern that his kink might mean he subconsciously wants to hurt Alhaitham as revenge for the emotional pain of their falling-out.

Which is to say, I think that outlining these concepts for myself makes it easier for me to integrate new plot points that pop up while I’m writing or brainstorming.

💡 Consider rewinding or backtracking a bit

I know, I know, it can be unpleasant to undo something that you just spent time and effort creating. And you shouldn’t necessarily delete that work, of course. You can always remove it from your draft and save it in a separate document. But if you’ve written in a direction that feels like a dead end—or like you’re hopelessly meandering with no hope of reaching the story’s endpoint within the next century—you might need to rewind to an earlier “character choice” and take the scene in a different direction.

So, I suppose the next question is “How do you know when the solution is to backtrack, versus when you just need to spend more time brainstorming for the story?”

I guess there isn’t a way to know for sure, but you could try asking yourself whether the scene you’re writing—with its current direction—is “accomplishing” your goal for that scene/story.

For example, maybe the scene I’m writing is meant to show how Kaveh and Alhaitham’s relationship is improving, and then Kaveh says something that leads to a huge argument and a tense mood. On its own, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe I’ll decide that Kaveh and Alhaitham resolving the argument is a more effective way to demonstrate their relationship development—or maybe I’ll decide that the scene is actually more interesting if it shows that the two of them are still struggling to keep things civil, and that their relationship “improvement” consists of taking two steps forward and one step back.

But I also might decide that, no, that’s not what I was trying to accomplish by writing this scene, and I’m not interested in exploring a different direction. In that case, I can backtrack to the beginning of the argument and try having Kaveh and Alhaitham make different choices. (E.g., I could still write the dialogue that starts the argument, but then Kaveh and Alhaitham’s initial responses are different this time—or I might rewind the scene even further, and have Kaveh choose to say something besides the thing that started the argument.) From there, hopefully the scene will start going in the direction I want, and I won’t feel stuck or lost while writing it.

**Note: I usually realize problems like this during the outlining/planning stage—so, that’s definitely one way you can use outlining to your advantage. It’s much easier to “backtrack” in notes or an outline than it is to rewind a scene you’ve already partially written.

💡 Take a short break from that project

I realize that this is Ye Olde Advice For Writer’s Block, lol—but like I said, sometimes the problem isn’t that the story is going in the wrong direction. You might just need to give yourself time to figure out a certain part of the story, or maybe you’re starting to get burned out and need to let your brain rest for a bit. It never hurts to take a few days off and see if waiting fixes the issue!

___ ___ ___ ___ ___

So, overall: Getting stuck during the writing process is common, but it’s the type of problem that could be caused by any number of things, so it needs to be tackled on a case-by-case basis.

I guess the good news (?) is that you can absolutely continue to write what you feel like; that’s a completely feasible way to approach a story, and it won’t inherently cause you to get stuck. That said, since you do feel like you’re ending up stumped sometimes, you’ll need to identify which elements of the story are impeding you, and then you’ll need to figure out what kind of planning (or rewriting) most effectively helps you orient your writing and get things moving again.

Anyway, ah, hopefully something in that very long answer was helpful or illuminating 🫡

✨ Bonus ✨

For anyone who for some reason wants to slog through the Chapter 6 notes I used, and see a horrifying glimpse into my attempts to type out a scene as it rapidly plays out in my brain—the gist of the original note I made to myself was something like this:

And here’s the nightmare that spewed forth from my fingers:

Yeah, so, uh…like I said at the beginning of this post, my personal methods of outlining/planning are definitely not the same as my recommendations for outlining/planning 😂

[jccatstudios]

Hi! Im pretty sure someone already asked you this but I really want to know. When working on the comic, do you make a script for yourself or do you "just" work with the book as it is? I know that making a script adds another work to the already long list, but working with the book as it is seems really overwhelming (many words me not likey)

You know, I don't think I have answered this before! Not in-depth, at least. Here's how I do it.

This is my extra annotated copy of the book (my original copy remains untouched). Got it used and as-is from Powell's. I also have a digital copy of the book when I can't bring this copy with me. I underline certain things I don't want to forget in the artwork, and write little notes to myself here and there. It's not shown on this page, but sometimes I cross things out that I won't/can't adapt like worldbuilding info and smaller flashbacks. If dialogue needs to be changed for lettering purposes, I do that when I'm actually making pages, not at the annotating stage. In the digital copy, I highlight character and setting descriptions to keep track of. This process is actually how I made my second graphic novel, which was an adaptation of a short story I wrote.

The ratio up top is my book page to comic page estimate. Last chapter's ratio was 10:21, which is in the ballpark of 3:7. With it, I've figured out how long each chapter and section would be just for fun. I even have a rough estimate of how long the entire book would be in comic format with nothing cut from it (try plugging in the numbers yourself if you'd like a fun surprise).

If this were a real professional project, I would write out a script myself. I'd want to keep the whole book in mind instead of doing it chapter by chapter. Working directly from the book for how things are structured is just a way to make the comic faster. Even thinking about the last chapter, I have ideas already for what I would change to create a stronger comic adaptation. For now though, I just go off the individual chapter to create something more one-to-one. This project has always been a way to improve my art and comic skills before I graduate, so doing structural rewrites to the story, even though that would be necessary for an actual adaptation, is out of the scope of this personal project I do outside of my classes.

[marabarl-and-marlbara]

Hi Mara,

I enjoyed the first chapter of Cinnamon Psychic and I am really looking forward for more! You have a wonderful way with words, the tone of your writing is extremely unique and lends itself well to the atmosphere that is being built up. Thank you and keep it up!

It made me curious, apologies if it sounds inane or nosy, about the technicalties behind your writing, and maybe to hear your advice on writing stories! I mean, there are many different methods of planning out a story beforehand—like drawing up timelines, creating character profiles, compiling notes and drafts to be stitched into a complete story and so on—and there are all kinds of software that help with writing. I have seen writers who create these complex mindmaps for story notes, draw up charts, write in word processors that have thesauruses etc., and then there are writers who write seemingly off the dome in plain old notepad or even with just pen and paper. I wonder which type of writer you are!

Thank you again for your art, and happy (late) birthday!

hey there anonymous, thank you very much for reading!

for cinnamon psychic you can find my drafts for it extending out a year backwards on my substack subscriber posts (i don:t mean this as an advertisement, mostly just that each month i tack-on every writing draft i hadn't finished to the coat-tails of those posts and the majority of those draft sections had all been sketches for my 'isekai project' which was always the now off-the-ground cinnamon psychic) which gives a good clue to my writing process and also why i am both not an efficient writer and a very slow writer:

i rewrite extensively; for months all of my writing had been rewriting various 'false-starts' for the maud story and the cheryl story and how the two would intertwine; sometimes i would start on the actual 'isekai' portion of the story and detail the assaults the angels would levy against the school or try to sketch out scenes of the dean bethlemass holding meetings of prophesy --this is basically my writing process: i get really excited about a detail (usually while out on a walk or exercising or on a drive) and then rush home to sketch out a small scene for it until i run out of steam and hit an impass, or the scene presents itself as having a 'mental clunk' while i:m writing it -- this is hard to describe but sometimes sentences have a feeling as a food has a texture or flavor; maybe the word choice 'works' but does not match the tone, or perhaps the sentence is all tone but no coherency. then i:ll start rewriting the same scene (top to bottom, reading my own writing and redoing it) with what i think will have a better texture/flavor, and then steadily let myself run out of steam/excitement. these rewrites are mostly my unproductive 'sketching' portions of writing, they:re helpful for slowly fleshing out a story but not helpful for finishing a story.

while i:m writing to finish, (this is especially true for short one-off fictions i write) i really do nothing except 'start at the beginning' and then slowly force myself forwards through a story even if it is boring (maud:s whole scene from waking to eventually going to her closet was something i did not want to write, i only wanted to write her becoming a servant to a demonic painting; her backstory in an initial draft (of the false-maud) was mostly just a 1:1 of a 'what-if i went through with my doomsday plans and drowned myself' and instead one day i got really excited about instead re-using the 'hateful sister' story i had written for hate corp and the warhammer fanfiction that was only left as a draft); for this writing i really can:t make myself do it unless i treat it like a job and intentionally make an hour dedicated to just writing while letting anime play in the background.

then, i try to make a rolodex / concordance of all the details that i know for the setting and want to keep consistent -- character names, their classes, any quirks, rough description, what their house is like, every item i:ve described for them; i mostly just use it to keep details straight instead of proactively flesh out the world unless it:s necessary that i have some boring details thought out, ie: the school of the setting is divided into different colleges with sub-groups in each, and i have to have these planned out in advance with names because chapter 2 needs it;

currently i:m on the "writing to finish, start from a point and go till done" with chapter 2; but also i like to start this from the middle and then go back to the start after i finish, because i think i have a better idea of what characterization should be for both tone and action when i:m at the end.

also, just reading a lot; paying attention to how other authors use language makes me want to write.

thanks for the ask, anonymous; have a nice day

[zedreh]

I said in my description that I plan to do stop-motion videos on YouTube. So I kinda want to actually talk about that.

I mostly want to do fanfilms/fanseries on Marvel and DC, and I've been working on them for some time. I don't have much out besides a short that sort of acts like a screen test. I'm still working on writing and getting the things I need to make them. But I wanted to share a few of the things I'm using for my Batman projects. I take pride in them and would like to share them and some of my thought process on everything.

First, we have my work in progress, Batcave moc. I wanted something very simple that could be easy to film in and moved if needed. I also intend to tell as much as Batman's history, as I reasonably can, so I made designed it so that things can easily be taken away or added. Here, we have a very simple setup, with the Batcomputer (I intend to add more screens), a table/desk next to it, a space for the Batsuit, and next to it, a display case for Joe Chill's gun.

Next, we have my Batmobile moc. As you can tell by looking at it, the design from the Animated Series was a bit of an influence for it, yet it's still also doing its own thing. Which is sort of something I aim for as a whole with my Batman projects, mostly in tone and style. I also built it to seat two minifigures and gave it a trunk.

As you can see, here we have Bruce Wayne and Alfred. With Bruce, I just used the same head and hair combo from the 2012 batcave set and a plain black torso and dark bluish gray legs. I based it on one of the TNBA designs. Alfred is just the Lego Batman Movie minifigure.

Pictured next are classic Batman, Alfred again, Robin (Jason Todd), Nightwing, and Batgirl (Barbara Gordon). Batman is the 2012 gray suit minifigure, with the blue swapped out for black. My reasons for this were one, as a B:TAS reference, and two the UCS Adam West Batmobile had yet to come out, so dual molded gray/dark blue legs didn't exist yet (although now I want to use them instead). I intend to have Jason wear the same outfit as Dick, just like he originally did. The difference is that Dick will use the 2012 head and hair Tim had. Nightwing the minifigure that came with Gotham City Breakout, but with different hair. If I get get a Disco-wing suit, he'll start out in that and eventually change to this one. I'm also considering a different hair piece (I am genuinely considering bringing back his mullet). I'm not sure about my current Batgirl. Currently, it's using the Lego Batman Movie minifigure to resemble her purple outfits, but I might swap for her black or gray ones. Also pictured is Jason's memorial. Like Chill's gun, I placed it next to the Batsuit display. The idea is that every time Bruce puts on his suit, he wants to be reminded of both the reason he became Batman and what he considers his greatest failure.

Then, in this one, there's Nightwing again, iconic gray and black Batman, Robin (Tim Drake), and my work in progress Batgirl (Cassandra Cain). The accessory pack Batman was basically perfect, I just prefer the longer eared cowl. I also thought to have it, so as time goes on, Batman changes his suit every now and then, starting with his first appearance outfit then progressing through various other looks he's had over the years. Tim has a Jokerland Robin torso, but I might swap it for the original Robin torso if I can get one. His legs are CMF Aquaman legs with the printing removed. The current all black cape is temporary, I'm debating if I want to go black with yellow lining or full yellow. Cass is a work in progress/ stand-in. The torso is temporary until I can get or make one based on her actual outfit, and given the less pronounced nose of her mask, I feel a different one may be better. Like a modified version of one of the official Batgirl masks. Ideally, I'd just get the Batbricks Silent Bat minifigure, but I can't seem to find that for sale anywhere.

I've also done a short that has been uploaded to YouTube. It could be considered something of a pilot, I suppose. I feel it could be better, but I think it's still alright.

I hope people enjoy this post, and if anyone has any questions, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to give them.

[hello-goodbye123433]

Ao3 author 20 questions!

I saw this and was bored, so I decided to do it! I'm definitely not procrastinating, no way.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I've currently have 24 works and it grows by the day lol

2. Total AO3 word count

322,729

3. Fandoms you write for

DSMP and Hermitcraft, but I drabble in a couple other things that I never really posted.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos

Oppositional Forces - 850

That time three chaotic villain teens got ahold of twitter - 204

The Mystery of The Award Show - 116

Halls and Falls - 100

Hidden in plain sight - 96

5. Do you respond to comments?

I respond most of the time, though I don't if I feel I'm not in the right headspace for it. It does kind of bother me when I leave a comment unanswered.

6. Fic w/ Angstiest Ending

Don't really have one! All published projects I have are still in progress (I only started posting a year and a half ago), and the other two that ARE finished are both very fluffy endings. Unpublished though, I would say a little story I like to call 'Mihira's Plight'. It was a personal dragon age fic.

7. Happiest ending?

My fic called 'Blood covered vines', despite what the title implies, it was just a short vampire one shot that ended with a mix of a happy reunion and pure crack.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not really. I had one comment that bothered me because it came off as rude, but all my other comments and absolutely awesome!

9. Do you write smut/what kind?

Nope.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Yes, very occasionally. I've got my biggest and most dear project that's a crossover between DSMP and Hermitcraft, and a couple of personal projects that I write scattered scenes for but otherwise stay in my head xD

11. Ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

12. Ever had a fic translated?

No, but I did have someone ask if they could make me a podfic :D

13. Ever cowritten a fic?

Yes, me and my best friend met over fandom and we wrote a multichapter fic together.

14. Favorite ship?

Hard to say. Definitely either Penelope and Calisto (from Villains are Destined to Die) or Scarian (hermitcraft, but only the characters and not the actual people)

15. A wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Halls and Falls. I care a lot about it, and it's how I met my best friend, but I just haven't written for it or had any motivation for it for several months

16. Writing strengths?

Probably my dialogue? It's always been something that comes to me smoothly.

17. Writing weaknesses?

Descriptions. I don't write them enough at all. I have trouble putting the specific areas in my head to words, and it's incredibly inconvenient. I'm trying to be better about that though.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in a different language?

I've done it once or twice, but only a word or two. Never like proper dialogue except for one time I wrote something for my readers to decipher in enchantment language. 10/10, would do that again lol

19. First Fandom you wrote for?

My Hero Academia. First fandom I ever read for, first one I ever wrote for.

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

Definitely Oppositional Forces. It has shitty writing, but the story is something I hold dear.

[devterrina]

Welcome to the Devterrina Blog!

Devterrina is a worldbuilding project that I (@toppo-da-foxxo) have been working on sporadically for some time now. It's a fantasy world that I like to think about, and the world most of my original characters inhabit! I usually focus on the grand-scale sociopolitical and environmental aspects, as well as the magic, with a little bit of history thrown in for fun. I do also have a couple of stories in the works, but they're very bare-bones at the moment- I'm not sure if I'll ever actually turn them into anything but I'll still ramble about them from time to time. Under the read more will be a list of main tags I'll use on my posts, if you want to read up on something more specific

I've also got a Campfire where I store a lot of worldbuilding information, it's not as filled out as I would like it to be currently but the link is Here if you'd like to take a look!

There's also a Toyhouse folder dedicated to Devterrina and the characters within, however it is also very unfinished and needs a lot of work. There's old art and spoilers abound there, and not all characters have profiles or are available in this folder. Link is Here if you want to check it out!

Some general tags: #Devterrina in Progress - Works in progress! These posts may not be strictly cannon, but will show WIPS for writeups, concept art, reference sheets, etc. #Artwork - Any completed artwork. Character and Species reference sheets will probably be the main focus, but I'll also post occasional character artwork both made by me and that I get commissioned! #Dialogues - The tag for completed writings! This will be short text explorations or descriptions of something, whether that be an explanation of a character or location, a detailed description, or a short character interaction, or something of that variety. #Devterrina Mapmaking - Specifically for my map progress! I tend to change up the map every now and again and this tag will be for edits and adjustments I make over time, so you can see how it's changed over time! #Rambling - This differs from Devterrina in Progress because it'll largely just be short blurbs and headcannons- nothing that's meant to be developed further.

Some tags for the different races: #Devterrina Humans #Devterrina Elves #Devterrina Orcs #Devterrina Chimeras #Devterrina Avians These are the five races I have a lot of information on and solid ideas for, but more might be added in the future. I'm also tagging them as specifically the Devterrina version as to keep the tags from being too generic. #Devterrina Gods also fits under this umbrella best.

Some Location/Region-based tags: #Devterrinian Empire - the Human Empire that's been slowly encroaching on the other four kingdoms, currently ruling over a majority of Devterrina's landmass. #Cercellium - The Elven kingdom that populates the desert to the south. #Ferrunda - The cold, northern fields the Orcs call home. Considered one unified kingdom by other regions, but made up of many smaller nomadic tribes and clans. #Valinar - The mountainous islands in the West, and home of the Avian mercantile empire. These are just the major regions within Devterrina as a whole, and will contain many smaller locations within.

Some Story Tags: #Fatebreakers - A story of prophecies, chosen ones, and what it means to challenge one's predetermined fate. "Prophecy Kids" was the previous working title. #Archmage in Exile - A story meant to highlight the magic and history of Devterrina, and a story about legacy, redemption, and overcoming one's past. Both of these are working titles for stories I don't have a lot on as I’m writing this, but will be used when generally talking about them.

Some character tags: #Minor character - Generic tag for characters that will have minor roles in a story. #Major character - Generic tag for characters that will have a major role in a story #Ardor - A powerful dark mage attempting to undo the harm his magic has caused. Main character of Archmage in Exile. #Marco - An Elf suffering from a monstrous curse, trying to find a cure. Main character of Archmage in Exile. #Luca - A Phoenix Avian and the last of his kind. Adopted brother of Ambra. Chosen one and main character of Fatebreakers. #Ambra - An Orc with an impressive talent for Fire Magic. Adopted sister of Luca. Chosen one and main character of Fatebreakers. #Mason - A young shadow mage learning to embrace newfound freedom. Chosen one and main character of Fatebreakers. #Erin - A Heron Avian who was unwillingly thrown into a life of exile and piracy, learning to adapt to a new way of life. Chosen one and main character of Fatebreakers. #Adam - A chimera pirate captain with a lust for adventure and fierce loyalty to his crew. Chosen one and main character of Fatebreakers. #Blair - An elf who grew up expecting to slay monsters in the desert, who was then thrown into the midst of international politics when chosen by the gods. Main character of Fatebreakers. #Faethen - A Disgraced Angel and shapeshifter, trying to find a purpose to an immortal life disconnected from his deity. Not a Main Character, I just like his vibes. All of these guys are characters I enjoy talking about, drawing, and exploring the inner workings of so they’ll be heavily featured on this blog! There will also be more specific tags for other characters that’ll feature less prominently, but they’ll also have the #minor character or #major character tags attached for generalizing.

Those should be all the main tags I'll be using on this blog! Sorry its a bit long, I thought it would be best to be fairly thorough.

[the-boring-distopia]

Hey guys. I'm currently busy but I just want to say the Mercy au is nearing it's end. I will probably complete it soon and it will be up on ao3 before june ends (the english version, anyway. The hungarian needs some work). I finalized most of the plot and written like ⅔ of the remaining dialogue, I also want to redraw the cover I made for it but I'm not sure about that one lol. I was not giving consistent updates because my schedule got crazy and I did not want to hype it up without actually delivering a new chapter. But yeah, it's all coming together. I will probably drop all the remaining chapters together to avoid having to rewrite them like with chapter three - which I will fix soon.

It was a wild ride and though it's not yet technically over, I'm not sure what my next big project will be. I've been writing short fics beside the Mercy au and I do enjoy those but I'm thinking about starting a new big project after this one ends. I just miss having multi-chapter fics with long plotlines and even minor characters having their time. It also just allows for characters to have more time to be presented.

These are some of the ideas I gathered over the months and I'm just curious which one you'd actually like:

I've been wanting to write an Idan political drama for a long time, something about Ianthe taking out rivals who are trying to square up with Corona. Just some Dominicus political drama with characters jabbing at each other in public and manufacturing their downfall behind closed doors. I fully intend to paint Ida as distopian, authorian and borderline cult like as possible, so things like political corruption, human experiments and even slavery would not be off the table as topics that come up - also murder, but Ianthe is there so you're probably not surprised. I'm thinking at least four chapters for this one, but I must warn you I'm first and foremost a descriptive writer, this has not yet shown in my other fics but there will be paragraphs about Idan architecture and character descriptions. [I actually have a name idea for this one! What about "Stoma"? The area around a tumor that supports it and helps it survive?]

When I said I'm putting Mercymorn in the Warhammer universe, I meant it. But there are just so many opportunities, characters and things that would make Mercymorn absolutely crazy that I can't do this idea justice without giving it at least three chapters. Plot would be basically Mercymorn walking up on a foreign ship after being murdered by god and she's forced to escape onto another ship because the ship gets attacked. This becomes a pattern that continues until Mercymorn has enough and tries to kill her new boss who also turns out to he immortal and trying to recreate humanity, which pisses Mercymorn off even more. There will be a fair bit of gore in this one, mixed in with dark humor, evil space bugs, orks, a suspiciously big talking rat, necrons, Mercymorn accidentally ejecting a demon out of an air lock and some more. [Gotta name this one "Call a doctor - but not for me"]

Harrianthe arranged marriage au where they are both told that they need to kill each other, but the attempted murder makes them actually fall in love because they are freaks. In this au the emperor does not call for them so they never go to canaan house, Gideon is dead (major plot point) and the Tomb may or may not be open. In this au Ianthe is intersex and her arm is missing because Corona has absorbed it in the womb, they need to have a necromantic heir for the ninth to get resources and funding from the third in exchange for some old records (another plot point), but Harrow is scarred by what happened to the 200 children while Ianthe is missing Corona so they need to figure that out. I don't know how many chapters yet, probably a lot.

I've been thinking a lot about Alecto so what about a short adventure where Alecto takes a stroll around Dominicus and observes things? Shes just rolling around in fields of flowers and tearing animals apart for dinner, just your usual barbie girl activities. Three chapters?

And at last, a really stupid idea: a friend of mine wanted to write a warhammer fantasy au for tlt but they abandoned the project. The main idea was that there is this artefact (that opens the tomb, but they don't know that) that every character is trying to get before their enemies do, instead of houses every character has a faction of interest, Harrow has a cult of vampires/necromancers who want to keep the tomb closed (more like Harror tries to keep the illusion lol), Camilla and Palamedes (who is kind of dead) are working for Tzeentch and they want to study it, Ianthe wants the artefact solely to cause problems, John is the emperor and Mercymorn is trying to kill him every day unsuccessfully, Judith and Marta are from Cathay... You get the idea. I just love the idea of putting these characters in a medieval setting where "rats have nuclear weapons" and "the sex demons are fighting the lizard people" are both valid sentences. I just want to write Ianthe foil her own plans and blame Babs for it, or Camilla having to deal with everybodies bullshit. I don't know how long this one should be, until Ianthe catching fire and accidentally betraying herself stops being funny, I guess.

[white-weasel]

WIP Folder

Rules: Make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous and tag as many people as you have WIPs. People send an ask with the title that most intrigues them, then you post a snippet or tell them something about it!

Thank you @parallelunivrses for tagging me :)

I have... so many wips in a folder. Some of them are proper wips that I do have stuff written and want/intend to go back to and some are things I know I will never actually touch again (some of which are actually 10+ years, if that says anything). I've decided to just include wips here where there's a possibility I'll do something with them because otherwise this list would be too long I think lol

Being Emo About Mia Fey - Ace Attorney; what it says on the tin. I thought about Mia Fey too hard and had to get my feelings out about her dying young

BP Pt 4 - Batman; 6 years ago now (geez) I wrote a series of "Tim joins the Batfam early" fics. I believe my plan was for there to be 6-7 fics in the series, and the fics would alternate between Tim's and Jason's perspectives. This is the next part

Brad Projection Time - Mythic Quest; barely anything is written here, but the episode "Breaking Brad" made me just want to write contemplative angst about Brad

Bruce Isn't Batman (Or Is He?) - Batman; I also call this one "Bruce Wayne is Schrodinger's Batman." Basically, a fic where when Tim tries to confront Bruce and Alfred about how "Batman needs a Robin," everyone continues to deny that Bruce is Batman

Tim Thing with Not Much Plot - Batman; basically like it says, a short thing about Tim considering how his initial outsider perceptions of Bruce/Batman compare now that he's Robin

Ella Enchanted BNHA Thing - BNHA; Izuku gets put under a quirk that basically gives him the curse from Ella Enchanted for a period of time

Iida Angst Man - BNHA; I decided Iida needed more character-centered angst and decided to write a couple scenes. Mostly centered on control issues, hoarding, and compulsive tendencies

Jigsaw Sequel Outline - Saw; I've posted about this a bit here, but basically my ideas for what a sequel to the movie Jigsaw could look like if they ever wanted to continue on with the ideas set up in that film

Monoma Thing - BNHA; exploring Monoma's inferiority issues through the context of Izuku befriending him and getting to know him better

Nobody Wins - Hetalia/Hunger Games crossover; this is something I just want to finish for my younger self... it was a four part/chapter thing and I never wrote the fourth part

Silver Platters - Hunger Games; AU where Sejanus was never sent to become a Peace Keeper with Coriolanus and is set to focus on how the character could have developed up through the events of the original trilogy. Currently I'm working on chapter 3

Slight Sci-Fi Thing - Original; a short story that follows a woman ~5 years after being cloned as she considers what he life was and what it has become. I do not have much written and do not know if this will ever see the actual light of day, but I do enjoy thinking about it

Stufffff - Batman; Dick finds Tim's fanfiction he wrote about Batman and Robin when he was nine, back before he knew anyone's identities. Mostly just a fun little fic atm

Tim Drake Anti-Hero/Fake Villain - Batman, outline of an AU where, due to some different life circumstances, Tim comes to the conclusion "Batman needs a sidekick" rather than "Batman needs a Robin." However, due to some misunderstandings, his attempts at becoming his sidekick go a bit sideways and he decides to work with the cards he's been dealt. Currently just an outline rn

Tim ED Thing - Batman; I wrote a non-graphic fic about Tim being in recovery from an eating disorder many years ago. In that fic, there's a mention of the first time Tim told Dick about it, and sometimes I come back and try to write that scene

Zirk Angst Thing - Naddpod: Eldermourne; post-canon one shot that dives into some of my ideas about the mysterious winter fairy Zirk made a deal with in the finale and also Zirk telling his friends about what exactly happened in those moments. Actively working on this one and really hoping to get it out at some point here soon!

Since this is literally 16 things, I don't even know if I have 16 people to tag... so instead I'm gonna cop out and just say if anybody wants an excuse to share about their wips please go ahead and I'm being 100% serious. I love hearing about what people are working on!

[lesbiansanemi]

Hello! I have a question but it’s more so just a curiosity thing. I was wondering how you format or structure your outlines. I remember you talking about writing an outline for a league of villains story and following an outline for wind-blown lilies. Are they similar to the outlines we were taught in school? For example, having a layout of what the essay is about, what each paragraph is going to be, what evidence will be used for that paragraph, etc. Or do you have another way of outlining like some type of script? I’ve only ever written academic essays or formal lab reports so whenever I see someone talk about following/writing their story outline I just think of the structure of my lab reports.

HAHA um, so.... my outlining process is very unofficial and definitely not something I would ever do for academic pieces (especially if turning in an outline is part of the process). Not even strictly for nonfiction, but just in my general writing classes, I was much more strict with how I outlined

But now, how I outline my fics (and tbh original projects as well) is much more haphazard and vague. Basically, I just create a chapter section, and do bullet-point esque statements beneath. Well, most of the time, some of the outlines are a bit different.

I feel like examples would probably make more sense than what I'm describing haha so

Here's bits from my siren AU outline, the Renkaza-centric installment of the roleswap AU, as well as the league of villains fic outline. While they are technically formatted a bit differently, they're very similar. For me, outlines tend to just be for keeping track of the order of things, and sometimes a timeline. I want to work out scene details as I'm writing prose. Because outlining is connected to plotting for me, and when focusing on that, you don't want to get too caught up in little details. You can figure that out later as you're actually writing the prose. So the outlines tend to be very short and to the point, "this happens, then this happens, then this happens" type beat

The being said, occasionally I'll have a project that gets a MUCH more detailed outline. This generally happens for MASSIVE projects because I'm worried about forgetting more things, or forgetting more things because I'm not actively working on them, or both. It's still not often that these end up with minute details or bits of prose written however. They are honestly even messier, and are basically just gigantic walls of text that are essentially stream of consciousness about the project getting typed out. Ex. of that one is my komainu AU. It quite literally sounds as if I'm talking to someone rather than outlining

Those are pretty much the only two ways that I outline though. So I suppose it could technically be similar to academic outlining, though swap paragraph topics for what happens chapter by chapter, but still much less professional, and either far more sparse, or way, way too wordy and discombobulated

Like I said, I essentially just use them as rough guidelines. To me, their purpose is to prevent me from writing myself into a plot hole or impossible situation (which can happen if you just go straight into prose without having the whole project plotted out), as well as keeping timelines straight. Details, dialogue, description, character introspection, all of that comes later as I write out each chapter (because I don't skip around when I write, I write beginning to end in that exact order with only the rarest of deviations)

Anyways, this got a bit wordy, sorry about that, but I hope that answers your question and quells any curiosity! Tbh I love the outlining process, plotting is probably my favorite aspect of writing, so even though they may seem barely put together, I do put a lot of thought into my outlines and what needs to be included in them to be cohesive and coherent and keep me on track

[cyanocophrenic]

I know that questions like these are probably one of the more tedious ones, but would you have any small tips on writing out inflation scenarios?

Like, either physical descriptions, the pacing of it, or how to build tension with it?

I spend so much time trying to figure this kind of thing out! Hardly a tedious question. I don't know that I've got, like, universally applicable tipz and trickz, but I can try to describe my process? putting in a cut since this is longer and ramblier than i was expecting.

I think the main thing is that you should write for yourself! Write the things that make you happy or horny or whatever, and worry about communicating those feelings to other people later. write something you savor.

You know the specific elements of the fetish that affect you most deeply (and if you don't, it's a great excuse to go spend more time engaging with smut!) so you can kind of start from those things and walk back to where you started, if that makes sense. I think if you go look through the stuff I've published here you'll definitely find some repeated themes.

Pacing is tough for me, which is why the things I've published so far have been pretty short and sweet. I've got four or five longer projects on the back burner because slice of life stuff, or, like, long form narratives are hard for me to find satisfaction with rn.

I think the main thing that I've found to be helpful is trying to minimize the prose? I have a tendency to talk like a thesaurus in real life, so i've been trying to challenge myself to be direct, and for a lot of the shorter stuff, I've tried to stick to sort of leading up to one climactic moment, aka The Part That Makes Cum Happen (TM TM TM) (Assuming that's even how you think about this stuff). To be super honest, i've really only published one-shot type things with nameless characters so far because i struggle with the more drawn out stuff. I'd love to write slice of life things or grander narratives but i'm still figuring out how to wrangle those ideas. Still, i figure there's no harm in publishing something that doesn't end up being all that good?

As far as what you actually asked about lol I think you can kind of work backwards from the really hot moments. Like, i think the simplest example would be any one of the thousands of wg fics where the author clearly loves the numbers getting bigger, yeah? If the subject's going to weigh a literal ton by the end, how did they get half way there? Can that moment be some sort of mini-climax, or somehow foreshadow the big finish? Is there some consequence looming ever closer? and then: can you show some of that, rather than just put a number to it?

and i think the thing with tension is just being aware of what a character wants, or doesn't want (or says they don't want but secretly they do) and just pushing them step by step towards that thing. tension also doesn't have to increase constantly. you can save it all up for like sudden moments in between relative lulls and like developing a really fun rhythm.

But yeah, imagine yourself in the scenario, and notice what details you keep returning to, and just try to write it out like you're describing it to someone else. What do you want them to see? What stakes would you impress upon them? Or, think like a top and try to figure out how you might drip-feed that escalation to the reader. How would you keep them yearning without giving them everything all at once? I find myself wanting to construct this perfect representation of a scene down to the subatomic level lol and like... you don't have to do that. Letting people engage their imaginations a little can be powerful as well.

also writing is a numbers game. the more you write the more likely you are to make stuff that you're proud of.

but yeah that's just me. no idea if any of this is actually helpful lol

[bokettochild]

Do you have any writing tips for beginners?

Asolutally!

Don't make it good. Write, get the idea out. No one gives a darn about which words you use, just the feelings and pictures they get out of them. They remember what you tell the, not how you tell them it.

Follow your flow. If the character wants to do something, let them. This is how you keep them in character. If it goes against what you wanted/needed, then find a way to slowly redirect them back where you need them. Don't drag them there, make them think it was their idea.

If you get stuck, change something about what's happening. Change the weather, the narrator, the scene. Make a loud noise startle someone. Break up the silence with something to make the characters start responding again.

Plan what you want to happen if it's a long story, but don't expect to follow it precisely. Again, the characters have their own minds and may act differently than you expected. That said, make sure to hit your key points somehow, even if it takes a while and some work to make them hit them. this is how you tell an actual story, not just ramble.

For short stories, don't plan. Planning makes you feel like you've already written it. Just sit down and spill the vibes. Rambling is Very Good here.

Edit after at least 24 hours. It looks newer and you are more likely to notice the mistakes. Do two edits though, so you catch the ones you missed the first time.

Don't publish until 24 hours have passed. You'll experience less regret. If it's still good after the 24 hour test, then it's good, not just the euphoria of finishing a project.

Don't be afraid to double check word meanings, even if you've been using the words for forever. Sometimes having the definition makes all the difference when deciding if it's the right word to explain what you're hearing/seeing in your head.

Use. Paragraph. Breaks. New character speaking/acting = new paragraph. New subject matter being discussed = new paragraph. Don't worry if your paragraph is only a sentence. Or a few words. Or one word. Just make sure it's easy to tell who's doing what and when.

If it's fanfiction, don't worry too much about describing well known locations/items/people. Your readers know what these familiar places/items/characters look like, so describing might just bore them. If it's new stuff, or if you changed something about the person/object/location (e.g. damage, decoration, notable features that impact the plot or which the characters notice) then DO mention it, but otherwise, don't worry about describing the familiar too much. Unless you enjoy describing things and setting the scene! Then just have fun, but be conscious to not be a Tolkien and take forever to get past the descriptions and into the story; you might lose your audience that way!

Have fun! If you don't like writing it, don't write it. It ain't worth it.

Length doesn't matter. 500 words is good. 10,000 words is good. Any words is good. Just write. Don't look at the word count or page count (turn it off if you can).

Don't let anyone tell you what you should write, and let no one steal the joy of hyperfixating when you want to. Write for yourself first and foremost!

Hope this helps!

[thebramblewood]

What advice would you give to a simmer just starting out writing stories with their sims? How do you build engagement with your posts? How do you write such addictive stories?

Wow! Okay. Buckle in because this will be a long one. I think the most important thing is writing for yourself first and foremost. Don't let your passion be driven solely by engagement (though it's impossible not to be motivated by it a little bit!) but by your own desire to see your project through. I've been a creative writer forever, and 75% of that writing has been written for an audience of one. But sometimes a character or concept will grab me by the throat and refuse to let go, and that's what keeps me invested. I unfortunately can't tell you how that happens. It usually feels like a happy accident. But when it does, it comes through, and readers will want in on it too. That being said, here are some tips for actual presentation:

Engaging visuals. I don't think Reshade or fancy editing is a requirement, but I can't pretend I didn't see a huge uptick in engagement when I started using it. Now, that may also be because I started thinking more about the composition of a shot. Diversify your angles and perspectives, and don't be afraid to zoom way in or out! Move that camera around as much as possible! I know very little about the technicalities of film and photography, but I think the more you practice, the better your eye becomes for what looks dynamic.

Legible captions. I'll be brutally honest: when I'm scrolling the dash, I'm less likely to stop for story posts if the text on the images is not immediately readable. I've by no means perfected this, but I've tweaked my own text over time to make it larger, and I find that very light colors with a black border is almost always the best option. I also try to visualize leaving space for the text to fit as I'm taking shots (though I sometimes forget).

Text-only transcript. My controversial opinion is that I don't like reading transcripts because it's easier for me to engage and follow along if I can see the images and words interacting. BUT I still think it's important to include them, so I always have one under the cut. If you'd rather not do captions on images at all, I personally find it more engaging for the text to be broken up throughout rather than in a big chunk at the end. This is especially helpful if you're writing more descriptive prose, as most people (including me) unfortunately have very short attention spans.

Adaptability! It's helpful to have an outline (whether it's in your head or written) of where you want to end up and how you're going to get there, but the most fulfilling part of writing for me is in giving myself license to follow new ideas or let old ones evolve, even if that means going a bit off-track. Also, it's tempting to establish a formula and lock yourself into an aesthetic from the start, but if you feel like something isn't working, don't be afraid to change it up! You'll be unhappy if you stick with it just for consistency's sake, and you'll rob yourself of opportunities to experiment and have fun. I think readers also appreciate a shake-up so that things never start to feel stale.

That's a lot, I know, but hopefully some of it helps. I've only been doing this here for a few months, and I'm also still figuring things out!

[the-missann]

tl;dr is I want to publish my stories either traditionally or as self-publish, but understand how much harder it’ll be without a following of some kind or something else to garner interest in my stories. For now, I want to try authoring a webcomic/manga/comic/etc… of one (or more) of my stories to garner interest and finances to start working on my other projects full time.

I would want an artist who is just as passionate as I am as I cannot afford to pay anyone right now.

This would be an unpaid passion project with the eventually hope of monetization.

So, if any of that interested you, here’s the full project:

I want to work on something that is aimed at a female audience. Something like Obey Me! Meets Love and Deepspace. I already have everything written, plotted, and even have amateur concepts of all the characters. I would need someone who is actually skilled and passionate about drawing to help me in making proper character art as well as possibly making a series out of it.

A brief description of the synopsis is this:

a reverse harem with a competent and realistic main character who struggles with anxiety. Imagine having anxiety and ten attractive people are all interested in dating you, that would be lethal! This is one of my more comedic titles, but I mainly write romance. I also write fantasy, action/adventure, comedy, and YA with more serious tones, but there's almost always an element of romance.

I’ll have more info if anyone decides to DM me (here first though. I do have a Discord, but don’t feel comfortable giving it out). Here is a page I made for it, however, if anyone wants more info without needing to wait on me.

I have 4 main characters and 10 love interests (designed by me w/references) and ~250 short stories (all ranging 1.5k-2k words or more). Anything else like locations and places of interests have also been thought up thoroughly and I really won't need any help in that department. (Also, just wanted to mention that I frequently have POC in my stories and have an MC who's a POC, so I wanted to mention that in case you're not experienced with POC hairstyles, skin colors, or features.)

One thing I want to mention is how ambitious I am about this. I was very disappointed when Obey Me! confirmed it was “no longer making new content” after a lackluster two years and the disaster that was Nightbringer. I thought, “I have ideas that are better than this” and wanted desperately to work on something in the same vein. Because of that, the collection of short stories I wrote eventually got more and more ideas behind it. My ultimate goal with this story is to have it be a video game, one like Obey Me!/OB!NB, but without the aggressive microtransactions, lack of character growth and gameplay, and without crucifixion of the romance and adult themes. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the ability to make it that far, but right now I just wanna start as small as possible and see if I can make a web series out of it.

About me personally, I’m 25 and am struggling to find a job right now. I’m not diagnosed, but am 100% sure I have some form of anxiety and that makes it difficult for me to pursue work that isn’t debilitating to me. My passions are the only thing keeping me going and if I can turn that into a source of income, I’d be more than willing to work to the bone for it.

This wouldn't be the only project I want to work on as I have millions of characters and thousands of ideas I want to work on.

Here's some snippets of my personal favorite pieces I've written

From Quiet Girl (What this post is about)

From The Moon, Rabbit, and Wolf

From Tales That Were Lived

From Kingdom of Bumalia

From The State of Quandary

So, if I end up working with anyone, this would be a long term partnership with the hope that it can turn into something stable for us both ^-^

Thank you for reading all this. I’m extremely anxious to even check back, but I don’t have much to lose and figured why not try 🍂