#worldbuilding this thing better for second draft

[lumafly]

Trying to design main character for Book1 and want to make her outfit extremely practical for travelling/sleeping outside in a desert while also being inspired by african/saharan cultures (Reef inspo is not 1:1, nothing specific, this is not Earth) and also keeping the theme post-apocalyptic so mixing hand-made textiles with futuristic aspects. Harder to redesign the human cast than I thought.

(For B1 human clothing context- nothing can be mass produced or automated but the fabric/materials/tools/etc are all there and are traded between towns easily. It leaves room to be completely personal per character since everything has to be made from scratch but does need to stay within the realms of 'this had to be made by hand by a living person' so it has to be efficient/practical in terms of how it is used and if it is worth making- ie no capes or flashy garments , but yes to hoods and scarfs because sand, and yes to small accessories because they wouldn't take as much time or resources)

[idreamofneonsheep]

Being a writer is so fun because every day I wake up and think that I could absolutely write a fourth wing or a lightlark in like 3 months, market it on tiktok, and then not have to worry abt my student loans

And then I remember I don't want to contribute to the shitty state of fantasy and such so I'd actually just spend a billion years making a good book and my debt would continue festering

[concerningwolves]

The 'When Dealing with Wolves' re-release announcement

I've been mumbling about this decision on here for a while, so I figured it's time for An Official Announcement post. If you're new here, When Dealing with Wolves is my debut novel, which was originally published four years ago (four years and 4 days, to be precise: on June 30th 2021). It's book one of two in The Wyrdseren, a series about humans and (talking) wolves living in the aftermath of a past they've forgotten they once shared.

Thing is, lots has happened since then (starting a bachelor's degree, building up my editing career, writing other books, life fuckery); some of this stuff just slowed me down, and some of it has made me much stronger as a writer. I feel like publishing the second book now while the first one no longer reflects who I am as an author would do the whole series a disservice. That, and in my rush to publish WDWW last time, I made choices about the story that I regret now. But seeing as I'm self-published, I can do what I want forever, so! When Dealing with Wolves is getting revised and re-released.

This post has all the information on how it's going to work and what's getting changed. You can learn more about the novel here.

How it's going to work:

I'm going to finish this draft of book two, The Kindness of Ravens, first, seeing as this draft is going to be the last before revisions. Then I'm going to go in and overhaul WDWW. Key things to know are:

Both the revised WDWW and TKoR will be released at the same time (I'm not even going to guess at a release date yet though lol).

You'll have the option of getting either both of the ebooks as a bundle at a special price, or buying them seperately full price each. I'm going to work out the details for physical books (likely just paperback) closer to release time.

I'm going to take down legacy WDWW over the weekend so it will no longer be available.

Following my tag #The Wyrdseren is the best way to stay tuned for now, and/or you can ask to be added to the series' taglist:

  @yvesdot @kriss-the-writing-nerd @lady-redshield-writes @thespooniewrites @weaver-of-fantasies-and-fables @kwriteswords @heniareth @chauceryfairytales @royalbounties-main-blog @corishadowfang @novel-novelist

(or if you want to be taken off the taglist, that's fine too – just ask! This thing is also so old I had to clean off a bunch of now-defunct blogs, so please let me know if you need to be re-added under a different username).

I'm going to re-open my author newsletter at some point probably, but I'll make a taglist announcement about that first anyway 👍

The scale and scope of changes:

This will still very much be the same book – the same core story, characters, themes and magic system – just polished and refined to better match up to where my storytelling skills are now. My planned changes mostly cover:

continuity / making the two books more cohesive as a whole

pacing

refining certain aspects of the worldbuilding and magic "rules" that never quite sat right with me.

(And now I can incorporate all the viking history special interest reading i've done since then! yay!). Also have some changes planned to Thrigg's backstory that I'm pretty excited about :3

+ I do not know why I ever said yes to my copyeditor applying the Chicago Manual of Style when a) I write UK English and b) I don't like how CMOS handles ellipses & prefer spaced en dashes over closed up em dashes. So I'm changing that too.

[kominigiru]

same m&m anon w the this one’s for u and wow i bc one here too often. appreciating ur worldbuilding skills bc who r u kephale?? its a good fic when u can maladaptive daydream off it idk man i come here too often i have a problem let me be 🌐 anon

here to ask how the reader be rage baiting mydei, mydei rage baiting the reader

or even phainon rage baiting mydei on the court i’ve seen guys pretend to hump the ball in front of the guy who’s trying to block them then score a 3 pointer over their head LMFAOO

but i had a dream (yes its that bad) where phainon went

“if i get this one i can date ur sister” and shoots and he does it over and over even if he misses or gets the shot

or mydei saying “oh my sister? ur not their type” on the court w phainon or even when readers in the shower “PHAINONS HERE” to make them come out and take the bathroom real quick idk anymore sorry

🌐 anon!!! noted 🫶 also i dont mind bc i’m actually having so much fun making up scenarios with your ideas, and i like that it’s challenging me to use my creativity or thinking skills 😭😭 i also like that i dont have to worry about lore and canon at all so we’re good!! ur a constant in my life at this point honestly

(another yapfest under the cut ⬇️)

ALSO HELPPPPP??? are you inside my mind or what bc i literally have another older brother!mydei scenario cooking in my drafts rn where i was just talking about how he’s literally the most patient brother ever 🥹 like he’d get annoyed with you, but the most he’d do is huff and flick your forehead, pinch your nose, or gently shove your face away

but yeah, mydei is immune to your ragebait just like you’re immune to his. although it would work on you if he ever pulled a prank saying phainon came to visit while you were in the shower LOL. the second you’re out, you’d be running around frantically trying to get to your room as fast as possible—only to hear your brother laughing at you. that’s when you know he was just pulling your leg. he only did it bc he needed to use the toilet to shit (he would also never willingly let phainon inside your apartment. you’d have to be the one to open the door for him lmao)

but if someone else who isn’t you ragebaited him (specifically phainon), that person better be prepared to get a basketball hurled straight to their face (or whatever mydei’s holding at the time. if he’s not holding anything? they’re getting THWACKED). especially if it involves you??? oh yeah he’s throwing hands

i’ve never seen the humping-the-basketball thing so idk how it works, but if that SOMEHOW worked on mydei and it actually threw him off guard, phainon should genuinely fear for his life bc he just baited mydei to rage ❤️ and if that happened during an official match between their schools, mydei would 100% be waiting for him outside the court LOL. there are two things mydei does not play about and it’s you AND basketball

i also feel like mydei wouldn’t be satisfied with just a “if i shoot this, you’ll let me date your sibling”. like no. he would actually challenge phainon to a 1v1 and have someone (probably caelus—yes, in this au, stelle and caelus are twins bc i said so 😇 and caelus is a close friend of phainon and he’s on the baseball team. yes i’m literally making this up as i go) referee for them. like it’s an actual official match but it’s just them two (plus caelus. and stelle bc she wants in on the drama)

mydei would win, obviously, and phainon would take every chance he can get to challenge him again and again until he finally wins. he won’t be satisfied until he wins at least one game bc his ego would not take that lightly. and when he does win, it’ll be the most deserved, most hard-earned, most fulfilling win of his entire life. never mind the trophies he and his team have gotten for okhema—nothing compares to winning a 1v1 against mydei and getting to finally date you

eventually, it becomes their thing (that you never learn about) whenever phainon has to make a big decision involving you.

but honestly, if you asked mydei what he actually thinks about you and phainon getting together, he wouldn’t really be opposed to it. like yeah, he was a bit skeptical and annoyed at first that phainon liked you and you called him your boyfriend (while drunk), but he’s not against it. it’s your life anyway and it’s your choice who you wanna date.

that doesn’t mean mydei likes phainon though 😭 he just tolerates him

and once it gets to the point where phainon is thinking of proposing to you (oh yes. we’re going THERE), and he consults mydei about it, mydei would challenge him to another 1v1. just to see if he’s worthy of putting a ring on your finger.

this time though, he lets him win on the first try because he knows just how deserving phainon is of you

[taswritesstuff]

things i've learned about writing (from writing essays)

this is an expanded version of a post originally posted to my instagram account. for the original post, click here.

1: get your ideas out in the first draft

your first draft isn't supposed to be good. in fact, it probably won't be good. that's not what it's for - it's there to give you a start on getting your story written down. write down all your ideas. absolutely brain dump onto your document. it won't, and doesn't have to, sound good. it just has to make enough sense that you can understand what's happening when you go back to edit your first draft later.

your second+ drafts can focus on removing unnecessary information, combining sentences, and making things flow better. for your first draft, don't focus on transition words. if you don't know how to write something, put brackets describing what should go there (i.e. [fight scene here]) and move on.

2: assume your reader doesn't care

your readers aren't going to care about your story unless you give them a reason. to make your readers care about your story, you need to care. if you ever find yourself getting bored while writing, your reader is going to get bored too. change the boring scene. remove it. change the parts of your story that will make your readers put your book down.

similarly, make sure your readers don't get confused. sure, everything about your story - the characters, the worldbuilding, the names of things - is obvious to you, but your reader is learning it as they read your book. make sure you don't confuse your readers with an overload of worldbuilding or too many unexplained name drops, because a confused reader can easily turn into an uninterested reader who doesn't finish your story.

now, that's not to say you can't have lots of worldbuilding or name drops in your story - just make sure everything is explained clearly or the explanations are spread out over time to keep them from being too much all at once. this way your reader can keep better track of the story and its world.

3: when in doubt, plot

if you ever get stuck somewhere, do some plotting - even if you usually don't. writing down what you want/intend to include in the next parts of your story are a great way to brainstorm and get yourself reinvested in the scene you're working on.

this is also a good way to be productive without writing. when you're outlining, you're still working on your story. sure, you may still have to heavily edit and remove parts of your story that were in the outline, but outlines aren't perfect. sometimes you may have to ignore them altogether. the important things are making progress and maintaining interest in your story.

4: write whenever you can

yes, even when you don't feel like writing. some days, writing doesn't go as smoothly. some days, you don't feel like writing. this can make the task feel daunting. if you can get into the shitty first draft mindset, it can be easier to let go of all your anxieties and just write. no matter how bad this writing is, you're still getting closer to finishing your book.

this can also apply to plotting - sometimes, your outline will suck. hey, it's still progress! just get something on that page.

5: set deadlines

did you know that people actually do their best work when on a deadline? this is because deadlines prevent people from overthinking their writing. sure, spend a lot of time writing and editing and perfecting your story, but don't spend too much time. overthinking your story and overediting are real problems that can make your story worse.

so, set deadlines to motivate yourself. make them as difficult or as easy to meet as you want - whether your goal relates to word count (ex. "i'm going to write 1000 words this week.") or some other type of end goal (ex. "i'm going to finish chapter 7 this month."), it's a push in the right direction.

finally, give yourself a reward for meeting your goal! over time, these rewards can motivate you enough that your deadlines develop into habits that help you write consistently!

thank you for reading!

if you found this helpful and want to support me, please head over to my instagram (@taslo.writes). i post writing advice, book reviews, oc/wip content, and more 3 times per week, and i've also started posting reels when i feel like it. thanks!

[supersoakerfullofblood]

Beta Reading, Workshopping, and Peer Editing for Indie Writers: a Guide

Beta reading is a term you might hear tossed out as a vague buzzword, kind of like how people talk about "character development" and "worldbuilding"; I've made a bunch of posts to demystify words in that latter category, but beta reading is a different type of term. Where those latter words and their ilk are terms of craft, things we can discuss in theory ("this is how I think characters are developed best"), beta reading is about a novel after its first draft and first wave-ish of edits. Pretty much everything before and after the production of a novel or story is purely up to what works best for the writer, so this post will introduce beta reading if it's new to you, and I'll give you my process if you want to tinker with it!

Beta reading is when interested readers work through your polished manuscript and make workshop comments so you can make an extra wave of edits. Publishing houses usually have two waves of this type of reading--alpha reading (AR) and beta reading (BR). If you can find enough people to alpha read for you (and you want alpha readers), go for it! But if you're confident in your grammar, your ability to craft a scene and characters, and the other formalities of creative writing, alpha reading isn't a requirement (as an indie. If you ever query your work to a house, it'll probably go through alpha reading).

Alpha reading is to catch grammar and syntax slips, mischaracterizations, character development that doesn't add up, excesses of adverbs and adjectives, and other craft faux-pas that the average reader wouldn't catch. Your alpha readers should pretty exclusively be other writers.

Beta reading is to gauge what your audience is thinking or feeling while they read your work. If your beta readers want to make alpha reading comments ("I don't feel like [character] would do that here"), that's A-okay, especially if you didn't have alpha readers, but that shouldn't be your chief concern with your betas. These are your audience surrogates! The job of beta readers is to tell you what they think or feel: "I like this," "I don't like this"; "This paragraph hit me hard"; "This word is confusing"; etc. If they add more words to their comments, that's A-okay ("I like this because these words go well together" or "This word is confusing--does it mean X or Y?") but not necessary! If your beta readers are your audience and not people who really get how writing works, then you should be taking any reasonings in their comments as loose, loose suggestions. Maybe those words that go well together to one reader feel, as you look at them a second time, cliche. Or perhaps the confusing nature of a word or phrase was by design. In any case, try to see your beta readers as a "live audience reaction" and not a "live reactionary critique."

One aside about alpha/beta reading: "this is bad" and "this is good" comments are toxic and should be avoided at all costs. Tell your readers to avoid these before they start writing. No good can come from these. Even "I don't like this" and "I like this" are worlds better, though still not great. But absolutely warn your readers against using objective blanket statements like "good/bad" as they read.

Now that we've laid the foundations, I'll go into my own process so hopefully everything above makes more sense.

Before I give my manuscript to beta readers, I go through 2-3 waves of revision on my own. After I finish my first draft, I wait about a month to let the dust settle, to gain at least a little emotional distance from the project so I can look at it a little more objectively. Then, I read it through, revising for content: cut this scene, add a scene here, chop paragraphs and sentences, add paragraphs and sentences, move this chapter here, make sure this character actually functions as he should in the narrative, etc. These are my macro edits.

Then I let it sit a week or two and go into line editing: punctuation and syntax, word choice, tweaking figurative language, etc. Close pruning of your work. Filing your nails after you've clipped them.

The third read-through is at a normal reading pace, as if you were a reader, to catch anything that may have slipped past during your close edits and revisions. This third read-through is likely the first time you've read your manuscript as it should be read--a book! This step, then, is a victory lap, but it's also one last troubleshoot. You might not find the errors in a computer program until you run the program. So too it is with writing.

This is a lot of work! You might want to relegate these tasks to your readers, but DO NOT!!! If you're still heavily revising and editing your work, don't let your readers to the table. This is your work and your story, and outside influence will stray it from what you want. Own this. Buckle down. Read.

Once you've got your polished draft, it's time to contact your readers! I would recommend 4-6 readers total unless you think you can handle more cooks in your kitchen at a time (I cannot). I typically just ask some of my friends to beta for me. Here's an example text:

"Hey all! I finished that book about church camp a while ago and was wondering if you'd beta read for me! Basically, I'd just need you to read through the book and make comments in the sidebar whenever you like something, don't understand something, are excited or intrigued by something, or other general impressions. You can comment however often or little you feel comfortable with--some people make one comment a chapter, others make multiple comments a page--anything works great. Really all you shouldn't comment are blanket statements of "this is bad" or "this is good," but feel free even to say stuff like "I like this" or "I don't like this." Just avoid objective language when possible.

I don't have any money for this, so sorry in advance, and if possible, I'd love for all of my beta reading to be done by the end of summer.

Let me know if you're down or not! :)"

I really have had readers comment that much and that little on my manuscripts. This is normal. If your readers are supposed to comment whenever something in their attention triggers, different readers' attentions will trigger differently.

It's also a wise idea to form your beta reading group (again, especially if you aren't doing a wave of alpha reading) as a mix of people from different backgrounds and writing experience. My church camp novel group is below:

Person A who went to church camp with me, is into poetry

Person B is into fanfiction, little church experience, mindful of social issues

Person C has little church or writing experience, mindful of social issues

Person D is very into writing, pretty into church

Person E is very into social issues and church, not a writer

I would advise to find a similar balance of people who are into your subject matter and those who aren't.

It's also helpful to give them a timeframe to read by, and make this longer than they need. I gave people ~two months for my ~60k-word novel.

Also, as a little incentive for your readers, plan something for when everyone's done! A post-beta party! Something like this will also encourage you through the process :)

Once you have your betas' comments, it's time for one last wave of revisions. Compile these comments however you like, and start tweaking. I like to have each beta's document open so I can cross-reference while I work through my own doc. And remember: these are audience comments, not writer comments (unless you explicitly brought writers on). If someone says something confuses them, that might just be their cross to bear. If none of your other betas were confused by it, or if one of your betas compliments the same section, it may be worth ignoring that first comment. Try to rule with the majority when you can, and take everything with a grain of salt. "I don't like this" doesn't mean it needs to be changed. It means you should figure out why that reader doesn't like it.

If you have any questions, my asks are open! Again, this is a pretty open concept where anything works as long as it works for you, so don't feel pressured to "get it right." But if you have any questions or suggestions, I'm all ears :)

Hope this helps!

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Hello! Thank you for every advice you give here!

This might sound like a weird ask, but I don't know how to write the second(or more) draft. I've heard some advice about rewriting and not editing, but every time I try to write the second draft, I just end up copying the first one, with very few differences.

So my question is, what is your way of writing the second draft and if you have any advice on that? I know some things that work for some don't work for others, but I just can't seem to find the right way.

Oh, second drafts. Only the most difficult writing step after drafting, followed by the most difficult step of writing the third draft.

The good news is that almost no one pulls together their story on the second draft. If your first draft is putting down the bones of the story, the second is figuring out where to lay the connective tissue. Maybe you've got too many bones, maybe you don't have enough. Maybe some of your bones are too short, or too misshapen to work. The second draft is getting that story skeleton together, knowing full well you're gonna need to fix some of those bones first.

Get yourself a plan to put that skeleton together - make an outline. I swear I'm not the sworn enemy of pantsers that i sometimes seem to be (it's professional jealousy, I swear), but if you don't have an outline, now is the time to get one. If you do, go back and revise that first. You'll want to know what you want the story to become from the pile of bones you're working from.

Not enough bones - identify what you're missing. If you're like me, sometimes while drafting you write 'figure this shit out later' and then forget to do so. Thanks for nothing, Past Me. But chances are your story needs some added scenes, more character development, etc. Identifying those missing pieces and fleshing out your outline can help you tackle a second draft.

Too many bones - figure out what needs to be cut. Not every scene is going to be worth keeping no matter how attached to them you are. If you're on the fence about a scene, consider if it serves to move the plot forward, develops the characters, or establishes important worldbuilding. If the scene meanders plotlessly, repeats character beats instead of expanding on them, or seems to suck the oxygen out of the story, you may have to rethink or remove them.

These bones don't fit - figure out what scenes are lacking. Another thing I tend to do in first drafts is sell my scenes short. I just don't think of the best outcome, the most dramatic climax, or a great setting when I'm trying to figure out what happens. In going through your novel, think about each scene carefully. Should this argument take place in a deserted library, or would it be more emotional and dramatic on a crowded train? If the villain's plot seems small, how can you make him a greater threat?

Uuuh bro that's not a human bone - revising scenes that went off the rails. If you're gearing up for NaNoWriMo yet again, you might know the feeling of writing pages of bullshit to make that wordcount. It could be good bullshit! It could be really fun! But if it sticks out like a sore thumb in the story, it may be best to set aside to figure out what to make out of it later.

You're not going to get everything right in the second draft either, so don't over-stress in trying to get your story whipped into shape. But you will be better off after giving those bones a little polish and assembling them into what could conceivably pass for a decent skeleton, one that you won't mind sharing with others to see what other work it might need. Good luck!

[pokelolmc]

The Ultimate Enemy is a Disappointment (and How I'd Fix It) (Part 1)

A couple years back, I started analysing a list of DP episodes I thought had missed potential--and my analysis on TUE got SO big I made it its own thing. I rewrote it to death and could never settle on something concise enough, so I abandoned it. But I'm BACK baby. I can't remember where it is now, but I came across a poll on whether Reign Storm or TUE is the better special and the discourse reignited my passion for this analysis, and gave me motivation to trim off some of the fat.

Don't get me wrong, at the end of the day I do like this episode--or at least its ideas. I really liked the episode the less I thought about it, but now I see issue after issue in its execution. Hence, the "disappointment": it could've been great, but it missed the mark. This won't just be a one-sided roast of TUE, though. I have a ton of cool ideas for how to rewrite plot holes or fill in the gaps. The best roasts are constructive! (Though I would be rewriting it in a more mature fashion compared to canon's writing--keep that in mind).

Part 2 is now up: you can find it here.

So here we go: Part 1--the general plot contrivances/contradictions unrelated to Dan's character or the time travel system.

The episode introduced taking off the Time Medallions as a way to immediately return to one’s native time period, but then forgot this late into the second act.

Technically this plot hole involves time travel devices, but I'm counting it as a plot hole by character decisions.

The episode gives no explicit rules on lag time between removing the medallion and returning home, but it takes only one to two seconds to return Skulktech to the future after they dropped theirs, and it had to have been instant for Sam and Tucker to return to the past in time to escape rubble falling from FentonWorks (which was only roughly two to three stories high, not counting the Ops Centre).

Danny should’ve been sent back almost instantly when Dan took his medallion off—which would’ve completely defeated the purpose of Dan’s attempt to trap Danny there in the first place.

If they wanted to keep the plot point, they could’ve just had Dan grab the medallion and turn it intangible while it’s still around Danny’s neck…and that’s assuming that making it intangible while Danny’s still tangible doesn’t count as “removal”. That’s it. He never needed to remove it to begin with.

2. The Nasty Sauce explosion just…sucks. In my opinion, it’s too silly for the tone the episode’s trying to go for (and as a cause of major character death), and it wrecks the worldbuilding.

I tried to put it in way more verbose ways in my previous drafts, but I found another post somewhere on tumblr that did what I couldn’t—say it in three words:

“It’s just stupid.”

Assuming that semi-realistic laws exist in-place in the Danny Phantom universe (so it’s BASICALLY similar to ours) the Nasty Burger shouldn’t have been able to stay in business without a LOT of red tape, cover-ups and NDA’s. They had an explosive substance on premises, being taken care of by unqualified, minimum-wage part-timers instead of trained chemical safety specialists. Forget handling it, they shouldn’t have even had it in the first place! If they got it by going UNDER the law and covering everything up, then one of their employees shouldn’t have been able to just CONFESS to it at a public school assembly.

It also sounds ridiculous that a “certain combination of secret herbs and spices” could catastrophically combust in the first place. They could’ve made the explosion ghost-powered/altered; they could’ve made it not the sauce itself, but a pressure issue with its containment vats; they could’ve made it a gas leak or malfunction of cooking equipment starting a fire, or something. They could’ve made the explosion a Fenton invention at their home (where the whole family had reason to be at once, and Mr Lancer could hold the parent-teacher conference there like in Teacher of the Year). They've used more serious threats of explosion in previous episodes (like the Ecto-Filtrator in Million Dollar Ghost).

And instead they decided “Yep! This commonly sold and digested sauce is a dangerous explosive, and even a small handout serving is enough to blow clean through a wall when it’s heated up!” This is how we're going to kill all of the main characters' loved ones to send him on a villain arc!

Like what?

Nowhere else after TUE did the show acknowledge the Nasty Sauce in worldbuilding. There were no consequences of its risk being publicly revealed, nor did it ever pose a hazard again. It’s understandable, given the show’s episodic nature. Bu at least in The Ultimate Enemy itself, they should've thought about how it affected most of the previous episodes.

During his fight with Boxed Lunch, one of Danny's ectoblasts to a sauce packet demolishes an entire section of wall in the Nasty Burger. So how hadn’t any ghost fights ignited any Nasty Sauce before—or damaged the main vat, god forbid—and caused an explosion already?

If the sauce was always a part of the Nasty Burger’s recipe, then the entire restaurant was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off since season one, and nothing short of a miracle could explain why it hadn’t happened before.

3. This episode committed character assassination of Mr Lancer, for the sake of setting up stakes in the plot. And contradicted his personality changes in previous episodes (such as “Teacher of the Year”).

Mr Lancer, in my opinion, is the character done the single dirtiest in the episode. It warps his entire character around the plot, and turns him into a contrived mouthpiece for how important the CAT is. It leaves him even more malicious and mean-spirited than his behaviour in the first episode of the entire show—leaving him even worse than he started.

He didn’t have much character development, but there were some more positive changes happening in his personality as later episodes occurred. He started out as a selfish, corrupt authority figure (think Mystery Meat, Fright Night and other S1 episodes where he deliberately lets the jocks off the hook for their behaviour), but unwittingly acts in favour of the main characters in “Fanning the Flames”—although ineffective and easily taken down by Ember.

By the time of “Teacher of the Year”, we finally got a glimpse into his (albeit scant) ideology as a teacher around helping his students succeed, and his concern for Danny’s failing grades.

It even revealed his personal interest in Doomed, which gave him more in common with Danny and Tucker and humanised him in way a few other episodes hadn’t. Season two even demonstrated his (albeit brief) willingness to stand up and defend his students from a ghost attack in “Memory Blank”. Lancer, for a brief period of time, became more than just his job, book title swears and his frustration with rebellious students.  

We're talking about the teacher who, in the early 2000s, kept a picture of himself crossdressing at school to convince his students to try their best with a "story about his sister".

The Ultimate Enemy, however, took Mr Lancer’s humanity towards the students—particularly Danny—and flipped it all on its head. It turned him into an elitist, mean-spirited asshole who verbally attacked his students (past and present) based on their performances on this single. Fucking. Test.

They made Mr. “there is no cheat code in school, or in life” Lancer into a cruel enforcer of the hamfisted and childish importance of the CAT. Actual “get rich vs dead-end, minimum-wage job” propaganda.

(Teacher of the Year)

And... one season later:

(that sure sounds like a cheat code in life to me)

To add insult to injury, TUE used Lancer’s death as the butt of a joke directly after spending the majority treating him like a total asshole—following up character assassination with literal assassination , and excluding him from the rest of the explosion victims in their memorial.

It feels to me, that it'd make more sense for Mr Lancer to be sceptical of the importance of the CAT based on TOTY. Replace him in the assembly with Principal Ishiyama or something. A stickler-for-the-rules school administrator looking to boost the school's image by pressuring kids on a standardised test? That ABSOLUTELY makes sense.

Mr Lancer could still be seen as a threat (or someone Danny can't reach out to for help), but in the department of simply being an authority figure Danny's used to dodging around with his ghost activities. Someone who'd still enforce consequences for Danny getting caught cheating. Someone who'd get his parents involved. He's the closest thing Danny could have to any level of support at Casper High, and Danny could think he's even lost THAT.

4. The way Danny got the CAT answers was contrived, and broke the previously established rules of ghost intangibility.

To cut a long story short, Boxed Lunch’s fight with Danny shouldn’t have gotten the test answers stuck to Danny’s back. Danny immediately turned intangible in anticipation of the explosion, and was thrown outside the Nasty Burger and through Mr. Lancer’s briefcase before turning tangible again.

That didn’t make sense; the series previously established that ghosts (in this case, halfas) were physically unaffected by explosions when intangible. “Million-Dollar Ghost” even demonstrated it when Vlad escaped his castle’s explosion in the same manner, and was left completely unmoved from his position at ground zero. The sauce packet explosion shouldn’t have even moved Danny out of place, let alone flung him out of the building (especially not compared to Vlad and an Ecto-filtrator explosion).

On top of that, the test answers couldn’t have gotten stuck to his back while he passed through the suitcase, as Danny was intangible and the answers sheet was solid. Even if it were possible for already intangible ghosts to grab onto tangible objects and bring them into intangibility, that’d certainly require conscious intention that Danny didn’t have in the episode.  The test answers got stuck to his back by sheer accident on his part. Bringing other objects into tangibility always previously involved a tangible ghost grabbing hold of other tangible people/objects and consciously willing them intangible together. Ergo, he should’ve simply passed through the suitcase and its contents all at once—go to the other side, pass go, do not collect CAT cheat sheet.

The solution for this one is pretty simple—just remove the scene entirely. Not only does it break the lore, but it’s entirely pointless and redundant (more on that later when I talk about Clockwork—giving Danny the answers was his idea, and it was a terrible one). Instead, it would’ve been much more compelling if Danny stole the answers on purpose with his ghost powers—being put under so much pressure to succeed that he felt like he had to forgo his morals and use his powers to cheat.

[365runesoftheamalgamations]

The Not Yet Forgotten Introduction

hello and how are you, fellow Wanderers?

Welcome to the Writing Blog! We are the Not Yet Dead Authors, the Storyverse Amalgamations System! You may refer to us as Natsume as a whole, or say hi to any of the specifics who are also running around within the blog / do the writes!

Our pronouns are we/they, and we are an aromantic / asexual genderfluid cluster of whispers drowning in the Void for more than two decades. So just another set of Wanderers who wish to reach out and touch the Worlds in a more pronounced way!

Full Introduction Under the Cut

A Proper Introduction

We write mostly fantasy but also dabble in horror, science fiction, dystopian and other works and writing styles. It's mostly just whatever it is that catches us in a choke hold and demands words for our continued Existence.

We do hold our own universe, the Storyverse, that we will hint, note, and talk about, depending on things, as well as a multitude of Worlds that will be given over to the Stories happening within them.

Our writing formats include: fanfiction, short stories, drabbles, flash fiction, novels, poems, and prompt responses! We enjoy rolling through forms and trying out different ways of telling and sharing stories, so please note that there will be a lot of everything on here.

We follow from the System's Blog, @365runesofthesystem, and will try to be really active in the community, so if you see us around, then feel free to indulge us! We love to be tagged in games and sent asks and the like and will try to get to all of them in due time.

The Amalgamations of our Creations

We actually have so many Works that we kind of jump around with, but we will present to you a few of them! Hopefully as we grow and get better with things, we will be able to actually display them in a good way!

Links To Be Updated

⊱ ─── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ─── ⊰

Grayland's Shadow

⚜ Original Work | Standalone Novel ⚜ Supernatural Horror | Low Fantasy, Horror Elements ⚜ First, Second, Third Person Present Tense ⚜ Mature Content: Death, Death Mentions, Murder, Blood, Implied Gore, Violence ⚜ First Draft | Revising and Editing ⚜ Second Draft | Scene Writing and Draft Rewriting

Intro Post | Page | Writing Tag

⊱ ─── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ─── ⊰

The Vagabond Child

⚜ Original Work | Series of Short Stories ⚜ Dystopian | Apocalyptic Aftermath, Survival ⚜ Third Person Present Tense ⚜ No Major Mature Content Warnings ⚜ First Draft | Revising and Editing ⚜ Second Draft | Worldbuilding, Outlining, Scene Drafting

Intro Post | Blog Page | Writing Tag

⊱ ─── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ─── ⊰

The Cityscapes of the Dragoons

⚜ Original Work | Standalone Novel ⚜ Fantasy | Action and Adventure ⚜ Dual Perspectives | Third Person Present Tense ⚜ No Mature Content Warnings ⚜ First Draft | Worldbuilding, Outlining, Scene Drafting

Intro Post | Blog Page | Writing Tag

⊱ ─── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ─── ⊰

A Magician & A Curse

⚜ Original Work | Standalone Novel ⚜ Fantasy | High Fantasy, Horror Elements ⚜ Dual Perspectives | Third Person Present Tense ⚜ Mature Content: Murder, Body Mutilation, Violence ⚜ First Draft | Worldbuilding, Outlining, Scene Drafting

Intro Post | Blog Page | Writing Tag

⊱ ─── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ─── ⊰

A System of Corruption

⚜ Original Work | Standalone Novel ⚜ High Fantasy | Action & Adventure, Superhero Elements ⚜ Third Person Present Tense ⚜ Mature Content: Violence, Blood / Blood Mentions, Death ⚜ First Draft | Worldbuilding, Outlining, Scene Drafting

Intro Post | Blog Page | Writing Tag

⊱ ─── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ─── ⊰

If you want some more information about these Works or any of the others, you can check out our Original Works Masterlist or Fanworks Masterlist, to see what we write and how we do things!

[rubra-wav]

[Entry #2] Dealbreakers in the Hazbin Hotel universe

A/N This is just lore/worldbuilding with various headcanons, so no x reader for this one - if you really liked pt. 1 of the x dealbreaker reader post I did/want more context for that and the second part that'll be out soon tho I'd recommend reading this one 🙏

I'm mostly talking about those who have soul deals with people in this post.

Yes, I have Audhd, how did you know? /j

Cw: SFW, discussion of corrupt legal systems, violence/murder

The type of sinners dealbreakers are:

Dealbreakers within the Hazbin Hotel universe are demons who review contracts of all kinds with the intention to break them.

These demons are most often extremely corrupt and/or lying about their abilities in some way, however.

The bad dealbreakers

Most dealbreakers in their past lives were some kind of worker for the legal system - either as some kind of law room official (Judges, lawyers, etc) or as law enforcement (ie. Police officers) and got here due to being some sort of terrible person through that.

Due to this, they prey on those who are desperate and dealbound in various ways to exploit them, and usually do this by trapping them into new deals with them - often soul ownership deals with the promise of a better life.

This doesn't happen, obviously. Most of these dealbound sinners find their deals being broken and then are immediately pushed into brand new terrible deals by the ones they sought help from.

Or their deals aren't broken at all, and the dealbreaker was working with whoever owned the sinner in the first place to test their loyalty

- Ending up punished for seeking out the dealbreaker, co-owned by the both of them now, or exploited for every cent they have by the dealbreaker with their interactions being used as blackmail.

These dealbreakers are often lesser Overlords, however most don't ascend past that status as Overlords would feel threatened by their presence. If they attempt to ascend higher, they will be killed or put in their place in various manners.

The good dealbreakers

For dealbreakers who aren't corrupt, however, their fates are often never good.

Most good dealbreakers are taken out very fast as you make some very powerful enemies giving souls back their autonomy fast.

Especially considering most of those who own souls are involved with other people who also own souls in some way.

Actually breaking deals and how it works

The procedure for breaking deals usually follows one particular formula:

Understanding the contract

To break deals, you first need to be completely educated on the contract's terms and conditions; every potential underlying thing that is not fully obvious, anything which is vague and thus bendable/a loophole, the kind of format that's used to make it, etc. Etc.

Any good dealmaker hides their true intentions under false pretences, so you need to fully understand the method and how they do this.

After a dealbreaker becomes sure they fully understand the contract, they can begin to write a counter-contract.

Counter-contracts

Counter-contracts are contracts that contest the things written within the original contract and essentially begin scratching away at/undoing the grey area/loopholes.

Any grey area and between-the-lines terms and conditions get undone in the counter-contract first, and then the Dealbreaker will move on to the more set in stone requirements - basically uprooting it one word at a time.

You usually need to make several counter-contract drafts before actually writing out the real, binding contract.

The reason why dealbreaking for souls in particular is deeply dangerous is because if you get one thing wrong? You're absolutely fucked.

Failure at dealbreaking

Demons who own souls can feel when the soul is slipping from them in some way, so if you don't fully succeed in breaking the deal the first time around? That demon now knows that you are trying to break the deal.

I also headcanon that demons who own souls also can tell where their souls are at all times, so if you fuck up you now have a very pissed off owner of the soul who knows exactly where you are.

Deals can only be broken when the demon whose soul you are trying to break out is immediately in your proximity to agree to the counter-contract being crafted, so yeah, they're like a GPS to your direct location.

You may be able to try and make another counter-contract, but usually its already too late.

Even if you don't fail at breaking the deal and you just have a really complicated one that's time-consuming, you're screwed if the soul owner catches on as well.

Again, you need to review the contract for several days to 100% understand everything because if you take too long, they will feel the soul slipping away and come find you.

Success at dealbreaking

If you do succeed in the creation of a counter-contract, then the new contract will begin effective immediately and the former soul contract will cease to exist - being destroyed on the spot.

All former control over the soul is lost, and all things binding the formerly dealbound ends.

The former owner can no longer detect the soul's location either, so you and the soul are then safe from instantly being found.

After successful dealbreaking

Obviously, what happens afterwards is heavily varied depending on whether the dealbreaker is good or bad. However, the main thing is that you are not 100% safe from the former owner.

The former owner can still find the soul they used to own if they know where they live, or if they know where they frequent, their friends, etc. And thus find you as a Dealbreaker as well by getting the information from the soul.

To combat this, in the counter-contract most Dealbreakers who are smart will hide a non- disclosure statement in the new contract's fine print to avoid this - but if the dealmaker is a skilled one, they will also know how to break deals as well.

It's probably one of the most dangerous careers someone can have in hell - especially as one as the good ones.

Other ideas/headcanon stuff

- Personally, I really like the headcanon that those who become dealbound for their souls take on certain characteristics of those who have made the deal. (One example would be Angel not having the gold tooth before his contract with Val, but then gaining it afterwards)

With breaking a soul deal, those characteristics that the dealbound takes on fade in and out of existence in the middle of the counter-contract being written. When the contract gets broken, these traits disappear completely.

- Elaborating on the constantly knowing the loaction of owned souls headcanon I have is that the chains and collars that the dealbound seem to have (think Husk and Angel) are constantly there for those who have made soul deals.

So even if they aren't visible to others, the leashes are still there in the owner's hand - at all times tied to the soul.

The owned souls also always feel the pressure of their collars, and when the deal is broken, this pressure and weight disappears along with the characteristics.

- There are also other manifestations of deals.

A potential example of this could be that if the contract is signed under the pretences of the sinner getting another name, then that sinner can no longer speak their real name.

Ie. In part 2 of the dealbreaker S/O Angel Dust can actually say his real name after having the deal broken, and before when he would try to say his name is Anthony he would find himself unable to, choking on his words because his collar grew tighter around his throat.

[psalacanthea]

first draft of the glittery post-apoc underwater story's chapter 2 is complete, working on 3 now. The plot is taking up a lot of space in my brain as I sort of slot the ideas around, but luckily it seems I'm not just writing for the sake of writing this time; it seems I have something to say. That's generally good, it makes for a more interesting piece of work. Not that I think any of my completed works where I don't have anything of particular import to say are bad (like seawolf and soldier, which I wrote as pure entertainment, and I still consider it a very good piece) but it's a different sort of writing process with a different sort of end product.

I'm more inclined to work on a piece past completing it- fixing plot, making it flow better, fixing my visual language and making things more impactful- if it's meaningful to me.

I was struggling with the original version of this setting/characters, which was a story set AFTER all the mess I'm writing now, because I didn't really care about or value the point I was making. It was simply too shallow. I was writing for the setting, which I love, but I couldn't seem to figure out how to make the setting fit the message.

Spoilers: I couldn't force it (shocking)

But the setting, which I like more and more a I continue to refine my worldbuilding, is actually serving the plot this time, which makes everything much easier. Also writing descriptions, which I used to be very good at, is something I've let stagnate while writing fanfic. So forcing myself to stretch those muscles again is just making this much better overall.

Anyways, that's what I'm doing with my writing rn. IDK if I'll post the second chapter, but maybe if someone's interested :)

I'm looking forward to finishing this chapter so I can write people brutalizing each other in roller derby because they hate their parents.

[qworflordking]

the thing is that sitting around "examining" things forever results in total paralysis. its stage one. examine! understand. go outside and see how your world works. see the jagged mess of ill-fitting puzzle pieces and try to think about how to arrange them better. then maybe take a step back and realize that the usa entering this, uh, bold new era is clearly a sign. fractured actual leftists, a democratic party (i know! they suck!!! fucking libs!!!!) without a leg to stand on, something is clearly wrong. i am a bit fed up, but like. its Been Known that online extremism only works when you are appealing to like, white guys with religion and violence lmao. i kinda called trump winning last summer, read the goddamn pdfs and like. well. here we are. here we are! i don't give a shit about whatever woke ideologically pure temple of the useless someone is crafting online, i came to this website for one reason only: to post my guro fanart of my ultimate anime waifu, the terrorist from hxh. (its been a while but dw, i still love him). now, do any of the wokest leftists on tumblr have a plan? a platform? what are the demographics of their desired voting bloc, are they doing /anything/ beyond screaming at clouds while myself and my community experience the tangible, real-world harm and try to get by and do what we can.

anyways ive been thinking of turning my tumblr into a worldbuilding blog, maybe drawing again and shit? for my Book. i'll see. the second draft has been in the "throw it in a drawer and forget about it" phase but who knows.

[squarebracket-trickster]

I am exhausted as all fuck right now (the chronic fatigue is kicking my ass). But I am going to try to write anyway. It's been too long since I last added to my manuscript and my brain is getting itchy. (You know, that kind of itch that's like: there are too many thoughts inside you right now and you need to get them out. But also, the itch that's like: at this rate you'll never finish this draft, you need to work on it now. And also, the itch that's like: look at all the amazing things other people are creating, doesn't this fill you with yearning? - that could be your stuff *ahem*.)

I have like 10 million better things I could be doing right now, but I've spend the past few weeks not writing when I wanted to because I was doing those 10 million other things. So sorry, life responsibilities, but you'll have to wait. Besides the only thing I actually have the energy for right now is scrolling on my phone. Which. I have done enough of today. If I have to look at one more TikTok I swear to god

Normally, I don't like to write unless I have the energy to make it good, but at this point I don't care. The other night, overcome with an urge to write something, anything, I just started typing without thinking too hard, and it was actually decent when I reread it a few days later.

All that is to say, the exercise has filled me with hubris for what I can accomplish while in the midst of a fatigue flare.

Alas, writing sesh goal for today:

I'm starting with 50755 words (not including whatever I've done of the OOB scene). Idk what percent of /80 000 that is. I have exactly 2500 words worth of second draft (and OOB scene) that I had pasted into my 3rd draft ages ago so I could rework them, which I started doing but have yet to finish.

Today's word goal is not a percent or a number, it's just to finally get rid of those second draft scenes (and be all caught up to the OOB scene). I am tired of not being able just to use the word count meter at the bottom of my doc without having to do math.

And remember, Square: just fill in the missing worldbuilding, description, names, continuity etc. Cut out anything that doesn't need to be there. You can monkey around with the pacing and line edits if you see an easy fix, but no. perfectionism. no. If the sentence doesn't come to you within a minute, leave it. That's what draft 4 is for (that's future me's problem hehe).

--

Oh, the other good news is that I just had a shower and my hair is very soft, so soft. you have no idea. peasants

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia! I was curious, as I understand, this story was written long time ago? Did you edit it with almost 10 years of practice on writing since 2014 now? And more in general, do you feel like writing is easier or not withos much practice (I read about smut, that it is harder now, but in general - worldbuilding, character creation and so on) ?

Hi hi anon!

Yeah the story was first drafted in 2014, and has gone through big edits since then (the latest being 2017, though I did some cursory stuff this year as well to just double check that it's not terrible).

Tbh, prior to 2014 I was writing like... very serious award winning short stories with tragic endings and winning awards for them, so I'm moderately confident the story is readable. I've been writing novels (for fun mostly) since 1995. And I have a university education in writing that started in 1999.

My fanfiction/serial style is very different to my 'I'm writing a book / I'm writing a short story' style.

I think it will feel different to my serials because I wrote it like a book, there's less sprawling character exploration, and the pacing is much, much tighter. There's a lot more focus on plot, and folks used to my serials might feel like the story ends really quickly! Because it's like much shorter (100k) than my serials.

If anything, I think these are the things to watch out for in Tradewinds:

100k novel means much tighter pacing and prose, and often very little time for too much character reflection.

Possibly not as much character exploration as people are used to from me (though there's still some!)

More plotting

Less smut, and the smut is also more 'vanilla' than what I normally write, because at the time I was a lot more wary about putting BDSM into the market. There are power dynamics though (i.e. a vibe where one character 'feels' more submissive to the other)

Robust scene-setting (i.e. description, place, anchoring)

Lively dialogue

I actually think I was probably a better literary writer back in the 00s but it wasn't much fun for me. I quit writing for a while and then picked it back up again to write fanfiction, which was easier and more relaxed for me. (And still is! The Ice Plague is an exception to that because it had more robust plotting and was structure more...formally.)

I honestly think writing gets easier or harder depending on the project and writing style involved.

Some writing gets easier with time, some doesn't. Sometimes that will flip or switch. Sometimes one thing is easy for years and then becomes harder with certain stories.

It was Gene Wolfe who said:

"You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing."

And yeah, I tend to believe for the most part that's true with how hard or easy something is. How ambitious a project is, its genre, its length, its complexity can all play into that.

I pick easier projects as my main projects right now, but I have hard projects coming up too!

I would say overall writing does become "easier" in the sense that foundational skills become second nature (I know how to build a character and their dialogue now without thinking about it, and while there's always more to learn, I can now start in a place of just knowing how to do that instead of knowing I need to learn how to do that), but that the stories themselves will still pose unique challenges to a writer.

Er so TL;DR yes writing for me is easier but I'm choosing easier things to write, and sometimes it's still very hard!!!

[chaifootsteps]

The issues with Stella are so goddamn easy to fix it's actually painful any time she comes on screen and they have to find a way to bend over backwards to make her as unlikable as possible to artificially prop Stolas up as well as avoid the classism plot that THEY WROTE INTO THE SHOW.

Just establish very clearly AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SHOW that both of them were okay with the other sleeping around (since neither liked each other and neither wanted to get married) but have Stella get mad specifically because Stolas was caught sleeping with an imp, and that reflects badly on her. If you want her to be a villain, you don't need her to be cartoonishly evil and completely bereft of personality and likeability beyond bitch (derogatory) even as a child; she can just be classist and obsessed with status. (Also maybe don't make her stupid? Maybe don't have her creepy incest-vibes brother around at all? Give her some agency as a villain, you know? Maybe let her be funny? MAYBE LET HER TALK TO HER FUCKING DAUGHTER ON SCREEN?)

But fixing Stella would force the show to actually acknowledge the classism that they've set up and have been trying to ignore in lieu of writing fluff one shots of their favorite ships. And it sucks because she could be a really, really interesting and entertaining lens into how the upper-crusts of this setting actually behave. She SHOULD HAVE BEEN the face of that plot. If you want her to be this evil scheming funny girlboss bitch (affectionate), LET HER BE ONE. Hell, she can even be sympathetic and redeemable if you play up the fact that her behavior comes from a fear of being othered by the Goetia.

As a side note, why are arranged marriages even a thing when divorce exists and vice versa? If it's a eugenics thing for blue bloods why is marriage even a factor when they could just have the kids without it? If they're immortal outside of specific weaponry why do they need heirs in the first place? How DID Striker get all of his angelic weapons? How did Stella even meet Striker, who HATES the upper classes? Why does Striker even work for her when she's the ONE CHARACTER explicitly shown in-canon to embody the things he hates about the system at large?

I guess my point is that fixing Stella's writing would kind of cascade out into actual worldbuilding, stakes, more screen time for female characters, and more coherent better-constructed plots so Spindlehorse won't do it because they want to focus exclusively on a middling romance between two characters who have ZERO CHEMISTRY. If they wanted to focus on that, great, but why on EARTH did they set up all of this other shit? Season one set up conflict and interest and season two has done nothing but blue-ball me by dangling those plot threads in front of me and yanking it away at the last possible second. I WANT the show to be good, but it desperately needs better editing at the script level which I am CONVINCED only goes through one draft and are written several weeks apart.

ALSO THE LATEST EPISODE GAVE ME MOTION SICKNESS WHY WAS THE CAMERA MOVING SO MUCH WHEN THE CHARACTERS WERE STATIC HOW MUCH BUDGET AND TIME GOT WASTED WITH THE UNNECESSARY FUCKING SHAKY CAM?

(Sorry for dropping this huge chunk of text on you, it was supposed to just be about Stella originally but holy fuck that last episode made me nauseous and I got a bit carried away.)

No apologies needed; it was an excellent chunk of text.

Stella deserved better, and we as an audience deserved better, which isn't to say she needs to be redeemable or even likeable. But she does need to be human...to do something outside of scream and drink wine and exist. She needs to do more than just prop up the show's main ship. Give her something she thinks about, cares about, and like you said, let her talk to her fucking daughter.

Nothing about this shaky-cam show makes sense or feels fleshed out. Agreed completely that there's no way it's going through multiple drafts, and the longer these 30 car pileups of plot holes and characterization problems continue to go on, the closer the show gets to a point where no amount of revising is going to save it.

[bisexualmcqueen]

For the ask game…How to Fish!

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

Link for anyone who wants to check it out: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58195156

YAYY hi vincent :D

how to fish, the second fic i published in my return to writing in 2024!

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

the idea actually came from a brainstorm during writing the first draft of part one of my 'cars 4' series "PYBO": "The Practice Plan" <-currently an unedited 10k+ behemoth. i was taking a break from writing my two main characters (OC roger and LMQ) having a big argument and wanted to write something silly in the aftermath. so i started brainstorming in discord...

'car bearfishing' i made it the fuck up. like "how does a car go fishing?? hell if i know. it'd be funny if they just bit them right out of the water like freaks." and i just wound up writing it for joy and whimsy. this was all around the time i decided to really lean into the 'racecars is creatures' headcanon. 'how to fish' was actually a really big step for me because it's a little weird- which is exactly the sort of thing i want to be writing. i need to get much weirder, actually. it also is one of my first attempts at 'writing to explain the larger headcanon' [aka doing worldbuilding]. most of my fics take a small aspect of the 'feral racers hc' and sort of spotlight it. i was also figuring out writing 3rd person limited present, which is the other part of the inspiration. i'd tried so often in the past to write fic but as it turns out, my brain clashes BADSTYLE with past-tense and i was simply Nottttt grasping what 'character perspective' really meant + how to use it. 'how to fish' is definitely part of that early triumph in learning where i'm strongest/most comfortable. and it's very very fun!! apparently present tense isn't for everyone, but it translates the "movielike" image i see in my head to the page seamlessly. i actually wrote the last little scene first and went back to write about the prior events second!

8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

i grew up going to the beach a bunch. not a fan of the ocean, but i always find being outdoors to be so peaceful. i'll complain about the sand being irritating, but damn i'll be relaxed on that beach. i love Cars fanfic as a vessel to 'tour' the continental united states (points at the apocalypse au, which is just one extended road trip). fireball beach feels like a place i've been to a hundred times. (in retrospect i could have done a much better job conveying this, i don't even think i mentioned the Wind, lol. but cars is my little playground/gym for my writing muscles and nothing is perfect. i have a few other beachside plotbunnies lurking tho, so perhaps next time.) there's def more inspo that went into this fic but i found i wasn't great at explaining it. its more of a background radiation of Vibes rather than any direct draw.

[writing ask game]

thanks for the ask!