zestyzigzagoon

[zestyzigzagoon]

you have to release yourself from the pressure of writing Blorbo from Your Shows in your fics because that's literally impossible. instead you are writing Your Portrayal of Blorbo. everyone has different interpretations and headcanons and focuses on different things when writing characters and that's beautiful.

[zestyzigzagoon]

I sort of took a month off after 18 months solid of writing 2-5k words per week, and now I’m worried that instead of fending off burnout, I just knocked myself out of the hyperfixation altogether and can’t get it back. help

[zestyzigzagoon]

reblog with a spoiler for your wip with zero context. no context allowed.

[zestyzigzagoon]

Not writing a fanfic nobody asked for but writing fanfic for yourself and that one other person who is equally insane about the idea

[zestyzigzagoon]

[zestyzigzagoon]

I've seen a lot of ff writers apologize for their fic being "self-indulgent" which baffles me cause like is that not the entire concept of fanfiction?????

SAY IT WITH ME FOLKS, "FANFICTION IS SUPPOSED TO BE SELF-INDULGENT"

[zestyzigzagoon]

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN EVERYONE!! JOIN US FOR A JAUNT AROUND THE COMMENTING WORLD AUGUST 4TH-8TH!!

DETAILS ON EACH DAILY THEME TO FOLLOW! WATCH THIS SPACE

[zestyzigzagoon]

Not writing a fanfic nobody asked for but writing fanfic for yourself and that one other person who is equally insane about the idea

[zestyzigzagoon]

AAAAAAAAÆÆ you saw what I said !!!! ( I'm the one who screamed about my hc about their positions)

like whoa, it's like if some avid Sherlock Holmes reader sent letters about their theories to ACD and Acd wrote back encouraging them!!!!

[I love being noticed, it fattens my ego ≧∇≦ ]

" speak your truth, I'm listening " -- noo don't entice me, I may end up writing a smutfic or even a genderbend yaoi smutfic about those two ...

Hello anon! First off, sorry that this took me so long to get to, I can be slow sometimes lol. But I remember that you're the top/bottom anon! As of right now, you're the only anon to have gotten a sudden real-life laugh out of me upon opening my inbox, so I remember you and the context in which this was sent lol.

But anyways, I need you to know that being likened to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle during an anonymous tumblr discussion about a ship's sex life might be one of the funniest things that's ever happened to me (...I don't think anyone's ever put those specific words in that order before). But honestly, thank you so much! I love to chat with readers and writers, and tumblr asks are my favorite medium for that outside of Ao3 comments. I'm happy to chat, enable, encourage, discuss, et cetera, and I'm so honored that you think this highly of my writing! ❤️

(side note, I'm also weirdly honored that my inbox is seen as safe to talk about this kind of topic in. The overall fandom landscape leans a little sex-negative/anti aged-up fic right now, so I'm happy to have curated a space that seems pretty chill with it and to personally be a more open space about that kind of thing!)

[zestyzigzagoon]

oh no..,,,, I have a really cute timeskippy sequelly idea thing for If It Hit You in the Face, but it's overall so vastly unrelated to literally anything I set up in that fic 😭😭😭 I won't actually write it because there's just no way to do it without it feeling random and fully dissonant from the original, but one must imagine May and Drew, top coordinators several years after their couples debut in Kalos, attending a friend's wedding. right. I don't even care who's getting married, let's say it's Ash and Misty or whatever. and M&D are dressed all fancy and they've been dating for a while and there's those soft vibes as they watch their friends get married and it's a good time.

And then they get to the bouquet toss, and as a bridesmaid, May's obligated to go stand in the crowd, but she's never been one for sports so she's just standing there like 😀 and making no effort to catch it, lest she injure somebody (no need to break any more noses after what happened with Drew all those years ago, after all). So Misty tosses it, it goes flying through the air, and Misty has a hell of an arm so it just fucking GOES at them...

...and it hits May in the face. full circle thematic moment but the theme is just getting hit with things ❤️ and of course Drew's watching from his seat with the softest heart eyes because yes, that's his future wife, a certified hazard to herself and others, and he can't wait for the day that she probably trips on the hem of her own wedding dress. thank you all for attending this absurd, ridiculous, indulgent ted talk with me that has borderline nothing to do with the og fic, but the idea is in my mind anyways. and now it's here on tumblr instead so that I can stop thinking about it and get back to work lol

[zestyzigzagoon]

Thinking about OTP naps (for Contestshipping obviously, but generic enough to be widely applicable). Couch naps with the TV still running. Bus naps, with one’s head on the other’s shoulder. Naps after a long day of work, coming home and crashing and their S.O. snuggling up to them. Accidental bathtub naps until the water gets cold. Naps where one’s arm is definitely falling asleep, but it’s not like they’re going to move. Waking each other up with little forehead kisses!!!! Naps in the sunshine like housecats. Lazy, spent naps after intimacy, sleepily tracing little patterns on the other’s bare skin until dozing off in the hazy bliss of it all. Quick power naps taken at bedside when the other has the flu. HAMMOCK NAPS IN AUTUMN WITH SWEATERS AND LEAVES AND THE BREEZE!!!! And everything smells like cinnamon and joy!!! Chilly winter naps, curled up in a cohesive little ball together because it’s cold and they’re warm and it just works. One of them laying awake, just feeling the rhythm of the other breathing.

I just have a few thoughts and opinions about otp naps. casually. just a couple thoughts and feelings

[zestyzigzagoon]

RE: reports of people's google docs account booting them out, there's been a lot of posts going around about alternates to gdocs. This is great!

...But for anyone else who is unfortunately way too far in to move to another word processor now without it being a month-long process [sidelong glance at 468 files], here's the best thing you can do for yourself in lieu of changing platforms: use the Google Takeout function to download your google docs and then put it on a physical flash drive. Guard this flash drive with your life. Update it every so often. Put those files in a backup word processor so they're ready just in case. If you happen to have your own printer and money for paper and ink and the ability to freely print all sorts of sordid untitled documents, print things out! Put them in folders and binders and put them on a shelf. Find other ways to save it, do some or all of these, etc.

My point is that if you, like me, are going to keep using google until it bites you in the ass, the least you can do is have backups ready to go. I try to backup once a month, but I might start doing it weekly. And if I ever write more than 700-1k words in one sitting, I usually download that doc on its own.

[zestyzigzagoon]

I should start answering comments by clicking into the thread and not just answering raw from my inbox (copy-pasted from google docs), because one of these days I'm going to give some poor guest commenter 1k worth of detailed commentary and jokes that were meant for one of my beloved long comment friends instead😭

[zestyzigzagoon]

i bring nothing to the table but melancholic eyes and ovethinking

[zestyzigzagoon]

farm on! its friday! don't forget to tend the crops!

[zestyzigzagoon]

it came to my realization that 99% of my fandom related headaches would be cured if everyone understood this

[zestyzigzagoon]

THIS IS AMAZING, thank you!!!! Oh my gosh, I'm absolutely going to incorporate parts of this. I really like the 'What do they always carry with them' part, and I can totally see where that shows up in Masks, with Juliana's bag (and even how you describe her room)! It's so cool how I feel like I can see your writing all throughout this and where what questions were used/referenced.

I was encountering the same issue with minor/side characters, too, where a lot of sheets ask for Too Much Detail for the ensemble cast, so this is a great in-between approach. Enough detail to be relevant but not so much that it's just cluttering the place with info about Guy Number Seven In The Back Over There. This is all SO incredibly helpful, thank you!!! And thank you for all of the effort that went into this, oh my gosh. This is so neat!

Zestyzigzagoon here, can't send asks from a sideblog lol- you mentioned character sheets, and I've been *desperately* needing to revamp mine. No worries if it's a ~secret~ or just too specific for general use, but I was wondering how you have yours set up? No need to answer, but if you DO want to get into it, I'd love to know what kinds of questions/info you put down for the characters!

@zestyzigzagoon This is a great question! I didn't really have a hard-and-fast template before you asked, so I took this as an opportunity to finally compile one using the questions I usually ask myself.

I've never liked how most character sheets you find online are so long and detailed that they're impractical for anything other than a main POV character. Realistically, if you have an ensemble cast, not everyone is getting the full psychological colonoscopy and dossier! Sometimes you just want to give a little shape and depth to a minor supporting character, so I organized the questions into 3 levels based on how deep of a dive I want to do.

Level 1 is the most basic stuff I always want if I'm going to the trouble of doing a character sheet. The characterization tool I rely on most is the enneagram system. (Zesty and I have talked about this a lot before, but for anyone else reading this: The enneagram is about as true to real human psychology as zodiac signs are, and I am aware of that! It's bunk. That said, I find it an extremely helpful tool for writing fictional characters who think differently than I do and feel distinct from one another, yet still consistent in themselves.)

At minimum, I always take the enneagram test here and answer the way I think the character would, based on whatever material is available in canon, to get their primary type and typing pie chart. (I think that even if you don't use the enneagram, considering whether a character would agree or disagree with statements like "I am prepared for any disaster" and "I stand up for what I believe in, even if it upsets others" is a great exercise for getting into their brain.) Once I have their type, I have a sense of what drives them, and from there, I can jot down some info about their main problems and struggles during the story, and how/if I want them to overcome those. For some characters, this is all the detail I need, so I don't proceed to Levels 2 and 3.

Level 2 gets more into the nitty gritty of their relationships, speech patterns, how they behave when at their best vs. their worst, and my personal favorite: What makes them a loser!

Level 3 is the Not-Even-The-Actual-Writers-Psychoanalyzed-Them-This-Hard Zone. I only really go this far for main POV characters, and even then, it's meant to be more of a fun writer's block-buster exercise or place for dumping thoughts over time than a checklist.

I hope this is helpful! I don't think I'll post the template link publicly, but I'd be happy to DM it to you if you want it. And I'd love to see your character sheet(s) as well, if you're comfortable sharing!