#the plot inspo is linked in the source

[blcssom]

closed starter for @angeldcgs ft. ingrid cohen

"look— i think you're great. honestly, i do!" the words were dripping with sincerity, even as she crawled to the edge of the bed to gather her t-shirt (or is it theirs? either way, it'll be going home with ingrid) and tug it over her head. "but this just can't happen again. you get it. right, doll?"

[icvrian]

open to : anyone ! no t*boo . read my rules . muse : margot dai . twenty4 . she/her .

" i'm not your backup girl . . . you only call me when you get in a fight with her and need somewhere to go . you don't have anyone else that'll pick up the phone for you ? "

[ghostwritcr]

' hey , humm ... didn't wanna bother you 'cause it's late and you're probably tired , but ... i just couldn't sleep without telling how perfect you did on tonight's . you were amazing on stage . ' sam admits with his body leaned against the door frame of her hotel room . || @popcultr

[yewphoric]

Updated reference sheet for my beloved LDB, Ragnar! (he/it)

I'm so fucking happy with how this turned out!! Ragnar hasn't had a reference (or frankly a design) I've ever been truly happy with, but now it does!

I lightened its color scheme and added a few more details that I'm happy with, properly plotted out scars (and made the burn scar much more accurate, and better positioned imo), and gave it a casual outfit heavily inspired by @/sothasil 's Khajit fashion concept art. Specific post I used as inspo is here!

I'm also happy with his new weapons. Previously I'd just been using ebony war axes for his weapons, but I really like the idea of him getting them custom made. In keeping with Ragnar's very heavy Kyne association (which I'll talk a bit more about here in a sec), they have a sapphire core that catches the light and appears quite blue, and are enchanted with lightning magic.

As for the casual outfit, I wanted him to wear something that's a mash of Khajiit and Nord culture. Growing up in a caravan, Ragnar would have dressed like most Elsweyr-born Khajiit, which, going by the linked post, is typically just a tunic with a scarf. However, all of that clothing and such was destroyed when Alduin attacked Ragnar's caravan, and so it had to get new clothes. So, everything it wears is sourced from Skyrim, but tailored (by our resident tailor's son and Ragnar's qpp, Jenais) to be worn by a Khajiit, with more Khajiiti influence.

The amulet of Kyne was also hand-crafted! I like to think Ragnar carved the token himself, and then scavenged dragon teeth and hawk feathers for it. There's no enchantment on it, but it's spiritually very important to him because it represents his connection to Kyne. Hell, maybe Kyne has blessed it in some Moon-and-Star-esque way so that it grants a boon to Ragnar and Ragnar only.

Oh, and his burn scar! I've done much more research on burns and burn scars since his last reference sheet (2023....) and I made it more realistic. This injury occurred when Alduin destroyed the caravan and left Ragnar with a scar to remember him by (didn't kill him outright because he wanted to have an honorable battle). It took months to recover from, and Ragnar was made to do stretches and have massages frequently so that he could keep his range of motion. Exercise was also important to avoid muscle atrophy in such an important area. Even still though, the restoration magic couldn't completely fix it, and he suffers chronic pain that fluctuates day by day. It also frequently itches, and on certain days he can hardly move. I'm thinking about giving him mobility aids for those days potentially?? If anyone is more knowledgeable on that and has ideas for what kind of aids he could use, let me know!!

But yeah um. I'm so normal about him. My dragon kitty thing. Not sure if any of this rambling makes much sense (I never remember how much I've already shared about him here) but uh yeah!! I'm always open to questions about it, if anyone wants to know more :>

Oh, and shoutout to @oblivions-dawn for the screenshot I used for the background!

[everseens]

"just fine at it?" paula repeated with another scoff, shaking her head as she leaned against the doorframe. it was clear that he wasn't trying his hardest to convince her, arms crossed against her chest now. he had a right to ask her why she was nosy about it, it wasn't like the two were together anymore anyway. "just making observations.. nothing wrong with that." / @muchallure

"she's just fine at it," julian argues weakly, the deception in his tone easy for anyone who knows him well enough to recognise. he winces, despises that all-too-familiar way his heart starts to beat rapidly in his chest when he's close to her. "why does it even concern you, anyway?"

[alyxmakesthings]

"Over The City" info post!

Guess what has a name finally! So this post is an intro to not only the 'reader' character I've made for my fic I'm currently working on. But also just a quick look at what it will contain since there does need to be a content warning should you choose to read. This post won't spoil too much and I was inspired by @stellaspectral's post for her story "Sun Killer", which I love!

Link to the post for chapter one!

https://www.tumblr.com/alyxmakesthings/779284482131918848/over-the-city?source=share

The plot revolves around the reader insert character Seraphina Daniels, a cisgender bisexual female, and it will touch on her family and backstory as the story goes. While I will not get into the details of what happened to her, here or in the fic during her last 2 years of High School, there will be a reference to past non-con/assault as well as the lose of a family member.

Now that I have my biggest content warning out of the way! Sera starts the story trying to gather as much info as she can on her, kinda but not really BF, that she is only dating to try and get him busted. How ever as she learns that he has crazy connections the plan starts to look nebulous. That is until she realizes there is a certain team of vigilantes also investigating him after they accidentally keep her from getting caught allowing her to get away with the data she stole. So Sera then makes it her mission to find the mutants that got her out of that sticky spot in order to get them the info she had been keeping in order to avoid giving it to the wrong person. [She knows who the Turtles are, kinda, due to the fact that her family moved to NYC shortly before The Krang attack. BAD TIMING!]

Now this will be Reader X Raph but it is gonna be a slow burn because I love a good slow burn! [Imagine two dum-dums who like each other, but they are dum-dums. You're Honor you don't understand these are my emotional support idiots.] Now these two aren't the only ships and as of right now I mostly have Capril and Leoichi and the side ships but I know I will include Warren and Hypno because I love Rys Darby so... Hypno my beloved! That being said there will be some explicit content in later chapters and I will be using the 'afreakingdork' method of marking the title of the chapter with an *.

Now I will be playing a game with the chapter titles since I listen to music for inspo like all the time and the chapter titles will be lyrics from the song that inspired it in the original language. In the author note before each chapter I will provide full lyric, if I cut it down which some are, and a translation if the title isn't in English. I guess I wanna see if anyone recognizes the songs I use as a little extra thing people can engage in.

Now I will get into a few more spoilers, mostly about Sera. So her family originally was her and her brother Kellan with their parents Tormond and Marion Daniels. [Marion's maiden name is Valentin] Her mother's side of the family is pretty fucking big and Valentin Holdings is a fucking giant company so Marion's family doesn't look to favorably on Tormond. Despite everything the 4 of them all got along fairly well when the kids were younger since they moved around alot before settling in NYC due to Tormond's business being established here. [The Daniels Corporation, a medical technology company] However, Sera's brother dies before the start of the story due to a super weird illness, that I am still working through the science on, which leads to the state of the family during the start of the story.

Sera does deal with being neurodivergent with her autism and ADHD which isn't helped by the fact that she has CPTSD and mostly self soothes because she never shared anything that happened to her with her parents. She only ever told her brother and he is gone now. [Kellan was 2 years older than her when he died]

Sera lives in a residential building in Manhattan that her dad slowly bought up in order to bring the best of the graduating medical students and engineers from all over the country by giving them housing. [He is technically building a safe building to keep his family safe since he is having a bad time with his oldest being sick.] Eventually he bought the whole building and everyone that lives and works there are technically his employees.

Now I do have a funny link between Sera and Kendra because they dated in the past and had a bad break up! Kendra will show up in the story pretty early on so I'm very very excited for that chapter(s). [I am slowly warming up to her the more I think about her chapter] Sera love taking photos and sketching but has a lot of art supplies due to her being rather introverted. [I have so much paint and other supplies it's nuts so...]

Well now that I have a perspective pinned down I can really start writing, since I'm like 35 chapters into my outline. I can't wait!

[rphunter]

Helllooooo! I'm Vix ( 28, she/her ), and I'm here looking for someone 21+ who's willing to do something connected to Legend of Zelda!

Premise: Fifty years ago, Ganon rose, a powerful force Hyrule knew all too well. It seemed for once in their history, their Goddess had forsaken them. No Chosen Hero rose to the task, and the young King had yet to take a bride, much less bear an heir that might hold the soul of their Goddess. It was left to the people to fight the Demon Lord.

Decades later, the Kingdom is held on a fraying thread. Though the Demon Lord was neutralized, sealed away, any Hylian that had had the misfortune of living through the time would say they did not win that war. Scholars say it is only a matter of time until he breaks free, and with their kingdom so ravaged and worn, they will not survive this second wave. The King's draft of able men seems more like collecting canon fodder without the Hero, and though twenty five years ago, hope was sparked when Princess Zelda was born, even she seems bereft by the sudden appearance of a thick tendril of corruption surrounding Ganon's tomb.

Her faithful companion seeks to find its source, but she's little more than a scholar herself. Princess Zelda decides to aid her by gathering a contingent of soldiers, and among them, she feels the immediate, blessed draw of an ancient, ancient connection.

What I want: I want someone willing to create and play a Link against my Zelda and one of my OCs. I'm looking for a polyship for Link, Zelda, and my OC, but that will be a side plot next to the main premise of dungeons and world ending shenanigans. We will create both Hyrule and our dungeons either originally or with heavy inspo from the games, doesn't matter

Writing Info:

I'm a multi-para writer with around 15 years of experience. I'll prefer anywhere from 2-9 paragraphs, depending on what's required for a scene.

I have a kind of high expectation of quality; I prefer well-rounded and in-depth character exploration and the building of chemistry in a ship as well as good quality writing and drawn out story that we're both excited about. I put a lot of effort into world and character building and expect the same.

I don't want anything that's too overly anime inspired and too over the top video gamey or anime-y.

Nothing smut-centric. Though I'm fine with NSFW, I won't have my plots lost to it. The story will be the focus and NSFW will happen naturally if it happens at all.

The more we discuss the thread OOC, the more I'll love it.

I have not played TotK and am not a big fan of BotW. I'd like a partner that'll work on creating something with me that has a vibe more like the Zelda games before those.

If this sounds interesting to you, like this post and I'll send you a message!

.

[heartflt]

open to f/nb! preferably 30 and over but at least 25. plot inspo is linked in source. meredith is a detective and muse a for this plot. y/m could be someone she met on the job, but not required.

"we shouldn't be having this conversation." meredith is shaking her head, closed off from the moment they brought up a romantic connection. she acts caught off guard, but the truth is that she's been pushing her feelings aside for weeks, thinking about kissing them for just as long, but the fear of disappointing them is too strong. "i like spending time with you. i love what we have. why does anything have to change?"

[futurefind]

//I DID THE THING FINALLY!! 😭😭😭The years on first one indicate when they first inspired me/influenced how I wrote/saw Sa!! Hence them being absent on the latter

Elaborations/details below the cut!!!

Element Valkyrie: (Kit) Literally how/why Sa has her main gimmick of fire + water/ice lmao!! In fact I think fire was her original main...? Ice became a focus post-atla (all of like... a year later lmfao)

Link (Twilight Princess): (Aesth) What can I say I really loved TPs, well, 'edgier' aesth (my second zelda after all of wind waker). Also, probably the first wolf association...? Less consciously, perhaps the first taste of cryptid drifter that goes around solving problems? (Kit) Why Sasume has a sword!! And why it's at her back/shoulder!! Also, sort of, ass kicking with said sword, but as a video game YMMV lmao. (Chara) The silent protag stuff could not hurt? Esp w the contrast with being good w kids, implicitly (Heart) WHAT CAN I SAY I'VE SAID IT BEFORE Sa is very much HeroTM, in broader loz/link sense, at heart. Saving and helping people is her priority!! Even when it's hard!!

Naruto: (Kit) Tbh... the source of Shinrei's aesthetic effects wrt eyes, teeth, claws, etc? (Bg/Lore) Samehat with her bg. With an emphasis on samehat, as the two were connected 1:1 in those early days. But unlike canon Naruto even baby Nori went 'reality ensues' 'edgier' variant where shit is traumatizing as fuck. (Heart) As I've also Also stated elsewhere... she's very much a shonen protagonist at heart??? A Knight in Sour Armor but a Knight all the same

Sasuke: (Aesth) Do I even need to say it...? The grumpy/angsty edgelord Lancer surface level absolutely came from here, lmao. Not as conscious as Naruto (iirc, I gave her blue hair bc my brown marker ran out when doing that design? lmfao) but definitely couldn't hurt. (Bg/Lore) Probably colored/inspired taking the aforementioned 'reality ensues' traumatic framing for Sa's bg. And a bunch of other plot-y stuff that's sliding scale of preserved to scraped entirely (ie being Nth distant relative survivors to the Uchiha clan lmfao). (Chara) What can I say... aren't we all familiar w the broadstrokes atp?? Loner angsting edgelord who's just afraid of letting people in... A staple of the archetype, and undoubtedly helped staple that archetype onto Sa. (Other) Far more nebulous, but did inspire a general 'special heritage/family line' power stuff. Though what said family line stuff was wouldn't be figured out 'til further down the line.

Kanda: (Aesth) For a hot second I literally intentionally looked to Kanda for aesth inspiration for Sa lmao... in my NLOG phase I even did an inverse of him being confused for a woman by having Sa be more Bifauxnen bc 'feminine = weak' lol (gag). Also, while from DGM's uniform as a whole rather than Kanda specifically, codified Sa's token look of skintight slevelees turtleneck + fingerless gloves— as well as remove previous aspects of color from her wardrobe. (Kit) Again, a side effect of DGM as a whole rather than Kanda specifically, but this is why Shinrei's kit isn't just so thought out but so specifically staggered (the 'Levels/Stages' aspects present across many Innocence). As a direct inspo, though, Mugen fucking with his pupils/eye is what I used to preserve Sa's emotive angy vfx (and what made it, and her entire kit, 1:1 with her sword rather than being innate). (Chara) Do I need to elaborate...? Lol. He also fits into the archetype of Sasuke that Sa was already in, so nothing too big, particularly as DGM made me develop Sa so much more and breakaway from copypasting him. However, he's liably the source of her more overt tsundere tendencies, as well as her aversion to using people's names (also for tsun reasons). Also probably why Sa's surface level is outright Jerkass and not just ominous stoic dude deal lmao.

Dean Winchester (s1-5): (Aesth) Gets some lite points for styling themselves against/for a parent, jerkass with a reckless heart of gold, and bravado/masculinity that oft loops back around to disingenuous/insecure. (Bg/Lore) What can I say? The idolization of a lost mother, comparing oneself against a parent (derogatory), the deadbeat dad (who's like the younger sibling), and the parentification and resulting over-protection and -devotedness toward their younger sibling/'child'. However, not much direct inspo here, especially since one of his hallmarks is his dysfunctional jackassery toward his sibling and one of Sa's is that her jackass exterior breaks away for hers. (Chara) While I remember Sasume's snark being unintentional irp, passive Deanfluence def couldn't hurt to cement the snark, lmfao. (Heart/Other) Lumping these two together bc man!! Man!!! What if you were forced into a life of violence and endangerment and self loathing and you 'reclaimed' it by putting how much you hate it and life and yourself into something meaningful, heroic. What if you were meant for greatness and it destroyed you. What if you wanted nothing more than a life of domesticity as a partner and parent and thought your only way to get there was through dreams and death. What if the only way you can get through the day is by chasing thrills and throwing yourself into risk after risk for others and half-hoping it kills you.

GRAVEYARD/REVERSE INSPO BOOGALOOS!!

As these are blorbos you can use to 'find Sasume in' instead of vice versa, these'll hopefully be more brief...? Things to make you point at and go 'omg just like Sa :)', rather than unpacking the building blocks of inspiration that helped codify her into how she is.

Geralt: (Aesth) The wandering enigmatic monster hunter with an extremely dangerous rep but with more heart/morals than you'd think... yk? Bonus spn gold eye points. (Kit) Nothing overt, but general hyper-competence wrt combat. (Bg) Witchers' sliding scale of dubious rep, yk? As well as his Butcher legacy. (Chara) As stated, gruff bastards with a caring heart that's variably concealed, depending on the moment. Notably (vs some prev examples), very okay with killing human monsters, even if it's not ideal.

Alucard: (Aesth) Pwincesses The supernatural & enigmatic auras that are both intimidating and inspiring reliance/protection yk? (Kit) Again general combat competence, but also healing factor and resulting being a gd tank, relatively. (Heart) Hearts of gold!! More overt since he's not a tsun though lol

Mizu: (Aesth) Edgelord wandering blue eyed 'samurai', lol. (Kit) Violence hypercompetence, pragmatism, and being a disturbing levels of tanking severe wounds. (Bg) What can I say Mizu's entire traumatic backstory and hardening into who she is is because of being othered and seen as nonhuman (if due to racism, vs Sa's). Plus some spoilery stuff I'm not gonna say bc oh my god guys go watch BES :') Esp if you like Sa. (Chara) The terrifying determinism, raw brutality/pragmatism, being stubborn idiots who need to be forced into accepting help... but also going to extreme lengths once the loner walls are breached. Also, the sass and taunting and blood knight aspects??? Peak Sa. Chef kiss. (Other) Holy fucking SHIT the insecurities? And self perception?? Seeing oneself as monstrous and inhuman and that inhumanity linked with an 'inability/failures of' being a woman yk......... augh,

Ed: (Kit) Having fun with 'bending' elements in utilitarian ways. (Bg) Orphaned big siblings whose main priority is saving/helping baby sib yk... Also, in retrospect, the hypercompetence being developed for the sake of said sib. (Heart) Again!! Shonen protagonist at her core!! Though ofc focusing more on the unironic softness, as well as her 'aspiring' for pacifism and hating having to kill but having no qualms doing so when necessary.

Rengoku: (Kit) Badass swordsmen with fire related aesth? Badass swordsmen. (Bg) While far more... mundane in the tragedies of his upbringing, the overlap in the themes and impact of their traumas are :') very much similar :'))) (Heart) Shonen protags but also mentors!! Staring very loudly at and ignoring even harder how as a kid my intent for Sa's story would be to kill her off. Tbf she's a very solid candidate for the Obi-Wan type 'crutch' characters whose death symbolisms an emblematic turning point...........

Vash: (Kit) Again: See: Hypercompetence in combat, now with more overt inhuman uncanniness!! (Bg) While far more fantastical and sort of... spread out? Impersonal? Than Sa's, it's impact and his view on it are very Sacore!! (Heart) SHONEN PROTAG OF ALL TIME??? And also see: aspirations of pacifism and how, just like Vash is able to be so extremely pacifistic because he's nonhuman levels of sturdy... Sasume cannot be because she's still very much human, and so can only take so much before she's forced to retaliate :') (And also being long past the point of breaking pacifism for sake of necessity/saving others... and p much Only breaking it to protect others... yk.......)

[blcssom]

closed starter for @persephonyed ft. dylan kirsch

yet again, the moment they entered the room dylan's brain emptied of all thought or reason. only when someone clearned their throat did she spring back to life. "yes, sorry: so i called that location you requested and cleared us for shooting tomorrow, but they wanted to know what you'd like catered and i considered that little diner we saw on our way into town but then i thought that i....should, y'know... ask? if you have any preference." she's hyper-aware of the makeup-crew watching her crash and burn and it does not help the blood pounding in her ears by any stretch of the imagination.

[shegoxwrites]

closed starter for @mo0nstrucks plot inspo in source link. ( 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐩 𝐯. 𝐢 ) muse: colby rhodes (he/him). 33 years old. pansexual.

the car hadn't even made it past a single welcome sign on the highway before colby felt the tension hit— thick, familiar, and extremely impossible to ignore. there wasn't exactly an awkward silence in the car, with the group of friend cracking jokes and making small talk. no, it was the one person he dreaded seeing. the one person he hadn't spoken to since everything fell apart. he thought he could coast through this entire thing in silence, but now he stood outside a cheap motel room, key in hand, knowing that their friends had come up with a plan to stick them in the same room together. as he creaked the door opened, he couldn't help but mutter, "guess some things really haven't changed."

[braindollies]

Tag List (WIP)

honestly for my own reference bc my memory is sososo bad

clickable links to sort by tag! (and reference to what the tags for everyone actually are)

Find Character links on the OC MasterList!

Projects/AUs:

RVB:

Napalm and Nebulas #N&N!AU

The Yurch Indulgence Special #YURCH!AU

Most "Sharkface Lives" AUs #SFLIVES!AU

HSR:

Million Dollar Sugar Baby #MDSB!AU

The Celarys Project #CelarysProj

Assorted:

Cal and Stalker's Excellent Adventure (Warframe) #CAL!AU

literally everyone lives AU (Outriders) #Thunderstruck!AU

Exorcist AU (TWST) #Exorcist!AU

Elder Scrolls:

Haunting the Villain AU (Syrandrel haunted by the ghost of Authors Future) #Navi!AU

Love and Loss (Thadiel x Ancano timelines) #L&L!AU

Original Works (#OGWork) :

Vampire Verse (info post) #v.verse

Brute Squad Princess (info post) #bsp.verse

Image tags: [My Art] [Picrew] [Hero Forge]

Writing tags: [My Writing]

Misc Tags:

#Vinians Closet - fashion inspo for Vinian Paryl (CODVN)

#CharVibes - character vibes/aesthetics reblogs

#Tidbits - small bits of character info/plots/etc

#Memes - what it says on the tin

#Thinky Thoughts - musings and chattering

Tag formatting rules under the cut

Formatting:

original works: #OGwork, then #universe/media title

Fanwork projects, aus: #title!AU or #title!verse

special tags will be noted below like Vinian's closet fashion tag

Characters get "#name ", "#media name" and "#character type" ie, original/mine vs published/someone else's. ex. "#Vinian #hsr #FanOC" Titles Dr, Mrs, etc do not have punctuation for ease of tag finding

Ships get "OC x OC ship" or "OC x Canon Ship" and then "Name 1(OC) x Name 2(Canon if applicable)"

If post includes images, will tag source as Picrew, My Art, Hero Forge, etc. If it's a piece I've written it gets "my writing" tag.

posts reblogged for character vibes/aesthetics get "#charVibes" along with character name tag

I'd like to reblog other's oc's that i really like too so those will become part of the "#OC Gang" like the tag I had on my old blog :)

Small posts/ideas get "tidbits" tag

Posts with a large amount of OC's get "group photo" tag. Meme posts get "memes" tag.

OC Ask memes, prompts and questions get "character development". Also applies to templates which will get additional "templates" tag.

[annarbor-hq]

This connection has been filled!

HANNAH ASHMORE, our JENNA COLEMAN, is looking for their HUSBAND. He is 34-35 years old, and people say he looks like OLIVER JACKSON-COHEN, LUKE GRIMES, DAN STEVENS, CHACE CRAWFORD or UTP. You DO need to contact Len (linked in the source of this post!) first.

Description:

On paper, they have the perfect marriage— successful lawyer husband, beautiful home, years of history. In reality? They're just going through the motions. David's buried in work, and Hannah's been quietly unraveling while he assumes everything is fine. 

He's driven, ambitious, and emotionally distant. He's spent years focused on his career, thinking love is something steady, something you don't have to check in on. He thinks their marriage is fine because Hannah hasn't told him otherwise. Meanwhile. she's been drowning in loneliness.

This connection is all about marital tension, emotional disconnect, and the fallout of infidelity. I have lots of ideas to plot and plan, and we can come up with something fun together! 

Additional Information:

Ship Inspo Board

[andtheyreonfire]

i've been saying this with friends because it's so real, but what turns me off immediately from a lot of g/t stories is an explicit lack of conflict, stakes, and consequences. i think it's like--a lotta people just??? never formally learned how to write??? there's absolutely nothing wrong with being self-taught, and that's what i'd imagine a lot of online writers are. but i see so many stories that just have a lack of concrete plot, which makes them super hard to get into.

the tldr i can give for writing conflict is this: every character has a goal. a story cannot begin until this character takes their first step towards achieving this goal. the conflict is the external or internal force that prevents characters from achieving their goals. stakes are the reason a character must or mustn't achieve their goal, and will occur based on the character's actions. consequences are the results of the specific actions characters may take. a story will end once the character has achieved or lost their goal.

this is a super basic explanation, and i'll provide some resources later, but it works for now. so, how do you implement this into a borrower au? it depends on both your character and the story you want to tell. a lot of borrowers in fics usually have their goal as surviving, which is a fine goal. it's just that these stories usually follow the same, brief conflict of the human finding the borrower, without any deviation to the formula, like op said. the human will never hurt them, the borrower will gradually trust the human and come back to them more, maybe a very brief external source of conflict will show up before disappearing, etc etc etc

i am actually so bad at giving prompt examples bc i just figure stuff out in the moment, but i think the plot has been lost a little. i think with any genre or set of tropes, you at least need to poke around a little with what you have. so many common g/t story beats--like the borrower getting sick, or having human-related trauma, or having someone they want to protect--is about creating conflict and guiding character development. i firmly believe forcing your story to conform to any notion others set is antithetical to creativity, and i know a lotta people use g/t as a coping mechanism. but, if you want to enhance your story, or just have some inspo/basis for future writing, i'll give some links below the cut:

finding resources for plotting is frustratingly difficult, especially with search engines getting worse and worse. i found a few promising ones here, but i haven't looked through them yet. personally, i use a "save the cat" (which is a novel i'll link later) type outline, the closest match i found is right here. i honestly don't pay as much attention to following a strict outline anymore, but i try to make sure my characters are always moving, and that there's a clear desire, conflict, and stakes.

for general writing, i found brandon sanderson's lectures suuuper helpful. here's the link, and here's the link to the lecture on short stories. if you want something shorter, i know tyler mowery makes some good videos regarding writing/screenwriting. his series on character arcs was fundamental to how i write characters, the first part is here. i've also had localscriptman recommended to me, but i haven't had the chance to go through their videos yet.

if you don't mind spending a bit of $, "save the cat! writes a novel" is probably one of the most influential writing books out there. i haven't read it myself, but i've heard its advice discussed countless times in writing spaces. what i have read is "blueprint for a book," which has some solid advice, as well as some simple (but surprisingly forgotten) plotting advice. lastly, angela ackerman and becca puglisi's resources can be super helpful. i have some of their character trait thesauruses on my shelf.

uh. yeagh. happy writing ya'll, and happy holidays 👍

Whats a g/t trope y'all genuinely hate, but is considered a "hot take"

For me it's borrower stories, specifically those that always follow the same formula and never get creative.

As in, borrower is outside looking for food or smt, somehow gets into a situation where they are trapped, human finds them, borrower is scared and tries to flee, yet gets trapped under a glsss, with the human assuring them that they're kind and won't harm them. Then after a few chapters, the borrower leaves behind all the fear they held for humans and becomes close friends with them (this especially throws me off whenever the borrower has had a friend or a family member be killed by a human). They usually also meet their friends who are also super nice.

I understand that most humans wouldn't be out here tormenting a tiny person they found, but I honestly don't get the hype behind stories where it's only fluff and basically almost always the same plot.

The human characters are usually the most boring to read about, which is a huge let down for me. Especially as, it feels weird that I've yet to see a borrower story where the human genuinely freaks out that a tiny person has been watching them all along.

I mean how disturbing is it to know that you were being watched all this time, that you were never truly alone. Including in moments where you were feeling down.

For more interesting prompts, you could have the human actually be someone insane, that sees the borrower as nothing more than another experiment or something to exploit for money, with the borrower showing them that they are sentient, yet, perhaps, due to sn inability to understand each other, the humans doesn't understand what they're doing.

Or

Have the borrower have a whole web of crime with other borrowers, where they purposefully steal things from humans to make their days just a little more upsetting. Getting back at them for, maybe, having hunted them in the past. Have borrowers actually be evil little gremlins or something.

Heck, maybe even have the two be criminals, with the borrower helping breaking into people's houses and spying on them, to see who has the best stuff to steal from and the human doing the rest.

And if you do give your borrower a sadder backstory, please please please let them deal with their trauma and not completely remove it for fluff. Have them have moments where they feel inferior and break down, rushing back to their holes regardless of if the human is being nice or not. Let the human get frustrated with the borrower for not fully trusting them, not knowing the full story. LET THEM HAVE TENSE MOMENTS WITH EACH OTHER. I WANT TO SEE THEM FIGHT

MAKE THEM HAVE CLASHING PERSONALITIES WHERE THEY OFTEN GET INTO HEATED ARGUMENTS

Idfkanyway hope you liked this silly lil ranty rant I wrote. No hate to anyone who writes borrower stories, considering my own story has borrower elements.

-Lucky

[darkwingphoenix]

Small plans for my @loominggaia AU

I'm prolly gonna go on a semi-hiatus. I'll be focusing on making 3 fics at once: Formations of a Kingdom (Current AU fic rn), Scoria (My Saraia Backstory fic), and a as-of-now unnamed JW cartoon/Looming Gaia Modern AU crossover fic. Because fuck it.

Here's a link to a playlist to catch up on the JW cartoon stuff I'm using, because this has a surprising amount of fanfiction for this kinda stuff (And RAID Shadow Legends, despite being everywhere, has not much more (13 to the JW cartoon's 8, or barely over 50% more, despite RAID's insane advertisements and the cartoons' audience not usually making fanfiction, it's all ExJWs).

Anyway, I wanted to pop out a couple chapters of Scoria and the JW/LG fanfic, and give an outline of each.

Note that these are mild spoilers, but like the pre-surgery spoilers LG dropped there's prolly gonna be subplots and smaller details that didn't make it in.

Scoria

One night before she got to Folkvar Capital, Skylie decides to ask Saraia her side of her villainy towards Evangeline.

Saraia tells of a young woman killed to save her parents, only to find they had died in slavery. Enraged, she vows to never let Evangeline forget her rage until slaves were gone from the nascent kingdom, and the Scourge of Evangeline was born.

This fic will go deep into the lore of Evangeline, with the origin of slavery, the crowded politics of pre-Evangeline Noalen (It's a crowded muthafucka), and Saraia's trauma.

This video is essentially the climax of the story:

The JW/LG Crossover Modern AU

Context for the JW cartoons: Sophia, the titular girl in the cartoons, is a JW (If you couldn't tell), as is her brother Caleb (Titular boy), and her unnamed mom and dad (Literally just called Mom and Dad, I think). For some odd reason, her dad has this thick as all hell accent. No one else in the family has this accent. It's some sorta, IDK, East European accent? It's thick, tho. Like his biceps before ExJW Panda (The creator of the videos linked above, not the dragon one) said he got nerfed (IDK, a meme?)

Anyway, ExJWs (And their non-JW friendos) love to meme on the cult, and there's two major sources of inspo for the fanfics: Caleb and Sophia (The one I'm using for my fic) and Experience the Joy of Disciple Making (Which, I agree, would make one hell of a yuri/lesbian show if it weren't literal JW propaganda).

The comments of those videos do yearn for a brave soul to make the fics, never mind the existence of 14 total (8 of Caleb and Sophia, and 6 for the other one). Soon, there'll be 15, one being of my own penmanship (Boardmanship? Typemanship? What's the word for good writing on a keyboard?)

Anyway, basic plot! Uh, I don't have much right now beyond a few points:

It's in the future of the Caleb/Sophia cartoons, in like early-mid high school (For exact ages I'mma say Sophia's maybe 15-16 and Caleb's a couple years younger, like 14-15, or they're Irish Twins or actual twins, IDK yet, they both go to high school)

Sophia will be questioning at some point in the fic, and eventually become a lesbian. For whom? Well:

Fuck it, poly yuri! Alaine and one of the Evangeline Royal Cousins, fuck it! Which ERC? IDK, one of the chicks (Which is easily most of em: I have 3 out of maybe 13?)

If I do Amber or Citrine, they'd replace Carrie as the kid with two moms Sophia's mom torches for the entire video here:

The FGG will all be roughly high school age (Varied, but they'd all be 14-19, with Alaine, Elska and Isaac being the youngest and Evan, Jeimos and Linde as the oldest)

Mr. Ocean and Solveig will be the gang's mentors/Former sitters they still hang out with and have a Discord with. They'll be in their maybe 30s-40s. I might make Solveig an ExJW herself, why not? Could make a very easy replacement for her original escape plan in canon.

I'm prolly gonna make th Evangeline Royals and Sovereign noticeably less fucked up (Sovereign doesn't drug his brother and take over half the ocean and pull a Genghis Khan and make so many kids half of the ocean's cecaelia in a few millennia are his, and he's only married to Jewel, and Machine's Champ's wife and they had Vex, who's also in the FGG because fuck it, and the Evangeline Royals are just sorta strict but not terrible, and saints compared to canon for several)

If I don't have Amber of Citrine as Sophia's love interest, Carrie exists still, and the other JW propaganda (Not gonna repeat that shit again, it's Jade/Neeta now) are her moms (No reason, just because)

No matter what happens, Amber will be paralyzed and need a wheelchair, and Maui's a monitor lizard (Maybe a service animal so he has an excuse to show up, IDK what for tho)

Justinia and the rest of Amber's family will be there too, and have various mobility issues (Justinia might be an amputee from the Gulf War, Jet was born without legs, Clarity got a snakebite that required her leg removed, one of em has multiple sclerosis, etc), and Amber was adopted for reasons IDK yet (Might not even have her adopted and just have her know the ERCs as family friends, like Cyana or Angie knew Justinia from the Gulf War or something)(IDK what it is with me today and the Gulf War)

Might have Nicole and Jecka from Class of '09 show up too, IDK (I'm being an oddly obsessive slut with smaller fandoms today, IDK why that is), and have them just be there or as some sorta reference

I'll fill out much of the teaching roles in the school Sophia, the ERCs, the Jetinia kiddos (Jetinia being my ship name for Jet and Justinia) and the FGG go to:

As I noted Cerulea and Rodrig look like teachers sans hat and makeup, I might have them be teachers (Maybe Cerulea's the principal or something, IDK). Might not do both, but IDK

Mr. Ocean or Solveig might be a teacher, likely for biology or history (And if I do Solveig as a teacher and ExJW, I'd likely have her as a sorta mentor for Sophia to help the gal break free from her JW brainwashing)

Saraia's definitely gonna be a teacher, and maybe be the biology teacher? Either way, King's gonna be her leucistic pet reptile (Maybe a large snake or crocodilian, IDK yet), and she also has various reptiles, amphibians and birds as pets (Replacing the Saraians)

The other High Rulers are prolly gonna be teachers too: Sovereign as a health/gym teacher (Might give him a dad bod and not the 600 Pound Life bod he has now), Titania as a depressed art teacher, Oberon as the music teacher, Gultopp for gym (Why not?), Hethor prolly for a foreign language (IDK for her), Chua as a religion teacher (How it's done normally, just tellin' them facts about the religions and not pressing beliefs on kiddos)(And she has pet snakes named after her canon siblings), Okatogg and Hulushka as subs (Because goofy haha), Serafeen as a chemistry/astronomy teacher (Or just a general science teacher), Qara as the finance/Life Skills teacher (And be way less bitchy than in canon), Roz as an English Teacher, and Marghan as a cool ASF homeroom teacher (And he's not the psycho he is canonically, and he has a pet parrot named Pidi!)

None of the larger issues with the canon High Rulers really exists here (Sovereign's not fat and tryna be Genghis Khan of the Sea, Serafeen's not obsessed with Project Starlight but is in love with space, Oberon has a way better married life and isn't cheating with Qara and Titania, Marghan is just a cool, hip young teacher, Qara isn't a greedy hyper-capitalist, and Gultopp isn't ashamed of Sygbarne)

Roz will have lost Tep to a cult, prolly the JWs, and Tep's referenced at a JW meeting

May add the Hoyoverse games too, likely just to throw around names for convenience (That's 3 games I have names to steal from), but I might have the remaining main characters (Aether from Genshin (I have Lumine already), Stelle and Caelus from HSR and Belle and Wise from ZZZ) be more major, but IDK yet

Beyond these, Zoe (A girl Sophia converts in the cartoons) will feature aplenty, the High Rulers kids might show up (Likely Blomi, Sygbarne, Naduna, Kobi, Keatto, Thetos, Winnie, OJ, and Kast), Drifter's Hollow characters may also appear (Maybe Flora's also a teacher, maybe a math teacher?), Karenza and Darshaan may appear (As Isaac's parents), maybe some unnamed from the cartoons, Carrie (Two moms kid) may also show up too.

I might have Sophia join an extracurricular GSA (Gender/Sexuality Alliance) club, and maybe join an attached Discord (She'll also join an FGG Discord once she starts getting buddy buddy with Alaine, the ERC I choose once they get into the throuple)

The latter chapters may have Sophia becoming PIMO (ExJW code for Physically In, Mentally Out, AKA she's doing the motions but not really dedicated anymore as compared to a PIMI, or Physically In, Mentally In but still dedicated more than a POMO, or Physically Out, Mentally Out) and eventually fade from the JWs, maybe taking Caleb with her

Once Sophia joins one of the two aforementioned Discords (FGG or GSA Discords), I'll be shoving in some Discord chat chapters, where most or all of the chapter will be Discord chatting). May have more once she joins both

[popvocalist]

#  @2cute​﹐                                    ﹙        closed  starter.    ﹚

she    could    have    sworn    she    wasn’t    gone    that    long.        her    manager    had    called    her    too    many    times    so    she    excused    herself,        but    her    friend    was    still    in    sight.        nari    rushed    the    conversation    as    fast    as    possible,        painfully    aware    of    the    stranger    who    hadn’t    left    friend’s    side    since    she    walked    away.            finally,    phone  call  ends!        hips    sway    as    she    makes    her    way    back,        brain    making    her    do    the    only    thing    she    can    think    of    in    the    moment    once    she’s    next    to    them.        arms    drape    around    neck    as    lips    connect    messily.        she    stays    there    like    that    for    a    moment,        their    back    pressed    against    the    bar    as    she    leans    into    the    kiss.        lips    part    eventually    but    bodies    stay    together,        only    moving    her    head    to    speak    in    their    ear    loud    enough    for    only    them.        “        are    we    good?        are    they    gone?         ”