anavkour

[anavkour]

if you want to create but feel intimidated and overwhelmed, you're forgetting something: good art doesn't exist. all art is terrible. every story and song and movie and picture is worse than the one before it and all artists should be in prisom

[anavkour]

It feels kinda wild I've seen no one mention the huge controversy NaNoWriMo was in about 7 months ago (Link to a reddit write up, there's also a this google doc on it) in this whole recent AI discourse. The main concerns people had were related to the 'young writers' forum, a moderator being an alledged predator, and general moderation practices being horrible and not taking things like potential grooming seriously.

About 5 months ago, after all of that went down, MLs or 'Municipal Liaisons', their local volunteers organisers for different regions of the world, were offered a horrible new agreement that basically tried to shut them up about the issues they'd been speaking up about. Some of these issues included racism and ableism that the organisation offered zero support with.

When there was pushback and MLs kept sharing what was going on, NaNoWriMo removed ALL OF THEM as MLs and sent in a new, even more strict agreement that they would have to sign to be allowed back in their volunteer position.

This agreement included ways of trying to restrict their speech even further, from not being able to share 'official communications' to basically not being allowed to be in discord servers to talk to other MLs in places not controlled by NaNoWriMo. You also had to give lots of personal information and submit to a criminal background check, despite still explicitly leaving their local regions without support and making it very clear everyone was attending the OFFICIAL in person events 'at their own risk'.

Many MLs refused to sign and return. Many others didn't even know this was happening, because they did not get any of the emails sent for some reason. NaNoWriMo basically ignored all their concerns and pushed forward with this.

Many local regions don't exist anymore. I don't know who they have organising the rest of them, but it's likely spineless people that just fell in line, people who just care about the power, or new people who don't understand what's going on with this organisation yet. Either way, this year is absolutely going to be a mess.

Many of the great former MLs just went on to organise their writing communities outside of the official organisation. NaNoWriMo does not own the concept of writing a novel in a month.

R/nanowrimo is an independent subreddit that has been very critical of the organisation since this all happened, and people openly recommend alternatives for word tracking, community, etc there, so I highly recommend checking it out.

I've seen Trackbear recommended a lot for an alternative to the word tracking / challenge, and will probably be using it myself this November.

Anyway, just wanted to share because a lot of people haven't heard about this, and I think it makes it extremely clear that the arguments about "classism and ableism" @nanowrimo is using right now in defense of AI are not vaguely misguided, but just clear bullshit. They've never given a single shit about any of that stuff.

[anavkour]

watching nanowrimo shoot itself in the foot is desperately entertaining, I must admit

[anavkour]

becoming the monster you sought to destroy

[anavkour]

incapable of not putting this guy in situations

[anavkour]

been doing more drawing than writing lately so i'll reblog a couple things from my artblog i've posted recently

[anavkour]

you can pry starting sentences with 'and' or 'but' out of my cold, dead hands

[anavkour]

🥀!

here's another snippet from the piece i used in this ask:

[anavkour]

oh no my pornography is turning into an angst-filled character study

[anavkour]

big fan of characters who have it all under control when theyre put in situations but no idea how to be like a regular guy doing regular stuff when all is said and done.

[anavkour]

Mega's preferred morning routine would be to wake up at noon without a care in the world and sit in their bed with a bundle of blankets for the next few hours until they feel awake enough to talk to people.

What actually ends up happening is them snoozing their alarm until the very last minute and then blearily stumbling into the kitchen to eat breakfast, remembering they can't wear pajamas to work, changing into work acceptable clothes, and then going back and forth from the front door to whatever task they just remembered they also need to do before they leave [brushing teeth, putting on socks, grab wallet, etc.]

Let’s start the morning off right! What’s your main character’s preferred morning routine?

[anavkour]

Happy Writeblr Summerfest!! A question to Kuda: What is something Kuda enjoys about the present world the most? And what surprised the demon the most?

[[the first question's already been answered here!]

The most surprising thing about the present world...maybe that people still use magic? I haven't seen many fae or other demonic creatures around, really, but the humans still have and use magic. Back before the whole sword thing, the knowledge of magic and how it worked was dying out. I tried to ask Milo about it, since he reads a lot of books about the history of magic, but I fell asleep while he was showing me a...powerpoint, I think it's called. I tried to read one of his books too, but the words didn't make any sense. I guess human writing systems have changed a lot, although Mega just says Milo has really bad handwriting.

[anavkour]

Kuda, what's your favorite thing about being in the present day?

-@annothersummerofsleep

Hm.

Food is nice. I hadn't really considered the idea of eating until I had my corporeal form again...did you know that humans eat things that burn the inside of their mouths? For fun? I didn't think they knew how to do that. I thought only I did that, but I've been pleasantly surprised. Mega showed me these things called....RedHots or something, and now I eat a bowl of them for 'breakfast' like Mega does with 'cereal.' I don't need to eat much, but it's polite to participate in human rituals.

Also the sun. The sun is really nice.

[anavkour]

🌹

thanks for the ask!! here's a snippet from a scene i wrote a while ago as a character study for Combustion in Slow Motion's characters. I need to go back and rewrite pieces of it because it's been like four years since I seriously put effort into it, but I like this bit a lot and it's a good window to how I initially envisioned Kuda's character specifically.

[anavkour]

🌹

thanks for the ask! Here's a snippet from a prompt list character exploration i'm doing, more missing homeworld oc stuff. different universe from the previous one! the prompt for this particular piece was "stabbing"

[anavkour]

here's the docket! characters are all from Combustion in Slow Motion, my urban fantasy WIP:

Mega: serial trespasser and clerk at a magic supply shop. accidentally summoned a demon from a sword and got recruited by an investigative agency to help figure out who keeps cursing people

Kuda: said demon summoned from sword, very new to the present and very particular about things

Rin: Owner of magic supply shop and backdoor cursebreaker

Charlie: Investigator at previously mentioned agency who has a bit too unserious of an attitude towards work

Milo: Mega's housemate who has no idea what the fuck's going on or why there's a demon, he's mostly just concentrating on his studies.

Let’s play a game!

Reblog this post with a little bit of information about one of your characters. Then, let your followers send questions in...and have THAT CHARACTER be the one to answer them!

As always, if you reblog this post from anywhere other than the main Summerfest blog, make sure you send that person an ask!

[anavkour]

What is your favorite book you've read so far in 2023?