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can you tell I'm hyperfixating on Joy again. is it obvious. am I normal

image id: a pencil drawing. in it, a tiefling with four small horns and fluffy hair has an arm outstretched towards the viewer, hand surrounded with light. he is wearing overalls and a bandana. waves of darkness filled with eyes and mouths with sharp teeth flow around him, and he is standing in one of the mouths as though it might eat him. despite this, he looks calm and focused.

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hits Joy with my omori headspace beam

he's based off Basil that's why

image ID: traditional art of a green tiefling with purple eyes, hair, and tip of his tail. he is wearing a flower crown, a yellow bandana, and yellow overalls over a pink tee shirt. the art style is reminiscent of the game omori

rambles under cut

this started off as a doodle but then I got carried away. I had fun tho, I used alcohol based markers and then went over them with colored pencils. and I went over a bunch of it with white colored pencil to make it look sort of dappled because I found that some of the headspace art I was using as a reference had that sort of quality to it. also this photo is edited a bit bc the colors were brighter than what the camera was picking up

been a while since I have drawn muchh of anything so it was nice to just fuck around and experiment a bit

also one of his horns is broken in the present day but yk being headspace and all he would be 12 so it hasn't happened yet. haven't talked about him much here so I feel the autistic need to point that out

I am considering cutting him out of my sketchbook and sticking him up on my wall but also I like having good things in my sketchbooks sometimes so idk

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Welcome!

I'm going to update this list as I post more. So make sure to check periodically!

Anon Office Hours: W-F 12:30-6:30 give or take

Feedback: Sat-Sun 9-5pm

FAQs!

Lesson 1: "White Man Painted Black"?

Lesson 1.5: "Hair for Thought"- how visualizing affects your writing

Lesson 2: “That One Hairstyle? RETIRE IT!” Black Hair is an Art (pt.1)

Lesson 2.1: Addendum to Hair pt 1

Lesson 2: "It Takes HOW LONG?" Black Hair is an Art (pt.2)

Application! Ice's Lazy Loc Wash Routine

Lesson 3: "Defying the Default"- Skin Tones and the Presence of Black Characters

Application! What are Black fans looking for in Commissions?

Lesson 4: "Do Black People Blush?" Bringing brown complexions to life

Lesson 5: "The Same Place As the Music" Lighting & Color

Lesson 6: "Let's Have A Talk, First" Stereotypes, pt 1

Lesson 6: “Why’s she so rude?” (She’s Not)- Stereotypes, pt 2

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How to spot a Stereotype: An Example

Okay, so I talked about this in my Lesson 6 Stereotypes series, but I feel like people haven't quite... Understood what I meant. So I'm doing a mini lesson/application. First, I'd really appreciate it if you take the time to read the links in my posts, because that will provide you the historical and social context necessary. If you lack it, you will never be fully able to understand this. Remember, all I do here is provide the beginning steps. You have to be willing to do the rest!

One thing I constantly emphasize is that it's not the description of a character that (always) reveals an existing stereotype, but the writing! And again, until you grasp why anti-Black stereotypes are what they are, you will continue to be frustrated with how to avoid incorporating them, both in your writing and in your mindset. I'm going to use one stereotype as an example.

The Mammy Stereotype

"[Black woman character] is very fond, doting, and protective. She's like the team mom of the group."

On the surface, people who are worried about this stereotype will worry, because Black readers have long rolled their eyes and said we're tired of seeing this as one of the Only Options for Black women characters. And we are. Here's the disconnect: the attributes are not what we're tired of, but how they were utilized in the writing- often by non-Black writers!

Mammy: put simply, the caricature of the Mammy is the Black nursemaid that would take care of the Master's white children and the Mistress, prioritizing them above the well-being of herself, her own children, and her own community. She is fat and homely (so as not to attract the Master from the Mistress), unthreatening, sweet and subservient.

In other words, the only value she held was to serve white people's needs (and quench their guilt).

While the image of the Mammy herself is a strong imagery that has faded from its specific origin, I would say the modern day fan archetypes that ring of the Mammy stereotype are the Black woman character that "holds the Braincell", the "begrudgingly fond mother of the group", the canon love interest now relegated to the "mommy/mean lesbian" whose feelings are erased altogether, her new role to help the two white characters get together without acknowledgment of her own potential. She has no real story of her own, or as mentioned, has her own story stolen because "it doesn't look good with her in it" (which is its own bag of worms).

Now, people often give these characters motherly (or what society deems motherly) traits: caring, sweet, protective, loving, self sacrificial. Because they want to defensively show that "they're a great person! Nothing bad! I still think they're good! I'm not racist!"

But upon learning of the stereotype, there appears this insecurity- "oh, my Black woman character has these traits, is she playing into this stereotype?" When you get to this question, what you really need to be asking yourself is:

What makes the Mammy a Mammy?

They are a tool, a utility to white people with more power.

They lack autonomy. How they feel is irrelevant, if it does not serve the white person.

Nonthreatening so as to feel "harmless" to white people who bask in her "selfless" care.

They are not allowed to show frustration or upset at their lot or at life; it is seen as a negative attribute because if they are not caring, they have no use (and may now even be considered a threat).

They will also disagree with anyone else, even to the detriment of themselves, to the benefit of the white person. This is considered "selfless", rather than sacrifice (consider that "real" Mammies were originally slaves. They probably hated every single day with the people they "cared" for, but God forbid they speak on it. To white people, they were supposedly so happy and grateful! Smile and nod!)

Notice, out of the things I listed, "strong", "protective", "intelligent", and "caring" weren't there! Because those aren't bad attributes for a Black character to have! Why would we ever suggest that?? Why would I be mad that a Black woman was any of those wonderful things to her peers? That's not the issue. The issue is that they are often used in service of usually white characters and their stories. They're a tool of the writer to coddle their white characters, versus a character that has their own inner workings and existence.

Knowing what you know now; things that would make your strong, protective, and caring Black woman character fit the Mammy stereotype can include:

If she is pushed to the side with no autonomy or inner life of her own, as the narrative centers the white characters and their needs.

If she is never shown to have any reason for acting outside of to the benefit of the white characters around her. That's the only time her presence counts.

If her disagreeing with, getting upset with, or refusing (or really, just not being "motherly") the white characters is deemed trashy by the narrative (whereas anyone else receives nuance or reason for their behavior).

If the white characters in the story treat her poorly, and it is treated as a good thing that she "stays calm" without any sort of reflection on her feelings.

You can come up with any sort of setting, plot scenario, and description of your Black woman character. But at the end of the day, what's going to make it the stereotype is how the narrative treats her, which you will only find out by writing it, and then reviewing your own work!

You're going to have to approach any stereotype this way. It's part of the *intent* thing I keep pushing 😅 if you don't intend to write a stereotype, you're going to have to actively understand what it is, which will help you actively avoid it.

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A Workshop for Creating Magical/ Fictional Crystals: A Guide from a Geologist

Hi folks, its me, here to talk about fictional writing again! Today I'm just tackling the idea of magical stones/mana stones by looking at existing minerals today and some neat properties that they have, and how you can apply these things to a fictional world. The goal is mainly to help you if you are stuck trying to come up with a unique magic system, or a unique identification/characteristic of your mineral.

First Things First: Mineral Shapes

I am exhausted, petered out, down-right fatigued by seeing every mineral depicted with having the crystal structure of calcite and quartz. There are soooooo many cooler, more interesting crystal structures, don't you think you would stop and take a look at a perfect cube in nature? It is completely unsettling.

Second: Color

Color within minerals can either be really important, or not important at all! It is your choice to decide if color is going to be something that means something to your mineral. But what are some times when the color is important? Well.... there are some elements that are called chromophores, this classification just indicates that these elements, when present, will determine the color of whatever they are in. So, if you wanted to treat mana like a chromophore, you could say, "Oh everything that contains mana turns green!" This could mean that regardless of the mineral, if that mineral is a specific color, it means it contains mana. This concept is exciting because you can just stop here and use minerals that already exist! You can also use it as an indicator for a magical ore! Chromophores are typically metals, so if you are making a new metal weapon, making the ore of that metal a unique color would make a lot of sense!

However, your mineral can also just be every color of the rainbow like quartz and perhaps that's what makes identifying your mana stones elusive and create an illusion of scarcity that your character can solve.

There are other things that can change the colors of minerals, like radiation damage, and electron exchange, but I think that is beyond what would be helpful! So lets talk about some unique color properties that happen in nature that seem magical in the first place! Maybe you don't need to design a mana stone, but you want a unique gemstone that only the royal family passes down or something (IDK).

The first one is the alexandrite effect! This is where a mineral can change color in natural light vs. incandescent light. (the mineral itself is not changing, but the lights contain different amounts of different colors that then get absorbed by the stone). Even if you don't use electricity in your fictional world, you could have the colors change in the presence of light magic. This could create fun misunderstandings about what the mineral is reacting to!

Pleochroism

Pleochroism is something that most minerals have, it is frequently used to help identify minerals in thin sections, however minerals are usually not pleochroic enough for it to be visible to the naked eye! Pleochroism is just a fancy name to describe the change in how light is absorbed based on the angle of the mineral! So if you scroll up to the first image where I showed a lot of crystal shapes, most of them have angles where they are longer and shorter! This will effect the way light travels in the crystal. Tanzanite is a popular mineral that does this.

Photochromism

This is when a mineral will change color (in a reversible way) when exposed to UV light (or sunlight), I am not going to go too into the details of why this is happening because it would require me to read some research papers and I just don't feel like it. The mineral that is best known for this is Hackmanite!

Alright! These are all the really cool color effects that might inspire you or maybe not, but now I am going to talk about how you might find your minerals within a rock!

When I see a lot of magical caves/mines, typically I see them with some variation of a geode honestly, but most minerals are not found like that! Now I am sure most of you guys have seen a geode, so I will not really talk about those, but I will talk briefly about porphyroblasts which is when the mineral grows larger than the minerals around it, this happens in metamorphic minerals!

sorry random stranger, but this is an image of garnets inside a finer-grained rock at gore mountain in New York!

Another way you might find minerals is in a pegmatite! This is when all minerals are really large! This is a formed from really slow crystalizing magma!

But something else to think about is that your mineral might just be massive, it doesn't have to have distinct crystals, it may be similar to jadeite where small grains grow together which leaves it looking smooth and seamless! A note about all of these is that you would have to mine into the rock to find these, there would not be any natural caves in these rocks! Caves are only ever really formed in limestones and maybe marbles (rocks that react with acid).

How can your characters identify these minerals?

Typically when you are out in the field you will look to see what type of rocks the minerals are found in (The overall texture of the rock will tell you how it formed). If you know how the rock formed, it will narrow down the amount of minerals you need to think about by quite a bit! Next, you are going to look closely at it and observe its crystal structure, does it have an obvious crystal? if so what is the general shape? If it is broken, how did it break? Did it fracture like glass or did it break along uniform planes. Some minerals have a thing called cleavage (breaks along planes of weakness). If a mineral exhibits this habit, it will again help narrow this down. Next we can look at color. Color can be misleading, because minerals like quartz can be any color imaginable, but minerals like olivine will always be green! The next thing your character can do is test for hardness, minerals all have a specific hardness that can help identify it as well.

After you go through all of this, your mineral might have some special property! This could be magnetism, fluorescence, reactions to acid, or any of the color changing effects I mentioned above! Other than that, your character can take it back to a lab and do a number of things to identify it, but the most typical thing would be for them to make a thin section (very thin piece of the rock) and observe it under a cross polarized microscope!

On that note folks! I hope this helped in some way in thinking of new magic mineral properties! I have other guides that explore some different fictional worldbuilding issues you might run into, but if you have any topics you would like me to cover please that I haven't mentioned already, let me know!

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maybe To Sing Again would be better as a series

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Why is Immerlias doing that thing with his voice?

hi anon! thank you for the ask!!

I assume you mean him talking in a higher pitch than what's natural for him, in which case, it's sort of a gender presentation thing? When his voice started getting deeper as a kid it really bothered him and so he did a lot of vocal training, both so he could talk at a pitch that felt representative of himself and so he wouldn't end up losing his upper range for singing.

So sometimes when he's shocked or angry, instead of his voice going up in pitch like you'd expect, it actually drops towards where it would be naturally instead!

Also he's a little shit and he thinks its funny when people don't expect him to be able to hit super low notes because they've never heard him speak in a low pitch. he really does pull it out for shock value sometimes and no other reason lmao

also also because of all the vocal training he's scary good at impressions but that's just a short fun fact :)

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*throws eggs at you*

YIPPEEE MORE EGGS

a blessed gift. thank you anon

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Guide: How to Skip Time in Your Story

Few stories take place during a short, unbroken chunk of time. Most stories take place in small chunks spread out over days, weeks, months, or years, which means there will be whole chunks of time not covered. So, how do you skip the time between those chunks?

Scenes and Chapters

With the exception of some very short fiction, most stories are broken into scenes, each of which encapsulates a particular moment or event. In longer fiction, like novellas and novels, related scenes can be grouped together into chapters, though sometimes a chapter contains only one scene. Either way, because scenes and chapters focus on particular moments or events, or a related group of moments or events, starting a new scene or chapter is a natural way to represent the passage of time in your story. In fact, unless otherwise stated, readers will naturally assume that time has passed between scenes and chapters–which doesn’t mean you don’t still have to make the transition between them.

The key to skipping time between scenes or chapters is to make the transition by doing two things:

1) Set up the time skip at the end of the scene or chapter by hinting at what is to come. For example:

As I gazed out the window at January’s first falling snow, I couldn’t help but wonder what the new year would bring.

2) Clarify time, place and (if necessary) POV at the beginning of the new scene or chapter, playing off of the set up from the previous scene or chapter.

The first week of January was over in a blink, and then I found myself back at school, dealing with all the problems I’d left behind during Christmas Break.

Notice how the set up at the end of the previous scene/chapter flows seamlessly into the scene transition at the beginning of the new scene/chapter?

Because the passage of time is expected between scenes and chapters, it’s not always necessary to be direct about how much time has passed. Especially if the amount of time passing is unimportant or already implied.

Direct:

Melinda finally dragged herself out of bed, painfully aware that her entire career hinged on her ability to pull this meeting off without a hitch. She hated the uncertainty of what lay ahead, hating even more the only thing she did know for certain: it was going to be one hell of a shitty day.

# # #

Two hours later, Melinda stood in front of the board, coffee in hand, trying to exude confidence she in no way truly felt. The tired, stoic faces of eleven other men and women gazed back at her, plainly ready for whatever it was she was about to unleash upon them. She only wished she felt as ready as they appeared to be.

Less Direct:

Melinda finally dragged herself out of bed, painfully aware that her entire career hinged on her ability to pull this meeting off without a hitch. She hated the uncertainty of what lay ahead, hating even more the only thing she did know for certain: it was going to be one hell of a shitty day.

# # #

All eleven faces of the other board members gazed back at Melinda, stoic and tired as she stood before them, coffee in hand, trying to exude a confidence she in now way truly felt. It was clear they were prepared for whatever she was about to unleash upon them, and she could only wish she was equally prepared.

In the second example, even though you don’t specifically say “two hours later,” it’s clear right away from the context that the time and place have changed. No one is going to read “all eleven faces of the other board members” and assume that they’re waiting for her in her bathroom as she goes in to brush her teeth the next morning. As often as possible, try to reserve the “two hours later” and “when she got back to the office” transitions for when the context would otherwise be unclear, or when those specific details (how much time has passed, a specific location) is immediately important. 

And, if no time is passing between two scenes or two chapters, you can make that clear via context. For example, if one scene ends with Melinda falling asleep and then being woken up by a loud knock at her door, the next scene could continue with something like “Heart pounding from the shock, Melinda jumped out of bed to see who was at her door.” Now it’s clear no time passed in the next scene. But, since a new situation is beginning, it still warrants being its own scene.

Expository Time Skip

Sometimes you need to show a quick glimpse of something that happened but which doesn’t really warrant its own scene or chapter. In this case, you may need to illustrate the time skip using exposition within the scene. It may look something like this:

The first week of January was over in a blink, and then I found myself back at school, dealing with all the problems I’d left behind during Christmas Break. Not the least of which was the newly formed rift between me and Kristina, who was glaring at me from across the hallway as I spun the combination on my locker that first day back. I’d done my best to ignore her, shoveling my million textbooks out of my book bag, doing a quick check of my hair–which somehow managed to be both wet and frizzy with static–before grabbing my biology books and hurrying off under Kristina’s cold glare.

Later that day, at lunch, Michelina and I decided to eat lunch outside, even though it was thirty degrees and still snowing. Despite the wintry chill, it was warmer than the cafeteria with Kristina’s angry gaze constantly searching us out.

Terms such as: later that day, two hours later, the next afternoon, the following day, by the time the bell rang, when it was time to close, etc., allow you to show that time has passed without transitioning to a new scene or chapter. This allows you to cover smaller moments/events that don’t warrant their own space.

Whether you use a scene transition between two scenes or two chapters to show the passing of time, or whether you clarify the time skip through exposition, just pay attention to where you leave your readers before the transition/clarification, and where you take them. Make sure it’s clear, flows well, and wouldn’t leave anyone confused. Do that and you should be in good shape. :)

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Worldbuilding: Soap, Taxes, Consequences

Way too many writers seem to create dirty, decrepit fantasy or historical settings, without giving much thought as to why things might be grimy. Or why not.

For example, Victorian England, specifically London, is infamous for being dark, with choking smogs and lower classes regarded as filthy. There is a fair amount of truth to this... but historically, we as writers should look deeper. There were a lot of factors involved in this grime, but three of the big ones were heating, the window tax, and the soap tax.

...Yes, there was a tax specifically on soap. I’ll get to that.

All three of these were either directly caused by or exacerbated by the government. Timber was in large part reserved for ships and construction, so unless you had a lot of money to spend on firewood, if you wanted heat, it was usually peat or coal. Peat burns with a lot of smoke. A lot of smoke, to the point that it was doing about as much damage to lungs of the poorer folk who used it as all the tobacco in the surroundings combined. There are reasons it took a long time to get a handle on potential causes of lung cancer.

The better option - and yes, it was actually better - was coal. Only England’s local coal is a high-sulfur type, meaning besides heat and regular smoke you also got sulfur dioxide and its related acid compounds eating people’s lungs and etching everything else in sight. People are pretty sure this was the source of the infamous London fogs. (Though not entirely. Historians are still poking it to see if there were other contributing factors.)

So. That’s the smog. The window tax is Exactly What It Says On The Tin. Which made it very dark inside buildings, especially of the poor, because they couldn’t afford a yearly tax on taking advantage of natural light.

And here we come to the soap tax, the most rage-choking one of them in my mind. It was apparently high enough that good money could be made smuggling soap from Ireland (where there was no tax on it) to England to sell. Smuggling soap.

...Talk about your clean getaways.

But here you see the problem. If you’re already poor and you have to choose between enough food to survive on and enough soap to be clean... taxed soap makes your life much, much harder. Staying clean harder. Staying healthy harder.

And it has nothing to do with “oh, it’s the past, of course it’s more primitive”, and everything to do with a government deciding the best way to squeeze out more taxes is to tax something everyone has to use. A fantasy or alternate historical setting where there was no soap tax would be entirely different. And was, in Ireland just across the water - where there were the same problems with peat and coal, but even the poorest people tended to be clean.

Consider your world’s governments. What have they done well, and what have they (ahem) royally screwed up? And are your heroes just trying to stay out of the way of the worst insanity - or are they actively doing something about it?

It’d be a heck of a thing, to get arrested for smuggling soap....

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Whump Reference Digest/FAQ

Q: My character was shot/stabbed/impaled in the abdomen, how can I treat them if I don't have a hospital available in my story? A: They're probably going to die, but you can buy time by packing the wound and not letting them eat or drink anything until they get to a place with surgery.

Q: My character is shot/stabbed/impaled in the chest, how can I treat them if I don't have a hospital available in my story? A: They're probably going to die, but you can buy time by quickly putting your hand over the wound to prevent air going into the chest cavity before they can get to a place with surgery.

Q: My character was shot/stabbed/impailed in the shoulder, how can I treat them if I don't have a hospital available in my story? A: They're probably not going to die, but they will probably have lasting difficulties using that arm. Packing the wound and getting to surgery as soon as possible might minimize this.

Q: How long does it take for someone's wound to get infected? A: Signs of infection can start within about 12 hours for really dirty wounds, but normally it takes a few days. Cleaning and caring properly for wounds can decrease chances of infection.

Q: Can I clean a wound with vodka/whisky/wine? A: No. One, you shouldn't be using any kind of alcohol/hydrogen peroxide/iodine to clean wounds (just water or saline), and two, there's not enough alcohol in any of those things to disinfect anything.

Q: Can a person pass an infection to someone else without knowing they have it? A: Yes. Someone can be very infectious before they show symptoms of many infectious diseases, or may have an asymptomatic infection but still be able to spread disease.

Q: How do you know if someone has appendicitis? A: You basically try to find out if the sac holding the abdominal organs is inflamed near where we'd expect the appendix to be. You can do this by jiggling the person's abdomen and seeing if it hurts in the lower right corner.

Q: Can you kill someone by injecting them with air? A: Only if you're really dedicated. It takes about 20mL of air to kill someone when injected into a vein. And that's a lot of air when you consider most of the syringes we use in a hospital setting for IV injections are like 3mL. Injecting air into muscle is very painful but will not cause death (though if it's a lot it might cause damage to a limb).

Q: How fast do injections work? A: Most injections into the muscle or fat work in about 20-30 mins. Most injections into a vein work in about 2-5 minutes. Nothing works immediately.

Q: Can you drug someone by stabbing them in the neck with a needle? A: I mean, the drug will probably get into them that way, but you're very unlikely to hit a vein and very likely to hit something you could hurt, like a nerve or the windpipe. Best case you're probably going to hit a muscle (see above for onset times).

Q: What's a drug with an easy antidote? A: Insulin or an opioid. With insulin the antidote is sugar, with an opioid the antidote is naloxone which you can get without a prescription in many places.

Q: I need a general anesthetic that a lay person can administer.... In an apocalypse. A: It's Ether. You can make it with everclear and a car battery.

Q: Are people always monitored in a hospital? A: No. What monitoring they get is completely dependent on why they're in the hospital. Most people in a hospital are not monitored at all beyond vitals every 12 hours.

Q: Are people always shirtless in the hospital? A: No. Usually they wear hospital gowns.

Q: What does TV get wrong about hospitals? A: How pretty people are. Normally people are all bruised up, haven't bathed in days and are covered with tape.

Q: What antibiotics should I stockpile? A: Ideally, none. Unless you are a literal doctor and know how to use them.

Q: When do you restrain someone in a hospital? A: Only when they are a danger to themselves and the staff and nothing else is working to decrease that danger.

Q: What drugs are used to restrain someone? A: Usually haloperidol, diphenhydramine, and lorazepam.

Q: How does someone get a keraunographic marking? A: By being near a lightning strike. They only last a few days, though.

Q: Can you breathe with no heartbeat? A: No

Q: What does defibrillation do? A: It briefly stops the heart in the hope that it will restart in a normal rhythm.

Q: Do I have to break ribs if I'm doing CPR? A: Depends on your patient. A kid is less likely to have broken ribs after CPR, but an older adult is probably going to have broken ribs. It just kind of depends on the patient.

Q: What blood types can give/receive from each other? A: A-  can give to  A-, A+, AB-, AB+ A+ can give to  A+, AB+ B- can give to B-, B+, AB-, AB+ B+ can give to B+, AB+ AB- can give to AB-, AB+ AB+ can give to AB+ O- can give to A-, A+, B-, B+, AB-, AB+, O-, O+ (generally, O- can give to any recipient) O+ can give to A+, B+, AB+, O+

A- can receive from A-, O- A+ can receive from A-, A+, O-, O+ B- can receive from B-, O- B+ can receive from B-, B+, O-, O+ AB- can receive from A-, B-, AB-, O- AB+ can receive from A-, A+, B-, B+, AB-, AB+, O-, O+ (generally, AB+ can receive from any donor) O- can receive from O- O+ can receive from O-, O+

Q: How do I make someone unconscious without hurting them? A: Unconciousness is difficult to achieve without running the serious risk of killing or disabling them for a long time. We're talking weeks or months of disability after a head injury that knocked someone out. Probably the best way is to try to drug someone to the point where they wouldn't remember what happened/would sleep really readily, but they could still maintain their airway.

Q: What does trauma mean in a hospital context? A: Any injury is considered trauma, while an illness is not.

Q: What does the path through the hospital/recovery look like for a trauma victim? Emergency department > Surgery > ICU if bad enough > Med Surg floor > rehab if unable to safely return home yet > home. They might bounce back and forth between these a few times depending on needs.

Q: How does amnesia work? A: The most common types of amnesia are amnesia of events just before or just after an injury, as well as difficulty forming memories after an injury. Amnesia of one's entire life while retaining skills and language, though a good story element, is not a thing that happens physically. A guy named Ansel Bourne just forgot who he was one time psychogenically and we've been making that happen in fiction ever since.

Q: Can I make IV fluids myself at home? How can I administer them? A: With the right equipment, maybe. But rectoclysis is safer.

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woo yeah woo yeah a blurb for Sunshine All the Time exists now

its under the cut yippeeeeeeeeee

Twins Aryaea and Immerlias have spent the first 50 years of their life mostly confined to their hometown and nation, Hafalia. Ready to see the world, the two have planned a trip for themselves that will take them on travels far and wide, much to the chagrin of their parents, who would rather see them safe. When this minor disagreement explodes into a huge argument, both sides worry they may have torn a rift in their family that will never fully heal, and yet refuse to budge.

Meanwhile, forgotten gods walk the earth once more, alongside some that never left at all. Old debts must be repaid, and a dark threat looms over the world, soon to rise again. Ancient magic and artifacts of legend will be needed to fend off the potential end of the world—and this family's drama is at the center of it all. The task at hand is easier said than done: face the past and mend the pain it has caused, or let this argument tear their family and the world apart.

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I love Eshowi so so much like I absolutely adore her she spontaneously combusts and she's got that doomed by the narrative rizz

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If you're anything like me and really struggle to say or even let yourself think that your writing is "good" or [insert positive descriptor here] I really recommend doing a "Positivity Pass".

The idea is simple: read your work, and type answers to the questions: What do I like about this scene? What made me laugh? What evoked an emotion? Which part is my favourite?

Sometimes I answer the first question and sometimes I answer all of them, because over time its becoming easier to just let myself be happy and acknowledge that I've created a thing that I like. And of course, you can make up your own questions.

I think the important thing is to actually type out my answers. It feels more concrete and convincing to my brain that way, especially because I can go back and re-read my answers and think "yeah! that bit was funny, actually!"

Anyway I'm sure something like this has been recommended and spoken about before, but I honestly just kind of stumbled into doing this before I begin revising my novel (I am reverse outlining, heyooo), and it's made me feel so much better and more excited to dig into edits 😊

[approximately-20-unwritten-wips]

can't wait for the campaign I'm playing the Spuneras in to start so I can be even sillier about them!!! god they're just so excellent and I wanna talk more about their past

[approximately-20-unwritten-wips]

10 and 19 for Creed for OC asks! :)

thank you for the ask!!!!

10. What's your oc's greatest weakness?

probably the self-destructive tendencies! and ruthlessness in that when he has a goal he will Pursue It relentlessly at any cost to himself or others

19. Does your oc have any defining skills? How did they acquire/learn these skills?

well for the most part its sailor stuff, because that was his career, but also, he is familiar with brewing various forms of alcohol, because he grew up in a tavern and that was also his career for a while

ty again for the ask!!

[approximately-20-unwritten-wips]

1, 4, 5, 17

YAYYYY THANK YOU BAT FOR THE ASK

1. What is your ocs full name? Does this name have any special meaning/history?

their full names are Valrynn and Lumarin Spunera, and I cannot share the special meaning/history there because other players in the campaign follow me and I don't wanna spoil anything lol

4. Does your oc have a defining physical trait? What makes this feature unique?

yes!! they have a giant dark birthmark on their face from one twin absorbing the other in utero. since this is dnd fantasy land where elves are reincarnated this resulted in two elves sharing a body :)

5. Does your oc have a defining personality trait? Why does this trait define them?

I don't wanna label anything as "defining" too hard yet but:

Val's really big-hearted and emotional, and she goes out of her way to do things for people. this also means she's a bit of a pushover/people-pleaser tho

and Lumarin is honestly pretty headstrong I suppose? not only in a way opposite to Val (as in, he won't take the same shit as her) but he's very set in his view of the world and rejects challenges to it

17. What’s your oc’s biggest aspiration in life? Why?

their biggest aspiration is a goal they've already achieved: become part of the Krynn Dynasty's military. I could go on, but again, other players follow me lol

THANK YOU again for the ask cause I am so silly about these guys rn!!!!