atomic-insomnia

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rude

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why must a fic be "finished" is it not enough for it to be lovingly daydreamed over a period of 6 months.

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god i love making animatics in my head i wish drawing was real

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Iwatobee, Florida was a town in rigor mortis.  It died when the trains through Tallahassee rerouted without touching the coast, and it lay rotting in place ever since.  Jobs were sparse and every year more streets became backstreets, more outskirts overgrew with sawgrass and Spanish moss.  Stray dogs gone feral roamed sandy lots and trailer parks; anoles fanned their red throats on tumbled-down fence posts and decommissioned mail boxes.  The center of town claimed nothing but black-mold-ridden shotgun houses lining cracked asphalt bleached pale.  Only a few blocks away from the huddled human outpost the green swamp drew its demarcation.  Fan palms dropped blood-brown fronds in drifts, occasionally catching fire from stray cigarette butts or the blaze of the Gulf Coast sun.  Here there were more rehab centers than churches and more churches than stores.

i may be writing something

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it's been ten years (slightly more, actually) since I wrote this for a title prompt challenge. was just thinking about it for the first time in forever and wasn't expecting it to be so long ago! it's funny rereading it, some of it I can see how I would write differently and some of it I still really like. And of course I was writing weird surreal detective stories lol that seems to be a recurring theme in the media I create/consume

The Bones that Remain

Inspector Chou flipped the newspaper clipping.  The aged newsprint, thin as a layer of skin, stuck to her fingers.  Fifteen years ago they’d investigated the disappearance of a college student; fourteen years ago they’d discovered her body in the basement of her parents’ three-story farmhouse, as her mother then pulled a trigger Chou’s men hadn’t even seen and murdered her husband in a room full of police officers.  One of the uniformed officers took her down, and Chou, racing up the basement stairs just in time to witness the mother’s body collapsing directly one floor up from her daughter’s grave, realized that the family had wanted this—now their secrets lay quiet and still, just like their bodies.

The girl was buried next to her parents, in alphabetical order.

Investigation of the house and its occupants’ bodies led to the conclusion that the same gun used to kill the man had killed the girl, but led to no reasons as to why.

Disturbed by the racket, the canaries in the livingroom of the house had started up in the deluge of silence following the gunshots.  The noise was distant and hallucinatory to Chou.

A street-level siren was as unreal now in Chou’s dreary brown office.  Her world was underwater with sensatory memories that seemed to belong to someone else.

Another college girl had gone missing.

There was no reason for them to be connected, none at all.  It was, in fact, impossible.

But the girl’s picture in yesterday’s paper was the same as the one on the fifteen-year-old newspaper clipping. 

Same dark hair pulled back in the same hairstyle.  Same creases by her nose as she smiled with the same tight-lipped smile.  Even the larger freckles visible in the washed-out grayscale print were in the same place.

The name below was different.

The paper might have somehow accidently run the new story with an old, leftover picture.  It was entirely possible.

Inspector Chou didn’t believe it, but it was entirely possible, and she liked to stay in the realm of possibilities.  It made police work easier.

The next day, visiting the same college campus that her fifteen-year-old missing person’s case had taken her to, she passed by the same art sculptures as the heels of her shoes clacked into the same building to meet with many of the same faculty and staff who’d known both girls.

A coincidence.  An ugly coincidence, but life wasn’t designed to be beautiful.  Life wasn’t designed.

The sculptures she passed on her way in and on her way out were designed like dinosaur fossils; an artsy Smithsonian homage, or at least that was probably the intent.  The ribcage of one of the massive structures perfectly framed the doors when she looked through them.  The massive dragon-head with its horns and its teeth snarled blindly out at passerby, guarding the entrance of the art department purely because that was where it was erected.

The professors and assistants and custodians and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts all expressed their deepest condolences to the family, but had not seen their student anytime directly prior to her disappearance.  Not even the elderly anatomy professor, who’d had both girls in his classes and now had both disappear from his classes, mentioned the mirror-image similar case from fifteen years ago.

That night Chou dreamed of that fossil ribcage, trapping her in as the ground she clawed at blew away as sand through her fingers.  She heard songbirds.

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Hardest part of writing is accepting that some people will not fucking get it & you just have to like cope with that because over-explaining it just makes it worse

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PSA: Writing a book can take a looooong time. If you've been working on your project for a year, two years, five years... you're not doing anything wrong. If you've written three drafts and thrown them all away, if you can only write a hundred words a day, if you put your book down for six months and pick it up again only to be baffled by what you've written... Congratulations. You're not inefficient or slow. You're just a writer. Welcome to the writing life.

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hooray

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My Ko-Fi is finished yaaaay!

I combined my two "brands" and I'm open for business!

Hi, I'm Maria and I'm a digital artist, video editor and writer, who does vtubing on the side (variety, even though I'm focusing way too much on gaming for now ^^'>)

If you are interested in:

Basic edits: (filters & colour correction, skin-smoothening, removing backgrounds, etc.)

Complicated edits (photomanipulation, special effects on cosplay photos (like elemental powers or turning you to a monster), etc.)

Thumbnails for your videos

Graphics for your websites, social media and mobile (*) (buttons, banners, icons, insta highlights, dividers, gifs, mobile lockstcreen & wallpaper etc.)

Proofreading any text (essay, book, script, etc.) up to 100K words in either English or Greek. (you can order this twice or more if your words are more than 100K btw)

Someone to write lore for your vtuber or your OC (illustrated, DnD, videogame, film)

feel free to take a look at my Ko-fi services! ^^ There are more examples of my work on graphics, on my gallery too, if you would like to check those out. (sidenote: I do not design for print at the moment, only for digital spaces)

Unfortunately I couldn't share my horror work there, too, because I'm worried about Ko-fi's sensitivity to gore, however I am open to making and writing horror and nsfw works for you. (If ko-fi prevents me from sending you your horror or nsfw order due to the content, I will send it by email, filters won't stop me from creating and sharing in my main genre of choice. =3=)

As for how I work, I work with you. You will be shown samples of the work, during the process so that we can make sure you like the stage it is each time. However, I am working on multiple things at the same time, so I would appreciate if you replied to those messages within 48 hours from the time you received them.

.

(*) I wanted to make some fandom-based graphics for social media and mobile lockscreens and wallpapers, but those will come at a later time and for free, on my shop, so stay tuned for that. Fandoms I want to make stuff for are: Genshin Impact, Reverse: 1999, Nikke: The Goddess of Victory, Visual Kei musicians

Thank you for your time! I hope I can be of service to youuuu~! Have a great daaayy~!

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Miss Tracy, do u have any advice on researching a specific time period?

(also I know u probably won't see this, but I love your art and you are awesome)

Look for books about the time period, but also books written contemporaneous to the time period, whether fiction or non-fiction. Check used book stores for out of print gems at good prices.

If photography was a technology that existed in the time period you're researching, look for photos of people doing everyday things. Take in the context, the geography, the economic situation. Look at how they're dressed and what their clothes say about them.

Newspaper archives. Sometimes newspapers of the past are free to browse. Sometimes you have to pay for access. Old shopping catalogue collections - if they exist for your time period - are great too.

Documentary films about time periods, or specific events in a given time period can be useful, even if only for a broad overview.

Museum exhibits - helpful whether you're looking for famous paintings or artifacts of past civilizations in a world renowned institution, or trying to dig up something impossibly unique in an oddity denture museum in some forgotten place in the Midwest. If you can't go in person, check online. You can find museums with vintage clothing or household appliance collections from even a few decades ago. Some museums have extensive, searchable online collections too. Take the Metropolitan Museum for instance.

If you can visit historical sites relevant to your area of interest, do it! Do those little guided walking tours. Do the ghost tours even - they're often fairly history-centric with some paranormal folklore for added spice. Sometimes they get you access to places you otherwise can't enter. Check historical societies local to cities or towns of interest.

If you need information about something deeply specific, check the internet for communities that form around that deeply specific topic. I've found tidbits of useful info searching around old forum posts from radio enthusiasts, Model T owners, and people who collect old telephone booths. (Granted, it's getting harder to search for this kind of stuff nowadays.)

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Be careful of AI trash, whether it's generative images, text descriptions, or entire articles. Don't rely much on film or television for accuracy. Some things are more interested in being accurate than others, but there's almost always some artistic license taken. If you're trying to be particularly accurate about something, triple check it for confirmation. Misinformation has had a way of spreading like insidious mildew even before AI started disseminating it with delusory authority.

Lastly, if you don't enjoy doing this kind of historical research like a weird little detective-creature, consider loosening up on the 'historical' aspect of your writing. It's okay to not focus on historicity in your fiction. But if you're going to dive in whole-hog on history, bear in mind it's an ongoing, often time-consuming adventure in information-finding.

(Thank you for the kind words!)

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Writer Goal Ask List for a New Year 🎉

These writer asks are always so fun to both ask and answer. Fanfic or original fiction writers, reblog away! These are asks based in new goals for a new year.

💖 What is your primary writing goal for this year?

🛳 Are there any new ships you want to write for? (Platonic, romantic, or anything in between.)

🤔 Are there any new characters you want to write about?

🥸 Does anyone in IRL know you write fanfic or original fiction? If not, do you plan on telling anyone this year?

🥵 Any plans to write steamy or spicy content this year?

👻 Is there a new genre you'd like to write?

🦄 Is there a new POV you'd like to try writing?

🐌 What is one of your smallest writing goals?

🦖 Are there any fandoms you wrote for in the past that you'd like to return to?

🍄 Are there any fandoms you've never written for but want to try?

🌈 What research do you plan on doing for your writing?

✨What's one area of your writing that you think needs the least amount of improvement?

🥕 What's one area of your writing that you think needs the most amount of improvement?

🫘 Spill the beans. What's a new project you're doing this year?

🥳 How are you going to celebrate when you achieve one of your writing goals?

🎃 Do you plan on writing any seasonal fics?

🐾 Do you plan on writing for any fests or competitions?

✍️ Which stat matters most to you (if at all!): subscriptions, kudos/favorites, comments, bookmarks, word count, or hits?

👾 Do you have any "bad" writing habits you want to break?

🤖 Are you looking to change your current writing setup? (Or establish one, if you don't have one?)

🦷 Is there a chapter, scene, or WIP you're dreading to write (but is necessary to your plot)? Share a snippet or tell us about it!

💥Is there a chapter, scene, or WIP you're most excited to write? Share a snippet or tell us about it!

🍕Will you be making any changes to your posting schedule (if you have one)? (Or do you want to establish a posting schedule?)

🛏 Is there a new trope you'd like to write this year?

🪩 Do you have any "good" writing habits you want to cultivate?

🎉 How are you going to be kind to yourself if you don't meet your goals?

💌 Are you willing to take requests or prompts for writing?

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actually now i’m curious

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What was the first meal your OC ever cooked/prepared without parental/career assistance?

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Tag the OC that’s a lawyer

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Tag the OC that’s broke

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November Prompts

heartbreaker

afterword

tapestry

folktale

result

day after

player

hewn

quiet bridge

what it took to get here

your turn

epistle

neon nostalgia

forgiveness

delayed flight

telemetry

distant screaming

corporal

the club

retired stuffed animals

pristine white

jet propulsion

devil-may-care

floral wallpaper

she's gone

the ships

rising temper

carapace

solar flare

frost-kissed