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oh wow! i currently use LibreOffice (anyone currently using Google Docs please try out LibreOffice) but Notepad++ is actually a brilliant idea, especially i'm writing something i plan to publish in a way thay requires formating. like, sure i could include markup stuff in LibreOffice, but that just feels wrong...

plz reblog for science

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20 Questions Writer Questionnaire

Tagged by @saturnine-saturneight

Is writing a hobby or way of life?

Still just a hobby, but I want to make it much more a part of my life. Getting off to a rough start, but this blog is part of that plan.

A journal full of writing notes or a clean, completed manuscript?

Hmm… I'd say 50/50 probably? During the planning stages, to figure out aspects of the world or my characters, I'll use notebooks as something like scratch paper to sketch things out (sometimes literally) before writing them up in digital documents. But all those notes are largely just for the sorts of things that could cause continuity errors. A character's appearance, the geography and climate of a location, etc. When I sit down to write, it's usually by opening a blank document and just writing by the seat of my pants.

Who (or what) is your writing inspiration?

Oh that's a tough one. There's a couple of authors who I look up to in aspiration, usually for stylistic reasons; Pratchett, Tamsyn Muir, Diana Wynne Jones…

But honestly? I think most of my inspiration comes from the people I think fell short. Like… "Okay, you had a couple good ideas here and there, but the overall story is just… so disappointing. Let me see what I can do with these pieces."

Oh! One work that does fall on both sides of this fence is Final Fantasy IX. Its world manages to feel so incredibly real to me, and I love how it manages to maintain an incredibly personal and intimate tone for all of its characters, even as the plot builds to saving all of reality from the manifestation of entropy (not kidding, the "Not Alone" sequence that kicks off the third act still makes me tear up). But it still has shortcomings inherent to being a turn-of-the-century JRPG, and not all of its characters get all the narrative attention they deserve. But writing a story that I can conceive as an improved version of FF9 (whatever medium it winds up being) is probably my number one writing goal.

Which is worse: someone you "idolize" reading your first draft or listening to you sing?

Probably singing? I'm not horribly self-conscious about it - I did have some lessons once (a long time ago) - but I pretty much always want people to read my writing, if only to give me feedback on what they did like, and what I might do better.

Has writing from someone else's POV ever changed your own perspective?

…Not unexpectedly. I'll actually sometimes do a little bit of writing as an exercise specifically to explore certain points of view. So like… usually, if my mind changes due to writing from a particular character's POV, I started writing with the intent to see if my mind might change. Granted, that's pretty oversimplifying of the process, and mind-changing tends to be pretty gradual and slow, anyway, but…

Tumblr, AO3, LiveJournal, or FFN?

AO3 and Tumblr. I've been active on Tumblr for years, though I've only recently started writing on it. Meanwhile, I've been reading fic on AO3 for ages, and …very occasionally post stuff to it. …I really ought to post a new chapter to my Freyatrix fic, thinking about it…

AO3 wordcount, and are you satisfied with it?

3,744 and I'm not horribly stressed about it, but as I mentioned in the previous answer, I should see about maybe hitting 5k soon.

What movie/book/fic gripped you irrevocably?

Counting games under this.

Final Fantasy IX, as previously mentioned

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

The Last Unicorn

The Locked Tomb

The Fallen Gods series by S.D. Simper

Backwards to Oregon by Jae

Heaven Will Be Mine

The Clinch by Nicole Disney (specifically for teaching me to appreciate present tense narration, which I had previously been firmly opposed to)

Carmilla and all its adaptations and spin-offs

The Harrietta Lee series by Stephanie Ahn

A Memory Called Empire

the mountain of unfulfilled potential in Warcraft has haunted me since I started writing

and a whole host of honourable mentions that I'd be listing all night, if I started

There will also absolutely be two or three things I think of tomorrow that I'll be slapping myself for having forgotten, but... alas.

What’s the highest compliment you’ve ever been given, and have you been given it?

I can't think of any single compliment I've been given, but the number of times people have complimented the flow of my writing has stuck with me.

What defines your writing style?

I think it's that flow, again, mostly. Whether it's action or description, I have a feeling I have a fairly signature way of handling it. I think I also have a knack for maintaining characterization.

Gonna pull the "I'm still new here so don't yet know a lot of people, so all of my followers may consider themselves tagged, if they wish." thing again.

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a bad portrait is still a better portrait than no portrait. and it'll get you one step closer to making a good portrait.

What if I tried to paint a portrait of one of my characters

Pros:

It could be really awesome

I need to work on painting more

Cons:

If I fuck it up I'd be so sad

I've only done one painted portrait before, so chances I fuck it up are high

Idk I think I should just bite the bullet

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OC Questionnaire

Thank you so much for the tag, @illarian-rambling and I apologize so much for taking so long to get around to it. My questions were:

What's your least favorite household chore?

Do you have a tell when you're lying?

What other media genre would you do the worst in?

And I'll be answering for Taninna.

What's your least favorite household chore?

"Sewing and mending clothes. I just don't have the patience for it, and I always come away having stuck my fingers so many times with the needle."

Do you have a tell when you're lying?

"I tend to stand very straight and still, looking the person straight in the eye. I'm pretty sure I forget to blink, even."

What other media genre would you do the worst in?

"Hmm... I don't really like it when people start telling ghost stories around the fire at night. So if I ever wound up in one of those, I don't think it would end well."

I'll tag @saturnine-saturneight and @marlowethelibrarian and anyone else is welcome to consider themselves tagged, as well! My questions for you are:

What is your favourite kind of story?

If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?

What bad habit would you be most unwilling to give up?

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hi, sorry for the long absence! had a bad head cold, then work got extra stressful, and now i have a move coming up, but i don't want to wait til all of that's over to post something, so gonna try and squeeze in a bit tonight.

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i was really planning to have some new writings up by now, and i've got a new tag game to participate in, but i've been dealing with a head cold for the last few days ;o;

i do hope to have something up later today, though.

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character cuddleability scale

@saturnine-saturneight tagged me (here)

How-to: Rate your OCs based on how they handle cuddling/being cuddled.

I didn't expect to get tagged so soon, so most of my OCs that I intend to be writing about on this blog are gonna be a hot minute before they actually make their debuts (and I'm not even 100% sure who all I actually will wind up writing about and who I won't). but I'm excited to be participatory, so let's get started! :D

Chayal: She'd feel incredibly awkward about it, but would probably give pretty good ones, actually. Just... her mix of awkwardness and physicality would perfectly balance each other out to result in firm but tender hugs. And I mean, who wouldn't love being hugged by a butch martial artist? If you're the one hugging her, though, she's going to go as rigid as stone for a moment before returning the hug. And if you tried to surprise her with a hug from behind... Bad idea. Just don't.

Taninna: If you're someone who she feels comfortable hugging, prepare for an exuberant hug! She'll squeeze you are hard as her noodle arms can manage!

Beatrise Zolnerowich: Beatrise? Hug? Not likely.

Euria Bakarne: Her hugs would be very polite and formal, and only in response to someone else initiating it. To convey comfort to another, she'd be more likely to simply rest a hand on a shoulder or arm, and to convey affection, she would more likely just rest her head on Beatr- er, I mean... whoever's shoulder.

Tobias Beval: Immediately check your pockets and make sure you still have your wallet if Tobias ever tries to hug you.

Isen Lohceolt: Someone please hug this woman.

Jari: If you were to hug him, he would spend the entire time sputtering and complaining about wrinkling his shirt and getting dirt on his robes. But he will allow the hug to last as long as you want, which is kind of his own way of showing affection.

Since I'm so new to writeblr, I don't really have a substantial network of friends to tag in these yet, so I'm just going to say that if you're following me, consider yourself tagged, if you want!

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11th fall of Shiman, 631 g.a.

The figure loomed over the girl as if conjured from the sands themselves. Even half delirious from thirst, she wondered how she hadn't noticed them before they were crouching down to lift her. As she slipped into unconsciousness, she caught a glimpse of garnet eyes and violet-blue skin. Well... an ifrit claiming her was, at least, a more unusual way to die in the desert.

When she awoke, the girl found a waterskin lying next to her. She reached for it and weakly tugged at the stopper.

"Let me," said her captor, taking the skin and opening it before raising it to the girl's chapped and scabbed-over lips. She gulped down the water so fast she started choking. The woman took away the skin and firmly patted the girl's back until the choking subsided before handing her back the skin. "Slowly now, or you'll just piss it all out again anyway. There's going to be little enough to get us to the next town, if we don't manage to encounter some Saati Kizh along the way."

The girl nodded and tried to drink more slowly. Once her throat was soothed, she took in her surroundings. The fading sunlight illuminated a small cave, barely large enough for four or five grown men to lay in shoulder-to-shoulder. The woman had returned to her travel pack, shuffling through its contents.

"So you aren't taking me to the otherworld?"

Without looking up, she replied, "I do not intend to head there yet."

The girl nodded as she watched the woman lay out her cloak and shifter her pack to one end, apparently to use as a pillow.

"You are an odd demon..."

The demon whipped her head towards the girl, garnet eyes boring into her. "A demon?" she asked, more with bewilderment than fury. Laying her head back down on the makeshift pillow, and staring up at the cave ceiling, she sighed. "Yes, I suppose I am."

As the cave rapidly darkened, the demon said, "Get some sleep. We have several more days of travel before us, and you best not slow me down."

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Hallo! I'm Liz, she/her (I do use other pronouns sometimes in other contexts, but for here I'm just going to use those), white transfem butch dyke, and that's probably about as much personal detail as I feel comfortable giving here.

I am a former artist with a particular passion for fictional cartography and struggling writer. I'm hoping to use this as a place to just kinda get back into the groove of writing, in part by just relaxing and having some fun with asks, tags, and some drabbles.

Something specific I plan to use this blog for is basically as an outlet for the dozens upon dozens of TTRPG characters I can't help but cooking up, but will likely never get the chance to play, simply because there are far too many of them at this point. Many of them were brewed up for Pathfinder and its setting of Golarion, but since not all of them were, and most I created to be able to adapt into other settings anyway, I'll be cooking up my own setting to drop everyone into. Do expect the occasional obvious expy, though, since a few of these characters did wind up being very tied to the setting.

Anyway, since this is a place I plan to use to just unwind and have fun with writing, don't expect any overarching narratives or intricate plots. More than likely, there'll be some that crop up naturally here and there, of course, but for the most part I expect to just be writing whatever strikes my fancy at a given moment.

Since I'm cooking up a setting for this too, in addition to scenes and drabbles about given characters, I'll probably also make the odd lore post about the setting or its history. I rather enjoy worldbuilding, and have especially been wanting to experiment with using a very... Watsonian approach to setting lore (and especially history), so expect these posts to be written in-universe in some manner (inspired in large part by @janspar from the Artifexian podcast and his approach to writing worldbuilding).