#(we learned that important lesson in canon UT)

[tsaritsa]

Congratulations on winning Nano!!! Any hot takes or unconventional tips on how to achieve a huuuge milestone like that in so little time?

Also, if you'd like to share, I'd love to hear more about the piece(s) you worked on during this year's event! Big yay if you want to tease us with a sneak peek as well. 🙂

Congratsss again!!!

ty!!!! i am afraid my tips might seem kind of obvious and not that much of a hot take but here's what worked for me:

writing sprints. do 10 min. do 17 min. do 30 min. whatever it is, just get words down on the page. after each sprint was finished i'd look at what i wrote, fix up the most glaring mistakes (espe if the words looked terrible. i've learned to live with a lot of spelling errors bc otherwise u waste too much time. during nano each day i'd prolly manage between 2-3 sprints -- usually enough to net me between 1000-1500 words each day. i wouldn't stop if i hit the daily total, i'd stop when i could feel the motivation waning. my lowest day was under 300 words, my biggest was just over 4000.

get a community. writing sucks alone. i feel very grateful that i've made some friends on here who were also trying to write regularly, so now there's 5 of us in a little discord i've made. we do sprints with each other and share lots of snippets, memes, pretty pictures etc. it keeps us excited about our own projects, but also allows us to cheerlead each other on.

get used to placeholders. i use TK. anytime there's a word i need but it's not on the tip of my tongue? TK my beloved. sometimes i'd write like she sighed in a TK kind of way, or like harry opens his mouth to argue about TK TK some work thing he's doing TK TK. it just keeps u in the pace of writing ur in, but allows for a few words to be spent writing down a piece that needs further expansion.

establish habits and goals. for me, it's stuff like trying to write the bulk of my writing with a nice candle lit, but also the silly stuff like putting on lippy so I feel like. Ready to do shit. have a few drinks avail. one to hydrate (ice cold) one to caffeinate (also ice cold). play music or sounds that will help u get into the zone without overly distracting. now that i've won it i'm gonna treat myself to some silly purchases as well bc i should reward myself for such hard work and dedication. i'm thinking a v comfy hoodie.

overall if i didn't have the community i had this month i think my external motivation would've been lost quickly, so find friends to yell at about ur project. watch yt videos about ppl doing writing! make posts and don't give a flying fuck about being cringe or not suiting ut 'aesthetic'. this is u. do it for U.

in terms of this project: the short version is hermione goes back to hogwarts post book 7 and has to slowly begin to recover from/learn to live with the PTSD she's gained. alas, draco is also back and she's gotta learn to make peace with the fact that he's allowed to want to change and that he's making small steps to become a better person than who he was. they're gonna kiss and be disgusting with each other. ultimately this is a story about hermione's journey, as the whole thing is written from her perspective, so although the dhr aspect is there, there are also other important relationships i want to focus on -- especially her and harry.

i'm ignoring/expanding on a lot of canon, and using some details from the movies i prefer over the books (namely her mudblood scar bc mmmmm parallels). i don't really know if anybody is in character but i don't care! this is my story and i'll do it how i see fit haha.

the following excerpt comes from late sept in the current draft. at this point dhr has been forced together a few times already. draco has surreptitiously managed to drug slughorn with a potion of his (slughorn's) own making during their potions class bc the potions professor was spending an entire lesson just showing off instead of. u know. teaching.

[au-underpunk-blog]

Howdy! Does any of you creatures want some BACON SOUP!?

(In the end they still didn’t figure out what bacon soup was)

Moral of the story: never let Undyne make exotic foods 

[deadly-devotion]

♥ ☄ ❀

RP Positivity Meme: here - Gonna do these a bit out of posted order. xD. Cause one is looong. 

☄ Has roleplay positively affected your life in some ways? 

I think so. I’ve met a lot of people I would’ve never otherwise have talked to (the wonders of being incredibly introverted) through the wonders of roleplay. Most of the friends I’ve made are because of roleplay and writing. 

At the same time, roleplay has taught me a lot about getting into character. And in a profession where my patients derive their strength from me, it’s important to project confidence, kindness, and sincerity. I don’t think I would’ve been able to express myself as well as I can now if it were not for roleplay.

❀ What is your favorite thing about your current fandom or RP community?

The people, I think. I don’t really have many fandoms to compare it to since Undertale was the first fandom I actually roleplayed seriously in. But when I compare it to my roleplaying experience before when I was on Gaia, I have to say the people are just better.

There’s not really any onemanupship or elitism. There’s no forced deathmatches that people try to drag others into (which was one of the reasons why I eventually left). And it just seemed that everyone got along better. 

I think I’m really blessed that this was the first fandom I decided to roleplay a canon character in because I feel a lot of people have taken the lessons of UT to heart. :)

♥ What’s the absolute best experience you’ve had in RP?

The absolute best? :) An incredibly fun battle scene between two factions in a localized zombie apocalypse. 

To give some background, I ran a hacker gal named Risette Yue at the tumblr appropriatedinsight before her blog got taken over by her daughter created through soul-shennanigans. She’s your classic internet troll + hacker online. But in real life, she’s pretty much a shut-in because she had an incredibly powerful empathic gift she couldn’t control - and she believes she’s normal like everyone else. It’s just that everyone else can control their empathy better.  

She somehow makes friends with a flame-wielding alien/self-styled superhero named Flamma and a cold, necromancer skeleton named Sofia Saxon. And all three attempt to take control of Strathen City from another roleplaying faction, Descopera, which is the company that owns Strathen. And since the setting is a localized zombie apocalypse / modern fantasy, there’s an army of mutants and zombies to deal with.

Of note, the only reason why Rise actually joined up in the attack was because Saxon was all “hey look, descopera was working with advanced robot tech, look at this arm. now imagine all the stuff you can play with if we take over the building.” With that, Rise was pretty much hooked l o l. 

Unlike the other two who are blessed with amazing powers, Rise’s pretty normal, so instead she runs support from an armored truck with a mercenary army she hired. When it looks like the takeover would be completed, it’s discovered Descopera is going with a Scortched Ground policy. The Tower, the tallest building in the city, collapses, and everyone learns that Descopera was a lot more advanced with their genetics project than everyone thought. 

Everything goes into chaos. Saxon goes insane with fury. An unknown hacker/A.I. slips into the channels Rise was using to command the mercenaries and gets them killed. Rise nearly dies from both the building collapse and the empathic feedback of the nearby hospital getting slaughtered and Saxon’s rage. Rise’s original power transformed - and she manages to use Suggestion with a single “stop”, cutting through Saxon’s rage and stunning the A.I. from progressing. With the battle lost, Flamma saves Rise who’s dying from that single exertion, and all three escape. The chapter ends. 

I couldn’t do it justice honestly, but it really was my absolute favorite moment in RP because everything, from all the slice-of-life to the drama to the foreshadowing to the preparation, all culminated into this moment. 8)

P.S: Just to give you an idea of what Rise’s like: here’s her last will and testament.