#and if you do this while you're drafting you tend to need a lot less restructuring later in my experience

[essektheylyss]

the only thing I keep notes on when writing is stuff that's already been signaled and needs to come back somehow, and I try to keep those notes as condensed as possible because if they're too lengthy or I have too many items I'll start missing things, but that gets very funny when I jot down something like

[ghostbite0]

The horrors have returned D: I hope you get better soon!

Anyway if you're up to it I'd love to hear about the pint sized pillars "kid modes" that they have. It's so cute :( I just want them to have happy childhoods

hi anon! im so sorry i took so long to respond to this ask— this ended up in my drafts with how often i was going back to edit it haha ;u; i had to brainstorm a bit!

in order of eldest to youngest—

gyomei

sweetest soft spoken sensitive teenager ever

he really doesn’t change all that much— he’s definitely less “leadery” and “old” though. he acts like any other kid

very gentle and humble. he gets easily flustered

amane gave him a kiss on the head and gyomei had to excuse himself

sanemi and tengen found him knelt down and trying to hold back tears. he was not expecting such affection since he’s used to always being the caretaker

one day he was deep in kid mode while everyone else was fine. and him being so naturally kind and loving caused several of them to drop down with him

tengen

he’s 10x more silly and playful

however it’s also obvious he has some self confidence issues

tengen doesn’t go kid mode a lot but when he does he gets really embarrassed and upset about being seen like that

he’s like those disney channel cartoons where the little kid thinks someone is really beautiful so he constantly gives them flowers and gifts. thats him with suma, makio, and hinatsuru

“honey you don’t need to do that… we’re all married to you in the future!”

“WE’RE MARRIED?”

when tengen recovers from kid mode he is as red as a tomato while his wives fawn over him and reassure him its okay

kid mode tengen loves playing with the little ones, and rough-housing with sanemi and rengoku

giyuu

ohhhhh he’s a happy little thing. it freaks everyone out at first

very friendly and compassionate, though he mostly keeps to himself

kid mode giyuu is a little more talkative, but only after he comes out of his shell

usually it’s one of the older boys or shinobu who can get him to engage with everyone

if one of the other kids struggles he will awkwardly shuffle over and give them a hug

kid mode giyuu is fairly close with rengoku, kid mode or not

he also really likes being around sanemi and obanai, since they are his age

if all three of them , or if just sanemi and obanai , are in kid mode, they’re a trio of best friends

sanemi

he is so god damn helpful

sanemi is pretty sweet and smiley, and he always leaps at the opportunity to help one of the other kids

kid mode sanemi tends to constantly wander up to kagaya (or whoever is babysitting) and ask what he can do

but every time they just reassure him its ok, and he should go be a kid and play with the other ones

he’s disappointed but then he gets really excited when tengen and rengoku invite him to play and he’s the happiest little thing

kid mode sanemi likes hanging out with the big kids, especially tengen. tengen (and kid mode tengen) think its sweet, and make a point of including him whenever they can

he’s weirded out by genya being older and taller than him but genya makes up for it via piggy back rides

obanai

shy and jittery little thing. he doesn’t drop his guard until a bit into the transformation, even in kid mode

usually the telltale sign of obanai being in kid mode is how small he looks. he curls in on himself and his eyebrows furrow with anxiety

he’s also way more flustered around mitsuri. he has a big crush on her. kid mode mitsuri and mitsuri both find it adorable— though she doesn’t recognize the “crush” aspect. mitsuri just finds obanai very sweet and open

he is also really sensitive. you break a rule in a game? he’s upset. you take someone’s spot? he’s upset. you try to steal food from mitsuri? run

he always needs to be warm … if obanai is the only one in kid mode, you better believe everyone is offering him a warm hug or snuggles

obanai has a hard time choosing who to go to, so then half of them/all of them have a group hug

he whispers a lot. it can be hard to hear him sometimes

when he wants something, he frames it as “kaburamaru wants x” or “kaburamaru says y”

rengoku

think regular rengoku but now a literal child

honestly people cannot tell when he’s in kid mode or not. rengoku is sweet and chaotic no matter what

though kid mode rengoku tends to address everyone in a very polite manner. he calls gyomei “mr. himejima,” despite gyomei telling him he didn’t have to

he does get a little sad when people mention his dad. he will straight up start crying his heart out if he’s reminded of his mom in any way

kid mode rengoku tries to be a big brother to senjuro, and senjuro plays along, but then it cuts to rengoku being fast asleep and senjuro tucking him in, or senjuro having to help his brother get ready for bed

rengoku talks about senjuro whenever he can, kid mode especially. he has no filter at all

he would be a leash kid purely because he has a habit of forgetting small things and getting distracted and wandering off because he saw a cool butterfly and wanted to tell senjuro about it

mitsuri

similar to rengoku she doesn’t change all that much, but she’s even sweeter and more emotional than before

and like rengoku she’s more polite, though she doesn’t really have any problem asking for things or communicating her needs

kid mode mitsuri wanted to rough house too, but the older boys thought she would get hurt. she proceeded to lift sanemi up and hold him above her head

since then she has been invited to play with them every single session

she thinks obanai is super cute and is less filtered about it. same with muichiro, though mitsuri will just walk over and pinch his cheeks or scoop him up into a hug

when they play house, mitsuri is always the mama, and muichiro is always her baby

she and shinobu regularly team up to do the boy’s hair and makeup

shinobu

mischievous little beast

scary smart, but way more obvious about it

this four year old will casually list all the elements on the periodic table then pretend nothing happened , as to intimidate the others

everyone fears her

LOTS of batting her eyelashes and an extended “pleeeeaaaaassssseeee”

she has her rage and can be a grumpy kid. she’s usually well behaved, but if she didn’t get a nap, or if she’s hungry, that’s when she gets more bristly and sensitive

shinobu tends to be more open too. there’s multiple instances where she started getting really sad out of nowhere, and when pulled aside by gyomei, she would start crying about how much she misses her big sister

she and kanao are still extremely close. kanao loves having a little sister, and does her hair and plays dress up with her

she still pesters giyuu. though when giyuu is also in kid mode, the two can usually be found giggling and chatting, and giyuu will give her piggy back rides and what not

muichiro

literally a one year old baby

the sweetest and happiest little baby. he is usually seen smiling and his giggles will fill up the room

he loves being around the others. he especially loves “play time” because he’ll crawl around on the ground and go right up to people

mostly gyomei. he mostly approaches gyomei

but as happy as he is, he cries pretty easily. can’t find his stuffed bunny? cries. cant fall asleep? cries

everyone spoils the hell out of him. they love when he goes baby mode. he is the cutest little thing

lots of idle babbles and muichiro making one-worded sentences that mostly consist of him saying someone’s name or pointing out something

amane and kagaya are extremely paternal to the point baby mode muichiro refers to them as his mama and papa

it breaks everyone’s heart

the baby always wants someone’s attention. even if its as simple as being in their arms. he especially loves being with gyomei

there have been several instances where he noticed obanai wasn’t eating, and would try to feed him his baby food so “obi” could get a full belly

tengen and sanemi started laughing and it resulted in the two getting a face full of mushed up veggies and rice

[annabelle--cane]

Do you have any recommendations for vampire movies. I need to check off a list

YES okay here's a bunch I've watched and liked in the last few months:

nosferatu 1922; german, silent, black and white. every time I go to watch a silent movie I think "ugghhh this is gonna be boring" and then it rules. if you are a dracula enjoyer, this is actually a fairly faithful adaptation up until It's Not, and there are some interesting visuals and story choices to ponder.

let the right one in 2008; swedish. surprisingly tender romance between two lonely tweens intercut with lots and lots of violent murders in austere snowy winter settings.

a girl walks home alone at night 2014; iranian, black and white. less driven by plot, more by visuals and style. very slow, thoughtful, and emotionally evocative film occasionally broken up with scenes like "guy takes ecstasy at a costume party while dressed as dracula and can't get himself home so a vampire takes him back to her place by pushing him on her skateboard that she recently stole from a child." also there's a cat.

bit 2019; american. kind of falls apart in the third act but it's fun enough that I'd say it's worth a watch anyway. trans girl graduates high school, moves to LA, and falls in with a lesbian vampire girl gang, ft. an extremely good sequence set to "rasputin."

thirst 2009; korean. haven't actually finished watching this one, but it is absolutely balls to the walls. so much sex and blood and bloody sex and sexy blood and catholicism. catholic priest volunteers to participate in medical trials and gets infected with a rare blood disease, and, whoops, now he's a really horny but tortured vampire. tense as all hell, based on the french novel therese raquin.

renfield 2023; american. is this a good movie? no. is it extremely fun? yes. very much a popcorn movie with gore so excessive that it crosses beyond the pale and becomes slapstick. this renfield is a bit of a renfield / jonathan harker hybrid character, suffering under the same old vampiric abusive boss over 100 years, and he's starting to want to try and break free of dracula's thrall.

byzantium 2012; british. gorgeous visuals, lovely performances, imo the script could have used another draft but it's very watchable. two vampire women bounce around england trying to avoid capture by the vampire authorities, but the younger of the two is getting fed up with having to lie about herself to everyone and move constantly. interesting one to compare to bit, they're doing a lot of similar thing wrt gender dynamics and vampirism as power.

broad content warning, there's a lot of sex, violence, and sexual violence across this selection, if anything of that sort tends to upset you then I'd recommend checking the doesthedogdie page for any film in which you're interested.

[rocksibblingsau]

We had several asks discussing and asking about Funk Branch/Lownote Jones, but never for the other Branchs... So, if you're to be so inclined, Branch/LJ (we need a better ship name tbh) dynamics for some of the different AUs? Pretty please *batting my eyelashes*?

Rock Branch: They meet during the "world tour" arc. I can't get into how they actually MEET but Lownote is intrigued by him. Branch isn't sure why this objectively cool guy is hanging around him but he's not about to complain. His friends are definitely going to tease him about it though.

Since Rock Trolls tend to not establish they're in a relationship, Lownote (trying to do things the Rock Troll way) decides that they're dating. He didn't exactly do it right, there's a lot of nuance, which Val calls him out on.

"No you didn't do it right, you suck at this."

Lownote's actually pretty good at adapting to the other tribes, so he's also popular with Rock Trolls, but in a 'Woah the prince's boyfriend is so cool' kind of way. The tabloids also agree that Lownote is Branch's boyfriend. Branch is still not aware of this.

Techno Branch: Laguna is discussing the Techno tribe's defenses and many of the Funk Trolls are interested in the Troll who made them. They go visit Techno Reef and Branch is in the middle of trying to make a portable rave.

It catches on fire.

Underwater.

Branch is thrilled that people want to see his defenses. He shows off all the traps and censors he has. While not nearly as advanced as what Funk has, they're impressed because they know the other tribes have less technology than them. Lownote invites Branch to a Funk lab.

Thing is, there's one huge difference between Techno labs and Funk labs, which is gravity. Branch is used to just setting things down in the water around him and after about five broken test tubes they catch on that it's a huge adjustment. Lownote thinks it's cute though.

Classical Branch: He's immediately charmed by Lownote the way most people are. He does what he never thought he'd have the courage to do and sends Lownote a wedding proposal. Lownote turns him down and Branch is of course a bit disappointed and embarrassed but he goes on about his day.

Thing is, Lownote gets proposed to a lot. To the point he forgot that's how Classical Trolls ask someone out.

(I imagine this somehow gets out to the Classical Trolls and it's QUITE outrageous to them that THE Branch Chrysostomus Trollzart sent Lownote a proposal and he turned HIM DOWN???!!! Does the man have no taste?! No one has EVER gotten such a letter before and it was WASTED on a Troll who does not understand what he is missing out on)

Lownote actually does think Branch is pretty cool, but he's not into the Trolls who are TOO big of fans of his. I can't blame him, dating a superfan would be very weird. I think he elects to talk to Dante about it, who has a lot to say. Lownote gets out that he's kinda interested in Branch before Dante interrupts him.

"Interested? My dear friend the only interesting thing is your absolutely heartless reply to Branch's proposal! And now you have the audacity to say you are interested in him? Does your heart secretly harbor only the most cruelest of desires?! The shame you have brought to him is only matched by the shame you brought to yourself in the same stroke of a pen!"

Lownote is very confused until Dante explains that Branch asked Lownote out in Classical and Lownote's reply, while very kind to anyone looking from the other 5 tribes, was the classical equivalent to going 'ew why would you think you had a chance', and it was ONLY because Branch has experience with other tribes that he didn't take it to mean that.

Lownote drafts another reply/apology, this time with Dante looking over his shoulder, where he explains that he misunderstood the proposal and he's actually very interested if Branch would have him.

[juice-drinker27]

Black Butler hug headcanons!!

Hey yall LMAOKSJSJ-

I'm so sorry for kinda ghosting this account for a while, things have been crazy lately but I've wanted to get something posted here for a while! The majority of this has been sitting in my drafts for a while so I tried to get it finished it up tonight!! I hope y'all enjoy! <3

Sebastian

- He is definitely super teasing about you wanting a hug from him BAHSJSH-

- "Hm? What is that? A hug? You're too cute."

- He'll straight up walk away from you a few times, a shit-eating smirk on his face the whole time.

- When you finally do break him down enough to oblige, he will finish off whatever task he's doing and give you his full attention

- "You still want me to give you a hug?" he would ask, raising his brows at you. "Let me see you, then. Come here."

- His hugs would be very gentle, with his arms normally wrapping around your shoulders, no matter if you're taller or shorter than him.

- He would definitely pull you into him, with your face buried in his shoulder or his chest, and his chin rested on top of your head.

- Once you get closer to him, he would become slightly less teasing about it and begin initiating hugs with you!

- He's definitely the type of person to creep up on you and hug you from behind like bro is SILENT when he wants to be and will definitely use that to his full advantage

- Like you would just be tending to whatever you normally do and BOOM two arms have been snaked around your waist as he pulls you to his chest, pressing his cheek to your hair.

- All in all I feel like he's surprisingly gentle, especially once you get to know him!

Mey-Rin

- Mey-Rin is absolutely the type of person to stop EVERYTHING she is doing if you want a hug!!

- Especially if you want a hug because you're upset or anything like that, she's immediately just like

- "Oh, come now, don't be upset!! Come over here, tell me what's been botherin' you!"

- Even if you're not upset and just want a hug for the sake of having a hug she wouldn't hesitate at all!

- She would be a little confused if you came up to her, arms extended, but once she understands what you're wanting she'd immediately drop what she's doing and extend her arms back, wrapping you in a warm hug

- "Ohhh, you're so sweet, yes you are!"

- She would definitely still ask you if you're alright or if you need to talk about anything before she gets back to work

- And if you do need to talk?

- Mey-Rin is getting absolutely no work done BWHSJSH

- She would absolutely spend her whole day talking with you if it meant you would be happy!

- Her hugs would be so gentle.... after she gives you a few rib-crushing squeezes

- She would definitely hug by holding one hand to your back and another to the back of your head

- Mey-Rin is probably too shy to initiate hugs, but she's always more than happy when you offer her one!!

- Eventually, she would feel confident enough with you to walk up to you sheepishly, slowly opening her arms and smiling nervously

- But that's about as forward she she gets BWHSJSHJ

Undertaker

- oh he is absolutely a hugger like he will ask you for a hug the minute he sees you!!

- Tbh he probably wouldn't even ask he would just hold open his arms and engulf you in the ginormous sleeves of his shirt BWHSJSH

- He'll always hold you close to him, swaying gently as he savors your presence!

- If you're not that close to him, he would probably only hug you to annoy you or otherwise just be mischievous

- He'd probably just catch you in his sleeves as soon as you walk through the doors of his shop

- Just the second you step through, his sleeves are engulfing you as he goes, "Hehehe! Caught ya!"

- But the second you're close to him, his hugs would become much more genuine

- He's been through a lot of loss, and he'd get very clingy and just hold you tightly to make sure you're there with him

- He'd be very gentle but very firm at the same time, with his arms snaked around you and his head pressed to your shoulder

- The Undertaker would be absolutely over the moon if you ever initiated the hug! You'd literally be his favorite BWHSNSH

- I feel like he would absolutely be the type to pick you up and spin you around if he's excited to see you BAHSJ!!

thank you so much for reading I haven't written anything like this for a while (it's mostly been essays/reports recently LMAOSJSH) but I saw this in my drafts and wanted to finish it up and get it posted lol!!! I hope you have an amazing day don't forget to have some water ily <3

[linwelinwrites]

How I use Google Docs to write fiction

There are so many different options when it comes to how and where you write your fiction. There's ye olde MS Word, there's Scrivener, and Manuskript, and Evernote, and Notion, and... you get the gist. But out of all the options I've ever considered or tried out, GDocs is the one I keep choosing. It's what works best for me. I'll say that again, just in case: it's my personal choice because it's what I, personally, find most intuitive, it has everything I need and I'm comfortable with it.

Which is why I want to tell you how I find it useful, so that you can evaluate what works best for you.

My favourite things about GDocs are:

It's 100% free to use, no ads or limited features.

How easy it is to get used to, because of its many similarities with MS Word (which is what I used for school and extracurriculars when I was young).

Sync with the Docs & Sheets mobile app, to write wherever, even if I don't have my laptop on me. And the mobile app has a dark theme!

Availability offline. You can mark any document you want to be available even without internet, both in web and in the mobile app.

How many shortcuts I can use to avoid even touching my mouse (I'm a shortcut gremlin)

Amazing customisation possibilities to make your writing space exactly what you want it to be.

The advanced linking features to turn your folders into an interconnected wiki of sorts (yes, you could technically do a literal wiki, but this requires no bothersome setup)

Sharing. You can share your documents (or spreadsheets, or files, or even whole folders) with your beta readers, your co-writers, your editor if you have one (go you, fancy!), and decide how much control they have over it. You can even be on a call and edit or look at it at the same time, because it syncs by the second.

The main drawback of using GDocs is that if you're working on a long project (+30-50k), having it all in one file can slow down the site's performance, and the mobile app tends to crash on files that big. It sucks, but I honestly dislike big ass files anyway, so it doesn't bother me. I prefer shorter files that are easier to navigate.

There's more, but those are the reasons why even when I try other software, I still end up choosing GDocs.

Tips and Tricks

I've compiled a Guide to Google Docs and Sheets' best features when it comes to writing fiction. It covers all my fave features of both Docs and Sheets (web version). If you plan on using Gdocs and Sheets for writing, I think you should take a look. There's a lot of useful stuff in there!

If you like it, feel free to share it wherever you want. I humbly ask that you please credit me and link the original file.

Organising my documents

I have one big Writing folder, which contains the following:

Documents that keep all my ideas, thoughts and trackers in order: my "Writing Desk" (I'll get to that in minute), the recycle bin (a document with bits and bobs I had to cut but I want to reuse at some point because they're good), my NaNo word count tracker, and my Commint Archive, a compilation of the nicest comments I've gotten on my fics, to keep me going when I'm stuck and unmotivated.

'Resources' folder

This is where I keep my workskins, my templates, the files I've come across while researching, and the writing advice I've taken notes of.

'Fiction' folder

Since I mostly write fanfic, here is where I have my fics organised by fandom. My main fandoms each have their own folders, and there's another to stash all the fics for fandoms I don't usually write about.

Inside these folders, I have a simple system:

For every short work (drabbles, ficlets, one-shots, or multichapters that add up to less than 20k), I create one doc. Everything related to that fic will be in there: outline, research, draft, ideas, etc. I keep it tidy using headings (check the guide if you're unfamiliar with them), and I file that doc within its corresponding fandom folder.

For any longer work that adds up to 20k or more including outline, or has more than 10 chapters, I create a new folder inside the corresponding fandom folder, titled like the fic. Inside this fic folder, I keep:

• Outline, research, setting info, character profiles. If all of this combined is shorter than 50k, it'll all be in one single file. Otherwise, I separate it into individual files.

• Chapter drafts. If I have less than 15 chapters, they'll all be together in one doc. If I have 15 or more, I create a subfolder titled 'chapters' and keep them all in there, each chapter in a different doc.

• One outline spreadsheet to rule them all, one outline spreadsheet to find them, One outline spreadsheet to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them (into one cohesive unit for easy navigation)

How I keep all these files handy

There's nothing I hate more than having to search for a file I don't remember the name of or where I put it. So I devised a digital Writing Desk to keep everything writing related in one place.

If you want to know how it works and check it out for yourself, you can take a look at it here:

Template for my Writing Desk

A guide on how to use and tweak it to your liking

This keeps every link to all the dusty corners of my writing folder in one single spreadsheet, which makes the whole thing so much easier to navigate. I can find anything in seconds; from the fics I'm currently working on, to abandoned drafts I haven't touched in months, prompts I've come across, wild plot bunnies I came up with at 3 am, to every rarepair I want to write about, to every one of my notes with writing advice and resources I've found and hoarded over time.

Again, feel free to share all this (I'm excited to share it with whomever might need it), but please credit me and link the original files, not copies. It took me a long time to come up with this and documenting it was also a lengthy process.

I have more templates that I'll be posting about very soon, for different writing-related purposes. So...

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia! I was curious, as I understand, this story was written long time ago? Did you edit it with almost 10 years of practice on writing since 2014 now? And more in general, do you feel like writing is easier or not withos much practice (I read about smut, that it is harder now, but in general - worldbuilding, character creation and so on) ?

Hi hi anon!

Yeah the story was first drafted in 2014, and has gone through big edits since then (the latest being 2017, though I did some cursory stuff this year as well to just double check that it's not terrible).

Tbh, prior to 2014 I was writing like... very serious award winning short stories with tragic endings and winning awards for them, so I'm moderately confident the story is readable. I've been writing novels (for fun mostly) since 1995. And I have a university education in writing that started in 1999.

My fanfiction/serial style is very different to my 'I'm writing a book / I'm writing a short story' style.

I think it will feel different to my serials because I wrote it like a book, there's less sprawling character exploration, and the pacing is much, much tighter. There's a lot more focus on plot, and folks used to my serials might feel like the story ends really quickly! Because it's like much shorter (100k) than my serials.

If anything, I think these are the things to watch out for in Tradewinds:

100k novel means much tighter pacing and prose, and often very little time for too much character reflection.

Possibly not as much character exploration as people are used to from me (though there's still some!)

More plotting

Less smut, and the smut is also more 'vanilla' than what I normally write, because at the time I was a lot more wary about putting BDSM into the market. There are power dynamics though (i.e. a vibe where one character 'feels' more submissive to the other)

Robust scene-setting (i.e. description, place, anchoring)

Lively dialogue

I actually think I was probably a better literary writer back in the 00s but it wasn't much fun for me. I quit writing for a while and then picked it back up again to write fanfiction, which was easier and more relaxed for me. (And still is! The Ice Plague is an exception to that because it had more robust plotting and was structure more...formally.)

I honestly think writing gets easier or harder depending on the project and writing style involved.

Some writing gets easier with time, some doesn't. Sometimes that will flip or switch. Sometimes one thing is easy for years and then becomes harder with certain stories.

It was Gene Wolfe who said:

"You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing."

And yeah, I tend to believe for the most part that's true with how hard or easy something is. How ambitious a project is, its genre, its length, its complexity can all play into that.

I pick easier projects as my main projects right now, but I have hard projects coming up too!

I would say overall writing does become "easier" in the sense that foundational skills become second nature (I know how to build a character and their dialogue now without thinking about it, and while there's always more to learn, I can now start in a place of just knowing how to do that instead of knowing I need to learn how to do that), but that the stories themselves will still pose unique challenges to a writer.

Er so TL;DR yes writing for me is easier but I'm choosing easier things to write, and sometimes it's still very hard!!!

[feedthefandomfest]

Hi, I absolutely love this project and all the ideas but may I suggest an addition? I've seen a lot of posts trying to help people to comment, with the dos and don'ts, different ways to comment etc. but I have never seen a post on how to reply to comments as an author. Yet I've seen a lot of authors express that they don't actually really know how to reply or feel insecure about it.

So if we want to foster a fandom space that's more about community and less about content creators and consumers, maybe some resources about replying to comments might also help?

Ooh, yes. There are a few scenarios that come to mind where I commonly struggle in replying to comments:

just as a story that stirred up a tornado of amazing emotions makes a comment difficult to compose, a COMMENT that stirred up a tornado of amazing emotions makes a reply equally difficult!! how to express the jumbled joy and gratitude and excitement and and and

i find myself tone matching the comment? or trying to? only if the comment has a tone or style that i feel awkward utilizing, i'm afraid that awkwardness is coming across, and not in a charming way (ditto for feeling self-conscious if my reply is longer that the original comment. which... makes no sense?? it's like i'm afraid of coming across as desperate or something and i'm trying to play it chill 😂 THIS MIGHT JUST BE ME. I TEND TO OVERTHINK THINGS)

it's a WIP and i feel guilty for not updating in awhile, so my avoidant personality quirks hamstring my ability to reply... it's like i feel undeserving of the kindness? or like i use the comment to bargain with myself--go make progress on the WIP and then you can mention that in your reply!!--and then i fail to make progress and the bargain falls apart 😅

as a writer, i feel bad if my replies to different comments sound too similar. as though similarity = insincerity. OR like when you're drafting and you're like OH NO can't use that particular word/phrase because i just used it in a recent paragraph and surely others will notice the awk repetition and deem me clunky 🙃

very rarely, there are comments that make me feel shitty, often through some thoughtless phrasing (I truly don't think any of them intended to hurt my feelings), and so I'm left in the strange position of wanting to defend myself/my fic while wanting to avoid confrontation because i hate confrontation while wanting the commenter to be aware of how they might word things more sensitively in future while fearing i might alienate a reader when i need readers to LIVE 😭

Looking back on this list, it's very possible these are all manifestations of my very particular quirks and idiosyncrasies and whatnot, but it's also possible others are struggling in similar ways so I'm gonna post it anyway.

Any other aspects of replying to comments that writers struggle with? Any tips or tricks for how to reply to comments in a way that fosters community?

I'll start working on my own list of how I navigate the issues described above. Because I DO reply to comments and think it's so important for nurturing fandom life and inviting goodness into your own life.

Not to be too sappy but one of my best friends started out as a rambling raving commenter. One of those every chapter rambling raving commenters (the GOOD STUFF 🤌🏻), and I replied in kind, and then he found me on tumblr, and fast forward just shy of a year and he's one of my top precious people.

Posting fic, reading someone's fic, commenting, replying to comments -- all of these are weirdly intimate acts, in a way. Hence the awkwardness? Depending on the fic, it's like "hello, this is the product of my brain and my fingers touching the keys, and i may or may not have poured my heart and soul into it." and commenters who may or may not detect such things sometimes have the wherewithal to reply, "it was beautiful. wonderful. i loved it." and then what do you say? "thank you" doesn't feel adequate at all. AT ALL.

[gender-trash]

30's meme: 4, 5, 12, 19? (trying to collect opinions on what the Good Tapes are. think my tape game could be stronger)

4. Favorite chore?

watering my succulents :3

5. Least favorite chore?

THE FUCKING DISHES... they need to be done SO often and the noises & textures involved are both deeply, deeply bad. often there's slime or stickiness of some kind. this is why i don't do the dishes in the housemate chore division

my least favorite chore that i actually do, however, is the fucking laundry. you want me to do a thing and then come back in an hour and do another thing and then come back in an hour and do ANOTHER thing?

12. How many cups can you see from where you're sitting?

one (1), and it's in the Tea Robot ready for brewing tomorrow morning. we shan't say anything about the water bottle situation though

19. What's your go-to tape?

ok so i don't have one singular go-to tape because different tapes are appropriate for different purposes, BUT i will say i have been super into gaffer's tape lately. gaffer's tape is like... what duct tape wishes it was. it's SO fucking solid; i tape shit down with gaffer's tape and it damn well stays taped but there's somehow not as much sticky residue left afterwards as there is with duct tape.

when it's not a duct tape or gaffer's tape situation, i get a lot of mileage out of masking tape (esp when i only want something taped temporarily) -- i tend to prefer the off-white stuff over the blue stuff bc then i can also use it for labeling things. speaking of labeling, while i'm not on the whole a big user of washi tape, i quite like this writable tape from jetpens when i want my labels to be just slightly dressy. (i do own a label maker but tbh tape labels are way less fussy.)

also while i'm reccing semi-obscure tapes can i interest anyone in drafting dots? only occasionally do i encounter a situation where i actually need drafting dots but when i DO, damn am i glad i have them.

recently i've been using a ton of tyvek tape, but that's because i... bought a roll of it by accident (i figured tyvek tape was tape made out of tyvek, which i wanted for bookbinding purposes, but it's actually tape FOR taping pieces of tyvek TO EACH OTHER, which perhaps i should have guessed). it's kind of like amped-up packing tape, although i find packing tape sticks better to cardboard, and the tyvek tape roll is Too Thicc to fit in any of my packing tape rollers which makes it somewhat annoying to use. oh well! i persist nevertheless!

[blissents]

Devlog #1

Hi hi! ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ I don't really post often, but I told myself that starting in 2024, I wanted to share what I've been working on! I'm a solo game dev who has been developing a game called Visionaries. It's a romance visual novel that explores grief and loss.

༺✧ STORY ✧༻

"Visionaries": Special individuals with the ability to look into the past. There are a select handful of Visionaries who can also see into the future.

"What happens after we die?" The age-old question with no definitive answer. Many have constructed their own complex theories and stories to try and explain this mystery.

~~~~~

Explore the world of Visionaries as you wake up in an unfamiliar room, unable to speak and move. You're faced with unusual people (who tend to bicker any opportunity they get) only to later discover that they are your assigned Visionaries. These Visionaries have only one task; they intend on looking into your memories.

What is the purpose of Visionaries existing, and why do they insist on looking into your mind?

If you want to read more about the progress I've made on Visionaries, please continue reading below the cut! ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ

༺✧ ART ✧༻

Most of my time has been spent working on the art! (I can't feel my hand) My main focus is to finish drawing all of the character sprites as well as finish rendering the backgrounds. I've already come up with all the designs and expressions for the characters, they just need to be rendered :,)

I still need to create their little character info sheets (I have no idea what the word is, haha), where you'll learn their names, ages, and all of that fun stuff ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ

Below are some of the sprites :-)

The first two are fully rendered, while the other three need to be finished :,)

As for backgrounds, I have 1 that is fully rendered and 3 that still need to be finished! I'll only be sharing 3/4 today since I'm unsure if I'll be including the one background in the demo.

To be honest, I struggled quite a bit when drawing the backgrounds D: There were a lot of things I envisioned, but unfortunately, I didn't know how to fully portray them. I had some trial and error while coming up with the original designs. That being said, I'm glad I was able to come up with something I felt satisfied with! I'm planning for the rest of the backgrounds to follow the red/brown colored theme as seen in the first photo ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ

Of course, there will be more backgrounds than the ones I'm currently showing! I already have some ideas/drafts for those, but they might change depending on the way the story plays out.

༺✧ WRITING ✧༻

So far, I've planned for the demo to have a little less than 9k words. I'm unsure if I'll keep it at 9k words, or if I'll expand it some more so that there will be more content in the demo :-) We'll see!

As for the overall game, there will be at least 2 routes. There will also be 2 romanceable options (one being he/him, the other being she/they). I'm still figuring out how I want to script all of this, so these aspects may change in the future!

The game will also have options where you can choose your pronouns and name!

Here's a small snippet of the script!

I wanted to show the dynamic between two of the characters :-)

༺✧ OTHER ✧༻

Besides writing and coding, I've been coming up with some ideas for the GUI! I don't have any current drafts of that to share, but I'll hopefully include them in a future devlog ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ I also have plans on creating the cover art for the game, cgs, more backgrounds, and possibly some promotional art (rip my hand, there's so much I need to draw (╥_╥))

I was thinking about composing the music for the game, but I realized I know absolutely nothing about music and wouldn't even know where to start if I had tried :,) So instead, I've compiled a list of some soundtracks and sound effects I might use! Hopefully, I can share that in the future once I've narrowed down which soundtracks I know I'll be using.

༺✧ CONCLUSION ✧༻

My overall goal is to release the demo sometime during this year! Because I'm doing everything myself (art, script, writing, etc.), it might take me a bit longer to get everything done. My apologies for that! (╥_╥)

Besides that, I really just want to start creating and sharing more of my art. Getting over the mental hurdle of being afraid to show my work is honestly pretty terrifying for me. I normally only share the things I create with close friends, but I think it's time to get over this fear of mine! ᕦ(ò_ó)ᕤ

I was able to make significant progress within these past few weeks since I'm currently on my winter break. Classes start back up soon, though, and I'm going to be internship-hunting as well as planning on a big move. I'm still going to try my best to juggle everything so that I can make even more progress on the game! ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ

At the end of the day, all of this is a fun little project I've always wanted to do. As a little kid, I absolutely loved playing VNs (and I still do!). Creating my own game felt like an unreachable goal, but with enough effort, I think it's something obtainable ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ I really just want to create something that others can enjoy!

As a side note, I have some plans to create a little blog (not even sure if it's considered a blog, haha) about the games I've played/want to play! That will be coming very soon!

Thank you to anyone who read this far! You have my eternal gratitude <3

~ bliss ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ

[wishing-stones]

your concept of nightmares castle is super interesting! are there any other tidbits we haven't seen yet? or is that a spoiler?

Oh hey! Yeah, this is a good one. It's gonna be long, but this is gonna be good. And lore heavy.

Nightmare's entire castle is in a sort of pocket dimension-- not its own AU, its own little area in the multiverse that he can more-or-less control. Dream has a very similar pocket dimension, but his is a little cottage with a view of rolling hills and lots of flowers where it's always golden hour.

Nightmare's castle sits atop a rocky crag of a mountain that is above preceptory cloud level. It's always clear out, with the only clouds visible being cirrus and similar. Sometimes, the tops of thunderstorms pass by, giving the castle some ambiance, but there is never any lightning or rain.

There isn't really a daylight cycle, either. It is a little brighter in the "daytime," lightening into blue hour, and then gets a little purpley at dusk, and pinkish at dawn.

This doesn't really effect the vegetation any, since they mostly subsist off ambient magic rather than photosynthesis. They similarly do not need watering. (There's a bit of an exception for things that aren't part of the realm itself-- Nightmare's garden needs tending and watering, but they adapt to absorbing ambient magic in place of sunlight.) Parts of the mountain are forested, and grade more gently than some of the sheer drops that surround the castle-- the training pitch we've seen a lot of in recent chapters is naturally boxed in by part of the mountain, and has a small thicket on its other side. There's some bushes and other plants there as well-- It's not maintained, and the only paths through it are those that have been forced.

While the castle and its grounds are enormous, the mountain itself takes up most of the domain. There's about of mile of forest in all directions from the base of the mountain, but wandering off into it will either a. get you lost in the void, if you're not lucky b. get turned back around toward the castle, even if you were walking away from it c. 'fall' off the edge into a random AU. Sucks to suck.

The mountain is active, but because monsters in general are very good at harnessing geothermal energy, that's how he powers the whole thing. There's a core-like device inside the mountain that provides the castle with an endless supply of clean energy. It also provides almost all of the hot water used in the castle as well (which is why I had Ren note that the water smelled faintly sulphuric very early on.)

It has four wings, so from above, it sort of looks like a big plus sign. Some wings are larger than others, and the south wing has the tallest towers. It has ramparts as well, but no one's gone out on them in R&R. Kicking myself that I didn't utilize them LOL

I think? I said everyone has their rooms in the east wing? And the stars occupy the north wing right now. The west wing is where the gym, rec room, and pool/sauna are, the ballroom takes up a good part of the south wing, the entrance is on the first floor of the east wing, the dining hall is dead center, with the kitchens below it, the drawing room is west of the entrance, and on the second story of the main building is Nightmare's throne room and adjoining war room. The lab is beneath the western wing, and the dungeons are beneath the south wing, and at the top the tower IN the south wing is an observatory. Nightmare's office is near the east wing in the main hub, on the top floor.

The exterior is very gothic looking, made of dark stone with some gargoyles and the like, and along the longer wings (west/east) it has flying buttresses.

Other rooms that exist that haven't been shown/mentioned yet: -A chapel, which is mostly just there for The Aesthetic ✨ (There were a few of them in blueprints that Nightmare gathered to draft his own, so he included it.) It has no specified deity, but one of the stained glass windows is very clearly a depiction of the tree of emotions -A library, which briefly got mentioned, but it's enormous. It's towards the beginning of the west wing. -A laundry room, which clearly began life as a servant's quarters, but was repurposed when Nightmare built the place. There's dumbwaiter access to it, so it was a very obvious choice -An armory in the west wing that sees almost no use, since they tend to keep their weapons on their person, if they use them. It's mostly a showcase of fancy weapons and armor, but there's a few 'trophies' from battles they fought or particularly tough opponents they've taken down.

I think that about covers it! I've described the interior in great detail, but it's all black-and-gold rococo with touches of maroon in drapes and runners.

[fountainpenguin]

Frayed Knots 15,14,9,2

[Current Ask game]

Frayed Knots - Read on FNN || Read on AO3

#ridspoilers

---

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

My pacing's improved in more recent projects. Knots is pretty bogged down with things that still make me cringe, but it's also like that intentionally because it's Anti-Cosmo's bragging time and he takes pride in his memory and culture (plus he's long-winded in general and I wanted to reflect that). Still, I don't write in that style anymore (except for Knots since it's still ongoing, of course).

This 'fic was also my first (and only) long-term project with British English phrases and spellings, so I learned how to efficiently work as closely to that as I can despite not being a native user of those words.

I'm personally pleased with my success in creating a culture for the Anti-Fairies that's unique to them and completely at odds with Fairy World, but I acknowledge that the nature spirit stuff might not be everyone's cup of tea when they come to read a Fairly OddParents story, so I try to balance that.

There are a lot of little details in their culture that I really like, like Anti-Cosmo's claim that he's descended from the Teumessian fox and that he'd be an outcast if he shapeshifts into any animal besides a fox. Anti-Cosmo uses VERY little magic for the majority of Frayed Knots (using most of it during the war, and only when he has to) and I love both his attachment to his culture and the mental gymnastics he does every time he breaks the social norms.

I'm happy with how the Anti-Fairy culture came out, but it's also pretty far from the established canon and my interest tends to be higher when I'm working on something that's canon-compliant (such as writing a scene a character referenced off-hand in present day, or fleshing out the Wanda/Juandissimo relationship, or doing character studies), so... read that however you like.

[Cnt'd under the cut; content warning for mild 'adult themes' discussion]

tbh I've also enjoyed worldbuilding a fantasy sociosexual culture, because I thought it would be an interesting challenge that would add drastic context between Fairies and Anti-Fairies while also fitting well with their bat genetics and their social norms of accepting things that many Fairies recoil from.

Ex: You're much more likely to accept bullying and theft as acceptable behavior if your social norms already permit a flock hierarchy of creche fathers fighting for dominance. It's easy to be at odds with Fairy World when they mock your cultural beliefs, such as by insisting that Anti-Fairies are a shadow of their Fairy counterparts and wouldn't exist without Fairies, when clearly all the proof points to Anti-Fairies being unique creatures of smoke that grow attached to other creatures and reflect their appearance because of it.

Since the Anti-Fairies are antagonists in the show, I wanted to set up the appropriately "cruel and evil" vibe of their modern leadership while ensuring there's justification in their culture to explain why people might turn towards a leader who embodies strength.

Mm, I'd also say I learned I don't enjoy this vibe of romance? I don't hate romance... I just either need it to be blatantly shallow or deep and complicated in a way that's amusing. The late part of the A.C. and A.W. relationship is super messy, which fixes the boredom for me, but I don't love how these early stages are working out.

In the original draft, A.C. and A.W. barely interact until their honey-lock, which would be about 40-50 chapters in. Well, probably less since we can cut most of the Anti-Wanda content from the story. I personally feel like "barely interacting until they're pushed together" fits their personalities a lot better than meeting in their youth, but... I genuinely didn't think people would have the patience for that, so I adjusted Knots to include Anti-Wanda scenes earlier.

It's probably the right call, and maybe some people enjoy the romantic bits more than I do, but they just read as cliche to me so I struggle with liking them. There are a lot of romance tropes I dislike (such as denying your attraction in front of others) and the romantic side of Knots doesn't vibe with me the way that the "animal people politics" parts do, but I do my best.

I'm satisfied with the character goals Anti-Wanda has so she has actual stuff going on in her life (including emotionally rough and some very messed-up stuff). If these were my OCs then I think Frayed Knots would be what it is without the Anti-Wanda ship at all (and/or she'd be sprinkled in occasionally until she shows up during the honey-lock for real), because I think that's my preferred romance story for them. I don't really vibe with them hanging around each other for so many years; it just feels forced to me.

Also Anti-Wanda can do better.

14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

I hope it's obvious that I'm writing an evil villain backstory and that there are many, many things in this story that should not be glorified. Anti-Cosmo makes some seriously messed-up decisions throughout this 'fic, which is written for entertainment and not to be a guide for healthy relationships.

Same goes for Origin. Everyone sees themself as the hero of their own story. If you forget they're canonically the villains and they do some messed-up stuff that I would never condone IRL, I will cry.

Honestly if anyone's learned to love the Pixies, I'd be happy. Especially H.P. <3

Also if anyone develops an affection for the episode "Balance of Flour" and the characters in it, I'd like that. Anti-Bryndin makes his only appearance in this episode. No name, no dialogue, no context... but he's my boy.

Also, even though neither H.P., Sanderson, nor Anti-Cosmo is a ""good and correct"" representation of asexuality (i.e. in terms of healthy relationships), they are still ace. If anyone has learned more about asexuality through this 'fic (either from H.P. working out his feelings or because they were exposed to the concept here and did more research on their own), I'd be content with that.

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Yeah, you could say that. The official scrap doc for Knots alone is 25k words right now. It grows regularly, and that doesn't include the existing chapter drafts.

Perhaps the biggest change is that in the first draft, Anti-Cosmo's dad is alive, but walked out on his family. I do miss that. Once you commit to killing a parent when your protag is a baby, it's difficult to give them baggage or messy relationships with said person, who frequently gets romanticized. A.C. is absolutely romanticizing the father he never knew, who wasn't as great a person as he likes to think.

Another massive change was that originally, Anti-Cosmo's parents lived in a manor house. They were nobility, but didn't live in the castle. Anti-Bryndin was leader, but flock dynamics didn't exist in the worldbuilding so there wasn't any reason for them to live in the castle. The reason Anti-Cosmo lives in the castle in Knots right now is because his mother was brought under Anti-Bryndin's wing and she gave birth to both her children there.

I very briefly considered Anti-Wanda as heir apparent to Anti-Fairy World and Anti-Cosmo married into the family and that's how he rose to power. That's actually the world my short story "King Me" takes place in, and hopefully I'll be able to get it to a state I'm happy with so I can share it soon. It was drafted back in 2016. It's waited this long; it can wait until it feels right.

Oh. The earliest draft of Origin of the Pixies didn't have Anti-Cosmo show up until Anti-Sanderson had taken over as leader of the anti-pixies, and H.P. had to request permission to cross into Anti-Fairy World to talk with him.

I would say my happiest change in all my FOP works was switching that so H.P. and A.C. interact a ton more in their younger years (although if you look carefully at my earliest pieces like "Open Your Eyes," I think it shows that they were written for a world where A.C. and H.P. barely interacted).

Theeeeee other big change I could mention is Anti-Cosmo's.... ?? friendship? affair?? interaction with Prince Eastkal after the chapter "Deep" (where A.C. saves Eastkal's life and begs him not to confess, for the whole "I'll be disowned if they find out I shapeshifted into a dragon" bit).

In the current version, A.C. gets distracted [cough] and fails to meet the prince as promised. This leads Eastkal to pursue him several chapters later, with Eastkal making multiple attempts to talk to A.C. during "This Close to Heaven", "Floodgates," and "Crossroads". It works, but... it saddens me because this is not the attitude Eastkal has towards Anti-Cosmo in future chapters, which were drafted years ago with the assumption that they met up right after the dragon fight :/ I like the vibe of the first better and regularly wish I hadn't cut it.

Actually, that's another thing I've learned from Knots (and I even wrote a Tumblr post about this months ago before setting it aside under the belief no one would want to hear my vent about it). I cut that scene hoping it would be better for the story's flow and because I was tired and wanted to get to the zoo stuff, but since this is my fanfic I write for fun, I should've just let myself follow the direction I wanted to go. It's frustrating to want to write characters behaving a certain way because of what that cut scene would have done, and then having to change it back to what's "actually canon."

In my first draft, A.C. did meet Eastkal as planned (in the Pink Castle) and it involves a lot of soul-searching on both their behalfs. In current Knots, Eastkal does feel grateful that A.C. saved his life, but boy do I miss the dialogue of the original scene.

I cut the main scene because it was several thousand words on top of a very long chapter... I'd already split "Deep" into... 5 chapters at that point? And I really wanted to wrap up Arc 2 without struggling with another chapter, especially if it might wreck "the vibes." I convinced myself it broke the tension (Going from dragon attack to peace and then zoo), but it's the scene I regret cutting most, because there have been multiple times this year that I've wished it was there because I think it's important to show how A.C. acts (and because I think the scene's hilarious).

This cut meeting inspired Eastkal's attendance during migration season. Frayed Knots can work around not having that scene, but if I can mimic it, that would be nice. The lame part is that it probably would've been nicer right after the rescue, to increase tension of being caught fraternizing with the enemy. I'm trying to find a place for it that's not too near the war.

On reason Knots has been delayed so long because I've been looking for a good way to fit it back in to the timeline, but it was very specifically written for that scene, in that location, so it's rough. There's that and because Cosmo and Wanda are about to become notable, and I don't want to mess up this first meeting between A.C. and Cosmo), so... it'll come! Just been on a necessary hiatus.

I also have a scrapped scene where Anti-Cosmo babysits a nest of spirit eggs, but that got cut because the story is long enough without it. There's a lot of spirit stuff in the second half of Knots and I'm trying to decide how much should be cut... I'd like to end it sooner rather than later. Definitely hoping to post more regularly in 2024.

2. What scene did you first put down?

I think the earliest scene in the story was originally going to be its opening: Anti-Cosmo watching his father pack his suitcase as he prepares to walk out on the family. It would predate my scrap doc, but I might have salvaged something.

Mmm, I didn't find it atm, but I think it was rewritten into a very rough draft of A.C. reacting to his brother leaving shortly after their father's death.

“You’re leaving?” I asked, clinging to the door. “Of course,” he snorted. “The green needs me now more than ever.” “But then I’ll be left alone with Mother.” I glared at the ground. Anti-Schnozmo rubbed my hair, kissed my forehead, and then swept out the door. When I was young, I didn’t understand why we lived in the castle. But I was a smart pup, so I began to put the pieces together, of all the times I’d walked in on Anti-Bryndin kissing my mother.

^ Obviously a very rough version, but a lot of my drafts are this vague to get the story beats down before I flesh them out over weeks, months, or even years.

With polish, I think this would have made a great opening to Knots as well since it immediately sets up A.C.'s difficult relationship with Anti-Schnozmo, that his dad is dead, that he doesn't want to be left with his mom, A-Schnoz's motivations to carry out his father's legacy, and one of the core themes of Knots which is Anti-Cosmo's desire to be wanted.

The current opening of the story is there to establish worldbuilding, especially with the newborn smoke forms (something Anti-Fairies and Fairies can't see eye to eye on). The first chapter is pretty confusing and if I were writing commercially, I think I'd go with the brother walking out. But I wanted to write a longform 'fic about complicated worldbuilding and Anti-Fairy culture and that's exactly what I did, with the establishing shot to open it.

Thanks for reading! Hopefully these were interesting thoughts. Ask box is always open if anyone wants to ask more stuff like this; a lot of the time I tag these things as "director's cut" and I do enjoy sharing what the alt versions of my stories were.

[Current Ask game]

[goodluckclove]

WIP Tag Game!

Whoa tagged again by the brilliant @ivaspinoza! Check her out if you're down for what I imagine to be some intense bloodsucking existentialism!

I'll do this for all of Songbird Elegies as a whole. I'm on book two right now - Blind Trust comes out June 20th!

Read below to hear some things about the origins of the series that I haven't actually said yet and probably won't say again.

1. What was the first part of your wip that you created?

Funny story! I hadn't written anything tangible for months since leaving my terrible copyrighting job. I was absolutely miserable. I ended up leaving my second job because of a medication problem and spent a week in bed detoxing off of Seroquel withdrawal - bad bad don't do that if you can help it. After that I fell into recovery and just had no idea what to do with my days.

The turning point was when I sent an email going fully no-contact with my across-the-board abusive parents. They did some awful things across the course of my life and I'm still spending a good chunk of time making up for their ridiculous medical neglect. I might need throat surgery because of them. Not great! But anyways, I sent that email and wrote the first 15 pages of Blind Trust later that day, sitting on the floor while my wife took a nap on the couch. It just came out. Wife said they liked it so I just kept going.

Three months and two data losses later and the first draft was done!

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

I have so many Songbird Elegy playlists oh my God. It's hard to say, and the answer will change, but right now it's "Love Me, Normally" by Will Wood.

3. Who are your favourite characters you've made? Why?

They're all very important to me for different reasons. Scott is the one I tend to talk about the most because he captures a lot of mania and upbeat romanticism, qualities of myself that I value despite the obvious faults. Edgar is just as important, but they represent a lot of my current struggles and I'm doing a lot of healing and processing through them which is good but less - you know - fun?

Tenzin reminds me of my wife with her quiet stoicism. Katy reminds me of my older sister and everything she sacrificed to keep me and my siblings alive. She's more of a mother to me than my own mother. My sister is actually the first person to finish Blind Trust after I finished it.

4. What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

Disco Elysium maybe? Griffin and Sabine - has anyone else read that? The Witcher, but specifically the novels? Requiem for a Dream for later books. Tales of the City in terms of tone and character focus. Fleet Foxes and Hoizer and early Decemberists?

Good, warm soup. If you like a bowl of good, warm soup, you will enjoy Songbird Elegies.

5. What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

Definitely Edgar's arc. Their experience with their metaphorical (or are they??) inner child and the abuse they've been working to escape and recover from has been hard to look at directly. Especially once I introduced Scott's mother, who's turned into a weird mix of the maternal figure I wish I had and the one I feel I could've been if I chose that path.

Yesterday I found myself writing how I wish it went when my wife met my parents, through Scott and Edgar meeting Scott's mom. The sharing of parental pride and affection despite potential embarrassment. It's a cute scene, but there's a lot of grief in there for me. I wonder if it'll show.

6. Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

Wilford Brimley is Katy's pet Persian cat. He is old and weird and a little fucked up. I had to edit his introduction in Blind Trust because it was six (small) paragraphs and Wife told me that was unreasonable (skill issue), but I can include some canon info:

He shoves his paw under the bathroom door while people are in the bathroom

He likes feet

Edgar sometimes shares little bits of cheese with him

Once he fell asleep in Edgar's lap but then peed in his lap and just kept sleeping in the piss

Edgar treat him like a weird cousin he has to make conversation with during holidays

Wilford thinks he's his brother and an equally fucked up cat

7. How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

Cars mostly! Edgar has a shitty used car that's always close to breaking down. Katy has a newer car that's still used, but she takes very good care of it - I think it's a Fiat. I think Tenzin probably uses the car Scott's Dad left behind after he died, which is a vintage Cadillac convertible that Scott's Mom fixed up.

Scott is the only one without a license since he essentially has a magical dissociative disorder and hasn't yet felt safe behind the wheel. In Blind Trust he's taken every form of public transit to cross the country. I think when he was younger he used to skateboard to get around Bluerose.

8. What part of your wip are you working on rn?

I'm close to 40k into book two!

9. What aspects (tropes, maybe?) of your wip do you think will draw people in?

I have hopes that people will enjoy the tenderness of it. I'm like a reverse-whump ace writer, in that I've written a series that's aggressively pro-comfort and recovery. People start off in pretty sorry states and then make the difficult effort to put themselves and each other back together.

There's explicit ace representation in Scott and aroace rep in Katy (she doesn't know it yet though shhh). Edgar comes out as Agender and changes pronouns midway into the series, but still keeps presenting as androgynous/masc leaning. There's diversity in body types and gender identities in a way that feels warranted to me - Scott has Klinefelter's and grew up taking T, and he made a best friend that came out so she could take her E with him. Same goes with disabilities in prominent characters, though the main four focus on what I have personal experience in.

As a disabled queer writer I hope to make a series that tells a fantastical story about people like me that doesn't pander specifically to my market.

10. What are your hopes for your wip?

I hope people read it. I hope they like it. It'd be cool if I could talk to people about it. I've been pretty deep in the Songbird Elegy fandom for some time now haha.

On a more serious note I hope there's a market for non-sexualized romances that are still hyper intimate. I know I'm into it but I'm still not sure if other people are. I'd like to create more media about positive and fulfilling ace relationships, both romantic and platonic. I'm tired of people seeing that type of life as a loss. Any healthy companionship is not a loss.

I want people to read Songbird Elegies and think about the love in their lives and in themselves. All of it, in every way. Yeah.

I tag @ryns-ramblings! I wanna hear about your thing!

[emptymanuscript]

Take 3... or 30, or, you know, whatever...

Ok.

Time to buckle down. Unfuck all this. Winter is over. The Sun has returned. Life begins again. So I try again. Start over.

Picking a due date. June 1st. That's easy to remember. That's 53 days. That's time enough to do what NEEDS doing. Without too much time to sabotage myself.

I had a good conversation yesterday with Editor Prime ;) and she helped me coalesce my thinking much better.

I am, not just in specific, but in general as a plotted-course of work, trying to do too much. And in that issue I am trying to do two incompatible things simultaneously with Knights of Day, and therefore doing neither well enough to work.

I am trying to BOTH:

Turn the zero draft Knights of Day into a book series that is readable and comprehensible to a wider audience.

AND

Turn Knights of Day into a kind of magnum opus epic so the wider audience loves it the way we love it.

What she pointed out was that the entire reason to make Knights of Day in the first place is that it was epic. It just took its time instead of me trying to shoehorn EVERYTHING in right away and dial every element up to eleven. So I'm not gussying it up so much as building something different on its bones that is LIKE Knights of Day but actually something new.

That resonates with me. Yeah, that has been a repeated issue. Of me trying to make it "Good." And, of course, it doesn't really work. My drafts come out with great writing but the story is... off. Meanwhile Only A Mother comes out nearly ready to go on the first draft. So it's quite specifically something I'm doing wrong in Knights of Day.

It also triggers the thought that I actually don't like the "Good" stuff that people classify as "great epics" very much. As much of a Heresy as it is to say it, Lord of the Rings, while cool, is really not my favorite story. Even within its own universe, I like The Hobbit and The Silmarillion better. But honestly, I like "lighter" stuff. When I started Knights of Day, I was a Potter Head. My favorite series was Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter. My favorite series right now is the October Daye series. My delightful find last year was The Mother of Learning (Try Again). At this point most of my novel intake is "beach read" thrillers.

And what's the advice I give to other writers constantly? Hmmm?

Write what you read!

Which, for me, isn't grand tomes competing for epic trilogy space. It's small books you read in a few days and say, that was fun! about them. And now there's plenty of time to read umpteen more because the series I tend to love are huge. Not in terms of individual books but there are lots of the relatively small books. Churned out shockingly fast.

So... if someone else came to me with my problem, my advice would be: you're writing the wrong thing. Go write what you love, not what you think you should be writing. Because that's just shoulding on yourself. You'll be miserable AND you won't write it as well as someone who does love it will. It's a recipe for disaster.

So why don't I do that for myself?

Anxiety. Fear. Low Self Esteem. Codependency. All the usual stuff.

That's the other advantage of a short time scale like 53 days. If I screw it up and it doesn't work, that's not that much time to have wasted.

Keep it simple. Keep it short. And it might even take less time than that.

And if I screw it up again, I think I am officially giving myself permission to quit. Knights of Day has been going since the tail end of 2005. I don't actually want to spend my entire life on Knights of Day. If I can't make it work under the KISS method, then I think I am not capable of doing better than I already did, maybe someone else can do it, but I should let it go with intent and purpose and move on.

So, yeah, watch for the new tag, same as all the old tags: The Teddy Bear Hustle.

[rallamajoop]

Hi !! I've followed your fics across multiple fandoms, and I've always been really impressed by how quickly and consistently you're able to put out works. How are you able to write seemingly so quickly?! Do you use betas? Do you spend a lot of time planning, or are you more of a chapter by chapter writer? I'm always really fascinated by people's process. Thank you if you answer this, and have a good day!! :D

Well, thank you first of all ‒ it's always such an ego-boost to know anyone's following me across fandoms! But as for 'how I write so fast', I think 'seemingly' may be most of your answer. I do like to have some fic to post every week or so, but my consistency on that comes and goes. I've done okay so far this year, but only if you ignore the part where I posted nothing during the whole month of February, or in the entire last quarter of 2023 ‒ and there was a solid 6 month gap where I posted nothing back in 2022 as well.

Back before I hit my current stride in Witcher fandom a few years back, months or longer between fics was even more the norm for me. Productivity on the fic-writing front comes and goes in bursts for me for all sorts of reasons. But it's not unusual for several bits and pieces I've had not-quite-finished for months to end up getting posted close together though, even after I've been quiet for a while, which might help with the illusion I'm better at keeping up that schedule than is really accurate.

Even when I am actually managing to keep that weekly schedule, a lot of what I post is short (2K or less), and gets lumped together into anthology-fics like Spare Parts, Viscera or The Beast of Castle Heisenberg (and other stories) (which also saves on the minor hassle of thinking up proper titles for them all). Coming up with short concepts like that is something I've always enjoyed doing (going all the way back to my time in xxxHolic fandom over a decade ago). Occasionally, I'll come back later and expand them into something longer (another habit that started way back in Holic fandom, actually), but posting them as shorts means that at least I've posted something, even if the longer version never happens. Whenever a fic works as shorter chapters, I'll post it that way ‒ it's just easier to edit in smaller chunks (and I can't really overstate how big of a motivator positive feedback is for me, if it does go down well with people).

Obviously, not everything I post lends itself to being broken down ‒ smut particularly tends to require much longer scenes, but stories like that have often been in progress for months before they actually get posted. At 15K in a single chapter, Quarantine stands out as the longest thing I've posted in years that I couldn't find any way to break down into shorter pieces ‒ and I'd been working on that one on-and-off since around, oh, August last year? Having multiple different things in progress at once works for me, because if I'm not in the mood to work on one, maybe I'm more in the mood to work on another. I'll often bash out rough drafts of various parts of a few different ideas in one spell if I'm in a good mood to just sit down and write, then come back to finish and polish them later. A lot of my ideas build themselves around dialogue ‒ having a good sense of the characters' voices is really central to how I think about writing for them ‒ so a lot of scenes might start as just dialogue, and then I'll come back and flesh out the rest later.

Planning… really depends on the length of the fic? Sometimes you need to know exactly where a story is going just to figure out how to start it, other times you don't realise half of what's really going on in a scene until you're in the middle of actually writing it down. For example, I currently have about three more (very rough) chapters of Follow Me Home sitting in a word document, which is as much of that story as I had planned out in real detail ‒ the rest consists of scattered scenes I know I'm aiming for later on. But in the process of writing them, I realised more or less exactly what needs to happen in chapter 4, so that's encouraging ‒ we'll see where it goes from there.

For years now, I've done most of my writing on laptops ‒ before that, first drafts were mostly scribbled down by hand in notebooks. I own a desktop computer too, but that gets used for so much else (work, gaming, watching videos, etc etc) that I find it's useful to have a separate platform that's 'for' writing, that's portable, something I can curl up with in a beanbag with, and (crucially) presents less distractions. A notebook or a low-spec laptop (my current one is a tiny tablet computer) is also something I can get out on the bus on the way to work or in a cafe while waiting for a meal. I wouldn't say I do most of my writing out of the home like that, but it's definitely a long-established habit.

It does help that I've been writing long enough to be reasonably confident with the general process of sitting down to make a story happen. I'm reasonably lucky just having the time and energy to dedicate to all this fannish nonsense, and to have an enthusiastic beta-reader/BFF who's always encouraging about my work ‒ she's seriously a huge help (and probably too kind with her critiques, if anything). It has taken many years of doing this to get to the point where I can do something like (for a recent example) realise there's a week or two left before the a challenge deadline and go, "oh, sure, I can bash out a few thousand words worth of smut in that time to fill a treat for that prompt I liked." But as a rule, a posting rate of maybe a couple thousand words a week, not every week, isn't that much of an output (it's probably a lot more if you count all the fannish meta I churn out too, but I mostly don't think about that too much). But writing means a lot to me, even if it's mostly fannish nonsense that makes no money, so it's something I'll make time for.

If I've got any advice that might be useful to someone else, it's to suggest that getting yourself to write something is usually better than sitting on something you're blocked on, even if that does mean perpetually getting distracted by the shiny new idea instead of staying bogged down on the huge WIP you promised yourself you'd finish (and maybe you will come back to that WIP later, fresher for having given your brain a change of scene ‒ or maybe not, that's not the end of the world either). Short fic is fine, more words do not automatically make a story better, and unfinished WIPs are just a fact of fandom (or even original writing). Part of the joy of fanfic is that you can jump straight to the novel bits, trusting your readers already know who these people are and how the base story goes (seriously, the number of fics out there that spend chapter after chapter just retelling canon in prose form boggles my brain).

But like all writing advice, if that doesn't sound like it'd be useful advice to you, it probably isn't ‒ what works for people can be terribly individual. No-one's obligated to aim for a couple of thousand words per week (let alone per day, to hit NaNoWriMo or Stephen King levels of productivity) if they're just writing as a hobby.

And I hope you're having a good day too. *g*

[fanficallergy]

Hello! This is the admin from thgfanfictionlibrary (backup account for the library)! I just wanted to let you know that I responded to your reblog question/concern under the active authors part 5 post. Below is the reply:

Hello! I'm sorry that you felt you were deliberately excluded from the lists-that is 100% not the case! I'm sorry to hear that you're undergoing cancer treatments and that people have been nasty to you online as well, that is truly terrible on both fronts. I pulled these lists directly from the page of authors I created (which you are present on!) BUT I missed the "a" for active in your tagging for the listing despite having you as an active author! I've remedied the issue and you are now tagged as an active author using the tagging filter on that page. I've also added your listing to the current "active authors" post that is in my draft for when I have ten active authors. Again, I'm sorry that you felt you were excluded on purpose, that wasn't the case it was simply a coding error on my end! Sometimes things just slip through the cracks when I'm coding and I don't pick up on it!

-----

The page system I'm referring to is "Libraryofauthors" in case you wanted to take a look at it. Again, I'm sorry that you felt I had intentionally excluded you for one reason or another but I did have you listed, it just slipped through my coding when I was inputting the tags into it. Sorry about that! Let me know if you have any further questions, comments, or concerns and I'll be happy to update anything! (Also as an FYI I haven't gone back through after making that page to update the information I've added since late August of 2023 so if it says something is incomplete that is now complete or if your popular fic is different now that's why! I'll be updating probably mid-march when I have a little more time!)

Thank you for addressing this. ^_^

I figured it had been a mistake and not a deliberate slight, but it still felt not great, you know? Especially since there is a huge stigma where people stop reading your fics or commenting when they think you're inactive. Comments and feedback are the only currency we as authors receive and the feedback which often encourages us to write more (especially if it is more than just a "write more!" or "When's the next update!") can really feed our ability to write and to write with joy such that we want to share our work. Without that feedback, people give up. Decide the effort isn't worth the reward and really do stop writing in the fandom or at all.

Feedback matters and authors who are considered inactive get less feedback. People can have very good reasons for not updating and it can make them feel unwanted and unwelcome if they get tagged as inactive in their fandoms. In my case, I've been fighting 3 different, unrelated cancers since 2021, and while I've updated and written in that time, most of my energy has been devoted to my health and work so I can pay for health things. I know of other authors in this fandom who are going through major deaths in the family (parents/spouse), domestic abuse, or new parenthood all of which eat into someone's ability to update/write.

I kind of feel that the authors should make that distinction themselves (ie. state that they are on hiatus) or the length of time between declaring someone as inactive needs to be lengthened... A year feels short to me unless the author has declared a hiatus or died... because I do feel that death does put a damper on someone's update schedule. ~_^ From chatting with @rosefyrefyre we tend to consider a fic/author on hiatus if they haven't updated since 2020, and we allow for longer delays because of COVID, Real life, and the world going to hell right now.

I also understand that this is YOUR blog and you can decide what works best for it. I don't get to dictate what you do do on your blog. ^_^ I do appreciate you doing this in your free time, it has to be a lot of work. I also appreciate that we, as authors, are often easily upset or can get defensive. So dealing with all of the personalities can be tough.

So once again, thank you for addressing the error and correcting it. I do appreciate all of the work you're putting into this.