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sinfullyrosey · 2 years ago

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Shrimpmer!Reader

Floyd Leech X GN!Shrimpmer!Reader X Jade Leech

Warnings: Mild Violence, Brief Mentions of Accurate Shrimp Cleaning Methods (kind of gross)

I literally had written up a mini fic showcasing the tweels first meeting Shrimper!Reader… and lost it. Have no idea where it is. Searched through my drafts and got pissed, so just started over from scratch.

Can be read as platonic but with a lot of sus behavior ngl

The Basics (aka an Introduction to Shrimpmer!Reader)

Shrimpmer!Reader is a cleaner shrimp, a type of shrimp known for cleaning off parasites, algae, insects, and other bad stuff from fish. They’ve even been known to eat the mucus and infectious material around a fish’s wound to reduce infection and aid in healing. There are different species of cleaner shrimp, ‘scarlet skunk’ or ‘white-striped’ cleaner shrimps being known for cleaning the mouths of moral eels specifically.

Shrimpmer!Reader specifically comes from a family of cleaner shrimps that have a long-standing business partnership with the Leeches. Their family provides their cleaning and patch-up services to better the mereels’ health and heal any injuries, and in turn, the Leeches provide protection. It’s a mutualistic relationship where both benefit. And congrats, they were assigned to the tweels when they were but a mere fry and twins were still little elvers.

But what is it that Shrimpmer!Reader does exactly? Well, they have a cleaning station set up (i.e. a flat rock for the tweels to lay on while they work) and they go over the twins’ body, ridding it of any parasites and other debris. Picking at their scales and skin like a fine-tooth comb. They’ll even clean their sharp teeth using specialized brushes and tools to make sure nothing is stuck and strengthen the dentin (real shrimp physically go inside eel’s mouths, but shrimpmers are too big for that). Whenever the twins come to them with an injury after one of their scuffles, Shrimpmer!Reader will clean and disinfect the wound, being sure to remove any parasites, then wrap up the wound to heal faster.

In terms of anatomy and size difference, Shrimpmer!Reader is much smaller compared to the twins, but not on the same scale difference as real shrimps and moray eels. They’re not tiny enough to fit in their mouths but are small enough to be carried with ease. The best comparison I can give is like with the dwarves and Neige, but the tweels’ eel forms are much bigger compared to regular humans, so Shrimpmer!Reader would be shorter compared to a human as well. Floyd would joke about them being “child-sized.” Just like the Octatrio, their bottom half is that of a white-striped cleaner shrimp while the rest of their body has the matching miscolored skin, fin ears, and a pair of long, white antenna on the top of their head. No, their hands aren’t claws/pincers, but they do have sharp nails that aid in cleaning.

The Shrimp and the Eels Headcanons

Like mentioned above, Shrimpmer!Reader was assigned to Floyd and Jade back when they were all still children. Each new generation of Leech ends up being assigned a cleaner shrimp who are around the same age so that they can grow together and build a proper symbiotic bond. You just ended up unlucky ‘cause Mr. and Mrs. Leech had twins and you were the only available one in your family at the time. A two for one deal, as it were.

Rough first meet (the twins are asses even back then), but you eventually adjusted and they learned how much they actually enjoy getting all those nasties off of them. You were gentle and efficient, it was very soothing, almost therapeutic to them. But it was only after one particular cleaning where Floyd came to you, a week after he got into a fight, wound infected and riddled with parasites, that they fully realized just how much they needed you. Neither twin skipped a cleaning or wound treatment after that.

You are tiny and not built for fighting, so the twins are more than happy to do so for you!~ Some predator is stalking you, trying to get a taste? Floyd is already grabbing them by the tail, pulling them away from you and towards his own dangerously sharp jaws. Another merperson is bulling you, picking on your smaller size? Jade’s looming right behind, tail at the ready to squeeze the life out of them. Most of your patch-up work was from attending to their wounds sustained in fights defending you.

Floyd and Jade both have their tails wrapped around some poor, unfortunate soul who was pulling on your antenna. Jade is taunting the crying fry while Floyd is “playfully” biting their tail fins.

“Jade, Floyd, let them go already. You’re going to get in trouble…”

You do meet Azul later on, though never quite befriend him per say. His contracts made you uncomfortable and untrusting of his intentions. In turn, Azul was stiff and reserved around you on the account of the overly protective eels threatening to chew his tentacles off if he tried anything.

You’re not a student at NRC nor a student of RSA. Magic isn’t your forte (or your concern really), the tweels are. Which is why you do visit the schoolgrounds frequently, especially after the two (mainly Floyd) start complaining about “needing their shrimp.” They’re not even in their eel forms most of the time, but they do still get into fights and the nurse on staff isn’t good enough.

Congrats, you’re now the Leech’s designated Health Support Cleaner Shrimp, or whatever bullshit the twins pulled out of their tails when forcing requesting to Crowley that you be allowed to stay at Octavinelle! Double congrats, because you also work at Mostro Lounge as a janitor because you literally clean for a living!

In your human form, you are much shorter than most of the other students and you have two long cowlicks that resemble your antenna. You aren’t the biggest fan of this form, finding two legs to be difficult to navigate, especially since you kind of skipped the prep class. Floyd was impatient and claimed him and Jade would just teach you themselves. An unwise decision really.

I mean, you could also just request to have the potion adjusted so you can be taller too, I guess idk the twins aren’t going to tell you that.

You sometimes turn back into your merform with the tweels and swim together because you miss it. Floyd definitely missed curling his tail around his little shrimp and pinning you down with his much bigger size. He especially loves to flip you on your back and watch your little feetsies wiggle around in a panic.

Jade misses the cleanings more than anything else. Being a vice dormleader while also working at a lounge and doing schoolwork is stressful for one eel. So, being able to just relax and have you attend to him while he prattles on about mushrooms is absolute heaven. That’s not to say he doesn’t mess with you either. Jade will gladly use your height against you by putting your cleaning supplies on a higher shelf, so you’re forced to ask him for help, teasing you all the while.

No, you can’t clean anybody else, merfolk or otherwise. Only them. Azul almost lost a tentacle after suggesting such a thing when he noticed business was running slower.

You’re their cleaner shrimp, and they’re your eels. Anybody aware of the Leech’s influence know to back off lest they end up missing under mysterious circumstances.

Oh yeah, and the tweels, at some point, made it a habit to kiss you after you finished cleaning them under the guise of you “cleaning their teeth.” It’s become something so casual between you three now that when Azul caught sight of the twins and you locking lips, he nearly fell over at not realizing the three of you were (supposedly) an item.

#Twisted Wonderland #TWST #Floyd Leech X Reader #Jade Leech X Reader #GN!Reader #I had indented to add a section dedicated to reader dating the tweels but I got creatively burnt out at the end #maybe I'll post a part two at a later date

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grantmentis · 5 months ago

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Made a post the other day about expectations for rookies / new players in the league and how harsh it seems to be compared to the nhl and I have more thoughts on this. I haven’t like really properly researched this though so consider it off the cuff and full of assumptions

The PWHL draft is in a weird place right now because half of the people in the draft are like, grown, and have extensive experience playing in another high level league. Even the True Rookies are usually 22 as top prospects (as opposed to the nhl where most top prospects are 18) and played extensively in the ncaa where I’d say the level of play in some strengths of schedule is closer to the PWHL than any other hockey league is to the nhl due to the fact that there is just a lot more leagues the men are drawing from (obviously quite a of PWHL players have at one point played auroraliiga or EWHL or DEFL etc, but most either got drafted directly from the SDHL or NCAA or in the case of last year the PHF.) we only have One True Draft and half a season of those players in the league to go off of, and a decent % of those players have made an immediate impact, or at least be a good player, which makes it easy to go “hey why is my player not doing that.” I’ve seen this concern about Julia Gosling, for example, who of course gets the misfortune of being compared to Fillier and Thompson and Barnes

The PWHL schedule being so short doesn’t help either. A player struggling for five games in the nhl is just way less of a problem in terms of season impact than a player struggling for five games in the PWHL where that’s, like, a sixth of the season, even though it’s the same passage of time. This can definitely lead to fans being harsher

Still - I think it’s important to remember that no there is basically no ramp up to the PWHL and the ability to do what Fillier and Thompson are doing is rarer than it feels right now. We will probably see this more as the years go on and drafts become more “normal” that it’s less that Fillier or Thompson’s performance should be the norm for first rounders but more than they are exceptions and not the rule. Players right now barely get any time to get acclimated to their team before the season starts and the environment for training camp / preseason / where you’re fighting to have a job at all vs in the nhl where most are fighting between ahl and nhl, is very different. Teams are still figuring out their identity and their on ice systems, which makes it harder for players to adjust to a team that is still being defined. Additionally, teams don’t have the most coherent drafting strategy right now because of that nor do they have extensive scouting departments yet so they don’t have the tools to help a player adjust, either. For the franchise cornerstone players like Fillier, the team is going to build around her, but for someone like gosling going to a team where Nurse and Spooner and Watts have already claimed the top offensive roles, that’s not going to be the case. Finally, the true rookie players have to adjust to the pace of the game and what being a full time hockey player is, schedule wise. Just like you and me after college graduation, they are doing all this while learning how to be an adult.

The PWHL is already pretty “sink or swim” because there’s no place to go for development at the pro level while staying on contract, but there got to be some lenience to letting these players develop at the pro level and investing in them and that means they may not be producing for a while or make dumb mistakes and that’s pretty normal. Even the players coming in with professional experience need time to adjust, though they may be more equipped for the physical side of the game or the day to day grind of it all. And I’m not even getting into the “talent pool is quite a bit bigger than spots available especially if you’re a goaltender” thing

#maybe one day when we have more drafts I’ll do a deeper dive #also I don’t mean to call gosling out I just saw a Bluesky post of someone frustrated with her #so I used her as an example #o honestly haven’t paid much attention to her play so I just have counting stats to go off of which is not a full picture

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insipid-drivel · 1 year ago

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Warhorses: Which horses are actually good candidates, anyway?

This post is in honor of @warrioreowynofrohan, who asked the question in the comments under my guide, "Horses: Since There Seems To Be A Knowledge Gap". Their question, "Given what you said about too much weight breaking a horse’s spine, how did that work with knights in plate armour?" is one I'm going to try to answer here, since the answer can be very nuanced depending on where and when you're talking about.

Also, while I was a stable hand for years as well as a rider, I never had the opportunity to directly learn more ancient styles of tacking, horse training, and combat, so I don't have any direct experience to draw from with regard to horses used for military purposes. I'm still gonna do my best here with what I know, and research what I don't.

As I've covered in the past, large horses (draft horses) make less-than-ideal warhorses, and so do carriage horses like the elegant and dramatic Friesians.

Let's begin by addressing this from the perspective of creative writing. For you writers and content creators out there, an essential part to the continuity of any historically-themed work you do involving horses will be depicting breeds of horses that didn't exist before a certain time in history. I'm going to approach this question from the stance of, "Medieval-type era warhorses". Horses were used in warfare as late was World War II, but actual horses you ride into battle with knights and archers and bannermen? We actually have to drop the subject of specific modern breeds altogether aside from using them for comparisons.

When discussing warhorses, various cultures have approached them differently. Some cultures will value a specific type of horse above all others, such as the Mongolian Steppe Horse or the American Mustang. Other cultures, which may be from biomes and territories where multiple types of horses are needed for different forms of warfare and tactics, value whichever horses can get their jobs done without their riders getting killed.

Carrying vs. Pulling:

Horses have been used in warfare since as far back as 4000 BC, but their first applications were more as chariot horses. Humans have been riding and working with horses since before we even had stirrups to more easily ride them with! As archaeologists and anthropologists make more discoveries, the more we learn that we humans have been working closely with horses since before we had specialized tools to ride them with. The very first warhorses pulled chariots or carts, which is much easier for a horse's anatomy to handle compared to carrying a heavy weight like an armored rider on their backs, which puts stress directly on their spines where they have very little supporting muscle for supporting a lot of heavy downward weight.

Warhorse Size Categories:

Really, any breed of horse can apply to a niche in warfare if it's needed enough. Even very small, delicate horses have had their place in the history of human combat! Before I continue, it's important to know that there's a unique unit of measuring a horse's height. Rather than measuring a horse's height in centimeters or inches, they're measured in units called "hands". A single "hand" = ~4 inches/10.16cm, and a horse's height is measured based upon the distance between the bottom of their hoof to the tallest part of their shoulders, just at the base of the back of their necks. We don't actually include neck length/head height in a horse's measurements with traditional measuring.

Another rule of thumb: The average horse cannot safely carry anything heavier than about 30% of their total body weight. This is a serious factor to take into mind when deciding on a type of or breed of horse for a mounted warrior of any kind: You need to factor in the OC's starting body weight, and then add on the weight of armor, weapons, and any armor the horse itself may wear along with the weight of its tack.

Light-Weight Horses:

A few examples of lightweight horse breeds whose ancestors have historically been used in combat are Arabians, Barber Horses, and the magnificent Akhal-Teke. Lightweight and delicately-boned horses like those are best applied for military maneuvers that require precision, speed, and endurance, and the rider themselves should specialize in some form of combat or reconnaissance that doesn't require them to wear heavy metal or laminated armors. Archers are good candidates for riding smaller horses, or lightly-armored swordsmen like an Ottoman Janissary.

Central-Asian and North African horses also benefit from having a higher tolerance for hot climates. They can absolutely suffer from heatstroke and cardiac arrest from being forced to run and work in extreme temperatures and should always be provided with the same protective measures in a heatwave as any other horse, but they have a little bit of an edge over horses descended from freezing and temperate climates.

Medium-Weight Horses:

Medium-weight horses started showing up in the archaeological record around about the Iron Age, where chariot warfare was becoming an increasingly utilized form of mobile combat, and people needed bigger, stronger horses capable of pulling heavier loads - such as a chariot with two passengers rather than just one. As cultures began to develop heavier-duty armors made of metals and laminated materials, it also became important to breed horses that were tall and stocky (muscular and with relatively short spines compared to their height), and therefore more capable of carrying riders in increasingly heavy armor. Medium-weight horses were also essential at the dawn of the gunpowder age when the cannon came into use in siege warfare for pulling the heavy, iron cannons into position.

Medium-weight horses are really where we see the beginnings of knights and other warrior classes on horseback come into the forefront of warfare. When you have a horse that's big and strong enough to carry heavier armor and heavier weapons along with a rider wielding them, you have a much deadlier force at your disposal. Strikes from a sword or spear from the back of a galloping horse basically results in a sword capable of cutting through enemy soldiers like a hot knife through butter.

Important Note: Traditionally, cavalrymen wield blunt swords when attacking from a charging horse's back. When a horse is charging at full speed, the sharpness of a blade becomes less important than the blade's ability to stay in one piece when it impacts hard armor and bone. A blunted edge basically turns a cavalryman's sword into a thin club that's better at holding up against smashing through multiple layers of armor and bone compared to a thinner, more delicate sharpened edge that can shatter from a high-speed impact.

Heavy-Weight Horses:

The direct ancestors of modern draft horses, such as the Shire Horse, only began to appear around about the beginning of the European Medieval Era, and were far and away not even close to the enormous sizes of the draft horses we have today. Any horse counts as a "Heavy-weight" classed horse if its weight exceeds 1500lbs/680kgs.

Heavy-weight horses were really more bred for pulling enormous weights rather than carrying knights. While yeah, there is some evidence that suggests that heavy-weight horses were used by heavily-armored knights, historians argue a lot about whether it was a rule or an exception (such as with Henry VIII, who continued to ride well after he had begun to weigh more than 350lbs/158kgs, and even went to war in France in his final years on horseback). Generally speaking, medium-weight horses tend to be the right balance of agile and strong for carrying someone that's going to actively be fighting. Heavy-weight horses were bred to be a lot more tolerant to the chaos and frightening stimulation of the sounds of battle, but medium-weighted horses generally tended to be more suited to moving efficiently through dense packs of soldiers and weaving around other horses.

Ponies:

While actually being the smallest class of warhorse, ponies were essential when it came to carrying cargo and working as pack-horses. In certain forms of terrain, such as mountains, large horses pulling big carts full of supplies or soldiers could often be extremely impractical. In situations where an army needed to move on foot and form a narrow line in order to travel, ponies were able to traverse much narrower and rougher terrain while carrying smaller loads to their destination, when heavier horses would struggle more under their own weight and dexterity.

Europe-Specific Terminologies:

If you're a writer reading this and writing a piece set in the European Medieval age, there are specific terms used for the different classes I listed of warhorses above that I'm gonna list:

Destriers: The Destrier was a universal term for the iconic knight-carrying, jousting horse. They were also sometimes referred to as "Great Horses" due to their reputations in combat settings. Destriers could have just about any appearance, but were rarely taller than 15.2 hands, or 62inches/157cm. They were capable of carrying heavily-armored knights (although knights in full plate mail rarely rode into battle and stayed on the horse the entire time - they tended to specialize at grouping up and killing a lot of footsoldiers swarming them at once and preventing breaks in defenses from being overwhelmed by an oncoming army; in the case of Edward the Black Prince, we have substantial evidence in the form of his surviving brigandine that a mounted soldier or knight was more likely to wear chainmail and brigandine with a tabard on their body with their arms, feet, and heads the most heavily armored in plate when they intended to fight on horseback, making them a little lighter and more maneuverable, but I may be waaay off base there because I'm thinking of more of Italian soldiers who used full plate and how they applied it in battle more than any other example) and wearing armor themselves.

Interestingly, the sex of a destrier was often chosen strategically. Stallions (horses that haven't been neutered) are more aggressive, and could both act as combatants on their own if their knight was dismounted or killed, but could give away an army's location if they were attempting to move stealthily. Stallions whinny and shriek a lot when they're horny or arguing with each other, which is most of the time.

Mares were often chosen by Muslim armies for being much less vocal, and therefore much more capable of stealth. Geldings (neutered males) were the preferred mounts of the Teutonic Knights, a Catholic military group, since they couldn't be stolen and used to breed more horses for the enemy army.

Coursers:

Coursers were the most common Medieval European warhorse. It's important to remember that in Medieval Europe, most armies were almost entirely comprised of common men - serfs subject to the will of their landlords, not far removed from slaves in many ways - who couldn't afford the highly-prized and expensive Destriers. Coursers were usually a bit lighter than Destriers, but were still strong enough to carry someone wearing armor. Coursers were also a little more utilitarian, because they were also sometimes used in hunting as well as warfare, so they had a valuable use outside of warfare that the owner could benefit from.

Rouncey:

A rouncey was an all-purpose horse that could be used for leisure and travel-riding as well as be trained for war. They were a lot more likely to be found on the farm of a serf or independent farmer of some kind, as they could fill a lot of different roles depending on what they were needed for. Their sizes weren't really important as much as their ability to get the job done.

It's also critical to remember that, when talking about warhorses, we're usually talking about eras long past. In general, thanks to resource availability and incredible advances in medicine, modern humans are significantly taller, and therefore heavier, than people from the European Medieval era and prior. While fatness was valued in many cultures for its suggestion of wealth, most working-class and serf-class people worked intensely physically-demanding daily lives just to maintain their own homes. They were a few inches shorter on average than we are today, had greater fluctuations in body fat distribution depending on how harsh or bountiful the harvest season had been and the season in which a war was taking place (the average person's weight would swing by 30lbs or more on average every year prior to the industrial era), and cavalry were usually chosen based upon skill in the saddle as well as physical size when considering the application of medium or heavy armor being placed on the horse's back and body.

#long post #horses #horseback riding #warhorses #writing #writing resources

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specialagentlokitty · 8 months ago

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Jack Harkness x reader - forever

Heyy!! Was wondering of you could write a vampire!reader x Jack Harkness?? Both are obviously immortal, etc?? Just something cutesy! X - Anon 💜

It had just been a coincidence that you met the flirty time traveller.

Because of your nature and what you were when humanity had managed to develop the technology to explore space they shipped you off to an isolated planet with no way to return.

You weren’t really sure how long you lived there for, but it was peaceful, a beautiful planet which at least had some wildlife on that you could feed off.

The only catch was you were the only creature there able to talk, communicate with yourself, and life had eventually grown lonely.

Though despite the loneliness you grew used to being on your own, you were content, not quite happy, but content, and that counted for something in a way.

You would sleep when it was too hot outside, hunt once or twice a month, but mostly you just created things.

All sorts.

Wooden carvings from the beautiful blue and purple trees, leaned how to create tools and chisel stone into beautiful statues, create artwork that could be compared to the universes beauty.

You had all the time in the universe, literally.

After having spent so much time on your own when there was a new scent on your planet you noticed immediately, the small draft sending the familiar of scent of a human your way.

Though there was a hint of something else, something that wasn’t quite fully human in this person.

From the shadows, hidden away you watched him, studying him.

He seemed human enough from what you could remember them looking like, but his scent just wasn’t quite right.

Though humans did have slightly different scents there was something about his that didn’t sit within the normal range.

For a while you just watched him look around, following him as he stumbled across some of the things you had created, he seemed captivated and curious.

He was mumbling to himself about this planet being abandoned and empty, trying to figure out how his teleporter had landed him here and that he wasn’t picking up any life sighed aside from the animals that lived here.

You were curious and in two minds about what to do.

On one hand you could feed on him, get the best meal you’ve hand in probably centuries.

On the other you could keep watching him, maybe introduce yourself, it had been a while since you’d actually had a conversation with someone, and you missed that.

After a short while just followed him you decided to reveal yourself to him, and if things went down hill then you’d turn him into your next meal.

While the man was stood studying one of your creations you silently padded out of the shadows and stood next to him.

You could see his gaze flick to you slightly startled before he looked fully at you.

He studied you for a moment before a flirty grin appeared on his face.

“Well hello.” He grinned holding out his hand, “Captain Jack Harkness at your service.”

You studied him for a moment before placing your hand in his.

“(Y/N).”

Jack grind a little more, bringing your hand to his lips to place a gentle kiss to your knuckles.

“What’s a beautiful being like you doing on an isolated planet like this?” He asks.

You didn’t reply, but from the little spark in his eye something told you he recognised your name, or maybe he had heard myths about you, assuming he’d been to the right time frame.

The creature that is doomed to be alone forever.

Jack grins a little more at you.

“I know about you.” He states.

“What do you know?”

He grins a little more stepping to stand beside you to look at one of the statues you had made.

“I know you were the only one of your kind, nobody knows how you came to be, that you lived a wonderful life when you were still human.”

You glanced at Jack, noticing his smile was gone, his face now resembling a sort of sad look.

“I also know you were forced to leave your home, sent to live here until the end of the universe by yourself with nobody to keep you company.”

You looked back to the statue.

“Such is the life as a monster like me.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

Jack turned to face you, stepping in front of you.

“You’re not a monster, not from what I’ve heard, and looking at you now you certainly don’t seem like one to me.”

Jack held out a small device.

“It’s my teleporter, it broke when I accidentally landed here. You seem like maybe you’ll have the stuff to fix it?”

Carefully taking the little device you study it for a moment, turning it around in your hands, looking at every aspect of it that you could see.

Some parts were visibly damaged, but you did have scrap metal laying around that sometimes crashed into the surface of your planet.

“I think I may have the right things.”

Jack grinned brightly.

“Perfect! I don’t suppose you’d mind helping out a handsome captain?” He asked.

This made you crack a small smile, the first smile in centuries.

“I suppose I have time in my rather busy schedule.”

Jack laughed as he followed behind you to your cabin.

He admired how beautiful it was, the dedication you had put into your home, your craft.

For a week or two he stayed with you, you two talked while you slowly worked at helping fix the device, while you took breaks your showed him around, or showed him your creations.

Jack was amazed about everything you did, such skill and beauty.

Eventually you had managed to fix his device and handed it over for him.

He put it back on his wrist and looked at you, holding his hand out.

“Come with me.”

This confused you slightly.

Jack saw your confusion and walked over to you, taking your hand into his, holding it gently.

“Come with me, you’ll never have to be alone again I promise, we’ll be together, you’ll never be stuck here again, and you’ll never have to be alone again.”

You stayed quiet for a moment, looking around the planet you had called home for so long before you smile softly and nodded your head.

“Okay…”

Jack grinned brightly, holding you hand in his as he got the device ready to leave the planet.

Forever, that’s how long you two were going to travel together, two immortals

#doctor who #doctor who x you #doctor who x reader #doctor who x y/n #doctor who imagine #jack harkness imagine #jack harkness x reader #jack harkness x you #jack harkness

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artbyblastweave · 4 months ago

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"If they put more superheroes in Fallout I'll talk about it more."

🔥 The Silver Shroud?

The Silver Shroud falls somewhere on a spectrum between genuinely really conceptually interesting and borderline meanspirited to me. As I've mentioned briefly before, the paradox of superheroes in the Fallout universe is that they aren't a fundamentally weirder class of person than any of the other 1950s genre pastiche archetypes that we're expected to take seriously, but the flip side is that superheroes would match with the rest of the Fallout idiom so perfectly, and are so modular in terms of what other genre elements they can incorporate into their own genre, that they could easily become the most overbearing element of the Fallout setting if steps aren't taken to keep them siloed. Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 share a throughline in that they both silo superheroism by portraying it as the product of arrested development.

Kent Connolly is a sad, sad guy, with good reason. He's been trying to keep his hobby alive for centuries- terminals in Fallout 76 reveal that he's been adjacent to attempts to make superheroes a real thing for over 200 years, and it has never, ever worked over the long haul, and yet he keeps on trucking, trying to make everyone else see what he sees in these characters. The Shroud is a significantly different archetype of pulp hero from the ones who show up in Fallout 3- rather than a pastiche of the bloodless, stakeless four-color capes of the golden age, he's a more directly a pastiche of The Shadow- the 1930s radio-show proto-superhero who was significantly more willing to use gun violence as a conflict resolution tool than his successors would be. This dovetails with the gameplay loop- In Fallout 3, the entire point of the superheroes is that they're engaging in a significantly more limited playfight compared to what the Lone Wanderer gets up to on a typical Tuesday, but the Sole Survivor, when adopting the Silver Shroud persona, doesn't really have to change their MO at all in order to embody the (admittedly somewhat exaggerated and retroactively attributed by later writers and audiences) retributive ultraviolence of the Shadow's pulp archetype. They're doing their normal thing in a funny voice. And the extent to which you're just doing your normal thing is what really puts the screws to the idea that doing it in a costume is actually adding anything here. You are, at best, making a slight detour to slightly brighten a shut-ins day, and that adds a fundamental air of sadness to the entire outing. But at the end of the day, you do briefly embody the archetype. You do kick down the door and save the hostage from the gangsters. And as a result it does end up briefly straddling the line between deeply silly and deeply cool. The other thing about The Silver Shroud is that in a roundabout way it re-enforces my standing theory that Fallout 3 was originally meant to take place within living memory of The Great War. Of the three Fallout games that directly feature living superheroes, two of them- 4 and 76- are associated with characters who were directly enmeshed in pre-war pop culture. The Mistress of Mystery and her cohort adopted the superheroic aesthetic because it would still be legible to a plurality of survivors; Kent Conolly's rock to roll uphill forever is that he's one of the only people left to whom any of this means anything. But in Fallout 3 the two superheroes just sort of....materialize, after 200 years, with their shticks fully formed. Furthermore, in the Hubris comics office in downtown DC you can find a pre war letter to the editor extolling the relatability of the fictional AntAgonizer, and doing so prior to starting The Superhuman Gambit gives you a unique option for talking down the real one. My strong suspicion is that in an earlier draft of the story, The AntAgonizer was written as a pre-war character who sent that letter to the editor herself as a teenager or young adult, and adopted the AntAgonizer persona after living through the war as a coping mechanism.

#fallout 3 #fallout 4 #fallout 76 #the silver shroud #ask #asks #thoughts #The AntAgonizer #meta #fallout analysis #fallout meta #fallout 3 timeline shift theory

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mclalan · 1 year ago

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What art program do you use? sorry if you already answered something like this but im so mesmerized by the techniques you use in your art.

Thank you. No need to apologise; I don't mind answering this question because it's an excuse to walk through my latest image!

The concept for this piece is based on being perceived online through interpretations of posts and artwork, yet how artificial this can be. The relationship the viewer forms is more with the narrative of the work, and any insight into the artist through this feels highly awkward to me, which is precisely what I want to explore with this piece.

In this example, I wanted an attractive sitter to look like someone out of a new romantics music video or like an Enya video, because this genre and era of media is very aesthetically pleasing and nostalgic for me. I hold it as an unobtainable ideal— a hauntology. So, as wonderful as it is, it equally feels shameful and perverse because it's an aesthetic object of desire that I am contriving.

The sitter is holding one of my cartoon characters, Lauren Ipson, the protagonist of my Ersatz world project. A trope in writing is when a character acts as a self-insert of the author, and I'm conscious to try and avoid that with Lauren. I try to write Lauren as dry and sardonic yet also fun, dramatic, and friendly. I don't think of these as personal qualities of my own, but I imagine personal qualities bleeding into fictional characters is inevitable.

Yet Lauren Ipson feels much more alive a character to me compared to any attempt at self-portraiture or self-expression that I've done, which is very little because I'm not interested in constructing a perceivable identity. (I'm aware this text itself can be interpreted as self-expression; however, to me this is just another construct.)

So Is the sitter meant to be me, controlling Lauren? I'm definitely baiting the viewer to think this, and you can interpret it that way if you want, but really I don't think of the sitter as me at all. My intention is to show how it's all a facarde. The sitter is basically just as much a doll, a puppet, a mannequin as Lauren Ipson is, if anything more so.

There's a deliberate irony between Lauren's cartoon rendering and the sitter, who I wanted to render with more detail and evoke a modernist style. I'm inspired by Hans Bellmer and Dorothea Tanning with their work with dolls. However, despite that implied visual hierarchy, the more detailed sitter shares a similar, stilted vector construct to Lauren. They're both born from vector drawing after all. And it's further undermined with the way Lauren the doll looks directly at the viewer, as if she's alive, while the sitter looks to the side with a blank, almost dead-in-the-eyes expression.

Anyway, with that in mind, almost all of my work starts as a thumbnail sketch. Although I often draft digitally and am fine with doing that, I feel more confident doing it freehand on paper. Digital rendering feels more like a refinement process to me. Funnily enough, although I often prefer to sketch with physical materials, I'm anxious of refining or rendering with them.

I like my designs to be very direct and conceivable, so a solid silhouette, pose, negative space etc. I often create a quick digital sketch with this in mind, either by tracing or referencing the thumbnail, although sometimes I skip this step and go straight to the rendered drawing. The aim is to establish a visual guide, dividing the drawing into various shapes for digital airbrush rendering later on.

With this composition, I made a second draft with more attention to details such as the face, hands and feet. Sometimes I'll use photo references if I'm struggling with posing or anatomy. These drafts are often blue because it's easier to render the black linework over a transparent blue sketch.

The chair took some time but was relatively simple to render. It uses the line tool set to magnetic anchor point, following two-point perspective vanishing points. I like two-point perspective because it feels sort of digitally native to me to have these impossibly perfect vertical lines. I also know the horizon line should be at eye level or something, but I just like the idea of the top of the chair to be perfectly horizontal.

Here I'm drawing the final rendered form. I use the stroke tool with it set as smooth as possible. Often I'll redraw lines over and over if it means getting certain curves to look right. Once the lines are drawn, I'll fill them in and remove the stroke, leaving just the solid vector shape. The shade of grey I use is done to simply denote the shape. It does not represent any kind of shading or anything; in fact, when I bring it into Photoshop, all these shapes are set to the same shade, but if I had that here in Animate as I'm drawing, it would be impossible to see what I'm doing. The red background is just for clarity.

Once it's all drawn, I'll make sure every shape is clean, overlapping nicely, and divided into its own layer. A composition can often be comprised of hundreds of separate shapes.

Each shape will be its own layer in Photoshop, which will operate as a clipping mask. The clipping masks act like masking tape or shielded off areas for soft brush opacity rendering, similar to the soft atomised rendering from an airbrush, just done digitally.

I follow very rudimentary painting techniques of simple shading, lighting, and bounce-back highlights. I follow a simplified Grisaille technique, focusing on strong values in greyscale before adding a wash of colour with a color gradient map set to layer style color. Sometimes my values can be a little off, but as long as the values are all consistently acting together, I can correct them with transparent washes or color curves. If the greyscale looks harmonious with all the forms clear, colour will likely work.

Proper digital painters will say this is an amateur process, with results that look mechanical and stiff, as colours in the real world all bounce together off different surfaces, resulting in colour harmonies. However, I don't mind the inharmonious nature of the colours, as I find the values give the composition enough harmony. I'm working digitally, so why go to all the effort to make it not look digital? It's interesting to me to have the red chair look blindingly red, the green skirt look blindingly green.

Colours can look boring without some form of harmony though, so I will add in blue-greens with the darker areas, more turquoise greens towards the highlights.

Skin tones are far more complex, however, as it's something that's more informed by realism. This is why kigurumi dolls with their plastic flesh look so artificial to the eye, because we're familiar with how light passes through flesh and skin and all the subtleties of colour that it picks up. This piece is the first time I've explored flesh tones, as typically I avoid all this by rendering skin as grey porcelain.

I needed to really up the contrast, with shaded areas becoming purples and highlights verging on washed out. Areas with more blood, like feet and cheeks, appear more orange and red. Areas closer to bone and cartilage, like the bridge of the nose, can look almost blue and green. Exploring these colour values and tints in the aim of natural tones was fun to do, and ironic given how blank the face is.

Although in the moment I feel very much like I'm rendering a realistic reality, when I step back, I'm reminded how stylised and unrealistic the painting actually is. It looks kind of insane, like everything is so uniform and overtly saturated. It doesn't feel present in a real space, despite the shadow and form implies one. But I'm not consciously thinking of these things, of style, as I'm working. To me, it's a process of world-building and problem-solving.

#tutorial #mclalan #art #illustration #Adobe animate #adobe Photoshop

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thoughtful-ink · 6 months ago

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Writing tips

🌟 1. Write the book you want to read. Forget what’s trendy or marketable for a second. What’s the story you’d stay up until 3 AM reading? Write that. Your passion will bleed through the pages and connect with readers.

🌟 2. Don’t stress about perfection in the first draft. Your first draft is meant to be messy. It’s a skeleton, not the final product. “Write drunk, edit sober” doesn’t have to be literal, but the spirit of it? Spot on.

🌟 3. Characters > Plot. A thrilling plot is great, but readers stay for the characters. Give them depth, flaws, quirks, and motivations. Bonus tip: think about how your characters would react to situations outside the story—it makes them feel real.

🌟 4. Dialogue is a tool, not a transcript. In real life, we say “uh” and “like” all the time. On paper? Not so much. Make your dialogue snappy, purposeful, and reflective of your character’s personality. Pro tip: read it out loud to catch anything awkward.

🌟 5. Show and tell. You’ve heard the rule: show, don’t tell. But balance is key. Sometimes you need to show the sparkle of a frost-covered window, and sometimes you need to just say, “It was cold.”

🌟 6. Create a vibe. Want your book to feel like a dark fairytale, a sunlit romance, or a gritty thriller? Build that atmosphere with sensory details, imagery, and themes. Think of your story as a moodboard.

🌟 7. Let yourself write “bad” scenes. Not every chapter needs to be Pulitzer-worthy. Let bad writing exist. Sometimes, a rough scene holds the key to something brilliant when you edit.

🌟 8. Take breaks. Stuck? Walk, shower, nap, journal, or daydream. Creativity thrives when your brain has time to breathe. (Yes, scrolling Tumblr counts as a break. No, it doesn’t count as writing.)

🌟 9. Stop comparing yourself to other writers. Everyone’s process is different. Maybe you draft in chaos and revise into beauty, or maybe you’re methodical from start to finish. Both are valid. The only thing that matters? You keep going.

🌟 10. Celebrate the small wins. Wrote 100 words? That’s 100 more than you had yesterday. Finished a chapter? Incredible. Writing is hard, and every step forward is worth celebrating. <3

✨ Bonus Tip: Find your people. Writing can be lonely, but it doesn’t have to be. Share your progress, rant about your characters, and hype each other up.

#writing tips #writing #teenwriter #writer #wip #work in progress #workinprogress #book #thecalltoadventurethoughtful-ink

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notaspectator · 3 months ago

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(old draft, not sure if ive posted a different version of it or not but i agree with these thoughts so)

a LOT of the agents have a “i’d rather they kill me than you” mentality. Fade, Viper, and Cypher are the worst blatant offenders of near suicidal charges when they realize someone is cornered. No one really notice’s Viper’s efforts, since she makes a tactical excuse (and ngl is probably more likely to survive solo 9 times outa 10 compared to half the protocol), while Fade often ends up dead or wounded since her abilities hardly stall a full charge. Cypher does everything to assist from the shadows as to not be noticed; lest Brimstone try convincing him to get a therapist. Again.

Cypher in general probably has a really bad habit of deeming his own life and safety irrelevant. He makes sure others can back up, retreat, reposition, but leaves no such escape for himself. He thinks of himself as just a means to an end, with death having lost its weight when Sage can later revive him, and he cannot afford to fail at protecting the people he cares about a second time, even if he cant acknowledge that he cares. He refuses to witness the slaughter of the other agents, even if he vehemently claims, maybe even believes himself, that he could not care less and that it is all done in selfish interests anyways somehow

cypher generally claiming to be selfish and egotistical just to turn around and self sacrifice is just such a fun concept because he makes such an effort to not be known that people believe it when he claims they are all just a tool ir stepping stone for himself. he’ll do little harmless things that “”prove”” he’s selfish like stealing servos from breach, or messing with stuff that isnt his, but high stakes life or death? somehow, he’s dead, and everyone else is alive, and he claims incompetence before ever admitting it is intentional disregard for his own life.

#valorant cypher #cypher valorant #valorant viper #viper valorant #val yap

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boreal-sea · 1 year ago

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So something I realized watching a few videos and reading a few articles is that most of us aren’t angry at the idea of AI in general. Many of us are excited to learn about AI systems that can identify cancer better than doctors, for instance.

What we’re angry about is generative AI being used to destroy the jobs of artists (and I mean all creatives here), who have already been dealing with their work being devalued by modern society.

And I’m not sure how to deal with it. I do remember learning that when photography became a thing, many painters were horrified and terrified of would erase the art of painting. It didn’t obviously, and in fact photography because a whole new art form.

I grew up during the birth of digital art. I distinctly remember the phase digital art went through where many people declared it to not be “real art” and that it was “cheating” etc. I’m sure other millennial artists also remember this transition. But graphic designers pretty quickly adopted digital tools, and websites like DeviantArt popped up, and I don’t think there are too many people nowadays who would say a digital painting isn’t “art”. Still, I do imagine there is a gulf between how some people would view the “artistic merit” of a 3 ft tall oil painting hanging next to a 3 ft tall print of a digital painting, even if the subject and styles were similar. So the worries that digital art would erase physical painting was also proven false. And for the record, I think digital art is 100% art. The merit of digital art is equal to that of physical art.

On the other hand, I can’t say these changes didn’t affect older forms of art. Like, photography did affect the world of painting. I don’t have statistics, but it seems like it probably affected the world of portraiture the most. And I wonder if many of the 20th century art movements were influenced by photography. None of my art history classes touched on that and it’s kinda weird to me. There is definitely something about a Dada or cubism or surrealist painting that transcends beyond what a traditional photo of a landscape or a portrait can do. There is no location in the real world with actual melting clocks or people whose faces show multiple angles at once.

And then there was the digital photograph that changed everything again! Film has become a niche art form.

There were specific kinds of jobs lost due to the digital transition, too. I’m thinking of things like murals being replaced by printed banners, or book covers often being done in photoshop. Oh, and that’s another tool that was faced with fear: Photoshop! There was a fear it would destroy the need for professional photographers because everyone could just fix their own photos. Turns out nope, and in fact people skilled in photography and photo editing are still in demand. And of course there’s the loss of 2D animation in favor of 3D animation, the loss of practical effects for digital, etc.

And you might argue that in some of those cases people can tell corners are being cut and that they won’t stand for it, but Marvel movies still make billions of dollars so…

So I don’t know what’s going to happen with AI art. I am NOT saying “all current artists are stupid and wrong, in the future history students will laugh at how stubborn they were to resist this idea”. AI art is not comparable to photography or digital painting.

With a photograph, you still need to compose the image in the frame, you need to position yourself in the real world, you need to know your equipment, whether you’re using film or digital. You also need to know how to process that photo either in the dark room or in Photoshop. These are skills the average person does not have. You cannot tell an AI “that shot was good but can you increase the contrast?” It’ll just produce a completely new image.

I read an article about an art director who was encountering difficulties as the department tried to incorporate AI. They got back first drafts of art ideas from the people employed to work with the AI, gave critique, and the second round was just completely new images that didn’t include the suggestions… because they couldn’t. AI does not understand color theory. It does not have the ability to take critique. It can’t slightly alter the layout of a design.

And all of that applies to painting too. AI (currently) can’t do what a trained art student can do. It doesn’t know that to create a sense of atmosphere you should make distant objects bluer. It doesn’t know how to use human physiology and psychology to draw a viewer’s eyes across a large painting to reveal a story.

AI also can’t replicate INTENTION - and intentionality is a HUGE part of art. WHY an artist chose those colors, that medium, that composition, those tools, why they chose to display it a certain way, why the composition is like this instead of that - all of that adds meaning to the painting that you can’t get with AI.

(Yes, there is an absolutely valid field of art critique that evaluates a piece of art on its standalone value and the message it conveys without the context of the artist’s intent, but that should be compared to the analysis that DOES include the artist’s intent! That comparison can bring about so much understanding!)

Anyway I’m going to end this post now because it has gotten WAY too long. I focused mostly on painting and photography in this post because those are my particular fields of speciality, but this applies to ALL ART. It applies to music and writing and scripting and acting and composing music and just. Everything. All art.

I don’t think there are any forms of art AI doesn’t threaten. Now granted, AI can’t currently pick up a paint brush. It can’t use a crochet needle. It can’t hold a camera. And maybe there will be some sort of return to physical media in response to AI produced digital art. Or maybe there will be a response in digital art to stylistically distinguish it from AI in a way AI can’t reproduce. I’m not sure what will happen. Maybe some proof the image was digitally painted by a real person, somehow. Or that it’s a real photo, or a real article. I saw someone mention there may end up being labels like “100% human made” like we do for organic food lol. Maybe work in progress videos or photo metadata will become more commonplace as evidence of authenticity.

Anyway, NOW I’m ending this post. Whew.

#ai art discussion

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blissfullyunawares · 4 months ago

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5 Days of Helping You Outline Your Next Novel

Day 5: Obsidian for Outlining

Find all 5 installments of the mini series: helping you outline your next novel

*I have added a layer of “static” over my screenshots so they are distinctive enough to stand apart from the surrounding text

did you miss this series? here you can find all posts here: [day 1] [day 2] [day 3] [day 4]

Do you use Obsidian?

What is Obsidian?

A note-taking and knowledge management tool that allows you to create and connect notes seamlessly.

Uses a local-first approach, meaning your data is stored on your computer, not the cloud (unless you choose to sync).

Features bidirectional linking, which helps create a non-linear, networked way of organizing ideas—great for brainstorming and outlining.

Why should you use Obsidian?

Flexible & Customizable – Unlike rigid writing apps, you can design your own workflow.

Distraction-Free Writing – Markdown keeps the focus on text without extra formatting distractions.

Ideal for Outlining & Organization – Connect story ideas, characters, and settings effortlessly.

Obsidian for Writing

Outlining

Creating a One Pager

Create a single markdown note for a high-level novel summary.

Use headings and bullet points for clarity.

Link to related notes (e.g., character pages, theme exploration).

Here’s an example of an outline I’m currently using. This is what my website will have on it (and what goals I hope to achieve w my website)

Using the Native Canvas Tool

Use Obsidian’s native Canvas tool to visually outline your novel. (Best on PC)

Create a board with columns for Acts, Chapters, or Story Beats.

Drag and drop cards as the story evolves.

Writing

Why Write Directly in Obsidian?

Minimalist interface reduces distractions.

Markdown-based formatting keeps the focus on words.

No auto-formatting issues (compared to Word or Google Docs).

Why is Obsidian Great for Writing?

Customizable workspace (plugins for word count, timers, and focus mode).

Easy to link notes (e.g., instantly reference past chapters or research).

Dark mode & themes for an optimal writing environment.

Organization in Obsidian

Outlining, Tags, Links

Each chapter, character, important item, and setting can have its own linked note.

Below, for example, you can see the purple text is a linked page directly in my outline.

Use bidirectional linking to create relationships between (story) elements. Clicking these links will automatically open the next page.

Tags can be used for important characters, items, places, or events that happen in your writing. Especially useful for tracking.

Folders for Efficient Storage

Organize notes into folders for Acts, Characters, Worldbuilding, and Drafts.

Use tags and backlinks for quick navigation.

Creating a separate folder for the actual writing and linking next (chapter) and previous (chapter) at the bottom for smooth navigation.

You can also create and reuse your own internal templates!

Spiderweb Map Feature (Graph View)

Visualize connections between characters, plot points, and themes. Below you’ll see the basic mapping of my website development project.

This view can help you spot disconnected (floating) ideas and create bridges to them.

Exporting

Why Export?

Ready to format in another program (Scrivener, Word, Docs, Vellum, etc).

Need a clean version (removing tags, notes, etc) for beta readers or editors.

Creating a backup copy of your work.

When should you export?

Personally, I like to export every 5 chapters or so and update my live version on Google Docs. This allows my family, friends, and beta readers to access my edited work.

After finishing a draft or major revision.

Before sending to an editor or formatting for publication.

Where should you export?

Personally I copy and paste my content from each chapter into a google doc for editing. You may also want to make note of the following export options:

Markdown to Word (.docx) – For editing or submitting.

Markdown to PDF – For quick sharing

Markdown to Scrivener – For those who format in Scrivener.

To Conclude

Obsidian is an invaluable tool for novelists who want a flexible, organized, and distraction-free writing process.

Try setting up your own Obsidian vault for your next novel! Comment below and let me know if this was helpful for you 🫶🏻

your reblogs help me help more ppl 💕

follow along for writing prompts, vocabulary lists, and helpful content like this! <333

✨ #blissfullyunawaresoriginals ✨

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enchantingkryptoniteheart-blog · 5 months ago

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-Best of Intentions- scene addition for 2nd draft- Mistlynn/Rosalyn shenanigans 😅** not edited**

***************

Mistlynn breathed a sigh of relief as she sat down the last bracer. She placed her hands on her hips and gazed down at her work with satisfaction. She had finally finished Kili’s bracers, and the princes could now collect their completed pieces of light melee armor created with her own unique design. She had studied their iron armor closely and wanted to incorporate the runes of their house into the design so that no one doubted who their wearers were. She inlaid the perfectly oiled and polished leather with a dark indigo ink, giving the pieces a striking appearance.

Even with the embarrassment she felt coupled with the strong tinges of irritation with the fact they took Luna from her, it didn’t deviate her from her original plans for the armor. They had every reason to be cross with her, and the fact that Luna seemed content to stay with the princes without fighting her way out to find her told her all she needed to know.

They were her friends. No, they were as dear to her as own brothers.

Her heart twinged at that. Brothers. The pain of losing Argos. Of hating Valinn. But what she felt for Fili and Kili existed on that plane, she could comfortably compare her endearment to them directly alongside Argos. Argos was no longer with her, he was gone. He had given his life so that she could live. And she had to honor that.

She belonged here. And Luna sensed that.

Erebor was now her home.

And Thorin was her One. She had family once more.

She took in a deep breath as she let those thoughts settle within her. The initial desire to run was still there, nagging her in the back of her mind. But she had promised. And she knew that Dis had been right. She had been looking for an excuse. The depths of her feelings for the Dwarf King had taken her completely by surprise. It had happened all at once, apparently, somewhere between bantering with him at the dinner table, fighting massive dwarf eating spiders and arguing with him over how he didn’t have to defend her honor.

She blinked rapidly as her thoughts raced. The house of Durin. Soon to be her house, if the courting went well. She shivered. It seemed so surreal. But this is what Argos would have wanted for her. To be loved. He was the only one who had loved her truly, who had wished for her to have something more than just a cold empty tent with only Luna to sleep by.

Thorin was giving her so much more than she had ever dreamed of having.

That fact was still terrifying, but she wanted it, more than anything in this world.

She nodded to herself, a smile pulling at her mouth as she straightened her shoulders, resolve gleaming in her bright eyes. She began to put away her tools and tidy up her workstation.

She was due to meet Rosalyn, so that they could go and practice dancing. She was determined to not make a fool of herself at the ball. She didn’t want Thorin to regret his decision to publicly announce their courtship.

She would make him proud to call her his One. She would not fail him.

***********************

Mistlynn had snuck back into her room to change into a fresh pair of her leather trousers and freshly laundered billowy white shirt. Her hair was braided tightly down her back, stray curls already escaping to frame her face.

She was excited, yet nervous as they made their way to the distillery. They could hear the cheery patrons as they walked down the vast hall, the sounds of raucous laughter and clanking tankards letting them know that it was indeed a busy night.

Rosalyn beamed at Mistlynn as they reached the main door, her friend just as excited to have a fun night without any worries other than enjoying a good drink and to practice some dancing. As they walked in, they saw a lot of soldiers were there, in armor Mistlynn didn’t recognize.

“They are soldiers that accompanied Lord Dain and his family from the Iron Hills. Thorin's cousin.” Rosalyn had to shout over the roaring sound of over a hundred voices yelling over one another.

“Ah.” Mistlynn nodded in understanding as her eyes scanned the crowd. There didn’t seem to be a lot of room for dancing, but Rosalyn didn’t seem deterred, so she decided to trust and follow her lead. Rosalyn grabbed ahold of her arm and led her towards the end of the bar that was brimming with Dwarrows and Dams alike.

“2 ales please.” Rosalyn grinned as soon as she caught the eye of the barkeep. Mistlynn grimaced as the frothy beverage was set in front of her.

“Drink up!” Rosalyn grinned as she tapped her tankard to Mistlynns before taking a big gulp. Mistlynn took a deep breath before raising her drink to her lips.

********************

An hour later…

“Sounds like its rowdier than normal.” Fili mused aloud as they made their way to the distillery bar.

“Ya know its because of Dain’s bunch.” Bofur grinned as he rubbed his hands together eagerly. “I’m looking forward to the card games. They always have the best loot they bet.’

“Oh, a jig!” Kili laughed as he heard the lively tempo of the band starting up. “I didn’t realize we were missing out this early in the night.”

“If they dont hurry all the fun may be had.” Nori jiggled his coin purse jovially in his pockets. “I know Dain was most eager to get down here.”

“Uncle was trying to find Mistlynn so he could introduce her to Dain and Sindri. But they couldn’t find her or her friend.” Fili commented offhandedly.

Bofur had walked ahead of the group, and stopped right at the entrance, completely still as he watched the scene before him unfold.

“Well, I have good news then.” He looked over his shoulder at his friends, a broad grin stretched from ear to ear. “I found Mistlynn, and her bonnie baker friend.”

“What?!” Kili laughed as he ran up next to Bofur, Fili and Nori close behind him.

The sight that greeted them made their mouths drop open in surprise.

“Oh no.” Fili groaned.

“Ooohhh yes.” Nori crooned as he and Bofur began to elbow each other as they began to laugh.

There were a lot of dams in the room, being spun about by their partners in time to the lively music that the band was playing.

However, in the middle of the room where a bigger rectangle table sat, there were two dams, one dressed in flowing white and blue skirts, the other in tight leather trousers, spinning each other around with linked arms, their outstretched hands holding their tankards of ale that were splashing out around them.

There were dwarrows seated in the chairs drinking their own ales as they looked up at the two dams, highly amused at the impromptu dancing lesson the jovial strawberry blonde was trying to teach her friend.

“Aule’s beard.” Fili ground out as he began to push through the crowd of merry dwarves. “Quick we must get them down before Uncle and Dwalin get here!” He shouted over his shoulder to his brother and friends, who were now laughing at the sight before them.

Kili ran after his brother, still laughing. “Oh, they are just having some good fun, Fili. Dont ruin it for them.”

“THEY are dancing on a table surrounded by Dwarrows. How do you think Uncle and Dwalin are going to respond to that?”

“I dont know? Laugh? They aren’t doing anything wrong for Mahal’s sake. Lighten up a bit.” Kili clapped his brothers shoulder jovially. “Let’s not ruin their fun, alright? Mistlynn has had a rough week. We will get them down, but we got to let them think it’s their idea.”

Fili growled. “Fine. But they are getting no more ale! Help me get them down!”

“Say no more.” Kili grinned. They both looked up to see both dams stumbling out of a spin, giggling so hard they were breathless.

“No, you did it wrong. I’m the Dwarrow, I’m supposed to spin you!” Rosalyn gestured wildly with her hand that held her tankard, sloshing out the majority of her drink.

“I thought I was the Dwarrow, I’m the one wearing the trousers!” Mistlynn snorted as she gestured down to her pants before taking another swig of her drink, promptly finishing off the rest of it. “Rosa! Darling. I need more ale!”

“Say no more lass!” One of Dain’s soldiers holds out another overflowing tankard, replacing it with her empty one before handing another one towards Rosalyn.

“Such service!” Rosalyn giggled as she took the full tankard. “Thank you, my dear fellow. I must teach her how to dance like a dam! It simply won’t do, spinning the King. He must spin you!”

“He is probably better than I am at spinning. I’m not good at spinning. I get too dizzy.” Mistlynn sobered momentarily before taking another big drink of her ale.

“That’s because you’re drinking too much! That’s why your dizzy, for Mahal’s sake Mist!” Fili pushed his way towards the table, so that he was looking up at swaying Mistlynn. Rosalyn snorted in her drink at the sight of the two princes before she began to giggle hysterically.

Mistlynn placed her hand on her hip as she popped it out to the side, leveling him with a challenging look. “Oh, so now you’re talking to me. Hello Fili.”

“Hello, Mistlynn.” Kili was grinning broadly. “You look like your having fun.”

“I am.”

“Why are you standing on the table?” Fili sighed. “Can you please get down?”

“I am learning to dance, so no, I won’t be getting down.” Mistlynn replied flippantly as she looked away from Fili, taking another big gulp of her drink.

“Dance down here, on the floor!” Fili pointed to the ground, his tone pleading.

“No, I quite like it up here. Don’t we, Rosa?”

“We do!” Rosalyn chirped as she skipped up to Mistlynn, grinning. “Another spin, shall we?”

“Yes!” Mistlynn cheered. “Another song to spin to if you please!” Mistlynn called loudly over the crowd, pointing over to the band.

The musicians cheered in response before they led into an even quicker jaunt. Mistlynn beamed as she threw her one free hand in the air, and the room erupted into thunderous applause and cheers.

Kili was laughing so hard he had to place his hands on his knees. “Oh Mahal. I can’t breathe.” He wheezed. “She even has the band at her beck and call.”

Fili let out an exasperated breath as he watched Mistlynn attempt to curtsy while very tipsy. “You're not helping.”

“Aye, we are helping.” Bofur cheerfully appeared next to him, his own tankard in hand. “We will keep a watchful eye on her, let her and Miss Rosie have their fun.”

“She’s on a bloody table Bofur.” Fili huffed out in exasperation.

“She’s with her friend dancin, not being touched by a single dwarrow. She is quite safe. No one would dare touch either one of them.”

“Bofur is right brother.” Kili wiped the tears from his eyes as he was finally able to catch his breath. “We will … stand guard. Let the ladies dance.”

“Fine.” Fili grumbled. “But no more ale, for either one of them.”

“Another won’t hurt, the damage is already done.” Nori snickered as he walked up, his own drink in hand. “They won’t remember a moment of this tomorrow, mark me.”

They watched as Rosalyn attempted to lead Mistlynn into a fast paced dance, but Mistlynn was struggling with the steps. They watched her step back in frustration.

“I dont get this dance, Rosa!” She threw back the rest of her ale, downing it in one gulp before throwing her hands up in the air. “I say we just dance! No partners! Who needs partners!”

Rosalyn began to laugh hysterically as Mistlynn reached back and pulled her hair free from the messy braid. Her wild curls fell down the entire length of her back, stopping right at the curve of her waist. She tossed her head from side to side, and a thunderous cheer rose from the rest of the patrons.

Rosalyn followed suit, pulling her hair down from its elegant bun and began to move her body in time with the music as Mistlynn was. Mistlynn raised her arms in the air and began to spin, laughing joyously with her feet in step to the lively tune.

Fili covered his mouth with his hand, stifling a groan. “Oh, great Yavanna, no.”

Another damn carrying two tankards of ale waltzed up to the table and held her arm out towards Mistlynn. “Mind if I join ye?” she called. “I brought ye another drink!”

Mistlynn grinned, her eyes gleaming. She helped the dam up onto the tabletop and took the drink that was offered her. “The more the merrier!” She beamed.

***************************

Some time later…

“Oh, no! No no no! They dont need any more give me those!” Fili grabbed the brimming tankards from the dwarrow that was bringing another round for Mistlynn and Rosalyn.

“I am sorry my Lord, they said they were thirsty.” The dwarrow bowed his head at Fili, his voice contrite.

“For water!” Fili tried to contain the hiccup that felt like it was stuck at the base of his throat. He looked at the ale in his hand with dread. “They need water.”

The dwarrow nodded “Of course my Lord.”

Fili turned toward Kili, who was laughing merrily at something Bofur whispered to him. “Here, drink up.”

Kili groaned as he took the tankard. “Not another one.”

Fili belched, grimacing as he rubbed chest. “I’m so drunk. I can’t drink anymore.”

“Nonsense! You're not drunk, your fine!” Nori clapped the blonde prince on the back, making him stumble forward to knock into Kili.

“You drink it then.” Fili grumbled. “I’ve intercepted every other drink that has been brought to them. Mahal, how are they still standing?’

Kili took and chugged the ale halfway, before giving up. He let out a loud burp as he passed it off to Bofur. “Here. For the future Queen.”

“Bottoms up lads!” Bofur cheered.

Fili finished the tankard, stumbling back slightly. He fell into something solid. A firm hand settled on his shoulder to steady him. He looked back before letting out a nervous chuckle. “Uncle. You're here.”

“Steady on there, lad.” Dain chuckled as he stood next to Thorin, who was looking up at the table with a disbelieving yet humored look on his face.

“Uncle! Dwalin! We found them. Fret not, we kept them safe.” Kili grinned as he swayed on his feet.

“By my beard, what is goin on?” Dwalin groused, his eyebrows raised as high as they would go. “Why is their hair down? Why are they on the table?”

“All good questions my friend.” Bofur chortled from his seat next to the table. “They were practicing their dancing; I wager for tomorrow night.”

“On the bloody table? Who gave them ale?” Dwalin pressed, his voice low.

“Everyone.” Fili hiccupped. “Everyone has been giving them ale. We have been drinking as much of it as we could before it got to them.” The blonde prince slurred slightly as he grabbed ahold of Thorin’s arm. “Sorry, the room keeps moving.”

Dain threw his head back and laughed jovially. The redheaded warrior leaned over to look at Dwalin, who was eyeing Rosalyn with concern evident in his eyes. “That’s yer Rosie, I take it?”

Rosalyn was giggling joyously, her strawberry locks bouncing with each step as she spun around. She hadn’t noticed the newcomers.

“Aye.” Dwalin’s throat bobbed as he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Dain nodded approvingly. “She’s a bonnie lass, to be sure.”

Thorin’s eyes were scanning through the group of laughing dams that were having the time of their lives dancing on the table. After a moment a flash of platinum broke through the mass of blonde, brunette, black and red locks of hair that were teeming together in rhythm.

He saw her throw up her hands, her arms curling and twisting in the air as she swayed in time to the sound of the instruments. Her head was thrown back, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright as she laughed. Her curls were fanned out, catching the golden light of the room.

He couldn’t help but smile as he watched her dance, entirely enraptured in her own world as she moved in a way that was all her own. Her walls were completely down, as if they had never existed. He already knew that he was in love her and had been for a while. But it was at this moment, that he knew he was irrevocably lost to her in every sense of his being. In this moment, he saw no one else but her.

After a moment, she caught sight of him. Her eyes brightened even more as she grinned at him. He felt his heart skip a beat as he returned her gaze, his own smile growing. She gave a surprisingly graceful curtsy, her wild hair sweeping the top of the table before she righted herself and tossed the mass of platinum curls over her shoulders. She walked forward and jumped off the table, landing perfectly without issue, despite her healthy intake of ale.

“My king.” She purred with a catlike grin as she approached him with an extra sway to her step, her eyes glassy with drink.

“M’eudail.” He greeted, amused at her very flirtatious attitude. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“I’ve been here this whole time; I wasn’t trying to hide.” she teased.

Dain’s laugh was loud as he clapped Thorin on the back. “This is her then?” Dain wiggled his brows at Thorin, who still hadn’t removed his gaze from saucy female in front of them.

Thorin clicked his tongue behind his teeth in amusement, the corner of his mouth quirking up as he smirked back. “The one and only.”

Dain inclined his head to her as he bowed deeply. “It is truly an honor lass. He hasn’t stopped talking about you since I set foot in Erebor.”

“All good things I hope?”

“He has only sung your praises.” Dain grinned.

Mistlynn giggled. “He lied to you. I’m nothing but trouble. Just ask Master Dwalin.”

The crowd within earshot of them all erupted with laughter, but Dain’s was the loudest by far. Dwalin grumbled under his breath as tried to get Rosalyn’s attention so that he could help her off the table.

“I thought you didn’t like ale.” Thorin quirked an eyebrow at her. “Fili was just telling me how much you both have had.”

Mistlynn swayed on her feet as she giggled. She stepped closer to him so that she could place a finger against his lips. “Sshhh dont worry your beautiful, bearded face about me. The ale here is so much better than in Dale.”

Thorin’s eyes widened incredulously as everyone burst out laughing at her words. Not even Dwalin could help the snort that left him. “My beautiful, bearded face?” he repeated, his words shushed as he tried to talk around her finger that was still pressed to his lips.

Mistlynn giggled again as she swayed into his chest, so that she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. Her hand trailed down from his lips to stop at the middle of his chest. “Dance with me? I’ve been practicing.”

“I saw that.” He chuckled as he brought a hand up to cover hers, trapping her against him. “But I think it might be best if I escort you to your room.”

Mistlynn gasped, affronted at the idea of leaving. “I am not ready to leave, the night is still young.”

“Lass after my own heart!” Dain chuckled as he watched the exchange between Thorin and Mistlynn. “Why dont we go get some more drinks lads?” he winked at Thorin, “Let our King give his lady a twirl around the room.”

“Mistlynn wouldn’t let me spin her!” Rosalyn shouted out boisterously, once she realized that Mistlynn was no longer dancing with her on the table and was instead flirting with her One. “She needs to be spinned!”

“Ibine, please come down from there.” Dwalin held his hand out as he tried to coax her down.

Rosalyn giggled, covering her mouth with both hands as an adorable snort escaped mid giggle. “You called me your gem.”

Dwalin sighed. “Yes. I did. Please take my hand.”

“Will you spin me?”

“I dont think that would be wise.”

“No, I shall stay up here. My friends will spin me.”

“Oh, for Yavanna’s sake.” Dwalin ground out as he shot Thorin a helpless look. “Dont make me come up there and fetch ye.”

Mistlynn giggled. “Oh no. Dont throw her over your shoulder.” She called out, before leaning closer to Thorin again and whispering, albeit loudly. “We actually like being thrown over a broad muscley shoulder. But we dont you Dwarrows to know that. It’s a secret.”

Thorin leaned down slightly. “Is that so?”

Mistlynn bit her bottom lip as she nodded. “Especially if that shoulder is connected to a beautifully bearded face.”

Thorin chuckled. “You seem to be fond of that term.”

“I’ve always thought it, just never aloud.” She whisper shouted as her hands grabbed onto his jacket, trying to shake him as if using that to emphasis the validity of her confession.

“There are so many beautifully bearded faces in this mountain, whoever are you talking about?” He grinned teasingly, enjoying how her mouth opened into a big ‘O’ as her eyes grew comically wide. “Any other dwarrows tossing you over their shoulder when you’re being a brat?”

She tried to smack his shoulder but stumbled further against him. “Your stupidly handsome face is the only one I would call beautifully bearded.”

Thorin’s shoulders shook as tried to contain his laughter. Her nose was wrinkled up adorably as she scowled at him. He fought the urge to lean down and kiss her, to kiss that scowl right off her face. “And that is exactly why I should take you back to your room. You wouldn’t be telling me any of this if you were clear headed.”

“Maybe I would. If you would stop distracting me.”

An excitable squeal interrupted them. Thorin looked over at Dwalin, who had just caught Rosalyn in his arms as she spun herself right off the tabletop. “Oops.” Rosalyn giggled

“Alright. Now that’s done. Off we go now.” Dwalin announced, shooting a pointed look at Thorin before turning and walking towards the exit.

“Wait!” Rosalyn shouted as she peered over Dwalin’s shoulder. “We weren’t done yet.”

“Och yer done. Both of ye, dont fret.”

Thorin grinned as he looked back down at Mistlynn, who now had a pout on her lips. “We weren’t done dancing yet. I wanted to practice before the ball.” Her voice grew quiet. “I didn’t want to embarrass you, Because I have never danced before this. This was my first time; Rosalyn was teaching me.”

His expression softened as he listened to her unguarded confession. The flush of her already pink cheeks deepened to scarlet as she looked down at his chest, where her fingers were fiddling with the embroidery on the edges of his jacket.

“I’m surprised to hear that.” He chuckled warmly as he placed a finger under her chin, coaxing her to look back up at him. “I couldn’t keep my eyes off of you.”

Her eyes widened at his statement. His thumb caressed over the dip between her bottom lip and chin. “You won’t embarrass me.” He left no room for her to disagree. She gave him a shy smile as she allowed her body to relax.

“You make me feel like I swallowed a bunch of butterflies.” She whispered again before giving him another unburdened smile. “That’s why I was always so irritated with you.”

“Giving away all your secrets now?’ Thorin scanned the room quickly to see Dwalin standing by the exit with Rosalyn who was waving her arms eagerly to gain Mistlynn’s attention. Dwalin jerked his head back, obvious he was urging them to join them. Apparently, Rosalyn didn’t want to leave without her friend.

“It wasn’t a secret.” She sighed dreamily. “It was so frustratingly obvious.”

“Ok let’s get you back to your room. You have a big day tomorrow.” He chuckled as he tried to turn her around to lead her out of the room.

“But I’m not done dancing.” Mistlynn whined petulantly. “Just a little while longer.”

“Let’s get you some tea and maybe some of Bombur’s rolls and stew? I know that’s a favorite of yours.”

“I’m not hungry. I ate before coming here.” She dug her heels into the floor as he tried to coax her forward.

“Why are you trying to get rid of me?” she asked suspiciously.

He sighed exasperatedly. “Mahal Mist, I am not! You have had too much ale.”

Mistlynn giggled. “You haven’t had enough ale. You need to catch up.” She spun back around quickly, taking him by surprise. “You should come get another drink with me, and we can dance.”

“I dont need to have a drink to dance with you.” He took her hand in his and proceeded to spin her out away from him. She gasped in surprise as he pulled her back, twirling her skillfully under his arm before catching her and promptly dipping her back.

One leg went up into the air as he dipped her all the way down, her hair sweeping the ground before lifting her back up. A squeak escaped her as he spun her around quickly again once she was back on her feet, and before she could react, his arm went behind her knees and he scooped her up effortlessly into his arms.

She blinked as she tried to stop the room from spinning as cheers erupted around them. Thorin was grinning broadly as he looked down at her. She could feel the chuckle rumbling in his chest as she stared at him with her mouth open in shock. “Less ale for you if you want to dance with me. I want you to be able to keep up.”

“Way to sweep her off her feet Uncle.” Kili smirks as he and Fili walked up, still slightly inebriated themselves.

“We are coming back with you. I need something with bread.” Fili groaned.

“I didn’t realize you were such a light weight.” Thorin chuckled as he began to walk towards the exit, where Dwalin was impatiently waiting with a swaying Rosalyn.

“I am not and you know it!” Fili cried in outrage. “I kept her from getting blacked out drunk on the table. Everyone thought it would be good fun to give the ladies all the drinks they could want. She was just throwing them back like a hobbit during a midsummer eve’s feast!” He took a deep steadying breath. “I’m shocked both of them are still capable of speech.” He grumbled.

“I can still walk thank you very much, wolf stealer.” Mistlynn growled as she wiggled in Thorin’s grip.

“Ha, and capable of biting too.” Kili laughed as he wiggled his eyebrows tauntingly at Mistlynn, who just glowered at the two princes.

“Enough of that.” Thorin set Mistlynn on her feet, giving her a moment to rediscover her balance.

Rosalyn giggled at the sight of Mistlynn. “There you are, I didn’t know where you went.” She stumbled toward Mistlynn and wrapped her in a tight hug.

“Alright ladies, lets go.” Thorin shared a look with Dwalin, who just shook his head in response.

“Aule help us.” Dwalin grumbled as he eyed the dams with suspicion.

In a blink of an eye, Mistlynn and Rosalyn joined hands and began to dash forward, laughing and giggling as they ran.

“Mahal has a sense of humor, that is for certain.” Thorin huffed out a laugh as Dwalin groaned before they started to run after the two dams.

Fili just shook his head, as Kili threw his head back and laughed. “I’m not running after them.”

********************

Thank you my babes @fizzyxcustard for reading through this making sure I’m not crazy for writing this scene. It was a lot of fun. 😅 these add ins to the story have been so much fun and the character development just in these little additions is just insane for me to see as I write them.

I felt like the rough draft was severely lacking. All these additions will be in my final draft 🙌🏻

**Taglist**

@fizzyxcustard @mrsdurin @dustie-faerie @exhausted-humxn-being @lathalea

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topazadine · 9 months ago

Text

How to Write Faster (And, Hopefully, Better Too)

Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

I've shared some tools before to help improve your speed and motivation, which include:

Using a word count spreadsheet

Working on only one WIP at a time

Leverage StimuWrite and Cold Turkey

.... but I still have a few more tricks, which I'll share now.

Why should you listen to me? I've written over 2 million words of fiction since 2021. That's a lot, more than many people write in a lifetime.

This is despite the fact that I also write 22,000 words every week for my day job. I do around 10k of creative fiction a week. And there's also the time I spend writing these articles for you, the lovely people of Tumblr, which is around 4-5k per week.

So, all told, I probably do around 37,000 words (creative, informative, and otherwise) every single week.

I did that by following these tips.

Separate the work into stages.

First, let's outline the stages of work (or at least the stages I use). You may have a different setup, and that's fine - if you do have a system that works for you, then you probably don't need my post at all. Keep doing what you're doing and ignore my advice.

But if you do not have a system, consider mentally separating things into these parts.

Active Writing. When I am busy doing the draft. It is both the most precarious and productive time; everything else related to books goes on the backburner. I am doing nothing writing-related but writing. No discussing the work unless I'm stuck somewhere, no making moodboards, NOTHING. This is my sacred time when I am in the thick of things and I put Writing Blinders on.

Percolation. I am done with the first draft. I set the piece aside and do other things like reading other novels, outlining another story, answering tag games, playing with moodboards, or putting everything aside and focusing on other hobbies. This is so I can come back to revisions with a fresh set of eyes. It keeps the story in my mind and can even help me discover new things I want to add.

Revision. After I have had a beta reader check things out, I go back and start fixing things. Then it percolates again. I repeat percolating and revising as many times as I feel necessary. Many times, I will have one beta reader look at it, then revise, and then have another beta reader look at it, each one getting a slightly different version of the story so I can compare what they liked or disliked.

Prepublishing. Most authors' least favorite part: marketing and telling people about your book so that they want to read it when it is ready. That includes stuff like making mood boards, doing tag games, sending out ARCs, setting up adds, posting on social media, and so on.

Again, ONE STEP AT A TIME. Do not blend all of these into a slurry.

I will say that this time around, with Pride Before a Fall, I ordered the cover before I was done with the book because I had a very clear vision of what I wanted.

Talk less, write more.

This is similar to the problem I highlighted in my Double Outlining post; the more you talk about your story, the more you trick your brain into thinking that you've done the work when you categorically have not.

Plus, the time you spend talking about your book is time you spend not writing your book. We can't do both simultaneously.

I don't really talk about my stories while I'm doing them, not even with my family. I may post a line or two, and I may tell people the basic plot, but I'm not spending hours discussing them with anyone unless I need advice on what to do next. Even then, it's more like "hey what do you think about this? Good? Cool, off I go."

Please get out of the habit of exhaustively picking apart your work with other people during the Active Writing stage. That can come during the Percolating and Revising stages.

Devote all your love and attention to one story.

Yes, I've mentioned this in a whole entire post, but I need to emphasize just how important it is to write stories one at a time. Working on a million things at once is not efficient; it's scatterbrained.

Force yourself to do ONE story. Just one. Not two or three or five. ONE.

Again, I've written 132 stories on AO3 (two of which are 100k+, multiple of which are 50k+), published one book, and written 5 of the upcoming manuscripts for the 10-part Eirenic Verses series. I am a very productive writer, and that is because I do everything one at a time.

Don't tell yourself "oh, I can get more done if I do a little bit on this one and that one and that one."

Can a chess player win three games of chess if they play all of them simultaneously? Uh, probably not. Each of their opponents is devoting everything to one game while their concentration is split between three different boards.

And you're not going to win either if you're playing twenty games of Write the Book simultaneously.

Do not mess around with moodboards, tag games, character questionnaires, playlists, etc, during Active Writing.

I discussed this in my Extremely Controversial Writing Opinions, but it bears repeating.

Do all of that stuff later, after you are done, as a marketing tool. It's procrastination, plain and simple.

Any time I get sucked into tag games or moodboards while writing, I get less done because I'm devoting time and energy to something that doesn't actually enhance my book.

It's one thing to do character questionnaires while you're figuring out a character, but quite another to stop what you're doing and tell everyone what your character's favorite food is.

Is that helping you get the project done? No, it is not. Log out of Canva. Turn on Cold Turkey to block Tumblr or Twitter. Leave that stuff alone.

Read short stories.

You know you need to read to become a good writer, but taking hours out of your day to read a novel while you're drafting your own novel can take away from your writing process.

That's not to say you shouldn't ever read novels, of course, but you can do that while you're in between projects.

During my active writing phase, I like to read a short story before I get started on working. This gives me inspiration and primes my creative pump so I'm excited to do my best.

Reading short stories also helps me focus on brevity rather than long-winded diatribes, which lets me pack more into a story.

Don't reread your work during Active Writing.

It's easy to get sucked into rereading and then not get anything new done; plus, this makes you want to revise, which should come later.

Reread only as much as you need to fix plot holes or remind yourself of where you're going. Refusing to reread also lets you look at your work with fresh eyes during revisions.

Make a writing ritual.

You need to tell your brain that it is writing time. This could be anything, like brushing your teeth right before you sit down to write, or drinking coffee out of one specific coffee cup when you are in writing mode, or putting on a playlist that you only use when writing.

For me, I light incense and ring a bell, then ask my muses to help me. When I take a break, I'll light a new incense stick (it's Japanese incense so very light scent) and ring the bell again.

That's about it, though I may write another post with more tips. I hope these are helpful to you, even if you don't like them. Sit on them, think about it, and give it a try. You might find yourself spending more time writing and less time just thinking about writing.

I've created a masterlist of writing resources that you can peruse at your leisure, all for free.

The posts I write can sometimes take me hours - they're always intricate, always thoughtful. This one took me about 1 hour to write.

I do this as a labor of love for the writing community, sharing what I have learned from almost 15 years of creative writing.

However, if you'd like to support me, maybe you'll consider buying my book?

9 Years Yearning is a gay coming-of-age romance set in a fantasy world. It follows Uileac Korviridi, a young soldier training at the War Academy. His primary motivations are honoring the memory of his late parents, protecting his little sister Cerie, and becoming a top-notch soldier.

The book features poetry, descriptions of a beautiful country inspired by Mongolia, and a whole lot of tsundere vibes.

You can also check it out on Goodreads for a list of expanded distribution.

If you do purchase my book, don't forget to leave a review!

Reviews are vital for visibility on Amazon and help to support indie authors like me. Whenever you love a book, be sure to let the author know! It's much appreciated.

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