#etta rambles

[ettawritesnstudies]

I made my debut YA fantasy book dyslexia friendly! This is part 1 of explaining how I typeset it, if you want to read the first three chapters completely for free, you can sign up for my mailing list here!

Part 2!

[ettaseverythingelse]

Polling based off what were the "big" ones for kids growing up in the US, based off my very limited anecdotal observations. Asian, Native American, and African mythology and folk traditions are so so fascinating to me and it's a crying shame they're not more thoroughly covered by our shoddy education system. I'll probably make a follow up poll depending on how this one turns out. Tell me in the comments/tags!

Bonus: if you learned about a mythology through the original myths or a more niche option, what's your opinion on Riordan, Marvel, and other major adaptations? Do you get to be pretentious about it or do you vibe with them?

[ettawritesnstudies]

We had an entire shtick in my Planescape game about how limited the Sending Stone is, and how the "cell reception" kept cutting out and the character in possession of the sending stone was basically a sorority girl paladin. One of the major magic item upgrades she got was an "unlimited sending plan" that let her use it basically like a modern day phone and she didn't get this until level 15.

dnd jokes that will always be funny no matter what your dm tells you

"jesus christ" "who's that"

"this is just like (tv show/movie)" "that's my favorite play"

referring to famous musicians or actors from the real world as "bards"

adding the word "fantasy" in front of modern things (i pull out my Fantasy iPhone and open Fantasy Tinder)

"how hurt are you" "on a scale of one to twenty-eight i'd say i'm at about a nine."

feel free to add more

[ettawritesnstudies]

READERS: FYI BOOKSHOP.ORG HAS FREE SHIPPING FOR ANTI-PRIME DAYS

This is a cool platform that gives back to local and small businesses so I'm affiliated with them. If you want to use my link to buy anything I'll get a small cut which is appreciated, but regardless this is still a neat opportunity to dodge Amazon's monopoly especially if you don't have prime.

[ettaseverythingelse]

My fiance has a new batch of retro game consoles listed on his eBay shop! If you're into old school systems and physical media, check out his storefront! I help him with all the cleaning and repair work and testing, and I made the sign for his storefront! ^^^

[ettawritesnstudies]

Would anyone be interested if I put together a post on how to write a scientist/engineer/techy/smart-guy type character? What would y'all want to know?

[ettaseverythingelse]

Join your local observatory! They have to be open late and sometimes especially active or well funded ones have fun events even when the weather is bad

[ettaseverythingelse]

I went to a flea market today in Ohio and it was very fun and a little overstimulating when I first got there, super huge complex with farm/zoo animal statues everywhere. Bizzarre place, but with your typical fare of dropshippers/resellers, antique dealers, hoarders cleaning out old garages or storage units, small artists selling soap or trinkets, food courts with Americana fare. Classic way to spend an abnormally warm Saturday afternoon in March. I had a great time wandering around with my fiance and checking out the booths until we found this one vendor in the last building.

She was selling American Girl Dolls.

Not just the new ones - Kaya, Addie, Josephina, Felicity. Classic dolls from my childhood that have been discontinued for years. I started rambling at my fiance about their stories, their outfits, surprising myself at the nostalgia hit and how much I remembered. I was talking about how Kaya smiles without showing teeth because of respect for the Nez Perce tribe when the shopkeeper came over to strike up a conversation, happy to meet another person who shared her love for the history behind the franchise.

We must have talked for 30 minutes or something, she was so nice and knowledgeable and I had such a fun time reminiscing with her before other customers came in. Eric and I left to get a CRT he was interested in for his retro games (very cool, shockingly affordable, it's playing Silent Hill 3 right now and looks awesome), but I was still rambling about how much I loved the books and by the time we had finished loading the TV into the car I had nearly worked myself into tears and decided to go back for a doll.

$140 later...

She's so beautiful!! Both the doll and the dress are originals from the Pleasant Company, before they were bought out by Mattel, and she looks like new. My family were huge revolutionary war history nerds but Felicity was one doll I never had. My sister and I read all the books and begged our parents for dolls and over the course of a couple Christmases, Santa brought us Josephina, Kit, and Samantha, which are still at home with a box of clothes. We learned how to sew from an old family friend and made dozens of outfits and even made historical clothes for ourselves when our family did a trip to colonial Williamsburg. These stories were such a big part of my childhood and yeah the nostalgia has me making an impulse purchase but I'm so happy I found this doll and could give her a good home.

[fandomsofadistractedwriteblr]

Somebody with more skill than me needs to make an animatic for gravity falls with the song Devil Town by Cavetown with Dipper and Mabel Pines

[ettawritesnstudies]

Writer friends! If you're on Instagram, check out the hashtag #humanvoicesonly

There are a ton of voice actors and audiobook narrators organizing an event to protest AI voice narration in audiobooks which can steal their jobs, steal our words, and just create shittier audiobooks in general. As part of the event you can submit a small snippet of your writing and have it read by Human Voices Only for the event, which is great for publicity on both sides.

This was the link I found but it looks like there are a lot of narrators participating so look around!

[ettawritesnstudies]

I have an affiliate link with this company! If you're looking for indie book recs, check out my shop!

This is important. Fuck Amazon books, Apple books. Shop local.

[ettaseverythingelse]

Help I've been typecast as the tech savvy gen Z at work how do I get out of the objectively stupid and increasingly desperate AI (???) sales (???????) responsibilities my boss is heaping on my plate.

[fandomsofadistractedwriteblr]

not to post about dr. who on the tardis blue hellsite ten years late but my boyfriend had me rank all the episodes from 11's runs tonight and compare them to the fandom ranking and I regret to inform you that you're all incorrect. the dinosaurs in space and pirate siren ones are obviously S tier because they're FUN and WHIMSICAL and the only ones with a COHERENT PLOT.

because pirates.

and DINOSAURS.

in SPACE.

have you forgotten what it's like to be six? are you really grown ups (derogatory)??? the delight of this show is a little girl and the weird magic man from the stars and you cannot tell me dinosaurs in space as a premise does not honor that ethos to its core.

[ettawritesnstudies]

don't curse me for doing a marketing i know you're all using these artists on your DND and OC playlists too 🫵

Learn more about Runaways Here!

Or if you already follow runaways, here's a sneak peek at some of the artists and songs I'll be sharing on the playlist this Friday! You might even find some new favorite artists this way, who knows?

Taglist: ask to be added or removed!

@tiredlittleoldme @abalonetea @happyorogeny @weaver-of-fantasies-and-fables @quilloftheclouds @rainydaydarling @bladeverbenas-blog @andifthestarsweretodie @thelaughingstag @ladywithalamp @avrablake @prettylittlelyres @rainbowsnowflakee @theroseempress

[ettaseverythingelse]

I've been keeping a journal/planner/diary in some capacity since junior year of high school and I'm so inconsistent about writing. In school it was mostly to keep track of assignments with brief asides to vent - nowadays my days are pretty mundane and predictable so this practice looks like brain dumping every two weeks all the thoughts that have been piling up. But I still enjoy physically writing out my thoughts and tracking my year this way even if I wish I could have a better habit about it.

[ettawritesnstudies]

one day when Runaways is published and I market the everloving hell out of it and people actually read it all the way through and enjoy it and all the spoilers are fair game again, I'll go through my tag here on tumblr and self reblog every ask game and tag and meta and everything that went into the development. just for fun. i think that would be fun.