#going through my drafts to figure out wtf i'm doing with my life

[danieyells]

I've had this in my drafts for at least a month because I meant to make and add more memes but never did lmao so here have random memes and no consistency between them (x) (x) (x) (x)

[halfbakedspuds]

Thanks to @honeybewrites for the tag

OC name origins tag

Rules: I want to know how you came up with your original character’s names and personalities. Are they based on people in your real life? Are they straight from your brain? Are they a mix of several people?

I'll do this for the Tempest Prince characters

Jason Haliday:

Jason's name- like his brother's- is steeped in Greek history and mythos, with Jason being one of the classical heroes of their mythology. Jason Haliday (called something different in that draft) compared himself to mythology Jason with all this supposedly important but seemingly useless stuff he kept having to go after, "Like chasing a goddamn fleece for whatever reason" and purposefully ignorimh the context of the original story. The scene isn't in the current draft, but the comparison led me to change his name to Jason.

His surname, 'Haliday', was originally 'Galloway', but somewhere I learnt that Halliday comes from the old English hæligdag, which is excellent foreshadowing for the book.

Alex Haliday:

Alex was always going to be this character's name, however I changed its long form from Alexandra to Alexander somewhere down the line (God knows why, 'cause I certainly don't remember).

The reason was always because of his involvement with the Allyrian Inquisition as one of their brightest strategic minds and best warriors, making his name a nod towards Alexander of Macedonia.

Michelle Haliday:

Michelle as a character was heavily inspired by my dad- whose name was Michael- and giving her a name similar to his is a sort of tribute.

Lifvinja Ravenscar:

Okay, I know of maybe two people who follow me that might know what I'm on about with this, but I'll try my best to explain.

Growing up, I had the box set of this one old-ass Afrikaans kids show called 'Liewe Heksie' (it's hard to translate without sounding strange, but somewhere along the lines of 'little beloved witch') which was about an... admittedly pathetic but endearing excuse of a witch named Livinia, and followed all the stuff she got up to.

Some part of me thought "Hey, wouldn't it be funny to take this all-powerful, immortal mage who used to be a Norse Viking like a thousand years ago and name her after this one character from a kids show?"

And thus, Livinia got swapped out for its Norse equivalent- Lifvinja- and Archmagos Lifvinja Ravenscar was named.

The surname 'Ravenscar' comes from how marriage works in the Hunter cities, where everyone in the relationship unanimously agrees on two words that they feel allude to something important to them, and those two are put together to create their new surname that's unique to them. In Lifvinja's case, she called her wife 'Hrafn' (Raven) as a joke when they first met and it just stuck, and the pair both had matching burn scars on their forearms from something important to their story that I can't disclose cause ✨spoilers✨.

Helga Ravenscar:

I'll be honest with you, she literally got her name from a newspaper comic called Hagar the Horrible.

We all struggle to figure out character names sometimes, and she was one of those characters.

Isaac Blackwell:

Isaac got his name cause I was playing Dead Space around the time I first created his character.

'Blackwell' is based on 'Blackthorn' from the Shadowhunter books, but it does serve a purpose of sorts to the story. However, ✨spoilers✨

Aten:

Aten is one of several Great Ones that appear in the story (A great one being an extra dimensional entity that is to a god as we are to bacteria) and he got his name from the full name for the Egyptian sun god, Aten-Ra.

I think I was reading Kane Chronicles when I came up with that one, not sure.

The story in universe is that he's a lot more compassionate toward humans than the rest of the 'Pantheon', and came down to the Egyptian old kingdom to help them through a famine. Them not really understanding wtf they were seeing culminated in them naming him after their sun god, and thus he now carries the name 'Aten' with a sort of pride.

Sanmaht:

Imma be perfectly honest here, this one was a keyboard smash with vowels added for pronouncability.

Leyendeach:

I got this from the game Pathfinder: Kingmaker, where the audio file for some early-game cantrips sounded to me like they ended in something that eventually, through many iterations, got turned into 'Leyendeach'

Ralye:

A corruption of R'lyeh, the name of the city where Cthulhu supposedly is in HP Lovecraft's stories; from the phrase "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl ftagn" (In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu lays dreaming).

No pressure tag for @orion-lacroix, @oh-no-another-idea, @illarian-rambling, @pb-dot and anyone else who wants in

[thursdaygrl]

i'm gonna bury my head in drafts immediately after posting this but here's a muse specific wishlist / starter call. like and i'll come to you for a bit of plotting but optionally we can just jump in. i'll cross out anything that gets taken that i don't wanna double up on.

alina — honestly someone to match her freak. someone to see her as she is and recognise that they like it. or maybe they hate it but they're obsessed with her. could be human or a ghost even.

ciro — soulmates au but wtf why is my soulmate this sweet, innocent human??? / on and off love with someone he turned early in his vampirism, can they ever make it work?

cricket — rivals or enemies to lovers / the sneaky journalist being played by someone who is secretly writing a story about her/her family while getting close to her and the fallout of what happens when she finds out.

dawson — figure skater/hockey player im BEGGING you. / accidental pregnancy also.

freya — this and i could see her on either side of it. / something lisa frankenstein inspired. i think freya accidentally bringing her soulmate to life is hilarious and i'd also be down to play it as modern day rather than in a fantasy verse like i usually would.

jeremy — the sunshine to his grumpy, preferably someone who takes what he's researching seriously which takes him aback.

kellan — exes to lovers, someone from the peak of his criminal days who he loved so dearly but now they're both trying to be 'reformed' and should probably stay away.

letha — a little nathan/haley from one tree hill inspired thing, pls.

luther — weird strangers meeting on the road and there’s a sudden spark, would absolutely prefer if she was a little crazy cause he’d be into that. could be just intense or a murder, we don’t mind

mason — give this man a wife to worship. would love to explore the criminal stuff with his family and the angst of keeping their family safe. also would love there to be babies.

moira — a journalist or detective she comes across working the same case in a small town, they clash and also probably bang cause that’s fun.

molly — gay sad normal people inspired plot pls.

oscar — let me do the damn sugar daddy plot. let me do it. smutty and angsty pls.

quinn — fake dating pls or best friends to lovers.

revan — princess and the scoundrel, i'm sorry it slaps every time. something tangled inspired would make me so happy.

river — something jess and rory inspired cause i’m a sucker for that and i want river against someone bookish and cute.

ronan — basic and boring but i need enemies to lovers. would actually die for a sherry-lee watson fc and i'll speed up working on gifs for both if you give me it.

rory — i really want a girl who thinks she’s straight to discover otherwise through rory mostly bc i think it’ll be funny.

slater — ok so this as inspo. someone worse than slater, who makes slater worse and it's such a doomed ship bc they're both terrible but they're so drawn to each other.

sosie — i’d like to play her against someone who works for or with her father, e.g. campaign advisor, fellow politician, bodyguard etc, ya girl loves something forbidden. / cappie and rebecca from greek inspired.

vienna — art & tashi from challengers inspired please. i need a failmarriage for her real bad but also would take patrick and tashi inspired cause i would love her to be challenged. either. both. / also this because she definitely could go full gone girl on someone.

yessica — age gap thing with her hot neighbour that is totally inappropriate but she has too much fun flirting to stop. probably goes further than she actually ever thought it would.

[ending-star]

so for that lightkeeper x merfolk au...

Part 1 (here!) / Part 2 (tba) / Part 3 (tba)

For ver 1 (lightkeeper Ela x mer Claude and Mikah):

the 'land dates' i mentioned started with just claude and mikah chilling on the shores from time to time, but somehow it evolved into them trying to get as far inland as they can. it's like an adventure to them.

i'm thinking merms can stay out of water for long periods of time, at least long enough for these two to get up to their shenanigans and then come back to the ocean. this probably takes a while since they can only crawl with their arms and flail their tails around.

ela HAS seen them around before but usually ignores them (they're just vibing after all and he doesn't wanna get them in trouble with anyone who wants to harm them, also doesn't want their peaceful but miserable life being upturned). that said, he keeps getting progressively bewildered by how far they can reach ("how tf do these FISH keep getting further and further inland???" he asks. through SHEER WILLPOWER i say!)

One day the merms get stuck somewhere somehow (twas only a matter of time) and Ela had no choice but to finally make contact with them. He carries them one by one with a wheelbarrow (they both can't fit at the same time and he's smaller than both of them) to the shore. Claude was sceptical at first about Ela's intentions (he doesn't know wtf a wheelbarrow is and what it does) but Mikah's a lot more trusting

After that one encounter Claude and Mikah's land escapades turned into them trying to hang out with Ela instead, asking him all kinds of questions and answering his questions in turn. Ela becomes infatuated with the idea of himself becoming a merm after hearing about their life in the ocean. he's had this fantasy before ever since he first saw them from afar but it's become a lot more vivid now.

and not just that, these two mermen have become important to him too, having kept him going in his loneliness (the light in his foggy voyage at sea, if you will)

Which stings because to Mikah and claude their visits to land (and him) are just recreational stops, they're already happy with their lives and each other. even if there was a way to become a merman like them, what need would these two have of him? he would lose his novelty to them as their human friend, and he would still be alone, not stuck on a rock but adrift in the sea

this isn't actually the case because they've fallen for him too but it's not like ela knows that. those two don't really say anything to him (instead busy being lovey-dovey with only each other in front of ela lol) and only talk about how they feel about him behind his back (mikah gushes about how awesome ela is to claude who's reluctant to show his own admiration)

Anyway they should all have a talk and figure out exactly what they mean to each other lol

And when Ela becomes a merman himself it would be Claude and Mikah's turn to show him around the sea :D

I think I should probably leave it at that because I've had this in my drafts for months and it took getting fucked over by Tumblr mobile posting this without me meaning to for me to stop lol

[ltleflrt]

I would love some more mean advice, I'm taking notes because this is a goldmine

lol honestly, the advice about not starting a fic with Life Story Infodump or Daily Grind Infodump is the most important thing I can think of. Since nearly all of the times I back out of a fic, it’s because of one of those two things.  Just about everything else I can think of is pretty minor and won’t make me quit reading.  But here’s a few things I think might be helpful just for giving a story some extra shine.

1. Minute detail of a process is rarely necessary.  Gloss over how something works unless the details have something to do with plot. For instance, if Dean is making tacos for dinner, just say Dean gets to work preparing tacos. Don’t talk about warming up the shells, or browning the meat, or slicing the veggies.  Unless it’s plot related. If Dean makes checklists and crosses things off to soothe anxiety, then those details are important, but make it clear that he’s self-soothing.  Or if Cas is allergic to onions, bring up that Dean sauteed them and added them to the meat, because Dean LOVES onions, and it didn’t occur to him to check if Cas has allergies before he started cooking, and they can’t be picked out, and oops the date ends with Dean rushing Cas to the ER, etc.  Otherwise, just say Dean had an hour left till Cas showed up for dinner, so he hurried to prepare all the taco fixings, and it took too little time so now he had to figure out how to occupy himself till the doorbell rang.

(btw, I would LOVE more first date ending up in the ER stories, everyone who reads this is free to adopt that idea lol)

2. Please don’t write an entire story in 1-2 sentence paragraphs.  This is rare, but it’s an almost instant nope out for me.  There’s this one story that I reeeeeally want to read, because it’s right up my alley, and other than the short paragraph issue, it’s well written so I keep trying but getting stuck.  I’m gonna have to copy it into a doc and edit the paragraphs and squish some stuff together to make it legible to my brain.  Like there’s a long stretch in the first chapter where every sentence is its own paragraph, and just.... why.  When you’re putting a paragraph break, there’s a mental pause happening in the reader’s mind.  And too many short paragraphs in a row makes it more like a really long poem rather than a typical story you’d read in a book.  A lot of advice says to not attack your readers with a wall of text (WALL OF TEXT CRITS YOU FOR OVER 9000!!!) and to break things up, but the opposite is also true.  Too many super short paragraphs is like Damage Over Time (THROW MORE DOTS, MORE DOTS!) and either one of those will defeat your reader’s interest.  Short paragraphs are a very useful tool, I use them myself for emphasis, but it can’t be your whole story.  Try to limit it to no more than 3 in a row.  If you’re going past that, take a minute to read those sentences and see if they’re related to each other.  Squish them into a single paragraph if they are.  Varying your paragraph length IS an art form.  Like writing music.  Paragraphs build a cadence, and staccato cannot sustain a whole song.  This can be mitigated by creating long compound sentences though, so keep in mind that the length of the sentence, which should vary, can make a paragraph feel longer, even if it is only 1 or 2 sentences.

(haha she gives advice on how to break up paragraphs while critting you with a wall of text!  good job, Carebear.)

3. The art of breaking up dialogue is just as delicate as the art of paragraph construction.  Too much back and forth without breaking it up with an action or an internal thought can make it confusing who is talking.  The rule of 3 comes in handy here too.  After 3 back and forths, put in something non-dialogue.  So it would go Character A says thing, Character B says Thing, Character A says thing, add some action/internal thoughts.  And just a he/she/they said tag isn’t enough.  IT IS BETTER THAN NOTHING, and depending on the cadence of the conversation it’s the right tool.  But adding some physical movement or a stray thought would be better.  That being said, don’t put too much action/thought between sections of dialogue.  If you put too much info in there, it can make your reader forget that there’s even a conversation going on, and they’ll get to the next piece of dialogue and be like wtf is this pertaining to again? and they’ll have to scroll back to the last line of dialogue to remember what was last said.  Remember, thoughts fly at the speed of light, so if you’re pausing the dialogue for some internal character thought, it’s happening in a matter of seconds, but your reader needs minutes to read and parse what’s going on.  Again, rule of 3, try not to do more than 3 paragraphs between dialogues.  And if you’re still not sure, or you feel like you need more so you keep going, read out loud from the last dialogue through the next dialogue and it’ll give you an idea of just how much time is physically passing for your readers, and you’ll start to feel the true size of things.

(WRITE ALL THAT STUFF DOWN THO.  If you need to get it out, then by all means, get it out.  It’s your first draft, and it’s important for YOU, even if a lot of it isn’t important for the reader.  Trim it in the edit. FOR THE LOVE OF THE GODS, TRIM IT IN THE EDIT.)

(And the rule of 3 is a guideline, not a rule.  It’s just a good measuring tool that you can use until you’re comfortable enough to eyeball things on your own.)

Anyway, those are the only things that come to mind while I’m calm and not in a frothing rage over writing errors that are not mine to correct.  I feel like a huge asshole for vague-bitching about other people’s writing, and I profusely apologize for anyone’s hurt feelings if they read this advice and realize this might apply to something they’ve done.  PLEASE KEEP WRITING, DON’T LET MY WHINGING DISCOURAGE YOU, I LOVE YOU.

[koffeehouse]

Hi! I messaged in a while ago (I'm the guy that ghosted someone and then made up as friends and going to meet her soon). New developments! I gave her guy advice about someone she met, and I gave that guy advice about her in an effort to get them together, and it worked. But today I told her I've been talking to somebody else a lot recently and I've been really enjoying it; and she got mad at me and told me she didn't want to meet me. 1/2

2/2 I know I’m not being my usual oblivious male self, and I legitimately didn’t do anything wrong. Just wtf?

Welcome back!! Sorry this took a little longer than expected, I’ve been trying to work my way through this new laptop and I wanted to be able to answer you when you had my full attention. That’s…incredibly weird, and I definitely don’t think that you’re being oblivious - while I’m pretty good at deducing whether or not someone’s just blind to something, I myself am horrible about seeing things right in front of me when it comes to my own life. I’m not quite sure what her deal is, to be honest? Female instinct says it’s a weird jealousy type situation, despite her being with someone else and having you assist in orchestrating that relationship since she’s told you she doesn’t have romantic feelings for you. I’ve seen it before; basically, they want to be able to move on without any question but when the tables are turned, they have every apprehension in the book and don’t want for you to be with anyone else, the whole “if it’s not me then it’s no one” type mentality. And that comes in many, many different layers, of course, from what I’ve seen of it, but honestly, I’m not quite sure what her deal is? It may be a matter of her just having cold feet and reacting harshly in the moment, could be what I described to you above…girls are fucking confusing, my dude, they’re confusing as hell (actually have a post in my drafts about this very topic, lmao) and figuring them out is a headache. Best advice: give her some time to thaw out, maybe come to her senses, and go from there. Don’t give yourself a headache over something that’s beyond your control if you can at all prevent it. Let me know if there are any new developments later on!! xx