#im still :/ at myself for not being able to come up with a good succinct summary of dark in that hungering year......i promise its good!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

miquellah · 1 month

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Are saints and empyreans the same thing? I was wondering as the hornsent wanted to turn the shamans into candidates for godhood, it seems.

I also wonder if the lands between was meant to be marika's 'good' version of the land of shadow, considering the opposite origins of the jars in both realms, as well as the omen vs the hornsent.

I WOULD SAY it's definitely vague enough to be open-ended, here. possibly, the concept of empyreans could've been the intended end goal? especially as marika herself essentially became that very thing (and ive seen pretty neat theories saying that GEQ, also an empyrean, was also likely a shaman same as her). notably it's been mentioned that the japanese words for "saint" regarding both that of the jar rituals, and that of "saint" trina, are different words entirely, so make of that what you will there

if such is the case, though, that would still definitely open up many implications for just as to what makes an "empyrean", especially if the hornsent grandam is also included. does it require an immense amount of suffering, in addition to the feminine gendering? is a rebis half always entailed? or is it still all just arbitrary favor of the two fingers? actually my head is hurting. anyway this got a little long for the rest,

as for the Lands Between being the "good version" of the Lands of Shadow... WELL. kind of, actually. while i don't think the map of the LoS quiteeee lines up with the giant "missing" section in the main LB map, i do think it's pretty pointed towards the LoS sections having formerly been part of everything. so, essentially... marika carved OUT the various parts of the LoS separately, if not the whole area entirely, and locked them away to be hidden, keeping the LB arguably "good" and "better" at least in her mind. but of course, the LB and the golden order was BUILT off of the destruction and suffering that happened in the LoS. whether by her own direct hand or not

and i do think that's a pretty succinct summary of imperialism. the golden order may have been pretty great for a time, but it was off the backs of the "heretical" races like the misbegotten, as well as the whole crusades that were hidden from history and shoved aside. the golden order's wealth and prosperity was only able to come about because of the blood of others

as for the LB jars, that reads to me more like a natural progression of practices than anything-- as opposed to the jar rituals, more modern bodies are placed in there and buried beside minor erdtrees/at erdtree roots in an attempt to grant them new life. admittedly im not as familiar with the base jar lore, so i could be missing something-- but that apparent progression of practices and faiths along a trail of history is another aspect of elden ring lore i've always found super cool, as well as realistic to life.

AS for the omens and hornsent. well, far as i was aware it was assumed that all omens were basically, more or less, afflicted with the vengeful spirits of the slaughtered hornsent-- they're said to be afflicted by horrific nightmares, as well as their "cursed" blood, and notably, many hornsent ghosts mention cursing marika's people. so even after all of marika's hard work of covering things up and shoving them under the rug, of course, things still aren't left behind that easy.

but of course the Lands of Shadow ARE, indeed, a shadow of the "living" half of the world, both literally as well as figuratively; i haven't done much digging in on this myself yet, but i saw one person saying that many aspects/NPCs of the LoS are also "shadows" of those in base game. like rellana for rennala, and moonirithyll for moongrum, for example

all this to say YOU'RE NOT QUITE WRONG, EITHER but as far as i'm aware, all of this is the direction things are seeming to lead, as the bulk of loreheads accept it

#asks #sote spoilers

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shitfics · 6 years

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hi, im a fanfic writer who is trying to break into original fiction and publication. i noticed in the notes of one of your short stories that you were trying to write longer chapters. One of my favourite stories by you, One of These Nights is 90,000+ over 11 chapters. what kind of advice would you give to someone like me who struggles to break over 2,500 words per chapter? how can i work to make my chapters longer and still be interesting like yours? thank you x

Oh gosh, thank you so much! I'm hoping to break into original stuff too, and maybe get published, but don't have much hopes for it yet...still slugging away at my wip. ^^; It's sweet that you hold my stuff highly! And I'm sorry this got a bit long…I'm not good at being succinct when trying to talk about writing things, since I still feel so clueless myself. I’ve put most of the rambling behind a read more.

For me really, writing longer things has just taken time…not in the sense of taking time to write a story (tho obvs it does), but like, each thing I wrote naturally got longer and longer as I got more used to storytelling, I guess? At this point, I think everything I write is almost too long, so I'm wondering what story it was I wanted longer chapters on…lol. It was kinda like lifting weights in a way, lol…I took a long time before I could get to 90k, and you can kinda see how each story got longer and longer (copy and paste was 12k, synchronicity/book of blood were around 20k, da au was 40k in part one/60k in part 2, and the hyung au was 90kish).

Ofc I have a few breaks from that pattern, but those were kinda 'side projects' for fun that I wanted to keep short, like the esports ontae. Wherever you're at right now in terms of overall story length, I think writing regularly is the most important for building the "endurance" for longer stories and scenes -- and being as patient with yourself as you can about getting there is ideal. It’s a lot like working yourself up to lifting heavier weights, imo.(And full disclaimer though, my confidence/mental health wrt my writing is generally rock bottom, so I know it's not easy lol.)

Once I got into writing longer stories, I've kinda grown to see writing as having two kinda moods: gut-level writing, stuff you HAVE to get down and are dying to write, and the 'fill-in', less exciting parts or parts you really have to discipline yourself to get through.

For writing fic (especially shorter fic), I know I started with just gut-level writing. And for short stuff, that's generally all you need! I really struggled (and still kinda do) when I got to the point where that wasn't enough to fill in a long story, but I've kinda found a way of dealing it.

I don't know if it's a good habit, depending on how you work and how your ideas come about, but for me, I start by writing as much as possible for the scenes I do have fairly established in my head, then create an outline and fill in/revise the rest. It makes it easier for me to feel like I'm working off of inspiration and not just a rigid outline, so I get a good mix of the story/characters 'developing naturally' and 'not going entirely off the rails.' I will say that I think I struggle with endings because of it tho, since the 'gut-level' stuff for me rarely/never touches that part of the story. I usually have to outline to figure out where I want things to end up or what I want to show last.

For the your chapters question -- I'm not sure if by 'chapters' you might mean scene (since a lot of people break things up that way), or if you just mean in terms of other chapter divisions, but I'm gonna try and address both!

Personally, I don't really think in terms of chapters, if that makes sense? That part comes way later when I'm writing. Like right now, I'll be honest and say I don't have set 'chapter' divisions in my head yet for my wip, lol, tho the scenes might be long enough for stand-alone chapters. When I start a story (either with just inspiration or from an outline), it's a matter of scenes, and then after that, I figure out how many scenes I want in a chapter and what would feel "right" in terms of dividing them.

Usually, when I end a chapter it's either because it's an emotional high-point, it feels like a "natural" place to break (due to a jump forward in time for the next scene/resolution to a current conflict), or it's somewhere I need to change the point of view (if I'm writing a story with multiple). Like, for a high-point, I'd think of ending after the scene in hyung au where Jinki comes out, or in the esports thing, where ontae sleep together the first time. For "natural" break places, it's often a matter of time/resolutions, like…jongyu parting ways before jinki starts japanese promotions in hyung au, or in my current wip, them kinda breaking up for a few months after a fight. Pov changes for breaks are pretty self-explanatory and I could go on forever about how I try to pick which pov to use for a scene/chapter, but I think the most important thing is to use those breaks to avoid confusion.

As far as interest goes -- making sure scenes have enough "meat" to them without dragging can be hard, esp if you're trying to setup a plot. Imo, scenes are interesting when there's conflict or emotional high points of some kind (which can be a lot of different things). Once you figure out which of those you want in a scene, I think it gets easier to write around that. Like, to go back to hyung au, when Jinki came to visit Jong at Blue Night and they hung out after -- I started the scene just knowing I wanted Jinki to surprise him, because I thought that'd be cute.

So in thinking about what purpose the scene might serve to move things forward…I knew mood-wise I wanted to capture some more of the uncertainty of how to act around each other, now that they're both know the other is gay, have Jinki be torn between making a move/confessing and his fear of changing things for the worse, set them up for some messy revelation of feelings in the next scene, and ofc have them both be horny because how else are you gonna feel being around your crush for the first time in a month.

Once that was kinda setup in my head, it was easier to fill in what the characters say/how they act. Jinki flirts with Jong on air, because that's 'safe' (it can't go anywhere since they're in a studio and it'd be easy to dismiss as not serious since he's in Onew-mode), Jong is defs very

And as another note…. I just think some parts are always going to be difficult to write, because we all have different strengths when it comes to writing. Like, I hate writing setting descriptions, so I don't do it much and generally provide a bare-minimum for scene context -- but when I need more for the purpose of mood or plot or whatever, it feels like pulling teeth. Since it's such a miserable process for me, and that's so long, I assume that means it sucks or it's a real slog for whoever's reading it, but…they don't always correlate.

Not every part of a project is gonna be fun -- which sucks! -- but it's also why it's important to take mental breaks and imo, step away from your story at milestones. It's not great to make yourself miserable for writing, (I say while I doing just that most of the time), but I think going in with the knowledge that it IS going to be hard sometimes can help. The more stories you write, the more you'll be able to hone your instinct for like...if you're struggling because there's something wrong with the plot/scene/prose or if it's just because writing be like that sometimes.

Oof, this got too long, and I don’t even know how much of it is useful, but I hope it might help a bit? Thank you again for the compliment and best of luck with your writing!!

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