#needless to say that even if I'm slow to write I'm always open to plotting

[yeleltaan]

//Hello! I just got done with an exam that was bugging me, and I’ve been a bit quiet lately, so here’s another update on how things are going.

As I mentioned in my previous ooc post, study stress and overall difficulty concentrating has been a persistent annoyance and obstacle from writing, so I’ve been taking steps to improve my habits.

Probably my best decision, I’ve recently started going to BJJ and MMA classes! My physical activity has been sorely lacking since the covid pandemic began, so I knew that was one of the main issues to tackle. I’ve been enjoying them a lot and I think this is going to prove a very good change for my mental and physical health, the effects of which should become more noticeable in the mid-term. I kinda went from 0 to 100 with them, so last week was exhausting and rather painful, but I don’t regret it. This week was a lot more pleasant and I can already tell I’ve regained much of my discipline and reflexes.

Besides that, I’ve been trying to be more mindful of my sleeping habits and go to bed at the right hour. This is still very much a work in progress, it’s tough to beat that self-feeding cycle of “I can’t focus so studies take longer, I have less time to myself and I can’t make full use of it either so I’m reluctant to end the day, I didn’t sleep enough so I can’t focus”. I think this will be a gradual process, though I can already tell that the greater physical activity helps make me feel more tired and willing to rest.

I’m diversifying my workspace as well, since that can help your brain distinguish when it’s time to work and when it’s time to rest. But I’ve been inconsistent on which spots I use for work, which I use for (thinking-heavy) hobbies and which I use to rest, so I’ll need to correct that in order to really make this effective.

Anyways, I was hesitant to make this post until I could really show this progress as opposed to talking about it, but I figure it’s better than staying quiet for very long. I also don’t quite now how early I’ll really start to improve my pace in writing, setting goals is tempting but too many times my predictions on this blog (or Ornstein’s blog, my God) have been proven wrong so... we’ll see how that goes.

Besides working on replies, I might also do a few of those headcanon prompts I’ve been tagged in (thanks all who did! Even though I haven’t really been doing them lately, I appreciate that you still thought to mention me). Also wondering if some tweaks to the blog might also help with motivation (reviewing the rules, the about page, using more “distinct” and consistent tags... might even try making tags for each dynamic, maybe even for alternate versions of the same muse as well, but I’m still undecided and can’t promise anything yet).

Oh, and I fixed the issue that was making submissions impossible to send, so that’s a start. With that said, hope you’re all doing well, and if not, may that change soon!

[goldom]

AFoLiS author commentary Part 3-1

So I can't edit much of this story without rewriting everything by hand, and I'm not that obsessed. Still, let's see what I have to say about it.

Right, "is this some sort of curio" right from the prologue. I've explained in comments somewhere, but yeah I did not have the plot in mind yet at this point, that was just a lucky coincidence. However, I did have it planned out before I actually posted the first entry, as evidenced by the "seal" written in the corner of the cover. More on that damn seal and the trouble it gave me later.

"Stelle did not, as a rule, blush" so that was a lie. I'd say that was her being an unreliable narrator, except that this part is written in third-person. Well, Stelle, maybe you didn't before, but you're gonna be blushing nonstop from here on out.

Something you forget about handwriting when you haven't done it in years is that it is SLOW and takes up SO much more space than typing. I'd write pages in the journal and then type it up and be like, oh, it's three paragraphs. Huh. Or other times I'd type an entry first, then get completely sore having to scribe out page after page by hand. I have chronic hand pain issues. Among others. Honestly, this whole 'spending hours a day typing' thing is actually great for it, because those are hours I'm not holding a controller playing games, which is way worse on it. (Using a mouse is a total no-go. Controller's still the better option for me.)

Needless to say, my phonograph is in fact always tuned to Space Walk. And sometimes, when the game story has me down, I come home and stand by it to relax. I don't, in reality, actually like being in tight spaces.

WAIT WHAT omg I totally forgot about this. Firefly actually wrote "For my ☆" on the gift tag with Amber. I thought I only had her come up with that name in Planetshine. Well, I guess they both forgot they'd seen it before, 'cause I sure did. Anyway, I've told this story before, but yeah, my spouse wrote that note for me because I cannot do nice handwriting with any amount of effort. Finding the firefly sticker for her signature was one hell of a challenge. My spouse owns an absolute trove of stickers, and we dug through ALL of them and found exactly ONE firefly in the entire lot.

Here's another story I already told, but when I had Stelle say "I would set fire to the stars for you." I had NO idea how close that is to Sam's catchphrase. I play HSR with CN voices, so anything that isn't subtitled, like battle cries, I have no idea what they're saying. I did switch to English for a while to listen to a bunch of them, but I cannot stand hearing repetitive callouts in a language I can understand.

"If I did love her in my forgotten life, and she had to watch me leave, to forget her, and then see me looking at her without recognition…" Yeah this was probably the first moment I decided that would be the actual plot. And Stelle's hatred toward her past self for that abandonment fuels everything she does for the rest of Parts 3 and 4, until she learns the truth.

This part is even funnier in retrospect, having since 'learned' that Stelle had no idea what a vibrator was. Which, yes, is what I was implying Dan was thinking.

Screw the natural order. You should rip everything apart and put it back together right if you can. In this, Stelle is absolutely speaking my mind.

Ah, the other thing Stelle keeps saying to herself for a long time, Kafka's line about making a choice. At the time, I had no memory of where the line came from, I just saw it on the POV switch screen. Thankfully I thought to search it out and discover it was in the opening cutscene before I used it here.

Stelle is scared of space. Maybe a weird trait to give a space traveler. But it's mine. Same as her, it's not the thought of traveling space. I would love to. It's thinking about how big it is. How endless. Just like time. There's too much of it. But here's where the name Planetshine came from.

"But really that’s only deep space. Near space, with planetglow and the twinkle of life, the dance of satellites, ships coming and going, burning through the darkness. That space is soft, romantic. Hopeful."

Which is exactly what Part 5 is. Soft, romantic, hopeful. I was going for a word based off what I thought at the time was called Earthglow, only to later learn it's actually Earthshine, hence the discrepancy. Maybe I'll change it in the text even though the handwritten version won't match.

Last up for this post, Interlude 2. I think I've said this before, but I wrote this the night of the 2.3 leaks. Even though I'd never thought of it on my own, I'd been reading all the posts "proving" that Firefly would join the Express, so when it leaked that she wasn't, I was heartbroken. And I said – as Stelle – "I can't fix this." Because I couldn't do it. I couldn't write years of lonely letters on her behalf until the "some day" they find their way to the same destination. After calming down, I said – as Firefly – "I can fix this." By giving up on canon and writing my own story.

The next half, or maybe third, of Part 3 to come later.

[grpcquickfessions]

Write up that post I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions. I have been in that same situation and yes I did just go inactive. It wasn’t the right thing to do but I was so crippled by anxiety because when I tried to talk to an admin I got told exactly what that Anon was saying. First they tried to use the, “well it’s slow right now” excuse, but I pointed out there had been 45 new posts on the dash that day alone and as a new player I was getting no interactions despite responding to all recent starters. Then they used the “close group who have been writing together forever” excuse. Then finally indicated that my starter just wasn’t good or something people would respond to. It hurt my feelings so badly and I was so embarrassed I couldn’t bring myself to tell them I wanted to leave, so I just fizzled out. Everyone in this community wants to blame players, or say it’s “just a dead community” but no one wants to take a hard look at themselves.

TW; Long Post.

TL;DR: Everyone needs to pay more attention, be more open to listening and giving out warnings and be more kind!

P.S. - I will probably never talk this much again, so I apologize. I just had a lot to say and if you disagree, that's totally fine! Nothing I say is fact or should be taken as such. We should all respect each other's opinions and experiences! :)

As a former admin and a player, I've seen both sides of this argument. As an admin, my experience (I can not stress enough that this is my experience with this situation) with players coming to me about lack of interactions were sometimes players who didn't try plotting or interacting with anyone outside of the ship they wanted.

I once had a player continuously complain to me because she couldn't fathom why she wasn't making connections in the way she wanted to make connections, totally disregarding other player's requests/wants and being incredibly presumptuous in-character (I later found out that she just wanted the entire rp to center around her which -- ha, tough cookie).

I also had another player bully another member cause she wanted a particular ship. She left when she didn't get said ship, citing that no one wanted to interact with her character when in reality she refused to forge relationships with anyone outside of that particular ship (I found out about the bullying after the fact).

Needless to say, as a former admin, I always encourage people to take a long hard look at themselves, how they're interacting, if they're open to new ships (both platonic and romantic), and what kind of effort they're making. Anytime I'm in a situation where I feel like the odd man out, I examine myself first and foremost.

H O W E V E R ...

Also as a former admin and player, if you see a player actively trying, actively reaching out to people (though, granted this is a hard one unless you reach out to all your members and say "hey did xyz message you to plot? lol), constantly being active on the dash, giving out the best replies they can, kind in the ooc, and just generally doing what any average roleplayer is doing but is being ignored and your response is that the rp is "already established" then (and excuse my french) just close off the fucking roleplay to new members.

"Already established" is such a shit excuse. As an admin, you absolutely should be fostering an environment that's nothing short of welcoming both IC and OOC. I get it -- you can't make people interact but at the very least, you should be encouraging it if you notice a rise in bubble rping or a member being ignored and handing out repercussions if the situation isn't improving.

When I was more active, I was quick to hop into people's inboxes, DMs, what have you and say, "Hey, wanna plot?" "Hey, wanna make a connection with these two?" "Hey, if this player is down, wanna do this cool friendship/squad/love triangle/enemies/etc?"

And honestly, I've realized, 90% of the time, some groups don't even realize they're doing it. Because sometimes, it's genuinely not intentional.

One of the last few groups I was in was filled with the sweetest people I ever had the pleasure of rping with. They were super nice and everyone was interested in forging some sort of connection with my character. However, these connections were, for lack of a better word, dry. Because the group was established and everyone had already made any prominent connections, no one was really interested in doing anything outside of "casual friends." Which is fine! I love plotting friendships but when you have the same connection with every single character, it gets ... boring. And bored I was. And that boredom turned into annoyance and that annoyance turned into frustration and eventually, I just left.

Or another time, everyone was half-lovely IC but OOC? I was ignored. I'd say something and they skip right on by in the OOC chat. I left -- expeditiously.

I listed some suggestions here originally and I genuinely wish I had more to give but if you're an admin, please pay attention to your players. Please watch interactions closely after a complaint. Do not be afraid to make a post on the main letting members know you've noticed a lack in interactions and that it needs to be fixed. Don't be afraid to reach out to members who are bubble roleplaying privately and letting them know that it isn't okay. Be the example! And please don't be afraid to just make a private group for you and your friends. I've been in several groups where it was apparent that the admin and friends just wanted a background audience for their IC drama.

Also, only sort of relevant, but I wished more people were into chemistry as well as plotting. So much of rping today is premeditating connections instead of sometimes letting chemistry dictate the relationship. I think doing/having both is important and can lead to a lot more fun (plus, chemistry helped me meet my best friend!).

And like I said before, sometimes leaving is the best option. But, don't be afraid to let the admin know why you left (without being rude or passive-aggressive, of course).

As always, I'm open to more advice, more opinions and more thoughts.

At the end of the day, role-playing is for fun. Fun should never stress you out (unless you happen to be plankton and you've got a sea sponge who won't stop singing about it).

[aerynwrites]

So I want to apologize now for this being so long. I tend to ramble in person and it apparently extends to online as well.

So I was a little slow getting into The Mandalorian because I knew I would be obsessed. Especially after seeing who was playing him because Pedro Pascal is 😍. I finally started watching one night last month when I didn't feel like watching anything else. Needless to say I was right. I am absolutely obsessed now. So of course that led to finding reader inserts which led me to you. Your writing is absolutely amazing and I will be going on a reblogging spree. 😁

Now after reading so many amazing fics I'm inspired to dip my toe into fanfic as well. I have a bunch of ideas that I have plotted out already. I just need to work on fleshing them out into actual fics. There's just two things holding me back. I haven't written since I was in high school and I've been out for over 10 years. Also, I'm kinda scared about how the fandom will treat me. I'm so far behind everyone and the show has been out for over a year and I'm just now getting into it. All the blogs I've looked at so far don't seem like they would do that. But every other fandom I've been in has been like that. So I'm a little hesitant to jump into it head first, especially with fanfic. I've read fics that are similar to my ideas and I don't want anyone to think that I stole their story. 😔

NEVER apologize for sending long rambling messages because I LOVE THEM SO MUCH! Thank you so much for your kind words and taking the time to reach out to me!<3

As for the writing bit I say GO FOR IT! So far I have found the mandalorian/Pedro Pascal fandom super tolerant and supportive. There have only been a few people who have caused issues or been rude and for the most part they have been dealt with. The good people FAR outweigh the bad and I think it’s better to post and put yourself out there rather than hold back ya know! Even if you are a little “late to the game” I think you’re A okay! I still see fics relating to season 1 stuff and it still does well and is still fun to read! We can never have too much content! I highly encourage you to publish your stuff and take that leap of faith! My inbox is always open if you want to talk or even brainstorm or whatever, seriously!

Please tag me when you post your first masterpiece! I’d Love to read it! <3