#we'll NEVER get ANYTHING done

[sing-you-fools]

you mentioned your character sheet having the fields "what kind of story do they think they're in" and "what role do they think they're playing in it"

i think this is awesome!

what else is on your character sheet?

oh my gosh. i was in the middle of answering this when i went to check something and clicked a link without realizing it was a tumblr link. it's gone. and. well. i'm sure you were not expecting as MUCH answer as i was putting there, anyway, so maybe it's for the best.

my character and worldbuilding sheets have an unhinged level of detail, because i use them not as a "fill this whole thing out before you get started" tool but as an "organize the information you include and thoughts you have so you can reference them later" tool, because (1) audhd and (2) i'm hoping the book i'm working on is the first in a huge expansive world that i'll still be playing in when i'm 70.

the character sheet is broken down into Basics, Role in the Story, Appearance, Communication, Backstory, Family,* Relationships, Personality and Psychology, Just for Fun, and Other (which is just a spot for if i need it, it doesn’t have any questions or prompts). and each of those has a ton of questions (except Other, as established in the previous parenthetical aside).

it's hard to say what i have in there that's the most important, or my favorite, or whatever, because it all depends very much on the character's answer. for example, most of my characters don't think they're in a story at all, they would say "this is my real life what are you talking about i'm not playing a role i'm trying to get to tomorrow," which means the questions you mentioned aren't all that fun for them, but they become very fun for a couple i'm writing, because Nat thinks he's living his best gay musical romcom life and Zari is convinced down to his bones that he's a lead in a deeply tragic romance - in reality, they're more like Merry and Pippin, and if they'd stop for a brief reality check maybe they'd reconsider picking up the Palantir.

these questions fall under "Role in the Story," which also contains fun gems like: personal goal, interpersonal goal, and team goals, because i get annoyed at character sheets that act like people just have one goal. and the full list of D&D skills and sets, even though i've never played D&D, because they seem useful. it also has "how much do they know about what's happening?" and "are they having a good time?" as some more example questions.

i have a lot in the sheet that would probably seem repetitive, but having similar questions in different categories means i think about them differently. i have "health" under Basics, for example, and that means if someone's using a cane it'll probably get mentioned there. but i also have "medical devices and mobility aids" under Appearance, because it tells me one thing that House has a bad leg because of muscle death and uses a cane, and another thing that the cane has flames up it and a skull handle and he uses it wrong. (if i'm misremembering House's cane please don't come for me it's been over a decade since i saw an episode of that show he's just still the most recognizable character i could think of with a mobility aid which is kind of sad)

possibly my favorite part of my character builder is this:

a cartoon by Tom Gauld (@myjetpack). it's right in the middle of my "personality and psychology" section. it's important for me to define what my characters do and don't know about because otherwise i end up with them knowing everything, and that's so boring. this comic just perfectly broke it down for my brain, so i plopped it in.

and a lot of my favorite questions focus on the contradictions and tensions and perception gaps inherent in being a person. what do they hate about the people they love, or love about the people they hate? what do they bring to their relationships, and what do they think they bring? what do strangers/authority figures/children/etc think of them, and what do they think people think of them? what's their biggest flaw and what do they think is their biggest flaw?

i could honestly go on forever about these; in fact i think this is still shorter than my answer that got deleted. so i'm going to cut myself off, but i'm happy to share more about them, and someday i may even post them for anyone else who might want them. i want to use them a bit first, though, to see what can be fine-tuned. in addition to character sheets, i've got sheets for Setting, Species, Religion, Nation, Magic System, Subculture (any group smaller than religion/nation/species that might have its own culture), and Scene (less worldbuilding, more to keep the details and goal of a scene straight in my own head, but still). these are all significantly less detailed than the Character one, but significantly more detailed than any one site i could find included when i was searching. and all my sheets, questions and prompts are gathered and compiled from all over the internet; i would not be able to provide sources because i did not bother to record them.

[hrokkall]

VIOLENT women in YOUR area

[b1gwings]

swashbuckler rogue my beloved

[fluffs-n-stuffs]

gamers has this been done yet

[reachexceedinggrasp]

So when I've been complaining about even fanfiction not being romantic enough, part of what I mean by that is that people take huge, gothic characters in pairings with gigantic, dramatic stakes full of titanic emotions and then make them feel small and mundane. Stripping the very romanicism from the bones of the romance.

There are many things that are deeply appealing to me about B&tB pairings or 'unlikely' pairings or Gothic romance in general, but something that is less structural while still being absolutely key is that it's not an easy relationship to get the characters into. It's not something that would happen under ordinary circumstances for either person. It's not a bond that can be forged without some form of pressure preventing these people from continuing in their regular patterns.

If you're writing an E/C fic where you start from scratch, the moment they so much as touch for the first time should be absolutely show-stoppingly prodigious. It can never be casual, not between these two, the idea of a touch being allowed should be an Event. The reader's heart should be thundering in their chest, the suspense should be palpable, the consummation divine. A single touch is a consummation for them, there should be that much tension. If they hold hands and I'm not holding my breath, you have done it wrong. The first kiss should feel like an atom bomb going off, the world should shift on its axis, a line is being crossed which has left both characters forever altered.

And people will instead write them like a standard romance novel couple who make standard pervy comments in the narration, get a bit flirty, casually hook up and then weigh pros and cons about whether dating fits into their life plans or not. All of this being totally without weight, without feeling like any kind of Rubicon has been crossed or that it's significant for the characters to have entered into something which must foundationally alter their worldview.

Reylo brushing fingers across the galaxy and it being the turning point of the entire narrative, given the same majesty and mystical significance as Luke's vision in the cave or Yoda lifting the X-Wing is the exact correct amount of emphasis for them reaching towards each other in tenderness. You have a character defined by abandonment and loneliness and a character who is surrounded by people but never touched, both unseen by anyone else, both aching for connection, both never having felt anything like this before, both aware of the galaxy-spanning consequences of what they're feeling. Them touching is le big deal.

The kiss for the B&tB pairing, the EtL pairing, any Gothic pairing has to feel out of reach, a chasm that cannot be crossed- until it happens, impossible yet inevitable. Something the characters could never have conceived of taking place at the beginning of the story, an infinite abyss of which they have somehow found themselves on the other side. You have to do the work to get them there, you have to build that bridge stone by stone, and it should be a sublime agony of seeing the path take shape while it still feels like the gap is just unbridgable, that no matter how close you come, it will never be complete, they can never get all the way across. Until they do.

If you write characters who have (or should have) that kind of vast gulf separating them as just kind of falling into an intimacy which isn't earned and thus means nothing, I just have no idea why we're here. Why buy a giant gothic castle of romanticism and then bulldoze it to build a minimalist condo? Everything about the pairing that makes it that pairing is stripped away. If these were people who could just meet at a party and end up in bed, they would be completely different people.

[hiddenbeks]

may i interest u in. snazzy new oc page

[autismcupcake]

[the-kipsabian]

can it be called lazy breakfast if its 1pm and i have been awake for 12 hours orrrrr

[factorialsotherfandoms]

There's always the third option for who murdered the Federation worker - there was talk at one point of black&red Cucurucho being from a universe where /everyone/ had a warped copy. It was on one of Philza's streams, but I don't remember whose idea it was.

So it's always possible that's true and parallel dimension Cellbit has slipped on through.

I don't consider it especially likely but its possible.

[tangledstarlight]

me checking the netflix tudum thing out just in case they realised their mistake and actually renewed jatp vs my sad face when there's nothing

[orcelito]

also yes, even while im actively trying to get myself to work on writing my goddamned program, my brain still wants to work on my fic

[maybankiara]

appearing out of the abyss to announce a) i’ve written over 5k words today, b) the proposal fic is officially past 40k, c) i have a three scenes left to write and it’s finished, + d) then it’ll go through an extensive round of editing bc Why Not

[this-doesnt-endd]

Theres one local theatre in my town thats at the end of the line of the bus route and theyll do throwback movies and a lot of the times its 80s movies and with the new 4k version of risky business on the horizion i desperatly need them to show it

[gemharvest]

I wish there was a site that looked like pre-Eclipse DeviantART.

[duskerot]

just sprayed all my parts with sealant so ill be able to start painting tomorrow !!! never done it before so im hoping it works alright 😵‍💫

[kuiinncedes]

what if i'm just like girl why r u here @ my roommate in our apartment lol