If there's anything you could change about your writing setup what would it be?

Probably not at ALL what you're expecting me to answer with but I'd want better air circulation and more humidity in my current room LOL. I have dry eye syndrome and it gets bad sometimes. Literally my biggest obstacle to writing if not my regular life schedule, which is often obstacle #2.

I already do a bunch of things to protect my eyes and I'd honestly advise anyone to do the same if they notice any issues with their own/these are just good things to do for your eyes in general, as needed:

- Sleep enough. No like really, try to get 8 - 8 1/2 hours as often as you can. Sleep is no joke.

- Adjust the night light on your screen so it filters out a good chunk of the blue light.

- Lower the brightness and use dark modes on literally everything. Get extensions for things that don't have them, especially if you're using them a lot (e.g. I use google docs for fic writing)

- Use a humidifier (in drier environments; this literally ensures that I don't wake up with reddened eyes)

- Use a warm compress on your eyes for 5 mins or so (emphasis on warm, not hot. Be verryyyyy careful not to burn yourself, the skin around your eyes is sensitive).

- Eye gellllllll & eyedrops omg. I'd be dead without them.

- Oh and since I decided to unsolicitedly run in this direction with the ask pls wear sunglasses and sunscreen!!! Even in the winter!!

All of the above is legit a godsent for me and it's been my default for everything since before fic writing because yes I do need all that maintenance for my sensitive lil blue orbs. And they still give me problems anyways. 🙄

The orb part was a joke btw

I think what I want to get into with the "Anyone can do harm." thing that I keep beating yall over the head with is that literally anyone, anyone at all can do harm it's not "in your DNA" to be an abuser or written in the stars that you'll be a predator. Whatever image you have of an abuser in your head, drop it and replace it with your favorite person in the world and you'll probably be closer to the truth than you realize. It's easy to address harm when it's coming from someone you already hate. I see it happen all the time. Someone you couldn't stand for no real reason does something heinous then all of a sudden here comes the avalanche of "I always knew they were a fucked up individual." No, you didn't. There is no possible way you could have known, you just already didn't fuck with them before they started doing something you could use to justify your hatred of them. I'm guilty of it too! I'm petty, mean, vindictive, and yes! I'm way quicker to believe something bad about someone I hate versus someone I love because I'm human. Still, y all gotta learn to move past that initial "Well, they were always nice to me!" gut feeling and understand that nobody truly knows anyone and anyone can be capable of anything. Even victims. Even you.

you ever just have a lot, a LOT of feelings all at once about a character and not even remotely enough words or brainpower to FORM the words to describe everything you're feeling. so it feels like you may explode. yeah

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Hmmm 🤔?

BONUS:

hey it's nanowrimo. i have tips bc i've done it about 34 times.

Don't edit. Ever. Stop it. If you just decide to start a new project half thru this one with all new characters, no problem. pick up and keep writing as if you'd already written the first half of that.

"but i spelled it wrong" whatever. "but the grammar" whatever. make it exist first. no time for sense. think like you're working on a typewriter. no backspace. only forward go.

Don't re-read further than a paragraph or two backwards. "did i mention the gun before?" listen - it doesn't matter. if you need there to be a gun there, the gun is there. put it back in once you finish the book.

"i forgot the specifics of X thing i already wrote" whatever. change it, make a note/comment to figure it out later, and just write what makes sense for the moment. "no raquel it's legit the characters name and origin" idc that character is now reborn as Claudius from Elsewhere. it's fine.

only you see your mistakes. nobody else knows. one of the ways writing and dance overlap - only you know the choreography. nobody else will know if you miss a step, so just keep dancing and pretend you meant to do it like that.

it's an illusion that you need to write linearly - from point A to point B to point C. Nah; that's just timeline propaganda. I've written a LOT of books out of order and just reordered them once i've finished. if you have a scene you'd LOVE to write but can't get there yet because of plot, just fuckin write the scene. I've always found its easier to establish "point F" "point J" and "Point A" and then wiggle my way between those scenes.

write what you WANT to write. 230 pages of smut? of well-researched discussion on bread? whatever. the point is to strengthen muscles however you can.

if you miss a day, a week, whatever. not the end of the world. we all have dry days. also time is a myth so u can do this challenge whenever u want.

as soon as you try to write for a specific audience, you kill your voice. you are writing for yourself. stop thinking about how people will take ur book. it don't matter. what matter is u, enjoying writing. i luv u.

play to your strengths. i have characters talk so much because i don't know how to write a plot if it kills me but i'm really good at dialogue so.

i love a flight of fancy. write a poem in there. shift tactics and write in code. keep it fun for yourself.

see what happens if you shift something major about ur main characters - gender, wealth, superpowers. or if you change point-of-view. or if you kill everyone in a big explosion. do NOT edit anything before this or after it. often these little weird one-off exercises teach me what interests me about what i'm working on. it is never what i thought. plus it is a fun way to add like 1k words.

stretch.

it's for fun and for practice. stop doing that project if it's giving you anxiety. once my nano was literally 50k words of half-started stories. just things i tried and tried and tried and wasn't able to flesh out. oops. but i am now 50k words of a better writer.

add dragons?

read books/listen to books on tape/etc. people often make the mistake of "buckling down" to just write. you need inspiration. you need to like. fill up on words. you need to remember how it feels to lose yourself in a story.

i don't have the time or space to really talk about this in this post but a lot of creative people turn to drugs/alcohol because it can help you be more creative. this is harmful, and walking a blade that only cuts deep. if you notice you and your loved ones are turning more to substances, please know i love you and i hope you are able to get help soon. i feel like this almost never gets mentioned because it's kind of a hazy underbelly to art. you are always more important than the work.

on that note. drink your fukin. water.

don't talk about a story until you've finished it. once you tell the story, it exists already, and isn't about discovery. i usually have a very canned "haha we'll see" response.

grapes :) tasty snack.

i love you be free.

Minthe

[3/31] Happy belated anniversary ★

Greek Gods AU by @help-im-a-gay-fish

Dream & Nightmare by jokublog

journey’s end au where the doctor tries to kick everyone off the TARDIS and they just go, ‘???? no?’ and won’t leave. can’t be stupid and think everyone will leave you when they won’t get out of your house.

ok updated 1st day impressions (pc): i gotta say that the performance issues of dda2 really are noticeable, for someone who meets the recommended specs it kinda ruins my full enjoyment of the game. i wouldn't mind lower fps overall if it was stable, unfortunately, its quite frequent for me to get 10fps drops in the wilderness and even 20+ in the villages. and I haven't even been to the city yet (I'm so afraid to go there actually lmao).

however, the game itself is incredibly good. it really feels like a dragons dogma game to me. the vibes are here. ddda is so incredibly important to me and this game really matches that feeling of nostalgia. its like. i know this game, you know? it feels like home to me. i really, really hope they will improve the performance issues because I spent half my play-time just trying to fiddle with the settings without any real effect. its currently the only thing that keeps me from fully enjoying the game.

I wonder how many tags i can add on to this

I loved the YYH remake (they did so well with the character's mannerisms!) I watched the subbed and dubbed. The actors really got into character, which had me grinning. Like Kudos to Kitamura on nailing the Yusuke run. (Hiei's sped-up ninja run made me laugh. anime ninja runs rarely look serious live-action.) Also, Hongo friggin NAILED Hiei. They did nerf Hiei, his character wasn't written to come off as powerful as he was in the anime.

Botan felt true to the character in the subbed, while the dubbed felt like a new take on the character, but I adored both versions. I mean...She was my favorite when I was little.

But I would have 100% vouched for different hairstyles.

Don't get me wrong the costume department did a good job on the hairstyles - they looked good. (the rest under the cut to save dash space)

However, personally, after seeing hundreds of cosplayers dress as these characters, I've seen many options on executing the hairstyles from the original anime that would have made it feel more like the original character design.

They also hold up pretty well with stunts, as we all know, cosplayers can get physical while LARPing.

Unless they were going for more realism, then I totally get it, but the realism was gone when people started booty-hopping over cars 🤣😂😆

I loved it. It was so much fun to watch this remake. My younger self would have been happy with this aswell.

saw a funny post that was like “haha iwtv is classic queer rep bc everyone in the friend group dated each other!” and lmao BUT it brings up one of louis main problems which is that he doesn’t date people he would be friends with. like him and lestat are not friends. they never were friends. they were one of the most insane and intense romances of the 20th and 21st centuries. but they weren’t friends. louis would not hang out with lestat if they were platonic lmao. also again louis and armand would not be friends. like are they having the other most insane and intense romance of the 20th and 21st centuries? yes. are they friends? absolutely not.

i knoww there's that post going around where it's like 20s are a weird age bc ppl are so obvs at diff stages but fr it does feel weird when u feel like u never quite developed but ur friends are considering a poly relationship when their own relationship isn't going great

Actually, whenever I think of Tim Drake in my head, I always give him the poshest British accent I can think of, just the absolute most “early nineties cartoon villain” voice I can think of.

Tim in, like, every other timeline we see him in either dies or becomes evil (then dies). Tim was introduced by being a dark figure stalking Nightwing and Batman. Tim in the Young Justice comics has constant awareness of all of his teammates to the point that, while they do trust him entirely, none of them would be surprised to find out he murdered someone.

Tim should have a cartoonishly villainous voice. Just, he should. Take my word for it. Every single Tim line is improved tenfold by reading it in a British accent, try it.

Toxic Yaoi

Versus

Healthy Yuri

well my fears have come to fruition. my therapist has told me to get assessed for autism

I assume it’s bc of the tv show but I’ve seen a couple posts randomly dunking on the last of us but for such dumb reasons. “I want to play lighthearted silly games instead of grimdark ones” “I want to play games that are more inextricable from the video game medium, games that are less cinematic” the good news is that those games exist! the last of us is in fact only two games out of the countless video games out there, so I would recommend not playing them if you don’t want to