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slayingfiction · 1 year

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How I push through writing when I don't feel like writing.

Here are some of the techniques that I use to help me write more often or more consistantly when my laziness/depression/anxiety starts to take over.

I watch TV. I don't do it with the purpose of zoning out though. I watch something popular and well-liked such as the LOR or Harry Potter to get new ideas on how I can develop my story and apply their in-depth world-building ideas to help develop mine. Without plagarizing of course!!!!

Zoning out and daydreaming. As I have mentionned before, daydreaming is a huge part of my story outlining and world-building process. I'll stand in the shower, or take a walk and think about how my charcaters would act/react/behave in situations, mundane or not. Doing this gives me a better sense of my characters, and sometimes gives me ideas for scenes I use later on.

Work on writing related projects. These work well at keeping me distracted while still being productive on my writing goals. Example, I have one story I am working now, I made a new language (alphabet and numbers included) to include as a cool and fun component for the book. So, at times when I don't wan't to write, I continue creating the dictionary (very fun, 8/10 would recommend). Also, for the same book, my characters don't work off the Georigian calendar and 24 hour clock, so I've been working at creating a new calendar (harder than it seems, 2.5/10 dont recommend). These are side projects that help my story, without having to write.

Reading. You saw this one coming, I know. Reading is great, especially when you're editing, your writing style will unconsciously change to be more similar the author you were just reading. Also, most importantly, I'll be reading and think, "this story is really good, but you know what story I like even better? Mine." then change to writing.

This one is my biggest life saver!! I learnt about a year ago that sometimes I'll get bored of writing a story, and have difficulty keeping on track. That's why I finished my first book in 2016 and just started editing the first draft last week. The solution for me was to work on multiple projects at once, because it was much harder to be bored of multiple stories. I stick to 2, but will sometimes add a third. This is easy for me, because I have a list of over a dozen series I want to write. Don't abandon one project for another, use them as a distraction/ motivation for each other, so you're always furthering at least one project. I've never heard someone say, "oh no, i accidentally worked on this other writing project for three months instead of the other writing project I was doing. Dammit." No, we're just happy we have written something. Be sure to have well outlined story lines before starting, don't just start writing randomly or you'll reach a point where you don't know where to go from there.

Author/ writer projects. Maybe this is building a following, or community to share your projects and engage with. Tumblr, Insta, Reddit, whatever it is. My hope this year is to start up my website to offer publishing services (editing, graphic design, short writing courses) and build a following as a writer. (See what I did there? Never a bad time to self-promote ;) ) Having your own projects like this will help you in the future when you're going to try to publish and sell your books!

Talk with friends and a writing community. Never underestimate the passion that will burn inside you when talking about your story, or when others are talking about theirs. Surrounding yourself with a positive writing community can be the best thing for you as a writer.

Write or read (your story) every day. I'm not going to be one of those people that say you need to write 1000 words a day, that's a lot. But maybe try for 100? That could maybe only take 5 minutes, and at the end of the year that's still over 36 thousand words of a novel. Or just read your story, and I've always found it helped me get in the creative mood.

Make a playlist of songs that remind you of your characters, your story, or just puts you in the mood to write. Then play it ONLY when you're having trouble writing. Playing it while writing will not help, you'll get annoyed with the songs.

Just really can't do it today? That's okay, take a break. You deserve it. There's always tomorrow.

Does anyone else have ways they push themselves to keep writing? Let us know in the comments!

Happy Writing!

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cairavende · 4 months

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My wonderful girlfriend got me Gideon the Ninth for Christmas and I realized why should I just give Worm recaps? Let's read some Locked Tomb! (We'll see how this format works, maybe I'll adjust it. Specifically might break stuff down into smaller segments instead of full acts, but I didn't think of doing this until after I had read all of act 1.)

Gideon the Ninth Act 1 (chapter 1 through 8) thoughts:

This book is so gay oh my god

Like, it's gay in ways I can't even explain. I love it.

Harrow beats the shit out of Gideon in chapter 2 and I don't know if I've ever seen someone get beat up in a more gay way.

"Oh Griddle! But I don't even remember about you most of the time." ROLL A FUCKING DECEPTION CHECK HARROW! You are saying this standing in the middle of the field you spent all night burying bones in just to foil her escape in the most dramatic way. You can't stop remembering her.

Gideon is the most herbo of herbos. I fucking love her. I love reading her PoV. She just knows punch and stab with sword and if those don't work than she'll just do them harder.

Also Gideon is SO fucking gay. Dear god. Dulcinea faints and Gideon turns off all though. HELP PRETTY GIRL. Nothing else.

Ok I could just make this whole thing "EVERYTHING IS GAY" but there is technically more than that.

I love how weird everything is and how little explanation is given. I don't want pages of exposition, I want to learn the world as it comes at me! This is perfect.

And just the very nature of things that seem weird not being given more than a passing thought in the book is information. Something may seem wild to the reader but it's so normalized to the characters that they wouldn't even think about the idea of it being different.

Lack of explanation also helps really show how much of a meathead Gideon is. Do the readers get to learn details about this thing? Only if it is a weapon, has tits, or Gideon is forced to listen while Harrow explains it. Otherwise no, why the fuck would Gideon spend her precious few brain cells on thinking?

And even if Gideon is forced to listen as Harrow explains it, the readers might not learn much cause Gideon might stop listening. I love her.

Aiglamene is wonderful. Crux is fine but I like her more.

Poor Gideon just wants a big sword that she can swing hard. It's not like she can't use a rapier. But why when she can go big sword?

SO MUCH CATHOLICISM

As someone who once was Catholic and then realized I was actually not a straight man, but instead a lesbian, I am in deep.

And the fucking slang used! Or whatever would be the right term. The shit they say! I love it. Just the weird sci-fi far future space necromancer universe and then suddenly "Are you asking me to . . . throw her a bone?", "Gideon had always known that this would be how she went: gangbanged to death by skeletons.", "Don’t hypothetically shove stuff up my butt again, it never does any good.", "Lo! A destructed ass.", "Well we were developing common sense, she studied the blade.", "Double Bones with Doctor Skelebone."

House of the First appears to be Earth. I kinda assume the House of the Ninth is Pluto, even though things obviously aren't in order given that the Seventh and Sixth are closer to the sun. Of course, I'm kinda expecting this to not technically be this solar system at all.

Undying Emperor, King of Resurrection, I Have Ten-Thousand Titles, Boss First, etc etc hasn't been on "Earth" in over nine thousand years. I wanna know MORE.

And the fucking Ninth House has their own prayer! Everyone else has one that the Ninth didn't know and then the Ninth had one that no one else knows! GIMME MORE!!!!

Also again, so many Catholicism metaphors or comparisons or whatever!

I could go on forever but gonna end this one with OH MY GOD SHE FOUND SUNGLASSES I LOVE HER. Fucking "I came prepared, my sweet." and "But then you couldn't have admired . . . these!" as she whips on the sunglasses. God. I nearly died.

#The Locked Tomb #tlt #Gideon the Ninth #Cairavende reads The Locked Tomb #Gideon Nav #Harrowhark Nonagesimus #Dulcinea Septimus #This might be the most lesbian thing I've ever read and I've read some pretty fucking lesbian things #Dulcinea might be my favorite so far

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hotjaneaustenmenpoll · 3 months

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Welcome to the HOT JANE AUSTEN MEN bracket! We have just finished voting on all the HOTTEST Jane Austen Gentlemen and Rakes from all the many TV and Film Jane Austen Adaptations.

After nearly two months of voting we have our Winner! Thank you everyone for taking part and all your propaganda I will be taking a little break for a while but look out for more polls in the future...

All polls—including ongoing polls, previous rounds,mini ask polls—can be found in the #hotjaneaustenmenpoll tag. Every poll in the Hot Jane Austen Men Tournament is tagged with the hot regency man and the year his adaptation was made if you need to search for a hot man in particular.

FAQs:

“Where is [my favorite Jane Austen man]?” Have you checked all the polls in the tag? Have you done a tag search for him? Only some of the actors are tagged but if you search for his adaptation and the year he was in it you should find him! If you still haven’t found him, he probably isn't in this poll.

“WHERE ARE THE HOT JANE AUSTEN MEN. I want to see all the hot men competing in one place! -

The Final

Third Place Poll

Semi-Finals Master List!

Quarter-Finals Master List!

Round Three Master List!

Round Two Master List!

Round One Master List!

“Who is included on this list?” We started with 64 opponents readied their duelling pistols to defend their own hotness but only 8 remain! I included men from Pride and Prejudice 1940/1995/2005, Sense and Sensibility 1971/1995/2008, Emma 1996/1996/2009/2020, Northanger Abbey 2007, Persuasion 1995/2007/2022 and Mansfield Park 1983/ 1999/2007 as well as a couple from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, one from Sanditon and one from Love and Friendship/Lady Susan. Most are the main hero/anti-heroes but there are a few others scattered in too.

Have you included Spin Offs ?” The only strictly none Jane Austen adaptation I've included men from is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies because it is set in the correct time period, the characters are basically the same in terms of personality and I thought the casting was great! In terms of Sandition, Sidney Parker is the only man I have entered as he is mentioned in the book as well as the TV so sadly as much as I love the other Sanditon Men they aren't included!

"Can I submit hot Jane Austen men?” Submissions are now closed! But my ask is still open for propaganda...

“I have additional propaganda for the hot men!” Great! Send me an ask, tag me in gifsets, fancams etc or reblog the poll and add your propaganda to it. Also feel free to send in any book propaganda!! I'll try to boost as much propaganda as possible

WHy is the propaganda so uneven on this poll? To stay impartial I only add propaganda to the main poll that has been sent in before each round's polls open. If you submit any after then I will reblog or post and add to the winner's propaganda in the next poll. If it's uneven it's because you never sent any in, not because I'm being biased.

"How have you paired up the men ?" I did start to try and vaguely seed the men but I will be honest I did get a bit slap dash towards the end which means a couple of the match-ups are maybe a bit too even but fun I hope!

If you’re submitting propaganda for your hot man, I don’t accept propaganda that is of the actor outside of their Specific Jane Austen Adaptation but I do accept propaganda from them in their respective books. I would love to be tagged in gifsets and fancams, and I'd like to boost propaganda that tells us why your Jane Austen man is your favourite :)

I won’t post or boost negative propaganda. If you really hate that a certain hot man is winning, send me positive propaganda for their hot opponent. I may make exceptions if your propaganda is of another Austen character bad mouthing him though...

If I see repetitive, trolling, and/or bigoted remarks in the comments, I may block you from this bracket. If you want to point out a hot man’s flaws or misdemeanors, that’s fine, but if I see consistent bad-faith trolling, you will be blocked.

On that note—if you have an issue with a poll, offer a solution! I'll do my best to keep the poll happy and fun, and I'll block people being dicks. If you don’t like a poll photo or a description, offer one I can use instead.

“My FAQ isn’t on here :(” send me an ask! I'd love to hear from you guys—just please check these basics first.

Thank you for being here! Enjoy the tournament.

And Thank You @hotvintagepoll for the inspiration!

#hotjaneaustenmenpoll #jane austen #pride and prejudice #sense and sensibility #persuasion #emma #northanger abbey #mansfield park

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cosmerelists · 6 months

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Ranking Cosmere Planets By How Cool I Find Them

[Contains spoilers for all Cosmere! I'll list the books in the title so you can skip the ones relating to books you haven't read]

The Cosmere has some very cool planets: but which are the coolest? In this list, I will rank them by my own definition of cool, which I'm defining here as "Planets where my interest in past or future stories is chiefly driven by the nature of the world itself."

#13: UTol (From Yumi and the Nightmare Painter; this entry also contains a spoiler from The Sunlit Man)

UTol is the sky planet that Painter can see from the surface of his world, Komashi, and we get a glimpse of it just right at the end of Yumi. It's also possible we get a glimpse of the same world right at the end of The Sunlit Man, but I don't think that's confirmed. Anyway. It's an ocean world, and the inhabitants have four arms and may have originally been from Yolen. But we don't learn anything cool about the world itself, really. I guess the fact that it can always be seen even through the shroud that otherwise blankets Komashi--that's cool. But I don't know if that's UTol's doing. Maybe when we get more info, it will turn out this planet is super ultra cool and then I will look like a fool. But for now--eh. Oceans. With water? Yawn.

#12: First of Sun (From "Sixth of Dusk")

First of Sun is a hostile world with jungles and oceans and magic birds. It's cool--as all Cosmere worlds are in my opinion--but none of it had any special, extra coolness for me. I suppose I've never been much interested in parrots, and also its only feature story so far was quite short.

#11: Braize (From Stormlight Archives; this entry also contains a spoiler from The Sunlit Man)

I am legitimately curious about Braize, Roshar's "Hell" where the Fused were imprisoned by the Heralds. Like, what is Hell like in a material sense? I want someone to visit it (and I really want to know if Sigzil has been there himself, based on his mentioning a Hell visit during The Sunlit Man), and my curiosity makes it seem more cool. But not too cool, because for all we know, Braize is super boring. We just don't have enough info yet.

#10: Nalthis (From "Warbreaker")

Nalthis has some interesting things going on, planetarily. People don't always properly die, which anyone who cheated and already looked at my #1 planet already knows is something I enjoy. It has some unique cultures, which is also something I enjoy in a Sanderson world, although the differences are painted in pretty broad strokes. It's colorful. I don't know. I'm not super into Nalthis, but it definitely has some cool aspects.

#9: Taldain (From White Sand)

I have a shocking confession that I forgot to include in my authorial confessions list: I haven't actually read White Sand. At least, not more than a few pages before I got frustrated with how hard it was to read it on my phone, which is where I had access to it. Anyway. I do think the general set up of this planet is legitimately cool: tidal-locked, I think, with a Dayside and a Nightside which each have their own magic system. There's a lot of sand. Water matters. I think there are magic tattoos. So I can't rank this too highly myself simply because I don't actually know much about it, but it does seem "Top 10" cool.

#8: Scadrial (From Mistborn)

Scadrial has an advantage because it has Time Periods, and really is a pretty different world in Era 1 vs. Era 2. I have a dark fascination with Era 1 Scadrial: the ashfalls, the mist, the slow but inevitable apocalypse constantly creeping closer...would NOT want to visit, but it's cool to read about. Era 2 Scadrial is bright and shiny in comparison. I'm not much of a Wild West gal myself, but there are giraffes, and that ups any planet's coolness, even if it has lost its brooding volcanos. Oh! And I hope we hear more about the Southern Scadrians too.

#7: Sel (From Elantris and The Emperor's Soul)

I've been trying to judge these planets based on the planets themselves rather than on their magic systems...but on Sel, can you really separate those? The magic is based on geography, after all! Anyway, I like Sel because of the wild things going on with its pooled investiture. I don't understand computer programming and so I may or may not really get its magic, but I like the fact that it ranges from the stately, sometimes assholish Elantrians to Soul Stamping. It's all very cool.

#6: Lumar (From Tress of the Emerald Sea)

Lumar is very cool. Like, color-based aether seas that each react differently to water? Rain as a deadly but necessary thing? The color borders where one aether sea meets another? Sailing on something other than water?? I ate it all up. Tress's world is wild and creative and definitely lots of fun.

#5: Roshar (From Stormlight Archives)

It's hard to separate Roshar the planet from the people and stories there, as I think it's the Cosmere planet I've spent the most time on, metaphorically speaking. But I gotta say, the idea of a constant, world-spanning storm that spits out magic and death--that's cool. A whole world that's inhabited only by crab-versions of things? Well, I hesitate to call that cool exactly, but it is...something. Plus, so many different cultures and religions and ideas on Roshar, which I really enjoy.

#4: Canticle (From The Sunlit Man)

Listen, I love Threnodites. Wherever they pop up, they are doing wild things and refusing to properly die and having names that are...let's say unique. And Canticle is quite the interesting planet. Imagine--not being able to stay in one place because you're constantly fleeing from the deadly sun while trying not to get too far ahead lest to stray into the constant fire tornado. Imagine powering your ships with dead-people batteries and doing engineering with your captive ghost engineers. The place is tiny and super invested and also an incandescent lightbulb or something. Again, I would NOT want to visit but that world is damn cool.

#3: Komashi (From Yumi and the Nightmare Painter)

I think my love of Threnody really affects these top picks. Komashi doesn't have Threnodites, but it does have the weird creepy shadow monsters which I apparently...love? (Learning much about myself writing this.) But in all seriousness, I really like Komashi and I am so curious about it. The idea of Virtuosity and how she manifests as both magical paintings and magical rock stacking. I am so curious about the magenta and cyan coloring and how Sanderson says its based on printers somehow and that yes there is one color missing (what??). The way the inhabitants just lived in a thick shadow sludge with lights creating small habitable zones...like, again, horrifying but such a cool and creative world to explore.

#2: Yolen (No books so far)

Maybe Yolen is super boring. But it is SO mysterious that it can't help but be cool. I mean, this is where the Shattering happened! I think it's where Hoid is from. I think there are dragons. It's just gotta be cool, right?

#1: Threnody (From Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell)

But my favorite planet, for whatever reason, is Threnody. I am dying for another story set on that planet. I am so curious about what the Evil is, and I want to hear more about the people living in the literal Forests of Hell. The Shadows and the rules that you have to follow to survive them, the use of silver, the fact that Threnodites just can't catch a fucking break. I am fascinated by all of it, and I think that Threnody is the coolest planet in the Cosmere.

#cosmere #cosmerelists

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thewertsearch · 10 months

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Asks Comp 4/8

The thing is, Davesprite's situation is more complicated than an unfulfilled time loop. His timeline isn't an irrelevant offshoot - in fact, it's integral to the existence of the Alpha Timeline, and presumably always was. Davesprite forms part of a weird, fully intact time loop which spans multiple timelines.

And since this is a future Dave, you have to assume he knows about Bro. The two clearly had a complicated relationship, but he's surely shaken by his death - if nothing else, it's a sign of how serious things have become.

That'll be a fun thing to check out when I've finished the comic! It reminds me of those Hunger Games simulators that were doing the rounds a couple of years ago.

That's true. Dave knows how strong the Underlings have become - and yet, he's still confident that Jade can stand up to them. Presumably she finds some sort of workaround for their First Guardian powers?

Sunslammer is so good! A standout song, even in a comic with as many bangers as this one.

Honestly, part of why I'm dragging my feet on the album reviews is because I want to hear these songs for the first time in context. If I'd heard Descend before watching Descend, I feel like it would have robbed the song of some of its dramatic weight.

I assumed it was just because witches are associated with frogs.

That would have explained why they're part of her Land, but I'm pretty sure that Kanaya's glitched planet was also a frog Land, and she's not a Witch, so...?

*The rest of Sal's response has been redacted, lest we fall once more into the Frog Theory Black Hole.*

I'm pretty sure that's a statue of Echidna, the mother of monsters and Jade's Denizen. Dave's probably close to LOFAF's Palace!

The Seer sees all - and sometimes, she understands the implications before we do.

It'd certainly be interesting. I just reread that conversation, and the biggest takeaway would have been that the kids were going to befriend the trolls, and get involved in their personal drama. This would certainly be consistent with the tone established by an Act 1 Hivebent!

Yup. Vriska was only able to 'create' Perfect Jack because Becquerel didn't object.

Really, he could have prototyped anything he liked, no matter what Vriska did. Even if she tried to shut the Entry down by incapacitating Jade, he could simply have activated the piñata himself.

I mean, that's basically what happened!

If any Aspect is geared around survival, then it's Feferi's. There's no breath left in her body, but our girl is still in the game!

Getting back to the trolls will be interesting, especially since - I assume - we'll be zipping back to when Feferi was still alive. The Veil is a much less friendly place, now - but does Feferi know this? What, exactly, is about to happen to the trolls?

I suppose. I guess there's no reason for every Carapacian to be created with knowledge of the Rings.

Actually, Sburb might not want them to know - Jack's probably not the only one who wouldn't respect the Ring's rules. There could be potential ringwielders out there who are far more dangerous.

Thank you! I feel like I've been doing a lot more character analysis in Act 5 versus previous Acts, where most of my speculation was about the lore. It's a fun change of pace.

Damn, I didn't think we'd actually be explaining these!

It's moments like these which really enhance the comic for me - justifications for things that I genuinely thought were just nitpicks on my part. It's really gratifying, honestly.

@thelegendofgreg asked: Here's some commentary from the jade enter flash, theres uh. alot to read but its all neat stuff "I talked about this way back, maybe even in an earlier book? Well, here I go again, so hold on to your ass. There are four entry items: Apple of knowledge, Bottle of wine, Crow's egg, Dog piñata. A, B, C, D. All of them are related to new life or new beginnings. You bite the apple, you fall from grace, enter a new world, begin this wild journey. You smash a bottle to christen a ship. An egg hatches, creating new life. You break a piöata to celebrate a birthday. Each involves breaking or puncturing something. Each involves a form of sustenance, or something to consume (piñatas have candy inside). Two are vessels for the substance (bottle, Piñata), two are the food items themselves (apple, egg), and one arguably counts as both (egg). Two of them drop from the same basic tree template (apple, piñata). They ramp up in complexity. John's is a simple test: bite the forbidden fruit. Not much to it. A single unit of departure, almost conceptually elemental, like an apple, as Rose goes on about later. The challenges get trickier. Rose has to break a bottle. Easy enough idea, but things go wrong, and she has to take a blind leap to get it done. A sacrificial gesture, and one of faith in a friend (Jaspers). Dave's is even more obscure. A simple test of patience, but one that's not clear. He isn't told what to do and just has to wait. Non-action is the key, and in a way it's another gesture of faith under dire circumstances. Finally, Jade's challenge incorporates a lot of these elements. It's another "blind faith" situation. She has to take a shot in the dark. There's a sacrificial gesture, but instead of risking herself (like Rose), Jade must symbolically sacrifice her friend via effigy and cannot complete the sacrifice without help from that friend. (Bec must redirect the bullet. There's no way this works if he doesn't.) It is also a signifier that the pet she knew as a friend her whole life is about to, in a way, become her enemy. Like a good dog gone bad, who now must be put down."

So they are all intended to be foodstuffs! And, apparently, alphabetical - although I think 'Crow's egg' is a bit of a stretch.

There are also themes of sacrifice and faith that I didn't really think about before. Choosing to enter Sburb at all, knowing the stakes, is absolutely a leap of faith - and it's a game which sacrifices your whole planet. Skaia's been telling us the score this whole time.

Homestuck absolutely deals with dark themes - but they start out buried under the surface, and even now, are still in the process of revealing themselves. This makes sense for Homestuck, a coming-of-age-story whose protagonists are slowly coming to terms with some dark truths about their lives.

Awful Hospital, however, immediately says: here's our protagonist. Her baby is dying. She just woke in a strange room. She doesn't know how she got here. Her baby has been stolen. There are monsters inside her brain. By the way, here's a quip, because this is actually a funny comic. It just felt... dissonant, and not in a fun way. I don't really know what it's going for, tonally.

Don't take this as a negative review, though! I only read a couple dozen pages, so I'm really not qualified to rate the comic - I just wasn't feeling it at the time, so I shelved it. I enjoy a lot of Bogleech's writing, and Awful Hospital's lore sounds pretty interesting, so I'll probably give it another shot at some point.

Not for the most part! I'm super into time travel stories, though, so I'm well-Primed to understand their intricacies.

So there might be intermittent stages between the four we've seen in the kids' session? That'd be interesting - I'd love to see the intermediary stage between John's 2D chessboard and Rose's 3D cube.

There are, at this point, too many awesome songs for me to pick favorites. Umbral Ultimatum and Sunslammer are excellent, but what songs aren't, at this point?

I can't imagine what we're in for when we reach the Act 5.2 finale...

Ooh, interesting. Considering how many accidental references Hussie seems to make, it's honestly up in the air whether that was intentional.

That said....

Jack is looking awfully divine these days.

I suppose Tavros has probably logged the most rocket-hours, yeah.

I'm sure all Breath Players probably learn to fly, unless there are some oddball classes which don't let you interact with your Aspect.

Anonymous asked: forwarding this message to you from someone who doesn't have a tumblr account. ~DJ "Important fact. Dave and Aradia both use musical instruments for time travel, but different ones. Aradia’s is a music box, it has a single prerecorded music, the only way to “play” it is to turn it so it plays the music that was always in it. Dave’s is turntables. They contain a preexisting music, but what you do with them is to jump, cut and shuffle this music, creating something new, having full control of it. - RM"

I like it! As Time Players, they both follow the set path of the Alpha Timeline - but Dave gets a little funky with it, multiplying himself with a complex series of time loops.

Aradia, ever the fatalist, instead turns to doomed clones for reinforcements. I don't think we've ever seen her make a stable loop.

#full liveblog #asks #act 5.2

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mediocrelanguagelearner · 2 months

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It's hard to not be good at something you thought you'd be.

Back in January I proofread a novel for a big publishing house. I was really excited for this opportunity because I enjoy proofreading and it feels like a job I'd could to do full time, one day. I was also excited to work on a book and to see my name published by a real publisher, you know. It was my first time doing something like this.

The work was hard, the deadline was two weeks, which is standard, but with my regular full time job it was just too short. I basically came home after 8-9 hours of staring into a computer at my work only to stare into a computer for another 4 hours. I basically worked at least 12 hours a day + all weekends. For two weeks. But I enjoyed the work process, I had some good music on and felt like I'm learning new things every day. I liked having a project to work on. But I was stressed a lot, I was behind my schedule, I wasn't sleeping as much, I had almost no free time or time to do any chores around the house.

I was really proud of myself when I sent the finished work back. I discovered a bunch of mistakes and fixed them, not just grammar ones but also mistakes in translation (which shouldn't be my job). It took them a long time to answer but they weren't happy with my work. I got a lot of notes to what I did wrong and I felt like some of those things were a bit unfair – I wasn't told to pay attention to some, some others I warned them about before hand, some were just things we disagreed on when the rules allow both possibilities. But I of course made some mistakes I shouldn't have, I didn't discover some things I should have. I apologised for that.

They were willing to give me one more shot – but I'd have to do it for free since somebody would have to check it again after I'm done with it. I was thinking about it for a long time and decided I'd like to try it again – I didn't want to give up at the first inconvenience, this is a skill I'd like to improve and it really felt like a future job possibility. So I told them I'd do it, but under the condition that I'd get more time to do it. Two weeks is just not enough, not when I have a full time job.

Well today they answered and said I can't have more time. Which I understand. They offered more time for this proofreading I'd be doing for free. But the book is 1/3 longer than the previous one, so the extra time isn't really extra time at all – I'd have to work at the same speed to finish before deadline. I thought about all this a lot today and ended up deciding I won't be doing it. It was a hard decision, it feels a bit like I'm giving up. Like I did something and failed and gave up. I tried having a positive mindset about it all, to think I can learn everything I need to learn, but maybe it is just too much work. Maybe I don't have the right intuition for proofreading. It sucks not to be good at something you hoped you'd be.

I just hope I made the right call. Who knows, maybe I'll get the chance again some day. Or maybe not... maybe I'll do something better?

#personal

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meekmedea · 21 days

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time-travelling shenanigans (cont.)

the post that started this all

basic premise: Clemensia Dovecote survives the second rebellion and returns to her 8 year old self. Follow her second chance at fixing things and preventing some deaths lol

one of the first thing she does is befriend Sejanus when he transfers into their class

she's also sort of avoiding Coriolanus (but denies this if anyone asks)

it's very hard to avoid Coriolanus when Sejanus is friends with him after she missed school for a few days because she'd been sick

~

From Coriolanus' POV - you have to admit that it's weird and maybe concerning when your friend suddenly starts distancing themself without any reason. He wants answers!!

Clemmie is fine with avoiding him forever - though she eventually concedes it isn't possible, so she decides to just never be alone with him, easy peasy, right?

It depends on the people she's with. Like Felix, who has no qualms hogging Clemmie's attention because she says she wants to avoid Coryo. (He's a bit of a 'she was MY friend first' type of guy.) Some of them are like Iphigenia and Lysistrata - they're just there for the ride. Fairly neutral. Then there's Sejanus with his too big of a heart. Coryo has probably convinced him to help 'fix' this friendship

And here's where things could get pretty wild for these 8 year olds

Clemmie's record for not being alone with Coryo to talk things out works until it doesn't

Her knight-in-shining-armour that chases him off? Not Felix. Not Sejanus. But Livia Cardew.

Even if Clemmie and Livia are more so classmates than friends, it's girl code, you know? (also it's a bit funny/fitting for it to be Livia - the book does say she was rude/cruel to Coryo when they were kids. So she's got qualifications lol)

Clemmie is surprised, but like grateful. "Thanks Livia!" And genuinely smiles at her.

Here's a thing about Clemmie's smiles: they (often) ensnare people for life. Livia is no exception. Womp. Womp.

You decide if Livia has a crush or not. Regardless, Clemmie now gains an ally in her

Coryo, of course, spirals even more into the pits of despair. because if his chances were bad before, with Livia around? Oof

I guess we could say that Clemmie attracts a type: (villainous) blond(e)s

the shenanigans escalate, we now have blond vs blonde competing for Clemmie's attention.

There can only be 1 blond(e) friend beside Clemmie (Felix's words, not Clemmie's)

Clemmie is blissfully unaware as she has more pressing matters like plotting how to prevent Arachne's murder (yes she knows she's got more 10 years, but it's never too early to start)

Sejanus: should we tell her? Felix: no. I want to see what happens next.

Also with the blond vs blonde showdown, it sort of gives Clemmie time to really appreciate the time she has with friends (esp. the ones that get killed off in the future by a certain blond)

Clemmie eventually notices, but alas! The wrong conclusions are drawn. She's like, "Oh. I get it, they think I'm in the way! They have a thing for each other."

Bonus points if in her future, Clemmie had no idea that Livia and Coryo did NOT marry for love. So she's like: yeah, this checks out, I guess

Livia and Coryo are equally horrified by this AND are doing everything they can to convince Clemmie that they don't have a crush on one another. HINT: it's not going well

#crack au #clemensia dovecote #time travelling #reincarnating to your eight year old self is not ideal #coriolanus snow #sejanus plinth #livia cardew #felix ravinstill #tbosas au #rambles #time travelling clemmie

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innerchorus · 10 months

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Okay I'm suddenly having Farangis brainrot and consequently have like, a bucketload of questions. Hear me out.

Was Farangis native to Khuzestan? Was she born elsewhere, sent to a temple from that region, only to be transferred to the temple in Khuzestan or was she from Khuzestan to begin with? I realize this is somewhat of a stupid line of question but whatever! My brain can't help it! I wonder how young she was when her parents died and she was sent to the temple, fairly young? 8-9-ish? Even younger? In her teens? I'm just now pondering in amusement how she ended up on the opposite end of Pars from her homeland— southwest to northeast. Also I planned to have her join the clan around the same time Ranna does: aka when she's about like, 13 and they 7 or so, and have them bond with each other as they get accustomed to their new home, but maybe I should move it up a little, but gah I've gotten so fond of the idea!

I'm not sure there are confirmed answers to many of these questions but let's have look at what the novels say! (These are exactly the sorts of things I wonder about too, so I'm more than happy to look into them.)

I don't recall seeing any direct reference to where Farangis was born. It could have been in the region of Khuzestan, or it could simply be that the cultural importance of the temple at the time was what led to her being sent there. It does seem that she was sent there to be raised immediately after her mother's death, though (her father died earlier, leaving her mother more or less a fortune, half of which her mother instructed to be donated to the temple after her death, while the other half was left for Farangis herself). Her mother asked that the temple support her daughter, presumably because there were no other relatives capable of providing for her, or perhaps because she saw being raised in the temple and becoming a priestess as the choice that provided the best future for her daughter.

The temple of Mithra in Khuzestan was built as a donation to mark the birth of Prince Arslan (ordered by Andragoras himself). Arslan was born in 306, at which time Farangis was around 8. So that's the youngest she could have been when she was sent there, and I do tend to think it was likely to be around that age that her life at the temple began.

This seems like a good place to talk about Khuzestan itself, since I mentioned that geographically it doesn't match up with the real life location. It is an area located east of Ecbatana, west of Peshawar Fortress and just north of the Nimruz Mountains. (That's not super specific, but the comment about the Nimruz range helps the most, especially because that's included on the map from the guide that covers up to Book 10)

(annotated map courtesy of the first fan translation)

As well as being just slightly above just above the Nimruz mountains, if Khuzestan is more or less mid-way between Ecbatana and Peshawar that would make it very close to Soleimaniye's location on the Continental Road.

The Chinese version describes Khuzestan as a 'small town' (小镇) but when checking the Japanese the novel is actually talking about the Khuzestan region (地方) which makes more sense.

Now for a little cypress diversion; we were talking about cypresses being planted around temples in ancient Iran, and although I didn't see a mention of it for the temple of Mithra in Khuzestan, the temple of Ashi in the Oxus region is surrounded by them, so that appears to be a thing in Parsian culture too. (Although this is a female-only temple dedicated to a different god, there's a little more detail of temple life in that section which probably applies to other temples like the one in Khuzestan too, so it's a good section to look at for inspiration for that.)

And also, since I may as well add it to this post after I think I forgot to mention it in comments yesterday, concerning the novel's use of the term magpat for a Parsian high priest, it hasn't come up in manga canon presumably because the time it crops up in the novels is when one of these high-ranking priests betrays Tahamenay's location to Hilmes, when in the manga Arakawa changed it to Husrab. In looking at that scene in the novels again I did see Tanaka gave us a brief description of what that priest was wearing; robes of 'gaudy gold and purple'.

Anyway, I think your proposed timeline for Farangis meeting Ranna in your AU would work! Perhaps the jinn told her to travel that way?

#arslan senki #the heroic legend of arslan #farangis #wolfpack au

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incomprehensiblelentils · 2 months

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@purlturtle tagged me in this, thank you! <3

15 Questions for 15 Friends

ARE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?

Not my first name, but my mom got my middle name (Melissa) from a coworker she really admired.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?

Ooh...I think it was a couple weeks ago while I was watching the Fantasy High episode where they find the corpses of *SPOILERS* and Kristen does a ritual to free their spirits. I just found that scene very beautiful and touching.

DO YOU HAVE KIDS?

Nope! I'm very excited to be a gay auntie to any of my friends' future kids. And B and I have our dolls (see @saintalectoshomeforwaywardgirls).

WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY/HAVE YOU PLAYED?

I rode horses from ages 8-16 (had to stop bc school got too overwhelming). I toy with the idea of getting back into it as an adult sometimes, because I do miss it.

DO YOU USE SARCASM?

I don't know the meaning of the word. (I know this joke doesn't really work but I couldn't resist)

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?

This is a weirdly difficult question - I am hilariously non-observant at times and have had to ask more people than I should if they recently got their hair cut/styled differently. I guess maybe their way of speaking? Not necessarily accent but the cadence and pitch of their voice. Physically I guess it's just their general bulk and/or the way they take up space in the world.

WHAT'S YOUR EYE COLOR?

Light brown.

SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?

Depends on my mood honestly! I am dipping my toe into horror films (I generally prefer audio dramas or books/short stories) but sometimes I want a good creepy time. I think generally I will go for happy endings most of the time, but I like horror as a container for my anxiety to go into.

ANY TALENTS?

Writing, I'd like to think! I'm also reasonably good at drawing (mostly animals) and I'm a speedreader. Nothing that's any good for a talent show unfortunately.

WHERE WERE YOU BORN?

In a suburb of Seattle, which happens to have a tiny airport they use to fly in celebrities who come in for the local ComiCon (which is very embarrassing, because that means like, Gwendoline Christie has seen a lot of my shitty hometown).

WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES?

Cosplay, general fandom bullshit (affectionate), reading, writing, and I think my Warrior cats spreadsheets count as a hobby by themselves at this point lmao.

DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS?

Not yet - we'd like to get cats but shit keeps happening to put it off lol. We love our friends' and parents' animals though!

HOW TALL ARE YOU?

5'3", which I recently found out - I have been saying I'm 5'2" for like a decade and this revelation was kind of destabilizing.

FAVOURITE SUBJECT?

English/Writing.

DREAM JOB?

I think I should be one of the guys making up shitty puns for children's valentines, because I'm way better at coming up with them than the stuff I see every year in stores.

Tagging @toriasimmons @swiftzeldas @jenny-dreadful @emmaswanned @theomenroom @dannypinot @amidalleia @zenithofdork @ben-g99 @areax @dollsome-does-tumblr @mrdistracted @nerdfaerie @afterword @thydungeongal only if you wanna! (also if you see this and you wanna do it count yourself tagged!)

Also stealing purlturtle's genius idea to include this at the end of the post - a version for easy copy-pasting!

15 Questions for 15 Friends ARE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? DO YOU HAVE KIDS? WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY/HAVE YOU PLAYED? DO YOU USE SARCASM? WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? WHAT'S YOUR EYE COLOR? SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? ANY TALENTS? WHERE WERE YOU BORN? WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES? DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS? HOW TALL ARE YOU? FAVOURITE SUBJECT? DREAM JOB?

#me

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eve-to-adam · 5 months

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Tagged by @theladyelizabeth to do these fics/stories asks. <3333 Thank you for giving me the chance to express some of my thoughts! :D

How many works do you have?

I have written many stories over the years. As a child, I wrote stories that I illustrated a bit clumsily, but it was fun to create characters and fantasy stories. Now I have two official works - the story I'm writing now, about Cecily Neville. I have one more that needs to be completely rewritten, about Elizabeth Woodville.

2. What fandoms do you write for?

My stories focus specifically on the medieval era, especially the events that take place in the Wars of the Roses.

3. What are your top 5 stories by kudos?

I haven't written enough stories to have a top 5, but if I were to make a list of stories I want to write in the near or distant future, they would be the following: 1. Proud Cis, which I am currently writing. 2. Elizabeth, a story that I should rewrite in the future. 3. A possible story about Anne of Burgundy, because I adore her and Bedford (they already appear in Proud Cis, so something from their perspective would be interesting to me.) 4. A story about Elizabeth of York, because why not? 5. Maybe a story about Edward I and Eleanor of Castile.

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I will definitely answer! As in the case of my illustrations, I want to respond to each person because I want to show my gratitude for the interest and the beautiful words that are offered to me. If I didn't reply to someone, it was because I didn't know about the comment's existence for various reasons (I didn't notice it/I didn't receive a notification, etc.) If it happens that I don't reply, I don't do it intentionally.

5. What’s the story you wrote with the angtiest ending?

Unfortunately, I never finished any story I wrote, no matter how long or short it turned out to be, so I have no way of knowing what ending I would choose.

6. What’s the story you wrote with the happiest ending?

See the answer to question number 5.

7. Do you get hate on stories?

I had two works posted on Wattpad at one time, but I never received hateful comments. Criticism, yes, but not offensive messages. It seems I was lucky. The strangest comment I got on the Elizabeth Woodville's story - which I find funny to a certain extent - was something about Constantinople.

8. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes and no. I have nothing against explicit content in stories, and although I have some degree of intimacy exposed in my stories, smut is not exactly a detail I want in them. I say this because this aspect does not suit me. I don't know how to write them properly, so I don't do it. But I like to create intimate/romantic scenes that contain more explicit details, without necessarily being integrated into the erotic area.

9. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Yes, I have only one story that fits into this category. It's the first time I do something like this. The story is still in its early stages, because I, together with my friend @teodoraioana221, are trying to arrange the pieces of the puzzle in order to create an enchanting story. The funniest thing is that this whole project started from a simple Sims game, in which we decided to create a story for our characters. A totally innocent thing. It is amazing that from such a tiny detail we have been able to create connections and contexts for our characters, most of them appearing only after we decided on a part of the action. Of course, it is a story that we want to write in the form of a book - webnovel -, which we want to illustrate together. The story would to some extent fall into historical fiction, because we are documenting details - such as food, customs, activities, mentality, fashion, etc. - starting from the end of the Victorian era, passing through WWI-WWII and up to in our present, which means approximately three generations. Yes, we have a pretty extensive family tree and I don't think it will stop there, which makes me excited, haha.

10. Have you ever had a story stolen?

No, but I had a comic stolen with a story I created - "The Queen of the Sun in Splendour". It counts?

11. Have you ever had a story translated?

Again, I don't know if it counts. But a mini-comic that I made with Edward IV and George of Clarence. Comic that was translated without my permission, apparently by a person from China.

12. Have you ever co-written a story before?

No. But I do it now. You can find the answer on question number 9.

13. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

An interesting question. In the beginning, when I barely knew details about the Wars of the Roses, I was obsessed with the Elizabeth WoodvillexEdward IV. At that moment, for me, nothing else mattered except them. My obsession was so great that anyone else didn't matter. I used to dislike Cecily Neville for her apparent refusal to accept Elizabeth. Can you believe it? And now I'm writing a book about her! Can you believe it??? I think this would be my answer: ElizabethxEdward and CecilyxRichard. I can't choose between them, sorry not sorry.

14. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Many of my stories are wips that will never be finished. However, I try not to repeat the mistakes of the past and I strive so that the works of the present never end up like those wips. But I am unpredictable. I am my own enemy.

15.What are your writing strenghts?

I have the impression that I know how to combine facts with reality. I have always tried to make sure that the story I write is 85% accurate. Of course, this percentage can fluctuate, depending on who is reading, I guess. It's possible that I don't know some details because I don't have access to them or maybe simply a context needed to be changed to fit the plot. I think I'm good at describing things. I try not to have boring dialogues - but, again, it depends on who is reading.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

I think that the entire platform is not enough for me to list them all (I am very critical of myself, yes). So I'll pick a few: One of them would be my inability to always have as rich a vocabulary as I would like. Another weakness would be the way I place the action (sometimes I have the impression that the scene I'm writing shouldn't be the way it is because I'm afraid of giving my characters that omniscient aura. Or I just feel that it doesn't work for the scene to proceed like this because maybe it doesn't seem natural enough.) Also, I'm afraid that some scenes are not in line with the character's personality, but I like them too much to get rid of them. The list can go on and on and on... Lucky for me that I have friends – Teo, Nico & Co. – who share their opinions about my stories and talk to me, listen to me and remove my insecurities, preventing me from killing myself with a pen, lololol.

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a story?

Yes, as long as the sentences are not too long. I wrote some in Proud Cis, a short exchange of lines in French, for which I had the help of a friend of mine, Sebastian. I don't trust Google Translate and I'm too afraid that I'll embarrass myself if I write nonsense because I trusted it. Better be safe than sorry.

18. First fandom you wrote for?

Wars of the Roses.

19. Favourite story you’ve ever written?

Definitely Proud Cis. Not only is it the longest official story written so far, but it is also the one in which I put the most effort. Through this project I tried to discover Cecily and at the same time to explore medieval life and mentality. I didn't want a generic story, in which the action takes place at a superficial contextual level. I want to explore more, to understand, to feel. I love to document myself about activities, places, customs, foods, art, traditions, etc. I have read many books in which all these were overlooked or explored in a superficial way because the authors want to focus on the characters or the political situation. But my personal opinion is that all these details are part of the character's component, they are one with them: these details represent the character. I like to imagine scenarios about small things in their lives and expose them with the help of fiction. Sure, for some it might seem boring, but I want to give these details the chance to shine through Cecily and the people around her.

I will tag: @teodoraioana221, @richmond-rex

Participation is up to everyone.

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greydoesthearts · 3 months

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Puppet Friends Comic Lore Drop

I know I took a while between the first few comic parts but after blasting through the last couple I need a break from it for a bit before diving into the next bits. So instead here's some lore drop for ya :]

Part 1

As of the beginning of the comic, the puppets are maybe a few months into living at the library. They've had their fair share of acting based trauma (as we see with Yay panicking over leaving the baby dragon) but no real problems arise outside of that.

More below :)

Part 2

We see they're free to roam the library as they please at nighttime. I wouldn't say they have night vision but they're filled with magic, who's to say how they see around?

Ren was hiding his discomfort before, but now we see she kinda really has qualms with things in private.

Part 3

Pip signs 'sorry' on panel 8 (?) despite everyone talking to it so far. He's pre-hearing aids as of this chapter and some into chapter 1, meaning he is not yet able to speak.

(And I've actually had some thoughts about this, that it probably seems like his hearing aids are a magical cure-all to his deafness/disability based on other parts of the story I've done in one-shots and whatnot. They're not. We'll see that just like his signing, he learns to speak after he receives his hearing aids. He is not fully deaf, more hard of hearing, and just like irl hearing aids do not cure any sort of auditory disorder, just helps. This was very important to me to clarify 🫶)

Part 4

I don't think there's anything lorewise I need to talk about here lol I just like her little 🥺 face and I'm glad you guys did, too! :D

Part 5

We'll get more information on the 'History of Puppets' book in further chapters, this whole chapter 0 things was, for me, to set up further stuff.

For this one I wanna talk about the unidentified children and man. The point of this whole thing was to focus on the puppets more than the people until later bits of the story, but these kids still do play an important role. Namely, their adult has broken his arm, oh no! And they've stolen Zero of all puppets? This seems like a recipe for disaster. Remember how I said so far the only trauma they've gone through was the acting stuff? Not anymore from that point forward. Consequences, consequences... the little boy who looked scared shitless will play a bigger role in the future though, I've decided. Not huge, but he'll be back :)

And there you have it! Writing this was a lot of fun, I like explaining my thought process into things, especially my things, and maybe y'all benefitted from it a little bit, too! If you have any more questions, you know where to find me lol 🫶

Puppet Friends!!: @glass-trash-bab @dtaegis @magic-fandoms @andthedolphinsdancedaway

#puppet friends #puppet friends comic #lore drop

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wifiwuxians · 7 months

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20 questions writer meme.

tagged by @heyholmesletsgo THANK YOUUU

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

not counting things i'd rather remained anonymous, 21!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

513,621 lol

3. What fandoms do you write for?

mdzs, vaguely tgcf, hotline miami (though mostly past tense) and we'll see about the future

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Wei Wuxian's Super Special Super Secret Book Club still reigns supreme with 1229 kudos, and will most likely be my legacy despite it being the second fic i ever wrote for the fandom (i think?)

If You're Reading This, It's Too Late with 513, one would think i'd still be messing around with this AU but i'm happy to leave it where it is and just keep messing around with the crackship

Dawn Chorus, my most precious baby, at 251 by some miracle despite being oc/canon. you guys spoiled me with the love for this one tbh. none of my other xue yang centric works got anywhere near this close and i'm at peace with that because he's bonking my oc in this one and they have a kid.

The Book Club Extras at 232, which is hilarious when compared to the original but at least new readers will see there's more and maybe in the year 2055 i will publish them for fun

Frozen Pond with 156 at the end of the list, written for my friend @petitjams and taking place in a silly AU we made together (wen chao stays winning on here which is very funny)

i'm attributing the popularity of the first two to mostly being centered around super popular characters, because my later stuff is naturally better yet struggling haha

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

always unless they're like just emoji, because i like conversation! though i may also reply with a little heart hehe

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i wouldn't call it angstiest ending, it's bittersweet, but the threads that bind us is my top pick. and it also needs more readers so go read it. your hands and mine has a bit of an 'angsty' ending but only for song lan. xue yang had it coming :p 💖

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

excluding the two above, so far they all have a happy ending, or at least neutral??? i'd say Book Club, though, because that's the massive 'everybody lives!!' silly fixit fic

8. Do you get hate on fics?

nope. i hope i didn't just jinx it. i get hate on art and through anon though! woo! (not anymore on here tho thank god)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

i do and i feel like it sucks so i almost always end up fading to black LMAO my actual explicit stuff remains private... it's like too embarrassing for me. i got judged for it as an 18 year old and 10 years later haven't gotten over it. i like bondage and bdsm though and that seems to crop up in private 😏

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

i do on occasion! i love roleplaying them, but the only one i have out there is The Way To His Heart Is Through His Stomach (Oh God Please Don't Eat Me), which mixes mdzs and tgcf characters in a unique setting :3

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge, but i've had art stolen plenty so i wouldn't even be surprised

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, a few have been translated into russian!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

NOT YET BUT IT'S IN THE CARDS

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

all time? jeez. somebody tell me why i always freeze up and go blank when asked these simple questions? it's like i forget who the fuck i am. i feel like i should also say songxiao? but they're relatively new so it doesn't seem correct. fuck it. my all time favorite ship is [DATA MISSING OR CORRUPTED-- PLEASE PROCEED TO NEXT QUESTION]

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

haha... (looks at my abandoned hlm fic with the seventh chapter halfway written) haha...

16. What are your writing strengths?

i'd definitely say dialog. it makes sense, since the stuff i'm most used to doing is drawing silly comics. i also like to ping-pong emotions around and feel like i'm pretty good at that too

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

using the same words over and over and feeling like i never write Enough, like everything is always light and never in depth. i don't like making scenes too heavy with padding but i also feel like i need to find a balance

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i'll do it only if it's a language i speak!!! this doesn't apply to peppering words like gege and stuff just for funsies. i think the best way to go about it is to just tell the audience what language they're speaking in that moment

19. First fandom you wrote for?

we're gonna have to go back to when i was 10 years old here lol... i think it was tokyo mew mew in terms of stuff i put online (oh god)

20. Favorite fic you've written?

it's hard to pick favorites, but i once again must say the threads that bind us in terms of work i'm most proud of.

i tag whoever sees it, plus @sugarapplebaby because ily

#thank you!#my fic #mdzs #i write fic but overall it doesnt really get read as much #so im always glad to advertise hehe thank you!!#i think people generally just want a lot of the same or like very specific ships so its really hard to break through #BUT I STAY SILLY! i love writing and i LOVE when people enjoy what i do #so thank you all

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tvrningout · 5 months

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get to know me meme

TAG NINE PEOPLE YOU’D LIKE TO KNOW BETTER!

1. favorite colors: blue, purple, and orange ( but also all the colors actually )

2. favorite flavors: when i say i love nearly everything you put in front of me... but i'll admit when i see something sour or spicy, i'm immediately fighting back the urge to impulse buy it :' )

3. favorite genres: fantasy, horror, and romance!

4. favorite music: i listen to a little bit of everything, but pop and movie/show/game scores are probably the most common stuff i listen to atm. been listening to a lot of ajr bc they give me a lot of muse inspo for yoshiaki

5. favorite movies: into/across the spiderverse, rise of the guardians, coco, practically any ghibli film, and probably some others i can't think of rn

6. favorite series: all of us are dead, kingdom, new girl, community, and once again! probably others that i'm not thinking of :' )

7. last song: " alone we have no future " from the death stranding score! i really love the entire score and highly recommend it as well as the soundtrack <3

8. last series: all of us are dead :' ) i keep re-watching it bc i love emotional damage and zombies hehe

9. last movie: my friends made me watch this old animated film that i barely remember now bc i was so distracted by their baby asdfg prior to that, i think? i last watched across the spiderverse

10. currently reading: ruin and rising by leigh bardugo, third book of the grisha trilogy! the only reason i'm not done with it is that i don't want it to be over :( i've been eyeing my copy of howl's moving castle lately, too... maybe it's time

11. currently watching: i started re-watching outlander bc a lady falling through time in scotland is right up my alley B) and bc i didn't get very far during my first watch. i'm also working up the nerve to watch the second season of jjk bc i wasn't ready to see this part of the story animated back when i first read it, and i'm not ready now :' )

12. currently working on: got a lore drop about dorverold's afterlife/spirit realm i'm dying to write bc even though i know i probably won't write 90% of these dorks, i love thinking about the deities!! i'm also working on yoshiaki's bio and contemplating a slight reworking of yubari's bio as well as tsugumi and miyuna's just to make them more story-like rather than bullet points. i need to add " notable connections " sections to my muses' stats, too. there's a lot i'm trying to work on, now that i'm thinking about it asdfg

tagged by: @impishsensei & @espectres thank you both very much <3 tagging: @vonerde @fanaticist @fallesto @mythcaels @diaboelic @avaere @futurefind @mellodiies @un1awful and if you haven't done this yet, pls yoink it from me <3

#these are always fun to do and the only reason i didn't tag more of y'all is bc the meme says to specifically tag 9 people uvu #get ready to ramble | ooc

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ineffablecollision · 7 months

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about the last episode's title...

i'm mulling over my theory again with the new episodes in mind... i recommend you read that one first but i'm not your parent sdkfjdsjf

i'll discuss the last episode's title so i'll spoiler cut here! (also this has become pretty long-winded excuse me sdfjkdsfds)

we know the next episode is called "mermen", and a few days ago i threw out a post about how i think we're gonna see ed and stede as mermen at the end of s2, swimming off together.

i got to rewatch a few ep of s1 and i completely forgot that whenever one of blackbeard's tales is discussed he appears with a fucking spear!! that throws out my theory that the mermaid might be izzy (also that fact that he's the unicorn but that's besides the point). it's ed! ed with a weapon.

what i also forgot was that stede himself says "kill them with kindness!" in s1, so of course he's gonna get a heart in his hand. his weapon is kindness.

the fact that they're swimming in circles, maybe trading places... we got that in these new episodes. stede became the infamous pirate and ed is just there wanting to be ed, to escape the very pirate life stede strides for. they are going in circles separating and getting back together, because they're dancing around the underlying issue.

they don't talk. stede wants to be a pirate so bad, enjoys the thrill-seeking in some capacity (until he gets cocky and it bites him in the ass), and ed wants to settle down. stede only enjoys the pirate life because ed is with him, ed only tolerates the pirate life with stede.

i also think ed believes that stede's love is conditional, that he'd take away from stede's happiness if he took away the piracy, which is why he runs away instead of talking to him and trying to work things out.

anyways, why the fuck do i think we're gonna see ed and stede as merman at the end of ep8? because somewhere they will have to talk. we all know they're gonna get back together in ep, that this wasn't a proper separation like in s1 (judging by trailers, teasers etc.).

now this will drift off into speculation city, and for people who have seen the episode please don't confirm or deny anything! <3

i think we're gonna see them coming together and deciding they need to thwart ricky and the english. i hope they agree that this will be the thing they'll be in the history books for, one last hurrah, and then they decide to make a cut. no more piracy.

i want to see this conversation happen. for them to align goals not only in saving their friends but also in saving each other.

i want their last fuckery to work out so marvelously that they can't to anything else but leave the stage and move on.

and once their goals align, once they have the eyes on the prize, their future together, they can swim off into retirement together.

and fuck would i love for that to be the fucking mermaid scene mirrored, but both of them swimming off together.

i also think there's something about ed saying "i used to view the sea as a battlefield but for the first time i'm in the present" in the episode 8 preview, but i have to mull over that some more...

(or maybe they just chose the episode title because "seamen" is a funny word and stede and ed decide to stay on the sea forever who knows)

#please share your thoughts my brain has been thinking of little else these past days #our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd 2 #our flag means death s2 #ofmd spoilers #ofmd s2 future

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biblioflyer · 1 year

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The writer's strike and franchise fatigue: two heads of the same coin?

Context: I'm shamelessly reposting a comment on a popular webforum where someone posed the question "What's next for Star Wars?" that prompted a lot of discussion about the whats and whys of what's working, what isn't, and of course everyone's favorite hobby: performing yet another autopsy on the Sequel Trilogy. I declined to go there in favor of speculating on the production side.

Ultimately I think the future of Star Wars requires Disney to do what a lot of franchise owners have been resistant to doing for various reasons: allow their creative teams a wide latitude to fully develop their ideas without unnecessarily harsh deadlines tied to quarterly earnings reports. Now that isn't to say that projects can fail on their own merits.

I don't know for a fact that Book of Boba Fett was timid, awkward, and boring because the showrunners couldn't make a cut that worked with the time and resources allotted, but we were mostly all impressed with Rodrigues' work on Mando so we were cautiously optimistic that a Cool Gangster Drama with Boba Fett could be a thing. So what the hell happened? Solve that mystery and I think you ensure that Star Wars has a future.

Looking at another popular "Star" franchise, we see a lot of similar problems with uneven writing and what seems to be differing opinions both inside and outside the franchise as to what exactly it means for something to carry that name. What sort of stories can you tell? How do you tell them? Can you have a point of view character or does it always have to be ensemble? Can you deconstruct the setting only to reconstruct and reaffirm it in the finale without losing the fans?

What explains "bad" writing? Coercion by the studio? Writer inexperience? Showrunner inexperience? A failure to find the right balance between modernizing the storytelling of a franchise without it becoming illegible as part of that franchise or to cling so hard to fan service that it is afraid to experiment and becomes a less interesting and murkier Xerox of itself?

Something that I found fascinating in the discourse around the writer's strike is that the format of streaming TV with its short seasons has turned everyone involved in these productions into gig workers. Unless you're one of a half dozen showrunners who have helmed widely acclaimed franchises, modern tv has become severely siloed on the production side: writers have limited opportunities to learn directing, editing, and show running. They also have limited opportunities to see how their work translates to the screen when it lands in the hands of directors, actors, set decorators, and FX artists.

If you add up all of the live action Star Trek shows produced to date, you end up with 8 seasons of streaming that equal roughly 4 seasons of broadcast era TV. Which means that under the old paradigm, a traditional TV show would only now just be airing its second "good" season. Which, shockingly enough, maps very neatly to attitudes about Strange New Worlds and Picard Season 3, and to a lesser extent Discovery season 4.*

*To the extent it will ever be allowed to make a second impression, which is another seeming "problem" of the streaming era that needs addressing since any "failed" first season is very likely to result in a sub-franchise that is going to get cauterized and forgotten about given the era of a permissive financial environment for funding additional seasons and permitting a production to recover and learn from their mistakes is pretty much dead and gone.

Were I Disney, given these realities, I would probably fund 2 or 3 "stables" of Star Wars writers and production teams. One for light hearted action comedy, one for "serious drama," and a third for something more esoteric. Maybe a fourth for big budget tentpole films. Keep them employed and give them opportunities to develop their tradecraft.

Don't be so quick to slash and burn a dud, use failure as permission to experiment. If nobody cares about Book of Boba Fett anyway, why not take some risks and see if some writers who are claiming they can turn in a second season that can "fix" the first season by turning the stories that go nowhere or are halfhearted into the first chapters in more meaningful stories? People already tend to avoid series that have only one season anyway and become ever more likely to do so the more time passes without more seasons so you're just throwing away your investment by not trying to salvage it.

This is incidentally why I'm not antagonistic towards the prospect of trying to rehabilitate the Sequel Trilogy. The Prequels are poorly made but were rich in potential. That potential was not left on the table, it was exploited until we can no longer separate the Prequels as they originally stood from all of the tie in media that added depth and nuance to the setting and storybeats.

So were I Disney and I have all of these props and set pieces in storage doing me absolutely no good, then of course it will eventually be time to try to make the Sequel Trilogy good. Maybe do some Director's Cuts and then build out the universe to make it feel less claustrophobic and less overtly a bigger, louder, dumber rehash of the Original Trilogy.

#star trek #star wars #the mandalorian #book of boba fett #star wars sequel trilogy #star wars prequels #star trek discovery #star trek picard #writer's strike #disney

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theothersarshi · 2 months

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I don't want to derail @theshitpostcalligrapher's post, so I'll make my own. Anyway, they were really nice to @theworseshitpostcalligrapher on this post, where the latter rewrote the same three words in a similar style in a reblog. (So it's really nice all around - there's acknowledgement of what's going on, there's approval, there's building up.)

And I wanted to share a story.

Back when I was in primary & middle school (grades 1-8 over here in Romania), I was a very, very earnest kid, a bit naive, but when I loved people or things, I really loved them. Keep that in mind for what happens next.

We had 1 hour of Art class/week all throughout middle school, but our middle school Art teacher Did. Not. Teach. I can't emphasize how much teaching didn't happen. We had to have watercolors/tempera and a paint brush, and he'd tell us things like, "Paint something Olympics-themed" or "Draw something for the local theater festival". Then we'd get grades based on how nice our paintings/drawings were. That was it. That was all.

...I found out things like the human body having proportions only when I was already a student, while talking to my future bff. I found out tempera isn't "watercolors, but in a tube" even later. But never mind that.

My middle school best friend had talent, though. She was naturally Good At Art and she came up with this amazing style (well, amazing to us 12 yos) where she made up big drawings out of tiny pencil doodles - asterisks and spirals were among her favorites, I think. It was not quite like typewriter art, because her doodles didn't overlap, but typewriter art + Pointilism + doodles is the best way I can describe it. The rest of us hadn't even thought about using a pencil.

I was in love. And I could sort of understand how she did it, so I started... copying that. I wanted to try it out for myself, do the thing. I changed the basic doodle shapes, but I kept the general idea. (I would have preferred something realistic and colorful, but I had no idea how to do any of that; see: teaching, not happening)

My colleagues called me a copycat (understandable). My mother called me a copycat (*sigh*). Even my teacher called me a copycat (I'm wondering vaguely if that's why he never taught anything, so we'd never end up copying a style we saw, *le gasp*). One must never, ever do what someone else is doing! ORIGINALITY!!!ONE! Figure it out yourself, in your own way!

Adult!Me thinks our teacher could have used this as a Teachable Moment to talk about why her drawings worked and to point us in the direction of similar artists or whatever. Or maybe he could have realized I wanted to learn something and pointed me in the direction of, I don't know, a book about how to draw, maybe. If he didn't want to teach his class himself. But I digress.

I was left feeling bad and like a complete loser. My best friend at the time mocked me, too, because of course she did. As far as I know, when we got to high school she never drew again (we were no longer friends by then, due to unrelated reasons).

It feels particularly wonderful to me to come across people actively encouraging and helping each other to learn, even if they're walking paths others have walked before. I never learned how to draw, but I did learn how to write stories, and there's a lot of fumbling around and imitating others to see what works and why before you become good. It takes so much practice. It's hard.

And sometimes maybe you just want to do The Thing for yourself, and that's also fine. Who the heck cares if you decide to have your own Van Gogh-style painting of your own bedroom on the wall of your bedroom?

Anyway, it makes me so happy when I see creatives being creative and sharing things with others. It's probably very flattering to be the only one at the lonely top, but when you have a community and you can learn from others, everyone wins more.

#and really I'm a bit depressed sometimes #and life feels hard and ugly #so seeing kindness and community reminds me things can be pretty and good

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