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subskz · 4 months

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do you have any tips on writing? i wanna start my own blog and start writing, but im not sure where to start and how to make it sound good.

ofc! i do wanna preface by saying i’m by no means an expert, and when it comes to writing (or any form of creative expression) a lot of it is very subjective, so there’s not really any set standard for your writing to be considered “good” outside of basic writing/grammar rules! that being said, here are some things i do!

first just a few basic rules:

1.) start a new paragraph each time someone different is speaking

e.g. “What’s that?” she asked, tilting her head in the direction of the other room.

He squinted, taking a moment to listen carefully before another dull thud echoed through the door. “Not sure,” he replied. “Let’s check it out.”

2.) when seperating dialogue, don’t capitalize dialogue tags, treat the text in quotations and outside of quotations as if they’re the same sentence. this is one i didn’t learn until quite recently actually…😭

e.g. “Oh my God,” she muttered. “Why are you so difficult?”

The exception to this would be if the dialogue is seperated by a different sentence!

e.g. “Oh my God.” She was clearly fed up, running a hand down her face with a huff. “Why are you so difficult?”

3.) when a character is quoting something within their dialogue, don’t use quotation marks (“”), use apostrophes (‘’)

e.g. “He told me “do what you want”, so I will.” (this is wrong)

“He told me ‘do what you want’, so I will.” (this is right!)

as for writing tips, these are just some things that i personally do when i write! they’re not necessarily the right way to go abt it, so only follow the advice you want! i also talked a bit abt motivation here

include actions w dialogue! this can keep things from getting monotonous (like a constant back and forth of “he said” “she said” with little in between) and can also emphasize what the characters are saying! for example, instead of writing “he replied dismissively” you could say “he replied, giving a dismissive wave of his hand” or instead of “she said in exasperation” you could say “she rolled her eyes as she spoke” just little things like that to enhance the dialogue. ofc, keeping it simple is necessary sometimes so don’t overdo this!

that brings me to another point, adverbs aren’t bad (i use them a lot!) but sometimes what ur trying to say could be better expressed with just one word. it can get a bit repetitive if things are always described like “said awkwardly” “laughed loudly” “touched softly” etc. you might be able to find a word that gets the point across better. for example, “said irritably” could be “huffed”, “walked casually” could be “sauntered”, “smiled brightly” could be “beamed” and so on. but there are plenty of cases where adverbs are super useful so definitely don’t avoid them altogether!! i just try to make sure i dont use a bunch in a row

simple dialogue tags like “said” “asked” “replied” are your friend!! don’t avoid using them just bc they might seem generic hehe esp if you’re substituting them w verbs that are less appropriate simply for the sake of not using “said”

sometimes, you’re better off not including dialogue at all! like the whole premise of “show, don’t tell”, spelling out every last thing for the reader can sometimes work against you. body language and cultivating an atmosphere is key here! if it’s an awkward situation, you could bring up someone averting their eyes, shifting from side to side, playing with their fingers etc. if it’s a serious situation, you could mention their tensed shoulders/facial expression, their jaw clenching, them pulling away when someone tries to touch them etc. that in itself tells a story! but once again, it’s just abt using methods like these at the right times. sometimes, exposition is necessary

if ur writing abt skz, or any muse really, i think including mentions of their features/habits makes it more fun to read! it can help immerse the reader if u bring up traits that capture the character’s essence, or speech patterns that capture their voice. it’s all fictional ofc and just based off our perception of them, but i like to write skz in a way that’s at least somewhat believable in accordance w their personalities! even little things like the way jisung talks through breathy giggles, binnie’s nose scrunches, how minho looks up when he’s thinking, or how jeongin ends his sentences with a cute nod sometimes. and ofc there’s physical details as well like binnie’s chin scar, chan’s dimples, hannie’s cheek mole etc

this one is probably obvious but paragraph breaks are very important!! both to prevent overwhelming the reader with a huge block of words, and for organizing events/building tension! a paragraph never strictly has to be multiple sentences, you can have a single isolated line of text if you want. timing paragraph breaks can be very effective for creating the right vibe! if something intense is happening, putting a break right after a serious action or putting a single line of dialogue on its own can make them stand out and really add to the drama of it all hehe

don’t worry too much abt using the same word multiple times!! it might feel a lil annoying when you have to repeat a word several times in a paragraph but sometimes that’s the only option there is. if you try to replace it w 10 different synonyms instead of just referring to a book as a book, then it might end up sounding even goofier haha…so try not to stress when you feel like you’re overusing a word!

if you want your writing to be more immersive, take all senses into account!! describe more than just the character’s actions—describe sights, smells, sounds, touch, how the characters are feeling, etc!

arguably the biggest piece of advice i could give!! having varied sentence structure/length is one of the most challenging parts of writing in my opinion but so so important. when smth sounds off in your writing, it could very often be bc of the way a sentence is structured, or bc several sentences back to back are similar in length/format, which makes it flow awkwardly. i think making sure ur sentences range from long, detailed ones w several clauses, commas, semicolons, em dashes etc. to short, direct ones keeps the writing engaging! sometimes combining 2 short sentences can make the flow sound better, and sometimes breaking down a long one does the same! it also makes it a lot more effective when you have a sudden short sentence amidst several longer ones, bc there’s a clear shift in tone! generally just try to avoid having an entire paragraph of sentences that go “she did this and then this. then she did this and then this. then she did this and said that.” the variety will work wonders for how it all connects together!

ofc there are some situations where you might be going for a certain feeling or tone w your writing, in which case it can actually be a useful tactic to have repetitive sentence length/structure. maybe you want a scene to feel overwhelming w several long, complex sentences or you want to really drive in an idea by using blunt, disjointed ones. it’s all abt what you hope to achieve w your writing and your personal preference!

i hope this helps!! once again this isn’t the be all end all, so please only follow what you see fit! if you have any other questions let me know, i’m wishing you the best of luck! ^_^

#ask

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viablemess · 1 month

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Gale's Childhood + Mystra

I just have some thoughts and need to articulate them because they will not leave my brain alone at all and I cannot think about much else. Feel free to sit down and join me as I word vomit how I imagine Gale’s childhood went. I did not edit this or proof read it at all, so bear with any grammar/spelling/flow mistakes please!

So, Gale’s mother is Morena Dekarios, we know that. She’s an angel, an icon, and she cares so much, and she is wicked smart. I also headcanon that she is a high quality escort in the City of Splendors, and so grew up knowing how to please people and blend in with high society in any way she can. So, she raised Gale right. She told him about what she did, never hid anything from him, and would bend over backwards to ensure that her son was happy, healthy, and cared for. Because she had to blend in with high society, she had so many books, and art pieces, and high quality alcohol and clothes all over her house. Gale grew up around these, and absorbed it all with ease, and Morena thought that was fantastic. She frequently sent him to school whenever she had to work even if he had already spent the entire day there because she knew he would be safe and looked after, because his dad was not around to look after him.

Speaking of his dad, let’s talk about Waterdeep politics for a moment, shall we? We will circle back to Gale’s parentage. Waterdeep is ruled by a council of 16 Lords, all of whom are anonymous. Whenever they are ruling in public, they use magical masks called the Lord’s Helm that hides their identities. A common game in Waterdeep is to identify the Lords and figure out the rumors that float around about them. The Lords actually start most of their own rumors, though, so these can be easily misleading. Because the Lords elect the other Lords via anonymous vote, it is difficult for the Lords to even know who is who, but they do know their names, and so they have more information. So, while the Lords are frequently protected from assassination / bribes / stalking / lobbying from the public, they are not as always well protected from each other, so the secrecy is still important, and caution is warranted. I imagine some of the Lords take this very seriously, and value the job over forming families or bonds, so high quality well-to-do escorts like Morena are highly sought after.

Now, back to Gale’s father. So, Morena is an escort for a Lord, one thing leads to another, some mistakes are made, and Morena gets pregnant which was definitely not the goal, but she can’t tell anyone she is pregnant with a Lord’s child, so she just pretends the child’s father is another client and moves on. So, if the Lord happens to be a (maybe red) wizard/cleric/paladin of Mystra… who is to say? If this Lord happens to be highly talented and magically inclined (or magically manipulated) who would ever know? Gale starts showing magical inclinations in the womb. Morena’s 9 months of pregnancy are absolutely hell. She isn’t ready for a child, but she isn’t not ready, either. So, she gets shit done and gets ready. She talks to the local Blackstaff Academy and seeks help and these teachers are /interested/ because rarely does anyone show magical talents in the womb and they are here to support her and more importantly here to teach this would-be-prodigy.

Morena is wealthy, so she can pay for private tutors and Gale shows magical abilities akin to a teen when he is a child, and so she fanes those (sometimes literal) flames. She knows her son’s child is powerful, and so Gale must be powerful, too. She loves him, and fully enables him to make his own decisions, but he is /good/ at magic and a child. He likes being good at things, and so of course he follows his talents naturally. So much so, in fact, that when he accidentally sets off a fireball trying to pick his mom some roses with a mage hand, Elminster shows right up. He had been watching Gale, after all. Mystra had told him to. Mystra had told him to watch Morena when she was pregnant, too, because Mystra knew what would happen. Mystra willed this to happen, and neither Morena nor Gale are any wiser about it.

“I wanted to give my mum something pretty,” tiny Gale had said, tears in his eyes and chubby cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry! I thought the roses were pretty, like sunsets are pretty, and I must have thought of the fire of a sunset by accident and—and—please don’t get mad at me.”

Because if there is one thing that Morena did instill in Gale other than politeness, a love for the finer things in life, and a sense of ambition (heh, ouch), it was to be respectful of authority, because Morena isn’t stupid. If a Lord could use another Lord’s child against them, they would, no hesitation. So, Gale is taught to be a good, rule-abiding little boy who has a healthy caution of leadership but mostly knows how to smile and nod and keep his head down. And Elminister, while not masked, gives off waves of authority, so Gale aims to please and keep his head down.

Elminster smiles. Gale clutches Morena’s skirt and hides behind her and Morena glares at Elminster as if daring him to do something. Elminster puts out the fire with a wave of his hand, and introduces himself. “I’ve been keeping an eye on your talents, Gale Dekarios. You’re so talented, but you do not know where to aim your talents. May I help you?”

Morena knows who Elminster is, she has heard the rumors. She does not know he is Mystra’s chosen (Morena knows Elminster to discuss grandiose tales with her clients, not to study magic or doctrine) or his relationship with Mystra at all. Morena frequently says, only in private and after a few glasses of wine, that the Gods can fuck right off because they were no help to her, she helped /herself/ thank you very much, so she does not know. She just sees this powerful and well-known figure who might be able to help her protect her son from his dad who is maybe still a Lord, and says yes.

Gale’s private study with Elminster goes on for a few years before Mystra gets involved when he turns 11. He excels, he goes to Blackstaff as one of the youngest students ever, and his classmates hate him. He is too good, too favored, too young. He does not have to try, as if he is blessed, and Gale does not understand why his classmates hate him. He’s studying just like they are, just many years ahead. He is young just like them, but a few years more. He has a favorite teacher in the form of Elminster, just like his classmates have their own favorites who actually are teachers at the academy and not a rumored hero of Faerun. His experience is close enough for Gale to not understand why his situation is unique, and why his peers hate him for it. So, he asks for a cat. Cats are nice and soft and hiss at people who they do not like, and Gale always had a hard time saying when he didn’t like someone so maybe the cat would do it for him. But Gale needed to focus on his studies, and cats couldn’t live with students at Blackstaff, so everyone tells him, respectfully, no. Gale keeps trying to make friends, and keeps failing, and he finally says “fine I’ll summon my own friend!” and summons Tara, which is an impressive feat, and within a single hour Tara says “fuck everyone this human is /mine/ and no one can tell me otherwise.” People try to banish Tara away, and she always comes back, but only for Gale, and sometimes for Morena.

Everyone knows Gale is talented, but it is not until he casually wields the Blackstaff entirely by accident that everyone realized how much so. The staff molds to his hand, and flutters in his direction ever since he picked it up. The school is furious, and Gale does not understand, because does that not mean that he is good at what he studies? He doesn’t understand it means he is a threat, he is too good, he is too strong, and some people would rather eradicate him than educate him.

One of the requirements for students at Blackstaff is survival training. The students are released into nature and told to fend for themselves, summon food and water or use their magic to otherwise make some, to create shelter, to prove that in practice they can manage a bad situation. The teachers are nearby, of course, to help should something go wrong. However, at this point, teachers feel one of two ways about Gale Dekarios, and that sometimes is a help but frequently is a hinderance. These teachers see this child, and can easily understand that one day he will be a threat to their jobs, their research, their theories. He’s just that good. And some of the teachers get together to make this test akin to the hells for Gale, and he goes off by himself. Waterdeep is surrounded by beautiful golden beaches and stalagmite caves, which are beautiful blessings during the tourist times of year. They are deathtraps during high tide, and the teachers know this, and so does Mystra.

It's pouring by the end of the first day, and Gale does not know where to go. He can heat his closes, and summon food and water, but he is aware of the fact that magical exhaustion is a thing, and that he cannot keep himself dry and warm constantly with magic for the duration of the test. So, when he sees a rainbow will-o-whisp that feels safe, he follows it into the cave. Mystra leads Gale into a shallow grave planted by the Blackstaff teachers, and watches him almost drown. The teachers would have let him drown. They would have let this eleven year old boy get grabbed by the rushing water and dragged to the bottom of a sharply pointed, mud filled cave. At the bottom of that cave is a large hollow tree trunk, and the teachers would have waited for tide season to end, and eventually drug Gale’s tiny corpse out of where it was wrangled around the smooth wood, where Gale had tried to hold in and climb out feebly, crushed by the weight of the water overhead, until the calmness of unconsciousness met him.

Drowning was calm, for Gale, at first. It was calmest when the rainbow will-o-whisp appeared again, a single speck of bright light in the murky darkness, his eyes stinging with water, his chest and stomach throbbing for oxygen. Drowning was calm, as he felt warm arms wrap around him, and felt the water get expelled from the hollow tree. Gale felt the weave rid his lungs of water and dry him off and warm him. Mystra lead Gale to his death just so she could save him, and so easily, Mystra became an exception to Gale’s distrust of authority, because she taught Elminster. She was the very rush of security and rose and love that Gale felt every time he channeled the weave. Mystra was magic—what Gale was good at, what made Gale who he is, what Gale loved. So how could he not love his savior? His muse? Mystra welcomed him into her hollow tree and taught him of Her. Her world. Her gifts. Her abilities. The three days of the test passed in a blink, and Gale emerged from the cave tinged with blue and white and the teachers who sent Gale to die heard Mystra’s laugh in their ears.

Mystra had staked her claim on Gale, and everyone knew it. Everyone had suspected it, when Elminster kept showing up, but now they had proof. Gale’s magic was sprinkled with starlight, brilliant blue and white and purple of Mystra. Gale vanished in his dreams to visit Mystra in her domain, and she continued to teach him everything that the teachers couldn’t or wouldn’t. The teachers who tried to kill him snapped to attention and did everything they could to help Gale, then, because to not would be to betray the Weave itself.

Gale went back to the hollow tree when he was about to graduate and the tide lowered, and met Mystra again. She took a more physical form, then. She guided his hands and arms as she taught him magic, and she kissed him on the forehead. She whispered, “my child, my star, my boy, my prodigy,” and Gale fell further and further under her spell. The Blackstaff Academy had graduation ceremonies where everyone would dance and celebrate their victories with one another. Morena was so, so proud. A few Lords showed up to congratulate the students, and check on the fresh talent. Gale was the equivalent of the valedictorian, and when he danced with himself, the more learned students and the teachers and Tara could see the strings of Mystra’s weave manipulating his movements like a marionette until they were perfect. Because he was her’s, and she would settle for nothing but the best.

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lupinmoonlight · 1 year

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Submission Part 2: Establishing Rules

Masterlist AO3 Submission Part 1 Submission Part 3: Obedience

Summary - You finally gather up the courage to approach Professor Lupin and share with him your desire to give up control to him. He agrees to take on that role for you, but not without establishing clear rules and boundaries.

Warnings - teacher/student relationship, heavy D/s undertones, professor/sir kink, rules, mention of pushing limits, mention of safeword, self-degradation, mention of masturbation, my grammar.

Notes - It is NOT necessary to read part 1 to read this part. I don't know what this is, but I am planning to make this extremely kinky so brace yourselves. I am also aware that this is very out of character for Lupin, but it's nice to have a little fun with him :')

It had become an obsession now. An unhealthy obsession. Every night, once everyone in the dormitory had drifted off to sleep, you would slip a hand down your pyjamas, touching yourself to the thoughts of your professor bending you over his desk, gripping your hips as he rammed into you, telling you to take it and calling you a good girl. It was wrong, so very wrong and filthy. But you loved it. You wanted him to take control of you, to dominate you. You were so desperate for it that you would take anything he'd give you.

In his classroom, it was even worse. Though you attempted to maintain some form of self-control, your body betrayed your inner turmoil. The slightest instruction from him would cause your cheeks to flush crimson and a familiar warmth to spread through your core to the point you sometimes had to excuse yourself to the bathroom to regain your composure. It was pathetic. You were pathetic. The feeling of self-loathing was inescapable.

But even so, you found yourself at the professor's office door. Your body seemed to possess a will of its own, determined to get what it craved the most: submission. You were terrified. What were you going to tell him? What would he say? Was he even capable of all the things you imagined him doing to you? He was the kindest and softest man you'd ever encountered. Surely, he would gaze at you with his gentle eyes, wearing an expression of concern, and wonder if you had been cursed or something. But you didn't care. It was your last year at Hogwarts and you had nothing to lose, except maybe your dignity.

With a gentle knock, the wooden door creaked open, revealing the towering figure who held your thoughts captive.

"Y/N! Good to see you. Is everything alright?"

He was already concerned. Great.

"Professor. Yes, everything is okay. I just wanted to talk to you about something," you lied.

"Of course. Come in, come in!" he said warmly.

You tentatively walked in, your knees already about to give out when the scent of him filled your nostrils. It was intoxicating.

"Cup of tea? I was just about to make myself one," he asked.

"Please, that would be great," you lied again as you sat in the chair facing his desk.

"So, what can I help you with?" he asked as he placed two steaming cups of earl grey tea on his desk before taking a seat in front of you.

You didn't know what to say. Suddenly your mind was blank and you were ready to bolt out. You took a sip of your tea to give yourself time to regain your composure and set the cup back on the desk a bit harder than intended.

"I-I haven't been…feeling myself lately…" you began.

He stayed quiet, studying your face and giving you time to continue, but you couldn't find the words. How could you tell your professor to use you, dominate you, degrade you, hurt you, love you in an appropriate and respectful manner? You couldn't.

As if sensing the seriousness of the situation, he flicked his wand casually to ward the door of his office, his eyes never leaving you.

"I don't want to be in control anymore," you finally blurted out without thinking. You closed your eyes shut and held your breath, bracing yourself for the worst.

He was quiet. Too quiet. And you felt stupid. You could feel the tension in the air, almost suffocating you. You wanted to leave, to obliviate him and yourself and go back to your pathetic fantasies.

"Look at me," his voice had changed, now carrying an authoritative tone that you hadn't heard before. You opened your eyes, hesitantly meeting his gaze. The warmth in his eyes was still there, but there was a new intensity as well.

"Can you explain what you mean by 'not wanting to be in control anymore'?" he asked, his tone surprisingly even.

You took a shaky breath and tried to put your feelings into words. "I-I want someone else to take charge. I want to be told what to do. I want to give up control, but to someone I trust."

His silence stretched for what seemed like an eternity, the tension in the room almost palpable. His gaze softened for a moment, and then his expression darkened. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk, his eyes piercing through you.

"You're very brave to come to me with this," he said, his eyes searching yours for understanding. "I understand that this is a significant and personal request."

He paused, considering his words carefully before continuing. "If you truly mean what I think you mean, it is highly inappropriate for a professor to engage in such a relationship with a student," he continued, his tone serious.

"However, I appreciate the trust you place in me and am willing to provide you with the guidance and structure that you need," he said sternly. "If you truly want me to take control, then I need you to understand that this isn't just about fulfilling your fantasies. This is a responsibility, and I take it seriously."

You swallowed hard, feeling a sense of relief that he didn't reject you. All you could do was nod slowly, unable to even look at him.

"Good," he said, his tone softening lightly. "Before we proceed any further, there are a few things I need to make clear," he began, "this is a choice you've made, and you have the right to change your mind at any time. I will only proceed if you are fully comfortable and consenting to everything we discuss."

Your heart was threatening to burst out of your chest. You nodded again. You didn't trust your voice. You didn't even trust yourself not to combust if you looked up at him, so you kept your eyes trained on the desk.

"There will be boundaries and rules that must be adhered to. For the sake of maintaining our professional relationship, these rules will differ inside and outside of the classroom," he continued, his tone shifting to a more authoritative one.

"From now on, in the classroom, you will address me as 'Professor Lupin' and behave as any other student would. No special treatment, no exceptions," he continued, his voice unwavering.

"Outside of the classroom, when we are alone, you will address me as 'Sir.' You will follow my instructions and adhere to the boundaries we set. Should you ever feel uncomfortable or wish to discuss any aspect of our arrangement, you will do so respectfully and openly."

You nodded, your pulse quickening at the thought of addressing him as 'Sir.'

He stood up and walked around the desk, stopping just a few feet away from you. "Furthermore, our arrangement will never interfere with your studies or safety. You will be expected to complete your assignments, attend classes, and maintain your grades. I will not tolerate disobedience or dishonesty, and if you fail to meet my expectations, there will be consequences."

He paused for a moment, allowing his words to sink in. "Do you understand and accept these terms?"

"Yes," you replied, your voice barely above a whisper.

"Yes what?" he pressed, seemingly unsatisfied with your answer.

"Yes, Sir," you quickly corrected yourself, feeling a thrill at the simple act of addressing him in this new way.

"Good," he said, his voice softening slightly as he returned to his seat.

He looked at you intently, gauging your reaction. "You must understand that I will not hurt you in any way that you don't explicitly consent to. This means that we will establish a safeword or signal, something that you can use to communicate your need to stop or pause our interactions. This will be a non-negotiable aspect of our arrangement. The safeword will be 'chocolate'."

Your heart pounded in your chest, but you managed to nod, understanding the importance of his words, although you didn't think you would need a safeword. You didn't want one. You wanted to give yourself up completely, but you knew better than to argue.

"You are expected to maintain the highest level of discretion regarding our arrangement, as it is important to maintain the integrity of the student-teacher relationship in the eyes of others," he added, pausing to look you in the eye.

"I understand, Sir," you agreed, feeling a little intimidated but also excited.

"While you are under my guidance," he continued, his voice deepening with authority, "you will follow my instructions without question. You must trust me completely to provide the structure you need."

"Lastly" he said, his voice firm, "know that I will be pushing your limits, but I will always prioritize your well-being. If at any point you wish to end this arrangement, you have the right to do so without judgment or negative consequences."

You looked into his eyes, seeing the sincerity and care behind his words, and felt a new sense of trust and connection forming between the two of you. It felt surreal. You had been fantasizing about this, obsessing over this. But now that it was happening, you were suddenly terrified. Terrified of disappointing him, of not being good enough.

"Come here," he commanded, gesturing towards himself. You obeyed, your heart pounding as you stepped closer to him. He shifted in his chair, parting his legs for you to stand between them. You felt the heat rising to your cheeks. You had to fight yourself not to drop to your knees right then and there.

"Look at me," he instructed, tilting your chin up with his fingers. You raised your eyes to meet his, they were warm yet there was a darkness in them, a subtle reminder of his control over you. "Tomorrow in class, I want you to wear your hair up, so I can see your neck. It will serve as a reminder of our arrangement. Do you understand?"

You nodded, your breath hitching at the thought of exposing your neck just for him. "Yes, Sir."

"Additionally, you are to meet me at my quarters after dinner," he continued. "Be punctual and prepared. Is that understood?"

You swallowed hard, the anticipation growing inside you. "Yes, Sir,"

He held your gaze for a moment longer, then released your chin. With a flick of his wand, he removed the ward from the door. "You may go now," he said, his voice returning to the softness you were familiar with. "Remember our rules and your instructions."

Feeling flustered, you managed a quiet "Thank you, Sir," before turning to leave the room. As you stepped out into the hallway, your legs felt weak, and your heart raced. This was really happening, and the thought both thrilled and terrified you.

#remus lupin #remus lupin x reader #professor remus lupin #professor remus lupin x reader #dom!remus lupin #sub!reader #d/s #teacher/student

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sovietpostcards · 9 months

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Hey! Are you from Russia? If you are - how was your process with learning English? I've been learning Russian for a few years now and cases are kicking my ass to this day

I am Russian and I live in Russia. My process was quite long and not always effective. I started getting English lessons at grade 2 at school (I was 7 then). We had English all throughout school until the last, 11th grade. Although it was so many years, it didn't give me much in terms of actually knowing the language. We had a different teacher every year, we had no motivation and we weren't really required to speak in order to pass, you'd be OK if you learnt the words. I did learn all irregular verbs by heart at school, which eventually proved very handy.

By year 11 I decided I quite liked English and wanted to get into Linguistics in uni. (Spoiler: didn't happen.) My parents hired a private teacher for me and I spent a whole year taking lessons. She was a very methodical woman and gave me what I needed—a system. By the end of school I had a clear understanding of tenses, sentence structure, articles etc.

After that I was on my own. I always had a lot of interests and I put them to use for learning English. Like, in the year 1999 I would be on the dial-up internet looking for the Backstreet Boys lyrics and then translating them using a pen, a paper notebook and a heavy dictionary.

In 2000 I got my first pen pals from outside of Russia and started writing letters in English—a great way to put your language skills to work.

I've always read a lot—articles, forums, letters, books. A lot of my language comes from there. I will often use a tense or choose an article based on "it feels good, familiar" rather than because I know a rule.

I feel truly sorry for everyone who has to battle the Russian grammar, you're a hero for even trying! I'm glad I don't have to learn that if I'm honest. English grammar it so much simpler. But Russian offers a lot of fun ways to play with words and make your own! It's like lego, get some bricks and start building. :D There's also tons of stuff in Russian on the internet, find something that interests you and take a dive.

Good luck! Do come by sometimes to brag of new accomplishments. :)

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crystalyssa35 · 7 months

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A General Guide to Writing Well, Now, & Consistently

In all my years writing, I have struggled with keeping writing as a fun and healthy habit. It took me five years (and many instances of writer's block and giving up) to actually have a basic set of guidelines to keep my writing going...

And I would like to share these "rules" with you all today!

Now, a bit of a disclaimer: developing the quality of your writing skills comes with time, research, and thinking. It may sound frustrating to hear, and you may hear it often, but the only way to get better at writing is to write and read often. Many times, just by jotting a silly thought down or reading fanfiction, you can spawn ideas without realizing it.

Now, to the list of tips that (I hope) will help you on your writing endeavors!

If you are not having fun writing your story, your readers will not have fun reading it. It sounds silly, but it's true! If you're enjoying your writing, you're more likely to write more and input more ideas into it!

Even if you have people to check your works, reread them on your own anyway. This may be a little frustrating tip for some, but let me tell you: I used to HATE checking my own stuff. The worst way I learned that personally checking it is a necessity was when my aunt checked it and pointed out tens of mistakes within my grammar, storyline, and characters. Check yo work, it will save you a LOT of embarrassment in the future.

Write anything. Read everything. As ambiguous and obscure as it will sound, it makes sense with context. As I mentioned before, the only way to get better at writing is to write and read often. Write anything your mind desires, that's simple enough. But read EVERYTHING; not only books, blogs, and articles, but also games, texts with friends, billboards, pictures with text, and (sorry, students) even homework as well. You'll be surprised how much your vocabulary expands when you actually pay attention to anything that is written (for me, it was video games. Seven-year old me knew vocabulary that I was taught in seventh grade because of it). And on that note...

Research what you don't know. Please, this one is genuinely important (I'm biased because it's one of my pet peeves). This includes words you don't know the definition of, spelling, and even generic, real-life information you want to add into your stories (e.g. I actually spent four hours researching how gemstones are categorized for my sci-fi story: Eco-Adstrum). Unfortunately, sometimes researching and fact-checking your ideas before writing them down can prove to be unmotivating, especially when you're wrong. But, it's always good to stay optimistic and be creative enough to twist the actual fact to mold it to your stories. Unless you're writing non-fiction, then maybe don't do that last bit.

If you have no ideas, keep wiggling your pencil. To those that recognize that phrase, yes, it is not my own. This is a piece of writing from former Tumblr user "officialtheonite" (I was only able to find the post because it has been reblogged multiple times) and their fifth grade writing teacher. Essentially, even if you have no ideas, keep writing. Write ANYTHING, even if it doesn't make sense. You will always be able to double-check it later and you will save yourself a lot of wasted time sitting around trying to stir the soup in your brain.

Balance the usage of your names and pronouns. To this day, I still struggle with this. I tend to use an abundance of pronouns when I'm referring to a character, so much so that sometimes, it becomes unclear on if we are still talking about aforementioned character or if we're talking about a different character entirely. Use names when the focus or action of a character is on stage; use pronouns if we are still talking about said character (even if we are talking about the same character, make sure you at least reiterate their name when there's a new paragraph).

I'll be editing and reworking this list as time goes on. I hope these tips can be of use so some of you all. Feel free to ask me any questions if needed. Enjoy writing and keep at it! I believe in you all!

#writing #writers on tumblr #writing tips #writing thoughts #creative writing #personal experience #ask me questions #writing advice #writer things #writeblr #writerscommunity

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flowersandfigtrees · 1 year

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Epithets, Explained

Introduction

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I’m just making this post to help explain exactly what epithets are, how they’re used, and the different types. I know that for beginners, getting a hold of all the terms used in relation to deity worship and/or work can be tough, and I’ve seen this subject trip people up in the past when they read about certain deities or translations of ancient texts.

For a quick definition, epithets are “an adjective or descriptive phrase expressing a quality characteristic of the person or thing mentioned”. In relation to epithets of deities, you might also see them called ‘surnames’ and they're basically nicknames or bynames to refer to specific aspects or forms of a deity. Typically, they’re used alongside the actual name of the deity but there’s also plenty of times where only the epithet is used, such as calling Apollo by simply “Phoebus” and not “Phoebus Apollo” or calling Athena by only saying “Pallas”. This happens a lot in texts like the Iliad or the Aeneid where using the full name paired with the epithet every time would eventually end up sounding too repetitive but also, to ancient people, certain epithets would have been easily recognizable on their own and they wouldn’t need to have the actual name given. They can come before or after a deity’s actual name, order doesn’t really matter, it’s just whatever grammar rules you’re following.

Types & Examples

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Generally speaking, there are four main types of epithets used in polytheistic religions: regional, functional, syncretic/fusion, and poetic. And just as a note; most of my religious experience is with Greek, Roman, and Gaulish religions so that’s where I’m gonna be getting most, if not all, of the examples used below.

The categories are, for the most part, arbirtrary but can be helpful when understanding epithets in a general sense when you come across them. Some types overlap with each other, for example, Dionysos Melanaigis (lit. Dionysos of the black goatskin) refers jointly to a functional/cultic role his worship played in a ritual during the Apaturia festival in Athens AND to a story in myth where he wears a black goat skin and comes to the aid of a guy named Melanthus (which is the mythic explanation for why he’s worshipped during Apaturia) but it makes Melanaigis a regional epithet (only used in Athens), a functional cult epithet (was only during rites to him for a specific event) and a mythic epithet (as it refers to a specific mythic event). Similarly, there's examples with Apollo; Delphios Apollo refers to both the form of Apollo specifically in Delphi (regional epithet) AND to Apollo in his function as an oracular deity of prophecy (functional), and Pythian Apollo refers to Apollo around the area where he slayed the mythical Python (so both a reference to myth as well as regional, in this case referring to the area around Delphi) and also functional, since it can refer to his oracular function.

Additionally, epithets can be shared by multiple deities, “Phoebus” was used to refer to both Apollo and Helios, “Antheia” was both the name of a standalone deity as well as an epithet to Hera and Aphrodite, “Bacchus” was an epithet for the Etruscan god Fufluns and to Dionysus and would eventually become to go-to byname for Dionysos in Rome. There are also epithets such as “Aetnaeus” which refers to any number of deities associated with Mount Etna, including Zeus and Hephaestus, and “Eleutherios” which could refer to Dionysos, Zeus, or Eros.

i. Regional Epithets

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The first type is regional or locative/toponymic epithets. These are used when referencing a form of a deity that is unique to a certain place for whatever reason or originated there. Sometimes deities will have unique local forms because of the inevitable variations of religion in any given culture (no religion is or was a monolith) and there may or may not be pseudo-historical/mythical reasons for the specific local variation. But it's pretty much just saying “the form of this deity that resides in Town A” or “the form of this deity representing a specific thing they did at this site”, examples include:

➻ Diana Nemorensis — literally: “Diana of Nemi”, used specifically to refer to her cult at Lake Nemi and was the form of Diana celebrated there during Nemoralia.

➻ Apollo Palatinus and Apollo Delphios — literally: “Apollo on the Palatine” referring to the temple built to him on the Palatine Hill in Rome by Augustus, this form of Apollo was also Augustus’ personal protector. Apollo Delphios was mentioned earlier but it refers to the oracular-centric form of Apollo in Delphi.

➻ Artemis Ephesus — literally: “Artemis of Ephesus”, refers to a form of Artemis unique to the city of Ephesus who had a very different representation to the other forms of Artemis. This manifestation of her was transported to multiple other cities such as Massalia and it was a form that was a sort of mother-goddess.

➻ Zeus & Hephaestus Aetnaeus — literally: “of Mount Etna”, for Zeus it refers to the form of him which has a small shrine and festival there and for Hephaestus, it refers to where he has his workshop.

ii. Functional Epithets

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These epithets are ones that reference a specific (often cultic) function of the god. Many deities have multiple roles or concepts they embody and have domain over, so epithets can be used to zero-in on just the side of a deity relevant to why you’re praying to them or giving offerings. There are also festival-specific epithets which can be used on specific festivals in honor of that aspect of the given deity. Some examples include:

➻ Hercules Olivarius & Hercules Augusti — literally: “Hercules of the Olive Merchants”, referring specifically to his ability to guard the olive industry in Rome and also “Hercules of the Emperor” which was used to refer to the aspect of Hercules that guarded Roman emperors. (Gotta say, if I had to choose, it's Olive-Merchant Hercules every time for me)

➻ Hermes & Apollo Theoxenios — literally: “of the Theoxenia festival” and was the name used to invoke both Hermes and Apollo during that specific festival.

➻ Aphrodite Areia — literally: “Warlike Aphrodite” or “Aphrodite of War”, used to call specifically on Aphrodite’s war function.

➻ Apollo Acestor & Apollo Kataibates — literally: “Apollo the Healer”, was used when calling on Apollo to aid in healing, and Apollo Kataibatês literally meant “Apollo, Protector of Travelers” (also used for for Hermes) and was used by people to thank him for a safe journey or to ask for protection on a journey they were about to take.

➻ Poseidon Isthmia — literally: “Poseidon of the Isthmian Games” which was used only to call on him during this athletic festival.

➻ Ceres Legifera — literally: “Ceres, Keeper of the Laws (of marriage)”, was used to invoke her in marriage processions and during the confarreatio (a type of Roman marriage ritual where the couple eats a cake made with sacred wheat)

iii. Syncretic Epithets

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Another form of epithets are those that serve to equate or combine deities. Oftentimes, foreign deities from one culture may transform into epithets of deities from other cultures or two deities within a single culture might be combined into one. This was especially common with Iron-Age Celtic deities in places that adopted aspects of Roman and Greek religion due to being governed by or just from existing in close proximity to them. Within Greek religion, it was common for more “archaic” or minor deities to become epithets of deities that held more cultural prominence. Some examples include:

➻ Apollo Grannus, Apollo Maponos, & Apollo Belenos — Grannus, Maponos, and Belenos were all standalone deities in Gaulish culture that became associated with Apollo once Roman religious influence spread. Each has their own unique nuance but all seem to be related to Apollo’s healing function

➻ Mars Condatis & Mars Toutatis — Both Condatis and Toutatis are also independently attested Celtic gods and both were interpreted to be a form of Mars. Through some of his Celtic epithets, Mars gained a traditionally uncharacteristic healing function.

➻ Sulis Minerva — Sulis is a Brythonic healing goddess and through her identification with Minerva, enjoyed a pretty large cult in Roman Britain.

➻ Poseidon Erechtheus — a fusion of Poseidon and a mythical king of Athens who was most likely a minor deity at some point. It would go on to be used as a name for Poseidon when in relation to Athens.

➻ Dionysos Zagreus — This is an equation that happened mostly in Orphism and other mystic cults but the earliest evidence suggests that Zagreus was originally a standalone deity or an aspect of Hades which later became an aspect of Dionysos.

➻ Mars Quirinus — Quirinus simultaneously became an epithet to Mars and also maintained an independent presence in Roman religion. It’s partly through his identification with Mars that the latter started to be more warlike as opposed to an agricultural deity.

➻ Pallas Athena — In some tellings, notably in pseudo-Apollodorus’ “Bibliotheca”, this name is the result of Athena taking the name of a Titaness named Pallas, daughter of Triton. Could also be a fusion of Athena and the giant named Pallas.

➻ Serapis/Osorapis/Userhapi — Userhapi and Oserapis are transliterations of the coptic name for Osiris-Apis which became Hellenized as “Serapis” under the Ptolemaic dynasty. It is the result of identifying Apis (a sacred bull turned deity during the Second Dynasty) and the Egyptian god Osiris.

iv. Poetic Epithets

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Poetic (or literary) epithets are, well, epithets just used poetically in ancient literature. They don’t refer to cult or ritual functions and usually either are physical descriptors, compliments, or mythic achievements. It can also include any epithets used to describe mythic standing in relation to other gods, such Ovid calling Aurora “Pallantias” to signify that in his telling, she’s the daughter of the titan Pallas. They can be used in a devotional sense and in a more solely creative one to evoke a certain feeling from the reader and set a scene and they may be referred to as “Homeric epithets” as well since many come from Homeric works. Another function of Homeric epithets can be to help a line of poetry satisfy the line/format requirements of dactylic hexameter. Here's a nifty overview of the grammatical and descriptive purposes for various epithets in the Iliad and Odyssey. If you’ve ever read ancient epic poetry then you’ve encountered loads of poetic epithets, examples including:

➻ Eos Rhododactylos: literally “Rosy-Fingered Eos”, Eos Erigenia: literally “Early-Born Eos”

➻ Aphrodite Philommeides: literally “Laughter-Loving Aphrodite”, Aphrodite Eustephanos: literally “Richly-Crowned Aphrodite”

➻ Artemis Khrysenios: literally “Artemis Who Holds Golden Reins”, Artemis Keladeinos: literally “Strong-Voiced Artemis”

➻ Hermes Argeiphontes: literally “Hermes, Slayer of Argos” (a shepherd he killed in myth), Hermes Kharidotes: literally “Hermes, Giver of Joy”

➻ Hades Polysemantor: literally “Hades, Ruler of Many”, Hades Nekron Soter: literally “Hades, the Savior of the Dead"

Using Epithets

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When it comes to using epithets in your practice, it's largely a personal choice. By no means is it something that you MUST do but, it's also not something that doesn't have a place in modern polytheism. I, for one, tend to find that it can connect my worship to a certain form/aspect of a deity (for instance, Apollo) more quickly or serve to "set the mood" more effectively. I tend to pray to epithets of him for his healing/protective/oracular roles, however, I'm not as personally connected to his musical/artistic roles so on the relatively rare occasions that I find myself wanting to invoke those aspects, using epithets related to that makes me feel closer to them. They can also be used to enhance prayers if you're someone who enjoys having very artistic wording or just wants to glorify the deity you're praying to.

Another way I like to use epithets is to create my own to use in prayers or as a devotional activity. This could mean creating new poetic epithets as compliments to a deity, creating an epithet to invoke them at a local place, or even making an epithet for a role they have in your UPG but do not traditionally have. I usually try to make them in various forms of Ancient Greek, Latin, Gaulish, or in English but you could utilize any language you feel like, it doesn't need to be the language of the ancient culture(s) where the deity was worshipped. And importantly, it doesn't need to perfect. I am certainly not fluent in any form of Ancient Greek or in Latin so it can take a while to get the correct (or even just loosely acceptable) grammatical set-up and lots of comparison with actual ancient epithets. Just for some examples, here's some epithets I've created for various deities:

➻ Dionysos Tautoteus: literally "Dionysus of Identity" but I made it to refer to him as a protector/affirmer of self-identification in relation to sexuality and/or gender.

➻ Eos Dendrokhoria & Eos Anthestephanos: literally "Eos who Dances in the Trees" to refer to when the sunrise is barely visible above the tree line (I usually pray to her at dawn and there's a forest in that direction from my house lol) and the second is literally "Flower-Crowned Eos", just a reference to her being traditionally described as wearing flowers.

➻ Sirona Lindaia: literally "Sirona of the Lake" which I made to use when praying or giving offering to her at lakes, pretty self-explanatory but I also have made a bunch of others for her such as Sirona Nantaia (Sirona of the Stream), Sirona Natrix (Sirona of the Snake), and Sirona Dumnorigana (Sirona, the Queen of the Depths).

Some Useful Resources for Epithets

For most Greek deities, you can find lists of epithets to them online on places such as Theoi.com, within classical texts such as various Homeric Hymns, epics, histories, etc. Theoi is a great site in general, however it can occasionally lack further explanation and context for epithets so if you find that one isn't clarified enough, try searching it up independently.

Wiktionary.com is actually a really great free resource for looking up etymology and the ways different words are/were used in various languages.

For other languages, check things such as epigraphy [for example, CIL databases (Latin) or this EDH CIL database (across the Roman sphere), RIB databases (Roman Britain), IG databases (Greek)], curse tablets, papyri, etymological dictionaries or regular dictionaries. These can be really useful for obvious reasons. For non-Latin Italic languages and ancient Celtic languages, I tend to use etymological/reconstructed dictionaries this for Celtic languages and this for Etruscan. But again, you can make epithets just in the language you already speak, there's no need for them to be in some ancient or reconstructed one. Its literally whatever you want.

This was originally a blogpost of mine on the P&W Amino but has been reformatted for (and reshared) here since amino is heading towards its inevitable end... rip

#cultus deorum #hellenism #roman polytheism #polytheism #greek polytheism #helpol #greek pantheon #gaulpol #gaulish polytheism #deity worship #deity work

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from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras · 5 months

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A Need of the Soul

Summary: Éomer is teaching Faramir how to speak Rohirric as a surprise for Éowyn. Come for Faramir being a sweet husband, stay for the emotional links to Boromir and Théodred. Oh, and for Éomer being a big horse dork.

Context: I pulled a JRR and wrote a whole story around a special word I like! More on that at the very bottom. You can read this without knowing any of my personal Rohan head canon, but just in case it’s helpful: In my world, Éomer is married to his childhood best friend, Mereliss. My Théodred (who you can read more about here or here if you’re interested) was a nurturing soul with a curious mind, and I may be obsessed with him. And damn it, my Éomer can absolutely read and write! (See here for why that’s the case in my HC.)

As soon as Éowyn left for the morning, Faramir pulled out his secret stack of papers, the ones he had started requesting from Éomer six months ago when he first decided to try learning Rohirric. He wanted to master the language as a surprise for Éowyn, ever conscious of how much she had sacrificed on his behalf when they married. Although he knew she loved Ithilien, he also knew that sometimes she still longed for the familiarity and comfort of home, for the people, places, and culture that were now many miles away. If he could bring some of Rohan to her in the form of her language, he hoped he could brighten her heart on those days when she looked most in need of a reminder of all that she missed.

With this goal in mind, he had thrown himself wholly into the pursuit, but the process was more difficult than he had hoped. The Rohirrim didn’t keep written records in their own language, nor did they have textbooks or primers made to learn from. All Faramir had were the pages that Éomer would write out and send to him every few weeks, using Westron to describe basic grammar rules and listing common Rohirric words and phrases by their definitions and rough pronunciations. Working from written materials to learn a language that was only taught orally was maddeningly difficult, and Faramir spent long hours alone at his desk laboring at the exercises Éomer sent, unsure if he was even getting close to the sounds he was attempting to produce.

At least he would be aided today by the presence of Éomer in person. The king of Rohan was coming to Gondor to take counsel with his allies on military matters, and he had agreed to make time for some lessons while his own wife, Mereliss, kept Éowyn occupied in furtherance of the surprise. With Éowyn gone now to meet her sister-in-law, Faramir looked down his lists of Rohirric words and tried to commit a few more to memory, repeating them slowly out loud to himself while he waited for Éomer.

“If someone back home heard you slur your way through those words like that, they might assume you were a drunkard.”

Faramir looked up to see Éomer smirking at him from the doorway, still dressed in his riding clothes and holding a small pack. “Well, if the performance of the student falls short, I think we have no option but to blame the instructor,” Faramir returned with a smirk of his own.

“A fair point, I will grant you.” Éomer strode in and tossed his things on an empty chair before pulling Faramir up into a strong embrace, thumping a fist on his brother-in-law’s back with enough enthusiasm to knock the breath out of him.

When they separated, Faramir smiled and held up his stack of papers. “I do appreciate all of this. It’s a lot of work for me, but for you, too, I’m sure.”

Éomer gave a dismissive wave. “I have the easy part. Besides, there’s some benefit to me in all of this, as well. I’ll certainly enjoy the show the next time you visit Edoras and all the ladies at court discover that you can actually understand their scandalous comments about how handsome they find you. Your admirer’s club is in for a big shock.”

They both laughed, though Éomer noted the flush of pink in Faramir’s ears and cheeks and that only made him laugh all the harder. “Don’t let them see you blush, you’ll only make it worse!” He plopped down into a chair and put his feet up, smiling.

As Faramir took a seat across from him, he felt a warm, familiar echo in his heart. The easy camaraderie, the good natured teasing balanced with true affection…it couldn’t help but bring Boromir to his mind. Faramir still missed his brother every single day and looked for reminders of him everywhere that he could. But he didn’t think it was a stretch to see clear elements of Boromir reflected in Éomer–in his strength and brashness, his earnest intensity, his fierce loyalty. They were both proud men of action with an unshakeable sense of duty and love for family. Éomer could never replace Boromir, and he was surely his own man, different in many ways from the brother Faramir lost. But it lifted Faramir’s spirits to once again have such a figure in his life.

Now his brother-in-law reached into his pack and pulled out more pages, covered from top to bottom in his own scrawly handwriting. “I’ve brought you some more to learn–words you’d hear often around Rohan and that any self-respecting Rohirrim would know.”

Faramir accepted the papers from him and skimmed his eyes down the first page, but a look of confusion slowly built on his face as he read. “Am I understanding this correctly? Why do you have twenty different words for ‘horse’?”

“I have not given you twenty words for ‘horse’! Each one of those means something very different.” Éomer grabbed the page back and pointed. “This one here, éotynde, this is an old, calm mare that would be suitable for a young child just learning to ride.” He pointed again. “And this one, éoweder, is a high spirited horse that has quickness and agility but is unpredictable and difficult to control. The others are equally unique. Do you not see?”

Faramir gently extracted the page back from Éomer’s grip, hoping to avoid a further explanation of each specific variant on the list. “I understand those distinctions, but are they really significant enough that I require a whole separate word for each one? We make do in Gondor with but one term. A horse is a horse.”

“A horse is a horse?” Éomer gaped at him, incredulous. “You think the language of the Rohirrim would put a courier horse, whose purpose is swiftness and endurance, in the same category with a farm horse, who sacrifices speed in favor of strength and power? They aren’t remotely the same thing, and a proper language wouldn’t treat them as such. If we went by your rules, we’d all be calling the blacksmith a baker because they both make things with heat!”

It was obvious from the truly scandalized look on his face that Éomer would never concede the point, so Faramir held up his hands in smiling capitulation. And if all these varieties of horse were important to Éomer, likely they would be to Éowyn as well, so Faramir would learn them as best he could. But he desired to speak to Éowyn of many things, and horses were nowhere near the top of the list. He shuffled through the papers one more time. “Have you finally given me anything that would be suitable to say to a beloved wife?”

Éomer shot him a look. “I am not the right person to consult for words of romance. And certainly not when the woman to be romanced is my own sister.”

Faramir laughed. “Fair enough. Let’s get back to your many words for ‘horse’ and I will ask Mereliss to help me with some more emotional thoughts later.”

Éomer sat back, satisfied. “I will have you sounding like a Rohirrim in no time. Now, do you know the word for a horse that likes to cause trouble in the stable with the other horses?”

**********

The next morning, Faramir spent two hours with Mereliss while Éomer and Éowyn went for a ride. When the siblings returned, Éomer sent Éowyn to Mereliss’s quarters and went himself to check on Faramir’s progress. He found his brother-in-law once again at his desk, bent over his work, and dropped casually into a nearby chair.

“Did you get all of the flowery and eloquent phrases you need?”

Faramir put down his pen and smiled. “Mereliss helped me to write a special toast to Éowyn for our upcoming anniversary. I knew what I wanted to say, and Mereliss made sure it will sound not just like a bunch of Westron bluntly converted into Rohirric words but rather something that was written by a native speaker. Something truly of Rohan. She has quite a talent for beautiful language and imagery.” He gave a sly smile. “Though she told me that you also have something of a poet’s heart when the two of you are alone in your own chambers.”

Éomer’s head snapped up, a tinge of dark red sweeping across his cheeks. “She told you what?”

Now it was Faramir’s turn to laugh at his brother-in-law’s furious blushing, so out of character for one who was otherwise always self assured and confident. Faramir had faithfully reported Mereliss’s remark, and it was clearly true that Éomer really did speak his softest thoughts to her or he would not be so flustered by the possibility that she had shared those thoughts. But Faramir had no need or desire to prolong Éomer’s self-consciousness.

“There is nothing to worry about. I know only that you are capable of words to enchant and delight your wife, which is no bad thing. But she didn’t reveal what those words are. She wouldn’t betray your privacy, and I would never ask her to.”

Éomer’s shoulders noticeably relaxed, and he laughed a little at his own embarrassment. “Well, your discussion of my clumsy attempts to please my wife aside, I am glad that she helped you. Westron is very useful, but there are some things that just cannot be said as effectively without our own words and expressions.”

“Indeed. She gave me a number of things that I quite like, ways to convey entire concepts with a single word that has no direct equivalent in any language that I know. Like sáwolthearf. Every language should have such a term.”

Sáwolthearf. The word sent a wave of fond remembrance through Éomer’s heart. It translated literally as ‘a need of the soul’ and was used in Rohan to mean someone who is necessary in order for another person to feel truly happy and complete. His late cousin Théodred, who had always been so free and generous in expressing his feelings, used to call his bride-to-be sáwolthearf, and Éomer could easily picture Eadlin practically glowing with love and pride whenever Théodred referred to her that way.

To hear Théodred’s words coming now from Faramir’s lips was no great shock to Éomer. On the contrary, it only intensified a feeling he had long had in the presence of his brother-in-law: a sense that he was not with Théodred himself, but with a kindred spirit of his cousin. Someone whose modesty, eagerness for knowledge, gentle heart and dreamer’s mind so thoroughly echoed Théodred’s own nature that Éomer felt immediately at ease in his company. Théodred had been many things to Éomer–a deeply loved cousin, but also much like an older brother and at times even a father figure–and he had carried Éomer through some of the most difficult moments he would ever experience. Éomer could never truly reconcile himself to Théodred’s loss, but having Faramir in his life helped to salve that wound.

Watching Faramir now—shuffling again through his notes and drafts, applying himself so diligently to such a difficult task and all for the purpose of simply making Éowyn smile—Éomer was struck by a profound feeling of gratitude, one that he felt should be voiced even if it was not normally in his nature to speak of his innermost feelings. He cleared his throat, and Faramir looked up.

“What you’re doing for my sister is very admirable. I know it will mean a lot to her, and for that reason it means a lot to me. Thank you, eyre-brothor.”

Faramir frowned slightly and looked back at his papers. “Eyre-brothor? I don’t think I’ve learned that yet.”

Éomer smiled. “It means ‘brother by choice.’ Write that one down.”

**********

[Language nerd notes:

“Sáwolthearf” is a real Old English word (though I modernized the thorn in the middle for readability–it’s actually “sáwolþearf”) and it really does mean “a need of the soul,” which I just think is incredibly beautiful.

I made up “eyre-brothor” by combining two other real Old English words, “eyre” (“a choice made of free will”) and “brothor” (“brother”, though once again I turned the thorn in broþor into a “th” to make it smoother to modern English-reading eyes).

“Éotynde” comes from an approx combo of “eoh” (“horse”) and “tyende” (“teaching”) for a horse that’s calm enough to be good for beginners.

Éoweder comes from an approx combo of “eoh” (“horse”) and “weder” (“weather”) because to be impressive but quick-changing, unpredictable and uncontrollable is to be like the weather.

And it’s not in the story, but Éomer’s word for a horse that likes to cause trouble in the stable with the other horses is an “éodrefa” from “eoh” (horse, again!) and “drefan,” which is “to stir things up or cause mischief”.]

#lord of the rings #lotr #tolkien #lotr fanfiction #eomer #éomer #faramir #boromir #theodred #théodred #brothers #making up words #middle earth languages #brotherly bonding #divider by saradika #the rohirrim are such horse dorks #y’all of course i’m gonna put théodred in anything i can!

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thatdeadaquarius · 1 year

Note

With your language AU, I remember watching a video about a guy speaking angrily nonesense in an Indian accent and people thinking he was very angry. Imagine this as the Creator speaks angry gibberish to people and they just assume that the Creator is cursing them or something. (Or like when they speak gibberish to babies and everyone's like, "Aw the Creator is teaching that baby their divine language")

*AUDIENCE DRAMATICALLY GASPS.

✨️I look pretty good for a dead bitch✨️

She's alivveee!!!

Whats up i almost passed away from sheer academic workload, but im not in the ground yet 🥰 And with drafts outta my ass! :D

Hope yall ready for ur regularly scheduled Bullshit Genshin Sagau <3

SANDBEES THATS SUCH A GOOD USERNAME & ALSO SORRY I ANSWERED THIS SO FUCKING LATE JESUSSSSS 💀💀💀

SORRY ABT THE POLL I CANT BELIEVE I COULDNT FIGURE OUT HOW TO DELETE IT IM FUCKING CRYING I WOULD DO THIS-

Well at least i can do polls thru this in the future?? Idk tumblr is ass so we'll see how this accidental test works out...

☆

So these were the first thngs i thought of and its not super long bc ASKERS R GENIUSES OKAY

SOMTIMES I JUST WANNA PROFUSELY THANK U GUYS AS A REPLY FOR SHARING WITH THE CLASS THRU MY BLOG 💖💘💫

Saw the gif and couldnt help but think this is how ppl like Alhaitham or Diluc would react to u "speaking ur langauge"

"Our langauage" aka being a SIM 💀

◇

Stop Albedo would ask you to teach him ur lang/grammar rules 😭

What u gonna do when Zhongli asks you to teach him some words-

OH NO

NO DONT PASS ON YOUR BULLSHIT LMAO

U GIVING ZHONGLI SOME STUPID SIM WORD LIKE

Your ass: "GIGGLABAH means beautiful :) "✨️

Zhongli: "Oh thank you, how different from our own version, so excited sounding..."

You walk by him strolling the harbor and he just smiles at you and says

"You look gigglabah today my liege."

HIS REGAL FACE AND FANCY WALK WITH HIS HAND BEHIND HIS BACK AND EVERYTHING

(honestly ppl paint him as oblivious but he kinda seemed like the type of bastard who seems like he's not aware but sometimes he secretly knows the truth, he's just getting too much amusement out of it to stop doing it, LOL he does shit like the above to see YOUR reaction- LMAO)

◇

You're a maniac pls tell me u dont pass on simlish to all the serious characters-

XIAO WOULD SECRETLY THINK IT SOUNDS GOOFY BUT WANT TO BE INVOLVED BC ITS YOU ANYWAY LMAO

SO HE'S JUST SLIGHTLY SQUIRMING AND GETTIN PINK EVERYTIME HE SAYS A STUPID SIM WORD BC HE FEELS LIKE A GOOF HAHA

(& he's not the only one, others too like Kaveh, YELAN, Ningguang, Nahida, DILUC, AYAKA LMAO-)

◇

Some ppl i could see taking ur gibberish bullshittery and whether they believe its real or not is irrelevant bc theyre using it anyway-

And i dont mean in a good way 😭

LIKE IM THINKING OF VENTI.

CRAZY BARD INCLUDING SIMLISH ASS GIBBERISH WORDS IN HIS SONGS BC OF YOU

"Be cheerful like the hugkukie,

and may your cup never leaky!"

And Diluc loves you.

Really he does, deeper than he thinks-

But his eye is twitching LMAOO

◇

(Ok but if you did like multiple of these language shenanigans thruout the asks ive gotten, Kaeya would literally grow so fond of you and associate you with goofy funny shit that makes him laugh so hard that everytime he sees you he automatically is beaming with a smile, or trying to supress a warm grin- this got away from me but its 1:44am for me rn so i would love a smiley Kaeya rn -)

♡

Speaking language bs I have my 2nd oral exam for spanish tomorrow, pls send whatever good vibes u got and i am also really open to prayers from any religion as well. sobs

Hope anyone got any enjoyment out of my response bc tbh the ask is what rlly matters to me atp lmao

Until the next shenanigan-

Safe travels,

💀♒️

♡the beloveds mwah ♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist

#hope u guys like those follower event posts when they here 😖🙏#so u would think the opposite but no-#those headcanons r gonna be so much more lore than u probably wanted #and the oneshot the opposite 💀#more absolute baffoonery than u ever wanted from me #genshin impact #genshin sagau #my asks #sagau #genshin imagines #genshin isekai #genshin sagau language barrier au #genshin sagau language au #should i attempt to make these tags #does it even matter or is it a fruitless endeavor #the language brainrot is endless #yall have lost brain cells reading my writing i stg #genshin sagau ideas #gender neutral reader

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wisteria-lodge · 30 days

Text

snake primary + neutral snake secondary

Hello. I decided to write this according to the list you gave. I have a huge struggle with my primary. I guess it is burned, but I don’t know what it is, or I don’t want to see it because that hurts my ego if it sounds completely fake or in some way empty, or I just don’t vibe with it. Which I understand is an issue in itself.

An interesting issue. You don’t want a primary assigned to you because you’re worried it’ll sound fake? I’ll keep an eye on that.

For my secondary I guess it is just straight up a lion, mostly being off or burned, burned badger or bird. I definitely use pre-made personas in social or stressful situations, but I prepare so little that I could be anyone.

This sounds like Burnt Bird secondary “I do the Bird secondary thing, but not very well.” Or possibly a Bird secondary model that you wish you didn’t have to use.

Before I have to tell you even if I don’t have clinical depression or a diagnosis, I don’t feel happy, and it probably shows. I am someone who cries every time they see Everything Everywhere All At Once, which at this point probably tells a lot about a person.

… it tells me that you’re very probably neurodivergent. Very possibly ADHD, but I don’t like to diagnose in these things. (Not actually possible anyway.)

Also, heads up for my English, it is nowhere near perfect or fluent, so there might be some annoying mistakes, even though I know you don’t point it out to people. I ran it through a grammar check, but I have little doubt I missed something.

Sometimes I wish I’d care more about other people, about strangers, but I don’t care much naturally, and it becomes even more pronounced when I am stressed or having to spend a lot of my energy outside myself. Then, that gaze towards outside shuts down, and I stop focusing and giving attention to other people.

You’re not naturally a Badger, taking meaning and energy from the community. Snake is absolutely possible, especially with the way Snakes will focus very intensely on their own bodies when they haven’t got a lot of extra energy to spare. Like, sure you’d like to do more, and doing more makes you feel like a good person, but that’s extra.

A co-worker could be talking about their accident and what happened to their family, and I would stare blindly and think to myself they are trying to get sympathy and I would not budge at this point. While more normally I would give them it, even if I didn’t feel sorry for them.

You might also just be low empathy, which is… just kind of a neutral thing. I’m low empathy. A lot of people actually find it comforting that they can be upset around me without getting doubly stressed that they’re making my day worse.

After all, some emotional work needs to be put into maintaining relationships and keeping it alive.

True. And the way you just kind of put that out there as a kind of ‘Rule to Live By’ is actually making me think Bird primary is possible... or a Bird primary model over a burnt primary?

As a kid I was timid, afraid to explore town, thinking someone will come and say I can’t walk there. I was never peaceful, but I followed my mother’s advice to ignore bullies and don’t give them attention. Jokes on me – I never learned how to fight and argue. I remember myself hot headed, attention seeking, trying to talk with others, even making up lies or cutting bangs by myself just so people notice me. But I was always careful not to make trouble for my mother, be safe, get no injuries, clothes fine and without a rip.

I’m leaning more Snake primary for you. Your mother is clearly a very important figure in your life, and what she thinks and values is important, because she thinks it. You ignore bullies, don’t wander, and don’t get in trouble because your Mom told you not to… but there’s still this undercurrent of but I would have liked to. In fact, the way you behave for your mom seems to be very at odds with the “attention seeking” “hot-headed” “notice-me” behavior from the rest of your life. I’m considering Snake secondary (because of the different faces for differnt people) or Lion/Burnt Lion secondary (because you would have liked learning how to fight and argue.)

I was obsessed with Three Musketeers, friendship and finding connection. I would focus on a small group of people or even one person and hold onto it. It started getting really hard time when I had no friends whatever. That pushed me into survival mode and made me quiet and thoughtful.

This focus on small groups of friends is making me really lean Snake primary. (Also, if you’re a Snake Lion, then The Three Musketeers would be *the* perfect media for you.)

I think I solve low-stakes problems with something that looks like a snake or rapid fire bird. I think if I can and have someone close I can call for help, I will. Once in the dorms my European windows fall off the hinges, I couldn’t close it or put it back. I could have definitely done it myself with more time and more focusing and seeing how things work. But I had a friend living there next to me, so I asked them to come. Not that they knew more about windows than I did, but as out both room windows were similar in age maybe they would have a similar issue and know what to do. I don’t think they did, but it was fun and I wish I could do it more - meeting life with your friends and not alone, that’s why I called them. Administration would have been the last resort, they were pretty meh. I think we just ended looking around and putting it back in somehow, just trying to close it in different ways. I was always careful with it after that.

That’s lovely. And… weirdly I think I’m going to put this in for primary, for that whole “meeting life not alone” thing. That’s bigger than just problem solving, that’s getting into why you do things at all.

The actual problem solving seems to be “lets compare the broken window to a similar, not-broken window and see what’s wrong.” There’s a *little* I Know A Guy bird in this ‘who specifically do I know who would be able to solve this problem.’ But I could honestly see coming from any secondary.

In high-stake situations, the most important thing to me is reaching a mental space where I am stable, looking around without panic. That’s why sometimes, instead of pulling an all-nighter before an exam I turned on a movie. I just couldn’t deal with the stress and said bye lol. I didn’t do it all the time, I also studied a lot, alone and with friends, although I cannot say where studying or the movie was more useful. I personally would say in high-stakes situations it’s most critical to try to calm down and manage my stress and anxiety.

This is making me say Improvisational secondary (Lion or Snake.) Extra preparation isn’t going to comfort you, it’s going to mess you up. You’re not a Bird or Badger, who’ll get stressed out if they don’t read their notes over one more time. You want the mental space and agility to correctly read and correctly respond to the situation, and so you’re giving yourself the best chance for that.

I had experience with bad roommates so in dorms I wanted to live alone, not bother or bothering someone. While this opinion wasn’t allowed legally in our college, students would bribe administrator. I hate bribing, giving chocolate for literally noticing me in someone’s place (it’s a bribe older generation does here while asking employees for something they think is a favor, but it’s kind of their job; why don’t we just stop being assholes to each other instead? I am not sure other parts of the world does this so hence the explanation).

It’s interesting. You’re describing bribing, like - yeah you’re breaking the rules… but everyone does it, and everyone knows everyone does it, and to some degree you’re even expected to do it. But even though it’s kind of normal, it still bothers you. And this would bother a Lion secondary (who love to be straightforward and honest) more than it would bother a Snake (who might not even think of giving an administrator a “”gift”” as a bribe.)

As I mentioned earlier, administrator was meh and everyone and their mother knew it, so you can imagine I thought this is big, and I have to survive this and come on top.

This is very Snake primary energy, it has that practicality I absolutely love.

Money, I thought, should be the most useful, but there’s also too much and too little. In short, I sit down, wrote an application, had an envelope in my bag, talked a bit about how I would like to live alone and tried to slip it out of my bag on the table as it was nothing special. The most interesting thing was that he seemed amused all this time, and even then, I had my hair down and had lipstick on, so I don’t know, maybe my baby face looked interesting, or maybe that’s just stress distorting my memories. I was kind of prepared, but not really if you know what I mean, I obviously needed more information, but I was either naïve and thought this will work or this will be enough. In some way I was also mostly thinking I hate this, this either will work with how much I prepared or not, let’s go in and see. Maybe not good enough for sorting according to high-stakes situations but thank gods in some way that the only ones I had are like this one or exams.

Now that I have built your anticipation,

You absolutely have, I am extremely invested in this story.

let’s check together how that ended up for me, shall we? I did get a room for myself, and I really loved the room I got the first year there. Its window opened up to a street, I saw a lot of trees, sky, a neighboring apartment complex that did not belong to college. The bribery? It went well, they were either monitored or they actually meant what they said that they can’t guarantee me anything, and that the college had plans to reduce the available space due to shortage of students. So in the end, I left with my money, a little bruised dignity and a new experience, that I knew I would never want to repeat. We just do what we need to do, and what we are okay about doing, no?

I hate bribery, but I wanted to live alone more, so it weighted over.

Something like that (and this whole story, really) makes me think your primary is fighting with your secondary. You think bribing is wrong, and your Lion secondary hates not just being direct and ASKING for what you want... but you want that private room, so of course you go for it. You had a bad experience in dorms before, you’re going to protect yourself. That’s the decision that you feel best about.

And when it came down to this conversation, you got dressed up, you considered your appearance and how you came across, you thought about what the right level of bribery would be. But in the end, you think that the fact that you looked “interesting” got you through. And “this either will work with how much I prepared or not, let’s go in and see” is SO Lion. It’ll work, or it won’t, it’s out of my hands.

Recently I made a hard decision of whether to go back home or stay. Decisions are hard for me, especially when neither one nor the other option look better. I tried to take all that I have gathered about the situation and see which side is/feels stronger, which one has more value.

I’m starting to see what’s got you confused about your primary. One thing about being in a Snake is that decisions get a lot harder when they don’t affect your personal safety and well-being, or the safety and well-being of your People. You’re making a decision with ALL the tools here - gathering information to know which side is stronger (Bird), asking yourself what side feels stronger (Lion), and also considering which side has more value (depending on exactly what you mean by “value,” this could be Badger or Snake. All those approaching are going to give you slightly different answers.

I left unfriendly environment which saw no value in me or my culture for a more friendly place, where my roots are, where I can make my own decisions, but I had to leave my family. I didn’t feel good there, had no one I wanted to hold onto. But even though I am not a badger, but I am still in a missing people mood.

I bet you are. You’re a Snake, and you don’t have any People right now. (You’re not Burned. You’ve just recently moved to a new place, and don’t have any People yet.)

This was absolutely the Snake decision, also. You didn’t feel valued, so you went where you knew you could set things up the way you like them. You left your family to do it, and sure leaving your family hurts, but I think you would have felt like you’d betrayed yourself if you stayed.

Connection is so human, and we fuck it up so bad from so early on. Does it matter if you still feel alone around people who surround you? It doesn’t, so maybe it’s better to let your family members rest, be somewhere lonely without them and try to do it yourself. Is it already depressing? I am sorry I hope this doesn’t feel like trauma dumping.

Nah, you’re fine. You’re absolutely going to find people you connect to.

My fantasies change with time depending on what inspires and moves me then. I fantasize about a Scandinavian style house, surrounded by snow and a night sky, full of books and huge windows when I just want to run away. Other times I fantasize about being a powerful wizard on the run or in disguise, just trying to live with friends, accepted and running from some kind of huge responsibilities or a war. Not that I never fantasized about something more ambitious, but that probably changed with how my life experiences shaped the worldview I have now. Do I have to mention fantasies of falling in love with someone nice while doing something that I like and brings me joy or is that just basic haha?

The “living with friends/falling in love with someone nice”... that’s very human, but since this significant other person features heavily in a short description of your fantasy, going to put that as a point for Snake primary.

The characters I identify most with probably has nothing to do with me or who I am, more with how I see them. I identify with Lorelai from Gilmore Girls. In my opinion, she has a similar energy to me, to what I think I am inside or could be with a little more stability and confidence. She talks nonsense, and it is fine most of the time, people still like her. She loves her community, her little town, she creates life there and doesn’t wish to leave, and she doesn’t feel a need to run or rush somewhere. I feel I am most healthy and stable when that rush leaves me, and I am stable enough in here and now to actually live there.

I was honestly pretty happy with Lion Secondary as a sorting for you. But now I wonder. This doesn’t seem like something a Lion secondary would say. It seems like a Neutral Snake would say. And Lorelai is a VERY loud Neutral Snake (and a very loud Snake primary.

Now, Lion secondaries can be mellow, and just want to Vibe, but I absolutely do see shape-shifting capabilities from you, and I wouldn’t expect to see them from a Lion (unless you also had models or performances.) When you were a kid you were careful and thinking a lot about the ‘correct’ thing around your mom, but wild around your friends. In the bribing situation you came in with a persona, but then switched around - you’re funny, you’re interesting, you’re naive. Also in the wizard fantasy - you’re running away from the war, you don’t want to deal with it. Lion secondaries tend to fantasize about being revolutionaries or leading armies.

Snake Secondaries who like staying in Neutral have a blunt take-it-or-leave it quality which I do see from you, but you also seem just... kind of tired. Not Burnt, but just kind of done with dealing with a family who makes you feel lonely, an administration who isn’t helpful, an environment that doesn’t value your culture... no wonder you just want the ability to just say whatever, and not have to think about it.

I also think that the lack of a Person (which is a primary issue) is making this whole ask much more ‘authenticity’ flavored than it would be otherwise. You want, you really really desperately want a person to trust enough, and value enough, to be that level of authentic with.

I identify with Joy from Everything Everywhere, because she feels like a friend who doesn’t need you to tell them how you feel in these feeble words, she looks at you, and she knows, the whole movie knows.

You’re fantasizing about someone who just *gets* you, immediately. (You’re fantasizing about a Person.)

Likewise, I identify with Hunter from The Owl House. He says he misses knowing who he supposed to be. He comes from a really unhealthy background, but I just feel happy thinking how not only he himself warms up to people, but others warm up to him, see good in him, accept him and start to care, not how good people care, but how a friend cares. Hahaha, I identify with Pippin from LOTR movies, because he makes mistakes, and everyone around him is like WTF can you not, why don’t you just stand in one place or be tied to a leash? He’s not stupid, he’s not careless, he’s not bad or ignorant per se, mistakes just happen, it’s natural and instead of being made to feel wrong, let’s just not do that and make it normal, because it will happen, and we will learn from our mistakes without pressure or shouting. It’s a miracle Pippin wants to do things after all.

You’re fantasizing about getting a group of People. Don’t think it’s at all a coincidence that both the Owl House and the Lord of the Rings focus on a small, rag-tag group of people who don’t quite fit, for one reason or another. I also think you’ve probably been dealing with someone who does not react to *normal* mistakes in a healthy way. So of course Pippin and Hunter would be comforting.

Things that make me feel powerful? Money, having choices, being able to say no, I will not do anything of what you suggest and instead do this completely different thing. Because I can, because I want it, because I can see I will succeed, I will make it. I can choose to do things my way. You need money or other resources to be able to do that. Calling a plumber and being able to pay them would make me more powerful than waiting for someone I know do me a favor based on our relationship. While not being able to select what I want, or having crappy choices wherever I look makes me feel locked up and incredible passive. To quote the quiz, helplessness doesn’t make me angry, it freezes m, but I don’t get angry.

Damn. Yeah, I don’t know what I can say to any of that. What is power? Money, and the ability to say no. And really, when you get down to it - money is important when it allows to say no. The more you can say no, the more powerful you are.

Recently graduating was the most difficult thing I had to do. I had little to no help, big expectations from the board and little freedom on what decision I could make. Myself already being anxious about what I will do in the future and this major giving me panic attacks in the making did not help focus and do it right. I wonder would it have been better if I majored in something I loved but was kind of useless, than something I hated but what is seen as practical and marketable.

There really isn’t a right answer there. Not everyone needs to love their job, but some do. Some people are fine without a steady paycheck, or without a large paycheck - but some aren’t. Any decision that involves the future like that is going to be a gamble. And I guess I’m at the point now, with how fast the world and the economy is changing, that trying to guess what will be practical and marketable ten years down the line - isn’t nearly as sure a thing as it used to be.

From what I’ve gathered, thesis can feel useless. I knew a guy who paid someone to write it for him, and honestly with my own experience I wouldn’t care about ethics of it now and would have rather done that if I could have a chance. In the end, how exactly writing your last paper, thesis shows your skills? Sure, you can follow academic paper writing rules, you can use computer, you can read and gather information from research papers, and you can ignore your anxiety and interview people, interpret their answers and have enough skill in a language you are using to not only make sense but follow all the rules. I guess you can use the skills somewhere; I am just talking myself out of this idea. Wait, if someone who never majored in your area and does not have the skills you worked for, can write you a paper and write it good, it’s not an excellent way to evaluate someone.

Yeah, Snake secondary for sure. And what can I say, you make a compelling case. The structural problems in academia, the classism, the behind-the-times - it’s very much still there, and there are lots of people who can talk about it much better than I can.

My friends were busy with their own stuff, my family were far away and with a big generational gap, professors didn’t help and then evaluated me strangely. It was really hard to see a person I knew for a few years, liked, wanted to impress be against me. Sorry I am tired, but I really needed to write something, and this seemed like a good thing to occupy myself with. Off course, I don’t know how you feel about academic unfaithfulness, but from my perspective, my experience was shitty enough that I wouldn’t give a flying sausage if there would be a next time, especially if I did everything else the right way. I really don’t know how much it was me, because it was me in some ways, but I still think my supervisor didn’t help me, but was ready to judge me. She probably felt she wasn’t paid enough to deal with my problems then. Right. You know what I want to do now? I want to never look back, never get back there, and never even touch this major. I want to leave it in the past and start anew. I want to be able to choose and not be tied to it.

Spoken like a snake secondary. And no wonder why you seem so tired. Also, being treated badly by your advisor is going to hurt anybody... but ESPECIALLY a snake primary.

Thank you for your time. Have a great day. Or night.

I will. :) Thanks for writing in.

#submission #sortme #wisteria sorts #shc #sortinghatchats #snake primary #snake secondary #lion vs snake secondary #double snake #neutral snake

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msmargaretmurry · 9 months

Note

What is writing advice you would give to someone just starting out?

ohhh you know i love to talk about WRITING. this is mainly geared at people just starting out writing fanfic but most of it can probably be applied to original fiction and other types of writing too 💕

first of all: be patient with yourself. like all other skills, writing is something that takes practice to get good at! i've been writing for YEARS and am still constantly learning and growing as a writer. if you're just starting out and you find yourself getting frustrated that the stuff on the page doesn't match the stuff in your head, it does NOT mean you're bad at writing. it just means you need more practice. do you think the first fanfics i wrote were good? no, they were incoherent and you will never find them.

write about things that you're excited to write about. whether this is the most popular pairing in the fandom or a rarepair you made up on your own, go with your passion! i know this can be hard because everyone wants the higher amount of comments and kudos that comes with posting popular pairings, but i promise that writing something you're excited about is like step one in getting yourself to write regularly. literally if you read a story you love and think "i want to write a story like that" then write a story like that! figure out how to take the things you loved in it and make it your own. drop the author a note and say they inspired you!

take all writing advice with a grain of salt. i watch a lot of writing advice videos on youtube, and i read craft books and articles on writing craft, and i've learned a ton of stuff from those over the years, but i've also learned that it's totally okay for me to be like "actually i think i disagree" and do it my way. (this does not apply to basic punctuation and grammar tho. please learn those, or get a beta reader who knows them really well. and then you can tactically decide if/when you want to break the rules sometimes.)

everyone has their own writing process. you can watch a million youtube videos on outlining but if outlining just doesn't work for you, videos aren't going to fic that! i used to outline a lot and now i mostly discovery write (i find the term "pantser" so unserious, lol). it took me a long time to develop a writing process that worked for me, and it'll take you some time, too, so don't be afraid to try new things and then set them back down if you're not working for you.

READ. read read read!!! do not just read fanfiction. do not just read the kind of thing you want to write. read WIDELY. and think about the writing while you're reading! if a fic or book is doing something really well, think about what's making it work. if it's doing something that you don't like, think about why it's rubbing you the wrong way and/or how you would fix it. i always say that even if i wind up not loving a book, i always learn something from it, craft-wise, so i very rarely feel like i wasted my time.

TALK about writing with your friends!! i know this one can be tough if you don't already have friends who are into writing, but i am so serious about it. buddy-read books or fics together and then get together afterward to talk about how you felt about the writing, the plot, the characters, the story as a whole. find someone(s) who will let you bounce your own writing ideas off of them, and who will read as you write to cheer you on and help you with tough spots. do the same for them if they want it! writing is such a solitary act that you have to be deliberate about building community around it, and having that community is so worth it.

on feedback: yes, having someone beta read your story can be pretty nerve-wracking. i have (once again) been writing for years and i still get nervous sending something off to be beta'd. but! having a beta reader you trust is so good for your writing. sometimes it really does just take a second set of eyes to spot typos, find plot holes, call you out on writing quirks and habits that you can't see for yourself because you're too deep in it. and it definitely helps to have a friend whose taste and skill level you trust to help make your story better. have a conversation with your beta beforehand to discuss what kind of feedback you're looking for, the timetable for how long they think the beta reading is going to take, how harsh or gentle they should try to make their feedback. if you're nervous about getting a lot of suggested edits, ask them to point out things they really like in the story as well.

OH ALSO. it's totally fine if you're struggling a lot with a story to just set it down for a while and work on something else. as you keep writing, you'll get better at figuring out what kind of writer's block you can beat by pushing through and what kind you need to deal with by just giving a story time to percolate more.

ok i think that's all i've got tonight. 💖

#ask #writing #don't worry i will get to the rest of the hockey romance asks and also all of the other asks throughout the week when i have the energy lma

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indignantlemur · 2 months

Note

Hi! I saw all your headcanon stuff on Andorians and since I have a mass of files around the Aenar, I wondered if you knew anything about Andorii? Is there a conlang out there already that you know of? I made one after lazily looking at the barebones wiki- but it is based on the Aenar Conlang I made :)) if you'd like the notes? if Andorii already exists please lmk! Also, love the headcanon ideas- they're amazing!!

Hello! I've been enjoying reading through some of your Aenar headcanons and lore!

With the bare bones of what's available in canon, and even the dubious canon, we know that Andorii consists of extended vowels and a mix of hard and soft consonants. Double vowels - aa, ii, ee, oo - are often either followed or preceded by hard consonants, though rarely both. I've also noted that, rather like Norwegian, they have emphasis on the first and third syllables more often than not, but they occasionally switch that up. The Andorian opera featured in Discovery, for example, while not actually meant to have proper words or a translation, follows these rule at least somewhat, but seems to change where the emphasis on syllables lies. I've been implementing bits and pieces of all of this into Emigre and my headcanons.

The closest I've been able to find to an actual conlang is from a defunct site which records an a priori conlang constructed by Spence Hill back in the 1990s. For the most part, I've spent as much time referencing that as I have inventing words and terminology myself, and I've been keeping the conjugations and tenses very simple for ease of use. I don't rely entirely on Mr. Hill's work, and I draw from multiple sources, but I will say his is the backbone of my own work.

Here's the Grammatical sketch of the Andorian language by Spence Hill and the dictionary he created for your own uses, if you like. The dictionary is not as extensive and comprehensive as I would like, personally, but it gives a solid foundation for creating compound words as needed and the overview of grammar is quite comprehensive. He also has a written script, thought it does not particularly resemble canon Andorii as seen in ENT, or depictions of Graalen found in some of the RPG sourcebooks. I also have a list of words and terms I've created, but some of them are a wee bit spoilery for Emigre.

At some point, I would like to sit down and actually make a dedicated conlang of my own for Andorians, but I'm not fully confident in my ability to do so properly without further education and research.

I'd love to chat sometime about our headcanons, if you ever feel like it! <3

#star trek #emigre by indignantlemur #andorian #andorians #Andorii #Andorian conlang #star trek languages #Andorian language #Graalen

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strangerthingsreversebigbang · 9 months

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Artist sign-ups for the Stranger Things Reverse Big Bang are now open! Sign up using the link! We can’t wait to see what you’ll create!

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q: What is a Reverse Big Bang? A: A reverse big bang is an event where authors and artists collaborate with one another. The way it works is that people sign up to be an author and/or an artist. Then we have the authors pick their favorite art piece and we pair them with the proper artists. The pairings work together to create a story for the artwork it’s inspired by.

Q: What kind of art can I create to participate in this bang as an artist? A: Art can be created using any medium that you like. All we ask is that it can be recorded and shared so that authors can preview it before claims.

Q: Are there specific characters that I need to include in my art in order to be eligible to submit it for the bang? A: So long as the art features at least one character that is featured in the Stranger Things show, it is eligible.

Q: How long do stories need to be in order to be eligible for the bang? A: We are only asking that stories be a minimum of 3k words. There is no maximum word count.

Q: What is a beta reader? A: Betas are people who will read a story and give constructive feedback to the author before they post. Most betas specialize in certain things, like SPAG (grammar), characterization, emotional flow, alpha readers (those who read to make sure it all works, mostly plot-conscious) research, or pickers. Pickers are people who are experts in particular fields (ex. Medical pickers could be those who have been in medical school and can help you create a realistic scene or offer advice in that department).

Q: Do stories need to be beta read? A: Yes. You are welcome to use your own beta or reach out to someone in the bang.

Q: What is a pinch hitter? A: Pinch Hitters are authors who step in when someone has to drop out. There are a lot of unknown variables in a big bang, especially with the lengthy schedule. It’s hard to plan ahead when you’re not sure what your workload will be, which makes it hard to stay in the bang. Authors sometimes can’t keep their initial workload and would have to drop out of the bang. It happens. That’s where pinch hitters come in, to take over the abandoned art.

Q: Does my art have to be completed prior to claims? A: We ask that art be about 50% complete prior to your submission for claims. We understand that creating art is no easy feat, we just ask that there is enough of the process completed so that authors can have a clear idea of what they’re claiming.

Accepted mediums include, but are not limited to:

Traditional/Digital art

Manipulations

Audio

Playlists/Fanmixes (with a cover and a minimum of 15 songs),

Mood Boards

Textile Crafts (knitting, crocheting, quilting, needlepoint, felting, etc., as long as the work can be photographed in one image)

Recipes

Covers/Banners

Photosets

If you have an idea for a piece that is not on this list, please send us an ask on tumblr or email us at [email protected]

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iconicosmica · 1 month

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Tips for art block:

(These are all based on my personal experience. This list is not intended to be comprehensive and may not be for everyone in every situation, but rather things I wish I had learned sooner.)

Work on something else - If you're stuck on a project chances are you need to take a step back from it to gather some perspective. This is part of the process. We all need to experience in order to create.

Try something in a different medium - Different mediums influence each other and sometimes you need to stimulate all the senses in order to fully realize your vision.

Create informally - There's something to be said for working at a desk in a room of one's own to commit to their craft. But I've found this sort of setting can be stifling. We sometimes put too much pressure on ourselves which can lead to creative block. Inspiration is often found in a meditative state - showering, going for a walk, lying awake. Sketch in bed, write in your notes app, jam outside. I invite you to create in informal a way as possible when searching for your muse. The grinding and editing can come later.

Get inspired by other people's work - This is NOT copying. Nobody exists in a vacuum. Emulating what you like in someone else's work will make it your own because it is filtered through you. We are all to some degree the sum of our influences.

There is no correct way to create - Realism is not the most valid way to create art. Music theory is not the most valid way to create music. Grammar is not the most valid way to write. It all depends on what you are trying to realize.

Have a side project - Everyone needs an escape. We tend to daydream about projects other than what we're working on for the work itself becomes monotonous. Having a side project you can indulge in will help your creativity flow and provide a release that prevents you from feeling trapped.

Don't compare yourself - You are trying to realize the best version of YOUR vision. It's up to you to determine what that is. Often the most innovative work is that which fully commits to itself.

Get tactile - I'm all for the way technology has streamlined the editing process, but sometimes you really need to work with your hands to get a feel for what you're doing. At the least it will improve your craft

Find time to work in the morning - Our circadian rhythm there is a burst of energy an hour or two after we've gotten up. Your brain has been detoxing all night, if possible having time to yourself in the morning may help with creativity.

Fuck the rules - Don't let art "rules" hold you back. These were created by pedantic people to gatekeep. Ultimately there are no rules. The more you commit to your vision the more you're going to be at peace with your work, which to me is the ultimate goal of being an artist.

#iconicosmica #writing #writblr #artist #spilled ink #art #music #muse #musician #craft #creativity #imagination #inspiration #my writing #poetry #essay #philosophy #creative writing

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thelaurenshippen · 5 months

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I'm just a starting writer, I did a little nanowrimo this year and wrote 39k words about a vampire gamer, I've always been a vampire girl, but here's the thing I don't know what to do with it.

Currently I'm unemployed for a variety of reasons but I'm lucky enough to have a partner who has a salary that can support us both.

But also I love writing, all my life I just wanted to write and being unemployed this year during nano gave me the opportunity to try and do that.

And now I'm curious is there a way to get paid to be a writer? Not as a marketing copy writer but a fiction writer, or essayist?

So what does one do?

Should I just publish whatever I wrote on a blog and put up a donation button?

Should I just publish on Tumblr?

Should I do it on AO3/Wattpad?

I'm at a loss.

I also don't have social media only use Tumblr and a little BlueSky after twitter exploded, and I really don't want to go and "build an audience on TikTok and booktok" (please gods no).

ah, yes, the eternal question: "how do I make money as a writer?"

I wish I had a good answer. I wish I had any answer. and I would love for other writers on here to chime in with their perspectives, because I am constantly struggling to answer this question for myself!

to answer the specific questions first: there are websites that post jobs for writing gigs - fiction, essays, etc. the one I'm most familiar with is upwork, though I've never gotten a job myself through there so can't speak to the experience. I will say that writing jobs tend to be in high demand and writing in general can be quite competitive, so working on your resume and improving your craft is an important thing to do whether you're just starting out or have been writing professionally for years.

self-publishing is absolutely an option! if you do, I would recommend getting a beta reader (or just a few friends) to read through your manuscript before you publish - it's always good to get feedback and to get other eyes on your work, no matter how complete or polished, for typos/grammar/formatting/etc. I'd also recommend reading about the best ways to self-publish - again, I can't personally speak to this as my three novels were traditionally published, but I know that folks publish through Amazon a lot and there certainly have been successfully novels (and especially graphic novels!) that have started out as blog posts/blogs. I don't recommend publishing an original story to ao3 or Wattpad if you're hoping to make money (if you're publishing for fun, go for it!) - ao3, my beloved, is an archive and therefore does not allow you to link to any kind of patreon/kofi/etc., so can be difficult to monetize. I'm less familiar with Wattpad, but I do know that they are actively trying to get into the publishing game themselves and sometimes pluck stories from their site to bring up to trad publishing, which I've heard can be....a mixed bag.

but there are a lot of authors on here and on their personal websites writing about self-publishing, so there's definitely better info out there about how to do it and how lucrative it can be!

a very good rule for self-publishing imo - whether that's through a site like amazon, your own blog, a podcast, a webcomic, whatever - is always give people the option to pay you. so, yes, put that donation button up. it doesn't matter if no one has read or listened to your thing yet, just making sure the option is there from the start is a good thing!

that's about the extent of the straightforward answer I can give you. if I were to give you a step-by-step guide of how I got to a place where most of my income comes from fiction writing, it would look like this:

write your own fiction podcast, get some actors from acting class to come over to your apartment and record for free, and produce the whole thing yourself

publish said podcast and then spend the next 2 years spending as much time on social media, at conventions, conferences - anywhere there are fiction podcast fans and creators - as you can talking about your show, all while writing and producing the show for free

get lucky and have the show take off. start to get some ad money that allows you to pay your collaborators. watch the show get better as a result. see the show take off even more. keep grinding away at social media

get a cold email from a book agent who wants to talk to you. convince that book agent to represent the YA novel you want to write in the world of your podcast

expend whatever leftover energy you have on ensuring that when people think of fiction podcasting, they think of you, even if other names are coming first. be everywhere. talk to everyone. keep grinding away at social media.

get a cold email from a fiction producer in England who wants you to write on his show. convince him to let you co-showrun it with him.

use your growing network of audio friends to get an agent and manager. use those people to get a pitch to marvel. convince marvel to let you write a podcast for them.

finally quit your day job, after doing 4 seasons of a successful podcast and selling spin-offs to a tech company, getting a 3-book deal with a major publisher, being hired to co-showrun a big budget mystery, and selling a show idea to marvel. then make all of those shows.

finish the podcast you started with, now seven seasons long. try to pitch out other ideas to all the people who wanted to buy that podcast off of you. watch them say no to anything new.

get lucky and sit next to a netflix exec at a dinner. convince her to let you write a stranger things show.

keep pitching. use the money from your other jobs to fund your indie shows. sell one show. lose another halfway through development. have your ideas optioned for television over and over and get used to hearing no's when you go out to pitch. produce and direct as much as you can to pay the bills. keep grinding away at social media.

????????

profit

that's obviously a simplification of my journey but I'm currently in that ???? stage. I don't say all of this to freak you - or anyone else - out. being a creative is hard. it gets easier in some ways and stays just as hard in others. I'm better at my job than I used to, so making shows is easier, but getting jobs and getting audience feels as hard as ever, even if I am several steps ahead than where I started. I thought I could build off the success of @thebrightsessions to make my other originals instant successes and that's just not how it works at all. you're building from the next step up after every success, not the top of the staircase.

but, like I said, I'm not trying to scare you - the thing that's positive in my weird crazy journey is the reality that there is no one right way to do something. there's a million different ways to make a creative career, especially in the age of the internet. which means that my advice to anyone who asks me how to start a career in audio fiction specifically is: just do it. don't wait for someone to give you a budget, don't try to cater to what you think the AD audience wants, just tell your story as you want to and get it out there. the best job application is being able to point to your own original work that's already garnered an audience.

I have no idea if that could as readily apply to prose writing/publishing. that is definitely beyond my knowledge base, but I'd say if you want to get a taste for what it's like to be a freelance creative, apply to jobs on upwork or similar sites, work on your original work, and find a platform that works for you on which you could potentially build an audience. and then get to know as many people as you can in your given field - I would not be where I am at all without folks like Gabriel Urbina, or Jeffrey Cranor, or Jenny Turner Hall. making friends in audio drama from the start who could recommend me for jobs - and being sure that I do the same now that I have more power - is vital. make friends with your peers (also bc they're great and you'll learn so much from them).

finally, I want to pass on advice that my uncles gave me when I was a teenager wanting to go to broadway--both of them work in musical theater (one conductor, one musical director, they are quite the power couple and my heroes) and when I was growing up, they told me "if you can think of anything else that will make you just as happy, do that instead". it sounds like harsh advice, but it's good advice. people don't pick creative careers because it's easy and stable--if there's anything else you're equally passionate about that could make you money and be more stable, there is absolutely nothing wrong in pursuing that and then writing for the love and joy of it, without the pressure of making a living. and that doesn't mean that that won't eventually lead to you being a successful full-time writer! but choosing to pursue writing full-time because it's what you want to do with your life is a very particular kind of path.

anyway, I've gone on way too long. I hope some of this was helpful - the last-last thing I'll say is that a) I obviously have a very limited perspective so nothing I say here is the be-all-end-all way of viewing things b) I had a very stable data entry job while I was making my first show that was very flexible and work-from-home (oh, to be able to get that job back now...since the pandemic, those types of jobs are obviously in high demand) and c) I got lucky. luck and timing are, unfortunately, a huge part of success in creative careers. if anyone tries to sell you on the idea that there's a guaranteed path to success that you can control if you work hard enough, they are lying to you and probably want you to buy something.

finally-finally, a vampire gamer story sounds so fun!! I love that idea!

#answered #writing #self publishing #traditional publishing #advice #also your ask was one of the ones that didn't get eaten but thank you for sending again!#I hope this answered your question but feel free to send more!#long post

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duckprintspress · 2 years

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Editing Tips for Beginning Editors

This is a guest post written by Adrian Harley.

Congratulations! If you’re reading this, I’m willing to bet you already have a lot of the skills you need to be an editor. Even among full-time professionals, a lot of editing skill comes from reading a ton—you get an “eye” for when a sentence just doesn’t look right. The more you read professionally edited work, the better you get at it. (Fanfiction is incredible, obviously. But fanfiction has its own quirks, and the grammar and punctuation can vary, so I’m not confident recommending it as a way to brush up your instinctive grasp of when a sentence “looks right.”)

The specifics of what you do as an editor can vary a lot depending on what you’re editing and who you’re editing for, so in this post, I’ll be covering some of the basic principles that I think will be helpful no matter what type of editing you do. Broadly, I’ll be going over language-related tips and profession-related tips.

Language

I won’t be going over the nuts and bolts of grammar here, as a zillion good guides to it already exist online. Grammar Girl is my go-to free resource, and a lot of grammar and punctuation questions can be easily answered online or in a style guide from your library. I looked up the rules for commas a LOT in my first years of editing, and I still have to double-check them sometimes. A lot of the fiddly details differ between guides (how to write a.m. and p.m.; serial comma), but the nuts and bolts of grammar and punctuation stay the same across guides.

Professionally, those fiddly details are a big chunk of editing. Do you write out numbers less than 20? Less than 10? Do you capitalize titles like “President” all the time or only in certain situations? There’s no one right answer, which is one of the many reasons there’s no “right guide” to editing. A style guide will decide many of these questions for you. If you pick up editing as a profession, your employer will most likely have a style guide in mind. You may want to pick one for yourself if you do freelance editing. That way, you won’t have to re-decide on every job, and if you get repeat clients, you’ll be sure their text is consistent across all their documents. A “series bible” for fiction works on similar principles.

Whether you’re looking at those fiddly details or at the big picture, one principle of editing is to never take anything for granted. Someone says there’s five ancient orbs needed to defeat the dragon? You’d better count the orbs. Make sure every proper noun in the story (names of people, places, things) is spelled the same every single time. This is the kind of thing you’ll get quizzed on if you ever apply for a professional editing gig. Every editing job I’ve ever applied to has an “editing test” of at least a page, and it usually has at least one of those errors (if not both).

Another major thing to watch out for is colloquialisms, especially ones that mean multiple things. A short list of common errors I see:

“Since” should only relate to the passage of time; it does not mean “because.”

“While,” again, should only refer to time—two things happening simultaneously. “But,” “although,” “whereas,” and others are good substitutes for the other sense.

“Due to” does not mean “because of,” it means “caused by” (and I’ve seen some editors argue to not even use it for “caused by” and to only use it for when something is owed to someone).

“If” will often need to be replaced with “whether.”

Obviously with dialogue, that’s a whole nother story, but be careful about these in narration, even with a colloquial narrative. They can introduce unintentional double meanings.

When you’re moving from basic accuracy to style, you’ll often need to “tighten up” the language. This might be something you’re used to doing in your own writing. This doesn’t mean all prose should be sparse! But as an editor, part of your job is making sure that every word is contributing something, no matter whether the sentence is flowery or stark. One exercise is to go through and see if you can cut one word from every sentence. Depending on what type of editing you do, you’ll have different “filler words” to look out for. My personal demon is “just,” so I always do a search for that when I’m revising my own work. In my day job, the word “provide” often signals a clunky phrase that could be condensed into a single, better verb (e.g., “provides assistance” vs. “helps”).

You’ll look for a lot as you edit, so don’t feel like you have to do it all at once. A simple search can make sure you’ve caught issues like “while” and “since.” Other issues are best solved in their own read-through. For me, I try to do a read-through specifically for passive voice. I often skip over passive voice on my all-purpose read because, well, the sentence makes sense, doesn’t it? So my eye simply doesn’t catch it if I’m not on the lookout. As you edit, you’ll figure out what process works best for you.

And to wrap up the language section—checklists are your friend! I used to have a post-it of all the things I knew I struggled with, and I’d systematically search the document for those trip-ups after I did my first read. You can customize your own checklist with whatever snags give you trouble.

Professionalism

A huge part of editing as a professional is in how you interact with other people. Your whole job is telling people they’re wrong, after all, and you often have no control over whether they’ll listen to you. Everything you can do to make the criticism easier for them helps!

My favorite “one weird trick” that my first boss taught me is to turn every criticism into a question. If you’re suggesting a significant revision, “How about…?” is one of my favorite leads. If you have no idea what’s going on, do your best to figure out what might be causing the issue, then form a question around that. “Are there missing words here?” is kinder and more useful than “Huh?”

Essentially, your role as an editor is to advocate for the reader. This “reader stand-in” role can help frame critique as well. Will the reader understand this? If you’re in one of the more-technical editing jobs, that question may be completely necessary. As an editor for scientific research, I’m often editing documents meant for people who know way more about the subject matter than I do. The framing of “the reader” is also a useful tool in your toolbox for fiction. You may be editing something that you are not the target audience for. Or, on the other end of the scale, you may know without question that you’re reading something incomprehensible. The polite device of “the reader” helps add a level of depersonalization to the critique.

Unsurprisingly, for editing, communication is key before you even start work. “Editing” covers a huge range of possibilities. Make sure you and the author are on the same page. Do they want a proofread—only correcting glaring errors? Do they want you to improve the phrasing of sentences? It can go all the way up to practically rewriting the thing, if you’re working at a corporation and the authors aren’t professionals. This conversation beforehand will let you know whether you should make “artistic” suggestions as you read, whether you need to stick with nuts and bolts, or something in between.

If the author says they only need a proofread and you discover the whole thing is terrible, that’s when some tactful emails come into play. Never start doing a higher-level edit unless you’ve talked about it with the author first. You have much better odds of an affirmative if they feel like they’re collaborating with you–that you’re both in it together to make the best document possible. As far as the tactful emails go, be kind and be specific. If you have examples of what you’d like to correct, throw those in. It helps the author know what to expect and make an informed decision.

And sometimes the author says no, and that’s okay! You must wash your hands of it. It’s not your name on the thing, and if you don’t put it in your resume, it never will be (fresh out of college, I worked on a couple truly awful novels that nobody will ever know I worked on). Perfectionism is HARD to overcome, I know, but accepting the errors gets easier with practice.

And finally, if you’re still wondering, “Am I cut out to be an editor?” I would recommend the words of Neil Gaiman. In his excellent “Make Good Art” speech, he says that as a freelance artist, you need to do good work, do it on time, and be pleasant to work with. And then, he adds, “You don’t even need all three! Two out of three is fine.”I recommend the whole thing if you ever want to battle imposter syndrome, because the same tenets apply to editing. At least I think they do. You don’t need to be the perfect editor—nobody is. But I guarantee that you have most of what you need already, and I hope this has helped.

Biography

Adrian Harley, one of Duck Prints Press’s editors, has been a full-time professional editor of scientific research for 10 years. Their freelance and ad-hoc editing has run the gamut from books to blog posts to family members’ cover letters. They’ve been published in Duck Prints Press’ And Seek (Not) to Alter Me and the forthcoming She Wears the Midnight Crown, as well as OFIC Magazine.

Want to learn more?

Beware the Weasel Word has information and resources for “tightening up” language.

How to Ask for Feedback on Your Writing talks more about how, from a writer point of view, to help your editor understand what type(s) of editing you’re looking for.

Giving Quality, Motivating Feedback focuses on exactly what it says on the tin: how to give a writer feedback they’ll listen to.

What is an Alpha Reader? talks about what role alpha reader editors play and how to work with one.

#duck prints press #editing advice #on writing #publishing #writing advice #guest blogger #adrian harley

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