asks open; open to tag & ask games (worldbuilding wednesday, heads up 7 up, etc)
i follow with @/abnormal-normality
not very good at interaction, but i will definitely interact if you interact back
uh, looking for blogs to follow ig?
last updated 16/10/24!!
some other writing-related stuff
i tend to write about family and friendships a lot. aka, i generally focus on relationships between ppl.
big fan of isekai, transmigration, and survival game horror/thriller. i think you can tell what i read most (it’s cnovels)
i like reading anything, really! i favour fantasy (esp. modern fantasy) and supernatural/horror elements, though.
most of my fics/stories are short little things. usually series’ of multiple fics, actually.
tags, masterlist and major wips below
tags
#kg fanfics // #kg writes // #kg gives prompts: all are official “writing” tags, but the former is for ones on ao3 while the latter two are tumblr-only, main difference being the former is genuine writing, the latter is… also writing, but in the form of prompts
#kg draws: same as above but for drawing
#kg says stuff: my own chatter, like those name.txt tags
#original2: tumblr writing that isn’t part of any particular series/characters or world won’t be expanded on beyond that one (or few) posts
#writing tips: reblogged writing tips
#in an alternate world: aus of existing works
#unwriting related: stuff that isn’t part of my writing
#writing building: expanding on characters, worlds, etc. mainly through reblogging questions
#asks: asks
masterlist of all stories (+ tags they are under)
full character list
current wips
Absolute Wishes [Unlimited] || a guy wakes up one day to find himself in a survival game, where he has to gain points to exchange them for wishes. problem is, his wish costs a million points, and he’s not sure his memories are entirely real. under #wip: absolute wishes
stealing gold || a thief tries to steal the relic of a sun god. except he’s rescued by a mysterious desert spirit, the relic has gone missing, and something strange is happening in the neighbouring city. under #wip: stealing gold
Unrigor Mortis || a girl dies buried alive… and wakes up, alive, and out of her grave. something that’s not supposed to happen, especially in a mundane earth. to make things worse, not only is she struggling to recover from her experience, her murderer is playing tricks on her, and there’s a stranger that seems to know something about this. under #wip: unrigor mortis
You assume it's just a software glitch - obviously some weird reflections or something confused the range finder, and the vacuum's mapping algorithm interpreted the data as a whole second room or hallway.
Sometimes the map shows that the vacuum has actually entered the non-existent space and is cleaning there, but obviously that's just the position tracking also screwing up, so it thinks it's somewhere far away and just maps it to the closest place it thinks exists.
The map keeps growing, though, and the vacuum's taking longer and longer to clean the whole house.
Eventually it's frustrating enough that you start setting aside time to watch it do the cleaning, so you can figure out what surface is confusing it and fix the problem.
Somehow the problem never happens when you're watching.
The vacuum seems more beaten up than you remember - scratches and small dents, nothing to stop it from working, but you're not sure where they came from.
Once, you look while it's cleaning and can't find it anywhere. The mobile app says it's cleaning the living room, but it's obviously not there. The app is often wrong, though, and when you hear it trundling around the dining room, which you just checked, you guess you must have just... missed it somehow?
When you empty its bin, there's strange, golden dust in it that you've never seen before.
You install a few cameras. Every time the vacuum malfunctions, it's always when it's behind something or in a dead zone between cameras. Even when you move the cameras. It's a different place every time.
Did you spill ketchup somewhere? There are desiccated flecks of brown and red in the vacuum bin.
You get a Bluetooth tracker - it's supposed to help you find your keys or your wallet if you misplace them - and you glue it to the vacuum.
That night, the vacuum has a new scrape on it, like it ran into something, and the tracker has been knocked off. You can't find it; the tracker app just says it's "out of range or turned off".
You look at your robotic vacuum. It's got more scratches and scrapes even than you remember from a few days ago. You check your camera footage and yeah, it's definitely gotten more beaten up. No footage of it running into anything, though.
One of the dents almost looks like a... bite mark? You must be imagining that.
You sit and think for a long time. You know it's just a machine; you know humans tend to anthropomorphize anything that moves (all the more so because of the googly eyes you attached when you got it), and you don't want to fall into that superstitious fallacy.
It's just a machine.
You look at the dents and cuts on its frame.
You sigh, turn off the cameras, and duct-tape a kitchen knife to the robot.
"Just don't scratch up the sofa." you mutter, feeling silly, and press the "clean now" button.
The startup beep is the same noise as always, and you tell yourself there's no way it could possibly sound 'excited'.
like the betrayal’s always going to be worse if they cared about you and it didn’t matter. someone discards you because they didn’t give a shit, then you can be angry about that, you can feel vindicated in that, you can get over it. but if they can look you in the eyes and say “I love you. I would make the same choice again.” You will never sleep peacefully again, is all.
“I thought they cared about me, but they were lying this whole time.” <- tired. boring. removes all the nuance of this relationship to make it easier to move on from.
“I thought they cared about me, and I was right, and every minute they were there for me, every time they said they were proud, every laugh we shared leaning against each other bruised and breathless, all of it was real. and they still left me behind. They could put their love aside. I couldn’t.” <- insane. will never leave you alone. reminds you that even the worst people are still people and can still care about even the ones they hurt the most and that undoes neither the harm nor the love.
okay. something about the way i worded this is making people think this is a vent thing about real relationships. and it’s fine if that’s where it took you. but i feel like i need to be transparent here: this be blorboposting. karlach cliffgate and her terrible awful no good very bad betrayal.
This is also true from the betrayer's side, by the way! Much sexier of them to be like "I stand by my decision BUT WHOOPS turns out I can't stop caring that easily"
need That character absolutely delirious with fear. recoiling from everything. unable to parse what's happening around them, their mind stuck in fight or flight. shaking and hyperventilating. completely unconsolable even as they're wrapped in a crushing hug.
he would not fucking say that, but with disability.. he would not fucking be able bodied. sick n tired of characters walking away from multiple life changing injuries without a scratch. let’s get some natural consequences in here.
give that knife/sword fight survivor nerve damage. give the character who was shot in the gut a stoma. give that fire survivor lung damage and an oxygen cannula. give that leg injury survivor a cane. give that starvation survivor gastroparesis. give that spinal injury survivor a manual chair or powerchair.
while we’re at it, give your characters congenital disabilities too, just because. give them intellectual and development disabilities. give them acquired and postviral illnesses. dare to make somebody bedbound. for me.
Had been thinking about this post (which is a fake excerpt from an imaginary narrative written to mock 'tumblr prose'), and how most "no actually this is good" comments are highlighting how the construction of individual sentences is interesting, how some of the language is evocative, how it Goes Hard. Because that post is written badly in a very thoughtful manner that focuses on core structural issues rather than going for low hanging fruit of poor technical proficiency with the written word, it is not bad in the most "obvious" of ways. So I think this is a legit learning opportunity, but also I don't want to dunk on anyone so instead I will just preach to the choir of My Followers.
But yeah like to be more constructive than just going "lol tumblr prose bad", really the issue in Large part that characterizes "tumblr prose" (which to be clear I don't think is a discrete thing and at most is a combination of several writing tendencies influenced by the medium of Online) comes down to the lack of real contrast in Any aspect of narrative construction, and an obsession with being quotable and constantly being at 100% of Going Hard (which go hand in hand).
In that post, the character voice is indistinct from that of the narration, and the characters quote one-liners that look Meaningful as excerpts and are borderline nonsensical as dialogue. There is no more than the faintest, most generic hints of characterization; these people exist as vague concepts to say deep words for the reader. The sentence length has little variation from its staccato beat, and so it is awkward to read and fails to complement the action or accomplish anything with the pacing (save for the slight slowdown when the torturer feels all that damp animal electricity). The timing is awkward and exaggeratedly dramatic. The description is a flowery kind of tryhard visceral and seems avoidant of describing anything too directly ("something dark and arterial" where there's nothing being accomplished by conveying uncertainty about what is currently gushing out of the injured character and the simple use of "blood splashed across the stones" would actually be 10x more effective), in a way that does disservice to what is supposed to be a torture scene, and leaves it weightless and ungrounded. In fairness to the people saying "this is good", that is MUCH easier to say when reading this fake excerpt as the standalone piece it actually is, but this kind of writing Cannot function in an actual narrative and is not what an excerpt from well constructed narrative fiction is going to look like basically ever.
It reflects a lot of very typical amateur writing issues that just about everyone has to grow out of (the minimal diversity in sentence length, simulated non-attention to scene pacing and timing), and issues common to fanfiction-influenced writing on social media (allergy to paragraph lengths of more than two sentences, little to no description of the characters or setting because, in fanfiction, the reader already knows their physical characteristics and mannerisms and it doesn't need to be lingered upon, Unlike In Original Fiction). But this particularly hits on an issue I think is semi-unique to narrative writing in the social media milieu, which is a focus on being quotable. This may not even be a conscious impulse at all But It's There. This kinda apparent terror of any moment not being as beautiful and hard hitting as possible (or for comedy, any moment not being A Joke). Everything "Goes Hard", so nothing actually does. A lot of "tumblr prose" type writing is less a narrative, more a string of quotes loosely assembled into narrative that vaguely gestures at things like Plot and Character. It substitutes depth for Suggestions of depth by utilizing stock symbolism without building it into the narrative, and by gesturing at weighty contexts without actually engaging with them. There can be little contrast or effective use of tone, pace, description when your story is a series of Hard Hitting Quotes.
I'm reading Watership Down right now and I think it's a great novel overall and can work as an example of how important it is to utilize contrast in your writing.
This segment is the lengthy first description of the titular down, which the rabbits are now encountering for the first time:
Adams is slowing the pace here to introduce us to the setting of the next segment of the book. The average sentence length is very long and keeps us lingering in the sensory detail, while still varied and thus smoothly readable. This new place is introduced by simultaneously conveying its physical description in vivid detail and conveying its feeling and character, and getting the most out of every described feature to do so. The thorn trees are "wind stunted". The air is "scented". The language takes on a very flowery character and heavily utilizes simile and metaphor. Woodland is "tumultuous with evening", sunlight filters through grass "like a wind" to the small creatures below, in contrast to laying "like a gold rind" on the hill when seen from a distance. This grandiose description is heavily functional and conveys both exhaustive physical detail and a feeling that this place is beautiful, awe inspiring to something like a rabbit, and full of life, though not without quiet hints of danger. It hits because Not Everything In The Book Is Described This Way. It means something that we're lingering like this and stopping to get a sense of this place on every possible level, and moving away from more direct, simple prose to convey the feeling of the place in depth.
This segment describes the rabbit Bigwig being found caught in a snare:
The prose here here has the opposite approach of the first excerpt. The language is concise, direct, and brutal. It only veers slightly away from the literal to describe Bigwig's voice as 'bubbling out' from his mouth, both conveying that the saliva and blood in his mouth is literally bubbling as he speaks, and implying the unsettling way his voice sounds as he's being strangled. The sentences are much shorter on the whole, as fit for the pacing of a tense and rapidly changing scene, and the pace closely complements the action - "There was a pause" not only conveys That There Was A Pause but interrupts the rhythm of this segment; the moment of uneasy stillness is echoed in the act of reading itself.
The scene this is excerpted from is extremely effective and does in fact Go Hard, it's well constructed in of itself but its effectiveness mostly lies in its place in the narrative. It's the culmination of a long, tense buildup as the reader becomes more aware that something is deeply Wrong about the place the rabbits are in, and the payoff is effective in being blunt and visceral, which hits because Not Everything In The Book Is Described This Way. Nothing about these excerpts are particularly quotable because that is actually not what good narrative writing is about.
a character who truly, legitimately goes “but why does that matter?” about their feelings when someone who cares about them asks. and the sudden falling of everyone around them’s faces as they realize that this person doesn’t recognize themself as someone who needs or should be taken care of. i want Everyone to hurt. surprise at the idea, worry for them, horror at not having noticed. do you see this person who doesn’t think of themselves as a person?
A god that dictates seemingly arbitrary and oddly specific rules to its followers, not because it demands absolute blind obedience, but because it's fascinated by human creativity and wants to see what kind of rules-lawyering the followers come up with in order to circumvent the rules, or how to interpret them in a way in which they can still abide by the rules when the letter of the law would be impossible or highly inconvenient to obey.
Like the command says "You Must Not Wet Your Hands With This Specific Substance", and there's one faction that has decided that since it's practically impossible to not ever touch the thing, your hands won't be touching it if you're wearing gloves. Another sect has decided that it doesn't count if you only handle the substance when it's frozen solid, so your hands don't get wet from touching it. A third one has figured out how to obtain or produce some substance that is essentially identical in every way, but has a slightly different chemical structure, so it's not the same substance.
And then there's the ones who figured out how to handle the entire process by only using their feet.
it's a shame that the trope of a character who looks 12 but is actually 300 years old is usually just used for ick fanservice because on a paper i think the psychology of a person stuck in permanent childhood has a lot of interesting story potential. unfortunately i would not trust a fandom with that character with a 100ft pole.
more people should write alloromantic characters in qprs tbh. i mean more people should write qprs in general in all circumstances but my particular hill to die on tonight is more alloromantic characters in qprs. in qprs with aromantic partners, in qprs with another alloromantic partner, in qprs with other characters where they could technically have compatible orientations romantically but that's not what kind of relationship they have or want anyway.
We Have Enough Dead Friends
By LENA OLEANDERSON
Come over. The doors are open,
my flat's a mess and
so is my heart
but the doors are always open.
Come over. I will make soup
probably from frozen but
the important thing is
we will both eat.
You don't have to be dying,
but if you are,
or you feel like you are,
or if living's been hard,
call me, and I will show up.
It doesn't have to be that bad,
it doesn't have to be bad at all,
but if it is, please call.
Do you want me to do the groceries?
Do you want me to mop the floors?
Do you need to be held;
you don't have to be dying to be held.
If you want me to be there, I want to.
I'm on the bathroom floor again,
and breathing is hard,
and eating's been hard, and sleeping,
the world is a laden thing
rolling around on my chest lately.
Just being alive is heavy tonight,
but we have enough dead friends.
Come over.
never let anyone tell you that trawling through mediocre victorian poetry isn't worth it. we just happened upon an absolute BANGER of a worm poem. go read it or else 🪱🪱🪱
the reviews are in... glad everyone's enjoying song of the worm
[id: tumblr tags reading 'dude This Fucking Rules', 'holy fucking shit! that was legit so cool?', 'holy shit that is fucking metal', 'oh this fucks severely', 'yeah no this fucking SLAPS', 'yo this RULES']
One of the best things about being a writer is thinking of something small you can add to your work that’s just. Devastating. Like you’re sitting there going. Oh. That would be diabolical. People would get really riled up about that. Exquisite. Let’s do it.
forced love confessions are whatever but forced hate confessions make me foam and froth at the mouth. show me someone visibly tormented by their own catharsis, wracked with the shame of losing a fight with themself. show me someone who leans in and twists the hand clutching the knife buried to the hilt inside them. cross the wires of desire and disgust with me.
wait but if i have a self-destructive relationship with guilt and responsibility and you have a self-destructive relationship with guilt and responsibility then who's sacrificing themself to ensure that this plane stays flying long enough to have a chance of landing safely
oh. we. we made it. we're still alive. both of us. wow. yeah, no, it's fine i just... wow. i did NOT see that one coming! did you... no no no this is great!!!!!!!!! it's perfect, actually. couldn't be better. well, what now, huh?! i don't suppose you made any plans for what to do afterwards if you... no? no, of course not. well, that's fine. everything's fine. isn't this great? aren't you happy? i'm SO happy. there's no one alive happier than i am! because i'm still alive. yep. that's right! still here. still right here. hey, isn't that funny? after all that, it just... worked out in the end. almost as if nothing ever happened at all! isn't that just crazy? doesn't it make you feel crazy? i don't even know what to do with myself now. i don't know what to do. i don't know what to do. i don't
