Welcome to my disorganized corner of Tumblr. Enjoy your stayāļø
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ABOUT ME
I'm Spicy Chestnut, or Spicy for short. She/her/they/them. I write, play video games, and finally--after a decade--have the craft closet of my dreams. I also have an obscene number of projects going at any given time.
...I'm working on this.
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LINKS
Website
Patreon / Ko-Fi
Archive of Our Own (A03)
Story Archive
Twitch / Blue Sky / YouTube
Ask me a question!
Submit something!
Fandom/fanart sideblog @fullcry
Update-only sideblog @spicychestnut-updates
Tumblr Fanfic Master List
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FAQ's
What do you write?
Mostly fanfiction (right now anyway). I write fantasy, romance, slice-of-life, and drama. I do have a small poetry collection sitting in a dusty corner of my hard drive, as well as a few editorial articles and essays (though I prefer writing fiction).
Now that I've published over half a million words worth of FanFiction (still hard to believe!), I've worked up the courage to start my first original novel-length work! It's very slow going, but it's going!
Currently I have published fics in the Zelda, One Piece, Trigun, and Naruto fandoms. Content-wise I write across the spectrum from family fluff to spicy erotica, and tag and rate accordingly.
Where can I find all your fics?
I update stories on Patreon, AO3, and my story archive (an independent blog I use as a backup of my fics). I no longer post chapters to Tumblr or FanFiction.net, though I do post on Tumblr and Blue Sky to notify about updates. If you want to see my latest, AO3 and my Patreon page are the places to go.
SpicyChestnut @ AO3
SpicyChestnut @ Patreon
Spicy Chestnut's Story Archive
Tumblr Fanfic Master List
Do you take requests or commissions?
Not currently. I have in the past--both submitted prompts through Tumblr and paid commissions, but I'm just too busy these days. If that changes, though, you'll probably know because I'll post about it!
Can I translate one of your fics?
Yes you absolutely may! I only ask that you:
Credit me as the original author
Link the translated fic back to the original
Let me know so I can post your translation! Because that's amazing and I want fans of the fic to know about your hard work!
Can I make art of/inspired by one of your fics?
I would be absolutely delighted! As with translations, I just ask that you credit the fic which inspired you, and send a link of your published art my way so I can share with my followers!
Where else can I find you on the web?
I'm on Patreon, Archive of Our Own, Blue Sky, and have an independent blog I use as an archive for my stories. I also have a Ko-Fi page for people who want to leave a one-time donation rather than subscribe monthly on Patreon to support.
Neato! You're on Twitch?
Yes! I stream games and writing from time to time, and I sometimes do a holiday charity stream. Be sure to follow me on Twitch if you like that sort of thing!
Do you respond to asks and/or reviews?
I try when I can, and when they show up. I'm a frequent victim of the magic Tumblr disappearing ask box. I don't have as nearly as much free time as I used to, and often can't set aside enough time to leave thoughtful replies to comments. But do know that I read each and every ask, comment, or review that comes my way (sometimes multiple times). I always appreciate them!
imo the best way to interpret those āreal people donāt do xā writing advice posts is āmost people donāt do x, so if a character does x, it should be a distinguishing trait.ā human behavior is infinitely varied; for any x, there are real people who do x. we canāt make absolute statements. we can, however, make probabilistic ones.
for example, most people donāt address each other by name in the middle of a casual conversation. if all your characters do that, your dialogue will sound stilted and unnatural. but if just one character does that, then it tells us something about that character.
pet peeve is when you look up fashion references from a specific era and you keep getting modern day '[era]-inspired' fashion like NO i want authenticity damn it. i can see your 2020 photo quality and your 2020 hair and your 2020 makeup. youre not fooling me.
hello i'm a historical fashion researcher and i have a lot of experience looking up things! this is a very widely experienced irritation and you're definitely not alone in this, but i am here to share everything i know!
so, ways to get around this:
turn off AI results. they're literally nonsense to us
don't use pinterest because the sources/provenance is often hard to trace
a standard internet search can be okay, but museum collections are the top tier (list of collections below this list)
instead of broad terms like victorian, regency, tudor, renaissance etc. try using the decade you're looking for. if you're not sure of what decade it is but have a vague image in your head, look on the fashion history timeline and just jump around until you find it. but even changing to e.g. 19th century will give better results than victorian
including terms like womenswear/menswear, daywear, formal wear, evening wear, court dress should increase the value of your search too
including "fashion plates" in your search can give you a nice impression of the intended silhouettes of the era. some of these might be a little stylised but will show you what was considered in vogue
for pre-fashion plate eras or things like makeup and styling, you'll have to look at portraiture or manuscripts. these are harder to actually find what you're looking for, but searching museum collections and limiting results to specific date ranges will be your friend
when looking at art, do bear in mind sometimes artists would paint fabric extra flow-y to show off their skills. it might not have been exactly like that in terms of fabric weight or drape. so, a pinch of salt required!
if you find something on image search where the provenance is dubious, reverse image search and you might find a source! i've been able to trace random pinterest images to real sources, but this does take a lot of time and effort and is often not worth the headache
some online resources and museum collections:
fashion history timeline is an invaluable resource if you're trying to get a feel for everything and should be your first port of call. it'll also link to good examples
the met has a vast number of extant examples of clothing, as well as fashion plates
costume institute fashion plates is a subcollection of the met for fashion plates (1800s-1922)
v&a also has many extant garments, fashion plates, and incredible articles on clothing and aesthetics. read the details of the objects because they'll often reveal a lot about the piece
lacma is good for C19th-20th pieces
nypl digital collection for photographs
national portrait gallery or similar for portraiture, or literally any museum in your country that has historical art
national museums scotland can be useful situationally but might be oddly specific
stout style history is a great collection for finding image references for fat people wearing historical clothes. survival bias of a lot of museum pieces tends towards smaller clothing that couldn't be repurposed, but this aims to counter that. it's not sortable, but is still a really nice resource
wikimedia commons is surprisingly handy! and the images, if you should need to link/repost them, are public domain
auction websites sound like a funny one to recommend. some won't have mannequins and some will. just look up historical garment auctions and you'll find some!
anyway, i hope this has been a good place to start for anyone interested! there are probably some i've missed because there are so many museums across the world and i don't know about all of them or can't remember them. but these are the ones i've used the most! (my specialisation/jobs i've had to research for have only really been in western fashion, so my resources reflect that)
I know this is a joke post but never forget that real humans do not have the otherworldly omnipotence and manipulability of the author and do mind-bogglingly stupid shit all the time.
One of the board members of my HOA during a meeting, while advocating for a pest control treatment by a local company to discourage a particularly problematic species of bird from roosting in the propertyās trees, once rejected the idea of another board member suggesting we buy the (entirely non-toxic, pre-mixed, ready-to-go) spray the company uses off amazon and do it ourselves for 1/10th the cost. And her response, I shit you not, was that it wasnāt feasible to do it ourselves because it would require ladders and sprayers. You know. The most mythical and rare of human constructions, ladders.
We paid $800 for something that could have cost us $80.
So genuinely. If you ever write yourself into a plot hole, have confidence that human stupidity is a vast and deep well to draw from.
Fuck that post going around saying "you can have coffee in your story without justifying it :) you don't need to explain everything :)" I want, no, I DEMAND a fully researched ethnobotanical paper on every single food item in your work, if you don't explain to me where did potatoes come from in your fantasy setting or don't explain how the industry of coffee works over interstellar distances with full detail you are doing things wrong and I personally hate you and I hate your stupid story, fuck you
Why are your stupid little wizards and knights eating potato stew in your dumb European middle ages fantasy world. Where did they get potatoes from. Where is the center of domestication of potatoes, do you have a fantasy Andean civilization? What are the social and economic consequences of having such a calorie rich crop in cold climates. I don't care about "themes" or "enemies to lovers with found family", I didn't ask about that. Where does your idiot space captain gets their shitty coffee from. Is it imported from Earth? Are there coffee growing worlds? Is it an alien species replacement with the same name? What are the social consequences of that? Don't try to change the subject, I'll stop pointing the gun when I want, I'm trying to have a conversation here,
reminder to worldbuilders: don't get caught up in things that aren't important to the story you're writing, like plot and characters! instead, try to focus on what readers actually care about: detailed plate tectonics
Why is the mountain range square. How did the mountain range form. Why is there one singular volcano in the center. Why does it act like a composite volcano but have magma that acts like itās from a shield. If itās hotspot based volcanic activity why is there only one volcano.
And then the misty mountains!!!! Why isnāt there a rain shadow!! And why is there a FOREST where the rain shadow should be!!!!!!!!
Wind blows clouds in from the sea, but mountains are so tall the clouds can't get past 'em, so you get deserts on the windward side of mountain ranges because clouds can't get there to water the land, or do so only very rarely.
May I recommend my new favorite tool: Mapgen4. You start with a random seed and then add mountains, valleys, shallow water, or oceans as you like. You can adjust the wind direction to make wind shadows off the mountains fall where you want. You can adjust overall raininess to make the rivers larger or smaller, or have more or fewer tributaries. It works best for small, isolated landmasses (think islands more than continents) but as thereās no scale bar and itās all slightly abstracted anyway you can do whatever you want with it. Iāve only just started playing with it but itās SO FUN.
I do think this could be useful for writers! ...Caveat, if you're going to use this for making a map for anything published (digital or paper, even if it's only in a fanfic archive or whatever), please, please credit the creator and their program as how you made that map! The more ways information like this gets out there, the more useful it'll be to other writers, roleplaying game DMs/GMs, creators, etc.
One of my favourites for mapping plates, biomes, etc is Tectonics.js. If you're familiar with how tectonics shape a planet, you can guess where the features go by toggling plates, crust thickness, etc. Between Mapgen4 and Tectonics.js, we've got some pretty sweet tools at our disposal.
European Geosciences Union Blog ā Beyond Tectonics: Building fictional worlds to better understand our own
Reshaping Reality's Worldbuilding Tips
Worldbuilding pasta's series, An Apple Pie from Scratch also check their resources page!
R/worldbuilding's Reading List. Also check out their collected resources link. This basic geology guide from 11 years ago is still nice.
Creating an Earth-Like Planet, and The Climate Cookbook (aka Geoff's Climate Cookbook) technically the climate cookbook is a part of Creating an Earth like Planet I think.
Related: Worldbuilding Workshop's "Working Out Climates Using Geoffās Climate Cookbook." Which goes through using the resource in order to map make. Also just the Worldbuilding Workshop in General.
Madeline James Writes's Worldbuilding Guide
Worldbuilding 101 (this links to the Biomes section but there's like...everything.)
Also I would recommend looking into Landscape Archaeology as well! That's because Landscape archeology is basically adding the social/cultural layer on top of all that geology and geography. Environments change when communities live in them, and communities likewise adapt to various environments.
This is a short free introduction to the concept: "Notes on Landscape Archaeology." To summarize, Landscape archaeology sort of like...studies the relation of people to places/spaces (that is, landscapes) in time.
Also this paper [An Archeology of Landscapes] breaks down/introduces the key concepts that I learned which is first that you can form the "construct paradigm" of a landscape from settlement ecology,
ritual landscapes, and ethnic landscapes.
And then the highlights of their summary of what constitutes defining a landscape:
Landscapes are not synonymous with natural environments. Landscapes
are synthetic (Jackson, 1984, p. 156), with cultural systems structuring and
organizing peoplesā interactions with their natural environments ...
Landscapes are worlds of cultural product ... Through their daily activities, beliefs, and values, communities transform
physical spaces into meaningful places. ...
Landscapes are the arena for all of a communityās activities. Thus landscapes not only are constructs of human populations but they also are the
milieu in which those populations survive and sustain themselves. A landscapeās domain involves patterning in both within-place and between-place
contexts ...
Landscapes are dynamic constructions, with each community and each
generation imposing its own cognitive map on an anthropogenic world of interconnected morphology, arrangement, and coherent meaning ...
Basically a "landscape" is made by a community living in an environment. Once you have a geological environment that makes sense, landscape archaeology is like... Basically how I feel confident knowing where trade routes would be on a map, where there are areas of continual high conflict, what kinds of agriculture exists where, etc. once the geological stuff is hammered out, it's like...I know how that would influence the local cultures and vice versa. At that point, it's easy to start marking the natural borders, settlements, trade/port cities, and even strategic fortresses. If you have properly put rivers on a map, then marking your port cities is effortless, basically.
Also:
This course syllabus for a Landscape Archaeology class is freely accessible. It includes an online resources page.
Place, Landscape, and Environment: Anthropological Archaeology in 2009
(Landscape Biographies is open access, as is Landscape Archaeology between Art and Science: From a Multi- to an Interdisciplinary Approach. But I wouldn't try to read every essay.)
If you are like me and find it helpful to have video reference for a process/activity in addition to a written guide, Artifexian is a YouTube channel that does a LOT of world building stuff and specifically he's in the process of creating a world following a lot of Worldbuilding Pasta's methodology!
When you're looking to replace said, think about why. You'll generally want to do this when you need the following:
when the tone of the line needs more context.
when you want to show emotion instead of telling it.
when your characterās body language, action, or expression can do the talking instead.
Take a look at the scene you're writing, is the character saying their line? Or are they yelling it? Screaming it? Are they enraged, or perhaps is their voice a broken whisper from grief?
That being said, you shouldn't always avoid using 'said.' It's easy to read in long sentences, and it keeps the focus on the dialogue rather than the rest of the scenes. That may be beneficial and a key component to parts of your story.
That feeling when you have an outline for a chapter, sit down to write it, and something entirely different comes out of your head. And it honestly rocks. Itās better, even.
Those moments make me question whether the outline was a waste of my time, or whether the outline forced me to think about the chapter enough that the seed of something greater was able to grow.
As a fiction writer, I donāt speak message. I speak story. Sure, my story means something, but if you want to know what it means, you have to ask the question in terms appropriate to storytelling. Terms such as message are appropriate to expository writing, didactic writing, and sermons ā different languages from fiction.
The notion that a story has a message assumes that it can be reduced to a few abstract words, neatly summarized in a school or college examination paper or a brisk critical review.
If that were true, why would writers go to the trouble of making up characters and relationships and plots and scenery and all that? Why not just deliver the message? Is the story a box to hide an idea in, a fancy dress to make a naked idea look pretty, a candy coating to make a bitter idea easier to swallow? (Open your mouth, dear, itās good for you.) Is fiction decorative wordage concealing a rational thought, a message, which is its ultimate reality and reason for being?
[...]
What you get out of that story, in the way of understanding or perception or emotion, is partly up to me ā because, of course, the story is passionately meaningful to me (even if I only find out what itās about after Iāve told it). But itās also up to you, the reader. Reading is a passionate act. If you read a story not just with your head, but also with your body and feelings and soul, the way you dance or listen to music, then it becomes your story. And it can mean infinitely more than any message. It can offer beauty. It can take you through pain. It can signify freedom. And it can mean something different every time you reread it.
āUrsula K. LeGuin, "A Message About Messages"
the writers REALLY liked my artist resource post, so I thought i'd give y'all my dragon hoard of things i use for writing
Reverse Dictionary, you type in the meaning of a word, and it gives you a bunch of words that mean that. (MY MOST IMPORTANT OFFERING IN THIS LIST)
Slang Dictionary, what it says on the tin.
Anglish Translator, Anglish is if English evolved without borrowing from other languages and it really itches my brain (Anglish is if english grown without borrowing from other languages and it truly itches my brain)
Incorrect Quotes Generator, Put character names in, and incorrect quotes come out. Really fun way to goof around with your characters' dynamics.
Handspeak, an ASL dictionary
Library of Babel, Odds are, the finished version of your wip is in here somewhere
The best fantasy map maker i have ever used
Glitch Text Generator is one I use A Lot, does tĢ·ĢĢĢĢĢĢĶĶĶĶĶĶĶĢØĢ¤Ģ¢ĶĢ¤Ģ¤ĢĢŗĢÆhĢµĢĢĶĢĢĢĢĶĢĶĶĢĢĢĢĢ¼ĢĶĶĶĢ§ĶiĢµĢĶĢĢĢĢĢĢĢĢĢĢæĢ»sĢ“ĶĶĢĢĢĶĶĢ®Ķ to your text
Totally not bootleg microsoft office
Emotions Thesaurus a guide for writing emotions and their associated body language
Mythcreants, has a whole bunch of stuff you can read to learn more about the technical aspects of writing
A decent article talking about what to think about when creating a language
Trope Talks, particularly good for beginner and younger writers or people who have a hard time reading. Honestly this whole channel is a fantastic format to get information into my adhd rattled brain.
FOR MY AO3 BESTIES! Postimages will host your image forever so you can embed it into your work
Ambient Chaos, sometimes the only thing in the world that can kick your brain into writing mode is nuclear sirens and lofi beats
Radioooooo, play a station from any place and year. Particularly helpful for period pieces.
He doesnāt know why he is here, or howābut he knows he must protect her. She doesnāt know how he is here, or whyābut she knows she canāt fight fight alone. Destiny is a funny thing; even when you know twists and turns lie ahead, it still finds a way to leave you unprepared for what it has in store.
Link/Zelda | Rating: M | Chapters: 31
Available on: Patreon | AO3
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Chapter 22: Link X
I spent the night floating just above the Hylia River, absently watching the tips of turbulent crests glitter in the moonlight. I had known for some time the nature of my feelings towards her; but the differences between usāthe knowledge that I could never touch or caress or kissāit had served as a boundary, possibly the only boundary, damming the tide of my heartās desires. If I could not touch her, there was no reason to dwell upon these feelings. If I could not caress or kiss herāif I could not please her, there was no need to entertain thoughts of confessing my love.
Butā¦ if she reciprocated? If she opened herself to my possessionāto joining with me in the most intimate way a spirit could interact with another living beingā¦?
If she wanted the impossible, just as I didāwhat reasons were left to hold back?
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-> Read the rest of Chapter 22 (1.9k words) on Patreon - early access available to $3+ patrons!
-> Read for free on AO3 on September 2nd, 2025 (Please note: A03 fics are locked to registered users only. Must be logged in to view.)
-> Website w/links and info: www.spicychestnut.com
-> Follow @spicychestnut-updates for new chapter updates!
A few weeks ago my friend @deiliamedlini contacted me asking if it would be okay if she commissioned an art piece for my fic "A Love Transcendent". I was stupidly flattered of course, and immediately said yes, of course, oh my God.
And in chatting with her, it got me thinking. One of my goals this year has been to make progress on long-standing works in progress. Hearing her enthusiasm (and the enthusiasm of the people she rec'd my fic to who left lovely comments on AO3), made me want to put this fic on the docket.
I've had the ending complete for a number of years, along with a lot of Zelda's POV chapters, I just didn't have some of the middle stuff finished. So... I'm making an attempt. Starting to work on those missing middle chapters.
I don't know how long this will take me. My free time is basically nonexistent right now during the fall holiday rush at work. But I'll do my best to post at least a chapter a month as I go through my final revisions. Hope you all enjoy!
Check out the art
Read the fic: Patreon | AO3
Go say hi to @deiliamedlini (who is also a talented author + artist!)
