#ask week

[haridraws]

Ok I got way more questions than I expected in various places so this is probably the last set, but I thought I’d share a few answers about my drawing process!

Here’s a bit about how I use references and plan comic backgrounds. I usually put this stuff on patreon for $1 - here’s some older stuff from there to give an idea ☀️

[toribookworm22]

hello! random question, feel free to ignore. tell me a random fact that may or may not be plot relevant about one of your ocs but you love about them.

Hey, love! Thanks for the ask!

Jade has schizophrenia.

It's both plot relevant and also completely disconnected from the plot and story as a whole. Never anywhere in the entire series do I diagnose them with schizophrenia.

I didn't write her with the intent of her ever having schizophrenia, but the way their character behaves and develops aligns with a lot of schizophrenic traits and symptoms and in a modern world setting, she would most likely be diagnosed and treated for the disorder.

So yeah.

[fanficwritersinterviewed]

Hello! A question for you and all your writers. Who would you say is the author (fanfiction or published) who most influences your writing, and how do you mindfully borrow and learn from them? (i.e. What part of their writing, specifically, do you try to emulate in your own, and is this a conscious or sub-conscious process?)

Hi anon! Great question!

I asked a few writers ( @willowcrowned, @shey-elizabeth, @tessiete) and also took a crack at answering myself. The post got a little long, but I hope you’ll find it as interesting as I did to see how different writers engage with what they are reading.... DarkIsRising:​

I read a LOT of fanfic in a ton of different fandoms that I’d never write in, constantly looking for the very best writing that fandom has to offer. I’m always asking for recs from people, trying to find the writing that makes my brain purr. From there it’s a process of getting lost in a new writer’s way of developing story and character, falling in love with how they did what they did, and then rereading to see if I can find out why those words in that order made my mind melt or my heart speed up or my skin get that sickly dread feeling that comes when the angst is high and hitting just right. What happens next depends on my mood.

Sometimes I’ll tuck away what I think I learned into my back pocket as something that’s interesting but not really what I’m particularly interested in writing. Sometimes I take the deconstructed idea of what I learned and write something where I try out the trick for myself. I wouldn’t say it’s copying so much as “hm, I think this is how it worked, is this how it’s done?” and then apply it to my own writing.

“Werdla” came after several re-readings of an Old Guard kink series by TheIneffableLily, who used this mood of safe and consensually sex where the kink served to make a charged emotional atmosphere, where the really truly dangerous thing wasn’t the pain play or what have you, it was the vulnerability that might be revealed through the sex. So I tried it out for myself in relation to Din and Luke, playing with the idea of Din’s helmet and Luke’s blindfold—which comes up a lot in dinluke fanfic, so much it’s probably its own trope at this point— Din’s vulnerability in removing his helmet to have sex with Luke and the trust that Luke is a good enough man that he won’t look. Later I found out that furiosophie was inspired by the mood I created in “Werdla” and used what she’d felt in it to create elements for her fic “Go and Get Your Hands Dirty.” So that’s kind of a beautiful thing in fanfic, when it’s done right and everyone is being respectful (and not stealing literal words, etc) how much of this work can be a call and response. Someone writes something that stirs a feeling in me, that feeling influences what I write next, only for someone to read my thing and get inspired to create their own thing from it. Sometimes it creates those “works inspired by” links in ao3, but sometimes it’s more subtle than that, and that subtly is where I absolutely live, die, and live again.

Tessiete: 100% ruth baulding. Ruth's stories got me back into SW, and prompted me to enter the fandom (first, intending to seek her out, but then I started writing). She just has this great balance, imo, of slightly overwrought prose that to me felt very original Star Wars-y. Kind of an elevated Lucas! And I love how she used language to convey character subtext (I've talked about this before, but she rarely uses the word "love" bc Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan don't know how to use it for each other, either. They always talk around it, and so the writing skirts it with metaphor.

Then, I'd say treescapes, and outpastthemoat. Moat has this ability to walk a fine line between tragedy and hope, and I find that particularly wrenching for Obi-Wan stories in particular. Often the most gutting parts of her fic are the smallest miscommunications. I strive for that subtlety. And with trees, her imagery just is SO evocative and poetic. She packs so much feeling into a visual moment. I literally change how I think about storytelling every time I read her work. I think about the details. The wrist bones, the lashes over the slate blue eyes, the little turns of phrase that reveal SO much. Just....incredible!!! I do consciously think of them - though it's not as clear cut as trying to copy them. Sometimes, it's just osmosis, or skill acquisition. But I think of them A LOT. Shey: I don't have one particular fic author I take writing inspiration from. Early on, I took a lot of characterization inspiration from the most popular writers in the Steter/Stetopher fandom because their take on the characters is what made me fall in love with the pairing. For example, Bunnywest writes Peter in a way I adore, and that has influenced the way I write him. Twothumbsandnostakeincanon's snarky, sarcastic Stiles is my favorite Stiles. So they, along with many others, have definitely influenced the way I think about the characters. I've spent way more time reading fic than I ever did watching the show, so the way I picture the characters is an amalgamation of the way I've seen them written over time. As far as "mindfully borrowing," that phrasing makes me uncomfortable. I do my best to keep out of other authors fics when I'm writing. (In fact, I don't read in a fandom that I'm actively writing in for this exact reason!) When you're all writing about the same characters it feels way too easy for "borrowing" to turn into copying.I also wouldn’t say I try to emulate any particular writer, either. I read a lot (32 published books so far this year, 150+ last year. Thank god for Kindle Unlimited!) and I really believe that I've learned a ton about writing because of it. I'd say the most useful thing I do to learn from other authors is read and think about the things I'm reading. What did I like? What did I dislike? What worked in the story and what didn't? WHY? On the other hand, there are plenty of authors who's work I absolutely adore and I aspire to write with the kind of skill they do. Definitely the two mentioned above, as well as Twisted_Mind, cywscross, kouriarashi, and ThisDiscontentedWinter (if you want more names, check out my AO3 bookmarks!). On the published author side, I'm obsessed with the writing of Onley James, Cara Dee, Alessandra Hazard, Hailey Turner, Neve Wilder, and Nora Phoenix to name a few. Willowcrowned: Ohhhh that’s such a good question. It’s hard to say what author most influences my writing because I’ve been writing for long enough that my go-to style has become a melange of bits stolen from some formative works. Since I do like to experiment consciously with prose style, if I’m ever trying to nail something specific, I’ll find an author that writes that way and use it as a reference. For “Smoke Raised with the Fume of Sigh,” which I wanted to have rich, luxe prose, I turned to Dark’s (hi Dark!) “The Things That Are Deadly.” For anything where I want economy of language without sacrificing setting, I’ll go back to Tolkien (my first and forever love). *

Ask week

[fandomsandwriting1]

Ask Day/Week characters.

If you got here via a link in my "about page" that means that I'm doing either an "Ask day" or an "Ask Week", which will be specified in the link.

These are the characters you can ask anything (and I do mean anything) about, even if you haven't ever interacted with me before.

Jade, Lavender, Deaj, Callie, Jacklyn, Harper, Fredrick, Darlene, Whitney, Mechanica, Deborah, Hawkins, Masaki, Thames, Harley, Skipper, Lucy, Nyx/Hesper Xenos, Kathy Bluestone, Hemera, Achilles, Nox, Raven, Crow, Theo Whitecross, Gheche, Dayo, Kayode, Cheghe, Vixen, Harlem, Lucifer, Glendale, Romeo, Jacklynn, Suki, Valentine, and Mabs.

[babybuckleys]

ari's roadtrip. 🚗

hop on in for the imaginary roadtrip where we go across the us to states i want to go to/have been to as we celebrate my 2 years on Tumblr.

this week i was supposed to be going on my annual mountain trip but it got cancelled so here's me having a imaginary one.

California. 🌉: cast your mutuals as.

Nevada. 🍾: spencer reid/mgg was born in nevada so let's do send me your celeb crush and I'll rate them.

Arizona. ☀: random questions. this or that, fmk.

Utah. 🗻: give me a letter and I'll recommend a show or movie.

Colorado🏞: I'll give you a appreciation paragraph.

Philadelphia 🌃 : vibes you give off.

Washington 🗻: moodboards (if we've never talked send a description)

Massachusetts 🚤: place I'll travel with you to.

Oregon🌲 : ships with the 100, criminal minds or obx cast/and or characters. (just send me a description of yourself and what show.

New York 🗽: I'll tell you the song im currently listening to.

tagging some frens so this doesn't flop. @thelocalpogue @anonymous0writer @ilovejjmaybank @heartbreak-hemmings @jjmaybanky @notphilosopherstudentblog @pit-zuh @everydayimfangirling

[pokekidsandfriends]

[thefairefolk-rp]

Ask Carmela Troene, the Halfling Lady

Ask Freya Briar, the Councilman’s Daughter

Ask Harland Briar, the Upright Duke

Ask Kasha Greywolf, the Wolf Chief

Ask Lisbet Verbena, the Blood Priestess

Ask Puck, the Court Jester

[the-last-chozo]

Ask Week begins... NOW.