A very important video from Justin Scott on Instagram about the situation in the US and how we can help. This is a crisis of image, of narrative, and like he says, the camera is vulnerable.
Humanize faster than they can militarize.

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ojovivo

Love Begins
Game of Thrones Daily
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Show & Tell
todays bird

JBB: An Artblog!
Cosmic Funnies
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
YOU ARE THE REASON
Jules of Nature

titsay

★
RMH
occasionally subtle
Three Goblin Art
AnasAbdin

Product Placement
will byers stan first human second
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@zenithofstories
A very important video from Justin Scott on Instagram about the situation in the US and how we can help. This is a crisis of image, of narrative, and like he says, the camera is vulnerable.
Humanize faster than they can militarize.
dear everyone on tumblr who needs to host images elsewhere (e.g. to embed on ao3 etc), please give squidge a go!! it's free, it's nonprofit and it's geared towards fandom so nsfw images won't get deleted!! and please stop using imgur if you can because they blocked the uk rather than acquiesce to the fucking internet safety laws, which I can't really hold against em but it does mean all imgur pictures just show up as big purple boxes now
Squidge! Holy blast from the past, Batman. The last time I remember even looking at that site was... eons ago.
( Oh, what was I reading? The Quartz Key. Yes, it's m/m. )
Not only is Squidge still around, it's expanded and grown! It is still run by the same guy, though now it's a nonprofit with a board and everything, and while they maintain all the old squidge sites as static archives, they have a new multifandom archive using the AO3 code at squidgeworld.org. They also host podfics and fanart.
For those younguns in the crowd, back in the day erotic fanworks--especially slash--was not welcome very many places. Walter was willing to host it, and has been a haven for NSFW fanworks since 1994. The various archives and so on hosted at squidge.org were never very large, compared to lots of other archives, but they were a necessary part of the fannish ecosystem, and I'm really glad that there is now a structure in place to keep the whole system running beyond just "Walter's a great guy willing to donate lots of time and money." Walter is a great guy! but like. it's good to have other people to help out and keep things going in the long run.
"why do you know that" i am curious about the world around me
if you are a parent, or may become one, or you are otherwise likely to arrive in the situation of caring for a child while they eat, promise me this: if a child doesn't like a certain food or food group, you will ask them WHY. and specifically, you will pay attention to either confirming or ruling out "it makes my mouth itch" or "it makes my stomach hurt," both of which are medically important info that children may not provide unprompted. which i know because this PSA has been brought to you by "i spent my entire childhood and much of my early teens eating peas and lentils while wondering why everyone else liked the Violently Itchy Mouth Sensation so much, like were they a bunch of legume masochists or something, before i finally realized that Violently Itchy Mouth Sensation was in fact a sinister demon appearing only to me, and her true demonic name was: Legume Allergy"
Do not let your child suffer from spicy bananas!
the best fanfiction you've ever read was written by a woman in her 40s before she made dinner for her kids. it was written by a teenager after school when they should've been studying for a history test. and a barista came up with the idea while they cleaned the espresso machine and busser fact-checked it on their break and the post-doc edited between writing grant proposals and the nurse apologized for typos in the notes after a long shift and behind every drabble and one-shot and multi-chapter fic there is a person with a wonderful and interesting and chaotic life and it is such a privilege that we get to be a part of it because they decided to do this thing we all share, for fun.
Repost, now do your honors.
Trans people just existing is no more sexual than when cis people just exist.
there will never be anything as funny as the mutual disbelief between long form and short form fic writers about each other's style.
short form writers look at people writing 100k+ fics as though this is some sort of talent given as part of a fae bargain, that the commitment required shows some sort of ungodly mental fortitude.
meanwhile long form writers look at people writing 1000 word one shots like god I would cut off my left nipple to be able to say anything concisely. i would love to play with multiple ideas. free me from the shackles of this child I have birthed. i love them but I now must take them to t-ball and doctor's appointments and they're going to destroy everything I own.
One of the secrets of writing is every short story is a section of a longer story we never see, and every long story is a series of short stories which give each other context and coherency. Practicing either of them will help you improve at the other.
Knowing this does not make it any easier to learn one when you're used to doing the other.
Can everyone who makes video content do a Deaf bitch a favor? Watch your shit with the captions on and the sound off, and then do another round of editing to fix things including but not limited to:
Captions cover the spot on the screen you put the information I need
The dialogue is captioned but not the song you have playing that the dialogue is responding to
You only captioned the person on the screen, not the person off screen who is also talking
No captioning of critical sound effects (alarms, bells, dogs barking, etc)
Speakers are not labelled at moments where it is not clear on the screen who is talking.
Captions cover the spot on the screen that you put the information I need!
Other d/Deaf people welcome to add.
This post brought to you by the fifth video tutorial I could not follow because the bad, auto-generated captions covered what I was trying to watch today.
A Court of Blades and Brushes - Chapters 24-25
So i can't really be bothered to do the full post like i normally do, but yay new chapters! two of them!
feyre writes a letter to mikkel. that's all you need to know.
yes it took me six months. we don't talk about that.
Changelog:
Goddamn this is why you do things properly. I forgot the fucking link to the fic. Ffs
Gonna have to wait til I get home
okay links
chapter 24
chapter 25
this fic is archive restricted to you'll need to be logged in to see it lol. another thing i forgot to say in the original post
there is an IMAGE in my HEAD and i cannot DRAW IT. hatred and rage.
there is a CONVERSATION in my HEAD and I cannot WRITE IT. rage and hatred
there is a VIDEO in my HEAD And i cannot ANIMATE IT. hage and ratred
There is a GAME in my HEAD and I cannot CODE IT. Ratred and hage.
there is a SONG in my HEAD and I cannot COMPOSE IT. haged and rate.
there is a MOVIE in my HEAD and i cannot FILM IT. raged and hate
there is a CRAFT in my HEAD and i cannot BUILD IT. snage and snatred
there is a CRAFT in
my HEAD and i cannot BUILD
IT. snage and snatred
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
A Court of Blades and Brushes - Chapters 24-25
So i can't really be bothered to do the full post like i normally do, but yay new chapters! two of them!
feyre writes a letter to mikkel. that's all you need to know.
yes it took me six months. we don't talk about that.
Changelog:
Goddamn this is why you do things properly. I forgot the fucking link to the fic. Ffs
Gonna have to wait til I get home
so i know a lot of you followed me for the maasterlist of bonus chapters, and i gotta apologise for not doing much else in this fandom. i tend to do a lot of my fandom stuff on pinterest, and not a huge amount here.
however, i do write fanfiction. and i haven't actually told you guys about that. i was waiting to get past a planning stage, because i thought that would take a while, but it turns out it did not. so ahh, on a random tuesday (🤣), i'm writing an acotar fanfic. it's called A Court of Blades and Brushes, and it's an exploration of how the story would have been different if feyre had married tamlin at the start of mist and fury. if rhys and mor and cass and az hadn't been around to save feyre, would she have saved herself.
(it's on ao3, and currently restricted to users cause of all the ai bullshit and people making apps and who knows what else. if we get some actual rules for the internet we call home i'll unlock them again, but unfortunately that's not realistic right now)
it's gonna be long, and i'm a slow writer, but i have so many ideas and i am really enjoying it. this is a passion project and one i am going to be writing for years to come. so if you're interested, come check it out!
i'm planing to start announcing new chapters here, along with a changelog, because i am posting this fic as i write it and sometimes notice mistakes, or add details, or change something slightly from the chapters i've already posted. so i think i'm going to start doing that *shrugs*
if you want actual notifications, the best method is probably subscribing on ao3, to either the work itself, the series or just to me if you want emails about all my stuff (i've also written fics for The Medoran Chronicles by Lynette Noni, and some stuff for Harry Potter but i'm on hiatus from that atm. i'll get back to it someday. i promise. and a few other smaller fandoms. and i have more ideas. of course)
A Court of Blades and Brushes - Chapters 24-25
So i can't really be bothered to do the full post like i normally do, but yay new chapters! two of them!
feyre writes a letter to mikkel. that's all you need to know.
yes it took me six months. we don't talk about that.
Changelog:
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.
Hey! I haven't seen this question on the FAQs, but if you have answered it before and I haven't seen it, I apologize. I wanted to ask about your writing process: do you plan your stories before you publish them in great detail or just in general? Do you outline? I'm curious about how other people go about this.
Thank you for your time!
I consider it a viable story idea once I have: - the main themes and setting (doesn't have to be a detailed setting, surface details related to the premise and plot are enough)
- the narrator's personality and voice
- How the climax will go and what the ending will be (can be rough; I don't need to know specifically what characters will be there are the end, just what the overall mood and conclusion will be)
Usually, by the time I start writing (because writing is a very slow process), I have more than this, but these are the elements that I consider critical before starting. I do not need to know every side character and subplot. I do not need to know every detail of worldbuilding, so long as I know enough to carry the central themes so I won't write myself into a plot hole. I started TTOU knowing who Aspen was and with a vague idea of exploring a bit about Arboreans, the Public Universal Friends, and a prison colony. I knew the basic layout of the ship and the chronostasis system, and I knew in *very broad terms* what they would find at Hylara (I won't spoil it here in case people haven't read it, but I had like, one sentence of knowledge about the place). I knew essentially what the first and last chapters were going to be. Everything else, including building the non-Aspen characters, came after I started writing.
I don't outline a lot at the start of a story, but once I pass about the two thirds mark I make a list at the end of my openoffice document of what I still need to cover and the order the events will probably go in. This is to help stick the landing without missing anything important; sticking the landing is massively important. Because I start writing without a lot of detail, I can't outline at that level of detail until fairly late in the process. Until then I just keep in mind the plot beats I need to hit for whatever I'm writing, which is an ever-changing list through the first two thirds.
Although I start with a pretty vague idea, I do have one rule, which is to *never introduce something that I do not have an acceptable solution for*. This doesn't have to be the solution I go with (sometimes a better one develops later), but it usually is. Never ask a question until you have an answer for it; don't bank on the ability to come up with an answer later. Don't be afraid to switch to a better answer, if you do come up with one, but you should never put yourself in a position where you have to do that. Don't introduce a corpse until you know how they died. Don't introduce a character personality or position change until you know what prompted the change. Don't introduce a conspiracy until you have a passable motivation for it and believable actions for the conspirators. When Aspen wakes up alone, I have a reason why the crew is dead. When Aspen can't get through a locked ring, I have a reason why the ring is locked. So while I do consider a story viable fairly early in the process, I do start having to answer more detailed questions very early on.
#this might be some of the best writing advice I've ever seen out there#or at least a system that i think matches up with my preferences#bc both outlining and discovery writing get me stuck but at different points and these tips seem like a solid middle ground#like discovery writing with guard rails
If it's helpful to you, I find it more useful to frame outlining vs. discovery writing not as strategies but as expressions of different skillsets, that I call inductive vs deductive plotting, and that I explain here.
If you don't want LinkTree putting your imagery into AI... get out now
Just canceled my account (not that I used it that much). But I won’t permit this. Via @unaminh.bsky.social:
IMPORTANT: For any artists/writers/etc etc, using Linktree to point people to their work, from 5 July, they'll be feeding all imagery you use on your landing page into DALL-E by OpenAI.
…Just so you know.