#hopefully people like them though i've been developing this for several years

[gemapples]

oc concept i've made called happy fever

#im. really nervous posting this lol i dont like.sharing my ocs #hopefully people like them though i've been developing this for several years #happy fever #typhxs #roseola #asbestosis #varicella #oc #macdraws #knife cw #stabbing tw

[gffa]

Hi :)

I'm a pretty new SW fan, not because I didn't like the movies/hadn't seen them but because I grew up thinking it was extremely nerdy and would often feel awkward trying to bring up anything related to SW.

Fortunately I've finally reached and met awesome people who love SW just like I did but I feel like I lost A LOT of important stuff and there's so much content to the saga that it's extremely overwhelming for me to even think about diving into the whole SW universe and catch up.

I've been following you for a bit and your posts are just extremely interesting to me but again, sometimes I'm a little confused about certain things and so I wanted to ask you if you had any recommendations about where to start catching up (besides the movies which I will be binge watching soon hehe)

Hi! Welcome to Star Wars fandom, I hope you're having a good time! And around here we embrace being as nerdy as possible--I mean, fandom is such a mainstream thing these days, but I still like to embrace being a nerd about things because it leads to a lot more happiness, to just be silly and having a good time with the thing that tickles our brains.

But, yes, it is pretty overwhelming when you're first arriving, I still remember when I first came back to SW several years ago, having really only watched the movies as a kid, and there was All This Stuff and it seemed impossible to ever reach the deep end of the pool, and that was before the last seven years of books, games, movies, comics, etc. came out! I will hopefully set your mind at ease with this, though: The vast, vast majority of content that Star Wars puts out isn't anything I would consider "essential". It's wonderful, fantastic stuff! But a lot of us have just been around so long that we're combing through the finer details of supplementary material, rather than those being absolute Must-Read/Watch To Get A Feel For Star Wars.

My recommendations for How To Get A Feel For Star Wars is basically, start with the animated series and the live action series, they're the second layer of foundation in the Star Wars building, all the comics and novels and such will be built on them, and in this order: - The movies, this is the foundation on which everything else will be built. - The Clone Wars, season 1-6 are part of George Lucas' story and they're pretty essential (at least in this corner of SW fandom) to understanding wtf anyone is talking about or even watching many of the live action series. (Season 7 is fine and should be watched! It's just not part of Lucas' Star Wars.) - Star Wars: Rebels, starts off light-hearted but really is one of the best developed shows and does a lot of connective work between the prequels and the original trilogy. - The Mandalorian, set 9 years after Return of the Jedi, this show just massively blew up and while each season is slightly less well-done than the previous one (imo), it's well worth watching for wtf fandom is talking about half of the time. (The Book of Boba Fett is somewhat optional in this corner of fandom, but imo worth the watch. Generally, it should go Mando s1-2 --> TBOBF --> Mando s3.) - Obi-Wan Kenobi, because this corner of fandom lost our goddamned minds about it and still haven't gotten them back. - Andor, which is a really great show and, as long as you've watched Rogue One first, you'll follow along just fine. Does some solid connecting the dots between the prequels and the originals, but not as much as Rebels did. - Jedi: Fallen Order, you can look up a "movie" version on YouTube for the story of this game, which is a really good plot, has some great new characters, has some genuinely effective cameos, and will be referenced fairly often in other materials/in fandom.

If you're not feeling overwhelmed by All The Star Wars You've Consumed, I would personally suggest going for the comics next, over any of the novels. The novels are great! But the vast majority of them are self-contained and meant to be supplementary material even more than the comics, which get to tell bigger, more connected stories. I always suggest starting with: - Star Wars 2015 by Jason Aaron + Darth Vader 2015 by Kieron Gillen, both of which are really, solidly fantastic stories about the timeframe just after A New Hope, like there are so many absolutely banger lines that came out of these comics. I won't spoil them, just know that I think these were legitimately good comics, not just legitimately good Star Wars comics. (The first six issues of each series are meant to be read concurrently, but after that, you can just pick one and read in that specific title.) - Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith 2017 by Charles Soule, which is set in the immediate aftermath of Revenge of the Sith. If Gillen's Vader keeps the mystique of the originals Unknowable Darth Vader, then Soule's Vader is more about the absolute BATSHIT DRAMA that is blending Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. This series is BANANAPANTS in the absolute best way. - Obi-Wan & Anakin 2015 by Charles Soule, which is a five-issue mini-series set between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones and is both stunningly beautiful art and a solidly good plot that survives fairly serious analysis of. It's got some great worldbuilding details, but even more I like it for the look at why a young Anakin chooses to stay with the Jedi Order.

The one book I will recommend--for a list aimed at getting you caught up on what fandom is referencing--is the Revenge of the Sith novelization by Matthew Stover, that book is quoted constantly, and I'm not sure any other SW book has ever been as good as it is.

I feel like this is the best set of reading to get you familiarized with the source material that tends to come up the most! There's lots more that's really good, but once you get through the above, you can let me know what era or characters you're most interested in or if you have a specific question about something and want to see where it comes from!

But there's one thing to address and you're kinda going to have to figure out how to approach it on your own. 😂 There is a ton of stuff in SW fandom that's ostensibly from a book or a comic, but the version in fandom often comes from those who never actually read the books/haven't read them in a long time or are just picking them up from other fic and meta.

For example, the AgriCorps or Melida/Daan get referenced in fic and in posts all the time, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend reading the Jedi Apprentice series (I mean, I'm not your mom, feel free if you want to!) and often times how they're used in fic is not how they were used in the source material. Or the clones speaking Mando'a comes from the Legends books by Karen Traviss and she is a whole big can of ugly worms (both what she wrote and her IRL politics), as well as much of what she wrote was overwritten/discarded when The Clone Wars came out, but fandom likes the idea and so they put that into their fics (as they should, if they like it!). The idea of Mace using the lightsaber form of Vaapad is from Legends sources (the best source probably being the Shatterpoint novel by Matthew Stover, I'd guess?), same for his ability to see "shatterpoints" in the Force, which aren't part of Lucas' continuity or Disney's continuity, but fandom enjoys using them to flesh out Mace's character. This will get you started and, if you're looking for something more specific, feel free to ask, I enjoy these kinds of question--and don't feel you have to stick with any of the above if they're not fun for you. This is meant to be enjoyable, it's meant to have a good time, there's no wrong way to consume Star Wars media! <3

#lumi.txt #star wars #novel recs #(eh that's my tag for this kind of thing)

[thebibliosphere]

Hey, friendly question that you don't even need to answer if you don't have the spoons:

I have APD (Auditory Processing Disorder for those who are unaware, though I assume if someone follows you, they know what that is lol), and I've been considering over the last few years how exactly to quantify it. It is in large part due to my neurodivergencies, but I think it's slightly worsened by the fact that my ears just... make a lot of wax. For these reasons, I often need subtitles, I can become totally lost in certain conversations, when there's a lot of noise, or when I'm speaking to someone who puts different emphasis on words than I expect, or uses a word I am not expecting altogether. Not being able to see someone's lips also makes all of this more difficult.

I also know, from what I've heard and read, that a lot of these things are similar to some of what HoH people experience in the social aspect. I'm not HoH, as far as I know, I haven't experienced any true *hearing* loss, rather, difficulty processing.

My question is, is there a way that I, as a person with APD, can converse with and relate to HoH people from our similarities without making them feel invalidated because I do not experience difficulty with *hearing*? I'm also not sure how HoH and d/Deaf people feel about people with APD requesting similar accessibility aids (closed/open caption, headphones, etc.), especially in cases where there are limited aids available, or how they feel re: APD-ers in general. I don't wish to make it seem as though I expect you to speak for *all* HoH and d/Deaf people, but I am interested in your perspective, as someone who is HoH and has APD. Do you see there being a day when HoH, d/Deaf, and APD will be considered part of the same category, or would it be insulting to the former two categories to have the latter one included in the same breath? Is there ableism that comes from those with APD aimed at HoH and d/Deaf people that we should call ourselves in on (and have I maybe hit some of those even in my attempt to word this well)?

Regardless, thank you for your time, and I hope you're having a good night. Day. Whatever time it is for you 😅

So there's a lot to here that I don't really have the experience to unpack (hopefully, someone else does), but I find it interesting that you are very focused on not wanting to step on anyone's toes in the hoh / d/Deaf community when it comes to needing accommodations for your ADP.

And while I can't speak for the broader community in terms of whether they feel like ADP belongs under the same banner or instances of lateral ableism... I just want to point out that if you benefit from accessibility features like closed captions, headphones, and being able to lip-read... you're not taking resources away from someone who needs them more because YOU need them.

ADP is not well understood, and while the debate rages on over whether it's a learning disability (some places say no, some say yes. Typically, the same places that debate whether ADHD is a learning disability, which for some of us, it absolutely is.) but this stems largely from thinking of disabilities as absolutes and not spectrums that are largely influenced by individual severity.

I've had ADP my whole life, and it is absolutely worse for me than my actual physical hearing loss. Should I not use CC or listening aid devices to help just because my physical hearing loss is not profound?

Some people develop ADP after severe ear infections, head trauma, or conditions like MS. Do they not deserve accommodations just because their inability to process sound differs from someone else who is hoh or d/Deaf?

Of course not. That'd be ableist.

I think, perhaps, you need to be kinder to yourself over this and acknowledge that it's okay for you to use these accessibility aids.

You don't need to suffer more. I promise you.

#disability tag #chronic health tag

[one-vivid-judgment]

Good day~ I hope it's okay to request something? If so, can I request sfw/nsfw headcanons for my beloved Y7 man - Takabe Mamoru, please? Thank you~

To tell you the truth, before deleting your previous blog, I read all your posts, but never commented or requested anything, because I was a bit shy. Well, I still am. I remember you wrote something about disliking your RgG writings and the reason why you deleted them. But I actually really liked them, no matter how bad or silly or ooc or whatever they were in your opinion. I just liked them and the way you wrote about different things/characters. What I wanted to say that time? Hm... I'll say it now - you're a great!

~ Takabe Anon

First of all, I'd like to thank you for this kind message! Honestly, back then I didn't have the best relationship with writing and I always ended up thinking that whatever I wrote was garbage after some time; I even contemplated deleting my whole AO3 account and never going back, though thankfully that did NOT happen. It would've been a disaster if I had let the nasty thoughts win.

Thankfully, that has changed now (who would've thought that actually developing a good writing schedule and actually being kind to yourself would do that to you, huh?), but I do feel bad for deleting it all and I'd like to apologize for it, even if it doesn't change anything. There were people who genuinely loved them, and now it's all gone and they can't enjoy them anymore. This is like trying to "re-build" all that, in a way, though hopefully my writing has improved in these two years or so that I've spent away from here! 

Anyway, here they are! 

Takabe headcanons (SFW + NSFT)

• A good ol' gentleman. Will open doors for you, pull your chair back for you, open the car door then take your hand. If you eat out, he's paying for it, not even letting you take out your wallet, no sir. Not to mention the gifts; necklaces and bracelets and things like that, which sometimes are on the VERY expensive side. Not that he minds spending money on you though. 

• He is on the protective side, almost as much as he is with his boys. You can bet that, if someone messes with you and he finds out, it's gonna take A LOT to stop him from taking matters into his own hands, depending on how severe the offense was. Murder is not on the list, but everything else is fair game for him. 

• He doesn't flaunt you around, but if someone asks, he's not about to keep you a secret either. His boys tried to tease him once about you, and all he did was nod and shrug it off, no sign of embarrassment on his face. They haven't tried to pull any of that ever since. Point taken. 

• Generally pretty vanilla, actually. He's more of a love-making kinda guy—the one exception being when he's had an absolutely awful day at the office and needs to let out the stress. It's like he forgets his own strength, which usually results in many, MANY marks all over that are hard to cover up. Expect the absolute sweetest aftercare in the world to make up for that. 

• Call. Him. "Sir". He's heard that plenty from his boys, sure, but this? This is another thing entirely. Something about seeing his partner writhing under him and screaming for "Sir, give it to me harder!" Not that his boys need to know that one though. 

• Expect to be praised for the smallest things. He can't help it, he really can't. You'd be sucking him off and he'll inevitably end up petting your hair and praising you for a job well done—bonus points if said blowjob happens under his desk at the office and there is a chance you might get caught by some random Seiryu grunt.

#ryu ga gotoku #yakuza series #mamoru takabe #rgg #yakuza like a dragon #.txt #yakuza headcanons #nsft headcanon

[ljf613]

20 Questions for Writers

I think I've done this one before, but it's been a while, so let's do it again! (Tagged by @pencilofawesomeness)

1. How many works do you have on AO3? Officially, 71. (I also have a handful of fics that I've moved into the anonymous collection-- mostly unfinished WIPs I currently have no plan to return to.)

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 231,362-- I'm so close to a quarter million words, hopefully I'll get there by the end of the year.

3. What fandoms do you write for? The majority of my posted fics are for Avatar: The Last Airbender (plus a few for Avatar: Legend of Korra), and I've written several fics for the Miraculous Ladybug and Fairy Tail fandoms. Currently, the fics I'm working on with the most regularity are for the How to Train Your Dragon and Once Upon a Time fandoms (A Better Version of Our Best and Not My Homeland Anymore, respectively). I've also written fics for numerous other fandoms, including Tales of Arcadia, Fullmetal Alchemist, Teen Wolf, Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, The Familiar of Zero, and The Dragon Prince. And of course, I'm always thinking and plotting out new stories for fandoms I've yet to write for.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? —5. fifteen for a moment - 956 —4. I'm worse at what I do best - 959 —3. we all bend and break sometimes - 1,132 —2. you don't get what all this is about - 1,179 —1. nobody wants to pay the asking price - 1,286 These are all part of my ATLA we all want love/we all want honor series. As a matter of fact, my twenty-one most popular fics-- by a long shot-- are the twenty-one parts of the same series. (Even the least popular, war is not freedom, with 627 kudos, has over twice as many kudos as my most popular non-wawl/wawh fic.) (Part twenty-two, which I just posted this week after a two year hiatus, obviously hasn't gotten quite as much engagement yet, but at the rate the kudos have been coming in, it'll likely be on par with the others within six months, if not sooner.) My five most popular fics outside of this series are as follows: —5. “Can You Please Just Hold Me?” [ATLA] - 243 —4. Nonbender Zuko AU (Outline) [ATLA] - 259 —3. “Are You Jealous?” [ATLA] - 261 —2. i bled out tears (the only water in the desert) [FMA] - 265 —1. The Bells of Kardia Cathedral [Fairy Tail] - 286

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Yes! I love responding to comments for the simple reason that I always want to talk about my stories, and who better to discuss them with than the people who love them enough to leave comments on them?

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Oh, unquestionably It's Winter Again (And I Can't Wait To See You) [ATLA]. I like writing open-ended stories, so sometimes I'll write oneshots with angsty but ultimately hopeful endings (that may or may not end up developing into full-fledged series). This story, however, was not left optimistically open-- it is just angsty and tragic and I LOVE it.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? The happiest? Uh, just going by the completed fics… I want to say Something Like a Love Story [ATLA], which I think has one of the sweetest endings I've ever written, but even though the story itself has a happy ending, it is a pre-canon story about Hakoda and Kya, and anyone reading it knows how their story ended, so it really ends up feeling more bittersweet than anything else. So maybe Just Between Us (Did the Love Affair Maim You Too?) [ATLA]? It's a nice, solid hurt/comfort fic where I really made the characters work for their happy ending, so it does have a sweet, feel-good payoff. But there are three main characters in that story, and only two of them actually get a real happy ending, so maybe not. (Zuko and Toph are definitely living happily ever after, but Mai still has some more work to do before she can say the same.) I guess I've got to go with The Bells of Kardia Cathedral. That was a just a cute, fun little story full of humorous misunderstandings, but at the end of the day, everyone involved got their happy endings.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Honestly, no-- which is pleasantly surprising, considering that a lot of my stuff is kind of niche and involves unpopular and often Problematique ships.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? No, your local neighborhood prude over here is not about to write anything stemier than the occasional chaste makeout scene.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? Yes, but I think about way more crossovers than I've ever actually written. The craziest one is probably a tie between Fairy Tail in NIFLHEIM [Fairy Tail x Shall We Date?: THE NIFLHEIM+] (for pure crackiness) and my untitled Miraculous Ladybug/Fullmetal Alchemist AU (for meshing two canons that had no business blending so well together).

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not really-- there was an incident a while back where someone compiled all of the wawl/wawh series into a single fic, but they posted it privately, and I think they just wanted it all in one place for downloading purposes. In any case, I'm pretty sure it's gone now. (For those interested in having this series all together, it's in one piece on FFN.)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Not as far as I know. But someone did make a podfic for this side of the sun!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Nah. I've talked about collaborating with a few different writers over the years, but nothing has ever worked out. (Yet!)

14. What's your all-time favourite ship? Nathan and Haley from One Tree Hill. No question.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? The People They Once Were [ATLA/LOK]. This was the first Avatar-verse fic I ever wrote. For so long, I wanted to write something for this fandom, but I had absolutely zero ideas. (In fact, I initially watched LOK with the hope that it would give me some fic-writing fodder, which it did.) And then I finally had this idea, and I was so excited about it, but I didn't quite… know what to do with it. I probably won't ever come back to this one, but I am grateful to it for breaking that ice and allowing me to help me get into writing for this fandom (in which I've been quite prolific).

16. What are your writing strengths? Closing lines and action between dialogue. I try really hard to end everything just the right way, and I do my best to make sure the reader can follow what the characters are doing as they talk to each other. I also like to think I'm decent at writing emotional descriptions.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Fighting scenes and visual descriptions. I have a hard enough time making sure I maintain a solid spatial awareness of what characters are doing where in a normal interaction. (Aphantasia, my beloathed.)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I've done it before, sure. While reading fics in the Fullmetal Alchemist fandom, I noticed that several writers had used Hebrew as a stand-in for the Ishbalan language, and as I have some familiarity with the language (not that I have any real fluency, and I certainly couldn't carry on any more than a very simple conversation, but I can read it well enough, and am comfortable with its syntax and grammatical conventions), I decided I could use it, too. While writing my FMA fic, i bled out tears (the only water in the desert), I also interspersed a bit of Yiddish and Aramaic, as those languages mesh well with Hebrew. The whole thing was really fun! In general, while I'm not against writing dialogue in another language, I'm not well-versed enough in linguistics to invent my own, so it would have to be an actual real-world language, and I would have to have enough of an understanding of said language to be able to play around with it. (Lately, I've been thinking about writing a retelling of one of my favorite biblical stories, in which I would almost certainly use some amount of Hebrew dialogue.)

19. First fandom you wrote for? Well, I vaguely recall writing some proto-fanfiction in elementary school for assignments and stuff ("write about what you think happened to this character after the book was over"), and somewhere out there in the world is a binder with the outline (and a handful of scenes) of an elaborate Twilight fanfic I plotted out in middle school (complete with a vampire creation story!). But the first fandom I really wrote for was Familiar of Zero, back in 2015. This was still three years before I actually discovered fanfiction, but I finished all four seasons of the show in about a week and was struck with such a solid idea of what would happen directly following the final scene (probably some of those old school assignments sticking with me) that I had to write it down immediately. I did eventually post it (basically untouched) on AO3 as Hero's Return. The first fandom I actually posted for was Miraculous Ladybug, not long after discovering AO3. (The first fic I ever posted was A Miraculous Night.)

20. Favourite fic you've ever written? Oh, undoubtedly A Better Version of Our Best. I consider this story my magnum opus-- I love the family drama aspect, the parallel storylines spark such joy, and the worldbuilding and character development has been so interesting. I'm also experimenting with some new storytelling techniques and pacing strategies. I think it's really a culmination of everything I've ever learnt about writing and storytelling (so far!).

Tagging @lynzine and anyone else interested!

#my fanfics #thoughts #tagging game #shameless self plug #a better version of our best #we all want love #we all want honor #all queued up

[ahiddenpath]

For the ask the fic writer meme!

3, 4, 24, and 26!

Hi Sloane, thanks for the ask <3 Answered beneath the cut :D

3.) Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

I have a neat writing process post here! It basically goes like this:

-Idea dump, mostly focusing on themes, where characters are now vs where I want them to be, what everyone is feeling/struggling with, etc

-Several drafts

Check the post out if you're interested, I included the entire process for a chapter of PdA with PDFs of the idea dump and drafts.

4.) Where do you find inspiration for new ideas?

I hope this doesn't sound too weird, but I'm not a big... Fan of? Believer in??? Inspiration. Ideas are a dime a dozen, and everything has been done before. What matters is the execution, which requires showing up and doing the work reliably- and never waiting for lightning to strike with ideas or a certain mood/desire to create.

Yes, I'm painfully aware that I'm the least exciting human ever, lol!

Generally, my issue is deciding which of an endless pile of concepts to work on. Once I've done that, the concern is effective project management. How do I see this new concept to its completion in a (hopefully) reasonable amount of time?

Allocating finite time is probably the most challenging part of life in general!

24.) Worst writing advice anyone ever gave you?

Ohhh man, this one is really fun!

My blissfully naïve fourteen-year-old self made the mistake of printing the first few chapters of my novel in progress and taking them to high school, where I showed them to my friends. I received an absolute cacophony of feedback that ranged from strange to mean, but most of it was simply... People projecting the story they wanted onto the story I was writing for myself.

The bit I remember today concerned my main character. She was young and had lived a physically pampered but emotionally neglected life. Circumstances sent her on a journey, and she chose a calm, sensible horse as her mount. And though she had only ridden in leisurely group settings, a friend insisted that... Um, well, if I didn't plonk her onto a stallion that no one else could control, I was bowing to the patriarchy. Yes, my friend wanted a horse girl story, lmao!!!

Joking aside, exploring strength in women and girls is the most resounding theme of my writing. I'm not looking down on the badass woman character type, but I am keen to show that there are so many kinds of strength. Obviously this is true for everyone, but women are so often neglected in entertainment, and their stories are the ones I most want to tell.

What I'm getting at here is that you should never mistake someone else's preferences for meaningful criticism/advice. The ability to deliver meaningful writing criticism is learned, and not many people are trained in it. Most audiences regurgitate their own preferences when asked, and that has nothing to do with your story.

If that sort of dialogue interests you, pursue it! But I'm generally wary of seeking criticism unless I have some sense of the person's literary background and how they engage with media.

26.) Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

Hahaha, in terms of writing it? Probably Voices. Voices was a year-long exercise in developing character voice. I followed the six oldest Chosen and Eimi through a Japanese school year, writing a journal entry from one of the kids every day. EVERY DAY. FOR A YEAR. A JOURNAL ENTRY.

I leaned heavily on tropes because there was no time to plan, lol! I flew by the seat of my pants for a whole danged year!!!! In a lot of ways, it's my least favorite fic, because there was just no time! But it was a huge challenge, and frankly, audiences love tropes. It was popular with a lot of my readers. It's also probably one of my more shippy offerings?

Seeking Resonance is a stand out for me in the sense that it took me three years to nail the climax and decide how I wanted the last 20% of the story to wind down. THREE YEARS of thinking and exploring and simmering! But I genuinely could not have made a product I was happy with without quietly tending to it. Honestly, sometimes I think we need to... I don't know, grow or learn something or experience something??? Before we can be where the story needs us to be, as a person.

Oh, but that doesn't mean we should wait to start the story! The three years of thinking on it were definitely work and part of the process.

So You Were Alive was an interesting one in that I sat down and wrote the whole dang thing in under two hours. Like, within two hours of starting, it was published, with all the images and everything. At the time, the Kizuna feels were strong. The imagery and some of the dialogue from the first reboot episodes fed right into the Kizuna feels, and before I knew it, I was clicking the publish button!

Note that none of these are my favorite or best fics, in my opinion. But they are standouts in regards to the process.

Thank you so much, this was fun!

#ask games #ask hidden

[emilykaldwen]

what's abby's relationship with her family

you ask me such sweet and thoughtful questions and I could kiss you for it. I've had so much happening these past few weeks all I can do is like, reblog people's stuff. hopefully after surgery, my brain can settle lmao.

This is gonna be long, but let's start with some backstory on Abby's creation because it leads into how her relationship with her family developed.

SO when I first created Abby, she lined up canonically with Lyonel's wiki entry, where his two maiden daughters were ladies in waiting for Princess Rhaenyra (Alicent and Rhaenyra shouldn't have been so fucking isolated in the show but here we are). I don't remember who I was talking to - probably @starcrossedjedis and @inmydrcams about what to do with her because I wasn't sure what her story would be (I was really leaning on the 'her marrying Otto Hightower' train because it made political sense and Clair and I had been talking about Alicent's mother being a Reyne and that's how Abby ended up being a Reyne). Then I started RPing Abby because I thought that would be a good way to see if she even worked as a character and find her voice. I was writing a secondary verse with @targaryenprinces where Aegon and Abby grew up together and basically Aegon x Abby is all Tate's fault but we of course regret nothing. (ILU Tate you changed my life and I give you credit on the 33k words of fic I've written and brainrot)

FAMILY DEETS UNDER THE CUT TO SAVE YOUR DASHBOARDS CAUSE IM NICE LIKE THAT

Also I have a crude and incomplete family tree that I'll pop in at the bottom of the post

Abby swung her legs and reached for the jar of honey. Papa caught her eye as he reached for it too, and their hands stilled in the air. He squinted at her and Abby peered back at him, to the jar, and then back at him again. His hand began to move and hers darted out to capture the honey jar before he could get to it. “Huzzah!” She relished the word, although the Queen would sometimes yell at them when they would start chanting. Abby is the first and only child that Lyonel and his third wife, Celeste Reyne had (grrm really loves unnamed dead wives). She's substantially younger than her elder three siblings, and she was born not long before Lyonel became Hand. Her papa can be an intimidating man to many, but as a father, he is undeniably loving and caring, if busy because of his duties. Neither of his daughters were ever treated differently and I think that has a lot to do with Lyonel's history of learning at the Citadel. He understands how important knowledge is and wants his children to be prepared in all ways. Oftentimes, Abby would go to his office and read books outloud to him - histories of the seven kingdoms, law, really anything. She didn't understand all of it, but the point was that her papa always, ALWAYS encouraged her and supported her. Abby is 100% a daddy's girl. He's her beacon of satefy. As a child, she would run to him and he would wrap her in big bear hugs, challenge her, play with her, etc. Towards the end of her mother's life it grew more difficult however and the sudden, violent death of Lyonel and Harwin nearly broke her.

Abby thought it chivalrous how Papa gave Mama the chair at the head of the table. The arms of it allowed several blankets to be piled around her and even though she was only in her robe, she looked very queenly. Celeste Reyne's first marriage produced one son (I haven't fully developed all of that). She was the niece of Cybelle Hightower (nee Reyne) (@inmydrcamscams needs to correct my spelling on that) and it was she who suggested to Lyonel that perhaps him and Celeste would be good for one another (this was during the early years of Lyonel being Master of Laws). Celeste was a very intelligent and very kind woman. She was even tempered, and took things in stride and didn't have a problem rolling with the punches. Abby is very much like her, although she attempts to emulate a far more childlike view and expectation of her mother. Celeste would let people get away with enough, but time and experience had her boundary and push back settings a lot sooner. After Otto was dismissed, he did ask Lyonel if it would be possible for Celeste to come to King's Landing and be there for Alicent, which both Lyonel and Celeste took seriously. Celeste was a pretty tempering influence on Alicent in the early years and vital in helping the young queen through her pregnancies. Abby's earliest memories are of watching her mother and the queen work on tapestries, laugh at their mischief in the gardens, just in general HAPPY times. But not long after baby Daeron was born, Celeste started getting sicker. Papa was sad a lot, the queen was sad (not just for losing an older sister/mother figure, but also post partum) and I think that in the long run, it's Celeste's memory that's had a negative effect on Abby. She was 8 when Celeste died, and the memories of her mother were seeing her wasting away, or supporting people (again, as a child, she had no real concept of her mother as a full person). Due to this, Abby put herself in this role of selfless, charitable, giver. Her mother was reserved due to propriety, but over time Abby took that as doing everything she could to hide her own negative emotions and burying it down, only wanting to be someone supportive and happy. So you know. Complicated. While Lyonel and Harwin's deaths nearly broke Abby, Celeste's long illness and death very clearly shaped Abby as a person.

(let's try this for the 4th goddamn time) “Come on,” Harwin’s voice was no longer quiet. “Up you get.” “I’m not ten, anymore.” “And yet the stairs remain the same.” Abby looked back, familiar with this dance and gave them a nod and hurried down the stairs. “It’s clear!” She waited for a moment until her brothers came into view, Larys on Harwin’s back with a flat expression on his face. There were so many stairs, and Larys' would complain of leg pain trying to navigate them all. She didn’t think there was anything wrong with it, but Larys said that he did not wish others to view him in such a way, since they might undermine his position and capabilities. It didn’t seem fair to Abby that he should have to hurt himself to be seen as whole. She hurried down further and gave an audible tap and they continued on - Abrogail would keep a lookout, and then would let them know if the coast was clear. I'm tired of writing this out in more detail so we'll keep it simple. I definitely feel like Harwin is the epitome of oldest brother energy, but it had been awhile since he got to do that. So once Abby comes around, he gets to channel all the untapped Dad energy he doesn't get to do with the boys into her. Harwin makes the world safer for Abby in a very similar way Lyonel does. If she's not with her Papa, Harwin is giving her shoulder rides, or teaching her how to defend herself, and he promised to teach her how to use a dagger. After his death, it's the hardest with him because Abby doesn't feel like she can *ever* talk about him (for obvious, strong boys reasons). I think she does with Helaena and maybe Aegon sometimes, but only to a certain degree. But it ABSOLUTELY says something that Aegon pisses her off so bad at one point, that she says "Were my dearest brother still here, he'd geld you and give me your balls on a platter". As for Larys? They're not close. Larys doesn't know what to do with kids, and he kinda looks at Abby for much of her life like a puzzle he can't figure out. I believe that once she gets into her teenage years, he does take more of an interest. On the flip side, Abby is unnerved by him. Larys is difficult, if not impossible to read, and she is always unsettled by him. I don't think that ever stops.

“Oh, there’s a raven from your sister, Abrogail. She’ll be coming to help you with wedding preparations.” Mother smiled across the table at her, where she still sat by Helaena. Aemond watched the slight rattle of her fork in hand before she nodded mutely. “Is she still a wretched bitch?” Aegon’s voice was muffled in his cup before he spat it back out with his eyes wide with some perceived betrayal. “This isn’t wine!” Corynna and Larys are about 11 months apart and the pair of them watched their mother drown when they were children. There's no relationship between the girls the way Abby has relationships with the rest of the family. If she'd been a man, Corynna would have been sent to the Citadel. She's intelligent, observant, and a calculating game player. Corynna was married to Erwin Lannister not long after Lyonel became Hand. When Lyonel dies, Cory rolls into town and basically exerts her authority over Abby by just criticizing the poor thing. That's how she exerts her control, her way being Best And Only Way. She knows how valuable Abby is in terms of connections (the same reasons Otto decides Aegon and Abby would be advantageous, although that main motivation is Harrenhal and the Riverlands). Corynna's plan was to take Abby back to Casterly Rock with her, which then set off Aegon's Uncontrollable Abandonment Issues, and, because he's a 13 year old prince with no impulse control or the ability to long term think consequences, he kidnaps Abby on Sunfyre (which is why they're on the outs at the start of the fic).

Thank you so much for this ask! It was so fun! And here's the crude family trees I'm in the process of making:

#fic: the maiden and the drowning boy #ship: aegon x abrogail #tumblr made this annoying to type up but it was such a fun exercise!

[rovingrahal]

How do I travel Around the world Non-Stop for FREE?

It has been about five years since I started this whole traveling lifestyle.

I've traveled to all seven continents in over 50 countries from all of those trips, some of the fantastic things that I've done were my expedition trip to Antarctica along with scientists and other travelers. My two-year stay in Europe as I base myself in France my epic road trip from a north-south and my ring road adventure in Iceland to my safari game drive adventures in Africa.

How did I manage to afford

All of these travels are the top three follow-up questions where am I rich did my parents pay for all of these travels or do I have some sort of elusive person who's giving me some Sugar Money, well no, no, and no. to settle this once and for all. Actually, 90 of them have all been funded by my travel blog.

I say this because a good chunk of my first two years of traveling were all funded by me, besides I only started. To do my whole nomadic lifestyle anyhow to better help you understand how I did all of this and also hopefully give you some ideas.

I'm breaking this down into two parts as I explain how I could afford all of my travels.

Working Online

First up I worked online. it helps to mention that I come from a third-world country in Africa, so life here is relatively more brutal I scored a corporate job at the age of 19 after a year of internship, and then I was with the company for over two years, and yet I was only earning about 250 dollars a month. I realized that that whole profession was just not for me. so I quit that job at 21 but with proper preparation, I did my research first, and I found out that working online will be the best choice for me.

Months before I handed in my resignation paper I was working on some online jobs on the side, so I was basically doing my corporate job together with multiple other freelance jobs. I found them online and when those side jobs were paying double or triple what I was earning I knew that it was time to quit, and so I did and in just a few months I was traveling solo in Africa and eventually to Europe. speaking of which visas are such a bit even though it requires a lot of work from a third world National like me.

The Online Jobs I did?

Online marketing graphic design and web design or online marketing was something that I learned by myself by going through free resources online from sites like Udemy or Skillshare for graphic and web design these were skills that I have developed ever since, by the way, a few months after I did online freelancing I built up an online Amazon business of mine in a way that helps secure my finances, even more, all in all, what does this mean for you then well with the advent of technology nowadays.

There is simply a huge number of resources available for you online. of course, you don't need to do similar jobs like I did find what you're good at or at least what you're interested in and start from there but the way I see it's always great to do online or remote jobs because it gives you a lot of possibilities for earning while also giving you the freedom to work whenever and wherever you want. I wrote an extensive post about the different types of jobs that you can do so that you can earn while traveling the world.

for some examples: some people have made use of their love for photography and videography by selling those skills some people have become consultants other people have become virtual assistants and I have some friends who have become English teachers abroad and there's so much more.

Travel Hacks

the two best way how I'm able to afford my travels is to do money and travel hacks.

in times that I don't travel for work, I still make it a point to aim for the best value ways to travel you must remember this traveling is never only for the rich of course, it can get expensive, but it will only be that way if you let it be you should know after all that first and foremost there are several ways that you can make travel cheaper if not for free once again I wrote in detail about how you can travel on a budget on my blog.

But as an example for flights I always go to platforms like Way Away or aviasales or compensair or Momondo or Sky scanner, these are websites that search all airline companies and hotels for the best deals. you can even set up alerts on routes that you'd like so that it can notify you if the price suddenly drops there's also a feature where you can see the cheapest places to fly to in certain months or dates.

I can rant about this endlessly because there are so many ways to be able to afford traveling without breaking your savings. that's it for now, and I hope you guys have learned a thing or two from how I'm able to travel the world of course I hope you enjoyed this.

#travelling #travel #tourism #nature #travel photography #travel blog #vacation #wanderlust #strange new worlds #world tour #world economy #scuba: explore the underwater world #worldbuilding #west #times #years #south #cheap #guide #easily #love on tour #trip #travels #touring #online jobs

[project-rosewood]

There's definitely been radio silence on this blog, which has not been intentional, but definitely was expected.

2020 and part of 2021 have definitely made my life complicated in several ways, which I'd imagine is true for most people reading this devblog. However, while I've managed less work on the game for the last 1-2 years than I would like to admit, not in the least due to some mental health issues, I'm still working on this game and it has never left my heart or mind. Progress has been slow, but I do believe that it is coming along, even if I wish I could get things done faster.

One of the things that has definitely made development slower for me is that I've been making my own tiles and sprites, along with applying lighting effects to every map. While I definitely love the way it looks and I've made some maps that I'm quite proud of, it does mean longer development time.

Hopefully none of you who are following the game's development have been worried or have given up on it altogether by now, though I more than understand if you have.

Right now I'm mainly focusing on the first chapter of the game that is past the small introduction area and am working on lots of things at once for it; mainly maps and spriting tiles for them, planning the flow of the chapter's gameplay and planning out cutscenes. A lot of this is mainly fleshing out what I had before, but there's some newer additions I hadn't worked on as well.

Please look forward to some updates now and then of what I've been working on!

#project rosewood #rpg horror #indie dev #indie game dev #dev update

[oattoast]

I stopped posting my daily or nigh-daily mental health birdwalk field notes, but I feel like it's REALLY IMPORTANT to acknowledge that I saw not one but TWO (2) California quails this weekend on a local hiking trail. I also heard a bunch of them calling quite a bit all morning. I love them so much.

I don't have pictures of any birds I saw that day but I'm over the moon at them all.

Lots of scrub to hide in!! I did see a few new birds.

Here are my chaotic field notes, which I edited to add details or IDs:

- California scrub jays (yelling a bunch)

- quails, 2 (female or immature males, ran across path and into a bush. Flushed when people passed and they flew by me)

- Turkey vultures (soaring)

- male quail (yelling, didn't see)

- acorn woodpeckers (?? Maybe nuttals, hairy, or downy? Heard drum "calls" very cool)

- rufous crowned sparrows (big! caught his song and then saw him through the binoculars. I've seen these before at a city park but this is my first this year)

- cassin's kingbird (dark top black brow yellow belly)

- yellow belly black hat terrible bowl cut (lesser goldfinch. I had to quickly note defining features because I couldn't remember the bird's name but had seen it in a guide.... Bowl cut lmao....)

- lots of house finches, mourning doves, ravens

- red tail hawk (soaring)

- blue-gray gnatcatcher. I don't have pics but they look like this and he had an Incredible Eyebrow:

Photo of a breeding male in Maryland in April Copyright: Kojo Baidoo.

I saw this bird for the first time this year in a mountainous area. Very chatty and has a lovely buzzy call

- many birds overhead I couldn't stop to id. Swallows, swifts, and various small birds!! Migrating!!

- tiny woodpecker with fluffy red head climbing all over a sycamore tree like a tree creeper. I thought it was a nuttal's because I glimpsed a ladder pattern on its back but didn't check closer because I wasn't aware that there are also downy and hairy woodpeckers in the area 😫😩 doubt my ID

- heard California towhee but didn't see or log it because I wanna see them first with my eyeballs.

- heard house wren (??) and yellow warbler (???). I think I spotted the wren but am not sure

- heard lots of Indian peafowl. On the drive back was forced to stop to allow a feral male peacock slowly and regally cross the road. He had a big-ass train of feathers and did not care one bit that he was impeding traffic and could have been squished. He was beautiful and I hope he's okay

All in all it was a good birding day (despite feeling like I didn't see many at the time), and I met my goal of 1) hiking for the first time since developing asthma in 2019-2020, and 2) challenging the anxiety and depression (compounded by very real pandemic terror) that's kept me indoors and isolated for several years now.

I did see huge crowds of people and very few masks. I wore my N95 most of the time which helped with my allergic asthma and hopefully kept me safe from anything folks exhaled (quite a lot) in my presence. My anxiety levels were completely manageable, though I became irritable a few times because I went to a nature spot to hear birds and instead heard a lot of annoying chatter and people with speakers.

It was also quite warm. I have a possible case of POTS and some other physical stuff going on, but knowing how to manage things to accommodate my physical symptoms makes a world of difference.

I'm getting stronger every day. Taking care of my body (washing it, feeding it, getting it sun and seeing birds as much as possible). Weighing risks to do what I need to take care of my brain too. This is going well and I am going to heal and get strong.

I'm only 31. I have so much to learn about the earth (I didn't even stop to consider the rest of the ecosystem I visited; what were the plants? The water, the air, the rocks and soil? What other fauna did I miss? My dad hikes here weekly and says he has seen deer, and coyotes).

Being outside my room is very different. I never feel like I belong anywhere, never feel at home. But I'm here. I belong here. I am going to keep working at being outside as much as possible, hiking weekly, so that when I slip into a depressive episode, I can come back easier. It's time to be kind to this body and mind.

#personal writing #mental health recovery #birdwatching as therapy #nature therapy #anxiety mention #depression mention #pandemic #birds #field notes from an amateur birder #amateur everything it feels like haha #oh well. eyes open bincoulars focused. keep going

[leaschuller]

Several problems for gerwnt today (but not only today, these are the problems they've had for years, imo): first, their midfield was too weak and they lacked a leader, someone who can direct and control a game. Magull, Däbritz, Leupolz and Maro were absent, of course, but none of them have really lived up to the expectations in the last couple of years. The connection between midfield and attack was also a problem, since the forwards had to drop back very often, yet they didn't really seam like a part of the team. The last pass was often sloppy and there wasn't enough creativity when Germany had the ball - they only created chances by crossing again and again. And when Germany didn't have the ball, they were too sloppy and rushed in the counter attacks - France did make mistakes, but they didn't capitalize on them. Additionally, Germany had many set pieces but was never dangerous - you could think that they would have developed some ideas by now... Another important point: mentality: after conceding, Germany lost control of the game again (horrible flashbacks to the 2019 quarter final against sweden...).

There were good aspects as well, but it's just very frustrating to see MVT and the players make the same mistakes again and again. The 2019 world cup should have been a turning point, but apparently, they didn't really learn their lesson. I know, this is just a friendly, but I've noticed these things for most of Germany's games and it's starting to annoy me. Sorry for the rant

Agreed, there were great individual performances today, but nothing that really showed the quality that the Germans should have as a team. Also stop short corners 2021, the Algarve cup was a really good showing though so I don't understand how things haven't continued to improve beyond that. Players being played out of position is a huge problem for me, I know people had to fill in where others were absent but there could have been a pretty big formation change, Obi could have definitely moved in as a CDM and Kleinherne as CB with Feldkamp, I know that there are players who *can* play In their non usual positions but that doesn't mean they always should in the big games.

I lose the joy I felt watching the NT a little more every game that goes by these days.

(I probably won't answer too many asks concerning the game so hopefully most of it is summed up here.)

[sokkathebluewolf]

½ Hello! Thank you for responding to my first question. Before I ask anything else, I just want to say that I think this whole online-community (your Tumblrs, etc) is wonderful! I've joined your Patreon too –– just trying to show some rightful appreciation. Next, I have some spoiler-based questions (requist-ions?). 1) I've read your comments about not pleasing everyone with your story and taking it in your own direction. I completely agree -- that's what makes your story good, that it is yours.

2/2 But, regarding Zhao and Azula –– please, please no sex. If there is . . . well I'll keep reading because I'm hooked, but I'll feel pretty terrible for a while. 2) Regarding part 3's arcs and timing. You've written that Sokka/Azula will be together 4–5 arcs, and I'm assuming those are the ending arcs. Part 1 was 12 arcs, Part 2 is planned at 25 (If I counted correctly). If part 3 is in the middle, that's like 16 arcs of separation! Separated = sad Sokkla = sad readers! Will there be happy ...

3/2 (oops!) happy moments interspersed? Plus, ~16 arcs --> even posting once a week (pretty please!) that's two and a half years for us! Have mercy!

Thank you for the Patreon pledge! :D and for the asks and good-hearted support. I hope you’ll continue to enjoy the story, going forward. Though... if you don’t mind, I’ll be answering your first point under a Read More? xD

As for your second point... the thing is, Part 3 is mostly planned by now, almost in its entirety, and I can certainly... confirm about 21 arcs, and I’m not even done with fully developing those arcs/plans? So there’s going to be even more than that. Heh. Hehe. Oops. The reason, of course, why those arcs aren’t listed in the Navigator is because... spoilery titles? :’D Though I will say, in all likelihood most these arcs will be shorter than Part 2′s arcs have been so far... so hopefully I won’t be facing an insanely longer Part 3 than Part 2 already was? :’D H-hopefully...?

As for happy moments interspersed here and there... yes. I have previously been known to say Sokka and Azula won’t ever be able to contact each other through Part 3, but that’s part of the plans that have changed slightly... NOT massively, I’ll admit, but there will be at least two instances where they’ll connect and communicate despite the physical distance between them. Beyond that, there will be positive moments, Azula will have several characters around her who will certainly make her new life far more bearable (a lot of ulterior motives behind many of my choices in Part 2 have been to establish these connections so she won’t be completely alone in the future). There will be good moments that will lighten the constant misery we’re all probably bracing ourselves for, despite there will most likely be a sense of heaviness across the entirety of Part 3.

And yeah, I do understand your concerns about the update schedule x’D I think eventually I’ll switch to weekly updates, but I probably should have a thicker barrier between myself and release before I do that. Sounds crazy, considering I’m writing in advance and I’m quite far ahead, but... I am, indeed, at the very gates of Part 3? Which means I am... reluctant to write lately. A bit. :’D but rest assured, once things get very intense for you guys and I have a big enough amount of chapters to go around, I’ll switch to weekly updates for sure :)

And now....

The thing with Zhao isn’t, well, gratuitous torture to make Azula sad, if that makes sense? :’D granted, the motivation that will lead a certain someone to make this match is, indeed, to punish Azula, as I’ve said in the ask I answered before... 

But Azula will have strong reasons to accept and endure this dreadful situation. If she didn’t, she would never allow something like this to happen and she’d sooner challenge her father to an Agni Kai than accept his terms. So... let’s just say Part 3 Azula is all about protecting those she cherishes most, and sadly, she has to do a lot of difficult, painful things to achieve that.

I think by the time the scene you’re dreading arrives, it hopefully won’t be quite as awful as you expect? At least, I can guarantee Zhao isn’t going to demand for anything from her. As I said in the other ask, he’s as unwilling to do this, out of respect for Azula, as Azula herself is. I don’t know if that’s going to be any consolation, but if I do happen to write a certain scene along the lines of what you’re afraid of... it won’t be gratuitous nor will it trivialize the situation by any means. I think what Suki endured in Shu Wo was far more graphic (and I deliberately refrained from outright writing it, mainly just implied it, because it was absolutely appalling to me...) than what I’ll ever dare write happening to Azula. Despite I know what the plot demands better than anyone, it doesn’t hurt me any less to write it, believe it or not :(

So... well, I hope you won’t be too brokenhearted once we get to Part 3, but can I offer you the hopes of a positive ending after the storm has passed? :’D and yes, Azula and Sokka will certainly return to each other by Part 3′s final arcs. I’ll probably go wild with those arcs after keeping them apart for longer than I could ever have wanted them to stay away from each other, if that’s any consolation too? x’D my shipper heart will definitely make its demands by the time we get there. Either way, the dark times both Azula and Sokka will face will come as consequences of their actions, as well as other people’s actions, and I intend for all of it to be logical and follow the sense of the plot. I really dislike the notion of writing for shock value, so even the very nastiest of my decisions are usually done for the sake of a payoff that should, hopefully, make everything worth it.

So, like I said to the anon earlier... I shall hope you stick around and enjoy what can be enjoyed? There will be brighter times within the dark ones, and I do have several Part 3 scenes I am really looking forward to writing, especially the uplifting ones, and the somewhat unexpected, happy surprises the story will feature that, I hope, will lessen the blows of the guaranteed angst we’re all definitely going to suffer over.

Thanks for the asks! :)

#snorkledink #ask #gladiator spoilers #part 3

[wholesomereb]

Coming from an environment that doesn't believe in mental health disorders or respect them I have always shut down any possibility of having any issues

Throughout the years a lot of people showed concern and a lot of them pointed out that I tick a lot of boxes for a wide range of mental health disorders (including therapists and maaaaaaany counselors) but I always went "sUUUUUURE but nah I'm fine, everyone feels like this" even after I'd question freinds about these various feelings and they'd tell me that they actually didn't at all feel even remotely similar at any stage in their lives.

I have been watching a nice TV show lately, and although I've been vaguely aware of the disorder I just always attributed it to a certain type of individual. Several characters on the show dealt with it in their own ways. However, and I could heavily relate to how they described feeling so I went on a google search while expecting to, as per usual, laugh at every box I tick and leave it for good.

But that's when it struck me.

Just reading the symptoms alone set off so so many triggers. I've not been able to get through a single article without it getting right to me and having to time out to ground myself.

It affects me daily, but I do my best to pay it no attention. Today alone, without including the sites + research, I have consciously grounded myself at least 16 times (most of them at work + today was a good day!!). All the techniques mentioned in dealing with the disorder I exercise several times daily, and that's how I've coped with it for nearly a year. And it's just so wild??? If I knew anything about this before I could've arrived to the techniques faster??? That'd be cool. Glad it came naturally over time though.

But yes, I suppose it's a big day today. Gotta celebrate! I'm gonna be proactive about this and contact my GP on Monday to get seen about it, and hopefully they can help me out.

I manage the symptoms really well, but if the main trigger is present or I'm already at a low and cannot get out of my head there's seemingly nothing left to do than to let it take over for a while.

I really hope I manage to work through this ♡♡♡

I'm being mega vague because self diagnosis (as well as this being a mental health issue) still feels mega wrong to me due to my upbringing.

But yes, super excited to get this thing out of my head and away for good but highkey dreading it is permanent and that all there is is managing the symptoms with the coping mechanisms I have developed. I'm actually doing so good and I am so so mega proud of myself for coming such a long way. Bad days/moments happen (and so so very often) but I do an EXCELLENT job at getting it out of my head like 97% of the time :) Go you, Reb :)

I'm so glad I have a better grasp and understanding of what I'm dealing with and that I'm not alone, or wrong, or unreasonable for having these reactions to certain stimuli.

My parents would so diss me though lmao

Anyway, 2am local time. Gotta do sleep while the mood is good :) I'm just so happy I now have a term to describe this with. Now to get formally diagnosed and treated! Yip yip!

#me #personal #remember that i love you reb ♡

[ajoblotofjunk]

Hi! I've been reading you on Ao3 & wanted to tell you I'm SO impressed with HFoG. I have LOTS of things to say: mainly I was floored by how well you handled so many storylines/arcs while still keeping it clean & basic + tropey & never dumbing down complicated characters thru so many words! I think you outline but wondered if you could share more about your process? I'm in the midst of an 8book graphic novel script & the way you stuck the landing gives me hope! I am a huge fan of all of your work

Hi! Thank you for your lovely comment. 😊 I’m happy to talk about my process.

The way all of my stories start is an idea - sometimes a song will inspire me, sometimes a photo, sometimes a prompt, sometimes a “what if?” question. In HFoG’s case it was the video for Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire,” where I wanted to write a story where Jaime was the rich car owner and Brienne was the mechanic.

This gets long (SURPRISE) so the rest under a cut to save your dash. This is certainly way more than you wanted to know but hopefully there’s something helpful here. Hee.

Once I get an idea, I start expanding on it in general terms before I start writing - is Brienne his personal mechanic? (At one point she was, for his many, many cars.) Does she work at a garage? Why does Jaime have a car like this and why does he bring it to her? Etc. This is where my initial idea will often undergo the most changes and certainly for HFoG that’s what happened. I don’t really remember why I shifted to F1 - I wasn’t even an F1 fan when I thought of the idea. 😂 I’d watched some NASCAR growing up, but I didn’t want him to be a NASCAR driver and the more I looked into F1 as I became attached to the idea of Jaime as a racecar driver (oh I remember now! He was an ex-driver in initial renditions of the idea, and then I thought it would be great for Brienne to get to actually be a part of the racing world which is why I made him a current driver), the more I realized it fit him perfectly.

Once I have a solid enough idea to get me at least a few chapters in, I start writing, usually with only a vague idea where I want to end up (and often that idea is “they’re together and happy,” because I’m writing romances at their core). HFoG was quite different even from the start because I did so much research to get familiar with F1 that it bred all sorts of new ideas and plot changes even pre-writing. In my very very first version, the story was just a single year and Jaime got the championship and Brienne was happy as his Mechanic and they ended up happy together at the end, which would have been a perfectly lovely story! But once I realized I wanted to include Jaime’s hand injury, that changed a lot of the story and I did some brainstorming work and ended up having a pretty significant outline even before I started writing.

HOWEVER. If you look at even that outline now it’s SO DIFFERENT from where HFoG ultimately ended up. The first six months were the same, but everything after that was changed. Which I think is the fundamental key to how I write: start out with a really strong backbone (Jaime and Brienne falling in love while working together in F1), start writing, discover what the story is as I go along, and continually think about and update and add to my outline as I figure out what I’m really doing. So it’s like half-planning, half-discovery. 

In the original version of hand-loss HFoG, Jaime goes to Tarth in August but they don’t have sex, he crashes in September but he’s wounded like Robert Kubica and doesn’t lose his hand. Brienne ends up convincing her dad to start a team so Jaime can race and they don’t actually get together until the middle of year two, and then Jaime ends up winning the championship that second year.

The reason I changed all that was because as I started writing the fic I wanted more for both Brienne. Jaime, too, but he had a rich emotional plot to support the love story and I wanted Brienne to have that, too. I knew the story was going to be long (70-90k I thought; my longest fic before this was 70k and that felt like a damned novel to me!), and to support that length I wanted Brienne to have her own dreams and personal plot. Everything from the first August and after was something I struggled with CONSTANTLY even while I was writing the story. Brynn can attest to this - I sent her SEVERAL emails wailing and gnashing my teeth and changing my mind constantly about what I should do and where it should all go. I honestly don’t think I felt confident about it until I was actually writing the second year. I second guessed myself repeatedly.

But. I started writing with the original outline because I felt confident about the first few chapters and I trust myself enough now that I know the story will reveal itself if I keep working on it. I had this happen just yesterday with my JB Fic Exchange story, which FINALLY re-settled itself in my head after I kept writing even though I knew what I was writing wasn’t going to be it - that happens a LOT for me, actually, which is also why I write ahead for long stories, because I know things are going to change and I’ll want to go back to earlier chapters to add in moments to support later chapters and changed plots, which I can’t do if I’m writing as I go. Do I flail and freak out every time that I have no idea what I’m doing? Absolutely. Heh. But so far my brain has not let me down. Often I just keep relentlessly writing even though it all feels awkward and weird, because once I stop and re-read and determine WHY it’s awkward and weird, that tells me what I should be doing instead. I’ve thrown away SO MANY words, but they’ve all needed it.

My outline for HFoG was by month, with the idea that each month was a chapter. This is pretty typical for me when I do finally expand on my idea into an outline. All of my multi-chapter fics end up with at least a brief outline with vague, high-level ideas of what I want to happen in each chapter (plot, emotions, romance, whatever), and often one or two specific events or lines of dialogue that have come to me. I don’t write ahead, I write all in a row because of the discovery factor, but when I do get struck by a flash of a scene, I write that down for the chapter I think it’s going to be in.

What’s important for my process is that those scenes can be moved to wherever they need to go, and are often changed by the time I get to them. I do have things in in the final version of HFoG that had been in these early outlines, but not in the place or exact way I first wrote them down, and that’s because as much as I do outline, I have to tell the story I’m actually telling, and that will sometimes wind to places I didn’t expect as I’m writing it. So the outline guides me, but I don’t bind myself to it so tightly that I can’t be flexible when the story demands it. I also re-read the story a lot as I write (or at least the chapters nearest the chapter I’m working on, once it gets to a certain length), because that will often help ground me in where I’m going, too, by remembering where I’ve been.

One of the toughest parts about HFoG as I got deeper into it was juggling secondary and tertiary characters and when to use them and how. Jaime’s and Brienne’s arcs formed the backbone of my outline, but as I pulled in characters, I knew I wanted them to intersect with J&B throughout, usually in support of J&B’s storylines but with the weight of having their own lives going on underneath. To help with that, I had a list of characters who had recurring roles in the story and when I started each chapter, I would go through and remind myself of if I wanted/needed them to appear and what their purpose was for doing so (and a little about what else they’d been up to, so I could throw that in for color - like Pod finding a girlfriend; that had no “plot” effect, but it gave Pod, a character i care about, happiness and was something I could refer to in other scenes just for depth and emotional weight).

As for sticking the landing - I had tremendous anxiety about just that for weeks, most intensely the weeks I was writing the last chapters and right afterward when I was going to post them. I worried people would hate the final confrontation with Tywin, that they’d want more or something different, and in that case it was very reassuring to have Brynn, who was the only one who’d read the ending at that point, to talk me through it. I would HIGHLY recommend a beta who is good at the things you are not, by the way. I can’t tell you the number of times Brynn would make a point about the emotional arc of a scene and remind me to take a step back and look at how the characters were feeling in the moment, and that consistently made the story so much better.

SO. In summary my process is: initial idea; expand on that idea enough I can start writing (which sometimes involved lots of research); outline if I need it but not required as I write the first chapter or two; definitely need an outline after that, organized by chapter, with high points of plot and emotions and whatever else I already have in my head; use the outline as a lamp to illuminate the story I’m telling; keep writing even when it all feels wrong, knowing I will get to the right path EVENTUALLY, and update outline accordingly; lots of freaking out to a sympathetic and smart friend; side-notes about non-main characters so I don’t completely forget them/develop new plot points/expand on existing plot points because of them; hope it all works out in the end. Heh.

Hopefully there’s something helpful here. If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to ask! And best of luck on your own big project!! It’s a ton of work but the rewards are great in the end. You can do this!

#heart full of gasoline #my fic #writing life #asks answered #sellastella8 #long text post #i have a lot to say!! #hee