#query: complete

[moonbinscirera]

SO I'll be posting shortly after this is sent because I'm impatient hajekekeks but ayo my anonymity still remains how exciting 🙇🏻‍♀️ I'll be following you after too (pls don't hate me it's simply because I didn't want to give myself away on accident 😭) ajsjkee

Those desserts sound sooo scrumptious omg I want to eat them rn 😭 it does kinda suck they canceled but I'm also glad to just laze around 😂

I'll kick anyone you want me to if you don't get minghao 🙄 /hj

And yes! Merry Christmas eve darling and merry christmas too!! ❤️ Toodles and see you off anon v soon 😌💕

not me see the gift first 😭 but really i love it so much i dont think imma shut up about it forever im soo geeked n gagged its perfect

also like same i didnt follow my exchange person either cuz i didnt wanna give myself away 😭

anyway i hope ur having the bestest Christmas like really truly actually

#got so excited #i aint tag a thing #query: complete

[thebibliosphere]

Not to be an unbearable plot tease, but I'm editing/rewriting a chapter from Hunger Pangs book 2, and while I adore all of my characters equally, Vlad and Ursula getting to know each other properly might actually be some of my favorite moments.

His realization that he can pester Ursula to tell him more about random historical events as they actually happened, not how they are portrayed in history books, is so, so sweet. He's like an excited labrador who just found a dinosaur bone.

Ursula's very much not used to this kind of attention.

She's used to people only being interested in her power. And here's a werewolf who couldn't give less of a fuck about exploiting her magic for his own gain, and a vampire who wants to ask her what textile production was like circa the fall of the Ecrecian Empire.

#hunger pangs series #hunger pangs meta #I like that I can still make myself smile with this #it means I'm probably doing something right #Vlad is me in this instance #if you gave me access to a time machine #I'd make a complete nuisance of myself wanting to learn the answer to every random historical query that has ever crossed my mind

[dinoserious]

oh yeah heres the cleary for af i did last night to keep her up to date w the changes ive made to her

#cleary ute #under the eyes #anthro #insect #directing any queries on her anatomy over to manny who actually has a more complete ref #theyre basically the same but for patterning and some minor shapes

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

so, the most recent novel i managed to actually finish writing, three long years ago, was the book of my absolute lifelong dreams and most of the time i just leave it sitting on my computer and pretend it doesn't exist because i feel too tenderly about it and i'm too proud of it and it's agony to me. these feelings are, for whatever reason, unbearable hell. but like once a year i work up the courage to reread it, and every time i'm like, "god DAMN! who wrote this?? this is exactly what i've wanted to read my whole life!!!!!!! it's simply delightful!" and then i remember that oh yeah, it's me!

#i feel like i should vow to try to query this thing like 50 times just because i love it so much and i owe it to my own love of it #and then when i get rejected because it's 155k and that's insane (but it NEEDS TO BE!) i can at least say i tried #i don't get what it says about me that i wrote the book of my dreams and now i'm too embarrassed so i pretend it doesn't exist #instead of trying to get it published #as it is apparently my lifelong goal to be a published novelist #why is my brain wired this way!??!?!?!?! #i think i'm just too scared that everyone else will hate it and it will hurt my feelings too much because it's so me #it is truly and completely my sweet little baby #and it has the same word count as jane austen's emma which i only discovered after i finished writing it #fate!!!!!!! #dollsome's deep thoughts #it's my birthday so i'm allowing myself this really self-indulgent post #getting older and still never being a (non-self-) published novelist: the story of me

[bookwyrminspiration]

I swear the magisterium series went so hard with saying you can bring someone back but you can’t fix death and then they ruined it

LITERALLY! For the age group, it was so raw and poignant and quite effective, in my opinion. Absolutely loved Aaron's brought back wrong story; i've never forgotten the descriptors of when he woke up and his hair and nails were longer because they'd kept growing in death, and how that clued Aaron in. and his screams. the way in the end, Aaron wasn't alive, he was under Call's control; Call told him not to talk about things like that, and he didn't. because he couldn't. Aaron didn't have free will, he had Call's will. the dawning horror when Call realized, and Aaron begging to be put to rest...favorite part of the series for me, I think

then they decided in book five actually we can fix death and are going to bring back Aaron perfectly fine this time <3

WHY. WHY did we do all that then. i HATE it. magisterium fandom unites around a hatred of the golden tower. in my heart aarons dead for real <3

#the magisterium #quil's queries #the-one-and-only-aroace #completely unrelated but i'm starting to get a lil nervous. i thought my teacher was supposed to send an article to read and write #a short paper on today #that would be due first thing tomorrow #but there has been...nothing... #if it turns out we were supposed to have it and I've missed somethin maybe I can sweet talk la profe #i have been an excellent student the whole entire year #AND i speak spanish #(she's from ecuador)

[the-unconquered-queen]

A poll for series with more than one installment, a late addition LI is one that was not an LI at first, but eventually became an official LI. Maybe they were there from the first book and not romanceable then, but also maybe they weren't around but joined the club in a later installment. Point is you can romance them now but you have to go through at least one book before you can get with ur love 😔

#playchoices #I had completely forgotten that Maxwell wasn't romanceable until b2 and I had to confirm that on the wiki so that's fun #also I thought Alana became an LI in late b1 but the wiki says b2 so I'm trusting that #unconquered queries

[birlwrites]

one of the things that i've accomplished due to the low barrier to entry in writing fanfiction is writing novel-length stories as a matter of course. like, i used to think of writing a book as this massive, monumental task - and in some ways, it is! but in other ways, it's still just a story. and it feels much more approachable to me now that i've done it multiple times, posting chapter by chapter because that's something you can do really easily with fanfiction. i didn't go into it believing i could do it - i found out that i could by just giving it a try and seeing what resulted.

there's also a certain wild creativity you can find on ao3, the result of people just doing whatever they feel like doing - sometimes it results in incoherence, sometimes in incomprehensibility, sometimes it falls flat, but there's so much variety in storytelling forms, if you look for it. people will deep-dive into anything. 'marketability' is laughably far from being a concern. what is a story, anyway? people will strip the idea down to its bare bones and rebuild it in infinite ways if they have the space. that space doesn't exist in barnes & noble.

i'm a firm believer that you should read the types of stories you want to write, and that you should also read broadly, because that's how you avoid getting stuck recycling the same handful of ideas over and over. i think the same thing applies to writing. write what you want to write - but also, experiment. try other things, even if they seem silly or impractical or irrelevant, even if you don't think they will work. even if you don't think you can make them work.

if you don't feel like you have creative freedom, then you'll fall back on the tried-and-true. you'll recycle. it won't feel like your voice, because it's been filtered through layers upon layers of 'acceptable' and 'marketable' and 'reasonable' and 'broadly appealing.' the only way to understand your own creative limits is by testing them, constantly. you can't truly believe that you can write whatever you want until you prove it to yourself.

and even if your voice turns out to be acceptable and marketable and reasonable and broadly appealing after all - if you try all sorts of things and find out that's where your creativity flows best - you still know it's yours. you still know you're writing the truest possible expression of your own creative abilities. you owe it to yourself to find out what it feels like to write unfettered.

write something weird.

#this began as me realizing i'm well on my way to having 5 novel-length stories completed #and morphed into something quite different #i don't think a story is ever really complete until it's reached its audience #sometimes that audience is me - sometimes i really am just writing for myself #but usually i'm writing in order to share things #i want to see how other people react to them #i want to know if i'm communicating the vision in my head #and sharing creative work is SO EASY in fannish spaces #is it difficult to get visibility? yes #do lots of people tend to lurk which means i have no idea what they think? also yes #but some people reach out!! #and i didn't even have to complete my whole marketable story and write a query letter for it!! #stories are communication and communication is always reaching out for a response #i can't write in a vacuum

[yr-obedt-cicero]

William and John were the hottest of the hamkids I mean like damn Eliza and Ham were on a role for a few years <33

Okay, that's just because they were young during those paintings. And also because Alex and Phil were old by theirs, and James was balding due to the stress of doing Alex's shit for him.

#Also William is just dressed up for his #Descriptions of him are COMPLETELY different #And if you want to see old ass JCH I can show you #amrev #william s hamilton #william stephen hamilton #john church hamilton #philip hamilton ii #alexander hamilton jr #james alexander hamilton #hamilchildren #queries #sincerely anonymous

[parsleymusic]

waiting for someone to deliver a critique they promised to deliver in september is agony

#lady is busy and i get that but she said she would prioritize it in the coming weeks in october #and part of me is wondering if it's just Bad lmao #like I've really been struggling to get people to actually read this book #i think that's probably just due to my stage in life etc #but the last “critique partner” I sent my book to asked me halfway if she could stop reading it lmao #and her critique was ultimately useless because she wanted something completely different out of my premise than the book i wrote #which is just a mismatch of expectations ig but #:P #(her book was not good btw) #annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyywwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy #one of my friends wouldn't read it because she doesn't like the third person present tense #which is imo an awful reason not to read a book but like whatever #I would like to edit my book one more time with this critique in mind before i start querying again #but maybe i'm just telling myself that to get out of the absolute agony i feel when querying #querying feels like being skinned alive #anyway #i think that'll be my new personal post tag lmao

[elite-amarys]

You should at least congratulate carmine and build up her confidence!! Maybe ask who she's gonna ask ;)? Just for your information, of course!

If she had wanted to tell me she would have. We see each other frequently.

I worry that congratulating her may make her feel guilty that she did not inform me of this crush. The last thing I would ever want to do is upset her.

#//local teenage lesbian silently martyrs herself completely unaware that she is not even a little bit sneaky #pkmn irl #anonymous query

[coffeeworldsasaki]

ALMOST A WEEK OF AGONIES BUT IT WORKS NOW I CAN RETRIEVE DATA FROM THE DATABASE AH

#first main issue was that google lied to me and flow value isn't actually constantly collecting #i probably understood wrong but I prefer to think google lied since IN OTHER CASE IT ACTUALLY DOES THAT WITH OUTDATED DOCUMENTATION #second thing that was easier to solve was a wrongly writter query #god i had 1 breakdown and a depressive episode about this shit because i felt like an incompetent idiot for not being able to make it work #what a fucking relief it's done #this also means that I've done almost all the main functionalities of the app 🥰 #the only big thing left is a worker that daily check the status of the tasks to complete by going through all the stuff a user saves to show #it in the homepage #god i need to finish this soon i need to use it for my plants

[moonbinscirera]

I can imagine how hard it is to draw and have things out by deadlines but it still is so funny to see 😂

Honestly 10k would be sooo nice tyvm! I'm glad you're starting to feel better (I sure hope so still yet) and I am so excited to tell you that I'll be posting your gift tonight I believe ~ I'll stop by again once I do 😌 anyways I believe I might give myself away if I say my bias line 🤭 but it's generally booseoksoon with a dash of scoups lol!

Ooh and my favorite dessert is probably cookies! I could eat them at any time 😋 but I do like a good pound cake. My friends ended up canceling so now I have like 3 spare gifts I guess to use at a later date 😭 I think baking dates with hao would be super cute 💕

Ajsjkee so exciting I hope you got some good pulls 👁

it is~

thank you~ AND IM SO EXCITED TO SEE IT LIKE TRULY

im kinda a dense bby ur biasline wont give u away~~~~~ BUT SUCH A GOOD LINE IT IS 😌😌😌😌

oooo my favorite dessert is sugar and spice cake~ but if i had to pick a cookie it definitely would be cranberry apple oatmeal cookies like its so good SO GOOD

that sucks that ur friends cancelled 😭 i hope u still enjoyed ur day tho 😭

the gom is sorting them now so i should be getting minghaos i tink im at a good place on the priority list... at least i hope i am-

OH AND MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!

#query: complete

[lillyanbrooks]

“when will my husband return from the war” vibes but it’s when will my query return from the slush pile

#querying #writersoftumblr #writblr #i alternate from total peace to complete and utter blackout anxiety #lillyanbrooks

[twosetmeridian]

can't tell if being on the outer fringes of the fandom mentally and emotionally in regards to my passion for Them is better (work-life balance; less affected by their extended break; less drama, more ✨ vibes ✨) or worse (any Them-flavored creative endeavor lately has been No Thoughts Head Empty) 🫠

#merri speaks #am i clinging to fraying threads is my query #on the other hand gomens has completely ruined my life but that's not news

[bookwyrminspiration]

hello so i sent you something very similar to this a few months ago but it looks like tumblr ate my og ask because i haven't seen it so i'm resending it except i don't remember my exact words so i have to rewrite it from scratch lmfao

about elves and culture: at one point i remember you mentioning offhandedly in some post that elves are all white culturally (i tried for about fifteen minutes to find it, but you know. tumblr.) which is another way the series lacks diversity (besides the obvious barely-any-non-white-people and no non-allocishet people) and i was thinking about how shannon could have even have fixed this problem because the elves are a monolith when it comes to culture. yeah, they have different races, but all the races have the same culture. so i was like. ok. how would shannon even incorporate multiple cultures into the story? how would it even be possible to show cultural diversity in a story where the elves all live in the same society? and i came up with a few ideas:

could do a mashpot, where everyone in the lost cities has bits of every single culture ever mixed into one (somehow). i have two ideas for this

mashpot option one: have the different aspects of a culture each come from different cultures (for example, clothes of one culture and the food of a different culture and traditions of the another culture and so on). putting it all together, this would create a collage-culture of sorts, which would be quite jarring, but it could be effective if done well, i think.

mashpot option two: they could have the different aspects of a culture pull from every culture ever. for example, the elves could eat foods that taste like foods from all around the world, instead of foods that just taste like american foods (as someone who hates the taste of stereotypically american food, i can say i would hate eating anything from the lost cities). or have them celebrate a variety of holidays or something across the whole year, each of which is representative of a different culture.

could have different groups of elves each have different cultures. i also have two ideas for this

different groups option one: each family line has a different culture or something like that. so you have cultural diversity through each family having a different culture and everyone being accepting of that. this could include different clothes, food, traditions, architecture, celebrations, and all that stuff (maybe not language though lmfao). this would at least be able to somewhat showcase different cultures, although it would have to have been done really half-assedly. this would also have a huge skew toward white cultures because most of the characters are white.

different groups option two: create different clans of elves, all of whom have mutual respect for each other. each clan of elves can have a different culture. this would literally be separate societies of elves. however, they could all respond to the same council, which is made of people from all the clans in the name of equality. this way, the monolithicity of the elves would be intact and while still showing some diversity of culture.

shannon makes up her own culture that is completely unlike any culture we've ever heard of, ever. equal neglect of all cultures is equality. sophie eats an umber leaf and is like "this tastes like nothing i've ever eaten before and tastes like it shouldn't even be a real food but i like it". sophie is shown their clothes and it's just a dress made out of solid, opaque crystal. their traditions involve scratching random shapes in the ground and dancing around them in a specific way. this is the chaos option.

this wouldn't really showcase cultural diversity, but instead of an all-white culture, it could be a non-white culture monolith. but then there's the same problem of "why do all the elves have the same exact culture, where's the diversity?" except a different flavor. it would also be really weird because most of the characters in the series are canonically white.

elves don't have any culture. not gonna lie, i have no idea how this would work. this is the other chaos option. up to interpretation, i guess.

thoughts? what would you do if you were shannon. i don't really see any other options for fixing this problem, but there might be something i missed.

(also, yes, i am sending this three times. sorry for annoying you. i want to make sure at least one makes it to your inbox this time lol.)

Hey! So sorry about that--I don't know exactly how long you were waiting, but if it ever seems a while you can send an ask sooner to double check!

Before I get into this, I will say: there is no one right way to approach this topic and I am one person. These are just my thoughts--and I am always open to hearing from others

That said, just to clarify my first point (from this ask, thanks for the link), what I meant by "the elves are all white culturally" is that the kotlc elven culture is fabricated, but seems largely white american inspired. Which makes sense, as that's what Shannon is. There's always going to be a level of bias from one's own experiences and life, it's legitimately impossible to avoid and not always a bad thing. In some cases though, we want to temper it a little, which I don't think it really was in kotlc.

Like you said, there's multiple ways to approach this.

I think the crux is how race, in the elven world, means nothing--but this story exists in a world where it means a lot. While race is a social construction (the meanings/distinctions we assign to skin color are arbitrary) and therefore can be given a null significance, doing so is difficult because socially constructed doesn't mean meaningless/insignificant

We also run into complications given how scattered elves are--I've brought this up regarding clothing, but the physical geography of one's community shapes not only what you wear, but what you grow, how you build, etc. And we don't have that landmark for the elves

I think either an elven monoculture or multiple would work, it's just a matter of what you'd want to do.

If we go for a monoculture as Shannon has, I'd personally go for its own unique culture rather than a mash-up. A mash-up seems too likely to remove significant context/meaning from the source, and the elves are supposed to be isolated from humans. I think Shannon choosing this was fine, it was the execution I dislike.

The food comparisons you mention, for example. Or the family structures. Beauty standards. The education system. They don't actually feel like a distinct monoculture, it feels American with a fantasy filter. If, for example, we expanded on how being immortal affects your family (everyone's still alive, what kinds of relationships does that create, etc.), or how they're taught (instead of lectures and homework, maybe more hands on involvement, travel for hands-on since they can do so instantly, different kinds of tests, etc.), then I'd be more satisfied. I know there's some level of familiarity so readers aren't lost, but it's a little too much, in my opinion

If we were going instead for multiple elven cultures, I think I'd personally base it on ability. It's the most defining thing in their world and could easily be taken further. There'd be kinks to work out given kids don't automatically inherent their parents' abilities, have to manifest, and that people with the same ability don't generally group together, but! that's not insurmountable

kids could be raised within their parents' ability cultures/customs and then, if they manifest a different ability, its culture could be passed via their instructors--which wouldn't necessarily be at Foxfire. Those who differ from their parents, perhaps, would be expected to seek out additional mentor figures and become more multi-culture kids in the process. just because they don't group in canon now doesn't mean they can't here (and could be seen as more necessary given how much ability cross-marriages there are). There could also be more celebratory days around abilities--e.g. a kind of ceremony conducted when a kid manifests. Lots of different ways to take it, the point is just that abilities, I think, make a great base for different elven cultures given how massively important it is in their world.

We're critiquing/discussing diveristy, so something to consider, I think, is what is diversity in the context of kotlc? We want a variety of people to be reflected in the story--but we're dealing with isolated non-humans, so including a variety of human cultures won't necessarily achieve that goal.

The main thing that comes up (or at least that I've seen discussed) is the lack of non-white characters and the fairly american constructed culture--so the course of action to take could be a better balance of physical descriptor (more non-white characters) that creates the varied reflections/connections we want, and a more distinctly elven culture that leans into it harder, making it less American.

I'll stop here for now until this gets too long, but at the moment that's the general direction of my thoughts. I think it's a fine thought experiment to ask "what if culture wasn't tied to race?" you just don't want to then forget that even though your fantasy book doesn't consider race, it exists in a society that does. which could lead us into further discussion on sterotypes as well, which also factors into all this

and again: these are just my personal initial thoughts. it's a broad, complex topic, so there will of course be things I miss or don't get to. but regardless, i hope that at least partially answers your question of what I would do :)

#kotlc #kotlc worldbuilding #long post #quil's queries #nonsie #i am. so sorry about the wait #rest assured I have definitely received this ask now #also. that og post is from 2021. and while I'm not saying I completely disagree with myself #i may have some clarifications/alterations to my previous statements. like the comparisons I make with my own life #alas. the human nature to change and grow #anyway. does this answer your question? always willing to talk more #but just making sure I'm getting what you're getting at and on track

[queerlilchinchin]

The plan is to start with writing a single draft of each of the three novellas for The Fall of the Sirens.

Then I'm going to go back and reread all of them, figure out what the general ideas are, what I want to expand upon, what I want to reduce the time spent on, then rewrite the first 2.

Then I'll reread them again and I'll work on the first one til it's finished and then work on the 2nd one til it's finished, then complete novella 3.

At least, for right now, that's the plan.

I'm still on step one but the nice thing is I'm on the last book, so... I'm at the end of step one.

#the fall of the sirens #I plan to start querying once my first book is complete #then I can also say I have the first draft of the other 2 books complete too #and just have to perfect them