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justagalwhowrites · 3 months

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i hope you don’t beat yourself up too much abt the joel spoiler thing. TLOU2 came out almost 5 years ago, and it’s not ur fault people read stuff about video game characters with no expectations of spoilers

Hi Bestie!

You are very sweet to say this! I will kind of lay out why this has been bothering me so much though I totally get what you're saying. (No spoilers really below the cut, it doesn't expressly say what the spoiler is, I just have a chronic and incurable case of cannotshutthefuckupitis so it's long!)

I really do try to tag things properly and put appropriate warnings on stuff. I've definitely gotten it wrong and I try to go through and correct things as soon as someone flags it for me (and if you see something you think I've mistagged or missed a warning on, DM me or comment or send me an ask, I'll fix it!) As someone living with PTSD and cPTSD, I'm SUPER familiar with triggers and just how much being triggered can hurt when you're not ready for it, so I try to do it right.

Usually when I fuck it up (or just include something that people want to skip and it's tagged so they skip it) it messes things up for someone for a chapter but they can move past it. This is something that should have been a full fic warning. People started reading this literally six months ago and had to stop because I didn't warn them properly. I feel really terrible for putting people in a position of not getting a resolution in a story they've invested hours in reading or spoiling something they were looking forward to (or just fully spoiling it because they read it, didn't know it was a spoiler until I SAID it was a spoiler and now they know which also sucks!) I really do just try to share stories I care about and give people other ways to engage with these characters beyond what the original media offers. I try to do it in a way that's positive and fulfilling and kind and I feel like I really missed the mark on that here.

There's been a lot I've gotten wrong as I've been writing fic (I know I used language that coded my characters as lighter skinned when writing Lavender and Beskar Doll in particular, for example, I've missed tags, I've had warnings that weren't what they should have been, etc.) but this one, I think, has the furthest reaching impact because it's such a long fic (we were more than 200k words into that sucker when the spoiler came up!) so it feels like I wasted a lot of people's time and damaged their experience with the original medium.

I will also say, I've never played the games 🫣 I'm very VERY bad at video games. There are some I have fun playing, anyway. but I always play on the very easiest setting and usually only for like 2 hours at a time or so. I was just so captivated by the series that I watched play throughs of both games and all the cut scenes and read a bunch of the production stuff and looked at concept art and things like that because I wanted to know EVERYTHING. I think that pushed me into a side of the fandom that heavily embraces the game as well as the show and I just didn't realize that wasn't the whole fandom.

So... yeah! There's that lol Probably more than you were really looking for but that's the context. I should also probably just STFU about this now lol I've fixed it as best as I can and the damage is done, there's really no good reason for me to keep mentioning it to y'all!

Though, Bestie, I really and truly do appreciate your kindness and support! Thank you for being here ❤️

Love you!

#fanfic #send asks #kit answers #yearling

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ferusaurelius · 8 months

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Get to know your fanfic writer!

I was tagged by @callista-curations and actually got to the end of the week with a bit of energy for once, so... here we go. ;)

When did you post your first ever fanfic?

The first EVER was on ff.net probably around 2000-2004? For a friend, for an obscure show nobody's heard of. My first fic I posted for myself was 2020.

First Character(s) you wrote?

I actually wrote original characters in the Mass Effect fandom. My short thought experiment on machine translation.

Main Character(s) you’re currently writing?

Nihlus Kryik, David Anderson, Commander Rentola

Character(s) you haven’t written about before but plan to write about soon?

Nyreen Kandros, Ashley Williams. Though they might take a bit since I'm still kinda marinating on what I want to do there.

Fandom(s) you’re currently writing?

Mass Effect! Hyperfixation fandom, go! (I write meta posts for Our Flag Means Death, but do not intend to write fic.)

Platonic pairing(s) you’re currently writing?

Commander Rentola and Ashley Williams

Romantic pairing(s) you’re currently writing?

Nihlus Kryik/Saren Arterius, David Anderson/Saren Arterius (yep!).

Your top AO3 tags?

Romantic Comedy (LOL). Good job, barfics!

Current platform you use for posting?

AO3. I've read a bunch of fic for different fandoms over the years and I'm pleased to be able to contribute when I have the energy.

Snippet of the WIP you are currently working on?

So bar!fics are going to have a long!fic sequel. Keep in mind I AM A SLOW WRITER with multiple wips, to the point where the 'easy' one-shots get published first.

I'm not sure about POV or pacing, but it'll be in a different voice and tone than the originals and have actual mission-oriented plot and some developing relationship stuff.

If you don't want spoilers, I've put it below the cut. ;)

This is a Very Rough high-level outline of a fragment of the entire plot, because my 'other' current WIP is maybe gonna be a nano project. I have various wip possibilities dueling it out for my attention and will see you in December. xD

Normally I would tag a few people to play (and if you feel like playing and you are reading this, IT IS YOU WHO IS TAGGED xD), but specifics are beyond my brain tonight.

Outline time~

Saren entertains Nihlus with his own history and experience of the Skyllian Verge, as well as being a sort of guide to the full intelligence picture, as he understands it.

Nihlus (with a snap of intuition) puts together that something bigger and more urgent than Saren thinks is happening or likely to happen, and it makes him restless and want to investigate immediately, because what if his intuition is right?

Saren insists that Nihlus should go as soon as his ankle’s recovered. He has his own authority.

Nihlus declines to ‘rush’ into something and presents an alternative of walking Saren through his process and treats this as a getting-to-know you thought exercise to keep Saren distracted from how fucking miserable the detox process is.

Saren and Nihlus together, working the problem over food and no access to other sources of information beyond what they can recall, come up with a terrible plan.

Nihlus can infiltrate the merc group by having a public falling-out with Saren.

Saren can get sent to hunt down “Rogue Spectre” Nihlus in the Verge.

Nihlus treats this seriously and starts workshopping different options while Saren is getting increasingly agitated about the whole concept of the frame-up.

Saren: I can’t ask you to do this.

Nihlus: Fine, you’re not asking. I’m volunteering.

Saren: I don’t know if I can let you do this.

Nihlus: It’s my decision.

Saren: -can’t dispute this, even if he doesn’t like it-

Saren: -eventually agrees, though he doesn’t like it-

Saren: Alternatives.

They come up with others that have less advantage in discretion, timing, or access.

Saren is forced to admit that Nihlus’s idea about infiltrating a group directly is the best one, since it allows them the most flexibility in cover story and depth of access. Plus, Nihlus is marked.

Saren: I’ve never asked.

Nihlus: -tells him-

Nihlus: What are you going to need for your part to work?

Saren: You, eyes open, and no hesitation. Trust me to manage my end no matter what you hear or what happens.

Nihlus: -kinda loves this about Saren- With my life.

Saren: It may come to that.

Nihlus: We’ll worry about that when it happens.

It will happen.

Saren: A better medical regimen.

Nihlus: I’ve never asked.

Saren: -tells him-

... and that's all you get to see for now. xD Be intrigued! Be very intrigued. If you can guess what canon event this is gonna be AU for, you get bonus points. ;)

#ferus tag games #my writing #mass effect fic writing #ferus chats #i can have a little tag game as a treat #thanks for tagging me!

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cloaked-saurosuchus · 3 years

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Interview with a fanfic author tag

I got 'tagged' by @blaiddsumu! and by that I mean i stole it. yoink

1. Your favorite fic that you’ve written (or just one you want to give a shout out to).

From finished ones: definitely Narrators. For what an impulsive oddity it was for me (2nd person what?) and when re-reading I'd change some small things but I?? still Really like it? It feels like I actually managed to get down the emotion I wanted in a short self-contained thing which is both pretty rare for me lol.

From WIPs y'all know Two Deaths lives in my brain rent free and is arguably my fav (even though I haven't even posted my favourite parts so far and they seem so far away and I'm Suffering(tm))

2. Your favorite fic title that you’ve come up with.

uhuh I'm horrid at coming up with titles. Probably In Search Of bcs it goes along with the chapter names (In Search Of A Reason, In Search Of An Engineer etc.)? It took me an actual year after posting the first part of it to actually come up with that title though lol. or Eye Can't See You bcs it's horrible pun fhkah

3. How do you get inspiration to write?

tangent brain. whatever I'm thinking about (or reading or really ANYTHING) and fixating on will inevitably leak into each other and produce story ideas. and I need to get these ideas Out somehow or they will stew in the back of my brain forever. the entirety of Two Deaths is a massive tangent about a trying a different spin on [wait no this is probably a spoiler].

also music? lots of music. i tend to listen heavily to a single album/interpret at a time, so my brain inevitably comes up with interpretations of songs that can be spun into stories, hehe.

4. Your favorite genre/subgenre of fic to write.

Uh?? Fluff I guess? and whatever the hell would two deaths get categorized as. longform hurt/comfort?? PROBABLY? uuh. i always feel weird putting a genre to my stuff so idk though really

5. Do you have other hobbies?

I Make stuff in general! Most notably it's drawing and programming, but I also play and compose for piano/pipe organ from time to time and recently I've gotten into cross-stitch and I've been looking into 3D-printing and just sewing in general. I tend to bounce around hobbies a lot though, so the ones staying are really just. Drawing and pipe organs.

6. A fun fact about you that a lot of people may not know.

Buuh. Um. If I finish my current uni course, I'll get a Mgr. (Magister) title and not Ing. (engineer) title even though I'm studying a very much tech-field that usually gets the engineer treatment and I think that's incredibly funny. At a certain point it looked like my sis might try for an Ing. from a social field and it was hilarious. we decided we'd make "trust me I'm an engineer" jokes to maximize confusing the hell out of people

that fell through and now neither of us will be able to make trust me I'm an engineer jokes u_u

8. Favorite genre of music.

genres are a scam that I don't understand and my favourite genre is not going to really map onto the music I listen to the most so uh

swing and electro swing.

9. Your favorite singer/band.

I don't really have absolute favourites, more like. Cycling through interprets depending on how I'm feeling. The Oh Hellos, Cosmo Sheldrake and Lord Huron are evergreens I keep coming back to. And Switchfoot.

Currently also listening to a Lot of IDKHBTFM, Mother Mother and The Hoosiers.

10. And finally, how has your experience in fandom been?

Pretty chill! Met a whole bunch of cool people! It probably helped that I only really actively entered the UT fandom last year (after the initial hype died down and also like. I Know what I want to avoid now and I do just that) and my previous fandom was Ranger's Apprentice, which was small and constructive, and based on a canon that is decidedly Not drowned in 3-4 layers of meta keeping things pretty sane when it comes to weird characterizations that would irk me. (moving into ut from that was Quite A Shock, dare I say.)

Tagging: uuh y'all know I don't tag people fhajksh if you see this and write, consider yourself Tagged (and feel free to tag me bcs I wanna See)

#tag games and co #god these music questions have me like [thinks about music] [thinks about music] [thinks about music] music is so cool man-#i could talk about music for hours (although probably incomprehensibly)......... music. music good. music so very good.#EDIT DAYS LATER: guess who forgot the 'pick a character to project onto' question but have y'all seen gaster? gaster.

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simmancy · 7 years

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I was wondering how you first started your berry legacy? Did you make a new simblr for it? How did you first start posting and getting into a routine? I really want to make a legacy myself but i'm scared that it would look really mediocre and unorganized! Any tips on how to plan out the storyline and start posting? Thank you!! (asking this to a few different blogs so sorry if yo see this question somewhere else)

I’m honestly super honored that you’re asking me! I’m still a pretty small simblr compared to a lot of people.

I’m going to put this under a cut, just so it doesn’t clutter up people’s dashes because I RAMBLE (like seriously, I’m re-reading it all now and I go on and on and on) but I’m gonna cover everything you asked!

TL;DR: get mildly inspired, get involved in the community and have fun with it!

I cannot recommending creating a new blog enough. While it’s definitely easier to just create a sub-blog off your personal, you’ll have a harder go at keeping things separate once things take off. Plus then you probably won’t have ALL your million tumblr things that you’re already following mixed in with your sim stuff, making things so much harder to follow.

Once you start your simblr (whether a sub-blog or whole new tumblr), TAG EVERYTHING. XKIT SAVES LIVES. Not really, but it will save you a lot of time once you install the Quick Tags and make tag bundles. Seriously.

At least once a day, a “reblog if you’re a maxis match simblr” thing comes across my dash–don’t be afraid to reblog those when you’re starting out. (Or the alpha equivalent if that’s your thing).

Seriously, don’t be afraid to reach out to people and get involved. Ask for sim requests, reply to things, join a Discord server–don’t be afraid to talk to people! I’ve actually made a few good friends this time around. It’s awesome.

This is just one of the unfortunate realities about things–if your pictures look good, you’ll get noticed quicker and blah blah. You can get by on just writing, but it’s a lot harder. This is still tumblr. It’s microblogging. LOOOOONG text posts (like this one lmao) are not what it’s geared towards.

Anyway. I play TS4 on Ultra, and that does a lot of work for me. Sometimes all you really need to do is sharpen and brighten things up. Reshade is another good alternative, if your computer can handle it–that takes a lot of the decision making out because it edits for you! I used to use PickyPikachu’s reshade presets. The downside is that it’s pretty resource heavy.

The basic point here is that having good lookin’ pictures goes a long way to making your stuff look “not mediocre.”

Also, and this is a side thing–find a good theme for your simblr, something that looks good for both text posts and pictures, probably something with either a sidebar or header (or both).

This is the meat of the section and it’s all really Kit/Pastille-specific.

I started up the Pastel Pastilles because I saw Berry’s challenge–I had already read Splash of Color a long time ago, and had a (now obviously abandoned) TS3 rainbowcy. But TS4 was fun and ran like a beast and I liked berry sims, so I dove in. If you were to go back in my archives, though, you’d see that I started posting a TS3 LEPacy, and that’s not even my first one.

I’m not going to even talk about the Grims in this post, since they’re really new. But they’re a prime example of using community involvement to stay interested haha. I’m very excited to play with Ruby and her future family because of all the nice sims people sent for her to eat alive become friends with.

Planning with the Pastilles

With the Pastilles, I honestly got a little tipsy one night and did my initial planning based around Halsey’s Hopeless Fountain Kingdom. Like… Not even gonna lie. That was honestly my starting point. You can almost see hints of this in some places. From there, I had certain scenes I wanted to hit.

Gen 1 - Luna - “Hopeless”; it’s about being in a shitty relationship and hoping that changes lmao (“I hope hopeless changes over time”). Luna and Dianthus were meant to have a much more obviously toxic relationship but Luna ended up having four kids by her second pregnancy and I just couldn’t play and write that fast. However, I always knew that Luna’s big moment would be telling Dianthus to get out.

Gen 2 - Verity Vine - “Now or Never”/“100 Letters” - There are a couple things that have stayed consistent in this gen: Veri and her dreams, the peach spouse’s dad was gonna be a dick and they would be separated for years, and they were gonna hook back up at a wedding.

My very first concept was that Riesling was going to be a bit more wishy-washy and bend to his father’s will (hence “Now or Never” being the song). By the middle of the generation, it was clear that Veri would become the distant one (“he said ‘please don’t go away,’ I said ‘it’s too late’”).

Part of writing a sims legacy sometimes is… letting the sims do the writing for you. Meri and Forest weren’t supposed to be the ones getting married (it was supposed to be Chai Tea and Black Cherry) and they definitely weren’t supposed to have the twins but honestly the story is better for it, you know? And obv most of Veriling’s story isn’t the way I initially planned.

All this said, once I knew where I wanted the story to go, I knew I wanted to plan around a few set-pieces: the fountain scene where Riesling trips onto Veri and she realizes “OH SHIT,” the scene where Eiswein walks in, Punk!Veri’s “I don’t dream at all anymore,” and Riesling’s “Hi, I’m Riesling Puck, you might recognize me from your dreams.” Those were all scenes I knew I HAD to get.

Gen 3 - ??? - “Angel on Fire” - it’s about anxiety lmao so I don’t mind linking it, it’s pretty obvious. Gen 3 has an anxious heir, a song about anxiety was on the nose.

I don’t really recommend the getting tipsy part, but definitely do recommend going in with a basic concept.

The cool thing about challenges is that you already have the guidelines as a starting point. One of my favorite parts about this challenge in particular is seeing how people re-interpret the rules–for instance compare the Gumdrops, Frosts, Amours, Pastilles, Fairyflosses, Prisms–we all started from the same basic rules and there’s still a lot of variation, especially once you get past the initial introductions.

Also, SERIOUSLY: don’t be afraid to take inspiration from crazy places–a song you heard on the radio, a movie, your own life, whatever. Like, I decided Veri’s generation would have it’s first Act at Oxtail University because of the “dream of ivy covered walls and smoky french cafes” line in “Beautiful” (from the Heathers musical). The song otherwise has VERY LITTLE to do with Gen 2. It’s just that line became a starting point for me.

Keeping Things Lookin’ Snazzy with the Pastilles

Looking back, you can kind of see Gen 1 was a bit brighter and lighter/different in editing style than Gen 2. I purposefully set out to get a “dreamy” feel for Gen 2′s pictures. It works for me and the Pastilles–it might not for your legacy! Play around with things to see what works.

I’ve also noticed a lot of banners nowadays (they weren’t as big my first go around here on simblr, but they’re everywhere now). I think that helps to keep things “on brand,” organized and consistent too. I personally don’t use a banner for the Pastilles–I didn’t start with one, and now it looks super wrong to me when I try to use one…. So instead, I’d recommend looking at @frost-rainbowcy–she is SUPER on-brand. I can only aspire to reach that level of #a e s t h e t i c.

HOWEVER, I do keep everything on my blog hyper-organized–there’s a main page where everything’s pretty much linked, and the character page.

TBH, you don’t need to go that in-depth. I just like leaving weird easter eggs in places. You might too.

Posting Consistently

So, I started posting the Pastilles officially almost a week after I made the first post with Luna. That’s because I played a BUNCH right at the beginning, so I’d have something consistent to post for a while. It wasn’t initially as story-heavy as it is now. That’s something you probably want to decide before you start posting.

Right now, I’m posting inconsistently because I’m trying to wait around for Cats and Dogs and not give into the temptation to give Veri and Ries the babies they keep wishing for, but….

I’m in game almost every day–I get off work most days between 2 and 4 now, so by 6 PM I’ve eaten/showered/started up TS4. Even if it’s just to make a sim for someone.

I tend to do all my picture editing on Sundays, as it’s my day off. Sometimes it bleeds over into Monday, my other day off. I don’t always write posts up those days, but I at least stick them in the queue so they’re THERE. For me, it helps giving myself that weird deadline lmao

As a result, I almost always have something queued up.

I utilize the queue like MAD. Right now it’s set at 6 posts a day between 3 PM and 12 AM EST, but I change it up depending on what I have going on and what I can crank out. Usually I leave it on 13 posts a day.

Basically, learn what works for you. It does take some trial and error, but you’ll get it eventually.

Now here’s the real truth: you won’t post consistently if you don’t love your game or your sims.

I love playing the Pastilles as much as I love writing them. To the point that I have them backed up in several places just in case. I’m genuinely attached to the family, and that makes it worth it to me. Sometimes that doesn’t happen immediately (I love Luna, and Vino, and even Dianthus that shitbag, but you can tell that I got invested with Veri and Ries–Gen 1 is 30 pages long on my blog. Gen 2 is 92 and counting).

Storywise, I stay interested because I love the fluffy romance bits and snappy dialogue as much as the Drama Bombs, and also (spoilers) I’m a sucker for supernatural stuff. So I tailored my legacy to fit that.

But when I don’t want to play sometimes I just go in game, grab a few pictures of them in CAS and redo the character page for the 25th time. And that’s okay too. I just always try to make sure I have something to post, even if it’s a small (even if it’s just Riesling’s face. Because I know that’s what y’all want. It’s cool. I get it).

I seriously rambled a lot, but I hope this helps!! Once you get started, please let me know too! I’m rooting for you, non, and any nons to come after you.

#ask #simblr tips #oh gosh i am genuinely so stoked to answer this haha #Anonymous #I️ need to edit this is the morning it’s 2:30 AM and I need to sleep haha

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