The rugged individual is a lie to sell 10 nuclear families ten hammers when a Community only needs like 3
idk how many posts authors can make begging y’all to reblog our hard work before it gets through to y’all. it’s really disheartening. i’m grateful for the likes but when you ask me why i’m not writing new fanfic things or when is the next part of xyz coming out, pls know that it’s because nobody reblogs. no community is being made out of this the way it’s supposed to. we treat fandom like a personal bubble when it’s really about connection. fanfic has been about making connections for decades. no connections are being made when somebody pours their heart out into something and somebody just puts a heart on it and then never acknowledges it again to leave the other person hanging. that sucks, man.
If you’re an adult, do the stuff you couldn’t as a kid.
Like, me and my sister went to a museum, and they had an extra exhibit of butterflies. But it cost £3. So we sighed, walked past, then stopped. We each had £3. We could see the butterflies. And we did it was great. We followed it up with an ice-cream as well because Mum and Dad weren’t there to say no.
I was driving back from a work trip with 2 other people in their early 20s, and we drove past a MacDonalds. One of the others went “Aww man, I’d love a McFlurry.” And the guy driving pulled in to the drive through. It was wild. But it was great.
I went to a park over the weekend and I was thinking “Man, I’d love to hire one of those bikes and cycle round the park.” It took me a few minutes to go “Wait, I can hire one of those bikes!”
I guess what I’m saying is, those impulsive things you wanted to do as a kid - see the dinosaur exhibit, play in the fountains with the other kids, lie in the shade for 2 hours - you can do when you’re an adult. You have to deal with a whole lot of other bull, but at least you can indulge your inner 8 year-old.
🥉 Three Elements for Writing the Setting of Your Story
🔑 The setting of a story is where and when your book happens. Your book setting is important because almost everything your character does will be affected by when and where they do them.
The three elements for how to write your story setting are time, location, and environment.
⌛ Time
Time is the when of your story. When thinking about your book, consider these when’s:
- 📅 What year? Your time period affects everything about your character. What clothes they wear, the technology and language they use, and their ability to move and interact in the world. A person in 1700 Europe isn’t going to use a cell phone to call someone, just like a person in 2023 United States isn’t going to speak Middle English.
- 🍁 What time of year? Is it winter, spring, summer, or fall? A character living in a Canadian winter isn’t going to spend time outdoors in a t-shirt and shorts. A person visiting Arizona in the middle of summer likely isn’t going to walk around in a jacket and jeans, no matter how stylish.
- ⌚ What time of day? This is more significant for scenes than the book as a whole. You can use the time of day to create a particular mood, such as nighttime for a feeling of danger or mystery. You should also consider the time of day for what your character is about to do. For example, someone likely isn’t going jewelry heisting at noon on a Monday.
- ⏳ Is time passing? Pay attention to how time is unfolding throughout your scenes and story as a whole. You have to account for any time that passes between scenes, when characters travel, or when you insert a flashback. Make sure your reader knows when your scene is happening, or they’ll be lost.
🗺️ Location
The location of your story is as broad as the country and region and as specific as the neighborhood or house. Like the time period, the location of your setting will affect your characters in all aspects of their lives: what they wear, how they speak, if they walk or drive or take the bus, etc.
If your book is fantasy, you will need to do some very detailed world-building work. A fantastic resource for this is The World Building Leviathan from Kittyspace.
🌲 Environment
The environment of your manuscript includes the physical world and social, political, and cultural influences of the time and location.
Take into consideration the environment’s climate and how it impacts your characters. For example, a character living in the tropics will have a vastly different life than someone living in the mountains of North Carolina.
What is the cultural, political, and social environment like in your character’s time period and hometown? These aspects can impact what your character believes in and the different values they hold dear. Societal norms vary across time and place, and it will take a lot of research to make sure you’re getting it right.
🙅♀️ Setting Don’ts
Newer authors often think they need a lot of exposition about the setting up front. This is called a “data dump,” and they are often very difficult to read. You don’t want to bore your readers with a lot of information about your world upfront. Rather, allow your setting to reveal itself slowly, either through your character or short bits of exposition throughout.
If you’re writing a fantasy or historical novel, avoid treating everyday objects as novelties. Even if that object is unique to you, it would not be unique to your character. If something is supposed to be ordinary to your character, treat it like it’s ordinary.
Check out jacquelynlscott.com for a free downloadable setting worksheet to help you think through the setting of your book or scene.
How To Make Your Own Fanfiction Archive, In Just Ten Easy Steps
As the go-to "person who knows about AO3" for quite a few people who read fanfic but aren't really linked-in to wider fandom culture, I've fielded a lot of questions about how to do certain things on AO3 to which my best answer is "you should really start your own archive!" I think, in general, more fans starting their own small archives would be a net good for fandom. AO3 was never meant to be the only archive for all fandom, or even the main archive, and the more spread out and backed up we are the more resilient we are.
But of course I have to be reminded that a lot of fans these days don't really have any idea how little "you should start your own archive!" really involves. (Also, that I should practice what I preach.) So I am now making my own fanfiction archive, and writing up this post as I do it to tell people how to make theirs!
- Go to https://neocities.org/ and sign up for an account. It only needs a username (which will also be your website address), password, and email. Pick a username that will be related to your archive's title!
- Choose the free account option (if you ever need more than what the free account offers for a text-only archive, you should probably look into graduating from neocities.) This should take you to a menu of "how to make a website" tutorials. You should do them! They're useful skills. But let's get your archive running first.
- Hit the big red Edit Site button, or open the menu under your username and select "Edit Site".
- Select the "Index.html" file to edit. You're now in an HTML Editor. Congrats, you're a web developer c. 1999!
- Find where it has text between the < title> tags. Delete the filler text, and put in the title of your new archive. This text will be what shows on the tab when people go to your archive.
- Find where it has text between the < h1 > tags. This will be big header text at the top of your page. Put the title of your archive here again. If you have no experience with HTML, you should read over the other sample text. It covers the basic basics very well! Once you've done that, you can delete everything else between the < /h1> tag and the < /body> tag. Save your index.html file.
- Get an HTML file for a fanfic you would like to add to your archive. If it's on AO3, you can use the html download option built into AO3. If you have it as a word processor/google docs file, you should have the option to save as an html file. Save that html file to your computer.
- Go back to Edit Site on Neocities and go to "upload". Find the html file you saved and upload it. (You can also drag and drop files to upload.)
- The file you uploaded should now be showing with your other neocities files. Right-click on the title and select "copy link".
- Go in to edit index.html again. Under where you put your header text, type < br> < a href=" . Then paste in the link you copied. Then type "> Then put in the title of the fic. Then type < /a> . Then save the index page again when you're done. You can do this for every fanfic you have.
Congratulations! You now have your very own personal private fanfiction archive that you are 100% in charge of and make all the rules for. It's at least as good as half the ones I was reading on when I started reading fanfiction and will serve its function well as a way to let people read your fic. You can link to it from anywhere you want! (Including your AO3 profile.)
Blogpost version, with FAQs and discussion
Anyway, here's my beautiful new fanfiction archive made using this tutorial:
Melannen's Fanfiction Archive
(I am honestly way more disproportionately proud of finally making that than I expected to be. It's nice to have your own archive.)
If you make one, share it here ! I want to see!
Oh, this guide is great!
People following this blog probably know I use the free/base Neocities plan for my fansite. I host a more than just plaintext there (some .pdfs, graphics, all sorts), and I have not come close to running up against the 1GB limit yet; if you're plaintext posting fic, it is more than enough to host anything you could possibly want. You don't have to pay a penny, as I've seen some people wonder. Trust me. You will never get close to that 1GB.
If you have any fic that is illustrated, it's also gonna cover those still images, unless you have truly enormous amounts of fanart in like, .raw format or something, LMAO. You're good.
Anyway, I want to add a few tips:
- If you have new fic you want to post and which you therefore can't immediately download as HTML from AO3, or for any reason you want to post a fic to your site and not AO3, you can run it through this Google Docs script. It formats it for you; I often use it, in fact, if I have a bunch of text I need to quickly add basic HTML to for the site. It's also obviously useful for formatting to post to AO3 as originally intended, haha. This naturally won't give you the tags, rating info, etc that AO3 lets you download and include, but the fic itself will now post with all your line breaks etc included!
- To upload and embed images, first you upload the image file to Neocities. This will automatically assign it a URL for where it is hosted. Then, wherever you want it in your fic, you embed it using: "< img src="[URL HERE]" >. (Remove the spaces!) Yep, that simple. Here's an example of what uploading a picture as its own file looks like in Neocities:
- So that bottom image has a URL- "https://autothots.neocities.org/images/G2AutobotInsigniaAlternate.png". I would copy that URL into the tags as above and presto! It would show up on my page. I host all my images on Neocities itself, and it works great. So no need to worry about finding a host.
If anyone wants any resources for stuff relating to this, do feel free to ask, I've accumulated all sorts over the course of mashing my site together with half-remembered HTML knowledge from 2005, haha.
sorry what
That header photo doesn’t do the dragon justice. (For shame!). Here’s NASA’s own photo:
(Source [Because NASA is funded by taxpayer money, all their images are public domain, BTW])
THE TIME HAS COME
he is here
Reblogging for THE ART HOLY SHIT
REALLY THOUGH IMAGINE SEEING THIS KIND OF SHIT AS A DANE IN THE 900S
bro whyd i think they meant an actual freaking dragon
For anyone worried because they write the same trope more than once: I love that shit. I will love that first one and I will still be excited for the thirtieth one. Let these idiots do the same thing over and over again. We deserve that.
You really have to give the architect a 5 star thumbs up for his vision in building this place …
the town’s name is dixon
the longer you look at it the funnier it gets
Dude, this is the city I was born in. I know exactly which building that is, I HAVE BEEN TO THIS BUILDING, I NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT IT WOULD LOOK LIKE FROM ABOVE
However, if conservatives and their wealthy donors really believed that the "fulfillment of basic needs...would destroy the incentive to work," they wouldn't support trust funds or allow people to inherent obscene amounts of money without paying taxes.
No, they only believe in limiting the "fulfillment of basic needs" for the working class.
What is particularly perverse is they have convinced so many working class people to vote for them.
god I dont wanna fuckin go on dates or try to sell myself or expose myself to an unending list of potential heartbreaks i just wanna skip to the part where someone is holding me and i am cozy. fuck this bro
sephirayne