Artist :  仙都怪谈 (weibo / twitter)

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“You must never give in to despair. Allow yourself to slip down that road and you surrender to your lowest instincts. In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength.”

[id: two profile bust illustrations. the first is of iroh overlaid with a symbol of a lotus. red-to-white smoke curls around him as he looks forward with a small smile. the second is of zuko, facing the opposite direction and overlaid with the symbol of a white dragon. dark red fire swirls around him as he stares forward sorrowfully. /end id.]

i don't know what to say

i don't know how to feel

(LOOK AT THEIR HAIR NANDNNSNAMA)

inside you there are two wolves, one is playing animal crossing, the other is rewatching mdzs for the fourth time. you are in quarantine.

This Blog Is Unrepentantly Pro- AO3!

This blogger remembers when we didn’t have AO3.

This blogger remembers when we had to put disclaimers at the head of our fics and pray that someone didn’t take it into their heads to sue us for what we created.

This blogger remembers brilliant artists and writers getting decades of work obliterated on LJ because someone who wanted to tell people what they were allowed to create went running to someone who wanted a profit, and told them the artists and writers had been naughty.

This blogger remembers just how hard the creators of AO3 worked to build the thing we all seem to take for granted now.

This blogger watched friends dive into the creation process so heartily and determinedly that they all but disappeared from the writing/gaming/artistic side of their fandom for YEARS while they worked to make the archive happen.

This blogger remembers the sense of giddy wonder that there would possibly be LAWYERS involved, willing to defend our right to create these works, and not leave us hanging at the mercy of corporate legal teams.

This blogger is aware that she reads between twenty to fifty books’ worth of material every year on AO3, and is never REQUIRED to pay a penny for the privilege of getting access.

This blogger is aware that she will not ever see advertisements on AO3, and that her personal data and reading preferences won’t be sold to advertisers in order to raise the money that AO3 needs to pay for the services they provide.

This blogger is aware that AO3 is, and has always been, a labor of love; by fans, for fans, and not for profiting off fans – and this is what makes it unique in the whole of the media universe.

This blogger has NEVER taken AO3 for granted, and has ALWAYS been damned glad to have access to it.  Even in years when this blogger didn’t have the means to support it financially.

Long Live Ao3

I’m allowed 2 - 3 hours of self indulgence speedpainting for the wangxian week !! It was really fun ! You can see some close up in my twitter o//

Lock Down Fest (20-30 March)

Lock Down Fest is a non-anon, self-posting, multi-ship and multi-fandom mini fest that is designed to bring comfort to everyone staying indoors under quarantine restrictions at the moment and to all of us experiencing fear because of the pandemic. Anxiety levels are high and the news is distressing, so we want to invite everyone to use this time to be creative and spread joy. LDF will run from 20-30 March; announcements will be made here.

We want everyone to be encouraged to participate and to follow the fest, but we also appreciate that reading about the virus can be upsetting for many people. For that reason, we’ve decided on a twofold theme:

a. Getting Stuck In/Isolated Together (which doesn’t need to involve the virus in any way whatsoever)

b. Quarantine-inspired, if it occurs during the current pandemic. Works MUST be tagged with the tag: “Covid-19 Related” on AO3.

All kinds of fanworks are welcome with no minimum or maximum wordcount for fics. There is no claiming time nor the need to sign up. Simply, 1. visit the collection on AO3 and post your work when it opens, then 2. email: quarantinefest [at] gmail [.] com with a link to your fanwork.

If you don’t wish to write or draw, you can always contribute by offering beta services. Feel free to DM one of the mods and we’ll post a list with those volunteering to beta in the next couple of days. We’d appreciate it if all fics are beta-read.

Most importantly, please ensure you tag your work as “Covid-19 related” on AO3 if it takes place during the current pandemic, so as to give the chance for readers to exclude the tag, if they wish. Be mindful of your tags: if they deal with a pandemic anyway (historical or fictional), do tag and warn accordingly. If your work doesn’t comply with this requirement and we can’t get hold of you via the email provided, your work might be removed from the collection.

Lock Down Fest is open to everyone over 18 years old.

Your mods,

@magpiefngrl​ @nerdherderette​ @tackytigerfic​  @shealwaysreads​ (our fantastic and speedy banner-maker <3 )

a.k.a. you may find your work Bad and Cringy™️ but you wrote something and that’s a Good Thing™️.

All writing is good practice and progresses you as a writer.

I have degrees in costume design and textiles so I got mending through advanced mending as part of my higher education, but there were both aesthetics and techniques that I found fresh in Katrina Rodabaugh’s MENDING MATTERS.  Make slow fashion one of your things in 2019.

Whether you are brand-new or an old-hand at mending, this book has simple instructions for practical fixes that make clothing more interesting and will help you get more mileage out of your most-favorite shirts and pants.  Great guides for patching differently depending on what part of the garment you are trying to fix and whether you want a visible repair or an invisible one.  It’s all drawn from the Japanese technique known as sashiko, get down the basics and then adapt and apply in all the little ways that work for you.  

I have some beloved jeans where I have completely burned through the upper inner thighs and they are about to get some mending love….

Here is a man who does sashiko live on YouTube, and this is one of his more rare videos because he’s opted here to speak in English.  As he sews, he talks about the process, what he uses, the history, and more.

The Importance of Character and Misbelief

I've read an embarrassing amount of writing books before I hit upon the key idea that all of them talked about, but never struck me before - the absolute importance of starting your character off with them being fundamentally wrong about something.

You've heard about external plot (the outer events your character reacts to) versus internal plot (the inner change your character goes through) before, I'm sure, but I've always struggled in figuring how to make that internal plot stronger. It wasn't until I read Lisa Cron's Story Genius that I realized what was missing - your character must have what she terms a misbelief, something they must not only believe to be true but fight every step of the way to cling to this believe. The stronger the belief, the harder the fight, the more satisfying the result.

One of the best examples of this is Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender. At every turn, he has all the motivation in the world to continue to do the wrong thing, and his slow realization that everything he believed in and fought for was wrong made him one of the best characters ever made.

If you're really struggling with not figuring out how to change your character enough, sit down and consider the following:

What are they truly wrong about? (The more serious the misbelief, the harder the audience will cheer for them to change!)

What happened in their life that made them think this way? ('Fighting against the empire is fruitless because my parents died doing it', 'Honor is more important than justice', etc)

How do they resist changing this belief, even when it's obvious that they should? (Han ditching the Rebels even after seeing the Death Star in A New Hope, Zuko making the wrong choice between his sister and Aang in Season 2.)

And, most important of all, what is something only they can do that this change leads them to? (Han coming to Luke's rescue in the end, Zuko helping Aang with his firebending.)

Take time and ask these questions thoroughly. Your story will be better for it!

some of the best parts about the writing process:

please add on with any of your favorite moments! let’s spread some writing positivity!

Realizing something you did to fill a plot hole or even just by accident dovetails *perfectly* with a plot point you hadn’t come up with yet.

like, the most compelling ships for me always stem out of one thing: the characters have a profound, ongoing effect on each other’s senses of selves. when they are apart, the characters’ actions are still affected by each other. the way they approach the world changes because of the other. 

which is this deeply Austenian view of ideal romantic relationships as mechanisms by which we come to know ourselves better and become better versions of ourselves. good romance, for me, is always tied in with a sense of self-actualization, and the way in which a beloved partner allows a person to know themselves better.

PSA for Writers

If you’re writing something, and you’re enjoying writing it, it’s worth your time.

That’s it.

I don’t care if no one ever reads it. I don’t care if they read it and hate it. I don’t care if, once it’s finished, you stuff it in a drawer (or an archive on your computer) and never look at it again.

I don’t even care if you decide you’re no longer having fun with it and never finish it.

You’re not wasting time.

If it makes you happy, it’s worth your time.

As you die, you wake up in a fiery place. You quickly realize you’re in hell. You ask the next demon why you are there, as you lived a very good life. “You’re not being punished”, he says. “You are the punishment.”

You honk in joy. It’s a lovely morning in Hell, and you are a horrible goose.

incorrect witcher quotes 2/? (insp)

Artist : SeerLight (DA / IG)

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