#There’s a lot of talk about DW in here. How very self-indulgent telling you all about me. me. me.

[threewaysdivided]

hi 3wd. i’ve tried to write before and i’ve never gotten far in the process, despite having many ideas im enthusiastic about. all your blogging about being a planner-writer has got me thinking i might have the same style of writing as you l- and a lot of the reason im struggling to put words on paper is because i don’t have a direction or fleshed out emotional/plot beats to write towards. what would be your advice to any fledgling planner-writers that don’t know where to start? how did you start writing with this writing style?

Hey nonnie 💜

It can be super frustrating to have a bunch of pieces you want to play with but not have them come together in a way that maintains traction.  Outlining could definitely be a potential tool to help sustain momentum, so let’s see if I can get some gears turning for you.

For me personally, the outline-approach is one I just sort of fell into naturally.  Part of it comes from my school days; we were encouraged to write dot-point plans to structure our arguments/ research/ storytelling for assignments ahead of drafting (some teachers even counted evidence of it towards the final grade), which set it as a habit early.  Fun fact: I actually outlined this answer before writing it; I do it for most long posts.  Another part of it is that I tend to come at writing from a very analytical angle - there’s a degree to which I try to solve or understand stories as I consume them.  One of my earliest casual jobs was working as an English/Lit tutor for high-schoolers.  I find a lot of joy in picking narratives apart, figuring out how they work and finding ones that hold up through several layers of examination, so as a writer I like to construct stories that way.

Part of it is also that, when I want to write something for release, I’m conscious of the fact that it will have an audience.  A question that hangs around in the back of my mind is “if I found this story and wasn’t the writer, would I enjoy reading it?”

There’s another aspect that has to do with respect, in a way.  I love the worlds and the characters that I use in my stories, and for me that means writing things that feel true to their spirit, giving significance to the times when that changes and making sure they have a meaningful journey (even if it’s not a happy one).

For me outlining suits this ethos, since having a map of future directions makes it easier to place foreshadowing fairly, identify themes, build character arcs and keep explanations/ lore consistent.

I’m also going to admit that I just got lucky with Deathly Weapons. There was a very specific emotional idea that I wanted to centre a story around, and the inspiration happened to come with both a starting premise and a concept for the ending.  Then I also had wish-lists; some tropes I wanted to play with, and some existing series whose storytelling structure I wanted to emulate and pay homage to.  Something I realised a few years after starting DW is that I’m a very project-and-output-oriented person.  In a way, Deathly Weapons’ came to me as a project brief where I already knew the end-goal and a lot of what I wanted to work towards.

With that said, let’s talk outlining:

The value of having a plan

To me, an outline is a bit like having an itinerary for a road-trip.  It gives you an idea of where you’re going, how long things will take, what key things you want to do, how much it might cost and it helps you anticipate potential problems.  But, like an outline, an itinerary isn’t binding.  There might be some things that take more effort to change (distance to travel, bookings you need to cancel/ reschedule/ extend - key plot points that a story hinges around or that need more preparation/ payoff to be effective) but you can adjust as you go; take extra time to explore an interesting spot, add a detour based on local recommendations, skip things that turn out to be less compelling than they first seemed, take a shorter route to get to a key destination faster, extend the trip to see a few more sights or decide to cut things short because something came up.   The itinerary gives you the security of already knowing where you’re headed, letting you put down the mental burden of having to work out each stop as you go and enjoy the moment more. 

Ways an outline can help:

Reassurance: if you have a tendency to be anxious/ self-critical/ have high standards about characterisation, plot holes etc. then an outline can be a good way to workshop the story and get ahead of potential challenges, as well as to concept-test whether this is a project you feel like committing to.

Scoping: blocking out an overview can help you get an idea of the size and complexity of the project, and how much time/resources/teamwork it might need.

Motivation: having a plan of future story moments that you’re looking forward to can provide a goal to help you push through the less exciting parts (e.g. connective scenes) and/or help you re-find your enthusiasm if you’re returning from a break or are feeling creatively flat for reasons outside the story itself.

Iteration: if you tend to come up with stories primarily by exploring and assembling ideas, then an outline method can be a way to quickly put a concept on paper, examine it and then decide if/how you want to use it, without the restriction of needing to write it all out as polished paragraphs first.

Splitting up the steps: useful if you tend to think faster than you can type full sentences, find that you move between ideas non-sequentially or if prose-writing/ sentence construction is something that takes a lot of mental energy or stop-and-starting from you.  An outline can be a way to separate the processes of story crafting and story telling into more-distinct stages rather than trying to juggle both at once.  Find the story first, then write it.

Non-sequential writing: having a roadmap of your story’s structure and direction can give you more freedom in how you choose to approach it, letting you jump ahead to work on planned future sections/scenes where the inspiration is flowing rather than waiting for the next scene to “come to you”.

For a more direct comparison, Screenwriting Bibles are a form of outline for professional TV/Film production.  These “bibles” are key reference documents used by writers for information on the premise, characters, settings and other project elements, as well as to plan future episodes and seasonal arcs.  (This podcast transcript, article and template are good starting sources if you want to learn more about TV Bibles.) 

Much like a series bible, an outline can help you keep tabs on:

Consistency and continuity: this can be minor stuff like names of background characters or small details (running gags, item descriptions, character trivia) but can also be major stuff like character motivations, who has what abilities, event timelines or story-themes.

Direction: your outline can capture the overall arc(s) and conflict source(s) of your story and their intended resolutions, as well as mapping out how those conflicts are progressing.

Causality: whether planned events and character choices feel consistent and reasonable within the internal logic of your story.

If any of this sounded helpful to you then you might benefit from experimenting with an outliner/ planner approach.  There are a bunch of different planner techiques (here’s a link for some) as well as hybrid “plan-tser” methods that you could try. But for now let's talk about the general process, starting with a focus question:

What is it that makes you want to tell this story?

This might seem like a daunting place to begin but it can help with figuring out the core of your story and what you find compelling.

It’s okay if you don’t have a neat-and-clean answer straight away.  Sometimes inspiration just strikes out of the blue, and that’s fine.  Sometimes you have a vague directional pull but you’ll need to do some story-work before you can identify what’s calling to you.  However, if you did have a specific itch or passion that drove you to write then thinking about what and why that is can help you understand what you want from the story – and in turn what might connect with other people.

I also want to be clear that this is not about judging your motivations or their “artistic merit”.  I had a specific story to tell is fine, as is I wanted to explore this concept/theme/emotion/issue, or this was a gift/commission for someone else, and so is I wanted to try writing a specific genre, or I wanted to experiment with a specific medium, or I wanted to do my own version of [existing idea] or I am fascinated by this character/relationship/world or I needed some vicarious catharsis, or I was horny.  And a whole bunch of other things.

Knowing what you’re trying to get out of a story can help you decide what type of story you want to tell, as well as the overall scope and what medium/format/genre to tell it in.  Maybe it’s a single-scene character/aesthetic study, or a one-shot vignette.  Maybe it’s one long story, or it could be series of connected stories, or it could be a story-anthology centring on a common idea.  Maybe this story would work well as a comic, or art piece(s), or podcast, video, or something interactive like a choose-your-own-adventure or a videogame.

Understanding where you’re coming from can also help you answer the questions of what is your story about? and what happens in your story? which are related but not the same. 

What is your story about concerns the themes and thesis of your story, which can help you figure out the story’s tone, main emotional or thematic conflict(s), and how you want them to resolve by the ending.  Put simply, it’s the message.

What happens in your story is the synopsis of planned events, character actions, worldbuilding and other content.  Put simply, it’s the stuff your story has in it.

Let’s take my Deathly Weapons fanfic as a case study:

What made me want to write this story? Deathly Weapons started with me being unsatisfied with what felt like a gap in the Danny Phantom x Superheroes crossover fanfic space at the time.  There was a trend where stories would kill Danny’s friends and family to justify placing him with the crossover’s other hero team but very few of those stories felt like they acknowledged the emotional consequences of doing so; the ones that allowed him to grieve frequently using it for nonspecific angst about Loss™ or mourning the generic archetypes of A Love Interest™, A Sister™, Parents™ or A Best Friend™ rather than the specific characters and bonds from the series.  There were also some smaller itches around plot construction and mysteries that I couldn’t find many stories to scratch.  I wanted to try writing something to fill those gaps. What is this story about? Thematically Deathly Weapon’s central emotional arc is about grief and healing: in particular the uniqueness of the bonds between people and how grief reflects the specific hole each individual leaves behind, as well as the process of finding closure, making new connections and moving forward in the aftermath of loss. What happens in this story? A lot.  In my youthful hubris and overambition I planned out basically a half-season of a TV show.  For the sake of not dragging this section out by a mile, here’s an arc/mission plot teaser list I made a little while ago.

Since Deathly Weapons Arc II is deliberately structured to emulate a TV show, you can sort of see how that summary has accidentally ended up mirroring parts of a top-down Pitch Deck.  But, of course, that’s not the outline I actually use when writing.

Different levels and types of outline

Like a lot of creative terms, “outlining” covers a pretty broad umbrella’s worth of stuff. 

Methods-wise there are plenty of different approaches: from specific story-writing software (Scrivener, Campfire etc.), to word documents, to binders and notebooks, to honest-to-goodness sticky-notes, thumbtacks and string.  Personally I alternate between a documents folder on my computer and a physical notepad/sketchpad for when I’m on the go, but you should pick whatever format feels most comfortable for how you process/visualise information.

Functionally, I think it helps to conceptualise three main levels of outline: Brainstorming, Structural and Detail.  To be clear, you don’t have to do all three.  A short story or one-shot might be served by writing directly from a brainstorming or light structural outline.  You also don’t have to keep them strictly separate.  A brainstorming document might cover some early structure notes or test paragraphs.  A structural or detailed outline might have some brainstorming or research sections as you uncover and solve smaller questions.  Heck, you can have detail notes inside your initial drafts if they help you keep the story flowing.  These are tools you can use, not prescriptions you need to follow.

Let’s talk about the levels:

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is the least structured.  Like the name suggests it’s mostly about getting concepts down and coming up with ideas – this could include early notes for plots beats/ scenes/ character interactions, sketches, screenshots/quotes and possibly research questions for stuff you want to confirm or find out about (e.g. checking source material, or researching systems and potential setting-locations).  You could consider this like early research notes for a class essay – where you know what your subject is and might start with some initial thoughts or focus questions but are still learning and figuring out the broad strokes of your content and stance.  

Despite that comparison, brainstorming is probably the most creatively fun step in the process.  This is not where you worry about things like “quality”, “cohesiveness”, “accuracy/canon compliance” or “cliches” – this is the time for rolling with whatever inspiration strikes you, pouring out any idea you find interested/compelling/cathartic, asking questions, going down internet rabbit holes and generally just enjoying unabashed creation.  This is your raw material: you’re going to cut and shape it later.

Structural

Structural outlines probably have them most utility in giving your story shape and form, especially if your story is long or has a lot of components.  If you were doing an essay, this is the part where you’d figure out your thesis and start grouping each main argument and its supporting points into planned body paragraphs.  For a story, this is where you start sorting your ideas and putting them in order; deciding on your arcs, conflicts and resolutions, working out the order and causality of events, your character motivations and dynamics, where to place key foreshadowing, major scenes and the like.  This is the level where you’re going to try and solve potential story problems – to come up with in-universe explanations and identify possible plot-holes before you write yourself into them.  You’ll likely do extra brainstorming or research in this phase too but it’ll be more targeted – aimed at filling gaps, connecting dots or serving specific needs. 

For longer or more complex stories you might have multiple structural outlines tracking different levels of granularity; some providing an overview of the whole story/ series arc, while other focus on specific characters/ subplots or break things down into individual plot beats and scenes.  You might also spin some of your initial brainstorming into reference or meta documents – content that you aren’t going to directly cover in-story but that will inform or add depth/consistency to other elements.  If you enjoy puzzle-solving then this can be a very satisfying part of the process: there’s nothing quite like hiding a subtle piece of symbolism/foreshadowing, coming up with a sneaky red-herring or finding a rock-solid explanation to make you feel extremely clever.

It’s also worth repeating that you are not beholden to whatever structural outlines you first come up with – your outlines can and should evolve with you as you develop your story and come up with new or alternate ideas.  (Just last year I re-ordered two major subplots and added an extra character arc for Deathly Weapons).

Some stuff to think about for structural outlining:

Remember that, as the storyteller you have full control of the narrative and what happens inside it.  Like I said at the start of my case study on YJ: Invasion’s writing, even the rules of a fiction piece are made up: there is nothing physically stopping you from making the sky be a different colour every five minutes if you felt like it.  If you want something to happen then you can work backwards to reverse-engineer a specific scenario where those things would reasonably occur.  Start at Scene B and figure out what needs to happen to get there from Established Starting Point A.  If you need a character to act a certain way, then you can tailor a situation to trigger that response based on their established personality/ insecurities/ flaws.  You can manufacture specific story problems whose solutions play toward or against the skills and abilities of different characters, or create scenarios which situationally discourage characters from using skills/abilities/tools that might otherwise be overpowered. You can also make the call to deviate from what has been established in order to facilitate a scene or plot point - temporarily imposing a trait for narrative purposes (sometimes referred to as carrying a ball) or Rules Lawyering your worldbuilding to create a technical loophole.  This risk here is that this can feel artificial, jarring or unfair if not reasonably justified within the story logic.  There’s also a limit on how often/ how far you can push this before it risks breaking the story.  If things start to contradict or situations arbitrarily turn on a dime then your audience can lose trust that the characters and world will follow the expectations set by the narrative – they can start to feel narratively unsafe, until it reaches a point where the only way for them to reconcile the dissonance and inconsistencies in the story is to acknowledge that it’s all an artificial construct being externally steered by the hand of the author.   You can do whatever you want… provided you do the work to make audience to believe it.

That being said, try not go get too wedded to the specifics of your early ideas.  Sometimes an element is just not going to fit with the direction your story ends up taking; whether because it’s not compatible with the eventual trajectory of the characters/events/lore or simply because it would be hard to include without disrupting/diverting/distracting from the flow of the story at that point.  In some instances you can take the core of an idea and modify it to find a new place in the narrative; for example by repurposing a scene or piece of dialogue, repackaging information, rescheduling a conversation, fusing concepts together or deconstructing them and integrating the component parts across other scenes.  But in other cases you may decide that the potential problems (whether structural or narrative) introduced by including an element outweigh the value it could add – in which case it’s time to lovingly set it aside.  This is what they mean when they say kill your darlings.  Having a designated document for future story ideas and/or outtakes can help with this (or you could do what I did with Defining Moment and turn an idea into its own side-story).

This can be also a good place to consider more technical story elements, like pacing.  Think about the peaks and valleys of intensity (suspense, intrigue, action, character drama etc.) across the beats of your story; where you might want to ramp things up or down, and how you might use scene and/or chapter breaks to space out information, create breathing room or hold the audience at a certain level of emotion/anticipation.  (For a good short primer, try these videos about Pacing and Tension Cycles in games).

You may also like to use the structure overview as an opportunity to take stock of Tropes and Patterns.  Not to avoid them – you can’t really avoid tropes – but just to see if any are showing up and what they might be saying, even if you didn’t intend for that to happen.  (For a topical example: consider what tropes are showing up around different minority/minority-analogous characters - either in their depictions or how the story treats them - and what message that might be sending.  There’s a lot of bias to the way certain groups and issues have historically been portrayed in media, some of which have baked themselves into now-common stock plots and archetypes.  That isn’t to say you should never use them; just be conscious and careful, especially if your story intends to make some sort of commentary on those topics.)  On a more positive note, this can be another way to learn about what story mechanics you like, both in your own writing and others’.

Detail

Detail notes are the most granular level of outlining, getting down into the specifics of an individual scene or conversation.  These are the least strictly necessary – depending on the length/ complexity of your story, the granularity of your structural outline(s) and your personal writing preference, you may prefer to jump directly from a structural outline into a first draft.  That said they can still be useful, especially if you want to hammer out the fine details of action, dialogue or information-flow while staying a step back from specific prose.  This is where you get things like a bullet-point breakdown of each line/action/piece of narration (for when you have a detailed idea of what’s going to be said/done but not the specific words to describe it) or script-style notes (for when you have the character voices and lines but not the narration or action surrounding it).  As mentioned earlier, you can blend detail notes and rough drafting together – writing some sections out in prose as the words come to you, then breaking into note-form to keep the ideas flowing in sections where wording might be starting to stick. 

An example

Let’s look at my outlining system for Deathly Weapons:

Now, I want to make it clear: this is not the standard.  This is not even the standard for me.  Deathly Weapons got a bit out of hand, ballooning into a half-season of a TV show: it’s more a series of 12+ self-contained stories in a trench coat than your standard fanfiction.  However, it is a decent example of complex outlining.  I have multiple levels of structural outline – some covering the entire story arc, some covering the individual missions.  I also have quick-notes that I made as a consistency-reference from canon, and some worldbuilding meta I did as a thought exercise to develop one of the character-backstories (the one shown ended up published here on Tumblr).  You can see how I blend the outline types together in my detailed notes, as well as how my approach to outlines has evolved from more brainstorming-focused to more structurally-focussed as the story has solidified.  Again, this is not the standard, but hopefully it gives you an idea of what you can get up to with outlines for a complex long-term project.

Okay, so that’s the basic breakdown of outlining as a process (at least the version I use).  Hopefully it’s got some gears turning. 

However, I also know that it’s more of a framework through which to approach story-building; it’s an organisational tool that helps you set out current and future-planned content in a way that lets you take stock, identify things that need attention and keep track of important details.  On its own it’s not necessarily going to be able to help address the challenges it reveals; in the same way that knowing how to plan an essay won’t necessarily teach you how to research one effectively. 

In Part 2 of this series (yep it's a series now) I'm going to go over some concepts for story-building and editing that might help you during the structural phase. Click here to go to the next part >>

#Writing advice #Outlining #Planner writing #Story planning #Stories #Post Series: Outlining Tips #this was originally meant to be one post but then Tumblr decided it was too long so here we go #Sorry this took ages for me to answer nonnie #I moved cities again and the burnout after last year whacked me very hard. Brain go (half-hearted raspberry noise) #Hopefully there’s enough stuff in here to make up for the wait #It might amuse you to know that I did 3 different outlines trying to figure out what would be useful #Learn from my example but maybe don’t try to follow it #Outlines Divided (who lives in a state of derangement and writes over 10000 words of background notes per paragraph) #is an outlier and should not have been counted #There’s a lot of talk about DW in here. How very self-indulgent telling you all about me. me. me. #(It’s mostly because I’m the creator in its case so I can talk about the processes used to make it without making guesses) #Anonymous #3WD #3WD Answers

[loversandantiheroes]

Tell me about your fics PLEASE, what’s been your favorite to write lately? Who surprised you as your favorite to write for? Which fix of all yours are you most proud of?

I mean, is it cheating to say that Harvey is my favorite?  I didn’t really expect him to be, but I also didn’t expect to be 80k words into a smutty Stardew Valley reader saga.  But here we fuckin’ are ig.  In all truth, though, I’ve put so much work and thought into Harvey in what I’ve done that he feels very personal and distinct and is just such a safety blanket of a character for me.

In that regard it’s not much of a surprise that, at least as far as Case History is concerned, The House Call is my favorite.  From what I’ve seen in comments that one’s a lot of people’s favorite, which is both validating and mildly alarming considering how much farther we are in the series by now, lol.  (This is insecure writer brain talking and I fully acknowledge this.)  

I will say as far as new stuff goes, I was not expecting to enjoy writing for Whiskey as much as I did.  It’s fun to take a character that’s comprised almost solely of awful tropes and just try to either excise or subvert as many as possible.  I have plans for him.  I don’t know if I’m ever gonna successfully get to those plans.  But I have them.

Outside of that, there’s bits and pieces of other fics I’ve done that I’m still really proud of - there’s snippits of old OUAT fic I still think are pretty damn solid all these years later - but I’m still very very proud of Jigsaw (DW fix-it fic) for being something that was at the time for me very ambitious but that I managed to complete.  I still have a soft spot for my weird vampire au fic Like Blood Running Warm, which I really really need to figure out how to finish some goddamn day.

I’m also still really proud of the work I did on my Cullen fics.  Character/OC is always a tough one to sell to other people because it is by nature so self-indulgent, and while there’s still parts of it I’m not happy with (casualty of starting in the middle), I’m still pretty pleased at how First Repairs and Structural Damage turned out, and even the little bit of A Devouring Sky I was able to share.  Some of that had been sitting on the sidelines for years and I was just glad it got to see the light of day, even if it isn’t finished.

#ty for asking bab ❤️ #naturegalkris

[astrxlis-archive]

First of all, i- uh i- hahaha OKAY so the thing is the first time you replied to me @ Dan's blog, i felt like you pulled an uno reverse card on me 😩 and made me go 💓 ngl i didnt also expect our interactions to made it this far xD

And secondly, thank you for your kind offer c: i'll definitely keep that in mind <3 fox anon, you have my whole heart at this point😩💝 additionally, i do not wear glasses tho i think it's the screen exposure (?) Even if i've lowered it to the lowest brightness, there's really something different with wider screen exposure like in laptops.

Andd true, i agree with you starting with characters that you can relate to or could easily figure out their personalities first before working with the ones you're having trouble with. No pressure, take your time as much as you'd like since writing for the genshinblr community isn't an obligation to do and just for self-indulgent things.

Also, thank you for the guides you linked !! I have only read (well i just skimmed over it to be exact) the xiao one since the one for @/witch-hazels-musings quite contains a lot of info. And for your assumption, i honestly don't have any idea if i'm gentle but what i can guarantee you is that: I AM SOFT!!! like xiao. If you are needing some more explanation as to why i kin him, i also don't know but the quiz results were never wrong about that. Just like how i am undeniably an albedo kinnie too (yes either one of the two usually pops up in my results), i am a silent person xD very much npc behavior, really. This also made me curious as to who do you kin too,, well i do not want to intrude privacy or stuff so just tell me if you don't want to answer <3 ofc i will respect it why not

About your theme, well my question is that: do YOU like it? xD because that's what matters <3 well i dont mind you experimenting on your theme too if you felt like trying out new stuff! A change of colors isn't a bad reason to change your theme so all i can say is that just do what you want since it's your blog!! Any theme is fine for me as long as it doesn't use colors or combinations that could hurt the eyes </3 dw yours is pretty nice and soft to look at!! 💞

And, i see that you're also drowning in late assignments but here's what i would like to tell you: we're getting there and we can do this together!! Hehe, i'll be someone who'll give you support in these trying times as well <333

Lastly, i am very glad to have inspired u to reach out to penpal ely! I didn't knew about that in the first place until you told me. So i'm glad my decision of talking to them about the anon ask thingy actually did something different xD one thing i have learned about after being an anon (yes fun fact, my first anon experience was @ dan's blog so i was never really an anon to anyone before dan's and ely's) is that don't be shy to reach out and tell your favorite writers or creators that you love this and that about their works or theme!! Even if we assume that they knew others' appreciation already, telling them is also one thing that would absolutely make them feel nice :) so im really happy for you to be an anon with me @ ely's blog!! You also deserve that reblog btw <3 it was nice seeing you touch people's hearts in your short drabble— ngl i love your word choice 💗💗💗

Furthermore, i dont mind you creating a tag specifically for me!! And i definitely dont mind being called 🍰 anon too, unless you have... Nickname ideas? I might be open to that if you're more comfy xD

— lots of love, 🍰!

i-??????? i spent a while staring at the screen like “hello??” because same??????? dude at this point i think it’s fair to say we’re continuously pulling uno reverse cards and flustering each other djldjkas ( ⸝⸝•ᴗ•⸝⸝ ) i didn’t expect it either but i’m glad it did!!! thank you (once again) for reaching out 💖💖

oh man, look at the responsability you’re giving me – your heart?? i promise i’ll do my best to keep it safe uwu also yeah, it’s possible, especially when you suddenly start using it a lot or if you have chronic exposure to it 💀💀💀 but really, i hope you feel better soon!

thank you for the reminder about it being an indulgence. if i don’t monitor myself i start taking things way too seriously and end up burnt out lol and no problem!! take your time with the links! i figured they’d be a nice way to start for me too, so i decided to share.

what quizzes did you take? tbh i wouldn’t guess you’re an albedo kinnie lol from the interactions i’ve seen of you on other blogs i agree you’re soft, and i absolutely think you’re a gentle and kind person. maybe you’re more like albedo on the outside and xiao on the inside? 🧐 hmmm... about my kins, the one quiz i took told me i’m a kaeya kin, but honestly... i don’t see it? i see myself as more of a hu tao kin. i relate to her personality and world view a lot, i’m just a lot quieter about it lol and i love her little jokes?? like, they make my day sometimes 😅

about my theme, i do like it, actually! i think it’s looks nice, even though i’m not used to white themes because of the brightness 😖 but i’m glad you think it’s nice and soft!!

and dude YES let’s kick late assignments butts!! we can do it while cheering each other on!! and about the whole anon thing, i think it’s really funny and relatable because dan's was also the first blog i ever interacted as an anon, so this is another thing we have in common. i’ll definitely keep you advice in mind and work up more courage. I know i seem to talk a lot but i’m actually really really shy lmao

also nhgnhgnnhgnhgngg thank you for the compliment!! i hope my next works don’t disappoint. and about the nickname, i’m okay with keeping the 🍰 for you if you'd like, especially considering how sweet you are!! also, i now know you’re not very fond of sweets, which is really interesting, all things considered. i don't remember if you've answered this, but why did you choose it?

sorry it took me a while to reply! weekdays are usually super busy for me 😣 i hope you had a great day!!

#—new mail ! #i was so flustered by this message please 😫 #—the burrow's 🍰

[sophygurl]

Okay I am done with the panel write-up posts and I apologize to all my followers who don’t give a fuck about that kinda thing but WisCon is a big part of my life so I get to totally indulge in it once a year so there. [For anyone wondering this amazing con I keep going on about is a feminist Sci-fi/fantasy con right in my home town and I’ve been going for close to ten years now and it’s like HOME to me]

Gonna post some about the panels I was on, my general con experience this year, and some other stuff under this next read more thingum here. It’ll be more of a personal post than the others. Anything else I write now will be more about fandom-ey stuff that I got up in my feels about and need to hash out. 

BTW though. Hi new followers!! If you’re coming to me due to WisCon specifically or due to my write-up of THAT panel, feel free to introduce yourselves. I use tumblr the most frequently with twitter and FB being a sort of tie for second and DW much more rarely just as an FYI. I’m sophygurl everywhere but FB which is my real name. I’m easily findable and love talking to people! 

So my panels this year were all very different in tone and experience, but all went pretty well? I had fun anyway? I had 4 panels about TV in some way or another and one about Star Wars. Some hinged on serious-ish topics, but I wasn’t on any Serious Business panels this year. 

I wrote up a crap-ton of panel ideas and a lot of them got through. So many that panels I wrote up and wanted to go to were often up against one another and I had to make lots of choices. But it feels really good to me to be involved in that way - in writing up panels, and in being on them, and in going to them and taking notes and writing them up after. There is a lot that I CAN’T do for the con due to my disability stuff. But this is stuff I both can do and enjoy doing so it works out well. I also volunteered to a few people to write up panel descriptions from ideas they have but don’t have fleshed out, so that’s an exciting new thing for me to try out.  So but yea, all five of the panels I was on were panels I also wrote up. 

My first panel was about Women Loving Women on TV. It was me, another panelist, and the moderator. I was a little worried about this panel because the moderator said she was put on the panel by mistake and doesn’t even have a TV (she did fine as a mod - not all mods have to also partake in the talking, they can just ask questions of the panelists), and the other panelist never contacted either of us or showed up for the panel.

Fortunately, I am a well-prepared panelist and felt comfortable talking about this subject for the whole 75 minutes. But then the panel was scheduled against a panel on a similar topic and so anyway - three people showed up for the panel. Fortunately they were kinda fun and engaged people so it became more of a conversational panel than a formal presentation kind and I think it went well? This was my only panel this weekend that I wasn’t the moderator of. 

My next panel was about intersectionality on TV. I was also a lil worried about this one because it was just me and one other panelist, although we had some good chats online before the con so I wasn’t too worried. Fortunately, she convinced a friend to come sit on the panel with us so there was three of us - and both of my panelists had lots of awesome things to contribute. We also had a decent size panel for an evening time slot and got the audience involved too. I pulled one of my goofball tricks and made the audience do a lightning round question of a show they think does intersectionality well and everyone was able to come up with something, which was fun.

Right after that was my panel about SFF sitcoms which was a blast. This was even later in the evening, so we were all really punchy! It was me, a good friend, and another panelist I knew casually before. We wanted lots of audience participation and we got it - getting so many more recommendations than any of the 3 of us had even considered. And since it was a panel about comedies, we really just kinda relaxed and had fun with it.

That was all Friday. Big Day for me.

Saturday night, again a late night slot, I had my Bisexual Representation in TV and Film panel. This one I was not too worried about because I was asked to hand-staff it, since I had strongly suggested the panel be filled with Bi+ folks. So most of the panel was people I already knew and had paneled with before but also I snagged a couple of people I hadn’t previously talked to but who were also awesome.

The panel was in a large room and was fairly full, which I thought was really neat. I had a lot of my own notes on the subject, and did go off on a huge bit about the amazingness of Sara Ramirez and her two bisexual characters, but I also knew from previous convos that my fellow panelists had a lot of interesting things to say and they did not disappoint. It seemed like the audience had a lot of fun and the # for the program was pretty lively, so that’s always a good feeling.

Sunday afternoon was the panel I was MOST excited about. It was all about the themes of The Last Jedi. Like how cool is that? A whole panel not just about the movie in general, but specifically about the THEMES of the movie?! I was pumped that this panel even got through, much less that I got to be on it, much less that I got to moderate it.

And let me tell you something. My panelists? Were amazeballs. Like, the email convos we had ahead of time were already so smart and so nuanced and so full of different ideas and perspectives I was like !!!

And the panel went SO WELL. Like, there was such an equal exchange of like flow and information going back and forth. I feel like I really organized my own thoughts and questions for my panelists well and we all spent the whole panel making grabby hands for the mic because we were all so excited to respond to one another’s thoughts. 

It was FUN and THINKY and I could tell the audience was really engaged and we all laughed and discussed and disagreed and laughed more and it was probably the best time I have ever had on a panel. The #TLJThemes on twitter is just chock-full of both quotes from my awesome panelists and thinky-thoughts from the very smart audience who I sadly did NOT end up having time to get questions or comments from because literally the moment we finally had a pause of any kind? It was right on the dot time for the panel to end LOL. 

So yea, wow, that was just exhilarating? IDK, I am such a nerd.

But yea, so I had everything from 3 audience members to packed rooms and no fellow panelists to crowded tables of excited panelists struggling to get a word in and everything in between and I feel sort of confident that I did well with all of it? So that’s neat. 

Last year I didn’t moderate any of my panels and I found I really missed it, which is why I volunteered to do more moderating this year and it was a Good Life Choice and I plan to do more of it in the future. I adore WisCon for being the kind of place that a basic nobody like myself who has done nothing with her life besides watch a crapton of television can sit on panels and moderate panels and contribute to panels and do things like this that I enjoy and feel like am good at and it’s just such a good. *cuddles the general idea of WisCon*

And beyond the panels - both that I attended and sat on - I had a really wonderful con this year. I was very social and decided to get over my awkwardness and just kinda Utilize my awkwardness because, like, we’re all geeks here so just stop worrying and be a dork and have fun and it worked? I talked to so many people, introduced myself to so many people, made so many connections, hung out more specifically with some of my favorite people, and just sort of made sure to hang out in public spaces and smile a lot and that helped? Who knew. 

There were really only just the three bumps in my otherwise good experience.

1. The panel. If you didn’t already see about this, I attended a panel that very unfortunately derailed into Nazi apologism and it was super gross and upsetting but lots of people spoke up against the panelist in question and the con acted quickly to ban her and are continuing to discuss if she can ever come back so at least that part is good but UGH UGH UGH that was so gross.

2. My laptop broke on me. Fortunately, I have amazing friends and the one I was rooming with doesn’t use hers a ton so she let me use it a lot so I didn’t have to be off-twitter much because a lot of the con happens in the twitter tags and I would have been very sad to miss out on that. I got home and my other amazing friend and roomie helped me get my laptop into the shop quickly and it’s back now which is a huge relief because as a mostly homebound and frankly mostly sofabound extrovert? I need my laptop. I NEED my Laptop. 

3. Life with chronic illness sadly does not stop when you are at an event you love. Even when you save up all your spoons, and spend weeks building up your stamina after a winter of mostly hibernating, and use all of your meds, and allow yourself more caffeine and different foods than usual, and work really hard on self-care. Still, you are chronically ill. 

I am able to push myself a LOT at WisCon because of how it fuels me socially and intellectually and creatively and in so many other ways. But that still only goes so far. And especially with having two late nights on panels - I did not make it to any parties or other late night social events this year. Nor did I make any early morning panels - and there were some I really Really wanted to go to. 

But that’s life and I still got to cram SO MUCH in and spent lots of time in the hot tub soaking and also having poolcon with some amazing folks and had lobbycon and actually made time to have meal/snack times with people instead of just the usual “we should totally make sure to ...”

There were a lot of people I only saw briefly or missed entirely that I’d have loved to have had more time with, but I guess when we finally invent the time turners I can have all that plus go to ALL the panels. 

Oh! And I did go to an amazing reading this year. I often skip readings but I knew a bunch of the people at this one and adore them so I went and it made me feel and think a lot of things and adore these people even more, so there’s that. 

And PHEW I think that’s it. I have tons of thoughts about like, found family and female friendships and stuff mostly about my own amazing platonic poly tribe - some of whom come along to WisCon with me and we get to like BE together in shared living space and then go off and have our own adventures and bond with other people and then introduce one another to those people and it just enhances the whole thing and YAY MY PEOPLE. And uh, yea, one of said peoples who sadly no longer lives in the area just came back over to my place from our other friend’s house and is only going to be here for another day and a half so I’m gonna go run off and spend time with her while I can. 

#wiscon #wiscon 42 #long post sorry #i don't have a tag for this #extroversion

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💛 femfeb day 4 | my femfeb masterpost 🧡 xposted → ao3 | dw | pf.io 💖 Brigitte/D.Va | 3k | Gen 🧡 AU, canon divergence, A/B/O, omega/omega, meet-cute, first meeting 💛 Hana meets a cute girl at the omega bar.

Hana leaned against the bar, blinking thoughtfully at the rows and rows of bottles. So much alcohol. She recognized some of the labels, but it wasn’t like they were going to have Soju in some random omega bar in the outskirts of Vancouver. She had been here for almost two weeks filming a movie, but this was her first time venturing outside of her hotel. She could have gone down to the hotel bar, it seemed nice, but she didn’t want to run the risk of any alphas getting any ideas. The omega bar was really nice. It was all decked out in pale purples and lilacs with silver accents on the tables and chairs. There was a currently unoccupied stage that hosted bands or DJs on other nights if the flyers outside were anything to go by. Right now, there were top forty tunes playing over the sound system and speakers, just loud enough without needing to shout over the noise. The lighting was cool and dim, and the whole place had sort of a chic, clean vibe. It was nicer than any other club she’d ever been to, that was for sure. To be fair, Hana didn’t often go out to bars or clubs. It just wasn’t feasible. She was easily recognized everywhere she went in Korea. Her face was on billboards touting energy drinks and the packaging of convenience store chips. Hundreds of thousands of people watched her stream video games, or live chats where she talked to her fans. If she wanted to go out in Seoul, Busan, or Incheon she would have to reserve the entire club or seclude herself to bottle service in the VIP section. Neither appealed to her or seemed worth the effort. Overseas? Next to no one knew who she was. Occasionally she got recognized on the street, but even then, it was usually someone who excitedly asked for a picture and then let her be. There were no mobs of people, no need for extra security, nothing like that. It was kinda weird. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. On one hand, it afforded her the opportunity to go out and do things she normally never did, but on the other hand… she kind of just liked staying home and playing video games. It really didn’t help that the only people she knew around town were the cast and crew of the film she was working on. They were all really cool and nice, but she spent all day working with them. She felt bad asking any of them to spend even more time indulging her elsewhere. That meant she had to go out alone if she wanted to go out. Most omegas knew better than to wander the streets of an unknown city alone. Probably nothing would happen, especially in a country like Canada that was generous with their omega rights, but it was still touchy. It wasn’t until she found out about this place, a bar that exclusively catered to omegas who were attracted to other omegas, that she even entertained the idea of venturing out. Hana wasn’t sure if she was attracted to other omegas, really. She didn’t have much dating experience. She’d had to kiss a couple of alphas because the scripts of her other films called for it and she didn’t… really…. like it. Maybe because it was fake acting or whatever, but it just didn’t do anything for her. She got butterflies in her stomach when her omega friend Dae-hyun complimented her, or that time she ran into omega DJ Lucio at a premier once. Not around alphas. Alone in an unfamiliar city was as good a time and place as any to explore her feelings. “Hey, cutie.” The bartender who had been busy taking orders all up and down the bar finally sidled up to her. “What can I get you?” “Uhm,” Hana didn’t know what to drink. She mostly drank peach soju or flower wine at home. And really, she didn’t drink very often. “Something peach?” She tried, trying not to feel too self-conscious about her silly drink order. “Like… a peach bellini?” The bartender asked with a little uncertainty, perhaps overwhelmed by all the peach possibilities here. “Or I can make an old fashioned with peach in it.” “A tabernacle crush.” An omega with long brown hair strung up in a high ponytail came to stand in the empty space beside Hana. She offered a wink before turning her attention to the bartender. “You know, with basil and gin.” “Yeah,” Hana agreed, heart thrumming from that wink alone. “One of those.” “And a Molson for me,” the brunette added. She waited until the bartender set about getting the beer and making the drink to turn to Hana. “Brigitte.” She stuck out her hand. “Hana.” Hana shook her hand and took her in. She was tall, though most people were in comparison. She had some serious muscles on her, like she was totally built. There was even a tattoo peeking out from under the short sleeve of her shirt. She was really pretty too. For all her muscle, her face was soft and sweet with big brown eyes like a doe. Hana wished she had something cool or suave to say but… all she could think of was “Hi.” “Hi,” Brigitte laughed warmly. Not like she was laughing at Hana for the silly introduction, but more like she was happy. “I hope you don’t mind me butting in. This drink, it’s got that crazy name – tabernacle crush – but it’s so good. I found out about it a few weeks ago. I’ve been drinking them non-stop. This is the first night I’ve had a beer in ages.” Hana was immediately charmed by Brigitte’s apology for the intrusion. An alpha would never. So insufferable the way they think they know everything omegas want. This was so much softer and sweeter; Brigitte just wanted to share her favorite drink. “No, it’s cool,” Hana assured. “You can totally sit and drink with me, if you want?” Right on time the bartender returned with a tall glass. The drink itself was kind of yellow with bits of fruit and leaf in there. Brigitte’s drink was just a standard tan beer with foam at the top. Hana took a sip of hers and the alcohol was strong, but it tasted good. “Oh, I like this,” she said, all too pleased. “Want to bore each other with small talk?” Brigitte asked, but she had a big smile on her face like there was nothing she wanted more. “Yes, please!” Hana agreed. Small talk was kind of a luxury for her. So many fans already knew so much about her, she never got to answer ordinary questions anymore. Sometimes interviewers asked her boring questions, but it was stuff about her upcoming projects or her favorite video game like she hadn’t answered that a million times already. “Sooo,” Brigitte took a sip of her beer. “Are you from Vancouver?” “Nope,” Hana shook her head. “I live in Seoul, South Korea.” Brigitte nearly choked on her drink. She swallowed quickly. “Wait, what? Seriously? No way, I’m supposed to be the cool and mysterious foreigner.” “Huh?” “Yeah, I’m from Sweden. Though, I’ve been going to university in Germany for the past two years.” Hana was somehow relieved to find another non-native. It felt nice to know she wasn’t the only one alone in this city. Though, Brigitte definitely seemed comfortable here. “A world traveler, huh?” Hana said curiously. “Oh, no. It’s not like that.” Brigitte laughed. “Not really. More studying than traveling. I’m just doing a semester here before I go back to Germany.” The likelihood that this would be some kind of lasting relationship was effectively dashed. It was already unlikely considering that Hana was only here to film a movie, but it didn’t help that Brigitte’s residence in the city was temporary too. Still, that didn’t stop Hana from chatting her up. “What do you study?” Brigitte brightened, obviously enthralled by her career of choice. “Mechanical engineering.” “Oh, woah. This is good, I can totally impress you by telling you I built a motorcycle by myself a few years ago. Ah, well, technically my friend Dae-hyun helped. But it was mostly me. It was so awesome.” Brigitte was looking at her over the rim of her beer glass, eyes sparkling a little in the mood lighting of the club. “What?” Hana took up her own drink, suddenly too aware of herself and her hands and the fact that she wasn’t doing anything with them. She poked at the ice and basil leaves with her straw. “You wanna impress me, do you?” Brigitte asked, raising up her eyebrows. “Shut up,” Hana scoffed, but her blush totally gave her away. She looked off, behind the bar. Butterflies started fluttering around in her stomach, the way they always did around omegas. Ugh, this was so embarrassing. “Hey, I’m sorry for teasing,” Brigitte said sweetly, reaching out to gently lay a hand on Hana’s arm. “That actually is really cool about the motorcycle. Automotive engineering is awesome.” After a beat where Hana warmed up to her again and turned her attention back to the conversation Brigitte asked her “Is that what you’re in school for?” “Oh, no I’m not in school,” Hana said, feeling a little awkward. How do you tell someone you’re an international celebrity and movie star? That’s sort of a weird thing to just drop in a conversation. “No? What brings you to Vancouver then?” “I’m actually, uh, filming a movie.” Brigitte’s big brown eyes went wide. “What, really? I’ve heard that Vancouver is like a big film industry town. So, you’re an actress or something?” Hana hummed and sipped her drink. “Yeah, kind of.” “Oh, that’s cool.” Brigitte seemed like she meant it, and not like she was humoring Hana. “What kind of movie is it?” “It’s an action movie. There’s tons of car chases and stuff, but mostly I just sit in the passenger seat of a half-built car in a studio.” Hana’s first movie had been a ridiculous romantic comedy called ‘Hero of my Storm’. It was popular in Korea, but not so much anywhere else. She’d been in a few other things after that, guest starring on tv shows and cameos in other films. This was her second starring role, and her argent was trying to help grow her brand or make her branch out or something because it was a lot different than the stuff she’d been doing before. “I’m going to take everyone I know to see it when it comes out,” Brigitte said confidently. “And tell them all I went on a date with a movie star.” Hana laughed a little, and the tail end of that sentence caught her attention. “So, this is a date, huh?” “This?” Brigitte gestured between the two of them. “No, this is drinks at the bar. I was thinking we could go on a date this Friday, if you’re not too busy filming that is.” She winked again, and Hana was so flustered by it she could feel herself turn red. “Uhm…” Oh, she wanted to. She really wanted to. Screw it. Why not? “Okay, Friday.” She was pretty sure she wasn’t scheduled to film then. Brigitte took out her phone, opened it up to the contacts and passed it offer. “Here, put your info in.” Hana did, adding the cute bunny emoji and double hearts next to her name. She handed it back to Brigitte and had her do the same. Hana had no intentions of coming to the bar to get lucky, so to speak. She was mostly just looking for a place to hang out and spend some time. She had no idea she would meet someone so cool, and cute. She really liked Brigitte, even though they had only been talking for a short while. Unfortunately, she had noticed the time while putting her number in Brigitte’s phone. She should probably head back to her hotel. She had to be on set early in the morning and she wasn’t going to be that asshole who stayed out all night partying, showed up late, and totally screwed up production. She finished the last of her drink and fished some Canadian bills out from her wallet to leave on the bar top. “So, I kind of have to get back… but maybe you could come outside with me and wait for my ride to get here?” It was sort of a lame suggestion, hey wanna go stand around on the sidewalk, but she didn’t want to leave Brigitte’s company yet. Brigitte lit up, smiling brightly. “Sure.” Ah, well. She didn’t seem to think it was lame. She knocked back the rest of her beer and settled up her own tab. Together they walked outside. It was spring in Vancouver, but that didn’t mean it was warm. Especially now that the sun had gone down. Hana quickly requested a ride on her phone before shoving her hands in her pockets to keep them warm. It was quiet outside, with no pop music playing overhead or sounds of other patrons drinking and laughing. There was another bar across the street, one that didn’t cater to the specific niche of omegas. Hana looked across the way and saw a bunch of drunk alphas stumbling outside. She was suddenly very grateful Brigitte was with her. “So, is this the part well you tell me you’re actually a famous actress and I look like an idiot for not knowing who you are?” Brigitte teased her. Hana flushed a little. “Well… only in Korea,” she said honestly. Brigitte laughed, warm and sweet, seemingly thinking this was a joke. After a second, she quieted. “Wait, you’re kidding right?” Hana watched the alphas across the street just to have something to look at other than Brigitte. Ugh, this was so dumb. She was never usually so self-conscious. She didn’t actually care if anyone knew who she was. The millions of fans, the endorsement deals, the celebrity status overseas. She wasn’t going to brag about it or try to hide it, she just didn’t know how to tactfully broach the subject with someone she kind of had a crush on… “Oh, wow. You’re not kidding,” Brigitte said in disbelief. “I-" Hana didn’t know what to say. She was surprised when she felt Brigitte’s warm fingers on her chin. Her touch was soft and gentle in the way only omegas were. She turned Hana’s face towards her own, meeting little resistance. Hana had to tilt her head up to look her in the eye, but she did. God, she was so pretty. Hana’s heart beat a little faster in her chest. “Are any of your fans going to send me hate mail if I get caught kissing you?” Brigitte asked, something slightly mischievous about her tone. Hana’s eyes darted to Brigitte’s lips. Pink like flower petals, so kissable. They probably tasted sweet like Chapstick. In all honesty, she did have some intense fans who went overboard when they saw her spending time with alphas. Little did they know, it was her omega friends they should be more worried about. If she did get caught kissing someone it would be all over twitter and splashed across trashy tabloids in Korean newsstands. It was probably a bad idea to do it out in the open here where anyone could see… and yet she wanted a kiss so badly anyway. “Would that stop you?” Hana asked softly. “…No, I guess not.” Brigitte smirked before leaning down and pressing their lips together. Hana felt something soft and happy blossom in her chest. It was short kiss, soft and sweet, but it felt so right. It was a real shame when it got interrupted by the whooping and hollering of the alphas across the way. Hana pulled back and shyly went to hide her face in Brigitte’s chest. It was warm and cozy there. She could hear the muffled rumble of Brigitte’s laugh through her body. “Want me to say something?” She asked. “No don’t bother.” Hana shook her head. It was never a good idea to get alphas riled up like that. She liked that Brigitte was willing to step up and defend her, though. She especially liked that Brigitte asked first before hauling off and starting something. She liked Brigitte a lot. When her ride pulled up Hana had half a mind to wave them off so she could stay cuddled up to Brigitte a little while longer. Instead she pulled away, waved goodbye, and climbed in the back seat of the car. The driver was a beta, she had used an app specifically designed for omegas to safely request rides. Even though the beta didn’t have much of a scent, she missed the sweet smell of Brigitte. Hana was already counting down to Friday when she would see her again. She was suddenly very glad she was in Canada where no one knew her, where she could go out to the bar and meet someone new. She was glad she had taken a chance. It was worth it.

i’m taking femslash february suggestions year round send requests or prompts ➝ here follow me on twitter ➝ here thanks for reading ✩°｡⋆

#femslash february #overwatch femslash #femfeb 2019 #brigitte/d.va #brigitte #d.va #overwatch fanfic