apparently i have never posted my ao3 here
so here it is~ https://archiveofourown.org/users/soft_witch/profile
do you ever watch videos of youtubers reading their own crappy wattpad x self insert fics and think to yourself man i would love to explain the sold to one direction trope to these kids, it would absolutely break them
it was the morning after the big move (a/n idk where she moved too lol) and you swept your messy dark brown hair that was slightly wavy with sun kissed blonde streaks in it up into a messy bun and swiped mascara across your thick lashes that brought out your shining blue ocean colored orbs before throwing on the large frumpy sweatshirt that i had thrown on the floor the night before. i heard the doorbell ring from downstairs. “y/n!” your mom yelled “get down here quick!” “what is it mom?” i yelled back, she was so annoying sometimes. “your new owners are here,” she stated. “my- what?” you stammered, perfect pink lips opening in shock. “yes honey, how else do you think i was able to pay for this house and my alcohol addition? now open the door” you opened the door and saw them on the doorstep, one direction. they looked mostly bored but harry opened his arms and gave you a brilliant smile, his pearly white teeth glistening in the sun. “hey princess get your stuff.”
it's a lot of stuff...
But this is fine. Doing the (worldbuilding) work is important. Showing it (all)? Not so much. The minute the details of world-construction start distracting your reader from the story you’re trying to tell, you’ve started undercutting your narrative’s effectiveness.
Less is more, here. If you know your build’s detail well, it’ll come out naturally enough where needed as you write. Just relax and let it ooze out through the cracks at its own pace.
But what if I'm afraid of forgetting it all, and that's why I want to write it down?
This is a completely fair question. The simplest answer:
Yes, absolutely, write it down! Just not in your prose narrative.
The main reason (IMO) not to do this is because it'll inevitably throw off the timing and structure of your prose. The natural flow of your narration and its interaction with dialogue is one of the most important things to get right in writing. Forcing yourself to maneuver your writing's flow around material that may or may not wind up in the final text is like running a race on a track that you've purposely left strewn with cinderblocks and boulders. It's not kind to you (because it forces you expend energy you don't need to spend on this purpose), and it's not good for your work.
That said: by all means, take notes on everything in your worldbuilding that seems like you'll need to remember it. But find a safe place to keep this stuff separate from your prose where you can find it quickly—either just to add something, or to use it in the work.
If you're working mostly digitally, a good place is in a separate folder stored along with the files where you're doing the actual writing work. Depending on the software you're using for your writing, you may already have a place to store notes inside the main project but separate from the prose work. (Scrivener, which I've used for years and heartily recommend, has this. In fact, this is one of the reasons I started using it in the first place: I was tired of losing track of the many, many notes lying around the place when I've had five or six projects running at once.)
(For those who might be curious, Scrivener's option for "inline" notes looks like this. That right-hand column can be collapsed away out of sight when you don't need to see the notes: but they're always aligned with the section where you've decided you may need or want them, and you can easily move them around if you find they'll work better somewhere else.)
...There are lots of other digital options. Here's a favorite one: You can very successfully keep worldbuilding work in a wiki—either quite a complex one (like the Errantry Concordance presently being converted to a new format) or a very simple HTML-based one like TiddlyWiki, which you can keep on a USB drive. (See also "wiki on a stick.") Once there, you can cut-n-paste material from the wiki into your text in Word or Google Docs or whatever.
I've used both wiki types, and like them both for different reasons. If you've got a LOT of stuff to store, the heavier-duty MediaWiki software may be the best way to go as you get started. I mean... there's nearly a million words of published Young Wizards stuff now, and I promise you, when you've got a mlllion words of prose and the worldbuilding behind it, you will forget stuff if you don't make notes about it. Guaranteed. So this was my preferred approach for the YW material. But for other books I went with multiple TiddlyWiki installations, and those worked just fine.
You can also use a wiki not just for storage, but for active development of new worldbuild ideas. These can then be stored at the end of a prose chapter as footnotes linked to a URL in the wiki. Some brand-new concepts and events that have turned up in the last few YW books were developed out of notes on already-extant material appearing in the Concordance.)
...Now, possibly you prefer to do your worldbuilding-notes work on paper. And why not? As long as you're storing your notes where you can find them, and can readily associate individual pieces of info with the part(s) of your writing where they may be needed, you're fine. ...Probably the simplest way to do this is to insert note-specific page-locating tags into your prose—or at the top or bottom of chapters, if they're less distracting that way.
I still have paper notes on the Middle Kingdoms works that were made this way. They've traveled thousands of miles with me, from home to home, since the first book came out. (Ten years or so ago I took the precaution of scanning them; then uploaded them to the cloud later on.)
"Look," she said (as if on a cooking show): "here's one I made earlier."
...circa around 1976. With a table of contents for the couple of hundred pages of scraps, notes, linguistic stuff, timelines, heraldic info and sketches, genealogies, etc etc. (90% of which material has never appeared in any of the books in the main sequence or the interstitials—because it hasn't needed to. What has appeared is sprinkled through the narrative, rather than shoveled onto it.)
That ToC has sometimes proven almost more useful than the notes themselves—as it's enabled me to look up a given note, determine whether anything in it is still germane, and include (or discard) that piece of business in a matter of moments.
Anyway. Whether working electronically or on paper, definitely take all the notes on your world that you feel likely to need. Once you've got them safely tucked away where they're hard to lose, I suspect you'll find it easier to just let them slide out of your head onto the page in the process of everyday composition. And if you have trouble remembering something, you'll know it'll be ready and waiting for you. :)
HTH!
"ao3 is the modern day library of alexandria" no that title goes to the internet archive. ao3 is the omegaverse website. easy misconception.
is there anyone out there with a nyt cooking subscription
will they send me the chamomile tea cake with strawberry icing recipe
This buttery, chamomile tea-scented loaf is a sweet pop symphony, the Abba of cakes. A pot of flowery, just-brewed chamomile isn’t required for drinking with slices of this tender loaf but is strongly recommended. In life and in food, you always need balance: A sip or two of the grassy, herbal tea between bites of this cake counters the sweetness, as do freeze-dried strawberries, which lend tartness and a naturally pink hue to the lemony glaze. This everyday loaf will keep on the counter for 3 to 4 days; be sure the cut side is always well wrapped.
Ingredients Yield: One 9-inch loaf ½ cup/115 grams unsalted butter 2 tablespoons/6 grams chamomile tea (from 4 to 6 tea bags), crushed fine if coarse 1 cup/240 milliliters whole milk Nonstick cooking spray 1 cup/200 grams granulated sugar ½ teaspoon coarse kosher salt 2 large eggs 1 large lemon 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 1½ cups/192 grams all-purpose flour 1 cup/124 grams confectioners’ sugar ½ cup/8 grams freeze-dried strawberries
Preparation Step 1 In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon chamomile to a large mixing bowl. Pour the hot melted butter over the chamomile and stir. Set aside to steep and cool completely, about 1 hour. Step 2 Use the same saucepan (without washing it out) to bring the milk to a simmer over medium-high heat, keeping watch so it doesn’t boil over. Remove from the heat, and stir the remaining 1 tablespoon chamomile into the hot milk. Set aside to steep and cool completely, about 1 hour. Step 3 Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with the nonstick cooking spray and line with parchment paper so the long sides of the pan have a couple of inches of overhang to make lifting the finished cake out easier. Step 4 Add the sugar and salt to the bowl with the butter, and whisk until smooth and thick, about 1 minute. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, vigorously whisking to combine after each addition. Zest the lemon into the bowl; add the baking powder and vanilla, and whisk until incorporated. Add the flour and stream in the milk mixture while whisking continuously until no streaks of flour remain. Step 5 Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake until a skewer or cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean (a few crumbs are OK, but you should see no wet batter), 40 to 45 minutes. Cool in the pan on a rack for 30 minutes. Step 6 While the cake cools, make the icing: Into a medium bowl, squeeze 2 tablespoons juice from the zested lemon, then add the confectioners’ sugar. Place the dehydrated strawberries in a fine-mesh sieve set over the bowl and, using your fingers, crush the brittle berries and press the red-pink powder through the sieve and into the sugar. (The more you do this, the redder your icing will be.) Whisk until smooth. Step 7 If needed, run a knife along the edges of the cake to release it from the pan. Holding the 2 sides of overhanging parchment, lift the cake out and place it on a plate, cake stand or cutting board. Discard the parchment. Pour the icing over the cake, using a spoon to push the icing to the edges of the cake to encourage the icing to drip down the sides dramatically. Cool the cake completely and let the icing set.
We out here torrenting recipes now? Reblog
Bitches be like ‘I’m so tired and sleepy’ and then stay up doing hyperfixtation shit for the next 5 hours
...
Rating: Explicit
Words: 2,965
Tags: Bode Akuna/Cal Kestis, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, lil bit anyway, service top Cal, bode: i got this, also bode: i dont got this, Nipple Play, Multiple Orgasms, Rimming, Anal Sex, just a real good fuck
Summary: This baby-faced scrap rat could wrangle the galaxy to its knees, and the only thing Bode needs to give him to keep him pacified and trusting is Bode himself?
Too easy.
enjoloras-deactivated20220821
Okay so Victorian erotica is literally the most heinous, morally bankrupt, horrific shit I've ever read - but I've read a fair bit, partly from historical interest but also because a while back I helped a friend with a university project she was doing about censorship and pornography in 19th century England.
Anyway I need to share with you all the most hilarious line that has ever been written, circa 1887:
they would NOT fucking have communication skills that good
Genre of character: submissive like a guard dog is submissive
Modern era Arthur Morgan would have a YouTube channel where he makes instructional videos on how to do practical survival things like safely chopping wood, building a fire with minimal resources, identifying edible plants in the wilderness and he'd be confused as to why his videos end up with 1000+ comments from thirsty gay men
Rating: Explicit
Words: 2,965
Tags: Bode Akuna/Cal Kestis, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, lil bit anyway, service top Cal, bode: i got this, also bode: i dont got this, Nipple Play, Multiple Orgasms, Rimming, Anal Sex, just a real good fuck
Summary: This baby-faced scrap rat could wrangle the galaxy to its knees, and the only thing Bode needs to give him to keep him pacified and trusting is Bode himself?
Too easy.
i bought this zine for two precious new zealand dollars while wandering on a work trip two years ago and i still remember the look on my coworker’s face when i was like. i simply must own and cherish this item.
you can buy it here still i think (it’s longer than just these) also there are many other zines!! + insta
enough preg let's litigate a new fetish. step right up who's got a good one
your mind is so beautiful. im obsessed. i dont even want to litigate over the morals of this one im just mentally playing in this space with u rn. what if i was a naughty little mothgirl and mommy tortured me with stinky mothballs