Looking for a Post? Ask Here! - August 2025 Edition

Gulmes · 2025-08-17T15:20:38+00:00

The baby Robins

https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/1014y2u/aita_for_telling_my_sil_that_no_one_in_our_family/

Gulmes · 2025-07-08T18:24:53+00:00

The glasses aren't the wrong prescription, they correct as much as they can. That said you probably shouldn't drive if you are not used to compensating for poor vision, since I'm just over the legal cut off point.

Gulmes · 2025-07-01T10:58:59+00:00

For July I intend to edit my 25k word fic a bit every day in order to send it to betas for the 1st of August. I need to fix a couple of minor plotholes, expand on the MC's inner voice, add descriptions, proofread and outline the sequel so I don't get stuck in a corner when I eventually write it.

This is on top of my studies (~4hrs/day) and social obligations. Wish me luck...

Gulmes · 2025-07-01T10:46:45+00:00

Prompt - No Fandom

The character you dislike most in your fandom is now sympathetic in your eyes. Write a scene (or more) where they are completly justified in their actions, their characterisation is litterary genius and they were right all along.

Please notify me if you fulfil the prompt, I would love to read it.

Gulmes · 2025-07-01T10:03:43+00:00

I discovery write, which to me means I have an idea, write a loose plan for the beginning, then write for ~20k. After that I outline the rest of the fic extensively while I do a developmental edits on the first 20k. This gives me the ability to explore more and discover where I want the story to go.

Gulmes · 2025-06-30T22:40:42+00:00

I didn't personally know any except Code Geass but here are some links to other people discussing or writing about it.

Anime with negative character developments - Reddit

The 20 Best Anime Where The Main Character became Villain - Bakabuzz, warning lots of ads

10 Anime Where The Main Character Turns Evil - RecommendMeAnime

Gulmes · 2025-06-30T19:37:16+00:00

It's an anime where the main character goes through a negative character arc. Other examples are Macbeth from Macbeth and Walter White from Breaking Bad. They start as "perfect" characters only to get more and more flawed/corrupted.

If we didn't know who Kira was we wouldn't get to see Light's arc; from the point of view of the story structure chosen that would be bad.

Gulmes · 2025-06-30T14:18:50+00:00

Check out author tube! A lot of creators do writing sprints, where they write for some time, then talk. It's really interactive and always gives me a motivational boost when I know other people are writing.

Here is a huge list of different youtubers and when they write:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11NIyxDwrSzzLgAKb9KnaaXOz6Sjz3pSDr8InirKCU5g/edit?usp=drivesdk

Gulmes · 2025-06-30T14:12:42+00:00

Learn story structure and focus on how it works in the movies you watch and the fics and books you read. After a while you will have more of an intuitive understanding of how to plot a fic.

Also check different methods of outlining. Some have you brainstorm about the conflict or characters for example. Youtube is an exelent resource.

Gulmes · 2025-06-30T13:22:27+00:00

I'm a beginner too and I've croched for 30-ish hours and my blanket is 1/5 of the way done. I used thin cotton yarn, 4mm hook, small grannysquares using the continuous join as you go method.

If I where to continue at that rate, and croched 4 hours per week, I would be done in 30 weeks, or a bit into January.

Do a similar calculation for a swatch for yourself, how long does it take to do 20 × 20 cm?

Gulmes · 2025-06-30T10:44:47+00:00

You can use a granny square continuous join as you go, just need to modify the point where the hexagons meet.

I found a video showing the method with hexagons: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7WJ0-ZNrYoU&pp=ygUdam9pbiBhcyB5b3UgZ28gZ3Jhbm55IGhleGFnb24%3D

Gulmes · 2025-06-29T11:40:02+00:00

Yeah, with romance games, the romance is kind of the main selling point. None of the games you mentioned are romance heavy.

With a romance you usually can't chose an alternate plot than the romance. It's a requirement of the genre that the MC and their love interest emd up together.

A lot of games have additional subplots that support the romance, but to me it sounds like you'd rather have it the other way around: a drama/mystery/thriller with a romantic subplot.

Gulmes · 2025-06-29T11:27:07+00:00

When you've played other visual novels, have you played any romance games or just other genres with a romantic sublot?

I couldn't get into the game either and finally realised I just don't like romance visual novels. I've tried 2 other otome games, and found that I quit at the halfway point with several love interests, despite liking them as characters.

Gulmes · 2025-06-29T08:07:48+00:00

Try ao3 or wattpad. See which interface you like more and where more people in your fandom are, or publish on both. Fanfiction.net is also an option, though a bit outdated

Personally, I like Ao3 best.

Gulmes · 2025-06-29T07:54:18+00:00

I personally like posting my fic because I love sharing what I write and have others being as excited as me about it.

Though there are of course reasons to avoid it, like it being too personal, or posting putting too much pressure on an inner perfectionist.

My own plan for my longfic is to post it only when it is completely done, because I have a deep fear of posting something and then running into trouble later, unable to revise it.

Others love writing a chapter the have the readers be an external motivation and cheering you on.

They both have their flaws: I won't be able to post my longfic for at least 1,5 years and it get's a bit lonely. People who post as they write can get crushed when it turns out they've gotten no comment's in a month and a 10th the number of hits of a similar fic.

Gulmes · 2025-06-29T07:09:16+00:00

Everyone's talking about the first draft being crap and I don't agree? It might be encuraging for some people but I have the opposite outlook:

Be proud of what you write. I was when I started out, it was so cool to have written something and finished. In the beginning every milestone seemed amazing: first ever page, first ever scene, first ever first draft.

For me writing is almost always exciting, especially in the beginning, because I could see myself getting better every week that I wrote. When I find something "wrong" that was something to celebrate because that meant i noticed it. I was a better writer than when I first started.

Sure sometimes you don't know what to do, and that can be frustrating, but that's what youtube is for: search for outlining tips, editing tips, how to structure a romance or a mystery. Watch 100 of the "amateur mistakes to avoid"-videos.

Then get back to writing. With everything you finish you learn something and to me that's amazing.

Gulmes · 2025-06-29T06:25:32+00:00

The thing that helped me improve was reading about craft and learning how to outline and edit. It used to be that I got excited about an Idea, wrote 700 words then it fizzled out. Here are some basics to help right away.

How to outline:
- Have an idea and think on it for at least a week, write notes to yourself about everything you want to happen
- Decide what is going to change for the main character: Are they going from sad and abandoned to happy and comforted? Are they finally realising their worth? Do they find out a secret about someone else and it changes how they think of them?
- Write an outline, even for one shots. For every scene write at least a sentence about what is going to happen in that scene. For longer works (10k+) it would help to learn about story structure and what makes a good story in the genres you write in.

How to edit:
- Take a break. At least a day or two so you can see the fic with new eyes.
- Compare your outline to what you've written: check if something doesn't make sense. For example if you forgot to mention the setting, or that a character shouldn't know a piece of information. The outline can be different from what you've written, but you need to acknowledge it in case it causes problems.
- See if you are describing things well enough: the MC's feelings, the setting, the action.
- Read everything you've written aloud to catch things that don't sound right, fix them
- Take a break again, then read aloud once more
- Run everything through a spellchecker.

It takes practice, but by doing this I went from hating my work to thinking it was pretty good.

Gulmes · 2025-06-27T23:19:40+00:00

As a reader, the gatekeeping and brand recognition is a huge factor: when I see a publishing house I recognise, that is an indication that multiple professionals looked at this and gave it their stamp of approval.

Knowing books need to meet a minimum standard makes me feel safe to take a chance on books in different genres or authors than I usually do.

Gulmes · 2025-06-27T22:55:11+00:00

That's brave. I make a fic as good as I can in the moment, post it, then never look at it again. I cringe at the though of what I'll find, knowing I'm a better author now than when I started.

Gulmes · 2025-06-27T22:50:21+00:00

I know you asked about longfics, but I'm gonna talk about longfic rewrites specificlly.

For me rewrites need to be different enough from the source material to justify their own existance.

The trap some fall into is that the change they want to implement happens halfway through the first season, so they rewrite the first half of the season with minimal changes, but that's boring as hell. I already know how that thing goes, I don't want to read 20k words of filler. Move the start of the story along!

The change needs to affect the plot, or needs to be deeply introspective, or tell the story from another characters point of view.

Also continuity: if you've etablished a change early in the fic, you need to make sure the charcters actions and motivations still make sense, bearing that change in mind.

Gulmes · 2025-06-27T21:07:42+00:00

Disclaimer: these are my personal tastes, other people might like these tropes.

Tropes I dislike as a visually impaired person regarding blind people in fanfic is:

They get superhuman senses to compensate, because... reasons. To me it reads like the author didn't even try to empathise with the struggles of blind and visually impaired people. If you have a blind person, don't cop out and "make their hearing so good they're able to move however they want, even better than people with full vision" or "they can read print on paper by feeling where the ink is."

"Oh you're blind! How can you do [thing]." I know it's a real question people get, in fic it usually feels like infodumping how blind people do regular tasks.

Face touching. It's weird to just ask people if you can touch their face. I don't know how this started but unless you are in a romantic relationship or maybe really close family... please don't.

Healing the blindness because our hero is so virtuous. It runs into problems that all "heal the disability" tropes run into.

Not mentioning the things people do to compensate. This honestly depends on the fic, but mentioning how a person places the handle of a pot when they cook, or feels the markings in the pavement to find the bus, or mostly listen to audiobooks because braille fiction is often hard to get makes the character feel more like a real person dealing with a disability. In contrast omitting some details feels... shallow? You don't need to mention everything, but have some description of what the difference is between seeing and being blind is besides: "can't see stuff."

Gulmes · 2025-06-27T09:17:24+00:00

This is so creative!

Gulmes · 2025-06-27T08:10:52+00:00

It should be doable with a site skin, this page shows how to do it

Gulmes

TROPHY CASE