fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5492 ]

[ SECRET POST #5492 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5492 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

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[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]

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03.

[Meta Runner]

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04.

[food writer/chef Alison Roman]

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[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World]

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06.

(the poem "Tam O 'Shanter" by Robert Burns)

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07.

[Sapphire & Steel]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 19 secrets from Secret Submission Post #786.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Tell us!

Massive migraine, so I worked from home. meds finally started working a couple of hours ago. Still have a headache, but it isn't as bad and I'm not having all the other migraine side effects.`

Went to work, went to work, and went to work. Now I'm eating some Chinese Take-Out I didn't really want but it's here and I'm hungry.

Grocery shopping. I bought some beautiful fresh asparagus and mushrooms to make omelets for dinner tonight, and treated myself to a package of danishes and a bottle of wine. Hit up the dispensary on the way home and picked up a pack of Grape Ape infused prerolls, one of which I'm currently enjoying (10/10, highly...heh...recommended). Getting ready to start chopping vegetables and grating parmesean. Watching basketball later tonight.

I went to work today, cleaned out the junk folders in all my email programs. Got home, had steak for dinner and had a little chocolate for dessert.

And blocked a dufus on social media. No, I don't need an idiot telling me I should be someone's sugar daddy or mama. Yuck.

Grocery shopped then sat around waiting for the maintenance people to show up and fix my kitchen light which has been busted for 5 days. They haven't yet.

Work. Which was basically a giant disaster because we have a bunch of rushes to do and unclear instructions to do them with and asking for clarification only made all of us MORE confused, including my boss, who is teaching me this shit. So. Uh.

The most peaceful part of my day was covering reception for half an hour and that's saying something because liiiiiterally the only thing I know about reception is how to transfer calls. Everything else is like 'oh my god let me check the books'.

Made fancy pancake breakfast, cleaned my jewelry, went for a walk, bought a couple of candles from little boutique stores I hardly ever go to, bought a fancy donut from a new place in my neighborhood, and walked home.

Worked (which included "sure I'll update this... thing I do not have the templates for... and the person who made them is out today..." and adding pretty terrible numbers to our covid transparency page), drove over on lunch break to pick up my online order from Michael's so I would have resin to cast a bunch of fiddly little costume pieces I made molds for last night (and then discovered one of the two bottles of my old resin had solidified :P). Michael's shares a building with World Market so I also treated myself to some Torani syrups and matcha.

So I started casting with the last few minutes of my lunch break and cast more on afternoon break and I have about 20 small pieces that need to be primed and painted. If I can ever find a source for the paint I've been using that doesn't require me to physically go into the store and walk all the way through to the back. :P

In the meantime, enjoyed a hit of peach syrup in my usual diet Squirt. I miss real peaches, but this will have to do.

Got a Covid test. It came back negative.

I went to work, nearly got hit by two cars (I don't understand how this keeps happening I'm a chubby guy in a safety vest with neon pink hair, if you can't see me how do you have a drivers license??), came home, and ate dinner. Now I'm watching people make soap on youtube.

You do road work? You guys are bomb!

I finally got the backlog of various personal documents that I hadn't been keeping on top of since I moved in 2018 all sorted and put away. It took three trips to the office supply store to get enough hanging folders and bins to get it organized, but it's done.

Now I just have a mountain of stuff to shred...

Opening another thread for writer discussions for any writers who want to talk about writing in general or specifically about the fics they're writing. I actually have a question this time, and I'll post it in a reply

This can be applied generally but I'm especially interested to hear writers who write Original Characters for their preferences

Descriptors:
Are you the type of writer who likes descriptors for characters or do you prefer to use less/no descriptors?

I've seen writers talk about not describing race or size so any reader can apply themselves/avatars more easily into the role of main characters.
For the most part, I think this is fine. It makes sense if a writer wants as many readers as possible. But personally, I like it if MCs have some descriptors, especially if it helps build character. Too much though and it feels like reading a grocery list.
As a writer, I'm still not sure when I'm describing too much or when I need to describe things more.

I only write fanfic. But since I'm writing literary characters, most of the time, I tend to only have a few descriptions and to leave most thing to the imagination. Specifically, the three characters I write the most (Sauron, Morgoth, Celebrimbor) have very little physical description in canon. So I like to follow suit and leave things to the imagination.

Edited 2022-01-19 00:45 (UTC)

See...from the reader's standpoint as well as a writer, I'm not here to self-insert. I want to read the story you're writing, and if you have a specific person in mind who works best as the MC of the story, regardless of appearance, I want you to tell me who that person is. Why do they handle the plot twists the way they do, why do they say certain things and not other things, why do they have or lack the experience to handle the metaplot? Their background, upbringing, culture, etc has a lot of bearing on that, so don't skimp on it. If the reader can't personally identify with the character because of their ethnicity or gender, that doesn't mean they can't enjoy and understand the story you're telling - they can at least learn something, or see a new perspective, because maybe just maybe they identify with the character being a klutz or finding a dark humor in their circumstance or whatnot.

Consider how many of us in genre fandom love our shows and movies with extremely distinct MCs in terms of both appearance and personality. I don't identify with Luffy because he has black hair and so do I, I find him a compelling protagonist and want to know how he's going to keep handling the metaplot of One Piece without identifying at all with him in any way. Can none of us "identify" or enjoy a story because none of us are pink-haired teenage girls in a Japanese high school, nor 6'5" gruff bearded mercenaries? No! We love characters because they come off as people, and are compelling, we're not busy trying to identify with them and we definitely know what they look like. Might as well do the same in writing. Make a character a person, and if that means a distinct appearance, so be it. If the story they're in isn't compelling enough, no one will care anyway.

Same. I don't self-insert, I want to know what the characters look like so I can picture them in my mind, particularly if they are OC characters in a 'verse where I already know what everyone *else* looks like.

I do write original characters, though generally mixed in with fandom characters. And I will describe them, in 'bits and pieces' as it were, as the story goes along. At first, only something general, like 'he turned around and nearly crashed into a tall, pale woman in dockworker coveralls and an astonishingly tall crest of orange hair', and then as the story goes along, toss in a descriptor for this or that feature as you would notice it (from the main characters pov).

I don't care about self-insert, so i like to know what characters look like, just not all at once (unless what they look like has an actual importance to the plot).

Re: Writer Thread

(Anonymous) - 2022-01-20 08:03 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Writer Thread

tabaqui - 2022-01-20 15:20 (UTC) - Expand

I generally write OC insert fics (not to be confused with self-inserts) so I already have an entire character in mind with a distinct look, personality, and perhaps even an arc if I write enough about them. As long as the character descriptors are spaced out enough and relevant to what's happening in the story at the moment I see no problem with adding as many as you like. For instance, two characters holding hands is the perfect time to describe the minutiae of their fingers. (I've probably gotten annoying with one of my characters though because his long hair is a symbol and I never fail to mention when he tucks it up or lets it loose lol.) For description in general: if the descriptions add to mood, plot, or character keep it in; if you're describing an irrelevant tree-lined path for the hell of it cut it. I prefer to read OC fics that have concrete characters. I understand the appeal of the vague ones, but they'll never compare to if I just wrote my own fic with my specific character.

I write them in bit by bit. Not too much though, just as much as the character whose POV it is would be likely to observe in an unthinking way.

Re: Writer Thread

(Anonymous) - 2022-01-19 03:05 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Writer Thread

tabaqui - 2022-01-20 15:22 (UTC) - Expand

tbh I'm just sharing this without context because it's my fav. line I've written in the last two weeks and I keep laughing at it:

He makes them crab-walk through a set of bushes while doing the wave.

That's hilarious regardless of context. But considering my main fandom and ship, I'm now imagining Melkor forming some sort of creature that does that as an amusing present for Sauron.

Re: Writer Thread

killaurey - 2022-01-19 01:33 (UTC) - Expand

What a glorious image. XD

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[ SECRET POST #5492 ]

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What did you do today, FS?

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