Certified dinkus enjoyer.

It's that time of day my darlings! Tell us some wonderful little details for your original writing project or work in progress my dears! (No fanfiction please- it's a wonderful medium but not the focus of this blog post.)

TODAY'S QUESTION:

Every character needs a goal. That’s a given, as it’s what’s driving the story. But once they have the goal, they actually need to do things in service towards that goal. There needs to be progression. If the goal actually matters to your characters, they have to actually work towards achieving it.

Comics, short stories, and novellas can generally get away with “nothing happening” (frequently a critique of modernist fiction, see Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot for a satiric example). To illustrate my point, I will be analyzing a brief arc from HERO’s Horimiya, a slice-of-life romcom manga/anime.

In the majority of Horimiya the events are broken up into a series of short anecdotes about Things Happening to Our Beloved Characters. One instance, the titular Miyamura and student president Sengoku are panicking because of required swim classes—which they do not want to attend. This is resolved when they complain enough that literature professor Yasuda promises to work something out for them. This leads to hilarity and the anecdote ends on a line from Miyamura’s friend Tooru (which I am paraphrasing): “Apparently, Sengoku broke his arm. Miyamura is on his period” (neither of these things is true by the way and the sheer outlandish nature of these blatantly untrue excuses is why the comedy works).

Notably, this anecdote is characterized by things happening to the characters, rather than the other way around. This works because Horimiya is a comic anthology series. But due to the length required of a novel, you cannot have “nothing happening.” In a novel with a thorough line plot, characters need to take charge, they need to have agency, and they need to drive the plot. Unlike in real life, things cannot “just happen” to your characters. They need to be the driving force trudging the plot along forward by virtue of cause and effect.

yahoooooo heres all the stuff i made for artfight this year (credits below)!!!!

when I register my soon to be self-published book with the US Copyright Office, am I required to use my legal name anywhere on my account or application ? so far I’ve only been filling it out with my pen name—I don’t want my legal name anywhere on it, since it will be publicized in the record and cannot be removed later.

Is that like…okay (as in legal)? To only use the pen name for every section where it requires my name (account name, author, claimant, rights and permissions, and certification) ?

In fact, if you are writing under a pseudonym, I would actively discourage you from doing so! This is because filing the copyright under your legal name allows others searching up the patent to SEE your legal name in the registry. You can 100% fill out everything in the copyright under a pseudonym and still retain the copyright.

Someone can claim to be you and use your pseudonym but they would be unable to claim your copyright. This is because the paperwork stating you as the copyright holder is sent to YOUR email or other contact information. You should be the only one with access to that.

Additionally, you must file the copyright AFTER the book has been published. This is because the copyright on the thing cannot exist until the thing itself exists. It can take up to a year for the paperwork to go through, hence why you often see textbooks list their publication date and their copyright date as a year after.

I'm also of the camp that would love to try DnD sometime but the social aspect of it and having to "pretend" in front of others is genuinely distressing to me.

But! You can play DnD solo and be your own dungeon master too! I've seen a couple videos on YouTube on how to pull this off, so I'm planning to try it when I'm inclined. I also enjoy flipping through the handbooks too, just to see scenarios or character building that I might use in a future project.

See, what I Iove love love about fantasy is that anything goes as long as you're having fun and enjoying the world and characters you've built. The fantasy you write doesn't have to align with DnD fantasy.

Given the sheer amount of types of fantasy, "not playing DnD" does not disqualify you from writing a fantasy.

After all, DnD is mainly a Eurocentric kind of fantasy. What about Japanese or Chinese or Korean influences on fantasy? Indian or Brazilian or African influences? Urban versus rural fantasies? Fairy tales or folklore?

Fantasy is freedom! Plenty of writers are in the fantasy genre for that freedom of thought and have had no experience with DnD. 😉

Welcome all OC enthusiasts! This entire August 2026 will be all about your OCs, or more specifically, the dynamics between them. Post your writing, art, or whichever medium you choose on Tumblr with the hashtag #ocdynamicsmonth26 and make sure to show some love to other participants as well! Your posts will be reblogged to this blog.

My asks are open for any questions & comments you might have! Please read the rules and prompt guide first!♡

Rules:

Original characters only! Fandom OCs are fine, but the characters within the dynamic must be OCs.

Make something (writing, visual art, some other creation) with a given prompt, then post it on Tumblr during OC Dynamics Month and use the hashtag #ocdynamicsmonth26. Interpret the prompts freely and include as many OCs within the dynamic as you wish!

You can post your work late, for example you can post your creation for Day 1 on Day 15 if you want! All I ask is that you don't post them early.

There are no strict rules for what content is allowed. However, I may choose not to reblog something if I feel that it goes against the spirit of the event (AI generated content, hateful content etc). Including content warnings for heavy topics is encouraged!

Event is over but you still want to do the prompts? No worries, keep working on the daily prompts or fill the bonus prompts if you wish! I'll keep reblogging posts for a while after the event is over.

Bonus rule: interact with at least one other creation for each piece you make yourself! Like, reblog, leave a reply, or even send the creator a message if you want - let’s spread the love! ♡

Prompt guide

Each main prompt contains a type of relationship and an adjective. You can fill a day's prompt in one of 3 ways (using the first prompt as an example): 1. use only the type of relationship → make a piece about ex-friends, 2. use only the adjective → make a piece about ocs with a powerful dynamic OR 3. use both → make a piece about ex-friends who have a powerful dynamic. 

This year, the bonus prompts are dialogue prompts. You can combine or swap them with main prompts or just do them in addition to the main prompts! You can use the exact wording, tweak it to fit your piece, or simply use the dialogue to inspire your work without using it directly.

Prompts

describe the plot of your wip like you're describing it to a toddler with zero attention span

that is to say, quickly and simply

It's that time of day my darlings! Tell us some wonderful little details for your original writing project or work in progress my dears! (No fanfiction please- it's a wonderful medium but not the focus of this blog post.)

TODAY'S QUESTION:

Look, I'll be the first to admit I act like a snob when it comes to literature. I think we could do with fewer paperback romances and generic romantasies to make way for stories that are actually interesting. But they aren't inherently worthless. They have value. They have history. Something about them is successful and I think it's interesting trying to uncover what that is.

In fact, I would argue these books are where readers should apply their critical thinking skills the most. What is the author actually trying to achieve through their prose and how? In what ways is this story successful? What is it doing to drive the reader's investment? Asking these questions deepens an understanding of literature.

He triggers Ayu’s social anxiety and then acts like nothing happens. He backhandedly insults her and refuses to take it back. He is constantly at war with himself and the one who takes the brunt of the collateral damage is Ayu.

Eventually, the guilt catches up to him and he has to make a choice: Does he keep running and let this relationship go, or does he finally take accountability and do the hard thing he’s been fleeing from all this time?

Hello my lovelies! Readers, philosophers, ethicists, and writers alike, join our morality Monday! You can interact with this post in any way my dove~ narratively, philosophically, or anything that occurs to you to do~

Juuzou and Ayu change each other for the better. Juuzou learns to confront the worst parts of himself and gains grit and resilience by loving Ayu. She learns to stand up for herself and express herself, becoming less of a people pleaser. In that sense, change is an important step of growth for both of them.

Yuuto is the exact opposite. Yuuto does not want Ayu to change: He wants her to remain as she is - helpless and dependent on him - forever. Nothing Ayu does will ever change Yuuto. In this sense, stagnation is the festering pool of toxcitiy.

i think this'll be my last batch of attacks for the year?? idk maybe i can crank more out by the weekend

OC(s): Smudge & Fleck by @cosmowandererbloop

OC(s): Julian Jekyll & Hal Hyde by @the-void-birb

OC(s): Ganakshi & Saturn by @petrichor-promise