written in the stars

But while there are some crappy and entitled readers, there are also many brilliant ones and I’m so grateful for them. The huge response to this post made me go back and skim through the comments on my old stories, and comments like the one below are about half the reason some of those stories got finished, even if it was months later. 

Comments like these are so rare, but when they do come up, they leave me staring at my computer screen, drumming my fingers on the keyboard, struggling to convey my feelings about how their words have touched my heart. These are the comments that take the longest amount of time to respond to and the ones that cause me to wear out my backspace key the fastest. 

It’s easy to complain, but it’s literally just as easy to praise, so I just wanted to take a moment to recognize all those dear and dedicated readers who have propped me up when I wanted to quit. Readers like you are why I keep writing, and why I even feel honored to do it on rare occasion. 

And fellow writers, keep your heads up if you can. :) 

here’s the link!

how to make custom page dividers on ao3

(1) find or make your image

there are free use page dividers available on google. you can search to get ideas. the trick is to get it to the size you want in your chosen editing program, and to make the background transparent. select > color range is much more efficient than using the wand tool. 

tip: keeping it monochrome and keeping the background and inner details transparent is helpful to people who use skins with a different background color!

(2) upload it somewhere

i use tumblr since it’s quick and fast. save as draft or load it to a separate page on a theme or really anything you want. just get that baby uploaded and copy the url. 

(2.5) (optional) add ao3′s in-house page separator 

ao3 calls this “horizontal line” and it’s useful because it can help you denote where you’ll put your new code because its html tag is <hr /> which is easily searchable in the mess of html you’re going to have to sort through. it looks like this:

(3) put in the page divider.

so now on your uploaded fic you’ll want to go to the html tab instead of the rich text tab and put in your coding. it will look like <center><img src=“whatever the url of your uploaded page divider is” alt=“Page Divider” width=“30%” /></center>

the img src is the image. the alt=“Page Divider” is so screen readers won’t get confused and will just say “page divider” when they come across it. the width tag you can mess with as much as you want until you find a size that works for you! you can switch back and forth between rich text and html to see how it looks as you’re working. this just ensures that no matter how wide the person has the page (desktop vs mobile, for example, it will stay the same size in comparison to the page:

(4) add it everywhere

if you went through and added the horizontal line page divider, this will be easy. just search control+F for <hr /> and replace it everywhere you find it. 

and that’s it!! you’re done!! here are some examples of what you can do with it:

have fun with it!!

A Compiled List of Known Lan Clan Rules

by Unforth

no rating, 2k, writing reference, fandom research

Summary:  Drawing on multiple sources, I have assembled a list of currently known Lan clan rules.

My comments:  Very useful reference of the Gusu Lan Clan’s 3000 rules.  Author has this tumblr post of them as well.

nonfiction, gusu lan clan rules, 3000 rules, lan rules, cloud recesses, writing reference, fandom research, fanwork research & reference guides, MDZS reference, wall of rules, @unforth​

For all those interested in MDZS Language Fest: This is your chance to get an inspiration boost!

Have you been thinking that you want to take part in MDZS Language Fest but haven’t come up with any ideas? No worries, we are here to help! Check out this list of prompts for the fest week and maybe it will give you just the idea you need ^^

Prompts:

Monday 22nd

red / mythology / rich and poor

Tuesday 23rd

orange / family / slow and fast

Wednesday 24th

yellow / grief / exciting and boring

Thursday 25th

green / friendship / old and young

Friday 26th

blue / joy / dead and alive

Saturday 27th

purple / romance / steady and unsteady

Sunday 28th

black & white / flowers / deep and shallow

As a reminder: These prompts are optional so you are not required to use any of them. You are also free to mix and match them as you like. If you do use them however, remember to schedule your post for the fitting day and possibly mention the prompt somewhere on your post ^^

There are still 2 weeks left before the fest begins so plenty of time to prepare yourselves! We are excited to see all of your creations~

☕ OctoberKofiRun21 #11 for @stardust-writer​!

MDZS Language Fest is officially a go!

This is the official post to announce the beginning of MDZS fandom’s multilingual fest that we did an interest check for a while ago. Back then the feedback we got was overwhelmingly positive, so we are hoping that as many as possible join and enjoy this event! To achieve this, we also appreciate signal boosts through reblogging this post ^^ 

What is happening?

This is a fan fest aimed to celebrate the linguistic diversity of the Mo Dao Zu Shi fandom here on tumblr

The point is to create original content in a form of your own choice: gifs, graphics, edits, fanart, fanfic, video edits - your pick! All types of content are welcomed! 

Tie your creation to a language you feel connected to. It can be your native tongue but it can also be a language you studied or a language you just feel calling for you! (Any language is welcome, including and especially Mandarin and Cantonese! English isn’t excluded but we wish it to not be the focus here)

The event runs for a week from November 22nd to 28th so prepare to be ready then! 

How do I join? 

Follow the event blog and reblog this post so that as many as possible may take part in on the fun 

Use the tag #mdzsmultilingual21 preferably amongst the first five tags of your post so that we can catch your creation and reblog it to this blog

Mention the language(s) you used in the caption of your post and preferably provide an English translation for everyone to enjoy

You may post as many creations as you want for each day! We are not going to limit your creativity

What if I don’t have any ideas? 

We offer you daily prompts that you can use as inspiration! Here you go:

Monday 22nd: red, mythology, rich and poor

Tuesday 23rd: orange, family, slow and fast

Wednesday 24th: yellow, grief, exciting and boring

Thursday 25th: green, friendship, old and young 

Friday 26th: blue, joy, dead and alive 

Saturday 27th: purple, romance, steady and unsteady

Sunday 28th: black & white, flowers, deep and shallow

Using these prompts isn’t required. You can use as many or as few of these prompts as you like for each day; we would only be happy if you let us know in the caption of your post what prompts you used if you decided to use them at all! Also, schedule your post to be posted on the date of the corresponding prompt so that it’s easy to connect.  

Feel free to also mix and match prompts between different days etc. and then post accordingly. These are merely ideas that we wanted to throw at people to see what might happen. 

Any do not’s? 

We will not tolerate stolen/reposted content or claiming someone else’s creation as your own. 

We also won’t be reblogging any NSFW content to this blog during this event (Though everyone is of course free to create some if that’s where your mind goes! Links to plainly instigated NSFW posts are fine) 

An exception to this rule is explicit fanfic, as long as the explicit content is behind a link to a different site, for example Ao3. (For the detailed rules concerning fics we reblog, please have a look at our FAQ / mobile FAQ)

If you have any other questions, please refer to our FAQ page (mobile FAQ) or if even that doesn’t help you, please drop us an ask! We are happy to help you ^^

A big thank you to @wangxianbunnydoodles for her help with the characters depicted in our icon!

A list of everyone who told us during the interest check that they wish to be tagged once this event launches:

Hello! Sign ups for the second Wangxian Winter Solstice Gift Exchange are now open :)

Back for another year to spread some extra Wangxian lovin' around Winter Solstice/Dōngzhì for us all!

How it works

You MUST have a Tumblr

Sign up with what you want to make ( e.g. fic or fanmix)

Also list what you’d like to receive (e.g. gifsets, drawings)

Sign ups are done via a form

»» Sign Up Here! ««

SIGN UP DEADLINE: FRIDAY OCTOBER 22ND (Midnight Pacific Time)

After that assignments will be send out to everyone by email on October 23rd/24th, and then you’ll have seven weeks to make gifts for the person assigned to you :)

Gift Giving Guidelines

Just in case it isn’t clear to anyone, all the gifts have to be WANGXIAN-related! Fans of all adaptations are welcome and yes, this gift exchange allows NSFW content.

>> Read the full guidelines here <<

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: SATURDAY DECEMBER 11TH (Midnight Pacific Time)

On Winter Solstice/Dōngzhì (December 21st) all the gifts will be posted for everyone! Once the gifts are posted, it will be revealed who made gifts for whom, then after that you’re of course free to post the gifts you made to your own Tumblr :)

If you still have questions, don’t hesitate to ask!

So what are you waiting for? Sign up now!

And feel free to signal boost this post, I’d appreciate it <3

a messy, self-indulgent spree imported from twt and lightly edited

explicit, wangxian, 9k, canon divergence fix-it

mild dubcon because of the nature of sex curses (but like, they do their best to communicate around it), and cw for brief thoughts of self harm, no other warnings

This curse’s origin is mysterious, perhaps politically guided. Someone is trying to throttle Gusu Lan’s alliance prospects by removing Lan Wangji’s stellar marriageability after Sunshot. It works, after a fashion.

Wei Wuxian is in the Burial Mounds, farming and hardening his heart as the resentment worsens his health, subsisting on memories of Lan Wangji’s single visit.

Lan Wangji is at home in Gusu, pining away while they rebuild the Cloud Recesses.

One day, he begins to burn up with unexplained fever.

Me: Which wip?

My writer brain: None of them.

Me: Do you have a new wip idea?

My writer brain: No

Me: Then what am I supposed to write?

stories written for adults generally presume their readers already have ideas about right and wrong, and good stories written for adults expect the reader to reason through and think about the characters’ actions using pre-existing powers of critical thinking

I mean, almost any story worth reading requires a non-zero level of mental participation of the reader. It’s not reasonable to expect stories to be completely unambiguous in their “portrayal” of actions as good or bad, because it’s a given that you, as a reader, are SUPPOSED to think independently about a character’s actions, and the fact that the lowest common denominator readers won’t does not mean you need to More Clearly Portray bad things as bad.

It’s often implied that you have a responsibility to make sure readers come away thinking and feeling the right ways about the actions your characters take, but you’re the writer. You can’t read the book for them. If you want to convey an important message, you have to meet the reader in the middle and give them the raw material to think about, but you can’t go farther and do the thinking FOR them.

A good story is supposed to make you feel and think in new ways. It can’t reach inside you and MAKE you do the right things with this, and the best stories are the ones that don’t try to, but that make that thinking process hard to resist.

Also: A story can have an important, valuable message and still not clearly lead the reader to a moral lesson. Like I hate even saying “message” because it sounds so packaged, but “message” is not a synonym for “unambiguous statement about the moral value of something.”

Like, “abusers use their power and authority to get away with abuse” is a “message.” “War gives young men a way of feeling like they can attain manhood, but leaves them unable to function in a peaceful society” is a “message.” “Poverty leaves people trapped in the patterns of behavior that they used to survive or to cope with it” is a “message.” As an adult reader, you do not need to be taught that “abuse is bad,” “war is bad,” or “poverty is bad,” as if you need to have a whole ass moral compass popped in like a VHS tape.

Books can convey shitty messages. If the book appeared to be portraying that “Poverty is the fault of people who are poor, because they are lazy” you very much could rightfully criticize that!

(And there’s nothing wrong with arguing about the portrayal of things in a story and hating or disagreeing with some aspect of it. Being able to think this way is GOOD. Doing it is good. Even with stories you like.)

But “shitty message about poverty,” for instance, is incredibly different than simply the lack of a clear message on how you’re supposed to judge the behavior of characters who are living in poverty morally.

A story is not necessarily trying to lead you to conclude that a character is either a Bad Person or a Good Person.

This is not the last judgment. We’re not deciding what afterlife to put them in. We are exploring ourselves and learning how to live.

It isn’t good to be so stuck on “excuse everything they have ever done” or “completely reject liking them, sympathizing with them, or caring about them” as the only two possible responses to a character in a book. This is a recipe for incredibly uncritical reading that misses most of the meaning in a story.

Are we supposed to sympathize with OR condemn Othello? Are we supposed to sympathize with OR condemn Odysseus? I mean, hell, are we supposed to sympathize with OR condemn Winston (the 1984 Winston)?

@mdzsnet | MDZS Network’s Anniversary Requests ⤷ requested by @stardust-writer

Their teachers all know by now to watch their class rosters with a sharp eye, but it’s no use — there are only so many Advanced and AP classes available each semester, and only one orchestra. By junior year, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji have 4 out of 6 classes together every day.

On their own, they’re great students. Wei Wuxian is clever, creative, and either “a constant disruption to his fellow students” or “a joy to have in class discussions” depending on how comfortable a given teacher is at having their authority challenged.

Lan Wangji is hardworking, trustworthy, consistently the first to hand in every quiz. He’s been first-chair violin since his sophomore year which wins him many enemies in the strings section but no one can argue with his performance.

Together, they’re a full-blown nightmare.

When they were freshman, many a teacher thought to sit them together, hoping Lan Wangji’s quiet politeness and Wei Wuxian’s willingness to actually raise his hand and answer a question would rub off on each other.

Now all their teachers know: if you challenge Wei Wuxian on an outlandish statement, you better be prepared for Lan Wangji to deliver a devastating four-word remark undermining your entire point.

If you push too hard for Lan Wangji to share knowledge with the class, you better be prepared for Wei Wuxian to pull some attention-grabbing stunt (the thing with the hydroflask was probably MOSTLY not on purpose, but still).

Once they start DATING, forget it — 3 different orchestra-trip chaperones quit in tears and/or disgust after the trip to regionals, and the director has to scramble to find replacements.

Frank Kaspbrak wasn’t a smart man by any means but he knew when something was up, particularly when it came to his son. Eddie was a typical teenager, he studied hard and was exceptional at sports. He spent most of his time out with his friends, occasionally bringing one or more of them back to hang out. Frank didn’t mind. He had a good relationship with his son, making sure that Eddie grew up knowing he could tell him anything. Sometimes, however, he didn’t even have to…

Eddie got home later than usual that night, nose buried in his phone as he sat down at the table. Frank rolled his eyes fondly, already warming up the leftover plate of risotto he’d made for dinner. Eddie stifled a giggle, frantically texting back whoever he was talking to. Frank couldn’t help but smile.

“So,” he began, smiling warmly. Eddie looked up, seeming to forget he’d made his way home, “when can I meet him?”

Eddie’s eyes widened, ignoring the phone in his hand that was vibrating with incoming messages, “what?”

“This boyfriend of yours,” Frank said casually, as if they were discussing the weather. He retrieved the heated plate of food and placed it in front of his son. Frank took the empty chair beside him, holding out a fork, “I want to meet him.”

Eddie didn’t bother trying to deny it. It wasn’t like it was a secret. Eddie was very proud of who he was. He did what he wanted, wore what he wanted - hence his crop top and tight fitting ripped jeans paired with combat boots - not to mention his room was covered in photos of shirtless men. Still, he wasn’t sure he was ready for this.

“No,” Eddie replied simply, snatching the fork and hastily shoving the food in his mouth to avoid discussing it further. Like that was going to stop his dad.

“Why, are you embarrassed?”

Eddie nodded, still chewing, “yep.”

“By me or him?”

He thought for a moment, pushing the risotto around his plate with his fork, “both of you.”

“How bad can it be?” Frank clapped his son on the shoulder, “I’m excited to meet the guy responsible for putting a smile on your face,” Eddie couldn’t help but smile as he thought about his boyfriend meeting his father. Frank could see he was winning the argument and added, “I promise I won’t wear my ‘proud father of a gay son’ shirt.”

Eddie chuckled, shaking his head as he picked his phone up, “fuck you, I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

Frank resisted the urge to cheer, but only just.

-

Frank spent most of the next day preparing to meet Eddie’s boyfriend. He’d changed his clothes about three times, going back and forth on his decision to wear a suit. Right now, he was wearing a casual button up shirt and a pair of jeans; he didn’t want to look like he was trying too hard. He’d bought drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, as well as snacks. He’d even rented a few movies, Alien and The Breakfast Club (his reasoning being if the boy was dating Eddie, he’d have to like one or the other.)

By the time Eddie returned home from school, Frank had near enough smoked a whole pack of cigarettes in an attempt to calm down. Judging by the look on Eddie’s face, he hadn’t masked the smell of smoke very well. He smiled, standing from his chair.

“Hey, kid. How was school? Is your boyfriend here or is he coming later?”

Eddie raised an eyebrow, “dad, chill. I told him he could park his truck in the garage. You cool with that?”

Frank nodded, taking several deep breaths, “yeah, sorry. I just- I don’t want to fuck this up for you.”

“I know you’ll like him, dad,” Eddie hugged his father, smiling as the older man ruffled his curls, “just don’t fucking judge me, yeah?”

Before Frank could ask what he meant, in strolled none other than Richie Tozier, the boy who had practically grown up with Eddie. The boy his son had claimed to be disgusted by, constantly bickering with, play fighting and making fun of. Frank grinned, only a little smugly.

“Well, well, well…”

Eddie rolled his eyes, blushing slightly as he slipped his hand into Richie’s, “shut up, dad.”

Richie smiled awkwardly, waving with his free hand, “hello, sir.”

“’Sir?’” Frank chuckled, pulling Richie into an enthusiastic hug, “Richie, I remember when you peed in our swimming pool when you were eight.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Richie said when Frank let him go, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck, “not exactly how I wanted you to remember me.”

“I remember a lot more than that,” Frank said fondly, handing them a bottle of coke each, “how mad you two were for each other, for example.”

“What can I say, Eds can’t get enough of me,” Richie said in a terrible southern accent, pulling Eddie close and rubbing the top of his head. Eddie shoved him off playfully, shaking his head.

“I’m gonna put on the movie, dick.”

“Love you, too,” Richie called after him, earning a middle finger in reply. He chuckled, about to follow him into the living room when he noticed Frank watching him. He cleared his throat, “erm, sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

Frank didn’t say anything for a moment, instead taking a slow sip of his beer. Richie waited, impatiently, squirming under the gaze of his boyfriend’s father. He and Frank always got on but that was before he and Eddie were a thing. Finally, Frank put him out of his misery.

“I’m glad it’s you, Richie. I’ve never seen Eddie as happy as he is with you.”

Richie could burst, he was so happy. He let his smile take over his face but resisted the urge to hug Frank; he wanted to maintain at least some of his cool guy persona. Frank’s approval meant the world to him, though, and Richie nodded gratefully.

“I love him, Mr. K.”