A PILE OF ODDS AND ENDS

OOC: Last week, this Tumblr hit the 500 follower mark! Never did I imagine that this silly, trouble-making Elezen would be blessed as to have met so many friends and great folks in our community! I wanted to do something to celebrate!

I had a hunch that the Fat Cat mount would be releasing soon, and I knew that’s what I wanted to give away… so I sat quiet about all this… until today! 

It is time for Amon’s Fat Cat Five Hundred Follower Giveaway!  ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬

PRIZES

Amon will be giving three followers a code to redeem in the Mog Station for their very own Fatter Cat Mount. These mounts are account wide. 

RULES

Must be a follower. I will check with scrutiny.

New followers are welcome, but please be polite and don’t follow-drop after the giveaway is over.

No giveaway blogs.

You can be on any FFXIV server - I will contact you via Tumblr if you win. So have communication lines open!

Entries must be in by Saturday March 9th,  Noon EST. I’ll draw a winner later that evening!

INSTRUCTIONS

Winners will be drawn using an Allagan random name generator. Here’s how to enter your name:

Be a follower.

Like this post for one entry.

Reblog this post for two additional entries. You can reblog as much as you like, but only the first reblog will count for an entry.

If you reblog using a side blog, and you follow with a main blog, please let me these two are connected, or you may get overlooked. Thanks!

Names will be tallied and three followers will be announced as winners the evening of Saturday, March 9!

Valentines day is coming closer and we are going to celebrate it and my 1400 follower goal with a small giveaway! There will be 2 prizes in this, 1 on tumblr and 1 on twitter, so you can actually enter two times and receive a double prize if you are lucky enough! (Noblesseprime on twitter)

Must be following me! New beans are welcome to enter too! ♥

Reblog to enter! (Multiple reblogs don’t count, but spreading the word is much appreciated)

Winner will receive a valentines day themed waist-up sketch of their choice! (Solo or couple, sfw or soft nsfw, your choice)

Ends 2/15! I will contact the winner personally so keep your messages open~

So I’m making my 2019 calendar on shutterfly, but I don’t want it to just be Sasha this year.

I want to get all of your dogs in it too! If you want to be included on my dogblr birthday calendar, reblog your dog(s) name(s) and their birthday(s) (or adoption day if you don’t know it).  Also include a picture that you want me to use of each dog!

Nahla’s birthday is 6th May !

Gaïa’s birthday is on 5th June !

Bambi’s birthday is on 4th March !

– I decided to format this article like its accompanying post, Guide to Writing Friends to Lovers, which you all seemed to really like. I hope this is as helpful as that, and thank you to everyone who responded to the poll that contributed the questions I answered in the “common struggles” section. I have a feeling I’ll be reaching our for direct topic-specific questions through polls more often, so keep an eye out. Happy writing!

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Take The Time To Make It Believable

There is a certain amount of care required in the depiction of these stories because they can be really touchy and very easily lead awry. It needs to be handled with care when you tell the reader that this character is going to forgive the other one for doing this, and why. Show the thought process, show the growth, show the reason, and give the story time to make that change reasonable in the reader’s head.

Roll In The Tension

Let the tension build, thicken, and sit in the reader’s tummy. That’s the most delicious part of reading this trope, and the most fun part to write, so enjoy it, and don’t ask yourself if it’s “too intense” or if you need to speed up the pace. Let it simmer, and let the reader stew in it. The longer you draw it out, the yummier the resolution will be. 

Give Up Pride, Not Values

Your characters should not end the story by forfeiting what they feel and believe in order to win the other over. That’s not how life works, and that’s not a good way to depict love and forgiveness. Forgiveness is the main theme of enemies-to-lovers stories, after all, and if you’re writing romance, you should imprint a healthy romantic story into your reader’s memory, even if it’s bumpy, tense, and dramatic for the majority of the actual events. 

Make The Relationship Improve Them Both

Romances usually hold a meaning or message about romance that the reader will take away from the story at hand. Your message should, ultimately, be that these two people, despite their differences and shortcomings, grew to forgive each other for their mutual mistakes, found common ground, and even fell in love. The end of a romance should be positive, or at least transformative to the reader in a positive way. The couple you depict, if they are meant to be a good couple in the context of the story, should improve each other, and make each others’ lives better. 

Abuse vs. Rivalry

There is a poignant difference between two people who are abusing each other and two people who don’t like one another. Abuse can be heavily romanticized or forgiven when this trope is approached with inadequate care and attention. If one or both of the members of the couple actively bring each other down, truly, in an emotional, mental, or physical way, it’s abuse, not enemy-ship, and if that’s intentional, you shouldn’t call your story a romance. Abuse is not romantic, and it never should be depicted to be so.

Common Struggles

~ Where do you draw the line between hurtful and unforgivable?… That depends on your characters’s values, and you need to think long and hard about your characters’ individual boundaries before you even start writing. Your reader will get to know your character. If your character forgives something your reader knows they would never forgive, that will destroy their personal understanding of them.

~ How do you solve the difference between them without making one change for the other?… Explain their thought processes, I recommend by choosing a flexible point of view to write the story from, and show where that understanding comes from. You need to set those boundaries within your characters that make sense for them, and you need to hold to those. The point they should be at by the end of the story isn’t in total agreement, it’s at a compromise where they meet halfway. They should learn by the end to love each other wholly, not when they change for one another. 

~ Going from actual dislike of each other to attraction without saying they liked each other the whole time… It’s simple; give them legitimate reasons for not liking each other in the first place. Don’t make their rivalry based on something like a third grade spelling bee misunderstanding with a little “he’s cute though” sprinkled on top. Show a real misunderstanding, or real clash in values, and explore its implications for the reader to understand.

~ How do you show the forgive part between them without including the forgetting?… Let the reader know by the end of the story that the characters have acknowledged the hurt they’ve caused each other,  totally and openly through an honest conversation about everything that caused their mutual dislike of each other. Show them confronting the problem, and admitting that it will always be a prominent part of their past, but that they’re willing to try in spite of it.

~ How do you show forgiveness between two people who physically fought without making it romanticize abuse?… Give legitimate evidence that a) nobody was/is a victim of actual abuse and b) they both know that the physical fighting was wrong, painful to the other, and that it can/will never happen again. Ever. In the action or more violent sort of genres, this is way more flexible, because there are more grey-area situations, but as long as you make it very clear that there is no possibility of them hurting each other, in any abusive context, during the relationship or afterward, then you shouldn’t have a problem.

~ How do you establish the growth in trust between the two characters?… Make it occur naturally and at their own individual paces.They’ll grow toward one another at different rates, and you need to pay attention to letting it grow on its own rather than fitting that growth into whatever parameters you’ve set for your story structure. Also, show the little things that make that trust bloom, along with the big ones. Make them noticeable, but simple and ultimately built upon one another.

~ How do you make two characters with completely different morals grow to love each other?… Compromise and honesty. Communication and understanding. Those are the four foundations of any relationship, and especially these ones. Make your lovers listen to each other, and make them see the other side. That doesn’t mean agree, and that doesn’t mean conform, it just means you have to make them see where the other is coming from and empathize with their process of validation. 

~ How do you write the characters’ friends growing to support the relationship?… This can be tricky, but it depends on the friends’ individual relationships with that character and their lover. With this subject, if you keep to the manner in which you’ve developed them, they should grow to understand (or not understand) their relationship in a way that makes sense to the reader and enhances the story. If there’s tension, let it lay, and if it makes sense, let it pass.

~ How do you pace the evolution of their opinions/feelings about one another correctly?… There’s a few stages to telling an enemies-to-lovers story: 1. they dislike each other 2. that dislike becomes a problem for them 3. they begin to see the other’s point of view 4. they understand the other’s perspective 5. they don’t dislike each other anymore 5. they grow feelings for each other 6. they get together. The first stage should be established and explained really well. The second should be simple but important, and very impactful to both of the characters. The third stage should be slow burning and very uncomfortable, but transformative to both of them. The fourth should happen as the result of events building on one another, not one single event. The last two should be clearly separate, and the fifth should be a slow burn on its own. This pacing strategy should allow for a lot of tension, build up, and a very satisfying ending.

Resources

Enemies Turned Lovers Prompts

Skinny Love Prompts

Angst Prompts

How To Make A Scene More Heartfelt

20 Mistakes To Avoid When Writing Young Adult Fiction/Romance

Tips On Writing Skinny Love

A Guide To Tension & Suspense In Your Writing

Writing Arguments Between Characters

Pros and Cons of Different Points Of View

Tips On Writing Intense Scenes

Resources For Romance Writers

Useful Writing Resources

Useful Writing Resources II

Resources For Describing Emotions

Giving Characters Bad Traits

Relationships Between Characters With No Connection

Relationships Between Polar Opposites

The Terror Behind Your Beauty Playlist Listen On Spotify

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MY CURRENT WORK IN PROGRESS (Check it out, it’s pretty cool. At least I think it is.)

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“This thorn invested wall means nothing.”

“I will gladly walk on it a thousand times over, if that means I could be with you, my lady.”

and the lady cat was all:

“My brave darling.”

OOOPS MY HAND SLIPPED!!

Suddenly my muse insisted me to draw the personification version of the last pic, and who am I to reject inspiration when it comes so willingly to me? At least this will help with the artblock issue I currently have to deal with.

Russian imperial era inspired because hot damn.

Enchanting Bookworm Inspired Digital Illustrations by Simini Blocker

NYC based illustrator Simini Blocker understands the enchanting world bookworms revel in. From Hogwarts to Neverland or King’s Landing, Blocker captures the spellbinding imaginative realms literature has introduced to us with vibrant colours, gorgeous brushstrokes and fitting quotes from our favourite authors. You can find her gorgeous illustrations on Society6 and Etsy.

View similar posts here!

once upon a time there was a dude in Spain named Juan Pujol Garcia. Pujol was a chicken farmer. Pujol hated him some goddamn fascists.

See Spain had recently ended its civil war, with the fascists taking power. So when WWII broke out in Europe, Spain technically remained neutral but in practice was buddy buddy with the Nazis. Juan Pujol Garcia thought this was pretty bullshit

so soon after war breaks out Pujol travels to his local British embassy and goes “hey I wanna spy on the Nazis for you”

“who the fuck are you?” say the British, and kick him out

but Pujol is not deterred! He still wants to dunk on some fascists, so now he goes to his local German embassy instead. “hey” he says, “I wanna spy on the British for you, I sure do hate them”

“yeah okay” say the Germans “that seems pretty legit”

and just like that Pujol now officially works for the Abwehr, the German intelligence agency. They hand him some spy gear (invisible ink and such) and instruct him to travel to Lisbon, and from there make his way into the UK. So Pujol heads to Lisbon, and a little while later writes to his German handlers telling them he’s made it to England

Pujol had not made it to England. He had, in fact, made it to the Lisbon public library, where he checked out a number of English guide books and set about just wholesale making shit up

this is slightly complicated by the fact that, for example, he completely did not understand British currency and all his expense reports were basically gibberish. He also reported things like bribing Scotsmen, because the people of Glasgow would “do anything for a litre of wine” (an actual quote) because, hey, people in Spain like wine so that’s probably the same right?

Here is where it starts to get really crazy, because the Abwehr loves this. “wow this dude is a great spy” they say, because apparently none of them had ever been the England either. In fact, they are so pumped about this new awesome spy that the British start to get worried

you see, by this time the British had cracked German’s supposedly unbreakable Enigma code and were totally dunking on the Nazis by reading basically all of their ~super top secret~ radio transmissions. And, crucially, they’d become so good at breaking and reading traffic that there were literally no German spies in England. The Germans would set up a spy drop (usually dropping dudes in by parachute in the middle of the night), the British would intercept the message and then just scoop the dudes up as soon as they landed in a move that must have been SUPER embarrassing to the spies

so there are no German spies in the UK because they’re all sitting in a prison run by MI5 (although some are being run under supervision as double agents, feeding Germany bullshit). But suddenly MI5 is picking up all this traffic from the Germans talking about their super great spy- a spy the British do not have in their jail

“oh shit” says MI5, and starts rereading all the transmissions they have to and from this mysterious super spy.

“hey wait” says MI5, upon actually reading the shit the spy was sending. “someone is playing silly buggers, pip pip cheerio”

At this point, Pujol, still in Lisbon, had actually been approaching the British embassy again, repeatedly, but apparently “I am literally an Abwehr agent and would like to offer you my services” wasn’t interesting enough, because he was repeatedly turned away, again. It wasn’t until MI5 started asking around that one of the embassy staff was like “oh yeah we know that guy”

so in 1942 the British finally make contact with Pujol and he officially becomes a spy for MI5. They move him to London and assign him a case officer so he can start making up even better bullshit

and he does. Once actually in London, Pujol reports to the Abwehr that he’d recruited a whole slew of informants- from a bunch of Welsh Aryans to disaffected army officers. He ends up with a network of 20+ sub-spies, all feeding him information from around the UK

none of these people actually exist

Pujol just straight up invented like 20 people, keeping careful track of their fake personalities, names, and activities. With the help of MI5, the information he sends becomes even better- a mix of true but ultimately useless facts and actually important intel timed to arrive in Germany just slightly too late to be of any use. He and his “spy network” become the Abwehr’s most trusted agents

Pujol, now codenamed Agent Garbo (for his acting skills), ends up playing a huge role in the run-up to D-Day, where the Allies mounted a huge intelligence campaign to convince Hitler that the planned site of attack was going to be Calais and not Normandy (this was Operation Fortitude and you should absolutely look it up for more Wacky WWII Adventures). Obviously you know how this ended

crazily enough, the Abwehr never figured out that Pujol was a double agent. After the war he received both the Iron Cross Second Class (which require personal authorization from Hitler), and a Member of the Order of the British Empire (from King George VI)

unable to resist being totally fucking ridiculous, Pujol turned down MI5’s post-war offer to continue spying, but this time against the USSR. “no,” he said “just help me fake my own death and then I’m moving to Venezuela”