[NCStokes]

This looketh fun!

Responses to “I would die for you.”
Daisy: please don’t
Ron: Then Perish
Fensby: cool
Blue: You will!
Griffin: I would die for you first

Children yelling “McDonalds! McDonalds!”
Daisy: we have food at home
Ron: MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS!
Fensby: *pulls into drive through* *orders a single black coffee and leaves*

Fensby: ha look at that idiot
Fensby, realizing that’s Ron: ohhhh no that’s my idiot

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[NCStokes]

@shannon Always good to see a familiar face. 😀

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[NCStokes]

@shannon Why, of course I remember you! Your characters sound like a hoot. (Silvia sounds very relatable, lol.)

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[NCStokes]

Wow, we all have a rebellious bunch of characters, don’t we? XD

Daisy: Tax evasion

Ron: A truly diverse sampling of thievery and general foolishness

Fensby: threatening people with knives and other pointy objects. Claims she wouldn’t have had to if they had “been reasonable.” Ron was been quoted as saying “I was being perfectly reasonable!”

Blue: reports simply say “mad science”

Griffin: kidnapping, pirating, attempted murder, and heinous amounts of jaywalking

 

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[NCStokes]

@eden-anderson !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That’s wonderful!!!!

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[NCStokes]

*is overwhelmed by the awesomeness of this thread*

I’ve been keeping up with this pretty well! These are my favorites so far: little fall-themed portraits of my MCs!

I don’t remember what feathers look like, lol.

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[NCStokes]

@deeprun That last one makes me smile. That dragon looks like a great pet.

@chalice Yep, the insanity has begun! I wasn’t going to do any today, but I have an exciting idea for the prompt “bait” I desperately want to try.

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[NCStokes]

@chalice Oh yeah, I’m doing Inktober! Let’s see if I can actually finish for the first time. When I first started two years ago, I only heard about it in mid-October and started then, and I don’t know what even happened last year. Time got away from me. XD I think I’m going to do every other day instead of every day, though.

@deeprun That’s amazing, dude!

@sageinthemeadow I love your shading! Cool take on the “ring” prompt.

 

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[NCStokes]

@corine Heyo! I’ve done NaNo a couple years running, and I’ve found one of the best strategies for me is just to have fun. This is a first draft, after all, so you can experiment as much as you like, and if you think giving all your background characters the most ridiculous names ever sounds fun, you can! And writing feels like less of a chore when you’ve got a lizard named Montgomery showing up every once and a while to make you laugh.

Also, getting away from the screen when you’re not writing 1) is good for your eyeballs, and 2) often leads to the best of inspiration.

These couple months leading up to November are the time to build your characters and world, and if you like to have a plot written out (even if it’s just a skeleton), plot yourself a plot, so when you hit November 1st, you’re free to just write. You don’t have to have everything set in stone, but you can write a lot faster if you don’t have to stop ever other chapter to research or worldbuild. Of course you’ll run into questions you never thought of, but get what you know you’ll need out of the way beforehand. This might be common sense, but last year, I barely built my world at all before I started, and though it didn’t stop me, it almost did, and I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone else. 😛

@evelyn Yes! *throws confetti* *throws spaghetti*

*shameless self promotion* https://weridasusual.home.blog/

[NCStokes]

@jenwriter17 Let the buddy-ness commence! XD

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[NCStokes]

I’m NC Stokes there, because I’m super creative like that. 😛

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[NCStokes]

@evelyn What ever style of music I’m listening to is usually what I write. My most recent one is weirdly reminiscent of a long song, which is strange for someone who never listens to romance-y music, but oh well. *shrug* I often get inspiration from thinking of a song title and then trying to figure out what it could possibly mean. xD

*shameless self promotion* https://weridasusual.home.blog/

[NCStokes]

@evelyn I do! I even try setting them to music sometimes. It’s good fun.

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[NCStokes]

*slides in on my knees* I don’t write poetry, but I do occasionally write lyrics. Same thing? Maybe not? I just wanted to say I don’t normally enjoy reading poetry, but I love @Evelyn’s so much.

*shameless self promotion* https://weridasusual.home.blog/

[NCStokes]

Gooooood morning, I was summoned. So yes, as you might be able to infer from my being tagged, I am on the autism spectrum. I’ve only known since about the beginning of this year, so my knowledge, aside from personal experience, is limited. But I do consider myself pretty informed. As for mental disorders, I see a lot of the depictions of mental illnesses in the media are wildly inaccurate. I don’t know about Christian fiction in particular, because quite frankly, I’ve *never* seen any mental illness represented in it. I don’t read a lot of explicitly Christian fiction to begin with, but you’d think I would have seen a hint of representation somewhere.

The media in general has a warped idea of what mental disorders look like. From what I’ve seen, they’re built of stereotypes and “romanticized” versions of things that, in reality, are complicated and very, very ugly. They have the flair of someone saying “oh I’m so depressed” after dropping a spoon. It’s also a very personal thing, so the cookie-cutter image of “this is what depression/anxiety/PTSD/OCD/etc. looks like” just does’t work. Writing real mental disorders requires knowledge of that disorder, and empathy for people who have it. People don’t like to admit it, but a lot of their knowledge about things they haven’t experienced personally comes from the media. So shows like 13 Reasons Why, which romanticize depression and suicide, do more than just spread a little misinformation. They shape how people see others, and their own disorders, and it isn’t pretty.

All this to say, there’s a void of accurate representation to fill, and it’s a very important void. And who is better equipped to spread understanding than Christians? So though it is sad we don’t see a lot of it, there’s still a lot of good to be done when we go the extra mile secular media doesn’t.

As @princess-foo mentioned, autism seems relevant. I wouldn’t say it’s a mental disorder myself, but it is a mental… something. I would characterize it as, if our brains are computers, us peeps on the spectrum have a different operating system. There are upsides, there are downsides, and they’re probably not what you think they are.

It’s another case of representation being lazy and wrong and people’s collective knowledge taking damage because of it. You probably know the “white autistic guy whose special interest is space/trains/something of that nature, who’s REALLY good at math, with poor social skills that border on charming sometimes” character. Not to say there aren’t people like this, hey, I’ve had friends like this, and they’re awesome! But there are also autistic girls. Kids who prefer ancient Greece over trains any day. Teenagers who might have developed a lot of skills to mask their social skill disadvantages, but DO NOT want to touch anything with a weird texture, please and thank you. And we’re not all white, seriously. (Oh, and if you, like me at first, think autism is represented by a little blue puzzle piece, allow me to cLeAr uP A mIScoNcePtion reAL QUicK. That puzzle piece is the logo of Autism Speaks, which is not a pro-autism group at all. Look up “autism speaks controversy” if you’re curious.)

But there’s a lot about autism that gets glossed over in the media. I’m super temped to just dump everything I know right here, but that would be… a long post. XD Basically, there a LOT of stereotypes that don’t line up with reality at all. If you want to write a real autistic character, for the love of all that is sweet and crunchy, RESEARCH! Don’t believe what’s on TV. 😉 I’m also available if ya want to chat. I, of course am only an expert on my own autism, but I’m here to help!

• This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by NCStokes. Reason: Tags whyyy
• This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by NCStokes.

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