Latest Posts by monsterr-menagerie - Page 3

Karen Summerset was one of the children who lived in dark falls at the time of the chemistry plant malfunction. Dark falls was a small, tourist community of everyone who knew everyone, it was tight knit. At least, until mysterious men began to show up. A chemistry plant was established, run by men in black suits. At first, they claimed that they were studying a chemical that could power hundreds of cities at a time, and then when the workers began to experience odd burns, they claimed it was to help American soldiers while they were at war. Along with the chemistry plant came noise and smog, the air was thick and visitors to the small, scenic town became slim, until they became none. Jobs were lost because of this, forcing more and more of the people that lived there to work in the chemistry plant to try to keep their families fed. Karen Summerset's father was one of the people working at the plant when it malfunctioned. With so many people working at a plant out of desperation instead of knowledge, it was bound to fail. It was almost like the men in black wanted it to happen. A cloud of noxious gasses was released into the smog over Dark Falls, trapping it above the small town. They thought things were fine, they were assured that everything would be fine... and then.. the burns appeared. Skin started falling from bone, nobody could keep food down, hair was falling out. These people were rotting before they were even dead.

ARK'S ART IS VERY DELICIOUS AND YOU SHOULD CONSIDER COMMISSIONING THEM.

Commissions are available now!

[Commissions officially open!]

[🔥Boosty] - each $ goes for the goal to by new pc!

This distinguished crow man is so cute and for what reason.

Finally back to start sharing my theme park drawing vids again

... Does an entire theme park full of monsters count?

If so, that's one hell of an elevator.

You are trapped in an elevator with the person on your lockscreen. Who is it?

Reblog with who you get stuck with~

NEW COMMISSION SHEET OPEN!!!

Make sure to read the terms of service and payment before you commission me!!

GOOTS, MY BELOVED..... 🤚🏻✋🏻

he is rapidly approaching

a bit of a personal post. taps chin. because i've been feeling highly insecure for an unspecified amount of time and so i thought i'd make an appreciation post !

putting this in big bold letters: PROSHIP DNI

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shoutout to selfshippers with bottling problems and/or tendencies. to those of us who keep our feelings locked up inside until it pops and pours out when we least want it to. to those of us who bottle so much to keep others feeling happy. to the selfshippers who are so scared to voice anything about how they feel because they've experienced negative reactions from those they've trusted, just by voicing their emotions.

shoutout to selfshippers who can't properly gush because they often feel like a nuisance to others. whether it's the kinda gushing that's about your f/o's lore, your f/o in general, your selfships— to those of us who find it weird and at times a bit uncomfortable to gush because we're so used to feeling like a nuisance. or that we won't even be given the time of day to have our stuff acknowledged.

shoutout to selfshippers who are genuinely not understood. who's reactions at times are viewed as unnecessary or overdramatic or illogical for reacting the way we do when we're scared of opening up.

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your f/o(s) wouldn't treat you like that. they'd listen to you oh so intently, to whatever you'd have to say.

if you've been bottling for so long, whether it's emotions or interests, your f/o(s) wouldn't let you keep that up. they'd gently encourage you to express yourself, even if it starts out small. they reassure you that they won't get mad about speaking your mind, that're you're not an asshole for how you feel, especially if your f/o(s) understand what cause your reactions and why you keep things inside.

your f/o(s) will do everything in their power to make you feel safe in being you, you who expresses yourself, just like every human should be allowed to.

Proship dni for my comfort thanks.

I feel like everyone portrays F/Os as these romantic, perfect all around lovers, and while that's all well and good! I prefer F/Os who are flawed, who don't always say the right things. Who can sometimes be petty or selfish. F/Os who have a habit of seeing conflict as a contest on who can talk the loudest, instead of a conversation. F/Os who run out of patience sometimes and have to go cool off mid-conversation, even if they're right. F/Os who struggle to communicate their emotions.

I find comfort in the idea of a relationship where mistakes like that are allowed and given room to breathe. A relationship where, no matter what the conflict is, the walls eventually come down. Maybe it takes hours, maybe days until you're both calm enough to work it out. Maybe it takes several conversations to solve it, but each end in Hey. I love you. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

You're not perfect, and neither is your F/O. That's okay. That can be beautiful, too. There's not a hug that's more comforting than the firm, tearful one after reaching mutual understanding. Knowing that you didn't mess it up too much, you didn't break things permanently. You couldn't if you tried. They missed you... and you've got some serious affection to catch up on.

selfshippers we need to be making more 'marysue' selfinserts. im talking crazy powers im talking loud designs im talking having at least 8 canon characters in love with them. im talking crazy backstory im talking canon-breaking storylines im talking earth shattering plot twist catalysts. like. seriously who is going to stop you the f/o police? yeah ok bud try me ill make them one of my unrequited lovers too.

pr*ship c*mship etc dni.

if your selfships have 100 fans I am one of them, if your selfships have 10 fans I am one of them, if your selfships have 1 fan it is me, etc etc

Yes, I'm taken (I'm dating a fictional character inside my head)

"Self insert characters are cringe"

Bro I'm trying to survive capitalism with maladaptive daydreaming. Leave me alone.

And the fic's first chapter is out!

And a special little treat for @monsterr-menagerie

Goosebumps content spotted 👁️👁️

It was fun to finally give my own designs to these two little fuckers

Before I ramble more about my GB hyperfixation, have some rare OC content from me! Sodik is a model for monster media and she's one of the most popular monster models in the world! Many creatures look up to her and aspire to follow in her footsteps (hoofsteps?). Anyway, she's technically a part of her own universe, but she'll definitely be referenced in my GB stories and whatnot. Cus why wouldn't I?

She also has a punk rockstar husband, Damon, who is head over heels for her and she for him. 😳

The fact that I felt this deep within the crevices of my soul

my gender is the goosebumps: escape from horrorland videogame

Doing Keith first because I love my liddol emo blob boy.

(appearance is based on his book description!)

My brain and body decided to tag team and throw a triple combo anxiety, panic, and dissociative episode at me all at once. So give me suggestions for what GB characters you want me to draw (villains, protags, or OCs/sonas) as a totally strategic and tactical distraction. Much appreciated 🗣️🫶🏻‼️

How I learned to write smarter, not harder

(aka, how to write when you're hella ADHD lol)

A reader commented on my current long fic asking how I write so well. I replied with an essay of my honestly pretty non-standard writing advice (that they probably didn't actually want lol) Now I'm gonna share it with you guys and hopefully there's a few of you out there who will benefit from my past mistakes and find some useful advice in here. XD Since I started doing this stuff, which are all pretty easy changes to absorb into your process if you want to try them, I now almost never get writer's block.

The text of the original reply is indented, and I've added some additional commentary to expand upon and clarify some of the concepts.

As for writing well, I usually attribute it to the fact that I spent roughly four years in my late teens/early 20s writing text roleplay with a friend for hours every single day. Aside from the constant practice that provided, having a live audience immediately reacting to everything I wrote made me think a lot about how to make as many sentences as possible have maximum impact so that I could get that kind of fun reaction. (Which is another reason why comments like yours are so valuable to fanfic writers! <3) The other factors that have improved my writing are thus: 1. Writing nonlinearly. I used to write a whole story in order, from the first sentence onward. If there was a part I was excited to write, I slogged through everything to get there, thinking that it would be my reward once I finished everything that led up to that. It never worked. XD It was miserable. By the time I got to the part I wanted to write, I had beaten the scene to death in my head imagining all the ways I could write it, and it a) no longer interested me and b) could not live up to my expectations because I couldn't remember all my ideas I'd had for writing it. The scene came out mediocre and so did everything leading up to it. Since then, I learned through working on VN writing (I co-own a game studio and we have some visual novels that I write for) that I don't have to write linearly. If I'm inspired to write a scene, I just write it immediately. It usually comes out pretty good even in a first draft! But then I also have it for if I get more ideas for that scene later, and I can just edit them in. The scenes come out MUCH stronger because of this. And you know what else I discovered? Those scenes I slogged through before weren't scenes I had no inspiration for, I just didn't have any inspiration for them in that moment! I can't tell you how many times there was a scene I had no interest in writing, and then a week later I'd get struck by the perfect inspiration for it! Those are scenes I would have done a very mediocre job on, and now they can be some of the most powerful scenes because I gave them time to marinate. Inspiration isn't always linear, so writing doesn't have to be either!

Some people are the type that joyfully write linearly. I have a friend like this--she picks up the characters and just continues playing out the next scene. Her story progresses through the entire day-by-day lives of the characters; it never timeskips more than a few hours. She started writing and posting just eight months ago, she's about an eighth of the way through her planned fic timeline, and the content she has so far posted to AO3 for it is already 450,000 words long. But most of us are normal humans. We're not, for the most part, wired to create linearly. We consume linearly, we experience linearly, so we assume we must also create linearly. But actually, a lot of us really suffer from trying to force ourselves to create this way, and we might not even realize it. If you're the kind of person who thinks you need to carrot-on-a-stick yourself into writing by saving the fun part for when you finally write everything that happens before it: Stop. You're probably not a linear writer. You're making yourself suffer for no reason and your writing is probably suffering for it. At least give nonlinear writing a try before you assume you can't write if you're not baiting or forcing yourself into it!! Remember: Writing is fun. You do this because it's fun, because it's your hobby. If you're miserable 80% of the time you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong!

2. Rereading my own work. I used to hate reading my own work. I wouldn't even edit it usually. I would write it and slap it online and try not to look at it again. XD Writing nonlinearly forced me to start rereading because I needed to make sure scenes connected together naturally and it also made it easier to get into the headspace of the story to keep writing and fill in the blanks and get new inspiration. Doing this built the editing process into my writing process--I would read a scene to get back in the headspace, dislike what I had written, and just clean it up on the fly. I still never ever sit down to 'edit' my work. I just reread it to prep for writing and it ends up editing itself. Many many scenes in this fic I have read probably a dozen times or more! (And now, I can actually reread my own work for enjoyment!) Another thing I found from doing this that it became easy to see patterns and themes in my work and strengthen them. Foreshadowing became easy. Setting up for jokes or plot points became easy. I didn't have to plan out my story in advance or write an outline, because the scenes themselves because a sort of living outline on their own. (Yes, despite all the foreshadowing and recurring thematic elements and secret hidden meanings sprinkled throughout this story, it actually never had an outline or a plan for any of that. It's all a natural byproduct of writing nonlinearly and rereading.)

Unpopular writing opinion time: You don't need to make a detailed outline.

Some people thrive on having an outline and planning out every detail before they sit down to write. But I know for a lot of us, we don't know how to write an outline or how to use it once we've written it. The idea of making one is daunting, and the advice that it's the only way to write or beat writer's block is demoralizing. So let me explain how I approach "outlining" which isn't really outlining at all.

I write in a Notion table, where every scene is a separate table entry and the scene is written in the page inside that entry. I do this because it makes writing nonlinearly VASTLY more intuitive and straightforward than writing in a single document. (If you're familiar with Notion, this probably makes perfect sense to you. If you're not, imagine something a little like a more contained Google Sheets, but every row has a title cell that opens into a unique Google Doc when you click on it. And it's not as slow and clunky as the Google suite lol) When I sit down to begin a new fic idea, I make a quick entry in the table for every scene I already know I'll want or need, with the entries titled with a couple words or a sentence that describes what will be in that scene so I'll remember it later. Basically, it's the most absolute bare-bones skeleton of what I vaguely know will probably happen in the story.

Then I start writing, wherever I want in the list. As I write, ideas for new scenes and new connections and themes will emerge over time, and I'll just slot them in between the original entries wherever they naturally fit, rearranging as necessary, so that I won't forget about them later when I'm ready to write them. As an example, my current long fic started with a list of roughly 35 scenes that I knew I wanted or needed, for a fic that will probably be around 100k words (which I didn't know at the time haha). As of this writing, it has expanded to 129 scenes. And since I write them directly in the page entries for the table, the fic is actually its own outline, without any additional effort on my part. As I said in the comment reply--a living outline!

This also made it easier to let go of the notion that I had to write something exactly right the first time. (People always say you should do this, but how many of us do? It's harder than it sounds! I didn't want to commit to editing later! I didn't want to reread my work! XD) I know I'm going to edit it naturally anyway, so I can feel okay giving myself permission to just write it approximately right and I can fix it later. And what I found from that was that sometimes what I believed was kind of meh when I wrote it was actually totally fine when I read it later! Sometimes the internal critic is actually wrong. 3. Marinating in the headspace of the story. For the first two months I worked on [fic], I did not consume any media other than [fandom the fic is in]. I didn't watch, read, or play anything else. Not even mobile games. (And there wasn't really much fan content for [fandom] to consume either. Still isn't, really. XD) This basically forced me to treat writing my story as my only source of entertainment, and kept me from getting distracted or inspired to write other ideas and abandon this one.

As an aside, I don't think this is a necessary step for writing, but if you really want to be productive in a short burst, I do highly recommend going on a media consumption hiatus. Not forever, obviously! Consuming media is a valuable tool for new inspiration, and reading other's work (both good and bad, as long as you think critically to identify the differences!) is an invaluable resource for improving your writing.

When I write, I usually lay down, close my eyes, and play the scene I'm interested in writing in my head. I even take a ten-minute nap now and then during this process. (I find being in a state of partial drowsiness, but not outright sleepiness, makes writing easier and better. Sleep helps the brain process and make connections!) Then I roll over to the laptop next to me and type up whatever I felt like worked for the scene. This may mean I write half a sentence at a time between intervals of closed-eye-time XD

People always say if you're stuck, you need to outline.

What they actually mean by that (whether they realize it or not) is that if you're stuck, you need to brainstorm. You need to marinate. You don't need to plan what you're doing, you just need to give yourself time to think about it!

What's another framing for brainstorming for your fic? Fantasizing about it! Planning is work, but fantasizing isn't.

You're already fantasizing about it, right? That's why you're writing it. Just direct that effort toward the scenes you're trying to write next! Close your eyes, lay back, and fantasize what the characters do and how they react.

And then quickly note down your inspirations so you don't forget, haha.

And if a scene is so boring to you that even fantasizing about it sucks--it's probably a bad scene.

If it's boring to write, it's going to be boring to read. Ask yourself why you wanted that scene. Is it even necessary? Can you cut it? Can you replace it with a different scene that serves the same purpose but approaches the problem from a different angle? If you can't remove the troublesome scene, what can you change about it that would make it interesting or exciting for you to write?

And I can't write sitting up to save my damn life. It's like my brain just stops working if I have to sit in a chair and stare at a computer screen. I need to be able to lie down, even if I don't use it! Talking walks and swinging in a hammock are also fantastic places to get scene ideas worked out, because the rhythmic motion also helps our brain process. It's just a little harder to work on a laptop in those scenarios. XD

In conclusion: Writing nonlinearly is an amazing tool for kicking writer's block to the curb. There's almost always some scene you'll want to write. If there isn't, you need to re-read or marinate.

Or you need to use the bathroom, eat something, or sleep. XD Seriously, if you're that stuck, assess your current physical condition. You might just be unable to focus because you're uncomfortable and you haven't realized it yet.

Anyway! I hope that was helpful, or at least interesting! XD Sorry again for the text wall. (I think this is the longest comment reply I've ever written!)

And same to you guys on tumblr--I hope this was helpful or at least interesting. XD Reblogs appreciated if so! (Maybe it'll help someone else!)

Reblogging this because I never did and that is a 4th level federal crime.

Now I'm on my Goosebumps grind FGHDJ I'm trying to make a little AU from the 2015 movie, but idk where I'm really going with it yet

Oh, how nice! I get the poor whittle blorbo status! 😼

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@peachimelons @cwispyy @just-animaxiz @plasticviolence @gingernut1314 @reaganlovesreading

Alright, tagged my victims. Don't feel pressured to answer, though! ^^

.... Or do. 👁️👁️

Let's all be in a TV show!!!

> Do this quiz

> do this picrew (Based on urself + quiz answers)

> tag ppl

> profit.

Tags (/nf ofc):

@mxlilly @circus-of-horror @yourleastfavoriteguyinthechair @microsoupmouse @the-firefly-jar-system @punkrockinchair @theplushiesystem @coded-pup @florasolarsystem + ANYONE else who wants to join

Official posters with characters for Beetlejuice sequel

My favorite edge lords 🫶🏻

the one thing shadow and scourge can agree upon is that three days grace fuckin slaps

but then scourge opens his mouth again and shadow beats him up etc etc

Girl is screaming for no reason. Like, chill.

you’re cool as fuck + your meat is huge

Fulfilling my younger self's dreams by creating a Goosebumps OC that Slappy can pester 👌