elyteracy - Tumblr blog

[elyteracy]

I don’t remember if this was in the book or if I heard her tell a story in an interview, but I learned somewhere years ago that when Allison Bechdel sent her mother a draft copy of Are You My Mother? (Bechdel’s frankly very exposing graphic memoir about her relationship with her mother), asking for, I don’t know? Feedback? Permission? Absolution? her mother’s whole and entire response was “It coheres.” Two words and a period. And it’s absolutely true about that book and the most impressive thing about it, actually. The book collages an enormous amount of time and space and thought into a coherent piece of art. It could so easily have failed to do so, but it succeeded. I think about this all the time both because of the efficiency of Bechdel’s mother’s commentary and the myriad conclusions I find myself itching to leap to about her personality based on that single anecdote, but also because it got my thinking about coherence as an artistic value. As perhaps the final artistic value. So, you had something to say. Did you say it?

[elyteracy]

Another AO3 thing I’m curious about, how do yall decide if something is good enough to read? Usually I follow a rule of 1 kudos for every 10 hits. One because it’s easy math and two it’s yet to fail me. Thoughts? Do you just go for it and pray it’s good?

[elyteracy]

i think some of you dont like narratives or stories or characters i think you just like fanfiction tropes

[elyteracy]

➡️ Content warnings on fiction are a courtesy. 

➡️ Not every medium of fiction and storytelling has or is expected to have content warnings or extensive tagging.

➡️ Print novels do not traditionally warn for content in any way.

➡️ Until AO3 came along, fanfiction did not traditionally warn for content in any significant way.

➡️ An author is only obligated to warn for content to the degree mandated by the format they publish their fiction on.

➡️ Content warnings beyond the minimum are a courtesy, not an obligation.

➡️ 'Creator chose not to warn' is a valid tag that authors are allowed to use on AO3. It means there could be anything in there and you have accepted the risk. 'May contain peanuts!'

➡️ Writers are allowed to use 'Creator chose not to warn' for any reason, including to maintain surprise and avoid spoilers.

➡️ 'Creator chose not to warn' is not the same thing as 'no archive warnings apply'.

➡️ It is your responsibility to protect yourself and close a book, or hit the back button if you find something in fiction that you're reading that upsets you.

➡️ You are responsible for protecting yourself from fiction that causes you discomfort.

[elyteracy]

pacific rim-esque mecha wip but instead of drifting with a living person you synch with all the previous pilots of your mech. also you don't stop after you get out of the robot they're stuck in your head. you are not told this before you do it. is this anything

[elyteracy]

[elyteracy]

people on my dash are annoying again and i'm tired of being a bitch about it so let me just say - if you read my fics and don't leave a comment, you're fine. it's fine. I'm not mad, I don't think you ungrateful, or an asshole, or whatever other guilt-trippy bullshit people spout here day in and day out. I post my stuff in the hopes of it bringing others joy, too, and yes of course comments bring me joy in return, but I don't think anyone owes them to me. if it brings you joy and i never know, if you "only" leave kudos, if you only lurk, if you literally never interact with me for literally whatever reason, it's fine. i promise. i love you. i hope the words bring you joy without there being any hang-ups about it <3

[elyteracy]

Lesser-known steps of the writing process:

Finding all the paragraphs where you used some hyper-specific word more than once

Rearranging paragraphs that you swear you wrote in the right order but turned out to be totally backwards

Going for a walk, coming up with the perfect line, and forgetting it as soon as you get home and open your laptop

Creating a separate document where you can dump all of those nice sentences that no longer fit in anywhere

Waking up in a cold sweat because so-and-so was supposed to be barefoot but never actually took his shoes off

[elyteracy]

to pretend that horrible people cannot make good art is another way to conflate beauty and talent with integrity and morality. the works of monsters are best examined with knowledge of the author in mind but art is not inherently reflective. human beings are creative, and habitual liars- it'd be stupid to pretend art must always be a portrait of its creator

[elyteracy]

Are you looking for...

tragic romance

ghost stories

the moment grief becomes a ghost

southern settings

gay main characters

light horror

...then I Drowned In The Summer of 85 is the book for you! It's available right now on Amazon and it would be so amazing if you checked out this labor of love!

[elyteracy]

no no no guys do you. Do you get it.

^^^^ this wasn't aaron warning neil off of andrew!! this was a test!!

it was a test in the exact same way andrew threatening katelyn at the library was a test, the same way andrew drugging neil at eden's was a test– this is aaron assessing neil as a threat to andrew and to him. if he'd wanted andreil to be over, he would've fucking said it– he would've outright told neil to stay away from his brother. but he doesn't. he asks why. admittedly, he doesn't do it in the best of ways, but that's the point. he purposefully gets neil angry to see if he'll slip up and give something away. that's why he brings up drake and that's why it had to be aaron. aaron doesn't give a fuck what neil thinks of him, he's well aware that neil doesn't like him and he doesn't care. but he's able to get to him through andrew, essentially, and if anything, aaron's right. neil is exactly as much of a violation of their deal as katelyn is– aaron is approaching the situation the exact same way andrew did. andrew understands that, so if he did know that aaron talked to neil (and i think he probably would've figured it out if neil doesnt tell him), he wouldn't be able to hold it against him the same way aaron can't hold andrew's threats to katelyn against his brother.

nicky is the one that thinks it's hate sex, aaron thinks its something else. neil passes aaron's test the second he punches him, really. the fact that he leaves after neil admits he doesn't think andrew would fight for him is clear evidence– aaron didn't approach that conversation expecting neil to admit he was just using andrew (and if he had, aaron probably would've punched him)– he went into it knowing that it had to happen in order for the deal to be ended. neil tells aaron to figure out what you have to do to make him let you go, and that's exactly what aaron does. he figures out that neil is how he breaks the deal and he takes that to andrew as an ultimatum– either they keep the deal and break things off with both of their partners, or the deal is over; andrew keeps neil, aaron keeps katelyn.

aaron minyard is a LOT smarter than he lets on– the reason we don't see all of this play out is because neil doesn't realise that he's technically part of that deal.

[elyteracy]

For clarity, example:

Author: Hey, here's an update for [Fic 1]! Hope you like it =)

Commenter: When are you going to update [Fic 2]?

[elyteracy]

Dunno how to put it properly into words but lately I find myself thinking more about that particular innocence of fairy tales, for lack of better word. Where a traveller in the middle of a field comes across an old woman with a scythe who is very clearly Death, but he treats her as any other auntie from the village. Or meeting a strange green-skinned man by the lake and sharing your loaf of bread with him when he asks because even though he's clearly not human, your mother's last words before you left home were to be kind to everyone. Where the old man in the forest rewards you for your help with nothing but a dove feather, and when you accept even such a seemingly useless reward with gratitude, on your way home you learn that it's turned to solid gold. Where supernatural beings never harm a person directly and every action against humans is a test of character, and every supernatural punishment is the result of a person bringing on their own demise through their own actions they could have avoided had they changed their ways. Where the hero wins for no other reason than that they were a good person. I don't have the braincells to describe this better right now but I wish modern fairy tales did this more instead of trying to be fantasy action movies.

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that being said I'm not actually always opposed to conflict free fluff I am just opposed to the characters having their claws filed down for it. you can stick them in a coffee shop au it should just still feel like you sat the two worst most insane people on earth in a starbucks

[elyteracy]

do you think riko considered himself god and do you think he thought of kevin as his greatest creation and do you think after he destroyed his hand he justified it as a sacrifice that had to be done and do you think in his mind he cradled the idea of kevin in his arms like mary cradles jesus’ corpse in pietà or are you normal

[elyteracy]

exy fans + Twitter (the Kathy Ferdinand show edition)