#//when writing with me

[evidently-endless]

i think we should remind musicians they can absolutely make up little stories for their songs btw. it doesn’t have to be about them at all. you can invent a guy and put him in situations to music. time honoured tradition in fact.

[ducktracy]

sharing a very sage bit of advice from The Simpsons' own John Swartzwelder that i've been trying to hamper down in my writing and drawing alike. let your inner crappy little elf do his worst

[valtsv]

being someone who's passionate about their interests when you're a horror fan really is a special layer of hell because every interaction you have with another person where the conversation turns to your hobbies and personal entertainments is a trial where if you show too much unrepentant glee at getting an opportunity to talk about your preferred subject you get to watch them mentally move you onto their list of untrustworthy individuals to avoid in the future in real time

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[ao3-anonymous]

What in the fanfic hell is this?? 😂😂

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[evilmafuyu666]

[the-palelady]

simon deserves a quiet, loving marriage.

after everything the man has been through he deserves someone that loves him the right way. someone who sees past the flaws, the scars, the darkness that has embedded itself into his mind.

words of affirmation don’t have to be spoken to one another. the two of you just know how the other feels just through their actions or even just the look on their face, the glint of light behind the others eyes as your gazes meet.

he makes you laugh with his occasional morbid jokes or jokes that most wouldn’t find funny, and in return you do the same for him. your laughter is contagious to him. it makes the corners of his lips twitch into a smile that makes your heart beat just a bit faster. has your face brightening in a way that has him asking, “y’alright, love?”

you both meet each other in the middle. not everything is thrown onto one person: laundry, the dishes, you name it. you and simon help each other, work as a team because that’s what partners do. nothing is ever done alone.

he loves the stories about your day no matter how minuscule they may seem to you. they are everything to him. he loves the crinkle at the edges of your eyes when you have a bright smile spreading wide across your face. he loves your mind, how intelligent you are, how you help remind him of things that he so easily forgets.

but most of all he loves how gentle you are. and he’ll always feel like he doesn’t deserve it. he’s a bad man isn’t he? he’s taken the lives of countless of people and yet here you are preparing the man a plate full of your amazing food, warming his bed, and standing with that sparkle in your eyes by the front door when he comes home.

those tendrils that sit in waiting at the back of his mind slowly creep in every so often and it’s like you can see them with those sharp, knowing eyes of yours. the second you spot them you’re shooing them away with a kiss to his brow bone, nuzzling just a bit closer to him in bed until it feels like he might consume you whole with how big he is.

when you finally relax into him, your lips pressed against his temple, he just barely makes out, “everything will be alright.”

and he knows then and there that he does deserve you, that he does deserve your laughter, your smiles, the warmth you bring him, and your kindness.

simon knows everything will be alright because he has you.

[descendant-of-truth]

Shipping is fun and all but I swear every single time someone makes a comment, whether as a joke or in a legitimate analysis, about there being "no other explanation" for a pair's interactions, I lose just a bit more of my sanity

Like, no, you guys don't get it. Romance is not about the Amount of devotion, it's about the COLOR. the FLAVOR of it all. a character can be just as devoted to their platonic friend as they are to their romantic partner, and they don't love either of them more, just differently.

But because the majority of people still have it stuck in their minds that romance exists on the highest tier of love, I'm stuck seeing endless takes that boil down to "these two care about each other too much for it to NOT be romantic" as if that's the core determining factor to how literally any of this works

In conclusion: stop telling me that I don't understand the story if I don't interpret the leads as romantic, I am TIRED

[tswkento]

“i have love and dreams too! but you know, one day everyone will grow up and leave me behind, right?” satoru chuckles as he waves his hand at yuuji nonchalantly, unaware of the weight that his words carry as you look up at him with watery eyes.

you rub your temples with one hand as to hide the incoming tears as you wait for their conversation to be over so you can speak to gojo. as soon as yuuji leaves, you enter the room; quick to approach the white-haired man and wrap your arms around him, burying your face between his shoulder blades.

“oh? missed me that much?” he tilts his head to the side, eyeing you as he gives you a small smirk. it disappears when he feels a wet spot clinging to his back and satoru manoeuvres his body around to face you, hands instantly cupping your cheeks as he looks down in concern, “hey now, that’s not very cute of you. i hate it when you cry.”

you push your face into his chest, a broken sob escaping your throat as you wail into his shirt, “you’re the one who makes me cry! saying stuff like that.”

satoru’s eyes squint in confusion before he ahh!’s in recognition, a cheeky smile appearing on his lips, “you and i both know that it’s not about you. i married you so we could be outgrown by the kids together.”

you slap his chest that rumbles with chuckles and press your ear against his left pectoral, spending a few quiet seconds searching for his heartbeat.

“i can still feel sad.” you murmur under your breath, tightening your grip on him as he rests his hand on top of your head, fingers weaving through your hair.

“feel sad for me?”

“mhm.”

satoru hums, stroking the back of your head, and smears a small kiss on your temple, muttering against it, “c’mon, baby, there’s no need for that.”

you sniffle into the sturdy surface of his chest, fingers digging deeper into his back, “i-i missed you so much. and now— now you’re going away again! it’s not fair.”

satoru’s movements on your hair come to a halt as he pulls away slightly to take a look at your face. his big palms cup the sides of it, concerned gaze scanning over your features as he exhales, breath coming out unsteadily. his eyes harden for a brief moment before ab apologetic expression settles on his face, the corners of his lips trembling as he speaks.

“i’ll do my best to make it quick, alright?”

you stare up at him, brows creasing upwards in confusion since that clearly wasn’t what was on satoru’s mind, but don’t push — too tired to attempt anything again as you bask in his warmth for as long as you can before he goes to fight sukuna.

something didn’t feel right.

[sttoru]

“c’mon, megumi. tell me what’s botherin’ ya.” satoru pouts at megumi, his arm thrown around the boy’s shoulders. you watch the scene unfold with a tense smile.

megumi was exhausted from school, training and so much more. the teenager’s patience was wearing thin. especially with satoru almost pressuring him into telling you both what’s weighing on his mind. when all he wants is to be left alone at the moment.

the tone satoru’s using to talk to megumi only pisses the high schooler off more and more. it’s fatherly. like he’s still the little child satoru took in and cared for. it pissed megumi off, along with everything else;

“you’re not my dad, so stop fucking acting like you are!”

you freeze. satoru freezes. megumi freezes. time freezes. the silence was deafening. no one was moving. your eyes flicker over to satoru’s and your heart shatters in a million pieces.

satoru’s hurt. so hurt. it’s visible and he’s not hiding it — not hiding it like he usually would behind a wide grin. his blindfold and glasses aren’t there to hide the way his face falls either.

“i know.” satoru whispers. his voice lost its cheery tone, his eyes have lost their spark. the sorcerer slowly distances himself from megumi. a bitter chuckle leaves his lips. a futile attempt to hide his shaky voice, “i know.”

all you could do is stand there in shock. megumi doesn’t know what to do after his little outburst either. and satoru. . . well, satoru is the first one out of the room. you hear his breath hitch as he walks past you. you see his eyes twitch. the strongest, in tears.

[bluegiragi]

big d stands for big demeanour (inspired by this mini thread-fic by queeniebgalore on twitter - it is nsfw like immediately so be wary)

early access + nsfw on patreon

[roseworth]

i wish you guys lived inside my head the fics in here go crazy

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[bahoreal]

kids these days who are fans of fall out boy and can just read the lyrics on spotify or whatever. do you know how lucky you are. when i was a lad you listened to an illegally burnt cd, heard a nonsensical string of syllables, and listened to it 100 times until you thought you know what was said. and then you got ahold of an album sleeve with lyrics and read the lyrics. and realise you were absolutely nowhere close.

[spn2006]

the fact that eric kripke isn't even christian really adds something to the way christianity is depicted on supernatural. because its really not about being christian at all, but about living in america, a country dominated by christianity, and having to decide for yourself how to handle that. faith is huge in supernatural, and the mythology of the show is very bible-centric, but notably, christ is never there. even sam, who starts out revering the angels, who once said he prays every night, doesn't actually call himself a christian or imply that he believes in jesus--the show is steeped in christianity and biblical lore and yet neither sam nor dean are christians. in fact, over and over again the church itself is depicted as a haunted house that sam and dean will only ever enter as strangers, as outsiders. priests, preachers, faith healers, chapels, crypts, etc. are all just iconography that create an intense sense of unease that sam and dean respond to instantly. as a jew, its very relatable. an essential part of living in america when you're not christian is that exact sense of unease, of knowing that the culture of your country has ensured that you'll get knocked over by christianity no matter where you go, that you'll see hundreds of people truly believing they're good people while doing awful things in the name of their god, and you have no choice but to confront that. kripke gets it