#... but what does it say about me when i thought that linear b is easier to write than the modern greek alphabet?

[faaun]

I'm not sure if you were after advice re adhd and Vyvanse, only read through your recent posts enough to see you are having thoughts about it but I'm not sure your dose and 'type' of adhd (inattentive/impulsive/hyperactive/combined etc) but see you're just over a week using it. I'm on day 21 of Vyvanse and wanted to share my experience if it's in any way helpful because I've been diligently documenting each day. Day one I took 30mg and found the dose was awful -- like I was at a club long after the music had stopped you know, hands clenched, music hurt, awful. I have since been taking half that dose and before a week didn't feel like I was "on" anything, but my mind was quiet and I could focus on my tasks / my moods were regulated - more linear / over the continued use I can tell it's waning earlier, but I do have 5mg Dexy's to supplement when that happens and it's still a process to find the dose balance (I suspect it will change throughout time anyway), I was prescribed those along with the Vyvanse but it's none of my business why you don't have those atm ofc. I've learned about so many things in relation to my mind since getting this diagnosis, I really had no idea I could attribute certain things to it and consequently feel so much less shame than I've had my entire life. You probably know there are other medications and maybe this one wont be for you (and maybe you'll find other strategies too) but I can say I'm glad I took the approach of allowing the process, documenting what I feel in my body each day AND MAKING SURE TO EAT A MEAL WITH THE VYVANSE IMMEDIATELY BEFORE TAKING IT (which no doctor advised me, I had to find out from reddit fml) I also eat really small portions of fruit / tuna during the day, and have heard others say that doing that helps the 'comedown' sensation too. I think I only felt compelled to send you this because I really relate to the 'can i choose not to have adhd' post, but maybe it will help to consider this an experience worth tracking in detail, really giving it a go and not considering each avenue an all or nothing sort of pursuit, like there are options and you should trust your body and discuss with your doctor. Bravo for figuring this out about yourself at 21, I'm 30 and my psych said a lot of people come to her in their 40's! I don't know if any of this helps at all, but I will say, the silence in my mind is a little weird and spooky while also relieving and interesting -- I heard someone basically say that the meds help you focus, but don't help you choose what to focus on, if that makes sense. I think that's where a sort of self-determination / planning comes in and seems significantly easier with the clarity of mind. This is all probably crap, but good luck wah!

hi hi ! this is def helpful thank you! right now i've been taking meals (well...nutritionally complete meal replacement shakes, with vitamins, because food does not register as food to me on vyvanse) just anytime after taking a dosage, so maybe actually having a meal beforehand would help!

also got magnesium + vit b, oredered omega fish oil so maybe that should help too ? i've known i've had adhd since i was maybe 15, it's just been really hard to get medicated and now that i have the medication the fear is that it's worse than being unmedicated (ritalin didnt work) 😭 but currently on a trial phase, as you said i'm documenting everything and just switching out lots of variables. i've learned going to the gym helps me too :)

my problem is that around 3-4 hours a day are essentially hellish. i started off on 50mg bc i usually have a high tolerance to...mostly everything, and quickly learned that it was too high - from 9-2pm amazin, 2-4 meh, 4-7pm horrible no good hell time, 7 onwards very relaxed and gentle. it's the midway stage that really sucks for me. i reduced my dosage to 30g and everything was more mild, but it still was impeding my ability to think between 3-7:30pm ish, which really sucks because that's when most of my seminars are...

my biggest problem for 3-7:30 except inability to process things is emotional bluntness and a complete lack of whimsy. my perceptions seem so indirect. like mild dissociation?

today i'm at 35, i'm seeing how it goes :) tomorrow i'll try the thing w eating before the dose, and also i'll try to implement more fish-related stuff into my diet bc i've also seen ppl say it helps them!

tysm for the ask btw i rly appreciate anyone's advice and just their experiences or feedback or thoughts !!

[bellamyroselia]

Kid Icarus doodle dump

Some quick doodles of Pit made by using some of favorite artworks of Cupid as references.

I feel like he would do this.

I made these some time ago and thought why not share them, my ideas of what Pit's parents could look like.

When this mental image popped to my head, I had to draw it. I can't imagine family meetings ever going all that well in this universe.

[rahleeyah]

Hi! I want to tell you I am in awe of your writing. It’s powerful and moving and so true to characters. I’m always curious…what is your writing “process?” If you don’t mind me asking!

Oh this is a great question!!! We haven't had a writing question in a while.

My process is not something I usually think about; when I first saw this question I was about to say something like mostly what I do is I just sit very still and let the words come out. And that's true but not fair; that's only one piece of the puzzle.

The first piece is routine. I write at the same time every day. Weekdays it's first thing when I come home from work, weekends it's first thing when I wake up. Always the same time, always sitting in the same place - on my porch, away from distractions, with fresh air and a glass of water and some smokes. That last part is not recommended.

It is hard to write if I miss a few days. One day is fine, but if I go more than 2-3 (which I don't think I've done since Christmas) I'll be out of step and it'll take a while to get back in the groove. So that's the practical part, is I've got a time and space set aside to write and that makes it easier.

The next piece I guess is where the ideas come from. I rewatch a lot. I find watching helps me keep the character voices, but it also helps me make new connections or find new moments to explore. I'll post thoughts here or share them with friends and the back and forth helps flesh things a lot. Most of the time an idea for a story is like a lightning strike; it feels as if it's come out of nowhere. But it isn't completely organic; I spend a lot of time thinking about ideas. In the shower, in the car, before bed, in snippets on tumblr. You have to cultivate the idea generating part of your brain. Sometimes I'll play with a story in my head for weeks and it won't go anywhere; sometimes the whole thing just appears fully formed in my brain like Jesus air dropped it to me. But you gotta be open to the spirit before the spirit can move you, you know?

So we have a place to write and we have an idea, how do we make a story?

A story is like a road. It is going from point A to point B and we gotta lay the pavers to get there. A story like hov is easy; it's set in canon so there's episodes to draw from, and there's a clear linear progression from not pregnant to pregnant to baby. There's a time frame and there's built in milestones. Something like let's take long way down, madam Jean, for example, is gonna be totally different, bc it isn't set in canon and there is no roadmap to get from strangers to happily ever after.

A lot of the time I don't look at the big picture bc it's overwhelming. It feels insurmountable, if I think about how many chapters it'll take and how much time it'll take. I'm eating this elephant one bite at a time, just like my mama said. So we write the first scene. The first paver that goes down is the Problem.

Not to be all freshman English class but every story is centered on conflict. Those conflicts can be anything; it doesn't have to be a "fight", an actual literally good guy vs bad guy. It just has to be an issue. Liv is pregnant but Elliot is her partner and they're not supposed to sleep together. Lucien works for the police but he's intrigued by the local madam. Eli doesn't know who Liv is and he's worried about his dad. Bernie Stabler shows up unannounced. All of these are Problems.

Once we have a Problem, we can start working on the Solution. We do this one step at a time. We do not rush.

So every day, I read over the last chapter I wrote. Where are we, what's happened, what are the Conflicts, what is the next logical step? How do we address it in one scene?

Lucien saw the madam, and she asked him to look after a pregnant girl. Ok now he has to go back to the brothel in the next chapter. That moves the timeline forward and moves us closer to the end goal, bc while Lucien is looking after the girl he talks to Jean, and we plant the seeds of them falling in love. It also gives us one piece of action to work on, one moment in time to write. I sit down, I write Lucien going to the brothel, I write him examining the girl and talking to Jean, boom there's one scene we're done. We tie those two things together; logical progression of Plot events, and the emotional undercurrent. I like it best when a chapter has both.

Themes come out naturally most of the time. Matrilineal, for example, was just me sitting down to write about Bernie and I used Amanda bc I love an outside pov. But as I was writing I'm thinking you know, Amanda has a complicated relationship with her mom. Shit, so does Liv. And they're both mothers now. And so is Bernie. And the emotional threads come out naturally as a result of who these people are. The piece wasn't gonna be about mothers but then it became obvious that it had to be.

Motifs appear the same way. The first chapter of bury my heart, I used this is love. That wasn't originally intentional, but when I did it the second time I thought there it is, and kept using it, and that's where the gut punch of the final line comes from; the meaning has changed from joy to sorrow and it is only impactful bc of the repetition and our previous connection to it.

I use a lot of imagery, and a lot of it tends to be religious - Jean is very Catholic, and so is Elliot, so for both Blake and svu there's room to play with it there. I like similes, I like metaphors, I like synecdoche - there's a fun one. I like to play with putting words together in different ways but that stuff doesn't happen in the car, or the shower, or on my lunch break; that usually only happens when I'm writing. I have to sit down and be still and let my brain go.

Conflict, themes, motifs, images, characters, these are the ingredients that make a story. And the more you work with them the easier they come. It just takes practice. But one of the best ways to improve is to read. See what's possible. See how other people have put words together. Someone commented once about how sometimes I say a lot with very few words; that is something I picked up from two very different places. Stephen King is great about short, simple, powerful sentences that knock your socks off. And there's a recurring line in my favorite series, the Belgariad, where when things are bad the man character goes to his aunt, who has raised him since he was a baby and is essentially his mother, and she holds him, and everything was all right again. It is a simple, repeated phrase about love, and comfort, and how no matter how terrifying the world can be, love brings healing and hope. There are quotes scattered throughout my work. Olivia quotes Heraclitus to herself in bury my heart; yes I am a classics major but my connection to that quote comes from the film the emperor's club. Inspiration is everywhere; draw on all of it.

This is. Probably more information than you were looking for but once I got started I couldn't stop.

[ziamhaze]

Just thought about “kick, Push“ and wanted to thank you for writing this piece. I come back very often. Also I wanted to ask what your writing process looks like (if you like to share)

Hope you have a great day!

Hello!  So sorry for taking as long as I have to reply to this, life has been crazy busy.

First of all, thank you so much for reading my work and then...reading it again.  It’s mind boggling for me to think that there are people out there who have such a fondness for a world I’ve created that they find themselves wanting to relive it.  Really, it’s a very surreal thing.

As for my writing process, I actually wrote a HUGE post about this on my Patreon about a year or so ago.  To save myself the time, I’m literally going to copy and paste it below the cut.  That said, it’s the mindset I was in back then, so do keep in mind that some points may have changed since, as this past year has been a whirlwind for my writing.  In general though, it paints a pretty clear picture of how I approach a story and the steps I take to see it out.

Also, it should be noted that by no means is there a right and wrong way when approaching any sort of art.  I’ve learned by virtue of being in a professional writing atmosphere for over a year now that how I work is VERY atypical, VERY regimented, and VERY analytical.  Art is not this.  It can be, but it usually isn’t.

Enjoy the process.  Enjoy the mistakes.  And most importantly, enjoy the story.  It’s shown itself to you and for you, above all else.

WARNING: The information below contains spoilers for nearly all of my fics.  Proceed with caution.

In a few of my writing updates for the last fic I mentioned how I tend to write in a non-linear fashion.  I’ve got zero background in creative writing, however, I did dabble in screenwriting during my high school and undergrad years.  That being said, it’s a lot easier for me to write in a visual way with blocking versus simply planning a plot arc and writing it as I go (and also why I have so much dialogue in my stories; they’re really just elaborate film scenes linked to form a story without the b-roll).

What does that mean?

If you’ve read Customer of the Week you’ll have read Zayn using a similar methodology.  And truthfully, many many comic/graphic novel authors use screenwriting software and blocking breakdowns for the subsequent drawings.  But I will admit, I was a bit selfish with using my exact method for Zayn’s in that last fic.

I usually start a fic with 1 of 2 ideas:

A career I want one of them to have

A typical AU setting [ex: uni/frat, coffee shop, supernatural, kidfic, famous (athlete, model, singer)]

Genuinely, that’s what it all boils down to.  From there, I spend some time thinking about what it is they could do in those worlds and form a very simple objective/path that they will allow them to fall in love.  If I had to guess, I’d say The Heart of Him was the most difficult to plan because it was VERY subtle, not a lot of action or huge relationship build up; the easiest by far was Kick, Push.

Next, I do a lot of research on certain plot points.  For example, with Kick, Push I needed to see what the Olympic schedule was in order to know how many scenes I needed to fill to make it one per day.  Or with Z.A.Y.N. I had to make the longest playlist ever to just get the music down because I obviously wanted to have Zayn as a songwriter, but then I took AGES figuring out ok, so I have these 80 songs I love for lyrical analysis, how do I incorporate them?  I remember shifting around the songs on paper just to visually see it all and thought I was crazy, but then I realized if I bunched them together by subject matter, that would allow me to make the scenes’ dialogue based on those topics.  Even with Compartment 451 I needed to do tons of Harry Potter related research to see, could Liam even be a Head Boy and Quidditch Captain?  How does that work?  If it wasn’t canon, do I want to divert?  If I want to stick with canon and he can only be one then how do I switch the plot because it was very obviously based on how busy Liam was with both labels.

Ok, so once I’ve got the research down (though I still find myself doing more during the writing process if I don’t know what something looks like and I need to make it historically accurate or if they have a food item and I need to make it match the setting), I take time to break down the story into scenes, which is where Zayn’s explanation finally comes into play.  For several days (sometimes up to a week or so), literally all I do is map out the entire book.  Essentially, this is the whole of the creative process.  I think about settings and pacing and where things need to happen at certain times and all that good stuff.  It ends up very fragmented, but the best part is finishing because then I have 15-25 scenes and a fully finished story.

Numbering aside, this is what Scene 14 looks like for Customer of the Month:

Zayn’s Flat - One week later

FOR THE NEXT WEEK - liam focuses on reading rather than experiencing bc he’s loved the worlds they’ve entered, but he feels like they’re such a small piece of the larger pie and that’s a little unfair to zayn for having created the whole thing

Takes a long time to get through each bc he’s busy looking at the detailed art and appreciating that just as much as the storylines

Thinks about how much easier it’d be if he lived a life this structured and immediately rewarding - saving people or fighting for them

Zayn notices him lost in thought and comes over to see what’s on his mind

I envy his life and practice;  you could do it; no I don’t think I could; let’s see then

NINJA - Gets a training lesson - gruelling and long, knows Zayn will pull him out with the time constraints

Pair up with training partner - Zayn; flirtatious fighting

Get called in for first test to spy and get info on military chief - kill whoever gets in your way; liam knows he’s trained enough that he won’t ever get caught, so he won’t need to make that decision

Make it through mansion and while zayn goes in to get info, liam keeps guard, outwits a single man, but then doesn’t hear young boy walking around - knows he should kill him but can’t even when boy starts yelling, zayn comes out and signals for him to get in and they have to race through the palace to get out safely

So maybe you’re more of a samurai with your compassion

Now, this was the absolute original outline.  Things change and/or get deleted during the writing process, but this is where I start.  So imagine the entire story blocked out this way.  It’s very very very very difficult to do this (in my opinion) because you’re literally writing the entire story in a few days.  But like I said, once it’s done, you’re all good.  You can stand back and look at the whole thing and think, ok this needs to happen sooner or there was no foreshadowing for that, go back and add in scene 5, or, actually I need to add a scene in between these two because this happens too fast.  I know a lot of people/creatives would say, “but that’s why you do what you do - to create.  If this phase is the equivalent of molding a block of clay in a sculpture, then shouldn’t it be the bulk of your enjoyment?”.  Probably, but the amount of creativity and intense focus needed all at once makes the process a lot less enjoyable than you’d think.

So the hard part is out of the way, now what?

The writing.  Sort of.

Oddly, I find myself writing the first 10k or so words normally.  And by that I mean, simply looking at that scene’s bullet note list and writing it fully/coherently.  After that, I tend to peter off and ditch writing linearly for my second method where I “block out” a scene during the daytime and at night, go back and “fill it in”.  Because my motivation/inspiration was so low for the last fic, I sort of went crazy and blocked out about 70% of the fic all at once, then went back for a weekish to fill it all in (spoiler alert: I hated it).  But typically, and certainly going forward, I stick to the daylight/night time routine.

Here’s what a “blocked out” scene based around dialogue looks like as taken from the above ninja scene:

He’s even more determined than I am.

He sort of has to be if he wants to prove himself using only one arm.  I made him a bit like a militant robot for a reason.  -stares at Liam’s side profile-  You could train that hard if you wanted to.

I don’t think I could.

With these muscles?  -squeezes his arms lightly-  At least try so I can watch.

-smiles bashfully-  Can you afford to take the night off?

-liam doesn’t get an answer, just enough time to take a deep breath before he’s launched into another dimension-

And here’s what it looks like filled in:

“He’s even more determined than I am,” Liam mumbles, defeated over what it means to not be able to hold a light to a fictional character.

“He sort of has to be if he wants to prove himself using only one arm.  I made him a bit like a militant robot for a reason.”  Amid Zayn’s pause, Liam can feel his profile being studied, but he refuses to see why.  “You could train that hard if you wanted to,” Zayn opines boldly.

“I don’t think I could.”

“With these muscles?” Liam’s upper arm gets a light squeeze.  “At least try so I can watch.”

The racy comment finally gets Liam to raise his line of sight, his typical bashful smile present.  “Can you afford to take the night off?”

But Liam doesn’t get an answer, just enough time to take a deep breath before he’s launched into another dimension.

From there, it’s straight to editing draft one.  Word count depending, my beta reader will be sent their copy a week or so after that.  While she edits, I do all the administrative tasks associated with putting out a fic (drafting all the ao3 authors notes/tags/summary, making the picspam, making the BTS page, etc.).  When she’s done, I’ll split my screen, go down the fic for a final read through (draft 3), and look for her edits as I do my own.

As my plots get to be deeper slice-of-life pieces, the longer the scene breakdowns will take for me to create.  Without having ultra detailed bullet notes on talking points, the stories’ slow pacing and societal commentary will be near impossible to smoothly weave into a love story.  Can’t wait to see how much hair I lose in the coming years!

Anyhow, I hope this was an interesting look into how my fics go from concept to final product.  If you’re hungry for more, you can go back to the BTS page for “Compartment 451” to see the full fic in scene breakdown.

[nexyra]

What is your take on rwby chara's mbti types? I think

Weiss - xSTJ, thought that she was ESTJ at first but ISTJ makes a lot of sense too.

Winter - ESTJ

Pyrrha - ESFJ

Emerald - ISFJ (I've seen some ppl type her as INFJ but I don't see how she is a Ni dom?)

Whitley - ENTJ? I'm honestly not sure abt that..

Adam - fucked up xNFJ, probably INFJ (seen him typed as xNTJ but his delusional thinking process imo screams unhealthy Ti and I think his manipulation of Blake and the WF is more Fe than Te

Qrow - was thinking ISTP but with the more recent volumes I'm really not sure..

Penny - ENFP

Ozpin - Uuuuuh INTP maybe?? But I've seen some people type him as INFJ. INFJ 5w6 would make sense as to why he might appear as an INTP but idk..

Bartholomew- ENTP

Jaune - no fucking idea honestly

Ironwood - ENTJ

Sun - Seen ppl type him as ENFP but I don't see any Ne at all..,,ESFP?

Yang - ESxP, maybe ESTP

Cinder - INTJ

Mercury - ISTP

Oscar - ISFJ

Ren - ISTx?

Hello anon ! I see my love for typology hasn't gone unnoticed 😂 Thank you so much for the ask !

I prefer enneagram over MBTI because I find it easier to type; so fair warning that I'm not an authority on MBTI-typing. But I do have have an ongoing RWBY typing that includes MBTI sooo... here goes !

(I'm putting my ennea typings along with it, but not explaining them on this post)

➸ RWBYJNPR

Ruby • xNFP 6w7 9w1 2w3?

I just can't decide between the two fors Ruby because... it kind of goes both way ??? Like Ruby definitely feels as INFP for the first half of the series; she's got a clear Fi > Ne preference... But then when she develops her Tert in V6 it's just... Te ? And she really doesn't show much Si actually she fits more the Si inf vibe in the form of forgetting about bad memories and her mom until people dig it up and she's like "nooo !" ?? So it looks like Te > Si but also Fi > Ne; conclusion idfk

Weiss • ISTJ 1w2 6w5 3w4 sp/so

Clear Fi tert rearing its head along with the 1 so I'm going with ISTJ; I also never really saw any Ne. Her type isn't too disagreed upon so tell me if you want a lenghtier explanation.

Blake • ISFP 6w5 9w8 4w3 (in some order)

Wooh this might get the anger of some (i have experience with the INFJ typers) but Blake goddamn REEKS of Fi. Less so recently but for the first seasons oh my god. She straights up catch you by the shirt and tells you "I'm doing the right thing"; and said right thing is so heavily dependant on her own subjectives values, which is why Blake can't reconcile with the current White Fang; because she doesn't have a strong Je vision of "what objectively works in the end", she only sees actions in terms of immediate right and wrong, and this b&w dichotomy stems from herself. What the WF is doing is wrong and the circumstances don't matter for judging the morality of their actions (of course I'm not talking about murder here bc that's pretty wrong ALL THE TIME but for example the stealing occuring in V1 bc of the WF is a better example)

Yang • ESXP 7w8 8w7 2w3

I'm sorry about that but I can't help you on that aspect anon, I still can't make up my mind about whether Yang has Fi or Ti. I have seen arguments for both, and i'm not the best at picking up on Ti so it's hard for me to tell.

Jaune • ESFJ 6w7 3w2 9w1

No strong opinions on his MBTI, it's kinda just based on vibes

Nora • ENFP 6w7 9w8 3w2

Textbook ENFP, not much to say here x))

Pyrrha • XXFJ 2w1 1w2 6?

In my list Pyrrha is currently written down as ISFJ but that's mostly based on the general consensus and me wanting to get rid of the XX. I don't actually have any convincing arguments to decide on Ni or Si, so I could go either way if someone else makes their case well. I feel like she's Fe aux more than dom, but even about that I could change my mind. Pyrrha didn't have that much screentime in the end :((

Ren • ISTJ? 9w1 5w4 4w5

Ironically I'm not sure about his type, kind of like you. I've mentionned I'm not very good at picking up on Ti right ? And Ren was a background character before V4 really. I had him written down as ISTP for a while but I've seen some convincing arguments for ISTJ so I might lean toward that actually but who knows. The thing I'm very confident about is his 5 fix = )

➸ Faunus bonus

Sun • ESFP 7w6 2w3 9w1 so/sx

I don't see any Ne at all either so I don't understand the ENFP typings...?? Maybe the 7 stereotypes ? Imo Sun is just a very good boy; certified ESFP 7 himbo; triple positive sunshine !

Ilia • Ti-Fe axis ?

Again, not enough screentime for me to make an educated guess. My only certainty is : not high Fi. It's the source of their conflicts. Blake confidence in absolute right & wrong, tracing lines in the sand between acceptable & unacceptable. Whereas Ilia can only shake her head and say "Because it works", or cry out "I don't know what else to do !"

Adam • 3w4 8w7 6w5

I honestly don't really have much of an opinion about Adam's MBTI, i'm sorry anon ;; I don't know enough about how he thinks

➸ Oz-related things and his circle

Ozpin • INFJ 5w4 2w1 1w9

I would personally call him an INFJ. I... never really got INTP vibes from him ? I don't see the Fe inf work out with his interactions : he's always rather at ease, he knows how to navigate around people... His focus inherently lies on doing what's best for the "group", the people, humanity. Fx functions are both concerned with ethics, in different ways, and I think Oz reflects that well. He IS concerned with the moral weight of his actions, but it's a more adaptable and unpersonnal concern than Fi people. He regards Ironwood's soul machines as something wrong, but can still agree to use it if the situations demand it for example. So... if the INFJ + 5 makes sense to you, well that's what I'm typing him personally. I also feel like Ni fits him more than Ne. Ozpin has a very linear way of planning, he does use his fair share of symbolism in every day conversation... Even when taking decisions, he... kind of cares about the meaning of things a lot ? It's hard to explain but like; the way he highlights the difference between an army and a guardian, and the emotionnal response it brings. I don't know it feels like there's some Ni vibes in there x)

Oscar • ISFJ 9w8 6w7 3w2

Oscar's type honestly isn't the one I would have the easiest time explaining in lenght but yea. It's mostly vibes; also just like Ozpin he doesn't seem to have a particularly Fi reasonning. And he feels more grounded, I don't really remember any Ni so... yay ?

Ironwood • ENFJ 6w5 1w2 3w4 (pre-Vol8); ENTJ (post-Vol8)

Might be weird if you think he was a dictator from the start, but I kind of entertained the idea of Ironwood being Fe dom ? From his very first interaction it was very clear that he was a Je dom to me; he's all about objective results; he doesn't give off the "internal framework" or "personnal values" vibe AT ALL; so it was more a matter of picking Te or Fe. He LOOKS super Te don't get me wrong; but he also has an enneagram tritype that is very common amongst XXTJs (and TJs stereotypes thus derive from it). And just like Oz, his focus at all time seemed to be the greater good and doing what's best for the people still. So I was like... Eh, a "harsh" ENFJ I think that's interesting ? Plus Fe ethics actually derive from their environment, kinda like "everyone agrees that Y is wrong", and if you consider that James is from Atlas... Well his way of thinking and ethics align pretty well with the military.

His character took a turn for the worse in V8 (whether too quick or not depends on who you ask) and past that point he's a clear ENTJ; but I feel like it was more debatable before that. Idk though I might be overthinking this in the hope of making more interesting combinations xD

Qrow • ISTP 4w3 6w7? 1w9? sp/sx

I don't really see anything else than ISTP for Qrow... But he's not a character I would want to find Ti arguments for either.

Raven • ENTJ Cp6w5 8w9 3w4

Most villains get called ENTJ at the first occasions tbh zlqfznhqzkf but I think it fits Raven for the most part actually...

➸ Atlas

Winter • ESTJ 1w9 3w4 6w5

The whole Schnee family has the same enneagram tritype in different order/different wings, it's ridiculous I think she has a higher Te than Weiss, and Fi inf fits her more. She struggles more to reconcile with her emotions and the idea of a personal right/wrong than her little sis.

Penny • ENFP 4w3 6w7 9w1 sx/so

Perfect example of a healthy 4, she's a great friend a cutie pie. ... Sorry we were talking about MBTI x) Well again, textbook ENFP. Not much to debate here.

Whitley • 3w4 1w9 6w5?

Not enough material for me to guess a MBTI type correctly either, sorry... I could see some kind of xNTJ yea but it's really just vibes and not enough concrete.

➸ Antagonists and Extras

Cinder • 8w7 3w4 6w5

Never cared to guess her MBTI type. I hereby type her as insufferable qkfqskfq. More seriously, I don't really know sorry Anon :/

Emerald • 2w3 ?w? ?w?

I never got Fe vibes from her tbh, I just think she's a 2. And Fe as a function is very infused with 2 stereotypes. So yea. Like, she isn't even that worried about the morality of her actions or anything more than the other villains. She just cares more about her personal relationships and being loved, so she automatically looks much nicer, especially with 2 mechanisms of trying to make herself useful and needed. Also because she's surrounded by 8-ish people xD

Mercury • 8w9 7w8 ?w?

ISTP doesn't sound too farfeteched, but I never MBTI-typed him either, sorry.

+

Bartholomew Oobleck • xSxJ 5w4

The only vibe he gave me is Si somewhere because of all his talks about learning from the past and everything repeats itself and it's a mine of informations at Mountain Glen... That's really the only time I tried to put down anything for him, and it was Si + 5. He could be some kind of xNTP nerd too for sure, but that's more vibe and I couldn't make an actual argument for it.

[deripmaver]

4 5 6 for ALL OF THE CaPri FANFICS

LKSJMDHGVLKSJ ALL OF THEM???

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue? 5: What part was hardest to write? 6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

Ink On Paper (tongue fic) 4. lmfaoooooooo there isn't a whole lot of dialogue in this one oop-

Laurent nodded. The wax softened as he pressed his hand into it, erasing his previous message. Soft, warm, melting under his touch. He wrote again, I need someone who is not afraid to read out the insults I make towards the idiots at court. You have been fired, Damianos.

i guess it technically counts lmfao. i just wanted to show laurent post-trauma still able to make jokes and snipe at his husband so it wasnt all doom and gloom 5. i'm not sure exactly what "hardest to write" here means because like... a lot of these fic have serious gore or otherwise upsetting content, but both emotionally and actually writing wise i find that kind of thing actually pretty easy to write hahahaha. i think i got stuck with the chronology and the decision to make it non-linear made it flow a lot better. for the record writing laurent getting raped and then having his tongue cut out was actually very easy to write, i think i got it out in basically one go. #cancelme the more fucked up and intense the easier i find to nyoom through it 6. my first ever fic in the capri fandom!!!! hehehehhehehe <333333 Level Of Concern (plan B fic) 4.

Before Nicaise could say anything, Laurent spat, “Does he know you had your first heat?”

SURPRISE nic was the one who was pregnant the whole time!!!!!!! 5. this one i banged out REALLY quickly so i cant think of anything here 6. capri omegaverse!!!!!!! i wish there was more of this 🥺🥺🥺 Like Me (what if Auguste was also abused fic) 4. ******CW INCEST MENTION CW ABUSE MENTION******

���Your brother’s stuck his dick in every single member of your family,” Auguste spat out, laughing, crying, and so miserable he thought his heart would stop. His voice rose again, and he felt something burst from him as he screamed for the whole world to hear, “Did you know that? Did you, huh papa? Did he fuck you too?”

dude this line is so fucked up lmfao but i enjoyed writing it so much. actually this entire scene where auguste is having his breakdown was really intense to write and im really pleased with how it came out OR

Auguste grabbed him suddenly, looking up into his grief-stricken face desperately. “Please, Laurent,” he pleaded, voice breaking. “Please. Don’t let him end up like me.”

i felt entirely too clever with this line lmfao. i was like ~ooooohhhhh title drop~ im so dumb 5. i just remember this one like. dragged on for some time. i couldnt figure out what to do with it, how to get everything to coalesce around the final reveal about auguste 6. plot twist!!!!!!! plus auguste angst. i really enjoyed this one, i wrote it after watching the movie Spotlight which is one of my all time faves Softly, Gently 4.

“My King has been overexerting himself again, I presume?” Paschal sighed, shaking his head with a fond smile. “When have I ever done that?” Laurent cocked his head to the side, a wry smile on his face.

hehehehe sassy laurent my beloved <33333 5. honestly im just going to skip this one from now on lskjghmvlksjhglkvsjhdl i just get "stuck" sometimes without rhyme or reason and its usually on boring stuff, but then i cant remember later. the hardest part for me is when my dumb fucking adhd brain wont let me focus on writing but once i overcome that its usually pretty smooth sailing 6. horny omegaverse.................... my beloved............... giving men vaginas for horny reasons my beloved......................... Water of Life (birth fic)

“Do you want to hold him?” Erasmus breathed, eyes glassy. The baby cried, Erasmus bouncing him tenderly in those sunkissed arms. He looked apologetic. “Only for a moment, it’s not quite over yet.” A playful smile danced on Erasmus’ lips, and he brushed away a slick, damp curl from the wailing baby’s head. “A head this big, he certainly takes after Exalted.”

a cute, fun lil line in the sea of horrible angst lmfao ORRRRRR

Erasmus knelt before Damen, before Laurent. He said, “Exalted… Can you command his Highness to push?” Damen froze. “Do you mean…?” Erasmus nodded. “Alpha command.” Damen’s expression crumpled. He said, in a voice that shattered Erasmus’ heart, “I can’t. I can’t do that to him.” Erasmus licked his lips. “Exalted, in this state, he can’t push. His contractions are weaker. He’ll-” “I can’t,” Damen cried, clinging to Laurent’s limp body like a lifeline. “He’d… He’d never forgive me.”

damen is so sweet........ he loves laurent so much...... ORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

He stopped at the doorframe, turning to face Laurent with tears in his eyes, and whispered, “How long does it take, your Highness?” Laurent, shocked enough to respond, hissed, “What?” “I still wake up in the middle of the night thinking of it,” Erasmus said, voice thick in his throat, tears burning at his eyes. “How long until it’s over?”

real sad hours if u up click like. i love erasmus and laurent bonding over their shared trauma <33333333333333333333 laurent and erasmus friendship propaganda 24-fucking-7 bay bee!!!!! 6. unironically this is one of my fav fic ive ever written skdljmfhgvlksjdhflmgkvjshldkjfghvmls call the midwife is one of my favorite shows and writing this made me look at birth as something visceral and possibly horrible and traumatic. i wanna write more fucked up birth scenes, SO MANY MORE. ridley scott knew what he was doing Sandalwood (erasmus/kallias my sweet boys i love u so much) 4.

“I do,” Erasmus breathes, ducking his head, flushed as though embarrassed. “In the gardens, the perfume from the orange trees all around us on those summer nights.” Kallias smiles behind him – Erasmus knows his body so intimately he can feel it in how Kallias’ posture changes, though he can’t see the soft turn of his lips. “The scent was so cloying I thought it would drive me mad. It made me want to kiss you senseless.” Erasmus laughs, breathlessly, imagining the warm heat of Kallias’ mouth against his. “Don’t blame that on the orange trees, dear one.”

beloved..................... im weeping.......... 6. these two make me fuckign CRY ON THE REG I LOVE THEM SO MUCH MY SWEET BOYS YOU DESERVE THE WORLD- Wisps of Smoke******************* (lauguste fic) 4. ***CW EXPLICIT INCEST*** (i mean....... obviously lmfao)

“Call me what I like,” Auguste growled against his ear. “You know what I like.” He did. Laurent did. He knew everything Auguste liked – the slow flick of Laurent’s tongue on the underside of his cock, that tender spot behind his earlobe, the way Laurent’s thighs looked straddled atop him like his horse – and this. “Brother,” Laurent gasped, desperate, “Brother, please, harder. Harder.”

i wanted the incest to be explicitly part of the kink here lmfaoooooo 6. hehehehehehehhehehehhehe lauguste................... i need to write more of u But I Love It (laurent is allergic to latex fic) 4.

“Laurent,” Auguste said, voice high in warning. Laurent braced himself, stiffening visibly. With what seemed to be monumental effort, Auguste continued, “You know, Laurent. I’m proud of you.”

IM A SOFT BITCH OK???????????????? auguste is PROUD of his baby bro for overcoming his sexual trauma and getting that fat dick 6. SLJHVDLMKJDHGVLK PEOPLE FUCKING LOVED THIS FIC i tried to be funny and i think it worked. plus some softe bits thrown in. i also kind of see lots of humor fic where its a no abuse au, but i wanted to write something comedic where the regent still. existed u kno????? anyways hahahahha i dont think i can write anything like this again but im glad y'all liked it Is It Cold In The Water (slice of life fic) 4.

Laurent opens his mouth to say something cheeky, but instead, what comes out is: “Do you think Aimeric had the right idea?” Damen is quiet for so long, gaze serious and framed with his long, dark lashes, that Laurent wonders if he’d spoken aloud at all – and when he’s sure he had, he realizes Damen had remembered Aimeric after all. When he speaks again, the sleep is gone from his voice. “Laurent,” Damen says carefully, as though approaching a spooked horse, “Is something wrong?”

🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 soft,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 6. ruby likes this fic lskjdvhmflgksfjdhmvglkjsdhflkvgmjhlekjfhdvlgskjfhv im a SIMP- The Devil's Got Nothing On Me (AIMERIC FIC LEGGOOOO) 4. there are lots of lil nuggets in here!!!!

Aimeric blinks, and all he can think is, you knew? He says, "I – I just." "I am a patient man," Guion breathes, "I support everyone in my household. Everyone. But Aimeric, you are truly testing my patience. Your mother came to me in tears, begging me to find you. Look at what you did to her! There was nothing I could say until we found you!" "I'm sorry," Aimeric whispers, looking at Loyse, "I'm-" "Look at me," Guion roars.

this conversation was inspired by a very miserable encounter with my boss lmfao. fuck that guy and fuck guion

The regent, blue eyes sparkling - and Aimeric has never thought eyes could look just like a summer sky until now - says to Guion but really to Aimeric, "I was thinking I could take little Aimeric riding tomorrow. Just the two of us." Loyse says, before Guion can speak, voice trembling with relief, "I think that's a wonderful idea, your Highness."

~dramatic irony~ lmfaoooooooooo. WE know of course that this is a bad thing, but it's always fun to have characters make bad choices that they have no idea are bad. i also did this briefly in "Like Me" with auguste's ex wife taking nicaise to church because she was so overwhelmed at home and he offered to help. of course, the regent is always happy to help out. evil evil evil

"-was worried it might be difficult for him." A soft, lilting laugh. The guards had said the regent was in the library, and then there is Guion, right there with him. Aimeric is suddenly angry, not sure why his father is with the regent, who is his and no one else's. The regent responds, "I daresay it's been perfectly easy. It seems you've done most of the work already."

i wanted to highlight the fact that it was aimeric's neglect that lead him to the regent in the first place. hence "youve done most of the work already" - guion by ignoring and neglecting aimeric created the perfect environment for the regent to sweep in and take advantage. like leaving food out btwn 40-140 F is a perfect breeding ground for bacteria LOL. the books touch on that but i wanted to make it explicit

He is so, so ashamed. It's unbearable, the thought of her kind eyes, the way she cried for him, the way he pushed her away. Before he'd left to join the prince's guard, she had taken his hand, kissed it, and said in a voice fragile as glass, "It's been such a long time since I've seen you smile like that," but in that moment he could think only of the regent's letter warm in his pocket.

6. honestly i know ive sounded super conceited this whole time but i kind of tear up whenever i read through the end of the fic lmfao. aimeric is just so fucking depressing as a character and i love that i really got to explore that in this fic. he really didnt have anyone, did he????? he's like a tragic greek character where you just watch him stumbling towards his inevitable end and it hurts the whole time. its even worse on the reread ANYWAYYYYYYY thats it. thanks so much for the ask anon!!!!!!! feel free to send me more!!!

[ddwcaph-game]

Hello! A lovely anon sent me a very long ask so I'm making a separate post so I can answer it better. I really don't mind it, but in the future, please ask a few questions at a time (or at least put them in separate asks) so it's easier to answer! It looks like an interview. 😅

Anyways, you played OL!! It's my favourite VN, and I thought that MWCaPH had a lot of similarities to it so I'm thrilled to know you played it ^^ they're making a second game with even more features, and the demo will be coming out soon, so maybe you can check that out!

Bwahaha. The funny thing is I only realized most of the similarities after the fact. I definitely played it to get me into the slice-of-lifey mood for Chapter 3. And yup, I'm excited for it too!

For other recommendations, maybe perfurmare and lovewood? (Both on itch), I'm not sure what your genre preference is (I think I can make a guess 😂), but perfurmare is more mystery, and lovewood is very sweet. (I don't know much else VNs, those are the only ones I like haha)

Thanks! I don't mind recommendations, but just so you know, it's very likely that I won't be able to check them out anytime soon since I'm busy with other stuff and that's not my focus right now.

Speaking of that, if you were going to make a VN, would it be on itch or steam? I heard you get more cut on itch, just letting you know!

I don't know enough right now to make an informed decision, but I think the demo will be on itch, at least!

And since you're allowing me to ask questions...

Do we actually ever get to be in a relationship with the crushes? Or are they just crushes? I've seen other blogs talk about it before, how they're just crushes? Adding onto that, is there ever going to be an epilogue where the gang is older and you can get into a relationship?

Check out this post for more info about the epilogue!

The Book 1 epilogue happens during MC and Twin's 13th birthday. I don't wanna make it so that you can be "100% official" yet, but you'll be able to tell your and their parents, at least. Either way, it'll be more of a promise that you'll get together (or marry each other) in the future. 😊

It might be possible in the Book 2 epilogue (I had the idea for a pretend wedding before, so maybe...), and definitely possible in Book 3... but let's not get ahead of ourselves. 😛

Do we get to go into everyone's worlds? (Man to be honest I cannot imagine how intricate that's gonna get, esp since MC already has a few options themselves)

Of course! That's pretty much the whole premise. It's definitely complicated, but it's actually pretty linear for the most part, there's just a lot of variation.

If you romance a crush from the other worlds, how would that work? 🤔 It's not like they can leave their worlds right?

I mean, if you can go into one world and then the other, surely they can do that as well, right? I'm not answering this though because that's heavy spoilers, but I can at least assure you that they're not "fake" crush options. But yes, you won't see them again until the epilogue for spoiler reasons.

What does our twin think about us romancing the gang 😂

They would be 100% supportive... unless maybe it's B (at the start, at least). I think it'll be funny if your twin sets you up if they know you have a crush on someone and you're not telling them yet. Oh, and they'll always know. 😉

How do you think the main gang would react to MC just staring at them, and when they ask why, MC says "you're just pretty", or something along the lines of that?

Wayne: He'll just grin and reply back that you're cute and pretty too. And then after a moment, he'll get an idea: "Let's just stare at each other then!" The winner of the staring contest will be the cuter one, of course... and then he'll purposely lose.

Roselyna: She'll blush, fidget, look at the floor and say thanks with a tiny giggle. And then she'll try to think of a compliment to give back⁠—most likely the same thing you said to her. And then she'll ask you more questions about you. (Were you expecting a hug?)

JM: Oh, he'll think that it's just a dare or you're just kidding around like Wayne, and then ask you if you need him, or if you need to be doing something. There's no way you'd think that about him, right?

Lily: She'd just roll her eyes and continue doing what she's doing. She'll brush it off easily but you can bet that it'll be on her diary. Maybe she can use that information for later. No wait, she definitely will.

Brandon/Beatrice: Would tell you to stop that and leave, and then they'll go somewhere else if you don't. They'll think you're being suspicious and that you're just doing that to make them like you, but they'll definitely be thinking later whether you actually meant it or not—they know it's true though.

And can I just say I adore MWCaPH's UI in dashindon, especially the little details! Very cool! Also I cannot for the life of me figure out how to be as smart as lily, I want to keep a part of that child me alive while being a smarty pants 😔 the most I've gotten is just above Wayne. Is it possible?

Thank youuu! ❤️ I try to make it as immersive as possible, even with all the limitations of CS.

And yup, it's definitely possible! Twelve people have done so from the survey data, at least. 😛 You actually don't need high INT to unlock that option, you need a combined precocious and discipline percentage score of 150%. It's definitely not a measure of intelligence. 🙂 (I'll probably change the stat bonus for the traits you get from them again.)

Thank you haha, please indulge me. Have a nice day! And lastly I can't believe this whole time I've been holding back and for what? I thought you just weren't taking asks / were busy, hope to see more of you ^^

Hehe, I love answering asks, so feel free to send me more! Just give me any excuse to talk about my project really. Definitely do so for other authors as well! I'm sure they'll appreciate it, and that I'm not the only one feeling this way.

[autumnblogs]

Day 9: Troll Time

Time to get trolled.

https://homestuck.com/story/1527

This is the first of the events that I’ve noticed enough to talk about in Homestuck that alludes to the Alpha Kids. While Roxy on the other side of the scratch is the one actually responsible for the disappearance of Jaspers and the Pumpkins, at this point in the story, we have some pretty good suspects for exactly who disappeared both of them.

I could see myself guessing that Jade’s penpal is one of the trolls, but it wouldn’t be my first guess. I’m going to pay close attention to all of the events on one side of the scratch that are caused by the other side of the scratch, because my theory is that a Scratched Universe, more than anything else, is really terminated rather than truly being retroactively erased. Too much doesn’t make sense from a causal perspective (not necessarily from a temporally linear one) if a scratched universe is actually erased entirely, or even if it is closed off from the rest of existence - why can information enter and leave a Scratched Universe at all from an outside perspective, for example?

Are Side A Side B teleporters, appearifiers, and so on and so on, loopholes? Maybe it has something to do with the nature of Void, the Furthest Ring, and their seeming exclusion from the rules the rest of Paradox Space is required to follow.

The Doylist answer, which in Homestuck is also allowed to be the Watsonian answer, might be that while a Scratched Universe is *materially* erased, information about it is still permitted to propagate through narrative contrivances such as the author. Fenestrated planes can easily be considered narrative contrivances, but if we use this as our theory, it seems like Appearifiers and Sendificators would also have to be Narrative Contrivances (which I’m going to spell with a capital NC from here on out.) I... actually don’t have a problem with this hypothesis, so it’s what I’m going with. Also, since a friend of mine who’s reading this liveblog asked, I’m going to post a link to the tvtropes article on those two terms at the start of this paragraph for anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

Perhaps, given the proclivity for the Void to preserve lost information in the form of dreams and memories, and given the nature of Space as the medium through which events normally propagate (as well as the fundamental medium of storytelling from which all other storytelling mediums derive their medium-ness), and their proximity on the Aspect Wheel, Narrative Contrivances are objects which have are shared between these two domains - as objects associated with the Void, Narrative Contrivances are permitted to follow their own set of rules which to someone outside of the universe are obvious, but to anyone inside the universe are a complete black box, and as objects associated with Space, Narrative Contrivances function as a means by which to propagate information in such a way as to preserve causality, the logical topology of Paradox Space, and with them, the self-fulfilling nature of Paradox Space. They allow the world-line of objects travelling through the narrative to remain consistent, even when they would violate material geographical conventions.

This description of Narrative Contrivances makes me think a lot of things could be Narrative Contrivances, like First Guardians, for example, who can violate the speed of light.

This is all a lot of silly bullshit, but it’s fun to come up with theories to describe and predict Homestuck (and future Homestuck works, even though I’m not terribly invested in them.)

This has been a long Cold Open. More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/1529

John gets cyberbullied!

Man. Cyberbullying has really gone from being an individual concern to being an apocalyptic issue. Who knew? Maybe in writing the trolls and their cyberbullying as being inextricable from the apocalypse, Andrew Hussie predicted this.

I’m not trying to understate John’s issues by comparing them to stuff like massive social media disinformation campaigns - receiving Death Threats as a thirteen year old is terrifying, and on a general level, the fact that this kind of horrible shit was commonplace in the earliest days of social media should have been a big indicator that what was yet to come was going to be so, so much worse.

I’m also not trying to jocularly exaggerate the threat that almost completely lawless social media has on society. If you haven’t already, check out the excellent documentary The Social Dilemma, and then delete your Facebook account if you haven’t already (and since you’re reading my extremely anti-capitalist anti-patriarchy liveblog on tumblr, you’ve probably already done that. If you have, good for you!) And your twitter for good measure, come on, you know who you are. Mabe your tumblr too while you’re at it.

Cyberbullying is part of a larger theme in Homestuck, another one of those things that it’s Capital A About. As a work that is not only about growing up, but specifically about growing up in the information age, Homestuck is repeatedly about the ways that Social Media don’t just bring us together, but keep us apart from one another. Cyberbullying is one of the effects of Social Media pushing people apart - it’s so, so much easier to threaten to kill someone when you don’t have to look them in the eye while you’re doing it, and when you have the anonymity of a string of alphanumeric characters as a name to hide behind.

https://homestuck.com/story/1537

The Black Queen is a very bad woman. It’s always intrigued me that the Queens allow their counterparts’ agents free movement through their territory like this even on the eve (or the advent?) of full-scale war between their kingdoms. PM is just allowed to wander around Derse unsupervised.

I suppose that if even God and Satan can afford each other a bit of token civility while discussing the fates of sinners, so can Prospitians and Dersites.

https://homestuck.com/story/1542

@zeetheus​ John’s definitely proceeds Rose’s bluh.

Rose sips her Mom’s martini for the same reason that she later falls prey to alcoholism. Trying to grow up without help, Rose interprets the martini as a symbol of parental authority, the same way that she interprets the partaking of beverages in general as being a ritual of intimacy with her Mother. Empty signifiers.

https://homestuck.com/story/1549

Jack Noir’s grating voice is so outrageously distracting that it prevents itself as an intrusive thought in the Narrative for PM.

Actually, come to think of it, *all* of the Carapacians talk pretty much exclusively via narration. I wonder if that’s representative of an altered relationship with their narrative reality, which is the first time ever I’ve had that thought pretty much at all.

I always just chalked it up to one of the quirks of Andrew’s writing style, but especially when we take into account the fact that Homestuck is as metanarrative as it is, and that Carapacians are the only characters in Homestuck Proper who interface with the narrative prompt except for the audience, Andrew, and Caliborn himself, I can’t help but wonder. Maybe as living gaming abstractions, in spite of their limited intelligence and abilities, Carapacians have a unique relationship with the narrative laws of Paradox Space (perhaps in the same way that Narrative Contrivances do?)

https://homestuck.com/story/1569

Riffing a little more on the “Fetch Modus as analogous to thought processes” motif previously introduced, Jade’s excellent visualization abilities and vivid imagination serve her well as a Space Player, but tend to misfire, running wild, and seeing patterns where they don’t exist (intrusive thoughts make her see Johnny 5 in her Eclectic Bass and whatever the fuck mecha she’s about to accidentally imagine, I don’t know, I’m not a weeb.) Jade sure does think about robots a lot.

https://homestuck.com/story/1579

I have to say, I consider Terezi’s manipulative abilities to be genuinely pretty strong. I have never known a better way to strongarm me than by pointing out traits that I don’t know whether I feel good or bad about - it just terminates my thought processes.

Although in John’s case, it helps that he is, in fact, a weenie, a stooge, and most importantly, a nice guy. All these facts make him extra manipulatable.

https://homestuck.com/story/1584

<3

I have no reason to believe everyone in Homestuck’s universe isn’t stupidly badass, but I choose to believe that no one is as stupidly badass as the leads because it makes me happy to imagine that these kids are just ridiculously OP superhumans.

(That said, it’s kind of fucked up the level of violence that these literal children are involved in, maybe I shouldn’t get so excited about it. Should we be enthusiastic about the kids’ triumph over their dangerous enemies? Horrified by the travails they are being put through? Probably both motherfuckin’ things.

https://homestuck.com/story/1588

I think about this page a lot.

Rose Lalonde is a very dangerous young lady. She is ruthless, pragmatic, calculating, and cool. She’s even a killer, and literally just killed two imps before fighting this Ogre!

Why is she choosing to show mercy to it now? Is she just trying to get Dave’s goat? Maybe the answer is, deep down, she doesn’t really want to hurt anyone or anything.

https://homestuck.com/story/1589

Kanaya and Dave have a great relationship and I love them as friends very much. I wish dearly that there was more of them in the webcomic. They have approximately the same relationship with authenticity, which is to say that they don’t have an insincere bone in their respective bodies, but practice insincerity nonetheless to impress someone they care about.

For Kanaya relating to Rose, I think it’s a lot more innocent.

https://homestuck.com/story/1590

The least eloquent character in Homestuck has his brief, and I’m pretty sure only encounter with the most eloquent character in Homestuck.

Poor, poor Tavros. While Rose is pretty much always on this level, it seems a lot more innocuous when she’s talking to her friends, or the more mean-spirited and (relatively) competent trolls, the way she treats Tavros almost feels like bullying because of how obviously pathetic he is.

That said, he turns right around, and invokes exactly what’s coming to him. Y’know as much as Tavros is an authentic abuse victim and Vriska gaslights him into thinking a lot of the bad things that happen to him are his fault, there are a lot of times where he does stupid shit that invokes the justifiable wrath of the people around him.

https://homestuck.com/story/1592

While I could pontificate about the fact that Kanaya and Rose are my favorite couple, and squee enthusiastically, instead I will call attention to the fact that, by way of mixing her metaphors, Kanaya has been the victim of an authorial pun - she’s a Fruit Ninja. (Unless Fruit Ninja didn’t exist at the time of writing? It may very well not have.)

https://homestuck.com/story/1596

As the Page of Breath, Tavros sucks at communicating. Here, he sucks at communicating because in spite of his objectively pretty sick rhymes... he is talking to someone who just can’t be arsed.

https://homestuck.com/story/1602

This is one of those absurd moments that at first blush seems meaningless, but I think helps to decipher the kinds of things that John Egbert cares about. It’s one of the moments where he ritualizes an action that one of his heroes takes - John Egbert thinks that Nic Cage is cool, and wants to be like him, so he roleplays Nic Cage for a little while.

https://homestuck.com/story/1603

We’ve barely met the trolls, and they are *already* using the humans as a convenient method to troll each other instead of staying on task.

Karkat also establishes his love of RomComs before his introduction even rolls around.

https://homestuck.com/story/1618

Conceding ground to implacable enemies is generally the correct means to win in Homestuck, usually by getting them to destroy themselves or each other purely by their own unsustainably wicked or stupid conduct. Only a being as powerful as Lord English is sufficient to destroy the Significance-hoarding antagonist that is Vriska, as she threatens to overshadow everyone else in the universe by her own inflated self-importance. Only Vriska, so arbitrarily lucky, could possibly get into position to destroy Lord English. They were made for each other. They deserve each other.

One of my favorite dialogues in the whole comic. Man, I sure love Act 4. There’s something indescribable about the dialogue Andrew writes for this part of the comic. Homestuck at its best whiplashes from silly to scary to heartbreaking to heartwarming, and back to silly again, from beautiful to ugly, and I don’t think that even Act 5, as it piles up layers upon layers, well past the number of parts needed to make a whole, captures the essence of Homestuck as well as does Act 4.

Homestuck is different in every part, of course, and for everyone who says that Act 4 is peak Homestuck you will meet someone who says that Acts 1 through 3 were peak Homestuck, or who says that Act 5 was Peak Homestuck, or that Act 6 was Peak Homestuck. I do not mean to demean any portion of the work by saying that Act 4 is my favorite. The things I like in Homestuck the most are just the most themselves in this portion of the story.

https://homestuck.com/story/1627

I’m feeling less and less intelligent as I read more and more of Homestuck, because honestly, my theories read less like honest-to-god insights, and more like somebody who just wasn’t paying any fucking attention. Here, Jade spells out basically what I’ve been saying.

https://homestuck.com/story/1640

We’ll pause here for the evening. Reading was a little sparse today, but it’s a good place to leave off, especially since for some of these I wrote just stacks of theorizing.

Until tomorrow, Cam signing off, Mostly alive except for a bit of a cough, and not alone.

[spnfanficpond]

September 2019 Pond LiveChat Recap

We had a great time chatting with @manawhaat today! Thank you so much for joining us, even though you were busy!!

Today, a bunch of us got together and talked about inspiration and writer’s block! We all had good ideas that were discussed! A rundown of the chat, as well as general Pond news, is below the cut!

To start us off, Mana shared a link to this ask that was recently presented to the Pond. The question was that a professor said that there was no such thing as a muse or writer’s block. The answers given by some of our Big Fish are terrific! All seem to agree that the ideas of a muse and writer’s block are valid, no matter what you call them. Digging beneath the surface to ask what is causing the writer’s block or the inspiration can help to get you past what’s stopping you and get you writing, again.

@mrswhozeewhatsis (Michelle)shared a link to a tweet by Robbie Thompson. She had asked him for tips on getting inspired or getting past blocks when the words just don’t want to flow. He responded by saying, “write from emotion: what scares you, angers you, etc. and make writing a habit. sit down once a day, same time if you can & just get to work. got nothing? write until it comes. inspiration is great but not always reliable.”

When looking for ideas from other famously prolific writers, this post from Neil Gaiman came up. In it, Mr. Gaiman says that blaming writer’s block gives you something to blame, but it’s usually a combination of laziness, perfectionism and getting stuck. He goes on to encourage writers to not accept writer’s block as a insurmountable thing and figure out the cause so you can get past it.

@mostly-shawn (Maayan): My professor's take on writer's block is that writer's block doesn't exist because there's no such thing as "not knowing". What we call "writer's block" is simply being distracted by other things like shopping lists and to-do lists and everything else, so in order to overcome "writer's block" you just need to sit and write everything that's in your head and clear out your brain space to allow yourself access to the idea. And in terms of muse, she doesn't believe in muse because no work is perfect on the first draft and because it's not perfect, you can't have had a muse.

If anyone wants to read her book it's called "To Tell The Truth" and it's about how to write creative nonfiction. Obviously, that's not what we're all in the business of, but it's a good read for all genres.

Everyone seemed to agree that this professor has a strange view on muse, but she’s got a point about writer’s block. A muse can be anything that inspires you to write, and nothing anyone ever writes is perfect right out of the gate, so her perfection theory makes no sense to us. Mana disagreed with part of her thoughts on writer’s block, though.

Mana: I think she has a point of clearing your head in order to get into your 'writing groove' but insisting that there isn't such a thing as 'not knowing' sounds ridiculous to me, specifically, a person who has not known what she wanted to do with a certain rpf fic for over 4 years.

@katehuntington mentioned that sometimes she feels like she knows exactly what she wants to write, but when she sits down, the words just won’t come. She can’t get them down. Michelle said her Fibromyalgia sometimes causes similar cognitive difficulties. The words just aren’t there. (If anyone has read Rob Benedict’s chapter in Family Don’t End With Blood, the feeling is described there beautifully.) 

Michelle: Physical and mental issues can definitely affect creativity. When you're struggling to do the basic activities of daily living, creativity is not your body's priority.

Q: So, what do you guys do when you hit a block?

Kate: Accept it. LOL. I take a lot of inspiration out of what I've written already, if that makes sense. I revisit stories, go over what made those work. And I read back on the feedback I had from readers too. Those can be super inspiring.

Maayan: Yeah, I basically just say "alrighty then" and continue on with my life and push the work as far out of my head as possible.

Mana: Write some flaming garbage. (Michelle added, “Crap makes good compost.”) I get through as much as I can, plot wise. if I'm stuck between point b and c, but know where I'm going from point d to e then I just put down anything I might want to happen between point b and c and then move on. There is no rule that says writing needs to happen in a linear form so if I get stuck, I move on.

Michelle: I once heard Robbie Thompson talk about writing at a seminar, and he said that if he's really stuck, he'll take a walk, get outside, get some fresh air, clear his head. Just change his scenery, really. Did you know that when you move from one room to another, your brain kind of ties off the thought you had in the first room and opens up another thread in the second room? It's why so many people arrive in a room and then forget why they're there. (This is why carrying something from one room to the next can help you remember why you're in that second room.) Sometimes, that's what you need. Make your brain jump out of the rut it was in. Write in a different room, on a different medium (paper instead of tablet, tablet instead of computer, etc)

Mana: I haven't tried writing on a different medium, unless you count someone else's computer instead of your own, but the change of scenery does help. listening to different music instead of your usual tunes helps. 

Maayan: I think better when I pace so when if I'm trying to figure out a storyline I pace, but when I have the storyline but I can't make my fingers do the word thing on the magical typing box I'm just stuck for good usually. (A suggestion was made that she could try speech-to-text software to help her get past that!) Mana records voice notes to her phone to be transcribed later.

Kate and Michelle both said that having ideas isn’t the problem for them, most of the time. The problem is usually having the focus to sit down and translate them to paper.

Mana: Watching a movie you know well enough to tune in and out of is a big one for me. Literally any time I NEED to do something in my life, I put on Pride and Prejudice bc I know the film so well and love the score, but it's my ultimate focus movie. I can tune out and write or file taxes or whatever the fuck and tune back in for him to hold her hand helping her in the carriage and then tune back out and repeat this process while the movie plays 6 times in a row.

Michelle: I can't have anything else playing. No music, no TV, no nothing. However, I've discovered that a lava lamp does wonders! When we lived in our apartment in Chicago, I had a great view of the planes coming into O'Hare, and it was an east-facing view, so I saw the sunrise after a long night of writing so many times. My creativity dropped way down when we moved and I no longer had a view to stare at. So, I bought a glitter lava lamp. I love staring into that thing. And then I put up twinkling fairy lights over my desk. Something about that got me going, again. 

Maayan: I use my fish and snail as a lava lamp with the same effect.

Q: What do you do when you’re in the flow, and everything is going great, but you suddenly just stop? You know where you want to go, but you’re suddenly just stuck for no clear reason?

Michelle: I've discovered, and this may not be true for anyone else, but I've discovered that it usually means I've screwed up a little ways back. If I go back to where I last felt like everything was going well, and rethink everything I wrote since then, I've usually made a mistake in that section, and it needs to be rewritten. Whether I've made a character do something that's not in their character, or I've added something (or taken something away) that isn't right, whatever it is, it's in that section. If I just delete it and start writing from the previous good spot, I get going again.

Kate: Yeah. I've read somewhere that when you're stuck, you should go back at least 5 lines and start over. Put those lines away, pick it up again.

Mana: I think that's a big difference between us, Michelle. You can pinpoint a spot where things go awry and back up, cut off what isn't working and restart. I am a stubborn bitch so even if I see that something isn't really working, if I like it even the slightest bit, I refuse to get rid of it or change it. And those are the instances where I 'pick fights' with you and resist your input when you're beta reading for me. Am I the only one that does that? And if so, how are you all able to justify letting go of something that doesn't quite work but you've grown attached to?

Michelle: It’s perfectly okay to set bits aside and use them in other fics! Timestamps. Put it in another fic. Make it a one shot! I cut SO MUCH from Non-Trad, but I loved those parts SO MUCH, and that's how the Timestamps were born. They really didn't fit into the story well. They made it bloated. So I published them separately. Now, finding that I've gone off the rails entirely makes it easier for me to go back and get rid of something.

Q: Tips that we haven’t mentioned, yet?

Kate: Ask for help. Have a beta look it over, or whoever is interested and might be able to add to it.

Michelle: When looking for inspiration, always go back to the source material. It's not lazily, obsessively binge-watching the same show over and over, it's RESEARCH.

Mana: Someone asked what I do to get over it and I said: when I experience writer’s block or when the character I’m trying to write isn’t cooperating with me and I can’t get my brain to function I try to distract myself with something else or another character. Try watching an episode with your character in it, get a refreshed feel of how they move, talk, interact with other characters, draw from the episode or scenarios that you can fill in where the ep didn’t. Or, take ques from other characters, write about someone else for a bit so your mind has a break and time to sort itself out, then go back to what you were working on. 

Another way to get past it is to read other’s work. It may inspire you, make you realize that the story you wanted to tell this way can be told a different way, or give you the kick you need. 

My best answer to this: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

When the block hits and you have zero inspiration or motivation, write about anything and everything. Start reading and watching new things to see if it’ll spark something, check out Tumblr and users you don’t follow to get your eyes on some fresh content, write a dramatic scene of you sitting on the couch to hear the doorbell ring and let the suspense grow until you open it to find a pizza man there when you specifically did not order a pizza. Writing through it may spark something, and if not, my best suggestion would be to read. Read your old stuff and that of others, read a new book, read an article on how to beat writer’s block, read through the writer resources tag at the @spnfanficpond…

Mana also gifted us with these lovely links:

Writer’s block app that won’t let you do anything else until you’ve reached your goal.

A lovely gif beautifully encapsulating exactly how writer’s block feels.

General Pond Updates and Reminders

What we’ve got cooking up next: Not much, at the moment, since everyone is busy, so we’re just trying to keep up with the day-to-day at the moment! Our to do list is still long, though, and will not be neglected forever!

Reminders:

Angel Fish Award nominations are accepted all month long! No need to wait to tell us how much you liked a fellow Fish’s work!  IF YOU HAVE SENT IN A NOMINATION, BUT HAVE NOT RECEIVED A PRIVATE MESSAGE CONFIRMING WE RECEIVED IT, WE DIDN’T GET IT. Be sure to use Submit instead of Ask!

Don’t forget to submit your stories to be posted to the blog! When your stories are on the blog, then they are easier to nominate for Angel Fish Awards!

SPNFanFicPond Season 14 Weekly Episode Challenge - Even though season 15 is just around the corner, these prompts will still always be open for you to use! Remember, there’s no deadline for submissions! Just tag the Pond and @mrswhozeewhatsis in your post!

Say hi to August’s New Members!

Check the Pond CALENDAR to see when Big Fish will be in the Skype chat room/discord general channel and other Pond and SPN events are happening! Know of something that’s not on the calendar, send us an ask or submission with the deets info details!  The calendar offers a lot of features, such as showing you when things are in your own timezone! Since we’re an international group, that’s a definite plus!!

We don’t have a topic or speaker set up for October’s event, yet, so if there’s something you want to talk about, or someone you want to talk to, LET US KNOW!

[eurosong]

My ESC 2019 ranking

Hey there, folks - after a lot of deliberation, I’ve decided upon my ranking of this year’s songs. I feel quite passionately about this year’s field, as always, and make some trenchant remarks, but a lot of them are tongue in cheek, and no shade is intended on those who like the songs I don’t or vice versa. Here’s my ranking with my thoughts on why I put each song where I did.

41. Croatia – The Dream I try to find a redeeming quality in every song, but sometimes the task proves impossible. This ironically-named nightmare of a track sounds like a poorly-produced early 00s track that tried to straddle the line between classic and futuristic and failed at both. The usual things that I hear in its defence are that Roko has a good voice, and that the Croatian segment is better. To the first point, maybe, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that the voice doesn’t shine through the scream mode of most of the song; to the latter point, if you know some BCS, you’ll know that the Croatian language bit is as cloyingly cliché as the English part. Some people are saying that this could be a surprise qualifier. If that happens, I will shed tears of blood.

40. France – Roi If France don’t change their national final system to equalise the jury and televote more after this year, I don’t know when they will. Destination Eurovision had a bunch of good songs, but thanks to the power of a Youtuber’s fanbase, one of the least remarkable and most cloying songs got the nod instead. Roi is an unabashed hymn to self with the most criminal franglais abominations (rhyming beaucoup with boo, really?) to which I’ve ever been subjected.  Now it’s supposedly got a chance of winning thanks to a gimmicky staging, which I feel uses people as props. I wouldn’t even mind the antipathetic performer and cringey, self-centred lyrics so much if the tune were interested, but it’s equally empty and pompous.

39. San Marino – Say na na na Well, this song certainly does get me saying nah, nah, nah. I do not get the amount of good will for it, as I neither find it a good track, nor enjoyable ironically like Who we are or Chain of lights were. It’s a “party track”, but the party in question is the kind I want to flee where the food is bad, the music is obnoxious and overbearing and the ambiance is that of an uncomfortable throwback. Bewildering how this is considered a worthy qualifier.

38. Moldova – Stay I swear Eurovision has songs like this just to be able to detect extra-terrestrials, because if anyone says this song is their favourite, and they’re neither Moldovan nor Romanian, then it confirms to me that they are aliens because this is banality writ large. Three minutes of contradictory and cliché rhymes (“it’s now or never, it’s forever”. Ok then mate), dull music, little progression, an oddly unpleasant vocal and even a staging that comes second-hand.

37. Finland – Look away My impulse is to look away from this song indeed – a dated slice of repetitive, oddly downbeat despite being uptempo EDM slathered with a simultaneously overwrought and undercooked social message and brought to us by an uncomfortable duo who look like two acquaintances whose fishing trip got interrupted abruptly and they had to cook up a Eurovision song last minute. There is nothing about this I like at all.

36. Israel – Home The one faintly interesting thing about this song is the remarkable wailing in its first few seconds, but they removed even that. This has to be one of the most maudlin songs I have ever heard, delivered gratingly. A friend of mine nicknamed Kobi the “Joystealer”, and the name is very apt. I feel like all the joy in the world is out of reach when listening to this lament, which is syrupy and bitter at the same time, like a coarse cough medicine. The “I am someone” has to be one of the most cloying lines of the entire year, too.

35. Estonia – Storm Estonia having to resort to sending a croaky renta-Swede to sing a budget Avicii b-side in front of a Windows XP screensaver with lyrics that imaginatively rhyme “this” with, well, “this” is like seeing someone who had always dressed elegantly having to resort to sporting torn, worn, ill-fitting hand-me-downs that were already out of fashion when bought first hand. This land of song and art can and should be doing so much better.

34. Montenegro – Heaven The fact this ironically infernal song is not just not bottom but also almost avoided my bottom 10 just goes to show how deep the bottom is this year. Sounds like Podgorica’s 56th best sixth form choir got some cassette tapes of bad late 90s R&B-lite, got a donation of a dodgy Casio keyboard and, at the last minute, got their granddad to do a bit of fiddling, mixed it all together and the result was this chaötic hot mess on ice. It’s a shame, because these kids seem genuinely nice, and they don’t deserve to be lumbered with the albatross around their neck of this song and the resultant cast iron “last in the semi” result it will achieve.

33. Switzerland – She got me There’s little separating the female attempt at a duego and the male one for me. Luca radiates a smug energy that annoys me more, but the song is a smidgen less generic, but then using the same dancers as from Fuego made the decision easier. I’m not sure what she got him, but it certainly wasn’t a grammar book, as the song is filled with bizarrely affected ungrammatical English, because I guess it’s uncool to properly conjugate.

32. Cyprus – Replay It seems almost self-parodising that Cyprus lamely returned to try to catch lightning in the same jar with a song that is entitled, and feels like, a giant replay. Fuego was an encapsulation of many things I really don’t like at Eurovision – a lyrically empty song with limited musical merit or memorability that got a lot further than it would off the basis, mostly, of staging. This year, the staging is worse and the performer is less charismatic. If it does as well, I will be astounded.

31. Norway – Spirit in the sky What if Aqua came back – perish the thought – and, for their comeback single, took a rejected b-side from the late 90s of theirs in their typical bubblegum style, but injected it with a dreadful attempt at joik and an aesthetic inspired by their newfound animal spirits? It would sound something like this bizarre Norwegian song, whose victory over En livredd mann still bewilders me. It’s a bit infectious, but so are many diseases, and part of the reason that it buries itself into your mind is because of its pretty flagrant lifting of last year’s “Monsters”’ chorus, which in itself was all too familiar. One of the year’s biggest cringefests for me.

30. Lithuania – Run with the lions Take a guy most noted until now for screeching in the world’s worst falsetto whilst pretending not to sing, while a drag act that barely qualified as a baroness let alone a queen wás pretending to sing, also badly. Give him a song that advocates running alongside large carnivores who’d probably find humans an attractive snack. That combination should at least be interesting, but it’s one of the dullest propositions of the year. The only real interesting thing is that dodgy falsetto making a reappearance. It’s pleasant enough but forgotten instantly.

29. Russia – Scream Russia confined themselves to a few fruitless years in the desert with the Samojlova charade, and now they look to return to ESC superpower status by bringing back the guy who won them the public vote back in 2016. Their logic in trying to go one step further, though, was rather flawed. Concentrating on winning over the juries, they took for granted that the public was going to enjoy this rather melodramatic effort as much as they did You are the only one. I doubt they will, and I doubt the jury will be much swayed from last time. Musically, its orchestral touches represent a step up from YATOO for me, but it is let down by the emo lyrics and some bombastic staging.

28. Belarus – Like it When I first heard this song, where “you gonna like it” is repeated approximately 14 thousand times, my first impression was “no, I certainly am not going to.” It’s a bizarre stream of non-sequiturs dolled up with a technicolour assault to the eyes. I’ve softened to it somewhat, in part because of a reimagining of the lyrics as being a call for help after getting drafted into Eurovision by Lukaszenka, but I’ll still be stunned if it qualifies.

27. United Kingdom – Bigger than us I had a Freudian slip a few days ago when writing the “Undo my ESC” post – I wrote “Bigger than us” as “Better than us”. A fair swathe of the year’s field very much is more remarkable than this anodyne X factor winner’s single which seems to be aiming for 19th rather than first. Michael is a likeable character, but unfortunately that doesn’t come across too much in his live performance, most notable for him flapping around his arms as though they were on fire.

26. Iceland – Hatrið mun sigra Musically, there are elements of this that are really up my street. Decent throwbacks are rare, but the 80s’ techno ambience of the track is pretty good. I just wish it were not accompanied with a disdainful hauteur and the OTT attitude of a bunch of sophomore arts students who’ve just discovered irony. The last thing the world needs now is more hate, ironic or not.

25. Sweden – Too late for love Sweden made one step in the right direction this year – they’ve sent a man rather than an overgrown embryo, and someone with a bit more humility than Grosso last year. It’s a much better song for me than the past two attempts, but that’s not saying much – manufactured gospel has little soul, and there’s a charisma chasm here only partially filled by drafting in American mammas to sell the song as something more than what it is.

24. Poland – Pali się This is one that I wish I liked more. It’s middle of the pack for me. I like the fact that there are clear heritage influences but find the song itself to be rather too linear and the voices too shrill – and I am a fan of white voice.

23. Macedonia – Proud I had high hopes for Macedonia as I adored their artist, Tamara’s, imperious Brod što tone back in Skopjefest 2014 – a song that frankly got robbed of representing Macedonia. Where BST was subtle and poëtic in its message, Proud, which I regret wasn’t in Macedonian also, is rather too much on the nose for me and sounds a little like a charity single. This is augmented by the rather basic video which reminded me a little too much of Bebe’s “Ella.” Nonetheless, it’s a nice composition and well sung.

22. Spain – La venda Spain this year had a selection that they called “eurotemazos”. It’s difficult to translate, but Eurobangers, smashes or hits all carry a shade of the meaning. As soon as I heard that, I knew it was an ill omen, and indeed, the list of songs was full of bad attempts at bops and a few soporific ballads-by-computer. La venda was the best of a bad lot. Miki has energy but the song is completely inconsequential.

21. Germany – Sister Germany have once again invited disaster by inviting Chaosmeisterin, Barbara “Wild Eyes” Schönberger back to compère the national final. The end result was this inexperienced wildcard (when will you ever learn, Germany?) clinching the win with two gals who’d never met before this year singing about sisterhood in a group called S!sters with their song Sister. This is hotly tipped for last place in the final, but I feel it has sóme merit. The verses, and especially the bridge, are lovely, and seem to be building to something great – until we get a really generic, squawked chorus where the two non-sisters try to outshriek one another.

20. Australia – Zero gravity I’ll never get over the fact that we could have had something truly Australian in all senses of the word for once, and instead we got this. It’s catchy but repetitive and rather gimmicky, and I lament that it will qualify over better songs thanks to a rather cringey staging gimmick.

19. Belgium – Wake up This truly is a musical coitus interruptus. The moody verses get you in the mood, building a sense of urgency and direction, only for everything to get abandoned without warning with a very dreary, incongruous chorus. “City Lights” this ain’t, and it’s a shame, as it’s still decent, but could have been so much more satisfying.

18. Czechia – Friend of a friend Some countries take decades to find their niche at the contest. It seems like Czechia has found theirs in the space of a year and a bit, and found a particularly narrow niche. Field a cutesy lad with a retro-inspired, somewhat catchy but also somewhat problematic song inspired by infidelity. Last year’s “Lie to me” was written from the perspective of the cheated; this year’s, from a potential cheater who spends half the song listening with his girlfriend to his neighbours having noisy sex and the other half protesting he barely knows the female neighbour anymore. Truly weird.

17. Denmark – Love is forever This song reminds me of one time I was by the seaside and got offered to try a freakshake. It was one of the most OTT sweetest things I’ve ever had in my life. I enjoyed it, but it’s something I could only enjoy on an annual basis. This song is much the same. It’s bringing the Gallic cuteness where France failed, and the fact Leonora looks into your soul unnervingly whilst singing just adds more interest to the song for me.

16. Azerbaijan – Truth Azerbaijan bring a halfway decent song for the 2nd time so far, by my count. This is nowhere as near as good as “Skeletons”, but still strong. I like the atypical lyrical matter and the fact that the Symphonix crew created something contemporary but wearing Azeri traditional influences on its sleeve. The unplugged version of this is even better.

15. Netherlands – Arcade Perhaps I would enjoy this more were it not for the intense amount of hype, the hubristic arrogance of many people in thinking the win is already in the bag, and the amount of condescending barbs flung my way on other corners of the net for not considering this some transcendental masterpiece that deserves to win more than any other song. It’s not in the same league as the oft-compared, timeless Amar pelos dois for me. It’s a nice, heartfelt song – albeit one that relies too much on a head voice that I find rather unappealing – and it has a few clever turns of phrase, but I will never understand why this one has been singled out when there are several songs I consider more moving in this final.

14. Georgia – Sul tsin iare This song has really grown on me. It has an incredible, almost scary intensity and was written on an epic, orchestral scale. It feels like the music to the climax of a war film. I felt what it meant before I understood the Georgian. I particularly love the chorus backing Oto and the staging that matches the song’s drama.

13. Hungary – Az én apam I expected a lot of things from a Joci Papai return, and this song only delivers some of them, but it’s a song worthy of enjoying in its own right. If Origo was fire and had an undercurrent of hurt, Az én apam is water, but is warm in its own right. It’s a nostalgic song with the same poetry I expected of Joci.

12. Latvia – That night Latvia’s song has been criticised for not being very impactful, and it isn’t, but therein lies its charm. It’s a low-key, saudadic effort that beautifully occupies three minutes. It is the kind of track I imagine listening to whilst, and which makes me imagine as a result, driving down a long, lonely road at night in the rain. It’s hushed, it’s delicate, and it sounds to me like petrichor smells.

11. Greece – Better love Greece is sending something very atypical from them, almost as an allergic reaction to doing so badly with the more ostensibly ethnic “Oneiro mou” last year. I’d be disappointed, but this is really quite good indeed, a very professional and rounded effort that has produced a soaring, anthemic song. Katerine’s voice has a beautiful, dark and deep huskiness that imbues a certain quality too. My only problem with this song are the careless lyrics that seem like a compilation of Instagram clichés.

10. Ireland – 22 My dear Ireland sneaks into my top 10 for the first time in a few years thanks to a full-on earworm of a song that has become one of my most played tracks this year. This song is very simple, but sometimes unassuming simplicity is elegant. It’s got a retro, blue-eyed soul feel and is at once nostalgic and catchy. It deserved a lot better than the slot of death to which Björkman consigned it.

09. Malta – Chameleon Malta getting into my top 10 for the first time since 2014, with a song that is even more contrary to our expectations of Maltese songs than “Tomorrow” was. This song is aptly named, as it is an explosion of colour – not just in the clever video, but also, the music itself is so vibrant and fun. The only part I don’t like is the rather cliché bridge, because both the drop-based chorus, the slow build of the verses and the exuberant post-chorus are really good. GIVE ME X I’M A Y is one of the lyrical memes of the year and is infectious. From beige to a rainbow; well done, Malta.

08. Slovenia – Sebi Slovenia are on the money for the second year in a row. Whilst “Hvala ne” was an in your face, high-octane buzz of a song, this year, we’ve gone in the completely opposite direction: a very contemplative, intimate song that imbues a sense of peace and harmony. What they do have in common is some of the best lyrics of the year. In Sebi’s case, the text is graceful in its effortless simplicity and minimalism. It feels like the only thing that matters during those 3 minutes for the song’s performers are each other, which creates a particular atmosphere indeed.

07. Albania – Ktheju tokës When I heard the venerable Festival i këngës, Albania’s selection process, was essentially going to revamp itself, I was worried that it would lose its magic, but in the end, I needn’t have so much. For the second year running, the best song by far won – a song full of dramatic potential. Thank heavens they left the song in the wonderful mellifluous Albanian language and did not dig out the song’s heart with a needless revamp. I hope Shqipëria can keep this trend and momentum up. Ktheju tokës is a heartrending song about immigration and divided families, inspired by true experience, and performed with power and style by the enigmatic Jonida.

06. Armenia – Walking out Another country for whom I have a lot of time at the contest is Armenia, who always tend to bring something different to the show. I was initially a bit confused by their effort this year because of its abrupt stops between different parts of the song which at first sounded rather jarring. Now, this, and the great variation in tone and style between the verses, the gentle bridge and the ferocious choruses are part of what make the song for me. Srbuk has charisma and a fierce set of pipes. All these elements have made Walking out one of the major earworms of the year for me.

05. Austria – Limits The first time I heard this, I was underwhelmed. It’s a nice song, but it is lacking a bit in instant impact. Nonetheless, something about it demanded repeated listens; with each one, my appreciation for this confessional, Kate Bush-inspired slice of heartrending emotion grew exponentially. I am hoping that the live performance will give it the instancy it needs to bring to life how exceptionally good a song this is. It’s up there with the very best in terms of the lyrics. It’s so personal, so intimate, so searing and one of the most underrated tracks of the year. 04. Serbia – Kruna Pretty much everyone who knows my ESC predilections knows I am a huge fan of Serbia. They generally stick with their own language, and bring songs that highlight their rich musical traditions. My support isn’t categorical – I despised “Beauty never lies” and felt let down by last year’s style pastiche, though I felt Balkanika were wonderful contestants – so this year, I was relieved to see them back at the height of their powers with an unassumingly lovely ballad, performed with power and purpose by the mesmerising Nevena. It’s a song of few words, and it feels like every single one was weighed out carefully to pack the most meaning. Delightful.

03. Romania – On a Sunday One of the biggest surprises of the season for me has been Romania. I had no interest in their national selection, and was nonplussed when this won, albeit grateful that it beat two truly dreadful frontrunners. My first impression was that it was an odd but catchy song, and that it was weird and a little funny how the grown woman singing it seemed to throw a tantrum in the middle of the performance. Something about it made me listen again, and again, and again – and then the amazingly theatrical and imaginative video came out, which added to my appreciation even more. It’s a really emotional song, which somehow invigorates rather than saddens me, perhaps because of the bewitching power of Ester’s performance. She delivers this with an unbelievable intensity and has such a singular voice. I fear for its chances because it’s not the most accessible song – but I really hope this will at least qualify.

02. Portugal – Telemóveis I remember my first reäction to this well. I was confused and a little perturbed – it seemed like the rantings of a madman over highly dissonant, if rather bewitching, music. It stuck in my head, though, and very soon, the confusion grew into appreciation and then full on love for probably the most singular, sui generis offering of the entire year. This is a song that sounds timeless but futuristic; that could not have been composed by any other country, but which blends influence of fado with sounds from the subcontinent, the near and far east and what seem to be other planets. The text – all too often dismissed as “lol he’s singing about cellphones, how random lmao” – is a deep, introspective, metaphorical look at mortality that is gushing with saudade. The fact that this, the most forward-thinking proposal of 2019, might not even qualify is scandalous; it should be in it to win it.

01. Italy – Soldi As much as I adore Telemóveis, there’s a song that I love even more. The first time I saw Soldi performed live, it was like a punch to the gut in the best possible way. This song about a deadbeat dad and how money can tear a family apart is just one example of how Italy is brimming with exceptional lyricists. I’d translate some of my favourite lyrics, but firstly, I find every line to be powerfully moving, and secondly, the English can’t quite do justice to the perfectly measured rhythm and cadence of the original as well as the emotion. On top of that, musically, it’s one of the freshest tracks of the year, with super modern production but symphonic touches. Who thinks of making a trap-inspired song, but with an orchestra? Italy, that is who, and I so, so hope they finish this barnstormer of a decade for them with a much awaited win.

[killthebxy]

Meta on show!Jon leaving the Watch versus how you see it happening for your Jon, and what he feels about the Watch after?

//@zcldrizes

          i’m going to need a deep breath before this one… because this is probably the scene i loathe the most in the entire show, which is saying a lot. so let me start with my watch is ended and why i can never ever envision Jon saying anything like this in the way he did.

          for context, what just happened at this point? the mutiny happened (and in the show, as opposed to the books, it was a thoroughly premeditated event), Jon was brought back to life, and now the first thing he has to deal with —as still the acting lord commander— is the fate of the traitors. which is linear enough, as the penalty for treason is death. with all this, the show is not wrong in assuming Jon feels utterly betrayed and abandoned by the men who are supposed to be his family and brothers, and it’s only human to want to hide under his bed at this point and never come out again. where did the show go so wrong, then? precisely, in the manner which Jon expresses the storm of negative emotions he’s feeling. let me quote what he says to Edd right after the execution, when he hands over the black cloak and Edd asks what to do with it:

wear it. burn it. whatever you want. you have Castle Black. my watch is ended.

          if D&D had the goal of completely butchering everything Jon Snow is in 15 words, wow, props to them. they absolutely nailed it. let me go through this step by step. 

          wear it. burn it. Jon suggesting that the very symbol of the Night’s Watch be burned. this boy (man, in the show, but i can’t look at him and not see that 16-17 year old boy at the end of ADWD) who spent the past couple years of his life trying to restore the Watch as well as he could, who ranged with Qhorin Halfhand, who infiltrated Mance’s camp for the sake of collecting information and return in order to save the Watch. the boy/man who gave up on Ygritte for the sake of the Night’s Watch is suddenly suggesting that his black cloak should be burned. i don’t think i have to add anything else, but — also, remember how Jon held (and holds) Jeor Mormont in such high regard? yeah, that’s Jon basically saying to burn the symbol of the lord commander. a man he saw as a father figure. a man who was betrayed himself at Craster’s Keep and, had he survived it, would have returned to Castle Black and continued caring for his men and leading them and never give up on everything like this.

          you have Castle Black. again, i’m going to bring up book canon because at least book canon knows what it’s doing. and in book canon, Jon does not almost volunteer to take the Wall during Mance’s attack, as he does in the show (and note that one episode in s04 was one of my favorites of all time and was wonderfully well made from a technical and special effects point of view, but alas at expense of matters that reach far deeper) — it’s basically dumped on him by Donal Noye, as he realizes he must go down to the gate and hold it against Mag the Mighty. let me quote: “Jon, you have the Wall till i return.” for a moment Jon thought he had misheard. it had sounded as if Noye were leaving him in command. “my lord?” “lord? i’m a blacksmith. i said, the Wall is yours.” there are older men, Jon wanted to say, better men. i am still as green as summer grass. i’m wounded, and i stand accused of desertion. his mouth had gone bone dry. “aye,” he managed. — does this sound to you like a boy who wanted to be entrusted with any of this? and friendly reminder that at this point he was likely 15 years old, 16 at most? which is, exactly, why he would never use the words “you have Castle Black” in such a banal manner. because he knows what this means — he knows what it’s like, to command a total of 19 castles AND not to mention with winter at their door — AND it’s even more serious in the show, considering Jon went to Hardhome and saw the Night King and witnessed firsthand what that creature is capable of and the power that stands with the armies of the dead. there is absolutely no way Jon would just shove this at Edd to deal with while he walks away so candidly. again, we’re talking of someone who did not abandon his duty not even when that cost him the love of his life, and i’m gonna fight Mr. Daniel B. Weiss and Mr. David Benioff into infinity about this.

          my watch is ended. and here i am, face to face with my nemesis. admittedly, also because everyone knows how fond i am of lord commander Jon, but i feel like, after everything i mentioned in the past two topics, there’s not much left to add. i’m even willing to accept that, in the spur of the moment, Jon might have decided he’s done with everything and doesn’t want to fight for the realm anymore and that he would indeed leave the Watch — and use these words, which are reserved for a black brother after his death. which, in his case, literally happened. i can accept this, whether or not i like it. but, again — it’s all in the way it was conducted. the way Jon says what he says before, and then just… spits these words out. like the Night’s Watch means nothing to him. like he arrived there two weeks ago and nothing major ever happened. THIS is what i cannot forgive the show for, and THIS is my huge problem with this whole thing. because i can accept Jon abandoning the Night’s Watch aka his duty based on an emotional decision when he’s feeling completely lost and alone and betrayed — but i cannot and will never accept him treating the Night’s Watch, the same Night’s Watch that gave him a purpose in life and harbored men such as Benjen Stark and Jeor Mormont and maester Aemon and Donal Noye and Samwell Tarly and Qhorin Halfhand (among others), like it never meant anything to him.

          so… tl;dr — while i am admittedly miffed that the show made Jon abandon my favorite role for him and the one i personally believe suits him best, what really bugs me beyond words is how he was portrayed as someone who doesn’t give a crap about honor and duty at the end of the day, and D&D are gonna do this over my dead body turned to a wight.

          now, as for the second half of your ask — and jesus, i’ve already rambled so much but i am not done yet! as for the way i see this moment happening, and basically how i have headcanoned and re-written this train wreck, i think it’s best if i use excerpts of one of my threads with @longmayshereign-cersei — because i’ve written it happening and i’m quite happy with the way it turned out. and i think it’s easier to understand if it’s done from Jon’s POV, so here we go:

         Othell Yarwyck and Bowen Marsh had been loyal and served the Wall for long years, whereas Alliser Thorne himself had been master-at-arms since the days Jon was still wetting his swaddling clothes — as so often he’d been reminded of, while still a recruit. and Olly… Jon did not wish to think of Olly, lest his resolve fade like the light in his eyes that cold, dreadful night. at the end of the day, all four of them had committed treason — and there was only one penalty for it. he owed it to the rest of the garrison, and to Tormund’s men just as much, to punish crimes as they ought to be. no matter how the mercy left in his heart, which somehow had evaded the blow of the knives, pleaded for him to act otherwise.

         Longclaw cut through that rope as easily as if it was made of butter, and the bastard turned around to watch the others’ final moments — he owed them that much, as well. come to think of it… this had been the simple part. the true abyss of doubt and questioning began now, and within the next minute he had the crucial decision to make: where to go from here? what would have his father done? uncle Benjen? Jeor Mormont? maester Aemon? none was left around to guide him… and none would ever have experienced returning from beyond the grave, more than likely. Jon was alone in that, much as he was alone in everything else. Valyrian steel returned to the sheath, he approached Edd and made a brief pause to strip the black cloak that had accompanied him through the seven hells and back in the past few years.

        ‘ the men of the Night’s Watch serve for life… though our vows say nothing of what shall come beyond that. but i cannot stay where my own brothers see me as unfit for command. ‘ simple words, and quick. as quick as the blades that had buried into him one after the other, as though wanting to make him into a cushion for daggers. now there would have to be a new choosing, and perhaps Edd would manage to lead till such a moment came… likely, Cotter Pyke or Ser Denys Mallister would finally have their turn. it didn’t matter to Jon, nothing truly mattered at this point. ignoring the looks and mumbles of bewilderment now spreading throughout the yard like wildfire, he slowly climbed down the wooden steps to head for the armory.

          all in all, what i did was to treat the Night’s Watch with the respect it deserves. the Watch is not 3 men + 1 boy who made wrong decisions, it’s so much more than this — it’s an 8-century-old brotherhood sworn to be the shield that guards the realms of men, and which continues to be regarded as a place of honor by the Starks even nowadays. again, even when Jon decided to leave, he wouldn’t piss on everything that happened before — and, the way i see it, he left because he honestly saw himself as unfit for the role of lord commander. it wasn’t out of pride or out of a flight of fancy, and it wasn’t even because (as well, but not only) he felt betrayed. it was because, in his current very fragile state of mind, he believed it to be the best way out for everyone, including the Night’s Watch itself. and i headcanon that he would have stayed a few days longer in order to help Edd organize everything and to send ravens to Eastwatch and to the Shadow Tower to inform them and even to start planning the choosing — but meanwhile Sansa arrived and so did Ramsay’s letter, and the gears of fate led him in a different direction. not because he’s the glorified savior like in the show, but because he’s a humble tool used to bring salvation like in the books.

          finally, the way Jon would think of the Watch after this… i think i’ve answered this already in the past paragraph — despite his experience, he is intelligent enough to understand that he cannot blame an entire brotherhood for the mistakes of a couple persons. you know, like in episode 1 of s07 he so clearly states: i will not punish a son for his father’s sins. honestly D&D, you had one (1) job. Jon still regards the Watch as a place of vital importance in the defense of the realm, he stills regards the black brothers as deserving of respect and praise because he KNOWS how they live and what they do. and to conclude this: i also headcanon (and i do have a plot with @wolfqueennamedstark where this happens) that, should Jon survived the Battle for the Dawn, he would decide to go back to the Wall, if the brothers would accept him, to help rebuilt it (with or without the Wall itself, because last thing we know undead Viserion was having the time of his life) and to restore it to its former glory and honor — and to ensure that never again the realms of men would allow for the Long Night to repeat itself. either as lord commander or, in threads/plots where Jon marries the queen and becomes king consort (and the Small Council has to drag him by a leg to sit the throne and hold court, because he loathes that dreaded thing), he visits the 19 castles often and sends plenty of real knights there and always makes sure they lack for nothing. because the Night’s Watch is far too important in Jon’s identity for me to allow it to be cast away like a trashbag for the sake of cliché writing and commercial heroes.

^^^ and bonus points, because Kit agrees with me.

[thehappymessproject]

56-58/100 - Open letter to my fellow humans suffering from depression

Hello wonderful being!

Yes, I’m talking to you. I know your depression won’t believe a word of it, but I wanted to begin this letter by telling you that you are so brave, and so much stronger than you think, and that you can get better. Just by reading this, I know you are already giving yourself some love and space to heal, that makes you wonderful and brave in my book. 

Recovery is not easy or comfortable, it is messy, as far as linear as possible, but it really does exist. I can promise this to you : I’ve lived it, and I’ve seen it happen over and over. 

If this is a really awful day for you, please, keep that reading for later and go read this instead : you’ll find things you can do right now. 

I know your brain won’t make this reading easy for you, so I’ll try to cut that letter into shorter sections, so you can go and read whatever you feel like you need or want to read. 

Why I wanted to write to you

Yesterday, a dear patient of mine sent me a discouraged email asking me if I could explain to her some things about depression : how it is linked to sleep, to losing motivation, and why it is so hard to keep studying when we suffer from depression. She ended her message by commenting that she is probably “taking advantage of it”. 

I asked her permission to make it a text on here, so others might be benefiting from my answers, and it would be easier for me to say most of what I’d like to say on the topic. 

I also wanted to write this for me. I had a tough year in many regards, I had a tough few months adapting to a lot of changes, my whole lifestyle thrown off balance, as you may know if you read me regularly. Since then, I have experienced stronger depressive symptoms for the first time in years, and needed to go back to basics. I’m doing way better already, but after that long busy week I had, I needed those reminders too. 

It’s not your fault.

Let’s start with this : there is nothing wrong with you. You are not defective, broken or problematic. It’s not that you “don’t know how to do life”. 

You are suffering from a disease. A brain scan could show you your brain (which is an organ like any other) doesn’t work properly. I am pretty sure you wouldn’t blame a person from having a physical illness. Please, take an instant to breathe deeply and offer yourself the same compassion here, even if it’s just for a second. 

We live in a world that is emotionally illiterate. We all know what emotions are, we just don’t learn how to deal with them in a way that is healthy for us. For a lot of us, therapy is the only place we learn things like this. This makes everyone at higher risk to suffer from mental disorders.

Our world is, on top of this, a very stressful and unfair one, and one that is designed to feed on our fears and insecurities. Chances are you also were raised in a family who doesn’t think sadness is important or who thinks that sadness is this huge awful thing rather than the message it is, who didn’t tell you that all humans get sad, and that it was ok to fall down. They didn’t know and therefore couldn’t teach you either. It is not your fault at all. You did your best with the cards you were dealt with. 

What is depression?

You can find how the DSM V describes depression and how the ICD 10 describes it. Both sources are the ones most clinicians use to diagnose their patients. Depression is one of the most common mental illnesses, up to 20% of people depending on where they live will suffer from it. You need to know that you are not alone in this. That it is not about you and your inability to cope or your being too weak. 

Depression doesn’t happen in a vacuum though. Nor can it be only about genetics or purely circumstantial. Depression is a big cry for help from your inner child. 

You know her. She is the part of you who is full of wonder and curiosity, who could at some point be so filled of joy that she fell like she could burst from it, who wants to believe in magic and learn many exciting and mysterious things, who loves others and know how wonderfully unique each of us is. 

That little guy’s also the one who gets heart-broken facing tragedies, who gets angry when our boundaries are overstepped or injustice shows up, ashamed when we do something really wrong or really can’t do something, guilty when we hurt someone or do something bad, disappointed when something important falls through, discouraged when things are really hard... Our inner child is the very core of our emotions. 

When and how depression happens

Depression happens when we deny our inner child’s feelings and act as if they don’t matter for too long. If we do, wether or not very good or bad things happen to us, we get depressed over time, exhausted by having fought too much how we felt, we end up feeling empty and like nothing really matters.

When we do ignore that pain for too long, everything gets off-balance. We are triggering our defence mechanisms. Our symptoms all depend on how we function in general and under pressure. 

For example, a lot of us sleep a lot when we are depressed, and describe sleep almost like an attempt to avoid living and feeling the way they do. Others, usually when also suffering from anxiety, will have trouble sleeping, often because when they try to go to sleep, they are filled with very unpleasant feelings and thoughts that keep them awake. Depressed overeaters tend to use food to “fill the void” they feel in their belly, undereaters tend to believe they are so unworthy they don’t even deserve food. 

Your depression is not my depression, but we are in the same boat

Each depression is as unique as our personality and background is. But they have all one thing in common : they afflict people who avoid their feelings and tried to build a life designed to never feel sad, hurt or frustrated. Almost every depression story I heard started with something along the lines of “I used to be able to feel pretty good, but now I can’t anymore”. That’s simply not true. No one is just depressed from one day to the next.

Depression starts very early in life

Most depressive scenarios actually started very young, when we learnt that there are ‘bad’ feelings, and that they should be avoided, bottled up or numbed. But those strategies only work on short term, and should never be used as regular strategy to deal with feelings. 

Unaware of that fact, we get into painful dilemmas, because slowly, we start to avoid certain situations that make us feel those avoided emotions, we start to give up things that are important to us and to procrastinate them. Our world starts to feel smaller and smaller, things seem to get harder and harder. We lose any kind of motivation, and hope. 

Everything gets exhausting, even things that we didn’t have to think about before, like showering, brushing our teeth, or getting out of the house start to feel really hard. We feel continuously exhausted from battling ourselves. 

Each time we try to do something good for us, our brain harasses us simultaneously with excuses for not to do those things, and to make sure we stop even thinking about it, a collection of all the worse things we can think about ourselves. That battle is why it is very hard to keep a job or study when depressed : we have so little energy left.

Depression is a smart b*tch : here are its strategies

Depression is kind of like our personal bully and anti-coach. If it was only for Depression, we just wouldn’t get out of our bed, and stay there in foetal position, waiting for time passing by until we die, hopefully soon. 

Its favourite strategy to make sure that happens : making sure we stay very far away from anything having meaning for us, and any activity involving self-love will be its worst enemy.  That’s its job, and it’s pretty good at it. 

Depression’s favourite weapon is the idea that things that are our duty and things that make us feel good about ourselves are the most important and have to be prioritised. 

It is actually very smart : since we are so exhausted already, and things that are about feeling like we are good, right and strong ask from a lot of energy from us, and their results never last long because we rarely really want to do them, it’s almost the perfect way to end up with a life that feels exhausting and pointless. 

I’m pretty sure that sounds like how your life feels like right now, so you can experience yourself how smart and effective that depressive strategy is. 

This is why the only way to actually fight depression is to learn to look at it and treat it for what it is : a story. Those awful things Depression is using your brain to tell you right now aren’t facts, they are fears. Things you desperately hope you are not. 

Your job and ways to fight back the beast

To recover, we have one job : to do our best to push it back, one step at the time. Yes, it’s a big job. But we don’t have to move mountains to change and heal. Actually, it really comes down to one self-loving action everyday. Of course, not any kind of actions.

The first rule to kick Depression’s ass is to accept the fact that you are doing your best. And by your best, I don’t mean “all you can possibly do until you’re physically and emotionally beaten”. And definitely not either “what you used to be able to do” nor “what others seem to be able to do”. Accept that we are doing our best means accepting that Depression is exhausting us, and we need to take it slow. 

To do that, we need to sort out what we actually can do, even if it’s not all that we would want to do. We need to say no to many things : things we think we should do, things others think we should do, or would want us to do, things we said previously said yes to, BUT that makes that whisper “Fuck no!” comes up.

When we feel depressed, it’s a call from our inner child to really take care of ourselves.  We all want to love ourselves, but so many of us never act on that need. 

An important note : when we fight back, Depression fights back too, often striking harder than usual, the self-talk often gets more violent : that’s actually a sign you’re doing exactly what you need. Otherwise it wouldn’t bother to stop you. 

The two types of self-love that will help

There are two types of self-love : restorative soft things that are like little hugs for our inner child, and brave things that we really want or need to do but keep procrastinating or avoiding by fear. 

Generally, the more depressed we are, the less we prioritise both. When I say that not any kind of actions will help, it is because they won’t have the same meaning for us. 

In depression, there isn’t a lot of meaning anymore in our life. The less meaning there is, the more our life feels pointless. Adding meaning can be done in many different ways and should be prioritised IF and only if you have some energy left. 

Doing these important things for us will require some energy and courage. So, we can’t create any meaning in our life if our cup is completely empty. 

That’s why we need to start where we are at. Are you completely out of life energy right now? Does even getting up in the morning feels super hard? I remember times when even breathing or being awake felt exhausting. That’s a big sign to start with restorative self-love before anything else.  

We need to observe how we feel and what we are struggling with. If we can do that, only then can we plan and take action. Remember when I said that healing starts with one daily action? This is valid for any kind of healing.

Practical steps towards healing : anti-perfectionism in action

We need structure to heal. But not the kind of structure we already know and use, generally to punish ourselves or make sure we are not out of control. Loving structure.

Wether we need more restorative self-love, or brave self-love (see previous section), we can use a very simple strategy regarding healing. Choose one challenge you are going to commit for a week, the simplest and easiest possible. Just a week, more as an exploration, but also a way to get an small win everyday.

For restorative self-love, it should be either a very simple action of a few minutes where we practice self-care if our cup needs to be filled up first, something that helps us relax and slow down. It can be something you like that is a calm activity (reading, knitting, crosswords, puzzles...) or a grounding practice (journalling, meditating, doing yoga). Anything that feels like this and you never do counts. Start where you are at.

For brave self-love, start by answering these questions :  - what is something really important for you, something you often think about doing but keep delaying and finding excuses for? It can be about learning something new, starting a new activity, coming back to an old one... - what would be the smallest step you can take in that direction in the next 24hrs? 

And by smallest step, I really mean tiny. It should be doable in a few minutes, 10mn is a good limit for that, you may have read from me about those “1% steps” (1% of your awake hours is in average about 10mn). Reask the second question every day if you finish the daly task, or take some more time for it the day after if you didn’t. 

Today, with a patient of mine, we set up a 1% step towards learning how to edit videos. Editing videos felt really hard and like a huge task for him as well as something he really wanted to do, but he felt confident about his ability to research on Google and his favourite e-learning platforms for 10mn a day, looking for tutorials and classes about video editing. 

After a week, you can decide to either continue for another week of the same challenge, finding a new one, or making the one you chose a little bit harder. 

That’s how you vanquish the depressive beast. One small step at the time towards self-love. When we progress a tiny bit everyday, we bypass depression’s most efficient weapons and strategies. 

A few reminders for the road

- give yourself the authorisation to suck and to fail : if you can’t do your mini step of the day, it really doesn’t matter, as long as you come back to it as soon as you can.  - give yourself credit : make ‘done lists’ every night, writing all you have done that felt hard can be a great 1% step to counter the infamous “you’re not doing enough”. You might feel ridiculous putting down “brushed my teeth” or “went outside for 5mn”, it’s important to do so anyway. Show yourself that your efforts count by celebrating your smallest wins. Depression hate this.  - you are not a burden - you are not defective - you are not weak - you are doing your best, be gentle with yourself - it will get better, especially if you take responsibility for your own happiness (everything we talked about in this letter is about this) - your worth doesn’t depend on your productivity at all - you are so much more than your to do list - you are allowed to make your healing a priority over your grades or your job, making healing a priority is completely life altering in the best way imaginable - you can do this  - I believe in you - you are loved

See you tomorrow, Love,  L. 

[catescher]

Common mistakes in Worldbuilding (Part 1)

Okay, first off: This is advice and personal. With that, I mean that this isn’t ironclad and it’s stuff that annoys me. Furthermore, this is geared to Fantasy, simply because it’s the genre I’m most familiar with. Some of it is also applicable to Sci-Fi, but I won’t guarantee everything. And please keep in mind - I was, am and will be guilty of all those points.

Alright. Mistakes in Worldbuilding. I won’t say that those grievances I will present you in the following entry are the devil but you should know what you’re doing when you’re doing something. Just saying.

Also, some of these complaints/rants/thoughts/whatever you might call them sometimes contradict each other. Sue me.

This is a two-parter, because, as it turns out, I have a lot to say on some topics. More will follow early next week.

Rules and Research

Photo by freddie marriage on Unsplash

A) DID NOT DO THEIR RESEARCH

Sorry. Major pet peeve incoming.

Also, please sit down and listen, especially those who say research is not necessary because Fantasy World.

For God’s sake, research is important. Even in Fantasy.

But why?

Say, you have a monarchy and a lot of political stuff going on. You know, fun stuff: assassination, rebellions, revolts, revolutions, and so on. But, and here is the question: How would that influence the king/queen/emperor for example? Is there an heir already lined up? Is there a council, does the monarch actually have power and is not a figurehead? How is the monarch legitimated? Mandate of the Heavens (Chinese Emperors), a descendant of a god (Japanese Tenno, founding date isn’t correct by the way), elected (Germanic Tribes or certain persons of influence in the Holy Roman Empire who voted for the Emperor) or simple power (tyrannis)? Absolute power for the monarch or is he kept in check by a constitution, the people or a parliament? How is it decided who inherits the throne?

And all of that above, as well as politicians, monarch’s parents, and even more people and offices would play a part in a plot about a rebellion against a monarch. But for all those nuances to feel real, whether the rebellion, the monarch or even both are justified in their actions, you need to do a bloody lot of research. Not to mention things like race, gender, and everything you (hopefully) haven’t experienced such as war, a specific sickness, mental sickness, and so on.

I mean, it’s not just worldbuilding. Research makes for a better story overall, even if it is only some minor detail.

Photo by Alex Iby on Unsplash

B) MAGIC AND WHATNOT

So… Magic. Fantasy world. Goes together like peanut butter and chocolate.

Or at least it should.

I mean, does magic influence your world somehow? You have magic floating around, so how is it making life easier or harder or different?

Consider magic-based transportation methods, teleportation for example. Why bother using airplanes or cars if you can just click your heels and be wherever you want to be? So you need to think about it in terms of economy and practicality: Is it a service that costs a shit ton of money? Can only few beings/persons use it? Does it have limits when it comes to distance? Why doesn’t everyone use it? You’ll need to keep that in mind when not only building your world but also while writing your story as in “Why wouldn’t the Big Bad simply teleport to the McGuffin’s location and destroy it before it destroys him?”.

On a related note: Magic should have rules. Brandon Sanderson wrote about it for example. How it looks like in his books I can’t say, I have yet to read any of his books.

But still: Do your characters only need to snap their fingers and can break reality? If they can, why haven’t they revived everyone the Dark Lord killed? This is why you need rules for your magic, to not resurrect someone if you want to - or, at least, not without an appropriate price to pay.

Let’s call it a drama-preserving handicap. Otherwise, your book would be over in a paragraph with a powerful wizard.

But overall from my experience in writing? Restricting magic from becoming too overpowered it feels better or more real- as much as a world with magic can be.

Photo by Joel & Jasmin Førestbird on Unsplash

C) THE WORLD’S RULES AND MORALITIES

On a related note: What kind of rules do your world/society have? Do they have any, for example, morality? Sure they do.

What I mean with this is that outside of magic, your world has specific rules or phenomena. I mentioned resurrection above and to continue this line of thought, are there rules and laws against it? Why are they in place?

An example for not only resurrection but also against using powers to create gold, is in the manga Fullmetal Alchemist in which it is forbidden to use alchemy to turn other stuff into gold. Why? Because it would crash the economy because gold would become worthless if too much of it would exist. A rule that makes sense when someone just has to clap his hands to have some gold on his hands.

How about societal rules? Political Rules? Unspoken laws everyone adheres to because of immense social or religious repercussions?

On a related note: Even if you based your world on a medieval European One (wherever you may choose exactly) does not mean it should inherit its rules completely. With that I mean that a sexist culture can exist in your world but making a reboot of what we commonly view the Middle Ages as so it’s basically an alternative history version of it? Come on, guys, we are writers! We are supposed to be creative!

As for a slightly different topic: What do you call a French Braid if there are no French in your world? Serious question - how do you describe it or how do you call it otherwise? Same thing with other similar named concepts or objects. I mean, do you still call it Braille if it is in another world with no Mister Braille to create it? How do you describe it? Calling it Braille still sounds weird to me.

Perfection and Flaws

Photo by Simone Hutsch on Unsplash

A) UTOPIAS

Of course, your world can be perfect. No bad things ever happen, no racism, sexism, or xenophobia, no wars and if there is a war it’s against someone who deserves it. The king is just, it has a stable economy and everyone lives happily ever after.

Sounds great. Utopian.

Seriously, give me a break. This is boring. A utopian society won’t exist, for fuck’s sake. Humans are too flawed for that. I’m not running around screaming realism all the time (I hope) but this won’t fly for me. Also, it takes a lot out of the conflict - why would there be conflict if the world is so great? No matter the world, the political system or the society - for someone there is going to be a flaw in it. There will be injustice. There will be bitterness. There will be rebels. There will be people who defend the status quo.

Photo by Phil Goodwin on Unsplash

B) A PERFECT HISTORY

History seems pretty clear-cut if you open a history book at times. But in truth, it is a mess. Take school books about WWII for example - depending on the country the book is from it might tell a completely different story with a different focus on certain events. Some Japanese schoolbooks at times, for example, leave out or whitewash certain events during WWII which are barely in use. With certain events, I refer to the hideous war crimes Japan committed to make it clear. Germans, however… let’s just say I had about one school year worth of learning about the Third Reich in history alone, not to mention other subjects. Still seems like a miracle they haven’t managed to cover it in Maths as well.

In any case, how history is represented can be vastly different, it’s not always clear-cut and one true version. Sometimes, three people have six different opinions about one historical event.

This is for the retrospect. Now for the actual happening history and events.

Take one event - be it a new law being introduced or a conflict happening - and people will have different opinions on it depending on their personal worldviews, religion and who they are. They will comment on it, protest it if they want to or full-heartedly support it for a reason or another. Furthermore, event A does not necessarily lead to event B and then to War Z. It’s not linear or single-minded.

Photo by Joel Filipe on Unsplash

C) DETAILS MATTER

Details such as a nomadic tribe living in wooden huts in the desert. I hope you see what I mean.

To spell it out:

1) They are nomads. Nomads don’t settle for long, so they don’t need stationary buildings.

2) It’s a desert. No wood, or at least not enough to justify building wooden huts.

Okay, this what it is: It doesn’t make sense. Nomads are more likely to have a tent or something easy to move around than a “normal” building. You need to keep a lot of details in mind, how they live. You need to pay attention to this kinda stuff.

Another detail that is often missed out on relates to stuff like basic economy or infrastructure. Who makes the food they eat? Why does it seem that everyone eats the same no matter if they are in a desert or on top of a mountain? Details like that matter a lot because the reader can suspend their disbelieves only for so long.

On a side note, conservation of detail is annoying but it’s important. If you established a rule in your world - such as revenants being killed by nailing them with silver in the heart - you can’t just go ahead and use iron or behead them. If you need to break established rules, you need to know your rules and then break them consciously.

[puddeneen]

FIC REC: hobbit edition, mark vii (i counted this time)

previous hobbit lists: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6

just plain old bagginshield, this time around! i, er, i have quite a bit more than i thought, so i’ll be splitting the rest into another post. again. should be up some time next week! you’re welcome, mobile users

Green Mountains by TheGoodDoctor (post-quest, everyone lives, universe alteration, bagginshield, kiliel; humour, romance, friendship, family, faith, dwarves in the shire, cultural differences) life after the battle of five armies, now with added consort hobbits, animate durins, and wee bitty frodos

Confound and Confusticate by Emelye (canon divergence, everyone lives, bagginshield; romance, humour, cultural differences) the do’s and don’ts of interspecies courting. in this example, specifically the don’ts!

Homecoming by Avelera (canon divergence, everyone lives, bagginshield; reunions, angst, drama, romance) this is what happens when you don’t use your goddamn words, guys

Draw You a Map by ReverseNostalgia (canon divergence, everyone lives, bagginshield; romance, humour, drama) in which a few common misconceptions are addressed, to a mutual party’s relief

Breathe In by keelywolfe (canon divergence, pre-dos, bagginshield; pre-slash, drama, humour) bath time in the wilds, and the perils thereof

Green Thumb by perkynurples (alternature universe, earth au, bagginshield; humour, drama, friendship, romance) when bilbo visits a florist’s one day, determined to find some kind of plant he can’t kill as soon as look at, he gets more than what he pays for

Spring is Sprung by MistakenMagic (alternate universe, earth au, bagginshield; humour, domesticity, romance) it’s hard out there for aging dorks in love, let me tell you

Burglar’s Guarantee by seashadows (canon divergence, pre-quest, bagginshield; pwp, humour) because sometimes it’s just easier to get the tension out of the way, in fairness??

This Will Only Hurt For A Second by fideliant (post-botfa, universe alteration, everyone lives, bagginshield; angst, humour, hurt/comfort) in which thorin lives, but turns out to be the worst patient this side of the misty mountains

Ever On and On by yubiwamonogatari (canon divergence, everyone lives, post-quest, fem!bagginshield, kiliel; reshirement, fluff, drama) when bilbo leaves the shire after her infamous eleventy-first birthday, she doesn’t do so alone

The Lily by LadyNimrodel (alternate universe, canon divergence, pre-quest, bagginshield; drama, horror, supernatural, friendship, romance) bilbo finds an injured dwarf in the east farthing woods and takes him back to bag end to recoup ... which sounds like the perfect harlequin rescue-romance type set-up, sure, until you factor in the uninvited third party that dogs their footsteps

Concerning Birthdays by yubiwamonogatari (post-quest, canon divergence, bagginshield; reshirement, family, romance) in which bagshot row plays host to a very happy halimath

But If My Love Be Clad In Blue by PsychicPineapple (canon divergence, post-quest, bagginshield; humour, drama, romance) maybe a slightly less traditional consort’s coronation than the ones that have gone before

Cat Got Your Thong by kettish (alternate universe, modernized middle earth, bagginshield; humour, romance) local bardwarf’s panty kink exposed by housecat, more at eleven

Through the Clover, Soft-footed and Swift by katajainen (universe alteration, post-auj, bagginshield; animal transformation, humour, drama, romance) in which beorn gets one thing right, but ... not so much the other

‘sharing a drink’ prompt fill by andhumanslovedstories (Margo_Kim) (post-auj, bagginshield; humour, romance) i mean, idk why bilbo’s surprised: it’s hardly a laketown fic if thorin doesn’t take off his shirt at some point

Traveling Companions by billiethepoet (quest-era, canon divergence, bagginshield; porn with plot, angst, drama, homophobia, cultural differences, poor communication, romance) one firmly closeted hobbit and a closed-mouthed dwarf king flounder their way into a relationship, or something like it

The War and What Came After by Lee_Whimsy (canon divergence, everyone lives, bagginshield; recovery, ptsd, family, drama, romance) in the aftermath of everything, thorin and bilbo can only take every day as it comes

and with thy lips dispell this curse by paranoid_fridge (universe alteration, everyone lives, post-quest, bagginshield; drama, supernatural, angst, friendship, romance) when bilbo falls afoul of an evil lurking in the ruins of dale, he and his friends struggle to cope with the fallout

Boundless by MistakenMagic (alternate universe, earth au, bagginshield; merfolk, drama, angst, hurt/comfort, romance) wherein gandalf the friendly local sea hermit has guests, and his guests are in a spot of trouble

No Admittance by kettish (post-auj, fem!bagginshield; pwp, romance) bilbo has her preferences, and thorin is perfectly happy to accomodate

Over Your Shoulder by northerntrash (canon divergence, everyone lives, bagginshield; fairytale elements, resurrection, angst, drama, romance) in which bilbo takes a) exception to the hand thorin is dealt, and b) the term “proactive” to a whole ‘nother level

Truth Universally Acknowledged by glasscannon, Jezunya (alternate universe, pride and prejudice au, bagginshield, kiliel, etc; drama, friendship, family, cultural differences, soulmates trope, romance) bilbo and tauriel aren’t quite sure what to make of the latest gossip in hobbiton: that an eminent dwarvish family has taken up residence in the netherfield smial, and the rumours of prospective marriage. well, either way, surely it won’t have much to do with them!

On Adventures and Other Forms of Conduct Unbecoming of a Wizard by manic_intent (universe alteration, everyone lives, bagginshield; drama, friendship, action/adventure, supernatural, romance) in which the wizard kemendil, also known as bilbo, of bag end, in hobbiton, is enticed coerced out of the staid comfortable life he’s made for himself in the shire

‘Thorin & Kingship’ prompt fill by andhumanslovedstories (Margo_Kim) (canon divergence, everyone lives, bagginshield; humour, drama, romance) the coronation looms. no one’s quietly wigging out about it all, nope

For Those Who Cannot Sleep by keelywolfe (post-auj, canon divergence, bagginshield; pwp, drama, romance) wherein bilbo and thorin spend a restless night together, all bad double entendres implied

Home by hoomhum (canon divergence, everyone lives, post-quest, bagginshield; fluff, romance, drama) on the perks of wintering away from the shire

Braided by fredbassett (canon divergence, post-auj, bagginshield; friendship, humour, cultural differences, romance) a companion piece, wherein bilbo sets thorin to rights (it’s only fair, after all, to repay the favour)

Again by alkjira (universe alteration, time travel, fix-it, bagginshield; humour, drama, angst) there’s fuckery afoot (fili and kili, however, would prefer to observe it from a safe distance, in this case)

Barrel Rider by tirsynni (canon divergence, post-auj, bagginshield; drama, angst, hurt/comfort, romance) fleeing from thranduil’s halls to laketown, none of the company has an easy time of it - least of all their hobbit

Carry Your Will by Lee_Whimsy (post-dos, bagginshield; drama, angst, romance) as the company settle in after smaug quits the mountain, erebor and her people - her king - give bilbo more food for thought than he can handle

Shoshu by paranoid_fridge, rutobuka (alternate universe, fantasy medieval japan setting, bagginshield; supernatural, animal transformation, action/adventure, drama, pre-slash) on his way home from the capital, the daimyo of the province of kodokusan stumbles across a woodland critter in distress and lends a helping hand. fortunately for him, one good turn does indeed deserve another

The Hobbit Daemon AU by unorigelnal (his dark materials fusion, bagginshield, gen; drama, angst, cultural differences, family, romance, major character death) a series of beautiful non-linear pieces following thorin’s company before and after the battle of five armies

Old Men of the Meadow by TheBookshelfDweller (canon divergence, fix-it, post-quest, post-war, bagginshield; non-linear narrative, reshirement, drama, romance) while samwise gamgee inherits bag end, its previous tenants still inhabit the house under the hill - in their way - and will continue to do so, if he has any say-so

[notxaxnun]

I'm not here to preach or tell my life's story to the world. I'm just here, thinking. And I needed a way to get it out so here goes:

4 years ago I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. That never really sat right with me, except maybe in the beginning until I started therapy for it. Things had gotten HELLA worse. For real, I was acting out all the time and I just couldn't stop crying.

I had a boyfriend at the time, one with whom I would later on move in with. Anyways, a lot of the times there started to form some moments where I felt at peace and genuinely okay for longer periods of time. But even then something was always off. Was it not about my life it was about my mental state. And then everything started to deteriorate all at once.

Ever since the literal unraveling of my life and basically becoming homeless, after finally finding peace and well even a home. For someone who has never known a real home with real love, that meant something. So I shattered. Over and over again.

Now I'm left here, with all my pieces. Trying to put them together enough to even be a functioning human being. I'm so damn tired of being tired. All my life I've had to fight and goddamn I was so willing to fight and I felt all this fire inside me. But that all burnt out.

So the question remains: how does one get that fire back? I nearly lost my mind trying to figure it out. I spent all my time thinking and now it seems like I can't stop. I want out man. Out of this mind where all these thoughts keep going on and on about a million things.

And then I lost myself entire in all that was bad. Again. This time for real. Up until the point where I admitted to myself that I am in fact an addict. And not only to drugs, but like the thrill of living on the edge not giving a fuck. The thrill of anxiety? Maybe.

I gotta remind myself that healing isn't linear. You don't stand there at point A with one straight ahead road to point B. Working through complex trauma and serious mental illness just isn't unfortunately as simple as that.

It is indeed a hard to swallow pill. But once you've done that you can move onto the phase that , to me , is the scariest but also the most fun one: take action.

DO THINGS. THINGS YOU ENJOY. If you feel stuck and find yourself, like me, doing literally nothing but wasting away, do something FUN. And I mean really fun, like every day. Until you feel like you're ready to take on something that's like way less fun but is necessary.

I find it easier to accept and do the things I don't like to do at all but have to be done when I've accomplished a state of mental peace (or anger , yk that just keeps me going until i can't stop, my house be CLEAN when I get angry). To begin with. Once I've found peace and cleared my mind, then I can start planning on doing said tasks.

Unfortunately it sounds way more simple then it is. Because well, I myself tend to lose focus like all the time. So I like have to remind myself to slow the fuck down like maybe a hundred times a day. But that's okay BECAUSE HERE IT COMES GUYS THE SECRET IS OUT:

I noticed something was up

I didn't know what it was so I LITERALLY slowed down, took a deep breath until I felt like my mind was clearing

I examined my physical state in my mind ie am I hungry?

I examined my mental state

AND TOOK ACTION ACCORDINGLY

Moral of today's long ass story: slow down, take time to fix your physical and mental self before acting and making decisions. It's okay to take your time with things. But just like be strict enough with yourself to not keep postponing them until they become an issue.

That's what I find myself doing now: procratisnating. But lately I've gone about that in a productive way, circling back to what I was saying earlier about like doing fun things until the not-so-fun things don't seem so bad anymore.

Because like it's easy to lose sight of the good if the bad is overflowing and a lot of it is literally in your hands, which is scary. BUT if you have enough fun, sounds silly but it's true, all the other things just don't seem so big and bad anymore.

And then like be strict with yourself even though that's no fun, you gotta respect like your OWN boundaries as well. It'll be less easier to hate yourself once you take care of yourself and respect yourself.

That all starts with (and we all hate hearing it): CLEANING BITCH. But hey like if you put on some music and just start singing along with it, it's not half that bad yk.

That being said, I should take up my own advice and then experience the peace that comes next by yk CLEANING. But like take it slow guys, don't overstress or push yourselves to do anything you really can't but also be honest if you could like do it as to why you're not doing it and then go from there.

Or that's what I learned and struggle with at least! I hope these insights help someone, anyone out there x

[robertsbarbie-archive]

im putting you up to what you posted and I'm asking you to answer all of the writing questions. also the url change had me confused for half a second but im in love

This is why I’m my own worst enemy

2. Favorite part of writing.

Creating a whole world, a whole other life, that people can someday enjoy and find comfort in when they’re feeling down

3. Least favorite part of writing.

Writing, like the fact that your ideas and storyline isn’t instantly onto the paper is insane

4. Do you have writing habits or rituals?

I mean I probably do but I can’t remember

6. Favorite character you ever created.

A teenage greek goddess I pulled out of my ass named Arendellia, she was a badass who died and I really just liked what I wrote involving her

9. Least favorite trope to write.

the opposites attract, in my opinion it’s cliche and unrealistic, I prefer the characters have similar interests but different approaches to things if that makes sense?

10. Pick a writer to co-write a book with and tell us what you’d write about.

Natasha Preston, and we’d wrote the sequel to The Cabin cause it’s been a year and I’m still not over the ending, I need a sequel

11. Describe your writing process from scratch to finish.

first I get a new notebook, I need a clean space for my ideas, then I wrote down a prologue or a description, it allows for my brain to fully process where I want the story to go, then I write until I hit a male characters name, cause I hate coming up with male names, if I have one picked out I’ll see if the image in my brain matches the name, if I can’t find a name that fits the project is discarded, if I find one that fits I write until I don’t know where to take the story next then I continue to formulate my ideas into actual scenes until I reach the end, then I close it up in a box never to be touched again until I accidentally find it while cleaning one day

12. How do you deal with self-doubts?

I either won’t show anyone or will preface saying “it’s not edited yet” or “I know it’s garbage lol”

13. How do you deal with writers block?

I listen to music, and write stories based off of the song titles, like I always try to write a chapter and if after a chapter I don’t think I have a story I move on, sometimes I’ll get a completely new idea but it really helps to get ideas flowing

14. What’s the most research you ever put into a book?

I’m currently waiting to write a book until I have all of the details, it revolves around Greek mythology but I want to be so accurate, not white wash, or erase the different sexualities of the Gods and I want to be accurate to the myths (a bit) but so far that’s the one

16. Where do you take your motivation from?

My brain telling me that it’ll leave me if I don’t get the ideas out of my head

18. What’s your revision or rewriting process like?

I learned in 7th grade that I need to do a complete rewrite which sometimes I do, other times I’m being nostalgic and read an old story then realize I’m an idiot so I edit it lol

19. First line of a WIP you’re working on.

‘"Coffee looks absolutely lovely on you, madam," I glare at Cody while attempting to pat myself dry.’ From that Dying in LA story I talked about earlier

21. Post the last sentence you wrote in one of your WIP’s.

’"I told the director to go suck a dick. It was the worse thing imaginable,” I groan into my hands.’ Same story, and it’s only the second chapter but yeah

22. How many drafts do you need until you’re satisfied and a project is ultimately done for you?

Bold of you to assume I actually finish my writings

23. Single or multi POV, and why?

As big of a fan that I am of different perspectives, I prefer single POV, I feel as though the character is more personal. Rarely do I do multi

24. Poetry or prose, and why?

Prose, my poetry is rather depressing and I just can’t

25. Linear or non-linear, and why?

Linear, otherwise in my opinion it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense

27. Do you share rough drafts or do you wait until it’s all polished?

yes and no (I’ll explain in next answer)

28. And who do you share them with?

the unpolished, I share on Wattpad because it’s easier to detach myself if they don’t like it, but I wait until polished for people I actually know

29. Who do you write for?

Myself, it’s a way for me to cope with life, and writing and rewriting an event that has happened to me helps me move on from the situation

31. Hardest character to write.

Men.

32. Easiest character to write.

Villains

35. Tell some backstory details about one of your characters in your story ________.

the main character in “Dying in LA” had a rough childhood (shut up at the cliche) and used acting to escape, she moves to LA when she’s 19 having fail after fail at auditions, she’s about to give up when she gets her big break. (Sorry I’m terrible at back stories)

36. A spoiler for story _________.

Oof I want to spoil DILA (Dying in LA) but I won’t, um, I started this story about this girl who gets kidnapped and um I’m kinda planning on killing her so there’s that.

38. Have you shared your outline of your story ________ with someone? If so, what did they think of it?

Bold of you to assume I’m not just BSing my way through my story

39. Do you base your characters of real people or not? If so, tell us about one.

Yes. Um, I’m gonna tell you about the real person cause I based so many characters off of this person. Oof okay, it was any ex. For years he was in EVERYTHING I wrote, the story usually focused on the what if’s or the repercussions of our relationship and the fall out of it. We just complemented each other so well the thought of writing something to try and capture our time together comforted me so much. I still get flashbacks of our time together and sometimes his personality shows up in my writing but it just goes to show how the people in your life stay with you.

40. Original Fiction or Fanfiction, and why?

Both? I think there’s upsides and down sides to both but both are so amazing and are fun to explore

44. Best piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten.

Be confident in your writing and it will show, don’t be afraid to take risks

45. Worst piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten.

“Great job! Keep up the good work!” Um???? what good work???? be specific please!

46. What would your story _______ look like as a tv show or movie?

DILA would hopefully be done in a CW style where like it’s light hearted but a real plot and seriousness lies beneath? I actually don’t know?

47. Do you start with characters or plot when working on a new story?

Plot, my guy

48. Favorite genre to write in.

Realistic Fiction

49. What do you find the hardest to write in a story, the beginning, the middle or the end?

the middle, most likely I already have the end and beginning planned

51. Describe the aesthetic of your story _______ in 5 sentences or words.

Dying in LA: fame, used, lost, forgotten, greed

52. How did writing change you?

It gave me a place to express myself and cope with life and the struggles I’ve been through

53. What does writing mean to you?

Everything, it gives me a voice when I feel like I don’t have one

54. Any writing advice you want to share?

Keep writing, practice really does make perfect

Also the url is the best (any numbers missing means I already answered them, check under #asks )