#I'll either write more fic or start on my horror book

[erinwantstowrite]

hi! hope your having a good day/night/timezone/etc.! u got any writing tips (like how to not lose motivation/use up as much of it as u can while u have it, any ways to get the words flowing/“get in the writing mood” that have worked for u) for any of ur fellow fic writers? (idk if this’s been asked b4 (it seems like a common question lmao), but if it has, ‘pologies, lolol ^^)

i have a few that i've been thinking up to try and post!!

remember that you aren't on a deadline to write, and to take the time you need. no one wants to read something you rushed, let alone do YOU want to read it. and it REALLY matters if you love what you're writing. you'll kill your motivation trying to keep up with something like that!! if you only had time to write 300 or you had a great day and wrote like 3000, you're doing great either way!!!

there's a lot to keep up with when you're writing, and you have to remember and understand all of it. if you're trying to write while you're tired/upset/etc, you'll likely end up with something you're not that proud of. (granted, art is art, and sometimes these emotions can create something beautiful or meaningful). take metal breaks so you can come back to your work with a fresh mind, and don't overexert yourself. you'll remember and understand more if you treat your writing time like you would when you're studying. sometimes i make flashcards to remember characters, places, events, etc.

sometimes i can get too analytical with my writing, or it starts to become flat? if that makes sense? meaning, like... i'm putting words on paper rather than delving into the story. too many "they felt this way" and not enough "Character A turns to face the man that had changed their entire life with the single shot of a bullet, careless to what damage he could have caused. It's haunting to see that the man is simply that: a man. Not a monster as they had imagined, laying awake at night and wondering what their father had seen in his final moments. He's just a man." what helps with this is putting myself into the shoes of a narrator, remembering that i am telling the story as if i already know what's happening (even if I don't know where I'm going with a scene yet). i imagine that my reader is right there next to me and i'm telling them the story in real time like we're sitting around a campfire telling ghost stories, or that i'm the quirky narrator of a book they just picked up.

During times where i'm losing inspiration or feel like i'm in a loop, i like to go back to my favorite medias and spend some time with them. i recently rewatched Gravity Falls, the Sea Beast, and the Adam Project, and it was a fun mental break that got me into the writing mood. i try to find similar media to what i'm writing at that time. if i want a scene focused on funny banter or a comedic effect, i read or watch comedy. if i want to write a scary scene, i'll watch a horror movie. etc etc. "studying" your favorite media and putting yourself into your fav writer's writing shoes is a great way to improve your own writing. think about why that joke was funny, what the set up was that made it that way, and if it would have been a different joke if another character said it (Gravity Falls is one of the best media you can use for this, but really, reading mysteries in general can help)

physical exercise, if you can. getting your blood flowing and treating your body well!! when i was in band, we used to do "body warm ups" set to music, and i still do them to this day. it gets me awake and alert while also letting me listen to fun music before i write

[thedragonagebigbang]

Bang Creator Interview: Tumblr: @oxygenforthewicked  |  AO3: Oxygenforthewicked

The Collaboration period has begun! In these quiet months before works are due, we want to foster a sense of excitement, camaraderie, and celebration among our participants. To that end, all participants were given the option of a formal interview by our mod, Dema, or an informal “ask-game” survey. We hope you enjoy getting to know our phenomenal creators as much as we have!

10 Reasons Why Rift Hopping Is Probably Hazardous to Your Health (Hint: Cassandra Is One of Them)

Gin and Dema talk process, inspiration, and what to do when a character kicks down your door

Dema: Since this is a Big Bang I'll start there: have you done one before? If you have, what made you want to do it again? If not: what made you wanna give it a go? 

Gin: I've considered being a part of a Big Bang event before but I haven't actually done one yet. However, after seeing all of the fics and artwork that came out of other bangs last year, I got a better feel for it and decided I wanted to give it a try!

Dema: So exciting! Are you finding that this process feels different from how you usually write?

Gin: Not really, honestly. I've done NaNoWriMo in the past, and this feels similar in terms of working towards a set goal. I think the big difference (and better difference, honestly) is that this is much more community-centered, and the goal is to finish the project instead of just reaching a word count minimum. That in and of itself is a really refreshing new challenge.

Dema: When you tackle a project like this, what does that look like for you?

Gin: Usually I like to prepare a concept/vague outline first, write out in more detail the major plot points, create a mood playlist, and just start writing! I do tend to carve out time for writing, too, as that helps me focus better.

Dema: How much time do you feel like you need in a chunk? (Me, interviewing: “So, writing. How Do You Do It. AND WHY??)

Gin: It depends. Sometimes I can write for several consecutive hours, other times my brain can only handle about thirty minutes. Either way, I know that as long as I get words on the page, I'm making progress! But creativity isn't something that can be forced, so if the words just aren't coming out, I'll take a break for a while and refresh my brain by reading a book or watching something. Once my creative battery is full again, I can knock out a huge chunk of the project, and that usually feels so much better than trying to strongarm my brain into getting words out.

Dema: Is there something you are reading or watching right now that is providing particular inspiration? Or if not inspiration, rejuvenation?

Gin: Yes, actually! I'm currently reading A Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss, and it's been giving me all sorts of good inspiration.

Dema: Oh yes! I love that book. Is there anything in particular about it that's scratching the itch?

Gin: The lore and worldbuilding are both so interesting, but I'm also just very invested in the characters. This series so far has done a great job of creating a rich world with fleshed-out characters, an intricate magic system, and I love the complexity of the relationships. (In short, all of it!) 

Dema: Hard agree, I love those complicated characters and dynamics. Speaking of characters, when you're crafting an OC, what's your starting point? What was the spark that birthed Saeris, if you want to be more specific?

Gin: Most of the time, it's a picture or a song that sparks the initial concept. But there are other times when OCs kick down the door in my head and decide that they live there rent-free. Saeris was one of those characters. Admittedly, I did intend on creating Saeris for a specific project after reading The Horror of Hormak, but he was supposed to be a minor character that I was going to write once and never write again after that. (Boy was I wrong.) But what really sparked the inspiration for him was a photo I found while looking up references for gray eyes. The vibe of that photo just seemed like it fit him so well that his entire character quickly started unfolding bit by bit after that. I chose a name for him, a class, and all of it snowballed until he became my most fleshed-out character (and my favorite).

Dema: How long ago was that?

Gin: April 2022

Dema: Awwww! He���s two! 

Gin: LOL! It was when the event I was writing him for took place. 

Dema: I will not ask you if your Bang fic involves Saeris because I do not want to pry any spoilers from you, but thank you for your click-bait title and for your interview! Gin: Sounds good! And thank you!! It was very fun chatting.

[howlingmoonrise]

Tag game! What are you top 10 fandoms of all time? Name them and then tag ten more people. Feel free to write as much or as little about why you like them! I'll start.

in some particular order, though not consistently:

1 - Danny Phantom! my first and constant love, my introduction to the world of fic, and what got me actually make strides in first learning english way back when! the fandom has long since shifted to more gen-centric fields than in my days (and with a lot less interaction with the character i imprinted on for the entirety of my preteens and teens, hi sam) and so i find it harder to stick with it for long, but every once in a while i'll poke my head in there to reread old faves or see what's up. still going strong with the dissection fic genre? fucking superb, you funky little phandom. keep going, i love you.

2 - Hyouka, my beloved. it's one of those cozy little animes i keep coming back to, and there's quite a few jewels on the archive too! hits that perfect sense of nostalgia with a bright outlook and more than a dash of character growth, i especially love rewatching the final arc because the characters are so much more at ease with themselves and you really can tell.

3 - Petshop of Horrors, to the surprise of absolutely no-one 😂 no, i will not elaborate, i already do enough of that on my entire blog!

4 - Howl's Moving Castle, which is only one of my top 3 books of all time (and i do mean books!!! miss me with the ghibli movie other than howl's blond design!!!). believe it or not, i only got into hmc after i started going by howl, which was, uh. interesting. when i tried joining a server for it.

5 - Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun! i'm fairly bummed that the fandom nearly disappeared over the years, because it just keeps getting better. one of those mangas that legitimately make you laugh out loud and it's not an exaggeration, i've made some worrying noises while reading it.

6 - Tomb Raider. okay, time to admit it. i'm half a poser here. i was a huge fan of the original top cow comic run as a teen, and loved the 2013 game to death (everything else that derived from it - vikander's movie, the sequels, and comics - not so much 😬; the animation released this year wasn't bad though, but suffered in coming after the sequels i think), and have played a variety of more recent-ish stuff, but i'm woefully lacking in having played the og games despite og lara being my fave. i got a remaster of the first three for myself to play this christmas so i'm working on fixing it though!

7 - W.I.T.C.H. comics. don't look at me. i'm still forever bitter that child me didn't buy all possible merch available before it stopped being a thing! what do you mean i wasn't financially independent. also do not speak to me of the animation either, i hate that it's the first thing people think about when i mention w.i.t.c.h. despite having hugely different plots and characterizations 😭

8 - Codename: Kids Next Door. i'm no longer... really a part of it? especially since i can't bring myself to read fic for that fandom anymore, but i'm still hopelessly squishy about it and i was SO excited about the G:KND announcement before our hopes got blown to smithereens rip

9 - Barbie Animated Movies. no i can't just pick one!!!! though the 2001-2009 and 2015-2016 eras are the best. and i do have to specify it's only the animated ones, terribly sorry but i highly disliked the Robbie/Gretwig one in all matters but aesthetic.

10 - Alien and/or Alien vs Predator. took me forever to decide on a last fandom so just here. take it. ignore the guilty tears as i pretend not to see my other fandoms looking at me resentfully as they're excluded from the list.

Tagged by the fantastic @nemainofthewater, thank you so much!! i hope you don't mind that i did it under this blog instead since i have an organizational tag for those here!

tagging! @junemermaid @arkhangelske @produdfctititty @sunriseverse @snorlaxlovesme

@a-memory-a-distant-echo @where-the-water-flows @dying-suffering-french-stalkers @booksfoodmusic-minion @awishturnedwell and whoever else wants to do this!

[mariyekos]

Writer interview game

Tagged by @dithorba a little while ago so sorry about the delay but thank you for the tag! Just took me a bit to get to this.

When did you start writing?

I want to say 2014ish. The oldest fic I still have access too was started in 2014, but I don't remember if it was the first I ever wrote or the first big one I wrote. 2015 was when I started really getting into writing. I didn't post any of my writing to 2016, but I'd written tens of thousands of words by then. That 2014 fic got to 38k before I set it aside! (It was a time travel fic which hadn't even gotten to the time travel part 😅)

Though actually looking at the question again... sure I started writing fic in around 2014, but I actually started writing for fun before that! I had a teacher in elementary school, probably 5th or 6th grade, who encouraged me to write a story. I don't remember why she did, but I probably just liked writing so much that she recommended I have an outlet for that. I started with some original fiction that I want to say was something about people deserted on an island or something. In eighth grade I had another writing assignment that I'm pretty sure ended up being 25 pages long when the requirement was probably something like 5-10. After that I got into fic, and besides two or so original stories that never made it past 5k, I've stuck with it since.

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write? -

I'm not good at writing romance and don't usually write romance, but I enjoy reading about romances. Generally I still prioritize plot over romance though. Once I got a book that was definitely a romance first novel and let me tell you, I was really annoyed when the MCs decide they wanted to storm out of the conference room to have sex in the hallway when they were in the middle of interrogating the guy who'd killed the POV MC's mother and was plotting the murder of a bunch of other people. There are times and places to do that! Don't do that when we have plot going! Figure it out and then go make out once we've made some progress!!

Other than that... I find body horror fascinating but I'm also not great at it. Unlike romance, body horror is something I would like to get better at writing myself.

(On a related note, the favorite genre of original fiction is fantasy. I looooove high fantasy novels! Give me magic and knights and religion and mythical creatures and I'm sold.)

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often? -

I don't think I've ever been compared to anyone. I have no idea who or what my writing is like to anyone else.

As for writers I want to emulate... this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I've gotten into the habit of screenshotting fics I really enjoy so I can break down what I enjoy and think about how to integrate that into my own writing. I'll sometimes take pictures of books if I have my phone on me while reading, or screenshot ebooks for the same reason. I wouldn't say there's one writer in particular I'm trying to emulate at the moment. I do want to get more flowery in my writing though. It might be a slog for some people, but I adore it, so that's something I want to work on.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space? -

There are a couple places! Sometimes I'll write at my desktop computer, but I frequently write on my laptop while sitting on my bed. There's a chair by a big open window that I'll also write at from time to time because I like the light. Usually when I'm in my room it's because it's later in the day/night, whereas when I write in the window chair it's because it's earlier and the light streams in the room in a pretty way. I like to change it up a little bit from time to time.

When I was younger I wrote pretty exclusively on my phone. It was either my phone or the family computer, which I did start on, but that was hard because I didn't want to write when anyone was home so...yeah. Now I hardly ever write on my phone. For one, my two main WIPS are over 85k words long so they'll just crash if I try to write on my phone. Beyond that I tend to write when I'm at home, and I'm faster at typing on my laptop than I am on my phone. It's physically more comfortable. But I will use my phone if inspiration strikes when I'm out and I want to jot something down, or if it's the end of the day and I'm in bed and want to knock out a few (hundred) words before I go to sleep. (Occasionally this will turn into a thousand words like a few days ago but. Usually it's for shorter stints!)

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse? -

Great question. I wish I knew!

I will say that several of my recent fics have been motivated by seeing someone post something that makes little sparks go off in my mind. They'll put out a question or a sentence or three, then my head will go 'ah yes, what if we explored this-' and go deeper. From there it's just a matter of how much I feel like writing. Sometimes there's an idea I enjoy but little motivation to write. Sometimes I really, really want to write but even if the ideas are sitting there, I just can't get the words to flow because none are appealing in that moment. Sometimes I just have to trudge through a hundred words or few before I get in the groove of things and the words start flowing.

I will say that I daydream about things a lot. So sometimes I will daydream about a scenario until it turns into something fic worthy. Other times I'll have a fic, daydream, and then get enough of a foundation that I feel like I can write. It just depends.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you? -

Uhhhh. Angst? Pushing characters to emotional limits and seeing how being stretched may make them react? Character studies? If there are recurring themes they're probably unconscious. I like feeling things, I like making characters feel things, and I like examining them when they do.

I will say that a good deal of my recent writing (posted and not) has to deal with unpleasant situations and how people react to having to make a decision when their only options are bad ones, or to people doing unhealthy things. Lots of heavier topics in my recent writing. Does this surprise me? Nah, I enjoy it. Does it perhaps say something about my recent mental state? Well.

Even if they go through hardships they make it through. Are they happy? Well. They're alive. Happiness means something different to everyone. For those of you who've read xxxHolic, if you remember Yuko's quote about Subaru....it's stuck with me for a very long time. That and Subaru's horrible terrible quote about happiness to Kamui in X. Should the takeaway be that you should be okay with not finding happiness because happiness is not for everyone? That not everyone can find happiness and this is a fact of life that we should make peace with? Probably not. You should always strive for more. But whether I and the characters I write about are doing that as much as they probably should... it's fascinating exploring what happiness means to someone, and where the line between contentment and happiness lies, especially in regards to peace and acceptance.

What is your reason for writing? -

It's fun. I like imagining characters in scenarios, and when I write, I preserve a variation of that scenario that I can always come back to and enjoy. Sometimes I'll daydream variants of my own fics that don't happen quite how I wrote them. And that works because I have that base to come back to! Writing also helps me straighten out some of the kinks in these daydream scenarios. It's also fun to improve.

I also write to share my ideas with other people. I love reading what other people write, so I like to share my ideas so they can have a little peace of that happiness too. It also opens the door for discussion, which I absolutely adore. Sometimes even a short comment can get my brain firing all cylinders again, prompting me to think about something in a new or deeper way. I was very chatty in college discussion classes and I miss forums. I love talking about the things I love, I love exploring different themes and motifs and language etc etc, and fic is an excellent way of starting the discussion.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer? -

I'm not sure. I would like to say ideas, but even then I don't know. I can write long things? But I feel like that's more my a product of my definite weakness, which is being concise. I really struggle with that. It's something I've tried to work on from time to time, but I still tend to get so wordy I lose steam on fics before they're done. My google drive is the graveyard for dozens of unpublished fics. And when I say dozens, there are definitely over a hundred.

How do you feel about your own writing? -

I think it's on the good side of okay. I'd probably rate it 6.5 or 7 out of 10, with 10 being "this is the most amazing thing I have ever read, get this person an award, I need to talk about this writing," 0 being "this person seriously needs a beta and to look up the fundamentals of writing, I could not finish this." and 5 being "yeah this is readable, was worth my time to read it."

Recently I did some self reflection and have come to terms with the fact that my writing isn't what I want it to be but that's okay. I'm young. I've been writing for 10 years, sure, but for how much of that time have I really been trying to get better as a writer, as opposed to merely writing? How much time have I spent studying other writers? How much time have I spent trying to tweak my writing without giving up? I have time and I have room to grow. I might not be at the top but my stuff is still readable for the most part.

I think I have a better relationship with my writing than I did a year or two ago, when I felt like I was not able to do what I wanted to do and immensely frustrated by it. I'm still a little frustrated, but I don't feel paralyzed like I used to. My two current longfic wips, sitting at 89k and 101k words, are fics that I wrote for plot and and am currently revising. They're both almost done in terms of plot, only needing another ~2 and ~3 chapters respectively, but I'm only ~25% and 5% through revising for writing respectively. By that I mean going back to make them sound pretty. And even more importantly, I'm revising them to make them consistent in terms of style, and for the style to mimic the atmosphere/plot of the fic! I'm trying to work on matching my writing style to the narrator, which can be a bit tricky when the narrator doesn't exactly lend themself to the style I would like to write in, so I've been working on blending the two.

My writing isn't perfect. I wish it were better. I really, really wish I were better at using literary devices, adding in references, the general 'being flowery', and making these big overarching themes that readers can catch onto. I wish I were better at connecting small thins to the big themes. I love picking apart writing, and I want people to be able to pick apart my writing to find gems too. I need to strike a balance between explaining all my choices in the writing and not explaining them but hoping readers pick up on it. It does not always make sense for the narrator to explain all of the logic to something, because some of that should be innate. But I also don't want things to seem illogical, or for signs to be so obscure no one catches them. It's hard to strike this balance. I'm not very good at it yet.

So when it comes to the art of writing, I think I'm overall only just barely okay. When it comes to the craft or the act, sure I can write. I've written 288k words of fic this year. I can do plots. I can put words on paper (or on screen). But are they works of art? Well...they are, technically, I'm not going to deny that, but are they museum worthy? My current answer is no. If they're going in any museums then it's the city museum at best. It's the filler that people enjoy, but could easily be replaced. It's okay. People enjoy it! I'm proud of it. But I know it could be better.

That's the main thing. I know it could be better.

I want it to be better. I need to get down the patience to make it better. I'm making strides, but I'm not where I want to be yet.

My writing is enjoyable, but again I would place it on the good side of okay. Or the okay side of good. Not the good side of good. It feels childish in a way, compared to some of the greats. Not all writing needs to be chock full of little references and themes and flowery language to be good, but since that's what I want my writing to be, it means I'm not where I want to be and thus that it isn't good at what I want it to be. It's okay at what I want it to be.

We'll see how far I ever manage to get. I have so many words I haven't' published because I feel like they're not "good writing" and it's frustrating me because I want to share. I'm just sitting here hoping someone doesn't get to the topic before I do... because I definitely have stuff in my vaults that I enjoyed but hadn't finished tweaking, only to find someone wrote the same topic but better, causing me to place them in the grave because I can't hope to match that and don't want to be accused of plagiarism, because who's going to believe I wrote my thing first but then left it in my drafts for 3 months?

So...yeah I need to get over myself lol. I can write. I've been writing a long time. What I write is enjoyable. It could just be better. I want to get better at writing as an art. Hone my skills, refine my craft, and all that.

[tonydaddingham]

LWA: I'm procrastinating again from professional writing, so I'll take the opportunity of you being uncomfortable with "God Ships It" to do my rant. When I started attempting to read GO fanfic, I was startled by how...panicked?...it is about the source material. The panic is most obvious when it comes to dealing with any of Crowley's character flaws--this is a fandom that gets very sentimental about how cruel Crowley might be to his plants, but then does a Bentley-sized swerve when it comes to how cruel Crowley is to /Aziraphale/ when he /successfully/ manipulates him into trying to kill the Antichrist for him--but it also comes out in its treatment of religion.

The irony of post-S2 fanfic is that pre-S2 fanfic overwhelmingly endorses Aziraphale's attitude to Heaven (without realizing it). That is, it implicitly or explicitly assumes that Heaven has become warped in the absence of God, and that the presence of God Herself (or Himself, in the novel) would provide the "good" alternative. Heaven, that is, can be reformed if the real authority would just stand up. Moreover, there are multiple fics that really do assume that being an angel is better than being a demon because angelic grace means they are still in touch with the divine, and there are even fics that posit how great it would be if Crowley were reinstated to angelic status. "God ships it" rests on the assumption that the GO God is "good," that His/Her "shipping" is beneficent and rooted in care specifically for the protagonists (particularly if it proves to be part of the ineffable plan), and that His/Her imprimatur is desirable and necessary.

None of these assumptions are supported by the novel or series. (I keep wanting to write "Source for this claim?" in the margins.) Gaiman inadvertently sets the stage for "God ships it" by making God the narrator in S1, but "God reports it" is not the same as "God ships it." More to the point, both the novel and the series reject the terms of Pascal's Wager: if we cannot be assured of the existence of God or the nature of God's will, GO responds, then the correct course of action is to locate moral authority "on the ground," as it were, in human communities, and to proceed as if /God does not exist./ (Anathema burning the second book of prophecies is a case in point.) Moreover, in the series we are shown repeatedly that God's actions violate human (and angelic and demonic) moral norms, particularly in repeated sacrifices of children, and viewers are not invited to side with God! There is no evidence that the GO God is good, or loving, or even fundamentally decent in a way that can be articulated in terms of earthly morality. God's ways are incomprehensible, which is why, as I said before, attempts to do theology in GO-verse don't arrive at anything coherent. There is certainly no sign that God thinking you're a great person is going to do wonders for you (see: Job). And after seeing what God either causes to happen directly or allows to happen by withdrawing, there are no circumstances under which centering the protagonists' love lives makes God look any better. ("Isn't it amazing that all the horrors of the past several millennia had to happen just so Aziraphale and Crowley could be in love?") Finally, the "shipping" suggests that it is /desirable/ that the characters' love be divinely authorized or that they should be outright directed into a relationship by providential means, even though GO is all about the centrality of free will and the necessity of learning how to choose. So...no.

hey, look LWA; far be it for me to tell you how to spend your breaks in between work but i do have to question your decision that any part of that break is spent delivering Hot Tea to my inbox - but im never going to complain about it, rant away!!!✨ (also - hope the writing is going well, procrastination or no!!!)

it does make me uncomfortable for this one simple reason:

"god does not play dice with the universe. i play an ineffable game of my own devising."

so look - i know it's literally god speaking. she can do as she pleases, whatever. but to think that she tampers with her best and yet most ironic invention truly unnerves me - that she takes free will, and manipulates it to her design - and even more alarming is that that design is completely unknown and unknowable to anyone other than her. honestly, it's this kind of thought that makes me steer well clear of any religious leanings personally; people will make decisions and will mess them up and will succeed with them, but the thought that those occurrences were "god's will", or down to a higher power... well, it's not a good feeling, in my opinion. extrapolate that thought to any real life scenario as you will.

but in any case, to apply this to GO gives me the same sense of unease. i have still the thought that there is going to be a clear, definitive line between the great plan and the ineffable plan in the narrative. that seems to have been set up very firmly in s1, and arguably becomes way more understated yet elaborated on in s2 (job and resurrectionist minisodes) until the end when metatron mentions the second coming. id absolutely love for it to be a huge narrative point in s3 again; the ultimate long-con chekhovs gun metaphorically jamming, backfiring, and spraying shrapnel all over the place.

but which is worse? a great plan that at the very least almost everyone of influence in heaven, including aziraphale if you hypothesise based on his knowing of the plans for the humans/earth in the pre-fall scene, has seen or at least seen bits of, and now presumably will work to ensure will come to pass because they know better than to question something metaphorically written in stone? an awful concept at face value, fulfilling prophecy, but at least you'd know what you're getting - you're buying what's advertised. i got rather ensconced in looking up some biblical stuff the other night, thinking about something similar to this, and:

And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. (Matthew 24:6 - KJV)

that is terrifying, even if you take into account "the end is not yet", because that is ominous as all hell. but is it more terrifying that the ineffable plan, that is controlled and shaped and enacted by only one entity, cannot be questioned or challenged until it has already come to pass? that it is not of even questionable morality, but unknowable morality? god does not play dice, because that would be fairer - that would leave things up to chance... free will. instead she is playing by something only she knows, only she can control. so in that first quote, i interpret that she is either directly or indirectly telling the audience not to trust her and her actions. maybe god is self-aware, maybe not. she's ineffable.

so, even if the great plan is awful and inevitable, is it better to anticipate exactly what's coming? better the devil you know? either way, between the two, you're actually caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. that's the whole dilemma, the whole point, i know. but this is where i come to the "god ships it" trope: i originally thought that aziraphale and crowley being a part (and possibly inadvertently cocking up) the ineffable plan by way of their love story would be a great plot device - until i realised that, to be honest, that would a) feel like lazy writing with very little nuance to be had, and b) directly contradict my whole thought process on free will.

i do think they're involved in the ineffable plan, have a stake and place in it. i don't think, in some way, that there's any way they can't be. but it would have to be for god's benefit (ie whatever conclusion for the world she's currently got running on standby mode), and i don't think god, being what/who she is, would be able to understand love like that. she might foresee it, being omniscient and all, but what would she know about it? love is something to be felt, and that kind of love (unless GO is going to take a very weird turn) is not something she could ever experience. she sees it, sure, in her creations, but that's not knowing it.

so no, i don't think god has any place in the relationship between aziraphale and crowley. if anything, her mere existence is the ultimate barrier to it, through crowley's resentment, hurt, and anger, and in aziraphale's naivety, blind faith, and own brand of god complex. to give her seal of approval to any of it would be redundant anyway; it wouldn't change anything, it doesn't prove anything, and it immediately questions whether the characters choosing to have a relationship of any kind is of their own free will or was predetermined and inevitable. so, no, thank you.

i would like to think god is good - because if there is a higher power, you just have to hope that they don't have it out for you, right? - but logically she just... is. arguably, she is beyond morality, and arguably she is both good and bad. she makes bets with satan to test the faith in her most loyal faithful - which again, it might have been the great plan to make job suffer, but equally it might have been the ineffable plan for aziraphale and crowley to thwart it at great risk, sacrifice, and pain to their psyches... frankly, it's fucked either way you slice it.

(and it does make me wonder about why this appears to be the last that we actually see of god's 'physical' presence in heaven so far...)

furthermore, the issue in the resurrectionists; not even just aziraphale's alarming speech completely disregarding inequality as a means of arriving at a ridiculous point about morality, but - did god have a hand in having aziraphale and crowley come across elspeth and morag, leading to aziraphale starting to question what right and wrong is (rather unsuccessfully, he swings between redefining the two like a sodding metronome)? and equally have a hand in morag's death, that made aziraphale potentially retreat back to his usual standby of exalting in god's power and mercy? but leads to elspeth being able to live a better life? unknown, but this possibility does indicate that no, she isn't good, and she isn't bad, she's just playing a game that has an equal chance for the rest of us as being a good or bad move (insomuch that only she knows what game and rules she's playing - schrödingers chess move, really).

that's why aziraphale's decision at the end of s2 is so important to me. he spent the previous episode playing at being god, moving pieces around the board in a series of patterns as he pleased in order to reach the check, but having little regard for them in doing so - removing their free will and ability to think or feel or act independently, but equally whilst never at any intention of causing harm. does that make it okay? of course not - it's playing a game only he knows how to play.

so to then look at heaven as being something that he could change, should change - because he's being handed the opportunity - is meritable; he's not leaving it up to someone else, not following blind faith that "the almighty will fix it", he's choosing to be the change himself. and there's no confirmation at all that he's doing it to return it to what he considers to be god's original intention; as it stands, we have to assume that he's just going to fix/change/improve it for the wider benefit of everyone. but then again - is this fair? that at the top of heaven there will essentially only be aziraphale (not counting the metatron), and his vision, his decisions? perhaps that's why it was also so important to see that conference meeting in ep6 - it's not just the supreme archangel in charge; there is a precedent, however questionable the board of directors, of democracy in heaven.

lastly, just to touch on it: i think it would have been an interesting conundrum if crowley had accepted the restoration; whether it would have changed him, erased parts of him involuntarily, or if he would have remained as just crowley and used the opportunity to bring down the second coming and heaven's corruption from the inside. as it stands, we'll never know - but there never was any true characterisation reward to be had from making him an angel again, and it would have been a weird choice for him to make. the way it went down was exactly as their characters are and believe.

(putting this into a separate section because my mind just got a factory-reset by this point and my having a philosophy-realignment moment didn't really fit in any of the above very well):

it's really interesting to bring in pascal here, because i wouldn't have seen GO as rejecting it altogether on first glance (ie not contradicting you, just realigning my thought process). so... my initial thought is that GO eradicates at least half of the wager by confirmation that god exists, full stop (aaaand immediately going off on a long tangential thought of how different the story could be if we didn't have god as the narrator/no confirmation of god in the book other than in abstract, and therefore the pascal wager could theoretically apply - big yikes). removal of the dead-end outcomes leaves you with receiving either damnation, or eternal peace. but add in the element of ineffability, as you say, and the entire argument is rejected altogether... it makes sense to have GO reject such a binary argument, and the whole representation of agnes as being a stand-in personification (?) for god, in that respect, and anathema essentially rejecting her, carries so much more weight for me now... thats so cool to think about, thank you!!!✨

[graygiantess]

Just out of curiosity, what about Loustat makes you not a fan? What is appealing about Devil's minion?

Hey Nonny!

Thanks for your questions!

My answers turned out longer than even I expected them to be so I put them below the break so people don’t have to scroll for a full minute if it comes across their dash and they're not interested in reading it. 🙈

Loustat

I'm just kind of burned out on them as a ship and on cannon-compliant Loustat fics. I wrote some more about why here with regards to fics. I might get back into them as the show and their story progresses.

I love the intricacies of their relationship and how solidly married they are in the show and how the way Louis views Lestat is in part influenced by how he views himself and his own relationship to his own vampirism.

I'd love to see more of their happy times together and them being a relatively happy family with Claudia, and those are the kind of fics I'm still interested in. The show is so rich and saturated and I really think it elevates everything from the books to a higher level, including Loustat.

But at the point in the story where we are now - at the end of S1 ep7/halfway through IWTV book - they just have no business being together, and I'm in no rush to see them get back together on the show.

They got violently divorced for a reason.

I'm convinced the show will make the reunion everything everyone has ever wanted (because the writers and actors are that good), but they need some time apart for both their sakes.

It's the whole 'right person at the wrong time' thing either Sam or Jacob mentioned, though I think a more complete description is that they're both not yet the people they need to be in order for things to be able to work out between them.

Louis needs to figure out who he would be if there was no Claudia and there was no Him (and no Armand), and Lestat needs to be in the dump for a while and think real hard about what he did to end up there.

I love Lestat as a character but I don't particularly like him as a person in S1 (which in this fandom is somehow a controversial stance, when it really shouldn't be). He did some really terrible things and even Lestat agrees that he deserved to get patricided.

And they kill him much harder in the book than they did on the show despite arguably having a much more solid 'case' against him in the show than they did in the book.

Which might also be part of the 'problem'. The writers will have to work really hard to get me to root for Louis taking Lestat back after all the shit he pulled.

Right now, my top 3 ships involving Louis are: Louis/therapy, Louis/Hot Girl Era and Louis/A Nice Boring Man.

But that’s not the type of story this is and Nice Boring Men are not Louis's type, and would make for a much less interesting viewing experience.

(Though I suppose the interview is some variation on Louis/therapy and I haven’t forgotten that casting call for brave homosexual men in the park.)

For now I'm just going to be in my little Armandaniel corner and even smaller Armandiago corner and come May 12th I'll be ready with my popcorn and my screaming crying throwing up gifs to let the tale emotionally destroy seduce me.

Devil’s Minion

Devil’s Minion/Armandaniel are toxic as fuck. Make no mistake. I'm fully prepared for them to be 'worse' than Loustat on the show because their chase didn't start off as a courtship. Armand is going to do some absolutely heinous things to that boy (not to mention the crimes he's about to commit in Paris) and Daniel is going to say a lot more out of pocket shit than he's already done in S1.

It's going to be nowhere near as fluffy as I write them.

They're stalker/victim to lovers, which is a dynamic I would never fuck with in any other genre, because ew (especially in straight ships where the patriarchy gives you an extra layer of power imbalance for free).

And I absolutely hate to be that bitch, but it's gothic horror and they're peak fucked-up gothic romance. 😭

And they're at least semi-self aware of the fact that their relationship is a fucked-up co-dependent hot mess, which somehow makes it more palatable to me. Because I think that's something that Loustat - and Louis in particular - are still struggling to come to terms with about their own relationship, and I don't know if they ever fully get there.

The powerful immortal x just some guy dynamic that I wrote about in my answer to an earlier ask is really what does it for me in terms of making this my favorite TVC ship.

Because Armandaniel also have absolutely no business being together and they're so bad for each other but also so perfect.

This is a very nuance-free, reductive summary, but Armand grows up to people seeing him and thinking "Wow, so pretty, I must possess him". Daniel sees Armand and thinks "Wow, so scary and off-putting, I must be possessed by him". And that's (part of) why Armand likes him back!

Armand has had such a shitty life and he's so done after Louis leaves him. And then he meets this weird little human who sees the darkness in him and wants him despite/because of that and isn't afraid to sometimes call him an immortal idiot, and he reminds Armand that there is beauty in the mundane and it makes Armand want to go on living.

Meanwhile Daniel doesn’t see human life as worth living, doesn’t understand that immortality is a curse and wants that.

And Armand will never be human again and once Daniel becomes a vampire it does actually fuck up what they had, just like Armand always feared.

How beautiful and tragic and doomed can it get?

There's a lot of similarities and parallels between Loustat and Armandaniel and Lestat-Armand and Louis-Daniel are widely understood to be each other’s respective foils. They're all navigating the same themes and issues in their own flawed ways.

I just like how Armandaniel do it slightly better. And because we don't know what we're getting from them in the show yet, it's easier for me to put my own spin on it when I'm writing fic or making feral screeching noises at Armand gifs.

Because right now my perception is based off the The Devil’s Minion chapter in QotD, filtered through my fangirly pink glasses.

In the show we've only seen Armand as Armand for about 5 minutes, 3 of which were in the S2 previews and trailers. And their interactions in S1 are 95% Daniel talking down to Armand because he thinks the power imbalance is skewed in his (Daniel’s) favor.

Which brings me back to likeabilty as a character vs. likeability as a person.

Show Daniel is not likeable. He is a miserable old cunt coming at both Louis and Armand (and Claudia!) from a position of white privilege.

But that doesn’t stop him from being absolutely fascinating as a character.

And, unlike in real life, being fascinating is much more important in a fictional character than being likeable is. Which brings me back to Lestat. 😊

Plus, the The Devil’s Minion chapter is just such a fever dream and an absolute treasure trove for fic writers.

They travel all over the world so DM Era fics can set in literally any location.

I wrote about Armand getting hyperfixated on toothpaste and that works because he gets fixated on much weirder things in canon. You can throw basically any special interest and niche hobby at him and it'll still be plausible.

Human AU where Armand is a billionaire who wears designer suits and only eats organic homemade food? Yes, of course! Human AU where Armand wears the exact same outfit every day and only eats Poptarts and one very specific kind of pizza from one specific restaurant? I buy it!

So much to write about.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. 🙈

[sleepywr3n]

starting a new blog to maybe possibly occasionally post about nano stuff so like. this could go way off or it could be completely dead. you should follow cuz either way it won't negatively affect your life.

anyway i'm writing a horror/locked-room-murder-mystery near-future spec fic about all these rich/powerful people who gather on a submarine to eat the biggest, freshest tuna, as part of a benefit/raising of funds for the conservation of the bluefin tuna, but then they start getting...weird. Do they survive? How many survive? I did not plot this out, and I hope we find out.

inspired by Jennifer E. Telesca who did an episode on a great podcast called Green Dreamer:

in which she talks about the pernicious relationship of conservation organizations who are essentially monitoring and managing the extinction of the bluefin tuna for maximum profit, instead of actually trying to...you know...save them from extinction.

Anyway I got Jen's book from the library and have written 1,750 words since midnight yesterday, and have I finished Jen's book? Of course not. But I've already found enough in the introduction to add to the description in my story so that's exciting!

Here's my favorite paragraph I've written so far:

The Perciformes was surfacing, in advance of the pack. Sunlight slowly bled into the water like pigment, streaks pushing through where the water column was full of a bit more debris, little bits of plant matter and exoskeleton absorbing and reflecting the sun’s beams. A few more seconds and it was bright enough to pick out the sparkles of yellow finlets - a line of brilliant triangles running down each tuna’s back like flashes of the sun, captured in the bones of an elder god. Mal thrilled at the sight.

Follow along if you wanna! And I guess it would be helpful if people asked me questions about the story to help me plot this thing out because I haven't even decided how many guests there will be or how many people are already on the ship.* Just that there will be pretty lights, creepy vibes, and reverential descriptions of tuna. This is a fanfiction to Jen, Nature, and the Bluefin Tuna.

*(which corresponds to how many ways I can figure out how to cleverly kill or drug or hypnotize or otherwise control the characters) (since you've read this far, I'll reveal that this is ultimately a feel-good revenge fantasy in which I get to come up with a bunch of poetically just and artistically fucked up ways I can punish archetypes of various people in power so that we can create alternative fables for how we deal with this global fuckery we're in)

[animasola86]

Writer Interview Game

Thank you for the tag @moongurl95 - what a fun game! Let me ramble about my writing for a bit! :D

When did you start writing?

My earliest memory of writing anything was in elementary school. I went to a Montessori school where you had a few "free" periods before the actual classes, and I used that time mostly to write silly little stories about whatever I was into at that time.

That continued throughout my school life, I always enjoyed writing for school projects, and it really motivated me when the teachers would be surprised at what came out of my head (I was a shy kid, so my only outlet were these stories).

As for fanfiction, I think I started in 2005 when I joined FanFiction.net, and of course it was a Harry Potter fanfic. Several, actually. I even finished at least two long fics back then - an accomplishment I haven't been able to do since then, I guess. Ah well.

What really kickstarted my writing spree was Hogwarts Legacy and how the fandom used to be back in 2023 when it was all fresh and exciting. I've never written so much in my life! So I'm really grateful I can still sit down and write whatever comes to mind.

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

Hmm. I usually write what I read/read what I write, if that makes sense, but I used to be a big thriller and horror book enthusiast (before the smut took over my brain), so those genres I certainly have yet to explore in my own writings more.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

I'm not sure I like to be compared, to be honest. I don't compare myself with anyone, either. And emulating anyone? Hmm. I mean, every single piece of fiction I ever read has a place in my brain, and subconsciously or not, my writing style will have traces of whatever I read last.

And I could name names now, but honestly, I just want to be an author, one day have my own story published, hold it in my own two hands, not to see my name on the cover (because that's actually a terrifying thought), but to know I've made it somehow, made it on the shelf next to all these other authors.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

I have a bedroom with a desk and a laptop hooked to a screen and a nice keyboard that makes writing very easy (if the words flow, that is...). Nothing fancy, it's really cluttered too, but it works. I also wrote some of my drabbles on my phone before, but I prefer to write on the pc (autocorrect is a bitch), I need the control!

What's your most effective way to muster up a muse?

Hyperfixation. Very hard to achieve, but when it's there, oh boy, hold me back or I'll write ten oneshots in a day (not really, but it did feel like it at the best times). Once I'm in the process of writing, I also need peace and quiet. I wrote a lot of my pieces early in the morning, right after waking up, even before breakfast, just to get the thoughts out. But I don't usually have a set time to write. If the muse is musing, I'll just write, no matter where and when.

And to muster that muse, I'll either doomscroll through a particular fandom or I read similar stories, sometimes even my own works to get back in the flow of things.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

Well, I am a smut writer, I write smut, in various shapes and forms and positions and you know the deal. Does not surprise me at all. Though a year ago, I wouldn't have believed you if you told me I'd become what I am today. I always had smutty thoughts, and love and affection were always themes in my writings (see below!) but to write as explicitly as I do now, well, okay, that does surprise me, or it did at first. Now I'm writing about these themes like others write their shopping lists.

What is your reason for writing?

Love. Or lack thereof. I used to be really into psychological or criminal thrillers, and what these types of stories all lacked was love, or relationships, or simply put: feelings, or that bit of fluff between all the killings, you know? So I decided one day to write my own thriller but add a lot of love into it, make love the major theme that drives the crimes so to speak.

Emotions can influence so many things, and I was always reading those stories with these interesting characters and none of them had any connections, or so it felt, and if they had, it was always mentioned in the very back, and I needed details! (I could have tried to find romance thrillers, but instead I took to writing, and I'm not mad!)

Same with my early Harry Potter fanfics. I was always missing real romance in the books, so I made my own stories, put these characters together, smashed their heads against each other and told them to kiss. Worked great. Still works fine.

Apart from my need for romance, I just enjoy thinking up stories, building worlds, creating characters. It's a nice distraction from the real world, and as unhealthy as it may be, I enjoy getting lost in various fantasies. It's helped me a lot over the years.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

I'm just happy if I get a comment at all. For someone to not only read and like my writing, but to take the time to share their thoughts? Makes my day every time. Of course I like those comments that go into details, reference the story, ponder over the things I've written. It's really nice to discuss what came out of my head with someone reading it for the first time, gives me a new perspective on things for sure.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

Hmm. As someone they like to return to if they're in need of some spicy fics? I don't know, honestly. I hope my readers think good of me, even if I take a long time to come up with new stuff or leave them hanging for a bit. I hope they'll keep coming back, maybe go over my old stuff, enjoy what I already gave them.

I'm okay with being reduced to a smut writer, because that's what I am most of the time, and honestly, I just hope my readers have a good time with my filthy little stories. If, at the end of the day/night, they still remember who wrote that steamy scene, I couldn't be happier.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Juicy details. Writing explicit smut was a challenge at first, but I've conquered it, and now it comes (hehe) so easy for me, I just need to think of a scenario, that tiny bit of necessary plot (which is the hardest part now), and all the puzzle pieces fall together. The challenge is to keep it somewhat diverse, spice it up, not repeat myself (which, in my genre, isn't as easy... you can only do so much with two bodies, right?), which is why I keep diving into various kinks, and oh boy, there are still so many, and I keep learning so much as I surf the very dirty waves of the Internet (until I reach a point where it gets too dark and filthy even for me and I have to go back to reading/writing fluff for a while...).

How do you feel about your own writing?

I enjoy writing, and I do enjoy going back to my older pieces and re-read them, brings me joy to know that *I* was able to write *that*. To be honest, I've never felt uncomfortable sharing my writing, no matter how depraved it's gotten, so, yeah, I feel good about my writing. I enjoy it, and some other people seem to like it too, and that is all that matters to me, to share my joy.

AO3 📌 MASTERLIST

[fangzeronos]

WOOOOOOHOOOOOO

369 days and my first EXTREMELY long fic is finished! “Mercy’s Big Experiment” was a stupid little idea of “Let’s make Overwatch’s resident healing angel fuck the rest of the named women that aren’t dead or haven’t appeared!”

I actually had it all planned out, but you know the saying “The character dictates the story”? Yeah...that happened. Chapters got shuffled, ideas got scrapped, whole sections got removed because I didn’t think they’d flow right (like a scene between Mercy and Soldier:76 in Chapter 13.) and it flowed a lot better.

I’m really happy with how it turned out, and even though I didn’t post it here, it’s up in it’s entirety on both AO3 and FanFiction.net, just look up the same username as here on both!

Gonna take November and December off, recharge the batteries and HOPEFULLY I’ll come back in January with some new ideas to hammer out. Like a “How many weapons do you have!?” sex-fic between Azula and Suki in my “Fanning The Flames” series. ;)

[blackberry-gingham]

🤗🤯✅⛔✍ is this excessive should I be ashamed

Nah, it's ok!! I love long asks tbh bc I love giving long answers 😂 so thank you lol!! Enjoy this novel of an answer, and thanks for the ask 😂😂🤲🏻💖

🤗 Advice for new writers?

I'll give you guys a piece of real advice instead of the ever vague "practice", lol: The secret to making a truly great story/reading experience is immersion. Don't be afraid to spare details or to get inside a character's head or to use analogies and metaphor- you're the writer, you have the power!

Some of the best books are the ones that don't spare the details on things like environment and feelings and inner thoughts, stuff like that, you know? It's like it's one thing to say there's two characters sitting in the room, and then jump right to their dialogue- it's another thing if you start out describing the room a little first, then maybe describe how character A feels, maybe how Character B is acting or wearing or anything like that, THEN after maybe a paragraph or two first, we get into the dialogue.

It's like this, for the room think about maybe what sounds are there? A clock on the wall? The rain? Or maybe even just the sound of silence. All viable additions. What about the colors? Smells maybe? Temperature? These things are used to set the mood and the readers expectations for the scene as well as to help us feel like we're there. It gives your story a poetic quality if done well and really engages the readers imagination, which makes them want to keep reading more!

🤯 Hardest genre for you to write?

oof, probably horror tbh. I never really write that stuff at all, so I have very little experience with it lol. So there's that, but also the fact that I feel like I'm bad a writing suspense 😂 horror done well makes you the reader feel the same dear and suspense as the characters you're reading about, and sometimes I feel like I have a heard time detailing or building a sense of dread and danger

✅ Something that appears in your fics over and over, even if you don't mean it?

Boy, do it lol! 😂😂 I'm a huge sucker for literary themes in my works, which is probably why I can never just write little one shots or fics that are purely fluff or whatever. Everything has to be a grand scale production featuring a hidden message with me 😂

To answer more specifically tho, the themes of "Love is the worthiest of all pursuits", "only through great suffering does one achieve great reward", and "man versus his own evil nature" are present in pretty much every fic I write.

I will say tho, the latter of the three usually only manifests in the metaphorical sense of a literal monster man (think really any of my beloved mutants: nightcrawler, wolverine, sabretooth, toad, ect) battling with his """"evil"""" animal inspiration instincts/nature to try and find balance so as to fit in as a functioning member to normal, human society- or, more commonly, so as to be better partner for their human love interest (hey, I love monster guys too- but I wouldn't want to commit the rest of my life to a guy who's in a constant state of bloodlust and/or not only has the shortest temper on the planet, but the superhuman strength, fangs, and claws to rip me apart while he's at it)

⛔ Fic you started and then scraped?

Dnsksksk oof, where to start tbh lol. I have a few X-Men x reader fics sitting on hiatus, plus my penguin one but I wouldn't say they're scrapped tbh. I guess the only fic I can definitely say I started and will most certainly not be returning to would be my chose your own adventure Beatles x reader fic from waaaaay back

It was a cool and ambitious concept, and it was actually really working for a while too, but idk. I think I either just got bored of it or I ran out of ideas to keep the diverging paths going tbh.

One of these days I should do that for the X-Men tbh lol. Like a choose your path date thing, just like how the Beatles one was. That would be pretty sick, ngl

✍️ do you have a beta reader?

Sort of! I occasionally run concepts or passages by @samatedeansbroccoli but I never send her or anyone else like entire chapters to read and all that lolll

I would feel kinda bad to make someone read and evaluate my literal 5k word chapters all in one sitting unless they would 100000% be interested in reading the published fic already 😅

[sourstars]

Hello Pandi<3333

i was pretty busy yesterday :< however it's friday which means i'll be having a pretty chill weekend so expect me to just hangout in your inbox if you don't mind :)

I'm feeling strangely productive so i think i'm going to write some today, and maybe later i'll finally bust out my watercolors (they have legit just been sitting on my shelf for months- i feel a lil intimidated when i look at them and i don't want anything to happened to them so i just end up chickening out and leaving them alone)

Having said that how are you!

(OH yeah btw, i just wanted to say the akaashi fic i'm talking about isn't meant to be a part of your collab, i noticed you had used your hashtag for the little excerpt i had sent through to you, so i din't know if you knew or not :) <#

HI ZO OF COURSE I DONT MIND!!! you’re always welcome in my inbox <33

fjdjfk i know exaclty how that feels, i have paints and unfinished paintings i haven’t touched either and even more so due to the time they’ve been sitting there :’) but!! i think the fact that you do might wanna continue them is a good thing and hopefully it’ll get a little less intimidating the more you get back into it!!

i’m okay!!! i watched the newest candyman earlier bc i was dying to see it!! and now i’m just watching, rather, listening horror stuff on youtube and spotify while i finish up my aran timestamp and hopefully post it soon!! other than that?? hmm i cant really say much other than i tried this??? banana bread/biscuit and i didn’t really like it??

ACK TY I DIDNT, I WAS CONFUSED ON WHETHER IT WAS OR NOT SO I THOUGHT ID BE SAFER THAN SORRY! i’ll fix that rn, but either way that akaashi piece was so cute to read fjdjcjs i was actually thinking ab it yesterday while trying to pick a book to start reading lololol

edit: OMG IT WAD YOU I WAS TALKING AB THE PIZZA WITH FNDNFC I ENDED UP GETTING SOME

[darka-3363]

Tumblr has eaten my whole motherfucking rant once again. I hate it when it does that shit.

But okay, I'll just write it once again.

Lmao, that argument about Naruto being stupid, like, Naruto in canon isn't a brain person, so the argument is pretty invalid. And even if I'm not really a fan of Sakura (I don't know, man, it's like, she's too all over the place in canon, and sometimes behaves as of Kishimoto just remembered she's an actual character, but lost all her dnd character sheets and like, tried to get around that small problem. Like, that scene where she tried to convince Naruto to kill Sasuke?? She really should've known better especially knowing that for all Naruto isn't book-smart, he's far from stupid 'ttebayo; like, Sakura has her moments, like that scene where she saves Naruto's life by putting her hand into his chest to make his heart to actually start beating, and the whole thing where it turns out she was pumping her seal of thousand strenght for three years?? Badass. But then Naruto and Sasuke get their powerbuff after the lecture of the lifetime from super grandpa and all of that character building went to shit, same with Kakashi and Obito. Those three just like, hang out around while Sasuke and Naruto try to reseal Kaguya so she can become Tsukino Usagi spent another how many years in the moonprison, but this time with Zetsu as her companion. I just. Don't know what to make od her in all of that? Like, she's there, obviously, but... I just don't know), but it is still valid that Naruto sees her as a friend, as a teammate, especially seeing they went thru so mamy shit together.

Onto the next point, the 5k words in the pacing you're going with is actually quite perfect, if I say so. Some people doesn't seem to understand that sometimes a lot of words is just too much and you need to cut it otherwise it will get convulted very quickly, very badly and chapter will not be as clear and actually understandable without some word managing. Every story has its own pacing, and 5k words seems like a happy middle ground for you.

For comparison, one of my stories on the side account that I haven't unpaded in a hot while, the individual chapter word count doesn't go over 1000 words. 1000. Because if I made the chapters longer, the story wouldn't be as easy to digest and it would be a horror and a half. The overall quality of it would significally drop.

And this guy doesn't seem to understand that writing is fucking hard, especially when you have a job/are a student or you know. You generally have life outside fanfiction and you aren't a blessed godtier fanfiction writer like blackkat, who seems to have either a highest blessing from God, or sold their soul to Satan to make them a godtier in the first place. The amount of doscipline they have to actually sit down and actually write, and not procrastinate on it do you can count how many unique phone numbers you actually can get, if you have only 9 cypher phone number and you can use letters in the said cyphers. You know. For fun.

(The answers is, you can take every grain of sand from Gobi Desert, and each one of them can have a unique phone number. More or less.)

And it is even harder if you wan your story to be logical and for it to make sense, no matter the genre you're writing.

So, in conclusion: this guy doesn't like the fic? Fuck them, it's your story and you can do whatever the hell you want with it.

Ok, so Imma rant here because I'm way too lazy to edit the latest chapter of JP just to roast some douchebag and I'm gonna delete the review when I have time.

People. Darlings. My dears. When you're fedup with a story, that you don't like characters/characterization, that you're unhappy with how the author decides to do their work... BE POLITE, goddammit! The comment you see below is UNACCEPTABLE.

You're entitled to your own opinions, but it's not a carte blanche to basically insult the author.

Also, newsflash: I DON'T DO CHARACTER BASHING. You don't like Sakura because... of actually no valid reason? (Like, "bitch whore"? Really? "Abusive" because of a poorly constructed running gag that met its swift end during Shippuden? Wow.) Well tough life honey, Idaf and Imma treat her like a normal character.

You don't like the length of my chapters? Guess what: I still don't give a fuck. I have a life outside of fanfictions, a job and a family that are my priorities. Giving 5000 words once in a blue moon is the best I can give you, and this is all you shall receive. Be grateful I don't drop the story instead of being an absolute ASS about it, even more so when you're not an author yourself.

Got a problem with genderbending? Again: idgaf. If you could use your brain to think instead of throwing insults around, PERHAAAAPS you would've underdtand that being in a parallel dimension meant facing HUGE differences from one world to another, different sexes being the lesser of them all. It's not a cope-out, it's at the core of the plot.

You wanted drama? Well sucks to be you: "romance/friendship" are the fucking tags that were used to describe the story. Either learn to read or get the hell out of here. I'm SO SORRY getting over incestual issues is not dramatic enough for you 🤦🏻‍♀️

And finally...

Dude.

Being weak-willed would mean I'm the kind of author who changes their storyline to please the readers. Unfortunately for you, I'm not bending: I have a story to tell, and I will do it my way. So go insult someone else and learn to have a bit of respect for others' works, or better yet: learn to shut up when you have nothing constructive/nice to say, it'll save you a roast and it'll save me minutes of my life.

Asshole. (Because I was taught at school that punctuation is important)

Now I believe I'm ALSO DONE with you and your shit attitude.