#Probably a bit wordy

[wanderingmind867]

If i may be honest: as a kid, I tended to hate other kids. I'm 19 now, and I'm only now getting over my hatred towards teenagers. I used to always find other kids immature brats. I just came to school to read and listen to the teacher! Was that so wrong!? Nowadays my opinion is moderating, and last year at school i could sometimes even find them tolerable when they made jokes. But I still insist school is for learning, and it shouldn't be a home for immaturity!

In any case, these opinions (which must have been exacerbated by me being bullied in fourth grade) made it weird that I liked teen fiction so much. Why did I love Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, even when I actively despised other kids in real life? I don't know. I guess it's just proof i'm full of internal contradictions, and probably always will be.

[iris-drawing-stuff]

Just Shidou

[sophiethewitch1]

🫶 thanks for responding back! i appreciate all the hard work you’ve planned out for us 🎉 i can’t wait to see more of the darker themes fleshed out at the end of the first part, i will be waiting patiently LOL 👍 in terms of yandere, how bad do you think it will be? what do you have planned in that department?

also i hope you get better soon 😅 please take breaks and certainly take your time!

well ive said that its very mild on the yandere side even later on in the slowburn. its barely yandere more, like... obsession??... at least for the first while. the yandere part is more just there as a warning because I don't want to shock people with the small bit of dark content there will be. i really don't like yanderes that hurt reader (they just don't make sense to me. yandere to me is about having too much love, and you wouldn't hurt someone you loved??) and like,,,, spoiler cut here but like, these are all things that are in the tags/warnings/just information around

i need happy endings. i cant handle even the slightest bit bitter ending it hurts me physically. i am writing a happy ending. it will take grovelling, compromise, and probably fixing the universe but idc. i will uncritically romanticise toxic relationships. i can fix him he can fix me we will fix ourselves for each other. THATS ROMANCE BABEY!!! ITS BEING YOUR BEST SELF BECAUSE YOU LOVE SOMEONE!!! AND YANDERE IS ABOUT LOVE. ITS ABOUT LOVE!!!! ALWAYS LVOE!!!!

[not-poignant]

Your dialogue is incredible, do you have any advice on how to write like that? Like the actual process you use to arrive at what's on the page. Do you write a ton of dialogue and then cut it down to the gems? Or does it just come out like that when you write? The characterisation in the dialogue is superb, and somehow it never feels overwrought or unnatural. I guess I'm just hoping it's a carefully-honed craft you can give practical tips on, rather than something you can just innately 'do' 😂 xx

Hi anon,

So firstly, I'm so sorry anon because this will probably piss you off: I do find dialogue extremely easy to do, which is why all of my stories are so dialogue heavy. I don't sit there writing a ton of dialogue and then whittling it down, and it just comes out as I write. At most I sometimes just have to double check tone continuity on certain characters (i.e. 'would Augus / Dr Gary / the Raven Prince use this exact phrasing or would they use something else')

When I daydream about my stories, I daydream about the dialogue first. I 'listen' to my characters and the things they say. When I write it down, I don't sit and think 'what would they say' I just write what they'd say. But...I've been doing this for like a long time now, and I do believe there are things that can be done to build the skill.

I feel like throughout my life, I've done things that at least some other people don't do, which makes dialogue easier for me.

But firstly, down to mechanics, here's a link to a post I've made before on things to focus on re: honing dialogue as a skill.

What some folks don't realise is that constructing a vocabulary or tone for a character is like constructing a character. A character's voice says so much about them - how much money they make (or if they're nouveau riche in some cases), where they live, if they were popular or unpopular in school, if they're shy or extroverted or charismatic, if they care about how they come across, if they're a precise or messy thinker, etc. Each character you have, you need to be spending time just thinking about elements of their voice and dialogue if you're not used to doing this already.

The best place to start with this, honestly, is by rewatching some of your favourite shows or rereading some of your favourite books and noting down things about the dialogue that are unique to each character. (Ideally this will be in stories that have very unique dialogue patterns lol). This is actually fantastic for fanfic because you can end up with a cheat sheet (which I've also written about) that will instantly make your character's dialogue sound 'true to form' without having to overthink it.

And the rest I'm putting under a Read More because it's literally just me rambling:

Another place to research is simply by listening to conversations. Listen to the people around you talk, and write down the things that are specific to them. How do they agree or disagree with something? Are there sayings they're using particular or specific to where they live? Do they use a lot of slang? And if so, is it generational? Who are the overspeakers? The underspeakers? the ones who deflect? The ones who shut things down? When you're listening to people talk, think about the words they use, the pitch, if their voice is croaky or smooth, confident or shy, what makes it shy? Is it soft? Do they hesitate? If it's confident, what makes it confident? Is it loud? Do they almost never say 'um' or other words of hesitation?

Think about how these people's voices might differ from place to place. How do they talk to a waiter vs. customer service on the phone vs. a best friend vs. a family member vs. a teacher? Think about the changes you make in those circumstances.

Over time, this knowledge comes to you more instinctively. I've spent my entire life being very interested in the way people talk (I'm neurodivergent, and chameleon-like, and I will adopt other people's patterns of speaking unconsciously in order to 'blend in' - but it gave me a pretty good knack with dialogue! As did 'practising conversations' in my head growing up, lol.)

A really good place to look at character voice sometimes is also in actor interviews. Go and check out like... the Hot Ones interviews or something on YouTube, and you'll see a ton of extremely distinct character voices that are right there to research. How Jack Black talks vs. someone like Tom Hanks vs. someone like Nick Offerman vs. someone like Tom Holland shows huge variation in what makes dialogue unique from person to person.

Your characters don't need to sound like caricatures, ideally they will feel things and embody things strongly enough that this isn't really a problem (even Benoit Blanc sounds like a genuine person despite sounding like a cartoon character because of the emotion / feeling he can get into that voice). Your main goal, imho, is to make sure that all your characters don't end up sounding like carbon copies of yourself. I think this is a problem even people who write natural dialogue can stumble into (that I've been guilty of too), it flows naturally because they're just writing how they'd think/react to something, but it's 6 characters and you realise 'hang on, I'm just reading 6 versions of the author.'

This is where researching the distinctness of character voice is really important, and making a cheat sheet to check when you're going back through a chapter can be invaluable.

There are little things I do fairly naturally these days, to use Underline the Black (or Underline the Rainbow more generally) as an example. Temsen says things like 'Goodness!' instead of 'oh my god.' He can still do the latter, but he's far more likely to be quite sort of formal when he's surprised or shocked by something (and Kent has picked that up, so he does it too, lol, which makes sense - because they work together and people adopt each other's speech patterns when they get along).

Efnisien is very comfortable with swearing, he's got 'juvenile alpha who had to fight with Gwyn all his life' throughout his dialogue. Gary is quite formal and talks in complete sentences almost always. He very rarely hedges or restarts his sentences, and as Efnisien observes: He speaks like someone who's about to go onto a podium and confidently deliver a lecture. He's very self-assured. Efnisien on the other hand hedges a lot, shuts himself down, doesn't finish sentences, and bites back some of his words. Dr Gary doesn't use endearments in general, and can be extremely sarcastic. His humour veers towards deadpan.

Caleb is very forward, bold and confident. He uses endearments like 'baby' and 'sweetheart.' He's flirtatious, and he doesn't talk too much. His voice when he says something tends to fill the space - he has the respect and attention of the people around him. He speaks in complete sentences that are generally quite short (but not short-tempered) and to the point. He comes across as someone who's looking for a good time, but he's not obviously emotionally available when he speaks.

Nate (in Underline the Blue) is people pleasing and generally obsequious (but his inner dialogue indicates there's a snarky voice waiting to get out). He hedges, but ultimately tries to be pleasing. A lot of 'what do you like best? What do you want?' He redirects with questions and tries to avoid talking about his personal life. His voice is quiet in tone, and also quite lacking. He sounds like someone who hasn't had the opportunity to enjoy conversation for its own sake. He shuts conversations down rather than opening them up. He almost never initiates any dialogue at all.

I can do this across all my characters because I have their mental cheat sheets relatively memorised. Whatever book or story you're focusing on, it's a good habit to be able to just mentally know a paragraph or two about your character's voice. Checking in with that mental knowledge (or cheat sheet until you learn it) before starting writing any chapter can help guide you.

The way a character talks determines how the story flows. Nate doesn't start conversations, so he needs to be paired with someone who does. This means if Nate starts a conversation - he's going to be more anxious than usual most times, which creates many opportunities for angsty scenes.

Efnisien is hostile and combative, especially when he's afraid or upset, which creates a lot of opportunities - simply through the way he talks - for increased chemistry with a more calm but still incisive opponent like Gary. Once you start to get a handle on dialogue, how your characters speak alone will create flow through the plot, and also create ways to get through a plot or reach certain points. I know for example that Efnisien's verbal response to the directives softens Gary towards him. Or I know that Gary's softer coaxing voice when he's soothing Efnisien will genuinely soothe Efnisien - even against his will. That's a powerful thing to know about my character's voices!

You're gonna pick this up in no time, anon. You might even have really good dialogue instincts and just be over-thinking it. But I do think in general, sit down with whoever you like to listen to - your fave YouTubers, people on TikTok, your favourite shows etc. and then just...listen to the dialogue. Be wary of subtitles in this case, because they can sometimes erase or hide the actual unique details of a person's voice to make it more 'generic.' Some are better than others.

And then just write down the things that feel unique to those people. Especially notice turns of phrase that you don't use yourself. (Which also means thinking about the kind of cheat sheet you'd write for yourself! Tbh that's probably a good place to start lmao).

Definitely click on the links I've put in this post, the first one in particular breaks down all the details of dialogue more specifically. And doesn't take like 4000 words to not actually make much of a point, like in this post sdlkfjas

If I'd posted it as dialogue we wouldn't have been here for so long but anyway tl;dr I find dialogue stupid easy but that's because I've been observing dialogue and what makes it unique all my life and there's no real short-cut for that but if you start doing it now you'll find writing dialogue way easier really soon.

[v8nom]

Chaeyoung’s sounds - high, keening, needy, whines - fill the room, and she would be embarrassed if not for her predicament.

A soft leather collar is wrapped securely around her throat, thick with a metal hoop dangling off the front. It’s attached to a thin leash pulled taught, making her neck strain forwards.

Chaeyoung can’t help but whimper, breathing heavy and heady at the hand forcing her head further upwards. “Mina,” she whines, helpless. 

Mina’s gaze is sultry and evil; it stokes the already bright flame in Chaeyoung’s belly. She’s only the first of two imposing bodies caging her in, consuming her like her essence produces the very air they breathe. “Hm?” Mina hums casually, as if she isn’t holding Chaeyoung on a knife tip, isn’t holding Chaeyoung’s pleasure in the tight grasp of the leash and the elegant fingers on her jaw. Mina smiles, a wicked, predatory thing, the glint in her eye telling Chaeyoung all she needs to know. “What do you think, Sana?”

The second body, the recipient of Mina’s question, serves as restraint. One lithe arm wraps tight around her waist, forcing Chaeyoung back and confining her to face her fate.

They’d been teasing Chaeyoung for she doesn’t know how long, running hands and lips and teeth over her scantily clothed body, all the while breathing filthy, filthy things into her ear. She’s being driven to insanity, but there’s not a single other place she’d rather be.

“I think,” Sana begins, pausing to press her teeth into Chaeyoung’s earlobe - Chaeyoung’s hips buck into empty air, again - “that she isn’t using her words.”

Mina’s smile turns into a grin, her hand tugging on Chaeyoung’s collar, the leather of the leash wrapped tightly around her knuckles. The sight alone is enough to make Chaeyoung whine.

“Good girls use their words.” The taunt is accompanied by Sana’s wandering hand caressing her abs shamelessly, the older woman humming appreciatively into her ear. 

Chaeyoung wants to speak - would speak - but Mina’s teeth latch onto the side of her neck as Sana finds her breast and she loses herself.

They’re unrelenting. 

Dark bruises already cover the pale skin of her neck, Chaeyoung squirming as Mina presses light kisses on top of the existing constellation of sensitive spots. Every time Chaeyoung flinches, Mina grins a little wider.

Sana touches her with the same fervor, alternating between Chaeyoung’s breasts and humming at the whines that fall from Chaeyoung’s lips when she uses her nails. She twists and tugs, the flurry of sensations making Chaeyoung’s head spin.

Finally, finally, when Mina pulls back in a brief display of mercy, she gains control of her voice. “Please,” she breathes, “fuck me.”

One of Sana’s hands makes a burning trail up to her collar, two long fingers slipping under the leather, tugging. Chaeyoung nearly falls apart. Her knees buckle as a guttural, keening sound tears itself from her throat, eyes slamming shut for a brief moment. The shameless, unequivocal act of ownership makes Chaeyoung see stars - Sana’s action is akin to testing the tightness of the collar on a pet, and that meaning is not lost on Chaeyoung. 

Mina looks over her shoulder, most likely locking eyes with Sana. Something about them jointly deciding her fate, deciding if she deserves anything, is so deliciously humiliating that heat flickers painfully in her core. It’s like she’s on her knees in front of two gods, asking if she’s worthy.

Thankfully, their judgment doesn’t last long. 

“What do you think, Chaeyoung-ah? Do you think you’ve earned it?” Sana’s low voice is purred directly into her ear, short-circuiting Chaeyoung’s brain. Her fingers slip out from under her collar, and Chaeyoung almost cries out at the loss.

“Yes,” she gasps, fighting to grasp onto the meaning of language. She desperately hopes this part isn’t another game, that she isn’t walking into another trap. “Please.”

Mina hums. A delicate hand comes up to trace her cheekbones and the curve of her jaw, Chaeyoung leaning into it. “I think she’s earned it,” she says. Her gaze is almost soft, she almost looks proud. Chaeyoung allows herself to believe she is.

“I agree.”

A flood of relief flows down Chaeyoung’s spine.

“You’ve been such a good girl.”

Immediately followed by that raging fire.

Mina slides a hand down Chaeyoung’s body, slowly but surely slipping under the waistband of Chaeyoung’s skimpy shorts and briefs. The shorts, paired with her crop top, were the reason this all started. About an hour ago she had walked into the living room, still waking up but not groggy, stretching her arms above her head with a loud yawn. When her eyes slid back open, she was cornered by a drooling Mina and Sana, their eyes harbouring the sort of hunger only animals possess.

The collar and leash were added after she let herself be dragged into Mina’s bedroom by rough hands.

Mina doesn’t bother to waste time pulling the shorts off, but decides to pause with her hand cupping Chaeyoung’s crotch.

“Please,” Chaeyoung cries out, knees buckling at the touch. She can feel her slick on Mina’s hand.

Sana’s arm tightens around her waist, and Chaeyoung distantly realizes that Sana is holding her up. “Shh,” Sana soothes, “we’ve got you.”

Chaeyoung nods, no choice but to believe her, her mind, body, and soul completely at their mercy. She’s holding the pure essence of her out on a silver platter for them, a meager offering for them to decide the fate of: they could save her or destroy her. 

They accept, and worship her as if they’re the ones kneeling at her feet.

Fingers slide through her slick heat, gathering the obscene amount of wetness already there.

As Mina finds her clit, Chaeyoung’s head falls back against Sana’s shoulder, eyes slipping closed. She’s panting, mouth perpetually open from cries, and does the only thing she can do: wholly submit to the sensations. 

Mina works her up quickly, Chaeyoung being so sensitive that even her light, teasing touches do a good enough job.

“I’m—“ close she wants to say. She’s not teetering on the edge, Mina wouldn’t allow that, but she’s close enough to ache. She wants Mina to make her come, needs Mina to make her come.

“You’re what?” Mina taunts, pulling her fingers out of her heat and a desperate whine from Chaeyoung’s lips. Her hole clenches around nothing and she hurts.

Long fingers - Sana’s - wrap around her exposed throat above her collar, firm to make their presence known, but loose enough to allow blood flow.

“Close,” Chaeyoung breathes.

“Beg,” Sana whispers, “beg for it.”

“Please, I want to come.” She has no dignity left - she’s in scattered pieces and it’s up to Mina and Sana to tear her apart further so she can become whole again. “Please, please.”

“Good.” 

Mina sinks one, then two fingers into her, curling upwards as Sana presses kisses along her neck.

Neither of them hold back, working together to bring Chaeyoung to the edge.

She hurtles towards it, hips bucking in time with Mina’s thrusts as moans tumble out of her mouth. Chaeyoung gets so close so fast, not having the capacity to beg for release again.

Thankfully, Mina can sense it. “Come for us.” Her breath hits Chaeyoung’s lips a moment before Chaeyoung comes, cresting the wave with an unintelligible cry.

Colours explode behind her eyes as pleasure shoots to every corner of her body, body tensing and snapping sandwiched between Mina and Sana.

Her brain turns to static as she rides it; she doesn’t know anything except for how good she feels.

The tension on the leash eventually goes slack, and Mina eventually slows to a stop within Chaeyoung. Sana still holds her up, Chaeyoung’s legs trembling too much to support herself, and the collar is still wrapped around her neck.

Heavy breathing - Chaeyoung’s - is the only sound filling the room, and she feels completely, utterly, sated.

[yeyinde]

you write so beautifully and poetically, and your metaphors/similes are spot-on - can I ask how you're so knowledgable and creative with your descriptions? have you travelled a lot? if you read a lot, any good books you could recommend to increase one's writing skills? ❤❤❤❤

thank you so much!! 🖤 this got sooooo wordy - i'm so sorry!! i really rambled a bit, but i don't think anyone has ever asked me about how i write the way i write, just why lmao.

i have travelled quite a bit (mostly spending sporadic chunks of time split between Wales/UK and Canada), but i've also been quite privileged to make friends with a lot of people from different places and i got to stay with their families while visiting so i never had to worry about lodging too much and just got to explore different places and cultures.

other than using my own experiences, i just like pretty things. i don't really know how to explain this, but i'm absolutely in love with the way things fit together, and how they don't. i like to contrast things - particularly people, expressions, and emotions - with nature and the process of nature. i think that's where i draw my biggest inspiration, and where people have often quoted the lines back at me the most.

i guess i just like a brutal assault on all of the senses (taste, touch, smell) when i write, and especially when i read things! sort of like getting yelled at and slapped in the face, and then soothed and comforted by the same hand that hit you. you don't know what to feel, you just do. and i always focus on emotion before anything else.

i also read quite a lot of poetry and there is so much flexibility with being as vague or as descriptive as you want!

i hope you got some time from this!! i'm so awful at explaining myself! but thank you so much!!! 🖤

[jameszmaguire]

finally been able to put into words why the shift towards liking and not reblogging/not leaving nice comments or tags bothers me so much

it just encapsulates this shift of fandom towards capitalism as a norm of interaction, where pure numbers are supposed to mean something

but on here they don't. like, it's nice to have likes, i guess, but it will never measure up to someone reblogging something you made and excitedly telling you in the tags what they appreciate about it

the incessant liking popularised by other platforms just feels like it's sapping the human interaction, the emotions from making fanwork

[akkivee]

sometimes???? i get a little worried that rosho’s been written into a corner development wise i guess??? like i was thinking to myself the pre 2nd drb stuff focused on 2gumi; jiro finding his own path and reason to fight, juto gaining some closure on the death of his parents and partner, gentaro revealing some of his chuuoku cards, hifumi and honobono, rosho standing up to sasara and jyushi standing tall against the people who brought him to that point

and with most of these i can see direct path of further development but i’m a little stumped on what rosho’s progressing on coming into this next arc lol 🤔

[chocolaminity]

I'm not sure how many people need to hear this but you can encourage people to vote for a certain character or make a propaganda for why they should do so without insulting or mocking the character or the media that the character you're rooting for is competing against

[thepurplewombat]

Tagged by @thatswhatsushesaid!

Okay so I am also cheating a little bit with this one, because it doesn't make any sense without the context? So here's some context. This is from a post-canon fic I've been noodling with for a while.

Lan Xichen envied those who had quick tempers. Jiang Wangyin; Nie Mingjue when he'd lived-they could afford to lose their tempers. They shouted and they raged, and then it was done. They did not have to live with a volcano under their skin.

The wrath of Gusu Lan was different. It went deep. It slept hard.

And when it awoke, the world trembled.

tagging @touchstoneaf @lanninglurksnomore @bastionofbibliophiles @cryptidafter @inthe-interim @out-there-tmblr @octopusandaleech

Sorry if I tagged you and you don't write or don't want to share, you don't have to <3

[minorcharactertournament]

I'm curious, how do you narrow down characters when almost everyone got the same vote, outside of submissions of non minor characters?

By getting very specific with the definition of 'minor character.' Limiting it to only 1 character per series did help quite a lot, though.

While in my initial post I kept my definition of 'minor' fairly vague/not very strict, I ended up using a more strict rule-set for the final selection, built around one of the first characters locked in, "Cabbage Merchant." (as the nominator put it, "come on")

Has to be a character in the original text (not in the fleshed out personality and backstory way, but can't just be a creature or background extra that does nothing)

Has to have none or very little effect on the plot (this came up more when deciding between characters in the same series, this ranks characters with more screen-time but less relevancy over characters with less screen-time but more relevancy)

These two were mainly to weed out characters that were either more of 'Supporting Characters' or more like 'Background Characters.'

3. "Essence of Minor Character" (not sure how to word this, but just how much the character embodied the idea of a minor character? Reoccurring gags, one scene wonders, characters not meant to do much but people couldn't help but latch onto, that sorta thing)

Now, you can say some of the characters in the final bracket don't perfectly align with this, and I'd agree. This is where things get pragmatic(?)

I wanted to have a good variety of characters from different sources and of differing popularity so it would be more reasonable to seed. Therefore, I kept in characters that I felt I could properly gauge the odds of winning of compared to other characters, and left out characters that might overlap fandoms.

There is one final factor, which is my knowledge of the submitted character in question. I tried to at least look through the wiki, tumblr tag, and sites where the series/character is discussed to get an idea of how popular the series was and if the character in question was actually minor. However, this isn't exactly fool-proof, as there were some characters I had to do some asking around to figure out what I would define them as. I may have unfairly set aside some nominees that were more deserving due to having difficulty finding someone I could ask about them.

I wasn't exactly using hard math or logic in the end, more just "Would it feel wrong for them to be in this poll?"

[mail-posting]

is this song andrewcore or is it just the religious vibes

Oh absolutely!!!!!!

[rainbow-demon503]

2 new numbers added to family group chat

Dad: I finally have WhatsApp now

oldest cousin: who's the second one?

dad: [deadname]

dad: his name is rainbow now

oldest cousin: 👍🏻

[queen-of-meows]

For someone who talks about PMMM way too much, I actually don't watch PMMM very often.

Anyways, I've rewatched the first 2 movies for the first time since 2016 and they rock.

100% recommend

[grison-in-space]

golly, I am being wordy today.

Via Metafilter:

Someone on MeFi tagged me in and asked me to chime in in my capacity as a rodent person, so here were my thoughts and observations:

First thought, looking at that video: that is no house mouse. Not only is the head wrong--too narrow at the back, eyes are a bit big--but that very clear countershading is not something you generally see on wild house mice. So what kind of mouse is it? If this was in the US, I would assume it was a Peromyscus (deer mouse) species, which often gleefully invade our homes, but do they have Peromyscus in Wales? In North America, this is relevant because deer mouse species often have very elaborated burrowing and pair bonding systems, and this looks like nesting behavior off the top of my head. What sort of mouse is this? The Woodland UK Trust suggests that this is probably a wood (or field) mouse: Apodemus sylvaticus. (There are glorious big photos there which can help you see what I mean.) Okay, I don't know that much about Apodemus spp. behavior, so what do we know about their nesting behavior? Well, I chased a couple of false leads, then circled back to find out what is notable about wood mice, which is that they are known to not only navigate by the use of landmarks, but to organize their environments to place small objects around their environments in order to make navigation and orienting themselves across their large territories more effectively! So this mouse is probably irritably putting things back in place as an aid to its own memory of where everything is and where it can most effectively pilfer snacks, nest locations, or other useful mouse items within its environment. That is, the mouse wants a tidy shed for exactly the same reasons a human might want a tidy shed: so it can find things it's looking for when it wants to! Wood mice, by the way, are human commensals and quite common in Europe and the British Isles, so this is in no way a refutation of the idea that this behavior might have influenced human folklore and ideas about house spirits or similar. Certainly wood mice, like any mouse, are unlikely to turn up a bowl of milk if there's one put out for it--although neither are house cats, which would certainly prey on them.

rather delighted, so I'm sharing this more widely over here.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

i really am consistently doubling or tripling the word count of anything i scrapped in favor of loose leaf additions, huh