#also don't @ me for only putting characters from YA stuff the only media i consume these days are hockey fics and podcasts

[goodboyaudios]

Hey GB I hope your having a wonderful day

So the question I wanna ask is how do you come up with these amazing story idea's for your character 'cause I'm planning on creating a story for my OC but not sure where to start and the and the storys you create are very unique especially the names of you characters... So I was wondering if you got any advice to give for a beginner like me :)

Sure! Here's what I got for ya!

First, you've got to figure out the journey you want your character to go on. What do they want? What's their goal? All the while, you showcase a bit of their personality and what their likes and dislikes are.

(Ex: "I want to fall in love! But not like..."Love" love, that's gross and weird, I mean, I want to get married and celebrate! With my friends!" From that, you know what the character wants, but also that they aren't exactly smart enough to understand what marriage truly is or means. Maybe they're a child who actually just wants friends? Maybe that's the end goal? Who knows? Only you!)

As for the story you want to tell about your character, that entirely depends on you. What stories do you like across the media you consume? Action? Horror? Comedy? Study the good ones to see what makes them work and study the bad ones and learn what went wrong!

Ultimately, what you right will be the purest expression of yourself. And the more you enjoy it, the more of yourself you'll put into it! Take your time, don't expect the world, write because you want to.

As for naming stuff, well, that type of inspiration can come from literally anywhere! You could find an uncommon mythical name, OR you could just sound out words in your head until something feels right!

Let me know if you have any more questions!

[fzzr]

Angel Beats! Made Me Cry for Twenty Minutes

I should probably emphasize that Angel Beats! made me cry for twenty minutes on multiple viewings. Nothing else in anime or even in media in general has ever left me so emotionally devastated. I find it to be Perfect in Every Way That Matters, and I need to talk about why.

To get us started, I will be plagiarizing referencing this part of the Mother's Basement video "Why We Love Spy x Family". In very short, when media needs to get the consumer invested in its characters as fast as possible, one of the greatest tools is humor. If you want your reader to cry with your characters, first you make them laugh with them. Angel Beats! gets you laughing ASAP so that when the first emotional assault comes in episode three, you're already invested enough to feel it. With only thirteen episodes to work with, this is a show that needs to be efficient, and boy is it ever.

I need to take a not-quite-side-trip here: Angel Beats! has something that is very unfair, and that is the quality of its music. The "Beats" in the title is there for multiple reasons, but music is certainly one of them. The opening and ending are both never skip. You especially MUST NOT skip the ending, no matter how slow it seems. Watch it every time. Trust me on this. The insert songs are also so good they put most dedicated music anime to shame. Like, I love me some Show By Rock!! and Ya Boy Kongming! but I watched those around the same time as Angel Beats! and despite them both providing multiple tracks to my top playlists, Angel Beats! tops them both. It will not surprise you that part of this is how integrated the music is with all those feels.

There's more! The story is not just emotionally fraught, it's also fascinating in concept and flawless in execution. The pacing is even used as a tool to keep you invested. After a particular cliffhanger the show goes into an extended flashback, leaving you hanging from that cliff while it hits you with yet another brutal twist. The animation is consistently great, even when it's not flexing with dynamic action scenes. A show like this doesn't necessarily need that level of quality, but since it does have it there's nothing to distract you from the truly important stuff.

So, where does the crying for 20 minutes come in? Well, each episode is 24 minutes long. During the final episode, I only kept it together for four of them. Even the final ending theme is a crying part - that's one reason why it's so important to watch it each time. I don't want to spoil any reasons here, plus explaining it all would take as long as everything I've written here so far. It should be obvious by now that the 11/10 factor that makes Angel Beats! a 10 is the feels.

Before wrapping up, I do need to give some content advisories. There is a nontrivial amount of violence in this show, though not excessive gore. Some of those hard-hitting emotional moments include discussion of suicide.

Conclusion:

Score: 10/10, obviously. If you have somehow not watched Angel Beats! yet, you should rectify that ASAP. It's shorter than two Marvel movies. It's one of the most emotionally impactful pieces of media I have ever experienced, and I think it could be one of yours too. It's Perfect in Every Way That Matters.

The power level requirement is minimal. The only limitation is tolerance for violence, and if you can watch a modern somewhat gritty action flick you can more than handle what you'll see here.

Comparisons:

Saekano is another show that hit me hard in the feels. Indeed, watching that prompted me to re-watch Angel Beats! to check if the crown had been passed (it had not). Saekano is more than twice the length of Angel Beats! and it spends the extra time on the secondary theme of artistic fulfillment, and on shenanigans. Angel Beats! has no time to spare, so even what seems to be shenanigans is building the infrastructure necessary to deploy feels when the time comes. The fact that it manages to find time for humor every step of the way is even more impressive. Saekano is a great, emotionally impactful show - but when it comes to feels it doesn't hold a candle to Angel Beats!

[lajnias]

i was tagged by @chaospitals ty friend <3

Rules: Name 10 favorite characters from 10 different things and tag 10 people

this is gonna be hard i think (bc i don’t really consume media with like actual characters anymore) and i’m also gonna have to expose myself and all of the YA media i consume and Love. these are in no particular order bc i can’t rank these, i Love them all. also i am gonna talk about them even though that wasn’t part of the deal, bc i can and i want to instead of listening to my lecture. 

1. tim riggins from friday night lights (the show, i don’t know the movie). catie from ycdt correctly said that tom wilson looks like him and i can do nothing but agree. also, tim riggins needs a hug and i am willing to give it to him

2. rudy steiner from the book thief (the book, i do Not fuck with the movie). maybe my favorite book ever??? will say that i haven’t read it in a while but at least in my mind rudy is a Nice boy and that’s what i like

3. lena kaligaris from the sisterhood of the traveling pants series. i re-read these last summer for the first time in a while and like first of all, they’re great, and second, i just like her? a lot? but i also like bridget but i picked lena okay stop talking about these books published between 2001-2007 (apparently there’s a fifth one from 2011???? i don’t know her though)

4. four from the divergent series (the books primarily, the movies are fine). okay so when i first read these in the summer of 2014 (blessed times), the way he was written made me think he was gonna be the Most Attractive person ever and i was very here for it. and i just Love him and he also needs a hug.

5. lara jean song-covey from to all the boys i’ve loved before (i have only seen the movies so idk what she’s like in the books). i just Love her. in all of the ways (lj if u were real we could date it would be dope).

6. aimee from sex education. i really like that show and i also really Like aimee. she, like many others on this list (i am sensing a theme and idk what that says about me) needs a hug, and luckily steve with the massive biceps is there for her. i also think she’s adorable and yeah. 

7. arya stark from game of thrones. firstly let me say that i rage-quit got 15 minutes into episode 5 of the final season (in hindsight i should have done it sooner but oh well). i Love her and would like her to be my girlfriend that’s all thank u and goodnight. 

8. hermione granger from the harry potter series (books and movies!). so when i was a senior in high school we did superlatives (kind of, everyone was named something of the class) and i was named the emma watson of the class, and in the little nomination thingy they were very nice and said that i could be the hermione bc i am smart. hermione is just so important to me and i Love her so much. to summarise, i Just love one smart lady and my three pairs of hermione socks will tell u the same (they are so dope and i Love them, one pair says “it’s leviOsa not leviosA” which like, Iconique)

9. steve rogers from the marvel cinematic universe. let me start by saying that most of my opinion on this man was shaped by fic, so like. idk i just love this formerly-tiny-but-now-beefcakey bisexual and like, that’s all. 

10. lotta på bråkmakargatan. okay so this is a character from astrid lindgren’s childrens books and listen. she’s like five years old and thinks she knows everything (which like, me too, girl). she has a stuffed pig-bear called Bamse (don’t even ask, it looks like a pig but it is a pig-bear) that she carries around everywhere, and in the first book she pretends she’s a goat eating leaves, what more do you need to know??? she’s just a stubborn little child and i dressed up like her once like two years ago which mostly meant that i put my hair in a side part and put on my best resting bitch face. i Love her and also felt that this list needed a little bit of swedish. fun fact, bråkmakargatan translates to troublemaker street, and refers to the fact that the street lotta and her family live on is called krukmakargatan (potter street) bc there used to be a lot of potters there, but lotta’s dad says that now there are only troublemakers there. she’s an iconic character and like every swede knows her!

i tag: @tysonjost @gustavlindstrom @rantanenmikko 

[justmickeyfornow]

Ok so... I'm not rich but I'm not poor either. I have a comfortable life. Always had food on my plate, etc. I'm gay and it's a "secret" (my family doesn't know) And today, I woke up depressed. Almost 2 years ago someone broke my heart when they dumped me and it made me go into a depression spiral that just got me crazy and made me want to kill myself. Every now and then I think of them, check their social media etc and this morning I woke up feeling alone and lonely. And I just don't know :(

Not sure if I’m the best person to give advice out there, but I guess I could give it a try :)

Here’s what mostly works for me. The magic fix to all of this is just to fill your time. It worked for me and maybe it’ll work for you too. Don’t let yourself have the privilege of too much free time. Because that's your biggest enemy. The more free time you have, the more you’ll be thinking and overthinking shit. You’re either studying or you have a job right? Well the rest of those hours in the day try to fill them. Work on a project. Go to the gym. Hang out with some people. Read a book. Read Fanfiction!! Learn chess. Learn how to code (this is what I’m trying to do lately. So far, it’s fun! You should try it).

Actually the gym thing might be one of the most things that was able to keep my mind off of all the scary stuff. It’s the reason I started going to begin with. I had a lot on my mind, I was going a bit crazy and I hated sitting there and thinking about it at home. So I went for a jog and it took my mind off of it a bit. Next thing I knew, I was signing for a gym membership and going everyday ever since. It’s a huge stress reliever. Even if you’re not the type to go, do it anyway. I even pushed myself so far that I got one of those expensive memberships (That I really really couldn’t afford) just so that I would guilt myself into going everyday. And so far, I haven’t thought about that incident that shall not be talked about (scary harry potter style voice) in a long while (crap, I just thought about it now.....).

Do something that you’re good at and that you love. You’re good at drawing? Go fucking draw your heart out! Writing? Write stories until the end of time. Dancing? Singing? Playing a musical instrument? Whatever it is, do it. And there’s no such thing as “I’m not really good at anything”. So I better not hear you saying that. There’s always something that you’re really good at. Not perfect. Just good. Because if you’re just good at something, then eventually you’ll want to make it better and better until you get as close to perfect as possible. I had a friend once that lived her whole life with the notion that she wasn’t good at anything. She’s 23 and last year me and her found out - accidentally - that she can do math in her head in lightning speed. I randomly asked her what’s 12x32 and she did it in her head in less than two minutes, no pen no paper. And she was just as surprised as I was. She apparently thought everybody could do that (God knows I can’t!). So find something you’re good at and fill your time with it. I always complain about writing for Paranoia Incarnated, but the truth is it takes my mind off of the billion things that I’d rather not think about.

Social media. There's absolutely nothing wrong with cutting off from social media. Sit down and really think about it: When you browse through a certain social media account/page/thingy (I don’t even know what’s it called? I’m not really good at that stuff), what do you normally feel? Is it depression? Numbness? Endless scrolling of nothing? Jealousy? Then just delete it. It's so easy to delete an account its crazy that not more people do it. If you feel happy. You read things that make you smile. You rant about characters you like. Squeal at drawings someone drew. Smile at a cat picture. Then keep it.

As for being tempted to check up on that person that hurt you. Now, I personally believe in the opposite of Exposure therapy (concealment therapy?). If something bothers me or tends to stir up negative feelings in me, then I just make it disappear as best as I can. If it's a real person, I avoid them. If it's someone online then I block them. If it's someone I'm following, then I just unfollow them. If it's a situation, then I make sure I’m never put in a similar situation again. Yes, I know, not really a healthy thing to do. But, again, I’m a crazy person and healthy is not really something I’m very good at. So, if you really wanna go down my slippery slope, then just either unfollow or block the URL that takes you to her page. It’ll give you some peace of mind. Whenever you’re tempted to check up on her, then just get up and do something else. Open up Paranoia Incarnated and read the fluffy happy moments! There’s an idea! (Suggestions from PI? The pancakes for dinner conversation. Two penguins getting married at the zoo. Kara taking a nap for the first time in Lena’s office which is also the first time she tells Lena she’s beautiful. Leia’s chapter! The famous scotch cookies (I love this chapter!) and last but definitely not least because I was laughing my ass off while writing it: Lena trying to tap her head and rub her stomach and failing miserably!)

Now, let’s talk music. Choose one song that calms you down. Think of one song or one singer that every time you hear, you feel your mind drift from what you were doing just to properly listen to that song. Choose one singer whose voice can literally stop you from having a panic attack. Now, convince yourself that once you hear that song/singer that you'll be alright. I swear to God it works. If it didn't work for me I wouldn't recommend it. But it works for me.

Eden is that singer for me. I have a few songs for him that if I feel like I'm having an anxiety attack or any sort of scary nervous breakdown, I can put on my headphones and just play one of his songs and it’s like I could breathe again. If you’re interested in Eden, let me know and I’ll recommend which songs you should listen to first.

(Also, here’s a link to the Paranoia Incarnated Spotify playlist. There’re some songs on there that might help too.)

Speaking of music, your ask actually reminded me of this song that I adore. Put some headphones, close your eyes and listen to it. I have a feeling it might help ya out!

As for suicide. The only reason you're thinking about it is because you're keeping it as an option. I'm a practical person. I like to keep things practical. And simply not having suicide as an option can change your whole mindset.

Think of it like a bridge with water underneath it that you have to cross. This bridge is long and old and rusty and just slowly falling apart. But you have to get across no matter what. The water underneath is calm so it’s possible to swim there but it would still be hard. Both options are difficult but still both are possible. The third option is simple. Easy. You could just fly to the other side. Except you can’t. Because it’s impossible. It’s not an option. So you don’t think about it when you’re faced with the situation of crossing the bridge. Therefore you’re left with the other two options: cross the bridge on foot, even though you might fall down and get hurt. Or swim there, even though it would be extremely tiring and exhausting and time consuming and just plain difficult. But in the end you don’t have the option of flying.

Same goes with suicide. Don’t keep it as an option in your life, and you won’t think of it. Pretend that it’s impossible to suicide. Pretend that it just doesn’t exist. You do that, and I guarantee you won’t think about it as much.

There's no such thing as a permanent problem. Keep that in mind. Whatever you're feelings are towards this girl now, chances are they're gonna change in a couple of years.

I know you don't wanna hear this, but the truth is you're probably gonna go through so much worse to a point that this problem would seem like a walk in the park. And if you've really grown, you wouldn't think of suicide then either. Because you'd realize that you got over that first problem that once upon a time seemed like the worst thing you could go through. You actually got over it. You survived it. And you'll smile and think that you'll get over this too.

There’s also nothing wrong with feeling lonely. I wish I had a fix for you, but I still haven’t figured that one out yet. I tend to just ignore it (I’m starting to realize I live life by simply ignoring many many things. Maybe not the healthiest thing in the world....) As soon as I feel myself drowning in that feeling I simply get up. Do something. Anything. Go do the dishes. Hell, I sometimes get down and do 20 pushups to get my mind off of it (That usually works, seeing that once I reach 12 pushups I’m practically dead). Actually the pushups thing also acts as a sort of response treatment. Your mind will slowly realize that everytime it feels negative feelings you start torturing it with pushups and it stops pushing negative feelings towards you. Does that make any sense? I feel like that might not be the healthiest option. Maybe consult an expert? I dunno. I sometimes do it and it helps me, but I’m just a crazy person so I what do I know.

Other random things that I’ve done that were extremely helpful in changing my mindset:

1. Drink fruit water! Yup! I know it sounds ridiculous, but it kinda works. Grab one of those big water bottles that you take with you to the gym. Cut up a lemon (I prefer half a lemon), an orange, a cucumber, and some mint. Stuff them in there and fill it with water. It actually tastes pretty good. And it washes away the toxins in your body.

2. Dark chocolate! Not only is it healthy, but it releases dopamine (the little beautiful trigger in your brain that makes you happy) and increases your serotonin levels (the little beautiful trigger in your brain that makes you calm).

3. DRINK TEA!! I CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO EXPLAIN HOW MUCH HAPPIER IT MAKES YOU. IT’S PERFECT. IT’S GORGEOUS. IT’S TASTY. IT’S JUST..... *SIGH*

4. Buy a bulletin board. Put it up in your room and go crazy with it. Pin up your goals. Projects. Your resolutions. Whatever it is. Make sure it’s on that board so you could see it every single day.

5. Smile a lot.

I dunno if any of this is helpful. But most of this stuff worked for me so I’m hoping it’ll work for you. Just read a lot of fanfiction, spice up your life with some smutty ones too and you’ll soon forget about that girl.