#gonna try to keep it limited to one paragraph but we all know my tendency to get carried away

[byanyan]

gonna... set down a soft little inbox call. ♡ for a glittery little problem to pop up in ur ask.

[dragons-bones]

Writing Process Meme!

Rules: Bold/color the things that you relate to and then tag some people to play.

Tagged by: @autumnslance and @frostmantle! Thank you both!

I write: daily | most days | a few times a week | a few times a month | random

I’m not great at keep to a consistent writing schedule, and sometimes it’s just difficult to get words out even with inspiration, so my schedule is best described as “sporadic.” I’d ideally like to work on this.

I write most often: when I first get up | later in the morning | afternoon | evening | the wee hours of the night | whenever

This is absolutely the result of my shitty, shitty commute, which meant I had only a handful of hours properly to myself in the evening, so evenings are when I did most of everything. (Taking part in FFXIV Write really compounded it. XD) For whatever reason, I now find it incredibly difficult to focus on writing in the morning or early afternoon; this is probably also related to my old night owl tendencies.

In one sitting I tend to write: a few sentences at a time | a few hundred words | a few thousand words | a complete chapter/section no matter how long | An outline | whatever comes

When in the moon is in the right phase and the gods are pleased, I can sometimes push out a couple thousand words; “The Bluebird of Ishgard” from FFXIV Write 2020 comes to mind. Most of the time, however, it’s a words, a few sentences, perhaps a paragraph or two. Sometimes it’s not even that, and I just edit what I’ve previously written.

I tend to write scenes: in chronological order with no skipping | mostly in order but with some filler/skipping | whatever scene I feel like | who knows what’s gonna come out????

Once upon a time, I used to only write in the story’s chronological order with no skipping. I don’t bother sticking with that anymore, elsewise nothing would get written now. Instead, I’ll write whatever comes to mind; sometimes that’s something in the story’s beginning, sometimes it’s somewhere in the middle, sometimes it’s the end. I can’t complain overmuch, as writing out of order seems to make it easier to connect the Part A’s and Part B’s I typically have a firmer idea on.

The things that comes easiest to me are: dialogue | description of senses | description of action | description of characters | exposition | other

I really, deeply enjoy character interactions, and dialogue is one of the best ways for me to do that, so I really enjoy letting my characters just talk. I also love to worldbuild, but I have to be careful with the exposition; sometimes I can stop myself, sometimes I can’t. In cases of the later, I’ll edit back (but save a copy of the original word vomit elsewhere for easy reference). I also really like describing how characters are moving or emoting; I actually really enjoy trying to describe hand gestures! (My mom’s off-the-boat Italian and live the joke that if you tied our hands we wouldn’t be able to talk properly.)

I do want to get better about describing senses or setting the scene or characters; with fanfiction, I can get sloppy because there’s the assumption that the audience is already familiar with most of the locations and the characters, and it bleeds over to both original things in my fanfic plus my original writing. Things to work on.

I tend to write: on a phone | on a laptop | in a notebook | on whatever paper I can find | with speech to text | in the blood of my enemies | it doesn’t really matter to me | on paper first and then typed up | old school typewriter | on a computer

My laptop’s my only computer, soooo yeah. I type much faster than I write, so it’s easier to just type out my thoughts; it’s also much easier to refine a sentence or phrase with typing, so I can very quickly and neatly edit. I absolutely fucking despise writing on my phone; the most I will use it is to quickly record in either the notepad or my diary server a one off bit of dialogue or narration if I’m not close to my laptop.

There’s something really fun and elegant in handwriting in notebooks, but ultimately they now feel super limited to me because I can’t go back and edit or embellish as I like.

When I take a break from writing, it usually: lasts a few days | a few weeks | a few months | it’s kind of random

This pretty much ties into question one. It’d hard to say when I’ll write, so I don’t plan breaks.

My favorite thing to do when I’m on a writing break is: recharge with other creative hobbies | read/ consume other media | do something physical | catch up with old friends | work on my WIP in other ways like with playlists or art | other | play video games | get lost in work

I like to knit, and listen to horror podcasts, read books, and occasionally watch movies, and also I actually like to play the video game upon which all of my fic is based. XD And also play other games: Hades is my favorite go-to mindless slaughter game, but I’m also very fond of messing around with Stellaris and Frostpunk.

In general, I think my writing habits are: pretty much what I need them to be | okay, but I’m working on making them better | non-existent | not great :/ | i’m excited to develop them further | totally random | perfect for me

I could stand to work on my writing habits, honestly, even if it’s just make the effort to write a couple of words a day. I would like to be more prolific, but therein lies the issues of having a traditional nine to five job; making time is a lot more difficult than it initially appears, especially with all that needs to be done in the day. Still, I think I’ve gotten better at it over the years; last year I did a couple more projects than usual outside FFXIV Write, and the same for this year, so let’s see if I can continue the momentum!

I’m not sure who’s been tagged yet/answered this... @gunbun, @punchelf, @to-the-voiceless, @efrmellifer, @scrollsfromarebornrealm, @msviolacea, and YOU. (Yes, you.)

[shitty-reviews-by-me]

“Avatar: The Last Airbender” is one of the best shows I’ve seen

This is your spoiler warning.

Note: I started writing this forever ago when I actually finished the show, but my procrastination is deadly, so I only got through the paragraph on Zuko before waiting like a month to pick it up again. 

Note 2.0: I know that there are comics that continue the series where it left off, but I haven’t read any of them. All of this will be based soley off of atla.

I started watching “Avatar: The Last Airbender” for two reasons. One, I remember seeing parts of episodes here and there as a small child, and I found what I saw intriguing; and two, my boyfriend just really, really loves it. When it showed up in the Netflix Spotlight I knew I was going to watch it, but it ended up taking longer for me to get to it than I originally expected. I procrastinate doing things I want to do just as much as things I don’t, but that’s another story.

I’m going to keep the actual review short. The show has been finished since 2008 and there is probably not much that I can say that hasn’t already been said. Besides that, I mostly just want to talk about my opinions because I have a lot of them.

“Avatar: The Last Airbender” is great on all accounts. All of the characters were interesting and complex. The plot was extremely complex, but easy to understand by anyone, no matter their age. In fact, when I made my grandma watch the first episode, it seemed like she kind of enjoyed it. Of course it is also possible she said that to be nice and was really thinking “what the fuck” the entire time. I haven’t found a single person say they don’t like “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” but maybe I’m not looking hard enough. Honestly I don’t know what else to say, I’m sorry, I just really want to talk about my opinions.

Let’s Talk About Zuko (because I love him)

I mean just look at him. How could he not be your favorite. Zuko is probably the best developed character in atla, and I’ll be honest, I never saw him as a “bad guy.” I mean, he was certainly a villian, but he wasn’t a bad person. In the first few episodes, Zuko is already painted as a sympathetic villian. We learn that as a young teenager his father banished him, sending him into a search for the Avatar. A search that was seemingly destined to fail. It is important to remember that Zuko was a CHILD. His family turned on him and all he wanted was join them again. Zuko’s actions were overall understandable.

Now Let’s Talk About Azula (she deserves better)

Azula doesn’t get as much sympathy as Zuko for obvious reasons. When the show ends her fate isn’t as clear as all the other characters. We get to see Ozai rotting in a cell, but Azula’s last scene is her having a complete mental breakdown after Katara managed to best her in combat. I’m sure the comics cover what happens next for her, but again I haven’t read them.

I’ve seen tons of people calling Azula a psycho, and an irredeemable monster, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Like Zuko she is just a child. She is only fourteen years old when the events of atla take place, and is the product of manipulation and abuse from both of her parents. She deserves a redemtion arc. There are videos and posts that will explain Azula’s psyche better than I ever will be able to, but I’m gonna try anyway.

I would like to make it clear that I do not believe Ozai deserves redemption. He was a grown ass adult who abused and manipulated everyone around him. While Azula also abused and manipulated the people around her, she did so as a child, following her father’s example. In addition to that, we know that Ursa’s belief that Azula was a monster hurt her. Ursa never showed that she believed Azula could be a better person, and therefore why would Azula be choose to be kind and good when her father rewarded the abusive tendencies she developed? One of the big differences between Zuko and Azula’s upbringing is that their mother believed in Zuko. She believed he could do good in the world but failed to show Azula the kindness she showed Zuko.

The cycle of abuse is very real. Pretending that Azula is just some psycho, and not a child following the pattern of behavior she saw growing up is immature. There is no question that she regularly did horrible things, and I don’t even think that her friends, Ty Lee and Mai, or Zuko should forgive her if they don’t want to, but she does deserve a fresh start. Let’s be real, Azula would need a lot of therapy to even get to a place where she could potentially be redeemed or forgiven.

In summary, people need to stop writing Azula off as an irredeemable psycho.

Kataang: Thanks I Hate It (just hear me out, okay)

Kataang vs. Zutara is such a huge debate, and trust me, I’ll get into Zutara, but right now I want to talk about why I don’t like Kataang in a list format.

Their Age Difference-- I think sometimes adults writing teen/preteen characters completely forget what it’s like to actually be those ages. Aang is twelve (I get that he’s technically one hundred and twelve) and Katara is fourteen. While two years really isn’t a big age difference, especially as people get older, it is a little weird when the the people are twelve and fourteen. When I’ve brought up this age difference to people I’ve always heard the argument that Aang is mature for his age and that’s why it works. That is a faulty for a number of reasons. First of all, the claim that someone is mature for their age is used to justify inappropriate relationships by pedophiles all the time. Secondly, it could be argued that Katara is mature for her age as well, so there is no way their maturity is equal. My final point, there’s a good chance Aang hasn’t even gone through puberty yet while Katara is definitely well on her way on that front. Maybe that sounds weird, but males start puberty between the Ages of nine and fourteen, which means there Aang is at a pretty average age to START puberty. Females start puberty between the ages of eight and thirteen which means she’s well on her way. Like I said, puberty sounds like a weird thing to bring up, but a lot of maturity come from going throught puberty.

They Made Such Good Friends-- Aang and Katara had such a good friendship throughout the show. It could have been a great example of a platonic friendship between a straight cis guy and a straight cis girl. Instead we got the male and female lead end up together, just like they do in everything else.

No Evidence of Reciprocated Feeling-- While obviously Katara must like Aang because otherwise she wouldn’t have kissed him, I don’t think there was very much evidence leading up to that moment that Katara had any sort of romantic feelings towards Aang. Throughout the series she says she only sees him as a good friend, almost as a brother. I will admit, there were hints here and there. In the episode The Fortuneteller, Katara is told she’ll marry a powerful bender, and in the end of the episode she realizes that Aang is an extremely powerful bender. In the secret tunnel her and Aang kiss/almost kiss (I can’t remember exactly), and in that moment it seems like maybe she could have feelings for him. Other than various small moments there isn’t a lot of evidence that she liked him. I think the evolution of Katara’s feelings should have gotten more attention because the kiss at the end felt a bit like it was out of nowhere.

It’s A Missed Opportunity-- There are so many cases in real life of cis men thinking their entitled to a romantic relationship with a woman because they’re friends, or she was kind to him once. Because of the young intended audience for the show, it could have been great to show little kids that it’s okay if romantic feelings towards someone aren’t reciprocated, and that it doesn’t have to ruin a friendship. Also that no body is really at fault when that kind of thing happens. It would have been a good lesson but obviously it didn’t go that way.

I haven’s seen it, but I know that in Legend of Korra you find out that Aang and Katara ended up getting married and having children. I think that still could have happened if they ended atla as friends. It could have been them developing feelings for eachother as young adults.

This ship has potential but I wish they did it differently in canon.

Zutara Isn’t Ideal Either

Honestly my biggest problem with this ship is the fact that many of the people who ship it don’t take into accout the fact that they both (particularly Katara) have trauma because of the other person. Zuko spent months hunting down and intimidating the gaang. Like I said he’s redeemed himself but that shouldn’t just brush the terrible things he did under the rug. Katara threatens Zuko’s life when he first joins the gaang, and I can’t blame her for that. She doesn’t know whether or not he’s really changed.

Like Kataang this ship has potential, but it shouldn’t be romantasized beyond the limits of what is possible.

In Summary

(wish i could give credit to whoever drew this but i don’t know who it was)

I could write a book on all of the opinion I have about this spectacular series. However, I’m exhaused and want to go to sleep. I will not be proofreading this, sorry.

Legend of Korra was just put on netflix and I’m sure that once I watch it I’ll have a million more things to say.

I don’t know how to end this, so uh... Peace?

[daisiestea]

It is never too late!

It always hurts me when I realize that everybody else is living their dream and here I am scrolling through twitter and eating and sleeping and just doing about everything except what’s supposed to be done.

So I know a lot of you are probably a LOT more productive than I am so it may not be that much relatable to you. However, I think all of us really has the tendency to compare our own progress or our own being to those on social media or to our friends or to our family members! But here I am and I am telling you that their pace is not yours! They may be ahead of you but that doesn’t mean that you won’t get to where you wanna go. 

These days, even during the pandemic, a lot of strong people have learned to adapt quite quickly. They have retained their work or found new work, some of them already have flourishing businesses, and a lot of them found new hobbies to keep themselves sane. That is wonderful and very commendable. It is important to adapt in such situation which you never know when it’s gonna end, At this point, there are a lot of uncertainties, so to adjust and respond to it healthily shows a strength of character and I admire that! In fact, I admire it so much that I just wanna be like them. The problem is, I am not them. and this thing called adapting? I fucking suck at it.

I’m sure I’m not the only one, I’m sure there are a lot of people who have the innate capacity to adapt but unfortunately do not have the enough resources to do so. I know I’m not the only one struggling. But so what? that doesn’t mean what I feel is not valid. It is valid that I feel sad and I feel frustrated about the things going on. It is valid that even after months of this pandemic, I still don’t know what to do. That’s okay. Although, I wish I am not the way I am.

So today, I remind myself that the days I missed are days that has passed. Who I am yesterday shouldn’t affect who I am today. At least, I wanna be better that who I am yesterday. I wanna do things productively, in my own pace. Just because a lifestyle blogger tells me to eat all vegan and exercise 3 hours a week, doesn’t mean I can do it instantly too. To whoever is reading this, I wanna tell you that you can starting exercising 15 minutes a day or even just 5 minutes. Do what your body can handle, don’t force yourself to do what others want you to do. Set your own goals based on how you can handle it. Base your own goals on what you actually want and what you actually can do. If you wanna read, read even a paragraph a day, small steps take a long way rather than doing nothing. 

I feel like society has set our own limits and minimums for us. Yes we need 3 hours of exercise a week, but if you are not originally physically active, start slow. Yes, we need to feed our minds with useful information, but if you can’t digest it fast enough, take your time and do it bits by bits. It doesn't mean you are not trying enough, it just means you are following your own pace.

It is never too late. If you feel discouraged to move around, read, and learn new habits just because you have a longer way to go compare to others, fucking stop it. Stop thinking that you are inferior just because they are a millionaire at 18 or that they already lost or gained couple of pounds in a short time. Stop thinking that you are not good enough just because they are doing good. Stop comparing yourselves to others (because that could be the start of jealousy but that’s for another conversation) instead, let them inspire you. Your story shouldn’t depend heavily on what others do. Insecurities exist, I know that. As it is said, bask in it. Feel what you have to feel, process your emotions. Then heal. Go through the process of healing. Do not suppress your pain, sadness, insecurities and all your negative emotions just because you want to catch up, it’s gonna bite you in the ass later on.

Take it slow. Your journey is yours, take the support you can get and ignore meaningless words that could discourage you. Work on yourself for yourself. It is never too late to start living healthy, learn new things, heal, and let go of toxicity. Self-love takes time so take all the time you can get,

Love,

Sophia

[analyzingadventure]

PSI THOUGHTS 2: THE ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

Aka time to share some thoughts on the profile blurbs and participate in some wild speculation

(Quickly though I just wanted to say that the new outfits are fine but there is something weird to me about them... It’s like this weird mix of taking the original designs, trying to modernize them while also keeping them looking the same and it like... It feels like they tried to Adventure-fy the old designs it somehow made the kids look like background extras of their own show?? IDK maybe it’s just nostalgic bias or something lmao. But yeah the kids look fine, I wish they had left Mimi’s hat pink and... Man they really did Koushirou a dirty, eh. He really looks awful in that outfit holy shit)

When it comes to the kids I actually don’t have much to say about them- they kinda sound like parodies/abridged versions of themselves from Adventure, like the way they call Mimi a “princess”, which kind of sounds like someone saw her childlike innocence from Adventure and figured all there is to Mimi is that she’s a whiny little brat (/”princess”). I am jumping to conclusions here but rn I feel like tri. had a better understanding of the characters than Psi, but then again Psi doesn’t have to stay through to Adv.’s characterization.

The only things I found worth mentioning were that Hikari indeed seems to have a sixth sense so she seems to still be the DigiJesus (or, well, techinically they made it sound like Hikari has a tendency to astral project but whatever lmao). But in a twist, based on Takeru’s profile he too may have that sixth sense! 8O And ngl I am very excited to see where they’re going with that

EDIT: I misread a good portion of the blurb, ignore the next these paragraphs lmao (leaving it here for people to laugh at tho)

Also; They mention Takeru lives apart from “his brother” due to “circumstances”... Now either these profiles are vague and cheeky because the writers don’t want to spoil to any kids that Takeru and Yamato are brothers whose parents divorced, OR... A) They are brothers but their parents aren’t divorced (yet) or B) They’re not brothers at all (they don’t have the same last names after all) and Takeru has another brother he lives away from for some reason.

I mean I do think it’s most likely the writers are being cheeky and trying to not spoil things for the kids, but the fact they didn’t mention Yamato being Takeru’s brother at all is super interesting to me.

ONTO THE DIGIMON, again, not much to say about the most of them. They did confirm the Adult form of every Digimon so my hopes of branching evolution trees has been smothered a bit but not killed yet, not entirely- it is still possible they could get new Perfect level forms and/or multiple Perfect forms. Or Ultimate (depending on how Psi will treat levels, like for all we know they could ditch the level system again like Frontier and Xros Wars did)

BUT THERE’S THREE THINGS WORTH NOTING IN THOSE PROFILES! The Great War, no mention of Angemon, and Tailmon.

Some people immidiately started speculating about a multiverse/AU theory from the mention of the War and how Agumon knew Taichi but considdering the other things mentioned in the profiles I doubt this is the same Agumon from Adventure... Unless it was specifically Agumon and Agumon alone while all the other Digimon were from this universe specifically. But still, I don’t think there’s any multiverse stuff going on here, Agumon just pulled a Hikarigaoka-esque stunt at some point but nobody remembers it, probably

The mention of the “old Internet” (and the war that happened there) makes me wonder if they’re going to pull an X-Antibody-esque kinda storyline with Yggdrasil or something where instead of a Digital World being destroyed, it’s the Network? Who knows, there’s only so much you can speculate based on a handful of words

Patamon totally evolves into Angemon, I think they’re just being cheeky about it and Angemon is like a “legendary warrior” and some shit like that, it’s totally gonna be like that and I’m sure he’ll die just like he did in the past

BUT WHAT’S REALLY INTERESTING FOR ME IS TAILMON

TAILMON WON’T JOIN THE KIDS/HIKARI, SHE’S JUST BEING MYSTERIOUS AND SHIT, LIKE REI IN APPMON

Now that’s a trope old as kids’ shows, but it’s still interesting due to its implications.

Tailmon could be a lone wolf because she’s on a secret mission. She could be a lone wolf because she has some issues. She could be a lone wolf because she’s teamed up with the enemy and is either playing Taichi and co into a trap, or she’s having second thoughts and is kinda two-timing the Chosen and the enemy

There’s many options, and it’s very interesting to see what they’re going to do

And if Tailmon is working for the enemy... Who is it?

There isn’t much left to discuss here actually... The enemies we see in the new trailer kind of remind me of the Virusmon in Appmon, but they look a bit... off? IDK maybe it’s just this weird whiplash of the old Digimon looking weird to the new enemies with more modern designs. That said I wouldn’t be surprised (and I would be a bit happy actually) if those new enemies from the trailer were not Digimon, but they probably are, and I’m sure we’ll find out what species they are

Now one last thing I found interesting about the trailer (which is definitely giving me that Hunters/Appmon feeling rn) is that we definitely see the kids entering the Internet in it (the Internet having that very DigiQuarts/AR Field look to it).

The thing is, we had it already confirmed way back that there is a Digital World, it’s the green foresty thing on the poster. So it’s going to be interesting to see how they’ll handle the Digital World- it already sounded a lot like to me that the kids could travel with ease from the Human World to (what has now been confirmed to be) the Internet, so how that’ll extend to the DW is interesting. Is it going to be like like how the Deep Web worked in Appmon where once you go deep enough you’ll find the DW?

So will we see a lot of the DW or will the show take mostly place on the Internet with very limited visits to the DW?

(Unrelated but hilariously that was kind of what I always expected Appmon would do, like they’d go deep into the Net Ocean and find themselves in the Digital World (with Digimon specifically) and I was sad nothing like that ever happened so it’s gonna be surreal and hilarious if that’s exactly what Psi does)

And.... I think that’s it? I can’t think of any other things to briefly discuss, I ran out of disjointed thoughts

I’m expecting Psi to be either pretty decent or an absolute, flaming trainwreck and if it’s the latter it’s gonna be hilarious to watch and my popcorn is ready for it