#i feel like I’m not a very descriptive writer in terms of physical descriptions? so i think gore would rly challenge that

[bakatenshii]

Did y'all eat cake!! And sorry you don't feel well, but are you trying to write gore while you're hungover?!!!

omfg AHAHAHAHAH NONNIEEEE SORRY I DONT KNOW WHY BUT RHIS SENT ME INTO ORBIT AAAAAAAAAAA ALNSPWKSOZIAONSOSKWOA “are you trying to write gore while you’re hungover” I WANT THIS AS LIKE MY BLOG INTRO OH MY GOD AAHAUHAOAA I LOVE U THATS AMAZING I CANT STOP LAUGHINF AT THAT

I did not in fact eat cake! although I’m sure miki did hehe but to answer— no, I was trying to write my angel devil fic but every time I opened the doc my brain hurt a lil more (placebo maybe …: maybe my brain said pls rest youve done too much thinking) so I just reread @theygottheircages ‘s wip and called it a night <33 （〃￣∇￣）

[braaan]

HOLID-AMA ANSWERS!

OR: QUESTIONS AND BRAN-SWERS

Thank you to everyone who submitted an ask! These were very, very fun to do, and overwhelmingly flattering. I'd like to do more of these very soon :)

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On writing

@kooyabooya asks: what made you want to start writing about kpop ggs in the first place (this could aka what inspires you to write in terms of dynamics, tone, prose, imagery, etc etc...)

Hi Koo! Thank you for the question! :-) I think – like you’re indicating – there’s a couple of parts to this:

(1) and most inherently: COVID changed me. I went from legitimately adverse to kpop to perusing the genre to #ONCE Forever in maybe 6 months LOL. I seriously blame the physically disgusting amount of League I was playing (there was a player on ladder who always shit on me with Dahyun as their ID) but more realistically think it was just fandom at work! I wanted more content eventually, and it didn’t take me long to stumble onto the kpop-latent writersphere.

(2) Neatly from above: I think the kpop-latent writersphere is one of the most rich and rife communities out there; to a sizable degree: I write because of you! I am surrounded by great writers, am always reading something that is funky and/or makes me feel some type of way every month, and I think because of that, have similar stories to tell!

The Hyewon was my first piece of smut, longform, evocative writing (everything in between, really), and I credit all of that to the community. As long as you continue to enjoy my stuff, push the bar yourself, and re-invest in the space along the way, I think I’ll be here for a while!

(3) Bong Joon Ho says something to the effect of art needing to scare you. I believe in this so viscerally, and think it’s why I fundamentally write so… annoyingly descriptive… recursively metaphorical… pithy? I think I spend a lot of time understanding a character in and out; I’ll always have a Weverse Live going on when I’m writing — just to catch the quirks — because I really want you to believe that, even for a moment, what you’re reading is real. I think parasocialism can lend itself to a hauntingly beautiful form of want, and to me, if I can tell a story so true to life that it lingers — leaves a lasting impression on you that makes you feel something, even if just for a moment — that is awesome.

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@fuckkkkkklol asks: do you have ways to push through writer’s block and/or executive dysfunction when it comes to creative things (including but not limited to writing)? if yes gimme your best ones 

@majorblinks asks: tips for overcoming heinous & debilitating writer's block (asking for a friend not me)

Hi Miggy, hiiiiii major ^_^, and hi major's friend! I think my very unqualified advice here doesn’t stray far from: be bored and don’t do what you don’t want.

Above is just a screenshot-worthy sneak peek of what my current drafts look like — the slate totals up to maybe ~15 pieces that I’ve worked on on and off, and though are in many states, all of them unfinished. The haunting voice in the back of my head hates this: that I have so many drafts that I should finish, that I must go back and put out all of these stories, that I have an obligation to do these things… but the better part of me knows that is contradictory.

Creation is iteration — when @capslocked wants to be smart, he has a sweet turn of phrase that goes “writing is rewriting” — and I think it’s fundamentally inconsequential to have to create.

Get words out of your system, play around with an idea for a timeframe, get bored of it, chase a new premise that you start a completely different draft for, then do it over again — eventually, to me, this ends up coalescing to something that I can put out: I’m ALWAYS looking back at drafts and exercises to Frankenstein them into other pieces (“I really liked this pacing from here” … “Ooh, and then this metaphor I think sits nicely with this other one” … Eunseo was a combination of lots of unrelated drafts before it).

Also: you are so opinionated! Reading something, I form an opinion almost immediately of a writing voice: what I don’t like, what I do, and how I’d do an idea myself. I think this instinctive editorial motion is great when applied to the above exercise: I’ll start a new doc in the direct middle of a one-shot, riff off something I saw somewhere else, or just play with a metaphor that I really really like — none of these are ever intentional of a story I’ll write, but I do think it continues to keep writing instinctive and, like above, almost always becomes recycled into something that eventually does make it out.

In short, I think the remedy to writer’s block is time, and continuing to nurture the muscle is what makes overcoming the hurdle easier and easier when you inevitably come back to it. To me, any hacks, additional fire under your ass, or other things to speed up the process are inconducive of actual Craft, and most likely do not let you enjoy doing what you initially set out to!

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@kesujo asks: Every writer's writing style is inspired by his/her favorite writers, which may even change as they discover new writers. Has this ever happened to you, where you noticed your writing style change, or you pick up some stuff from new writers you've discovered? And, if you were to say the top 5 influences to your current writing style (doesn't have to be in order), who would they be, and what about their writing style did you like the most that you picked up from this writer?

Oh yeah, like I mentioned, I’m very new to the space (and this voice of writing in general), so I’m definitely always :notee:-ing. 

I’m not reading enough these days, and if I am, it really is strategy-latent nonfiction, but for here:

@yieldtotemptation easily has the most fun-laced voice and ideas — we could be several thousand words deep into an otherwise raunchy piece, and I'd still find myself putting my phone down to laugh at a disarming line of dialogue or perfectly packaged, real-life metaphor. Gray has inadvertently taught me a lot about having fun with my stuff, and I think I'm trying to take myself less seriously because of them!

@majorblinks is my blueprint, and genuinely, viscerally, in-real-life annoys me. Completely straight: I think Major is the bar for storytelling. We're both on the same wavelength when it comes to the stories we'd like to try, but only one of us has gone out and done it (see: DOWNRIGHT ICONIC), and I think that makes all of the difference. I'll spare you the brainworm: there's writing for writing's sake, and then there's writing with a purpose. DOWNRIGHT ICONIC as an example is a fundamentally masterful understanding of how smut and its readers work as a vehicle**, and I think everyone would benefit by taking a sliver of Craft that it literally oozes out.

@capslocked is a pioneer of many, many things in this space, but I think doesn't get enough credit for how technically crafty he is. My drafts are guilty of overusing "And" to start new sequences, and it's not until I've re-read a Caps piece that I go back and fix them. Caps has an expertly-crafted, seriously refreshing style of paragraphing, structure and usage that I'm always looking to for inspiration, and easily is the writer that dumbfounds me the most with how rudimentary / fundamental his phrasing feels — it's always a mix of "oh wow!" and "of course!" if that makes sense!

** Alex Cornell has a fantastic, 25-minute talk about Idea Vessels (here) that touches on this

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Anonymous asks: Hello Bran, just wanna say I love your fics and writing style. Wondering if you have any upcoming fics that your currently working on?

Anonymous asks: Curious on any upcoming fics? 

Hi very, very kind Anons! I have two in the slow cooker that I'd really like to see come out. Sneak peeks at both of them below!

(1) is this Julie piece from last summer that I put on pause. There was a week where I put on Mother (Letterboxd), Perfect Days (Letterboxd), and Shoplifters (Letterboxd) on back to back to back, and this came from that!

There's something about noir and darker themes that I think expert directors understand lend themselves well to the one long take that feels more and more intrusive as it stays on a character / scene, for example, and this piece really tries to encapsulate that into writing.

It's a more condescending and smartass character compared to what I'm used to, and the draft for it sits squarely on top of the framing that idol Julie becomes Oedipus Rex. Written in the style of a tragedy, rife with callbacks to Greek Classics; could be really sexy.

(2) is a Chaeryeong piece that I tried to put out for @passingnotions.

It's legitimately some of the raunchiest stuff I've written, and all sits on the premise that you haven't seen gross yet — I have each of the seven deadly sins in the document LOL; I genuinely always feel guilty when I re-read some of the stuff in here...

(bran pure bran pure bran pure)

On not writing

@octoberautumnbox asks: pls also get nachos on the next milk run and a flavor ice cream you'd rate 6/10

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@majorblinks asks: r we twin flames yes or no

:fishh:

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@kooyabooya asks: the last song you listened to on your spotify?

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@avenger7567 asks: Do you think WJSN will ever return again?

I cannot imagine that it will be the same iteration of WJSN if they do, but I think (and hope) so — the socials are decently active, and will 100% be a gimme for headlines!

It's truly such a sonic loss! I'll find the time to put it into words one of these days, but I really think underdog-y, just under the surface energy is what leads to experimentation within any genre. Music is trendy, and kpop is no stranger of the "regression to the popular grey" — groups like WJSN who don't have enough clout to conform must zag... and then you get shit like Last Sequence.

VIVIZ, NMIXX, RESCENE (here and here), and Billlie play this game very well + keep me sated in the interim! WJSN 2030 comeback :')

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@majorblinks asks: whats ur most recently read book & how many stars would u give it out of 5

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@friskyriskywhisky asks: Nice to see you on Tumblr again!😊 How are you doing so far? What is the most attractive thing an idol has once said? If you can only watch only one idol's live-stream for a whole year, who would it be?

Most importantly: SANA CLAUS is gonna get robbed by one female idol. Who's it gonna be and are you going to warn Santa?

(1) Always good! It's been a crazy start to the year, but I feel like I've always been legitimately blessed :-)

(2) HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

(3) Probably Luda (WJSN)!

I'm not a big livestream consumer, but I do notice that a lot of groups where the majority of them are adults tend to have more fun ones. For another time, but I think there's less media criticism inherently of what you are and aren't allowed to say when you're "an adult", and so these livestreams do feel a little less... sterile?

The last Luda stream I watched, I remember there being a sequence where she legitimately spent 2 minutes making fun of a fan comment because they commented that they were single LOL

(4 AND MOST IMPORTANTLY) step bro i'm stuck in the Sana multiverse and if you even remotely think about trying to get me out i will absolutely end u

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@kooyabooya asks: what is your spirit animal or pokemon (if you have one by chance) 

LOL can you guess:

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@majorblinks asks: give me like 3 of ur new year's resolutions . what r we getting up to in 2025

I need to crack open the journal and really Reflect to get them down down..... but I think will largely stem from the same place of having a better relationship w work and the things I do...

Long pause moment in recent memory came from a conversation I had with some friends — among many tidbits: "I want complete control over something ... and then will want control of my control" + "where is the line between full trust in yourself and mistrust in anyone else?"

... think I've come to a place where it's actively harmful for me to not let go a little bit more, so hopefully in 2025: less so default white-knuckle about things!

Other than that, probably getting back into music production in one way or another, and eating majorblinks alive! ^_^

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@zeketheknight asks: What are your favorite K-pop moments from 2024?

2024 was a great year for moments up my alley in general — I feel like I've been quite prolific about the more adult idols drum (which only becomes more real with time), and I think I can point to content coming out of Jeongyeon, Chaeyeon, Eunbi, Haewon, Shuhua, Youngji/Eunji as probably some of my more memorable moments of the year!

Like the middle minutes of this is still so fire LOL

The bar is low for risqué (real) in Kpop, but until we let them even address shit like this it's going to be diluted, pandering, and brainrot for a loooong time.

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@kooyabooya asks: thoughts on matcha lattes?

Big fan! I'm always doing a 2-shot matcha something within the workday. 

I've been meaning to explore more of this — I am somewhat... unconvinced the matcha game goes deeper than it looks like it does on the surface — so if you have good match recommendations please send my way!

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@friskyriskywhisky asks: How would you navigate this situation where you're not sure Hyewon is being friendly or flirty?

WHERE IN THE HELL IS THIS ONLY FRIENDLY IN ANY CONNOTATION?????????????????????

i'd probably piss my pants frisky 😎

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That's QUESTIONS AND BRAN-SWERS this time around! Thank you again to everyone who submitted an ask, and you for reading if you got all the way down here. This was really, really fun, and I'd like to do more writing-latent stuff in the future. Until then: happy new year, be good to each other, and see you in the next one!

— Bran

[alexanderwales]

My web serial, Worth the Candle, has been adapted into a webcomic. This was thanks to my agent, who I have a great fondness for, since without him I would have to spend time trying to make connections and call people and do a bunch of work that I don't know how to do and am not good at.

I was offered the chance to write the webcomic, but declined, mostly because writing Worth the Candle had taken four years and was pretty draining, and was a story that I feel like I'm done with, minus some editorial stuff, answering fan questions, and the odd bit of promotion. So my level of involvement is that I get the pages as they come in, make some comments on them, and generally just give feedback which they are free to ignore.

So let's talk about some of the adaptational changes! You can read the first three issues on Webtoon here, or the first eight issues if you're willing to pay, and the books start here, but I'll assume that you haven't read either, and there won't be substantial spoilers because I'm talking about stuff from the very beginning. Actually, I guess there will be some spoilers, but later on, and I'll mark them, mostly having to do with some foreshadowing that the webcomic does which I didn't do.

(I licensed the rights to make the webcomic to WebToon and took my money upfront, they didn't ask me to write this post, I have not actually asked the artist/writer why they made these changes, it's just me guessing and commenting, for fun. Edit: My agent has informed me that I'm mistaken, I do get a cut. So apologies for the misinformation, and hooray for me, I guess I signed the contract ages ago and just forgot the details.)

Character Design

Here's how Juniper Smith is described in the books, ch 2:

I won’t belabor my physical description. My friend Greg had once said that I looked like someone had chosen ‘default’ for every option in the character creator, which I’d tried to laugh at but cut kind of deep. I wasn’t handsome, I wasn’t ugly, none of my features were very prominent, my eyes were blue, my hair was brown, average build, average height … After Greg had made his comment at one of our D&D games, my nickname had been ‘default’ for a while, at least until I stopped pretending to find it funny, and even after that my friends would use similar lines to trash talk me, saying that I was “the most generic man alive”, “a white bread with skim milk motherfucker”, or “the human equivalent of vanilla ice cream”. Not that I was any less of an asshole to them.

This is how he looks in the comic:

I would more or less give this full marks.

In terms of other aspects of character design, Juniper is here given a black shirt with a red symbol on it rather than the stock white t-shirt he's wearing in the opening chapters of the first book, probably in the interests of adding in some visual variety. On the page, it's perfectly fine that every person in the first 50k words is wearing basically the same stock outfit. In a visual medium, I do think that you need that pop. I do think it's interesting that Juniper is wearing the same clothes in the classroom as he is on the plane, implying that when he transmigrated his clothes ... came with him? I don't know.

The other major character of the first section is Amaryllis, who is a major character in the entire work. Here's her description in the book:

Standing by a workbench, among various car parts, tools, and cans of unidentified fluids, was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

I’m not really sure what protocol is here, in terms of prose. I mean, I don’t want to sound like a creep, so maybe I should stay as generic as possible and tell you about her dark red hair pulled back in a braid, the glacial blue of her eyes, how starkly alert she looked as she peered over the parts in front of her, or her grease-smeared clothes. Save for her eyes, I wasn’t really focused on any of that. My mind was consumed by tracing her curves, the shape of her chest in her blood-stained t-shirt, the fullness of her lips and the delicate way she had them parted -- and yeah, it was pretty fucked up that the splatter of blood on her shirt wasn’t worth rating much of a mention. I was consumed with staring at her and thinking how gorgeous she was, until I noticed that she was having a powerful effect on me, at which point different parts of my mind were given over to marveling at the sensation of being so attracted to a girl, and others were still focused on her.

Imagine that someone spent a few years studying your likes and dislikes, running through video of your every private moment, somehow surreptitiously hooking up EKGs to measure your physiological responses without you knowing. Then imagine that they sat down with that data and the best photo manipulation artists in the world and made the absolute perfect picture to cause your heart rate to spike, a jolt to run up your spine, butterflies in your stomach, and a cold sweat on your palms. Then imagine that they did this again, over and over in slight variations, until they had a full 4K 60fps 3D movie to show you. That was what it was like watching her.

And here she is (as she's introduced) in the comic:

Aside from the change in clothes, which in the book are the same white t-shirt and blue jeans that everyone else is wearing, Amaryllis has a scar on her face, of unknown provenance. This was probably added for visual variety, but I do find scars to be very fetching, and in one of the early versions of Worth the Candle she did have one (patterned off a woman with an extremely attractive facial scar I had met, the kind of facial scar that looked like it was applied by a Hollywood makeup artist specifically to give a touch of the exotic and mysterious, except she was a just a Midwestern mom).

And of course Amaryllis was always going to be an adaptational challenge, because the books are told through Juniper's eyes, and she's The Most Beautiful Girl in the World to him, and conventionally attractive to everyone else. Juniper tries to be normal about this. But if you're in the visual medium, you have to show both how Juniper feels and how she actually looks, and attractiveness is just so incredibly personal. My wife and I get in these kinds of discussions a lot, where she'll think someone is good-looking and I'll say "him?" or vice versa.

I think the above panel in particular is a good middle ground, a glamour shot that snaps back to the reality of their first meeting:

(The void gun she's holding there is much different from the one described in the book, not something cobbled together from spare parts and void equipment, but this is another very minor change that I would assume is meant for communicating immediately that this is a lethal weapon, and there's probably not a place for explaining how and from what it was cobbled together, which is also under-explained in the book for reasons of pacing.)

Story

I've read the first nine episodes, and overall, it's hewing very closely. There are a few bits in particular that stand out to me in how they're handled.

Spoilers for later in the series follow, I guess.

These are the opening lines of the webcomic. This is much stronger foreshadowing than I used, and I like it. Part of Juniper's backstory is that he's been deeply depressed and self-destructive, and he's slow to open up about this with other characters or the reader. The "it" that he couldn't go through with is, then, suicide. In the books? This comes very very late. Juniper being depressed after Arthur's death is brought up after the first major arc, halfway through what's now Book 1, and gets more explicit as the books go on, eventually getting to Juniper talking about his attempted suicide with people and grappling with it like ... almost halfway through?

I don't know what the plans for the webcomic are, but my guess is that they're setting up for much, much later on in a way that I didn't. This was always a background element, something that informed Juniper's character, not so much the suicide attempt as the feeling that came after, this understanding that yes, he did want to live, a heady, energizing kind of "I guess I don't have the way out that I thought I did" sort of thing.

So I take it as a good sign that this is the opening line. It points toward them understanding where they're going.

One of the other major adaptational changes is that they signpost Arthur's death with a memorial on his desk:

When I was getting pages, this was one of the first moments where I was like "yes, this is a good change, visual storytelling to replace my walls of text, flows and offers indirect information". I am very happy with the adaptation thus far, and stuff like this is what I love about adaptation in general, the need to grapple with the strengths and weaknesses of the medium.

Content Rating

Worth the Candle gets grim and dark in places. It at least attempts to grapple with serious things. The webcomic is rated Young Adult, and I'm not sure how they're going to handle the later stuff, but I can talk about how they're handling the stuff now, and what I think it means overall.

First, there's a lot less swearing. Worth the Candle in its entirety uses the word "fuck" ~1200 times. Granted, this is over the course of 1.6 million words, so a fuck density of one every 1.3k words, and some of those are in the verb "soulfuck" rather used descriptively, as exclamations, etc. My personal feeling is that this doesn't matter basically at all. I don't think I notice when someone isn't swearing unless they're using corny substitutions or trying to get cute with it.

Second, the violence is toned down in that YA way, where they're still showing much of the same things, just not with the same level of visceral detail. When a Marvel comic has someone thrown into a wall, they're no blood or snapping of bones or mangling of bodies, at least if it's a comic at a certain rating (I have definitely read some edgy 90s comics that do go hard on the violence). I think, overall, that this isn't my preference, which might be obvious from the way that I try to write fight scenes and such. But I'm also sort of inured to this toning down of violence, since it's omnipresent.

Third, there's the sex stuff, and ... well, it hasn't come up in the webcomic yet. I think I laid out my reasoning for why I think sex scenes should be written/included in Why to Write a Sex Scene, but the brief version is that sometimes you're showing how characters relate to each other, what they think of each other, and the sex scene shouldn't always just be something that's skipped over and left to the reader's imagination, because things happen, there are moments of communication, it can and does develop a relationship in the moment rather than after the fact. Plus a little titillation is, in my opinion, usually good.

The great thing about writing webfic is that no one can stop you from just including three solid chapters of hardcore pornography in the middle of your story. I have never done that, but I could is the point, and I would only get complaints from people who have no power over me. That same freedom doesn't exist here, and ... yeah, it makes my heart sink a little bit.

Fourth, there's some of the more mature content stuff, the topics that might not be broached. I don't know how they're handling that, so I reserve judgment, but I think my opinion is probably going to be "well, you do what you have to do", and if my version of the story is superior because there are no brakes, then I can be smugly superior about that.

Conclusion

This is already a fairly long post, and there are a few other things that I could have remarked on, but I think this is all the most interesting stuff.

Alright, just one real quick: Arthur is adaptationally more attractive, though this is also how Juniper sees Arthur and I think by the standards of webcomics, this is actually sort of necessary. Most of the flashback cast is not described until much later on, and by then you kind of know and understand them from the things they've said, if you can keep track of them. Many of the flashbacks are nearly disembodied. But if you're showing Arthur early, then the first impression he's going to make is in his appearance, and that really anchors people.

So overall, I am happy with the adaptation. There are challenges ahead, and I'm thankful that I'm not the one who needs to tackle those challenges.

[pillow-anime-talk]

sore hands.

request ; @shakethatsassyass​: hi! i’ve been loving your work. and i really like how you write knb characters, you really capture their personalities perfectly. would it be alright to ask for a story or headcanons of akashi with his wife who writes for a living and is experiencing joint pain in her hands? my fingers are in constant pain and i’m unable to work but thinking about akashi makes me feel better 💕 thank you so so much! 💖

# tags: scenario; current marriage relationship; writer!reader; worried!akashi; soft romance; a bit of drama; but also fluff; kisses; mention of pain and crying; pet names; sfw

includes: female reader ft. seijuurou akashi {knb}

author’s note: so sorry that you waited so long, but here’s the scenario for you!

You loved your job; just thinking about the plot, developing it thoroughly, creating the world and characters was as exciting for you each time as when you were writing your first book (then on a website for a small audience). You loved the stage of thinking about the cover, the description and the title, you loved the moment of choosing the right paper and font, and you also liked to think about page numbering and additional visual elements. However, the writing itself was often painful for you, and you were considered by your readers and the media to be a ‘cyclical author’.

Because writing one book very often took more than ten months – not because you didn’t have time or idea (quite the opposite), but ‘cause of your long-term illness.

Since childhood, your hands and wrists have been prone to sprains and fractures, so the doctor advised you not to strain the joints in your hands and visit your physiotherapist frequently. That’s why you wrote very rarely and very slowly. You always tried to do your best to publish at least one book a year, but it was difficult – physically and mentally. You didn’t want to disappoint your fans, you wanted to give them the best new story you’ve ever written.

You were just in the middle of writing the third chapter and it was hard for you to concentrate because of the pain in your right hand; despite daily therapy with a massage ball, despite taking pills, as well as warming your fingers with a hot water bottle ... you didn’t feel better. Calm music, thick socks and a blanket thrown over your shoulders, although pleasant, did not pass their test. You needed a break, preferably a week.

“... Dearest, everything’s okay? You’ve been working since morning, and it’s already four in the afternoon.” A calm, low voice snapped you out of your thoughts. You turned your head slightly and looked at your husband in daily clothes, smiling shyly.

“I’m almost done with this chapter.” You whispered loosening your wrists, catching the ball full of studs again.

“I’m so proud of you, love, but rest a bit. I made you your favorite tea.” The lovely smell of the hot drink in your favorite mug made your cheeks blush. Seijuurou was truly a wonderful man, very patient, tender and always worried about you.

“Thank you.” You said with a slightly bigger smile and your beloved sat on the edge of the couch that was right next to your station.

When the red-eyed man put the white mug on the bamboo stand, he immediately took your hands and placed a tender, sweet kiss on them. He always did it when you were writing or when you were having a bad time.

“I made dinner. Would you like some pasta with vegetables?” He asked and touched your cheek with one hand. You snuggled into his warm hand for a moment, then nodded. “We’ll eat and rest for a while, then you can go back to work. Don’t overwork yourself, honey. You know your fans are mature and will understand your feelings and your problem.”

“Yes, that’s true. Thank you, Sei. I needed to hear it.” You giggled and took his hand in a light squeeze. “Why don’t you help me with the cover concept tomorrow?”

“With the greatest pleasure, dear.”

[isadrora]

The Fledgling writes Good Omens for school!

Alexander Perry

Year 6

Assignment: English Close reading

Description: Choose a piece of writing to describe and have opinion about (fiction)

Author: Irisblefic

Source: Archive of Our Own (https://archiveofourown.org/works/1055257)

Year published: 2006-09-30

Intro:

I choose this piece of writing becuase of two reasons. For the first, I have watched the tv show “Good Omens” and enjoy it a lot. I then learned that is based on a book that is also called Good Omens (authors Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett). With help of my mum I have also read the book. I like the book very much. I think that it is very different from the show but they both have lots to give offer. One of things both have in common is the stories that the fans (like me and my mum) write themselves. This is called Fan fiction. It is very legal to do this and is actually encouraged by the creator and actors. I want to write about a very good story that is written by a writer that has written many stories based on this world and charcters I enjoy.

Content:

In terms of just happening things in the story, there are these two characters that figure out that they love each other very much over week period. This I will say is one of those things where its not enough o just say “this happens” because the writer makes it clear that there is lots going on the surface with emotions. I will like to point out that I choose this story because there is lots of deeper stuff in feelings and what the characters dont say: this is a very interesting part of the story and makes it very unique.

Characters:

Crowley: (a demon his name he chose for himself is Anthony J Crowley):

He is a man shaped Being. He is a fallen angel: that is he used to be an angel in Heaven until some angels that were in Heaven had the fight with the ones in charge because they were rebelios (The First War in Heavan). We dont know why he was thrown out of Heavan exactly. This story only gives us idea but I am taking ideas from the TV show and the book and using it to make my ideas some more deep. Crowley as he is now has a slim shape, he is tall, and it is known his face sharp and pretty (rather than typical handsome as is common to use to describe male characters in books). Unique to him is that he has plants and is “highly strung” which has to do with that he is actually not as relaxed and cool as he pretends to be. He shouts at his plants and is obsessed with cleaning and being organized. This shows clearly in the story also that he has become “human like” and part of why he actually lets himself accept being in love and more truthful about being with Aziraphale. The show also lets us have a good idea of him because he is as a demon might be, sarcastick and thin and dark. It is funny to watch the show be cause the TV Crowley has different voice I think than the book and both are very good. This story I’m talking about now is very close to book character I think but I can also imagine the TV Crowley if I like which is I think a positive aspect. I will say more about this later.

Aziraphale:

He is an angel although quite a strange one, different from the other ones we meet in the show version and its clear in all the versions (and also from the fanfiction story) that he has been opn earth (and with Crowley) so long that its changed him. My mother told me the term “he’s gone native” to describe him which she says is common to say that people take up habits and thinking of the place they settle. This to me is exact right for these two main characters. He is kind and well spoken. He has good manners and old fashioned style. Although the story Im talking about doesn’t do lots of physical descriptions one can get clear ideas just by “reading for context”. Just by using dialoge especially the expression “Oh dear” “Good heavens” and others a reader can get an idea of him, softer looking than Crowley which actually makes good sense because they are clear meant to be opposites (but in a positive way in the end). In this story its clear he’s accepted his love for Crowley and is shown actually to be the one to have made effort to take things further. This actually is different from how he is in the show where he is scared and in Denial quite a lot. But whats also interesting is the story lets it be seen that he is not just “soft” he is somewhat of “bastard” this also from the book and show. Its important as my mum says that this is clear as part of his personality or Crowley would never have been able to see him different from other angels. I get the idea from “In 7 Days” that he is actually manipulating (not in bad way) that him and Crowley grow closer. I will talk also more of this upcoming.

Discussion:

First of all the way this story is presented is effective. I especially like the way it is broken into weekdays. The title is important : in Bible terms the earth was created in 7 days and this reflects the time it takes for the two main characters to realize their love properly. Creation is good idea for theme here because Crowley grows plants (creates life) and Aziraphale loves books (ideas created). It is also so good that every day division has a little heading underneath. Some made me laugh, like the Monday one that starts the story (“Survival of the fittest. ONLY the fittest.”). This has literally to do with Crowleys plants but also you can maybe think that is about Crowley and Aziraphale love too. It has survived so long and so much that even though “Evolution” is a bit of joke in book and show , something about it is actually true.

Moving on, the point of view (POV) is mostly from Crowley side. I personally like the fanfiction stories that are from his side. This is just preference because he is my favourite character. I would like to say also that it would be so good to get the POV of this story from Aziraphale also: I would like one day to try write something like that if ever I get good at it. But it works very well from Crowley POV for this story because as I said before he is interesting in that its Clear he loves Aziraphale for a long time. But the story makes very clear he has lots of what is called “defense mechanisms” to prevent him being hurt or looking too close at the feelings. So we see his shouting at plants, at his still thinking in terms like “ruining” Aziraphales day because they were Enemies, like him throwing away the card from Aziraphale at first and so on. This is him keeping old habits because he can’t think of how to be otherwise. I will say that my mum calls this story “a Crowley character study” and I like that idea a lot. Its not always important that lots of things Happen in a story for it to be very exciting and good and this story taught me that.

For another thing we can maybe think about “turning point” which most stories must have and I think that irisbleufic has this happen on the Wednesday (which seems good place as feels like middle of a week). It seems like a turning point comes when Crowley has Aziraphale sleeping on his couch after they spent night drinking wine and chatting. I think that its clear they dont do anything romantic at this point but that Aziraphale is there at all still is what Crowley reacts to (even if not openly). For me I think this part makes clear that Aziraphale is now the one making effort to get them to be together properly: because Aziraphale doesn’t really sleep if he doesn’t want to (its clear that demon and angel dont need sleep for real) and so why would he at end of the Wednesday part be sure to be snoring so Crowley wont make him leave. I think this is where Crowley gives into his feelings even with out him really knowing he does.

Another important part that I like evry much is the Thursday section. Crowley rushes over to Aziraphale bookshop what he thinks is emergency. They have dialogue that is this:

“See, that's the problem with things like dust, and plants," Crowley added philosophically, helping himself to some more tea. "If they're inanimate, then I'm your aunt. You've got to let them know who's boss."

Aziraphale smiled faintly, setting down his cup.

"Why do you think I asked you here?"

This is a very good dialoge. It has different meaning to both of them. Aziraphale reply to Crowley almost seem like he is a bit smug because he knows Crowley will do anything for him but Crowley still thinks he has upper hand. “philosophy” is aword that the writer uses lots to connect to Crowley. My mum says this shows how Crowley likes to think of himself that he has control and a plan for his whole long life. But then there is Aziraphale now deciding that they should change that plan. This type of writing is very clever. Nothing big happens really but the small things happen in an important way.

Its also good how the Friday part is just used to show an easy normal scene that is between them as if they are already married or properly together. That is its as if they already are just nobody said it yet. “Laundry” is the heading for this one and that shows how normal everything seems already. Its also very funny to me because their version of laundry is snapping fingers and cleaning things (this also from the show which is very flirting part). When Crowley just says he will “start sleeping over” just casually, it is almost a shock because it isn’t a shock. That is how the story has led you to think of it all as logical even though there been no Romantic confession or big fights or anything.

The Saturday part is what is called as climax of the story because in a way its where Crowley has the full realization. It is never really put like that but irisbleufic makes it clear from his behaviour. Its not like in movies where the person will say “I love her/ him” and then run to them or whatever. What happens is that all the things that Crowley did before to make sure he was ok are not enough anymore. His Defense mechanism is not good because Aziraphale quietly been breaking it down. I will say that there is a piece about a Movie that Crowley watches that I didn’t understand about Gone with theWind. I asked my mum to explain what this meant and I think it has to do with that that movie is a very serious movie that everyone loves but is actually a bit horrible and so thats why Crowley calling it comedy is funny. I like that shows his sarcastick nature.

Moving last to the last day and this when they get together properly. I think its very good that the writer does not show the actual event. I think that it is important that the characters show their love physical because of their being changed by earth and they have become more earthly. It makes good sense and is very romantic. For my opinion though we cannot really imagine how the Sexual part will look for angel and demon and so its much better to be shown how they feel afterwards. This story is very good at that in fact actually is wonderfull. The characters are not changed by what happens between them, they are just more open. Crowley is still kind of bratty and Aziraphale is still fussy. But they are finally together and that is the point of the story in the end. Its interesting that Crowley actually says the fact that Aziraphale had a “seduction” plan for him., I want to ask, is it maybe that he knew about Aziraphale wanting it all wlong? Or is is just that he wants to try still be cool after he admits it to himself? It may be doesn’t matter because the last part is so good that I dont want the story to end even. The last line is I understand Inuuendo and that is also important because it shows Crowley being open to finally being loving and Affectionate.

Conclusion: A lot of people dont think that writing about FanFiction stories is real work and I think that is ridiculous i hope that this story will prove that wrong. A lot of people also think that the sexual parts of some stories are not good for us in Year 6 to write about but there are books we read with some of that in it already and worse than for example this story or others Ive read. It is a proper part of the story and needed for it to be good. To end I will say that this story is one of best things Ive ever read and theres lots more stuff about this “world” Good omens to read and that is positive

[vibingandsimping]

Gonna do my best here lmao. I’m tumblr illiterate nowadays but I’m always a thirsty ho who never gets cold ykyk.

Not sure I wanna give actual name (sorry),

Nickname: Moon

Age: 30

Pronouns: She/her

Sexuality: Bisexual

Likes: I’m a lazy bones, I have a disability so I spend a lot of time doing little crafty hobbies when I’m able to. I struggle with taking care of myself so I need a little extra help. I do love horror movies, reptiles, and my current hyper-fixations are BG3, undertale, and flip book animations. Sorry if that isn’t much to work with haha. I’m a big animal lover and have always had many.

Dislikes: Large crowds/overstimulating environments, early mornings, the current state of society lmao and people who lack patience with other peoples needs and struggles.

Romantic/‘intimate’ likes: I’m a sub through and through. I like to feel small and like for my partner to take the lead. I’m all about intense power play when it’s with a trusted partner. Some more I guess specific would be hypnosis, pet play, kidnapping (fantasy), CNC, sub training, objectification, humiliation, and like let me be clear that I love traditional house/trophy wife AS FANTASY. I don’t want to get it twisted that I can separate fantasy and reality and can practice things safely with a partner I trust. I like mean guys, gals and pals.

Physical description: Short and thick. I definitely have an ass and thick thighs. I would be comfortable describing myself as fat but still getting used to the term and how it’s being reclaimed. I have brown eyes and olive toned skin. Lots of black hair that’s a bit longer than shoulder length.

The only fandoms in the list I really know much about would be BG3 and Dead by Daylight. I love me some monsters so I’m down for that.

I hope I’m doing this right and not wasting your time with rambling haha. I love your work and regardless I appreciate your time! Absolutely no pressure!

🌑

A hoe NEVER gets cold. No worries, i’m still learning tumblr myself. I do like the inboxes, though. Honestly, it’s perfect for writers. Also do not apologize for not wanting to state your name! That’s why I included self-insert/oc if people wish for anonymity!

I am also disabled… so some of this hit close to home. :,)

Kazan Yamaoka would like you. It’d be more like a doll deal honestly. You wormed your way into his vengeful and hate-filled life. You showed him a semblance of kindness. Something he hadn’t felt in a long time. In turn, he gets to own you. Taking care of you financially and physically is nothing to him, honestly. It’s quite easy. Your needs are simple and helping you with tasks doesn’t take much from him. He’s strong and tall so he’s got that benefit.

He also takes very good care of you in bed. He’s more than happy to oblige to your kinks. It’s kind of a match made in heaven. He loves to feel big and strong. He’s got you splayed on the bed before him. His cock proud and daunting as it weeps. How in the hell are you supposed to take that? He growls at you in threat when you shrink away from him as he inches towards your face. His hand, so large it nearly wraps around your whole skull, grips your hair tightly. You part your lips in obedience as he begins to nudge them. His pre-cum coating your tongue as he slides each inch in one by one. You are already choking on half of it. His lips thin as he sneers at you. “I’ll turn you into my personal slut. I do like seeing you choke on my cock like a pathetic whore.” You moan around his length and he groans deeply. Fingers tightening their grip as he forcefully pushes a little more into your throat. Tears spring in the corner of your eyes as your airway is cut off. “Cry all you want, bitch. Fighting me is hopeless.” He glances down at you once more to confirm your desire. Then, he begins to fuck into your throat like the beast he is. Growling and ripping moans from you with each dirty and deprived phrase he utters. Your thighs rubbing together as your cunt clenches around nothing.

[icedmatchatae]

(yeah with poc i feel like i should’ve specified who but it was after i sent it off, my apologies)

but what i mean is black!reader friendly..

you use causal descriptions of hair being wavy

“You decided to straighten your natural waves for some kind of change.”

and cheeks/lips going pink/red..

“Your bottom lips were so red and plumped”

however it kinda ruins the ‘x reader’ aspect for darker skinned readers with kinker hair. most black authors write x black reader for those reasons specifically, the descriptions exclude everyone who doesn’t have flowy, thinner hair and those who don’t have visible blush due to it not appear on their skin.. it’s a definite turn off for black readers when they read descriptions that elude to a lighter skinned reader (see types of complaints below) i would look up alternatives to flustered behaviors that stay away from certain colours and leave hair textures alone.. maybe instead of saying what kind of hair style, you can describe how good it looks on the reader?? idk but i really hope you take this into consideration for future works

examples of complaints since they explain it better:

https://www.tumblr.com/eurydiceslove/700407195037204480/x-readers-cater-to-skinny-white-girls-most-of-the

https://www.tumblr.com/the-ravenist/709143383084580864/im-getting-kind-of-sick-of-seeing-this-stuff-how

https://www.tumblr.com/qveerfemmemusings/654272015099920384/okay-this-needs-to-be-said-and-it-needs-to-be-said

Hello again,

First of all, thank you for clarifying what you mean by POC-friendly. Initially, your comment upset me because I’m a POC and I felt I was being dismissed. I’m brown-skinned and dark-haired, and I was genuinely very confused and conflicted with the use of the term due to my background. I try to be vague in my character appearance so my readers can picture themselves. Still, I understand how I can do even better.

With that being said, I apologize for the trouble I have caused with the use of my words. Nothing was intentionally. I am now fully aware of my implicit bias to naturally write through my personal or own lived experience because it is what I’m used to and what I know, like I still flush with my skin. Not saying I will want to ignore other things because I try to be as conscious as possible, hence why I try to make physical descriptions pretty non-existent especially for skin or eyes. I had experiences where descriptions were so detailed with features, I don’t continue as well. Typically if I do point out features, it pertains to the story like the succubus being short in stature. But of course, there are little things that I miss.

If I’m being honest, it is difficult because editing, revising, and going over all my fics before posting is just me! No one unfortunately helps me through this process so I don’t have second eyes or a beta, so I miss things. I only see what I can see, so it wouldn’t be a concern until it was pointed out like this.

I appreciate you for telling me and I will do my best to be black-friendly! It’s honestly very needed to be aware of these things, especially for all writers. I want to continue to grow in my writing and this very much will help. I look at what I can write to make it as inclusive as possible. It won’t be a perfect path, but it will be a journey with tremendous experience and growth.

If by all means, it continues to not satisfy you even with the improvements, then I understand if you choose not to read my work. I cannot simply satisfy everyone. Thank you again for your time.

[dolllikelove]

Will I ever have sex? When I tried I couldn’t get an erection and the girl told all her friends

I’m 22, a virgin and scared. How can I get my confidence back? I am a 22-year-old man who is still a virgin. I have had three failed sexual encounters in which I was with a girl I was really into, but couldn’t get an erection because of stress and anxiety. In one case, the girl told all her friends that I couldn’t get an erection. I worked with a lot of them at the time and they looked at me differently after she told them. It ate away at my confidence and it still haunts me. I often avoid flirting with women to prevent myself from getting into a similar situation again. I am healthy, 1.8m (5ft 10in) tall and weigh 84kg (13st 3lb) and I work in a physically demanding construction job, so I don’t think it is a physical problem. I believe it is all in my head. Every time I get into a situation in which I feel as if I could have sex, I start sweating and become very anxious. What can I do to stop these invasive thoughts from destroying my sex life? Sex is supposed to be pleasurable and fun. Anxiety, fear and any type of performance or body concern can significantly reduce a person’s ability to enjoy intimacy and participate fully in love-making. It is really unfortunate that you were betrayed by someone whose indiscretion has further lowered your confidence, and has even made you avoid sex altogether. Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders. If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please don’t send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions. Comments on this piece are premoderated to ensure discussion remains on topics raised by the writer. Please be aware there may be a short delay in comments appearing on the site. Continue reading... http://dlvr.it/Sv1p9s

[dark-side-blog3]

Sorry for not being specific, I was talking about those fucked up fanfiction, that simply made you feel very bad (to the point that it was physically unwell to even finish or stay calm after all of that). Or at least your mood was ruined. It can include anything that you find fucked up to yourself. You don’t have to share any links, just please briefly retell, it would be enough. I’m just very curious about your opinions and tastes, that’s why I’m asking this. If you don’t want to answer, freely ignore me.

Ah! Well in that case, there have been quite a few fics I had to stop reading because the writer began including physical descriptions of the character who was supposed to be reader insert; And whats worse, there have been a few times while reading Kuroshitsuji fics where the writer threw a bitchfit about black readers commenting on their reader insert that the insert character is clearly supposed to be white and ruins the immersion, and the writer reacts in a crazy rant about how its not meant for black readers anyways.

I fucking hate that. Like, firstly, don't be a dick? I feel that that isn't a hard rule.

And second, I can't stand when the reader-insert is just some OC but it's written in second person. "You have large blue sapphire eyes and silver hair that goes down to your waist"-- No the fuck I DO NOT! Oh or when this fic (it was one of my first-ever-read yandere fics) slowly retconned the reader into the writer down to making the readers Christian and read MORNING PRAYERS AT THE START OF EACH CHAPTER. For a yandere 2p england fic???? Ma'am? This might be an exaggeration I stopped reading it when the prayers happened

This doesn't make me stop reading permanently, but just last night I did have to stop reading so I could rant to myself like a crazy person that no one fucking wears a burgundy cocktail dress with a sweetheart neckline black mesh sleeve and above-knee to a black tie event! So I guess another pet peeve of mine is when someone describes an outfit for the reader to wear. 9/10 times the outfit they choose isn't something a real person would wear to the event they describe, it's just something they thought was fashionable.

Oh! When someone says a fic has a gender-neutral reader but then they have other characters use "She/her" and the character wears exclusively feminine things.

I also had to stop reading a fic when I learned the yandere character with a weird name was actually a youtube that people were, inexplicably, referring to by his online name? While trapped in his apartment? I don't vibe with real-person fanfics.

Exiting the meta in terms of what I don't like... Well, the basics like incest, pedophilia, and animal fucking are hard nope for me. But deeper than that... It's hard to think of a fic where fucked up shit happens that I didn't enjoy.

I mean... I like gore. I like emotional manipulation. I like when a fictional character's life is ruined. I really like the horror aspect of yanderes. And I'm asexual, so every kink seems just about as weird as vanilla sex to me.

I sat with this thought all night, and I don't know if there is a fic that was so intense I had to stop permanently.

I might take a break to ramble about character choices and what I would have done, or the outfits, or the graphic beatdown with perfectly described wounds and splatter horror. Various tubes being fed through characters orifices. Of chemicals being slowly dripped into sensitive eyes and ears, blinding and deafening the victim, no matter how hard they struggle against the torture. I've had fun reading a writer include their niche kink for something I didn't know could be a kink! I've had fun reading writers who have what's considered a standard kink in yandere.

I honestly end up having fun with almost any yandere fic-- and the fun gets amplified when the writer has good grammar and takes care in the way they describe the reader so it doesn't give anything away but also doesn't give off generic pop-song-pandering vibes.

In conclusion: I am just here to vibe. All yandere fics that have a writer above 18, and don't have real people, animal sex, incest, or pedophilia, are good fics.

[kaphyr]

Making Shigaraki Make Sense

Is anyone else confused by the “character” Shigaraki not his disjointed philosophy or whatever? I literally don’t get what’s going on as a writer. He’s confusing and I have no idea how to write him into a fic - and honestly, there are barely any Shigaraki-centric fics I like out there. 

(If you have any thoughts on Shigaraki’s character or recs for Shigaraki-centric fics (preferably ShigarakixIzuku) do leave them in the comments/DM me :D )

However! I found a solution - basically, I stopped being lazy and actually did the thing I normally do when writing a book: a Character Sheet!

Essentially, the way that I understand Shigaraki (by which I mean I don’t) didn’t gel with the story I was making or the relationships I was building, so, I figured I would build him from the ground up!

Which meant research. Ew.

First things first, I kept his physical description though I gave him scars where he got shot during the USJ arc. But since I don’t know what exactly he’s got going on with his skin, I thought I might explain it as a mixture of conditions: being extra dry (Catching UFOs by mrjengablock - which I just started reading - talks about how that might be helping him have direct contact with objects without oils/sweat getting in the way), stress-induced eczema, and a very mild dust allergy (lol). Also, I’m not leaving him like that just because! I’m doing that to show how little he cares for appearances (based on societal expectations) as well as not caring about the pain or even thinking that’s just how his life has to be for him.

Enter Izuku!

Izuku helps him take care of himself, buying him eczema cream, washing and styling his hair, and getting him petroleum jelly (which I assume would be the least painful and least likely to react badly with his cuts). This is how I can show that Shigaraki can compromise and does consider Izuku’s opinion and shit. 

Second: Shigaraki’s personality.

I basically used what was on the BNHA wiki but added that he cares about Izuku and that he gets less irritable as time goes on. He also feels proud when Izuku says/does things that go against the hero status quo. He also changes from believing in chaos for the sake of chaos and being directionless under AFO (seeing as in my fic AFO is dead).

Third: Shigaraki’s relationships

I did a lot of changes here, the most notable one being his relationship with Izuku. As Izuku didn’t go to UA, they didn’t meet until Izuku was 20 and they had a couple of one-night-stands that devolved into the mess of a labelless thing they have rn. Think open relationship with someone you’re constantly arguing with but would die for. 

Since LoV isn’t exactly a thing, rn, Shigaraki only has close contact with Dabi and Kurogiri. He still has a master/servant relationship with Kurogiri - actually, it is more pronounced here than in canon because AFO is dead so Shigaraki is his only boss. Dabi hangs around the bar and still works with him as muscle, tech guy, and a friend. He split up with Toga on good terms (this will become relevant later in my fic). He’ll meet Spinner online and they’ll bond over gaming. I think I’ll have him radicalize Spinner. We’ll see. As for AFO, he slowly realizes how AFO was just using him, moulding him.

Fourth: Shigaraki’s past.

It’s the same, lol. Except I’m pushing the USJ and training in the mountains arc to Katsuki’s last year in UA. Additionally, AFO and OFA die after his kidnapping.

Fifth: Shigaraki’s political ideology.

BNHA is inherently highly political and I don’t know why I’m surprised it’s such a letdown when it tries not to be. Honestly, some of my biggest gripes are right here. It’s trying to make Shigaraki an “anarchist” the way that the West colloquially understands them to be. (He wants to end society as it is and believes “the strong should live, the weak should die, and I am strong”.) Which. I can’t explain how much I find that annoying. In canon, he’s just an annoying manchild who can’t even take his thoughts to their logical conclusion. Dude, if you hate the fact that you were overlooked in a world where there are heroes and you suffered greatly, what do you think will happen to all the children in the world if you destroy it!?!!?!!

Anyways.

I’m not saying it’s unrealistic to make him this destructive while also making his grievances and actions clash - but it does make him stupid. Or willfully ignorant. And I don’t think he should be. He’s strong, he’s charismatic (in his own ways) and he already has a bunch of negative qualities (stubbornness, bad temper, etc.); he doesn’t need this.

So, instead, I’m making him start off with the same ideology except it’s going to get refined with AFO no longer controlling him and Izuku being in his life. I don’t wanna spoil too much but I’m thinking terrorism/stochastic terrorisim, using social media, (political) tailing (i.e. using other political movements to build your own), espionage, etc. All of it to expose how the hero system is corrupt, corrupted, and unnecessary and to find other ways for people to live the life they want to live no matter their quirk. Basically telling a story where you can imagine that he sees himself as the hero of his own story instead of an unthinking villain.

Would love to hear anyone’s thoughts on this. BTW, I found Lots of Thoughts about MHA by  sarehptar (Tumblr post version) to be a great resource when I was just staring to think about my BNHA fic: The Long Defeat.

[thevalleyisjolly]

Hi there! If you feel up to it, would you be willing to expand a bit more on the idea of white creators creating poc characters who are ‘internally white’, especially in a post-racialized or racism-free setting & how to avoid it? It’s something I’m very concerned about but I haven’t encountered a lot of info about it outside of stories set in real world settings. Thanks & have a good day!

Hey, thanks for asking, anon!  It’s a pretty nuanced topic, and different people will have different takes on it.  I’ll share my thoughts on it, but do keep in mind that other people of colour may have different thoughts on the matter, and this is by no means definitive!  These are things I’ve observed through research, trial and error, my own experiences, or just learning from other writers.

The first thing I guess I want to clarify is that I personally am not opposed to a society without racism in fiction.  It’s exhausting and frankly boring when the only stories that characters of colour get are about racism!  So it’s a relief sometimes to just get to see characters of colour exist in a story without dealing with racism.  That being said, I feel like a lot of the time when creators establish their settings as “post-racial,” they avoid racism but they also avoid race altogether.  Not aesthetically -they may have a few or even many characters with dark skin- but the way the characters act and talk and relate to the world are “race-less” (which tends to end up as default white American/British or whatever place the creator comes from).  Which I have complicated thoughts on, but the most obvious thing that springs to mind is how such an approach implies (deliberately or not) that racism is all there is to the way POC navigate the world.  It’s definitely a significant factor, particularly for POC in Western countries, but it’s not the only thing!  There’s so much more to our experiences than just racial discrimination, and it’s a shame that a lot of “post-racial” or “racism-free” settings seem to overlook that in their eagerness to not have racism (or race) in their stories.

A quick go-to question I ask when I look at characters of colour written/played by white creators is: if this was a story or transcript I was reading, with no art or actors or what have you, would I be able to tell that this character is a character of colour?  How does the creator signal to the audience that this is a character of colour?  A lot of the time, this signal stops after the physical description - “X has dark skin” and then that’s all!  (We will not discuss the issue of racial stereotypes in depth, but it should be clear that those are absolutely the wrong way to indicate a character of colour).

This expands to a wider issue of using dark skin as a be-all-end-all indication of diversity, which is what I mean by “aesthetic” characters of colour (I used the term “internally white” originally but upon further reflection, it has some very loaded implications, many of which I’m personally familiar with, so I apologize for the usage).  Yes, the character may not “look” white, but how do they interact with the world?  Where do they come from?  What is their background, their family?  A note: this can be challenging with diaspora stories in the real world and people being disconnected (forcibly or otherwise) from their heritage (in which case, those are definitely stories that outsiders should not tell).  So let’s look at fantasy.  Even the most original writer in the world bases their world building off existing things in the real world.  So what cultures are you basing your races off of?  If you have a dark skinned character in your fantasy story, what are the real world inspirations and equivalents that you drew from, and how do you acknowledge that in a respectful, non-stereotyped way?

(Gonna quickly digress here and say that there are already so many stories about characters of colour disconnected from their heritage because ‘They didn’t grow up around other people from that culture’ or ‘They moved somewhere else and grew up in that dominant culture’ or ‘It just wasn’t important to them growing up’ and so on.  These are valid stories, and important to many people!  But when told by (usually) white creators, they’re also used, intentionally or not, as a sort of cop-out to avoid having to research or think about the character’s ethnicity and how that influences who they are.  So another point of advice: avoid always situating characters outside of their heritage.  Once or twice explored with enough nuance and it can be an interesting narrative, all the time and it starts being a problem)

Another thing I want to clarify at this point is that it’s a contentious issue about whether creators should tell stories that aren’t theirs, and different people will have different opinions.  For me personally, I definitely don’t think it’s inherently bad for creators to have diverse characters in their work, and no creator can live every experience there is.  That being said, there are caveats for how such characters are handled.  For me personally, I follow a few rules of thumb which are:

Is this story one that is appropriate for this creator to tell?  Some experiences are unique and lived with a meaningful or complex history and context behind them and the people to whom those experiences belong do not want outsiders to tell those stories.

To what extent is the creator telling this story?  Is it something mentioned as part of the narrative but not significantly explored or developed upon?  Does it form a core part of the story or character?  There are some stories that translate across cultures and it’s (tentatively) ok to explore more in depth, like immigration or intergenerational differences.  There are some stories that don’t, and shouldn’t be explored in detail (or even at all) by people outside those cultures.

How is the creator approaching this story and the people who live it?  To what extent have they done their research?  What discussions have they had with sensitivity consultants/readers?  What kind of respect are they bringing to their work?  Do they default to stereotypes and folk knowledge when they reach the limits of their research?  How do they respond to feedback or criticism when audiences point things that they will inevitably get wrong?

Going back to the “race-less” point, I think that creators need to be careful that they’re (respectfully) portraying characters of colour as obvious persons of colour.  With a very definite ‘no’ on stereotyping, of course, so that’s where the research comes in (which should comprise of more than a ten minute Google search).  If your setting is in the real world, what is the background your character comes from and how might that influence the way they act or talk or see the world?  If your setting is in a fantasy world, same question!  Obviously, avoid depicting things which are closed/exclusive to that culture (such as religious beliefs, practices, etc) and again, avoid stereotyping (which I cannot stress enough), but think about how characters might live their lives and experience the world differently based on the culture or the background they come from.

As an example of a POC character written/played well by a white person, I personally like Jackson Wei and Cindy Wong from Dimension 20’s The Unsleeping City, an urban fantasy D&D campaign.  Jackson and Cindy are NPCs played by the DM, Brennan Lee Mulligan, who did a good job acknowledging their ethnicity without resorting to stereotypes and while giving them their own unique characters and personalities.  The first time he acted as Cindy, I leapt up from my chair because she was exactly like so many old Chinese aunties and grandmothers I’ve met.  The way Jackson and Cindy speak and act and think is very Chinese (without being stereotyped), but at the same time, there’s more to their characters than being Chinese, they have unique and important roles in the story that have nothing to do with their ethnicity.  So it’s obvious that they’re people of colour, that they’re Chinese, but at the same time, the DM isn’t overstepping and trying to tell stories that aren’t his to tell.  All while not having the characters face any racism, as so many “post-racialized” settings aim for, because there are quite enough stories about that!

There a couple factors that contribute to the positive example I gave above.  The DM is particularly conscientious about representation and doing his research (not to say that he never messes up, but he puts in a lot more effort than the average creator), and the show also works with a lot of sensitivity consultants.  Which takes me to the next point - the best way to portray characters of colour in your story is to interact with people from that community.  Make some new friends, reach out to people!  Consume media by creators of colour!  In my experience so far, the most authentic Chinese characters have almost universally been created/written/played by Chinese creators.  Read books, listen to podcasts, watch shows created by people of colour.  Apart from supporting marginalized creators, you also start to pick up how people from that culture or heritage see themselves and the world, what kind of stories they have to tell, and just as importantly, what kind of stories they want being told or shared.  In other words, the best way to portray an authentic character of colour that is more than just the colour of their skin is to learn from actual people of colour (without, of course, treating them just as a resource and, of course, with proper credit and acknowledgement).

Most importantly, this isn’t easy, and you will absolutely make mistakes.  I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that you will mess up.  No matter how well researched you are, how much respect you have for other cultures, how earnestly you want to do this right, you will at some point do something that makes your POC audience uncomfortable or even offends them.  Then, your responsibility comes with your response.  Yes, you’ve done something wrong.  How do you respond to the people who are hurt or disappointed?  Do you ignore them, or double down on your words, or try to defend yourself?  Just as importantly, what are you planning to do about it in the future?  If you have a second chance, what are you going to do differently?  You will make mistakes at some point.  So what are you going to do about them?  That, I think, is an even more important question than “How can I do this right?”  You may or may not portray something accurately, but when you get something wrong, how are you going to respond?

Essentially, it all comes down to your responsibility as a creator.  As a creator, you have a responsibility to do your due diligence in research, to remain respectful to your work and to your audience, and to be careful and conscientious about how you choose to create things.  It’s not about getting things absolutely perfect or being the most socially conscious creator out there, it’s about recognizing your responsibilities as a creator with a platform, no matter how big or small, and taking responsibility for your work. 

In summary:

Research, research, research

Avoid the obvious no-no’s (stereotypes, tokenization, fetishization, straight up stealing from other cultures, etc) and think critically about what creative choices you’re making and why

Do what you’re doing now, and reach out to people (who have put themselves out there as a resource).  There are tons of resources out there by people of colour, reach out when you’re not sure about something or would like some advice!

Responsibility, responsibility, responsibility

Thank you for reaching out!  Good luck with your work!

[waitimcomingtoo]

Hi, I had a question. All your post NWH fics have the reader be exactly like MJ and have the exact same background as MJ did with Peter. Why don’t you just tag them as Peter x MJ? Honey is lifted for the movie almost word for word. In Dos Orguitas, the reader has the same job as MJ and the cups say the same as her jobs’ cups. Wouldn’t it just be easier to write PeterMJ fanfic instead of ripping off the movie? I mean no disrespect, I love so many of your fics and they’re my go to comfort fics, it just feels like the new ones are just “copying” for lack of better term Peter and MJ’s relationship to the T, so it confuses me why it’s tagged as x reader when the reader is just MJ without physical descriptions. It would be the same for readers as just reading PeterMJ fics directly if the reader is literally MJ and not actually an original character from you.

I don’t tag them as Peter x MJ because they’re not Peter x MJ stories. I don’t characterize the reader exactly like MJ. MJ in the movies doesn’t really speak and she is very specific when she does. She consistently deadpans and makes pessimistic comments. My readers differ between stories and are literally not MJ. They’re based off my own personality and my friends more than anything. The reader is an original character from me. I’ll throw in lines from the movie as references sometimes when they work but I do not “rip off” or “copy” the movies. I come up with most of the dialogue myself and I will sometimes use dialogue from the movies. People read fanfiction to feel like they’re in the movies they love. Adding lines directly from the movie helps with the immersion. NWH just came out so naturally as a fanfic writer, I’m gonna write stories based off the new movie. If you want to read Peter x MJ, just go do that. It would not be the same as my stories 💛

[pastafossa]

Can I ask what you used to learn & practice to write the way you do because a) I'd also like to improve my writing and b) because you are one of the most talented & extraordinary writer I've EVER come across on A03

Thank you so, so much, I'm honored! 😭 I can, absolutely!

So a big thing I used to learn writing is, I read a ton (had way more time for it a few years ago, but that's where a lot of the foundation was). And one of my English professors once told me, 'if you want to write a novel or story, go back and read your favorite books, but read them as a writer and not just as a reader'. And once I did, I understood what she meant. I'd read back over these books I loved, only now I was looking for why I loved them so much (and I still do this some when reading). If something hit me emotionally hard, why? Was it the body language? Their emphasis on description? If they set up an elaborate, 'SURPRISE!', how was it done? How did they lay clues? How did the author write this out? It helps a ton to look at the structural framework of something you love, and so one of the things you can easily use, that I used, is literally just your favorite books. My favorite series is Dresden Files, for example, and that's where I learned a lot about how one can write internal dialogue, action scenes, and laying clues. I also try to read books by popular authors (that I enjoy, don't get me wrong) so I can look at their techniques and hunt down new things to try. <3

Second, I'm going to rec one of my favorite books that helped me with learning to write emotions (which anyone who's read TRT knows I focus on fairly regularly). I literally always write with this nearby: The Emotion Thesaurus. The 1st edition I have has 75 emotions, and each has a connected list of physical body language signals, internal sensations, mental responses, cues of acute or long-term feeling of that emotion, and cues of suppression of that emotion. The 2nd edition now has 130 emotions (haven't had a chance to look through that one yet). That book helped teach me about linking emotion to sensory descriptions - physical, mental, internal, and then with time or suppression.

Third: if anywhere near you or online has a free class on creative writing and you have the time, I'd give it a shot! I took a fair amount of English classes in college, admittedly, but even once I was done, I kept an eye out and I've managed to get into some free or cheap classes. Some are pretty terrible, a lot are just middle of the road, and then every once in a while you get an amazing one where you hear hysterical gems like, "your job as an author is to cause pain. Embrace it! You're a sadist now," and then you learn how to torment characters with unique acts of suffering. So there's always something to learn, even in the terrible classes (it's sometimes just, 'don't do this one thing').

Writers Groups! I have had some very kind and very honest writers groups over the years that have helped me learn where my weaknesses were as a writer. One of my biggest issues used to be overdescription of everything (I wish I was joking, RIP to my early readers), and I didn't even realize it was a problem until I joined a writers group and they pointed out that things were a bit unnecessarily wordy.

Grammarly is something I use for every chapter. I generally edit my chapter, paste it into Grammarly, and then it hits me with a newspaper points out politely where I can take out some unnecessary commas. Grammarly reminds me not to get cocky. Grammarly humbles us all.

Those have been my biggest resources on learning over the years: published books I loved, books like The Emotion Thesaurus, taking writing classes whenever I could, writers groups, and Grammarly. I try to consider myself a constant student, always learning! After that, it's just practice-practice-practice. Pastafossa is, I think my third pseudonym over ohgodtoomanyyears of writing fanfic and original stories on and off. In the beginning, my fanfiction was terrible (seriously, I found some the other day on an old hard drive and, good god 😂). I've tried my hand at one-shots, parody (I wrote a bad smut fic for Dragon Age a while back and LORD that was wild), humor, prompt challenges. Try everything! Some of it will fail miserably, but much like the terrible writing classes, at least you learn something, and then you use that for next time. ❤️

[obviouslygenuinely]

Free Resources For Writers & Creators

This is a quick post of free resources that may help fandom creators (or creators in general). I’m sure many of these have been shared before. However, it doesn’t hurt to spread the word. A few quick points:

As a professional writer, I think this post will cater mostly towards writers.

I’m also a freelance photographer, so digital photography/editing/art sources are included, too.

I chose not to use any affiliate links in my post. I don’t want to profit from this, and I’m not sure that’s allowed on Tumblr anyways. 

If I’ve listed a resource I haven’t used myself, I’ve made sure to state it. 

Masterlists and/or huge resource compilations are marked with asterisks.

Alright, here we go! I hope you all find this post helpful. Happy writing/creating! 

Research

All of these are free resources for research. I use most of them for my writing jobs because they are extremely credible. These are great for making accurate references in your fics/creations. 

1. ***Research Resources For Writers***

Writer’s Write has an enormous database of research resources for writers. They are divided into 20+ categories such as:

careers

historical research

crimes and forensics

religion

Each category contains 10+ resources like websites, articles, tips, databases, and so much more. It’s the most comprehensive and organized free research tool I use.

2. PubMed

My go-to source for citing medical studies. You’ll find 30 million citations related to numerous physical and mental health issues. 

3. BioMed Central

I don’t use this website as often, but I keep it in my bookmarks. It’s similar to PubMed - great for discovering current and former medical research. 

4. Drugs.com

If you need to name a medication and/or refer to medication side effects, Drugs.com is a straightforward resource. It’s easy to navigate and understand. 

It also has a tool that lists potential medication interactions. This is really useful for accurate descriptions of med combinations. 

5. Merck Manuals Consumer Version

Merck Manuals started out in 1899 as a medical reference guide for professionals. This consumer version is really comprehensive and updated regularly. It includes definitions, studies, and more. 

6. FindLaw

If you’re writing about legal topics, FindLaw is useful for learning about laws/procedures in reader-friendly language. Categories include:

accidents/injuries

criminal law

family law (divorce, custody, etc.)

Keep in mind that laws vary based on location! You’ll often find additional links to state-related laws within articles. I do recommend double-checking state/location-based legal resources for accuracy. 

7. APA Dictionary of Psychology

This psychology dictionary is provided by the American Psychological Association. It covers 90+ areas of psychology and 25,000+ terms/definitions. 

You’ll also find links to additional psychology databases, resources, and so on. The website is updated frequently to provide updated information.

8. U.S. Bureau Of Labor Statistics

If you’re writing about a character’s job/career in the United States, this is a great source for accuracy. For any job sector, you’ll find details about

education requirements

positions in the sector

average salary for positions

what the positions entail 

I imagine there are alternatives for other countries, too! 

9. Investopedia Financial Term Dictionary

My area of expertise is personal finance; all of my writing published under my name is in this niche. I still refer to Investopedia’s dictionary for help. It’s excellent for understanding/explaining financial terms in a way that your reader can understand. 

10. MedTerms Medical Dictionary

This is the medical version of Investopedia’s dictionary. I use this source less frequently, but I find that it’s accurate and helpful. There are many similar references online if you search for “medical glossaries” or “medical dictionaries”. 

11. Domain Authority Checker

I’m not sure if this one is too helpful for fic writers, but it’s one of my most used tools. Domain authority “a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank on search engine result pages (SERPs)”.

The Wikipedia page for domain authority (DA) explains it clearly and simply. To sum it up, websites with good DA scores are considered reliable and accurate. If I cite sources in my work. I always link to sources with good DA scores. 

Writing/Editing

This section is the most thorough one. All of these are completely free tools for writing and editing any type of content. I currently use or have used all of these at some point in my career. 

1. ***List Of Free And Open-Source Software Packages***

This Wikipedia page applies to multiple categories in my post. It’s a masterpost of free and open-source software for anything and everything. Software is divided up into categories and sub-categories. Some relevant examples include:

media

networking/Internet

image editing

file management

There are hundreds of free software links on the page, so you’ll need to do a bit of browsing. Start with the categories above to find software geared towards writers/creators. 

2. OpenOffice

This is a free alternative to Microsoft Office. I’ve used it for nine years and love it. OpenOffice software includes free applications for:

text documents

spreadsheets

presentations

drawing

templates

There are many more tools with OpenOffice that I haven’t used. If you write offline, I cannot recommend it enough. Tutorials are readily available online, and the software is pretty user-friendly. 

3. Evernote

I briefly used Evernote and found that it’s very user-friendly and helpful. Most of my colleagues use Evernote and recommend it for taking notes/staying organized.

(I’m personally not a fan of note-taking software or apps. My method is messy text documents with bullet point lists.)

4. Google Drive

This might seem like an obvious one, but Google Drive/Docs is my writing haven. It has the tools included with Microsoft Office and OpenOffice and then some. It’s great for collaborative writing/sharing documents, too. 

5. Grammarly

I use the Premium (paid) version of Grammarly, but I also used the free version for years. It’s helpful for detecting simple spelling, style, and grammatical errors. 

There are numerous ways to use it - desktop, copy/paste documents, and so on. I’m not a huge fan of how well it works with Google Docs, but they’re improving it/it’s moved out of beta mode. 

If you’re interested in the paid version - which I highly recommend -  wait to buy until a holiday pops up. They offer a major discount on the software for almost every holiday/special occasion. 

6. Plagiarism Detector

This website is handy for scanning for plagiarism. You can scan your own work to ensure uniqueness, too. My clients are big fans of this tool. 

(I no longer use this resource; I use a paid tool called Copyscape Premium. The low cost has a big return on investment for me.) 

7. TitleCase

The name says it all. It’s free and simple! I’ll be honest - I’m terrible with proper title case. You’d think after a decade of writing I’d nail it. However, I use this tool pretty often. 

8. Hemingway Editor

Hemingway Editor is an online and desktop editor. It’s excellent for scanning your writing to check for:

readability (a grade-level score is listed)

adverb usage

passive voice usage

complex phrase usage

estimated reading time

This tool is color-coded to make editing easy. For example, adverbs are highlighted in blue. I don’t use this as often as I used to, but it was essential for my early writing career. 

9. Polish My Writing

This tool is very straightforward. You paste your writing into the text box. Spelling errors, grammar suggestions, and style suggestions are highlighted in red, blue, and green. 

It’s great for double-checking your work alongside Grammarly or Hemingway. When using free editors, I recommend using at least two for higher accuracy. 

10. OneLook Reverse Dictionary And Thesaurus 

I’m going to use the definition directly from the website:

“This tool lets you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept. Your description can be anything at all: a single word, a few words, or even a whole sentence. Type in your description and hit Enter (or select a word that shows up in the autocomplete preview) to see the related words.” 

To put it simply, you can use the reverse dictionary/thesaurus to find those words/thoughts that are on the tip of your tongue. Use the tool to:

find a word based on the word’s definition (i.e. search for “inability to feel pain”)

find synonyms and related concepts 

generate a list of category-specific words (i.e. search for “cat breeds”)

answer basic questions (i.e. search for “what is the capital of France?”)

The results can be hit or miss, but I usually find the information I’m looking for. It’s a solid resource any writer regardless of genre. 

11. Word Frequency Counter +  Phrase Frequency Counter

I cannot emphasize how much I love these tools. Repetition is the bane of a writer’s existence; it’s simply inevitable at times. 

These two tools count the number of times you use a single word or phrase in a text document. Just copy/paste your document, hit submit, and you’re all set! 

For the phrase frequency counter, you can scan for two-word to ten-word phrases. 

12. Thesaurus.com

This is another tool that might seem painfully obvious. Combined with the word frequency counter, it’s such an essential resource for me. 

It’s especially useful if you’re writing about the same topic multiple times (i.e. love, getting drunk, sex, etc.). I always use this combo of tools to ensure uniqueness. 

13. Lists Of Colors

Are you stumped when trying to come up with unique shades of blue? Is describing your character’s hair or skin color difficult? This Wikipedia page has you covered. It contains:

lists of colors (alphabetically)

lists of colors by shade

lists of Crayola crayon colors

lists of color palettes

I typically use this resource for product descriptions, but I also used it for creative writing many times. It’s a lifesaver for all things color-related.

Free Photos/Images

Tons of creators need free photos/images for numerous reasons. All of these sources provide 100% free photos, illustrations, etc. that have a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. This means there’s no copyright whatsoever on them. 

You can edit the images however you’d like, too. All of the images in my post are from the first source listed below. I made them black and white and added text.

(A lot of these sites have donate buttons for contributors. Donating a dollar here and there goes a long way!)

1. Unsplash

Unsplash is my personal favorite for high-resolution photos. It’s easy to navigate and has over 2,000,000 free images. Downloading an image is a one-click process, and you don’t need to create an account. 

2. Pixabay

Pixabay is my go-to site for illustrations and vector graphics (they have photos, too). There are 1.9 million free images to choose from. You don’t need an account to download images, but I recommend creating one. It’s free and with an account:

you don’t have to complete a CAPTCHA every time you download an image

you can access higher-quality/larger/etc. versions of images

I often use graphics from Pixabay to create overlays and masks for mixed media art pieces.

3. PxHere

I’ve never used PxHere, but one of my writing clients recommends it. It seems very similar to Pixabay, and the interface is user-friendly.

4. Pexels

In my limited experience, Pexels seems to focus on “artsy” stock images/content. I found great high-quality images the few times I’ve used it. 

5. Burst by Shopify

I haven’t used Burst, but it’s another free image site that a writing client recommended to me. It seems a little limited compared to the other sites, but it never hurts to add it to your toolbox!

Digital Art/Photo Editing/Etc.

This section seems brief, but the tools listed are pretty comprehensive and diverse. They are geared towards many creative needs/projects like:

Creating manips of people/etc.

Adding text to images.

Creating collages.

Digital illustration.

Advanced photo editing. 

There’s something for everyone. In my experience, finding your favorites among these will take some trial and error. 

1. Pixlr X and Pixlr E (app available)

Pixlr X and Pixlr E are both versatile free editing tools. Pixlr X is ideal for less experienced creators. Pixlr E is comparable to Adobe PhotoShop. 

I’ve used both software formats for personal and professional art projects.

The Pixlr app is handy for making collages, adding filters/overlays, adding text, and so on. I’ve used it for creating fanfiction collages and similar projects. It’s super easy to use. 

2. Remove Background by Pixlr

This is one of the easiest/fastest tools I’ve found for removing backgrounds from images. It’s perfect for creators who make manips using photos of people. 

It takes literal seconds to use. The tool automatically removes the background. If you spot any mistakes, you can refine the results with brush/erase tools. Then you download the cutout and you’re all set! 

Unfortunately, this feature isn’t available on the Pixlr app. There are a lot of smartphone apps for removing photo backgrounds.

3. GIMP

If you need a full-fledged Photoshop alternative, GIMP is excellent software.  It’s not an online tool like most I’ve suggested; you’ll need to download it to your computer. 

There’s quite a learning curve for it, unless you’re familiar with Photoshop already. Fortunately, the free video/text GIMP tutorials online are endless. I no longer use/need GIMP, but it’s a personal favorite of mine.

4. Paint.NET

Admittedly, I haven’t used Paint.NET, but my art/photography colleagues commonly mention it. It’s comparable to Photoshop and GIMP. It’s a web-based tool, and a quick Google search returns several tutorials for it. 

5. Photopea

This is more or less a Photoshop clone, but it’s free and web-based. If you watch Photoshop tutorials, you can usually follow the same steps in PhotoPea. 

I’ve only used it a few times; I have Photoshop so I don’t need it. Still, it’s very impressive - especially for a free tool.

6. PicsArt (app available)

PicsArt is a photo editing website and app; the app is much easier to use in my opinion. It’s a “fun” editing tool for photo manips, collages, and fan art in general. A lot of users post their art in the app, and I’ve noticed tons of cool fandom edits. 

Some of the features are Premium (AKA cost money), but I don’t think they’re worth the extra cost. PicsArt also has a digital drawing app. I haven’t personally used it but it may be worth checking out! 

7. Adobe Photoshop Express (app available)

(I’ll preface this by saying I have an Adobe subscription, so I have access to the “locked” features. I’ve used the free versions, but my memory of it is a bit hazy.)

Photoshop Express is a free web-based tool and smartphone app. The app is very user-friendly and can be used for detailed editing, adding filters, adding text, and so on. 

I’m less familiar with the browser version; I only use it for the cutout tool when I’m feeling lazy. It seems to be a good fit for quick edits - filters, cropping, and so on. 

8. Make PNG Transparent by Online PNG Tools

This tool is awesome for removing solid colored backgrounds. I use it to create graphics for mixed media art pieces. Here’s how it works:

upload an image

type the color your want to remove (name or hex code)

type the percentage of similar color tones you want to match (for example, 25% will remove your chosen color plus similar warm/cool tones)

the removed color is replaced with transparent pixels

If you want to make a JPG transparent, start with the website’s JPG to PNG Converter. There are a ton of useful free tools offered, but I haven’t tried out most of the others. 

Wrap Up

That’s all I’ve got for now! If I think of additional free tools, I’ll add them to this post. Feel free to reblog with your own recommendations or message me if you’d like me to add anything.

I hope my fellow creatives find these too

[the-al-chemist]

Almost the weekend, yaaaay 💛💛💛

For the writers asks - can I get 4, 5, 7 and 8 please? 🥰

Embarrassingly the weekend has come and gone and it’s almost Thursday again… oops. Sorry I’m useless at answering 😅

I answered 4 here and 7 here!

5. What is something about your writing style that you think you could improve upon the most?

I am not great at descriptions, particularly when it comes to describing a characters’ physical appearance or scenes, unless there is a particular trait, atmosphere, or detail I want to get across. Personally, I don’t like reading lengthy descriptions of things, people, or places as I like to use my own imagination, but I possibly err on the side of underutilising these things at times, and when I do have to describe something in detail it feels very unnatural to me.

8. How do you feel about your most popular fic?

I’m honestly not sure which is my most popular story.

PotV has the most hits in total, but I think that’s because it’s the one with a ship tagged on AO3 and it was the first one I published chapter by chapter on Wattpad so it got more exposure. That’s the reason I would put for its “popularity” because PotV is probably my least favourite instalment of the Saga.

MaH is probably the most popular in terms of written feedback considering the way I published it. This one is special to me, because it is the first story I completed in at least 15 years, and the first I ever published. I’m proud of it.

Dragon Heartstring and Eggshells have the least hits but highest kudos:hits ratio. I think that’s fair, tbh. They are probably two of my best short stories, but are a bit niche. I actually love that they are not widely loved, but well-loved by a small few. It suits them somehow.

WSI has a very small readership on Wattpad (where I thought it would do best) but was very popular on AO3 and tumblr (even if many of the readers were just our friends). WSI is so dear to me for multiple reasons, but mainly the way it forged our friendship. It also inspired LtF, which although unplanned, ended up becoming one of my favourites. And - although I might be biased - I think it’s a great story, and unusual for fanfiction. I like unusual.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 22 part one

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff) (Previous Post)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Not Quite Like Old Times

We ended the previous episode in daylight, with Lan Wangji putting Wei Wuxian and swordpoint and declaring his undying love lecturing him about his lack of sword skills.

We start this episode in full night, with the two of them sitting on a roof together. Presumably they spent the missing scenes getting dinner in the mess hall, doing some laundry, and definitely not making out. Fic writers, do your thing.

Finally, FINALLY, Lan Wangji has chilled out enough to actually sit and listen to Wei Wuxian, instead of yelling at and/or physically attacking him. The Zoloft is really helping!

Wei Wuxian is indulging in romantic recollections of their first rooftop encounter. Lan Wangji, who has loved him since he first laid eyes on him and who wrote a whole song with an entire music video about their love, featuring that very same rooftop encounter, shuts him down so completely he might as well have whipped out Bichen again.

First he corrects his description of events by pointing out they were fighting, not talking, back then. Then when Wei Wuxian continues in his charming, smiley reminiscing vein, Lan Wangji says "things change, how could they stay the same" with a deep, sad, weariness.

He seems like an old man in this moment, and I feel for him, really, I do. But he's not the one who's carrying the actual essence of death around inside him. Wei Wuxian is being much more generous in this interaction than Lan Wangji is.

Wei Wuxian thanks him for not narkng to Jiang Yanli about the whole talisman/forced suicide/ghost hummer/ghost flaying thing he did back in Yiling. Like there is any way Lan Wangji would ever tell Jiang Yanli, of all people, something like that about Wei Wuxian.  He's lying to his own brother to cover for Wei Wuxian, and Wei Wuxian totally doesn't get it.

(more after the cut)

Unfortunately, there's no reason Wei Wuxian SHOULD get it, at this point; Lan Wangji has not communicated anything but disapproval to him since his return, and Wei Wuxian, despite their (apparently temporary) mental linkup in the Turtle cave, is not a mind reader.

Lan Wangji is so hurt here, and Wei Wuxian appears to ignore that, continuing to smile and laugh; he’s still sunny, still happy. Seriously, they are so tonally out of step with each other in this conversation, it's excruciating.

Lan Wangji: I’m feeling good about my tear-holding-back ability Wei Wuxian: do I look more fuckable sitting up? Or leaning back?  

But every one of these smiles is an absolute lie. This is Wei Wuxian appeasing an authority figure; baffling with bullshit and skating by on charm. This is not a young man confiding in his soulmate.

Even when the conversation shifts, and they talk seriously about what is going on with him, Wei Wuxian is barely confiding anything. He briefly acknowledges that he was in the Burial Mounds for three months, and shudders at the memory, but Lan Wangji doesn't respond to that other than to look away from his face.

This is almost the last thing Wei Wuxian will ever say to anyone about that experience.  He only alludes to it again when Jiang Cheng visits the settlement and talks smack about their corpse turnips. Lan Wangji says he wants to know why Wei Wuxian’s cultivation changed, but he really doesn’t; he just wants to convince him to change it back.

Wei Wuxian explains about using Lan clan techniques to protect his temperament, as well as the flute and talismans, to control the resentful energy. This is a good reminder that Wei Wuxian was never a bad student. He was an outstanding cultivator within the Jiang Clan, and he learned a hell of a lot during his time in Gusu, despite getting expelled for fighting.

His original golden core was stronger than Jiang Cheng's, even though he apparently started cultivating later. Yes, he fell asleep during meditation that one time in Episode 43, but that's not because he's bad at meditating, it's because he was tired from getting railed all night by his boyfriend stabbed in the gut by his nephew.

Lan Wangji eventually manages to ask him a question like an interested fellow human being sharing knowledge, instead of like an authoritarian dick calling him to account.  

Side note: I still am flopping around trying to find good-sounding English terms for Chinese philosophical concepts. I kind of like "ghost path" vs "sword path" for the two styles of cultivation - I don't know where I saw that, apologies to the translator. I like "necromancy" for the part where the dead are reanimated and controlled, because we definitely have that in English. But there are many layers of nuance in these conversations that English is not equipped to render in a natural-sounding way.

Lan Wangji tells him, again, that it's dangerous, but this time he does it in a gentler and more poetic way, saying it's like taking grain from a burning fire, and says he's in danger of becoming the novel version of Wei Wuxian a demonic cultivator.  Wei Wuxian, also gently and seriously, says he knows.

Then he immediately goes back to his lightest tone and promises, with his three-fingers gesture, that he will not fall into demonic cultivation. This gesture is basically the Wei Wuxian "I am totally fucking lying" salute.

He is totally fucking lying, and he MUST know it. He's baking the Yin tiger amulet every day during his meditation, getting ready to use it against Wen Ruohan, getting ready to take over his army of the dead.

He has the audacity to ask Lan Wangji, "do you believe me?" and Lan Wangji, also totally fucking lying, nods.  Their relationship is just as broken right now as it was before their courtyard sparring session.

You can tell it's broken, because after they've reached this apparent place of peace, Wei Wuxian just hops down off the roof and LEAVES Lan Wangji sitting by himself. When has Wei Wuxian ever been like "gotta go!" with Lan Wangji? The last time they were here, he spent the night sleeping on the roof tiles just so he could be near him.

As he leaves, Lan Wanji stands up and says "let me help you." Wei Wuxian is not a fan of that idea, at all, if his expression is any guide.

He agrees, though, and leaves smiling, apparently for real, but maybe just practicing for all the fake smiles in his future.

Hooray for War

In the morning, Nie Mingjue makes an angry speech to the 2 dozen cultivators who apparently make up the army. Extras are expensive, y'all.

The senior cultivators are standing to the right or left of him, with the Lan brothers bracketing the Yunmeng sibs. Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng are both staking their claim to Wei Wuxian, while Lan Xichen is standing in the spot closest to Nie Mingjue; Nie Huaisang is on the opposite side with the Jins.

All of the random cultivators yell a war chant in response to Nie Mingjue's speech, while the senior cultivators are like, we don't have to do that yelling stuff, thank goodness.

Nie Mingjue's war outfit includes metal (ish) epaulets on his shoulders and a totally not-kinky belt featuring multiple rings with nothing attached to them (yet) and an angry demon face right above his junk.

Nie Mingjue says we're going to storm into Nightless city and I'm going to chop off Wen Ruohan's head! By which he means, I'm going to get captured and get my ass beat, and then my murder-babie ex-boyfriend who had this belt specially made for me is going to stab Wen Ruohan in the back while he's distracted. They do say no plan survives contact with the enemy.

Side note: Baxia makes a loud metallic "shnk" noise when NMJ takes it off his back during this speech, even though Baxia does not have a scabbard. You do you, Baxia.

All the senior cultivators file out down the center while everyone else parts to let them pass. Then everybody does the Electric Slide.

Jiang Cheng tells Wei Wuxian they should go ahead of the main force to get some killing in early, but Wei Wuxian just pulls a face and looks down, staying with Lan Wangji. 

Jiang Cheng is disappointed, and no doubt takes this as a sign of WWX choosing LWJ over him. But actually, WWX can't fight side-by-side with Jiang Cheng without showing his weakness.

LWJ and WWX exchange one of their unspoken "let's go" eye touches and get ready to ride out together with the main force. 

Lan Wangji is still super, super sad. Wei Wuxian is still fake. But something is starting to knit together between them, and once they can hit a battlefield together, it will get a lot stronger.

On A Horse With No Name

Everyone rides out on horses, which will presumably get eaten somewhere along the way, because they appear to travel on foot after this. While Wei Wuxian practices his horseback-flute-twirling, Lan Wangji asks why Wei Wuxian didn't go with the forward force to fight.

Wei Wuxian says that he has a case of the don'wannas, and Lan Wangji snarkily points out that he used to like fighting. Wei Wuxian reacts, just as he did at the end of their sword fight, with embarrassment, and doesn't answer.

Lan Wangji, sweetie. You are really not helping. 

At this point, despite their ongoing fighting, Wangxian are clearly together again. Lan Wangji isn't riding with his brother; he's RIGHT next to Wei Wuxian, and will stay close to him through the rest of the campaign.

Nie Huaisang hollers "Wei-Xiong" from the top of the battlements and tells him to take care. Wei-Xiong lifts his flute in acknowledgement while Nie Huaisang looks worried. He doesn't tell Nie Mingjue or Lan Wangji to take care, just Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian is his particular friend, more than Lan Wangji is, but he may also be concerned because he can tell that Wei Wuxian isn't well.

Nie Huaisang hasn't yet developed the deep cynicism that he calls upon in his quest to avenge his brother, but he has always been a voracious collector of information, and he is keenly observant.

Side note: what the fuck is going on with this sculpture? Kudos to the artist. This has beautiful forms, and is weird and disturbing. The main head is wearing a horned skull on its forehead, small ungulates that I hesitate to call “deer” chilling on its horns, and...snakes? biting its ears? 

Boring Wen Interlude

Wen Ruohan is waving his hands around. Sigh. This is one of the more boring villain performances ever, and it's not the actor’s fault. They could have given him a sidekick to yell at or something, so we could get more than just hand waving. I’ve given up screen capping any of this; there are more interesting things to look at. 

Battle Moves

Jin Zixuan and Jiang Cheng and their forces have an extended fight scene with a bunch of puppet dudes and stuntmen in harnesses. 

It's pretty fun to watch. (Fanvid with more over here)

The gist of the fighting scenes is that Wen Ruohan is getting stronger, and Klingons are hard to beat.

Battle Planning

Finally we see a sidekick with Wen Ruohan, although he's blurry so it's hard to tell that he is totally Meng Yao.

The Sunshotters have set up a Battle Camp Playset. It's got chunks of gates and walls that don't connect to anything, like a Duplo set. It's just randomly open for most of the back area so that anyone can walk in. 

They've got a cage of hilarious definitely-not-zombies set up, and the rest of the wounded cultivators are lying on the ground. 

The main battle trio go chill in Nie Mingjue's incredibly fancy tent. They talk it over and say it's impossible to kill unkillable enemies, "even when we have millions of troops." And by “millions” they mean “dozens.”  

Nie Mingjue decides the way to handle it is to kill the leader and everyone else will collapse, because he has watched vampire movies and the last season of Game of Thrones and that's how it works. Watching the last season of Game of Thrones is why he is so angry all the time  He says he's going to sneak into Nightless City and assassinate Wen Ruohan.

Okay, first of all, Nie Mingjue can sneak? I don't believe it.  Second of all, if that was possible, why didn't he do it as soon as Wen Ruohan attacked his clan?

Nie Mingjue wants to take the biggest risk because he's the commander in chief, which is not how commanding is supposed to work, but okay.

He says if he dies, Zewu Jun will take over. Jiang Cheng starts to protest but Zewu Jun appears as if conjured, and shows them a map that will...dear GOD his hands are beautiful.

It's a helpful map, painted in multiple colors with careful writing on it, so if anyone were to show it to Nie Huaisang he would probably go "oh cool Meng Yao painted that" because anyone who could paint that well probably spent a fair amount of time at it on a regular basis. But, Nie Huaisang isn't here so, nope.

It’s always nice to see Jiang Cheng smile.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Waniji examine some of the puppets to see what's up. It's transmitted by touch, and Lan Wangji says that curing one dude takes three months of spiritual power. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Writing Prompt: Missing scene! How did they get from the fight in the courtyard to the talk on the roof? 

Soundtrack: 1. Shine on You Crazy Diamond, by Pink Floyd 2. Electric Boogie, by Marcia Griffiths