#i liked doing this it was fun

[atypicalacademic]

Writerly Thumbprint Tag

Rules: look back on your work, both past and present, finished and unfinished. what are five (or more!) narrative elements, themes, topics or tropes that continuously pop up in your work?

Thank you @dirty-bosmer​ so much for this tag!! I needed some time to go over my stuff and the WIP Hall of Shame. Tagging @cumbiazevran​ @greyvvardenfell​ @ollifree​ @aria-i-adagio​ @cleverblackcat just to see. This is a super interesting one and I’m really happy I had the chance to do this.

Also I’d add South Asian cultural elements as a Thing in my writing but I feel like that goes without saying, honestly. But let’s see what else:

Living Past Your Legend/The Tale Itself Is A Bittersweet Epilogue

A lot of my “protagonists” grapple with the fact of an After. Where your personhood is buried beneath the weight of your legend, and you can no longer afford to make human (or divine) mistakes, to be a hero is sometimes a kind of death. Literal, in some cases, when you are what’s left of a hero who is gone. Or figurative, when you are the hero that survives the final battle, and realize there is no such thing as a final battle. You’re adored and reviled, you’re expected to do the impossible again and again and again, and all the things you’ve done on the path to “victory” will come back to haunt you. I have protagonists who fade away into obscurity, overshadowed by someone else, but I also like to torment my more powerful protagonists by having them crumble time and again under the weight of what they’ve become. It’s fun. Everything has a cost, after all. Which leads me to-

Actions and Consequences

It is pretty obvious, but I do like leaning into this once again with my more “glorious”, strong, heroic protagonists. If everything has a cost and you choose it anyway, you are beholden to bear the burden of it. There are lost friends or cycles of vengeance or terrible, irreversible mistakes in their path. So too are there places of love and adoration and kindness and courage. As there are hurts and griefs and things you’ll leave behind because you chose something else. As there are limits, inadequacies, blind spots that are insurmountable. I usually don’t let my characters get away with much. They’re not always enough, and they’re never, ever always right.

Legacy and Memory

I put a lot of interspersed memories into a lot of my stories; often from formative experiences of my character’s youth or childhood. Several of my characters are concerned to obsessed with their legacy, with what they’ll leave behind, and how they will be remembered. Or they give everything to preserve the legacy of someone else; a parent they’ve lost, a People, a loved one, or a time or a world that is beyond them now. To that end, a lot of my characters, indeed most of them, have complicated families. Not always devoid of love, (though sometimes that’s the case) but always imperfect, always a resistance and an acceptance at once, always something of a journey. It often hurts to hold this endless project so close, especially since legacy is contentious, complicated, and you fall short or exceed it, or you’re only mortal and can only remember so much. But I don’t think you can escape what you’re made of, only build something good with it.

Freedom

It could be political freedom, or being stifled by the lack of it. It could be the freedom of and from resistance, it could be the terror and trauma of having freedom taken away. It could be the freedom of self-determination and self-affirmation, of finding your way past fear and violence and the trespass of others to know the intrinsic value of your own life, your own personhood. It’s the freedom to begin again, and the freedom to let go of what once was. To some of my characters, it’s also the freedom from the weight of a single narrative, from inevitabilities imposed upon them, from a quest they took upon themselves when they did not need to, from the shadow of everyone else. A lot of my “good” romances have freedom as central to it; whether they’re endgame or not, love is something that sets them free.

This World Is Worth Saving

My heroes are never too reluctant. (Even the ones that are.) I like thinking joy is central to the journeys of a lot of my characters; finding it, recognizing it, sometimes realizing it is enough. And with it, is an understanding that a world which, even in the best of times and the worst of times, can still contain joy, is still worth the fight to protect it. Even if you may not be enough. Even if you may be fleeting. Even if you’re only one of many. Even if no one saved you to begin with. Whenever I do write characters who don’t love the world and never come to love the world, they’re hollowed and empty in many ways, and both me and the narrative are convinced that they’re wrong, and the tragedy is that they came so close to seeing the world is vast and worthy of care, and chose to ignore it. In such cases, no matter how many victories they may have, I always give them a tinge of defeat.

[puppyeared]

filipina miku!! my mom helped me with her outfit ^_^

[bizarrebazaar13]

what if your doppelgänger wasn’t evil it was just a person. what if your doppelgänger wasn’t trying to replace you it was just trying to learn to be a person and you were the best model it had. what if your doppelgänger looked at you with your eyes and said with your voice that it just wanted to be loved. what then.

[almondpiglet]

ppl were drawing mikus from all over so heres habesha miku and her lil twin sibs rin and len!!

[intercrusher]

this is their foreplay

[badolmen]

WARNING 18+

19

[daisywords]

One of my biggest nitpicks in fiction concerns the feeding of babies. Mothers dying during/shortly after childbirth or the baby being separated form the mother shortly after birth is pretty common in fiction. It is/was also common enough in real life, which is why I think a lot of writers/readers don't think too hard about this. however. Historically, the only reason the vast majority of babies survived being separated from their mother was because there was at least one other woman around to breastfeed them. Before modern formula, yes, people did use other substitutes, but they were rarely, if ever, nutritionally sufficient.

Newborns can't eat adult food. They can't really survive on animal milk. If your story takes place in a world before/without formula, a baby separated from its mother is going to either be nursed by someone else, or starve.

It doesn't have to be a huge plot point, but idk at least don't explicitly describe the situation as excluding the possibility of a wetnurse. "The father or the great grandmother or the neighbor man or the older sibling took and raised the baby completely alone in a cave for a year." Nope. That baby is dead I'm sorry. "The baby was kidnapped shortly after birth by a wizard and hidden away in a secret tower" um quick question was the wizard lactating? "The mother refused to see or touch her child after birth so the baby was left to the care of the ailing grandfather" the grandfather who made the necessary arrangements with women in the neighborhood, right? right? OR THAT GREAT OFFENDER "A newborn baby was left on the doorstep and they brought it in and took care of it no issues" What Are You Going to Feed That Baby. Hello?

Like. It's not impossible, but arrangements are going to have to be made. There are some logistics.

[hinamie]

trick or treat!

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

whens megatron coming back

[singswan-springswan]

In a happy world where Jason is legally resurrected and gets to go to college like he's always dreamed of

[paintedcrows]

Nooo little Stanley watch out! Your striped shirt, bandage, and sad backstory are too Fallen Human Coded!! The Undertale narrative is going to get you!!!

[doctorsiren]

Gravity Falls AU where everything is exactly the same except Bill’s parents are alive and well, and they’re just so proud of their chaotic dream demon son

[eatyourdamnpears]

I’ve been in such a funk since the concert. I’m not even sure I enjoyed myself that much. maybe I did. I don’t know

[goldensunset]

did you know? if you do your laundry you can get your clothes back

[foolsocracy]

identity reveals are always fun

[corrodedparadox]

⚠️