#i've been told im good at it

[lockhartandlych]

i just realized that my aceness is driven by my aroness.

i dont perceive romantic relationships like a lot of allos do. i can perceive close and intimate relationships, i can even perceive lifelong close and intimate relationships. (though like most people, i find it a daunting concept.) but i cant perceive, specifically, exclusive romantic relationships. "till death do us part" is a phrase that does not compute in my brain.

this translates over to sex. if i have a close friend or queerplatonic partner (i don't think im capable of having a true romantic partner) who i'm able to be intimate with, i don't think that intimacy is required. it's nice, but ultimately not needed to fuel the relationship. this is because the relationship isn't romantic in the allonormative sense. a romantic relationship has sex almost as a prerequisite. in an allo society, a romantic relationship and a sexual relationship are one and the same. i've only been in like two romantic relationships and both started entertaining the idea of intimacy right out of the gate.

but because i don't experience romantic relationships, i don't need to really experience sexual relationships. does that make any sense?

[canonkiller]

do you consider your self made?

[pendraegon]

thesis updates: sent the draft to my advisor -> she said it was "incoherent" and that she was "shocked" at my work and instead of telling me anything in detail as to what's wrong directs me to the writing center then proceeds to cc my committee members saying that she's at a loss with what to do with me -> was confused because... did i send her the wrong draft?? it seemed pretty solid to me?? like i was genuinely proud of it??? -> next day she sends me another email saying that actually my draft isn't bad at all and it just needs some reworking ???????

[kursed-curtain]

Stickmintober 2024: Day 6

Underrated BG Character / Crossover

Roland Canterbury and Royal Guard No.1 (King's Quest) talk captain business!

[lacomandante]

HELLO i'm alive, I just barely survived 9 days in Girona doing costumes for Assumpta's short film reels.....and immediately after we came back I had to do some frantic sewing in time for the week of events planned for the Dos de Mayo. I met up with some new friends I had met at the Museo de Traje two weeks or so earlier, and my Spanish has improved SO MUCH during my time here. I am so happy and having SO much fun. I based this spencer off of one Assumpta wears in Rossini, Rossini!, and had two days to make it. I did my hair how Teresa's looks in a snood in Company, but made a madroñera instead- it's a little lower class than Teresa would've worn, I think, but it was appropriate. (I want to make all of the costumes Assumpta wears in her films and make a pre-war Teresa wardrobe, though I'll be remaking this red spencer!) Over the course of the week we walked through many parks, got to see the changing of the guard, we went to many palaces, and I got to participate in the Dos de Mayo parade and battle, which was insanely cool, and where the first two photos are taken! I also got to go to a wonderful ball and danced with all my friends, which I'll post photos of soon. Now that the events are over, I'm rereading Sharpe's Command bc I have my review in my drafts and want to revisit it.

[alchemania]

Finally got enough energy to talk about Furina's SQ and while I loved her and the troupe, MC and Paimon were .... Not Great. I talked about this with friends but in Paimon's case especially, the way they interact with Furina feels like people who just don't understand trauma and depression and then engage with someone suffering from both in all the wrong ways.

Talking about how much of a downgrade her house is from the opera house, making fun of how she can't cook, pushing her to act when she's set a very clear boundary and then guilt tripping her after she's stuck to her guns, shaming her for not being able to fight well (Paimon literally talks about how second hand embarrassment is overwhelming and I'm just like ?????), telling her she's "not acting like herself" when she attempts to open up and be vulnerable....it's just really rough. That and the MC asking "is something wrong" when Furina gets sad over Poission ..like bro people died and she couldn't save them and she's tearing herself apart over it. Those people are never coming back and you know it and you have the gall to ask her is something wrong??? Of COURSE there is!!

It just feels especially odd because we literally get to see all of Furina's suffering and Paimon in particular is. SO mean? Like she was more understanding with Wanderer and Ei and THEY'VE tried to kill us multiple times!! I don't get it, and honestly I'm very proud of Furina for refusing to waver. Let her rest!! She's tired and depressed and she needs time to heal; and honestly fuck Paimon for trying to make her feel bad. Furina's worked harder than she EVER will.

[savage-rhi]

Magenta 😥

[venelona]

I might lack the motivation to see it through, but I really like your dazatsu works, so I was wondering how you motivate yourself to create fanfiction? How do you get into the headspace of the characters?

Motivation is a fickle mistress, it's hard to say what EXACTLY motivates me. I guess the best answer is 'I write the fanfic I wish there was'. The true 'write what you want to read', I am usually really motivated to write something I wish to read so badly - a hole in the market, or a certain concept I wish I could do my way that would cater to all the things I like.

Since I also primarily write shipping fanfics, engaging with canon/fanart/other fanfics on the pair also motivates me greatly. Reminds me of why I like the characters and want to write about them in the first place

I quite like getting into the headspace of the characters, at least those I like a lot, haha. For me, it's always the question of "would this character to this?" - when I think of them doing or saying something, I think back on what I know of the character, if there were similar situations to this one in the canon and try to think what would be the most logical thing for that character to do. Like puzzle pieces - canon gives you puzzle pieces, and you can either arrange them how you want, or see what new pieces can fit to existing ones.

I think just good thing to keep in mind when you writing a character do something is the question of 'why are they doing this'. The why's come from their personality, their past or the circumstances of the story (the events or even the rules of the world)

Also, something that motivates me and I'm very lucky to have - good community! Comments are a wonderful motivation. And the power of friends?? Absolutely amazing. Half my motivation to finish things is solely to talk to my writing friends about it 😂

I'm happy you like my works, thank you so much!

[compacflt]

question: how do you find your research/sources? yours and dancing disasters' icemav fics are so inside baseball i love it, but how do you go about doing research?

I just read a lot & google stuff I don't know & am curious about. not that hard to start learning. and in terms of reading I've been interested in military history & milfiction my whole life. mostly related to the US army, actually--im extremely new to naval history and naval literature; all of that interest was driven by top gun. I've also been fortunate enough to visit a lot of the places I write about--ive been to Pearl Harbor a couple times & San Diego MANY times, for instance, and I've toured a few aircraft carriers and military bases. I've also finally bitten the bullet and kinda shifted my career path towards aerospace, so I've been learning a lot just by working in the aerospace & defense sector/spending a lot of time with people who do.

that's obviously not to say that I am somehow Educated in all this stuff. im pretty open on this blog about me being young & naive & wrong much of the time about how the real world works. so, you know, a lot of shit I just Make Up according to my preconceived notions of the military & the world.

here is my recommended military/navy reading list, some fiction and some nonfiction.

someone also asked recently if I had read anything good in the last 6 months--yes!! three new additions to my reading list: a) Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain. So goddamn good. If you have to read only one novel about the Iraq War, make it this one. It's more about America than it is about Iraq. b) Redeployment by Phil Klay. This one is a collection of short stories about Marines in Iraq, written by a USMC vet, talk about inside baseball. Crazy amounts of jargon in here, basically a "to-google" list. won the national book award which idk if it deserved, but it's good. c) No true glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle of Fallujah by Bing West. currently reading this one, really well done so far, talks a lot about how fucked the US strategy was in Iraq with Fallujah serving as a metonymy/case study for the war itself.

again... this is all mostly close-quarters-combat (infantry) literature, I really am not that interested in the navy/Air Force that much outside of top gun lol

though I did recently remember that in early 2022, before I was into top gun, I read "Wingmen" by Ensan Case, which is actually a gay US naval aviator romance set in WWII published in 1979! it's really authentic and kind of sad, obviously, since it was a 1940s navy gay love story published in 1979. I don't actually think Wingmen influenced how I wrote wwgattai or how I think of TG/TGM but I just remembered that I read that book in February 2022 and going "oh my god they were wingmen" so maybe you might find that book interesting.

[viaphni]

iiiiiiii love these two so much

theyre a couple of characters from The Shrouded Shards, a professor red parallel and his son

they are precious and their contributions to the plot are great

cannot wait to post more about these two

[telesodalite]

With Krok now on my mind, it's reminded me of like, the whole deal of him coping with the loss of his squad by believing they'd just become separated? Because that bit is such a fascinating aspect of his character to me.

It's vague in a way that doesn't totally confirm whether he truly 100% deluded himself, or if he just kept telling himself that to try and distract from the truth and memories he didn't want to face.

(Which, for some reason this pisses Misfire off? Which implies something really interesting there about Misfire and his own coping mechanisms and issues that we don't get much of a peer into unfortunately.)

Anyway, I spent way too long thinking about it when I was reading through the comics. And it's like, did studying battles and strategy play a part in this delusion/lie?

Like, you're a being that lives for millions of years, in the middle of a war spanning those millions of years. So, at some point, surely those battles are going to start to blur together. So you've got that, and then you go and face a frankly horrifically traumatic fight that quite literally rips the people you cared about most, and felt responsible for, apart.

Presumably, Decepticons aren't the greatest at handling shell shock and other such side effects of war. So they just take this freshly traumatized mess of a dude, take him off the front lines and plant him on a warworld to aid the fight from a more comfortable distance.

With all this, the mind is bound to be fickle when faced with such sudden loss and change. But Krok obviously did his job there, or at least he was very knowledgeable on history and tactics beforehand.

Either way, he studied battle after battle, went through records of fight after fight, planned for what's next and reconsidered what had already happened. Hundreds of wins and losses.

So did it get jumbled there? In having a head full of battles, did some of them blur and mix with the one that took everything away from him? In trying to solve the failures of past battles, did he try and find where a victory could've been had against the wreckers that day? Did he find a solution that would've had his squad still whole and alive?

From there, did it slip into delusion, or a desperate lie to keep himself going?

I feel like his "mental health matters" moment was an interesting insight into it and possibly the average soldier's rough outlook on trauma. But it was still very surface level I think, but I guess going too deep into the why's and how's wouldn't have been important until maybe the Scavenger centric comics that uh, never happened :/

[stcries]

thinking.jpg ... if i was gonna add another gravity falls muse, i've been told i might be a good wendy, what do we think if i was to try her out?

[coffeeatnight23]

Writing a character who's assisted multiple suicides because he's such a people-pleaser has me confused as to whether he thought they would like him more afterward or...

It's not people-pleasing so much as impulsively and uncontrollably transforming into what the other person wants him to be, but you know.

Also, suffering disturbs him immensely, which is good under normal conditions, but he does those drastic things when disturbed. Another of my favorite examples: causing the person who's suffering to suffer more in the hopes they'll just dissociate and "be ok" ❤️, so his heart is in... some sort of place. Not the wrong place, necessarily. Closer to the right place than SOME of the people I know (thinking of no one in particular here) (but now Mosley and Lena do come to mind).

[tanicus-caesareth]

guarana drama, damage control

[outlanderalien]

Not sure if I'm sabotaging my relationship or not but I feel like I'm in the right ? Perhaps ?