#is that even a word? I also just like Zack's writing style
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telephonestalker · 2 years ago
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If paranatural ever were to become a show, I would split chapter five into three parts. First of all, I'd split it up because of how long it is. The first part is Chapter 5, Part 1: A Dangerous Game of Hitball. This follows all the way to "It's one of them!" where it cuts off. Next episode is Chapter 5, Part 2: The Hunt & Stalk a Teacher which goes to the big reveal of who's been possessed the whole time. Finally, we have Chapter 5, Part 3: The Final Showdown which is the big arc, everyone's fighting & we end the first season there.
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lemoncrushh · 4 months ago
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OLD FICS REPOSTING
STARTING MONDAY, JULY 8...
I will begin reposting my three completed long fics. These are multi-chaptered fics that I wrote between 2015 and 2018. Please note, these are all Harry x OC fics, two are AUs and one is Real Harry.
I WILL BE POSTING ONE CHAPTER OF EACH FIC PER DAY. So, you can follow along easily or wait til the end and binge them all.
Below is a brief synopsis of each fic, along with warnings. ALL THREE ARE OLDER WOMAN OCs. If this is not your thing, or it turns you off, PLEASE do not read. I got hate for these in the past (and some snarky comments on Wattpad), and I am just too old and tired to defend them anymore. In my opinion, the age thing shouldn't matter, but I would rather put it out there first before I get messages about it.
Just PLEASE REMEMBER TO BE KIND. I have a heart just like everybody else, and I am sensitive. I enjoy interacting with readers and other writers. Feedback is always appreciated, but rude comments will be blocked.
Obviously, you must be over 18 to read my fics.
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Summary: After a few years of being a housewife, Tisa Jordan decided to go back to school. Hoping to find inspiration and a new direction in life, she didn't expect to meet Harry Styles, a handsome British twenty-year-old.
When It Was Written: I started this fic around the end of 2014 when I'd just become a Harry fan, and it was completed in 2015. It was my very first Harry fic.
The Characters and Face Claims: This Harry is 20 (he turns 21 at the end), and Tisa is 32. The girl for the face claim of Tisa was just a model in a random stock photo I found, so I don't know who she is. The character Zack is based on Zayn, and Penny is based on Perrie Edwards. Also, I think I used Ashton Irwin for the face claim of Joey, Liam for Grayson, Olivia Wilde for Justine (complete coincidence, I promise lol), Renee Olstead for Liz, and Lea Michele as Britney. I did not use a face claim for James.
Warnings: age gap (older woman), infidelity, smut, unprotected sex, divorce, angst (LOTS), drinking, mentions of mental abuse and dysfunctional childhood
Number of Chapters: 39 (chapters are a bit short in the beginning because I didn't keep track of word counts back then.)
Posting Time: 10AM CDT
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Summary: I'm Harry. I have a mundane job where I sit in a cubicle all day. But things just got better because the hottest babe just started working here. And I'm determined to make her mine, even if just for one night. I'm Roni. I just started this new job, but all I can think about is the hottie in the corner cubicle. I think he likes me too.
When It Was Written: This was started in 2015 and finished in 2017 (it was on hold off and on for a while). It started really with just the urge to write about a cocky Harry and eventually turned into a long story. There is a lot of smut, but it ends up having a lot of drama as well.
The Characters and Face Claims: So, as you can see from the cheeky lil summary, this is written in two points of view. This Harry is based on 2013 Harry, so he's 19. Roni is 27. I don't believe I used any face claims for any of the other characters.
Warnings: age gap (older woman), smut, angst (LOTS) * Just want to add that in both this fic and the one above, the characters have unprotected sex. This was simply an oversight on my part. I was married when I wrote these and had not used a condom in years, so it was simply not on my mind. I got called out for it, don't worry lol.
Number of Chapters: 22
Posting Time: 2PM CDT
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Summary: Stacey Barnett is a writer and a single mother. Her hands full with two daughters (one with special needs), a newly published novel, an extroverted best friend and a controlling ex-husband, the last thing she expects is to meet an international pop star.
When It Was Written: I started this story in 2016 when I was going through my own divorce, so it's very personal to me. I didn't actually finish it until 2019. Sometimes you write something that you think is going to be a big hit and when it's not, it kind of crushes your spirit. While I knew this was not for everyone, I think because it was so personal to me, it was hard for me to take any criticism (and it still is, tbh).
The Characters and Face Claims: This is the only one of the three that is about Real Harry. The story takes place when he's just released his first solo album, although in this he never cut his hair, and his movie (which is not named) came out before the album. The face claim for Stacey is Rachelle Lefevre. She is 40. Her bestie Lorelei's face claim is Tabrett Bethell. I did not use any other face claims, although most of the other characters are based on real people in my life - Stacey's daughters are mine, her mom is mine, and her ex-husband is mine. I just changed the names.
Warnings: age gap (older woman), smut, angst, mentions of divorce, autism (child), seizures (child), insecurities, flashbacks, nightmares, mental health issues * Again, this mentions a lot of personal issues I had and was going through at the time. I am not exaggerating when I say this is LOADED with angst. You will get angry at the characters, especially Stacey. But please remember to have a heart, because she's been through a lot and doesn't always react the way you think she should.
Number of Chapters: 33
Posting Time: 6PM CDT
In addition, I also have playlists curated for all of these on Spotify. I will link them on the story pages.
Again, please be kind. But if you have any feedback as I post, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Remember, just because they're older fics doesn't mean you can't comment :).
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MASTERLIST | KO-FI | FEEDBACK
Also, if you enjoy my writing, please consider joining my Patreon!
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deadmountaindaughter · 3 months ago
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"He glanced at Dimitri, hoping to get his clubmate's perspective on the situation. But the moment he looked back at the face under the mound of fluffy hair, Collin knew this wasn't the same as all the times before.
Oh.
She really thinks this is for real."
A) YESSSSSS . YES. YES. YES. YES. EYE DONT EVEN HAVE ANUTHING TO SAY IM JIST HAVING AN AUTISM ATTACK.
B) Im so used to she/hering Collin that eye confused myself multiple times reading this lol. I was like "wdym he/him collin" and then I Remembered I Made Trans Girl Collin Up In My Head. NOT a criticism just a "oh right" moment LOL
C) I LOOVEE ur writing style and the story and the way this is going so far AH!!!! 10/10.<3
D) Not related to the fic at all, but what do you think of the theory that Collin, like Dimitri, already knows whats up with the supernatural world? :3 She was childhood friends with Cody, and had a lot of weird reactions during chapter five, and Zack drew her with a purple aura around her head like Isabel in chapter one. Just my little speculation. Or has spender would put it before I punch him, specterlation. Ps its literally 2:40 am for me rn so if this is all over the place . Haha. Yeah
ok in order:
!!!!! I ALSO HAVE NO WORDS FOR HOW I FEEL ABOUT HOW YOU FEEL HERE
ah yes, headcanon leak, it’s happened to all of us. The fact that immediately afterwards you go back to she/her Collin is such amazing environmental storytelling lol. And honestly I can sort of see it?
once again !!!!!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH
that… makes a lot of sense, actually. It would also be incredibly hilarious if Collin knows about monsters BUT NOT ABOUT SPECTRALS bc of Cody and just thinks vampires are a normal thing but is still 100% blindsided by spectral stuff. Actually I kind of love this, w/ your permission I want to at least consider this for MMATTBP? Also specterlation AUGH.
and dw we’re apparently in the same time zone, I don’t have a functioning sleep schedule either
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prismaticpichu · 7 months ago
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If you’re someone out there who enjoys my writing—enjoys anything that I do with my words or prose or style—I feel there’s something you oughta know!
I would not be anywhere without the incredible authors I took inspiration from.
I’m admittedly still a wee lad trudging through high school, and I still gotta whole lot to learn! And I’m gonna have fun on that journey. But I legit think I’ve absorbed and learned more from reading all these gifted works more than the lessons we were taught over the years. Ofc, the fundamentals were taught there—teaching me the rules before I could break them. But it was these people that taught me how to break those rules and how to do them effectively. And when you’re a writer, I find, there is no better learning experience than reading words on a page!
My style really seems to be an amalgamation of so many different things and people—prolly a lot of subliminal stuff, too. Though I feel like there’s at least two I gotta give HUGE hugs to for being so influential <3
~
LuckyLadybug on FF.Net! ~ Literally the first ever FF7 fics I’ve ever read. Literally the sole reason I love Zack & Sephiroth’s friendship. Her fics are absolutely legendary, all written in a very consistently clean and swift style. It’s not an overload on sensory detail, but it also ain’t choppy in the slightest. It really does strike that perfect balance of rhythmic and simple that I always try to fall back on when I find myself getting too flowery! It’s a real life savor—for real! And speaking of For Reals, almost everything I craft about Zack & Sephiroth’s relationship stems from the bond she created. I learned so much about how to make emotional, powerful scenes that really can convey just how much people can platonically love each other. She’ll always be the true power of friendship queen! And the best Zack & Sephiroth author I’ve ever had the honor of reading.
@altocat! ~ Oh boy… there is SO much to say xD Where to even start? While Ladybug was the foundation of my little fanfic quest, I don’t think there’s a soul who helped me build and evolve more than Alto’s works. Because if you aren’t aware, this goddess is just an artist with words. We’re talking the most vivid and powerful imagery you can imagine! Imagery that was so powerful, in fact (and I don’t think she even knows this lol!), that at least a solid year of my works fall into this Altocat-emulating-esque era. Never with the intention to copy, of course, but to try my hand at creating prose that was rich in rhythm, language, and meaning. And while I think I did take this WAY too far sometimes (I can say that bc I’m the author- and I know what just sounds unreadable in retrospect xD), but it was part of the learning process. And one I’m still in the middle of today. For more context, Alto was also the one who taught me the value of fragments and isolating words for emphasis. That something concise could be powerful. Beautiful. Beatiful and valuable. Like words that mirror the characters’ quickened heart rates as their thoughts begin to splinter and spiral and how to wield syntax in a way that’s both enjoyably breathless and taut with anxiety at the same time. I learned how to imbue emotion to my work and peel it back so it’s pure and raw. Altocat is an absolute MASTER of angst, and while I used to write relatively “dark” things, I don’t think I really ever got them right until readings AMT’s (see this! for more details on that gem). In a similar vein, she also taught me the kind of impact that beginning and ending lines can have—how to not waste them and how they can circle back to each other in clever and gorgeous ways. I learned the importance of diction from her work; I learned the meaning of SO many new words lol; I learned how to make dialogue just a tad more interesting. Overall, really, I think Alto really did teach me how to write in a lot of ways. At least, in the sense of taking a step that I had no idea was in front of me. A step I didn’t know existed, because I really never saw more beautiful craft in my life.
Anywho! I think I’m rambling a bit x,D I hope I didn’t embarrass you, my friend. Or weird you out lol!!! I was just doing some reflecting, really, and I just needed you to know how impactful your fics have been to me. And you have no flipping idea how honored I am to know you as a mutual <3 Ty for everything ❤️ Ty for being you!!
(For reference, this is why I always say to NEVER underestimate the kind of impact your works may have on people. No matter how small or how insignificant you think they may be. Because who knows??? Maybe you’ll end up changing a life, too <33)
~
Thx for listening to this spiel, folks!!! Much love!! <33
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aquatic-hybrid · 8 months ago
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✧ ── 𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍.
Tagged By: @witchcraftandburialdirt
what made you pick up the current muse(s) you have?
Interesting story with Akio's origin, when first starting the blog Akio was actually a collaboration between a very old friend of mine and me. I unfortunately haven't talked to them in a very long time, but the idea was to create a character that could grow to become a more "Hero" type character. At the time, there was quite the lot of OCs who had unique stories, but none of them really had any heroic bits to them. So during Akio's draft, I picked a bunch of my favorite characters to design his personally. The two main characters being Zack Fair from FF7 Crisis Core and Roxas from Kingdom Hearts 2 specifically, Makoto from Persona 3 was also the reason Akio is blue/ocean-themed. So over the course of the years, Akio became a character I am proud to have written. Plus, it gave me a chance to meet a lot of wonderful people!
is there anything you don’t like to write?
Nothing in particular comes to mind out off the top of my head that isn't just common things. Like sudden gore related scenes or scenarios that might be more sensitive to write about, I have written such things before, but it is better to have a proper talk beforehand.
is there anything you really enjoy writing?
Oh, I adore writing action scenes with Akio. It gives me a chance to express Akio's energy and skill in a multitude of ways, but while writing his own skills is fun by itself. I love to add references to other characters assisting him in other ways. It helps to solidify how the connections and friendships he has made helped him grow stronger.
how do you come up with headcanons?
Music is often my main factor when it comes to writing Akio, while I never really had the time to dedicate myself into drawing, I took it upon myself to better my writing instead. With the help of music and even some game scenes, it inspires me to add things to Akio's character and style.
do you write in silence or do you play music? 
I have specific tracks for Akio when I write him, a more casual scene can be written easier with the track [A seafarer's skills - Bravely Default 2]. While come combat oriented ones can be split between Akio's chaotic and heavily stylish combat with [Intervalo I theme - Limbus Company] and, surprisingly, the more serious fights or scenes with either [Chesed's Theme - Library of Ruina] or [It's Going Down Now - Persona 3 Relaod]
do you plan your replies or wing them?
I usually think out my replies, which can cause them to take a while to come out. Ironically, some of my best replies and short stories come when I let myself get lost to whatever I am listening to and just let Akio take over. Usually happens late at night.
do you enjoy shipping? 
Akio is canonically married to Asta [@halfliing-ormr] and he even has kids of his own with her.
But with the idea of shipping in general, I like pairing up Akio with other OCs or characters to see how the synergy works. While a Platonic bond is the main thing to go for, it also helps to bring out other sides of Akio that I usually don't delve on my own. Like a more in depth talk about his magic issues or his heroic tendencies, often bringing him trouble.
what’s your alias/name?  ━━ I go by DarkZexi online, so a variation of it can be an alias.
age? ━━ I am currently 27
birthday? ━━ Feb. 17, my birthday just passed, actually!
favorite color? ━━ Violet, but more specifically Furious Violet - #4e3076 because of Limbus Company
favorite song? ━━ As of right now, it is [Full Moon, Full Life - Persona 3 Reload]
But!! Honorable mentions have to be these three, otherwise i would be here all day with music I adore.
-Iron Lotus - Mili -Them Fightin' Words - Hylics -Quixotic - Lies of P
last movie you watched? ━━ I recently rewatched FF7 Advent Children! And holy shit what a memory trip that was.
last show you watched? ━━ I have no idea if podcasts count as shows, but if they do, it would be Distractable on Spotify. Actual top tier comedy podcast.
last song you listened to? ━━ I was actively switching songs while making this post. But the one I was listening before this was [Invisible - Duran Duran]
favorite food? ━━ Nothing beats a delicious Caldo de Res during the cold winter times.
favorite season? ━━ A big fan of Fall tbh
do you have a Tumblr best friend? ━━ I've met quite a lot of people in tumblr, but I will say the best one I've ever met is @halfliing-ormr cuss I love her, and she is my best friend.
Tagging: @thegoldentigress , @floraluniversal , @theplasmablade idk man I am seeing this post everywhere. So you are free to take it from here and tag me if you do!
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winter-doggo · 7 months ago
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🌿and ☁️ for the writer ask game
Oooo ty for sending one in :D I'll put answers under the cut
☁️ ⇢ what made you choose your username?
It's got a surprisingly long and personal history i don't want to get into, but here's some of the things that went into its current iteration :]
I like the season
I like dogs
Doggo was a term used most a little over 5 years ago, not so much now, and more like a slang term. A lot of people will know what it means, but not a lot of people will be using it in usernames. Considering a lot of sites call for unique usernames, having something memorable and simple and unlikely to already be taken is nice.
It also means I don't have to worry about numbers, which I don't like putting in usernames lol
I just think it's neat
🌿 ⇢ give some advice on writer's block and low creativity
It's tricky stuff! Here's some of the stuff I usually try. Obviously since this is tailored to me, results for others might vary (and there's always the chance you've seen something like them already). but given it's similar to other advice I've seen maybe me passing it on can help ^^
Create something fresh for yourself, without even considering whether anyone will see it. As much or as little as you like. I find once other people enter the equation, it changes how I look at something forever. Just let stuff come out of your brain without worrying about how it will look to anyone else, if possible. If you can manage this, then at least it can help keep the rust off, keep you making things, and if you're lucky it might get the ball rolling! :D
(^ A couple chapters of A Cup Of Tea spawned just from this, for reference.)
Obviously, that would require things to come out of my brain, and sometimes that isn't happening. Sometimes I can get it to work by changing my standard for ideas. If you think you could write about a character mundanely eating breakfast, and might even enjoy it, but worry it doesn't have substance? Shush, write it anyway. If you want to draw someone faceplanting on the floor in the lowest quality possible, you can do that. What you're making doesn't need to matter as much if you're struggling to make at all.
Change the environnment you're creating in. Move to a different place, write/draw on something else. I've spent a long time just writing on my phone whenever the mood strikes me, but recently, I've started typing things up on the computer - document on the left, a relevant fanart on the right to help get the gears turning (and give myself something to look at other than the words once they are). Occasionally, I try creating on my phone, only to find my brain yearns for the computer, or vice versa. Write on paper, even, if you're feeling up to it.
Create something a little different from usual. If I spend too long writing/drawing the exact same thing, or within a small pool of characters, I'll drive myself up the wall. Zack and Sephiroth are everything to me but I can't do them forever. If you feel like you could try something with different characters or canons, or even style of writing, try it every so often and it might refresh your drive for what you were doing before.
For fanworks, mostly - try experiencing some canon again. Ideas might spark from anything in there, or even just having a refresher. (I'm scatterbrained enough that I lose my sense for it writing-wise within weeks lmao, I could benefit from doing this more often)
Thanks again, hopefully this was interesting for you!
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thewadapan · 6 months ago
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(Man, I still don't get tumblr etiquette. I want to add my own little review onto this post, but it's also kind of a reply to the original post, so instead of referring to Wales in the third person, should I just be saying "you"?)
Although I've read and enjoyed practically everything Alexander Wales has ever published, a lot of his works interest me more as proof-of-concepts, thought experiments, or simply enjoyable well-written fantasy—good, but lacking that ineffable quality which compels me to go out of my way and recommend them to other people.
The exceptions to this are Worth the Candle, which I view as probably being an artistic achievement on the level of something like Watchmen; the Star Wars short story Instruments of Destruction, which is synonymous with my personal understanding of the Star Wars universe; and The Metropolitan Man.
I think, looking over his bibliography, it feels to me like most of his work falls into two categories: virtual-doorstopper webnovels (>90,000 words), or r/WritingPrompts-esque snippets (<5,000 words). The former always suffer from a lack of editing and focus, while the latter are almost purposefully underdeveloped.
Curiously underrepresented is the novella, particularly in recent years, which I think is down to the economic incentives that drive Wales' writing. (I remember hearing arguments that the novella itself is unnaturally unrepresented in literature generally, again due to the economic structures.) You've got The Case of the Sleeping Beauties, a fun but flawed little detective piece that really feels like it wants to be a series. You've got Terminator, Frozen, and Christmas fanfics, which are so heavily mired in the rational lens that they become almost incomprehensible to traditional readers. You've got Contratto, the best of these works, which I remember thinking was a fairly tight piece of writing. These stories all have a very strong sense of direction and pacing, with very little meandering.
The Metropolitan Man comes from this era of Wales' writing, where his output is almost equally split between original works and pre-existing IP, and he's not really doing long-form web serials yet. It's quintessential "rational fic", on some level doing the same thing as Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. To my recollection, like many of the novellas listed above, it is a spartan piece of writing, with minimal description, an impatient attitude towards pacing, and an edge that's maybe just a little bit too sharp. In Branches on the Tree of Time, this stylistic aesthetic feels more aligned with Skynet than with Sarah Connor; in A Bluer Shade of White, it feels nothing like a Disney movie, and in The Last Christmas, it doesn't feel very Christmassy. You can argue that's the point, if you like, but I perceive a certain friction between what the story is and what the story is about.
In The Metropolitan Man, Wales' "house style" finds the perfect narrator in the form of Lex Luthor. A supposedly perfectly rational mind, Lex sees everything from a detachment. The vision of 1930s America presented in the story to me evokes the Randian aesthetic of stuff like Bioshock: men toiling in a dark pit to reach the sun.
Superhero deconstructions are hardly new, but the tonal dissonance with Superman's "Golden Age" stories takes on a slightly different form here. Thinly-veiled Superman pastiches typically take the form of Doctor Manhattan, Supreme, Hyperion, Scion, Omni-Man, Homelander, Brightburn, and presumably a bunch more I haven't heard of and don't care to: characters who all, in some way or another, start from the premise of "what if Superman went bad". Even Superman's most recent official outings in cinema, from perennial hack Zack Snyder, have twisted him into a barely-human Olympian-godlike entity. What The Metropolitan Man does is have a character ask this question—"what if Superman went bad"—while presenting a version of Superman who does not, for the most part, go bad.
While I don't remember ever thinking Superman is written perfectly in-character, I also don't remember anything that made me sit up and say "he would not say that. he would not fucking say that". I think readers who felt strongly that Superman was behaving "out-of-character" should shut up and write their own Superman stories for me to complain about. That said, the observations Wales himself makes about moments which struck him as egregious in hindsight seem reasonable to me—but I guess I view those as cases where the work failed to perfectly execute on its intention, rather than moments which reveal some fundamental flaw in Wales' view of the character.
I think the mistake most Superman deconstructions make is to focus entirely on the "super" part and forget about the part where he's a "man". He always ends up rendered into a cartoonishly omnicidal villain, some incomprehensible alien, and it's meant to be shocking because it's different to what Superman actually is. As betrayed by its title, The Metropolitan Man is instead almost entirely preoccupied by the idea of Superman as a human, as just some guy. He fumbles his way through a romance with Lois Lane. He tries to behave the way his parents raised him to. He loses his temper and makes a mistake. He has no ambition to dominate the world. He is genuinely anguished to see people suffering. He's extraordinary, but it's almost less the fact that he's an alien that makes him extraordinary, and more the fact that he's a small-town American. I think all of this is in concert with my understanding of who Superman is in the official canon—or mythology, if you prefer.
Again per his canon depiction, Lex thus represents the opposite kind of extraordinary man. To me it feels like it would be no surprise at all for a man like this to be a physically-impervious flying death machine. He is already barely human. In fact, the most human thing about him is his irrational fear: he is terrified of Superman, obsessed with him, for basically no reason except the existence of the fear itself. His fear blinds him absolutely to the truth of who Superman is, something which anyone who knows Clark Kent is able to understand.
It's Lois who embodies that understanding, as she comes to know Clark better than anyone. Her conspiracy with Lex is absolutely gripping, especially in how it colours her entire relationship with Clark. She can't forgive Clark for the intrinsic deception of the Superman/Kent double life, but I felt that by the end of the story, she felt she'd been wrong to ever fear him—even if it had seemed reasonable at the time.
Skimming over that final chapter again, I'm struck by how every single sentence serves a purpose. The very last scene, the image the story closes on, is something you could never see coming, but once it happens, it's impossible to imagine the story ending any other way.
I'd definitely be interested to see a remastered version of the story, so long as it wouldn't involve significant padding. Moreover, though, I'd like to read another novella from Wales: something written to exorcise a very particular idea, with a precise outline, unrestrained by any kind of schedule; I want a story that I can sit down and read in a day, holding the whole thing in my head at once. And yes, I'd also like a Superman comic.
Book Review: Metropolitan Man
[content warning: sexual violence]
It's been 10 years since I wrote Metropolitan Man, and last night I read it for the first time in almost that long. Since writing it, I've written over 4 million words, and hopefully, grown as a writer. I've also forgotten parts of the story, so was looking at it with as fresh of eyes as possible. These are my overall thoughts.
I should say, before I start, that I've read tons of comments and discussion on this story over the years. I don't know how many of these thoughts are my own, or how much I've internalized things that people have said.
Writing Style
There were lots of changes I thought about making while reading, but people hate change, and this story is about ten years past when I wanted to be making editing passes on it. In many places I kept thinking of little extras I would add, things that would make the dialogue pop a little more, or provide characterization. I had this idea for a line where I describe Lois typing out two letters like she was letting loose with both barrels of a shotgun. There's dialogue to clean just a bit more, a few places where words are repeated or something is just a bit awkward, and where it could have been tighter or more clear.
The biggest thing that stood out to me was how little time got spent on scene setting and how short some of the snippets were, just five paragraphs to get a scene across before we're onto the next thing. I might have webserial brainrot, but those are definitely places where today I would give a little more breathing room and maybe use the same amount of words to describe something in a more oblique and stronger way. One that stood out as a clear example was a private investigator going home with Jimmy Olsen even though she was done pumping him for information, which could have been twice as long and benefitted from it. Another was a brief little thing about a Superman spotter on the roof, where I'd now describe everything he was doing, and only get to the conclusion of "he was a Superman spotter" at the end of the section to let the reader have this mini mystery of what they're being shown and why.
I would describe things more if I was writing this today, trying to get those nicely tight and evocative descriptions and ditch the stuff like "she wore a white blouse", but I often feel that way about stuff that I'm revising from last week, so it's not surprising.
The plot is very tight, which is good. I tend to prefer my plots tight, but it takes work, and webserials aren't conducive to it because it's difficult to know when you're writing a scene whether it's really pulling its weight as far as moving things forward. The initial idea for MM was to move as cleanly as possible through a series of events: Superman -> Superman is invincible -> Superman is Clark Kent -> Clark Kent grew up in Smallville -> the ship is in Smallville -> the ship has a Kryptonite power source -> Kryptonite can kill Superman -> Superman is dead. The only thing that would make it any faster would be if we dropped the Lois Lane subplot, but that's like half the novel.
Superman is OOC
I've gotten tons and tons of comments on this story over the years. If I hated myself, I would go back through my email and count them up, but there are some death threats and "kill yourself"s in there, and I prefer not to reread them. The major thing that people hate is the ending, which I don't care to talk about, but the other major thing is that Superman isn't Superman.
In this, I largely agree, but then, I'm pretty sure I've always agreed. That said, Superman has had a ton of interpretations over the years, and there's a wide range of acceptable behavior from "a Superman", even if we're not counting the really out there variations like Red Son or some of the alternate timelines.
... but I still would probably make him more like a canon Superman if I had to do it all over.
There are a few things that raise red flags at the beginning, which is where I think they're inexpertly placed. Superman takes Lois off the roof and flies her around, making her very afraid, and this is fine, I think, a misunderstanding that might be stronger if we got his insight into what was happening before we got hers to help bridge some of the disconnect there and characterize them both better. But there's a little note after that, where Clark makes a joke about "Superman's girlfriend Lois Lane" that I think is a HUGE red flag, and which probably comes too early in the story. It would be better as a joke someone else made that Clark laughs along with, which raises the red flag to half mast.
The other major moment I would change is when the bombs start going off. Superman pulls back, unsure whether he's actually immune to mustard gas, and I think this is one of the moments that most goes against the character of Superman. Canon Superman would just say "welp, guess I gotta find out whether I'm immune to mustard gas in a hurry". Superman making the argument that he doesn't know the bounds of his powers and so should exercise caution reads as either cowardice or as him being way too bitten by the rationality bug.
This would then obviously have to change the plot of that section a bit, because in the novel as it stands right now, Superman is convinced by Lois Lane that he can't just sit on the sidelines for game theory reasons. Better to either scrap that section or have Lois convince Superman that for game theory reasons he should offer to have testing carried out against him in a way that doesn't harm civilians, which canon Superman might submit to if it saved lives. Then the rest of the plot can proceed as normal, because Superman is immune to everything and that's the whole plot beat anyway.
I'd definitely clean up some of Superman/Clark's dialogue to nail the character voice better, but I don't think it's that bad, and it's mostly a few places where the wording is off. I think in particular the points where he's feeling anger go too far, and are not how someone internally conflicted about the anger might talk.
And then, oh yeah, Superman punches a guy's head clean off, which I think is the biggest sticking point for most people.
I've thought about that scene a lot. I personally like it. But if I were ever trying to sell this story to DC, it's one of the things I would almost certainly change. Superman doesn't kill, except in that one movie that came out just before this story was published where Superman snapped a guy's neck.
The change I am most happy/comfortable with is that Whitman, the governor whose children were [REDACTED], is the one to kill Calhoun. This happens just outside the courthouse with Superman watching and not intervening in the slightest, or maybe catching the bullets as they go through Calhoun so no bypassers get hit.
I don't know, as I type it out, it doesn't have the same weight to it. It's not cool. It's not a watershed moment. Maybe there's a plot thread to pull there, where Superman has tacitly endorsed other vigilantes, and it would be a great time to pull in other mundane street-level heroes ... but that's an entirely different story at that point.
Another option is for Superman to simply fly off with Calhoun and put him away, but that lacks punch too, and gets talky, and ... it's about the rage, right? The feeling of injustice, not just at Calhoun, but at the entire world, and it's not just an unhappy side effect that there's blood everywhere, all over the clamoring press, that's part of the point.
Social Justice
I really enjoy how wide-ranging the novel is, and how many things it touches on. Good job me. There was a line I had completely forgotten about where Lois asks "Why doesn't Superman stop abortions?" that I had completely forgotten I had ever written, and which brought a big smile to my face (but no wonder some Superman fans hate this story).
There are a few other things that I raise my eyebrow at a little bit, at least sitting here in 2024. There's a particular line that Superman gives when talking about this whitewashed mural of the past they're walking by, and he says "It's easy to forget that slavery ever happened, you know?" Now, I will grant you that this is a part of a conversation where he's saying that maybe he should have been a better student of history, and is saying this as a white guy in 1934, but I wanted him or someone else to tear that statement apart. It never really happens.
"It's easy to forget that slavery ever happened [if you and your people have not been affected by slavery]". The novel takes place ~70 years after the end of the Civil War, which means that when Clark was growing up there would have been freed slaves who were in their fifties, probably many of them in Kansas, though Smallville is (notably) small. I don't know, it wouldn't have been historically accurate for them to have a discussion of privilege, but there's way more meat on that bone, and it's all left as subtext.
Also probably the case that if I were writing it now, I would pay more attention to race in general, but that I'm less sure on, because it would mean some major structural changes to be done well. There's a single black guy in the whole thing, who is barely a character and has no speaking lines: the farmhand Ma Kent has before he gets lured away with the promise of being an actor. I have never felt that any novel needs racial balance to it, but if you're going to be talking about slavery and whether Superman would have done anything about it, you start to make black people look like props, which is not a good look.
I mean look, I think it's fine for a given story to not actually take a stance on political issues or have a diverse cast, but this story goes from abortion to the Equal Rights Amendment to Prohibition to Nazis to the death penalty, and then despite being set in 1934 sort of talks around the subject of how shitty race relations were. As a white guy, I never feel comfortable talking about race, but I think it would have been appropriate to have here in more than the cursory way it was handled. But the cast is just not that large, and the way that modern Superman stories handle that is usually making Jimmy Olsen black and then not actually talking about the fact that he's black so it's just a palette swap, which I don't think would work here, especially since Jimmy is such a bit character, and also it's 1934.
Sexual Violence
Alright, I will say it: there's too much sexual violence.
Chapter 7 is when the two Whitman kids get kidnapped. Their driver gets his throat slit, the boy gets dismembered, and the girl gets raped. I knew it was coming and I was still horrified by it.
I would not remove this part. I would foreshadow it better with a few scenes with Calhoun, the brutes, etc., and I might change some of the details to be a bit less awful and gruesome, but I don't think I would remove it. There are a few core ideas here that I think all work:
The better class of criminal has left the city now, and all that are left are the worst of the worst, the people who will not respond to incentives or symbols or rational thought.
If you cannot strike at Superman's physical self, you strike at his mind instead, and one of the ways to do that is psychic damage. In Calhoun's case, this is irrational, a pure desire to hurt Superman in any way possible while his empire collapses.
The amount of evil in the world is enormous. The pain and suffering cannot be comprehended. I love what Superman says, that this isn't really unique, that these things happen to children all the time. He's upset about not being able to save them, but they're a drop in the bucket.
I think you have to be careful with sexual violence, whether it's depicted or hinted at or just briefly mentioned. There are tons of people who are not on board with that in their media, and even of those who are on board, it has to be handled carefully and can feel very cheap, as though you're just going to the worst and most transgressive thing you can think of for the shock value. People will see it as lazy and trivializing and making entertainment out of this horrible thing.
I think the world is shit. I think terrible things happen. I have always felt both oppressed by the weight of evil in the world and powerless to stop it. I think that's the thing that I'm gesturing at here, and it feels weird to me that sexual violence would get put on a pedestal as the one thing too horrible to mention, even though we're mentioning all the most horrible things.
How do Superman comics and shows and movies deal with this? My impression is that they don't. Surely Superman must be stopping rapes from happening, but I cannot think of a single time I've seen it happen. I'm actually having trouble thinking of a time it was implied to happen. I think this is probably a good idea on the part of the people who make these bits of media, but it's absolutely not realistic if you're thinking about how Superman would operate in the "real world". Sexual violence happens, child abuse happens, and I guess we just sort of assume that these things are dealt with by Superman off-screen.
Though ... I mean it impacts the characters, right? Does Superman not have a trauma response? Does he have a superpower where he can bottle it all up? He's definitely too late to stop certain crimes, and he definitely can't make things better for some of the victims, and I guess in the comics when he shows up to a burning building he generally has a 100% success rate and people come out with only minor injuries, but ... alright, this is definitely the sort of thing that led me to write this fic in the first place.
It's a question that the fic doesn't have an answer for: how do you go on living when you know that there's so much evil in the world?
I think dialing that particular scene back is, maybe, fine. But it's the sort of thing that would feel like I was being less authentic in a way, as though I wanted to grapple with the big questions but not that one, wanted to consider ethics and morality but silo myself away from things that actually are on my mind. I see the point of blunting that scene, and I rebel against it because I don't want to be blunted, I want to be sharp.
I would, however, remove a lot of the earlier references, or blunt those, because they didn't need to be sharp. There are, before the Whitman stuff, about five references to sexual violence, and maybe even just using "sexual violence" would be enough, rather than "rape". One of these references is to what crimes Superman is statistically most likely to stop, another is to a plot to besmirch his name, both can be massaged or they can go.
I don't know if I think about these things differently because time has passed or I've had a bunch of discussions about these issues, or whether it's just having the outside view. It's weird to think about what a conversation with myself would look like, if we were working on the story together.
Retrospective
I understand why Superman fans sometimes hate this story. There's the Superman OOC stuff, sure, but there are also a lot of questions about Superman that apply to canon equally well, and people hate that. Superman is a fantasy, maybe the ultimate comic book fantasy. He stops crimes and bullets bounce off him! You're not supposed to think about his stance on abortion rights. You're not supposed to look at the Clark Kent mask and say 'huh, that's strange'. I mean it's media, you can do whatever the hell you want, but if Superman is a fantasy, then there are a lot of questions that are fantasy-ruining.
I stand by the story as written about 80%, which is higher than I thought it would be, though there are certain things that I stand by more than others. There are certain structural changes and many line-by-line changes, and I'm glad that I didn't have the story open in edit mode, because it would have taken me three times as long to read and when I hit "save changes" people would grumble about archives or bad changes or whatever, because you can't please people.
About five years ago, I started writing A Common Sense Guide to Doing the Most Good, which was meant as a companion piece to MM. It ended up being all mechanics, no plot, and the plot that I wanted it to have was divorced from the center questions it wanted to answer. It didn't feel as grand, I guess, and the cats were out of their bags a little too quickly.
One of the Answers that MM gives is that the thing you should do in the face of overwhelming evil is to grind relentlessly, grind until your bones are scraping the grindstone and there's nothing left of yourself. The story does not believe this answer, but it's one of the places I ended up ten years ago, and am still sort of at now. The other answer is to live as best you can, be aware of the evil and do what you can against it without letting the idea of it (or the battle against it) consume your soul.
When I was finished reading, I kind of wanted to write an uncritical Superman comic. Something where Superman can be as his most loyal fans see him, someone who is Good and doesn't often have to grapple with what Good means, where the thorny edges of moral quandaries never come to light and the hero is always there in the nick of time. Where Clark Kent is a bold and noble expression of humanity rather than a deception and a mask. Maybe I will go do that.
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lychee-drinks · 2 years ago
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Hi! I'm a HUGE fan of your headcannons, and I was wondering if you could do one where Johan, Jake and Samuel reacting to finding out their s/o is pregnant
You can just ignore this if you find it annoying, but lots of love!(´∩。• ᵕ •。∩`)
Jake and Johan reacting to you being pregnant
Warnings: Pregnancy, mention of abortion, angst
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(A/N): Also I’m not gonna write for Samuel because I feel that his character would be too tricky for me and I’d write something more depressing.
His first reaction is definitely shock and nervousness. He’s young to be a father, he’s nervous about the baby having his hereditary eye condition and his current life style as a fighter who gets involved in gangs. So his first question is asking if you’re going to keep the kid.
His first reaction is definitely shock and nervousness. He’s young to be a father, he’s nervous about the baby having his hereditary eye condition and his current life style as a fighter who gets involved in gangs. So his first question is asking if you’re going to keep the kid.
Then, he finds out that you’re actually set on keeping the kid. And now he has to rethink everything.
He genuinely considers leaving you and your baby because he doesn’t think he’s fit for the job and he thinks he’s better being independent.
However, he changes his mind. What really pushes him to change his mind is definitely a lot of arguments with you, yelling from Zack and judgement from Eli.
His revenge on Gun is something that matters to him, but the kid you two have together is something he has left now. Something that he can live for and change for.
It’d be hard for him to leave the gang life though especially when it’s been his life for years, but having you and having a kid is something that became more of a priority.
Although it would probably take time, Johan will eventually leave the gang life.
Jake Kim
Jake’s first words to the news is “Holy Shit”.
He’s pretty excited and he hugs you, but then the reality kicks in. What about the gang, what if he ends up like Gapryoung, will you even be safe because of his influence as a gang leader, etc.
So there definitely will be a long talk about whether parenting is right for the two of you, but ultimately he’s fine with you having the kid and wants to be better than his father.
He’s much more protective and caring of you. He only told his most loyal Big Deal members about your pregnancy and has someone guarding you a lot of the time because of how busy he is with gangs.
Jake’s always making sure you’re eating well, he comes over from time to time to cook you some good pregnancy food. Or he has one of the Big Deal members come over and bring you good herbs to drink.
Jake has your pregnancy hidden. Being a gang member, it’s hard to have relationships in the first place so a lot of it is hidden very well. But now that pregnancy is involved, he has to actually be careful whenever he comes to visit you. But he has his ways into being able to see you very often.
It’s also pretty hard for him to leave the gang life, but because he cares, he’s willing to leave the gang life away and just live for the rest of his life with you.
The anxiety of ending up like his father is there. Which is why he decided to leave the gang life behind. He wants to be the family man he never had to you and your kid.
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spaceyflowerswriting · 2 years ago
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encouraging (jace park x reader)
details: kind of a crack/fluffy drabble, gender neutral reader who is friends with mira; reader is only mentioned lol, general canon au, you and jace are strangers
summary: jace is a nervous wreck over his blind date with you so his friends are showing support to help him feel better.
a/n: OK I NEED TO MAKE IT CLEAR reader is Only mentioned. like seriously. this was just an excuse to write silly family antics ft burn knuckles and j high gang im sorry
also this scenario. it doesnt make any sense for jace to be in a classroom with the fashion department students because they're in different departments but just ignore that logic <3
×
"Jace, how have--JESUS CHRIST!"
"Huh...?" Jace honestly looked like a mess at the moment. He barely got any sleep in the past few days and he'd been out of it. Couldn't even focus on Burn Knuckles's group workouts, couldn't even focus in class. He only snapped out of his daze from staring out the window thanks to Zack.
The guy had jumped a good distance back while his girlfriend still stood nearby, a hand clasped over her mouth.
"I've never said that in my entire atheist life but--" Zack straightened up, blinking himself back into focus or he would've gone on a tangent. "Nevermind. Jace, what the hell happened to you?"
"Yeah, are you okay?" Mira added, brows creasing in worry.
"I'm fine," was Jace's automatic reply, which made Zack walk back to him to give him a light punch on the shoulder.
"Pull yourself together! Are you like this because of the blind date Mira set you up on?!"
"Oh... so you know, too..." Jace put his head in his hands.
"Of course I do--"
Before he could finish, he was interrupted by a, "Hah!" Zoe dramatically spun around in her seat, facing the three. "Pretty sure the whole school knows. The Burn Knuckles guys won't stop talking about it! They even put up posters to support you."
"Ah..." This was to be expected, of course, with how overly supportive the group was, but Jace still felt embarrassed. At the same time he had too much anxiety to even think about it. All he felt thankful for at the moment was the fact that his blind date wasn't someone in the school.
Zack frowned. "Hey, c'mon, man. You signed up for this. At least own it."
Mira gave him a small nudge with her elbow and Zack quickly murmured an apology. She turned back to the poor guy seated in his desk, offering words of sympathy. "I'm sorry, Jace. I didn't think you'd get this stressed out. You can back out if you want, my friend would understand--"
Jace shook his head. "No, I'm fine. I swear."
"Ah...?"
"Plus, Zack's right." Jace's palms were getting sweaty. How could he just "own it" though? Sure, he had a lot more common sense than the other boys around, but he still had little experience in the romance field! Not to mention, the last time he thought he was getting somewhere with his love life, it crumbled into a lie. What if it was the same with his new blind date?!
No... no way. That was an entirely different situation. He really did have to pull himself together. What was he thinking? He shouldn't let one girl ruin his trust. Maybe this new person would be his soulmate! Not to mention, they were a friend of Mira's, and Mira knew how to spot fake people from genuine people. Her friend had to be a good person.
Zoe reached over to tap the front of Jace's desk, interrupting his thoughts and making him look up. "Are you seriously that bothered? Cheer up!" She gave him a bubbly smile. "Remember Mira only asked you because she said her friend specifically had an interest in nerdy guys? You're already their type! It's a win-win!"
Mira nodded reassuringly and Jace glanced at her and then back at Zoe. "I... I guess."
"Yeah, so don't worry! Plus, for an architect guy, you actually have good style so you're good in the fashion department."
"What's that mean--" Jace started, until he remembered how he had to ask Jay for help to dress up Vasco when he had a blind date a while ago. The memory made him smile a bit and he started to ease up very slightly. He meant this in the nicest way possible, but if even Vasco could have a good blind date, then surely he could also.
Speaking of his beloved friend, the man came bursting into the classroom with a cake in his hand.
...With the rest of Burn Knuckles following after.
"JACE! WE'VE PREPARED A FAREWELL PARTY FOR YOU!"
"I'm not going off to war or something!!" Jace immediately shouted back.
"THEN A PRE-CELEBRATION!" Vasco offered instead, the members behind him echoing, "A PRE-CELEBRATION!!"
Suddenly filled with bare minimum confidence (and the support of his best pals), Jace shot up from his seat. "Alright... let's celebrate!!" He ended up running out of the classroom with his gang, a skip in his step.
Zack turned to his friends as soon as the door shut behind Jace. "Who wants to make bets?" Mira gave him a much harder elbow nudge. "Ow... I was just kidding, haha..."
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anaalonsoartist · 2 years ago
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Vecna and emotions (Stranger Things 4 SPOILERS)
Today I´m going to write a bit about Vecna/001/Henry Creel psyche. We know he can see people dark secrets and traumas, and he takes advantage of them for killing/absorbing that person.
But what about positive emotions? Eleven and Max, on the other hand, achieve to defeat 001/Vecna because they went to their positive memories, about their loved ones. Sometimes (Max case), those are linked to music, which also weakens Vecna.
So we have here two possible ways of defeating the (for now, at least) main enemy: positive feelings/memories and music. But why is that?
Eleven tried to do one of these, telling Vecna that Papa had died and that he was not at fault for being a monster (so, she tried to go to his good emotional side, if there is even one). Well, that´s not totally true (Henry Creel had killed before Breener entered on scene), but Vecna corrected Eleven telling her that was HER doing, without making any reference to his own past. Vecna´s past is (Creel house incident apart) still one hell of a mystery, and I guess Duffer brothers let this out in this scene on purpose.
So... does have Vecna/001/Henry Creel positive feelings or memories? About memories, we still don´t know. His parents looked nice people, but his father killed civilians at war (and he knew that) and his mother wanted to put him inside of an asylum, so I guess his memories of them are not really that positive (and we still don´t know where his powers come from, so there is also the possibility that his mother was also part of an experiment, Terry Ive´s style, and he found that inside her mind, too). And I completely discard memories of Brenner and the lab, which he openly despised (with reason). 
Vecna´s actor, Jamie Campbell Bower, has told recently on interviews that Vecna STILL has some humanity (at least in his opinion) and that he loves and loathes Eleven (not in a romantic way, of course), but does not feel anything for Papa (nor for anybody else, apparently). Also that Eleven and 001 have a sibling-like relationship. I still wonder why does he love Eleven, though (the loathe part is understandable because she betrayed and defeated him)...
I mean, if you look at your popular movies/series/videogames/whatever, big narcisist villains, who usually have God complex, don´t even know about the main character existence prior their defeat. Freezer/Vegeta and Goku from Dragon Ball, for example: Goku is a low class warrior, a lot less powerful than them. They don´t even know about his existence. But Goku (the apparently common and weak protag who deep inside has more power than anybody else is a common trope in the heroe´s becoming) defeat them and from that point on they almost get obsessed with him. Sephiroth and Cloud from Final Fantasy VII are the same. But in Vecna/001´s case he already loved and protected Eleven, when she was still apparently a weakling and one of the most mediocre of the experiments. Freezer took notice of Vegeta, a prince and a warrior at the top of the class, not Goku; and Sephiroth befriended 1st Soldier Zack, not Cloud. Hope Duffer brothers have an answer to this and not the typical plot convenience (001 HAD to love and protect Eleven so he could free her and stablish some kind of relationship between them without more explanation... I would believe something like that if 001/Vecna was an empathetic character, or the menthor figure (ala Hopper), not the narcisist/big villain one). 
I think Vecna/001/Henry Creel´s positive memories (and probably their link to music?) will take a part in season 5. Maybe, if he posses Will and/or Max, they will find out. Coincidentally (isn´t it?), Eleven´s most fond memory, which let her defeat 001, was her birth and her mother´s words. 001 himself had just told Eleven that he had been really REALLY glad because of her birth, just a few moments before she reminded that.  And that´s why, again, I firmly believe he is Eleven ´s father (or at least should be related to her someway... And I don´t know about the sibling-thing, cause he did not feel anything for the rest of the children there and in fact killed them without hesitation, even the youngest...). Yeah, I have my clown makeup ready.
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Elena starter for @storieswrittcn​ (this may or may not have gotten away from me, Remember you said you like novella. I also took part of the ramble part one but altered it also)
We are outsiders Living inside a broken world We are outsiders And I know sometimes it can hurt But it gets better yeah we'll make it through We'll stay golden when we're black and blue We are outsiders But we're not hiding anymore This is who we really are
It had been fifteen years since she’d seen either of her brothers face to face. Fifteen years since Lee had spoken to the eldest. Fifteen years since she had thought of Mystic Falls, thought of all the ghosts that lurked within the town's shadows. Lee Salvatore had made it a habit to push anything regarding her brothers, that town, or their past to the deepest recesses of her mind. She had built life after life without them, embracing the warped gift of eternity. She hadn’t truly looked back after she’d transitioned. Finally able to become who she really was without the suffocating opinions of the church, her community, or her family.
It wasn’t an easy journey. Slow in it’s progression. Lee’s aunt had always told her she was a soul gifted before it’s proper time; her sexuality, the way she was born, her passion and skill when it came to art, her desire to see the world. None of it fit in the 1800’s. But as times changed pieces of Lee started to belong. Each change brought new opportunities, allowing Lee to start to put herself together. 
She was still an outsider, still judged--but what else would you expect living in a broken world? What didn’t fit into the neat little boxes of people’s minds, what didn’t fit the societal norm, was still given so much hate. The only difference was now there were those who fought for equality, unafraid to use their voices to promote change. Those people gave Lee hope, gave her strength. Finding those people throughout the last 145 years had shaped her.
Lee Salvatore was still an outsider, but she was also so much more. She was an artist, one with more alias’ than she could count on both hands. She was a college graduate, several degrees tucked away in a safe. She was a traveler, passports filled with stamps and a mind filled with memories she had never imagined to have. But most of all, Lee was finally able to look in the mirror and accept the person she saw; the youngest Salvatore was who she truly was. She held no more self hate. No more whispers of ghosts past haunted her. She was an outsider, but she wasn’t hiding who she really was anymore.
While Lee had taken the road of self discovery, her brothers’ hadn’t. They’d been living in a siblings quarrel, at least Damon was. Stefan suffered at every turn at their brothers hand whenever they fell into each other's orbit or Damon specifically sought him out. Lee was drugged into it whenever Damon crossed too many lines, risking their exposure to the world. 
Stefan had called her no more than seven hours ago asking for her help. There was a trail of bodies leading straight to town, ‘animal attacks’ that couldn’t be explained were catching the eye of news outlets. She hadn’t even known Stefan was back in Mystic Falls. When Lee asked him why he couldn’t just leave, he explained there was something holding him in Mystic Falls that didn’t allow him to--something that could finally give him a sense of belonging--and refused to believe the attacks were Damon. All he wanted was for Lee to be there with him, help keep the spotlight off their kind. The vampire might loathe her brothers, wanting nothing more for them to be miserable, but she wasn’t going to allow Damon to out them. 
Which is why Lee was driving down the main strip on her motorcycle. The town was busy; teens scattered across the storefronts trying to enjoy their last hours of summer vacation. She came to a stop at one of the only stoplights in town, rolling her shoulders dreading whatever was to come when she reached the boarding house. The youngest Salvatore felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand, a shiver going down her spine, every nerve ending coming to life in a way she hadn’t experienced in years. Lee let her head turn to the right, following the pull of whatever was happening.
‘What…” The lithe form of a brunette teen who was walking beside another girl was at the center of her focus. “Turn around.” Lee knew the brunette couldn’t hear her words. Her plea was answered as she turned, eyes almost searching. Those eyes, that’s what did it. “Who are you?” A horn from behind her snapped Lee out of her trance, for a nanosecond the two locked eyes. The vampire’s eyes hidden behind her aviators. The next Lee was pulling off, possibly faster than she should have been. Now she had the true answer of why Stefan refused to leave. 
----
Lee placed a few notebooks, her sketchbook, and a few pens into her satchel--the one she’d had since she was a teen; a gift from her aunt she’d never been able to part with. She glanced up at the ceiling hearing Stefan’s footsteps on the roof. A sigh left her lips, why had she agreed to this? She was roughly 160 years old and able to enroll herself in a Small Town America High School. It was ridiculous; a complete stalker move. There had to be other ways for Stefan to get to know this girl, if that’s even what he was truly hoping to do. For how Stef had explained the situation, Lee could tell he was only doing this because of Katherine.
Subconsciously her thumb started to play with the band of her daylight ring. She was thankful for the chance of life Katherine Pierce had given her but there was so much Lee wished was different. Shaking her head to break out of her thoughts she moved toward her closet to get dressed. Lee scanned through her options, To be me or be who society thinks I should be? It was a debate she hadn’t had in a long time. To make this work she couldn’t disturb the waters between her and her brothers too much. A short laugh left her lips, that was a joke. The three couldn’t be in the same room without starting something. As it was right now, it was just two of them. With that thought in mind Lee grabbed an outfit that would be her. 
Guys white wash skinny jeans that weren’t too tight to show her tuck, a grey and white hooded baseball tee that had a pocket on the left chest, her grey vans, and her black leather jacket she’s had since the 90’s. She finished the look with a black watch. One more look in the mirror and she was pocketing her phone with one hand and slipped her satchel over her shoulder with the other.
She knew Stefan would already be off. His stalker-like tendencies being on overdrive since the ‘animal attack’ last night after Lee had arrived. She ignored Zack who was in his office and headed to the garage, she wasn’t going to run to the school. There wasn’t anything wrong with arriving in style.
-------
Stefan met her in the parking lot. Lee took her helmet off and ran her fingers through her hair, glancing at her brother, her own sunglasses covering her eyes. “Why do you always insist on dressing like that?” He asked, judgement clear in his voice. 
“This is me Stefan. You know that. Let it go. You asked for my help so take me as I am or I get on this bike and leave.” She told him. Lee wasn’t going to put up with his judgement. The world had given her enough of that. Plus her brother had already had his fair share of giving her judgement when they were younger. “I hope you know what you’re doing.” Lee stated, “This is definitely traveling into creeper status.” Stefan didn’t answer, just turned to walk through the crowd of students covering the lawn reconnecting after a summer away. She moved into step beside him, she knew they stood out; leather jackets, both well built and confident in their strides, the aurora of not giving a fuck rolling off them both. 
They finally found their way to the admissions office, standing shoulder to shoulder. Stefan handed over the file that was supposed to hold all they needed but Lee knew was missing more than a few things. She wondered which of the two would compel the woman. Stefan could but where all he drank was Bambi and Co blood who knew how long it would last. Lee sighs, she’s ready to make the move when something behind them stops her. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, her nerves firing up again, and she felt that pull to turn around. She also could feel a warm buzz in the air, a witch.
“Hold up. Who’s this?” The first female says, the witch.
The secretary’s voice brings her back to what’s in front of her, saying exactly what she knew was coming. “Your records are incomplete. You’re both missing immunization records and we do insist on transcripts.” Lee glances at Stefan out of the corner of her eye. The last transcripts she had were college one's back in the 1980’s. She hadn’t done high school since the late 70’s and that was only to get into Yale. Their art programs the top in the country. 
Thoughts of the past make her miss her chance, Stefan is taking his sunglasses off, “Please look again,” Lee adjusts her satchel hoping Stefan can do this right. “I’m sure everything you need for both of us is there.” Lee chews the inside of her lower lip, her free hand moving to remove her sunglasses just in case. 
The secretary looks back down, “Well you’re right.” Lee tucks her sunglasses into the collar of her shirt as the woman looks back up at her brother. “So it is.” Stefan-1, Humanity-0.
“Thank you,” Stefan, ever the polite one, says. As they turn to go, Lee glances over at her brother’s schedule. Seems they have all but one class together--Lee has art and Stefan a creative writing course. That works.
“You’re welcome,’ The secretary says, her eyes landing on the two teens in the hall. “Ahh! Miss Bennett, Miss Gilbert I’m glad you’re here. Do you think you could show our two newest students around?” She stands up from behind her desk to walk around to the siblings. “This is Lee and Stefan Salvatore. I think they both have a few classes with you both.” Lee takes in who she now know as a Bennett witch, why the magic felt warm. She gives the teen a charming smile before the pull is to much, her head being forced to turn to the brunette beside her. The vampire takes her in, all she can see is someone new. Lee doesn’t see Katherine when she looks at her. “Hi,” The charming smile turning into a much softer one. “I’m Lee.” She offers her hand to the girl.
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mengyan · 4 years ago
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Do you do headcanons?? If so can i get some domestic carulia headcanons 👀 like after carmen spends some time in argentina but then she misses jules so she goes back to england but jules is sad she left her so abruptly and isnt taking her shit so carmen moves near her and like has to re-win her over🥺🥺
anon, i absolutely do headcanons!! my brain is practically a dump for headcanons, you’ve come to the right place :D and if anyone ever wants me to write any just leave me a request in my inbox!
here is part one of my classic fic style headcanons based off of the prompt you’ve given (which is SO good by the way please i am so tempted to write it into a full fic and add to my mountain pile of drafts rn-):
carmen loves her mother, she really does. she’s sweet and kind and her family. it’s all she’s ever dreamed of. after carlotta sees her standing on her doorstep, her warm brown eyes freeze and then she gasps, launching forward and hugging her equally as shocked daughter.
“your eyes. my god, i would recognize them anywhere. [given name], is that you?”
“it’s carmen, actually,” she manages to say, her mother hugging her like it’s the end of the world. and her mother doesn’t question it, merely letting go and smiling at her with tear filled eyes.
“well, carmen, it’s nice to meet you.”
things aren’t perfect after that, of course. there are questions, so many of them that they stay up the entirety of the second night talking (not the first, carlotta insisted that she had to get some sleep). carlotta doesn’t seem fazed when she tells her about VILE and stealing from them, cries when she brings up her father, but they push through it because now they have each other.
it’s strange, then, the feeling she gets a month or so later. she’s lying on the couch after a few rounds of games with the orphanage kids, and she doesn’t feel... satisfied. she should, shouldn’t she? this is what she’s spent her life searching for. she left her team behind to focus on this, to give something to herself for once.
it’s maddening. she can’t figure it out, talking to player as she bounces a ball against the ceiling. her mom worries, asking her what’s wrong, but she can’t answer her because she doesn’t know.
another few weeks pass. she’s cleaning her tools, sorting through her red coat for some nostalgia. a slip of paper falls out, and written on it is the address to this house she’s living in, and-
“player- i never asked, and i’m not sure if you even know. who found the address?”
he hesitates. a beat, then— “your favourite ACME agent.”
oh. oh. jules. she hasn’t let herself think of her ever since she left them all behind, afraid of the memories of her brainwashed time being dredged up. julia probably hates her, and rightfully so.
but she’s buzzing. she feels like she’s onto something, like satisfaction is just out of her reach, and player is more than happy to check up on julia’s blog for her whereabouts. turns out she’s not in france but in england, visiting her mother, telling her blog audience that’s why she’ll be inactive for a while.
carmen laughs at the irony. player books her a flight.
fast forward and she’s halfway to julia’s mother’s place and in the middle of the sidewalk, she stops, suitcase rolling behind her. she probably shouldn’t be showing up randomly like this, no warning and dropping back into julia’s life when she doesn’t need it. julia’s had to have moved on by now, the girl in red just someone who was too afraid to meet up with her before she left.
“red, what’s up?” player asks her, staring at her unmoving icon on his screen. “you having second thoughts?”
“kind of, yeah,” she admits. “i’m just not sure if-”
there’s a tap on her shoulder. carmen turns around and feels her heart drop out of her chest.
julia argent stares back at her, arms crossed and looking exactly the same with her glasses and dressed in a casual tan coat, yellow sweater, and black jeans. she looked good, and, well, annoyed.
“hey, jules!” the greeting doesn’t come out as confident and suave as she hoped, but it suffices, and player speaks excitedly from his end. tell julia i said hi! he says, before cutting off.
“by the way, player says h—”
“ms. sandiego,” julia says stiffly, none of the playful flirting and easy tones that she’s gotten used to. “why are you here?”
“i thought you—” carmen stammers, reaching into her pocket and showing her the slip of paper. “you gave me this, and i wanted to thank you. also you know you can call me carmen.”
something in julia’s eyes softens at the sight of the paper, but then hardens again when she looks back at her. “you’re welcome. you didn’t have to come all this way to tell me, though. and calling you by a first name basis would imply that we’re friends, but it seems that we’re not, doesn’t it?”
carmen chokes a little, eyes widening. “we’re not- friends?”
“i would think a friend would at least say goodbye or get in contact with me any way before disappearing for months, so no, ms. sandiego, i don’t think we are.”
carmen’s first instinct is to feel offended, but she understands where the agent’s slight hostility towards her is coming from. this wasn’t just julia being petty, it was the consequences of her actions that she had to now make up for.
“jules, i’m sorry,” she says, going to grab her arm but drawing back at the last second. right. their subtle touches with each other were definitely off limits now. “we can talk about this in somewhere that’s not a public sidewalk, and i’ll explain everything, i promise.”
julia’s mouth twists into a frown, and she uncrosses her arms, one finger pushing up her glasses. she looks her square in the eye, her gaze cold and unflinching. “what is there to explain, exactly? how you left me- left us all so abruptly, and gave your closest family a note to remember you by? zack and ivy mentioned it to me- they’re being trained for ACME now, but i’m sure you knew that already.”
she didn’t. she hasn’t asked player for updates for a month. a heavy exhale escapes her, and she wishes she had player in her ear. julia lets out a humourless laugh at her lack of a response.
“i guess you found something better, ms. sandiego. i’m happy for you.”
the declaration is bitter- and with that, julia spins on her heel and walks away, heading to her mother’s house. carmen stands with her suitcase on the sidewalk, apologies on the tip of her tongue, wanting to chase after her. she swallows them down and drops onto the nearest bench, burying her face in her hands and tapping her earring so player can reconnect.
“red! how’d it go? what has julia been up to? is she-” player’s voice bursts through with questions, and carmen doesn’t say a word, a new mission in mind.
“do you know where julia is staying? not her mom’s place, i’m assuming.”
if player is surprised by the question, he doesn’t comment, and carmen can hear his keyboard clacking as he scans address books and properties. “she’s a couple blocks over, i’ll text you the address,” he says at last. carmen’s phone pings with the incoming text, but that’s not the actual thing she’s looking for.
“thanks, player. are there any houses up for sale near her street?”
“give me a second.” player pauses, scrolling through listings, and then continues. “there’s one like, diagonally across from her house, actually.”
“we have any funds left from our world saving?” she can tell player knows what she’s asking for now, from the telltale anxious drumming on his desk and the slower than usual clicking.
“a couple million, actually. i thought we were slowly distributing to-”
“i’ll make up for it, maybe nag some of the VILE stragglers and the remaining stolen artifacts and whatnot. can you set up a meeting with the house owner so we can wire the funds over?”
“this is a bad idea,” player cautions.
carmen grins. “and since when have i ever been known to have a good one?”
part two will be up as soon as i can get it written out! if you’re the anon that sent this, send me an ask about part two so i can answer it that way!
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dipperdogrpg · 3 years ago
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Cloud and Aerith theories/facts and not canon pairing essay
Ended up writing way more then intended lol and thought to share what’s  happening in the FF7 story between Cloud and Aerith. This is a response text I did on my youtube channel where I do commentary as a Cloti supporter. Instead I decided to move it here.
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Wahh lol I got carried away! I enjoyed but also felt bad for Cloud having to dance at the Honey Bee thanks to Aerith and her plans. Gosh darn it though Cloud dancing was great and I squealed along with Aerith, but a tinge of guilt hits when I see his troubled face haha. The thing people confuses here is that Cloud pushes himself to do it for Tifa because he was ready to walk away. Instead of busting through the mansion he sucked it up to ensure Tifa’s safety and chose to sneak inside as a woman.
Yes, I’m also very curious how Sephiroth's schemes will develop and how Aerith will try to stop him in Remake. She's much more focused on Sephiroth and stopping him compared in OG. In the other game Aerith originally joined to understand her Cetra abilities, but it feels pretty evident she has new mysterious powers as a Cetra in Remake and her relationship with Sephiroth is more personal. Also, I think Sephiroth and Aerith’s ancestry will have a bigger role and focus on Jenova and the Cetra's relationship/History. I plan to do an Aerith Theory and a character analysis in the future because she is, as the developers describe her, mysterious. 
It's obvious Sephiroth is harassing Cloud mentally then later physically through his clones. He is scheming something big and I look forward how Aerith will try to counter it because she is probably the only one capable to do it as a Cetra. One of the big schemes was removing the Arbiters of fate, but I think they both wanted that. Both Sephiroth and Aerith want to change something that doesn’t fit with the planet’s “destined” agenda.
In Max's commentary he mentioned Sephiroth was intentional with stalling Cloud running into Aerith, which caused a butterfly effect to ruin the events the planet has planned. While it tries to fix itself, the party are becoming aware of the Arbiters of Fate existence and sees it as a problem. At the end the team removes it when Sephiroth had some control in manipulating it. Its been mentioned the three figures you fight are a representation of the three sephiroth remnants from AC, Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo. So maybe we are getting hints of Sephiroth's abilities with the clones and the lifestream which could lead to some complicated trouble. We also get evidence Aerith is already more powerful than her Og counterpart by creating the portal to fight the Arbitors. When the heck did she learn that? 
My theory about removing the arbitors of fate are so the creators can have wiggle room for slight variation in scenes they've considered fixing in the past to improve a more consistent story and of course a new way for Sephiroth to exercise his goal along with Aerith because definitely getting hints those two know more then they should. My theory, they are from the future and traveled to the past using the Life stream and I’m using the OTWTS Novel as evidence when Aerith and Sephiroth talk about their time in the Life Stream. In there they gained new powers. Evidence- Sephiroth talks about it at the temple of ancients and that he gained new knowledge from there, so why not Aerith too. Either way the party will stop him at the end with Aerith's help because her role in the story is to save the world while Tifa's role is to save Cloud. That is a canon statement by one of the developers btw. Aerith and Tifa have their roles to play in FF7 that lead to its success.
Fun fact, but Cloud is not himself with Aerith. The developers did say Cloud truly is himself with Tifa. Why? because love. Now, the cool thing in Remake we are witnessing is Cloud learning how to make friends. A poor social skill set that may have contributed with his insecurity when he was a child. Wanting to join tifa and her friends but instead stayed away. To make himself feel better he makes up a story that he chose not to play with the other kids because he is special. In FF7 we get to witness Cloud learning these relationship skills, which helps develop his character to grow up until we get to the Lifestream sequence. It's after that he can stop pretending to be what he think is the ideal cool grown up version of himself and instead work on his real self with the new bonds of friendship he made who stuck around Cloud regardless of him pretending to act as someone else during their adventure. Cloud is still Cloud. Even with the messed up memories he had. He is not Zack. He is like a little boy picking up traits he likes from other people and mimic them. Very confused why people think he is Zack. He’s not. He is Cloud trying to be cool and does it poorly. That’s a canon thing.
Soldier Cloud is a facade, an illusion of himself he truly believed in until he sorted out his memories and realized "oh I'm not being myself and just mimicking what would Zack do. A friend I look up to"  It's been pointed out Cloud isn't actually grown up mentally and is still a child with insecurity about himself along with 5 years of trauma thanks to Hojo. Poor BABY! This whole copy/mimic theme gets reflected with the kids in sector 8 that mimic Cloud in remake over time during the side quests. Cloud is doing the same thing with Zack. Even Biggs hints that Cloud and the kids have a lot in common. I'm not crazy about Sector 8 but it shows best what Biggs told Cloud before the plate falls. And one more thing I want to add lol. When Cloud gets his red drink from Tifa there's a pause of him looking up and down at the drink and Tifa, before he says beautiful. That moment of pause he thinks to himself what he should do here and then came up with what he believes a confident person/Zack would do. Zack doesn't hesitate when giving a compliment. Confident people don't normally hesitate when they talk. It's why we get moments of Cloud saying some awkward lines when he doesn't give himself time to think and its one of the best moments to watch lol cuz I think that's when real cloud slips out trying to act cool or is at a lost for words. It's canon by the developers that Cloud isn't cool but tries to act it.
Another Fun fact. Most party members and NPCs in Remake mention and hint in game they see past the facade Cloud puts up. Tifa, Barret, Wedge, Biggs, Marle, Jessie and Aerith are some of the characters that see past it and either go along with it, poke fun at his attempt or tell him to his face they know he's pretending to be someone he's not. Basically seeing past the character he pretends to be and can see he has a good heart over the course they spend time with him. Even though Cloud tries to convince others and himself he could care less about them and is only in it for the money.
Now OG is really awkward with the romance honestly from my playthroughs so far. (Follow me on Youtube Dipperdog15 if you want to catch my FF7 commentary when I go live playing OG and Intergrade.) But with Remake it's very clear they are building up Aerith's love story with Zack so we can cry hard later. All of Zack scenes so far is related to Aerith. In Remake and OG Aerith display some of Zack's mannerisms too because people copy/mimic what they do to feel closer to them when in love. She continues to wear the bow Zack gave her and the pink dress in memory of Zack. She's said "gotta move forward not back" in remake and/or that Zack probably moved on with another girl in Og but what if what she said is a lie. We have Cloud as the unreliable narrator so why can't it also happen with Aerith who is likely lying to convince herself to move on to protect her heart. In fact a lot of characters in FF7 lie to themselves and we get character development when they stop and face the truth. It's one of the many themes in FF7 which I think I’ll deep dive into on my podcast channel in the future.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Zack is risking it all to make it to Midgar to see Aerith while risking Cloud's life on this mission, because he promised her. Promise is a big important theme in FF7. Cloud and Tifa are the canon couple and Zack and Aerith are the canon couple in FF7 because these pairings promised each other. I won't disagree about Cloud not caring about Aerith, but he cares for all his friends as said in AC. Also why make it possible the idea to bring Zack back? To create a love square? No. It’s have us the players focus instead the reunion of Aerith and Zack. That’s more attention grabbing because we never got to see it before and I’ll cry when they cry finally getting to be together. If they don’t I’ll cry some more. The developers are pushing for Zerith and their development in Remake/Intergrade. 
Another thing to notice, there are a lot of similarities between Jessie and Aerith's relationship when they are around Cloud. This directive choice, I believe, isn't a coincidence in order to water down scenes that are suppose to be special. It is instead not a “one of kind’ scene. They both get carried bridal style. They both tell cloud My Hero. They both invited Cloud over for dinner. They both ask about who Tifa is. They both got a pikachu face from Cloud when jessie optionally kissed Cloud on the cheek and Aerith wearing the optional red dress. They both have strong personalities that overwhelms Cloud and that is a developer canon statement. They both worked hard to befriend Cloud so he can open up and be nicer to them. Cloud treats them both the same.
Aerith’s relationship with Cloud in Remake is directing us to friendship. In the novel it mentioned she loves Cloud, in what way we don’t know. But we can say for a fact Cloud was living a lie in OG and his real self loves Tifa. In fact his other self loved Tifa too, you just have to catch the moment. Example, Barret teasing Cloud if he is eager to see his baby when you first see Tifa in OG. It happens when you run to the bar, but only if you catch Tifa on the porch before she goes inside. That’s means in both remake and OG, Barret knew something was up with those two. Another moment is the interest Cloud has with what Tifa almost said in the gondola. It was obviously sounding like some kind of confession from Tifa at Gold Saucer. When you get this date the story is more fluid when you arrive at the northern crater and Cloud says “only your opinion matters” to Tifa. Huge RED FLAG Cloud considers Tifa important to him. Meanwhile Aerith and Cloud’s relationship was open for interpretation that it may have been love in OG, but the scenes that helped implied it were removed in Remake. The point system was just for fun because it was a popular thing in the 90s. Plus the points for Tifa, Aerith, Barret and Yuffie’s are their feelings for Cloud not Cloud’s feelings towards them. Then you get rewarded learning a little about the character, but that’s it. FF7 remake/intergrade is not an otome game. Cloud ends with Tifa no matter what. Even if Aerith was to stay alive the Life Stream sequence will always be Cloud and Tifa’s moment to learn about their feelings for each other. The developers have said it is one of their favorite scenes, so they won’t change it. ok now back to Remake. 
Aerith in her resolution tells him not to love her and it’s not real. A deliberate choice of words I think she picked to shoo away the thought they could be a thing for both their sakes and us the players lol. Doing that made it weird now because Cloud doesn’t want to ruin what ever progress he has with Tifa in Remake. Plus Cloud only known her for a few days and if his actions are making her think there’s this growing romance between them he’s not going to encourage it. Those lines raised his awareness to watch himself I bet, so Tifa doesn’t get the wrong idea and you can see the distance he put between himself and Aerith later in game. Meanwhile in Intermission we see Cloud continues to make quick glances at Tifa whenever he can. We get it Cloud. You can’t keep your eyes off her. Ok getting off track. So Cloud and Aerith are instead just friends. Doing this allows Tifa to pick up the role to be there for Aerith. Which will help develop their friendship to be stronger as the two girls encourage each other. because I didn’t pick up on the two being best friends in OG but in Remake it’s very clear. He already looked uncomfortable when Aerith grabbed his arm back at the ghost station in front of Tifa. To include Cloud with this idea of him falling in love with another woman in front of Tifa would leave a poor taste in our mouths after spending several hours watching him develop several intimate moments with Tifa. That freaking hug scene and train roll you guys screamed sexual tension and love. Cloud is not that kind of guy who easily falls in love. His whole hero’s journey is because of Tifa and he makes sure to be nice to her while trying to get her attention. With anyone else he is quite hostile with new people and slowly learns to tolerate them before liking them.  Cloud treats Tifa differently in a special way. He’s been pinning for Tifa since they were kids and even imagined scenarios of Tifa noticing him. That’s right, not all of Cloud’s visions may be accurate. We may see more scenes of kid Cloud imagining moments with Tifa to confuse our perspective they are childhood friends. Again, Cloud is the unreliable narrator thanks to Jenova and 5 years of trauma.  Now back to Aerith. Their relationship definitely felt different when Cloud, Tifa and Barret rescued Aerith. In fact Aerith’s relationship with everyone is different in a better way. The relationship between Tifa and Barret are better fleshed out compared to OG Aerith and I’m for it. Very happy they removed the jail scene. It was upsetting watching Aerith flirt with Cloud while Tifa was stuck in the cell forced to listen and Aerith owing Cloud a date. Which changed also in Remake. Taking Aerith home and spending time her was the date as mentioned in game by Aerith herself. 
When I play through Chapter 8 and 9 I get this feeling Meta Aerith looks uncomfortable sticking to the OG lines of herself but does it anyways so the Arbiters of fate won’t come for her because she wants to hold on to her memories. Something she believes can help her friends I’m guessing. This is if my theory is right lol. What we have now is an Aerith that’s more mysterious than she was in OG. If this is OG Aerith making a return in Remake then I believe she was acting a lot, but then we see hiccups of her mentioning Cloud being a mercenary when he never mentioned it or acting like she knows Tifa for like forever before she actually met her in Remake. And then there was her knowing the plate would fall in sector 7. I’m betting the burden of knowing it was so hard to hide that Tifa picked up that she might be hiding something. 
We are near the end! 
Aerith’s resolution explored further. The resolution helps proves my theory this is OG Aerith that travel back to the past using the Lifestream to help her comrades in the fight against Sephiroth in Remake who also returned to the past. What’s also interesting about her resolution are the things she said are something you want to tell someone before you disappear. It was so sudden in OG that it sounds like Aerith wants to make up for it and also doesn’t want Cloud to suffer in guilt as he did in AC. Cherish the moment. Every one dies. 
Aerith knows the truth with Cloud and Tifa’s relationship hence her stopping herself interfering. Now maybe Aerith did fall in love with Cloud, and maybe while Cloud pretended to be someone else was loving the idea, which is a stretch cuz there are plenty debunking the idea which I can go over later. They both may have been using each other to fill the hurt in their heart not having their true loves instead. Zack and Tifa. In her resolution, Aerith has declared she will not pursue Cloud as she did in OG and we have evidence of that when they rescue her. there were so many opportunities for Cloud to be Aerith’s hero. Instead those moments were replaced with Tifa consoling her and rescuing her.
The Arbitors of Fate are gone, so I believe Aerith’s normal clips of her flirting with Cloud will get removed or changed as many have already. This allows the directors to remove lines that painted Aerith poorly some moments and better her relationship with the team too. Aerith will still have flaws like everyone does. No one is perfect and I’m perfectly fine with that.
Crap if I keep going this will turn into a podcast in writing I think lol. Anywho, yes the arbiters of fate were eliminated, who knows if it's permanent, but as the developers have repeated, FF7 story will remain the same at heart. Iconic moments will remain. If it is not then that's a risky move to say to fans. Aerith will die to protect her loved ones and the planet and will reunite at the church in spirit with Zack perhaps. She can’t escape her role as the last living Cetra. That is her truth which she denied when she was little as shown in a flashback with kid Aerith. The other theme in FF7 is trying to move forward after a loss. Which extends to Advent Children which some of the team members has to deal with survival guilt. Some fans are getting their hopes up that Aerith will live. The developers are using Biggs and Jessie’s possible surviving scenes to prove lives lost can live in Remake. I think they may die later though if that is their fate, but we never actually saw them die in OG either. It was just implied. This is a set up so Aerith’s death scene can be impactful again in Remake, so we can cry again.
This was a lot and little bit everywhere, but I hope you enjoyed it. You can follow me on youtube in the link below where I invite other FF7 fans to talk about the story and Cloud and Tifa’s relationship Or me doing my own Cloud and Tifa commentary and Remake talk while I play the game. Thanks for reading! Hope you check out my channel and sub to check out my videos when convenient for you. Thank you!
https://www.youtube.com/c/Dipperdog15/featured
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prismaticpichu · 2 years ago
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Happy Friday y’all!! You made it! Hope it was an amazing week full of progress and good food!
Here’s a random fic crumb fresh from the WIP not-folder! The plot that’s baking is prolly pretty obvious xD (I also learned that writing the pupper’s perspective tends to split my writing style right down the middle- and I’m having fun with that bisection!)
“Sephiroth?”
The SOLDIER's head jolted up, emerald eyes blinking just as rapidly.
Well. He was definitely getting better at responding to his name.
"Yea—“ Shoot. Zack swallowed the syllables mid-throat, masking the blunder by clearing it. "Yes?"
It was Heidegger who had barked at him, two sharp brows furrowed in... annoyance? Offense? An idle drift of his gaze revealed that everyone in the briefing roof was staring at him, an awkward spectrum of different emotions pinning him down: some eyes were dark, some bore impatience, a majority crackling with shock—as shocked as these masked people could be.
He was about to open his mouth and ask what gives... before suddenly becoming very aware of the heavy, glistening weight pressing down on his hand. Lips stitched shut, he willed his eyes to float right.
...Oh for Ifrit's sake, what was wrong with him? The General of SOLDIER was not supposed to have an entire pound of hair all caught up in his fingers! Especially not twined around each digit like a spool.
Many, many more things in his body twisting, Zack unsnarled his hair and straightened. He could not blush. He could NOT.
"Please, continue," he said Seph-smoothly, like a velvet bass, and prayed that it would be enough to drive their attention away.
It did not.
President ShinRa's air of probing radiated with policelike intensity. “What are your opinions on the matter, Sephiroth?" The man laced his fingers together, a frown causing the edges of his leaden face to wilt. Searching.
Blessedly, Seph's body didn't sweat easily.
It took what had to be an applaudable amount of willpower not to swallow. He thought not letting his gaze flicker to the clock would be enough—more than enough. Sure, looking like a bored Zack Fair in the 4th grade wasn't part of the plan, but neither was actively contributing. He hadn't been listening! Everything was just a dazed, torturous blur of statistics and... something corporal; there was nothing for him to even remotely paw at for an answer.
"Sephiroth, what is the matter with you?" Hojo's voice was much more scolding, condescending, something of an urgent warning prowling underneath. The man was eyeing ShinRa without looking in his direction, and the fraction of ShinRa's focus that wasn't latched onto him was reciprocated onto Hojo in return.
What would you say... what would you say... c'mon, what would you say, bud, help me... Oh who was he kidding. Seph would have listened to every word even if it was tearing him asunder from the inside.
“I'm indifferent," he finally answered, time too fragile to hold anymore. It seemed ike an adjective that encompassed Seph regardless, so... score? He just had better agreed to something Seph really couldn't care less about. And if he didn’t—
Almost immediately a flare of horror and regret shot through him, storming with heart-clapping paranoia. Gaia, oh Gaia what if he agreed to destroy the slums? The church? What if they asked him if they could change Seph's hair? Seph cherished his hair! He would never forgive himself. What if… what if he approved removing any and all second-in-commands for SOLDIER? He would never see Seph again…
The eyes lingered on him for just a moment longer, just a torrid, humid moment before ShinRa leaned back and regained some degree of satisfaction; Heidegger scoffed; Palmer took a tired sip of his drink; Tseng's quirked eyebrow descended. Hojo's glare was the last to fade, only turning his head away in a purposefully slow manner. Leaving his little watery handprint.
"It's settled then," Heidegger continued, leaving no room for amendments. "We will reduce the water pressure in the facilities by 20%."
And all again, all eyes were on him when Zack let out a long, heavy sigh of relief.
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themelodicenigma · 3 years ago
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1/2 Hi! What's your opinion about Aerith's resolution scene? It feels like most of fans are more interested in convenient interpretations to confirm/discard the CA ship, without really wondering, from a narrative standpoint, "why", of all the things Aerith could warn Cloud against, she touches the romantic subject? And so early in the story too. Romance in FF7 is often treated by fans as a standalone thing more than something that is interweaved with the main story and has a role within it.
2/2 Should we now re-evaluate the weight of CA relationship in the OG? I never felt like Cloud had more than a crush on her or her death broke him. But when a compilation expands in such a relistic way, the main story needs to be retroactively reinterpreted (like what happened with CC). I'm also wondering what significance we should give to the black floating feathers in this scene (the most visible one appearing when Aerith prays – hard not to think about Sephiroth). PS Sorry for the bad English
Don’t worry, your ENG is fine here!
Anywho, it’s quite the subject isn’t it? I often speak on how sometimes the foundation of a fan’s understanding of the Remake is grounded by their understanding of the OG. Which does make sense and have its merit, but it can also lead to a lot of biased views if there isn’t a consideration of the Remake’s way of storytelling. That’s why we have less of a reasonable spectrum of thought, and more of these black and white interpretations you mentioned floating around. I’ve seen a lot of “Aerith is telling us a fact: Cloud’s feelings aren’t real!” vs. “Cloud confessed to Aerith that he’d fall in love with her!”.
It doesn’t take much time to realize who is saying what.
The first example is talking about something that hasn’t happened yet (e.g. Cloud confirming Aerith’s words), and the second example is talking about something that, by the scene itself, just didn’t happen anyway. From a narrative standpoint and with an understanding of the story of FF7, this part of Aerith’s Resolution reflects two points: Cloud’s false memories/self and Cloud’s feelings for Aerith—more directly, the premise that if Cloud falls in love with Aerith, his feelings won’t be real due to the state of being he’s in. Additionally, this resolution essentially acts as a reflection of Aerith’s GS Date but with twists—the first being that her thoughts on Cloud’s falsity is not tied to the correlation of his similarities to Zack, and the second being that it adds a dash of something more reminiscent of the dream/forest scene (if anything, the Resolution is almost an applicable replacement of it in general). Death, cherishing time left and memories, and Cloud not being completely himself—there’s a lot of foreshadowing here.
This is where people typically use their takes on the OG to formulate a conclusion for Aerith’s premise, as you’ve seen above, with even some extending alternates. For example, that the real reason Cloud’s feelings wouldn’t be real because he’s really in love with Tifa already and is incapable of feeling anything for anyone else as he is.
But my take?
To be upfront, this scene sets up the idea that Aerith is wrong in regards to the romantic storytelling between the two of them. That yes, his feelings (in this case, that of “suki” [すき, romantic like/love when used for a person]) are going to be real despite the state he’s in. Not to mention, it isn’t an “if” he has romantic feelings, because it goes against all reason and understanding of anything else in this scene to suggest this premise was written for the sake of something that won’t happen or won’t be addressed. Even if she is right, this is only effective writing if yes, Cloud indeed falls for her and thought those feelings were real, and thus, finds out that he truly doesn’t feel that way once he regains his true self. There’d be no point to this line if he doesn’t feel this, otherwise for the sake of writing, it would’ve made more sense for her to suggest that what she just talked about (the memories/moments/happiness shared) were going to be what wasn’t real, specifically.
Until further information tells me otherwise, I believe Aerith is going to be wrong because of how the OG and relevant material presents what Cloud retains once he regains himself.
Let’s get into it.
Unlike the OG, Aerith is presenting the falsity of Cloud not through her own feelings, but that of HIS. She’s not assuming that the mantra of “embracing the moments” is something that Cloud won’t retain—it’s just the romantic feelings that will grow from them. We don’t have to worry about whether what Cloud retains from these moments and memories of Aerith are false. Why? Because that was completely fine in the OG. The moments, memories, and the bond they shared were all real to Cloud after he regains himself. And obviously, not just with Aerith, but with all his companions. If he didn’t retain what he gained while Aerith was alive, he just simply wouldn’t have any reason to value Aerith, it’d almost be like he doesn’t know her existentially at all. But that isn’t the case. Really, what he gained with his companions was never put to the test of falsehood in the first place.
But the romance? So specifically?
The “why” of everything that is said in this scene is done for some narrative purpose, representing future events and themes to be further implemented down the line. In a literal conversation about romantic feelings to be confirmed or denied story-wise—this is romantic storytelling, and whether you like it or not, it has been issued between the two characters. And of course, I believe it should make someone re-evaluate their understanding of the OG—not in the way where the story itself begets change (like that of the effect with CC, as you mentioned), but more so in realizing that the Remake is just a more expressive reflection of the romantic storytelling that was already in the OG. The writing and approach of the Remake is different than that of the OG, as we can even see between the expressions and details expanded on, like say for Cloud and Tifa’s bond and what that alludes to later down the line as well. This same thing is done for Cloud and Aerith, and what may not have been as openly expressed, is now done so too.
In the OG, the romantic storytelling between Cloud and Aerith played on the typical RPG standard of player-story interactive choice, but was contained in that by not having the story clearly address those choices through Cloud’s character after he regains himself. That and all relative materials like interviews or guidebooks relative to the OG—we only have a few direct romanticisms and some that can be argued as indirect given context. It’s not absent, but it’s unclear to the point it’s a discussion people still have 20+ years later. Also, by those possibly confused, player choice does not eliminate this through character representation—I’ll digress as it’s a whole other thing.
Cloud’s time with Aerith isn’t a mystery—we see everything between them and experience it as the player. We know what did or didn’t happen, what could be expressed, and what we’re left with in regards to romanticism is more of an unaddressed, almost irrelevant idea. What’s represented openly instead is everything else about their important bond, basically. Romanticism—it’s all in the air, not invalidated, but also not further represented for the character in the things referenced afterwards, like Cloud mentioning his memories of her, wanting to see her in death [Promised Land], Aerith being a friend, comrade, irreplaceable, etc. His time spent with Aerith was still something Cloud kept with him.
So, if the question for the OG is: did Cloud retain any romanticism for Aerith as a cherished feeling/memory, too?
I believe by right of the storytelling values presented in the game, that yes, he did. While the game and other materials make no attempt at trying to elaborate on Cloud’s favor towards Aerith, they also don’t negate it in void either from his character. A general good rule of thumb: usually when you have romantic meaning issued between two characters, whether through parallels, symbolism, other characters, the characters themselves, etc.—if it’s something that isn’t confirmed (e.g. confessions or explicit showing of romantic interest) OR isn’t countered or denied significantly (obviously not including the typical false denial by a character), then typically, you go with the positive-end that the representation there does indeed confirm that romanticism.
Think about it like this: remember that show you watched where the two lead characters had romantic subtext, but the show ends without them getting together? Yeah. If you’re at the point of claiming romantic subtext, you’re not doing so for the sake of saying the authorial intent is to show non-romance, but to show romanticism in a subtle way. There are a myriad of writers who have this style, and getting a direct confirmation or explicit showing of romance isn’t always in the cards for how that storytelling is going to be expressed. But, that hardly erases what is still intended to be understood.
The thing about Cloud and Aerith, the romanticism that can be understood from Cloud IS indeed never confirmed, not like how it was for Tifa. Which, I do advocate this actually does showcase how his romantic feelings for Tifa have a further depth than of that for Aerith given the lack of relevancy in comparison. However, his feelings for Tifa don’t negate what he felt for Aerith in totality, not to the point of being evidence of absence. The OG and further materials paint the picture that, after Aerith’s death, Cloud still remembers and cherishes her as a comrade—the memories, the moments. All of it. What’s understood is that everything that Aerith was to Cloud was carried over and fueled his reason to want to see her even in death—if romanticism was a part of those memories, those moments, no matter how small in the grand scheme of their connection, we can’t cherry pick it out of existence just because it doesn’t take expressive priority. From the game itself, I would use the “positive-end” method to understand that the romanticism there IS a part of the character, and if I include representations from other media or interviews, the authorial intention becomes much more clear.
As for the depth of these feelings? Again, Cloud’s time with Aerith isn’t a mystery. Whatever happens during that part of the game IS the depth of the feelings. I won’t identify it as a “crush”, but I just know it wasn’t deep enough to cause conflict in his relationship with Tifa because rationally (and by general storytelling standard), it would if so.
In any case, without a specific negative address of that romanticism, we can’t reasonably split apart what Cloud felt for Aerith from everything else he retained from his time spent with her.
And that’s what the Remake is basically addressing, pretty directly this time. I feel that way about a lot of things, and I absolutely believe the story is better off with it as we’re reaching more avenues for telling the FF7 story and development. What we’re getting here is something more direct and expressive than the OG, as I believe we will for most things, like we already have with Cloud and Tifa, Tifa and Aerith, and even Zack and Aerith. It’s doing much more. One could say that it might be making more of the romance than it was in the OG, but to me, I believe it’s about the same. The subject matter being brought up directly won’t change that on its own, but it’s curious that it was brought up this way.
So, if the OG didn’t represent the meaning of Aerith being right, that anything of which Cloud has for Aerith was made to be false after he gained his true self, then I don’t believe the Remake has a reason for doing it either. This is reinforced by the fact that Aerith being right just isn’t congruent with a lot of the other themes happening in the story there. It makes no sense to pinpoint the romantic feelings specifically as something Cloud didn’t feel—and again, his feelings for Tifa shouldn’t be it. How they decide to show the “answer” is up for thought as writers, as discussed, will find many ways to give meaning from their story. If the writing is consistent, what some CA fans expect won’t be what they will get, but CT fans acting like the meaning from the resolution won’t pop up ever again are already missing the point, too.
There are other interesting things though, like Aerith’s thoughts on death and this lifestyle point of view—how this connects to her hatred of the sky and those she has lost will be an interesting point for her character. Maybe even the anticipated arc of her time in death within the Lifestream and reuniting with Zack. We might finally get solid context for that. As for the black/dark feathers, I’m not sure if it even is, but it would certainly match the motif, like at the very beginning when Cloud is in the reactor. It flying by like that could simply be part of the reference to her death.
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dannyboyzone · 4 years ago
Text
Writing rules 101 by Kin
Intro;
Everybody has their own writing style, and you absolutely don't have to listen to me. This is only posted for two reasons, one being that I might not have the mental strenght to post request for 2 or 3 days due to personal reasons, the other one being hey, someone might find this useful.
It's not to nag though, it's more for fun and I am open to respectful critism.
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1.
The first one that's the most important one is - In my eyes at least - that you should absolutely never write the character doing absolutely nothing.
Start out sentences with someone being in the middle of something, either something big or something small.
Example;
Not that good; Daniel woke up to the sound at his alarm, at 7:30 am and went to brush his teeth.
Alright!; Daniel shifted his gaze from the window back inside his kitchen. It was raining today, he couldn't help but wonder if it was a bad omen, or if his mind is simply trying to mess with him.
He opened the door to reveal his kitchen shelves, putting away the mug he had gotten from Gun that morning.
ex end.
Not only will it give more depth and possibilities for your story, but it will also keep the reader more entertained and in picture with what's happening.
Also, you are less likely to get a writers block.
2.
Please, if possible, do not write in a big text block.
By that, I mean not possible break in between lines at all.
Please try to make a format you are possible with, of what your gut feeling says feels right.
Example;
You could write like this.
I do not follow a possible format, but in my opinion the best format is one or two sentences starters. The next graph being three to five sentences.
It will not only make you more able to focus, and know where you left off but it is also helpful for the readers.
You can, of course add big paragraphs - if they are called that - but! People with certain disabilities, especially reading ones, will be able to pay attention more and not get overwhelmed if you follow the process of 'small text, big text, small text' or one similar to that made by your own. Also, were you aware that people who don't have English as their first language will be able to follow through more like that?!
Well, now you are!
ex end.
3.
" It is not necessary for you to always add who is talking while two people are having a conversation. " said Mira,
" That's right, but that rule only applies if it's obvious who is talking! " Zoe added to the conversation, with a cheerful smile.
Zack leaned back in his chair, holding a hand in front of his mouth as he yawned,
" If you are going to tell them the obvious anyway, just tell them that a sentence which is followed up by a quote should never have a dot but rather a comma. "
" Zack, don't be silly! Everyone knows that! "
" Actually... Some people might not! Let's not be judgemental everyone. " said the brown haired one.
" Pft, that's for beginners tho! "
" Hey!!! Let's also tell them that they can use differences between the people talking instead of their name too! " said his desk mate, as he looked up from the notes on their desk.
Zack leaned his head on Daniel's shoulder, closing his eyes as he made himself comfortable for a nap,
" Yup, especially if there is a pronoun difference. "
Mira turned to Y/n, holding their shoulder,
" Don't feel stressed please! It's alright to make mistakes, and writing is pretty hard anyway! Just follow your own pace! "
4.
Do not add anything that doesn't have a meaning.
Even if it's taking a sip of drink, it should have a meaning.
It's poisoned, dirty, the first step for someone to be healthy, the first drink someone has for survival, holds a significant meaning or It's to provoke someone.
It doesn't matter, as long as it adds something to the story.
If you do not make everything have a meaning that adds depth to the story or the personality of a character you are wasting the time of your reader and could possibly give them false hope.
Though, you don't immediately have to add the meaning of if in the same scene or even same chapter.
5.
Some sentences have multiple meanings depending on which word is pressed down.
Take an example, the sentence
" I never said she stole my money "
has 7 different meanings depending on the word you press down. Just try it out.
So if you might write a sentence with multiple meanings please write the pressed down word in italics.
If you want to say the person didn't steal the money, but someone else did, you would have to write,
" I never said she stole my money "
I hope it's clear with only one example!
6.
Your work is bad because you have read it at least a thousand times, but the people you will publish it to will read it for the first time and you will always have to remember that.
If you want to improve it though, write down everything in your notes, then fully delete it.
You can then open your post tab on your publishing site - like tumblr or something - and start rewriting it.
You will definitely only remember what's necessary in addition to your story.
I personally don't do this, but a lot of people might find it important.
7.
Always do research please, even if things won't always be accurate.
If you do research, less people will be annoyed by the inaccuracy and you will be able to add a lot of things that you couldn't have without them.
Also, you can avoid appropriating cultures and offending different kind of communities that way.
Along side that, please always state if your work will out of character or inaccurate on purpose.
Plus! Checking your spelling errors with a trusted app of yours will never hurt anybody! ♡
8.
If you have a writers block, please either
1. Change the weather; Opens up different kind of possibilities due to clothing, back ground, objects, air and reactions it brings out of others.
2. Add something dramatic; Only do this if it's absolutely necessary, because it could ruin your work. If everything goes right, add something that goes wrong and vice versa. This is only if you want to add angst in your fluff or wise versa.
3. Change the environments and/or the positions the characters are in; It gives a better perspective of the mood and general idea of the topic on hand that you are writing about.
4. Move on to the next scene; You can either leave the scene at that, or write the scene after that which can give you ideas for the one previous to that.
5. Make sure to clean the room you are in; Distractions and environment factors can change the way you feel about writing. Especially if not everything is clean, even if you don't like the mess. Also, drink water.
9.
Never add the end being a dream in longer works.
I don't mean the middle, a twist or a necessity. I mean the absolute end.
It just disappoints people and wastes their time.
10.
If you are writing anything other than romance such as action, horror, thriller ect I would like to say that, romance is not a necessity.
I beg of you, please don't add it if your main focus isn't romance.
Sure, people can have relationships but unnecessary romance rather drives people away than bring in more readers.
If your main focus is romance, please don't immediately make the people fall for each other.
It doesn't necessary have to be enemies or something you don't enjoy, but please remember that no one loves at first sight, and even people with a lot of chemistry can be shy!
Even if you love someone the first day you meet them due to something, it will definitely take a few hours and naivety.
So unless the main point is love at first sight, it's better to build up a relationship bit by bit.
11.
Be diverse with tension levels in scenes!
If a whole work is simply tense, or simply has a normal tone that can be either overwhelming or underwhelming.
For example, if your work is shorter, you can add a tiny moment where someone pouts yet gets cheered up with kisses a bit after.
If it's longer, you can add for example a race scene, which after ending is followed up with a group of friends smiling and having fun at a dinner table. If would not only give more depth to your story, but it could make viewers think and make their own headcanons of your story.
So, in short, please balance your story out. Readers have an easier time to finish a work that's balanced in the course of the same day over works that are over or underwhelming! ♡
12.
Every writer has a word that they might repeat too often. Mine are pronouns, but for others it might be fangs, headband, no, lenght or even cat.
Please try to recognise yours!
If you feel like you are repeating your key word more often than 3 times please rewrite your sentence(s) in a way it's more pleasant.
You will have an easier time writing and your reader won't feel like you are repeating yourself.
Also, you can improve your speech pattern that way. ♡
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Outro;
Whew, that was a lot. Kinda gave me a headache.
Please remember that these are tips and not to put anyone down. I would have just liked to help and make up for the lack of post. - Ouch, parrot much. - I enjoyed writing these, but if anyone got offended I apologise. Hopefully, this won't get ignored since I put a lot of effort in it. 🥲
Thank you for your time! <3
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