#just say my writing/ideas/english/etc sucks and move on.

[melkor-did-nothing-wrong]

No, actually, fuck this, if y'all are gonna tag me in things and then remove me from the list of people you tagged right when I'm about to reblog, just don't bother tagging me at all.

[imaginingfrancium]

sharing some of my xyx headcanons

so that my mind will be at Peace, i'd like to share some of my own xyx headcanon crumbsszxs, related to him being Filipino and other random stuff (from a Filipino [me] who can't stop having xyx brainrots. v detailed, sort of political, and self-indulgent themes ahead):

his parents are full-blooded filipinos, who decided to migrate to australia (to have a better life~~) (taking it from my experience of having relatives telling u to get a job/move abroad bc living in the ph suckz)

his dad passed away when he was in his early teen years. his mom married a local aussie man years later.

yes, he loved his dad so much. his dad was That Present, Supportive Father yeh

he grew up seeing his parents being so loving, caring, etc to each other. like that was his basis of love; he wanted to experience what his parents had. he hoped for it so much that i guess after how many heartbreaks (uhuh lovesick teenager xyx), he got tired and gave it up lol (until fLASH FORWARD to meeting us, and there: the love that was really something. not just the idea of something *bow)

his sister (yes, he has one) is a nurse and he is a lawyer. not bc they were coerced by their parents, but they just really decide it for themselves (imagine the number of times they had to say "no, really. i just want to be one") (v random hc, yes)

he used to visit the ph when he was young. those trips stopped since most of his family members already moved to australia too, and other places abroad.

even though he speaks english with a strong australian accent, it's like it's turned off when he speaks tagalog.

(i reckon that he can speak better tagalog than me 🕴 Jose Rizal be laughing in his grave rn)

he grew out of his catholic roots when he lived by himself, but still tries complete all 9 Simbang Gabi/Misa de Gallo masses. to have some connection with his devote catholic mom, and to honor the times he spent attending these masses with his late dad. (i like Simbang Gabis because of the native delicacies being sold outside the church every after mass)

after the first time you attended Simbang Gabi with xyx, he made a mental note to add Ben&Ben's Bibingka to his playlist about u (v self-indulgent but iykyk) (well if he has one) (i think he does tho)

he is Anti-Marcos and you cannot convince me otherwise. (he could've been that guy who called out marcos jr. personally when he was in aus for a family vacation) (can't find the video of it SKSKSKS)

he was supposed to study in the ph for college because attending university in australia is Expensive ™. luckily, he was able to enter one with a scholarship.

if he didn't though, he probs studied in UP or Ateneo (xyx wearing the UP sablay... as an iska, *tucks hair behind ear*)

(to my fellow filo/filo-speaking bp players) he didn't tell you he was filipino and can speak tagalog when you first got together. he decided to keep it to himself for a while bc he wanted to see your reaction 😎 the moment you knew was when he responded to an endearment you said in tagalog.

"so all along, you understood what i was saying?" "yes." "🕴️" "also your tagalog sucks." "oh f*ck off (affectionately)"

there is a news article about him written by a local ph news source. headline was "Australia-Raised Filipino Lawyer helped win big case vs. big company" something something. (you can smell the Pinoy Pride 🇵🇭 XD comments from here)

xyx listens to OPM !!! it's his 3rd most played genre on Spotify.

he grew up listening to it because of his dad (it is a way for dad to cope with his homesickness) (one more and i'll make a separate hc post about his dad)

with that info, lemme tell u that you both once danced to Ang Huling El Bimbo and/or Panalangin

v sorry for the many random, unorganized thoughts lol and the grammar errors. anyw lemme know what you also think ‽‽

(OPM songs i listened to while writing this: Isang Anghel by zild *highly recommend!!; dekada '70 by zild; Torete by moonstarr88)

(also gonna promote my bloomic but pinoy shitposting hehe)

[griffsursparker]

re: traditional publishing

someone asked me to tell them what I knew about traditional publishing, and I decided it was way too much to put in their ask box, so I guess I'm making a post lmao

fair warning, I have spent so long in publishing circles that I no longer have any concept of what normal levels of knowledge about publishing are. if something doesn't make sense because I left out something thinking it was common knowledge, just ask and I can clarify! if I explain something really obvious, I'm not trying to be condescending, I just genuinely have literally no concept what is or isn't obvious anymore. im sorta just trying to cover some basics here so they may be too basic I have no idea hgdsghds

also disclaimer: publishing industries are generally fairlyyyy similar world-wide I think, but idk where you live/if you write in english, so if you're writing in a different language your mileage may vary with these a bit more (because like . . . I pay attention to all the publishing stuff I possibly can, but if conversations about certain aspects are happening in a language I can't speak, I'm going to miss them lmao)(but I think the general gist will still hold true)

I apologize if this is an information overload hgsdghds I am a nerd about this stuff and this is me trying to,,, hold back lmao

anyways because this seems like the easiest way to cover the basics, here is, to my understanding, a basic publishing timeline for trad pub:

first, of course, you get the book as good as you can make it yourself

next up, generally speaking you want to try to get a literary agent. there are occasional opportunities to submit to publishers directly, but they're going to take you more seriously if you have an agent (agents are also great because they'll help you advocate for yourself in contracts!)

to get an agent, you generally have to submit some combination of the following—it should say on their website which ones:

-- a query letter (think of this as similar to what you'd read on the back of a book)

-- a synopsis (a longer description, covering the whole plot)(a query letter will be focused on hooking attention; a synopsis is about proving you follow through on it)

-- the first ten pages/three chapters/etc. again, it should say

if an agent likes your query materials, they'll reach out and ask you for the rest of your manuscript, or in publishing lingo, you'll get a "full request"

if you get a full request, you'll send your manuscript over, and generally get one of three answers. (1) a rejection. (2) a request to revise and resubmit. or (3) an offer

#1, an unfortunate part of publishing is there are generally a lot of rejections. they hurt, but it's not personal—it might not be the right genre/style/etc for the person you submitted to, or maybe they just don't have time for a new project right now, or any number of reasons. they suck, but they're pretty much unavoidable. every single author you look up to has gotten them

#2, an R&R is generally a good thing, although if you don't like their feedback, you don't have to take them up on it. basically, it means they like your book a lot, but they're not ready to commit to it until you make some changes. sometimes, this means they aren't the right fit for you, but a lot of the time they'll have really good feedback, and it means they're genuinely seriously considering signing with you

#3, an offer, is of course the end goal, so we're going to carry on from here

if you get an offer, the first thing you're generally going to do is nudge any other agents who have your full manuscript. generally you'll have about ten days to two weeks to decide whether you want to accept the offer, so you want to let the other agents know that they're about to lose their chance to sign you—they're going to move looking at your book higher on their to-do list, and you may very well get more offers

so you have an offer (or offers! but even just one is enough and something to be hugely proud of). now you have to decide if the agent is the right fit for you/which agent is the best fit if you have multiple offers. one thing to note is you never have to sign with someone even if they're your only offer. if you talk to them, and realize you aren't going to work well with this person, it's okay to say no and keep querying other agents instead

once you have an agent, they might have edits for you. depends on the agent. if so, you'll do a round of edits here

next, the agent will submit to publishers for you. how involved you are in this process will depend on the agent (and also on you)

this process, or "going on sub", generally means a lot of waiting. it's slow. everything in this industry is slow. it sort of sucks, but the best thing to do is just . . . write something else. do your best not to worry about it. there ultimately isn't much you can do here—you sort of just have to wait and hope a publisher bites

I don't actually know much about the process of signing with a publisher, so I won't try to speak to it too much, but I do know bits and pieces about standard contracts and stuff if that interests you

once you've signed with a publisher, the next big step is going to be more edits

a lot of edits, actually

to my understanding you're going to do at least one round of structural edits (plot, character, etc. big picture stuff), at least one round of line edits (smaller stuff, tone, voice, etc), and at least one round of copy edits (grammar, etc). generally it'll be more than just three rounds though

it's up to you what edits you accept, but you are going to have to make a lot of edits if you want to pursue traditional publishing

then comes pass pages (proofreading proofreading proofreading!!)

and somewhere in there, likely before at least one round of pass pages, ARCs are generally going to come out!

ARCs are advanced readers copies, and they're a marketing thing. depending on the book, you might get a lot of ARCs, or you might just get some digital ones on NetGalley. this is the first time people in the general public will actually get to read your book (for the sake of reviewing it)

then: release day!

a few other things to note:

titles and covers:

if you want control over these . . . don't trad pub. you'll get some say, but at the end of the day, they're a marketing decision, so especially if you're a smaller author, you don't get ultimate say over these

payment:

first of all, you never ever pay a traditional publisher anything as an author. same goes for an agent. if they ask you to pay them, they're a scammer

an agent gets paid when you get paid. I'm unsure on the exact percentage, but they take a cut of what you get paid (I know, it doesn't sound great to give up some of your hard-earned money, but they're worth it, trust me)

a publisher pays you

most authors only ever see their advance, so this is a big one. when you sign with the publisher, they'll offer you xyz amount of money. this is your advance. you get this, no matter how many copies of your book sell

an advance is generally paid in instalments—how many depends on the publisher, but usually 2–5. one upon signing, and then generally the later ones will be upon turning in a revised book, upon publication, and then sometimes a year after publication, etc

then comes royalties. but an advance is essentially their estimate of how much you'll earn in royalties—it's them paying you royalties in advance. they cannot take this away if you don't earn that much in royalties, but you won't see any actual royalties until you "earn out", aka until your book sells enough copies to make up the advance

this is still all very simplified, but it's way too long already, so I'll leave it here lmaoooo

if you're considering trad pub vs self pub, the big things to keep in mind are how much control you want vs how much work you want to do. the publisher does a lot of the hard shit for you, but they do also have a lot of control over certain things. if you want your book published exactly the way you want it, self pub might be a better fit, and that's okay!

also: time. I know people who have self pubbed sheerly because they didn't want to wait years for their book to come out, and that is an entirely valid reason to do it. trad pub is slow as shit

@hahaha-darn-it (I know you're the only one who'll read this, but for the record didn't write this like,,, solely to you in terms of how I wrote it, so most of my stuff in here is general not like. aimed specifically and pointedly at you or anything lmaooo)

[realcube]

soft haikyuu!! boys with a baddie* s/o  😈

characters:  yamaguchi, hinata, suga, akaashi, nishinoya & tendou

tw// swearing

*(a/n): anon requested a kinda sassy, sarcastic reader and verbatim ‘she is basically a salt bag, but she also has like some sugar’  so i simplified that down to baddie :) so the reader isn’t really a delinquent but they are a bit rough around the edges uffabvrslbv 

Tadashi Yamaguchi

he definitely thinks you’re really cool and he wants to be just like you :O

bc you give off ‘bad bitch who doesn’t care about what other ppl think about them’ energy and what he would give tO HAVE THAT!!

so that’s when he knew he needed to be your friend >:) 

so he was like ‘tsukki, go talk to (y/n) for me >:)’ thinking that was his first step to becoming confident pfft

luckily, god was on his side though bc the teacher rearranged the seats and you and him were sitting next to each other 

hence, he got the opportunity to talk to you without it seeming too forced

you both fell for each other so hard

like he would act tough to try impress you but you preferred his natural softness while you tried to act uncharacteristically docile so you wouldn’t scare him off but he liked you for your boldness 

it was a match made in heaven 💞

he eventually worked up the courage to ask you out one day and y’all have just been falling more ever since

although, that doesn’t mean yamaguchi’s forgotten one of the main reasons he wanted to be with you in the first place

‘please teach me your ways, (y/n)!�� he pleaded, his head resting on your lap so you had to cover his puppy-eyes with your phone

‘no, tadashi. firstly, you’re sweet and gentle- you’re just built like that. secondly, i don’t have any ‘ways’ to teach you!’

yamaguchi continued to pry, ‘then how are you just so effortlessly self-assured?’

‘who told you that, tadashi?’

‘no one.’ yamaguchi poked the back of your hand to get you to move it, ‘but remember that time one of the guys in our class tried to make fun of the size of your head and you told him to shut up?’

you rolled your eyes, setting your phone aside before placing a brief kiss on yamaguchi’s forehead, ‘he said he couldn’t see the board because of my ‘big head’, tadashi; that’s hardly an insult. also, what else could i have possibly said other than that?’

but then you remembered this is yamaguchi you’re talking to; if that was him, he’d probably apologise, move his head aside then cry in the bathroom or sumn.

‘i should be the one asking you why you’re so insecure. i mean, i know everyone is a little bit insecure about something but you just take it to a whole other level.’ you mused, absentmindedly massaging his scalp

yamaguchi frowned, ‘exactly! teach me how to stop being insecure.’

‘no please, no thank you?’ you inquired with a snicker, realising that your habits might of accidentally rubbed off on him

bc just a few weeks ago, he’d be thanking you for breathing the same air as him but now he didn’t even say ‘please’ when asking for a favour 

gasp

‘please teach me how to be resilient, (y/n).’

you chuckled, leaning down to whisper in his ear, ‘okay, since you’re so polite, i’ll tell you my secret - but promise not to tell anybody else!.’

‘i promise.’ yamaguchi replied without hesitation

‘okay, first thing you need to do is go to the depths of hell and find satan hims--’ 

yamaguchi let out a sigh as he realised that you weren’t being serious then playfully flicked your forehead away, ‘rude.’

you beamed, pressing another kiss upon his forehead, ‘i know~’

Shōyō Hinata

let’s not pretend hinata wasn’t shitting his pants when he first heard about you from kageyama

‘they called me a shitty setter the other day.’

but kageyama failed to mention the part where he cut you in line for lunch 🙄 mans had it coming

like hinata genuinely thought that if he came within a 5 foot radius of you, you’d literally come for volleyball career

plus, hinata knew he had a lot of things to be insults on (mostly, his height) so he decided to keep his distance at first 

but when he actually saw you - rather than a vague description that kageyama conjured - he kinda fell head over heels

well, not only bc of your looks - he isn’t that shallow

but the same day, you dropped your purse/wallet on the walk home and ,mhsince hinata was walking behind you, he acted as any good Samaritan would; picked it up then handed it to you 

then you said something along the lines of ‘thanks, shorty.’

not shawty. lord- shorty as in short with a y at the end

and whether you meant that as a dig or not was beyond him - but either way, he fkn adored it 

also it doesn’t matter whether you are taller or shorter than hinata- he is still short-stuff >:)

by some miracle he managed to ask you out successfully and he’s kinda been glued to you ever since

like he wants to spend every second that he’s not at volleyball club/school with you 

and if you tell him he’s being clingy, he’s going to cry-

nonono jk jk

he’d probably be a bit offended but then give you your space

also, you noticed how he was really endeared by the tad mean nicknames you gave him like ‘shorty’, ‘short stuff’ and ‘ginger’

the only ones he didn’t like was ‘boke’ or ‘dumbass’ bc it reminded him too much of kageyama + tsukishima

so you started calling him these things - teasingly - more frequently 

and he loves it ngl

as long as you aren’t truly mean to him, he enjoys being called these things by you for some reason

so, his first mistake was assuming that you’d like being called these joking nicknames just as much as he does

you were helping him with english once and it’s definitely not his strong suit

same, hinata

‘look at that! you spelt all your vocabs correctly, for a change.’ you commented, peering over the desk at the paper sitting in front of him

his eyes widened and his lips curled into a hopeful smile, ‘really?!’

‘no.’ you snickered, pointing to the first word on the list. ‘your word was taxis - you wrote ‘texas’, dumbass.’

hinata let out an exasperated sigh, propping his elbow onto the table to rest his cheek on his palm

then, he had an idea ( •̀ ω •́ )✧

‘alright, stupidface, should i rewrite them?’

you gasped, furrowing your brows at what he just called you 

for a moment, you thought you might’ve misheard him but upon observing his smug expression, you realised that he really did just call you a ‘stupidface’ 

so you burst out laughing 

obviously, hinata was rather shocked at your reaction

‘hey! what’s so funny?’

‘di- di- did you just call me a ‘stupidface’?!’ you panted in-between cackles, clutching your stomach to soothe the butterflies

hinata jutted out his bottom lip and folding his arms over his chest, ‘yeah, what about it?’

‘that is so cute!- do it again!’ you demanded, enthusiastically slamming your fist against the desk

‘IT’S NOT CUTE!’ hinata barked, playfully flicking your forehead 

once you caught your breath, you took hinata’s hands and looked him dead in the eyes, ‘you’re fucking adorable, shōyō.’

the hoarseness of your voice making it sound like somewhat of a threat 

‘you’re adorable-er, (y/n).’

‘i know.’

Kōshi Sugawara 

he admires how strong and independent you are/seem 😍

and the fact you don’t go out of your way to suck-up to ppl 

he kinda wants to be like you in that sense but unlike yamaguchi, he accepts that he’s way too much of a people pleaser for that lol

so he sticks to admiring you from afar

then he musters up the courage to ask you out with some chocolate cupcakes; the same kind that you accidentally got on his blazer on the first day of second year :))

and you say yes (╯▽╰ )

also a big part of your relationship is aggressive positivity ✨😡

like if he makes a joke about looking crusty, you’ll promptly respond, ‘shut up, kōshi - you look so hot.’

or if you berate yourself for getting a poor mark on a test, suga will interrupt with no hesitation, ‘fuck off, (y/n), you’re literally so smart and hard working - you’ll probably get 100% on the next test.’

also when he’s around you he switches between canon and fanon suga rapidly 

one second he’s like ‘aww, are you stressed bc of school? i’ll bake you some cookies, baby--’ then you’ll jokingly make a comment about his post-practise B.O and he’ll literally get so defensive

‘WOW I OFFER YOU SOMETHING NICE AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME?! STOP BEING SO MEAN TO ME, COMING FOR MY INSECURITES LIKE THAT  - I WAS JUST ABOUT TO GO FOR A SHOWER ANYWAY GEEZ’ ┗|｀O′|┛

ISVBFELIAEA plz he is too much ✋

he just prides himself in smelling like ocean breeze 99% of the time so you really didn’t need to hurt his feelings like that when you caught him lackin c’mon LMAO

‘wait so are we making cookies or not?’ you inquired, stifling a snicker at his little diva moment

‘ofc we are 🥺’  

he’ll probably use red icing on one of the cookies to draw a ‘>:(’ face then hand it to you, saying that he drew you

he’ll also break of bits of his own cookie and feed it to you’re doing something that requires both hands like typing, homework, dishes etc

whether you eat it from his hand happily, decline his offer or bite his fingers off is really up to you 

and over time, he probably picks up on some of your traits too

especially being more straight-forward 

the team will never forget the first time he was chatting about something with the vice principle and ‘sorry, but i don’t remember asking’  fell from his lips 

everyone was shocked :o

tsukishima, tanaka & noya were so impressed tho

and so were you IVBEAOGVRN

‘wow, suga. you wanna be me so bad.’ you gloated, pressing your hand against your chest 

‘GAEIVBSLR leave me alone.’ he growled, toiling over the apology letter he was currently writing to the vice principal

Keiji Akaashi 

he wanted you to be the dark academia to his light academia pfft

it was very much love at first sight btw 

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ soulmates  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

the embodiment of opposites attract

he’d write you a poem/love letter to ask you out lol

‘you’re so sappy and lame, akaashi’ you scoffed in attempt to hide the smile that was tugging at the corners of your lips as your eyes finally parted from the letter to meet his 

he couldn’t help but chuckle, ‘so is that a no?’

‘-nonono!’ you shook your head rapidly, hastily correcting him, ‘it’s a yes.’

phew 

honestly, he acted all nonchalant on the outside, but akaashi would’ve been devastated if you rejected him

like he constantly tried to remind himself that you would probably say no, i mean he thought you were way out of his league. plus, it didn’t seem as though you were as much of a romantic as him

but fortunately, apart of him stayed hopeful 

now he was cuddled up beside you on a cold winters’ evening, casually drinking is hot cocoa as you both watched a disney movie (❤´艸｀❤)

he’s the type to not even care or retort if you call him stupid or whatever

as long as your context makes it clear that you’re joking 

he’d never call you those names back though ✋

to him, you’re always gonna be ‘love’ or ‘sweetheart’

also, he’s probably equally as sarcastic as you so that’s not an issue 

ngl he probably gets really insecure when you’re hesitant about PDA tho

like he just wants to hold your hand but he doesn’t want to force it upon you and make you uncomfortable 🥺

but also, perhaps you’re too embarrassed by him to kiss him in public 

so please occasionally reassure him that you love him (；′⌒`) that always washes all his worries away 

Yū Nishinoya

it’s literally canon that he likes ppl who show 0 interest in him (kiyoko, tsukki etc)

so it shouldn’t be surprising that he’s all over you after that one time you called him a midget 

to be fair, he had it coming - he stepped on your fkn toe >:(( 

he does everything in his power to impress you and get you to take back what you said 

‘hey, (y/n)!’ he calls out to you in the middle of the bustling lunch hall, ‘could a midget do this?!’ *backflips off the table*

or when he demanded that you come to one of his volleyball games so you could see what he’s capable of and whenever he makes a good receive, he turns to look at you in the stands and winks/ points

or when he actually studies for a test just so he can flaunt his slightly above average grade to you 

‘look, (y/n), i got a 49%!’ he waves a paper in front of your face, which you stare at before lowering your gaze onto your 95%.

but ngl..he really brings out that lil’ bit of sugar in you 

‘well done, noya.’ you choked out feeling your dignity slowly fade in your chest

he’s just so enthusiastic and charming how can you be mean to him 🥺

to his face, at least

as soon as he leaves you beef about him to your friends

‘he is so annoyingly bodacious - audacious! why does he feel the need to show me all of his achievements like i care??? and why does he have to be so cute while doing it???’

‘do you think you maybe have a teeny-tiny crush on him?--’

‘never.’

nishinoya probably asks you out pretty casually like ‘lemme take you bowling this saturday and i can show how good i am at that too!’ he offered with a bright, bold smile

‘sure, whatever.’

‘kay! it’s a date!’

‘wut-’ but before you could question him further, he sped off

nishinoya really likes to fluster and tease you 

you’ll be sitting waiting for him at the park or whatever and he’ll swagger in and shout something like ‘how’s my gorgeous s/o doing today?! i hope you weren’t waiting for me too long!--’

then you’ll have to quickly shush him before everyone with a 7 feet radius is looking at you judgementally 

he also likes to call you the most extra nicknames just to see you blush

‘good morning, my beautiful, divine, radiant god(dess) who i worship every morning of my life!~’ he sung as he waltzed into your classroom to spend lunch with you 

but he only does that bc you are so dismissive of his advances lol

like if you openly adored his kisses and nicknames, he’d probably do them sparingly  

oh and he calls you ‘my hunny bunny’ too - don’t ask why 

Satori Tendō

you gave him your number/snap for a project and he’s one of those ppl that just assumes that y’all are friend now lol

but that wasn’t nessicarily a bad thing bc you thought he was really cool and you were happy that you still got to talk to him even after the project was over 

not that you’d ever admit it tho (╹ڡ╹ )

he’d send you cursed memes at 3AM and you’d reply like ‘mood’  then he’d fall for you 

you’d also have random, deep convos in the middle of the night 

hence he fell for you even harder 

especially bc he basically just shared his whole life story with you 

he’d spill out all his insecurities to you then you’d reply like ‘ok’ then he knew he had to ask you out bc you’re the first person not to have left him on read

so he asked you to meet him in the park and you’d reply ‘no lol  🖕 ‘ 

then he’d just smile at his phone like ‘wow, they’re so in love with me’

he’s just so used to his friends being mean to him jokingly that he can’t even tell if you’re being serious or not

so he goes to the park at the time he put forward, and ofc you’re there even though you said no bc you didn’t want tendō to show up for nothing 🥺

he was ecstatic that you were there and he probably brought you an energy drink or lollipop then asked you out

and ofc you said yes

i mean- you had kinda developed a soft spot for the poor guy 

you’d let him get away with certain things that others couldn’t around you 

for instance, you’d let him borrow your pencils/pens despite usually not allowing others to get ahold of your stuff

but that was just coz like- he’s your trustworthy bf- not some random classmate who had no reason or motive to be kind enough to return your pencils 

also, you’d let him cut in front of you in the lunch line and he did the same for you

oh and please bully anyone who makes fun of him 🙏

[olderthannetfic]

I'm a Chinese, nationally and racially. Racial projection seems to be a common practice in western fandom, doesn't it? I find it a bit... weird to witness the drama ignited upon shipping individuals with different races, or the tendency to separate characters into different "colors" even though the world setting doesn't divide races like that. Such practice isn't a thing here. Mind explaining a bit on this phenomenon?

--

Sure, I can try. But of course, fish aren’t very good at explaining the water they swim in.

Americans aren’t good at detecting our own Americanness, and a lot of what you’re seeing is very much culturally American rather than Western in general. (In much of Europe, “race” is a concept used by racists, or so I’m told, unlike in the US where it’s seen more neutrally.) Majority group members (i.e. me, a white girl) aren’t usually the savviest about minority issues, but I’ll give it a shot.

The big picture is that most US race stuff boils down to our attempts to justify and maintain slavery and that dynamic being applied, awkwardly, to everyone else too, even years after we abolished slavery.

There’s a concept called the “one drop rule” where a person is “black” if they have even one drop of black blood.

We used to outlaw “interracial” marriage until quite recently. (That meant marriage between black people and white people with Asians and Hispanic people and others wedged in awkwardly.) Here’s the Wikipedia article on this, which contains the following map showing when we legalized interracial marriage. The red states are 1967.

That’s within living memory for a ton of people! Yellow is 1948 to 1967. This is just not very long ago at all. (Hell, we only fully banned slavery in 1865, which is also just not that long ago when it comes to human culture.)

Why did we have this bananas-crazy set of laws and this idiotic notion that one remote ancestor defines who you are? It boils down to slavery requiring a constant reaffirming that black people are all the same (and subhuman) while white people are all this completely separate category. The minute you start intermarrying, all of that breaks down. This was particularly important in our history because our system of slavery involved the kids of slaves being slaves and nobody really buying their way out. Globally, historically, there are other systems of slavery where there was more mobility or where enslaved people were debtors with a similar background to owners, and thus the people in power were less threatened by ambiguity in identity.

Post-slavery, this shit hung around because it was in the interests of the people in power to maintain a similar status quo where black people are fundamentally Other.

A lot of our obsession with who counts as what is simply a legacy of our racist past that produced our racist present.

--

The other big factor in American concepts of identity is that we see ourselves as a nation of immigrants (ignoring our indigenous peoples, as usual). A lot of people’s families arrived here relatively recently, and we often don’t have good records of exactly where they were from, even aside from enslaved people who obviously wouldn’t have those records. Plenty of people still identify with a general nationality (”Italian-American” and such), but the nuance the family might once have had (specific region of Italy, specific hometown) is often lost. Yeah, I know every place has immigrants, and lots of people don’t have good records, but the US is one of those countries where families have on average moved around a lot more and a lot more recently than some, and it affects our concepts of identity. I think some of the willingness to buy into the idea of “races” rather than “ethnicities” has to do with this flattening of identity.

New immigrant groups were often seen as Other and lesser, but over time, the ones who could manage it got added to our concept of “whiteness”, which gave them access to those same social and economic privileges.

Skin color is a big part of this. In a system that is founded on there being two categories, white owners and black slaves, skin color is obviously going to be about that rather than being more of a class marker like it is in a lot of the world.

But it’s not all about skin color since we have plenty of Europeans with somewhat darker skin who are seen as generically white here, while very pale Asians are not. I’m not super familiar with all of the history of anti-Asian racism in the US, but I think this persistent Otherness probably boils down to Western powers trying to justify colonial activities in Asia plus a bunch of religious bullshit about predominantly Christian nations vs. ones that are predominantly Buddhist or some other religion.

In fact, a lot of racist archetypes in English can be traced back to England’s earliest colonial efforts in Ireland. Justifying colonizing Those People because they’re subhuman and/or ignorant and in need of paternalistic rulers or religious conversion is at the bottom of a lot of racist notions. Ironic that we now see Irish people as clearly “white”.

--

There are a lot of racist porn tropes and racist cultural baggage here around the idea of black people being animalistic. Racist white people think black men want to rape/steal white women from white men. Black women get seen as hypersexual and aggressive. If this sounds like white people projecting in order to justify murder and rape... well, it is.

Similar tropes get applied to a lot of groups, often including Hispanic and Middle Eastern people, though East Asians come in more for creepy fantasies about endlessly submissive and promiscuous women. This nonsense already existed, but it was certainly not helped by WWII servicemen from here and their experiences in Asia. Again, it’s a projection to justify shitty behavior as what the party with less power was “asking for”.

In porn and even romance novels, this tends to turn up as a white character the audience is supposed to identify with paired with an exotic, mysterious Other or an animalistic sexy rapist Other.

A lot of fandoms are based on US media, so all of our racist bullshit does apply to the casting and writing of those, whether or not the fic is by Americans or replicating our racist porn tropes.

(Obviously, things get pretty hilarious and infuriating once Americans get into c-dramas and try to apply the exact same ideas unchanged to mainstream media about the majority group made by a huge and powerful country.)

--

Politically, within the US, white people have had most of the power most of the time. We also make up a big chunk of the population. (This is starting to change in some areas, which has assholes scared shitless.) This means that other groups tend to band together to accomplish shared political goals. They’re minorities here, so they get lumped together.

A lot of Americans become used to seeing the world in terms of “white people” who are powerful oppressors and “people of color” who are oppressed minorities. They’re trying to be progressive and help people with less power, and that’s good, but it obviously becomes awkward when it’s over-applied to looking at, say, China.

--

Now... fandom...

I find that fandom, in general, has a bad habit of holding things to double standards: queer things must be Good Representation™ even when they’re not being produced for that purpose. Same for ethnic minorities or any other minority. US-influenced parts of fandom (which includes a lot of English-speaking fandom) tend to not be very good at accepting that things are just fantasy. This has gotten worse in recent years.

As fandom has gotten more mainstream here, general media criticism about better representation (both in terms of number of characters and in terms of how they’re portrayed) has turned into fanfic criticism (not enough fics about ship X, too many about ship Y, problematic tropes that should not be applied to ship X, etc.). I find this extremely misguided considering the smaller reach of fandom but, more importantly, the lack of barriers to entry. If you think my AO3 fic sucks, you can make an account and post other fic that will be just as findable. You don’t need money or industry connections or to pass any particular hurdle to get your work out there too.

People also (understandably) tend to be hypersensitive to anything that looks like a racist porn trope. My feeling is that many of these are general porn tropes and people are reaching. There are specific tropes where black guys are given a huge dick as part of showing that they’re animalistic and hypersexual, but big dicks are really common in porn in general. The latter doesn’t automatically mean you’re doing the former unless there are other elements present. A/B/O or dubcon doesn’t mean it’s this racist trope either, not unless certain cliched elements are present. OTOH, it’s not hard for a/b/o tropes to feel close to “animalistic guy is rapey”, so I can see why it often bothers people.

A huge, huge, huge proportion of wank is “all rape fantasies are bad” crap too, which muddies the waters. I think a lot of people use “it’s racist” as an easy way to force others to agree with their incorrect claims that dubcon, noncon, a/b/o, etc. are fundamentally bad. Many fans, especially white fans, feel like they don’t know enough to refute claims of racism, so they cave to such arguments even when they’re transparently disingenuous.

--

Not everyone here thinks this way. I know plenty of people offline, particularly a lot of nonwhite people, who think fandom discourse is idiotic and that the people “protecting” people or characters of color are far more racist than the people writing “bad” fic or shipping the wrong thing.

But in general, I’d say that the stuff above is why a lot of us see the world as white people in power vs. everyone else as oppressed victims, interracial relationships as fraught, and porn about them as suspect. Basically, it’s people trying to be more progressive and aware but sometimes causing more harm than good when those attempts go awry.

[viriyanon]

this is so sappy but im sentimental. i'd like to say thank you to my mutuals. i dont know how to explain the feeling inside, it's weird. it's just, thank you. thank you is the only way to deliver it really. i may sound freak at the first time, unhinged at the second time, and chaotic childish at the third time. maybe my humour doesn't fit well or i annoy you with tag and ask games or im a vibe killer in chats or i fill your dash with posts from another dramas that you don't and/or won't watch but really. thanks. thanks for sticking around and make this quarantine as a third year student less suck. thanks for considering me as a friend, or acquaintance, if ur uncomfortable. thank you for interacting with me and appreciating my works and dealing with my chaotic ass. thank you for being my english speaking(?) writing(?) partner because im not a native and i need to keep practicing and advancing it. thank you for educating me about things my country isn't yet aware, through contents that you reblogs or even your own written opinion so i can be a kind of agent of change among my small circles of friends, family, etc.

thank you ppdcc crew, my first mutuals in this damn website. thank you lara for reaching out first thru dm i remember you commented abt a remark in my atots meta, if only my assignment was this interesting. and im happy that i finally have a tumblr friend (i had to be so awkward and weird back then, sorry lara 😞). thank you orthy for being so nice, so warm and welcoming, and so supportive to me youre like that mom on the bleacher with a camera and a a pair of sunglasses on the olympic day at school. thank you quan for your friendliness it always moves my heart even until now. thank you nads for your straightforward writings that i relate to a lot and also appreciation to my works (tbh i used to be scared of u, for no reason, i feel like ur gonna kick my ass but now i know ur just another sweet human dw i have no fear 😉) thank you nuria for sharing about yourself and welcoming me if i need the adulthood 101 talk and encouraging me to do what i really want in life even if it may cost me something but i should always try. thank you laura for your appreciation and supportive tags under my works and for hyping le wingmen with me, esp yod :"). thanks oli for immediately screaming about phutian (this is what i remember) in the beginning when i tagged ur post with "pls scream with me". and also for writing metas along with me and nads back in the atots day. i see three different pov for a certain scene/episode and i love that diversity. and other atots fams who i rarely talk to but know youre there and are the part of the family too, thank you too.

thank you too sass, mom friend 1, for reminding me to sleep and for your sexy creative juices and for being very supportive and warm. (pls let me have the aoty 2021). thank you jaz, mom friend 2, who i can easily talk to abt everything and for introducing me to the world of beautiful poems from around the world so now i can make more aesthetic contents. thank you mish, my tumblr baba, for translating english to 'russian-approved' russian and for being chaotic with me in the k&h fandom. during that aoty mess, i realize we probably are the craziest people in the fandom atm. thank you sof for helping me with my gifset and also providing me with sudden earth/atots related contents, i didn't see that coming sis. thank you mar whose tags always excite me and you do give a lot of ideas for sass, thank you for the supplies so we can enjoy sass' fic. thank you jina for providing us with top-tier contents and even though you don't do many tag games, you still do one for me and sass. thank you mahan for your junchun requests. tbh i saw them really as a side pairing only, i barely grew feelings for them. but now i do, i see them in a different light thanks to you. and other content creators who keep the angst real. thank you so much, you make my days wonderful. and you also make my uni assignments look even shittier than they already do, thank you so much.

the people in this post:

@atotsphutian @ataleofthousandstars @billkinsdancing @systoles-lfc @phapundao @thebadmoonsrising @nct-oli @the-sassiest-trixster @jazthespazz @mishathewtf @nineninepetals @marulo @itsdeanwinchester @mahan734

[emerald-amidst-gold]

Writing Tag Game

Thank you so much for the tag @noire-pandora! <3

Time to show people just how much of a baby I am in the fanfic world~! >:3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

A total of ten! Mainly because I lump drabbles together for easy access!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

....273502 words so far. :3 I like words. Words are good. Words are friends. 

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Emerald Eyes Amidst Golden Vows (the very first rendition!) - 48 kudos

Emerald Eyes Amidst Golden Vows - Bound Brighter - 24 kudos

A Dragon’s Hope - 15 kudos

Dragon Drabbles - 13 kudos

Poetry of Wolves - 11 kudos

(Honestly, the progression of style change in each of these fics is terrifying to me. I look back on the last one, and I’m like, ‘Oh my god.’ X’D) 

4. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I do, on occasion, respond! Though I may use a lot of words while writing, when it comes to communication? I suck. XD But, I do get extremely, extremely excited whenever I see a comment in my inbox, and I do go back and re-read them when I’m feeling down about my writing! I usually respond when a person asks questions, but I try to read them as rhetoric since I don’t want to spoil too much! X3 So, to everyone who has left me comments on my fics: THANK YOU. I do really appreciate and adore them. :3

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Many of my short fics (those ranging from one to two chapters) all end relatively happy. I like angst, but I also enjoy making characters that are usually somber and stressed a little lighter. :3 If we want to get technical, then the first several chapters of my main fic all have rather angsty endings because the beginning of Fane’s journey is...heh. It’s not easy, and it’s not supposed to be. 

Although, now that I look, a very old fic of mine called ‘A Dragon’s Guilt’ has a rather angsty ending. Basically, Solas’ frescoes in the rotunda send Fane into a momentary spiral, and it was me playing with Adamant possibilities before he was ‘set in stone’. Panic attacks and mixed memories galore! :D

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

*rifes through my fics* Uhhhh... All of them? :3 Okay, okay! No, if I had to choose it would have to be...one of the short stories in ‘Dragon Drabbles’. It’s a four part story (and my first hand at smut >:3) that’s titled ‘Existence is Not a Sin’. It starts off angsty, but by the end it’s so sweet, so sickeningly sweet that I’m like, “...How did I write this?” X’D ...I’m actually thinking of re-writing a lot of my previous fics just to see if I’ve improved with writing! :D

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I do not write crossovers, but I’m open to the idea! Sadly, my brain hyperfixates on one thing at time, so my imagination is limited. X’D

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I haven’t, and I’m very grateful that I haven’t. To be honest, when I started writing and posting, I expected to get hate (prepare for the worst, you know?) because I was doing something that wasn’t really the ‘norm’ for a lot of people. After all, people are entitled to their own interpretations and mine some times don’t link up with someone else’s. I understand that, and I respect that, but some people...don’t offer the same courtesy. All I’ll say is, if you don’t enjoy my content, don’t read it. We’re all adults, so shrug your shoulders, say, “Not for me”, and move on. Just know that if you do leave a hate comment, you will receive no reply, no fuel. So, don’t waste your time and don’t waste mine. Simple as that. I’m here to share and make people smile, not argue. :3

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I have. Once, and I for the life of me can’t figure out how to do it again. X’D I’m very into soft intimacy; gestures and actions that speak a thousand words. Close positions (missionary, straddling, etc.) and a lot of eye contact with some healthy crying in the mix. *winks* I’m kind of inching towards a theme of ‘body worship’ when it comes to Fane and Solas because those two.. *sighs* They really need to shown that they are beautiful people; inside and out.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I have not. Thank God. XD All I’ll say is this though, you steal my fic, my son and claim them as your own? *gets close to the screen* I will track you down and demand a talk. Don’t steal other’s hard work. Don’t. Writing is not easy, and it takes weeks, months, years for authors to pump out their inspiration, so don’t steal that labor just because you want to say you could. Same goes for drawings and pieces of art. Don’t.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I haven’t! English is my first language, but I understand some French! :D 

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, I haven’t, but the idea is intriguing to me sometimes! I’m just a tad unreliable due to how my mood ebbs and flows. I have very long dry spells. X’D

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Solavellan! >:D While I write solely M!Lavellan/Solas, I do support all genders and orientations for the ship! Because I didn’t get into the ship because of what I saw, it’s what it meant to me. 

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

*side eyes my main fic* LISTEN. It’s coming! I swear. I’m just having intense writer’s block with my main fic, and I’m not sure why. That’s why I’ve been messing with prompts and drabbles. X’D There’s also my modernAU, too.. *sweats* TIIIIIME! WHERE ARE YOU?!

What are your writing strengths?

Describing emotions. I like emotions. Emotions are nice. :3

What are your writing weaknesses?

Dialogue. Mainly because Fane...doesn’t speak much at the beginning of his journey. He’s very curt, short, so I have hard time incorporating other’s reactions to him. I’m getting better though, I think! :D

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I’m for it! Sometimes that little splash of altering dialect can draw someone in and establish a connection! Language connects us, and it’s never too late to try and learn so as to reach out to another! :D

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Dragon Age, my beloved~ 

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

A short story of mine called ‘Blood in the Snow’. It was one of my very first fics and it was the first time I was like, ‘This Lavellan is my muse. I can do so much with him.’ It was just so fun to write a vulnerable moment for Fane, but still keep him locked up. ...It was also where I went, ‘Oh. This is Solavellan Hell. I wasn’t meant to go there, but I DID.’ X’D

Tagging: @oxygenforthewicked @little-lightning-lavellan @dreadfutures @the-dreadful-canine @rosella-writes @aymayzing @drag-on-age @varric-tethras-editor and anyone else that’d like to play! (no pressure, of course! <3)

[twelvemonkeyswere]

very intrigued by hermione/jaime crack 😳😳

thank you both @halfagod​ and @forbiddenfantasies1​ for asking about this! and sorry it's so long okay so - right off the bat, this isn’t anything romantic or anything, but it is crack.

you’ll likely remember there was some fanfic grrm was writing about his own characters fighting other characters. one of the first ones was Jaime Lannister vs Hermione Granger, and since he hates JK Rownling his descriptions of what a showdown between them would be were very uncharitable to the characters to say the fucking least, especially Hermione.

the whole thing is quite a bad read and it sent me thinking that there were a LOT of variables that would play into it if taken seriously, starting with their personalities, ages at the time of the match, reason why they’re fighting in the first place, etc.

and since I like world building and whatnot, I began thinking how to make their showdown realistic and feasable obeying the laws of their respective narratives, and then I decided it would be even more fun (hah) to make as many scenarios with those variables as possible, because that’s the sort of person i am. and then I realized... well. asoiaf began to be published in the 90s.... 1996, to be precise, when hermione was 17, and facing a war against a madman. and the parallels were right there, and thus I made a timeline to see how things would fit, and then some other ideas sprang up from that.

so now the main idea is that it all starts the year after the war, when Hermione comes back to Hogwarts to finish her studies while everyone else goes on with their lives. she’s alone, she has to deal with everything she saw and everything she had to do, and with everyone else in Hogwarts being traumatized too... so she’s depressed, and trying to get better. and in my idea, one of the things she tries is to get back to the things that made her happy before it all went wrong, reading among them.

particularly, reading muggle books. because since she knows real magic now, well, regular fantasy books must lose some of their charm, right? but what if that was what she loved as a kid, and she’s desperate enough to get away from what reality is now, in real-magic world? so maybe she tries new stories, see what she’s missed in the last couple of years.

and maybe she is afraid of being judged for having some of those books or she just wants some peace and quiet, so she sneaks into the room of requirements and foolishly and naively asks for a room where she can “immerse” herself in the book she’s trying to read that night.

and that’s how she meets Jaime, by going into the world of the book. and the idea was then that she would periodically travel into the books and see Jaime at different ages, and as she gets older and processes what happened during the war, her perspective of the events and her life shifts and changes, not unlike Jaime’s story changes through the books.

anyways i wrote some 2k words about grief and healing and it’s been sitting there, looking at me and threatening to become too long.

here’s the bit where she first meets Jaime in case you’re interested

(be warned, I never read HP in English and I haven’t consumed any media about it in YEARS. also i suck at actions scenes)

come ask stuff about my WIPs if you want!

“Who are you?” The white knight demanded.

Hermione frowned and ignored the question, inspecting the trees behind the man, the grass of the meadow under her feet. She had clearly been portkeyed somewhere, where was the artifact? 

“Answer me!” the man demanded. He shifted on his feet, his armor creaking and clinking. “Who sent you?” 

“He said,” a second voice drawled behind her. “Where did you come from?” 

Jumping to one side, Hermione noticed another knight, much closer to her, but also much younger. He was tall, but had a leaner frame even with the white armor, same as his companion. He didn’t have his helm on either, and she spotted it on the ground, likely dropped so the boy could hold his sword with both hands, the point of which was angled at her throat, even at a distance. His curly hair, golden and sticky with sweat, enveloped two emerald green eyes that moved with the murderous intent of a cat. 

Hermione swallowed.

If velas were male, she blinked in confusion, this is what they would look like.

It was stupid to realize that at a moment like this, given the fact her life was being threatened, but no human being was ever that beautiful. It had to be magic. 

She looked around, trying to remember what had been next to her in the Room of Requirements. Where’s the bloody thing?

“Accio portkey,” she swished her wand in a circle above her head, but nothing happened.

“Get her!” the man ordered the boy, and both stepped forward, closing in. Their swords drew up, the man holding it above his head, the boy raising the pommel to his cheek.

“Whoa!” Hermione reached instinctively into her robes and got her wand out. Her mind raced, trying to recall everything she knew about metal charming, but when the knights were upon her, she disapparated with a faint pop. 

She apparated a couple of meters away, shaking her head off the unpleasant feeling of being vaccumed through space. As she opened her eyes, there was a loud clank from the swords that met where she should have been. The boy trembled below the man’s strength, holding his ground with some difficulty.

“Oi, please!” she called to them, holding a hand out in a placating gesture. “Where am I? Who are you?”

As one, the man turned with fury towards her, and the boy frowned in angry confusion. She had a second to recall Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, and, not without failing to see the irony, felt grateful she had learned forgetfulness spells from the best.

“Witchcraft,” the older knight muttered, and the boy only glanced at him for a moment, returning his eyes to her. “Cut her throat!” 

The boy hesitated a second, but when the older man charged towards her, so did he. 

“Wingardium leviosa!” she yelled at the armors, to no effect. “Shit.” She disapparated again, just before they reached her. She apparated by a tree this time, to their right. She aimed at the clothes they hopefully had below their armors and forced herself to speak through the haze. “Wingardium leviosa!” 

Both knights lifted into the air like they weighed less than feathers. 

“Seven hells!” the older knight screamed, anger and fear mixing as he balanced unceremoniously on his spot. 

Iron, Hermione breathed with relief to herself. It was the iron.

She didn’t know what to expect, she had never tried to charm uncharmed metalwork before. Unless you counted locks. Then again maybe that charmed the air around the metal, or maybe there was more magic in this particular iron, she didn’t have the time to--

“What is this?” the young man demanded, as he waved his sword around, testing if he was being held on the spot like a puppet.

Hermione walked towards them with caution. 

“Gentlemen, please!” she called to them through their grunts and curses. “Where am I? Who are you?” 

“Silence, witch!” the older man ordered, trying to stick his sword to the ground in an attempt to descend.

“I’ll let you down as soon as you answer my questions,” she swallowed, reminding herself of the many times she had fought against enemies bigger than her. “I just want to get home.” 

The boy bore his eyes into hers. “Where is that?” 

“None of your bloody business,” she replied instinctively. 

“She’s not from here, ser,” the boy said to the older knight. “She wears odd clothes, speaks strange words.” 

“Shut up, Ser Jaime, get to--”

But Hermione didn’t get to hear what the man wanted the boy to do.

“Ser Jaime?” the name was out of her mouth before she knew it. She squinted at the boy’s armor, saw the seven swords engraved on the plate, and realization hit her. She looked at the boy, then at the man. I’ll be fucking damned. 

“Jaime.” she repeated, bringing the boy’s attention back to her. “Jaime… Lannister?”

[weakestguy]

What to do to stay motivated for exams?

"Dude, I just cant!"

Shouted Abhinav when I asked what’s up with his studies.

"I just can’t sit down, open pages and began to study. The course is too much, so is the pressure. I just want to sit back binge watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and relax. This boards nonsense has taken out the life from me. This is all too much."

And he continued with his anti-exams rant for a while, just like any other student who has an exam in few months.

Almost always attempting to do what you need to study to catch up with reading from previous weeks sounds like a drag.

“Do I understand these texts, too?”

“Am I going to be able to compose something informative and important to me?”

“Am I trying to do the right thing, huh? '

'Am I strong enough to do that?”

“Others tend to be right at the pinnacle of things than I am”

“What if I'm stupid?”

Abhinav continued his rambling. I can’t helped but noticed the fluency of his spoken English, gosh this kid is smart. Even in the moment of panic, and anxiety driven boohoo, he still have the command that makes everyone look him in awe, yet he is completely ignorant about it.

The minute you start filling your brain with useless thoughts like “I’m not enough of this”, “I wish I had this”, “I wish I looked like that”, “I’m too fat to wear that”, “I have no self-control”, “I’m bad at math”, etc. well guess what : you’ll still be bad at math, you’ll stay sad and in months from now you’ll be stuck in the same place.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What can help you when you feel burned out?

Watch a comedy series or movie. Its far better than a motivational video. Relax a lot while studying, let your mind get a good grasp of the concept and then proceed to study.

Do something entirely different. Set aside a time where you don’t study. A time block where you let the sponge in your head absorb the water and regain its natural shape.

Brain dump. Grab a piece of paper and write whatever in your mind. From your fantasy to the urge to kill your teacher, just let it out. Don’t let these ideas take roots in your head. Keep dumping the brain trash. Not only this will help you to increase your focus, but also it will increase your productivity, writing speed, and give room to learn.

Procrastination. We all do it, the urge to keep tasks of bay is just too much to resist. Use your weakness as your biggest strength. Instead of beating yourself over it, do it mindfully.

Use the power of imagination. Don’t think about what will Priya say when you her that your 100%, instead imagination yourself studying Math. Go to bed, lie down and began visualizing yourself solving equations of math and the very next day, you will be filling registers doing all calculations.

Time blocking. This is the method I came across while I was drooling over how aesthetic these crazy-talented youtubers are. The one that publish content on calligraphy, and Bullet journal. For a student, I think this would work. Plan the day-to-day predictable stuff and draw the random stuff on the bars. The bars can be homework, reading, study, programs, etc.

For me, Pomodoro works as a kick-starter. I don’t use it throughout the day when I’m studying but just to start my studying. 45 minutes of focused studying, followed by 15 minutes of break, extendable to 30 minutes.

Reward & Punishment. The thing with this method of taking yourself out of the burnt zone is, it sucks! Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in for eating chocolates after completing 10 question. But, recent study shows that Reward and punishment motivate behavior, but it is unclear exactly how they impact skill performance and whether the effect varies across skills. Overall, we saw little effect of reward on either learning or retention. Punishment had no effect on skill retention. So, try to keep the reward as scoring 100% and punishment as doing 100 pushups or running or something you physically cannot do. The fear will work as motivator to study.

“Study Spots”. Don’t have a fix spot. Study at different places. Not only this will make you independent of locations but also make your neurons stronger and hence you will learn better.

Start with the basics. For examples, if you are solving question of Integration, rote the formulae before solving the questions so that you don’t feel stressed and like you don’t know anything. And then move on the concepts of integration by parts, limits, etc.

These are the tips I and many top scorers I know use to keep the feeling of failure at bay and smash the hell of the exam.

What to do to take a break from studying:

set a time limit

go for a walk

pet your dog/cat/pet

listen to music (that isn't your study music)

take a shower

make a meal or snack

call/text a friend for support

lie down, close your eyes for a bit

What not to do:

watch 10 YouTube videos and then suddenly its midnight

scroll through Instagram mindlessly

if you do this your mind is still working !!! and not relaxing !!!

you’re not really refreshed when you come back!

that’s not a break, that’s procrastination.

but also, we’re all only human, so every few breaks don’t feel too guilty watching a short YouTube video/checking your Snapchat. (Add me: sammathur4)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Footnotes:

Time Blocks

2. Research on Reward and Punishment: The impact of reward and punishment on skill learning depends on task demands

With boards, semesters and other competitive exams around the block, hope this guide helps you.

[galaxythreads]

Suggestions on how to improve fanfic writing:

I was talking with @angelfishofthelord recently (not that recent, time is a concept that escapes our collective grasp) and I jokingly suggested that I make this post. I am in the middle of an insomnia night, so. Here be us.

Characters use the same nicknames and phrases inside their head as speaking. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re sharing the humor they’re speaking. I.g.: For SPN, I see a lot of people write Dean as a little careless in his POVs, because that’s just how he portrays himself, but Dean, I think, while having a dark sense of humor, isn’t actually very funny in his head. Same goes for MCU and Tony Stark. Funny characters does not always equal happy head space. :)

Nicknames--this used to bother me to no end, because nicknames were never something in my family, and people shortening down the names felt wrong. But you nickname what you love. If someone has given a nickname (and not in mockery) to a character, chances are, they call them that in their head. Like in MCU Clint calling Natasha "Nat", or SPN Dean and Sam calling Cas "Cas" however, with that said, unless the nickname is self chosen, most people will use their full name when narrating. Castiel, Natasha, etc.

Headcanons! This is going to sound a little backwards, but headcanons have always helped me sort between characters. I know that some fic authors are very against headcanons, but to me, you HAVE to make these characters and their world your own, at least a little. You need to understand how their brain functions, and headcanons are a wonderful, wonderful way to do that. So long as you can conceivably fit them into canon, I think you’re good. One of the ones I have about SPN Cas is that he doesn’t actually give off body heat, so he’s constantly room temperature. It’s a detail for people that’s not Cas’s POV to notice. So getting some headcanons like that will help differentiate between POVs because it’s different things for characters to acknowledge.

Mimic writing that you admire. (And ask yourself WHY you like it) I really, really love the way that TFW/avengers team is portrayed in some stories, in others, I’m like “meh.” Write to please yourself, first and foremost, on how to read these characters thoughts. Those who agree with you will flock to be your audience, and they’re who matter.

Language/word choice is really important for POV change. Again, people talk like how they think.

POV change? Treat the character whose POV it is like they are THE most important person in existence. Their reactions get a front seat. Their five senses are your concern. What they notice about a character may not be true, but it's what they notice. They are human, not omniscient, ergo, they'll get things wrong. Even if the story is written with a completely different character in mind, this character is still the most important. POV's time to think, talk, panic, angst, express, etc. That chapter was about how they felt. That’s why sometimes, even if I really do want them to talk or something, a character might think “please don’t say xyz” because THEY don’t want that, and how I feel as an author isn’t relevant here. Remembering that they’re human, and need time to process/react to things is huge.

Practice, practice, practice. It does get easier with time, and effort. I promise. All of you would laugh at my first few weeks of diving into fandoms. That stuff is garbage.

Conscious stream of thought is generally the best way to engage readers, and the most enjoyable. This is how we immerse ourselves into the story. We become a part of it because we follow their thinking. It is always ideal to start where you are the most comfortable, whether that's 3rd omniscient, 2nd person, etc, but, in my opinion, you don't get that true "click" with the characters until you've conscious stream of thought them.

Research. Lots of research. Don't know how long battieres could last in 2002? Look it up. Don't know how to do stitches? Google it. Try to avoid making things up.

Look guys. Everyone understands that you are most likely NOT a doctor or have any semblance of a medical degree. This is fiction. Research what you can, and move forward carefully or vague it out with the rest. The worst that can happen is someone correcting information you got wrong.

Please, please, please stay within the range of human limitation. (Or whatever creature/being you are writing for) You can't lose more than five pints of blood. You CAN die from pain. Infection spreads quickly. I'm sorry. I just. Have read so many fics from newbie writers who push their characters past extremes that is almost impossible. You want to hurt them that bad, break a bone or something. Just. Please try to be realistic. (Don't misunderstand here, I love me some well-done whump.)

Again with the "you are not a professional thing." Those diagnosed with mental illnesses know that you may not be writing from true experience. This is okay. But please, please do not avoid using any words or phrases common with the illness as you try to "vaguely" write it. The more authentic you are, the less likely you will offend someone. Look. I would be so frustrated if someone tried to write about an ED and just... Avoided words like "starve" "binge" and "hungry" because they didn't want to trigger me. Like. Sweeties, I appreciate the thought, I do, but it's more frustrating that you can't even SAY it than actually putting it into your writing. So. Please just. If you're going to write about a mental illness, do so with the intent to WRITE it, not skirt around the bush.

With that, if you are not diagnosed with the mental illness your writing for (or suspect that you have some form of it) that's okay! Google symptoms to get a basic idea, and search for first hand accounts. People's experience is a lot different than the definition. For example, some of the most hilarious people I know are severally depressed, and Google will just tell you they are sad.

Write write and write. You are building a skill. You have to practice that skill frequently.

Do not be afraid to ask for feedback. Betas are wonderful. Asking for advice is wonderful. Being too shy and afraid of criticism for asking for help is perfectly okay. (Hello fellow traveler)

If your search history doesn't have you being watched by government organizations in the next few months, you aren't researching enough. ;)

Take your time. Quality over quantity. Do NOT conform to the update fairy that demands updates frequently. Look. I love my readers. I do. But you HAVE to take your time to finish things in order for them to be worth reading. If this is six hours or six years, that's that.

Do not give everything away. Stop answering questions. We keep reading because we have unanswered questions. Anticipation = good. Knowing everything at once: bad.

Do not put in funny for the sake of funny.

Insults should be insulting, not make people want to cringe and duck their heads.

Dialog should serve as people communicating... Like actual people.

Siblings (unless otherwise said so by canon) DO NOT address each other as "bro" and "sis"

Not a native English speaker? Cool. Natives would love to help you learn their language. :) English grammar sucks.

Analogies should make sense. They should flow smoothly into the writing. If they pop out, you've lost the attention of your writers.

please, please don't glorify rape, racism, homophobia, mental illness shaming/glorification, abuse, sexism, and other crappy things. Thanks. People came for a story, not to get their souls crushed.

[relatablegenzwriter]

heya~ bit weird but do you have any advice for outlining? I always outline but half way through actually writing something I realise I've not thought of something (OTL) Thanks in advance!!

Advice on Outlining

I honestly never thought I’d see the day someone asked me for advice on outlining. When I was about ten and aiming to be the world’s youngest published novelist (lmao look how that turned out), everyone who knew me as a writer also knew that I would never, ever outline before I wrote something. I argued that it sucked all the fun out of writing. I couldn’t let my characters do whatever they wanted if I had to stick to a script. I would have to spend more time planning that I could’ve spent on actually writing my stories. I’d see all the gaps and places where my story was lacking in its plot. I’m not selling this outlining thing well, am I?

As I’ve written more, I’ve also warmed up to the idea of outlining. I’ll again preface this by saying I have never finished a novel, despite having started countless, so I can’t speak to how outlining has helped me throughout a project. But I do have a general sense of what works and what doesn’t, at least for me, so I’ll do what I can.

After some careful thought, here’s my advice on how to outline.

Don’t outline.

At least, not right away. I’ve found that I need to know my story, its characters, its ~vibes~, etc. before I can really make an accurate outline. A common concern with outlines is that you’ll make people do things out of character, or that the story won’t want to go in the direction you tell it to. Test out the waters a little bit first. Write that one scene that’s been in your head–you know which one I’m talking about–and figure out the style, the main characters, the mood, everything you really need to get the feel of your story. I like to write a bunch of beginnings, which can be helpful even if you don’t know where to start your story. Some people like to do character questionnaires so they know who they’re dealing with. Others will have that one scene that they think of when they think of their story, and will write that first to figure out where to go from there. There’s a lot of ways to warm up to the story, so play with a bunch of them and figure out what works for you. The point I’m trying to get across here is that you can’t successfully outline if you don’t know your story well enough. Fortunately, that’s an easy problem to fix.

What’s next?

That depends. If you look up “outlining methods”, you’ll find hundreds of lists, questionnaires, and weird diagrams that look like they came straight out of high school English class. There is no magical way to outline. With that being said, I’ll describe the way that I outline my work, and then add some general tips at the end.

       2. The basics.

Trying to write out every little detail from the beginning will likely overwhelm you and create writer’s block before you’ve even started writing.

don't do that.

Instead, get your basics all in one place: who are your characters? Where is it set? What is the premise? Once you do that, make note of the events that you know will happen. “Lily dies”, “Sam and Evan kiss”, “Aiyana confronts her family”, etc. I sometimes like to fill this out on paper or on a whiteboard like a timeline. Otherwise, making a bulleted list in a digital document also works. The one thing I’d advise is not to make this kind of list on paper, because as you start to insert more events between others, it’ll start to get really crowded.

      3. Fill in the rest!

Start to generate scenes and events that go between the ones you already have. Some things to consider:

what propels the story from point A to point B?

what needs to happen to further your characters’ arcs? (a follow up: do you know how you want your characters to grow throughout this story? what needs to happen in order for them to change?)

what could POSSIBLY happen?

is there a character who’s not doing enough yet who you want to give more attention to? something that’s not highlighted much in your list that you want to focus on more?

And essentially, you’ve made an outline! I know, so few steps. But this is actually going to take a while. This method may not work for you, and you’ll have to find other ones (that I’m not going into detail about because I don’t use them or know much about them). You’ll have to take some time to get to know your story. Step three WILL give you writer’s block, and as always you’ll be able to break through it, but don’t expect this process to be easy. But it is worth it!

And finally…

      4. Change it.

Once you sit down to write your story, chances are you’ll run into a plothole, or something you want to do differently. You asked about this in your question, and all I can say is yes! You’re right! For my oldest WIP, which has been around for almost six years, I can recall four specific outline revisions where I wrote the whole outline again from scratch. (This particular WIP has given me SERIOUS trouble, so take my experience with a grain of salt.) What I can say is that every time you revise your outline, it will get stronger, you’ll know your story better, and you’ll have more opportunity to be creative and revisit your story. I don’t understand why it’s considered the norm to outline once and then move on with a project, when it should be perfectly acceptable to pause your writing, say “that doesn’t look right”, and outline the story again. Your story, especially in the early stages, is fluid! You’ll actually be surprised by how long it remains that way, too. Point is, it’s okay for things to come up in the writing that don’t make sense with the outline, as long as you’re willing to revisit your original plans and reassess. I haven’t seen this approach discussed much if at all, so there’s a very good chance I could simply be a very disorganized writer who hasn’t made much progress on her big projects. But there could also be some legitimacy to this word jumble, so take what you will from it.

      5. Other outlining exercises…

Try to map out individual character arcs as part of your outlining. That way, you can make sure that their development lines up with the events in the story and the development of other characters.

If you’re a visual person, writing plot points on sticky notes and arranging them on a wall is very useful and also makes you feel like This Man. 

Free write (no erasing!), by hand, a summary of your plot–no detailed prose or dialogue, just a straightforward description of what happens. If questions come up, write them into the outline and keep writing. Once you finish you can go back and highlight all the questions you wrote.

Speaking of questions: when one comes up, really dive into it. What I like to do is write the question on top of a piece of paper and make a bulleted list of all the possible answers. Dive deeper into the ones you like, maybe combine a few. You could also do one of those web diagram things (those ones that look like clouds) if you’re the diagram type.

As your outline evolves, reassess why each scene is there. If it’s only purpose is “I like writing it”, maybe it’s time to write it for you and cut it out of the story. (Side note: this still applies to That Scene. You know the one.)

Call someone and explain the plot to them. They don’t necessarily need to be a writer, just someone who’s willing to listen to you relay the plot of a whole story to them. They can give input if they like, but the purpose of this is for you to have to explain your plot to someone else. It’ll be more obvious to you when something doesn’t make sense or belong in the story if you’re explaining it to another person. Especially note any clarifying questions or moments of confusion that they have. If you don’t have a person willing to do this, record yourself talking about it to your phone/camera/tablet/computer.

Don’t be afraid of the dramatic. When you’re first coming up with an outline, you’re exploring ALL possibilities. Even if your answer to “How does Aoife end up at Shauna’s house?” ends up being “She took the bus” instead of “The mailman, who is actually her estranged uncle, kidnapped her from her home and hid her in Shauna’s basement because Shauna and her uncle were having an affair”. You get to be creative, have fun, and even if you take the more realistic route, you’re reaffirming that that’s the direction you want to take.

Best of luck to you!

[acciofandomlove]

Indian Education System Sucks

I guess I've basically conveyed the emotions of thousands of students in India. The education system is so idiotic it makes Donald Trump look smart. Why have I started this rant out of nowhere?? Well, let me tell you a story....

So I'm good at maths, I even enjoy maths (surprising for some, I know). I'm not always amazing at it, I do make calculation errors but I still love the subject. So we had this proof in triangles that I successfully proved using concepts from the book (eventhough I knew much more effective methods) and I still got some marks deducted for the question. Naturally I asked the teacher why?? I thought that maybe I used a concept wrong or the calculation had errors. She reads my proof and then looks me straight in the eye and says, "This proof is correct but it's not the one in the book." 

Yup! I got less marks because I used creativity to give answers rather than mug them up. Hilarious right!!

I can't really blame the teacher though. She explained to me, "If it were up to me I would have given you the marks but when the paper goes for checking in another school for the boards (Boards are basically the main exams like SATs in India. Takes place in 10th and 12th, I'm in 10th, compulsory for all. Checked by another school's teacher) the teacher who checks your paper may not be very smart and if you don't write the proof as it is described in the book you'll get your marks deducted."

So basically I'm being punished because of another teacher's incompetence. How just. This will surely be beneficial to develop our minds.

I always thought that maths helped increase your intelligence, not your memory power. 

It's not just about maths. Science, social science, english, etc. Everything is based on mugging up. I can get that you must stick to what the course contains and not go beyond that, but it's not that, it's writing the exact words of the books, the exact terminology. Doesn't matter if your answer held the same meaning, you must stick to what the book has written.

There are other problems too.

In english, you write an answer within the word limit they say you must explain more and when you explain then they say that you've exceeded the word limit. When you keep both in mind, they say you've cramped too much information into the answer, it wasn't needed. Create the prefect balance they say. Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know that I had to be Shakespeare and reach your impossible standards to get good grades. 

In social science, use specific terms. You would think that they are taking about important terms like revolution, patriarchy, civil war or something. Nope, it's terms like vis-a-vis, dominant, value (and these are words from my test that have marks deduced for them) which had been replaced with words or phrases with similar or even the same meaning. Some of the information is also outdated, like the climate chapter which states that summer in Delhi ends in May when everyone knows that the full effect of summer is experienced in June. Even our teacher says that the text is outdated.

The worst part, this won't happen to everyone just the smart kids. It wouldn't even happen in the actual boards. But it will happen all throughout 10th in every test, emphasis on preboard 2. And if you are a student who scores above 90% in most exams. Well good luck cause the teacher's will come after you like rabid animals. Unless you're incredibly good at mugging up cause then you're totally fine. The excuse for this? "You're a smart kid and we are just pointing out your flaws so you can do better in the finals." I guess this is kinda smart in some ways but it has four major negative side effects too.

One, setting seemingly impossible standards. For a student like me who has problem mugging up information, this system of exact terminology is stressful. Even besides that, there are some expectations (like the English one I mentioned) that are so ridiculous. How can you expect a 15-16 year old to cope up with this?

Two, disheartened students. I'm not usually one to fret over less marks. But God, this continuous feeling of not living up to even your own expectations is disheartening. Sure, soon enough this slump gets you even more determined to do better but the original feeling is absolutely horrible. And I've seen people not even take care of their health or become depressed due to this. Thankfully, I have no intentions of going down that path. 

Third, acceptance. This is not the good kind of acceptance where the student accepts their marks and moves on, studying hard for the next exam. In this acceptance, the student gets a slump in their marks, starts contemplating if they're not actually as smart as they thought, lowers their own expectations and then still studies somewhat but doesn't care what grade they get. This basically sucks out all the ambitiousness from inside a person.

Fourth and maybe the most important, parents. Fortunately, my parents have been very supportive and have encouraged me to do better. But they do have expectations, not unrealistic ones, but still present. And I feel so horrible when I let then down. I can only imagine what the child of a not so supportive parent feels like. 

I'm just talking about 10th, but all throughout your school experience, slowly-slowly students loose their inquisitiveness and become parrots who can repeat the words but not understand its meaning. Why is it that the despite having such a huge working population and being a tech hub, the number of innovative inventions and ideas that come up are limited in India? Students suicides, on the other hand, are enjoying a steady incline. Most of them are done due to stress of studies. Not encouraging suicide, there is always a better way, but this must indicate towards something. 

I see some of the smartest students I know getting their marks deducted cause they know too much or cause they don't answer in the exact manner that the teacher wishes the answer to be in. This is complete stupidity!

I could easily rant more if I wanted to but I'll just stop by quoting a line from the movie 3 Idiots (the best movie for any Indian student or even any student in the world). "Even the lion learns how to sit on the stool because of the fear of a whip. But we call that lion well-trained not well-educated."

Unfortunately, it'll take a long time for our country to understand this. 

[redantsunderneath]

On Analysis - Introduction (the “why” part)

“He had the feeling that everything he saw was a broken-off piece of some giant blank thing that he had forgotten had happened to him.” ― Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood

Maybe some broader personal context would help understating why in god’s name I write shit about how Age of Ultron is a remake of Eraserhead and Marvel crossovers are inherently about self hating creatives going to war with editorial. Like everyone else, I love a well told story but want to be surprised - seeing Star Wars is still the single biggest event in my life in supercharging my interest in narrative art.  But from early on, I had this left brain/right brain conflict going on. I was super interested in details and loved anything that required getting all the pieces to understand (that one episode of Speed Racer where they explain all the buttons I only saw once but I must have excitedly told everyone in the schoolyard about it 2 or 3 times) and I’ve always been down for the even the shittiest world-building that makes you dig for details (maybe this why Star Wars’ gesturing at a larger canvas lit my fuse so hard and how my introduction to Marvel comics became the second stage rocket booster 3 years later - see my retropseudonostalgia post). This also is probably common, especially here.

But it’s the right brain impulse became an overriding unconscious attractor. I saw The Man with the X-Ray eyes very young and had some serious nightmares, but mostly remember actually wanting to recapture that dread.  This became a pattern.  Anything that unsettled me or made me feel weird, my brain interpreted as a good experience. 1977 was a real flashpoint for me: Star Wars, sure, and 8 is the right age for Thanatos to start haunting you, but I also got super fucking sucked in to the Prisoner and imprinted on BBC’s Dracula (especially the baby eating scene where I remembered the brides actually eating the baby on camera until the clip showed up on YouTube and, turns out, it was just a cut to a flame effect and the baby eating was all in my and Q anon’s head). The thing that unites these later two is a the feeling of Unheimliche, or something - a sort of out of body experience due to transgressive touching of something in the reptile brain, recognizable but hard to formulate in language.  

Again, not saying this is an unusual experience, but I sought after this diencephalonic impact aggressively and spent years chasing this particular dragon before I figured out what I was doing. Rank and file horror didn’t cut it because I wanted not only to feel it but to understand what it was telling me and doing to me, to wrestle with it, so needed to something resonant to be there. Kubrick’s one neat trick was having an entirely rational approach to relentlessly assembling this kind of ineffable experience… depth of meaning by design.  I think Christopher Nolan is only popular because we have so few architect directors today so we’ll take a B- stab at it (though the thematic waters he sails on are a bit shallow). This is what I was doing receptively, wanting to cognitively reverse engineer the texts that moved me and autopsy my reaction .  There were elements the things that got to me had in common - there was an existential abjection that felt like a kind of rapture, a transgressive daring in showing me something I shouldn’t see, a experience of Mark Fisher’s version of the weird and/or the eerie, but most of all a feeling that there was a story underneath there being told in an abstract language that I innately understood but my conscious mind couldn’t quite get to.

On the other side of my brain, I was sparring with narrative structure and was captivated by the way periodical narrative produced this fuzziness and that trashy or disreputable forms were better at doing some really complex things. After a late 70s of consuming everything I could, like sitcoms no-one remembers, 1930s and 40s franchise B movies, Godzilla, ABC hourlongs (it was the time that Fantasy Island and the Bionic Woman strode the airwaves), etc - just absolute garbage - Comics hit me in 1980 and hijacked my brain for half a decade.  This mostly satisfied that architectural impulse, though, and the need for the uncanny reasserted itself as a shifting obsession to pop/rock music, “hard” books, and catholic moviegoing (and I guess some of that right brain stuff is intrinsically libidinous and the pubertal timing seems right).  

My childhood book consumption till 77 was all atlases, history, and encyclopedias.  77 to 83 it was SF/Fantasy.  The one work of fiction I strongly remember as a small child was There’s a Monster at the End of this Book which is a work of absolute intersubjective terror that implicates the crap out you - I never bought the ending and saw it as a necessary contrivance to make it OK for kids but I repeatedly endangered Grover anyway, enjoying the transporting dread, and learned meta in Kindergarten as a bonus! But in 1984 (during the Sarajevo Olympics, that’s etched in my brain) I read Moby Dick, which was my first formative struggle with understanding subliminal story.  I was already in love with symbolism and conversant with nuts and bolts MFA program bullshit, as any ironically pretentious HS student would be, but reading that and writing about it and other “tough” books (especially the next year in Junior English where I learned to write, full stop) taught me I could think about this stuff and hold these abstractions in my head long enough to see what was happening under the waterline.

Movies really dominated the late 80s, though, and I became obsessed with everything from the Godfather to Die Hard, but I was only just peaking under the hood, until the left brain brought me back to TV and and thinking about narrative structure.  Twin peaks (and Wild at Heart) made me a real Lynch fan and I sensed what I sought was in that direction, but it wasn’t until I watched the whole show and movie in one weekend in 1997 that I had my conversion experience. Moby Dick opened the door a bit, but that weekend kicked it in.  My first real resource for understanding (other than HS English, a couple of hits of acid, and dorm room bull sessions with sort of smart people) was alt.tv.twin-peaks where there were many amateur scholars trying to understand the red room and above the convenience store scenes, complete with ascii maps.  

The final inciting event was Inland Empire.  The thing about David Lynch that is so perfect for my hobbyhorses is that he works within a scene entirely intuitively, connecting to really primordial stuff, and puts everything together by “painting” with feelings instead of paint, never thinking about it, just knowing when it’s right. But he usually works with a writer and editor who helps shape everything into something at least fitfully comprehensible for someone wanting to follow the surface story. You get the general idea and can meditate on the areas that are clearly not “real” in some sense and require either aesthetic surrender or a lot of thought and one hell of an interpretive toolkit - you can see the frame even if you don’t understand every bit of the picture.  Inland Empire, which he made with no other behind the camera people, is pretty much all the mind-blowing bits with very little skeleton, an abstract painting with no frame. This forces you, if you want to understand in any way beyond just enjoying the moments viscerally, to effort like hell.  The project of this for me, the reason I started this Tumblr, was using the internet for procuring and learning to use interpretive tools and, in so doing, writing my way to constructing an understanding of this one movie.  As a result, my approach to all narrative art was changed.  I figure it is time to unpack this into a framework and try to recall the specific things that helped me get here.

[thesunnyshow]

Name: Ezralia Vali, but all my friends call me Elv

Writing Blog URL(s): @ezralia-writes (@haylo4ever was my OG writing account 5 years ago)

Age: 19

Nationality: Asian American

Languages: English and un poco Espanol

Star Sign: Aries

MBTI: INFJ

Favorite color: As of now, red

Favorite food: Pasta

Favorite movie: The Golden Compass, but Howl’s Moving Castle and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time are close choices too

Favorite ice cream flavor: Vanilla with chocolate syrup or caramel

Favorite animal: Narwhals

Go-to karaoke song: Uh, Who Do You Love (Monsta X)

Dream job (whether you have a job or not): TBH, my dream job is being a manager/CEO of a tech job (realistically) or a backup dancer for kpop groups (unrealistically)

Coffee or tea? What are you ordering? Neither, hot coco (coffee in the future to keep me sane)

If you could have one superpower, what would you choose? Mind-read 

If you could visit a historical era, which would you choose? Sengoku Japanese period or in England when kings and queens were bloody powerful 

If you could restart your life, knowing what you do now, would you? Yes

Would you rather fight 100 chicken-sized horses or one horse-sized chicken? 100 chicken-sized horses

If you were a trope in a teen high school movie, what would you have been? Please, I wanna be in the nerdy girl and jock romance but honestly, I’m probably just the side, hermit character.

Do you believe in aliens/supernatural creatures? Yes but I know they don’t exist 

Fun fact about yourself that not everyone would know? Uh, I talk a lot about myself but I have trypophobia - there should not be holes in things that are supposed to be whole.

What fandom(s) do you write for? As of now, I write for BTS, GOT7, NCT, Monsta X, and Stray Kids

When did you post your first piece? May 26, 2020 (Dec 7, 2014 was my OG post on ff.net haha)

Do you write fluff/angst/crack/general/smut, combo, etc? Why? I write fluff, angst (lots), and sometimes crack. While I can rec some awesome smuts, I don’t feel comfortable writing explicit smut as of yet, although I will elude to some smexy time. I do have a WIP that I will one day write that will definitely include smut because it’s part of the story.

Do you write OCs, X Readers, Ships...etc? I have some OG OCs and my starter fics on Tumblr were third-person female reader. However, recent works include x you (reader) and I find that really fun and easier to write! I don’t really write any ships for Kpop.

Why did you decide to write for Tumblr? Having read so many awesome works on Tumblr made me want to write and hopefully have other readers experience the same feelings I do when I read that great piece. However, my original goal was just to write for Monsta X since there aren’t a whole lot of fics for them but also because I have too many ideas running in my mind. Lastly, I just write for myself.

What inspires you to write? The groups I write for, other things I read (like mangas and/or shows), and especially songs!

What genres/AUs do you enjoy writing the most? I write best fluff for established relationships because otherwise it’s all just angst, which is a lot of fun to write while keeping it not too toxic unless stated otherwise for plot. I also love silly fics for giggles. As for Au’s I enjoy regular day to day life with a spin or fantasy based Au’s.

What do you hope your readers take away from your work? I hope they just feel a strong emotion - depending on the genre. I hope that they get to the end and find all the nuances I try to sprinkle throughout the story hinting to clues or plot devices. That’s always what I try to aim for.

What do you do when you hit a rough spot creatively? Cry. Jokes aside, I take a break/breather to refocus and take time for myself. I also read professional works to take my mind off things or get inspired. 

What is your favorite work and why? Your most successful? My personal favorite of my published works would be my Han Jisung x reader, Promise. It was my first kpop fic and a gift to my friend. I think it’s a hallmark of my return to writing and I look forward to publishing more of my favorite plots! My most successful is Spiderling, a Jeon Jungkook x reader fic, not surprised at all that my first official BTS fic would be the most popular one of my current works haha.

Who is your favorite person to write about? Honestly, I have so many ideas for Changkyun haha. I feel like he’s totally boyfriend material and can fit different roles from a total fratboy to a soft boyfriend. But I’m trying to expand both my writing and pairings and it’s a fun challenge to write for the different boys.

Do you think there’s a difference between writing fanfiction vs. completely original prose? I actually do! In my honest opinion, fanfiction is work about an already established character/person/universe. It’s easier for me to think up ideas for characters already prepped because I personally get lost in the details already of thinking up terms/universes to place the story in. I have a character that’s already established and people know about without having to elaborate on those finer details.

What do you think makes a good story? Proper formatting goes a long way. While I don’t judge on grammar and spelling mistakes, it is a much smoother read if people follow basic narrative-writing skills. I feel like anyone who can embody their own style and ideas (without being discriminatory or mean), then they’ve really got me hooked.

What is your writing process like? A mess. I know a lot of people outline, and I try that sometimes. But, normally I just get straight into writing what I’ve brainstormed, maybe adding some notes for future events here and there. If I get tied up at a certain part, I make a messy line break and start another scene.

Would you ever repurpose a fic into a completely original story? Yes. Funnily enough though, I repurpose my original storylines for fics, but if I could, I would write an original story.

What tropes do you love, and what tropes can’t you stand? I can’t stand cliches but I WILL cry over them if they’re well-written and/or have a spin on them. So, ultimately I’m down for anything. Enemy to lovers isn’t always my favorite but @gukyi​ does a great job, since that’s her renowned trope.

How much would you say audience feedback/engagement means to you? A lot! I have a few lovely mootz that always have something nice to say, but I would love more reader interaction! Of course, I’m a newer writer and haven’t blown up so it is to be expected that I’m a little lonely right now. I hope that’s not a long-term thing.

What has been one of the biggest factors of your success (of any size)? Who I write for. I hate to be blunt about it, but certain members and/or groups truly are more popular which is a shame at times. Plus, interacting with more mootz and authors as well as joining discord chats and networks helps by meeting new people who will interact with you and your content.

Do you think fanfic writers get unfairly judged? Yes, at times and with certain topics. We all know people will go on anon and tear anyone down for whatever reason.

Do you think art can be a medium for change? Definitely! Writing for the public,(especially fanfic and reader-based fics) especially in these times, means you have to adapt and adhere to the ever-changing times. We have a role to play in how people perceive things, whether that’s regarding an IRL person or how we view others with representation.

Do you ever feel there are times when you’re writing for others, rather than yourself? Huh, as of now, I feel like I’m writing for myself. Without a lot of interaction, I don’t feel pressure. I do want to write for other groups, but as of now I’m trying to pick up speed with certain groups. I have a lot of WIPs, so we will see where I end up.

Do you ever feel like people have misunderstood you or your writing at times? Not that I know of, haha.

Do your offline friends/loved ones know you write for Tumblr? No, haha.

What is one thing you wish you could tell your followers? I love you!

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers who might be too scared to put themselves out there? Don’t be afraid! It’s scary, but the worst that can happen is not writing!

Are there any times when you regret joining Tumblr? HAahaha, only because the site’s interaction roles have drastically dropped and a lot of the features suck. But the people I’ve met… priceless. I love them all and a lot have impacted my life so positively.

Do you have any mutuals who have been particularly formative/supportive in your Tumblr journey? Yes! All of them!

Pick a quote to end your interview with: 

Stan yourself first! <3

[beauty-grace-outer-space]

1 and 9?

1. what is/was school like for you?

School was apparently stupidly easy throughout elementary school. In kindergarten, I’d finish the work before the teacher finished explaining the assignment because I could read faster than she could talk, and then I’d want to help the others or go do something else. They had a counselor come sit in on the class to observe me after a while (and the teacher complaining) and he promptly informed everyone that he was absolutely certain that I had ADHD, and that the solution was not to medicate me or switch classes, but for the teacher to step it up and keep me engaged. 

After that, they wanted to move me to third grade, but I was only five years old so instead, I did first grade half in English, half in Japanese. But the Japanese teacher really did not like me (because I was younger than the other students) and despite doing well in the class, she refused to teach me. She called me “the baby” and made me sit off to the side and “play” instead of lessons most of the time. Halfway through the year, they moved me back to an all English first-grade class, and I had the meanest teacher I’ve ever had. I got in trouble a lot. 

In second grade, my teacher was a gem and instated a rule that I could move around however I wanted, and sit in whatever position I wanted... as long as I could touch my desk. She incorporated singing into the lessons, which I found fascinating, and had a lot of student participation which helped. I have been reliably informed that this was the point when other students started to bully me, but I have very little or no memory of it. I asked a friend about it once, and she has vivid memories of it all. When I asked her why, she said, “People thought you were really weird”. I just said, “I am really weird.” 

In third grade, my teacher gave out “points” for good behavior, and had a separate area of the classroom for play once work was finished. She kept legos and other fun toys on hand which was great, and I started trying to build up good behavior points to buy little gifts for my mom in the student store. That year, I made student of the month for the first time and cried. 

In fourth grade, I broke my wrist and the boy next to me got mono so I sat alone most of the year. My teacher liked to read to us from The Hobbit or the Chronicles of Narnia. Not many memories from that year. 

In fifth grade, my teacher was a tiny amazing woman who encouraged me to write stories once I had finished my work. My friends and I formed an author’s club and a book club, and that’s when I really started writing in my free time. 

Sixth grade was the first year I had multiple teachers (in middle school you change classes). It’s also the first year I remember struggling with math. 

Past that point, it’s really hit or miss. Sixth grade was the year I was formally diagnosed with OCD and major depressive disorder. It’s very common for folks with ADHD to hit a breaking point and suddenly struggle immensely, and most of my memories of middle school are of sitting at the dining room table in tears, radio on in the background because I needed a dual focus point, trying desperately to do my math homework. 

For the first time in my life, I felt stupid. I had always been “the smart kid”, the “gifted child”. As I failed to comprehend basic math concepts, my self-esteem plummeted. Something in my brain interpreted this as a loss of control, and I started washing my hands until they bled. I started self-harming. I wasn’t sleeping well. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, and all I could see was that everything I had ever thought myself to be was a lie, and everyone was going to be so disappointed that I failed to live up to all that supposed potential. 

My mom found me a therapist (whom I still see to this day). We figured out how to keep my hands from looking like desert battlegrounds. I joined student government, but for the first few years, people didn’t like me much. I made the National Honor Society but had to drop out in tenth grade because I couldn’t make an A in math class. I was on track for the College Prep. Honors diploma, but I missed it by (you guessed it) one math class. 

I found choir and theater, and I excelled in English. I struggled a lot, but I found my niche, and I threw myself into art subjects with everything I had. My graduated class was really small, so we all go to know each other really well and I got along well with basically everyone (though I was still very weird. I just knew how to own it and roll with it). 

I couldn’t afford a university (my family went through a really hard financial patch), so I applied for community college. I had a lot of angst about that because, at 17, it felt like failing somehow. (It’s not, and don’t let anyone tell you it is. Community college is dope, valid, and budget-friendly.) I did great in my classes... but bombed math. Totally failed it. Straight “F” for the first time in my life. And I burnt myself to the ground. 

In nine months I did six stage productions and 20 classes. I got to school around 7AM and left after midnight sometimes. Other unfortunate circumstances occurred (cough trauma cough) and I ended up leaving the school for a gap year, but I was suicidal and struggling a lot. 

A year later, I made it into my dream school and I moved out of state to attend. One of the first classes I had to take was a math class, and I was distraught. But something about this teacher, and the way he taught, and the type of math it was... it clicked. I passed the class with a B+, and it fulfilled my math requirement forever. I called my mom sobbing. 

I had a great first year, went back for the second... and burnt myself out again. More unfortunate circumstances occurred, and between the harassment, the social abuse, the verbally abusive director I had for the show I was in that year, and a roommate who wouldn’t speak to me, I burned myself out again. 

I dropped out after that year. It took five years to gather up the willpower to try again. Last year, I finished my degree via online classes. Somewhere in there, I stumbled upon ADHD characteristics and got curious. Asked my mom and turns out they had me unofficially diagnosed when I was five and no one informed me. They did their best to help things along, though. My mom interviewed and hand-selected my teachers where she could. The administrative staff was onboard to work with me instead of against me. I just had no idea. 

TL;DR: School was interesting, I had no idea I had ADHD and just kind of muddled along wondering why I was so weird/couldn’t shut up half the time. Gifted kid burnout, college blew up in my face, lots of mental health stuff and pain later, ta-da! AA. 

(If ya’ll could see the face Grammarly is making at me because of the tone and wording of this post... it’s like O_O-- “bitch is you ok?”). 

9. favorite stim / one you do most often?

I only very recently became aware that I stim. I’ve always done it, but again, I was not aware that I had ADHD until last year. Most common ones are leg bouncing and-- if I’m playing an instrument, reading, or thinking-- rocking. I do think there’s something to be said for... I don’t know how to say this and not make it weird, but... having something to chew/suck on? Because I bite the inside of my mouth a lot, and if I have a lollipop, I’ll first finish it, then chew on the stick, etc. but I won’t seek things out to... put in my mouth, if that makes sense? I also sing basically constantly if I’m alone. There are more, but they don’t come up as much. 

[ckret2]

And because I'm also curious, what is the weirdest thing you have had to learn/research for a story - to the point of "Damn, that's weird. Even for me"?

Every single time I’m writing a nonhuman character—like, say, a dragon, or a giant pteranodon made out of rocks, or a robotic spider—and I realize that the character is gonna be banging sometime soon and that means I have to put at least a little thought into the mechanics of how that works for their species, I have to go to google and type in “spider genitalia” and go please show me scientific diagrams and not weird horny things, please show me scientific diagrams and not weird horny things, please show me—

At this point, my weirdometer is broken. In the past year, off the top of my head, I’ve had to look up:

- what color smoke does a fish give off when you toss it in a volcano? (answer: boring gray smoke. I thought it might be black, which is why I checked, but nah.)

- almost a whole day on researching how volcanos melt rocks when magma is actually colder than their component rocks’ melting points (answer: the melting temperature of rocks is lowered when the pressure on them is reduced or when they’re mixed with water, both of which happens when rocks are forced up through the mantle toward a volcano)

- I was only looking up how rocks melt into magma because I was trying to figure out how to build a glass melting kiln and realized lava wasn’t hot enough to melt glass (much less rocks), so how does a fire get hot enough to melt glass? (answer: if you add extra oxygen to a fire it gets hotter, so you’ve gotta have some way to pump extra air over the fire fast enough to increase the heat but not so fast it also blows extra heat away)

- listen. listen I did… a lot of research on lava. (did you know that most volcanoes form on the borders of tectonic plates but a few come from tiny pinprick holes in the middle of tectonic plates instead? These are called “hotspot volcanoes” and Hawaii is one! The reason Hawaii is a long line of islands is because the tectonic plate on top of the hotspot keeps moving and so the volcano keeps punching new holes up through the plate! The biggest island is the newest and the smallest are the oldest & most eroded, and if you look off the southeast coast of Hawaii a new island is currently being formed by a volcano underwater, and if you look northwest off the coast of Hawaii there’s a bunch of eroded-away underwater islands going off in a dotted line! If you keep following it long enough at one point the underwater islands make an abrupt turn in a different direction because millions of years ago that’s when the tectonic plate Hawaii is on hit another plate and started floating in a different direction! Did you know that we didn’t even know tectonic plates existed until like the 60s?!)

- when was vaseline invented (patented in 1872; also it wasn’t “invented” so much as “discovered,” it’s a byproduct of pumping up oil)

- is it safe to put vaseline on snake junk (yes, in fact it’s often used by veterinarians when they have to prod around to figure out what a snake’s sex is)

- Which frequencies do AM and FM radio operate on, no the EXACT frequencies, how different are they from each other (AM is on 535 kHz to 1605 kHz, or 535 thousand Hz to 1,605 thousand Hz. FM is on 88 to 108 MHz or 88 million Hz to 108 million Hz. Humans can hear from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. A Hz, or Hertz, is basically “how many times does this thingy vibrate per second.” So the lowest AM frequencies are vibrating about 26 times faster than the highest sound a human can hear, and the lowest FM frequency vibrates about 55 times faster than the highest AM frequency)

- What was gay life in the 1920s in New Orleans like, no not the 1920s in San Francisco or New York I want New Orleans, no not what gay life in New Orleans is like today I want the 1920s, no not gay history in New Orleans back to the 1940s I want the 1920s and only the 1920s and specifically the 1920s, I will take earlier if you have it but don’t you dare try to tell me about the first gay Carnival krewe in 1958 again— (… this one’s a work in progress)

- how to translate “in the grass” from Old English into modern English in a way that lets you make a grass/grace pun in Middle English (as best I can work out, Old English for “in the grass” is “in þæm græse,” and græse evolved like græse > græs > gras > grass, where “gras” in Middle English is a potential spelling for either “grass” or “grace”)

- I mean, we’ve all had to look up “what were historically-used terms for queer people in the 30s/in the 20s/in the 10s/in the 1800s/etc” and then, tiredly, had to look up “were there any historically-used terms for queer people that don’t sound even more queerphobic than they did back then?” (Fun Victorian trivia: “Greek love” was used as code for gay love because Greek mythology was one of the only places where gay romance was readable—if you had a good enough education to learn that—because it’s Greek and therefore it’s Art and that makes it okay. Another late Victorian term, based on a now-outdated presumption of a correlation between gender identity and sexuality: “sexual inversion,” which means that a given person inverts the assumed gender roles for their assigned sex. So someone AMAB who’s called a sexual invert would, under this theory, be expected to act/dress/present as a woman AND want to/try to fulfill a woman’s gender roles AND would, “like a woman,” be sexually & romantically interested in men. Obviously, this is uhhhh, Not Good by modern standards—but it was an idea put forth by some of the first modern European psychologists to be like “the healthiest thing to do for these folks is let them live out the gender they say they are and to let them screw the way they wanna screw!” so it was an actual step in the right direction. AND it was put forth in an era when sexual preference wasn’t seen as something you’re hardwired or born with but as simply an action you can choose to pursue or not pursue, like deciding to participate in or not participate in a sport. As far as I can see this is one of the first European frameworks that presents queerness as something you are rather than something you do, so a step toward our general modern perception. What I don’t know is how widely the term was known/used in queer communities rather than in psychiatric circles.)

- Exactly how deep is Charles River in Boston (sorta 15 to 20 feet deep, it only gets deeper than 30 feet in a few small spots)

- Exactly how tall are the mountains around Death Valley (god I don’t wanna look this up again, thousands of feet, the tallest is like 11k feet)

- If you’re flying from New Zealand to Mexico but like, not in a plane, you’re just out there flying, what islands are in the area that you might pass over (if you don’t hit either French Polynesia or the Pitcairn Islands you’re kinda SOL until you reach the Galapagos. Also, all three of these island chains are over volcanic hotspots!)

- how fast can a bigass US battleship go (the bigassest ship the US Navy has is Nimitz-Class Aircraft Carriers and they can go 30 knots, which is 34 mph, which sucks. screw that, just get in a car and drive across the ocean)

So like. Aside from bracing in terror every time I have to google animal junk because I KNOW what nightmares are out there? It’s kinda hard to sort out what’s weirder than the rest, because like. I’ve gotta look up everything. Nothing’s weird when everything’s on the table.

Speaking of the potential nightmare-inducing potential of researching animal junk: I wasn’t even looking for this information, I was trying to find out what the breeding season for deer is, but this is what I found out: did you know that when male deer are planning to go get laid, they bend their heads down and pee on their own faces?

You, you know exactly what character had me doing deer research in the first place.

If I have to be haunted by this unwanted unasked-for knowledge, so does everyone else.