#posts that say ​i need to revisit the source material

[agroupofcrows]

it’s two am but ​do you guys remember the big reveal scene where gintoki is like. ‘are you my dad’s evil twin? actually it doesn’t matter if you are, i can kill you just like i killed real dad.’ and then a flying ship, because obviously there are flying ships in this story, a flying ship crashes to the ground right on top of uturo. and after pausing for effect, utsuro dramatically tears the shipwreck off of himself, not unlike that “grandma it’s me!” meme guy revealing his anastasia drag, except utsuro is naked and unharmed under the shipwreck and voiced by yamadera koichi and he aims a withering look at gintoki (entirely unnecessarily, as gintoki is temporarily blinded by adrenaline) aims a withering look at gintoki that is meant to convey ‘i’m not your evil dad, i’m corpse georg. your real dad was also corpse georg. you are corpse georg. and guess what? this entire planet is corpse georg.’

[randomalistic]

hey! i'm concidering writing an autism-fueled video essay about a blorbo , and i think your similar in concept video on that little white man is very well put together ! i was wondering if you had any tips on how to structure or write something like that?.. also if you answered it allready you can just link the post no worries!!

SLAY hold on Ok so I actually havent made a post for script writing... or if i did i forgor. But here's a post for what programs I use and PNGtuber stuff in particular. I'll probably end up making a masterpost at SOME POINT but I am still learning and have made a total of 3 video essays in my life </3

ANYWAYS THIS IS JUST ME RAMBLING FOR MULTIPLE PARAGRAPHS👍

Umm okay so for script writing... It really depends on the scope of the project. If its about a character or topic you have a TON of preconceived knowledge on, just dump every bit of information out from your brain onto a google doc. make multiple docs even. it doesnt matter how messy it gets. Then just start structuring it however you want, like make an outline, explore ideas and how they could flow into eachother, scrap them, keep bits you like, etc. Expect to scrap a LOT of rambling, which is normal. Don't delete anything you write though, just keep it in a separate place just in case you want to revisit any ideas later.

I think the most important guideline for me personally was to structure it in a way that is "slow and steady." Don't explode all the information you have all at once, you kinda just want to trickle-feed it to the audience. The flow of one concept to another is also important, just do bare minimum for the audience to understand, don't distract them with extra info that doesn't connect to your main point for that section.

Basically, think of the YouTube essays that had you really engaged, or that you really enjoyed, study what you REALLY liked about them - What are the main points? how does it portray new information? Think about their structure as a baseline

Now something related ( definitely not a necessity ) but personally one of my FAVORITE things great video essays do is strategically withholding information from the audience right up until that info is relevant, or until it would have the MOST impact. Storytelling mediums do this too

One of my fav example of this is from a video by LasersZ "How Bolt is a critique of Disney" If you want it slightly spoiled, keep reading. Otherwise just watch it first lol

The narrator argues how Penny's character is a struggling child actor, and he lays out all the information for this argument through media analysis / evidence from the movie itself, he gets you invested in her character struggle.. and then he reveals something: That this whole time, Penny is actually voiced by Miley Cyrus - an at the time child actor who was being used by the TV industry in the exact same way they were using Penny in Bolt. This argument just TRANSCENDED the source material. When he could've just mentioned that information offhandedly at the start, he actually USED that information to strengthen his argument and make the video more meaningful and engaging. Even if you aren't making an argument, this sentiment is probably still useful. You really don't have to pull a "twist" in your video to make it fun, but i just like them hehe

Another example is the goddamn MAGNUM OPUS that is DefunctLand's Disney Channel theme song investigation. At the very end, a HUGE piece of information is revealed that makes the whole video absolutely outstanding, and so appreciative of what its trying to do. I'm not even going to SAY it you need to watch it yourself. If you know you KNOW. AAAGHH. You also see this in Summoning Salt speedrunning history videos. It's always like "it seems this was the new world record... UNTIL... (BOOM. NEW SPEEDRUNNER / STRATEGY DISCOVERED AT JUST THE RIGHT TIME)

ok now I'm just rambling about my favorite videos LOL but you know what I mean. It's internet storytelling. If you want to make it more exciting / meaningful / funny, be very select with the information you're delivering. again, a strategic 'bare minimum' for the audience to understand, don't distract them.

Ooh another thing- specifically something I've taken from Patricia Taxxon's DHMIS video : Tell the audience - how did this thing make you FEEL. In an era where lazy content and Ai is everywhere, people want humanity and authenticity more than ANYTHING. So don't be afraid to go a little off script, be unprofessional, be vulnerable, just be yourself! :']

Anyways I think thats the best advice I can offer rn cuz this post has been in my drafts for months and i forgot about it oops. Thank you so much for asking ❤️

[brucebocchi]

Ranking 2024 anime, Pt. 2: #40-31

hey, this post is also available on my ko-fi, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as i do this for free and am currently between jobs. you can find part 1 of the list here. thanks!

Alright, on we go to the list proper. The first post was probably whiplash-inducing, going from a bunch of shorter stuff I loved to whole seasons I hated, but we can only go up from here. I watched a lot of anime this year, as the numbers indicate, so there's a little positivity to be found even in the lower rankings.

As always, OPs are linked in the series titles. Watch them, they're almost all great.

40. Metallic Rouge

One of the biggest disappointments of the year, one which I didn’t think could be outdone (and I’ll get to that one shortly). Metallic Rouge had so much going for it as a Studio Bones original for its anniversary, and managed to fumble all of its promise and goodwill in slow, agonizing fashion. 

It’s a shame, too. Metallic Rouge still looks awesome; the character and mech designs are excellent, the space-cyberpunk aesthetic is undeniable, and the animation can be terrific when it counts. The story, on the other hand, is so completely asinine that I was sick of this show before it ended. I’ve mostly forgotten what even happens, partly because it was that infuriating to keep up with, and partly because I feel like the writers forgot too; the bulk of any actual story felt backloaded into the last two or three episodes because they focused too hard on vibes for a while. I think they were trying to go for some “G-Witch by way of Detroit: Become Human” something or other, but all of it rang hollow. I’m still not sure whether it needed more runtime or better writers. Probably both.

Not worth your time. Just watch the OP and imagine a better show than what we got.

39. Mysterious Disappearances

I’ve thought so little about this show since it went off the air that I don’t really have anything new to say. Looks pretty lousy most of the time, not that interesting, oddly horny, and the plot structure gets kind of cloying after a while.

I know I harped on that last point when I reviewed it at the end of the spring season, but something funny happened after I did. Back in July, I mentioned that I took issue with the formula of “we encounter a paranormal anomaly, it’s identified as a yokai or urban legend, we learn its tragic backstory, our protagonists give it closure, and we move on” because it felt manipulative after I realized that it happened with every arc, and then I went ahead and read DanDaDan, which basically does exactly the same thing but a hell of a lot better. Comparing a middling work like this to DanDaDan of all things feels unfair, but they cover pretty similar ground. Maybe it’s sharper writing, or maybe it’s just a more engaging work. Who’s to say?

I’d also said in my review that Mysterious Disappearances unintentionally gives off the vibe of a poorly-archived mid-2000s series, but I hadn’t realized just how right I was: It turns out that studio Zero-G just went ahead and made up its own ending even though the source material is still ongoing. Better shows did the same this year, but the studio and I seem to have the same level of faith that this anime’s ever coming back.

38. My Deer Friend Nokotan

Honestly? Fuck this show.

I’ve already gone into what I did and didn’t like about Nokotan after it went off air a few months ago and I don’t care to revisit that while it’s still relatively fresh. Not nearly as funny as it pretended to be, yet still not even confident in its own sense of humor. The OP's still a bop (calling it "Shikairo Days" was a genuinely great joke), and a small handful of gags do land, but not enough to prevent this from being a massive disappointment.  At the same time, Nokotan was still somehow not the biggest letdown of the year.

37. Uzumaki

This was the biggest letdown of the year.

When an anime adaptation of the legendary Junji Ito horror manga was first announced in 2019, it was hard not to get excited. Even when I’d mostly fallen out of anime fandom, I knew damn well who Junji Ito was and I knew Uzumaki. Adult Swim was funding the project, a prestige studio in Production I.G. was handling the animation, and they even nabbed Hereditary composer Colin Stetson for the score. Ito’s manga is famously very difficult to adapt well, and it looked like we finally had a project being taken seriously. Delays and radio silence in the ensuing years were disappointing, but I was willing to be patient if it meant everything was being handled right. When the trailer dropped this summer, it looked like it would be worth the wait.

And for one glorious episode, it seemed like everyone’s patience paid off. Uzumaki’s debut episode was one of the most visually arresting pieces of animation I’ve ever seen: The entire look and feel was faithful to Ito’s inimitable style, from the meticulously detailed linework to the stark black-and-white color grading of his manga’s pages. On top of that, the animation itself was absurdly good; the process of rotoscoping 3D motion capture seemed arduous, but the end result was beautifully lifelike for a story where that quality could only serve to instill further terror. Several of the most iconic images from the early chapters looked incredible in hi-def motion. Sure, the pacing was a little fast, but this was a four-episode miniseries. We could deal. This was just too good.

And then came the second episode.

I’m not going to over-elaborate or relitigate every single thing that went wrong here, because it’s a lot. Uzumaki was in development for a long time, and that five year gap between announcement and release included several detriments to the production process, not the least of which being COVID, animation production changing hands between several studios, and new leadership for Adult Swim’s parent company that now favors profit over product, especially when it comes to animation that doesn’t involve DC characters. Plenty of us figured that all of these delays and a run of only four episodes meant that they had the time to hammer out all the issues and give us the best possible product. That, unfortunately, was not the case.

Responding to complaints about the decline in animation in the second episode, executive producer Jason DeMarco (who, to be blunt, has overseen several mediocre-to-awful anime products released under the Adult Swim brand, including my bottom-ranked anime of 2023) claimed in a quickly-deleted Bluesky thread that there is indeed a higher-up to blame and that they were left with an ultimatum to either drop Uzumaki after just one episode, let it go the way of so many other Warner Bros non-releases under David Zaslav’s disastrous leadership, or release the whole miniseries in its half-baked state. They went with the third.

So, what we got was an uneven, often sloppy work; another mediocrity to throw on the pile of failed Junji Ito adaptations. All goodwill established in the first episode is soon undone by wonky character models, uncanny walk cycles, and movement that looks like PNGs being dragged across a background at the most inopportune times. Plenty of viewers, myself included, were willing to overlook the accelerated pacing after the first episode, but that issue was thrown into stark relief by the second when entire chapters of the manga began playing out simultaneously, and one was even reduced to an afterthought for a cheap “scare” at the end of episode three. 

Not that I thought Uzumaki necessarily needed a full 12-episode season for a proper adaptation or anything; Ito’s output can often be light on story, and dragging it out too far risks losing interest. What makes Ito’s stories actually work, though, is a proper sense of setting and space to let tensions rise. That didn’t entirely happen here; while the atmosphere of Kurozu-cho does plenty resemble what we’ve seen from Ito’s pages, and Stetson’s atonal saxophone does a lot of work to raise the level of unease, things just kind of happen. Few things really get the chance to land as intended, in part due to the production quality cheaping out at climactic moments.

This was the last anime I finished this year even though I’d watched the first two episodes after they aired and it went off the air in October. I was looking forward to the last two episodes that little. There are still bits and pieces of great animation and faithful adaptation here and there, but not enough to regain any goodwill from the second episode’s wheels visibly falling off. Maybe it’s finally time to declare Junji Ito’s works unadaptable once and for all. 

Definitely watch that first episode, though. At this point I kind of wish that’s all we’d gotten.

36. Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable!

Straitlaced Nice Guy moves to a new town, laid-back gyaru from his class immediately takes a liking to him, a couple other girls enter the picture, shenanigans ensue, and a slow-burn romance begins in parallel. Nothing special on paper and nothing much more special than that in execution. The setting is lovely, though, and it really made me want to visit Hokkaido one day. Nicely done, tourism board.

If you watched this and were put off by it, I don’t blame you; I probably would’ve been too if I hadn’t decided to read ahead in the manga. I will say this, though: If you liked Hokkaido Gals even a little, read the manga. It’s a minor investment, but if you can get over the halfway mark, it gets surprisingly good and has a really lovely ending. 

The anime, on the other hand? Meh. Doesn’t look super great and didn’t have enough time in 12 episodes to overcome most of the issues the source material had to move past to get to what made it worthwhile. It would take another season or two to get there, and that probably isn’t gonna happen. Great OP, though (I'm starting to repeat myself, I know). Just read the manga.

35. No Longer Allowed in Another World

Boasting one of the most audacious premises for an isekai I’ve ever seen, No Longer Allowed in Another World doesn’t shy away from the implications of an Osamu Dazai isekai, has the dark humor to match, and provides some fascinating commentary on the type of person who tends to consume wish-fulfillment isekai. Unfortunately, the presentation was a little lacking and threatened to lose my attention several times. I think the idea is much better on paper, to the point where I might test that theory and go read the manga.

34. The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic

The next dozen or so anime in the rankings fall into a category of either “well-made anime that I found kind of frustrating” or “middling anime that I kind of enjoyed.” The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic is very much the latter. It’s a standard isekai on paper; demon king, special powers, what have you, but it has a likable cast and laid-back vibe for much of its runtime that made it pleasant enough to watch.

As I said after the winter season, I really liked that Wrong Way spends a lot of its early story ensuring that the protagonist expends the time and effort necessary for him to become the hero he’s meant to be instead of the narrative just handing it to him from the start, which instantly sets it apart from most other wish-fulfillment isekai. It’s far from the best-looking anime I watched this year, but it has a mid-00s throwback look and feel to it that works more to its benefit than in Mysterious Disappearances. Nothing groundbreaking and a little too backloaded, but an enjoyable enough experience and one I’m looking forward to seeing come back. 

The only really upsetting thing about this show is that Atsuko Tanaka (Major Kusanagi, Bayonetta, Kainé), who was tremendous as the intimidating Captain Rose, is no longer with us. She was an exceptional talent with an iconic voice who will be sorely missed, and future seasons of this show won’t be the same without her.

33. Go! Go! Loser Ranger

Though not a bad anime by most metrics, I still consider Loser Ranger a minor disappointment. It mostly looks great, and “what if The Boys was a sentai series” is a killer premise, but the story so far is extremely frontloaded. Almost too much happens in the first four episodes, and then the bulk of the last arc of the season takes place in a goddamn parking garage. I’m still annoyed by that. Still looking forward to season 2, but I wish the debut season had been 24 episodes to avoid the sour taste in my mouth.

Did you hear that echo? Yep, that's me telling you to watch yet another OP. Easily the best part of the show and one of the best of the year. Tatsuya Kitani can't keep getting away with it.

32. Astro Note

2024 turned out to be a banner year for Rumiko Takahashi’s older works making their way back to modern screens, and one of those entries wasn’t even hers.

Astro Note is an overt homage to Takahashi’s less-famous romcom Maison Ikkoku, which ran parallel to Urusei Yatsura for most of the latter’s run. Like Ikkoku, Astro Note follows a down-on-his-luck young man living in a boarding house full of bizarre miscreants who only stays because the manager is super pretty. Unlike Ikkoku, and unbeknownst to our protagonist, said manager is actually an alien who is practically turning the house over to find a secret alien MacGuffin.

This show looks lovely and has a delightful cast and some surprisingly moving subplots, but it’s nothing too special otherwise. There are some fun creative flourishes here and there, like the alien stuff shown in flashback being made to look like an older space opera anime, but aside from a very fun turn near the end of the season, Astro Note rarely rises above the level of simply “pleasant.” And that’s fine, but it doesn’t quite live up to the material it’s aping, and what we’ve ended up with is just a nice distraction. 

I’m so glad I finally decided to read Maison Ikkoku though.

31. Shangri-La Frontier, second cour

It’s been a running joke for me that the more I watch Shangri-La Frontier, the less I’m sure whether I like it or not, and now with 25 episodes in the tank, I’m less sure than ever. The back half of the debut season improved on a few of the things that annoyed me about its first cour by focusing more on the high-quality action and introducing minor stakes to the proceedings, and then everything else surrounding it made it feel no less like I’m just watching a guy playing a goddamn video game, and the stakes still mostly seem to amount to "he wants to be good at it."

You may notice that I didn’t include the second season in this review, and that’s because I flat-out didn’t care to pick it back up. I’d been busy during the fall season and continuing a show I didn’t enjoy that much just wasn’t a high priority. It’s continuing into January, so there’s time to catch it while it airs, but I’m still not in any hurry.

[43501]

I absolutely love your writing style so much, do you have any tips or inspiration us smaller aspiring writers could use? You’re genuinely one of my favorite Death Note writers out there and I’m also curious on if you’d ever be willing to write fan-fiction’s? or anything really, i’d enjoy any content you put out 💕 love you lot’s :]]

I love you too anon, let me send Near over to hug you as well...

I have a few thoughts about writers looking to improve their craft! But I am not sure if you mean my wild scattering of meta posts on my blog or my actual writing on AO3, so I'll answer for both.

Advice on Writing Meta

Structure your answer/analysis. Employ essay-style structure where you begin with the broadest ideas and then drill down on details. Basically, you want to establish a logical flow from start to finish even when you're writing casually. My guiding principles are "start with real canon information, then move onto extrapolations/headcanon" and "lay everything out in a way where the reader can easily follow my thoughts".

Take your time. No need to rush! Sometimes you need more time to gather your thoughts or even revisit the source material.

Write what you know and love. I could talk about the Successors Arc for days, but if somebody asked me to do serious character analysis for Light, I could not. You see this with people who run ask/headcanon/scenario prompt blogs for "any/all characters" in a fandom. You start to see which characters they favor and understand well, and which ones are afterthoughts.

Advice on Writing Fiction

Read. Expose yourself to a variety of genres and styles and commit to occasionally reading something that might be a bit challenging, tedious or experimental (stares at my still unread copies of House of Leaves and Mumbo Jumbo). This may be more important than writing.

Active reading and deconstruction. That is, find a piece of writing that makes you say "yes, this is exactly the sort of thing I want to make" and interrogate why it captured your heart. Is it the author's masterful display of character's inner/emotional lives and relationships? Immersive prose that makes you feel what the character's experiencing? Ability to create suspense/tension and have you turning pages to see what happens next? You'll start to see opportunities to integrate what you love when you write once you understand it.

Have a good editor/beta reader. Ideally, this is a person who is more experienced than you who can tighten up your writing. This is not a passive process where you just get your work corrected - when you receive your editor's notes, you identify the weaknesses in your own writing and get so much better at avoiding those pitfalls. I am extraordinarily lucky to have a well-read writer (and someone with a lit degree) as mine. I know this is not something everyone can access, but if you have writer friends, it never hurts to ask!

As for writing a proper piece for Death Note... well... I have once, but it's very old and bad. The thing with this fandom is that it's enormous and old, full of seasoned, hyper-competent authors. Any idea I could have, ten other people have already executed better than I could in my wildest dreams ("ten cakes theory" has limitations, but people don't wanna talk about that).

I have an idea for a Near x OC piece but I have realistic expectations for how it'll be received, since x OC is not a popular subgenre. But I gotta follow where inspiration takes me and write what I wanna write.

[cogneartive]

tips for characterisation

hi so my post about me worrying if im characterising characters right blew up and it made me think a little bit on my method for getting characterisations right and i wanted to write a bit abt it in case it helps anyone with it!

TLDR: all characters have motivation, which can be derived from evidence

while i dont necessarily post alot of fanfiction (i do experiment with it a little), i have needed to think about it when drawing comics, analysing characters and thinking about headcanons. ive also dabbled alot in writing my own original stuff (ocs and short fiction) + analysing literature in academic settings and ive picked up alot of my methods from doing so!

i think whether or not you're writing a fanfic, i think anyone who wants to deeply engage with the media of their choice should spend some time trying to think about the characterisation of their characters

motivation

this is the main thing i think about when writing characters, and its also basically the main thing writer's advise you to do whenever you start to develop a character. imo, before thinking about stuff like 'likes' and 'dislikes', you should always start with asking 'what does the character want?' because it informs the rest of the decisions you make; it is the core aspect of the character that drives their actions and so how they interact with the world and people around them

motivation, or goal, or wish, or whatever you call it can be anything. personally, it doesn't matter how big or deep it is. as long you figure out a character's motivation, you are pretty much 80% of the way there. it can be anything from 'wants to feel useful to people' or 'wants to make alot of friends' or 'wants to graduate college'.

as an aside: you could have multiple motivations, people tend to, but sticking with one at a time is way easier tbh

through motivation, you can take the character anywhere you like because now you have a way of justifying your writing choices - which is, i think, a much more helpful way of thinking about characterisation more than 'is this really in character?' the addage here is 'what would it take for a character to do this', which opens up your writing choices wayyy more

here is a silly example i just came up with on the spot

3 characters are asked to wear a chicken costume. character A is motivated by 'wanting to have fun' and to them, chicken costume fulfils that. they wear the chicken costume character B and character C think it's stupid. they will not. but what if the steaks were, for example, that something will be taken from them if they dont? character B is motivated by 'fearing to lose thing'. of fucking course they will wear the chicken costume. character C, however, is more concerned with less worldly matters. they might not wear the chicken costume

if that makes any sense.

this is also basically how i form alot of my headcanons, or conjectures or interpretations or you know. you start by thinking 'okay so this character's motivation is wanting to be accepted' and see what behaviours they already exhibit that go along with that motivation. if, for example, they've shown a skill for observation, you could perhaps say that the character likes to observe others to see how they can borrow behaviours to appear more acceptable. its hard to give examples here cus every character will be different from one another, but i hope you can get the general gist of this

so, how do you find a character's motivation?

evidence

this is how you justify what your character's motivation is. it's kind of obvious, but i reckon some of us have lived through the wars of fanon, so it's good to remember why it's important

in english essays, you have to prove each one of your points by providing evidence as to why you think what you think. in writing characters, you should aim to prove why you believe a character is motivated by [whatever] through providing evidence from the source material

always always always revisit the source material. often, you will forget small moments that hint towards a character's motivation. more often, you might not actually get it fully the first time. this is normal, in my opinion. the joy in media is that you will always catch something new every time you look at it

and a good writer will always imply a character's motivation, rather than state it outright. it's very rare that a character will say what they're motivated by, very rare that they KNOW what they're motivated by. the writer, however, knows this.... okay well some of them dont but thats something else entirely

you find it in what the characters say (or choose not to say) and what they do (or what they choose not to do). observe them, note it down in your head somewhere, open up someone's dms and scream at them about this. through this, you will eventually arrive to your conclusion

CONCLUSION? well actually none of this is actually very concrete if it isnt your own character. unfortunately this is also in the realm of 'personal interpretation' because none of us will ever read a characters actions/non-actions the exact same way. likely, we will get close, but not entirely the same

but i think this is entirely okay. in a way, this opens you up alot more because you do get to explore different avenues and ways you can play with a character. two people can come to the conclusion that a character is motivated by 'wanting to be loved', but one of them will explore more on how sacrifice can come into that while another will explore more on how repression can deal with that. usually, it will be a little similar though

anddd that is basically all the thoughts i have on this subject 👍👍this is just my ramble so i havent really put much thought into the structure of what ive written. feel free to ask for clarification and add your own thoughts if you like <3

[selangkir]

maciemace: hi everyone! i know i said i wasn't doing music for a while but... it's been a while. presenting from the vault, how to be a woman

src: Greta Isaac ♀︎ Stellar Marianas ♀︎ Darren Brown ♀︎ Simo Harjane ♀︎ Paul Becker ♀︎ special thank you to @praetoravila for creating macie & helping out with the caption!

here's a little teaser trailer i made for the macie edit i posted a few weeks ago :) below, i'll be yapping on how it came together. not quite a tutorial but just laying out my personal workflow, a kind of step-by-step application of the stuff in this mindmap.

-> MAKING OF HTBAW X MACIE

start: 2 feb 2025 | finished: 2 apr 2025

1 - song choice.

when listening to music, i'd keep an ear out if it reminds me of any particular characters. if it passes the vibe check, i'll pick apart every line to make sure it's a fit. then it goes in my giant notes app of songs & characters

late bloomer (macie's seventh album) was fresh on my mind at the time, and i quickly connected the themes of being failed by the people who were meant to protect you in the song to the album/playlist.

sneak peek of some more songs i associate with macie. leak water - bent knee ♀︎ moving on. - valerie hell

usually, the decision to make a video edit comes much later, but i knew almost instantly with this one.

2 - trim song.

i'll identify which section of the song encapsulates the character the most, and if there's certain lines i could visualise/know is present in the source material.

trim to loop, making sure the melody is resolved and the lyrics make sense where it cuts off. i usually go for verse and chorus (with exception of the jennifers edit)

3 - find clips.

i knew i didn't want to use clips from julie and the phantoms. i wanted it to be a music video macie would probably drop in-universe, and jatp footage does not fit with that vision.

at first i wanted to match the original htbaw mv: white wall fashion edit vibes. but i only found 30 seconds of footage of madison reyes that matched that description so i dropped it.

how to be a woman ♀︎ mariposa by madi (2021)

i basically went through madison reyes' entire youtube channel, screencapping shots i think might be useful. i wasn't sure for a long time of what look i was going for. i knew i wanted to include vintage barbie ads as a stand-in for amber (not like in-universe she'd say yes to starring in a vid talking shit about her lol)

once i committed to the scrapbook-y look (as with the roxy/brand new eyes vid), it came much easier.

"shot list". going through line by line to see what clips i need. most of it remained in the final video

the B-section ("remember just as long [...]") is from a different pov, so i made sure to make it visually different than the rest, but doesn't stray too far away that it's jarring.

4 - edit.

the first thing i do is lay down the lyrics and colour code each section (verse1, verse2, pre-chorus, chorus etc). they act as markers & also to break the 1 minute audio into more manageable chunks. the actual style of the text i'd leave as the final step

colour coding helps visualise which sections to work on and complete. i add extra markers within each section for certain beats and ear candy i want to highlight.

then it's basically dragging, dropping, and trimming what i collected in step 3. musicality is a huge priority for me (expanded more in mindmap). i'd stretch and squish the timings to match the song.

fav settings/tools for these scrapbook-y looking videos:

composite mode: lighter colour / darker colour

luma keyer

i like how they both give rough imperfect borders between two overlaid clips

i usually won't have enough clips/the right clips to finish it in one pass, so i'll find alternate shots and revisit the source material multiple times throughout the process (i probably rewatched all of madison reyes' vlogs at least three times over). and it's just rinse and repeat of steps 3 & 4 until i fill up the timeline.

i'd reformat the text, and there you have it, the final htbaw x macie vid :) !

thanks for reading til the end! if you could spare a little bit more time to click here -> daily clicks for palestine. and i'd appreciate if you could also spare some change for this -> isnad. thank you ! <3

[sexyandhedonistic]

Reacting to and correcting the worst Law of Assumption post on Tumblr.

Hello, my loves. For sexyandhedonistic's 2nd anniversary (Sept 1st) I thought it would be fun to revisit one of my very first posts to point and laugh at as someone who was terribly misinformed when first joining the community. I have stated on multiple occasions that I have outgrown so many of my terrible beliefs and it's always such a relief to see that I know better now. Anyway, let's get into it.

The correct way to manifest

Hi again! Today I wanted to address something that I feel I should elaborate a bit more on, partially as a disclaimer and partially as something that is crucial to remember. I know plenty of newbies in the community are rendered susceptible to what different people have to say about what to do and how to do it and it creates uncertainty, self doubt and disorientation. We all know what the law of assumption is and what it means: what you assume to be true, is. This is no exception for the ways in which you feel are best to manifest. Although I strongly endorse studying Neville Goddard's work to acquire a steady foundation of what the law is and how to work with it, you don’t need to be familiar with his teachings to manifest but I will continue to be an advocate for such. That said, here’s the secret: You create the rules

I've previously stated how I feel about "you create the rules" so I won't explain again but to recap:

It doesn't make sense!

Not only for the reasons I listed in the link above but because there is a distinction between rules and principle. People often interchange the two so to them something like "I don't need to feel the wish fulfilled" may feel like a third eye-opening revolutionary take and to think otherwise is limiting because of whatever reason but when you know the law.. it really isn't. It's silly, in fact. And you know something? I would've thought this was revolutionary two years ago. It just makes sense doesn't it? If I assume I don't need to feel then that should be okay because the law of assumption means whatever you assume must be true etc etc. (Yes I was one of those people who thought loopholing the law of assumption just made sense.) Before anyone thinks I'm bringing up a really hot new idea (I don't need to feel the wish fulfilled) let me explain why that doesn't make sense:

Feeling means to accept, so what do you mean you don't need to accept something as true for it to manifest.../?!!?? You see why something like this is quite literally nonsensical? Please, pleaseeeee read about the law of assumption from someone who doesn't film themselves speaking [hint: Neville Goddard or Edward Art] before you risk looking ignorant the way I unfortunately did when I first joined this community. I cannot tell you the amount of disappointingly misinformed posts I have come across from myself and my mutuals alike ever since that I now am able to look at and feel relieved by the fact that I know way better now.

"I strongly endorse studying Neville Goddard's work to acquire a steady foundation of what the law is and how to work with it" She's always been correct about this one I'm afraid.

"You don’t need to be familiar with his teachings to manifest" This one is right and wrong. You don't need to because manifesting isn't a Neville thing and people have manifested without knowing about the law of assumption. However, if you intend to work with the law of assumption, what is a "Neville thing", and put it into practice, then yes you do need to be familiar with his teachings. It doesn't really make sense for you to be interested in something without understanding it fully and butchering it in the process, now does it? Seriously, you guys. I cannot emphasize this enough:

Read. Source. Material.

You decide what works and how it works! Objects and activities like crystals, scripting, subliminals, affirming and persisting, commanding, 555/369, vision boards, and gratitude are not imperative in order for you to manifest. There are hundreds of people out there spreading their beliefs about the law and how to do it correctly... as if it were a fact. This is why, as I've stated previously, I strongly discourage you from getting your information off of social media or simply too many sources in general because different opinions will create confusion for you (which is why sticking to a single instructor aka Father Neville who knows what he's talking about would be a good idea). Not only that, but so many people have a tendency to share their limiting beliefs which include but are not limited to: not being able to manifest physical changes or a specific person, avoiding negative words like no don't can't in affirmations, consuming any means of media that are upsetting because they'll interfere, etc. None of these beliefs are true, but if you believe that they are then they will be. You don’t need to use SATS and you don’t need to script. At the end of the day, we are manifesting 24/7 through the story we reiterate in out heads. These methods simply serve as a bolster for those who feel more comfortable and confident using them.

"You decide what works and how it works!" sjhkdfklfkhgfdksjkkla

"Objects and activities like crystals, scripting, subliminals, affirming and persisting, commanding, 555/369, vision boards, and gratitude are not imperative in order for you to manifest. " She's not wrong, but while we're on the topic of gratitude, it's literally the wish fulfilled. I used to associate gratitude with law of attraction so I wouldn't agree with it as relevant to manifesting but the more I've thought about it, it suddenly hit me that that's literally feeling the wish fulfilled because it's acceptance. When you accept, you feel grateful, do you not? Anyway, we encourage gratitude here at sexyandhedonistic.

" You don’t need to use SATS" This isn't wrong but I love the state akin to sleep so actually it is wrong.

"At the end of the day, we are manifesting 24/7 through the story we reiterate in out heads." Right. It's called consciousness is the only reality.

People think the law has certain rules and because they believe them, it becomes a truth for them. It's up to you to decide what does and doesn't work for you! There are people who can just command their subconscious mind and do nothing else. There are people who’ve manifested a literal face swap overnight. Nevertheless, whatever method you feel works best, they all come down to the same core belief and that is KNOWING it'll work.

"People think the law has certain rules and because they believe them, it becomes a truth for them." *facepalm* Okay queen let's not mix up principles and rules. Methods are something completely independent (and optional), what matters is feeling because feeling is the secret.

On another note notice how I literally never ever ever talk about the subconscious mind anymore <3 it activates my fight-or-flight response because I remember the days when we all thought we had to "saturate" it with affirmations robotically and whatnot... All you need is imagination and faith (feeling), you guys <3. (But if you would like explanations that mention the subconscious mind I suggest checking out feeling is the secret [linked above], I would not suggest Joseph Murphy as he had some limiting beliefs such as not being able to manifest certain things).

"Whatever method you feel works best, they all come down to the same core belief and that is KNOWING it'll work" My sister in Christ, the word you are looking for is FEELING, not "knowing". They can be used interchangeably, yes, but I feel so absurd rereading my old posts and saying "(the state of) knowing" when I should've been saying feeling.

Manifesting should not feel like a chore, it should be a simple, fun and easy task to do! You do not need to lift a finger to manifest. Whatever you think it'll take to get it done, will be it. If you think you have to yell out your affirmations at the top of your lungs then that’s what it’ll take for them to work. If you think you need a crystal collection the size of east LA to manifest then start saving up or manifest them. This is the beauty about the law of assumption. You create the rules. Now that you’re understanding that you can create your own rules, have fun with it! Not only do you get to decide what works, but you also decide how well it works. Do you get subliminal results after one listen? Do you manifest in a week? Overnight? Will gratitude bring you your results quicker? Are you the best manifestor in the world and nothing can interfere with your manifestations? You literally call the shots. No matter what you pick, stick to it and KNOW it works. Good luck!

"Manifesting should not feel like a chore, it should be a simple, fun and easy task to do!" I mean yeah... I agree fully that it shouldn't feel taxing and tedious and you most definitely shouldn't treat it as a routine (ex. set alarms to affirm every hour...), it should definitely feel liberating and comforting because this is is about being that which you desire to be. In Neville's own words:

We often are deprived of our high goal by our effort to possess it. We are called upon to act on the assumption that we already are the man we would be. If we do this without effort, experiencing in imagination what we would experience in the flesh had we realized our goal, we shall find that we do, indeed, possess it. - Answered Prayer

"You do not need to lift a finger to manifest" Yeah <3 As I always say, being > doing.

"This is the beauty about the law of assumption. You create the rules... Do you get subliminal results after one listen? Do you manifest in a week? Overnight? Will gratitude bring you your results quicker? Are you the best manifestor in the world and nothing can interfere with your manifestations? You literally call the shots." Pleasee please please PLEASE be quiet.

You guys I had to put on a hazmat suit to go through this post. I think if there was such a thing as a written version of what a six day old McChicken with extra mayonnaise left out in the hot Texas summer sun would taste like... it would be this post, but at least it's over now, so to conclude:

1. You cannot tweak principle 2. Methods are not what manifest 3. FEELING is the secret 4. Read source material

I hope this post has encouraged some of you to not repeat the same mistakes or misinformation I did as well as made you reevaluate your approach towards the law of assumption. This post is not entirely horrendous but it was horrendous enough that I decided to remove it from my blog. There is way better information that has surfaced ever since and I warn you guys once again from the risks of learning about it from someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. One of the most absurd and ridiculous beliefs I used to have and got from a certain blogger on here was that "you don't need to work on your self concept to manifest".......... I do not feel like getting into why this is does not make sense at all and why every time I would see someone say "Neville didn't work on his self concept to go to Barbados!" I would simply side eye, but anyway.

Please dedicate time to really learn about the law of assumption from Neville Goddard himself or from Edward Art's Reddit posts. My understanding of the law may have evolved ever since but something that has unfortunately not changed in this community is the circulation of misinformation. It only harms you guys and will consequently incite frustration because someone told you that your thoughts manifest (not true) and suddenly you're spiraling because you think you need to be flipping all of them (you do not). I know I made multiple jokes throughout but do not take this advice lightly and do not deem this post as me saying that I'm right and everyone else is wrong. I'm advising you all as someone who's been through all of it and wants better for you. Please choose your sources wisely and please learn from my mistakes.

[can-of-w0rmz]

@shotofstress

When I tell you I read this I saw it and I WHEEZED I was in TEARS and I shouldn’t be bothered arguing about it but quite frankly I’m trying to procrastinate anyway and I’ve had a god awful week and need to take out my frustrations somehow, ergo, I’m going be petty not because this person disagrees with my reading of the novel, but because they implied that in reading queer or neurodivergent elements in a work, people “can’t see the important themes that the novel is about” which actually does piss me off a fair bit

Right so first before we argue we’ve got to decipher because English apparently isn’t this person’s forte for someone who is, apparently, such an avid reader and esteemed critic of English literature. Also I just realised I haven’t really provided any context here so apologies this was in response to that joke post I made about mischaracterising Frankenstein adaptations (again yes the pettiness is not lost on me but I’m embracing it anyway)

“He is not gay nor autistic” cheers this person disagrees that Victor Frankenstein is either gay or autistic. To each their own. Wonder what kind of backup they’ll have for that argument.

“Pls stop seen representation of us everyone bc u can’t make the difference,” Right so this is where we get confusing, I’m going to take a wild guess and I think they’re trying to say “please stop seeing representation of us everywhere because you can’t make the difference”, and I still don’t know what “make the difference” means, but we’ll go with it.

“read nothing new”, alright so they’re saying people who see representation everywhere read nothing new, and then the kicker that’s kind of the only reason I decided to respond to this anyway, “nor really see the important themes that the novel is about.”

First off, “stop seeing representation of us everywhere”, let it be known that as I make a hundred jokes about Victor Frankenstein being homosexual, I myself am thoroughly through and through without a doubt bisexual as the days are long. Absolutely love men. Also adore women equally. So no, I am not a Disney corporate executive trying to squeeze in as many queers as possible for the entire purpose of using the fact they have representation in media to excuse the fact it’s a shite film but also, not trying to revisit every old piece of media to squeeze representation where it doesn’t really fit or make sense just for shits and giggles. (Also just saying, you made this comment on Tumblr. So even if I was just going haywire with lgbt headcanons on my favourite media with no real backup, who gives a shit? Who actually gives a flying fuck? I don’t. Let people live, man. It doesn’t mean they don’t understand the source material just because they’re having fun and playing loose with it. It’s Tumblr, not a Netflix adaptation. Let people do whatever they want and have fun with it. It’s cool.)

But like I said, I do have backup and a lot of it so let’s get into that, shall we?

First of all, whoo, autism. I’ll be real not really a hill I’m going to die on but the wording you put of “he is not autistic” is just ridiculous because yeah, no, there is a lot of perfectly decent ground to read Victor Frankenstein as autistic and a lot of people do, mostly people who are autistic or otherwise neurodivergent themselves. Just because in the 18th century people didn’t necessarily have the language for things doesn’t mean they didn’t exist, and I mean, now we do. So what’s the harm in using it? They had their own language for things back then, do we have to revert back to speaking in early 19th century English every time we want to refer to a character who was written back then as neurodivergent or lgbt or anything else?? What’s the point in that??

But yeah, Victor Frankenstein. I can’t even be bothered to explain and to be honest every single other person I’ve said “Frankenstein is autistic to” has immediately responded “oh yeah, obviously”, even my father who famously is just hypercritical of all sorts of headcanons just went “oh yeah no for sure the man is definitely autistic no doubt about it”. So instead I’m just going to include some quotes.

My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement; but by some law in my temperature they were turned not towards childish pursuits but to an eager desire to learn, and not to learn all things indiscriminately.

It was my temper to avoid a crowd and to attach myself fervently to a few. I was indifferent, therefore, to my school-fellows in general; but I united myself in the bonds of the closest friendship to one among them.

From this day natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry, in the most comprehensive sense of the term, became nearly my sole occupation.

Two years passed in this manner, during which I paid no visit to Geneva, but was engaged, heart and soul, in the pursuit of some discoveries which I hoped to make. None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science. In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder.

Like I said, self explanatory. It’s harder to come up with an argument for why he isn’t autistic than why he is, and frankly, what’s the harm in reading him that way? It doesn’t really change anything about the plot or themes, and his character doesn’t change. It’s just a very probable diagnosis for said qualities. It doesn’t change them, whether you use that word or not. The concept of autism was coined in 1911 anyway, so its not like Mary Shelley’s going to be sat at her writing desk in 1817 writing in big bold letters “BY THE WAY, FRANKENSTEIN HAD AN AUTISM DIAGNOSIS.” It doesn’t change the fact that people still had autism back then, just because the term wasn’t discovered yet. Anyway.

Now, second bit. “He isn’t gay” – now, if you read Frankenstein and thought “ah yes, this man seems perfectly heterosexual to me”, then honestly, sure. Go ahead. But to say that reading Victor Frankenstein as queer in any way means that people “don’t understand the important themes of the novel” is completely bloody ridiculous because, again, there is astronomical ground to read him that way.

Victor Frankenstein never really shows interest in any women in the novel, except for Elizabeth, who he has been raised, since he was five years old, to see as his “gift” and was told by his mother since he was a very young child that he was going to marry her – to the point where his mother, on her deathbed, tells both Victor and Liz: “My firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the consolation of your father.” Also, they’re cousins/adopted siblings. If you don’t think that’s fucked up, even by the standards of the time, I’m not really sure what to say to you. Of course he married her. And before he married her, he generally expresses very little romantic interest in her bar just expressing as much affection as you would a close friend or sister, or seeing her as his “gift” who he “has to be wed to”. Read any other story from this time period, in this genre, and you will not be remotely questioning whether they’re actually attracted to each-other or not. In fact, here’s an excerpt from The Vampyre, another book born from the same trip to Geneva that Frankenstein was, by John William Polidori, about the protagonist’s love interest:

And that’s only part of it. So. Yeah. Victor’s lack of romantic affection for Elizabeth is not “a product of its time” nor “a product of its genre.” And The Vampyre is a short story.

And so you may be saying, “well, just because Victor doesn’t show any interest in women doesn’t necessarily make him gay”, and yeah, true that (ace and bi Vic hcs y’all are valid) but there is very good basis to take the reading that he is attracted to men.

For one thing, just the fact that he’s so particular about creating “the perfect man” is subject to a lot of queer readings in itself, but let’s be real here, you all know me enough by now to know that I just want an excuse to rant about Clerval and Frankenstein. And rant about them I shall.

First, I’m lazy, so here’s an excerpt from one of my previous essays I’ve written that I’ve never posted everywhere on Frankenstein in general:

Just as The Creature is Victor’s narrative foil, so is Clerval. He's equally ambitious and fascinated with the secrets of life, however he’s healthy with how he goes about it and healthy with how he keeps the balance between taking care of himself and pursuing his dreams, while Victor goes over the edge and neglects himself and his sense of morality to complete what he set out to do. He's supposed to represent the ideals of gothic romanticism in Victor and he's supposed to be his anchor and support, (something the Creature doesn't have), caring for Victor during his illness, (“reanimating” him, almost, once again showing that comparison between both Victor and Henry, as Henry “reanimates” Victor with compassion and cares for him after, and Victor reanimates The Creature in a haze of obsession and mania and immediately abandons him, showing what Victor could have been), and constantly accompanying and being sympathetic and empathetic towards him. I also find it very interesting how he does also seem to have those darker aspects to him, lying to Victor’s family about the extent of his illness and caring for Victor in his apartment despite the fact that, for all he knew, from the evidence lying around his workspace and Victor’s feverish rambling, he very well could have murdered someone, and Clerval chooses not to press him on the issue and instead to intentionally help Victor cover it up. The fact that Clerval exhibits these traits only makes Victor’s own downfall all the more tragic when we consider that it likely very much isn’t a stretch to imagine that Clerval, too, likely exhibits a lot of the same morbid curiosity as Victor; he isn’t a superhuman figure with purely positive attributes who is completely far removed from Victor’s situation, the only difference is that Clerval chooses to prioritise his own sense of morality over his selfish aims, which only emphasises the point that Victor’s downfall is, ultimately, Victor’s own fault. When Victor "kills" the Creature’s chance of the same support and love (his unfinished bride), the Creature kills Henry and sends Victor into a downward spiral of suicidal thoughts and heavy depression because the character that represented that stability, that romanticism, that balance of keeping healthy, is dead, and that throws Victor downward into his inevitable obsession with the monster's destruction and his own death.

On this point, I feel like it’s worth bringing up that a reasonably good case could probably be made regarding a lot of queer subtext in the novel, although I won’t rant about it excessively as it obviously isn’t the focus, the theme of love is a very prominent theme as I’ve previously mentioned with The Creature; familial love, platonic love, parental love, romantic love, and I don’t think it’s particularly much of stretch to suggest that Shelley, intentionally or unintentionally, might have added a lot more romantic subtext than given credit for. Not that it matters particularly narratively speaking what kind of love is portrayed, but in reference specifically to Clerval and the Ingolstadt chapters there’s a very good argument to be made regarding Shelley’s poor relationship with her own husband and how she may have projected a lot of her wish for that kind of care and sympathy into his character, perhaps not taking into account, or perhaps she did, how it would come across – author intentions are mostly lost with time and we’ll ultimately never know for sure, but even for the standards of the late 18th century when the novel was set and the early 19th century when it was written, “I desire the company of a man who could sympathise with me, whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic,” and “your form so divinely wrought, and beaming with beauty, has decayed, but your spirit still visits and consoles your unhappy friend,” probably weren’t standard platonic sentiments.

And honestly on that essay excerpt, that still sums my thoughts on that subject up pretty much perfectly. After all, a character in a book talking about his best friend going “I loved him with a mixture of reverence and affection that knew no bounds” as well said best friend tenderly nursing him back to health, and the character talking about how his body is “divinely wrought and beaming with beauty” and gently pressing his hand and referring to him constantly as “my dearest”, “my dear” and “my beloved”, while living together and travelling together and talking about how his voice “soothes” him and “cheats (him) into a transitory peace”, pretty gay!

And yes, before anyone says a single thing, if it wasn’t already obvious from the essay excerpt, I do understand “the important themes the novel is about”. I do understand that there are more themes and characters and subject matter, and more than that, I bloody love it! Because this is one of my favourite novels! Of-fucking-course I’m invested in it on a deeper level than “ooOoooh what classical literature characters can I RUIN with my gay agenda today!” But you commented this on a joke post, a joke post, again, on Tumblr. No harm but Jesus Christ if there is a singular platform I can go on and just post stupid bullshit about two book characters from 200 years ago being soft and gay without having to justify that yes, I did in fact read the book, and shock horror yes, I do know that there are other themes, it’s bloody Tumblr. (Absolutely love you lot btw especially all my lovely fantastic incredible mutuals all your takes and readings and art is 👌✨ chef’s kiss)

Oh and by the way, op, I noticed you reblogged this:

And to be honest if I had to say any take or reading was a misunderstanding of the text, it’d be that one (as well as “Victor is sexist for cutting women out of the creation process” takes – Christ that’s just gross. And feels mildly if not explicitly homophobic.)

So just for shits and giggles to counter that argument, here’s another excerpt from the same older essay as before:

Speaking of Hugo, it is rather interesting how many adaptations and literary criticisms seem to go down the route of the Hunchback of Notre Dame moral of “who is the monster and who is the man?”, suggesting that Victor is the “true monster” of the narrative. And, as much as I am a decent Victor Hugo fan, (I’m over 50% through Les Misérables, have you seen the size of that book? I’d have to be), in reality the point of the story is that neither Creator nor Creation are more monster nor man than the other – Victor mutilates corpses and brings the creature to life, and allows Justine to be executed without owning up to his actions, and The Creature murders a child and a multitude of other innocent people, Clerval and Elizabeth who had nothing to do with anything and Ernest left completely alone with his entire family dead. We can’t acknowledge The Creature’s sympathetic qualities without also acknowledging Victor’s, and regardless, sympathetic motivations don’t make up for immoral actions.

Also this meme, which I can’t for the absolute life of me remember who posted it originally I’m sorry I use it all the time in GCs whoever it was you’re so valid:

[bizlybebo]

Any tips for writing!????

Your so good at it (your fics are brilliant and great) and you make them so fast???

WHAAAT THANK YOU … THANK U SO MUCH ????WAAAAA

i honestly don’t know .. im the least reliable guy to come to for advice but ☝️ i will say some things that really help me, personally, post kinda regularly are

1. DO IT BAD/SCARED/CRINGE !!! im actually very insecure about my writing, but i think it’s better to just get words out in any way possible than to not write at all in the first place . even if it’s just drabbles or bullet points. i will literally put my head down on my desk sometimes so i can’t see the screen while i type and overthink. you Have to let yourself be genuine it’s the only way

2. make playlists if that’s your thing. draw art if that’s your thing. allow yourself to daydream about whatever you’re writing or build things around/about it that aren’t just the actual writing !!! music especially is how i’ve gotten so many ideas/gotten more motivation to keep writing. have fun with it because it’s your writing first and foremost

3. i like. constantly need to remind myself i don’t have to be the Best writer ever !!! this isn’t my full time job !!! no one is paying me to play with the characters like dolls !!! this kinda is just Do It Bad/Cringe/etc. all over again. i’m very embarrassed of my old writing but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t special to me at the time !! i

4. read ! watch cool movies ! listen to cool music ! just engage with other pieces of media to learn from other writers. yes everyone says this but they say it cause it srsly helps a lot. so many of my au ideas are inspired by other pieces of fiction/art i loved.

(4.5 if you’re writing a fanfic then revisit the source material 1billion times and obsess over one tiny little scene . down to their tiny eyebrow twitches and the length of their paused between words . it is so fun)

5. if it’s a longer work i highly highly recommend going in with Any kind of outline . you don’t even have to follow it if your heart wants something else but it’s just. really useful !!! it doesn’t have to be neat. doesn’t even have to be in a “proper” outline format. you can just be absolutely spitballing . for example (spoilers for ch 9-10 of hamartia if you keep up with that):

^ i used this as an example before cause im literally just Saying Shit. connecting random points together with red string. and tip 5.5 sometimes for longer fics i like to have at least a few chapters written before i start posting, OR i at least have a really strong idea of where the next chapter or two or going. sometimes i don’t need the ultimate idea of how it all connects and ends ! sometimes it’s just one step and the step after that.

6. talk with friends/other writers !!!! have a small circle of freaks that support you and that you support too. you don’t always have to share your work with the world, you can just share it with your friends ^_^ and often times you help each other grow and improve !! seeing your work through another person’s eyes is so important sometimes

7. write for yourself. again like . this is Your writing . i use writing to work through a lot of difficult emotions sometimes, and so there’s a lot i may not even post because it’s so personal. but i do it for me !! even if i Post for others my Writing is always for me and me first. i will repeat this til i die !!!! just get the words out !!! in any way possible !!!!

8. write down literally every thought you have. even stupid ones. i randomly came up with a really tragic ending for one of my aus when i was babysitting on my dad’s porch in absolutely miserable summer weather. i wrote that shit down the second i could, even though at the time i was just screaming random words in all caps. if you have a thought that makes you go OUGH never hesitate to put it somewhere. i have multiple “dump docs” of pure drabbles/thoughts that only make sense to me.

9. go thru multiple drafts ! very often i will literally write a chapter/fic etc on my laptop, then pull it up to the side on on my phone and re-type it word for word onto a new doc. it helps me study my writing even more cause i’m like. re-experiencing it?? for me it’s even better than reading it out loud . i feel like i catch way more mistakes or have even more evil ideas. re-read and re-write your stuff as much as you want !!!!! there is no crime against it !!!

[egg24108]

i am very easily scared and filled with anxiety. and i don't wanna dm you out of the blue due to this and also due to the fact idk if you'd appreciate that. so instead im dropping in ask in saying you are cool and also your art is sick. i like that you fw miis thats so rad. and rhythm heaven. shit is peak. i hope you know you are so cool because you are.

hi anon!! i appreciate this so much!!!! i admire the miiblr community a lot because it’s so creative and inventive with rather limited source material. feel free to dm me or comment on this post to let me know who you are, no need to be intimidated by me!

i actually know next to nothing about rhythm heaven, i ended up drawing a guy from it because another kind anon sent me a sweet ask and then let me know who they were, and i saw that jj rocker was a big deal to them. just like cpu miis, he’s got very little characterization in canon (as far as i found in my very little research on him) so his fans are super creative and basically make him their oc and i love that and wanted to try my hand at drawing my own take on him.

i have a special place in my heart for more niche fandoms, bc i tend to be into smaller/somewhat dead communities as well. final fantasy 8 is how my og friends and followers know me and that fandom’s source material is older than me and unlikely to ever get revisited officially and im ok with that! i enjoy playing dolls with what we have and sharing new interpretations on it through my art :)

have a lovely day anon!!!! treasuring your compliments forever!!!!!!!

[castlebyersafterdark]

i just had a week off fandom because i was away on spooky holiday, and spent some time watching halloweeny things and other shows. then i watched some stranger things, out of order, the early seasons. and i totally got lost in the show and forgot about fandom, it felt just like when i first saw it. and i realised coming back here, that mike and will's relationship is so much bigger and more thematic than byler v mileven. it's meaningful in terms of queer writing, in terms of how trauma is portrayed, its meaningful for them separately and together as characters outside of their sexualities.

i think this sometimes gets lost in the byler fandom, mainly because there is such pushback that it sort of becomes about proving they are real instead of enjoying the story for what it is, and how much more important mike + will as a romantic pair will be in grand scheme of things than just proving milevens wrong. its actually quite jarring to come back and see that so much byler content is people just sassing milevens, or trying to prove something, or being defensive. it gives enjoying byler a strange flavour because it makes it about being on edge rather than just enjoying the story. this fandom is a fascinating case study in propaganda and social influence, how if youre told something enough times ("byler will never happen") you start to believe it despite hard evidence (the show itself) to the contrary.

i still love this small community and check my fav blogs though. but it was a nice reality check, esp at this time of year! spooky season is the perfect time to step back and rewatch the show as a total newbie who just wants a good mystery thriller. i feel happier than ever to wait for s5, our boys are coming together and all we need is patience 😊 and if you can recommend any more blogs who focus on the good stuff like you, please do! i'm sick of being jumpscared by 'milevens say that...' posts lmao

Yes!!! Agree. I also took a tiny break and I'm back, well, I wouldn't say refreshed (still a little bit exhausted from the past few days 😅 Halloween wore me down yall haha) but it's always beneficial I feel to step away for whatever reason and then dive back into fandom when you feel up to it. Brain needs a break from the fandom focus sometimes. Good points in this ask. I haven't actually sat down and watched the show in a while, but revisiting those favorite episodes is a cool idea. Hit the mark on what's important and why the show, and these two characters in particular since that's what I and many focus on around here, resonates so deeply. It's more than just "oh, these two are cute, they should be a couple, this is a ship in the fandom yay" but it's... it's a lot more. It's an important story. Not trying to sound cheesy but I always end up that way 😉

There is definitely a thing in this fandom that I don't really vibe with, the insecurity and constant defense and ship wars. Maybe it's the fact that there technically is a love triangle existing, the slow burn, the impatience, the track record with queer relationships and getting crumbs when there's a gay character. But, there's also been a lot more progress and real canon gay relationships lately. I don't fear as heavily with this show, because the show has given the biggest proof. And I also... don't care what people who hate the idea of Byler or still love Mlvn are doing. I don't care! About Mlvn fans on the internet!! The show is the show and whatever happens happens. I think people would be sooooo much happier if they curated more. Don't seek out spaces of contention! Don't engage with people who are just gonna make you mad ☹️

Little communities are cool, happy here, hope other people are finding their spot, focusing on what's cool and interesting and just - cut out the noise. There's too much going on in the world and online to devote time to getting defensive over fandom, especially one where the source material is so good and there's so much creativity to be found from it. I wouldn't know where to start with recommending other blogs - have to admit I always feel bad if I'm calling people out and leaving others out and there's thousands of blogs in the stranger things fandom! I have friends in the fandom who I really enjoy talking to and who have cool blogs, but we don't 100% agree on theory and character dynamics and other stuff and that's totally ok. Even I have expressed opinions and people have been quick to jump at me and disagree and hey, no one has to be down with every single opinion I have either!! I just hope for kindness in those instances.

So, you really just gotta see where the hard lines are, what you do and don't care to deal with on your blog and see on your dash. Fandom is very imperfect, but all we can do is focus more on what we consider a positive so it drowns out the little negative things we do encounter.

[shadowwalkerimagines]

『 The State of Unreality: Drabble 3 - A Roadside Motel 』 Resident Evil/Biohazard (Gameverse) | You; Reader Insert; Second-Person Point of View; Female Reader Rating: M for source material and future content | Warnings: Canon typical violence, Unreality, Alcohol Use, TBD Summary: Whoever could that be, sitting outside his motel room?

Unlike the first dream, this one has lingered with you. You chalk it up to actually having devoted the time to document every little detail you could remember about it the second you woke up. Revisiting the memory of it has likely helped as well. You can’t help it, really. The clarity of the picture, that curious report—it was all quite fascinating.

Sure the end of the dream had ramped up to a rather alarming, life-threatening situation of sorts, but a dream is a dream, guns in your face or not.

This is something novel and new and completely safe. It would be a lie to say you aren’t looking forward to another similar experience. You have to admit it all left you rather excited.

Sure, the Resident Evil universe isn’t exactly the ideal place to experience such lucid dreams but the novelty of it all…

You’ll take what you can get.

So when you find yourself coming to awareness inexplicably walking along another desolate mountain road some days later, you nearly begin vibrating in your enthusiasm. It must not be the same location, however, as street lamps stand stark against the evening darkness this go around.

For a while you simply carry on walking, passing the otherwise uneventful time just existing in the moment and inspecting every little thing that pops into mind. You take in the detail of the gravel on the road, the blades of grass and the fine little hairs on each one, the heavy clouds that threaten rain drifting along the evening sky—all the way to the lint in your pockets and the contents of your shoulder bag, all exactly as should be.

Who knew your mind could create such intricately detailed scenarios. Where is this creative detail when you need it?

Eventually, just as you are beginning to wonder if there is anything more to this dream than incredibly detailed foliage, you make out a building cutting through the tree line. As you grow nearer, you’re able to make out an illuminated “MOTEL” sign posted at its entrance.

The area is lit in a dim warm glow, with a quick glance around showing a single room open, door cracked as golden light spills into the night. There is a man sat on the curb just outside the room, hunched forward, his elbows propped on his knees. What looks to be a beer bottle is held loosely in one hand as he clutches at his forehead with the other.

Do you dare approach?

You bite at your lip and mull over the thought. Realistically, that is not a smart move—who knows what kind of man he could be, what sort of danger he could pose—but you remind yourself: none of this is real; you are not in any actual danger.

And so, you make your way towards him.

"Lookin' a bit rough there, buddy.” Your voice cuts through the otherwise silent night, soft but with a jovial lilt. “You alright?”

The man chuckles drily without looking your way then takes a swig from his bottle. As you step closer you note how his hair curtains his face; it is a bit hard to be certain given the lighting, but he looks to be a dirty blonde. He is dressed in blue jeans and a dark jacket, and as you catch sight of his footwear, you find yourself questioning his choice in white chucks. Surely those get soiled easily.

“Guess I’m just wondering if I made the right choice.” comes his eventual reply. His shoulders bounce as he lets out another dry laugh, his head dropping to rest on the meat of his forearm. "Dropped everything for this new job only to get a call tellin’ me to stay away.”

Something tickles in the back of your mind—this sounds kind of familiar, and this guy’s outfit… Judging from the theme of your last couple dreams, could this be… surely not? …maybe?

“Well that’s a little odd,” you admit, taking a tentative seat beside him on the curb. You try to sneak a closer look at his face but his hair and the angle obscures your view too much. “Sounds like you could use a friend right now.”

He laughs, “What, you offering?”

Puffing out your chest and pounding it proudly, you huff, “Of course! I’m an amazing friend. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity I’ll have you know!”

You can see his shoulders bounce as he chuckles. He turns to face you, finally, and amicably replies, “I’m honored.” His smile is a goofy one, lopsided and messy in his inebriation, but the way his eyes crease—it’s genuine nonetheless.

Caught off guard by the disarming smile, it takes you a moment to really register his face. The lighting isn’t in your favor, but you see enough to confirm your suspicion.

The man sitting beside you, drunk off his ass, is none other than Leon S. Kennedy in all his baby-faced glory.

"Guess I'm just wondering if I jumped the gun…" Leon sighs out.

You can't help it—you snort. “Well, you do strike me as the kind of guy to make hot-headed decisions.”

He quirks a brow at you as he lets loose a dry chuckle—an invitation to go on.

“What, don’t wanna admit it?” You lean in with a devious smirk and bump his shoulder. “Bet you didn’t even tell your girlfriend why you were breaking up with her.”

He reels back, mouth dropping open. You let him flounder for a minute as he struggles for something to say before ultimately settling on, “Is it that obvious?”

You laugh. No, if it was anyone else, anywhere else—if this were real—you would never dare to make such bold assumptions.

“Oh yeah. Pathetically so, man.”

Leon groans miserably, dragging a hand down his face in embarrassment or frustration. You chuckle but don't say anything more, unsure where to go from here—what to say next—before Leon speaks first.

“So why’s my buddy walkin’ around so late at night all by herself anyway?” He politely offers his bottle but you shake your head and raise a palm in protest.

“No real reason,” you admit, “I just find night walks pretty comforting.”

Leon takes a swig from his bottle before casting a heavy look towards the dense tree line across from the motel. You catch the corner of his mouth dipping in a frown.

“We’re not all that far from where all those strange disappearances have been happening, you know.”

“What, worried about me?”

Leon chuckles, “What else are friends for?” It’s played off as a joke but knowing him, knowing this world, there is no doubting the implied message.

“I’m a big girl; I’ll be fine.” You dismiss with a bump to his shoulder.

A beat of silence passes, and you fear you have treaded into awkward territory, before he eventual sighs, “If you say so.”

"Mhm," you affirm with a pat to his back. “But with that being said, I guess I'd best be on my way. Make sure you don’t drink yourself blackout silly, alright?” You nod towards the nearly empty bottle—it’s a hollow warning since you know Leon drinks himself under the rug into the next afternoon, but it doesn’t hurt to say. He just huffs, raises his bottle in cheery acknowledgment, and to just be a little twat, chugs the remainder.

You roll your eyes at the immaturity but the smile on your lips is wide as can be. Stupid, cheesy, adorable man.

A familiar fuzz starts to creep along the edges of your vision, leaving you to suspect you are waking up. Of course this happens now. Is it some kind of unwritten rule that you have to wake up when things start to get good in a dream?

It's too soon—always too soon.

As you watch Leon, hunched over as he is eaten away by insecurities and knowing the horrors he will face in the very near and distant future, you want to give him some kind of encouragement.

"Don't be too hard on yourself, Leon," you say with a firm pat to his shoulder and using him to leverage yourself to stand. Dusting yourself off, you continue, "The world can be a really ugly place but it's people like you—that're willing to do good and fight for what's right—that make it a world worth living in."

Leon remains silent and unmoving, seemingly mulling over your words.

You turn away and leave him to his thoughts, tracing your steps back into the darkness of the night. The world blurs and fades into nothing and the next thing you know, you're registering the clunking of tracks, a subtle jostling of all-surrounding movement, and a female voice announcing the next stop from an overhead intercom.

[shrinkthisviolet]

✎ how do you think readers would guess a fic was yours if you posted anonymously?

☉ what do you do when you get stuck writing?

✎: how do you think readers would guess a fic was yours if you posted anonymously?

Hmm well a lot of my fics are about characters sitting down and talking things through, getting on the same page about things, so if there’s a fic where a good chunk of it is conversations like that, there’s a pretty sure bet 😅 same for if the fic is father-daughter or brother-sister focused—probably me! Same for if there’s a lot of intimacy but not a lot of lip-kissing. I have nothing against lip-kissing ofc, but I prefer to build up to it with other kinds of intimacy—so usually a kiss like that is a grand finish or a conclusion (yes, my idea of romance was shaped by DCOMs and classic Disney movies, why do you ask?). Not always, but usually!

Savitar-focused fics are not exclusive to me, but like…I’m one of the few, so take a guess and you might be right. If it’s Savisco or Saveddie, you have a 1 in 2 shot 😂

☉: what do you do when you get stuck writing?

Love this question! I usually revisit the source material corresponding to what I’m writing, revisit the outline to see if it’s time for a big plot beat, or (more often) just leave it alone—the idea will come to me eventually, and forcing it won’t do any good

In terms of rekindling inspiration…ofc revisiting the source material, and also reading! Often I find ideas in other books (or fics) similar to the ones I’m exploring in my fics…and it’s true what they say, reading makes you a better writer. I have quite a long TBR of books, so I chip away at that when I feel I need a boost

fanfic ask game!

[clonerightsagenda]

See I think part of my struggle here is I try to avoid extremely misogynistic media. If I'd read the Dresden Files I bet I'd have loads of suggestions here. But I thought of a few.

4. (But jumping spiritually to first place now that I've thought of her) *Fanon* Lucy Westenra. Bram Stoker can stay, but everyone else who's written about her needs to go sit in a corner and think about what they've done. I'd say reread the source material but the Re: Dracula people literally read it out loud and still released a bonus episode with a terrible take, so idk what will fix this.

5. Vriska. Bold choice, I know, considering other female characters got shafted worse in lategame HS, which intriguingly got significantly more misogynistic near the end of its run. Not sure what that's about, unless it had something to do with Hussie lashing out at their fans, many of whom were female. Jane Crocker likely deserves this spot for her treatment, but I often think about a post I saw talking about how Hussie tried to inject energy into their flagging narrative by bringing back one of their most popular characters, failing to realize that part of her popularity was her end. The failure to recognize the power of closure and instead always turning to more spectacle, more content, more revisiting the same things over and over, are really part of what crushed HS under its own weight imo, and the refusal to let her go ended up trapping Vriska in amber so she could never grow up either.

Top five female characters that would have been 10 times better if anyone else was writing them

My new thing is just answering these with as many as I can think of at the moment and then I'll come back to them when I have more.

Martha Jones. I don't watch Doctor Who but I've seen Things recently and man. Why did they do that to her. Besides the obvious reasons. Martha Jones as a character is perfectly good already, but she could have been treated 10 times better if the writers respected her.

Elli Quinn. Elli here is really standing in for everyone in the Vorkosigan Saga who may not have wanted to get married and have 50 children if they weren't being written by Lois McMaster Bujold who clearly thinks the ideal state for all humans is settling down and having 50 children. Quinn didn't settle down I guess but she did have a whole bunch of kids via IVF, and I just think her character could've thrived more if she wasn't stuck pining after Miles. (A similar thing happens to a lot of Tamora Pierce's characters - Tammy you clearly have a thing for older men, must you do it to all your heroines as well.)

Cordelia Chase. I never watched Angel but I heard what they did to her.

[utilitycaster]

Has your work with the wiki informed how you interact with the fandom? Scrutinizing the source material so closely and all.

Oh definitely, and this is a great question.

I think, without getting too deep into weeds or bitterness, that my attitude towards aggressively non-canonical (or, frankly, anti-canonical) interpretations of ships or characters has shifted both because of my negative experiences with the Fandom wiki and because I effectively have to go over the happenings of each episode two or three times. Additionally, my deep dislike and distrust of conspiracy theories long pre-dates my work on wikis or even involvement with fandom, but now that I spend a decent amount of "fandom time" looking up citations, I have even less patience for it. There are so many wonderful sources beyond just the wiki! We have a transcript search! We have Dani's recaps! We have so many sourcebooks! We have a talkback/commentary show! Please, while I'd love for people to use and add to the wiki, at the very least, if you don't have time to watch or rewatch episodes in full, use these wonderful resources instead of relying on like, someone's personal silly little clip compilations to shape your understanding.

In terms of far more positive things, I think because wiki pages are changing, living documents, going back to them has given me a lot of insight that I might have forgotten. To give an example - just now, in summarizing the party's trip towards Yios, I ran across the fact that Imogen was asked if she wanted to give up her powers - if there were a cure, whether she'd take it - and she responded that while once she felt that way, she no longer does. I think Imogen's relationship with power is fascinating, and I think this puts her in contrast with Liliana in a new and interesting way that I'd love to explore further once we return to more direct conflict. This small moment says so much, but I'd forgotten it in the several months since it aired, and probably wouldn't have accessed again if I were not a wiki editor. I've also been doing a lot of work on editing out plagiarism, or fleshing out largely overlooked details, and it's a delight to get to revisit prior campaigns and see how everything fits together. I get both a very high level view of the world, and also get to zero in on tiny moments, like Veth shooting Caleb in the Vellum Steeple library, and I'm so grateful I get to relive that, and often my meta is informed by what I'm working on and what details I'm immersed in and the connections they spark.

Finally - while I'm obviously super opinionated here, on Tumblr, I think it's a really good and important exercise that I also spend time in a place where I need to consciously prioritize a neutral voice and give attention even to things I dislike. This is an entirely separate post so I won't derail myself but I think part of why I sometimes get extremely bizarre anons/responses is that I'm both someone who talks about CR on the whole, but also am open about my preferences (rather than running a blog that's highly focused on one character/ship nor being a true generalist blog that primarily reblogs art). Anyway, working on the wiki means that, for example, even if I'm really frustrated with an episode or a character or a relationship, I need to spend time and stop and ask myself what is actually happening, outside of my own feelings. I think this is a really good practice to have with fiction! I think you need to be able to do both and compartmentalize and switch between them; to say "what is the author/creator trying to say and how are they saying it and what is literally occurring" and also "how do I, an individual with my own unique perspective, feel about what's happening." Or at the very least, if you can't do this, you can still enjoy yourself, but you will always be preaching to the choir.

[zorya-wellness]

Lammas/Lughnasadh Pagan Holiday

Lammas or Lughnasadh is a Pagan holiday celebrated on August 1st. It symbolizes the end of the summer period (yes, even though you may not want to hear that we are on our way to the end) and the beginning of magical fall.

The Lammas holiday is also closely connected to the harvest season.

It is traditionally believed that the period of Lammas celebration was very important in the religious communities, not only from the perspective of Pagan or Christian traditions  but also due to its agricultural significance.

Lammas versus Lughnasadh. What Is The Difference?

First of all, let’s talk about terminology a bit.

Lammas comes from Anglo-Saxon hlaf-mas, "loaf-mass", therefore also known as Loaf Mass Day and it is a Christian holiday.

The celebration of this holiday by the Christian community is in part similar to what we will be discussing later. The holiday signifies a period of being blessed by the first gifts of the harvest season. The wheat collected is often used to make the Lammas bread that would later be brought to church for a blessing.

Lughnasadh or Lughnasa is the name used by the “Neopagan” community and just as Lammas, marks the beginning of the harvest period. It is the time when we are grateful for the abundance of the Mother Earth.

How to pronounce Lughnasadh?

The term Lughnasadh comes from the Irish spelling of the word. The Modern way of Irish  pronunciation is Lúnasa and pronounced Loo-nuh-suh. The Classical pronunciation is /’luɣ.nə.səð/ like LUGH-nuh-sudh (where “gh” is pronounced as i a word "give" and the “dh” is like the “th” in “that”.) It is probably the most correct pronunciation of Lughnasadh, as Lugh or Lug is the God from Irish mythology and the one this holiday is dedicated to at the first place.

How Lammas Originated?

Lammas came from a desire of people to thank and celebrate the “father” Sun and the Mother Earth for the fruits of their “love” - the harvest.

To bless the marriage of God and Goddess and ask for a buy dance and prosperity in the upcoming months.

It was considered that August 1st marks the first day of fall. And on August 2nd it was already the time to pick up the harvest and so the days of hunger and need would we over.

The holiday was widely celebrated in:

Ireland: the name Lughnasadh comes from the Irish God Lugh and is translated at “the marriage of Lugh.

Scotland

Isle of Man

In Slavic countries (called “medovyi spas”)

Let’s Talk More About The Harvest.

When we hear “Lammas”, we often think about the period of harvest right away. It is the most talked about moment of Lammas or Lughnasadh but we need to truly understand what stands behind the concept of harvest.

If you are a careful reader, you have noticed I specifically say the beginning of harvest. I also want to explain more what I mean by the time of being grateful.

You see, Lammas is the day of the beginning of the harvest period and NOT the time when we are assessing the outcome and are drawing conclusions of how successful we’ve been (there will be another holiday dedicated to this, called Mabon).

But the first day of harvest is the time when the quality of life changes. It is the time when it becomes predictable what expectations we can have and taste the first ripe fruits.

Simply put, it is the moment when something you worked so hard on, finally becomes tangible and it also becomes YOURS.

A skill you were developing is almost acquired but not to the point when it becomes a reflex. The investments you’ve made are starting to produce some cash flow but still need your attention.

You also need to understand that it is not possible to continuously perfect something or wait for an opportune moment.  At some point, you need to release into the world what you have the way it is and improve things on the go.

Where am I going with this philosophical deviation, you probably are wondering…

This is what Lammas period really is about. It is the time when we transition from preparation to action.

What does it mean for you in real life situation?

Lammas gives you are opportunity of the perfect time to do something you were afraid of doing.

It may be that you were working on a website for your very own blog but we’re too afraid to press that “publish” button, thinking it is not perfect yet.

Or you may have been writing a book but haven’t started to search for a publisher, changing and tweaking things in an attempt for it to be perfect.

You may have been doing research for a new job you always wanted or university program you wanted to apply for but haven’t felt ready to finally made the move and submit an application.

Do you see the pattern?

Lammas is the time when you were ALREADY in the process of doing something but haven’t had the energy for the final step. And this period of the first week of August is for you to pull yourself together and make the move.

And when Mabon comes, we will be assessing the results of our actions.

"Can I celebrate Lughnasadh if I’m not pagan?"

First of all, like I mentioned in my other Blog posts related to the Wheel of the Year, you don’t need to be Pagan to celebrate or acknowledge Wheel of the Year holidays.

RELATED: What Is Pagan Wheel of the Year and How to Celebrate It? Beginner Pagan's Guide

You need to be aware of the existence of the energy of the Mother Earth, it’s changes and shifts and how this affects our lives.

So, What Can You Do To Celebrate Lughnasadh/Lammas?

Lammas/Lughnasadh Traditions and Rituals

Do Some Lammas Divination Work

The period from July 31st to August 6th is the perfect time for divination work. Tarot, Runes and oracles will provide with great messages, especially in career/money (material) and love questions (especially compatibility related).

Don’t forget to show gratitude to the Universe and Mother Earth. It is important to maintain the energy exchange, at the very least with the well known gratitude and love practices.

Show gratitude towards others too, don’t forget to show acknowledgment and say “thank you”.

Make Lammas Bread

During this period, it is the great time to infuse your food and drinks with the energy of love and gratitude, as well as thank the Source and the Planet for its generosity. Of course, the best way to celebrate this holidays is to make Lammas bread. I am giving you this quick bread recipe that does not require a lot of products or special skills

Lammas Abundance Bread Recipe

For this little Ritual you will need to make (not buy!) corn bread.

Lammas Bread Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup of corn flour

1 1/2 cup wheat flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup of sugar 2 tbs of cooled down melted butter

4 cups of milk

2 tsp of baking powder

Instructions:

Mix flour and salt together in a deep bowl.In a separate bowl with milk add baking powder;  then add sugar and butter.Mix all the ingredients together in one bowl until the consistency is that of a sour cream. It will not be similar to regular bread dough you may be making at home.

*While you are mixing, talk into the bowl anything you want to accomplish that is related to the abundance. Whatever the abundance means to YOU. It does not have to be financial. Maybe you will feel abundant and complete when you have a large family. Then go for it.

Pour the Lammas bread dough into a baking dish (don't forget to butter the dish). Bake for about 40-50 minutes at 360 degrees F.When the colour is nice and golden, take the bread out and let it cool.

When you sit down for a meal, break off (not cut) a large piece of Lammas bread and say: "Large piece of bread in my hand will bring me abundance and plenty." Don’t forget to share your food with the Gods (leave some bread in nature, the way you see fit and depending on the type of deity you are working with.)

Lughnasadh Home Blessing and Abundance Ritual

This ritual can be done during the same time as you are making your Lammas bread.

It is done to invite luck and abundance into your home. BUT. You can change your intent to protection, if you’d like.

All you need to do is to set aside some dough when you are making it for your break and create a figure of an animal. My personal suggestion is to select a farm animal due to the nature of the energy of this holiday.

When you are done, you will need to follow basic figure talisman activation steps. I have adapted the suggestions of Vadim Zeland for this.

*If you are interested in who Vadim Zeland is, click here to read more about him. His book Reality Transurfing has changed my life forever.

Animal activation steps:

Come up with a name for your animal

Take a deep breath. Now breathe into the animal, imagining giving it energy and life.

Tell the animal its name. Tell it that you love and care for it and, in exchange, it's helping you with (whatever you want to ask for).

Place the animal anywhere in the house, depending on the task you give it.

Don't forget to revisit daily and remind the animal of your love and the important task it is doing for you.

Don’t forget to check out complete Blog Post on my website for more information on Lammas traditions, as well as my other Blog posts on Pagan holidays, Rune Meanings and more.