#sat down to write about you

[erinwantstowrite]

if you want an insight into my brain, i shipped Ron and Harry from Harry Potter and was so immensely angry at JKR when they didn't get together (I didn't know about homophobia yet) that I went outside and nailed the book to a tree

[dustykneed]

--Really, Doctor?

[pastafossa]

I love you guys. I hope you know that.

Like.

Ok so I posted the new TRT chapter the other day. Obviously. And I had to force myself to do it, to click that final, 'post' button because at that last moment, this big wave of imposter syndrome hit (that had already hit on and off as I'd started working on the chapter again). And it was just this cycle of, 'It's been like 6 months since you posted a chapter or anything other than a couple one-shots and you're out of practice, I bet it's bad, it's probably terrible, I bet everyone's left and no one cares about this thing you love so why do you? What if no one likes it, you're gonna drop this and everyone's gonna god 'wtf is this, pasta? what happened?'' And so I forced myself to post it, took my meds to ensure I slept, and then kinda just bunkered down and slept/hid because I was halfway convinced that all the trauma in the previous six months had just bopped any ability I had to write.

Instead I got this outpouring, of just like, 'WELCOME BACK' and people telling me they're happy that mom is ok (which made me cry but in a good way) and they're sorry Cato passed away (more tears, but comforted tears), but also delightful jokes about the funny lines I put in or screaming over that romantic line or about missing Jane and the dynamics and comments about being eager for the next chapter, and how now I can be one of those AO3 authors with those notes of 'yeah my life blew up so I was delayed, but hey I'm back!' which... yeah. And much like when I first started TRT, I didn't... really expect that at all, and it's made me really emotional.

So if you've dropped into my ask box or the comments or the replies, seriously, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, because the excitement and love and just you all being the best little fam and continuing on this journey of TRT with me - a journey that has now included both Matt and Jane's journey, and a real life journey through a pandemic, a huge move, a passing of two of my pets, my mom's hospitalization and recovery, some heart issues, the cancellation and resurrection of the show, me meeting Charlie Cox and getting him to hold a red thread, my first wood carving event, etc - and I know I say this a lot, but you all really, really help me keep going when things get hard. I'd write TRT for nothing, I would, because I love this story and I intend to see it through, but ya'll just... I love you all tons. I'm hoping to get through the asks and fic comments and replies in the next few days, but I just wanted you guys to know that.

[kingslionheart]

Just so some king in this world may have driven one of his favourites from him, or he may have been forced from the king against both of their wills; then hath he many torments and many mishaps in his exile, yet he may come to the same lord whom he before was with, and there be much more worshipful than he was. Then he will recall the misfortunes which he had there in his exile, and yet not be the more unhappy — Alfred the Great's translation of St. Augustine's Soliloquies

[xxplastic-cubexx]

what is your favorite thing about charles and your favorite thing about erik? separately, as in what you like most about their characters :]

a devious question this one is, my friend!!! it's hard enough for me to explain my thoughts cohesively, but having to pick ONE thing i particularly love is difficult. with characters like charles and erik, theres been so much done with their characters over the decades and so they have so many components to them that make them so interesting and fun to observe. BUT I TRY FOR YOU TODAY. under the cut i kinda ramble and the size of this text box makin me anxious

i think if i were to be simple and broad, what i enjoy most about charles is his determination to help others, even if he isn't really thanked and/or if people don't even like him. ofc, this isn't to say he hasn't done wrong- to be honest, the fact he does wrong/questionable things at times is another aspect of him i really enjoy, maybe because- broadly speaking- he's meant to be altruistic (intent vs outcome and all that). i don't know if that's super exciting to most people, but it is for me

as for erik, my reason for liking him is easier to explain tbh. To Be Simple And Broad, his progression from villain to antihero over the decades has been fun to observe (as much as i have so far anyhow) and analyze. i think to be a bit more specific, him using his rage and pain as justifications for his villainous actions is definitely what compels me the most: hurt people hurt and the sort, an idea i've always found interesting (something something vicious cycles and the like). yet now, he recognizes this wasn't really. A Just Thing To Do and is beginning to change that, which i enjoy

[cavennmalore]

anyway you guys should go read the fic i wrote about alvars pseudo redemption arc instead of sleeping bc i have to wake up at the ass crack of dawn tomorrow

[whatisamildopinion]

are you planning on continuing your aasimar au through junior year? i’m super interested as to what you’d do with kipperlily and riz’s dynamic, as well as riz and kristen’s relationship through her (insane) campaign

hi anon!!! thanks for the ask!

as of now, I am definitely planning to continue aasimar au through junior year. we've got a few chapters left in sophomore year to wrap up the school year, deal with some of the consequences of of our aspects altered from canon, and set up some of my relationship arcs for junior year. rest assured, I have Plans, and I'm feeling delightfully evil about them.

this one is gonna be a little long, so I'll slap it under a cut for those interested. warning for minor spoilers in terms of talking about general character arcs, but with very few specifics in terms of plot beats or specific scenes. I've got to keep some secrets about me ;)

it was always in the plans to do a junior year if I was still feeling passionate about it by the time I finished with sophomore year. Aasimar Au is, fundamentally, a little sandbox for me to play around with these characters, and it's more of a long-form character study than anything else. that said, the broader arc of Aasimar Au, and what, exactly, is the point of all of this, hinges on the execution of the third act, junior year. I have been setting shit up for it since Day One. if, for some reason, I don't finish junior year, freshman and sophomore year are totally fine to stand on their own, but I'm definitely extremely excited to have all of my various little thematic plot beat chickens come home to roost in junior year.

as far as the specific relationships you mention, HOOOOO BOY those are some hefty ones here. kipperlilly and riz have this fascinating relationship in canon where they haunt each other in the abstract. they hardly ever actually interact, but riz is haunted by the idea of being like kipperlilly, and kipperlilly, obviously, is both jealous and hateful of riz. in aasimar au, they are both more and less tormented by this relationship than in canon. for obvious reasons, kipperlilly initially hates riz and is jealous of his "unfair advantages", which, in this story, is more generally based in his status as aasimar and the intense trauma that came from that negotiation of identity. "this kid is already experiencing the oppression that comes with with being a goblin and he's ALSO experiencing discrimination from the prominent helioic sections of Elmville, and his angel father isn't in the picture but he still gets special magical abilities from his heritage? god, what a spoiled fucking brat. what a privileged little asshole. why couldn't that be me?" in aasimar au, riz is cosmically significant from birth. and kipperlilly hinges her biased hatred on this fact. "look, he's LITERALLY special, look, he's LITERALLY privileged. look, this heritage makes him a better adventurer and it's unfair." The thing is, she's also hinging her hatred on the idea that riz has a leg up because of the magical trauma of the situation and of his father's absence. which, of course, falls apart for a couple reasons. the first being that riz actually gets more effective and more powerful as an adventurer when kristen helps him unpack that trauma and actually begin using his magic again in freshman year. the trauma wasn't actually helping him. but, the much more important and damaging aspect to this mentality is when the end of sophomore year/junior year rolls around, and Pok comes back. he becomes a regular and stable facet of riz's life. and, to rub salt into the wound, the bad kids have gained a whole recurring cast of emotional support that comes not from trauma but from the active and intentional building/rebuilding of community. Yvoni, Gorthalax, Pok, Harathina, Katalina, Aetolana, Zaphriel, Garthy, etc etc. the bad kids effectively have a support network that somehow balances back over into appropriately supportive and capable, if not particularly normal, just like kipperlilly's parents. it undermines everything about her argument that trauma and instability is what provides an edge in adventuring.

but that's just one aspect of it. the other deeply, deeply fun aspect of their relationship in aasimar au is that her presence as a narrative rogue foil is utterly undone by the fact that riz, by the time junior year rolls around, is a multiclass rogue-PALADIN. he's spun around to begin delving into a class that is utterly different in terms of key strengths and potential abilities. he's taken a healing class!! it's a strength-based martial class!! it demands charisma and allows spell-casting!! kipperlilly has spent two whole years foaming at the mouth, seething about this boy and his advantages, but she's also built up this idea in her head that they are foils, that he and she are similar. she's a mastermind. she's got a plan. she's going to be him but she's also going to be BETTER than him, more IMPORTANT than him. better rogue, better adventurer, and then she has Won. what Aasimar riz does when he multiclasses into paladin is that he effectively stops playing the game (that he didn't even know he was playing). he's not being her foil anymore. a lot of the focus between kipperlilly and riz will be on this horror. the horror of being one-half a foil duo, and then your partner stops playing along. how is kipperlilly supposed to prove that she's better than him when he's focused his attention on skills she doesn't share? what do you do when the person you've been marking yourself against for years starts changing, and you stay the same? their relationship will, in form with canon, be developed very much in absences of interaction, but all of it will more or less hinge on this horror, and the narration of stagnation vs. growth.

(also, less narratively important, but hilarious to me to mention that paladin is a charisma-based spellcasting class. aasimar au riz has good charisma. he's a strange and strangely charming young man. he's aguefort adventuring acadamy's Silly Goofy Guy, nevermind that he ate a dragon and is just as unhinged as everyone else in his party. he's charming! he's polite! he's generally less of an asshole to the student body than his party members! kipperlilly can't complain about riz to the student body because everyone will make faces like she just suggested kicking puppies for fun. it drives her FUCKING CRAZY.)

riz and kristen, on the other hand, are charting a course that is even more closely intertwined than in canon. they are following the aasimar au gukgak tradition of a Relationship(tm) that is definitely some flavor of deeply queer in nature, but don't ask them about that please, no thank you. they'll never talk about it. they're also just, fundamentally, Best Friends. riz believes in kristen So So Much, and he's paying her a lot of attention because of the ways in which she's struggling with her faith and her school. riz has seen kristen do work. riz has done work with her! he knows she's not lazy or incapable, but she struggles so much with her school setting. riz is the president of the Kristen Applebees Support Group. he's also the vice president and the group organizer. kristen, likewise, is the president of the Riz Gukgak Support Group. that's her best friend and her partner (no, stop asking if we're dating, I'm a lesbian and he's not interested. what the fuck is it to you?) she's a little more aware in aasimar au of what's going on with him in canon re his scholarship worries and the situation with Baron, and she's definitely trying to be a little more cognizant of how and where he's extending himself on her behalf. she's making sure he eats, she's making sure he sleeps, she's trying to get himself to stop stretching himself so thin. the campaign is a little bit less stressful for him in this sense, and actually a little bit less stressful for her as well (because, well, look! proof that I've accomplished something! my efforts count and they matter! it's good reinforcement for her. positive feedback loop of Good Results). they're both trying to figure out what their futures look like, and how the other one fits in it. it's all very much about love and devotion and the ways in which a platonic relationship can be the defining thing in our lives. but they've also got a lot of relationships happening in tandem with the same other people. principally, tracker, who both kristen and riz are negotiating where they stand with her after sophomore year. tracker-kristen-riz in aasimar au are in the messiest queer triangle you've ever seen in your goddamn life. they all love each other so much, but unfortunately they are all highly traumatized, and also Teenagers. emphasis on the Teenagers part. this means that they make dumbass decisions sometimes, even and especially about the relationships that matter the most to them. they're negotiating an intense web of jealousy and love and the complications of relationships and internalized biases about themselves that they haven't quite worked through, and it impacts their relationship. but fear not! this is a Happy Ending story. if I catch any of you being mean about how these three are behaving in the end of sophomore year through junior year I will fill your shoes with mud But also, they're interacting with other, now reunited family members (Pok and Bucky) quite a bit, which impacts them both in different ways. and they're also managing their positions within the network of the divine alongside Fig, who is joining the web of Complicated Queer Divine Best Friendships.

in summary, riz and kristen will of course have challenging moments with one another junior year, because stressful times plus Teenagehood makes for challenging moments, but they are, overall, confronting junior year as a team. it's a united front where they both know without a shadow of a doubt that the other person is In Their Corner, which makes things easier for them in a lot of ways. aasimar au, at its core, is a Power of Love and Community fic. it's about the ways in which people can support one another and make life better for one another. it is, to steal from The Good Place (which informs a startling amount of this story) about what we owe to each other.

anyway. tldr, yes, I intend to continue aasimar au through junior year! thanks again, anon!

[keets-writing-corner]

One thing I noticed is that Lucifer doesn't disassociate when singing, and what's one common factor in his songs? Charlie, so I like to imagine that in these instances he's so focused on her that his depression temporarily takes a back seat because he loves his kid so much that he forgets why he's sad in the first place.

ooh I like your headcanons!

hmm I guess we could look at this a couple of different ways (some of what I'm about to say comes from personal experience which may be different than what some other people experience so idk feel free to agree or disagree with my musings)

So dissociation doesn't [technically] affect your ability to speak, it affects your ability to focus. The way I was talking about it in my analysis was that it nerfed Lucifer's conversation comprehension, with him being unable to follow along the entire time (and consequently either has NO idea what anyone is talking about or only gets half the picture).

The only times Lucifer really fumbles his words is when he gets nervous around Charlie either cuz he's trying to make a good impression

Or when he realizes his depression is biting him in the ass and he just missed crucial pieces of information and cannot bluff his way through the conversation

Although shout out to that one time we caught him realizing he needed to bluff and stumbled a little

But otherwise, he articulates himself perfectly fine, cuz again, dissociation isn't about speaking ability so much as it is about focus. Even in my bouts of dissociation I can verbalize myself just fine for the most part, it's whether or not what I have to say is relevant to the conversation, which uh Lucifer also showed off at some point when he thought Charlie was asking him about the hotel's appearance rather than her actual plan to redeem sinners and comments on the railings. (Or idk there is another interpretation that he was avoiding the subject, maybe it was both he disassociated while Charlie was explaining everything to him but did catch that she wanted to redeem sinners at some point, but didn't quite understand what she was asking until she clarified? he didn't seem surprised when she did clarify so I'm assuming he ended up catching it at least once)

So I'm bringing this up because it ends up being kinda hard to tell whether or not he is or is not disassociating when he sings, cuz the dissociation wouldn't affect the singing at all.

When he's having a sing battle against Alastor, sure he's articulating himself well and presenting his points, but we don't actually know whether or not he's following along what Alastor is saying. Honestly, Lucifer vs Alastor just seemed like 2 territorial chickens yelling at each other trying to be louder than the other one. Maybe Lucifer is catching everything cuz his jealous and rage helped him focus for once, maybe he's not catching everything but he doesn't need to catch everything to know that he doesn't like Alastor and he doesn't need to focus to tell Alastor how much he dislikes him.

But what about the other two songs, "More than Anything" and "Finale"?

He is technically outright having a conversation with Charlie in the first one and in the second one, he seems fully aware of the context of the situation and is focusing more on a lifting spirits role

Well it could be a lot of things I think. I don't think it's that the depression or the sadness took a back seat, that's still present. From my own experiences, it is possible to get yourself to focus in a dissociative episode when the subject matter is something you're passionate about or in Lucifer's case, someone that he loves. We know the dissociation was unfortunately strong enough that it was making him miss out on a lot of things Charlie (aforementioned loved one) was telling him, especially in the beginning.

But looking at "More than Anything" what changed in that scene? He was with Charlie the entire episode but that was the first scene where he really managed to hold a conversation. I think it was a combination of: Okay his baby girl is there and she NEEDS him, and he opens up as to why he's hesitant about her plan. He's not explicit with the mention of his trauma, but trauma does make someone more alert. I'd also like to give a special shout out to @in-fair-verona-we-set-our-scene who made these lovely tags on my analysis post

Specifically, I want to talk about that they mention that Lucifer is being a lot more genuine in his song with Charlie, aka he's not masking. He's not trying to hide or bluff how he's doing. He's not putting on a show, he's not being goofy or larger than life, he's being genuine and his genuine self is tired, sad and resigned. Let me tell you, my dissociation is 100% worse when I'm masking.

I think in "More Than Anything" a mix of things are going on, he's not needing to mask for a minute which boosts the focus, he's opening up about trauma and it's being gently received which boosts focus, and he's talking to someone he loves about something he was once passionate about which boosts focus. So ye! It could entirely be that in that song he was not dissociating!

As far as "Finale" I legitimately can't really tell whether or not he is? He's not really having a conversation with anyone, he's just trying to uplift his daughter, and again, in my experiences, dissociation doesn't necessarily nerf your ability to speak. We also know that he knows how to put on a show even in the depths of the dissociation like in "Hell's Greatest Dad" soooo as for that song... -shrug-?????

There is an element here that we have to take into account. Hazbin Hotel is a traditional musical, so we must look at a theater saying, "When the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing." Which is more or less what happened in all the songs Lucifer was a part in, so there's definitely some meta technical things going on in that a song wouldn't be very dramatic if the person singing it was dissociating the whole time? I mean I guess it could be done, I've just never seen it? Usually the musical number has to be clear in its purpose. The protagonist of Dear Even Hansen can sing just fine when any other speaking parts he fumbles with his words a lot.

AAAAAAALLL of this to say: Does Lucifer stop disassociating when he sings? -shrugs- I think it really depends on the context, but I wouldn't at all be surprised cuz high emotion can lead to greater focus in a moment. Although it's really cute to think that he doesn't dissociate cuz singing with Charlie is just that much of a boost for him cuz he loves his wittle girl

[soupbtch]

ummm. my fic is done.

[whos-hotter-jjba]

Hottest JoJo Character Bracket - Match 3-15

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

I thinksk that the joker would consider jason todd his blorbo.

[eli-is-an-idiot]

right it's only recently hit me that the biggest set of exams that i'll ever take (eleven subjects with at least two papers each, fuck my life D:) are in four months and i am nowhere near ready, so i'm probably going to be a lot slower with updating my writing

so if you're reading only a day away (first of all, i appreciate you so much!!) i'm going to write some more tonight and maybe tomorrow, but after that my Revision PlanTM kicks in and i'm probably going to vanish for the forseeable future

i'll do my best to be somewhat consistent, but i can't guarantee anything - i just want to be clear here so people aren't left without an explanation

[pagesofkenna]

thing that sucks about finally putting pen* to paper** and writing is that now that im in the mood to WRITE i want to write ALL OF IT not just the bit my brain can handle doing in one sitting

*hand **keyboard

[gunpowder-gemini]

I love liminal spaces but I think we're all using that term wrong

Like ok, hear me out. I ADORE liminal space vibes and playlists and photos etc. I think the backrooms are great! I love the unsettling-yet-oddly-comforting vibes of all this stuff. But I don't think we're using the term right. Or rather, we're using it too broadly I think. Putting the rest under a cut because writing down my thoughts turned into a whole ass essay.

So the definition of liminal according to Merriam-Webster is:

of, relating to, or situated at a sensory threshold : barely perceptible or capable of eliciting a response

of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition : in-between, transitional.

When talking about spaces and locations we're generally meaning the 2nd one. (Though the first one sounds like shit you can barely see and I do love the idea of exploring that in terms of like, houses that you aren't sure are there or a place that you can only sort of see out of the corner of your eye but I'm getting sidetracked).

So these are places that are transitional and are unsettling because they are places that we are familiar with but we don't think about when we aren't actively there. Seeing them outside that context is odd and feels kinda wrong (also because they're generally portrayed as always empty and lit strangely, but we'll come back to that). Good examples are like stairwells, hallways, train stations, airports, bus stops, gas stations, etc.

So we agree on that, yeah? Great. Now where I'm saying we're wrong is in OTHER kinds of creepy spaces that give the same sort of vibe, but AREN'T inherently transitional spaces.

For example, I don't think offices are liminal. Office spaces are horrifying and endless office rooms DO sound like my personal hell, but that's because you spend a LOT of time in them. Like, office spaces full of cubicles and computers and shit is a JOB, a DESTINATION. It isn't somewhere you're just passing through or waiting in while you move to another location. Now the office hallways or stairwells I WOULD say are liminal, but the rooms themselves? Unsettling but not liminal, and I think are unsettling BECAUSE they aren't liminal.

I would apply this same logic to a lot of other popular "liminal space" places that get thrown around, such as shopping malls, playplaces, hotels (this one could go either way tbh), classrooms, houses (come on, you literally live in those), etc. Some examples of what I mean:

These aren't liminal imo, they're just empty and/or poorly lit. Empty places that feel like they should have people, especially places that feel familiar, can evoke that same sort of uncanny uneasiness that liminal spaces do.

There is, of course, overlap and gray areas and nuance. Places that do not normally exist as liminal spaces CAN be liminal spaces if the place itself is in a state of transition.

For example, the backrooms. Office spaces are not inherently liminal but EMPTY office spaces I would say are. Without the cubicles and desks and computers and whatnot, the space ceases to be a destination. No one is working in the completely empty backrooms. So the space is in a period of transition either into a usable workspace or going from a workspace into something else. I would say this applies to things like empty houses before you move in/after you move out. Waffle House at 3 am is liminal because it's not a destination you just end up there somehow. There's more but you get the gist, here's some examples.

The last category of liminal spaces are ones I'm not sure where to put, because they aren't real. These are things like the poolrooms and bathrooms that don't make sense and stuff like that. I see these labeled "dreamcore" more than anything which is a good label, but since they do get brought up as liminal spaces I figured I'd mention them here too. Idk, I don't think they're liminal if only because they aren't real.

SO all of that explained, I'd like to bring back that thing about emptiness and strange lighting. Because all of these images I found by searching for liminal spaces (and specifying like, bathroom or whatever) and I DON'T think they're all liminal but I DO think they are all unsettling and weirdly familiar in the same way. We're using liminal to describe this vibe, but I think what we all ACTUALLY mean is uncanny.

Like, all of these places are places that look familiar even though we may never have been there, but they look WRONG. They're all too empty, the lights are either too bright or too dim and many of them look abandoned. They're such a strange marriage of nostalgically familiar (for those of us that grew up in the us in the 90s/00s anyway, ymmv) and horrifyingly unsettling. They're like the uncanny valley, but for locations. Thus, I think this aesthetic should be called something like uncanny spaces and that liminal spaces would be a subset of this.

Obviously I'm just some guy on the internet and I can't make anyone stop using liminal to mean uncanny, it's just something I've kinda thought a lot about and wanted to yell those thoughts into the void that is the internet lol.

[smallblueandloud]

i keep feeling like. there's something parallel between rose and yaz's endings. maybe parallel isn't the right word -- but i keep wanting to draw comparisons, i think because they're two characters who really defined specific doctors and for whom it's basically confirmed the doctor returned their (romantic) feelings

(they're not the ONLY ones who fit this description, but i'm in no way qualified to talk about clara or even river, so bear with me)

it just feels. i don't know. rose never leaves on purpose. she is separated from the doctor, forcibly, every single time. the doctor sends her home, or she gets stuck in an alternate universe, or the doctor leaves her in the same alternate universe. every single time, she fights to get back to the doctor. the writers had to create a perfect happy ending for her (half-human version of her doctor who'll age along with her, in the alternate universe where her father is alive) because otherwise she wouldn't stop fighting to get back to the doctor, and the show can't have that. the show needs to move on. we need rose to fade into the past.

i haven't seen all of yaz's episodes, but her arc seems very similar from the limited amount i've seen. she keeps fighting to get back to the doctor. she's in love with the doctor, and the doctor basically confirms returning her feelings, albeit in a very stilted, hesitant, doctor-y way (compare "imagine that happening to someone you--" with "and if i was going to, believe me, it would be with you").

but when yasmin's doctor regenerates... yaz is just expected to. step away, go back to living her life, never see the doctor again. kinda like the abandonment that most companions have ever experienced -- getting dropped off once and then goodbye forever! -- except with more of the onus on her. the show has to move on from rose's era, so she gets dumped on a beach. the show has to move on from yasmin's era, so yaz has to accept that the doctor is going off to die alone. she has to make her peace with that information.

i don't know. i think yaz's ending is trying to go hand-in-hand with graham and ryan's purposeful exit -- it seems like the chibnall era tried really hard to have Not Terrible endings for companions. which is very admirable! but honestly? yasmin's ending feels crueler than most, including rose's. yaz was in love with the doctor. the doctor reciprocated those feelings. they should've gotten their equivalent of s2-era 10rose! she should've gotten a chance to stay with the doctor through their regeneration, the way other love interests have been able to (s/o to river and clara!).

i know this is because of the limitations of the show. bad ratings meant chibnall left after only one regeneration, and new incarnations of the show rarely bring in characters from other eras.

but i'm still very sad for yaz :( like yes, she wasn't just dumped on the curb without warning. but she was still expected to say goodbye to someone she loved, knowing that person was dying, and not say a word of protest. if the previous history of the show is any indication, she's never going to see the doctor again. she doesn't get a half-human version of the doctor to live out her days with, and she's not "allowed" to fight to get back to the doctor, either, due to the way the show's structured (but also the way the doctor talked about them saying goodbye). she has to live the rest of her life knowing that the doctor is out there, perfectly capable of visiting, and the only reason they won't visit is because yaz is from a specific time of their life that they've moved on from.

i know she has the companion support group. and i know she'll move on! she's yaz. she's strong and self-actualized. she'll be okay, eventually. but she has to be okay, you know? she has to learn to live without the doctor. rose never had to do that.

it just makes me sad :(

[hyacinthusmemorial]

writing the third chapter and honestly I dont know how to make the story interesting, I am writing nonsense.

I think I will answer this publicly because writing advice is universally loved and adored (right?). This is more about motivation than mechanics. It's about telling a story rather than about grammar, POV, verb tense.

The first thing to do is just write. Don't think about plot, don't think about characters, don't think too hard, just write. Sometimes you have to spew out absolute garbage to start writing gold. Start somewhere in the action, then describe the surroundings, then describe the character, why are they there, what about them is making them act this way. A fun tip: write what you want to read. I daydream all the time, I go on walks--long walks--I listen to music, and I just daydream. Usually, what you enjoy imagining, other people will too. Slip tidbits of your life in, they don't need to be blatant, just little pieces of yourself to add humanity to it.

The second thing is to have a goal in your writing. When I start writing a chapter, I always have an "idea" of what I need to accomplish according to an internal map of where my story is going. Then I just write (The first point) until I accomplish it. Another goal I have when writing a chapter is that I usually give myself a word count to accomplish. For me, my word count is 3,000 for a chapter minimum, unless its a prologue or epilogue. This word count encourages me to fill in gaps, describe scenes better, but it also keeps me in-line with pacing of action.

Third thing: re-rewrite it all. When I wrote Anele and Forgotten Age, I erased whole chapters, I trashed it (I kept it in a separate compilation document that is multiple chapters long). I went back to the blank page, I said, I can write this more subtly, I can write this more succinctly. I can write this better. Sometimes, you have absolutely NO IDEA what is going on until the characters have taken you to the end of it all, and you have to go back and write it all again BETTER. And sometimes, you have to write it all again.

And, one last thing: Allow yourself to be mediocre, accept mediocre. I have seen more people stop writing because they feel like they suck than any other reason. Put the shitty words to paper--it is absolutely the greatest thing a human can do. Everything we write is a written record that someone existed. And when I write, well, sometimes, sometimes its absolute garbage, and sometimes its fine, and sometimes I feel like there are spirits touching my fingers to the keyboard. No one is good 100% of the time, and that's okay.

I think you said you were a teen somewhere, I can't remember. When I was a teen, my mom told me I needed to "Hurry up and write my novel, so we can get out of here." She had complete and utter faith that I would write something brilliant one day, and she thought that it would save us both from a pretty shitty situation, but I didn't write anything long or brilliant because I just didn't have it in me yet. I had all these ideas, thoughts, concepts, but there was something missing. My mom ended up dying when I was seventeen, and she was sick for awhile. It's been nearly ten years now, but she shows up in my writing--she's a ghost in the background. Sometimes, we can't write our story until we figure out what's worth keeping alive, and that's okay. You don't need to experience tragedy to be a writer, but living experience is necessary. You don't have to know what it feels like to be stabbed to write about it, but you probably know what it feels like to be betrayed by someone. You may not know what its like to kiss someone, but you know what its like to love someone. Sometimes we can't write until there's life there, and like I said, that is okay.

This is a warning: don't treat novel writing like a career option because quite frankly, its not. I'm in nursing to support myself, but writing is my Netflix. Its free. Its fun. I get to make the show I want, and share it with people free of charge on AO3. Unless you have an incredible entrepreneurial spirit to you, writing for a career will eat your soul and your pocketbook. Unless you plan to be an English teacher, don't get a college degree in english (it is literally useless, Stephen King, Rick Riordan--they all had English degrees because they were teachers). The best thing about English is you can read books, and learn grammar, and write on your own and become proficient at it without a teacher telling you what to do or paying tuition or other fees other than library fees for all those books you didn't return. There are obvious exceptions: you have rich parents who let you live in their house and feed you, you have a strong entrepreneurial spirit and a trust fund, or you already signed a $14 million book deal with Disney Hyperion Books.