#teesta talks for ts

[sturlsons]

hey teesta love of my life can you explain why the "this is not a place of honor" message gives me tingles in my spine? there's smth abt it but i don't know how to put it into words + ur the only other person as obsessed with it as i am.

so - the joke is about nuclear semiotics, right? a whole branch of studies dedicated to how best we can warn those who come after us not to fuck with the horrible things we created. i think there’s something intensely sad and poignant about that, about assuming that we will either lay our world as it is to waste or somehow, somehow find a way to pull the brakes on this train before it derails completely. that we will somehow think of them, if not of ourselves, and take all that is evil - and it is evil, no nuanced reading of history will ever convince me otherwise - take all that is death, and say, we will spare them. 

this is a wiki recap of the sandia laboratories’ 1996 report on longtime nuclear waste warning messages. they’d thought of all sorts of primary ideas, and people are still thinking now. how about a series of comic panels that show a man touching the nuclear waste and slowly deteriorating away? but what if every single culture in the future reads from right to left, and assumes that whatever this object is, touching it will heal malady? 

all right, how about showing a chronological progression of events - a sapling, growing slowly into a tree in the background of the comic as the man who’s touched the waste grows sicker? but - and this is a huge but - what if we have altered this planet so, so that trees can’t grow anymore? 

how will they know? that’s the biggest question here. we want to spare them - but how will they know? trying to think into an unthinkable future where our compatriots are humans who no longer understand us, on a planet that looks nothing like ours - maybe compatriots that look nothing like us, that aren’t even human. 

we still want to spare them. teams of scientists and designers and architects alive today, in 2020, when supermarkets are being emptied of non-perishables and everything is crumbling and one hardly feels like thinking about next year, let alone a time in the future when you and i will be so long gone that our stories will be one line in a page of a book on a shelf in a library in one town, if that - today, in 2020, there are people squinting at their laptop screens and thinking, but them. we will spare them, at least. but how will they know?

that we wish them well. how will they know? that despite everything we’ve fucked up - and god, we’ve fucked up - and because we’ve fucked up, we wish them well.

[sturlsons]

do you listen to a lot of kpop? I saw u have fics for NCT + bts + used to write for exo but do u stan any other group enough to ever write for them? if not what makes bts + nct special?

i used to listen to a ton of kpop but it was less from a musical point of view and more “i stan them so i have to listen to everything they put out”. this got me through EXO’s discography even as it got more and more unbearable for my personal tastes. the one day i realised that i just - don’t have to do this, and that this emotional attachment factor is a bigger marketing tool for groups than sometimes their own music. i no longer had the time for that. 

now i listen to odd songs here and there and check the group out if i like the sound. i like most of what BTS puts out though the post-wings albums haven’t interested me a lot apart from stuff here and there. i like a lot of what NCT puts out, and SVT too.

i got into BTS on the upward swing of me getting back into kpop (well essentially they’re what got me back vaguely into kpop as a fan/ficdom) and had a whole bunch of ideas which i’m still trying to finish. my backlog goes back to 2016. it’s the only reason i’m still writing for them. NCT was fun because it was a bunch of different fresh characters to work with, and i might write one more thing for them but that’s all! 

there is nothing special that pushed me to write for them/BTS and not someone else. i just saw in them characters that might be fun to work with and i went with it. i think they’re just people, albeit funny and talented ones, and any person, if you look at them long enough, can lend themselves to a character for a story.

i don’t see myself stanning any new groups. the older i get the more uncomfortable i am investing time and emotion on celebrities. that being said, RPF is fun because it’s basically like choosing actors for your very own movie, and i don’t feel like going back to pre-established fictional characters like in anime or shows/movies. that + the fact that i don’t have a drive to write original fiction = i don’t know how i’m ever going to keep writing, which is funky because i don’t think i could just stop writing. it’s what i do!

but maybe one of these days i’ll have An Idea for a book and then go ahead with it. who knows? not me.

[sturlsons]

hey teesta. you talked about sex n partying in uni a while back. Im starting uni soon and very inexperienced with this stuff. havent dated anyone ever, havent kissed anyone. I was like holding on and waiting for someone i actually felt romantic things for but. I can’t keep waiting forever and i do want to have fun in uni. this is vaguely jaywalkers esque but tldr im trying to figure out if i should ask my friend since id rather not do it drunk at a frat the first time. how bad of an idea is this

hi, hey. wow, so this is complicated. i’ve been in a similar situation (albeit being the person who was Showing The Other One Around). the thing is, it takes a very particular mindset to walk out of something like that unscathed, on both ends, so you need to be really sure that this is something you genuinely want to do and you’re not just caving and doing it to get it over with. that’s not how you want to go about this; it’d be better to just wait in that case.

if you’re completely sure, and your friend is, too, you still need to lay some ground rules. it’s not even remotely unheard of to just like. go down on someone as a friendly gesture, if you’ll excuse me. that’s fine. but like i said, you need to be sure that you’re both on the same page about everything, that no party has any unsaid feelings, that this will be no strings attached (or, if you want to continue, you’ll have a concrete and objective arrangement and communicate about it all). friends with benefits aren’t just a fic thing, believe me. but real life isn’t going to follow the fic arc of fuck - fall in love - miscommunication - angst - make up. if you’re not careful it can ruin friendships and not even explosively - you’ll just watch the whole thing peter out into awkwardness and your friends pretending they never knew y’all were up to something. so be careful. you have to communicate at every step. if you think things are going too far or that this isn’t what you wanted after all, you need to tell them that, as do they. whether it’s a question of one night or a longer arrangement or whatever.

if it’s just about kissing, i’m maybe not the best person to ask. i used to be very romantic about kissing as well, but long story short it actually ended up lowkey ruining my life, after which i stopped taking it seriously. i’m a serial kisser. i kiss people on the regular even though i’m in a committed relationship (my boyfriend is aware, of course). for me the symbolic importance of that sort of affection is not as...consequential as it might be for others. so if you asked me, i’d just say go for it! kiss your buddy! make out! but i know that it’s not as simple as that for everyone, so i guess everything i said in the previous paragraph applies to this situation as well.

just be careful and sure of what you want. and be honest. it’s at once the most you can do, and all you need to do, anyway. good luck in college! 

[sturlsons]

hey, teesta! it's the anon who broke up with her boyfriend after 5 years. i just wanted to let you know that i'm doing really good and that during the 1st month of it all, you served as a life-saver and as the pain and weird directionless feeling receded i became much alive and happy and with a renewed sense of purpose. really. and i am giving myself credit but you were so important. still is. thank you so much for your advice. i'm doing really well and my life changed so much in these last few+

months, i'm feeling so good, so light. it's good to be my own line and kite. last night a girl told me she really cares about me and i realized being wanted is really nice but being unattached and visiting new towns and cities through airbnb is, right now, much better (i kissed her, btw. no strings attached, she agreed). anyway, i hope you're okay, i've been so focused on myself lately that i forget about tumblr. just- really, i hope you're okay. you're too sweet not to be. 

there's a book club session happening next week, on the master and marguerita (one of my favorite books) in a gallery super near this tall ass museum, and i wish you were here so i could take you on a museum date bc i wish i could thank your properly. i will enjoy all the things for you since i can't, but hopefully my happiness can rub it off on you? not trying to be pretentious; i just hope nice thoughts about you might bring nice things for you. let's get better! see you soon, teesta

i am so so so happy and rejuvenated to see this message. i have wondered more than once how you are since your last message, and you have no idea how much it means to me that you took the time to come back and check in. i care about you so much. i’m so happy you’re doing better and that it is passing and i am glad you took this time to focus on yourself. you deserve it. and i’m glad you’re giving yourself credit too - i might have said some stuff but you did the legwork. ahhh i’m just so happy i’m really tearing up.

the girl sounds sweet. i’m so glad you had a moment with her, no strings attached. i think we all need some of those no matter how romantic we are - and it has a romance of its own. your airbnb adventures sound perfect - i don’t know where you live, but if ever there’s a chance that you can swing by france or even any other european country, you can bet that i will take a train to come see you. i would love a museum date. and i would love to share your happiness.

i hope you’ll stay in touch with me. i think you’re a lovely person who deserves good things, and i’m glad i could bring at least one good thing to you. good luck, my friend.

[sturlsons]

apropos of nothing, here is a gdoc which talks about languages, my process of learning them, and other resources.

it’s a 45-minute read, but there’s an outline which allows you to skip sections. this is for all the anons who ask me stuff about How Do You Languages; i hope it’s helpful! 

another guide to Being Organised And Shit coming up sometime soon, it’ll hopefully be less rambly than this one. 

[sturlsons]

hi, teesta. how are you? i'm looking for some advice. a few hours ago i broke up with my bf, we were together for 5 years. it wasn't ugly, just painful. we said our goodbyes and even wished me good luck (not in a bad way). my life (and his) will change completely from today on. i was too numb for a few hours to feel anything because i was in a weird stupor but now it's going away and i feel a bit lost. any advice on how to move on? anything is welcome. ty so much, i hope you're alright. much luv

oh my god, let me hug you. that must have been so fucking difficult and i’m proud of you both for making it through maturely and wishing well for each other. not everyone manages to do that. five years is a long time and i can definitely imagine how big of a change this will be for you.

i know how lost you must be feeling. it’s going to feel that way for a while, because there was this person who you were anchored to and who was anchored to you and suddenly there just...isn’t? it feels light, too light, like you have nothing holding you down from floating away. like, what am i supposed to do with my time now? you mean i can just...go anywhere, do anything, whatever i want? that doesn’t sound as good as it did in theory. i get it. i really do. 

i think practically speaking the first order of things is changing your environment. even if you can’t just take a weekend off and go somewhere else that is physically different, you can take steps to change your surroundings. pack away the things that remind you of your time together - maybe keep something symbolic? (i always keep necklaces from all my relationships. i never put them on but they’re there in the box for me to look at now and then.) the rest, pack it up. not because you want to forget, but because you know you won’t forget anyway, and for months every time you see that fridge magnet or that poster it’ll all come back. you don’t want to go through that additional pain - you want to make where you live a safe, calm place for you. if that means temporarily hiding all evidence that you were in a relationship, so be it. redecorate! get some movie posters or fanart prints, fill up that space - or leave it blank if you’d rather look at a clean slate. you don’t have to rush to fill in the spaces either.

just - take a few days for yourself. you deserve them. watch some movies or listen to some new music, or listen to the music you two loved together and cry it out. that’s fine. i think what’s important to understand here - on a practical level, again - is that whatever you do in these days will permanently be coloured in this period of your life and the emotions you were feeling. there’s this tiny subway in my city, near the center right - so tiny it’s just the sandwich bar and three tables. with my boyfriend we jokingly call it the Cursed Subway, but in reality i can never go there again because it was where i ultimately separated ways with who was back then the most important person in my life. there’s songs i can’t listen to, clothes i can’t wear, things i can’t eat. (thanks for ruining pepper sauce for me forever, ex number 4.) you will have those things too - so just look out for yourself, even if it feels selfish, and engage in things that you won’t mind never being able to engage in again. spend a weekend in an airbnb in your own city so that you don’t have to remember crying your eyes out in your bedroom. go for something you won’t have to sterilise later - you can just throw it away. 

i really wish i could be there with you in person right now, but i hope you’ll rely on your friends. that first party will be horrible. everyone’s trying to be nice but also trying to pretend nothing’s wrong for your benefit, you’re sitting there with a beer in your hand and you really just want to cry. it’ll get better, i promise it will. it always does. spend time with them, tell them explicitly what you need - want to talk about it? don’t want to talk about it? want to pretend it never even happened? that’s fine. they need to know how they can be there for you. you need to know what you need. take some time to figure that out for yourself. 

and, finally - just remember, this will pass. at one point that feeling of being weightless and lost will transform into this breath of fresh air. no matter how much you love a person, if things end between you - and amicably - there’s always a moment where you get to come back to yourself, realise why you guys did what you did, know it’s for the better, and be free. you don’t feel free, the first few days, weeks, months. then you feel free. it’s not easy. but it’s real, and raw, and good. 

i wish you all the best. 

[sturlsons]

french in 1.5 years anon

Kinda random but I just found out that I’ll be required to be intermediate/advanced in French by the next 1.5 years; ALL I KNOW IS THAT MEIRDE IS A BAD BAD WORD! Idk if you’re a native speaker but I was wondering if you could provide me of any good French language resources (or language in general since I’ll be needing to learn Arabic soon as well), and like tips for language learning and how to go about it? Sorry to bother you haha this is MY stress but I appreciate any help! Have a great day!

HEY. so i really fucking dropped the ball on this one, i’m sorry. 2019 has been one health fiasco after another (or more like the same fiasco again and again) and i kept telling myself i want to sit down and make a proper post for this, until i realised that that’s just never going to happen given the way things are rn. and i’d rather give you a quickly-written post which is actually helpful than never write that perfect bullet-pointed one. 

first of all, i’ve been in your EXACT position (so no, i’m not a native speaker) except i had about...six months to go from je m’appelle teesta to voyez-vous, le problème qui se cache derrière tout ça n’est pas le manque de respect mais la personne dont il s’agit or whatever. i was like, i can so do this. (spoiler: i didn’t, because i was 18 and overconfident and stupid and didn’t actually know how to learn a language.) GOOD NEWS: having learned 3 more foreign languages since then, i am now REALLY GOOD at learning languages REALLY FAST. 1.5 years is a good amount of time, so don’t stress.

i’m going to go generic on this, with some extra tips about french since i speak it, unlike arabic. 

first thing, that typical thing everyone hates to hear but knows is coming from the mouth of an accomplished person (pat on my back) in any field whatsoever: you’re going to have to work really hard and practice like fuck. 

there’s just nothing else that can replace it. i’ve filled up notebooks and notebooks with japanese verb conjugations, once i did like 1800 of them in one sitting. but you better believe that a bitch will never forget those now. resign yourself to putting in at least three hours of your day to this until you get to the level you need. (and three hours is...kind. at my peak i was literally reading through french dictionaries at the library, 10 AM - 8 PM. i treated it like a workday.)

now, what you need to establish is: are you a hands-on learner or a digital one. 

i don’t really care for all the auditory learner and visual learner stuff, i don’t know about anyone else but i personally used those as excuses to avoid certain exercises. unless you have actual disabilities preventing you from accessing certain methods of learning, you can train yourself into anything. it’s a matter of practice. i could barely understand a new song without reading its lyrics first, now i eat up podcasts. 

SO. the question here is different. a hands-on learner, like i used to be more or less throughout my bachelor’s, is someone who absolutely cannot retain information unless they’ve written it down BY HAND at least once. pen and paper. (i’m still like this but i’ve learned to combine it with digital methods to go faster.) if this isn’t a hurdle for you, congratulations. your process is going to go that much faster, at least for french. (you’ll have to spend hours practicing your written arabic however, if you’re not familiar with the script.) 

now, if you’re a hands-on learner, you need to add an extra hour to your daily time. no matter how fast you write, you will take that time. and you cannot shorthand your way into languages. you need to understand how french is spelt, what accents it uses, that they put a space before exclamation points, question marks, and semicolons. (side tip: learn the IPA. it will be useful to you forever in language learning, at least for the romance languages.) i’m not gonna teach you how to make notes since i’ve never benefitted from copying someone else’s style, so if you don’t have a set method start establishing that. you need regularity and rhythm when you learn a language. my grammar notes look the same regardless of the language. i don’t have my french ones since it’s been years and i didn’t take good ones then anyway, but here’s my japanese and russian stuff. 

JAPANESE NOTES // RUSSIAN NOTES

now, it bears mentioning that these notes are NOT the notes i take when i don’t know shit. these are final level notes. they’re brief, idiosyncratic, and only reminders. something to refer to when i’m revising and suddenly forget a rule. the first notes i make are much more elaborate, whether they’re pretty or not. i’ve gradually lost the fucks i had about really going ham on academics so my russian notes are very messy, but my japanese ones from back in the day are magnificent. here’s a look. during lesson one i realised that japanese and my mother tongue, gujarati, are syntaxically similar as shit, and i started taking notes with references in gujarati. it sped up my learning process 2x while my french classmates were still going “BUT WHY IS IT LIKE THAT”. 

PRACTICAL GRAMMAR // THEORETICAL GRAMMAR

if you plan to learn more languages in the future, this will be so valuable. sometimes a phrase i learn in russian doesn’t make sense in its french explanation, but a phrase in english might use the same logic. bam, put down the translation in english then. you get what i’m saying? the more languages you learn, the easier it gets to learn languages. 

now if you’re a digital learner, i’ve got great news for you. duolingo and anki are your best friends. duolingo’s memed to hell and has a system that might not work for everyone, but they’ll do the brunt work of compiling grammar notes for you in the beginnings/ends of their lessons. note those down and transform them into anki flashcards, and you can learn grammar concepts without doing 20 exercises. (do those exercises if you can, though, nothing beats mindless practice.) now anki is an intimidating-looking but actually super intuitive app that basically builds digital flashcards for you and shows them to you in a rhythm based on your own learning speed. it’ll show you the front of a card, let’s say merde. you say the english translation out loud, shit, and hit enter. correct! was that easy? anki’ll show it to you in 10 minutes. hard? it’ll show you in 1 minute. super easy? merde won’t come up again until tomorrow. eventually you get so good at it that you can bury a card for 2 months. anki will also show you the same cards reversed, which is harder but trains you better. you’ll see shit and have to remember what it’s called in french, which is more difficult than you’d think it is. 

you can use anki for more than just vocab, like i mentioned. it’s a little tricky learning to convert grammar concepts into front/back flashcards, but you can do it. for example, here’s a sample of one of my russian grammar cards: 

front ^^

back once i hit enter^^

see? not that difficult. now don’t be an idiot like me who manually entered every single flashcard into anki. you can find pre-made packages online (but you can’t guarantee they’ll be correct) or you can make your own without killing your fingers. what you wanna do is open up a spreadsheet and make two columns, A for front of the card and B for back. it’ll look like this:

then you’re gonna save that spreadsheet as a .CVS (comma separated values) and import that into anki. bam, your flashcards are made for you with half the effort. there’s also a script floating around somewhere to make excel translate words automatically for you, but i don’t recommend that unless they’re really easy words. google translate can fuck up. reverso is your friend. 

you need to review your anki cards every day. it’ll take less and less time as you go along. i can review 300 russian cards in 15 minutes now. but you need to keep the rhythm going. download ankiapp and sync your cards, review them on commutes or in the hallway or whatever. trust me, it’s magic. 

apart from this, if a traditional textbook helps, go for that. i’ve always used textbooks and workbooks, more as supports than as principal methods, but it does help. it’s structured and organised and these people know how to train you. bescherelle is a good go-to for french. 

media is always a great way of immersion too, until you get to the country itself. it’ll show you how french people speak french. when i first came to france i didn’t have that experience and even though i spoke an arguably decent amount of french when i got here, it was like, if this is french then what the fuck was i learning in high school. if you like watching movies this is your chance. watch the classics first so that you can get an idea of french pop culture. amélie (though the pop culture aspect here is about shitting on it) and les intouchables, for starters. watch your favourite films, first subbed, then subbed and dubbed, then just dubbed. i watched all ten seasons of friends with french subs, it was wild. with music you want to start off with some indie-ish singers since they will universally sing softer and slower, making things easier to understand than idk, la tribu de dana. (if you’re into bts there’s a hilarious video of their baepsae choreo set to la tribu de dana.) anyway - angèle, cœur de pirate, céline dion, fréro delavega, uhhh that fucking french sufjan stevens. what’s his name. VIANNEY. don’t fucking listen to biglo and oli or like, fatal bazooka right away. you will not understand shit. i barely understand it. white people are wild. ooh listen to stromae. orelsan too, he’s a rapper but he has a relatively clean diction imo. he also sang the french opening for OPM. they call him orelsan-san in japan.

last but not the least: if you have the opportunity to interact in french with people, DO IT. native speakers will do their best to help you and be kind about it. people who learned french might sometimes be assholes from experience. it’s a whole superiority complex thing, and very hypocritical. anyway - online or IRL, wherever you can practice your french, do it. it’ll be immensely helpful. there’s nothing like the frustration of not being able to express simple things to get you motivated to get better. do your best to immerse yourself - changing the language on your devices can make a difference too. 

i think that’s all i have and again, i’m sorry for taking this long to finally deliver, thanks for your patience! if you have any specific questions don’t hesitate to hit me up, on anon or not. 

good luck - it’s not going to be the easiest but nothing is as gratifying as beginning to understand the workings of a language. you’re gonna love it!

[sturlsons]

been thinking since last evening (over the sound of the sirens of course) about all the conflicting views and expressions i’ve read. my first reaction was, well. honestly, before i saw how huge it was, we stepped out at roosevelt on the champs and saw the smoke and didn’t know what was going on, and i was like, yikes. hope everyone’s safe. well, anyway, time to go to sephora. then the news and videos started coming in, and the surreality of it all just took us over. we’re at opéra and could hear the sirens going all night.

but - this isn’t about that. i don’t consider my feelings towards this cathedral in particular important or relevant enough to make a post of it for readers who are - with reason - much more attached and upset. but i cannot possibly not express the thoughts that came to me later than they should have, maybe. not over the illegitimacy of peoples’ pain over this loss of art and history and faith, but over the unfairness of its coverage. over the valorisation of one devastation over others - one accidental devastation over other premeditated, methodical ones - one devastation that cost no lives, thankfully. 

again, it’s not about how we shouldn’t be sad. of course we should be. but i’m just sad, in my corner, about how the world was taught to value certain places of worship over others, taught to value the worth of historical monuments and testaments to humanity’s genius and effort more in one place than another. how no one mourns the unfathomable losses caused by colonialism and warfare today, not because they’re inherently racist or evil or don’t care - but because they’ve never been taught to? i don’t have a single doubt that had everyone who is mourning notre dame today been just as sensitised towards everything past colonies have lost, they would be just as devastated. 

but it wasn’t allowed to happen. and the quiet sulking rage of that will come up after everyone’s first knee-jerk reaction to this disaster. 

[sturlsons]

aside from all the got stuff going on, I was wondering if you had a favorite trope pairing to write. like grumpy boy + his sunshine bean or chaos demon and his long-suffering friend or shy nerd and punk-ass. what kind of characters do you like to write falling in love with each other, basically

your typical kurotsukki dynamic is one of my faves. loud obnoxious asshole, quiet arrogant asshole. i generally like putting quiet and loud people together; i think they have a lot to learn from each other and it’s always interesting to explore their energy in different ways. i also love couples that are almost the same person (but not quite), but i generally prefer to write those in as a background established relationship. some background tropes i really like are Life Of The Party Golden Couple, or like, the Parents, and also those two over there that really don’t have their shit together and by end of the fic you’re rooting more for them than the main ship.

i love wise asses too and they’re fun to write because i’m witty so i don’t have to like, struggle with dialogue and back-and-forths. on the other hand, i find it almost impossible to write fluffy dialogue or super domestic and declarative characters because i’m too asseholish for that. it depends on the individual character though, like i can easily write hoseok saying some cheesy shit with an unapologetic grin you know. but i can’t write soft charas. not unless they’re gonna be Really Not Soft Anymore very soon into the story, or it’s a whole once i used to be soft thing. all this in the romantic sense. soft friendships are great, fun, and easy to write, because i’m a Soft Friend myself when things are going good situationally. 

i really love chaos demon and equally chaotic but in another way quiet demon too. giant boner for passionately possessive/protective best friends who never actually get together. like jaywalkers bokukuro or the whole krislay dynamic from things to ask yixing if you by chance remember that one. i think that’s my favourite flavour of slightly fucked up relationships. i do love writing those while we’re at it, but i don’t need a set dynamic to fuck them up. i’ll fuck any relationship up. it’s a god-given talent. i know a hundred ways to tear people apart. 

ETA this whole reply makes me sound like an edgelord. we all know i am not an edgelord. one time i wrote a fic that was nothing but krtsk living in an apartment and kuroo buying flowers every week. I AM BUT A MAN

also wanted to add that i fucking LOVE writing romcoms. i think that one punch man romcom i wrote was the funniest fucking thing my fingers have ever typed. i so badly want to write a clean and stupid romcom again, watch this space

[sturlsons]

one anon sent me an ask about if all of my fic locations were based on real life locations but i deleted it like a dumbass so i’m sending it to myself

secret i do this all the time when i accidentally delete shit bc i’m actually really good at remembering the exact wording of asks but it’s 8 AM so

HI. so okay, most of the locations i refer to in fic are based at least loosely off places i’ve been to in real life. i’m assuming you’re talking about things like bars and restaurants etc ofc. 

in petersburg - the whole thing is set in stras so Every. single thing is real. eren and armin’s apartment is based off an apartment down the street from where i used to live, though i barely describe it. it’s near the main station. (i don’t usually describe living spaces a lot. tbh i barely describe anything i’m very curious about ur question actually.) jean’s apartment is near gallia and based off the ex-apartment that my friends oscar and hernan used to share. i wrote some scenes while getting trashed at theirs. the boat bar in which jean calls eren shorty and ymir is like, serving tequila or something, is barco latino. it used to be off the quais of gallia but it’s at rivetoile now. the cathedral is, well, the cathedral. the cafe is based off a now-closed cafe next to our physics institute. 

jaywalkers - so funnily enough, the Iconic vertigo and le petit whatever are actually just built from scratch. vertigo gets its name from an actual club called vertigo in grenoble that i either never went to or have no memory of going - it’s just special to me because my first real night out, this girl i met kept saying we should go there because it’s lit. le petit bum is possibly lowkey based off this chain of cafés we have in india called café coffee day, because those are really cozy if you ignore the demanding indian metropolis sprawling outside. very warm colours, couches, all that. but yeah. also, i know it’s impossible basically anywhere let alone metropolitan japan but in my head le petit cube is just that. a cube. like. this cafe in the middle of a parking lot kinda thing, not attached to any other building or anything. improbable? yes. but what are u gonna do. kill me. ANYWAY all this to say that jaywalkers which is like arguably my Biggest Thing is actually not based off anything, it was funny enough that i had to mention it here. that being said the library tsukki studies in is based off the library of my faculty. 

heretic - tsukki’s apartment is based off the apartment of the architect who designed my house in india. kuroo’s place is designed after the first apartment i have a memory of, from my childhood, where i lived for about three or four years. funnily enough, every time i imagine an apartment for kuroo and tsukki, it ends up being that one. the apartment in ephemerides, the one they used to share in moonfall, and even the one they’ll own later in jaywalkers. anyway. the club in heretic is based off this random club i went to in prague when i was trashed. don’t ask me the name, i don’t even know how i was standing on two legs at that point. 

s;b - oooh so AGAIN, my childhood apartment. jimin and jk’s place is based off it. i think there’s something about the design that just made so much sense to me. taehyung’s penthouse is imaginary i’ve never been to a penthouse lel. gd and tabi’s mansion is based off our country house in the woods of south gujarat. taejin’s engagement thing hotel is real. kibum and CL’s club is like a much larger version of a bar we have in stras called le 21. blue lights, very chic, etc. boongi’s club is based off this place in grenoble called the phoenix, but like, smaller and greener lel. 

11:58:30 - suho’s place is based off someone’s country house but i cannot remember who, definitely somewhere in india. we’ve got chemistry is one hundred percent our chemistry faculty’s bar. 

buttergingers - FUCK i meant fingers but that’s funny i’ll keep it. seokjin’s is based off a cafe we have in stras called oh my goodness. soooo fucking cute. 

poppy seeds - vmin’s apartment is based off my ex’s apartment, minus the fact that q and his roomies were. Special and had a collection of stolen street signs, a giant traffic cone that they use to gather bottle caps, and also one metal horse pogo kinda thing that they stole from a playground. so none of that. but definitely the apartment. same-ish apartment used for that hopekook fic where jungkook’s a giant theatre nerd. i basically default to this apartment for all extreme party situations in fic bc that’s what we still do when we go there. he lives with two girls now so it’s much more Sensible but that apartment is HAUNTED. anyway. that board game singing kinda cafe they go to is a combination of two of my favourite places in grenoble, kfee des jeux and brown’s which has since closed down. biggest tragedy of my life. 

that namjin indie cafe fic - so seokjin’s cafe is just a tiny generic indie cafe but namjoon’s cafe is based off this like place in stras that has since closed down/switched owners so the decor is nothing like it, but basically this place was a front for a secret bar like it’d always be empty and you’d go to the bouncer like table for 3 and he’ll look you in the eyes like We’re Full Sorry and you’re like what. i actually did that 4 times before i found out it’s a secret bar and you have to like waggle your eyebrows and go table for 3 UPSTAIRS and they let you up the stairs and you can enter if you figure out 1) where the door is 2) how to open it. fun times. it’s a great bar, it’s called moonshiners. BEST. COCKTAILS. EVER. 

rockstar fic - ehhh. the system is based off a bar in stras called delirium. i actually fucking hate delirium lel you can barely hear yourself bc it’s so huge and filled w ppl talking. they serve you piña coladas in coconut shells though and there’s this bartender called martin or marvin or MATHIEU THAT’S IT who will give you haribo if you ask nicely. the hotel they stay at is based off the hyatt at jeju. i mean it IS the hyatt. i just didn’t mention it bc like that’s whatever. kth’s studio is based off that one really cozy studio that coke studio pakistan often films in. i think it’s in laage re nain by ayesha something. also JIMMY’S. based off jimmy’s bar in strasbourg. beautiful. i lived practically across from it until last week, just moved. but i’m only 2 minutes further i literally moved like 500m away, life is good.

tuesday wednesday - ok so nothing special here but like their first Battle Moment on campus is definitely on my campus. in general if i vaguely mention Campus™ somewhere outside jaywalkers, you can rest assured that i mean EXACTLY this area: 

SO YES THERE YOU HAVE IT. now as a bonus for Big Boy it’s based in seoul (which i haven’t been to) but for the most part in paris (which i have been to and like lived in) and for The Most part the louvre. bonus appearances from moscow, st petersburg, new york, tokyo, and singapore. taehyung’s apartment is.........hilariously based on the apartment i just moved to. it’s hilarious because when i started writing (it opens at his apartment) i.....hadn’t seen this apartment yet? but i visualised it perfectly and when i saw it irl i was like oh it’s you. so fun times. 

[sturlsons]

I have heard a lot about how poetry can help improve your writing. The thing is, I have never gotten into poetry before. Where do you suggest starting?

it really can. not only from an emotional standpoint but also structure-wise. no other genre of writing twists sentences around as much as poetry does. (a lot of people tell me that my writing is like poetry, but in prose, and while that’s a huge compliment it’s also due to the sheer amount of poetry i read and the fact that i started off by writing poetry. it’s just...natural.)

as for where to start, that’s entirely up to you. you know, if you really like music, lyrics themselves are a great starting point. look at your favourite artists and look up their lyrics. do you see something common? do they rhyme explicitly? do you like that? do you like songs that follow a strict rhythm (think mainstream rock or pop) or do you like ones that are offbeat, a capella, just flowing in general (acoustic indie jams, some lana/hozier/florence stuff, etc)? that can already help you narrow down the kind of flows you like - ones with a strict meter or just full on mountain goats.

for originally-english poetry, at the risk of GROSSLY generalising, the older you go the stricter the meter. robert frost or alfred lord tennyson or sir walter scott. if you want more free verse, you move towards modernism (t s eliot is the most striking name that comes to mind). post-modernism is a shitton of free verse. the poets of today, at least the ones i read, write mostly confessional poetry which usually follows a free verse format. ocean vuong, richard siken, nayyirah waheed.

here’s a literary periods timeline. http://www.online-literature.com/periods/timeline.php look up names and check out some of their works; if something sticks, look for an anthology. 

my personal favourite poets have not all written natively in english. there are fantastic translations out there, though, because they’re all big names. i love pablo neruda, sylvia plath, rabindranath tagore, harivansh rai bacchan, charles baudelaire, federico garcía lorca (i mean fucking cuántas veces te esperó). hindi and urdu song lyrics are also mindblowing. my favourite lyricists are gulzar and javed akhtar. 

my ultimate favourite poet is rumi. an amazing amount of his works has been translated by coleman barks, and they are lovely. 

if you want to send me a message (on or off anon) with what kind of moods/genres you like (romance, confessional, whatever) i can hook you up with some individual poems for you to get a feel.

[sturlsons]

hey batman tell me what you think about romanticizing codependency in fan fiction, no judgement I promise

fanfiction in particular? because a dynamic can be (unhealthily) codependent in the source material itself, in which case writing it that way in fanfic is just...staying true to canon. (shizaya or celty/shinra or idk, whatever. aokuro or something.) on the other hand if it’s just an invented dynamic, i mean, i don’t know. i used to be very romantic about this sort of stuff myself and then i grew up. a lot of writers are very young and will end up romanticising dynamics like that. i don’t think that it should be punished. nor do i think it should be punished even if it’s written by an adult - sometimes age has nothing to do with the kind of human exposure you’ve had. 

i mean, for example: i’m twenty-three and i lived through a relationship so unhealthy that i am still, as a rational, introspective, and self-aware person, unable to comprehend why cheating on someone would be bad. i was conditioned to just accept it as a fact of any relationship - my ex would take other girls home in front of me, while i was in the same room. my brain just doesn’t do that calculation anymore. i would never cheat on my current boyfriend because i know for a fact that it would hurt him - but if he chose to, i wouldn’t even blink. i’d just ask if he’d rather be with the other person instead, and act accordingly. i wouldn’t mind continuing the relationship either. 

is that healthy, outside of an actively established polygamous situation? no. am i aware? yes. do i still have to make an effort, while writing, to remember that Normal People And The Kind Of Characters I Want To Write don’t do that? yeah.

sometimes people just write from a place like that. i don’t think it’s fair to call them out directly instead of trying to have a discussion with them about it, especially kids, no matter how obstinately they might reply to you. on the other hand, if you have some experienced adult writing that kind of shit, fuck that. they should know better. 

[sturlsons]

B, F, G, K, O

hi!! i hope you’re doing well

B: any of your stories inspired by personal experience? 

i don’t think i’ve ever based the plot of a story on something that happened to me, but 80% of the emotional situations in my fic are variations of real emotions i’ve felt. that being said, some scenes are just straight up lifted off my own life. tsukki and that hangover in jaywalkers (that whole mcdonald’s story is old now), when kuroo tells tsukki to take a shower in heretic, two scenes that come to mind first. other character backstories are often based on mine, just, not everything all at once. someone nearly gets killed in an accident, someone else loses family in one. etcetera. can’t go heaping all the angst on just one person, it’s not conducive to telling a clean story. on a lighter note, any stupid ass thing any character does was probably done by me or my friends in real life. 

F: share a snippet from one of your favourite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

hmmmmmm. i’ve written some dialogue here and there that made me go HA when i wrote it but the one i can remember off the top of my head (i’m using “top off my head” as a general rule here otherwise i’ll start rereading all my fic and no one needs that) is this one from movers and shakers:

‘I somehow chased you down to this cafe after eight years,’ Youichi says. ‘I don’t know how that happened, but I’ll do it again. I will.’

‘Don’t make this about you,’ Ryousuke sighs, and he’s back to normal, eyes cold and voice cold, the combination that’s always gotten things done. ‘Because the extent to which it is not is going to be embarrassing for both of us.’

and i love it because like i don’t think i’ve ever delivered that sick of a burn in my entire life. THERE’S LEVELS TO IT. and i was like, 20 when i came up with it. i was so proud of myself. it’s so hurtful and cutting and humiliating. classic. 

G: do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write your scenes out of order?

i’m gonna say that a lot of my stories are born from one key scene (not even the climax most of the time) so i usually jot that down first, dialogue or bits of lines or whatever. once i have a plot i usually go chronologically because unless the narration is nonlinear it’s just a bitch to go back and edit in details in retrospect. that being said sometimes a scene is like tugging at my brain so hard that i just decide to write it down first to file it away and get back to work. i usually know the last line of a fic the moment i write the first one, because i almost always come full circle. it’s just one of those things about me that a highbrow critic would probably shit on as being Too Predictable. that being said, i haven’t the faintest how Big Boy is gonna end. never had an idea for s;b either. i hope that means good news. 

K: what’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

Big Boy. :^) 

O: how do you begin a story - with the plot or with the characters?

good one. neither. 99% of the time the story starts with a song that i hear in the right place at the right time, and then the prompt and characters come in together. then i, hating myself and my pea-sized brain throughout the process, begin to plot. 

[sturlsons]

I’m finishin hs soon. you gave someone else reassurance abt college but.i’m still here in school;the last stretch is terrifying bc I still have to sit down focus n live thru it but The idea of leaving is so scary Too. I’m ending high school with less than I started with,My comfort zone shrank2 size of a shoe box. I kno ill leave and never look back one day, but rn its unbearable. all those lost opportunities. How do I survive and make up for the 4 years of nothing w so little time left(6 months

hey, it’s okay. big up for reaching out to someone about this. 

this time is the worst. you see people around you talking about college and exams and how they’re taking special classes to clear the ACT or whatever. it feels like shit, like this is THE moment of your life where everyone around you is seemingly helping you to take things to the next level, and you’re just somehow...not cooperating. like a deciding moment with no decision taken.

well, fuck that. it’s just simply not true. i remember that in a world of pressure (i studied in an elitist private high school where half the teachers hated me because i was temperamental, and the other half hated me for my Wasted Potential since i was clearly a smart bitch) i had two, just two authority figures who got through to me. one was my section head, who told me he sees me succeeding in the sciences, but living in the liberal arts, and the second - was the founder and director of the entire school, who, when i was having a crisis like you, sat me down and told me that people change majors three times when they’re already in college. 

just - don’t let yourself think you’re running out of time or that it’s too late or that you should’ve decided everything, and become the person you’re going to be for the rest of your life. that’s just not true. i was a completely different person five, six years ago - hell, if you scroll back long enough on my tumblr you can see what a confused, angry, terrified kid i was. that didn’t magically disappear once high school was over - it took time. it’s a process. it’s still happening. 

those lost opportunities came too early for them to be the deciding factors of your life. i was supposed to go to oxford, i never made the cut. sure, my life would’ve been a hell of a lot different if i’d made it there, but can i, in this moment, know for sure how it would’ve been? no. all i have is the here and now, and i love it. your concept of wasted opportunities or potential exists in a place in your head that only you can see. it’ll eat away at you if you let it - so don’t. it’s horrible and your comfort zone is tiny and you don’t know if you can even do anything worthwhile with your day, let alone your life - it might be all that, but it’s anything but too late. you’re not going to be in this same place six months from now - not physically, at least. so don’t let yourself be stuck there mentally.

big things come when you run at them, stick to them, and make a ridiculous attempt to pull them to your side. sometimes they fall over on you like an unsteady tree that you hugged at the wrong time. but those knocked-out teeth and that golf-ball lump on your forehead are still more progress than sitting in your cabin and deciding that you’ll fail the moment you step out of it anyway. 

i can’t emphasise this enough - where you are, right now, is not going to be a comment or a sentence on the rest of your life. not unless you let it. and i can see that you don’t want to let it, so don’t. be brave and stick through this; six months seems like an unbearably long period of time, i know, but - fucking make a countdown calendar if you want. i think that’s what i did, i don’t remember. hang on to the little things, read books, study if you still have important exams. time passes, however slowly. it doesn’t stop still. don’t stop still while it passes around you. you’ve got the wind on your back right now, even if you don’t feel that way - use it and rush forward into that next part of your life. i promise it’s bright. i promise it’s good. i promise it will be everything you want, if you make that of it.

[sturlsons]

Oh I just got the impression from one of your asks that you write by hand? I always assumed you used a laptop lol. I was wondering, what are your best writing tips? I’m trying to get back into it, but things don’t come out right, and I sometimes just. Get lost I guess

kjwrghsekrjg i was so sure, i pressed send on that ask and i was like no teesta now everyone’s gonna think you write by hand

actually, i don’t! but i do plan by hand. i cannot for the life of me get started on a fic unless i have a handwritten set of scenes or moments or whatever next to me, and in moments when i get stuck writing on the laptop, i quickly switch to my notebook to outline the scene i’m doing, or even write a couple of paragraphs to get my system going before i switch back to the laptop. primarily though i do use a laptop. mywriteclub and writer’s block are my go-to softwares. 

as for writing tips, it’s okay to be lost! not everything you churn out is going to be a masterpiece or even make sense. just write down whatever you feel like, whenever you feel like, and keep gathering it in a notes folder or in a notebook or whatever, depending on what medium you use. it all depends on what you want to write - if you want a structured story, then you’ll have to sit down and actually structure it. start with fleshing out your characters and the story will start to tell itself. if you want to write a nonfiction essay then you have to keep gathering words and lines as they come to you in bursts of inspiration, and when you have enough, see if it makes a whole, and how to fill in the gaps.

i’ve done all sorts of writing. writing 20k in 72 hours, writing 30k over the span of 2.5 years, planning a story 2 years before starting to write it, coming up with a story as i’m writing it, whatever. what’s currently helping me the most is a mix of “write when you’re inspired” and “don’t wait for inspiration”. i talked about it here. it takes pressure off, helps you to get a decent amount of work done bit by bit, and is all around great. 

talk to friends, too, if you can. there’s nothing better for structure and confidence than bouncing your ideas off someone else so that they can help and question you. the best thing my closest friends have done for me is play red team to my story ideas. sure, it’s annoying when someone comes back at you with a potential plot hole, but then you solve the plot hole and there you go. 

[sturlsons]

Hi teesta!! I suck at timezones, so i dunno what time it is in france, but i wish you all the very bestest in 2019. May the universe provide u with tons of opportunities to feel life inside, in its many many terrific ways. (also, do u feel like starting this year recommending ur fav poets? i always catch tad bits of poems here and there among ur posts and fanfics, so i really feel like you're a big poetry enthusiast) -Drrr anon

happy new year anon!! sorry for the late reply!

i love poets and poetry! i want to make a proper post one day since i grew up reading a few indian poets who really shaped me and my writing, but off the top of my head - sylvia plath, rumi, pablo neruda, ezra pound, gulzar, javed akhtar, harivansh rai bacchan, margaret atwood, nayyirah waheed, richard siken - basically no one you haven’t already heard of. i’m really trash at remembering names unfortunately. 

i also think song lyrics are just as important as traditional poetry - i love the lyrics in florence welch’s songs, and imagine dragons, the national, death cab for cutie, frank ocean, harry styles, hozier, the killers, lana, marina, lorde, etc. (yes i just went down my spotify for this.)  

an important point re: the poets i mentioned - a few of them were horrid human beings, either exposed during their lifetimes or posthumously. i am still struggling with how to interact with their work which, on its own, is magnificent. for the moment i’m at an impasse, but i wanted anyone reading this to have the choice to check out the work and its writer’s background and decide for themselves.