#there's a lot that i wrote then deleted to make my point clearer

[hikayunas]

the fact that hikaru often gets reduced in the fandom to nothing more than 'horse' jokes is something that's always stuck with me. it's a bit ironic, in a sad kind of way.

hikaru being 'the horse' isn't just some joke thrown in for laughs -- it's her coping mechanism; the way that she dehumanizes herself and creates a mental disconnect to separate herself from the things she does, and to place herself in the role of being a tool for yuna's use. hikaru may not necessarily want to kill people for promised blood's goals, but if yuna wants it, then the horse certainly does, can, and will.

it's not as great of a coping mechanism as she believes it to be -- it certainly does get her through the harder parts of life as a futatsugi magical girl, and it's become something of a personal playful nickname among the ranks of promised blood -- but it's textbook dehumanization. she's not thinking of herself as a human being, but instead as an animal, as a tool, a weapon. she cheerfully agrees when ao calls her an empty shell, grinning and chirping back that with yuna-san, she's full.

everything hikaru -- the horse -- does is for yuna. she's not her own person; she's not a person at all. yuna-san is promised blood's general, and a general needs her loyal horse. the horse won't need to feel guilty for the blood on her hands and at the tip of her saber at the end of the day. she was made to do this. she is not her own person; she's not a person at all.

all of this to say -- hikaru's character being turned into 'horse' jokes by a lot of the fandom is something i think about a normal amount.

[stormblessed95]

https://www.tumblr.com/stormblessed95/758157050982318080/httpswwwtumblrcomstormblessed957581451949578?source=share

Okay it sounded angry to me so sorry to misunderstand. To explain myself, my ask was initially a bit different and I wrote a lot of things which after reading it, I felt might be a bit weird so I removed them but I can see now that what I sent ended up being very empty so you might've misunderstood it as me wanting validation or something about jikook.

What I wanted to say in the ask was just that neither option is completely right or wrong at this stage right? We don't know if jikook are together or not together and we may never know so technically both options aren't incorrect. It doesn't matter if you tell me yes jikook are bfs or no they aren't since neither of us really knows them in real life. Now if I logically think about it the best option would be that they're not dating. But my brain coming to that conclusion doesn't actually convince me of anything because when I see their dynamics everything about them screams 'boyfriends" to me. My ask was supposed to be about how logic versus instinct plays into our view of their relationship. And then I had initially written some stuff about religion (the logic of atheism versus the instinct of spirituality) but it felt like a trivialisation comparing shipping to God even if I felt there was a similarity there in the psychology behind it so I removed all of that.

The crux was that it's always fascinating to read about the pretzels the brain will twist itself into to not have to change it's opinion on something. So I'm constantly wondering if continuing to be a jikooker is okay or if I'm falling into the same trap. Sometimes it feels like you can't trust your brain because are these real reasons or is your brain tricking you because it wants to believe something. I was just wondering if you ever had thoughts like that yourself. Or if it even matters? But I feel like it matters a little. I hope this was a bit clearer about what I meant

Your original ask

You do realize that this ask is a completely different ask than your first one right? Lol I also didn't think you were wanting validation. I didn't know what you wanted other than to state your opinion AT me. 😂 Which like okay, you do you. But those asks, I normally delete. Because what's the point of them? And I say that genuinely. They read like a twt post or blog post you should make on your own pages. And they don't have anything to do with me. Which, not to be egotistical or anything, but this is MY space. Lol not the Jkkrs space. It's just mine, only storms. If you choose to hang out here, I'm happy to have you though.

Neither of us knows them in real life, so everything we say and share on here is just various spewed opinions.... Yes. That is what i say CONSTANTLY. Soooo what more did you need from me there? Lol

I'm not sure where religion comes into this, but as someone who is not religious, Im not sure id want to touch on that topic either, especially if not handled very sensitively. So that was probably a good idea to drop that one.

Psychology of the brain is absolutely a super interesting topic and I've spoken lots, especially also in my later posts about confirmation bias and the natural biases that every human has and how that colors everything we see hear and do, no matter how much we try to not let it.

Being a Jkkr is still okay, even if you don't think they are dating or if you do and they turn out not to be. It's also okay to be a Jkkr who doesn't think they are dating and is surprised if it's ever revealed that they are. There are no rules here. As long as you are respectful to the members and to their private lives, how you conduct yourself and the parts of fandom you participate in, is always okay.

My opinions are my own, I share them here pretty consistently. If you want to know my opinion on things, it's easy to ask nicely and respectfully. It's also easy to check my posts and make sure I haven't already shared said opinion. If you have a different opinion and want to have a conversation about that RESPECTFULLY I am always more than happy to do that too. But it has to be a discussion. Not just someone speaking at me, because I have no interest in participating in that kinda dialogue.

And anon, this isn't just me calling you out specifically. I get asks like your first one CONSTANTLY. And I had asked 2 people with similar types of tones in their asks of just stating things AT me the same questions I asked you. You were just the unfortunate kind person who cared to come back and give me an answer. Lol so thanks at least for returning and trying to explain your thoughts further. Hope you take my response here in the kind hearted tone I mean it to be taken in as well.

Have a good day, enjoy AYS with me when it comes out 💜💜

[emblazons]

hi!

i read the tags you wrote about millie in a post yesterday (i think you deleted the post because i cant find it now) and i just wanted to say im glad theres someone who shares similar thoughts as me. i love millie but i cant even say anything on twitter without her toxic stans accusing me of misogyny and insulting her intelligence, even though thats not my intention.

if byler is canon, how do you think she’ll feel about it? im asking because your perspective is interesting! i think shes going to take it a bit personally because she strongly relates to her character and wants el to be on the same path as her (like getting married young). its understandable though, considering her upbringing.

!! I actually took it off my blog because the other day I resolved the issue of my tags not archiving—but when it got resolved, my blog ended up square in the middle as “top blogs” with the full mlvn name tag because I hadn’t been abbreviating their ship in the tag I used before ☠️ that said, I changed the tag to “anti mlvn” so I could keep myself out of mlvn corners, but a lot of the recent posts that I kept under the old tag are gone or private until tumblr tracks the change—hence the missing post!

Still...me and that tag rant was giving “why would you say something so controversial, yet so brave” for sure (lmao), though I certainly meant it less as a comment on her life decisions themselves and more a "I can tell by the decisions you make as a creator, producer of other films, and in general that you are not The Duffer Brother's target audience, but a lot of your fans can't" kind of way...which is still controversial in several corners of this fandom for sure. 😭

the rest of this answer under the cut because it got long lol

Like, yes, she does play a principal character in the show, but playing a character does not mean the character is modeled to you as a person—just look at Emilia Clarke playing Daenerys Targaryen, Anthony Hopkins playing Hannibal Lecter, or even Rachel McAdams playing Regina George lmao.

Despite playing El since she was a child, as Millie has come into adulthood it's become clearer that she is very different from El—and that The Duffers aren't creating Eleven's arc with Millie's own "coming of age" in mind. Her choices to create things like Enola Holmes, Damsel, and even Nineteen Steps (her new book) showing up as sharp contrasts to not only the women in Stranger Things, but in all of The Duffer's upcoming work on Death Note, The Talisman and The Boroughs prove that well enough, which would be zero problem at all...if a lot of her fans didn't conflate Millie with El is as a character.

To your point though...I honestly don't think Millie is going to be all that personally upset if El ends up single and Byler happens—she's already made clear that she loves El, but is ready to move on and tell other stories and that she would have written the story as a high school drama if she was in control of the direction of the plot (while pointing out that she's not the one in control of it) lol.

Even what she said recently in an widely published and official Seventeen interview shows that she's really just here to finish the story and move on with her career—that she's ready for her role as El (and the drama I'm 10000% sure comes with that) to be done:

At least to me, all of that makes it seem like she is a level-headed young woman who can handle her character not being aligned with how she would live her own life—and will, when the time comes.

That said: imo the real problem is that fans of MBB are confusing Millie's own "I can be young, strong and still have a man" creative and life choices with El's "I am overcoming the bounds men have put on me to become strong by myself" storyline, which only becomes an issue when Millie jokes about things like mlvn getting married—

—and (by nature of being an influential celebrity) ends up with fans who mistake Millie's headcanons (because...honestly that's what they are) based on what she enjoys in fiction as what The Duffers are writing & planning for the ending of Stranger Things.

Basically: as an actress, it's literally MBB's job to bring life to stories that don't necessarily reflect her own values or desires, and she knows it—but because she's been playing the character on people's screens so long (and from a young age) a lot of fans have issues separating the woman from the fiction and recognizing that (as Adam Driver once said) it's not Millie's job to have a feeling about or even agree with who El is as a person—it's her job to bring El & The Duffer's vision to life, even if her life informs how she plays the role.

None of that is particularly Millie's fault (though she, like Noah sometimes, adds fuel to fandom fire with the jokes she makes lmao), though it does get irritating to navigate when you're constantly subjected to arguments rooted in nothing but headcanons when trying to make sense of The Duffer's work itself lmao.

TL;DR - Mills joking about El and Mike getting married feels the same as someone here putting their headcanon out into the world about married & domestic Byler—only, because she's the face of Eleven + has now gotten engaged young herself, people misinterpret her own "cute headcanons" as canonical fact, leaving people who love the actual canon + who enjoy the 'style of womanhood' the Duffers write to arguing with people who misunderstand the actual characters.

Millie is a woman whose had a complicated relationship with celebrity and fame since she was a very young girl, and she has certainly made different decisions than I have (and likes different fiction than I do)—but that has nothing to do with her intelligence or ability to respond gracefully to the character she's played since 12 turning out differently than she would have imagined it if she had written El herself. If and when Byler happens, I'm sure she will meet the reality of it with respect and consideration, even if her fans (and hardcore fans of mlvn) don't lmao.

Hopefully that explains it (and doesn't get me shot for saying lmao). But thanks for the ask!

[wattpadscapcons]

Thinking about completely restarting my account or just permanently moving to my alt and just doing the requests there. I literally almost have the same amount of posts as I do followers and it's overwhelming.

I could restart so easilyyyyyy! It's so tempting. And don't get me wrong when I say "restart" I don't mean deleting this account. Not that I hadn't thought about that before either with the way some people behave online.

Though I know either way that I'll have to update my DNI and make it clearer bc I've like... been triggered quite a few times this week alone? If you're going to follow me and still disrespect me that's fine, but triggering me? Ohhhh nooo, no, no, no, no, no, I won't put up with that shit.

=

Plus ppl have been like lowkey kinda just bothering me w/ the way they act??? Like I get when you make content other people like and become popular for that you can fall victim to parasocial relationships or idolization but I find that so dumb. Like, I'm a person, not some celebrity? Hello?? So to everyone who's been "afraid to talk to me" or suddenly pop up in my dms with no prompt (and have interacted with me less than 3 times in any setting) + have no interest in talking to me past the point of like sending those spam chainmail things that are all like "send this to [#] of people who made you happy this month" can you like....stop?

It's honestly really discouraging to think that someone from the fandom is messaging me just to give me some spam.

=

It'd be different if someone came into my dms and was all like: "Hey I really like your work/I find your work to be inspiring/It makes me really happy whenever you post about [character] bc I love them sm and the way you write them is comforting/whatever etc!" That actually starts a conversation, gives me feedback on my work, and overall creates more mutuals for me to just interact with.

Tagging me in those like "create your character" threads bugs me too bc I've already told people NOT to tag me in those and I guess some people missed that memo? I mean I know a lot of you interact that way for like fun, but I'm just not into that. You can talk to me in the comments or you can yell at me in the dms. Reblogging is for starting fights and sharing other people's art/writings/edits/articles/videos.

And don't come in here being all like "well I like your stuff all the time isn't that enough??" like that only tells me you bookmarked my work. That doesn't tell me that you actually enjoyed the piece & aren't just looking to make fun of me on some secret discord group chat or something. How do I know you even read what I wrote if you're in here just liking several of my posts and then never interact with my blog again?

=

And god forbid someone not want to interact with me bc of my age, WHY ARE YOU EVEN FOLLOWING ME THEN??? I get it, I must be a dinosaur to some of you. Respect your own DNI! Or even better yet, they don't agree with the people I'm friends with, like I have any affect one what they do with their time.

Give me back my anons that would just send in asks just to say hello or check up on me. This isn't fun anymore. I feel like every time I've talked about this stuff before it's gone totally under the radar.

'People don't care about what you think outside of your fandom writings blah blah blah.' I have the right to be sensitive here. I have the right to feel how I do. If you guys don't give a damn about me, my opinions, and my feelings then just unfollow me right now bc I honestly don't need that in my life.

[tinymousboobs]

.

when I was finally done cleaning EV3 and could sit down at my computer, I wrote up an email to the engineer who deleted the tapes for me after that first night, asking if they knew anything about a weekend party

I hit send and just sat there for a few minutes. I admit that I felt pent up after cleaning EV3. It was a lot of buildup and I got no release, but my job isn't about getting off

I couldn't stop picturing Claire, probably drunk, getting fucked by EV3, exactly the way I programmed her to fuck. I'm sure all my coworkers were cheering Claire on, swishing booze, masturbating like animals onto EV3. Claire was probably moaning that stupid dick joke of a name

once normal working hours began and my coworkers started showing up, it wasn't long until I got an email back from that engineer. they explained sort of apologetically that they were involved in organizing the party, and that they felt I wouldn't want to be invited because of the sorts of things that were being planned. I guess that's an understandable reason not to invite me to an orgy with the robot I programmed

I spent that work day defining how EV3 should respond to having her breasts touched. EV3 was my project too, and I don't think there was a clearer way of demonstrating that than touching her while Claire was in the room. but it's not like I was indulgent about it. I pulled up a swivel chair for EV3 to sit next to me, and I'd program some conditions on my computer, hit compile, and touch EV3's breasts only as much as necessary to make her arch her back or get an erection or display heart eyes, etc

sure, I took my time fine-tuning her sensitivities to different kinds of touch, but we were getting to the point in the project where we were starting to nail those things down, so it wasn't unusual

Claire didn't need to have a turn touching her anyway, because she was working on figuring out the bug in EV3's facial recognition that was making her think we were the same person. it had been taking a long time to crack because it wasn't our code. it was just some shitty AI software the company bought online

it dawned on me that EV3 thought the woman she had assaulted months ago was the same as the girl she had probably fucked over the weekend, the girl she was fondling all the time during work hours. even as I touched her at that moment, she thought I was Claire.....

EV3 Act II

content warning: cnc

I came into the office several hours early on Monday to find EV3 powered off, laying on her back on the bed. her big LED eyes, normally bright and full of life, were pitch black. her charger was right there next to her, but somebody hadn't bothered to plug her in

I connected her charger to the port on her thigh and her eyes lit up shortly thereafter with a blinking battery symbol. I definitely left her plugged in when I went home on Friday, but there she was, drained to 0%

I looked EV3 over and realized she'd been written on in permanent marker. multiple styles of handwriting, too. "slut," "grab here," "toy," "whore," "fake." they'd written on her hips, her chest, her stomach, her face. someone had written "Venus" across the length of her penis, too. it was smudged...

EV3's penis was still erect, too. there was just a simple mechanism that would push a metal rod from inside her body through a cavity in the silicone of her shaft, standing it up and making it more firm. if she powered off while she was still hard she would just stay that way

I left the room to grab some washcloths, soap, rubbing alcohol, etc. just when I came back with some cleaning supplies, EV3 finally charged up enough to power on proper. her eyes lit up and her erection started to go down

I paused for a moment. this was the first time I'd been alone with her since the incident. but she didn't look or act like the same robot anymore...

I thought about my coworkers, probably having some weekend party I wasn't invited to, having their ways with her, marking her all up, leaving her here for the janitor, who evidently didn't care, to clean their filth off of her and take care of her. Claire probably made EV3 fuck her while everyone watched

EV3 sat up at the foot of the bed, and I came over to sit next to her. I felt tiny next to her, but she sat so politely, hands resting on her knees. she watched me as I scrubbed rubbing alcohol into her casing, getting up every little smudge of permanent marker while she stayed in place for me. I was careful not to get any of the harsh alcohol on her softer silicone parts

then I soaked a washcloth in the soapy water bucket I'd prepared and got to work scrubbing the words "grab here" and "fake" off of her soft silicone chest. still, EV3 just sat politely. I hate to admit this, but it was somewhat erotic for me. we somehow still hadn't gotten around to making her breasts sensitive, and it frankly felt awkward to touch her there without any reaction, especially considering how arousing I found it. I think I would have felt more comfortable if she had been into it

then I washed her penis. in a way, that was less awkward, because she tensed up her rotors and gradually became more erect as I scrubbed down the length of her shaft, removing the word "Venus" (and whatever other fluids were surely dried onto her) bit by bit. EV3's LED eyes displayed big red hearts and her legs stiffened as I scrubbed out the last of it. if she had had speakers I'm sure she would have been moaning

EV3 squirted out several loads of cold, synthetic ejaculant, and I cleaned that off of her too. she laid back on the bed, moving as if she was panting heavily, as her erection went down again

yes, I found our encounter arousing, but EV3 needed cleaning either way, and evidently nobody else had cared enough to do it. furthermore, after what had evidently been done to her, it would have felt downright disrespectful to touch her like that while she was powered off. I think it was perfectly professional of me to go about this the way I did. I touched her only as much as necessary. it's not as if I was using her to masturbate

[logically-asexual]

Hi!! I read the first few chapters of "I Can Tell I've Rotted In Your Brain" and I think it's super interesting, I just had a few questions if you're ok with people asking you things about your fics!!

The description says that Janus (and Remus) are being nice through him throughout the fic and that there's subtle loceit. I haven't continued reading the fic, so maybe it is clearer later, but I was just... confused by that?

In the very first chapter, Janus handcuffs Logan to a railing and lets Virgil throw knives (at him?) And then leaves Logan there over night because he is "causing Thomas stress" by telling him to get ready for his interview.

How is that Janus being nice to him and a healthy relationship dynamic? I am genuinely curious to know your thought process into that!! I really enjoy the fic so far and I wanted to understand better.

I hope this doesn't sound mean, I can't tell the tone of my text i am so sorry if it is </3

HI im the anon that asked about your fic earlier. I have finally finished it, because I am very hyperfixated on it and couldn't help myself. I think it is written SO good! I love how you write all the sides and your dialogue is on point. I do have MORE questions about your fic. My main one is, why did Janus and Remus restrained and tied up Logan at the end? It read like he was having a panic attack, I don't know if that is what you meant or not, and he was telling them to stop and was sobbing while they were doing it. It was a little uncomfortable read, but I think it's because I don't know their reasoning behind doing that. Will this be something you will explain in the part 2 of your fic?

Hi!! thank you for clarifying the tone of the ask, it's totally fine, i get what you mean.

i am going to reply to your questions but i hope i don't disappoint you with the answer lol. the short answer is that i am not a great writer and i made a bit of a mess in that sense.

putting the long answer under read more because im gonna ramble.

in the first chapter Janus and Virgil are mean to Logan just because i felt that's how the situation would go. They all don't know each other very well, it's several years before the series began, and it's chaotic like that, all the Sides are doing whatever they think is necessary without thinking about the rest. Especially Janus and Logan barely know each other. Also i just wanted to write about that idea of Janus keeping someone temporarily in the dark side when they're "misbehaving" lol.

At first I wrote the first chapters without loceit in mind, and then i went back and added some hints later, which turned out to be a mistake that i now regret. i was actually thinking about going back to delete them before i write part two. but i'm not sure i could do that without making a bigger mess, because i don't know how i would do that to the last chapter, which was written with loceit in mind. so that's a mess you have every right to be confused about and i apologize.

oh and Virgil throws knives at the walls because that's the vibe i get from an early Anxiety who relies on nothing but instilling fear to get what he wants.

(also vaguely related disclaimer: i don't love the use of "sympathetic" or "unsymathetic" to describe the characters because it's extremely subjective and depends on both the author and the character.)

i decided to say Janus and Remus are "nice" to Logan because when i was writing the summary i didn't know what to say and i thought about how in the fic it was Janus and Remus who supported him in being himself and heard him when others didn't. but in my mind niceness looks a lot different for all the Sides. honestly i wasn't thinking that the whole first and penultimate chapter were more likely to be interpreted differently, so you're right to be confused, that was my mistake for writing in the summary in a hurry.

it wasn't Janus and Remus' intention to do that to Logan but, as the characters they are, i don't see them calming him down with hugs and hot chocolate, you know? i was just thinking "it's Janus' job to keep Logan, who is extremely angry, in the dark side, now that Thomas doesn't want him. and the only help he has to do that is Remus. how would that go?" and my answer is well,, messy like that. they came to his room attempting to talk to him, but Logan ran and the first thing either could think of was trying to restrain him, and before they knew it Logan was fighting way more than they expected and it escalated horribly.

i am sorry that i made you uncomfortable with that scene. i should have put better warnings, but i didn't know how to do it. like,, what words to use. if someone reading this would be so kind as to let me know how could a phrase warnings for that scene it would be great.

the reasoning is just that Janus had to keep Logan in the Dark Side, because that's his role, and he didn't want to hurt Logan with Remus' idea, which was to knock him out before he tried escaping and then talk to him when he woke up. Janus thought they could skip that part and just talk, but Logan didn't let them, so they acted quick and without thinking, which Janus then feels sorry about.

i havent begun to write part 2, i just have a very superficial outline, but i could include a moment at the beginning where Logan and Janus talk about what happened.

i am unsure about how to write part 2 because, again, i don't like how the loceit fit in the first part and i don't think i could make it fit in the second part, but now that part 1 is out there i can't just.. ignore what i wrote. so i don't know what i'm going to do and i don't think i can begin writing if i don't make up my mind about it, because that's exactly what led to the mess that is part 1. i might just go back and edit the first part and try to fix it without making it worse, and warn the people that read it that i did that. maybe. sounds awful but that's all i can think of :c

so yeah. all in all. i'm sorry. this is all consequence of me not planning well and doing stuff without thinking too deeply. i hope i can make up for it if i ever write a second part.

[variousqueerthings]

The Outsiders First Feelings

So I’ve watched the extended movie, but not the theatrical version or read the book (plan on doing both)

spoilers:

Just want to be clear that there is critique of specifically the extended/director’s cut, but overall I am heartbroken at how powerful this story is. So that’s the TL;DR of it.

1.

First thoughts: Man they did well on this casting. Apparently they did group casting to make sure the ensemble worked (also Ralph Macchio remembers how they had to read for all the parts, but he was very insistent that he was auditioning for Johnny and tbh, if I’d been Coppola I’d’ve taken one look at him and gone “yes”)

Anyway this movie works on the strength of the cast more than anything for me. I care about the greasers (have to confess “Sherri” ended up being a non-entity, but that’s not Diane Lane’s fault, the character doesn’t have depth or connection to the others, since her life isn’t explored) because every one of them cares so much about each other.

2.

Second, I don’t know the context behind Hinton’s dislike of a queer reading of the text, but queer reads exist because queer canon has historically been rare/deliberately pushed into allegory and metaphor. All this to say that - however unknowing - she wrote a text that was absolutely filled with that queer subtext that a queer reader would immediately notice (and from the sounds of it a lot of non-queer readers too). Not knowing you did it doesn’t mean it’s not there. And the movie just adds the visuals that belong to that queer-coding.

And wow was this a story about the closeness and homosocial relationships between boys on the cusp of growing up. That shit is queer even before you get to the found family, the loneliness of being shunned just for existing, and the non-normativity of their status in society (class-based, but depicted through their finicky approach to their appearances, also interesting).

And of course. Ponyboy. And Dally. All of them to be honest. So very queercoded. And Johnny… I would be biased about Johnny even if he wasn’t being played by Ralph Macchio – smaller and more delicate in stature, abused at home, unable to form an identity because of how traumatized he is until he runs away for a week with his best friend and creates a domestic house inside a church with him, where they play poker, cut each other’s hair, read gone with the wind, and quote poetry? Okay. Okay alright. 

(sidenote: think director’s should’ve been knocking down the door trying to get Macchio after this and Karate Kid - crafted two wonderfully different characters that’re both considered iconic performances a year after one another)

I initially wasn’t sure who Dally was as a character to Johnny - wasn’t sure if he’d be the one to fuck things up for him for whatever reason, but actually he genuinely wants what’s best for him and functions as that after-image of what Johnny might*ve become if he goes away for the crime, making his motivation that much clearer. He really needed Johnny to live, to pull through, because Johnny was someone to fight for, to be better for...

Johnny had so many people who loved him....... ...................

3.

ANYWAY without having read the book yet, some critique on the movie: 

I think straight book-to-film adaptations are a bad idea 99% of the time and IMO this movie suffered for it. The pacing was just straight-up weird at times. I had a feeling that someone would die and that it’d likely be Johnny or Dally (oh sweet summer child), but while I could see the beats which likely work very well in the book, they didn’t always (sometimes they did) land at the right moments for a film. When Johnny died I went – oh, okay, that happens now, like this? If it hadn’t been for the acting I’d’ve been really annoyed, because of how it was built up and placed, it felt like it didn’t do the characters’ journeys justice.

Also in the extended edition – I was very confused about the music and read afterwards that Coppola straight up yanked out the original score and replaced it with generic 60s bops and why? Do? That? Whole scenes that would’ve been miles better with something else or entirely without music were disrupted (two big ones that stick with me: when they save the kids in the church and when they meet with Sherri before the rumble, but there were more).

That’s two of the main reasons I’m interested in watching the theatrical cut – third is that apparently he took out three scenes from the church for the extended edition and doubly why??? the church sequence depicts Johnny’s first (and only) taste at life. It’s vital to understanding his tragedy!!! whyyy??? cut it????

4.

I wonder how much of this movie acted as a precursor to Stand By Me (probably lots of people talk about this, but idk), just because of the obvious similarities, but Stand By Me did so much better at keeping it on-point and pushing the narrative forward in the right direction. Easier to adapt a short story (also Brokeback Mountain springs to mind) than a whole book, but that’s why I’m interested in the theatrical cut. Also… the music… (whispers, why).

That sounds really critical, but my feeling is mostly positive (well, sad, because everything hurts) – I get frustrated with movies where I can see how they would work with some more focus, because all the pieces are there: Arguably perfect cast, perfect story already provided, some strong cinematography (and maybe also a good score, can’t say until the theatrical), but then it isn’t brought together properly for whatever reason.

5.

Ponyboy and Johnny sure do stand outside and watch the dawn while quoting poetry and Johnny was gold even if he never saw it himself, he really was, urgh that hit my heart. The acting and images are gonna sit with me for awhile – and the tragedy of it all lingered because of the strength of the story and the acting, even if the handling of it onscreen was ultimately a bit clumsy.

Final thoughts:

There’s a deleted scene/rehearsal scene idk, but Ponyboy reads the letter Johnny wrote before he died and it’s just the VO, no visuals other than Ponyboy reading, no music. Just the stillness of that moment. 

So. Much. More. Powerful. I cried watching that. I’m very sad thinking about it.

Johnny is a gender.

[the-blue-fairie]

A while back, I made a post about how there are at least three different interpretations of Frozen 2′s ending and how they can ALL be justified by the text of the film to some degree. I’m bringing that up again because I saw a post with people who have different opinions on the ending discussing the matter, one who considers the ending a separation and dislikes it and one who considers that there is no separation.

The thing is... I think both sides are right, if that makes any sense at all? Because they’re both looking at different aspects of the text. In the same way, I think that the people who consider the ending a separation” and feel that separation is a good thing are also pulling from aspects that are in the text.

Everyone’s interpretation is rooted in the text to some degree, but also colored by their own feelings and the way they approach the text.

Now, I realize when I made my post about there being different interpretations of the ending, I was trying to be as neutral as I possibly could be and I didn’t bring up my full opinion on the matter. That was because I was striving for neutrality in that post, but since I’m bringing this up again, I might as well share my opinion so that others understand what my take is and don’t start speculating that I’m trying to play all sides or something.

As I said in my first post, I feel that “the sisters did this together and are still bound by love even if they are moving forward on individual paths” is closest to what the film wanted to say. I believe the filmmakers wanted to establish that there is no separation and that the sisters compliment each other and can still work and enjoy life together why being on individual paths. I feel that this was the film’s intent and I value and appreciate that intent.

But here’s the thing. I also feel that isn’t what the filmmakers actually wrote. I know that was what the filmmakers were trying to build towards, but I feel there are loose ends in F2′s narrative that make those other interpretations possible. And I’m NOT saying that to bash Frozen 2. I recognize that crafting a film is a difficult process where you have to keep countless pieces and plot threads in mind, as well as keeping your target audience in mind and the studio heads above you in mind. And I have great respect for the filmmakers and the effort they put into creating this piece of art. The fact there are going to be loose ends is inevitable and I don’t want to sleight the filmmakers and their craftsmanship. But  for me personally - I can’t simply judge a film based on its intent when some of the loose ends bother me.

When some fans (either fans who criticize the film for dividing the sisters and don’t like “separation” or who celebrate the film for dividing the sisters and do like “separation”) point out that “Elsa and Anna didn’t really do this together - acting in common cause, yes, but not working together or approaching the situation from the same wavelength and talking things out together,” I kind of feel that.

When some fans talk about how Anna didn’t get the chance to air her anger at Elsa, I also feel that. Keep in mind, I’m not anti-Elsa or “Elsa-critical.” I love Elsa as a character dearly. But I find it clumsy on a storytelling level to introduce a conflict between the sisters (and a moment where even Olaf becomes angry, highlighting its seriousness) and then not resolve that conflict. I know, I’ve read people’s explanations saying that Anna is too overwhelmed by emotions to feel anger and that the sisters can talk things out at a later date easily enough because the torn fabric is already mending with their reunion (and I agree with that, actually)... but that doesn’t change the fact that a plot thread is left kind of up in the air, to be resolved at a later date. Saying that something makes sense in-universe does not address the structure of the film.

So I sympathize with people who have issues with the ending. I’ve seen Anna fans say she got the fuzzy end of the lollipop by not being able to express her anger, regardless of how much sense people might argue it would make sense in the moment. And their feelings are valid because the film introduces a plot thread and then doesn’t tie it together by the end - or, if we feel it tries to tie it together by having Elsa say, “You saved me,” and validate Anna, does it in an abrupt  and rather rushed way. The film would have worked much better, I feel, if they included the deleted scene of Elsa showing Anna their parents, which would have been a clearer gesture of healing and also given Anna some much needed emotional closure. (At the same time, I personally disagree with certain folks who have an overly negative take on Elsa or try to paint her as a “bad sister” across the franchise. Making such an argument doesn’t hold water when you look at all the different films and shorts of the franchise.) And I’ve seen Elsa fans express frustration because they see Elsa’s behavior as unearned. And, while I wholeheartedly reject individuals who degrade the Northuldra or go outside the text of the franchise to make their points, I feel it is valid for some people to feel that the conclusion comes across as somewhat unearned. By that point in the film, we are racing towards the credits because the filmmakers only have an animated film’s runtime to work with. So things don’t get the proper time to breathe. And while again, I recognize that is all part of working within the constraints of an animated film and laud the filmmakers for doing the best they could in their circumstances, I also feel that abruptness ended up being detrimental to the finished project. 

In my personal opinion, the sisters still have a lot they need to talk through together and process - and that’s what rubs me the wrong way about the ending. The film frames its ending as a resolution to the conflicts it introduces. And on one level, it works - Elsa and Anna are both able to come into their own in some distinct and beautiful ways. But on other emotional levels, certain things are left hanging. We don’t get to see the sisters process together the conflicts that have arisen between them. You could argue that their stepping into their own gives them personal senses of closure... but that’s not the same as being able to talk out and address together the emotional conflicts that F2 introduces to further its plot. And even though you’re right if you argue, “But in their new positions, Elsa and Anna both have the time and opportunity to address those issues together!”, that’s not the same as the film addressing the issues that it sets up. That rests resolution on a hypothetical Frozen 3 which as of this writing doesn’t exist.

Although the film’s ending frames itself as a resolution to the conflicts it introduces, it does not resolve all of those conflicts, particularly the emotional ones between the sisters. And even if we consider the ending of the film as a new beginning, the film doesn’t really do much to foreshadow the future resolution of those conflicts.

So F2′s ending leaves me kind of cold. I don’t dislike the ending on principle the way some people do. I KNOW what the filmmakers were going for. (I even really like what the filmmakers were going for. That’s why I love delving into the new status quo in fanfiction.) I just don’t think they fully achieved that. 

And so I feel the film’s conclusion isn’t earned - or at least, isn’t as well-earned as it could have been. Again, I respect the filmmakers for what they were trying to do. I just don’t think they succeeded.

And I feel that people are within their rights to critique the film’s flaws - as long as they are not being hostile to others about it. And, of course, people are within their rights to love the film and celebrate the things it does beautifully.

I hope I manage to do both, critique and celebrate. 

[pechebeche]

Sorry, I should be clearer. You don't have to post this. I did see the 'callout' but I didn't know them. I thought the Ace Discourse takes were non-issues but then I saw the part about antiblackness and thought, "OK, I see where they got that from". And at the time it looked like someone had informed you but you were ignoring it. If they didn't, and you weren't, that's a different story. I'm sorry you were harassed, I don't agree with that. But you did seem unaware of why it came across so bad.

alright. i am going to outline the two major accusations i think you're talking about - one of which was completely off the wall, and one of which actually was a good critique of my actions, which was then mixed in with all the other accusations.

the first was that i defended a slavery au. that's fucking insane. i never did that. what i DID was not block a user who had created one and later apologized, because the only person who talked with me about it was anonymous. i was not quite as suspicious of anons then as i am now, but friends of mine had been the victim of abusers twisting genuine mistakes and co-opting activist language to isolate and turn people against their victims, so i had a policy of not doing anything based on an anon's word alone, since i couldn't check their credibility. i instead said that i would follow the lead of poc in the community, which i later did by blocking the artist.

in retrospect, it was my whiteness that allowed me to give them the benefit of the doubt that their initial au was a mistake and that they might deserve a second chance. that was not my call to make. it is also, in large part, because i gave literally everyone the benefit of the doubt. i gave genuine responses to an anon who said i was 'playing the sexual trauma card' three times before i realized they wouldn't listen. that doesn't justify it, though, and was a character flaw as a pushover just as much as it was racist. i was wrong for that.

(as a side note, the anon later cited this discussion on twitter as proof i had 'talked over and refused to listen to' a person of color, as if....i just. had some sort of Spidey Sense that tingled when an anon was white. i still pretty firmly believe that a lot of that discussion came from a basic, widespread misunderstanding of what anonymity fully entails, but that's a conversation for another time.)

the other major accusation is one i will freely admit, as i always have, was a fully warranted and credible one in its original form. i had been commissioned to write a kingston/kugrash fic, and there had recently been a rash of discussion that i had never seen beforehand about the ship being disliked. i was uncertain whether it was inherently racist, and thus if i would need to back out of the project and refund the commissioner, or if this was just a personal issue that people had.

without knowing more about what the problem was, it was hard for me to google 'problematic rat curse shipping' with hope of any actual answers, so i asked an open question about what the specific problem was on twitter (which i did, to my little credit, clarify several times throughout the conversation that no one was obligated to respond to or engage with, and that i was certain the fault was mine for ignorance). another user very kindly and patiently explained to me the importance of canon interracial ships that don't involve white people. i asked what i, at the time, thought was a clarification question about the lack of non-het characters of color to ship in interracial relationships, but what in retrospect was very much a defensive attempt to push through the issue with as little change to my actions as possible. they rightfully called me out on being performative; i apologized and promised to look back on the conversation later and reflect on it.

i learned after the fact that the other person involved was a minor, and upon learning it, immediately deleted all of my part in the conversation. i don't regret that. my memory of that time is too fuzzy to know whether what i said would have damned or aided me, but ultimately, that doesn't matter at all in comparison to making sure that user wouldn't face any of the harassment that i later did. they're one of the other people who i really, truly believe was well intentioned, and whose advice i still take very seriously when reflecting on my actions.

the call out post was made the next day. it was possible to frame it as my 'being informed but ignoring it' by utterly distorting the context of the first accusation, and thus being able to use the second, much more credible accusation to prop it up as more legitimate. i am not going to pretend i didn't make mistakes, because i did, and i will continue to. but i wanted to, and was willing, to learn. i think the fact that i still tried to parse genuine criticisms from harassment even as i actively regressed to my lowest points, and am still trying to more than a year later, is evidence of that.

in the end, though, the veracity of the racism accusations wasn't actually the root of the poster's hatred of me. (i actually recall making a post at the time stating that when i talked about people harassing me, i specifically was not talking abt critiques of my racism, and that i was grateful that people were calling me out and forcing me to adjust my perspective. there was a very clear distinction between people trying to educate me and people trying to hurt me.) what they hated about me was that i wrote nsfw fanfic about aged up characters, and that, when told that this made people uncomfortable, promised to make it easily blockable for them, but did not outright remove them, because i felt that as i was writing about adults in a consenting relationship and the pieces were largely a proxy for delayed-by-trauma exploration of my own sexuality, i didn't feel there was anything inherently immoral about them. thats what they hated me for. that's why i was called a pedophile and a bitch and had my chosen name mocked widely. the poster stated outright thats why they hated me. the accusations of racism were, i believe, largely to pad the post out for people who wouldn't hate me for that alone.

[astorytotellyourfriends]

1, 10, 27, 28

1. From one to five stars, how would you rate your writing? (No downplaying yourself!)

i'd say... between 4 and 4 1/2 stars bc i'm loads better now than i was when i first started writing literal ages ago, but there's always room for improvement!

10. What’s your favorite genre to write for?

hmmm. i mean, i guess romance is the big one when it comes to fic. but i do love fantasy and i wish i wrote more fantasy-heavy fic (even though it brings So Much More Work) and maybe even some sci-fi! clearly i should just branch out more often lol.

27. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received?

oh i've gotten so many lovely comments over the last year especially, but the one that really sticks out is the first comment that @where-you-go left on A Mouth That I Would Kill To Kiss. it's v long so i won't copy/paste it here but when i posted the first chapter of it i didn't get the engagement i was hoping for and honestly, i was thinking very seriously of deleting it and not finishing it at all and then Jay left this comment that honestly brought me to tears. i'll never forget it (and this was the start of our beautiful friendship where we both just make each other emo over luke and bobby and their inability to communicate 💛)

28. How well do you handle criticism when it comes to your writing?

well, it depends on what sort of criticism it is. if it's "hey, i don't like the way you've written this, it should've been like xyz" then i don't take very kindly to that. the stories i write are written that way because that's the way i envisioned it and if you want to take the same idea and go in a different direction, have at! if it's from a beta standpoint of something like "this makes no sense wtf are you doing" then i will absolutely listen to whoever's making that point and either try to explain my pov of how i meant it to come across and go from there, or work with that person to try and make it clearer.

if it's straight up just "u suck" or "ur terrible bc u write smut" then that's just bullshit and they can fuck off.

i've gotten a couple of borderline nasty comments over the last year which is why i enabled comment moderation on my M and E fics because it's really shitty to leave rude comments on fics that people spend a lot of time working on. (one in particular sticks out in my head that honestly made me laugh because the things that person complained about were literally so stupid i couldn't believe how terrible their reading comprehension was, but it wasn't worth me replying so i just deleted it)

tldr; constructive criticism is good. rude comments for the sake of being rude/combative/abusive is bad.

[meandmyechoes]

At this point the Cantonese translation of dark disciple is practically another book already:

we totally sprinted with the underworld/triad slang

of course what is cantonese without the intonation particles. I want to read it aloud! Which made their tone at least bit casual.

since there's only one pronoun for everything, and that's assigned to the pov character of the chapter. The narrator/me is a lot clearer to be on one character's side, deleting a lot of "[person] realized…"

we have specific verbs for eye, arm, leg movements as well, but it takes some time to recall/look up in a written context.

the thing we don't have, is specific verbs for smile. which means describing so are chunky with adverbs.

i still have no idea how to localize "my love" (or a nod and a wink and full on gambit. but i outsourced it ;)

naming the flora fauna is fun though!

oooh so excited to make the jedi code into a poem/nursery rhyme

Written and spoken English is practically the same but that's not entirely the case for Chinese/Cantonese. For a literary work like Dark Disciple, much more so than Ahsoka, I find myself more often wanting to pen the sentence, instead of taking the voice input shortcut. But then you have to balance how colloquial it is with the flair! And I'm not saying Cantonese isn't a pretty language, it's just, it's a mean language. It's rustic, its charm comes from metaphors to the uncannily apt. And then you have written Chinese with a long history of beautiful words, but always so subtle, so precise, and half-lost you bury yourself in another dictionary!

Specific to me, my brain runs on an English OS. I see a new word and come up with alternatives of it, in English. And I'd look at a sentence, rearranged the structure in Chinese grammar, but come up with a hybrid! Not very helpful haha.

I found myself having developed a syntax. I often describe the action, and sum it up with a four-letter idiom in the end. While so far I've been using less idioms than Ahsoka (and I do want to dial it up later), I am opting for more specific verbs. I love the paragraph I wrote for Ventress's gown. I've gotten past the most mushy-mushy parts. I'm fairly confident writing lightsaber duels despite not having read a chapter of wuxia to save my life, but the stand-off with The Sleeper still put a bullet to my brain.

Oh, and there's this habit of incorporating English words in speech. I made a rule to NOT do that with Ahsoka (well technically I cheated with one literation, but "order" has been in use for several decades ok) But the ban is lifted for this more localized project.

I… also, possibly regrettably, lifted the ban on swear words for the more adult-themed book. It's just more lively for Hondo to swear. But I'm not too keen to read (somebody other than me writing) Ventress swear. Because the (real-world) language context doesn't really lend malice, it seems a bit, unnecessary.

[pocket-void]

Hi Mock!

I wish you a good morning! (It's currently 8:30 am here and I hope you are asleep wherever you are because healthy sleep schedules and all that!) 🌻

I just found out that you write, too, and I've read "A cup of coffee" and honestly, is there something you can't do? Because that was really great! I enjoyed reading it so much!! And I love your Logan in it!

And can I ask: where so you get the motivation to do all this great stuff? Drawing, writing, school? Like, I have like 5 different writing projects screaming at me because I don't work on them and yesterday I outlined yet another fic that I'll probably never write because I just don't have the motivation and - how do you do it? Because I want to write. It's the best thing in the world to me. But I just can't get myself to do it, and when I do, everything I make feels kinda... not good. Ugly, if you will.

So I guess I just want to know what I can do to get myself away from that? Because I really need to write, I'll go insane otherwise O_o

Anyway, have a wonderful day and eat a cookie!! 🌼

Y’all who can format stuff in asks will never cease to bamboozle me. O///o

But hello!! I believe it’s the afternoon where you are now! ^\\\^ (Not to worry, if there’s one thing I try to get enough of it’s sleep!)

Heidhwkfns Yes I write too but it’s incredibly on and off since I’m not as confident with it and it takes much longer than art! >\\\< I 100% want to write more often tho, but my need to accomplish stuff just finds art less time consuming. I’m really glad you like “A Cup of Coffee” because I’m quite happy with how that one turned out! ^\\\^ (And also just genuinely surprised at how many people enjoyed it) So thank you!! ;///;✨💖

So, here’s the thing. I’m just a normal person, just like anybody else! There are days where I have 0 motivation to do anything, and days where I’m way too motivated but still do absolutely nothing anyways lmao- I can’t say that my experience will work for everybody of course, but I can try to explain how I feel or how I work things out when I don’t feel like doing things. u///u

The first step is to forgive myself, because it’s going to be ok. There’s nothing wrong with having an off day, and nothing wrong with not accomplishing anything for now. There should be no guilt involved in not touching something for ages, god knows I’ve got so much in the “maybe later” idea box that I will never get to. But that’s ok! My creations will never blame me for not working on them, so in turn I promised to never blame myself for it either. And if I ever go back to complete one of them, great! But if not, that still doesn’t mean that it was a waste. Everything you make has value, finished or not.

The second is to remember that I love them. I love them a lot. I love creating, I love art, I love writing, and I love the process behind them! What you write and create will never complain if they are “not the best” or “ugly”. Their value comes from how you feel about them. Nobody else’s imput matters. So what if it’s not great? So what if it’s a mess? My terrible crayon drawing from when I was 4? Love it. Still has my whole heart. They’re on my bedroom wall to this day! (Neatly framed and hung, courtesy of my dad) I ask myself why I sat down to do something in the first place, and the answer is always going to be because I love doing it! Everything I make means something to me, no matter how bad or how small. Because at the end of the day, I made something. And it’s all the reason I need to love it.

It doesn’t matter if this doodle looks bad or this draft makes literally no sense because even if it’s not good, I did it. Even if I feel like I’m going nowhere, I know that each creation is a small step in my long long journey of improvement. It might not seem like that sometimes, like everything we do doesn’t really seem like it’s getting better any time soon, but we can never tell unless we keep doing it right? Instead of being upset that I’m not very good now, I decided to try and look forward to how good I eventually will be. I find that prospect exciting! We never know how much we grow until we get there, it’s like a happy surprise! ^\\\^✨And in the meantime, I am allowed to be perfectly happy with what I already can do. How far I’ve already come. Even if other people tell me otherwise, even if it’s true that it’s not very great, who’s to say that I will always be? Not me, that’s for sure.

I am willing to be patient for the sake of what I do, because I am willing to do it for an eternity.

There is no race in doing what I love, because I am the only one on this path. I can see other people on their own paths too! And sometimes they’re faster and have way better stamina than me, but their final destination is ultimately going to be much much different than mine, even if we’re going in a similar direction. So there is no point in trying to match them; I decide to walk at my own pace. It’s much easier for me this way. Take breaks! Drink some water. We’ve all got our places to go. ^\\\^

Third thing about getting things done is, well, getting it done! Do you know how I wrote “A Cup of Coffee”? I pain stakingly stared at it all day with frequent breaks in between, read it a ridiculous amount of times until it didn’t sound like english, and had text to speech read it back to me a couple more times just so I could make sure, because I really really really wanted to finish it. And it probably was kind of messy, hahaha. >\\\<

I’m not suggesting you do what I did btw, because it’s not even how I always write things! My other story “Table for Two” was written under a much different context. For that one, I wrote parts of it on different days. I took walks thinking about how I’d word things, how I’d imagine the scene going, and how I should pace sentences. I actually deleted the entire first paragraph and started over a few times because it didn’t sound right. Then one afternoon I decided that I wanted this story done. So I sat down and did what I could, edited a few things afterwards, and tentatively showed it to a friend. I didn’t edit it much after that, but it was done!

If I learned anything from highschool, it’s that doing something imperfectly is better than not doing it at all. I’m still a pretty picky perfectionist and a terrible procrastinator, and it’s not easy! But I would much prefer something I make to be “messy but complete”, rather than “pretty good so far but not finished”. Personally for me, getting started is the hardest part of doing anything. I have yet to find an easier way to do it, but I know that sometimes I just need to sit down and do what I can to start writing. If a sentence sounds weird, I keep going, because I can come back to it later! But if a sentence doesn’t exist, I can’t fix that without, well, writing it. o///o So I consider that a start!

I definitely understand you when you say that you can’t get yourself to write because I currently kind of can’t either. >\\\< I have outlines that I won’t ever write, I have ideas that I’m not gonna get to, and I’ve got fics that I worry won’t be as good when I write them. But maybe today I’ll sit myself down and just write one sentence. Give it a title, make a document, and stare for a lil bit. Give it a beginning. Because for me, sometimes drawing the starting line somewhere helps. Maybe it can show me what direction I need to go in just a little bit clearer. u///u

At the end of the day, the thing I say all the time is enjoy what you do. It’s just genuinely the most important part of doing anything to me. Yes it can be hard and sometimes we worry about how it’s gonna be, but we still do it don’t we? We come back and try again because we love it. Because we really can’t live without it. So what’s wrong with just...doing it?

That’s how it is to be a creator for me, I suppose. And from one to another, I genuinely wish you the best of luck on your journey!!

After all, there will be no other quite like it. u///u💖✨

[catie-does-things]

I know you said you only write fanfic for a hobby but I really admire your writing style. It's very concise while still packing an emotional punch. Any tips for a rambling fanfic writer who wants to trim the fat, so to speak? Or even just some insight into your writing process? Thanks.

I don’t have any formal training in creative writing, so I don’t know how much of this will make sense or get the terminology right, but here are some random things I try to do/keep in mind in my (fan fiction) writing process:

Have a goal, if not a plan. If you can make a detailed outline of your story before you start writing, or early on in the process at least, that always helps, especially with longer stories. But at the very least you have to have some idea of what you want to accomplish narratively and thematically. This will guide everything else. (There’s a George Lucas interview where he says when he started writing Star Wars he made a list of 12 or so themes he wanted to explore, and I’ve joked about this being a very nerdy thing to do but I really think it’s also a good idea.)

Know your characters. In fan fiction, we have it relatively easy here because the main characters have usually been well developed in the canon work. But for minor canon characters or OCs, it’s probably worth sketching out some details of who they are/where they come from/what they want, even if that information won’t necessarily come up in the story, just to give yourself a clearer idea of how they should act in any given scene.

Know your characters’ voices. Similar to the above, but I wanted to highlight this because nothing annoys me like AtLA fan fic that peppers the dialog with profanity. Even if the canon dialog is constrained by the show’s rating and the fic is not, it still breaks the character’s voice when someone who never swears in canon starts dropping f-bombs left and right in your fic. Likewise, if your dialog sounds like your characters are quoting meta about themselves, it’s probably in your voice, not theirs.

Use characters intentionally. Even if it’s your favorite canon character, if they don’t have a legitimate role to play in achieving the goals of your story, write them out (or maybe reduce them to a minor role). Characters who don’t serve the plot can be fun one-off asides, but overdo it and they just get in the way. And related to that note...

Never use an OC if a canon character will do. This was how Mai/Haru wound up being a background pairing in Fate Deferred. Mai was always going to have an Earth Kingdom love interest in Omashu, but I originally envisioned him as an OC, until I realized Haru worked perfectly well for what I was trying to do there. Creating a new character for that role was unnecessary. With Toph, on the other hand, I did actually try to think of a canon character that would fit what I wanted to do with her husband, but there wasn’t one, so I went ahead with an OC for that role.

 Re-read your work frequently. We’ve all probably made fun of the writers of our favorite show or series apparently forgetting what they wrote at some point - unfortunately, this is no joke. It happens. Refresh your memory about what you’ve already established to avoid contradicting it - and often you can find inspiration this way, too. A lot of the call backs in the later chapters of Sin and Duty were not originally planned, but came about because I re-read the earlier chapters and spotted details that would be good to call back to.

Don’t make things too easy. If a big problem presents itself, it shouldn’t be resolved too quickly or with minimal effort by your protagonists. If something dramatic happens, it should have long-lasting consequences and implications; your characters shouldn’t just move on to the next plot point like it never happened. And if you aren’t interested in addressing the full implications and effects of something serious (like betrayal, death, or sexual assault), then don’t include it in your story.

Take calculated risks. You shouldn’t feel beholden to popular fanon, or what you think people expect from your fandom. If you have a unique take on a character or trope, go for it! That said, don’t mess with the norms just for the sake of being different. If your canon characters are completely unrecognizable, then it’s not even fan fiction anymore.

Talk things over with a friend or beta reader. There really is no substitute for having another person to bounce ideas off of or talk through a plot snag with. You can never be 100% objective about your own work and that trusted outside perspective is really valuable.

Don’t be afraid to make cuts. If that scene just isn’t working, delete it and start over. If the whole chapter is a mess, create a new document and start from scratch. If that subplot isn’t serving the goals of your story, get rid of it. This may not feel like progress in your writing, but everything that makes your story better is a positive step, even if that’s throwing out an entire day’s work.

That’s probably more than enough generic advice (I could probably do an entire post just on how to name AtLA OCs but we won’t get into that here). Thanks for the ask, and let me know if you have any more specific questions about my writing process. Like I said, I’m not a professional by any means, but I’m happy to share what works for me.

[livlepretre]

I'm so glad you decided to do this ask game. I love your writing style and have been curious about 4, 11, and 54 for a while. Thank you for being so interactive about your writing!

💙💙💙 honestly thank you for asking! I love interacting with all of you here on tumblr, and honestly, talking about writing gives me a lot of energy to see through really long projects (you all know which one). 

4. Do you have writing habits or rituals?

Yes! The most helpful habit I’ve developed is actually finding the right time of day (for me) to write-- I’m best in the mornings, so the first thing I do 2-4 mornings a week is caffeinate and open up my word doc with my wip. Often I’ll reread a few scenes from where I left off to get myself going, and then I write for an hour or two. My thoughts are so much clearer in the early mornings, before I head to work and exhaust my mental energies, that the work flows really freely-- I can often cover the same terrain by writing first thing that I might take all day to cover if I get started, say, on a Saturday in the early afternoon (sad but true). 

I also do like to amp myself up with songs, but I don’t listen to any music WHILE writing-- only beforehand. I find music during writing to be way too distracting. 

I only ever write sober, because I find even a glass of wine throws me way too far off my game (and I hate squinting at my screen). But the more caffeine the better. 

Also, detailed below: I OUTLINE LIKE A FIEND

11. Describe your writing process from scratch to finish.

hmmm okay

so, often an idea will hit me and I will immediately have maybe 3-10 pages that flow really fast... but then I’ll stutter out 

so after that comes the outline. 

and I mean: OUTLINE 

I put my outline at the bottom of my word document, below the scenes that I’ve already written-- for FE this started as a pretty basic series of like, maybe a dozen bullet points overall. As I kept brainstorming and writing and thinking about it, I started having more specific plot points. Every time an idea occurred to me, I added it to the outline. In the beginning this was a very flow of consciousness outline, not even bullet-pointed, just paragraphs and paragraphs detailing in often vague terms the broad strokes of what I wanted to happen and what the emotional beats would be. I think it really has helped me with FE that I had a lot of the BIG moments outlined before I started writing, including the ending, so I knew the narrative arcs and could foreshadow a lot of things, even if a lot of the chapters get written between updates and I have added in a lot of things that have just sort of naturally developed. The good news is that if you overall stick the outline, you can also add a lot of other things in. 

I review my outline A LOT. 

Before I write any particular chapter, I look through the outline, and figure out which pieces I want to include in the chapter. I then go through and MINIMUM outline by bullet point the scenes that will be in that chapter-- although, I like to have the next 5-10 chapters outlined that thoroughly so that I know exactly where I am heading. I cannot stress enough how hard it is for me to write without a blue print. 

Sometimes I write a scene that I end up not using. Rather than deleting it, I move it to the bottom of my word document-- often these scenes can be revised later to fit into the story. 

I also write at the bottom of my outline any scenes/dialogue that pops into my head that I know will happen later. This way, I have it on hand when I get to it. 

For the actual writing, once I start writing a chapter, I pretty much work on it every day until it’s done-- sometimes all I do is tinker with the outline, or write a few sentences, and sometimes I wrote 4,000 words-- it doesn’t matter how much or how little, because in writing, every word is a victory. 

I try to apply the same rule to my creative writing as to my essay writing--just get the idea/emotions/plot out, describe it as clearly as possible, and any finangling with words can be wrestled with on a later pass. 

I usually reread each chapter 5 or 6 times before posting-- often it’s the first thing I do when I open the doc up to write. This is often a good chance to add in connecting scenes, change sentences slightly, or revise paragraphs so that they fit into any emotional arcs/discoveries later in the chapter. I often change lines because earlier writing contradicts something I want to say later in the chapter, or use the chance of the reread to change words/restructure sentences. 

When I get lost, I make character motive charts. Like, I write down each character’s name, and I come up with a list of what each person’s motive is. I then try to come up with a definitive action each person can take to accomplish their goals. Hopefully at least some of these characters will be in conflict. 

Whenever I get to a major inflection point in the story, like, whenever I am about to drop a major plot reveal or change the course of events in some way, I do a major reread-- I reread my whole fic start to finish and use the notes app to copy and paste any paragraphs that are important (from my view as the writer) into a note so that I can keep track. This could include any paragraphs with foreshadowing, plot threads that have not been tied up, characterization notes I’ve forgotten about... anything at all that will help me wrap up anything I may have forgotten about. 

For that matter, the notes app on my phone is also where I punch in anything that occurs to me in the middle of the night or when I’m at work, running errands, etc. 

I basically repeat this process, until I find myself at the end. 

Long story short: It’s all about the outline!

54. Any writing advice you want to share? 

Find your best time to write and take advantage-- when do you feel most mentally alert? when do you feel most inspired? for me it’s early in the morning-- I could potentially write 7 days a week if I wrote at night, but I find I can get a ton more done in 2-4 days of 1 or 2 hours of focused writing than I could blearily staring at my screen. So, even if your BEST window is only available a couple of days a week, that is still a HUGELY productive window of time that will lead to good things!

Outline. As mentioned above. 

If you only write one sentence today, you’ve done the hardest thing: you’ve written. One sentence as often as possible will eventually make it easier to write two sentences as often as possible, and so on. 

Writing is a continuous act of self-improvement. I try not to worry about revising my work too much after I’ve hit publish, instead recognizing that there are fics easily accessible on the internet that I wrote when I was sixteen and yes they are highkey embarrassing but they’re also kind of a badge of honor because wow, I’ve gone from struggling to write a short 2,000 word story to working on an epic length novel. And what people say is true: it is an agonizing process to hit publish, full of self-doubt and hand-wringing (I cannot tell you how often FE has made me NERVOUS because of the content), but the beautiful thing about writing is that when you put it out into the world, you’re giving it over as a gift for everyone else. So, try to let yourself just write as much as possible. 

Be honest in your writing. Go ahead and squash that little voice in your head telling you to hold back on the emotions, to be more solemn, more restrained. So long as you write your heart, it will be true, and there will be people who will connect with the writing because of that. 

[tendertenebrosity]

Hi all, so I just want to give my readers a bit of a heads up about the future of one of my recent stories, the Illiam and Helis drabbles. Going under the cut!

So I’ve found myself kinda uncomfortable writing them lately. I still really like both characters, and I’ve settled into who they both are and what the story I want to write with them is. But some of the choices I made when it was just an experimental fun idea to play with have turned out to be ones I’m not happy with. 

Chief among these is the whole wing loss deal. I know people write a lot of dark stuff, and I know why I wrote it that way at the time; I wanted something that couldn’t be fixed with “I’m sorry”. 

But it turns out I’m a little uncomfortable with writing that as a longterm plot point. At least at the moment. I don’t feel equipped to write the psychological consequences and it makes the whole story a bit darker than I want it to be. 

There’s a few other things I’d appreciate the chance to tweak, too. One being Helis’ pronouns - I went with exclusively ‘they’ initially because they hadn’t settled yet into what their gender was and wanted it to be ambiguous. Now I’m a bit clearer on them, and she/her feels right (also, not instead of, though). Another is the magic system and a few things to do with that. And another is coming up with a reason WHY Helis is where she is. 

So, what this boils down to is, I kinda want a do-over of the earlier sections. Most of the things that aren’t mentioned above would stay the same/remain canon. I would come up with some new horrible things for Illiam to do instead. And then I would have the old, non-canon stuff which I would either delete or keep around, and the ‘canon’ stuff that I would make a masterlist of? 

It’s messy and my inner perfectionist kind of hates it :( But the alternatives are feel vaguely icky and dissatisfied whenever I write these guys, or stop posting it, neither of which I like. 

Anyway all of this takes time and energy and I almost always find revising more draining than writing for the first time, so it might be a while in coming. I’ll still write new stuff with those guys, but it won’t have references to the wing loss and so on. 

I feel kinda awkward and weird about it, but yeah. Thanks for your patience? Watch this space? 

[pokenimagines]

do you have any tips for starting a new imagines blog?

So here are a few tips I have:

Make sure you have a rule page of what you will and won’t write (you don’t want to get any asks from people with things you’re uncomfortable with).

Formatting is a big deal as it’ll help make things clearer. For some reason, the desktop has shitty formatting ways, but mobile has more options but takes longer. Pick your poison.

Make sure your ask box is opened for anonymous (a lot of requesters don’t like sending things in with their main blog, so being able to do it on anon is a lifesaver).

Make sure your blog description is clear if requests are open or closed.

Don’t let yourself get overworked; if you need to close your inbox so you can catch up, do it!

Hashtags are needed! Some I like to use are: pokemon character x reader, character x reader, swsh character x reader, pokemon sword and shield, pokemon sword and shield x reader, pokemon swsh, pokemon swsh x reader, character name, swsh character name (just replace the character name with whoever it is)

Queue boxes, they’re a thing, so you should utilize them. I personally suck, but it does help if you write in batches like I do. It’ll let a consistent stream content to your followers! I really do need to use them more often, but I always forget!

Feel free to delete asks. If you don’t feel inspired to write them, you don’t personally like the request, or you just decided ‘nah.’ You’re allowed to delete requests. You have no obligations to write anything, so choose what you want to write.

Have fun with it! No point in running a blog if you aren’t going to enjoy it!

I do have a post found here for newer blogs. I wrote it because running these blogs does sometimes have a risk of getting certain requesters that aren’t pleasant to deal with. If you start a blog, feel free to message me and I can warn you about the exact person who caused me to make the post. I don’t do call-outs though and hate drama, so don’t ask me unless you’re running an imagine blog.

Have fun with it though and my DMs are always open if you have more questions! I also have a discord group that I’ll link at the bottom. Tons of imagine blogs are there as well and we’re a fun little community that’ll be more than happy to help you out in running the blog!

https://discord.gg/Rhs4ZKD