#weekly writing wondering

[imhereforscm]

For the @writing-wednesday event

If you had to pick just one, what would be your favourite word, and why?

I'm torn between "venomous" and "thorn"!

They're both such heavy, dark and powerful words in my opinion.

Like "venomous" >>> "poisonous"

I DON'T KNOW HOW TO EXPRESS IT PROPERLY, I JUST WOKE UP HAHA! BUT BASICALLY THOSE TWO ARE MY FAVOURITE WORDS!

[gwaeddblaidd]

First time answering a @writing-wednesday question:

Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

It's a longer excerpt, hence the cut, but due to the way I write it's hard to share a short dialogue excerpt. This fic, especially, is very prose-heavy; written in the first-person present tense, a lot of sensory description is used. As a result, dialogue scenes tend to be a lot longer than usual.

I chose this scene because it was the first scene in which I wrote extended dialogue for Wednesday herself. I find that one of the biggest challenges I face when writing fanfiction is getting characters' speech styles right, especially when it comes to characters who have especially distinctive ways of talking.

Wednesday is well-spoken but blunt, and it can be easy to overexaggerate these features. I'm happy with how everything sounds when it comes to the dialogue in this scene; I can imagine the characters actually saying the words, without it sounding like a fanfic, if that makes sense.

With all that said, I'm looking forward to answering more questions in the future! I might have to go through the backlog, actually...

Excerpt follows:

---

I awaken with a start, jolting upright with such speed that it feels like I give myself whiplash. My head pounds and my sides ache, but more than anything I’m left with the uncomfortable feeling that I’m forgetting something. I grumble and groan and raise my hand to rub my sore neck, but find myself pausing. My claws are at least half extended and threads of colourful fabric hang from my fingers. I bury my face in my hands; I don’t want to see the damage I’ve done to the bed.

“You whimper in your sleep,” a voice from across the room says, “like a kicked puppy.”

The voice makes me jump and my body tenses up. I slowly turn to my left, my hands sheepishly falling from my face and revealing my shame. My eyes open tentatively and settle on those of Wednesday Addams, standing next to her desk with arms crossed in front of her. Her cold gaze forces me to break eye contact after but a moment, my groggy mind lacking the conviction to challenge her. I realise I have yet to respond. “Wednesday… Hi.”

I avoid looking her directly in the eyes, but her gaze is unflinching. She says nothing, verbally or otherwise. I pick threads of cotton and fleece from my claws, assessing the damage to the lightly shredded blankets around me. My shoulders drop, signalling my embarrassment.

“Oh please, I’ve seen worse,” Wednesday says, breaking her silence but not her stare. “Your claws must be rather dull compared to Enid’s.”

I read no humour in her voice, but the comment brings a smirk to my face. “Got lucky with at least something, I guess.”

She cocks an eyebrow at that - she doesn’t seem to agree. “Lucky? Your natural weapons are fundamentally flawed and you consider yourself lucky?”

“Yeah, well anything that makes it that little bit harder for me to kill someone…” I trail off; that was perhaps a bit much. If Wednesday notices my oversharing, she doesn’t make it known. “Sorry, what time is it?” I ask, swinging my legs over the side of the bed to sit up properly.

“It’s a little past three. You slept for some fifteen hours by my count, but I didn’t have the heart to wake you.” The slightest hint of a smirk emerges on her face. “You appeared to be having such awful dreams. I would’ve hated to interrupt.”

“Oh, you could tell?” I ask jokingly as I tend to my still-aching neck. I’ve been told enough times by my roommate that I’m quite the emotive sleeper. “So, where’s Enid?”

“At one of her many clubs, I’m sure.” A disdainful look flashes on her face. “Forgive me if I don’t know which.”

I crane forwards and with some light pressure on my neck I hear a crack, followed by some of the tension being relieved. When I look up again I notice that something about Wednesday’s stare has changed. Her eyes are a little narrower, her lips are slightly pursed and she’s standing more rigidly than before, if that’s even possible. She has something she wants to say but is holding back. My perceptive prowess can’t compare to hers, however, and in the time it takes me to read her body language she notices the change in my own. Her face relaxes.

“This question may seem… invasive,” she says, taking a small step towards me, “but know that it comes from a place of genuine interest.”

It’s my turn to cock an eyebrow. “Shoot.”

“Your nightmares. What are they about?” She pauses, her eyes not quite focused on me, as if she’s visualising something. “Enid’s been getting nightmares ever since she wolfed out; is it just a werewolf thing? Are all of you destined to be such tortured souls?”

I consider the question for a moment. “I’m no expert, but we do tend to be pretty vivid dreamers. Add a serving of trauma to that and I guess it’s no wonder you’d end up with nightmares.”

“The trauma of wolfing out for the first time, for example?”

“For some, sure. It can be hard for some wolves, especially if they end up hurting someone. The guilt, the loss of control…” Am I getting too personal? “It’s a bit of a rude awakening, learning what it truly means to be a wolf.”

“Speaking from experience?” she asks, her head tilting a little to the side.

“Nah, I was a bit of an early bloomer. I barely remember my first time,” I admit, a half-truth at best and a lie by omission at worst. My first time was easy. My parents were well prepared; they made sure I was safe and couldn’t get anyone hurt. The revelation of what wolfhood entails though? That came later. I was sheltered for so many years. Hell, I didn’t even really know what I was until I met wolves from other packs and realised just how different I was. The end of my childhood wasn’t marked by something as simple as wolfing out for the first time. No, the day I learned exactly how much violence I was capable of, what sort of cruelty I could enact on others… that was my wakeup call.

“You didn’t answer my first question,” Wednesday says, forcing me out of my reminiscence. “Your nightmares. If they don’t stem from your wolfing out, where do they come from?”

I guess it’s time to make my boundaries known. I notice myself shuffling uncomfortably as I speak. “Sorry, that’s a bit personal, even for me.”

She doesn’t try to hide her disappointment. “A pity,” she says, turning away. She sits down and moves her typewriter to the middle of her desk, apparently finished with the conversation. I do feel a little bad. I’m under no obligation to share my insecurities, but at the same time I do feel as if I owe her something . Considering her reputation, she’s been surprisingly welcoming to my intruding on her personal space. What harm could it do to let down my walls a little?

“They’re about my parents,” I relent. She doesn’t turn around but her hands stop moving; that got her attention. “They were good people. Or, my mom was, at least. They… they didn’t deserve what happened to them.”

She spins around in her chair. “What did happen to them?”

“They’re gone.”

“I gathered. There’s more to the story than that though, surely?”

I chuckle. “Well, yes, of course. But the details aren’t exactly pleasant.”

Her arms cross once again. “I didn’t ask for ‘pleasant’.”

“My benefit, not yours. I relive it enough in my sleep; if I started spending my time awake thinking about it I’d never get anything done.” In truth, it’s less the memories themselves that bother me so, but rather the implications. If I shared the whole story with her… it wouldn’t take her long to figure it out. Being unable to share too much lest other people piece together the truth… It’s tiring, and serves only to isolate me from my peers. An unfortunate measure, but a necessary one. “Why so interested in my nightmares, anyway?”

Wednesday glares for a few seconds, but then her demeanour softens. As I suspected, she can appreciate a transactional interaction. I offered her some information, with the potential prospect of more, and so it’s in her best interest to respond in kind. She speaks slowly now, clearly choosing her words carefully and betraying her vulnerability. 

“Like I said, Enid’s been having nightmares most nights since wolfing out. It’s starting to impact her day-to-day life. Nightmares have never really been an issue for me, so I thought that perhaps consulting another werewolf might give me some insight on how I might help her.”

I was expecting a far more morbid reason for her curiosity. “That’s actually kind of sweet.”

“Yes, well…” She stiffens again. “Breathe a word of that sentiment to anyone and you’ll have bigger problems than mere nightmares.”

“My lips are sealed.”

[writing-wednesday]

Writing Wednesday Week #9

What internet research have you had to do for a fic that's most likely to have put you on a watch list?

Event Details

[problemswithbooks]

BNHA Ch. 429

So, I guess Toga is dead, and people are losing it.

I get why people liked her--she was actually queer, being pan/bisexual. She was representation for them and that's rare in shonen manga. But here's the thing--she was bad representation at best and insulting at worst. Nor do I think she was made queer because Hori really wanted to represent a queer girl. Himiko was always the author's poorly hidden fetish--she just was. She liked girls as much as boys because Hori wanted to draw a girl touching sexually on another girl. You can see this in how he draws her and Ochako in solo pics together.

I mean, people seem to understand this when it comes to Momo and her outfit being overly sexual or that both Himiko and Hagakure's Quirks either leave them naked or they have to be naked to use them. These are excuses to draw girls in a sexual manner. Himiko being into other girls is the same thing and that's the kindest interpretation.

Given how Himiko acts and her Quirk being heavily coded sexual desire, and therefore her use of it against someone unwilling being sexual assault, it could just being playing into harmful stereotypes of predatory gays.

As a queer person myself I just found Toga insulting. She was designed to be overly sexual and give the male author a female character that he could draw being suggestive with his other female characters. When he did flesh out her character, her backstory was eventually the trope/fear of straight people, that gay people will be so overcome with their lust that they end up sexually assaulting them.

In the end Ochako accepts this part of Toga and says she'll giver her blood forever, but as much as a lot of readers took that that as some deep lesbian confession, for me it really fell flat. Hori never really gave any of the main kids time to actually learn about their villain or show how that changed their minds toward them. Shoto only works because Touya is his brother (even though he admits he barely remembers him). But Ochako goes from not thinking of Toga at all pre-first war, to one thought about her during her speech, to suddenly caring about her so much she--given how Toga's quirk is coded, is willing to essentially fulfill Toga's kink for the rest of their lives.

It's weird and it comes out of nowhere. It's made even stranger because Toga doesn't actually change or show remorse for anything she did, which included personally hunting and murdering people before she joined the LOV. None of the death and destruction she is also partially responsible for is brought up either, something that Ochako was rightfully upset about during the first war when less people and property had been destroyed. Ochako just accepts everything about her suddenly and her past serious crimes are forgotten so they can cuddle and cry.

Am I shocked Toga died--a little. I didn't think Hori would have the guts to kill off a young girl character, especially one that he clearly got a lot of joy drawing in sexy poses. But at the same time, once he killed off Shigaraki and ended Touya's story with his slow death, I'm not surprised he went the same route with Toga.

This isn't Naruto--Hori isn't really kind to characters that do something wrong, especially if they don't try and change. Enji, Bakugo, Hawks, and Aoyama all sort of got punished for what they did. Enji is the worst off, being permanently crippled, missing an arm and burned everywhere. Bakugo's hand is damaged, his heart weaker, plus he feels bad that Izuku lost his Quirk so they can't compete the same way he wanted them to. Aoyama, despite doing way less wrong and even helping his class during the forest raid, still leaves school because he doesn't feel he earned being there yet. Hawks lost his Quirk and even though him running the HPSC could be seen as good for him, Hawks always wanted a break, but now he has one of the most time consuming and stressful jobs out there.

So, if this is what characters who actively did good things and even changed and fought to be better get, what would characters who never changed and never did anything positive for anyone but their friends/themselves get?

Before the last Arc started, when so many people said the LoV were 100% going to be redeemed I had doubts and always thought it wouldn't make sense with how the story presented redemption or treated other non-LoV villains in the past. That if the main LoV did get some happy ending where they were bffs with the main cast it would clash with how other characters had been treated.

That doesn't mean that I think how Shigaraki, Toga, and Touya ended up in the manga was well done. I think their endings fit far better then a last minute redemption would have, but at the same time you can feel how rushed everything has been since the end of the first war arc. Hori was done with this story months if not years ago, yet he was contractually obligated to finish it. Because of that I think he left out as much as possible. As much as I think he's written some pretty obsessive stuff, particularly towards women, I can't really fully blame him cutting corners or the story being shit at the end.

We know Manga authors, particularly those that work with Jump are treated like shit. That they suffer incredibly long hours at times not even getting to go home for days. We've gotten messages for Hori saying he's sick quite a few times. On top of that, weekly story telling is not a great way to tell a cohesive narrative. Ideas probably change week to week or at least month to month and you can't go back and change the last chapter no matter how much you need or want to. Then you remember he also gave a lot of ideas to the people who made the movies, which would also change his plans for how he wanted the main story to go.

The story is bad--it has been for a while, but I think a lot of people put their hopes on their favorite characters getting a happy ending, even when there were signs that probably wasn't going to be the case. I know how much it sucks when a character you love gets a shitty ending (Stain was my fav, but he got an absolute dogshit ending) but at least, knowing what I know about the industry I can't really blame Hori the way I see some other people doing. Criticize it, sure, but saying Hori hates his readers or is horrible writer isn't true. BNHA was popular for a reason--he's great with characters and the beginning of the story had some great pacing. We'll never know, but I wouldn't be surprised if BNHA could have been amazing if Hori had been treated better and the story hadn't needed a chapter every week.

If anything BNHA has taught me how much a story suffers when authors/artists are treated like crap and forced to work past burnout.

[snowe-zolynn-rogers]

We're going back to our regularly scheduled program of me not talking about personal topics, hyperfixating over random movies and shows I watch, writing, and random funny topics. Ya'know, what my entire page is built on as its foundation.

[non-un-topo]

Daily November crying sessions start today

[fagdykevash]

being autistic is so funnnn sometimes bc my coworkers try to like. joke around w me. and i always take it way too fuckin seriously (if i even respond at all...) i'm so used to bein' criticized at work so obvvvv i react seriously whenever someone is just messin' w me lmao

[intertexts-moving]

wonder if there's higher rates of dissociative problems among ppl raised in the kind of religious environments that involve regular several-hour-long worship ceremonies and frequent repetitive prayer for long amounts of time.

[unnamed-atlas]

Thinking maybe I'm being a hater irrationally to my comp professor, but also I love comp idk how you've made me dread this class in less than two weeks, last semester we had two essays and a group project all due within the span of a week and i still didn't hate that class or the professor or the assignments. girl wtf did you do we've had two classes

[imhereforscm]

For the @writing-wednesday event

What’s your personal writing pet peeve?

I can't add a comma after/before the word "and". I said what I said. If I'm not mistaken it's called an Oxford comma AND I REFUSE TO USE IIIT

[gwaeddblaidd]

Actually answering on Wednesday, this time!

What is something that someone has said about one of your fics [or, your writing] that surprised you? (e.g. something you didn’t realize about your work until someone else said it).

This is an interesting question... I think the one that sticks out the most in memory is a certain review I got on FF a few months ago:

"too much drama and the mc acting like a little girl throws me off so much. this clearly is written by a girl who dont know how men thinksp"

Blatant misogyny aside, I just find it really funny how far off the mark their profiling was. In a strange way, I guess it's almost a complement to hear that my writing betrays so little about my identity.

Anyway, I wish I had something a little more positive or meaningful to share, but you can't win 'em all!

[scorchieart]

Back in middle school, my closest friends knew because we used to write fanfics together. But most of them moved away and we can't meet up as often anymore.

Now the only person who knows is the librarian who convinced me to get back into creative writing after I finished school, and I attribute her to the start of my writing hobby (fanfic and original). People know I write, but she's the only one I showed fanfiction pieces to.

Writing Wednesday Week #48

Does anybody in real life know you write fanfic? Why, why not?

Event Details

[plumdwarf]

Weekly Wonderings - Week 9

Another week, another prompt!

Another week, another prompt! The Rules: Responses must be between 150 and 500 words. Responses (or links if you post on your own blog) must be left in the comments of this post and include the word count. Feel free to drop your social media handles/anything you want to promote as well! Deadline is Tuesday at 11:59PM Eastern. I’ll consolidate the responses in another post on Wednesday…

[today-i-am-thinking-about]

physical calendars

[aspiringhorrorauthor]

I’ve just started the process to adopting some kittens. Excited, nervous, everything at once. Also my email voice is fucking AWFUL

[jasontoddiefor]

Yeah sure we’ve all binged a long fic, but have you ever read a WIP and followed someone’s life?

Tidbits of information - (“I graduated today!”) - and small joys (“It’s my birthday!”) and you get to be there to say “This chapter made me cry, happy birthday, thank you for gifting us this”.

I remember reading this fic of someone at the end of high school, older than me then. They seemed infinitely wise, spoke of their future career and getting into the college they wanted. I remember them posting on days they felt like nothing could bring them down - and on days the whole world did and it’s the aftermath of a hospital visit. Cancer, I think it was, their father. I got to the end of the story, I know their father was fine, but also they got to finish their WIP. I graduated three years later than them, still dutifully wrote thank you notes in every comment. I wonder if they remember me, or just the collective of people reading the story as it updates.

Four years ago I was into my first year of university, my first year of figuring out being out in public spaces. I made excuses as to why my name didn’t match my paperwork and read a fic on the train, the same five chapters over and over again for the next years as I thought the story abandoned. It updated this week after such a long hiatus, I left another thank you comment.

There’s an author I love, they update their stories like a clockwork. When they don’t, I check their blog, just to see if their doing alright, not because I feel like they owe me, just to ensure whether I better get out my laptop to write that really detailed university level essay chapter analysis to get them smiling when their day sucked.

And then, once, when I was 17, I read a fic that hadn’t updated in over a decade. I wasn’t even in primary school when it started posting. On the last chapter, I left a comment that, in retrospect, was horribly rambly and most likely full of grammar mistakes. The author replied and though I couldn’t see their face, I thought of them crying. They were married now, had children, and hadn’t thought about this fic in years. They went through their files again, found another half written chapter and an outline. I got two new chapters to read that year.

And then, recently, someone told me they got back into writing original fiction because of my comments. I get to read nearly weekly chapters.

I love binge reading a finished fic, but nothing is ever going to top the feeling of anticipation of waiting for a chapter, the pure joy when someone tells you I was done with this, but you made me think of it again, so this is for you.

Anyway, I think we should romanticize reading WIPs more, growing up alongside the authors writing the stories we love.