#worst part of writing stuff

[nicomoon69]

every time I’m forced to see this image bc I have to describe what’s wrong w it to dumb ass ppl a small part of me dies

cw: ugly ass emo whitewashed genshin man

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

*flicks through the 42 open tabs on my laptop trying to remember which of the 8 open google docs tabs is the writing project I just sat down to work on and which ones of the others are the research tabs relevant to this project and not any of the others*

[fyodior]

.

[gorgon-heap]

I Thank You: A Brief Account of Sonic’s No Good Terrible Very Bad Day (and Shadow’s even worse day)

@son1c’s sonic prime au has been jingling around my brain like a loose marble (especially the splinters of shadow), and this ask from @boom-fanfic-a-latta inspired me to actually sit down and write it :D

~~~

The first thing Shadow noticed was the noise.

It was hard not to notice it, honestly. The eerie silence of the Void was disconcerting, but this was something Shadow had never encountered before. This was an oppressive wall of sheer sound that filled the air and slammed into his ears the minute he entered the Boscage.

It knocked the wind out of him, and he sunk to his knees as he tried to regain his composure.

Dimly, he heard Sonic buzzing around him, jabbering about something. Shadow could only grit his teeth in response.

It’s so loud….How does Sonic not hear this?

He clapped a hand over his mouth in a desperate attempt to ground himself, to experience anything other than the oppressive sound. It didn’t work.

“Shadow? You alright?”

Shadow let out a shaky breath, and it took great effort for him to stop his ears from twitching. The last thing he needed was Sonic worrying about him.

“I’m fine. It’s just adjusting to a new Shatterverse.” Shadow forced himself to his feet. “Tell me about this world?”

Sonic didn’t look convinced, but didn’t press the issue. “The Bocage is entirely take over by huge plants. The forest floor is entirely inhospitable to life, and that means that—“

Plants. It couldn’t be.

Could it?

He felt a tear escape and leak down the side of his face. He was vaguely aware that Sonic, who had been staring at him with concern, had tracked that tear’s path with his eyes. But Shadow had bigger things to worry about. He, and probably he alone, could hear the Boscage.

And it was screaming.

~~~

It had been a few days. Some of the worst days of Shadow’s existence. Boscage Maze was a blur. The residents of the Boscage were a blur. The only thing that was clear was, paradoxically, the murmur of the forest. As it turns out, when billions of plants whisper in someone’s mind, it results in a cacophony, and the worst headache Shadow has ever had.

He was beginning to have trouble remembering why he was there, his goal in coming here, and even who he was. He just shuffled behind Sonic as they navigated the jungle.

Today, they were visiting….somewhere. Egg…something? Shadow couldn’t remember, but Tails was leading the way. Or, this Shatterverse’s Tails. His head hurt too much to care.

He was also didn’t care when he met Windthrow. A tiny voice at the back of his mind reminded him that, but for the Deafening Sounds, he would have been astounded.

A larger, stronger, and more feral Sonic. Would wonders ever cease.

Shadow was roused from his thoughts as they arrived at their destination. It was an unassuming structure, with vine tendrils snaking around, but generally well kept. As they walked through the entryway, he absently noted that the design reminded him of the Ark.

They stepped into the entryway, and the doors swung shut, leaving their little group in the quiet hallway.

And it was quiet. It was utterly silent.

He felt his shoulders sag in relief. He didn’t realize how awful the noise was. It didn’t even bother him that there was a slight buzzing from the overhead lights.

“Shadow, everything alright?” Sonic’s voice boomed in his ears. It hurt, and made his ears twitch, but he welcomed it.

Shadow nodded slowly. He still felt a little dazed, but it was a relief to be able to think clearly for the first time in what felt like forever.

~~~

Sonic was worried.

Well, he was worried about a lot of things. This was an extremely bad situation, and he was well aware that that was an understatement. But in particular, Sonic was worried about Shadow. He was acting more reclusive and irritable than usual. Which was saying something.

Whenever they were at the Egg Base, Shadow disappeared, even though Sonic looked everywhere in the building. And when they were outside, he acted distracted and upset. Every time Sonic asked him what was wrong, he would respond (in true Shadow fashion) with a snappish “Nothing”. But his constant ear twitching and eyes darting back and forth belied his distress. So did his muttering under his breath.

Sonic had decided not to continue pestering him. He instead focused all his attention and worry on finding the Shard.

The sooner we find it, the sooner I get Shadow out of here. The sooner I fix my stupid mistake.

Currently, they were in the Egg Base, and surprisingly, Shadow was hanging out with the group. Sonic was grateful to see that he looked relaxed, even if it was only a little bit. The weird dude who looked kind of like Eggman was showing off his latest creation, which was a metal version of Windthrow.

But as Metal Windthrow was powered on, Sonic was distracted by a faint gasp behind him. He turned and saw Shadow standing there completely rigid, chest heaving and eyes darting wildly. His ears wouldn’t stop twitching. He locked eyes with Sonic, before he fled the room.

Sonic got up to follow up, but stopped when he felt a large paw on his shoulder. Windthrow excitedly pointed at his metal counterpart, and threw back his head and howled. Metal Windthrow followed suit, and his rusty howl joined Windthrow’s. Sonic couldn’t help but smile fondly at what was soon to be a fast friendship. His smile fell as he turned and strode out of the room, determined to find Shadow.

~~~

He didn’t see Shadow for days after that, until one day Sonic entered the dining room. Shadow was standing at one of the tables, poring over the map that they had crudely drawn.

“Shadow! There you are! Are you alright? You disappeared! I’ve been looking everywhere for this Shard but haven’t found anything yet. Hey, what do you think—”Sonic’s nervous rambling was cut off by Shadow’s voice, which was uncharacteristically quiet.

“Sonic. Everything is okay. I just needed some to adjust to the Boscage Maze.” At this, Sonic frowned and opened his mouth, and closed it again. He sat down at the table, watching Shadow’s green eyes rake over the map. He looked—well, calm. But at the same time, he didn’t look well adjusted at all. He still had a dazed look, and there were heavy bags under his eyes.

“Are you sure? You can rest today, and we can go look tomorrow!” Shadow gave a small, fond smile, and Sonic felt his concern tie itself into knots in his stomach.

“We are fine, and in fact quite like being outside among the trees. It’s like coming home.” He turned and strode towards the door. “Let us go now and find Thorn Rose. Finding the Shard is our top priority.” Sonic pushed his worries aside. Shadow was right. The Shard was the most important thing.

Over the next couple of days, Shadow took charge of searching the Shard. He would stay out long after Sonic returned to the Egg Base for the night, and would even be gone before he woke up in the morning. He knew that Shadow was the Ultimate Loner, but he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling in the back of his mind. There was something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, something he was missing. And it had everything to do with the strange way Shadow was acting.

~~~

Sonic burst into the clearing, almost crashing into Shadow in his excitement.

“Shadow, there you are! I have a good lead on the Shard! We can grab it and fit the prism back together! We’re one step closer to going home!” Shadow looked up sharply with a glint in his eyes that made Sonic uneasy. As quick as it had appeared, Shadow’s face had smoothed back into that same calm expression he had had for the past couple of days.

“That’s good to hear, Sonic. But we don’t need to rush things. The Boscage is truly wonderful. I’m glad to have been able to experience it. In fact, we are sorry for our past anger. You see, it wouldn’t have existed if you hadn’t shattered the Paradox Prism. So, how could I be angry? I thank you, Sonic the Hedgehog.”

I thank you.

Sonic’s blood ran cold.

Shadow…

He took a step towards who…or whatever was controlling Shadow. “Who are you! What have you done with Shadow!”

‘Shadow’ just smiled. “We are Shadow. It would be rude to ignore this gift you have sent us. You have granted us a way to communicate with you, and a way to protect the Boscage.”

Sonic’s shoulders slumped, his chin hitting his chest.

Shadow…what have I done to you?

[bluesilkwing]

so the longest fic i've managed to find in the assassinsphere is The Death of Innocence and Hope, which is. Lee Harvey Oswald x John Wilkes Booth

and yknow what I bucked up and I read that shit

this is my review

There was implied Booth x Balladeer, which is. no. no. dislike. we all know the balladeer HATES john wilkes booth with a fiery passion

balladeer would inhabit the assassins' minds as their conscience as they lived, and I actually liked that

the way the balladeer dies is very odd, he dies because booth pretended he wanted to be good but then when it turned out he was lying balladeer was sad? I was very confused.

I actually kind of like the prose in the later chapters, I think it was raw and pretty

I understand why Lee cares about Booth but I don't understand at all why Booth cares about Lee

there was. a grand gesture. i wasn't expecting a grand gesture.

the guy who killed oswald was the proprietor in a different form. i like that.

all in all it was horrible. 10/0.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

I read Hussie's author notes and they were so disappointing. He dismisses Eridan and gamzee as one-dimensional nastyboys, he claims Rose and Dave's true arc was to refuse their quests and they just needed to stop feeling guilty about it, and he says karkat's final frog didn't even matter and he was just worrying over nothing. There's so much potential clearly written in and he just throws it all away bc lol. Your analysis is so much more nuanced has so much more thought put into it both with regards to who these characters are as people and the role they serve in the plot. I'd take your ideas over what hussie thinks is canon any day of the week.

this is super funny to me because i absolutely take what hussie says into account like all the time HAHAHA

Like genuinely I go back to their formspring/tumblr/forum/book notes all the time to see how on-track i am with my analyses. If you like whatever bullshit i'm talking about, then you like hussie's writing!

[luvether]

Somebody take this mozeqiu fic away from me.

[shadow-pixelle]

Sometimes you open your notes folder to find something and find that half-asleep you left you a gift.

Sometimes this gift is really useful and helps you figure out how to fix a massive writer's block you've been struggling with.

Sometimes it's an excellent new fic idea.

And then sometimes it's shit like this

[relax-and-drink-on]

So, Wrong Organ (creators of Mouthwashing) is a Swedish studio.

Wich is unfortunate because my knowledge of classic swedish literature is borderline negative. I have some knowledge of swedish cinema (as muxh as any 30 y/o nerd raised by my cinephile father can), but I am not a cinema student and would be extremely underequiped to attempt any analysis/stylistique influence research.

There IS something to be said about how many author (and specifically horror!) video games are comming out of nordique studio, specifically swedish ones, but the research on stylisque, semiotique and artistic merit/influence of ANY style and period of video games is virtually non existant. And I do not want to be that person to kick start that.

Wich leave me back to my starting point, literarry analysis, wich *is* my field of expertise. With a bonus of fine art understanding, because I didn't go to art school over nothing. Now, while I do see a lot of very valuable link between Mouthwashing and classic russian literature, eroguro, new objectivity and classic pulp/penny dreadful, I still really freaking HATE that I cannot quite grasp the cultural/historical context of media creation in sweden. There are interesting primary source in english and french, but fuck I am not in the mood to actually sit down and digest 15 to 20 new books, a few dozen of academic papers and 50h+ of cinema, all not in the primary language. At least I have some basic undsrstamding of Russian and Japaness for those sources, and they have PLENTIFULL high quality french source especially due to the better translation between those languages ToT

Seriously, the struggle to go full Academic on this game is strong, but the barried of entry is hiiiigh

[supervisormeero]

Do you ever go insane but like... about your own character. Your own character that you created. Losing your mind and your ability to be normal but it's not about the blorbos, it's about Your Own Very Special Fictional Guy

[potential-fate]

“Hey, what’s up?” Ashe picked up his phone immediately when Roman’s name had flashed across the screen. He glanced around the room. Roman hadn’t been gone that long. But he didn’t see anything of Roman’s lying around that he’d forgotten. 

Instead, when he finished greeting Roman, he got a string of almost incoherent and panicked cursing.

“Woah, slow down Ro….” Ashe tried, “Okay, okay… Hey, where are you?” 

It would be easier to just meet the other man, than try to translate through whatever Roman was freaking out about. After repeating the question, Roman managed to tell him he was on his own front porch because he needed fresh air. It didn’t seem to have worked, though Ashe supposed it was possible that he could have been worse before calling.  

“Okay. Come over here? okay? I’ll meet you outside.”  

He hung up, searching quickly for his keys, before he slipped on his boots.

[throughdarkeningskies]

trying to write a book about the same 2 characters for like 5 years except I never figured out what was wrong with the story and now I have mega turbo writer's block that I might never recover from. the two of you are never getting out of here, but neither am I. do you want to get ice cream

[mylittlemiyaomeow]

Someone should make a denpa VN that's about going mad after reading SubaHibi.

[galacticlamps]

very minor thing I still definitely deserve a medal for:

being raised catholic, and now as an adult repeatedly falling in love with characters that fandoms like to declare catholic, but still managing to reject those headcanons because at heart I'm too much of a stickler for accurate analysis to get behind them when i know the person in question is really meant to be anglican/episcopalian/whatever other flavor of christian

i am being, as the poets say, so brave about it

[screechingsandwichhologram]

AUGGHHHHHH !!!!! HAVING LANGUAGE ISSUES !!!!!!

my grandmother calls my mom and also me sometimes this one word. it sounds like it would be spelt "pit" but i'd wager its not that. i don't know what exactly it means and i don't know how to spell it but its french canadian and is a term of endearment. help.

[rewritingcanon]

i’ll write the shittest thing ever and post it and someone in the comments will gas it to the moon and then i’ll write the jaw dropping bestseller of next century and it gets like 4 hits maximum