#writer validation

[haveacupofjohanny]

Embracing My Unique Writer's Voice: A Journey of Self-Validation and Confidence

Finding my unique writer's voice was a journey of self-validation and confidence. Read how I overcame self-doubt, embraced my style, and found my true audience. #WritingConfidence #WriterJourney #EmbraceYourVoice www.haveacupofjohanny.com

Finding and embracing my unique writer’s voice has been a transformative journey, filled with moments of doubt and eventual triumph. Despite having professors validate my writing talent, I often allowed the opinions of those outside my target audience to make me second-guess my abilities. It took years of education, positive feedback, and personal growth to fully embrace and confidently share my…

[succulentsiren]

Stop being so easily intimidated. When their heads turn to look at you, own the moment and feel totally empowered. Drop the negative self-talk. Own the ability to make head’s turn, eyes shift and people stand at attention when you enter the room. It’s time to allow your presence to be spellbinding.

[outislovescomics]

oh ,,,,

[lilacsandlillies]

I was going through the anti Jason Todd tag because I hate myself and want to understand where people who dislike him are coming from and one thing I kept seeing was annoyance at Jason fans who claim that Jason is female coded and realized that the term “female coded” might not be the best term to describe what we mean.

A female coded character in literature and media typically means a character that has no specified gender or otherwise does not have a gender but is obviously meant to be a stand in for a woman or female. Kind of like how Starfire has no specified race (due to being an alien) but is still obviously black coded based on the way she’s drawn and treated by the narrative.

This is slightly different than what we mean when saying that Jason is female coded. It’s not that Jason is literally supposed to be a stand in for a female character, it’s that the way a lot of characters treat him and a lot of the tropes used on him are things that usually saved for female characters, not big buff men like Jason.

To start with, being Robin is narratively (or at least was) very similar to being a woman in a story. Robin is a role made to complement Batman (who we all know is basically the ultimate male power fantasy). Robin’s role is to be an accessory to Batman. Robin can be smart, but not smarter than Batman. Robin can be strong, but not stronger than Batman. Hell, Robin is often kidnapped and used as a literal damsel in distress, a role often regulated for women as a whole.

What sets Jason apart from the other robins (except for Steph) in this regard is that they were allowed to be characters outside of Batman. Dick might not have been the “man” of the story when he’s with Bruce, but when he’s with the teen titans suddenly he’s the smart one who has all the answers. Jason’s Robin was never really allowed this.

Then we get to the most, controversial, part of Jason’s female coding. The fact the he was effectively fridged. Fridging is usually only referred to as frigding if it’s a female character, but Jason’s death checks pretty much all the other boxes needed. An incredibly brutal death that was more about Bruce’s feelings on it than Jason himself.

This is especially apparent when compared to the other Bat characters. For all the female coding, the only other Robin to actually be fridged was Steph (and we all know about the misogyny surrounding her death). Barbara was also kind of fridged during the killing Joke. The only female character to escape this is Cass (to my knowledge). When you look at it through this lens, the fact that the only other characters to be permanently damaged like this for Bruce’s story are female, it’s not hard to see where the idea that Jason is female coded comes from.

You can even find this in Jason’s origin story. Poor little orphan is saved by benevolent billionaire is a role usually saved for little girls, like in Annie.

Despite what you might think, this even continues after Jason’s revival. Jason is still used less as a character and more as a motivation for Bruce. He’s regularly called emotional and hysterical (terms usually used to refer to women).

Jason is first and foremost a victim. A role performed by women in most media. Men are expected to be stoic and “rise above” the things done to them as to not be victims, as continuously shown by the way characters like Nightwing are not allowed to be effected by the horrific things they go through. The fact that Jason is shown the be angry, and sad, and emotional, constantly, and the fact that he’s punished and vilified for it puts him in a place much more similar to a female character.

There’s a reason that so many Jason fans (that like him for a reason past “antihero with guns”) are female. For most characters, when you swap their genders there would be a pretty clear and big difference in the way their story takes place. If you swap Jason’s gender, the story takes place identically.

A lot of this is best shown in men’s reactions to Arkham Knight’s version of Jason. In that game, Jason is similarly angry and emotional, albeit for slightly different reasons. He is also still unmistakably a victim. You’d think the men playing would like him. After all he’s a big cool angsty guy with a lot of guns and muscles. Instead, a lot of men’s thought that he was whiny. That his feelings were annoying.

There’s also something to be said about how his autonomy is regularly undermined by Bruce (specifically in Gotham war) and how his decisions and feeling are constantly treated as if they’re worth less than Bruce’s, but that’s a discussion for another day.

[michelleotter1000]

Zoom in and tell me what you can see 🥵

Reblog and DM for NSFW contents

[laurasimonsdaughter]

If you want to write stories and you feel like you're not managing to write the way you want to, maybe you haven’t found your medium yet.

I’m not talking about making money, I’m not talking about getting some agent or publisher to see money in your work. I’m talking about you, writing what you want to write.

I love writing. I do not love writing novels. They hurt me, physically. I have been so much happier since I stopped trying to force myself to write novels and disappeared into my flash fiction and short stories.

Maybe novels aren’t your thing either. And maybe short stories aren’t! Maybe your words want to be poured into poems, or songs, or TTRPG campaings, or drabbles, or podcasts, or anecdotes, or (screen)plays, or something else entirely!

There are so many ways to be a writer, and even more to be a storyteller. You don’t have to let yourself be bullied by a medium that does not suit your creativity.

[vulcanette]

[iambrillyant]

“the beautiful thing about being your own muse is that you never have to be at the mercy of anyone’s gaze to feel validated, you never have to rely on external energy to feel like you are worthy of celebration, you continue being art regardless of whether they see you or not.”

— billy chapata

[synchodai]

HBO's Continued Insistence on Dumbing Down Westerosi Politics

So there have been countless thinkpieces already on how GOT simplified the feudalist politics of Westeros (by giving a lowborn sellsword lordship over The Reach, by having no consequences for destroying the Sept of Baelor, etc.), but I haven't seen a lot of people talking about that for House of the Dragon.

The worst being that the show presupposes that Rhaenyra is the lawful heir when the books showed there are plenty of lawful arguments why she wouldn't be.

Mind you that I've been enjoying the show a lot so far. This is just to vent out my frustration with the writers' failure to fully engage with the values and protocols of the Middle Age-inspired setting. The show seems uninterested in laws of the Realm in a story ostensibly about politics, save for when they're using it as an excuse to amplify depictions of sex and violence.

Blacks vs Greens wasn't a matter of misunderstanding of who each side thought Viserys wanted on the throne. It was the Targaryens' belief of their absolute authority clashing with the Realm's established traditions. Everyone always knew who Viserys chose as heir. In Fire and Blood, Grand Maester Orwyle said as much when he was parleying with Rhaenyra on behalf of the Greens.

Rhaenyra heard his terms in stony silence, then asked Orwyle if he remembered her father, King Viserys. "Of course, Your Grace," the maester answered. "Perhaps you can tell us who he named as his heir and successor," the queen said, her crown upon her head. "You, Your Grace," Orwyle replied. And Rhaenyra nodded and said, "With your own tongue you admit I am your lawful queen. Why do you serve my half-brother, the pretender?" Munkun tells us that Orwyle gave a long and erudite reply, citing the Andal law and the Great Council of 101. Mushroom claims he stammered and voided his bladder. Whichever is true, his answer did not satisfy Princess Rhaenyra.

(For non-F&B readers: Munkun is the Grand Maester who served Aegon III, the king who came after this civil war. Munkun's book, The Dance of the Dragons, A True Telling, is one of Fire and Blood's source texts. Mushroom is the King Landing court jester from Viserys I to Aegon III's reign. One is a source written with academic rigor but is secondhand at best. The other is a firsthand eyewitness account but is from a literal fool who will take every chance to make things more scandalous and sexual to please the crowd.)

In House of the Dragon, they replaced Orwyle with Otto and Orwyle's discussion of legal precedent with Otto handing Rhaenyra a book page from Alicent. It's quite evident here that the writers, much like Mushroom, thought a discussion on the actual laws of the Realm were negligible in this story about a succession war.

Even Alicent made no pretense that Viserys chose Rhaenyra over her children and I have no idea why the HBO writers decided to make her mistakenly think otherwise. Maybe they thought a queen regent pushing her son to take the throne over another woman made her appear unsympathetic as a character, but if anything, this only makes show!Alicent less politically savvy and more delusional than her book counterpart, fully believing an addled king's vague muttering on his deathbed was sufficient grounds to change heirs last minute.

Book!Alicent following Andal laws instead of her husband's wishes makes sense given her Andal upbringing, her devotion to the Faith of the Seven which enforces said laws, and her desire to protect her children from Rhaenyra given that Rhaenyra has shown she's not above murdering family (see: Laenor).

In the books, there was a long discussion between the former king's council on who should succeed Viserys.

Here are the arguments for Rhaenyra:

Rhaenyra was older than her brothers and had more Targaryen blood

the late king had chosen her as his successor, that he had repeatedly refused to alter the succession despite the pleadings of Queen Alicent and her greens

hundreds of lords and landed knights had done obeisance to the princess in 105 AC, and sworn solemn oaths to defend her rights.

Here are the arguments for Aegon II:

many of the lords who had sworn to defend the succession of Princess Rhaenyra were long dead [...]

Ironrod, the master of laws, cited the Great Council of 101 and the Old King’s choice of Baelon rather than Rhaenys in 92

the hallowed Andal tradition wherein the rights of a trueborn son always came before the rights of a mere daughter

Ser Otto reminded them that Rhaenyra’s husband was none other than Prince Daemon, and “we all know that one’s nature. Make no mistake, should Rhaenyra ever sit the Iron Throne, it will be Lord Flea Bottom who rules us, a king consort as cruel and unforgiving as Maegor ever was [...]”

Should the princess reign [...] Jacaerys Velaryon would rule after her. “Seven save this realm if we seat a bastard on the Iron Throne.”

Once again, the show chose to cut out this long political discussion. Instead, the council had already made up their mind and decided to stage a coup (when in their perspectives from the books, it would definitely not be a coup).

For all their marketing how two sides are equally grey, HotD is actively delegitimizing Aegon II. The strongest argument for him is how his claim follows the laws of the Realm, but the show doesn't seem to care about the laws of the Realm or the political need to maintain a more predictable/tested transfer of power.

Instead, the show focuses on Viserys's relationship with his daughter and the mysticism of the Targaryen bloodline. In doing so, they emphasize Rhaenyra's strongest arguments for succession — that she's more of a Targaryen than her half-brother and that her father prefered her.

And what for? Because in our modern-day, we don't have male-prefered inheritance and people can only imagine misogyny as the only injustice here? What about the injustice of a monarch exercising absolute control, thinking that his "superior" heritage makes him above the established laws of the native people?

This is not to say Aegon II is unquestionably the heir. But this is to say that the show removed the political nuance of why people are questioning in the first place. Precedence isn't the end-all-be-all of succession, but neither is "because daddy said so".

[centaur-dreaming]

All fic writers have that one document in their drafts that would end their entire career, social life, everything if anyone irl were to find it

[nongiftedpoet]

How does a poet become… a poet?

And what makes a poem… a poem?

- nongiftedpoet

[beautifulcherryblossomtheorist]

Here is my new account, had issues with my old account..

You need joystick.?🤪🥵🍆

[writerthreads]

Americanisms that annoy the crap out of me in writing

By Writerthreads

Welcome back to another post! Today is a little rant/PSA for all of you who use American English and terminology.

When I read books that are meant to portray British characters, I get so annoyed when I read jarring Americanisms. Here’s a list of them that are especially annoying (I’m sorry):

“Pants”

Pants = underwear. Every time I read something on Ao3 along the lines of ���Harry spilled a cup of tea on his pants” I immediately think of him drinking said tea in his undies which is absolutely hilarious.

Somebody who can’t afford to go to the GP/hospital??

Hello, we have the NHS which is free at the point delivery!!! #rare uk w

I had to fully stop reading a fic when a British character couldn’t afford medical care and that was a whole plot-line.

As a medical student, this scenario is fully bizarre for me to comprehend. The only situation in which someone wouldn’t seem medical attention from my pov is if they don’t want to wait for hours at the A&E

Chips/crisps/fries omfg

Chips= the fatter ones you get with fish and chips

Crisps: potato chips

Fries: the thinner ones from Maccies

Cookies vs biscuits

To this day, I still don’t fully get the cookie/biscuit thing but according to my British friends who get annoyed when I mix them up, biscuits are meant to be crunchier (eg. Chocolate digestives & jammie joggers), while cookies are softer, eg. chocolate chip cookies

Biscuits covered in gravy????

What is that. That is not a thing. The UK equivalent would be a scone (sweet, eaten with jam and clotted cream or smth like that and which one goes first is a whole debacle) or a Yorkshire pudding.

Accent/slang

Different people from different areas in the UK speak differently & have different vernacular. When who’s meant to be posh speaks in roadman talk, it’s the funniest thing ever, so please do research carefully!

Takeout

Unfortunately I do say this quite a bit, but people are saying this more in the UK now imo. Takeaway is the preferred term.

Fall

“It’s fall because the leaves fall form the treeeeees” no bro it’s autumn. I grimace every time I read this in a book set in the UK.

I could care less

Ok, then care less? It’s I couldn’t care less, which makes more sense anyways.

Fanny pack

Fannies mean something else in the UK lol. It’s a bum bag, but this term is used more now maybe?

Freshman year? College? Frats? Spring break?

We have a different education system :) uni is three years usually, colleges are halls at uni or sixth form colleges

Little annoyances:

Math: It’s maths. Mathematics.

Vacation: holiday (more interchangeable now tho)

“Line up”: “QUEUE up”

On accident: by accident

Trunk/hood: boot/bonnet (I do a weird mix and say boot/hood, my bad lol)

I drive stick vs I drive manual (learnt this from my ex). Most people in the UK (and Europe) drive manual because it’s supposedly superior

Movie: film (more interchangeable now)

Principal: headmaster/mistress

There’s probably a longer list somewhere…

Thank you for bearing with me. My friends are now subject to me saying ‘trousers’ every time they say ‘pants’, I can’t help it (help I’m getting colonised)

Also look up slang (esp slang from certain parts of London, or roadman slang), they’re hilarious and I can’t help but say some of them now (I blame my friends but honestly calling a meal a scran is so funny)

Anyways goodbye

[st-a-y]

Feeling like you're too much is honestly one of the worst feelings to possibly exist. It just feels like you need to stop being yourself and existing all together. It's like you crawl out of your own skin and laugh in disgust at what remains, it's pathetic. And so saddening.

[succulentsiren]

Stop giving away your power by letting what others think of you, define you. People’s perceptions of you hold no value unless you allow it. If you don’t agree with how others see you, create you own narrative and start defining yourself.

Shift your mindset from needing validation, to knowing who you are. Don’t walk into the room thinking “I wonder what they think of me.” Walk into the room thinking “I don’t mind what they think of me. I know who I am. I am the best.”

And sure, this mindset may seem like arrogance but it is far better than craving approval or trying to explain yourself to others.

You can either give your power away by depending on the approval of others or you can free yourself, become the main character and perceive yourself the way you desire.

[lunarian-hare]

Butch!Logan is perfectly aware of the fact that you can protect yourself. She’s seen you fight countless times, knows you manage to stand your ground pretty well and doesn’t intervene unless you really do need help — it’s an unspoken rule in your relationship (no matter which stage it’s at), she will never treat you as a kid and the last thing she wants is to make you feel like she does not have faith in what you can do.

However, Logan still does get protective, perhaps even unconsciously. If you’re in a car or in the jet, her arm will be shielding your chest as soon as you come across a bump or the vehicle makes a sudden turn (and keep in mind, seatbelts exist. Is the gesture still appreciated? Of course).

During a fight she quickly glances at you to see how you’re doing, and she will pierce anyone who tries to surprise you from behind or from a hidden place like a skewer. You’re left wondering who trained those people if they can’t even manage to make a sneak attack.

Logan will scare off anyone who dares get too close to you if they do not seem to have good intentions, and even if you know how to respond to creeps — and throw a punch straight to their jaw if they do not back off after a couple warnings — her icy glare seems to have the same effect as Cyclops’ optic blasts.

In conclusion, Logan trusts and respects you and lets you do your thing, but you can still benefit from a scary dog privilege once in a while. And you kind of like that.