#you do not have to write an entire essay about why everyone agrees actually that it is objectively bad

[rebekahgaveup]

Who told people on this site that things they don't like are also objectively bad bc I would like to have a word with them

[beartitled]

how did Euclid go about experiencing the third dimension for the first time? did Scalene have to like physically show him what was different somehow, or did he figure that out on his own?

also, why does Euclid wear eyepatches over his injured eyes, but Scalene doesn't wear an eyepatch over her (one) injured eye?

also also, here's a random headcanon I wanna share: since the mutation attempts are numbered 1 through 4, and Euclid's attempts are #1 and #2, I get the feeling that he volunteered to try to mutate first so Scalene wouldn't have to risk her own eyes as much. even though both attempts failed in the end, they improved the mutation process through these failures, and so Scalene's last attempt finally succeeded.

A person who noticed the implications 😈

Ok I will go in order

Euclid and third dimension

I imagine this was extremely confusing for him

Picture the scenario where you’ve been speaking your native language your entire life

And somebody says “you been speaking with a thick accent and wrong grammar, also all things are called differently, you have to relearn now”

You will try to speak “correctly”, but slipping into old habits when you’re not thinking about it

This is pretty much how Euclid felt when his wife said that “ok imagine a square, but it has another one, and another one, and another one, but they are one, like you know… ummm… mmmermm.. you get it right?”

He still thinks, imagines stuff and dreams in 2D

But he’s kinda adapted to moving around in this weird world that has so many copies of things in it

Also one person had a headcanon that Euclid has an exceptional hearing

I 👏adore 👏this idea 👏

I don’t remember who exactly wrote this comment, there are so much cool headcanons people have actually, I need to keep a file on cool ideas with credits™️💥

Why Scalene doesn’t wear an eyepatch

Well

Her eye doesn’t look that bad

First attempts have a kinda brutal aftermath, because they had no idea of what they’re doing

+ I an eyepatch would be a bit unpractical for the successful eye

Headcanon

My guy

🫵You get it 🫵

This is exactly what I wanted to hint towards

Euclid was completely against of Scalene trying to mutate her eyes (he loves his life guys 🥺)

So his initial plans was 2 attempts, if they fail they’ll find another way

But you see, when your wife is stubborn

You don’t really see what she’s up to

And can only hear that she did not agree to the initial plan

He was terrified when she started testing the 4th eye

I’m writing this and going to eep immediately after, wish me good dream horrors guys 😎

Thank you for your ask❤️ Hope everyone enjoyed a lil essay 🧐

[notablogtwiy]

Okay this is mostly just for fun and not meant to be taken so seriously. I think shipping is okay as long as it stays in fan communities and people don't harass the actual people about it. But even then, this is mostly just fun/wishful thinking:

For a long time, I had it the back of my mind that Spencer has a crush on Angela. And for a while I didn't think it was reciprocated. But with today's video and a few recent ones I'm starting to think that it is lol.

Thank you for this message and I'm also sorry because I'll probably ramble on now because I can't help but gush when it comes to them.

I agree with the shipping thing, and that's why I was hesitant to make that Spangela moments post. It might get misinterpreted. They are simply my favorite Smosh members and I love seeing them as a duo, that's all. Does the idea of them together sound great? Sure, but it's just an idea. And it's just like you said, as long as people are respectful and know how to stay within the fandom and not make it weird, then it's cool. You can have fun without being creepy or invasive. I'm so glad they're not a "popular ship" because I don't want people sending them stuff or having them see things that would make them uncomfortable and affect their friendship and how they interact. It's very important to remember that they are real people and we do not actually know them.

But yes, just for pure and harmless fun, I've had very similar thoughts to yours, hahahaha. Spencer was the whole reason I started noticing their dynamic in the first place. I really can't explain it, but the way he is with her is just different. The way he talks about her and hypes her up. Even the way he teases her is different to me than how he does it with everyone else. It feels like he really gets her and knows her very well. It's just a feeling, of course, I know that. But to me, it's so obvious how much he admires and adores her. In what way? Who knows. I only know that it's really adorable and I very much enjoy it. I feel like with Spencer, he doesn't hide how charming and funny he finds her. Now, Angela is a little harder to read and she has such a unique dynamic with everyone, too. But you can still see the difference in how she is with him as well, especially now. You can definitely tell that they appreciate each other and that they have gotten so close and become such great friends over time, best friends, I'd say. And it absolutely melts my heart. They're very different, but they're also more alike than people may realize, and I can write an entire essay about that. But I won't, I've already made this answer too long, I'm sorry, lol.

[ariaste]

Hello hello! If it’s all right with you, I would like to vent for a moment: Back in the day, I used to be really into BBC Sherlock. I know it was bad, but it was “Be Gay (solve) Crimes” and I couldn’t resit. One of my favorite parts of the fandom was reading fan metas. I enjoyed reading your ridiculously long meta! I am not very clever and I enjoy reading people noticing things that I can’t. It’s fun watching people passionately pick up clues and put them together.

I don’t think I’m the only one getting superwholock flashbacks lately. Sherlock also tried an unreliable narrator in S4 and it was an absolute shit show. People thought thought the finale was fake, it was so bad. TBH, the entire show was a dumpster fire that thought it was more clever than it was. Moffat was a good writer for single episodes for DW, but a garbage show runner. And they called us crazy for picking up what they were putting down.

But Good Omens gives me a spark of hope. It is unashamedly queer, fun, drinks its respecting women juice, and, unlike moffatiss, I think Neil and the crew may actually be clever enough to pull something big off. I adore the Discworld series and Sir Terry, and I have faith Neil will to do right by him.

Good Omens is restoring my faith in nerdy queer fiction and reminding me why I love fandom so much. Please keep up the crackhead theories. I love them 💕

Thank you, that's very kind!

(Ended up writing a very long reply about the response to my essay and also about queerness in media. Idk why i am writing such long posts these days SORRY LOL. Anyway I'm putting it all beneath the cut so I can tag it without clogging people's dash or the tag pages)

It does make me sigh a little when I see people scornfully comparing my long essay to The Johnlock Conspiracy or saying that they're having Sherlock flashbacks, because the both the contexts of the shows and the methodology of the theorizing are VERY different. To my mind, a more direct comparison of methodology would be the Gravity Falls fandom's "Stan Has A Secret Twin" theory. Writers and showrunners DO like being sneaky and clever from time to time, and many of them are much better at it than Moffat is.

But whether or not my theory is right or not is... kind of irrelevant to me? I wasn't out to force anyone to agree with me, AND writing it was a really fun way to spend a weekend, AND I'm proud of the work I did and the story I told, AND it felt good to have a satisfying workout at the Brain Gym. So even if I'm proven utterly and completely wrong, I won't feel like I wasted my time. :)

Good Omens is a great show, and I am SO HAPPY to see it (and other shows!) embracing queerness, sharing the fans' enthusiasm for the story, and honoring and respecting the fans' love rather than punishing them for it. As more and more time goes on, I think we're going to see more and more shows like that, because some of the people who grew up reading tumblr discourse are going to be showrunners themselves one day, and they'll have learned serious lessons about what it feels like when the audience is met with love rather than disgust and disdain. In fact, we're ALREADY seeing more shows like that than we had 10 years ago! There is so much canonical queerness on-screen these days that the me of 10-15 years ago is ASTONISHED and feels wealthy beyond counting. Of course, there is so much further to go, but man... when i was a kid, we had to walk uphill in the snow both ways just to see two dudes making sustained emotional eye contact, and we were grateful for it. (Jokes but also.... kind of real tho)

We've seen the exact same thing happen in scifi/fantasy publishing in the last seven or eight years, too! (Went off on a long tangent about Queerness In Media from an insider perspective, continuing below a cut so I don't clutter everyone's dash)

Even as recently as 2013--ten years ago--you might not have even been able to get your book published if it was openly gay. Hell, you might not have been able to get an agent to represent it, even. It would have been labeled "unmarketable" and passed over; if it DID get published, the queerness would have been camouflaged and downplayed and hidden in the marketing as much as possible--you wouldn't have known by looking at the cover that it was queer, you wouldn't have been able to tell by reading the back cover that it was queer. In literally 2016, seven years ago, a few months before I got my first book deal, I remember having a conversation with a friend and being very very worried that if I wrote books as queer as I wanted them to be, I would be "pigeonholed" as "ONLY writing Gay Books", that I would be passed over for any of the publisher's marketing budget and publicity efforts, that I would be sidelined and ignored... In 2016, I thought I was facing a choice of writing stories with more "mainstream appeal" OR writing the books I wanted to write and potentially undermining the rest of my career.

That didn't happen, thankfully, because in the next couple years there was this incredible explosion of queer scifi/fantasy. You see, ten to fifteen years ago, a truly stunning percentage of my colleagues -- writers, editors, publicists -- were writing and reading fanfic, and they carried their tastes and story-hungers with them as they grew up and got Real Adult Jobs at publishing companies. And suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a lot of us came of age all at once and there was this absolutely enormous wave of queer SFF that in my opinion has brought us into a new golden age of the genre: The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir, The Chorus of Dragons series by Jenn Lyons, She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker Chan, Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, The Tensorate series by Neon Yang, Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders, the Birdverse books by RB Lemberg, The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickenson, The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri, Reforged by Seth Haddon, The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson, Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell, The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin -- and these only the ones I could remember off the top of my head in 30 seconds, and I have a flavor of ADHD that makes my brain go blank when people ask me to think of specific examples of things! It is harder for me to think of a SFF book published in the last 7 years that ISN'T queer.

And then almost exactly a year ago, my book A Taste of Gold and Iron came out with THIS COVER:

Which. Is not so much a step forward in openly queer SFF as it is a fucking gauntlet thrown down in challenge. I cannot impress upon you strongly enough how much I would not have gotten this cover 10 years ago, and that's if the book was even accepted for publication in the first place. This cover SCREAMS gay fantasy romance. There is no attempt to hide it or camouflage it. It is advertising exactly what it is, right up front.

I got the absolute privilege and honor of having this cover--and I do consider it an incredible honor--because of the work that all my colleagues put in with their own work. Each queer book that got published wedged the door a little wider for the next one, and then a little wider still for the next one, until finally someone could get their foot in the door and squeeze across the threshold, which opened it a little wider again. So when I look at this image, I don't just see a beautiful cover that I am delighted to have on my books--I see an entire history of slow, steady progress by so many incredible writers who risked damaging their careers just to drag us to a point where a book as gay as this one could get a cover as gay as that one and STILL get the full and enthusiastic support of both the publisher and the audience. And the most incredible honor and the most humbling privilege out of all of this is the fact that the success of this book meant that the door was wedged open another little bit, that I got to contribute in this small way to the efforts of everyone who came before me, so that ones who come after us will find the door flung wide -- or that there's no door left at all to block the way, because we've collectively torn it down.

So yes, @eyona, I think that having your faith restored little by little is a very good thing, and I am delighted that Good Omens is doing that for all of us. And what's even better is that even if Good Omens doesn't play out exactly how we want it to, that's... kind of okay? Because there is always the next one, and at the very very least, Good Omens is wedging the door open further so that the next one can have an easier time of it. We don't have to walk uphill in the snow both ways just to get a moment of emotionally charged eye contact anymore. We don't have to starve anymore, not like we used to back in the bad old days. And that alone is a wonderful thing. :D

[soundwavefucker69]

honestly I agree with the joke of getting queerbaited by the MCU is like losing chess to a dog. I do. but I'm interested in queerbaiting in the MCU on like. an academic level. like stevebucky happened bc you put a bunch of men in a room that never processed their intensely homoerotic friendship in college with their roommate they randomly stopped talking to five years after graduation and can't figure out why when they think about that guy they feel weird. they got told to queerbait and so they did but bc of their unprocessed bisexuality they actually made an incredibly compelling narrative that ended just the way their cishet life did: Steve walking away from his "college roommate" and getting the wife and the picket fence and a couple of kids, maybe, and disappearing from the narrative forever without ever once considering or mentioning the impact of his friend on his entire fucking existence. bc you know. that's how it's supposed to end.

lesbian queerbaiting was not allowed incidentally bc for queerbaiting to work women have to actually have emotionally compelling arcs that complement each other and women only existed as props in the MCU, with all of its male directors and male writers and male execs and the one random female writer that would pop up on a team of men every five movies or so and try to give the women a little depth before she never appeared in an MCU writing room again.

buuutttt alas the MCU can't do that anymore bc they're running out of male heroes and there's more female fans and everyone's fucking mad at them. enter the female directors and writers who have been excluded from the boys' club for a long time and they're not really pissed about it entirely, it's not like the MCU will be considered anything but cheap television that's criticized for its relentless monopoly and abuse of overworked and underpaid CGI artists bc they're not unionized that was designed to sell market appeal and never once respected movies and television as an actual art form. so it wasn't like they were missing out on joining the boy's club that will eventually collapse anyways bc you literally cannot keep a franchise running for 20 fucking years. people get bored and people that want to get into it look at the backlog to understand what's going on and go nah no thanks.

problem is male execs are still here working with the ladies and telling them what to do. they're not bitter, not yet, but oh holy hell will they be, bc who queerbaits in 2024? are you still relying on that? Just let them kiss!

anyways, the only reason I feel compelled to watch the MCU now is bc i want to see how vicious the fighting will get. I want to see how far these new writers and directors will push the side of queerbaiting intentionally. the accidental stevebucky tragic love story was fine, but now I'm more interested in the psychological warfare with the writers and the old boy execs.

honestly when the MCU starts generously allowing gay love stories I'll probably lose interest bc the gay love stories will be boring and sanitized and scrubbed clean of grime to be acceptable as possible. and it'll collapse in on itself in a fiery cataclysm before they get to the point where they can even allow a little purposeful toxicity and messiness, not the toxicity pointed out by someone who's entire career is rage farming discourse with video essays on YouTube about how this relationship is a bottomless pit of abuse bc someone had a trauma reaction once and got mad at their partner who didn't deserve to get yelled at. they won't even get to the actual fun gay love stories that make sense for the medium, considering being a superhero is actually really fucking traumatizing and traumatized people are sometimes shitty bc of their trauma. but. ya know. whatever.

[tamelee]

did you ever watch tokyo ghoul? do you know about the main character ending up with a girl he always had a crush on but he was shipped a lot with his male best friend and all the gay shippers lost it when they revealed the guy and girl not only explicitly being in love but also have sex? i heard it's not in the anime and the manga is more explicit but yeah. i watched tokyo ghoul once when i was younger but didn't finish it cuz i got bored of it but i do remember the main guy having a crush on a girl, but idk if the girl is the same one he ended up having sex with later on. i just know there was a girl in the beginning and then he met a girl (or it was the same one? idk) later on in the ghoul community. he was good friends with his male friend throughout the whole thing, they were childhood friends, and he stuck with him the whole time. when i found out about ppl's reactions to this i wanted to know about the relationship to see if it's like sns lol since they have a similar "childhood friends to lovers" situation but from what i remember the mc did like a girl. but he also had a cute friendship with the guy, i think i remember a really emotional moment between them, and the guy's friend also ended up dying? like the really popular pic from this anime, idk if you've seen it, where the white haired guy is carrying another guy, that was the mc and his friend. also ppl on anime twt like to use this anime and its ships to prove how when yaoi fans hate on a girl that gets in the way of their gay ship it's usually cuz of misogyny. that's actually how i found out about this lol . cuz this girl apparently isn't a hated character like sakura, or has legit reasons and traits about her that are misogynistic in writing therefore not likeable like hinata, but ppl still hated on her like crazy when this was revealed.

Oh, I don't think I actually know anyone that finished watching the Anime it got so boring for sure -.- I think, although I don't really remember, I really liked Season 1 and then struggled through the second one, then dropped it eventually. I still really want to read the Manga because I've seen a lot of people say it is SO much better and that the Anime ruined it? The art from the few panels I've seen are so beautiful 🥹 but it's a shame if that's true because the concept of the story I think is really cool.

(also, that OST 👌) Uh, I only remember this purple hair girl and I know what the best friend looks like and that I really liked him, but other than that I have no clue anymore, sorry 🫣

Cute though~

"also ppl on anime twt like to use this anime and its ships to prove how when yaoi fans hate on a girl that gets in the way of their gay ship it's usually cuz of misogyny. that's actually how i found out about this lol . cuz this girl apparently isn't a hated character like sakura, or has legit reasons and traits about her that are misogynistic in writing therefore not likeable like hinata, but ppl still hated on her like crazy when this was revealed."

I don't know anything about this regarding TG but yeah, people in the SNS fandom who don't like Sakura and/or Hinata get that thrown to their heads all the time but it is a shallow assessment that doesn't take anything else into consideration. This idea isn't entirely baseless though because it does happen a lot in many fandoms gosh. But in Naruto's case it's just... not the same *childish-foot-stomp* 😆 The entire foundation of the story is involved, its Themes rely on Naruto AND Sasuke, they live the problem and in the end are the solution, they are literally the big 'why' of its story. I mean I probably could write a thousand essays on that alone... And so, controversial opinion maybe, but I don't think it's very valid to compare Sakura and Hinata with other female characters regarding things like this because of Kishimoto's intentions (which I get not everyone agrees with this method but.. yk) and the way he wrote them to convey what he wanted to tell. In that sense they are merely literary tools used to show contrast in order to explain what the other end of that contrast means for Naruto and Sasuke without actually having to spell it out... and it's so cleverly done but it makes a discussion about female characters (especially a generalization) and the way they are treated difficult. Nonetheless, it's always an interesting conversation though because that line between a character being allowed to have a flaw or criticizing the character meaning it's misogyny can be very blurry at times...

[kaya59gx]

Unpopular opinions:

1. Unbound Thresh being a pretty boy actually helps more than hurts.

2. Thresh having more human emotions isn't a horrible option.

Am I biased? Yes. Very much so.

But if you'll excuse the bias for a moment and listen to my opinion-

Although league is full of pretty boys already, Unbound Thresh receives a lot of shame for it considering his original design and people don't seem to think it fits his character. But I'm the weirdo who thinks him being attractive isn't a bad thing for a few reasons- It creates a false sense of security. You see an attractive man and Don't think to look beyond it, to take into consideration what he may truly be like. You're much more likely to approach someone who looks attractive, right? And much more easy to turn into a victim. You'll trust him if he leads you into an alleyway thinking he can help you with your greatest problems, only to find yourself chained to the ground and entirely at his mercy, and to realize all too late that his hook and crystalline lantern are waiting to drag you in and keep you there.

As for the second opinion.

Unbound Thresh having emotions provide something else that I find to be intriguing- an opportunity for a form of character complexity and analysis.

I'm one of those people that likes to take a deep dive into characters and their psychology (though do take into account I'm not an expert), and creates OCs to delve into my own psychology at times.

Long story short, I write.

Unbound Thresh having emotions and human responses to things rather than being an emotionless monster provides an opportunity to analyze him much more deeply. It gives us a chance to really pause, take a minute, and think about it. Why did he 'save' Bort in his intro cinematic? What was up with those facial expressions and his body language while he was in the Tavern watching him? What makes Unbound Thresh Tick?

Also if you look at the model his features are less defined so it might have been a choice of time to make him a pretty boy. I do dislike how pudgy he looks, I will agree there. I refer mostly to his cinematic appearance (which I realize most people don't mind) in my short essay, but the point could easily be applied to his actual in-rift model.

Again, I have a biased opinion. I'm that weirdo who thinks Thresh is attractive with both his Unbound appearance and his in-league one.

But even still, I feel that the hate he gets isn't deserved. By this point, everyone should know to trust the league writers. They have a plan for our skeleton man!

It is simply a matter of time until we uncover what exactly it is.

[bettsfic]

craft essay a day #3

well now i'm angry.

"Don't Write What You Know" by Bret Anthony Johnston, The Writer’s Notebook II: Craft Essays from Tin House

beginner | intermediate | advanced | masterclass | don't bother with this one lads

filed under: process, how did this get published wtf

summary

Johnston introduces this essay by subtly but smugly noting that he teaches at Harvard. not a great start, bud. he says on day 1, he gives his students a list of things not to do in fiction.

"Don't start a story with an alarm clock going off. Don't end a story with the whole shebang having been a suicide note. Don't use flashy dialogue tags like intoned or queried or, God forbid, ejaculated. Twelve unbearably gifted students are sitting around the table, and they appreciate having such parameters established."

DO THEY?? ARE YOU SURE??

anyway. he goes on to say his last rule is "don't write what you know." (why not "write what you don't know" which is, you know, encouraging?) his very long-winded yet simple point is that you shouldn't write fiction that is an exact replica of your own life. the result of doing this is creating a work that is self-referential and thus meaningless (which he later contradicts by saying intending meaning in fiction is Bad).

"For me, it's the difference between fiction that matters only to those who know the author and fiction that, well, matters."

i have never wanted so badly to punch a craft essay.

he then undoes his entire argument by saying 1) he has in fact written autofiction and 2) writers should use their experiences as inspiration for fiction, but not let those experiences become the fiction itself. which could make sense, but not the way he pitches it.

"Instead of thinking of my experiences as structures I wanted to erect in fiction, I started conceiving of them as the scaffolding that would be torn down once the work was complete."

my dude. if you wanted to write an essay about scaffolding, write an essay about scaffolding. don't couch it in meaningless prescriptive rhetoric.

he cites many authors who have written works inspired by their lives but not about their lives, like Tim O'Brien. Johnston makes a good point here (except it's actually just O'Brien's point): in changing real events into fiction, whatever is fictionalized then invokes meaning. his example is that O'Brien wrote both a fictionalized and autobiographical version of his experiences in Vietnam, and they are decidedly different.

here, we have the potential to get interesting, to actually say something important about craft and life and identity and fiction, but instead he moves on to say that the cardinal sin of fiction writing is intending meaning, rather than allowing the creative process to create meaning, and allowing the reader to interpret meaning.

"Another deeper, more essential part of me dies when a workshop student says, 'What I wanted to do was ________.' The idea of a writer 'wanting' to do something in a story unhinges me. At best, such desire smacks of nostalgia; at worst, it betrays agenda."

and then he goes into a very boring white guy rant about how everybody should be able to write about the experiences of everyone else regardless of race, orientation, ability, etc., with all the nuance of a slab of concrete. personally, i'm not firmly on either side of this debate, but i do feel strongly that it should be discussed with sensitivity and the acknowledgement of the greater historical context of the part american literature and the publishing thereof has played in systemic oppression. but that's just me.

lastly he declares something i really do agree with:

"I say fiction is an act of courage and humility, a protest against our morality, and we, the authors, don't matter. What matters are our characters, those constructions of imagination that can transcend our biases and agendas, our egos and entitlements and flesh. Trust your powers of empathy and invention, I say."

in short, you're better off reading the Zadie Smith essay, "Fascinated to Presume: In Defense of Fiction" which i'll probably review tomorrow, out of spite.

my thoughts

oh boy, here we go.

first, i don't claim to know everything about writing. i don't even claim to know a little about writing. at best, i have considerations. possibilities. observations, maybe. i don't present things in shoulds and should nots. but what i do know is teaching writing. i know the shoulds and should nots of pedagogy. and this guy is not doing it right. every word of this essay is condescension. it feels like a grotesque power play. he came up with his clickbaity title and then said something ultimately pointless.

his entire argument is a polemic of a false premise. is there really anyone out there writing their exact experiences as fiction? and if there are, how is it anyone's business? instead of entering this topic with curiosity and consideration, he just paints these broad, bland strokes. if i were to write this, my question would be, who are the writers who write their experiences as fiction, and why? how do they do it? what can be gained or lost? to what degree could you or should you fictionalize the events of your life? i have a friend from Gaza who came to the US to write about her experiences there. important experiences that she can't write as nonfiction and which have enormous consequences for herself and her family. why shouldn't she write about that? in what way is telling someone like her "don't write what you know" going to help her? it's not. it's going to silence her more than she's already been silenced.

one point of this essay is that you shouldn't write with intention of meaning. this is a widely held belief in many MFAs, and one i rallied against for a long time. i have since come to see it the way i see all writing advice: there are consequences and considerations to going one way or another. and you don't know them until you write the thing. and to write the thing, you can't have someone shouting down at you that you shouldn't.

the truth is, every word of fiction ever written has been framed by the experiences of the writer. that cannot be denied. we are beings made of memory, and those memories create our lens through which we see the world. it doesn't matter how fantastical or imaginative your work is. it's still from you. it still has pieces of you in it. when approaching fiction, all your work is going to be on a spectrum of closeness to your lived experiences. and even if you attempt to convey them as true as they happened, they're still distorted through memory. our memories themselves are fictionalized. the depiction of real and not real, fiction and creative nonfiction, is a false dichotomy: everything is unreal, because it is merely being rendered. and ultimately, as a teacher, as a reader, my job isn't to declare a piece of work too real to an experience and therefore too self-referential; my job is to interpret it, firstly, as myself. it is simply not my business as a reader to know what happened in reality and what didn't.

i'll never understand creative writing professors who don't know the very basic tenet of creative writing pedagogy: help writers write. encourage them to write. say what they need to hear to get words on the page and be excited about them. be proud of them. as a teacher i don't give a fuck about helping writers become better. what i want is to help writers become more true to themselves, get closer to the work that's most meaningful to them. to say i know how to help writers become good at writing would be so egotistical. it presumes i know what good writing is. it presumes i believe that there's good writing and bad writing, and not just myriad lenses of personal taste. who cares what's good? all i care about is helping a writer move a little farther along on their journey. clearing a path for them. but it's never my intention to pave that path myself, to say here's your destination. how fucking hard is it to accept that creativity is the pursuit of the unknown? and that we need to have a fundamental respect for that pursuit in any shape it takes? and without that respect, we as teachers aren't helping writers at all, we're only carving them into our own likenesses?

okay, i'm going to stop here for now because i'm getting upset. but i'm not done with this topic. i have several essays in me that present some of the premises here in ways that aren't destructively prescriptive and condescending, and hopefully i'll find the time to get them down.

craft essay a day tag | writing advice tag | ask me something

[fortheloveofexy]

Hi? You just deleted Twitter right? Cuz of some of the stupid things people where saying? Just wanna say I did that as well cuz it was all just too much for me personally, especially since the person that started it all is now half heartedly apologising and writing essays in every persons replys for it saying they hope to learn from the mistakes they did (take that as you will I guess idk what to think but I can’t do anything other than laugh tbh);

glad I found u here though cuz I really do enjoy your content and everything you say and just wanted to hop in here to say that; love u❤️ don’t worry and hope u have a good day

Hi anon - glad to see I'm not the only aftg twitter refugee fleeing to tumblr!

To cut long story short, yes that's why I left. Tldr it was just a shitstorm of miscommunication, wild assumptions and misinformation, and a lot of innocent bystanders got hurt in the process.

For the longer version - I (and several others) got accused of racism bc I blocked some people who I saw engaging in callout posts and dogpiling.

The original tweets were calling out fandom racism and racism in Nora's writing (which I agreed with btw! I actually never blocked the original poster bc I thought they made some good points), but then a bunch of ppl started jumping on the bandwagon and making their own tweets about it, and I have a personal policy (mainly for mental health reasons) of blocking/muting people when discourse seems to derail from being productive to just pure bullying. And this seemed to be very quickly headed in that direction.

So I blocked a few people who had jumped on the bandwagon. And apparently, that was enough to get me labeled as "racist", or at least as "suspicious". People got REALLY angry that I blocked them (which surprised me, frankly), so I made a tweet about how it's weird to assume why someone might block you.

This only made things worse, and then somebody actually publicly dropped names of everyone who blocked. Some of the names were of ppl who'd blocked weeks or even months before this whole mess, and some were just names of ppl who blocked for different reasons entirely.

On the whole, most of the people whose names were dropped were not actually involved in any way. Also please note that nobody actually disagreed with OP or even said anything racist. All that happened was that a few people blocked a few other people. That's literally it.

But in the end, that didn't matter. The misinformation spread like wildfire, the person who name dropped gave an apology (after outright admitting that they didn't know for sure why any of those ppl blocked them), and I deleted my account in disgust with it all.

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

Alright can we just talk about shipping culture nowadays because honestly it is very much starting to get on my nerves.

So i guess shipping for me had always been part of my fandom experience not in every fandom tho, i get invested in some ships sometimes and last years others i may just get them but not actually ship them and others i ship for a while but they may not be intriguing enough for me.

the point is shipping had always partially been about considering different interactions for certain characters sometimes by keeping said character as they are and sometimes by shifting certain aspects in how they behave or how they are to fit them in said ship and that's honestly fine everyone has there own way of enjoying the fandom

however it is the change in shipping that is absolutely horrible nowadays , it is just not about the characters anymore , it is just tropes I don't know ,has it always been like this ?

Like discussing ships used to be writing a whole analysis about how these characters would fit together and maybe even creating a little background for the characters or just a sufficient 'idk i just like them together'

But now it is just 'well enemies to lovers , guy fell first , redeemed villian what's not to like ' and worse anybody who doesn't agree with said interpretation seems to have no part of the fandom anymore.some characters in canon just can't fit together in a romantic relationship so if shippers want them to fit they are going to have to change their personality entirely and again that is fine but i don't want a whole long ass essay about how YOUR interpretation YOUR own take on the character is how this character actually is in canon so you can ship your characters together and diss on everybody who doesn't agree with you.

This is in both the loki fandom where i don't think anybody talks about anything regarding the show other than loki and sylvie's "chemistry" or loki and mobius , loki is being reduced to this narcissist how needs someone to teach him a lesson or to humiliate him in order to be better , in order to do so most shippers twist sylvie and mobius into these loving caring people they are definitely not to fit this troupe in their heads of " love made the villian turn into a hero", same in the star wars fandom specifically the new triology , it is all about shipping rey and kylo together which i used to enjoy in just for fun really but i don't even want to start talking about how the majority of the shippers were in this fandom 🙄 (also rey deserves better anyways), fandom has been narrowed down to ships , and ones the hype is over most of these fandoms collapse , cause they are just built on liking troupes and imaging the character infront of you regardless of how they actually are to fit this troupe , so if another Show/movie/book series does the troupe better or has a hype right now you look for these troupes and move on from said fandom.Fandoms collapse so fast right now and i believe a huge part as to why is this new shipping culture , shipping is becoming a must in every fandom right now you can't enjoy a fandom otherwise .

This is just my theory really i have been in many fandoms for a long time and weither this is actually what's happening or not, something has definitely changed about how fandoms are right now.

*Phew* sorry about the long rant

Hey, for what it's worth I enjoyed your rant 😉

I have never been a shipper myself so I don't have much insight into this, I'm afraid. I'm glad people have fun with their ships, as long as it's in good faith and they respect those who don't like their pairings or see them in a different light.

The only thing I have seen as of late (as in, the last few years) is that it would seem some people label certain ships as 'morally right' or 'morally wrong' and judge the shippers accordingly. It sucks because the way I see it, shipping is supposed to be good fun for those engaging in it and it shouldn't require a full-on disclaimer from a fan stating they're a good person to justify their favourite ship.

I see what you mean about fandoms collapsing pretty quickly and being narrowed down to shipping. Perhaps a part of that is the fact that many series have their entire seasons released at once, and we have such a huge pool to choose from (and a rather weird idea that we have to consume as much as we can to be in the loop with other people) that folks go from one to another like maniacs, which leaves us with the most basic engagement of shipping a few characters, too little meta and eventually nothing at all.

I definitely agree that in the SW fandom, the Reylo craze was a little too much to handle - and Rey deserved so much better (I say that as a big Kylo fan, by the way), and in Loki's case I think it's funny because they switch the roles: in the series, Loki is good and caring, and Sylvie/Mobius are selfish criminals who only care about themselves. But when it comes to shipping a lot of people switch them and pretend Loki is the selfish criminal and Sylvie/Mobius are the loving and caring ones.

It is one thing to do that if you're writing something canon divergent or you're retconning them for some reason, but to claim that characterization is canon is just wrong.

[missusplum]

Why are you so hopeful when these writers might bait and play us again?

What were you’re thoughts on the finale and what stories would you like to see next season?

Here’s hoping for one of your long essays

lmao i completely get the frustration, but the way i really see it, i don’t think the takeaway from this season is that armony will never be a focus; it’s that this show chooses to be chaotic just for the sake of being ~shocking~ and ~unexpected~ so really by that benchmark anything is possible lol

for those reasons i think going into the business of trying to predict anything on this show is generally a bad idea and a recipe to setting yourself up for disappointment. so i have no thoughts on what might go down in s3, just that i hope we get one loool. because despite all my yapping and complaining i really do want to see more of this show, and i think there are lots of stories still to tell. i started watching for elodie and i’m gonna stay for her too 😌

i’ll share my thoughts on s2 behind the cut:

my general sentiment on this season is a big meh lol. like all the criticism and worries i had about where the season was headed and about kamdar being nothing more than a lightning rod all stumbled into fruition. my biggest criticism is that the writing seems intent on delivering shocking moments and stressful situations at the sacrifice of interesting stories and actual character development. the biggest example of this is the show choosing to drop chris’ story, the far superior and more emotionally-compelling storyline, halfway into the season and choosing to fully focus on kamdar instead. i really think it was a gigantic misstep to veer into this direction and a misread of what drew people to this show in the first place. to me, the real strength of tcl was always, always, the chemistry between arman and thony, and between thony and fiona. people watched because of the actors’ chemistry; even in s1 the mob drama was always less interesting and draggingly melodramatic at times. but people put up with it because it was the vehicle to showcase the chemistry and relationships that intrigued everyone. s2 literally went full throttle into mob territory and sacrificed the emotional side and the relationships that made us care in the first place. and that is the true fumble here.

i do get frustrated reading some of the postmortem interviews with the EPs because i really want to know what progress they think this season made at all. almost all the new characters that they brought on have died (shoutout to JD for living to see another day!), the triangle of death is still in tact, thony is still single-mindedly focused on her family, luca is still sick, the de la rosas are still undocumented, arman still has no power, etc. and everyone is so miserable 🥴 something something about a clinic and helping out the community was completely overshadowed by this kamdar storyline which ended exactly how we all knew it would end, with him dead. oh i guess g*rrett miller died too. overdue imo but i’m sorry to his fans for your loss lol

one thing i will say is while i think it was very deliberate to have thony do unlikable things and behave antagonistically, i still think a lot of the fandom is being unfair with how much hate she’s getting and letting recency bias cloud their judgment. this is the same character that agreed in a second to sell street drugs because arman looked sad and then immediately incriminated herself when they got caught, literally only to protect arman. it’s a complete disservice to the character and franking oversimplifying just to write her off as selfish. she is anything but selfish imo. i do believe, and the EPs have said as much, that she has a tendency to be arrogant and to think she knows better, and this stems from her career as a surgeon. but to say she hasn’t paid for her mistakes is crazy lol, the entire two finale hours was basically nothing working out the way she wanted, and everyone telling her off and giving her shit for what she’s done. which for the record i liked; thony has often acted purely on instinct, but i like that this time that she had to lose and that the same instinct led her to make bad decisions. makes for a more compelling character vs. one who is always doing the right thing. i will say that i think reverting to anchoring all of thony’s actions to be about saving luca’s life was a narrative mistake. not only because it only underscores what we already learned about her in s1, but because atp (and i hate to say it) luca is nothing but a plot device imo. like people get frustrated when luca is thrust into the forefront again because aside from being a cute kid who is unfairly ill, there’s nothing else to the character. is he not literally only there to be sick and to cause thony to act irrationally? instead of investing time into actually making luca a well-rounded character with a personality, we wasted scenes on the likes of kamdar and maya, none of whom ended up having any staying power on the show anyway, and the stakes ended up feeling repetitive. i cannot understand why there was a need to bring on so many new (and temporary!?) characters in a short season when you already have existing shallowly-written core characters that the audience actually wants and needs to know more about.

i’ve already made my opinions on love triangles very clear lol and it still stands. like if you’re a fan of any of the characters of arman, thony, or nadia, i cannot for the life of me imagine why anyone would want this triangle to continue. it’s horrible for all of them; it’s unattractive to see arman continue to divide his heart between two women; it’s depressing to see thony reduce herself to an emotionless robot because she has to shut arman out; and it’s ridiculously unrealistic to think that nadia would still put up with arman after all the arguments they’ve had about thony already. if you’ve read any of the postseason interviews with melissa carter and miranda kwok they seem pretty intent on continuing to ride this out. i’m flummoxed because like what more is there to explore???

in one of the interviews, they said that they had to slow down armony because they went too fast in s1 which is wild to me when that’s one of the few reasons why people tuned in in the first place lol. the philosophy behind thinking that when a couple gets together it becomes boring is flawed and imo more of an indictment on the writing if interesting stories can’t be told with your leads in a relationship. miranda kwok said that the bond between arman and thony will be strengthened after surviving what they went through in s2, but literally none of that was communicated to the audience lol. melissa carter said there was an opportunity for more romance in s3 because there was none in s2 but like y’all literally wrote it that way 🥴🥴 i really do think the writing massively overestimated everyone’s patience and tolerance for nothingness and crumbs. it might have been more tolerable if the rest of the show was just as compelling, but imo it just isn’t so s2 was really just watching this show shoot itself in the foot repeatedly lol. fwiw i think a push and pull between these two could have worked but s2 was literally all pull lmao; like if you have guaranteed five seasons to arc out a molasses-paced relationship then sure but we’re barely scraping by here lol 🤧

anyhoo, all in all i hope the writers actually do get a chance to read some of the criticism of this season and it’s not just written off as shippers throwing a tantrum lol. s2 was a bit of a drag to get through but if nothing else, and for better or for worse, i feel like i have a better grasp of what this show is trying to be now so that’s something. all my criticism aside, at the core of it i do love that this is a show with southeast asians at the forefront, with elodie yung at the forefront, and for those facts alone i’ll happily keep rooting for it to succeed and keep contributing my views and ratings. the rest i’ll just keep hoping for the best.

[devilisln-moved]

Are there any plot tropes you are sick of/refuse to RP? If so, what are they and why?

Is there a character that the rest of your fandom adores that you just don’t like/are indifferent to? Who is the character and why?

I mean, there are certain story tropes in general I don't care for. Amnesia, body swaps, that whole misunderstanding thing they do in romantic comedies or just for cheap conflict, god i fucking hate that. Also, I think i'm an acquired taste, the way i like to write ships. I'm not a huge fan of constant conflict within a ship. Like, of course no relationship is perfect, but like constant turbulence is fucking exhausting to me. I'm boring. I just don't want my couples to kiss and fuck, I want them to be happy and supportive to each other. I would rather the angst be related to some kind of external conflict, not some insecurity within the relationship. That being said, I don't oppose to much, you know (aside from the really fucked up shit I prolly don't have to detail)? I'm just not likely to cater to that sort of thing without discussion. In other words, I think I prefer to find like minded individuals because I can be very eager to please and I often find myself in situations where I'm treated as a doormat lmao.

2.Okay, okay, okay, stick with me here. I like Frank Castle, okay? I like the idea of exploring such a damaged man, his trials and tribulations, his complicated relationships with other heroes. Love that shit. However, the fandom that rose up around him with season 2 of the Netflix series really pisses me off. I hate how it brings up the old "no-kill hypocricy" (and god forbid "well how does Matt know he's not killing people and isn't beating up people without fully understanding their personal history and working with cops is pretty shitty too? Yeah, I agree, it's...called nuance and the core internal conflict of most vigilante stories) discourse and the bloodthirsty nature of the way they talk about justice. I get it, I do, there's something cathartic about Frank's vengeance, yet i really wish they'd step back and think about what they're saying or at least be more honest about it. There's also something i find really irritating about the Kastle ship. I don't have a dog in the fight. i don't really care for Karedevil, either. But it 9/10 it turns into another reason to compare Frank and Matt, and much as I hate to say it, it also feels like they're using Karen as a mouthpiece, when the fact of the matter is Karen is a very messy character in Netflix's Daredevil. I could probably write an entire essay about her being the inversion of the femme fatale, but my point is, Karen is a good person with her heart generally in the right place, but she's also a recovering drug addict, dealing with the guilt over her brother's death, etc. She's no paragon of virtue, and her attraction to Frank, regardless of how you put it is related to her internalized identification of herself as a killer (yes, she really, actually is, given the whole Wesley ordeal, but her desperate violence in self-defense is quite different from Frank stalking, planning, and enacting explicit, targeted murder, but I digress). So yeah, it's complicated. I like Frank Castle, but I don't like the way fandom tends to interacts with him. It's like everyone becomes Garth Ennis, y'know?

[m1ckeyb3rry]

LMAOOP YES IVE SEEN THE RWVENT YUKI POSTS too real omg ok but this era third selection and u20 yuki fr my fav he’s so gorgeous and Karasu is giving big asshole bully energy rn LMAOOO can’t wait for those little scenes of him in Shibuya or when he’s catching otoya from falling off the bench

STOP RHE POKEMON REPRESENTING THE FANDOM IN SHIP WARS GOODBYEEEE LMAOOO not them also being chronically online pulling out evidence of their ships that has me rolling

OOOHOHSOSHO OTOYA OR KARASU OEAU im so excited RAHHHGHH its ok they both make up for the lack of aikulations we’ll still feel the oaeu vibe

Bro that scene with otoya doing the weird finger gun things is FR promoting tf out of otoya I see so many people converting because of that scene (real honestly his face card is serving there) but IVE GOT EVERY KARASU PANEL BURNED IN MY BRAIN IK THE EXACT SCENE YOU MEAN also cannot wait for him to shove Isagi around LMAOOO a Mira classic wc HAHAH its ok you got this!!! Oaeu comeback soon after use that as your motivation LOL

Also im crying not you having meetings and doing hw on your horse LMAOOOO

- Karasu anon

HELPP i fear i have been going more than a little insane over yuki 😓 he’s just so so perfect and handsome and incredible and sweet SHFJSHSHHS agreed though third selection/u20/shibuya yuki >>>> he was okay in vs manshine as well but my man has been a ghost ever since 🙁 manifesting he gets a comeback in the next arc though!! since there will be hopefully be fewer characters to focus on that might mean characters like yuki and karasu can get their spotlight back

LMAOAAOO the pokémon are all chronically online post-aegislash 😭 i bet reuniclus is writing ESSAYS about how nagi is actually a really loving and kind guy (he’s a mira kin #nagidefenderforlife) like bro is def analyzing every single thing nagi does to explain how it actually shows his deep trauma and how he’s risen above it JFHFSHJS omg reuniclus 100% has a tumblr nagiy/n stan account where it’s just explaining why they are the top ship HAHAHA its posts are all insane too…like “y/n challenged nagi to a battle. this shows that they are deeply in love because they are sharing their passion for battling and coming together to bond. they also made eye contact two times, and their hands touched when nagi gave her money for beating him.” and then someone hydreigon comments “nagi doesn’t even like battling UNLIKE OTOYA so there’s no passion there basically he hates her and you’re problematic for shipping them” so reuniclus is forced to block

YESSSS I MISS MY SILLY BOYS even if i don’t do oaeu for them i’ll do smth for one of those two most likely (or maybe yuki) just because they’re my goofs 🥹 HELP no you’re so right otoyalations especially can def compete with aikulations…not quite on the same level but i def sense his pov being really fun to write (karasu is just him d1 pining like usual so it’ll be fun in a diff way)

HELPP NO LITERALLY THAT EXACT SCENE HAS EVERYONE GOING CRAZY honestly i was not expecting so many people to convert to otoyaism??? i expected more karasu fans at this point but they really did their best to make otoya silly and dumb asf whereas karasu is still giving mysterious villain energy lowkey so maybe that’s why 😭 BROOO THAT PANEL IS SO GOOD I LITERALLY MADE IT THE COVER OF BFB 🤩 i need to see it live sooooo bad 😍 and yeah another mira wc incoming unfortunately but hopefully i can finish it soon!!

PLSSSS online school got to me 😓 my teacher was just rambling abt nonsense i was like eh might as well exercise my horse while i’m at it ���� it fr gave me a six pack though because i had to control him almost entirely with my abs so that was nice ig (even though no one ever saw them before they vanished because we had to stay at home 😔💔)

[bg3fandomcritical-active]

You guys do realize you can just admit you don't vibe with a character, right? You don't have to write essays on why they're the worst/most evil character of all time, especially using things that are either made up or the entire point of their character. You can boohoo about how your precious blorbo deserved it more or whatever, but a word of advice, that isn't going to make people agree with you, it's just going to make everyone think you're all really annoying and they're going to start hating your blorbo out of spite. I'm a Karlach kinnie who refuses to interact with most fans of other characters because they can't stop whining about each other for a minute of their lives. If you can't post about your favorite without whining about how much another character sucks, it raises the question of if you actually even like that character to begin with, because if you did like them, why would you only ever think of them in the context of a character you hate? Do you actually like your blorbo, or do you like feeling righteous over fiction and you picked your blorbo to be a tool for that? Do you want people to like your fave, or are you addicted to ragebait and just like seeing people as mad as you always are?

.

[tenpintsof-sundrop]

Hi Anon. You also get an "essay style" response from yours truly. (The other one is sitting in the inbox somewhere, along with other things).

if you don't write for readers or socialization through interests.

I feel like it has been made abundantly clear that is actually why Nisha/Sunny writes and shares fics. Those two things are in fact intertwined too. The point is to talk and have conversations. Except people don't comment so that's very limited.

do not expect notoriety and admiration for this anymore

What? Now correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what being asked for. At all. In fact, I believe Nisha doesn't like notoriety at all. Fics getting popular are anxiety inducing for her. She's asking for camaraderie, not notoriety.

if you can’t complete something you’ve committed to already to a multitude of people, don’t do it? don’t say you will with schedules and promises just to fall short?

I don't know if you know this but a lot of things happen. Especially when you have chronic illnesses/disorders. Even without that lots of things happen and writers don't update or write for various reasons.

you cannot demand every reader and follower to comment on your eloquent authoring, reblogging every thing you write when it’s your interest, and interacting with you.

Yeah. But the ratio from likes to reblogs, even blank reblogs is astounding, and it's not just on this blog. And reminder, every time Nisha brings this up it's about all writers because she's noticed it happen to others too. So yeah, not everyone has to, but more people should.

not when you don’t respect the people who have given you a platform and the opportunity to spout ignorance.

I also feel like it's been made abundantly clear that Nisha does respect and love the people who interact with her. Do I agree with every single thing she says ever? No. And that's great. I don't need to be in an echo chamber. And for the record I don't really think any of it is ignorance.

don’t expect more than what you give.

I don't even think you realize what is being given. I'm a writer. I'm a slow writer. Because it's so hard. Nisha writes long, beautiful fics. And even the ones that aren't that long have so much in them. There's so much work into saying what's needs to be said through the chosen way.

maybe ask for critique and commentary AFTER you COMPLETE something and not with a bunch of unfinished work and not fall short on promises. AFTER you have respectful conversations. we’re done lol.

Commentary can happen during something. It's called a reaction. And some things are completed. Is the entire fic finished? No. But that chapter is. Critique and commentate on that chapter. That's actually how you get more sometimes! Also I don't get why you need to be respectful after something is done? That should usually be the default. And not being respectful about this, in these settings, won't really get you a conversation. That'll just be an argument, which isn't really the thing that should be happening.

-Rotten Anon

waking up to what that anon said literally turned my brain into (mentally ill) mush for the day, so you have responded to this really well.

like - one of the biggest reasons I write primarily oneshots instead of having active multichapter series is because people love to act as if I am unreliable and flaking out on a promise when I don't finish a series. people act like I'm villainous and doing it on purpose to hold their favourite story hostage? when there is so much more going on in my life that means I don't have the time or energy to write that story

and that person was talking about me not responding to asks or comments - over the past few days, I haven't been responding to asks or comments about Careful, because I am so emotionally exhausted when it comes to that fic, and I don't want to come off as rude when responding to people who are very enthusiastic about the fic when I am not feeling enthusiastic about it right now. I am upset about it - I am worn out and frustrated. so I would rather leave those comments unanswered instead of making rude, short comments just to say something to people

I responded to that anon in a sarcastic way, but they managed to summarize all of my insecurities about my writing in one post, and tbh, now that I have posted the last chapter of Careful, I may take a hiatus. because I can't stand it anymore

(I am probably never gonna write for CM ever again because the fandom reception is like this.)

anyway - thank you Rotten Anon. you are eloquent and smart as always

[ignatiaflamen]

Also agreed with all of this. If you asked me when I was in school why I went there and got through it every day I would answer you: "Because I want to get out of school." No dreams, no idea what I would want to accomplish or achieve with my "high school"(heck, even just "school" itself) "education" besides getting out of that oppressive, soul-crushing environment.

(the other reason i went was because of the coercive school attendance laws, but that's a whole other thing by itself.)

Soon after graduating I had the constant feeling that I wouldn't actually graduate, that they'd pull me aside and say "you didn't do well enough/make a good enough grade in this one class to pass, so you'll have to repeat a year".

This lasted the entire year after I graduated.

I had school dreams for a good half-decade after graduating including one memorable one where i actually went back to kindergarten.

Those lasted until i had a dream where I was at an after-school class where we were studying for senior year graduation tests. Everyone around me was (irl) in the grade below me. I looked around, realized this, and said "Wait, I don't need to be here. I graduated already!", got up, and walked out.

I haven't had another school dream since.

(related) I thought I didn't like(hated) learning for a good few years after I graduated. It wasn't until I started studying on my own that I remembered that i love learning. What I hate is the forced coercion to memorize trivia that'll only be used for (mostly multiple-choice) tests + exams which will be discarded immediately afterwards.

Also, I want to be a fiction writer but have always had trouble with coming up with details for my stories. I'll have a general idea for the characters, setting, and themes, but will be unsure of how to put them together. It's like once I put an idea down for the story, then that idea is set in stone and I have to work any further ideas that I have around it rather than weave it in with the rest of the story.

It was just last week when I was reading a book about novel-writing where the author explained the creative process by giving a practical example that I realized that you can expound on an initial idea and change elements in the story(several times, even!) before finalizing them. My thought was "Wait. You can do that?!"

I was ruminating on why I didn't know that before now and realized it was because of how school presents writing as assignment. We had primarily multiple-choice tests in school. When writing was required to answer the question, it was usually a sentence or two or three lines at most. Essays were written for the end-of-year exams and were usually about a personal topic. (and if we didn't have an experience that fit the topic required, we were told to "make something up".)

Additionally, we only started learning to write with the three-paragraph essay format in junior year.

My (not very succinct) point is that because we answered multiple-choice questions for nearly everything, sentence-writing was a chore, and essay-writing was a Task, a near-insurmountable obstacle put in your path on the mountain of School, where you were trying to go uphill as you reenacted the myth of Sisyphus.

Being unaccustomed to writing as an everyday thing instead of a stressor, or essay or creative writing for as something that i wanted to do for myself instead of being required to do it on a topic that i was unable to choose for myself in the first place and was completely uninterested in besides, my mind saw writing as something you did For School, not something you did because you wanted to.

It also, because of the emphasis on completing the essay as a Goal, something only to be done to be graded on at the end of the year and to be able to pass on to the next grade, calcified my ability to think about details while writing, expounding upon them and making connections between them.

(Maybe the circumstances under which we were writing them had to do with it too? We were only given a 45-minute period in which to do them and couldn't do any revision once the words were put down.) (thus "setting it in stone", as it were.)

Anyway, I'm really thankful for that book for showing me an example of the thought process behind (creative) writing. I would have had the "writer's block" problem for a lot longer without it. (I'm not sure I would have ever gotten over it, in fact...(because it was a problem with the manner of thinking rather than a lack of ideas v_v))

(The book is "Primer of the Novel" by Vincent McHugh and the relevant part is on page 163 if anyone's interested!)

(addendum: also in English class (which should have been called English Literature) we didn't learn Grammar or Composition but instead read fiction and studied "what did the author mean" by his writing instead of even basic fiction writing things like viewpoint or characterization. No learning how to write to express ourselves or studying how an author created his stories, just copying down what someone else did.)

(this is a general aside,but we didn't have art in school and they took out the drama class the year before i was supposed to be in it. No self-expression or attempted escapism for you! haha, yeah... school sucked.)

(i still had books, though!)

adults are always talking about how “kids will do anything to get out of school” and okay, first of all that’s not true, but I think we really need to ask why that idea holds so much sway.

children’s brains are hard-wired to take in new information and acquire new skills. consider, for a moment, just how thoroughly our society had to fuck up the concept of education for it to be a normal thing to assume kids are universally desperate to avoid learning.