#I need to honestly just start writing dialogue like fully. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

2soulscollide · 1 year

Text

my favorite free tools for writers

hello, hello! hope you're doing well.

today i am bringing you another list with my top 3 favorite (free!) tools that I find helpful for each phase of writing a novel.

brainstorming phase

Fantasy Names Generator - not only for fantasy (you can also generate real names). this website is just... amazing! it helps you come up with names for characters, places and locations, descriptions, generate traits, outfits (yes, outfits!!), and probably something else you could ever think of.

The Story's Hack - this one is so cool! you can generate names for everything, create your own generator, and practice writing through writing exercises! plus, you can save your generated names to see later, and you earn coins for each idea generated (you can later buy themes - dark, snow, forest, etc)

RanGen - my last favorite generator on this list is RanGen! you can generate plots, appearances, archetypes, love interests, cities, worlds, items, and more.

developing the idea phase

Bryn Donovan - in this blog you can find master lists under the tag "master lists for writers". it is so helpful when you first start developing the characters and need to find the right words to describe them and to find some quirks and flaws!

Writers Write (350 character traits) - again, this is so helpful!

Story Planner - ah, the number of times I've talked about this website... please, PLEASE take a look at it, you won't regret it. this website has literally everything you need to fully develop your idea with outlines for you to fill in step by step.

writing phase

Colleen Houck (80+ barriers to love) - need more romace conflict? there you go!

Cheat Sheets for Writing Body Language - so, you know how your character's feeling, but don't know how he'd physically act? check out this list!

Describing Words - honestly, this is a lifesaver. don't you struggle to find the right word to describe something? well, with this website all you have to do is to type the object you're trying to describe and see which description fits better to you!

revising phase

Language Tool for Google Docs - i know we all have heard about google docs before, but the truth is, it's almost impossible to find free softwares to check grammar and spelling. so, google docs is useful, because it automatically revises it for us, and it's completely free. plus, you can add adds-on, such as "language tool".

Unfortunately, there's only one (free) tool that I actually enjoy for the revising phase. if you know some others, please let me know so that I can try them out and feature in this list.

exporting phase

Google Docs - i find google docs very easy to format and export to .epub, so i'd recommend using it as a free tool.

Reedsy - this is also a free tool available online. all you have to do is to write down each chapter (copy and paste) or import your word document. it will format the document to your liking and export it to pdf, epub and mobi.

that's everything for now! i hope this post was somehow helpful or inspiring!

if you want to see more master lists full of resources, check these:

WEBSITES FOR WRITERS {masterpost}

BEST accounts to follow as a writer

BEST SITES & SOFTWARES TO WRITE FICTION

DIALOGUE IDEAS TO GET RID OF THAT WRITING BLOCK (masterpost)

Useful Resources & Tips for Writers

also, if you are a notion lover just like me, check the free template I just released with everything you need to develop and write your novel!

thank you so much for reading! hope to see you around, and have a nice day <3

6K notes · View notes

dduane · 9 months

Note

I always see advice about first drafts being okay to have rough sequences and character decisions, but one thing that keeps sticking me is it always feels like I need to have character voice figured out when I start writing. Do you have any advice to offer in developing character voice? Or at least, how not to worry so much about that when writing the first draft?

Hmm.

First of all (for those who may not be sure what this is about), let me add a link here to the Masterclass page on character voice, which is a useful basic resource.

Actually developing characters' voices is such an idiosyncratic process! So describing my approach to this may or may not be useful to you. But I'll give it a shot.

(Adding a cut here, because this runs long.)

When a character's about to first come on stage I spend some time just thinking about who they are: their upbringing, their life situation (pre-action and during-), their general emotional makeup... their pre-existing internal stresses, and how those are likely to interact with the ones I'm about to inflict on them. I take a look at where their particular position in their culture would normally place their speech and the way they're expected to think and act. Then I'll examine whether or not those expectations are ones they'd normally fall in with, or adopt unquestioningly... or secretly (or openly) dislike. As usual, drama is about conflict. A character who likes or loathes something about a situation, or about somebody else (or themselves), is going to find ways to routinely express that—not just in dialogue, but in affect, attitude, and reaction: all the aspects of voice.

I may make notes on these issues along the way if the choices I'm making for the character(s) are complex enough that I'm afraid I'll lose track of detail. But after that I've found it's usually best to just get on with it and start writing, as it's in producing the first draft that it seems to me the characters' voices develop best. It's like the difference between thinking about what you'd do if someone pulled a gun on you, and actually finding out in realtime what you'll do. The two situations are likely to differ profoundly; and not only other characters, but you, may be surprised by what you "see" and "hear".

That said— Sometimes as the first draft progresses, or when it's done, I'll go over a character's interactions with the plot and other characters and get a sense of something ringing just slightly hollow—of the character feeling less than fully present in their scenes: or of them (and their reactions) somehow just not being enough for the situations into which you've thrown them. Normally a realization like this suggests to me that there's something missing in my conception of them... and hence, something missing for them too: something that's not coming through properly in their voice, or not coming through at all.

If this happens, it can be a sign that either I got lazy in the character's design, or missed something larger that was going on, due to being too close to the situation they're in. So what I normally do at such a time is find a quiet few minutes to interview them.

...And let's be clear here that I'm not one of those writers who honestly believes (in the psychological, psychiatric, or developmental senses) that their character has some kind of existence outside their head.* My position is absolutely that every part of this process is make-believe, sourced in my own brain. And, yes, it's important to treat the whole creative process, and everyone/everything inhabiting it, with the dignity one normally accords to everyday reality in a physical universe. But sometimes—even to engage correctly with what we laughably call Real Life—some distance is required: space in which to stand back and see the forest in which the "tree" you're examining stands.

The interviewing state is one way you can get a little distance. You find an empty chair (in the room, in your head, doesn't matter) and sit your character down in it, and ask them what's going on. And you keep asking about it—sometimes in multiple sessions—until you get answers that ring true enough for you to grasp and solve their problem, and yours.

Nor do the questions have to be particularly event- or other-character-focused. Generalities may be more useful. I've had good results with two questions in particular: "What do you know about yourself that I don't know?", and "What do you not know about yourself that you need to?" Sometimes this will seriously open the floodgates... so, like good interviewers everywhere, it's smart to have a notepad handy. :)

I had this situation crop up with one of my oldest characters, who'd begun the series in which he appears as...well, frankly, kind of a dick. And yes, I knew this was going to shift as his character arc went where it was going (poor guy!). But at the same time, his voice in the second book of the series—then in its first draft—wasn't correctly reflecting either who he was, or why it was eventually going to be right for him to be going where he was going. He was too flip sometimes, too facile other times, too flat and matter-of-fact at other times still; and his rawness-around-the-edges was offputting. And I liked him! ...so the thought of what other people were likely to make of him, made me nervous.

This problem plainly had to be sorted out, pronto. So I paused work on that book for a day or three, and sat him down in the chair, and eventually got around to asking question two. And wow.... did that ever yield results! All I'd needed was the distance afforded by this technique to allow him to tell me what the problem was—and what I plainly already knew without being conscious of it—and what to do about it as I went forward (and backward, in revision). And I'm still mining the results.

...So you may like to try out that approach, if you run into problems, and see how it serves you. Hope you find it useful!

Meanwhile, as for how to worry less about where voice issues are going as you draft? ...It's been long enough since I had any similar concern that I'm not sure how to advise you. But it seems possible that, if you can cozy up enough to the concept that draft is where at least some people think the development of character voice belongs, over time you can overwrite the concern.

Anyway: hope all of this helps!

*After a book's out, of course, this situation shifts. Once other people get hold of your characters and start making them real, all bets are off. :)

ETA: if you found this useful, maybe you'd like to stop by Ebooks.Direct and take a look around to see if there's something you'd like to pick up? Please & thank you! :)

#writing #writing advice #character voice

235 notes · View notes

ceilidho · 3 months

Note

Sorry to dump this here, but no one in my immediate and/or accessible circle reads as much as I do and this conversation came up at the right time.

I don't read a lot of romance and I started reading some popular ones last year to ease my way into it. I feel like such a snob to say this, but the plot and writing are never fully fleshed out nor are the characters. None of the romantic actions I see people swoon over are ever explained well enough for me to understand the hype. A scene in which there should be an emotional inner monologue is shorted to a paragraph and if the character is toxic (I understand a lot of people enjoy toxic/dark men, but romance books never write them well enough) and destroys the other character's life/says a relationship-ending lie/any other cliche, there is never enough explanation, justification, groveling, or any thought process behind the reconciliation.

It's always just one half-written and half-baked trope after the other.

Again, apologies for dumping it here, but I think there are such damning consequences for women (the main demographic of romance readers) who read things like this and don't give constructive criticism or thought when facing these problems.

no but you're 100% right. i mean, this is one annoying bitch's opinion (mine LMAO) but trad publishing is in the absolute pits right now. that's not to say that there aren't still some good books coming out because of course, every now and then you're going to get a gem. but i think the environment has become outwardly hostile to good writing.

i mean, i know this has been discussed a ton, but the "fast fashionization" of books has become a huge problem. every time there's a new microtrend or whatever, every author rushes to push out a book to meet the demand (see: the hockey romance trend). this, obviously, means that the editing time is severely compressed and you get books published by like harper collins and penguin with typos, grammar issues, and more.

i got some flack for this when i posted about it on twitter ahah but i honestly do not understand why the sequel to "fourth wing" came out so soon (not even getting into the messy qualities of the first book). sequels used to take a year or more to come out to allow for the book to go through several rounds of editing and fine tuning! what happened??!!

i think authors now feel compelled to get their books out as soon as possible out of fear that booktok/readers will simply move on after the initial hype and they'll lose their reader base. there's like an anxiety about being left behind in the current publishing world.

this is kind of in line with what i was talking about the other day with Bo actually - writing romance and smut is actually way harder than people think. you can't just use the same 5 recycled porn dialogue lines and call it a day. you have to care a little about the story you're trying to tell, not just churning it out to make a buck or to make people pay attention to you. i'm not saying belabour every single action and decision made by your main character or go crazy on description (i still think the sweet spot for a published book is between 250-300 pages, and maybe more if you're writing a genre specific book that involves a lot of worldbuilding), but as a writer you need to want to be writing that book in the first place.

no one who's legitimately excited about what they're writing is going to resort to cliches and overused tropes - they might lean on tropes they like, but there's inevitably going to be something original and exciting there.

also my lil controversial opinion about the state of trad publishing lately is that i think it's 100% influenced by this weird pervasive strain of purity culture that's on booktok where people feel like any enjoyment they get from reading a particular thing has a direct reflection on them as a person and their values. rather than it just being a book.

(by the way i actually completely agree with you that even dark romances are as bad as everything else we've been talking about - that's another conversation lol. i also kind of agree with the idea of more romance books coming with content warnings on the front page - this hasn't really caught on yet except with some dark romance authors but i think it's a really good idea)

i don't think there's anything wrong about people getting excited about books on tiktok and instagram and youtube btw. i think it's a fun way to share recommendations, commentary, and interests. what i think is the big problem is that the publishing industry has almost become beholden to trends and online perception because they've seen how much profit they can generate by catering to it, and i think that's why books now just feel bland and soulless. they're tapping into a FOMO on both the authors' and writers' side, of either being left behind and not being able to make a living, or missing out on what everyone else is reading and talking about.

#today is the day that i cannot stfu apparently

65 notes · View notes

ariundercovers · 11 months

Text

Withholding (Din Djarin x Reader)

Summary: Din has been holding something back from you. He finally willingly gives it.

Pairing: Din Djarin x Reader (one female gender descriptor used @ the end)

Word count: ~2k

Warnings: fluff, marshmallows, and feely good feelings. A flagon of angst at the very beginning if you squint with some reading glasses on.

A/n: This is very dialogue heavy - not my usual style of writing! It's super plotty for being a fluffy fic so, idk. we'll just try it out. As always - let me know what you think!

It was just about a week since the three of you settled in the small cabin on Nevarro. You and Din were happily seated outside under the small awning, Grogu off playing with the other school-aged students for the time being. There was a comfortable silence between you for some time when Din finally broke it unceremoniously.

“I commed Bo Katan yesterday.”

You turn to look at him, surprised. “Oh? And?”

“She asked me if I had taken you as my riduur yet, and then she told me I was a kriffing moron. Her words.” You’re surprised at the response, assuming it would have been something regarding Mandalore, but then you chuckle.

“Sounds about right.”

He nods his head almost imperceptively. “She made me realize many things. I owe you a lot.”

You turn fully to him, eyebrows scrunched together in concern. “What? No, you don’t owe me anything.”

He sits up a little straighter and it feels like his visor is burrowing into your very soul with the intensity he is giving off. “I do though. I owe you much. I know you were disappointed when I took Grogu as my own in the mines, in front of all the other Mandalorians, but I did not offer the same to you. It wasn’t fair.”

“No, no… It’s okay. I understand. I know I’m not Mandalorian, and, well, honestly I’m just happy with whatever you can give me. I don’t need more.”

He sighs, always overwhelmed by the selflessness you exhibit to a fault, especially when it comes to him and the kid.

“But it’s not okay. I have been withholding things from you, and that’s not right. You have given me everything, you have shared all of yourself with me, but I have not offered you the same. I can give you more than this.”

He pauses briefly before continuing. “It never felt like the right time. I’ve had nothing to offer you - no home, no stability. Just running into the abyss and a wizard of a tiny green child.”

You laugh at his description of your lives over the past few years. “I love running into the abyss with you. And I love your tiny green child.”

He leans into you abruptly. “Ours, cyare. Our tiny green child.”

You hum in response. You know he’s right, even if it’s hard to admit to yourself. “I don’t need anything from you, Din. Just you. I don’t need a home, or a ship. I don’t need stability. I just need you and Grogu. I’ll run into the abyss for the rest of my life if it means I get to have the two of you.”

He leans back in the chair a little bit, looking out over the fields that sprawl in front of your little home. “I know that now. But I wanted so badly to be able to provide for you in some way. I was starting to think the Crest was enough of a home for us, but just as I was coming to terms with that, Gideon showed up and we lost the kid. I needed to have something for you. You deserve something. You are an amazing mother, and an even better partner. You are… everything to me. You are the planets, the suns, and all the stars in my galaxy.”

“Din…” You can feel yourself blushing as he overwhelms you with compliments. It’s too much to wrap your brain around.

“I mean it. We finally have a moment here - a small slice of normal. Something… real, maybe even permanent. But it’s still not complete because I have one thing more I need to offer you, to let you choose.”

You turn your head toward him, brows scrunching in confusion. You’re curious, unsure exactly where he’s going with it.

“Cyar’ika, I want nothing more than to have you as my riduur, my kin. You are already part of my clan but I want you to be mine and I yours, completely. I… would you make a riduurok with me? Be my riduur?”

You knew what a riduur was - at least a little bit. The first time you had met her, Bo-Katan mistakenly assumed you already made a riduurok. She explained it to you a bit then. The first time you met Paz, he huffed about letting an aruetii in - that Din needed to be a real Mandalorian and choose his riduur already.

“I’ve been wondering if you would ever ask. I was starting to think you couldn’t ask me… Or wouldn’t, maybe.” Your eyes dart down to your lap, where you’re fiddling with your hands.

“I know. I never should have made you wait this long.”

You look up to him, meeting his visor. “Surely you must know I would have said yes, right? If you had asked me before.”

He nods back at you. “I know. This wasn’t about you, it was all me. And I’m sorry. I should’ve asked you many cycles ago.”

You smile softly and pull on of his hands into your lap, craving the friction of his skin against yours. “How does it work? Is there a ceremony?”

You slowly unlatch the buckle of his glove, loosening each finger. “No. It’s always done in private. You exchange a set of vows in Mando’a.”

You pause, to look at him with a concerned expression. “I’m gonna fuck them up.”

He puffs out a chuckle and turns his hand over so you have easy access to the alm. “Doesn’t matter. It’s about the intention behind them.”

You nod your head in agreement, pulling his glove the rest of the way off and tucking it off to the side. “Will you let me? Let me take you as my riduur?”

You revel in the feeling of his bare skin upon your own as you contemplate how you’ll answer - of course you know the answer you’ll give him already, but you have to figure out how you’ll actually say it. You lace your fingers in his own. “Yes, Din. Of course, I will.”

He stares, unmoving.

“Just like that, you say yes to marrying a person you’ve never even seen before?”

You sigh, immediately understanding where this line of questioning was going. Din was always a self-deprecating soul - someone who didn’t understand how he could deserve, or earn, happiness in his life. Someone who saw himself as a means to an end more than as anything else.

“Din… I’ve seen enough of you to know you’re human. That’s good enough for me. I don’t need to see you to know I love you.”

His helmet droops, looking away. “You’ve never wondered?”

You shake your head no. “Not really. I try not to let myself. I respect you and your Creed far too much to allow my thoughts to go down that road.”

“What if I’m ugly? Beneath all the beskar?”

You tilt your head to the side and smile genuinely at him. There’s that self-deprecation creeping in again. “A man as good as you could never be. I see you, Din Djarin, through all the beskar. And Din Djarin the man - not Din Djarin the Mandalorian - is a kind and compassionate soul. He’s an honorable and righteous man, a great father, and a very worthy romantic partner. You could never be ugly to me, because that is how I see you, helmet or not.”

He doesn’t move, only speaks lowly, nearly a whisper.“What if I’m… disfigured? Or horrifying? Or something else?”

You smile again, rubbing the back of his hand as you hope to settle his nerves. You can tell he has built all this up into something major in his mind. “Then I’d learn to love that, too. But it doesn’t matter, because I will never, ever, ask you to break your Creed for me.”

The two of you sit in silence for a few moments, pleasant as you stare into his visor, hoping that any change might alert you to his current mental state. He’s the first one to break the silence.

“I know you wouldn’t ask it. It’s part of the vows.”

You blink a few times, not understanding. “What’s part of the vows?”

He responds quickly. “I have to show you my face.”

You’ll feel badly about it later, but in the moment you’re so taken aback by it that your voice raises and comes out like a blaster shot. “You what?”

You can hear a audible deep sigh through the modulator, his tone exasperated. “We vow to share all with one another. I have to share this, too. There are no secrets between riduurs. It’s why they’re always done in private.”

You squeak out an “oh”, but that’a all you can manage.

“Do you… still want to? If you don’t, I wouldn’t…”

You shift quickly, gathering both of his hands in your own as you pull yourself closer to him. You want him to see that you are serious about this. “Yes. Kriff, yes, of course I do.”

“Even if…” You shake your head and cut him off before he can start.

“No. Din. Even if I could never see your face. Even if you were the most conventionally ugly human in the entire galaxy. I. Want. To. Marry. You.” He nods a little bit in acceptance. “How soon can we do it?”

Shifting in his seat, he squeezes your hands back in his own. “Whenever you want, cyar’ika. It’s just us.”

You look toward the barren lands in front of you and then back to him. “Can we do it now? Here?”

He sighs again, and you can tell how baadly this conversation must have been wearing on his soul. “If that’s what you want, yes.”

“Then tell me the vows.”

He’s visibly taken aback by your sudden response, floored by the way you’ve been responding to him since he first brought this all up. “You… really? Right now?”

You sit up in the chair a little more, smiling, waiting, hopeful “I’ve waited long enough, Din - I’m not wasting another moment without you being mine. What are the vows, Din?”

He stutters out a response. Even though he knows these vows by heart, sharing them with you sends him spiraling into a nervousnss that he’s never felt before.“I, uh… T-There are four of them: Mhi solus tome. We are one when together. Mhi solus dar’tome. We are one when parted. Mhi me’dinui an. We share all. Mhi bajuri verde. We will raise warriors.”

You smile. The vows - like all things Mandalorian - are short and sweet. But that means that every vow - every word - every letter - means that much more. Din tells you each vow again, this time addressing you directly. He goes slowly, and helps you through each vowel that feels foreign on your tongue. You stumble the most over the last one - the heavy-handed language is like a sticky substance stuck to the roof of your mouth, but you make it through to the other side and you look at him, hopeful.

There’s a lightness to your heart that you don’t recognize when Din tells you, “Then it is written in song, my riduur.”

Your face erupts into a wild grin, never having thought youd see the day that he would can you mine. “Riduur…” You test out the word on your tongue, feeling like you could have been floating on clouds.

His hands squeeze yours, pulling you out of your thoughts and back into the moment.

“Yes. My riduur, Lady Djarin.” Your cheeks hurt from smiling so much for so long, but you just cant make yourself stop. You can’t help the expression that forms on your face at his words.

“Lady Djarin. I like it.” He chuckles, smoothing one ungloved hand over your cheek. He grabs your hands in his and places them on either side of his helmet.

“Help me fulfill the rest of my vows to you?”

You nod your head, yes, knowing that this moment would be emblazoned in your memory forever. This evening would change everything. In a new house, on a new planet, with a newly christened relationship, and a tiny wizard of a green child, this is where you and Din finally became one. One clan, one partnership, one shared bond - forever.

And it turns out, you couldn’t wait.

riduur - spouse

riduurok - marriage/love bond

aruetii - outsider

cyare/cyar'ika - beloved one; term of endearment

#din djarin x reader #din djarin #din djarin x y/n #din x you #din dijarin fanfiction #writing #no beta we die like men #this might be incoherent #im posting it anyway

193 notes · View notes

omgwhatchloe · 6 months

Text

lets talk about sean macguire, or more specifically, his none-existent recovery and how it affected him before his death.

so as we all know, sean is captured by bounty hunters after the blackwater ship robbery goes horribly wrong. it’s confirmed in a side mission that he was tortured for information, most likely because ike skelding and his crew wanted to be the ones to bring dutch in as well, but he specifically mentions how they burnt his feet and pulled his teeth.

lets start with the affect of them pulling his teeth: it doesn’t take a genius to know ike skeldings bounty hunters are not fully trained dentists with numbing cream and injects, nor did they actually care about any of the long-lasting damage they were doing to sean, since they assumed he’d be getting hung and wanted to have their fun with him. that was the whole point, to torture him because any teeth related pain, i think we can all agree, is the worst of the worst. afterwards, he is seen struggling to eat, i think at least multiple people online have said they have noticed how he will only have one or two bites, or even none at all, and pour away the mostly full stew. i haven’t bothered to focus on anyone else’s eating habits, if im being honest, but i think i really picked up on seans because of the fact hes trying to eat with missing and likely damaged teeth. as we know, no one in camp really bothers to ask him if he’s okay or pick up on this, but this is not surprising as after all they are just codes and scripts and no voice actor has the time to record their characters entire life.

next, the feet burning: the fact they burnt his feet implies to me and gives me the idea that he was hanging from his arms at some point in his time of being captured and they had pretty clear access to his feet (ew). in camp, i did actually notice him walking funny like he was drunk, then having completely sober dialogue while limping along. though of course this game is not without its faults and glitches, and dialogue getting messed up is, in my opinion, one of the most experienced ones throughout the entire game, so perhaps this was him being drunk and accidentally having sober dialogue. but im going to pretend its because they burnt his feet.

his none-existent recovery: i actually spoke about this on a different platform, and compared the recovery that arthur had to the one sean had, which they both deserved, and lets just say some people disagreed. according to them, a party is good enough! despite the fact, sean needs to heal, or at least get the chance to see a doctor, and a party is literally the opposite of healing time. he has just been kidnapped, certain he wasn’t going to make it, getting tortured, and mentally that’s going to fuck with you. but again, no one in camp really cares or notices and he doesn’t get to really actually recover from that. obviously sean was not upset about getting a party in the slightest, dont get me wrong, but for other users to claim that’s all he needs while we’re discussing it just seems a little weird to me. and something that has always upset me is the way he is immediately put back to work, that is what i mean when i say he does not get to recover properly, he is straight back on guard duty. and we all know guard duty involves being on your feet for hours, which is especially bad for poor sean who has just had his feet burnt. seriously, give my man a break (NEWSFLASH: A PARTY IS NOT A BREAK IN THIS SITUATION)

anyways, expect another post about his napping and sleeping habits because i honestly can’t wait to write about that (watch out hosea you’re gunna get slandered)

#red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #sean macguire #red dead redemption two #hosea matthews #GIVE HIM A BREAK #PLEASE #sean rdr2 #he is my baby

73 notes · View notes

genericpuff · 4 months

Note

LR is really, really good but I just wanted to say something- this is probably more about the readers than LR itself, but when it's said that LR is so much better than LO artistically (which it is!!), like say in terms of writing, pacing, and art - I think it's also not an apples to apples comparison, since LR has LO to draw inspiration from and a lot of external reactions to LO to learn from for what to do and not to, while LO is both time-constrained and (when it started out), didn't have much basis to compare to.

(The SA plotline is one example.. many criticize RS and say she shouldn't have written it in the first place but that's the thing - she actually didn't know. While I agree it's really shitty and RS has definitely ignored a lot of criticism she should take into consideration, the conclusion that she shouldn't have written it in the first place wasn't something that she knew about until after fans pointed it out. She definitely is mishandling it now, but I think writing that in at the start was born out of actual ignorance - different from her problems now, since she's now actively ignoring and shutting down the feedback she does need to get better. This blowing up educated a lot of people- probably not you specifically- and opened up a lot of dialogue for things that Rachel likely didn't have access to at the start of LO. and has no excuse for now.)

Anyway, yeah - Love Lore Rekindled, thank you for creating it! Genuinely, I do - this ask isn't meant to be a bad thing against you at all, nor do you need to reply to it.

Not a bad thing in the slightest, I honestly agree with you! The reality is that LR wouldn't exist without LO, so to try and compare them feels kind of like... it defeats the point?

Like obviously Rekindled was made with similar intentions, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend like Rekindled wasn't made out of spite over what could have been, but at the heart of it all, it doesn't exist to 'flex' on LO, really it's just to help recapture that joy and beauty that the original comic had that I fell in love with in the first place. It's only because I loved the original concept and foundation of LO so much that it exists. That's also why I call it an "AU" of sorts, as a sort of "alternate reality where LO didn't turn out the way it did" experiment lmao Mostly by maintaining the consistency in the original art style and paying off those earlier plot threads that didn't payoff the way we were anticipating or were dropped entirely. Sure, it's trying (and in some ways succeeding) to be "better" than LO, but that definition of "better" and how it's applied was what we were hoping to get out of LO in the first place.

So yeah, when people say "the art/writing is so much better than LO's!" part of me tries to take it as the compliment it's undoubtedly intended to be, but also I'm like "ack, that's not the point!! the art still doesn't look exactly like LO, I'm failing!!" LMAO I suppose that's part of the magic, but it doesn't fully align with my original goals or intentions. That's the struggle of art stylization, you can try and mimic another person's work as much as you want, but you can never mimic the them that's in their work, just like how you can't remove the you that's in yours. I want to be at peace with my own work and what I put into it, so I try not to compare them too much and just treat them as their own unique separate things (even if one of them is directly trying to resemble the other). It's okay that Rekindled doesn't look or read exactly the same as LO, but in saying that it's 'better' defeats the point of why Rekindled exists in the first place and diminishes LO's part in the process. LO has to exist - all of its best and worst parts - for Rekindled to exist, so putting LO down just to raise LR up... isn't that kind of what we criticize all the time within the comic, how it can't seem to hold up its best parts without putting down others? Why can't they both have their own things worth appreciating on their own exclusive of one another?

This is also why I generally ask people to not share Rekindled with the general Lore Olympus hashtags or post about it in the fan groups (and why I don't mirror it on Webtoons) because I just like... don't want it to come across as some "booo you like LO??? go read this instead!" type deal. I want people to be able to enjoy Rekindled as its own standalone story as an extension of LO, in the form of what could have been. There's a very thin line in the sand between Rekindled being just what it is and it being used against the fans as if it's a crime for them to still genuinely enjoy LO. I can't enjoy LO in good faith anymore, but that doesn't mean I make Rekindled for the sake of ruining that good faith in others. I was a fan too, once upon a time, so Rekindled is just as much for the fans as it is for the people like me who started off loving this comic just to be disappointed in the end and yearning for the "what if" that could have been.

And yeah, it's absolutely an advantage that I have in my court that I have the knowledge of knowing what LO started as and where it went wrong to work off of, an advantage that Rachel didn't have. It's like when I look back on my original pages in Time Gate: Reaper and think "man, I wish I had known xyz when I made these so they could be better!" but if I hadn't made them like that the first time, I wouldn't be able to reflect on them now knowing I've improved. In that same regard, Lore Olympus had to run so that Lore Rekindled could crawl. And I'm forever thankful to LO - and Rachel - for giving us something we could all connect over to such an extensive degree that Rekindled could exist at all.

#ama #ask me anything #anon ama #anon ask me anything #lore olympus critical #lo critical #anti lore olympus #lore rekindled #lore rekindled ama #lore rekindled comic

68 notes · View notes

morallyinept · 3 months

Text

A full transcribe of COMANDANTE VERACRUZ'S dialogue/lines from the film BURN NOTICE: THE FALL OF SAM AXE

Includes full dialogue, and dialogue from any deleted/additional scenes available.

I've created this as a point of reference when writing for Pedro's characters, and I hope you find it useful. Even if you just want to read the dialogue. 🖤

FULL MASTERLIST OF PEDRO CHARACTERS DIALOGUE

☝🏻Dialogue has been fully transcribed by myself using reference to original scripts (if available), audio subtitles and using my own two ears. Therefore, mistakes can be made, however I have tried to be as fully accurate as I can. If you spot an obvious mistake, please kindly let me know. Where audio is not clear, I have marked with *inaudible* Scenes are separated for ease of reference.

FULL SCRIPT DIALOGUE:

It is a pleasure, Commander Axe!

I believe we have mutual acquaintances, trained at the School of the Americas in 92’.

No, no, no, you mean “The Terror”, of course.

We have intelligence that Espada Ardiente is planning to attack an international clinic run by a group called “Doctors for All.”

Unfortunately, yes. Until now they have stayed clear of civilian targets, the clinic sits in a strategic pass in the mountains. We believe the terrorists want to use it to take control of that region.

Fantastic, please.

__________________

I’m sorry doctor, but our intelligence indicates there may be an attack.

That would be best. We can give you until tomorrow-

__________________

She may be with one of the terrorists. We caught her sneaking into one of the trucks.

Of course. Of course, of course… (In Spanish) Let her go. Sorry, miss.

We will make camp nearby. If there is an attack, we will be ready.

__________________

Fantastic. Perhaps you would like to relax, eat some supper? My men and I are going to scout the area.

Actually, señor. It is better if you stay here.

Oh, I am sure you can, Commander Axe, but I am responsible for your safety. If we make contact with the terrorists we will come for you immediately.

__________________

We destroy the clinic. And I shoot the American in the head.

__________________

Did you hear anything else?

It’s okay, you still have an important role to this mission, señor Garcia. When I tell the Americans what happened, I will say you bravely tried to fight off the Espada Ardiente. But sadly, you were killed.

Throw his body in the ravine and take pictures for the report.

With the American gone, there’s no use waiting. We will destroy the clinic ourselves and make the report.

__________________

(In Spanish) Who fired?

(In Spanish) Who fired? I didn’t give the order to fire!

__________________

How did you escape?

We searched for you everywhere. When the terrorists blew up the clinic, we feared the worst.

Yes, they are. Now you see why we need your help fighting this menace.

Excellent. Good to have you back, Commander Axe.

(In Spanish) Let him finish cleaning up. We’ll gather the men.

__________________

The men are ready. We should start looking for the terrorists before they have time to move.

__________________

(In Spanish) Hola, señor Axe.

What is the delay?

Yes, I can see. You… are an excellent tracker. You are also an excellent liar.

I just spoke with Department Governor Perez. His men intercepted your call an hour ago. I… I am hurt you think so little of me. You honestly thought I would take no precautions?

No.

No, I don’t think it is a misunderstanding. I think I understand very well. Now… show me where they are on the map.

I might. I might not. The question is whether you want to die here or keep breathing a bit longer and hope you prove useful enough to save. Show me where the camp is. If you are wrong, I’ll put a bullet in your brain and maybe that will help you remember.

(In Spanish) Where are you? Get over here!

__________________

(In Spanish) We think they’re hiding in a building in the valley.

(In Spanish) Whatever it is, it will be gone shortly.

__________________

(In Spanish) Why are they stopping?

__________________

(In Spanish) Tell the men to stop shooting.

(In Spanish) Do it!

(In Spanish) You hear that? They’re barely shooting. Attack!

__________________

(In Spanish) It looks undefended. We should be able to destroy… What the hell?

(In Spanish) It’s the American…

Our surrender? Is that supposed to be funny?

Count a dozen men with old rifles. Farmers by the looks of them.

You’re bluffing.

We should finish him.

(In Spanish) Get out! Get out of the trucks now!

__________________

DELETED SCENE:

(In Spanish) Have the men spread out. On my signal…. we move out.

Shoot them.

We have a job to do, Capitan. We were asked to supply a massacre. Is there a problem?

__________________

FULL MASTERLIST OF PEDRO CHARACTERS DIALOGUE

#pedro pascal #comandante veracruz #pedro pascal characters #comandante veracruz burn notice the fall of sam axe #burn notice the fall of sam axe #PPCU #comandante veracruz dialogue

33 notes · View notes

steddieunderdogfics · 26 days

Text

This week’s writer spotlight feature is: MISSBERRYCAKE! They have six fics posted to AO3 in the Stranger Things fandom and five of them posted to the Steddie tag!

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by Missberrycake:

When the Sun is High (I'll Meet You in the Woods)

An Act of Grace

If I Loved You Less.

Blackbird

The Wonder

"I'm nominating missberrycake for a spotlight because I've loved a number of her works that I think have been underappreciated. Her pieces can be quite melancholy, but I think are really lovely and always leave me feeling content. She writes dialogue and characters in a very believable and layered way. I first came across her after her most popular fic, though I think she's done some fabulous ones since!" -- anonymous

Below the cut, Missberrycake answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

Ooh, I have a long and storied past with shipping and, while I've been a Stranger Things fan since the start, I hadn't really picked up any shipping threads until S4. I think Steve and Eddie have a great mix of that jock and loser dynamic and enemies to lovers vibe that works really well - but also the ending to S4 was really ripe for some good angst storytelling. A little reminiscent of Stucky or Reddie.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

Hm. I'm not sure. I am a sucker for time travel, but I don't think I've red too much of that. Probably slow-burn - I just love being frustrated!

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

Well … according to my most used tags on Ao3, it's AUs and Time Travel, and Friends to Lovers shows up there as well, which all sound right. I know that I'm enjoying a book or show or whatever when I think, I need to write and AU of this!

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

Ahh! That's too hard - I have a lot of bookmarks for fics I love! It’ probably a battle between Lovesick in Loch Nora by red0aktree and standing up the dead by heartofwinterfell. The first is so gah, you know? So romcon. The latter, I love the concept. Even though it's Max-led, Eddie is fabulously done in that fic, for sure.

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

Not really - ideas tend to swoop in when I'm not actively thinking about it. I have had a niggling little thought about a folklore esque cryptic came back wrong story, something creepy, you know. But we'll see!

What is your writing process like?

Overly organised! I'm a planner, so I need to know what the ending is before I start - I will generally map out acts and scenes and character arcs before I write the first sentence, which I think helps me immensely so that I don't have to do so many edits later.

Do you have any writing quirks?

I'm sure I must do, but I don't know about them. I guess - I'll tend to write all my dialogue in a scene first as a but of a template and then fill in the gaps.

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

Oh, when I've finished for sure. The only time I've ever abandoned a fix was when I posted as I was going on a schedule and it really killed the enjoyment of it for me - too much pressure on timing and the lack if ability to go back and fiddle with things.

Which fic are you most proud of?

I'll stick to my Steddie fics, so it would have to be An Act of Grace, for the Bigbang. I adore that fic, honestly, and worked really hard on it. I think it came out almost exactly how I wanted it and I was so excited when posting finally arrived!

How did you get the idea for An Act of Grace?

It was two things, really - firstly I had watched ‘Howards End’ with Joseph Quinn in and fully needed to see Eddie in the similar time period, I could not get it out of my head - the idea of a servant Eddie and aristocratic Steve came to me pretty quickly after that and was too perfect. Also, though, I wanted to do something with a distinctly English vibe to it (I am English!) - I sometimes feel a bit at sea writing USAmerican characters and settings, so something more familiar I though might work better for me.

When writing When the Sun is High (I’ll Meet You In the Woods), what was something you didn’t expect?

For it to be so popular, actually! Particularly as it was being posted. It's my most popular Steddie fic by a country mile and I'm really fond of it - trying to get a version of Steve and Eddie who had a history to work with canon was a fun challenge.

What inspired If I Loved You Less?

Well, its an Emma AU, so Emma! I was watching the most recent film adaption and NEEDED to write it, but I also loved Clueless growing up, so putting a modern twist on it made the most sense to me. The placement of characters in that story was very fun!

What was your favorite part to write from Blackbird?

The tree decorating scene, for sure. I love that part of Christmas myself, so I had a great time adding in little bits and pieces from people I know and traditions they have.

How do/did you feel writing When the Sun is High (I’ll Meet You In the Woods)?

Gosh, it feels like it was so long ago! I was just excited to get something out into fandom, I think, and to become part of the community.

What was the most difficult part of writing The Wonder?

Ooh, probably knowing that it wasn't going to do very well? 😄 I completely love that little fic, so to kind of keep it contained to just Eddie and Wayne - even mostly Wayne - was tricky. Sometimes less is more!

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

Hm. In the epilogue of An Act of Grace, Claudia gives a little speech about Steddie. I think I like that a lot for the way it kind of sums everything up so nicely. A bit of a snapshot of them as characters.

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

Nope! I've taken a bit of a break from writing at the moment, buy I've been at it for 13 years, so I'm sure I'll be back at it in the future.

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

Just to say thank you to whoever submitted my name! It's made my month, probably!

Thank you to our author, Missberrycake, and our anonymous nominator! See more of Missberrycake's works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

#steddie #steddie fic recs #eddie munson #steve harrington #steve x eddie #stranger things #steddie writers #writer's wednesday #writer's spotlight

23 notes · View notes

journey-to-the-attic · 28 days

Note

Hi Kin. I wanted to ask, how did you manage things like writer's block or creative burnout while writing JTTA? I'm midway through a longfic now and it's kind of exhausting. I feel like I'm whining but I barely get any comments or asks or anything.

hi anon! honestly i'm not sure if i was the right person to ask this, because i... kind of didn't? as in, i didn't really have these problems - boring answer, i know!

i got lucky because i hit a sweet spot where the base story and characters were strong, but with just enough gaps in plot, worldbuilding, development, etc. such that the momentum of filling everything in carried me through the whole process. but there were definitely a lot of occasions where i sat there thinking "okay i have no idea what to do now"

in those cases, often i had to just step back and ruminate on it for a little while - i've pretty much constantly got little ideas bouncing around my head, and sometimes they hit each other like snowballs and form into more fully-fledged plot points, scenes, dialogue, so on. i try to keep track of these in notes apps, personal discord channels, etc, and dip into them if i'm stuck on something!

not sure if your fic is for obey me, but this could still apply even if not - with all the pop quizzes and devilgrams that put the characters in a bunch of new contexts, it's helpful seeing how that character's static vs dynamic traits persist/change depending on them, and often that'll give you inspiration as well. depending on what you've got available, you could browse through source material, or brainstorm aus, whichever you enjoy most

i'm really not sure HOW i've stuck with obey me for so long, but somehow it's just stuck with me. i don't remember being so invested in it before jtta, so that's probably why, but i just really love these guys, and i suppose that's why i never burnt out of it? i think it was also because i knew what story i wanted to tell, and i really wanted to make sure ik got her happy ending, and that carried me through as well

seriously, though - do take breaks. every writer's mileage varies, so take a step back whenever you need to. writing fics should be fun! sometimes it does feel like a chore, and it becomes more like 'the only thing i hate more than writing is not writing', but it happens to all of us. sometimes you've just got to rest until your second wind comes along

in terms of comments and such... yeah, it's a tough one! the unfortunate thing is that a vast majority of readers - even if they really enjoyed your writing! - won't leave a comment. don't take this as a direct reflection on your writing! often the reader can't think of what to say, is too shy, or quite simply forgot

again though... i'm not sure if i'm the best person to ask for advice here! i started publishing jtta without much expectation for an audience, given the genre of game it's written for, so any attention was more a nice surprise than anything. i suppose that, later on, when the fic was more well-established, i did start holding some expectation of response - and it really is tough when you don't get as much of one as you were hoping for

i've seen people talking about how the ask culture on tumblr has died down a lot in recent times, so i'm sure you're not the only one feeling like this! all i can suggest is trying to find more friends (mutuals?) and... networking, i guess? i've seen advice saying to share your fic within communities of writers, too

i can't honestly say if these things'll work, because i'm very bad about interacting with a wider fandom in anything - i usually keep to myself, so often i don't have much of an expectation for how and when people come chat. as in real life, i'm only a chatterbox when approached first haha

i'm not sure how helpful this has been, but i'm rooting for you! if you'd like to share your fic here, please do - though i understand if that's something you'd rather keep to yourself as well.

creating things is a joy - it might take some searching to find a circle, but the beauty of the internet is that you will, somewhere out there! wishing you the best ^^

#answering asks #anon asks

13 notes · View notes

aerodaltonimperial · 5 months

Text

✨Fic Writing Review 2023✨

Tagged by @rosabellebelieve and oh girl. Ain't nobody ready for these stats LOL. Uh oh. Also, I've removed all collab fics for purposes of this, as it doesn't really seem fair since I only wrote, like, half of them lmao.

Words and Fics

268,626 words in 2023 (mother of god)

52 fics on AO3 (dear christ)

I'm not even counting Tumblr ficlets, oh god, don't make me

Top 5 Pairings

💚🖤Jack/Darby (24) (NUMBER ONE???? how tho)

🧡🖤Hook/Danhausen (23)

💚🧡Jack/Hook (5)

🔮🍑Julia/Anna (4)

🧡🎤Max Caster/Hook (3) & 🧡🍊Orange/Hook (3) (HAHAHAHAHA)

Top 5 by kudos

i found love where it wasn't supposed to be (right in front of me) [Hookhausen]

man of lesser words [Hookhausen]

don't need a cure for love [Orange/Hook]

baby please (would you read my eulogy) [JungleCorpse]

you're the realest thing i've never had to fake [Hookhausen]

Top 5 by hits

baby please (would you read my eulogy) [JungleCorpse]

i found love where it wasn't supposed to be (right in front of me) [Hookhausen]

now you know how i feel [Hookhausen]

Weekend in Fresno: or, a Hook choose your own dating adventure [Hook/everyone]

threat level: euclid [HH, JC, SP]

Fandom Events in 2023

I made it to a wrestling show! Since they never go near me and my life is what it is, I really can't manage more than one a year, and I've got to be lucky to get that to work, but this was a big deal and I'm so happy that I could make it happen!

ALSO I MADE UP A FUCKING PAIRING AND GOT IT TO THE #1 FOR BOTH PARTIES INVOLVED you know what this counts as an event LMAOOOOO i'm thinking no one should actually have this power

Upcoming Projects

If I ever stop bemoaning my perceived lack of skill, I've got 2/3 of a fic that Vamp prompted dialogue for, largely me writing something fluffy and saccharine because she was trying to write smut and we were both trying to write out of our wheelhouses lol

Writing reflection

Well! 2023 was quite a year, honestly. I was going to be like OH HOLY SHIT about my word count but when I took our collabs, it dropped so fast, so that's good, I guess (???). I'm still so happy I discovered wrestling, because it's been easily 12 years since I had this amount of creativity for a single fandom. And this year I really stretched out and started writing new stuff within the wrestling fandom! That's exciting (depending what you followed me for, I suppose LOL).

But more than anything else, this year I looked at what I wanted to write and said, FUCK IT, I'M WRITING IT. And I started dropping horror shit I fully expected that no one would read, because I didn't think people came to fandom for spooky stuff??? And lo and behold, y'all really showed up for those fics! I'm forever grateful you saw me writing absolutely batshit horror and were like yes, Katy, we will also read this creepfest. So much love.

I also tried to write more smut, which I am not particularly adept at, and also some darker themes. I do try to write lighthearted things, haha, but my own mental state has been not stellar, and I think that tends to come out in my fics. And I started writing femslash, which this fandom needs so much more of! So. All in all, a real banger year for me in fandom. I'm pretty proud of a LOT of the fics I wrote this year.

And, obviously, 2023 would not be complete with me mentioning that Vamp and I produced an epic shit ton of words together, and MORE IMPORTANTLY had an absolute blast in doing so. What a whirlwind writing together has been!!! I think we've really gotten to this point of just great flow, and I'm super proud of how we work so well like we do. We DO HAVE SOMETHING ELSE COMING but we've been "planning" it since August and haven't written it yet, so HAHAHA. Anyway. Expect that in 2025, or something. ;)

Rules: Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. Would rather eat glass than do this? Please do eat glass, I’ve heard it’s good for your gums.

Tagging: @whysamwhy123 @meeplanguage @fille-lioncelle and anyone else who wants to take a stab at this!

20 notes · View notes

pancake-breakfast · 8 months

Text

Finishing this volume up earlier than usual isn't going to lessen the pain, but it might free me up to do a few more write-ups I need to do.

Stream-of-consciousness thoughts for TriMax Vol. 10, Chapters 6-8 below.

Chapter 6: The Return

The return of what?? What is there to return??? Are they just gonna go back to the orphanage? The return of Livio?? I ask all these things like Nightow's not gonna answer that in the next however many pages.

Yeah, I imagine punches hurt a lot more when YOU DON'T HAVE ANY SKIN.

Ugh, Vash just... standing there, listening to Wolfwood beat the shit out of Razlo. I'm not sure what he's thinking or feeling, but I'm not sure I want to know.

I like Livio... but I think I'd be ok with Razlo never being whole again.

Vash.... Wolfwood, stop punching and go hug your mans or something. He's not doing so well.

Oh, Raz. Chapel wouldn't help you if he could. He never cared enough about you for that.

Dear lord, that's not a healthy thing to do, Wolfwood. I realize you don't have any control over it, but maybe it's time to just stop for a bit. (Side note: props to Nightow for not having his characters just arbitrarily coughing up blood all the time. Really increases the impact when they finally do.)

THE FUCK. DON'T DOWN THE LAST VIAL. YOU'RE JUST SPEEDING UP THE INEVITABLE.

Gods, Raz regenerates quickly.

Huh, his living minions have names, and he knows them. I wonder if the one he turned into chaff had a name.

I dunno if Vash is gonna tolerate this.

Yeah, Vash says no. Kicks for you. He'll allow Wolfwood to finish his business with Raz because he knows this is important to Wolfwood, but if he doesn't get to interfere, then neither does anyone else.

In this moment, I fully believe Vash will kill them if they don't lay off. That said, I'm not sure they're fully human and not some sort of construct.

Raz is doing a great job talking despite not having lips. *mumbles something indistinct about episode 12 of Stampede*

Huh???

LIVIO!!! My boi is here to save his big bro!

Gods, I love these panels. I love how they're set up like two different characters.

Wolfwood knows something's up.

Where the hell did the other Punisher come from? That's Chapel's Punisher. Isn't he dead??

DAMMIT, FUCK THIS GUY SO HARD WITH A *redacted* RIGHT IN THE *redacted* UNTIL HE *redacted* AND *redacted, AND THEN *redacted* HIS *redacted* WITH A *redacted* UNTIL IT LOOKS LIKE SWISS CHEESE!!! FUUUUUUUCCCCKKK!!!!

Ugh, I told you, Raz. I'm sorry, my guy. I know how much it sucks to find out someone you thought was there to take care of you and who you thought valued your life only ever saw you as a pawn toward a different end.

What's more, Raz, is I just skimmed back and what you probably thought was a half-hearted attempt by Wolfwood to smack you away from himself in fear probably just saved your life.

Finish that bastard off. Please. Make sure he doesn't get up again. Make sure he never hurts anyone else again. Finish what your brother started.

Honestly, Nightow could have put absolutely no dialogue on these panels and I'd still be able to hear Raz scream.

Nah, scale it back, Razlo. I know you don't know the meaning of the words, but to quote Stampede Wolfwood, he's not the one who hurt you.

Freaking Livio, man. (affectionate, full of admiration)

Listen to him, Raz. You exist to protect him. If he says you're done, you're done.

Yes. If it weren't for you, Livio would be dead. But the fight is over. It's time to end this, Razlo.

There's something very important about apologizing to yourself for the unhealthy and/or dangerous coping mechanisms you forced yourself to build up... and in forgiving yourself for for them, too.

Ah, the little peons have gone passive now that their master has receded.

Freaking Wolfwood took this time to find and light another of his terribly crushed cigarettes. Freaking addict.

Chapter 7: Wolfwood

No no no no. I know where this chapter goes. I'm not ready.

For the record, I'm just gonna play take a little hand by yoko kanno on repeat the whole time I read this chapter. It's literally been stuck in my head since I got hit with the volume's feels last night, so I'm gonna just ride it out.

"Sleep on a proper bed as much as you can." This is such a good wish. If one has ever been poor enough not to have a proper bed for any length of time, they get it. It's a wish for the luxury of simple comforts, like wishing for someone to have a full stomach or clean clothes.

He thought he was joining a good organization, a group that would help others. He was just a child.

TBH, he looks younger here than he looks in some of the other flashbacks. Here, he looks like he's eight, but in some of the others, he looks like he's 12-14.

We don't have time for the ark now, Brad! And by "time," I mean "emotional energy for whatever those crazies intend to do next." Make 'em go away!

Vash opens the door for the people from the orphanage to come out... but we don't see his face. That feels ominous. I wonder if he's managing one of his fake smiles at this point, or if he's not even bothering for once. (I say "for once," but it feels like his mask falls a lot more these days than it used to.)

Yyyyeah, it might have been a good idea to clean up some of the bodies first. Or let the kids out through the back or something.

*sigh* Vash just wanted to give them some time together.

Man, Livio looks wrecked. Not physically. Emotionally.

Ah, Brad dropped Vash off. That explains that. I remember the ship and I remember thinking it looked like one of Home's vessels, but I wasn't sure if Vash had driven it or what. I like to imagine Vash just jumped out of it from way too high up.

Heh. Wolfwood knows he can't fool Miss Melanie, but he's still trying to protect the kids. Or... maybe he's trying to protect himself. He doesn't want them to see him like this, to think of him like this.

Honestly, given how young some of these kids were, it's a wonder so many of them remember him.

Vash, still holding out hope that maybe, just maybe, they can save him.

Nicholas Dickolas Wolfwood! You're only giving Vash that coin and saying, "This is who I really am," and all that bullshit because you're trying to make your passing easier on Vash, to drive him away so it maybe hurts him less. But you are too late for that. Idiot. He LOVES YOU. Deeply. It doesn't matter if or even need to be romantic. HE LOVES YOU.

LOL, Livio. Bless this man. Also maybe get him a shirt.

*sigh* Klutz.

Damn Nightow for adding this comic relief here. I know it's a lie.

*more sighing* Aaaaand there's the bottle.

Freaking couch....

Gods. Remember... remember waaaaay back when they first met, and Wolfwood went out of his way to make Vash smile? He truly loves Vash's smile. But there's no way in hell Vash could give him a genuine one right now, and that's the smile Wolfwood truly loves.

Well... dammit, Wolfwood would of course be thinking of that, too. Here I thought I was being all smart about the callback, but Nightow just spelled it out for us.

Vash is about to have a full breakdown here. Usually, it's Wolfwood praying, but this time, it's Vash. He doesn't want apologies. He just... he just wants this person who means so much to him to be here. To keep being here. For as long as possible.

Them throwing ticker tape, just like when he left before. Just like you would for a celebration, like a wedding. You... you know Stampede's opening Tombi references this, too??

Heh. Six years, and they saved all this for when he came back. He was well-loved.

Brad's incensed face in the background.

Miss Melanie went against Wolfwood's request... but she's worked with kids a lot. Desperate, hurt kids. Kids who've had to grow up before their time even if they don't show it on the outside the way Wolfwood does. She knows they're smarter than most give them credit for. And she knows some part of Wolfwood's heart needs this. He needs to know that in spite of everything, he's still loved, even by them.

Wolfwood doesn't strike me as much of a crier, unlike Vash. But... hey, now's as good a time as any, huh?

The iron bell in the tower is ringing.

Yeah. Yeah, I knew this would be the next page.

Livio knows. Vash knows. Vash can't hold it in anymore.

Aaaand the ark is here. This is going to go very, very poorly for someone.

Chapter 8: Final Parting

I'd guess Livio's about to have a very different relationship with the ark than he had before.

Ah, the ark is either not as close as the final page of the last chapter made it seem, or it passed them by for now.

Vash is stress cooking.

Livio, you moron. What did you think was happening??

Side note: I like how Livio's hair has gone from, "I am dead inside and don't care about anything," to something that's almost quirky and childlike.

This is the face of someone who's checked the hell out for the foreseeable future.

TBH, it's probably a good thing Livio clarified his "why." If he hadn't, I dunno if Vash would have been able to stay calm. He's doing his best right now, even if he's checked out.

Yeah, they better animate this in Stampede. They've already set it up to hit like a runaway train.

Gods, I wish it wasn't a billion degrees. I could really go for some tea right now. Hot tea. Coping tea.

Uhh, what happened to Vash's hair?? "But when" is right!

Ah, he took out his grief on the ark. Well, that explains why that big-ass ship is somehow missing.

WTH is so fucking funny, Knives?? Your brother is dying.

Ah, brief return of I-Hate-My-Life Livio hair. Man, this guy talks with his hair. I love it. He really does feel bad about all this now. This isn't what he wanted. Like Wolfwood at the beginning of the story, he just didn't know he could have it any other way.

Vash is right. Eat.

Heh. Vash's little smile as Livio starts eating. Livio's not Wolfwood, but he's someone Wolfwood cared deeply about, and it seems like some part of Vash is willing to accept that, despite everything, a friend of Wolfwood's is a friend of his, especially when said friend is so eager to take up Wolfwood's mantle.

Side note: it amuses me that Livio's left his shredded sleeves on. Like, my boi, your whole shirt is missing. You can probably take those off, too.

This panel. It feels like it snuck in from a completely different manga.

Heh. Vash remembering eating with Wolfwood like this.

Oh, my boi Livio. Sobbing through his food. I imagine Vash is already all cried out for now.

They're just gonna eat their sorrows away. Silverware optional. This is a hand salad now.

LOL, yeah... I had a feeling they were gonna overeat.

Hells, I don't think Livio could forget Wolfwood if he wanted to. But I get the gesture. Vash is reminding Livio that Wolfwood died to save him. And Livio's picking up what he's putting down.

Mm, Razlo is the one used to carrying Punishers, and even he didn't cart around his own. BTW, what happened to those guys?

It's definitely a fitting tombstone.

Props to all y'all who read this the first time in book form and had to turn that last page to see a full frontal of Wolfwood's blow-up doll on the couch at the end. I'm sure that's what y'all wanted to see when you were still up to your eyes in The Feels.

Archive

Trigun Vol. 1: Covers + 1-3, 4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10 || Vol. 2: Covers + Extras, 1, 2-4, 5-6, 7-8

TriMax Vol. 1: Covers + 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 || Vol. 2: Covers + 1, 2-4, 5, 6-7 || Vol. 3: Covers + 1-3, 4-5, 6-7 || Vol. 4: Covers + 1-2, 3-5, 6-7 || Vol. 5: Covers + 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 || Vol. 6: Covers + 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 || Vol. 7: Covers + 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 || Vol. 8: Covers + 1-2, 3-4, 5 + Bonus || Vol. 9: Covers + 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 || Vol. 10: Covers + 1-3, 4-5

Extra Credit: Trigun Vol. 1: Nebraska vs. Vash's Motivations, Vash's Loneliness, Vash's Depression (pt 2 of post), Soupy Brains || Vol. 2: Coin Factoids || TriMax Vol. 1: Lina, Vash, and a Haircut || Meryl, Vash, and the Pursuit of Happiness || Vol. 5: Knives, Vash, and Hatred for Humanity || Vol. 6: Coping Series: Wolfwood, Meryl, Vash || Vol. 8: The Uncoordinated Counterattack || Vol. 9: Justice, Punishment, and Mercy, The Tolling of an Iron Bell

#now if you'll excuse me #i'm gonna go have a therapy session with my cat #she says i need to give her lots of pets to cure what ails me #and maybe play with her a bit too #trigunbookclub #trigun maximum #volume 10 #pancake thoughts

29 notes · View notes

kindlingkeen · 15 days

Note

2 & 23 for the ask game if you haven’t done them already pls :)

2. Do you plan each chapter ahead or write as you go?

A combination. For Guerrilla Tactics, I wrote each chapter as I went. Harm Reduction has an outline for each chapter that was pretty much in place when I started writing. I’m writing Territorial Disputes, my active WIP, as one giant story that I’m going to try and pull apart into chapters at the end.

23. Best writing advice for other writers?

Don’t feel like you have to sit down and just start pumping out blocks of text. Record ideas, snippets of dialogue, sentence fragments, bullet point outlines, etc., as they come to you. Eventually you can start piecing those together and filling in the holes. When I first started writing, I continually psyched myself out by thinking I needed a fully formed idea and the ability to write it out in coherent sentences from the start. Honestly, I still do this.

From this lists of fic writer asks

(Also, friend, rest assured I’m not ignoring your previous ask. It’s a great ask. So great, I wrote like a 10 page dissertation in response, and I’m still working on editing it down into something coherent.)

#keen converses #fic writers ask game #ask box is open!#writing #fanfiction

8 notes · View notes

lemonhemlock · 9 months

Text

finally sitting down to write my barbieheimer review and coming out as an oppenheimer hater so DO NOT PROCEED if you are annoyed by criticism of it or do not want to hear it or whatever. seriously. if you liked the movie, good for you. i did not. this is going to be a long rant. i am so not joking right now.

disclaimer that i went to the cinema with the very best of intentions, wanting and fully expecting to like oppenheimer. while that didn't happen, i loved the double feature experience and do not regret it. i spent the entire day at the mall with my boyfriend and we just had a fun, carefree day. i've wanted to see both and had planned to for a long time and it was great. v interesting as a cultural zeitgeist moment.

that being said, the reason oppenheimer leaves me cold is because it is a fundamentally incoherent movie that doesn't know what it's about, tries to do everything all at once and succeeds in nothing. each hour of running time could have easily been a separate movie: one about oppenheimer's life leading to los alamos, another one about the actual creation of the atomic bomb and another one with the robert downey jr plot.

there are huge disadvantages to trying to cram so many different story beats into one singular movie and, if you ask me, i wouldn't advise anyone to do it. but nolan strikes me as the kind of overrated ~artiste that rarely hears no for an answer. this movie was in DIRE need of a streamlining. you can hire the greatest editor in history, but if you give him that script, they're not going to be able to salvage it.

i thought the editing was consistently bad throughout the movie, but especially atrocious in the first part about oppenheimer's early life. the result of this lack of plot focus is that the movie basically consists in a string of tiny scenes that last for seconds sometimes, all meshed together like a freaking montage. now, to each their own, but i cannot emphasize how much i hate this storytelling choice. no, but i genuinely despise it. whenever i see it, in movies or television, it just drives me up the wall. you can say it's a specific pet peeve of mine or whatever, maybe it doesn't bother others as much, but i honestly do not respect it. i think it's categorically lazy, something we've seen in a hundred different movies already and the most simplistic way of doing an exposition dump. i abhor the feeling of watching a mashup passing itself off as some kind of creative experiment in storytelling.

now, had this overused, lackadaisical introduction lasted a reasonable amount of time (maybe 20 min?), perhaps my stance would not have been so riled up. but it went on for AGES. i think the whole exposition part lasted for about an hour and coupled with the hurried procession of unconnected scenes and the asinine marvel movie semi-upbeat background music, the result was just cringe. and i specifically choose this term because this movie is touted as being a milestone moment in cinema or whatever. genuinely insane to me.

cillian murphy meets florence pugh for the first time and within seconds she starts berating him for not joining the communist party. who speaks like that? no natural progression to the conversation at all, we have to get from point A to point B and that's surely more important. you blink again and they're having sex. she stops mid-act because she has the sudden, irrepressible urge to check out his library (??). she makes him recite his famous aphorism from sanskrit while shoving the Bhagavad Gita in his face. the man is craning his neck in the most uncomfortable sex position ever. there is nothing natural about this, just stilted dialogue and an edgy highschooler's interpretation of a cool flirtation. i struggle to even call it that because they don't even get to flirt. too many conversations in this film sound genuinely inorganic.

everything is so rushed. a three-hour long movie should NOT feel rushed. but this is the natural consequence of trying to cram so many things into it: the scenes are too short and, because of that, lack build-up and, because of that, the atmosphere suffers greatly, the actors don't have time to act, the relationships between them feel forced and the overall movie feels like it intentionally won't allow you to linger or catch your breath because then you'll figure out it has nothing to say. there is hardly any physics in it. there is hardly any social or philosophical commentary. the last third of the movie turns into this random whodunit / who-framed-oppenheimer type of scooby doo plot. that scene with rdj unraveling his evil plot to that young man feels lifted out of an agatha christie novel. why would rdj even care about what that green boy thinks of him? well, it's because that lad is the audience stand-in, of course. another stereotypical storytelling trick we've seen a million times before that nolan resorts to in his quest to create a "masterpiece".

there are some VERY talented people in this cast. a genuine tour-de-force when it comes to acting skills, even in cameo roles. yet no chance of showing any of that. they're just reciting lines because there is no time for anything else. there is no time to let their talent and performance shine. yes, not even cillian murphy, the titular character. i know that man can act because i've seen him for over a decade in various productions. not in oppenheimer though. there's no time. it feels like they're trying to read out to me the entire encyclopaedia britannica in 10 minutes.

i struggle to identify the theme or point of the movie. i heard nolan say it's about the consequences of one's actions. bitch, where? i'm not joking right now, there's like maybe 5 minutes of exploring that in a 3h-movie. i need everyone to stop being so unserious for real. i admit that i haven't been actively searching, but i haven't encountered any criticism either. is everyone just pretending to like this movie because they're afraid of being labelled a philistine? is this an emperor's new clothes type of situation? this whole previous discourse about how people will get bored or need to pay attention to what's happening on screen... there is nothing difficult or philosophical about oppenheimer. it's a very straightforward movie.

to me, it feels like nolan took a very interesting topic in and of itself, namely the creation of the atomic bomb, and did nothing interesting with it. he's just serving me facts about oppenheimer* with little to no commentary attached and a tiny amount of artistic interpretation. i say that because it has, like, that one scene when oppenheimer is imagining the flesh melting off of his audience while giving a war propaganda speech, meant to symbolize his conflicting views. the stream-of-consciousness element could have been an interesting lens through which to tell this story, but it was way under-utilized. this project could have slapped actually had it been filmed exclusively through oppenheimer's POV like an A24 horror movie.

*i say facts but in reality i need to actually fact-check to weed out the fictional elements bc i know next to nothing about this man, other than him spearheading the manhattan project

anyway, it's true that i am being harsh with this movie also because of the (undeserved) hype surrounding it and the inevitable ovations attached to any nolan production. but, imo, it is disappointing for a filmmaker of his calibre, with his experience and resources and the goodwill surrounding him to put out such fundamentally lazy nonsense

onto barbie now. first of all, yes, they're like apples and oranges, but one point of comparison is that this is a a very self-aware movie that never loses sight of what it's about and doesn't meander or diverge pointlessly from its main themes and message. after dismantling oppenheimer, i can't claim that barbie is going to revolutionize cinema or destroy the patriarchy or strengthen womanly bonds worldwide, but it's very on point. it's visually stunning, has a lot of easter eggs and cute details, catchy tunes and just general preciousness. everyone playing a doll was actively adorable. the re-watch quality feels promising, it has a very good chance of becoming a cult classic. it was heartwarming and endearing without being too overly sugary & funny without insulting jokes.

the choice to depict men as reductive and an afterthought as counter-point to how women are often portrayed on screen as accessories was indeed interesting. so was the idea of boys and girls diverging once they "discover" patriarchy. now, don't get me wrong, barbie is not a complicated movie either. its feminism is pretty simplistic, no doubt about it, but it doesn't take itself too seriously either. i do wish that america ferrera's mid-movie speech about women's position in society was a little more refined because those ideas were indeed very basic and kind of eye-roll worthy, like a feminism 101 class. i could have done without helen mirren's voice over (it didn't really add a lot, imo, although the joke about margot robbie was funny). the intro spoofing 2001 space odyssey was a little too on-the-nose as well, so i can't say it's not without a couple of hiccups and cringe moments.

nonetheless, barbie is, by no means, a short movie either. clocking in at 114 min, the pendulum swings towards the "long" side of running times. but, as opposed to oppenheimer, it feels neither rushed, nor drawn out. the pacing is just right. the actors in barbie have the space to shine, even those in small roles. the plot has room to breathe. relationships have room to grow. disregarding the subject matter (in an attempt at objectivity, as one might prefer one topic over the other), strictly from the perspective of storytelling techniques, editing, cinematography & character development, barbie is plainly the superior movie.

#phew #glad i got that off my chest #barbieheimer #anti oppenheimer #barbie #it's weird bc while i do not think oppenheimer is a good movie i did have fun experiencing it in the context of a lovely day out #i don't even necessarily think it's /BAD/ per se. but it is boring and lazy. which may be even worse #my favourite nolan movie remains Dunkirk by far #unmatched by any other of his efforts in terms of immersion + score + emotional impact and with some of the most gorgeous cinematography

32 notes · View notes

afniel · 5 months

Text

I'm into editing (still 2 chapters to write but we're not talking about that yet) and I'm proud to say that I have divested myself of the old habit of starting sentences with the word 'and.'

Unfortunately! I have picked up using 'quite' all the damn time for no reason, and I'll still comma splice a motherfucker to death, especially in dialogue. So there's that. It's at least easier to wrangle than literally 500+ superfluous uses of 'and,' which is what stopped me eventually from editing my old original novella from like, 2007. It was too much to deal with. I just had to stop.

But like. It's still definitely A Thing that I've got to get under control before I even consider posting. Sigh.

For the most part, though? I'm really enjoying the re-reading part of editing. It's actually pretty solid. I think there's some sticky-uppy pacing edges, but it's not as much the actual pacing and more that I just need to sell some events/reactions a little harder. So that's cool. I'm excited as hell and very hopeful that I'll have it out in maybe a week or so.

And honestly I'm trying to make it interesting sci-fi on its own merits. (I'm allowing myself that one initial 'and,' nobody @ me.) I think it'll still potentially be interesting even if you haven't played the games. There's so much personal worldbuilding, exploration of things that the games never get into at all, and alternate canon that I could almost file the serial numbers off, but I don't feel the need. So if you keep thinking it sounds interesting but eeeeh you aren't into Mega Man X...I dunno, give it a shot anyway?

I put a lot of work into turning it into something that's almost standalone in characterization (the only truly onscreen canon character is X himself and he gets fully characterized in the story outside of his ingame history anyway) and definitely standalone in themes, knowing that I've got friends who expressed interest but haven't played any of the games. So hopefully it'll be cool even if you don't go here at all. If you do go here, there are a few name drops that will help certain events hit a little harder, but it's not at all necessary. Think of it more like Easter eggs. There's enough essential information throughout that you should be able to put it together without any background, and I even resisted just infodumping at random, because that's not usually fun in a story.

ANYWAY. SOON. PLEASE LOOK FORWARD TO IT.

Also I'm doing character art and illustrating some of my more favorite moments. Like you do, when you're a weirdo polymath who can do both. So that's fun too.

#mega man x #megaman x #rockman x #mmx #I am Xposting on main again. end me lmao

13 notes · View notes

lover-of-mine · 2 months

Note

Hi Anna!!! 🥰

I wish I could pinpoint one set of lines from "we didn't happen the way we were supposed to (where do we go now?)" Honestly I loved every single word. It made me think about events a different way (from bucks pov for once) and damn.

Anyhoo I'd love the Director's Commentary on your favorite section of that fic pretty please? 🥰

Hi baby, I love that you asked about this fic oaksokasokas

Yk, my thing with that fic in particular is that I hit an "I need to think about how the cemetery felt for Buck", cuz you know me, I'm obsessed with that scene, but I always look at it from Eddie's side, and Eddie makes the decision that Buck is breaking up with him, and doesn't give him the choice, and when you look at the scene, Buck is begging for some sort of reaction from Eddie, but Eddie checked out because Eddie is a runner, so I really wanted to make Eddie confess on that and making Buck call him out on it. And also, I was having a "we give them too much credit when it comes to each other" moment because they misunderstand each other with important things, but since they are so in sync, it won't feel like they aren't in the same wavelength and that creates problems. The cemetery is very easy to use for that, but everything I chose to use on the fic really, the will reveal, Eddie leaving the 118, the grocery store, they are seeing the conversations in different ways. So I wanted those things they don't mention to be addressed while they are angry and hurting and, like, "but you did this" "yeah, because you said that" "i didn't mean it that way" and work up from there. I didn't fully have a goal when I started writing, I actually opened docs to work on the elevator fic that night lol, but then I saw this vision of them fighting, so I just wrote the beginning while trying to contextualize the feeling I wanted from it and then I wrote all of the dialogue up until when Buck kissed Eddie, all in one sitting, no descriptors, just the conversation.

My favorite bit there is actually when Eddie runs away from the kitchen after confessing (because I was already having the huh maybe move them from the kitchen for the getting together feelings lol, and the kitchen is a safe space for Eddie, so getting him out of there makes that tension more clear imo) and Buck is "if you do love me, just stop" because I felt like being called out like that was the only thing that was gonna make this Eddie stop, and that's such a raw thing to ask of somebody, like "please do something you don't want to just because I mean more to you than that" and the way Eddie is all "I'm not making the choice for you" and Buck is all "that's still making the choice for me dumbass" because they are in this place where it feels like Buck thinks he can't ask for more and Eddie thinks he's not enough, and they are taking the choice away from the other because of it, so that was a fun tension to play with while they were fighting. Also, I make it a rule pretty much when writing, to make Buck make the first move, be the first one to address it, to actually say the words, or just the make decision to kiss Eddie, because he never does start things, and I think he needs to, but I tried this with this story for like 5 minutes before deleting it all and making Eddie just say it in the middle of more stuff and Buck having to scramble to deal with it while they were still fighting was the way to go, because I wanted them both to be in a headspace where they think they'll have to take the fact that they love each other to the grave to not lose the friendship. I'm particularly obsessed with the “I can't ask for more of you.” “Everything is already yours!” exchange, because I feel like I really hit something there, Buck things he needs to settle for what he can get and Eddie thinks what he has is not enough, so. if they just said the words, things would move for them, but they just won't ask for what they want.

But I think there I was really thinking to myself "Do I write Eddie as too understanding? Am I making Buck a villain in the cemetery without considering how he's feeling? And do they really understand each other as well as we make it seem like?" It's why it starts right off the bat with the "you're exhausting" comment and escalates from there because things between them would be easier if they just said what they mean every once in a while.

Ask me for the “director’s commentary” on one of my fics?

#i'm obsessed with that fic #it was so easy to write once i understood the feeling i should go for #and i think that one translated so well #i needed both of them to be wrong in a way #and find the middle ground #because theyre already there #they just refuse to talk about it #thank for asking about this one i love it and i did want to ramble about it oaksoaksokaoska #gracie fic #maggie 💜#i really need a tag for asks

7 notes · View notes