#but i think some fic writing would be a good exercise to get those creative juices flowin
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at some point im gonna make a fic ☝🏾 . maybe
#NO PROMISES lmao#i stayed up all night rereading old fanfics from 10+yrs ago i wrote and it was funny as fuck i had no business writing half of that SAJKDS#rn im kinda swarmed w school and work and ykno just the regular smegular stuff#and im workin on creative projects on the side#but i think some fic writing would be a good exercise to get those creative juices flowin#that and i love me some gojo thats my man fr#i think i sike myself now if i feel like its a task but writing is srsly fun#im gonna make a list of rules or w/e those imagine blogs have so yall can send in prompts soon too
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Stole the Moon - Chapter Six
CW: My content is not for anyone under 18. Minors DNI. Reader uses she/her pronouns. Character death (mom related)
Word Count: 1.1K
Summary: In sleep, a memory comes back to you, forcing you yet again to remember a painful part of your past. Buggy is smitten but god forbid he ever tells you. You make a plan to visit a friend.
A/N: I still feel – at all times – like I am being hit with a bus. Oh my god that is so dramatic, okay no. I don't actually feel like that, but I am getting some burnout.
I think that is fairly common with fic writers, especially when you know you have a story to tell but getting it out takes a while.
However, writing and posting does help with my mental health as it is a good creative exercise, so, to make a compromise, I decided that this chapter and maybe the next few will be a bit shorter than normal.
Thank you all for reading and commenting and liking and re-bloging. I recently got the update that let's me comment back as moon-huny in the mentions so you best believe Imma be doin that now.
Okay, that's all, enjoy.
masterlist ✧˖°
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As soon as the air hit your little lungs, you began to cough up sea water onto the rocks beside you. Still not registering much in your state, you heard voices clamoring around you.
“She’s alive”
“Course she is, I saved her”
Waves hit rocks and rain pelted your face. Squinting through the gales, you could make out those most gorgeous creatures you’d come to befriend.
“Please, you have to help! My mother! She’s … where is she?” You were frantic and screaming over the storm.
“Well we didn’t like her as much as you”
“She was already bound to drown no matter which way you look at it”
They weren’t yelling back at you. They were barely moving their mouths. You couldn’t hear a word they were saying and, truth be told you never could, they spoke like the waves, hushed and foreign.
They tread the water with such ease even though the sea was churning all around them. They had placed you on a small rocky island, close enough to see the shore but nowhere near close enough for you to swim to it.
“I can’t … I can’t understand you! Please! My mother! Where is she? Please, save her too!” You could no longer tell whether it was rain all over your face or your tears.
You couldn’t quite tell how many there were, they all swam around you like sharks around prey. They would dip in and out of sight coming up briefly to exchange glances and what you thought were words.
“We don’t like her”
“She’s already dead girl”
They made eye contact with you, their lips moved but nothing you could understand fell out of them. You began to shout. “Mama! Mama!” but you knew it was futile.
“I want to give her the fruit,” said one to another. Perhaps it was out of pity at your crying form shivering in the storm or maybe it was their love of tricks but it was that moment they decided what they wanted to do with you.
///
You tossed and turned in your sleep as he watched you. Sitting upright in bed, one of his arms perched on his bent knee. He just looked down at you. The ocean was quiet while you slept.
He’d awoken only a little while ago to a knock at the door. If he were honest though it was more of an aggressive pounding at the door. It just so happened that the two goofballs obsessed with one another were looking for you. He’d dismissed them when he opened the door just slightly to reveal your sleeping – presumably naked – body.
After they left, he had the opportunity to wake you, begin a day full of questions and fights to get the upper hand away from you. But that could wait. While he watched you sleep, that could all wait.
You slept on your stomach clutching a pillow the way he wished you would cling to him. You weren't awake, there was nobody here, he could let himself think whatever he wanted, and he wanted to think about you.
The way your eyebrows furrowed in your sleep and your lashes would flutter made him weak. You were so beautiful and full of danger and uncertainty. Any pirate with half a mind would have kept you in a cell far below deck, confined to a tub of seawater, behind multiple padlocks.
Hostages weren’t new to Buggy or his crew. Sure, he knew he had a few bleeding hearts here and there but nobody disobeyed him. This was his ship, his crew and he wanted you to be a part of it.
You began to stir. Slowly you opened your eyes to find Buggy on the other side of the room pilfering through maps and charters and journals. You could have sworn you’d felt his presence beside you. He was so warm and you’d woken up with the thought of embracing him.
“If you were as good at using your power as you were at sleeping I’d be sailing the Grand Line by now,” he said in no way regarding you.
The opposite could be said of you. The man stood at his desk, low hanging trousers not concealing anything as it seems this morning he was too hot to put on a shirt.
“What are you looking at?” you asked, rubbing the sleep from your eyes and looking for something to cover your body with.
Your voice in the morning sounds like heaven, he thought. “Get up and see for yourself, sweetness.” He smirked over at you.
You rolled your eyes which did land on an article of clothing at the end of his bed. Grabbing it and throwing it over your head you realized it was his shirt. You gathered yourself off the bed and walked over to him in nothing but his own clothes.
Leaning against the edge of the desk next to him you pushed yourself up to sit next to all of his important work. His eyes flicked over to you and slowly moved down your body.
“So what are we looking at?” You ask him, sucking your lower lip in between your teeth and giving him a sweet smile.
“I’m looking at an attention seeking whore.” He throws back at you.
That’s okay. You know you’re winning.��
Your eyes travel lower to that oh so desirable part of him. “And I’m looking at a certain pirate that is terrible at hiding how he responds to the attention seeking whore.
You liked this. The banter helped you take your mind off of the intense memory you were having. One you really desperately wanted to wake up from.
Your eyes drifted across the desk to a sketch of a mermaid skeleton.
“You know anything about those, Clown?” you asked.
“What happened to Captain?” he responded by raising an eyebrow when you looked back at him with frustration. He sighed when he realized you were the toughest crowd he’d ever performed to.
“Not a lot, babe so quit with the questions.”
“You know,” you said, hopping down from the desk and confronting him head on. “I think I might be more willing to explore these so-called powers I have if I knew a bit more about myself.”
“Well, talking about feelings isn’t really daddy’s forte so maybe go find someone else to gab with.” You soured at the mocking use of the nickname he’d pulled last night. The name he clearly didn’t have a problem using for himself but one you were a little embarrassed you liked.
“Fine, maybe I will,” you responded, turning your back to him to hunt for your clothing and planning your trip to Beau’s.
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚
taglist: @tokoyamisstuff @mommymilkerfanclub @chaoticqueen33 @tootoomanycats @cefni @ruledbyproblematique @crayolacat-lilybelle @melissahew @hallow1090 @soulkingbimbo @kurinhimenezu @teh-vampire-bunny
taglist is open. (plz let me know if I left anybody out)
#stole the moon#buggy the clown#buggy x reader#buggy fanfic#buggy x you#buggy opla#buggy smut#buggy x y/n#captain buggy#buggy d clown
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For the writer ask meme: 3, 7, 14, 16, 20, 27, 34, 35, 40, 44, 61, 74 (❛ں❛ )✧
From the 'Get to know your fic writer!' ask game.
3) Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic
Typically, I'll start with the overall structure. Where the section breaks go, short summaries (maybe just a couple of phrases) of the contents of each section, placing any scenes I've already started in their proper context, and establishing where I'll swap to a different character, if I'm doing that. Then I'll most likely start at the top and write it through to the end. I can write chapters out of order but find it easiest to take each individual chapter in narrative order. Sometimes I'll have pieces I'm joining up, though, so it's not always a strictly linear process.
And then when I'm done, I'll go over it again and again until I'm happy, cutting the text down to what is absolutely necessary to get my point across: I overwrite a lot on first draft, so there'll always be pruning to do!
7) How do you choose which POV to write from?
Switching character point of view is usually a structural conceit: I'll use it to guide the reader through the different angles of a situation, slowly filling in their understanding of what is going on. It's a great method for creating cliffhangers and sudden twists without being cheap (there will always be an explanation, but POV management allows me to keep it in reserve until the correct moment).
But sometimes there are parts of the story or emotional beats that only make sense from a particular character's perspective. Which is not always the one who is experiencing the beat directly, mind you. When I decided to have show what the new Ryusei-Go was capable of in Fata Morgana, it was because I thought that would be most impactful from an outside POV. Yeah, that's a really intense moment for the pilots, but by showing it at a remove, I was able to focus on how preternaturally effective the combination of developed skill and fine-tuned machine really was -- underscoring the thread throughout Wishing on Space Hardware of how damn scary Tekkadan's legacy is for everyone outside their bubble.
14) how do you write emotional scenes? Do you ever feel what the characters feel? Do you draw from personal experiences?
I don't exactly feel what the characters feel. They're not really feeling anything, they're words on a page. What I'm generally doing instead is looking for the right words and tempo to hit the pitch of an emotion. It's almost like music, I think, in that emotions have a rhythm to them that alters the character voice, and it's a question of tuning the scene until it conveys the right quality. Even something as simple as how the sentences are laid out can have an impact on that.
So for me, it's an exercise in finding the best combination of tricks and description to hit the note I want to convey. And yeah, a part of that is always going to be drawing on my own experiences and trying to capture what those feelings were like. But that's not always as helpful as you'd think. I happen to know exactly what cold fury feels like, for example, but I'm not sure I could describe it beyond simply saying 'cold fury'. That being said, sometimes that's OK. We have these common turns of phrase for a reason, and coupled to the right cues, they can be very powerful.
16) How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?
Lots of ideas, always, but functionally I am currently working on two things. One is just -- all the Yamagi/Shino/+ smut I can think of and think is worth actually attempting to write. Currently a prospective six chapters of various lengths, a variety of situations and additional factors. It'll hopefully be a good time!
The second is, surprisingly, not the mooted Wishing on Space Hardware future-fic. That's still percolating as I try to draw together my ideas on it into something concrete. No, I got hit by the urge to invent some entirely new OCs and have them do a heist story.
The basic concept is a twin brother and sister who join a military company some years before everything kicks off with Tekkadan. They have the Alaya-Vijnana surgery and while it works for the sister, the brother is left paralysed from the waist down ala Bilth. Their dynamic follows from this with them swearing to do absolutely everything to stay together (this group isn't the CGS and doesn't throw out the 'failures' but they are not expected to survive long), with the brother, Kais, eventually becoming a strategist while the sister, Inas, being the obligatory a mobile suit pilot. Fast-forward to three or four years after Tekkadan's final stand and they're planning to rob Gjallarhorn on the eve of Martian independence.
I think it'll fun to explore* and ease me back into writing for characters the reader won't automatically know everything about, after several years of just doing fanfic.
*Bear in mind that 'fun' here involves me looking up the Bolivian Army Ending trope, so pitch your expectations accordingly.
20) Have you noticed any patterns in your fics? Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?
I'm quite fond of a smile that isn't a smile, or isn't quite a smile. I have a thing for performative characters, and the act of shaping oneself to a particular end in general, which leads to toying with what an expression mechanically is and what it is actually conveying. Smiles are just the lowest-hanging branch there, since they are very easy to turn unsettling.
Themes . . . well, I'm not not making a habit of poking at the wider political implications of settings, either to jab at what they're saying or just to find the potential plot-hooks that fall out of events, that the original piece of media didn't find time to explore. It wouldn't be accurate to say I set out to produce political fics: I like the aesthetic of political manoeuvring more than I care to write tracts. But I do enjoy thinking through the hows and whys of a fictional society, and contrasting different levels within it.
And if it can be called a common setting, then I will be found writing exclusively in the one from canon. I just don't really do AUs, certainly not the kind that transpose characters somewhere vastly different. If I like something, I will generally like it on its own terms. I think it's an admirable skill to be able to pull off setting or genre transposition in a way that makes sense, but I'm not interested in trying it myself.
27) What is your most and least favorite part of writing?
I'm not sure how to answer that.
For least, it's less any one task and more reaching the point of having done it so often that I get fed up with it. I will edit until I'm sick of the sight of my own words, or wear myself out of writing for spells at a time. But neither of them are tasks I find onerous in their own right.
For most . . . I think I just like being in the flow of writing, whatever particular task I'm working on at the time.
34) Five years from now, where do you see yourself as a writer?
Not a damn clue. Better than I am now, hopefully. That's all I can wish for.
35) What is one essential thing to remember when writing a villain?
That they're people too.
Proper villains, those who deserve the title and aren't merely antagonistic forces, should act with the same level of interiority and depth as protagonists. They should have desires and motivations, aims they want to achieve and personalities that shape their actions.
They can absolutely be shallow, vain and cruel, but those are all things real people can be and it's always worth asking, as you would of any other character, 'how did they get to be this way?'
Nobody wakes up one day deciding to be evil. There's always a yesterday that made it seem like the best option.
40) If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?
Aye aye. Coming from the person who's done the most (i.e. any) art influenced by my writing, I can't help feel this is a loaded question! :)
Honestly, there's a whole bunch of characters I'd love to be able to draw myself, or failing that, get commissioned one day. Almiria's gang in particular -- I know Almiria's costume looks like a mix of McGillis-as-general and Relena from Gundam Wing in her Sanc Kingdom outfit, and that Almiria grown-up takes after Gaelio, but it'd be nice to be able to render that in something like IBO's actual style. Similarly with things like post-everything Shino (purple jacket and all), Yamagi in the pilot-suit with short hair, or the Goibniu pilots. I think I just want to be able to draw anime stuff at all, honestly!
Scenes though . . . hmm. For the purposes of structuring my thoughts, I'm going to take liberties and go through all of WoSH in order to see if I can work out which scenes I'd like to see the most.
A Handful of Rusted Petals: Almiria and Bael.
The Grandmaster: This doesn't actually have any non-canon scenes per se, but I'd be interested in what someone might draw based off it, as a concept.
To Catch a Falling Star: Any (all?) of the reunion scenes.
Fragments of You/Pieces of Me: The end scene in bed, where Shino is asking if Yamagi just made a dick joke (he 100% did).
Let Sleeping Angels Lie: Eugene walking in on Shino while Shino is topless and showing Sri his arm.
Between Family: Again, the final scene, mostly for grumpy!Yamagi puncturing the heartfelt conversation.
The Ares Affair: The moment Ride shows up.
The Haunting of Takaki Uno: Takaki confronting Elion, specifically when he asks directly about Galan Mossa.
Frozen Sunlight: The Turbines' games-night.
Of Obsessions and Erotemes: Iverson in cold storage, looking at the bodies.
Revolution for Beginners and Polyamory for Dumbasses: The training scene with Trow, Ride and Hirume. (There's obviously a bunch of stuff in this, but I think that's the one I'd enjoy seeing.)
Under a Crescent Moon: Just anything with Ordsley struggling with everything.
Eugene Sevenstark and the Hesperus Treasure: Oh, the moment everyone has to run away from an avalanche of Haros, absolutely.
Hope Against Hope: The scene with the mirror, I think.
Love, Death and Cannoli: Probably Shino being dumbstruck by Yamagi in the pilot-suit (though I am very fond of Shino getting bullied by the Turbine kids, too).
Fata Morgana: Argi dealing with a drunk Kim.
We Three Kings: Oooo. I can't choose for this one. At a certain point, this is all a series of really big important moments. Probably the fight in the office or the confrontation in the council chamber, if we have to narrow it down, though there's also Lin and Almiria.
History of a Catastrophe: Embi and Asher in the garden, definitely.
Ragnarök in G Minor: Oh, you, specifically, will absolutely know it when we get there. (But also this one is chock full of climactic confrontations so there's dozens I'd love to see in image form!)
Day in the Light: Not posted it yet, but the penultimate scene of WoSH is a very fun one that I'd love to see drawn.
44) What mistakes do you keep making no matter how many times your beta corrects you?
Most often cludging a sentence in the edit. I have a bad habit of missing words, or otherwise reading what I think is one the page, so it's nice to have someone to catch those!
61) Why do you continue writing fics?
You can . . . stop writing them?
74) You’ve posted a fic anonymously. How would someone be able to guess that you’d written it?
I think it'd basically include all the answers to question 20. Bonus points for extended exposition scenes that double as character interactions, doppelgangers of some description, and being a post-canon continuation.
-----
Phew! Thanks for asking and asking so many!
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aaa fic requests open………… hoffheight love languages……… (but they dont label their relationship bc inner turmoil of being apprentices ;-;)
hello anon!! first of all this was a very delightful prompt. saw rarepairs (regardless if i ship them) are so fun to me !! hoffheight especially, i think they're slept on (by myself also, tbh.)
i thought about the best approach to take so as not to make this too long, and initially decided to pick a handful, out of the five, which i thought most would be best suited to them. those being: quality time, physical touch, gift giving. this is very funny, as it still turned out to be excessively long (normally, these are 500 words—somehow i've ended up with 1600 words here.) therefore, i've decided to post it also my ao3 & the link to it, should you wanna bookmark or what have you, can be found at the bottom.
i hope you enjoy! thanks for sending in a prompt, once again!
p.s. i'm getting around to writing everything everyone's sent in! i just find myself a little more inclined to first jump into the prompts i know i'm gonna do without much trouble. chainshipping, while largely what i'm getting the reqs for, isn't my forte, hence the wait. but i'm trying!
-> READ ON AO3 <-
‼️SAW REQS STILL OPEN‼️
The Apprentices, despite their shared unshakable tendency to slip into petty conflicts with one another on an hourly basis, appeared to work oddly well together; like a well-oiled machine. Left-brain, right-brain, and their brawn; Lawrence's steady hand, Amanda's creativity, Mark's ability to put it all into motion.
If they were a machine, then Adam was surely the cog that didn't quite mesh with all the other moving parts. Perpetually on the fringes of the warehouse, uncertainly hovering about—passing a wrench here and a drill there—until inevitably slinking off with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
He didn't fit, and he wasn't even really sure he wanted to.
Wasn't sure whether he'd fit anywhere else, either.
He'd always moved through the world with a sense of displacement; as if something had plucked him off some distant planet and dumped him here, only to cruelly leave him to his own devices. Because Adam's life was also a fucking joke, whatever higher power lurked out there must've also seen it fit to exacerbate said feeling. If there'd ever been any hope of an eventual breakthrough—any hope he might stop listlessly flopping on dry land and find a suitable body of water to slip into—it'd sure been squandered now. With something of a bitter chuckle, Adam had the thought he might walk the length of the Amigara Fault without ever stumbling upon his own hole, too. (Well, at least that meant he was safe! Safety being, of course, a commodity these days.)
“Adam?”
The sound of his name bouncing off of the warehouse walls broke him out of that depressing little reverie he'd embarked on. Somewhere out of sight, the clanking of metal against metal; the noise was sharp and, by rights, ought to be annoying if not outright grating on the ears. Unfortunately, he'd gotten used to it. Didn't bother him half as much as it really should.
“Yeah?” he called out—though set down the camera he'd been fucking around with (hopelessly fucking broken after he'd knocked it off the table last week), letting his legs carry him to the machine Mark had been working on for the past hour. “Need help?”
“Nah,” the other man shook his head, rogue droplets of sweat flying every which way. “This should be done.”
Mark stood up on slightly shaky feet, dusting himself off. Adam supposed working for Jigsaw was as good exercise as any: his skin glistened beneath the pallid light overhead, face appropriately ruddy. (His own cheeks must've decided to take inspiration from it, flushing in tandem.)
“I was thinkin',” he continued, hands on his hips, “You've been cooped up in this dump too long. Wanna get out of here?”
Yes. Dear god, please.
But, Adam would never go down that easy. Pointedly, he adopted the same stance, accentuating the jut of one hip, and—with a scoff: “Way to treat me like y'all's dog, some fucking... charity case stray. What, we're gonna walk 'round the block so I can sniff about and take a piss? How big of you, Mark, thanks for the enrichment.”
Mark rolled his eyes, hardly the one to fall for the theatrics. (He was no Amanda.) “What's crawled up your ass tonight, then?”
“Nothing!” he huffed, “I'm just saying it how it is. Got the leash ready, then? I'm really itching to pay a visit to that fire hydrant—”
A strong hand fisted itself into the front of his shirt, tugged him up to the very tips of his toes—at which point, he was being shut up in the most cliché-but-effective way possible. Mark, ever the cavalier, let go of him with all the consideration one might let go of a garbage bag. Adam stumbled back, slightly dazed by the kiss and thrown off-balance—figuratively and literally. “Stop pouting and get dressed.”
Adam raised an eyebrow, “Something fancy?”
Mark snorted, “No.”
-
A bowling alley.
A bowling alley.
Adam had a hard time believing it. Out of all places in the world, a bowling alley? (What were they, sweaty seventeen-year-olds making the best out of the spare change left over from lunch that week?)
In the dimly lit space, he leaned against the worn wooden railing, eyes fixed on Mark as the other stood poised at the edge of a polished lane. His face was scrunched up with a frankly disturbing level of focus; two massive hands firmly gripped a ball, fingers knuckle-deep in its holes. With a smooth, practiced motion, Mark swung his arm back and then forward, releasing it with a precise flick of the wrist. The ball glided down the lane and—crash—it sent the pins scattering, every last one of them.
When Mark turned, pride and triumph etched into every little line of his face, Adam... was a little smitten, alright? Watching him trudge over, eclipsing the colorful lights behind him, Adam soon found himself rather crowded against that railing. “Getting a kick out of showing off?” he needled.
“Yes.”
“God, you're sooo...” Adam groaned, head thrown back. Laughing, despite himself. He felt two thick arms encircle him, peel him off the railing, press him up against a plush chest and a soft stomach.
(It was not lost on him, despite the illusion of privacy in this here corner, that they were in public. All but asking to be seen—which was far from their usual gig.)
“Sooo what?” Mark hummed, grinning.
“Shameless.”
“A little.”
“A lot.”
“The right amount,” Mark leaned down, making the most out of the situation by placing a shockingly chaste kiss to the underside of Adam's jaw, the drag of his stubble tickling just enough to chase a giggle out of him. “You like it.”
“That's a bold statement right there,” murmured Adam, letting his arms fall about Mark's shoulders; so broad, his hands didn't meet in the middle. The reminder of this man's sheer proportions, as ever, sent a little thrill through him.
“You gonna deny it?” Another kiss, a little to the left. Adam was impressed for the fact his knees hadn't yet given out. Granted, he did have supports.
“Mm, maybe,” he hummed, letting his eyes fall shut, fingers digging ever so slightly into the fabric of Mark's shirt. “Possibly. Depends.”
Mark hummed against the front of Adam's throat, the sound more so felt than heard in the way it reverberated throughout the column of his neck, thrumming along the underside of Adam's skin. On a whim, he hooked his ankle around one of Mark's legs.
“Y'know, we've still got an hour on this lane...”
“Wow,” Adam intoned dryly, “Truly didn't cheap out on me here. And you've got your priorities straight. Can't believe I'm not being mobbed by your manifold suitors every day of the week. Should probably start hitting the gym, you know, fend them off easier...”
“Lucky you're easy on the eyes,” remarked Mark, tone measured—though there was a warmth in his eyes, “'cause that mouth is doing you no favors.”
Adam cracked a smile, reveling in his turn to be a smug shit.
-
By this point, Adam had developed a strong sense that something wasn't right. Not to say something was wrong per se, but... Well, they'd been driving for upwards of thirty minutes now—and they still weren't home. ('Home' was used, here, very loosely.) He was quite certain it hadn't taken them even half as long to reach their very romantic destination initially. So, what gives?
In any case, Mark's hand was warm where it lay on his thigh. Very rarely did it move, only to switch gears on the odd occasion—and just as quickly, it’d return to its post. They haven't spoken much, but they didn't need to. The silence enveloping them was comfortable and cozy, like a blanket straight out of the dryer on a cold night. An oldies station played very softly, so much so Adam could hardly pick apart the words.
Frankly, he could doze off.
Out of nowhere (and perhaps it was a good thing, as his eyelids had gotten concerningly droopy), Mark spoke up. “There's uh,” he cleared his throat, “something in the back.”
Adam, too tired to needle ('There's uh, something in the back'—are you a caveman?), twisted in the passenger's seat to the best of his ability, pawing at the—true to his word—a box wrapped in brown paper. It sat just out of his reach. Took a few tries to propel it toward himself.
He looked at Mark, an eyebrow quirked.
“Well,” the other's eyes were firmly affixed to the road ahead, perhaps stubbornly so, “Open it.”
“It's for me?”
“Might be, if I don’t change my mind.”
Needing not be told twice, Adam swiftly undid the wrapping, balled it and carelessly tossed it to the floor.
Then stared, mouth agape, at that which was revealed.
A camera.
“How did you—”
“I didn't do anything,” Mark blurted out, tone on the side of defensive for some odd reason, “It was all Amanda. And Lawrence. I just did the wrapping, that's all.”
Adam couldn't tear his eyes away, turning the box this way and that (even though he couldn't really read or see much of anything, dark as it'd gotten.) A well-timed glance in Mark's direction—just as drove beneath a street-light—revealed a deep blush staining his cheeks, seemingly spreading down his neck.
Adam’s lips twitched. His throat tightened. His heart throbbed.
Softly, fondly, he said: “I can tell. It looked like shit.”
(He’d bet all his life savings—granted, there wasn't much there, but it was the thought that counted—that Amanda and Lawrence had less than nothing to do with this.)
“It did, didn't it?” Mark smiled, shoulders sagging. Perhaps with relief.
Adam set his hand atop Mark's, still sat on his thigh. Squeezed.
The silence resumed.
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The workshop thing wasn't great in that respect but it wasn't that bad either because it was so clear that people were jealous when they were being harsher than the professors, who did step in at points when it veered from critiquing stylistic choices into doing exactly what people who think tagging fics on that post is okay are doing. It didn't discourage me from writing but it did solidify my decision not to major in creative writing (this is probably also why I in particular was a target: it wasn't my major, it was a hobby, but I was as qualified as them and got as much praise as they did and even one time more than them on the very first exercise of my first workshop, which probably didn't sit right with them, but only fueled me further because I am nothing if not a creature of spite).
And that's the thing too: so many people can't grasp that there's a huge difference between "this isn't for me" and "this has a lot of issues". Which to preface, unless someone's asked you to beta for them keep your mouth shut. They're doing this for free. Exit out if there are too many errors or whatever (and errors isn't even exactly the word I want but I'm exhausted and didn't sleep enough last night). Not that those people SHOULD beta either even if they were asked, honestly, because they clearly do not have a grasp on what constructive criticism actually is or how it works. You don't need a workshop to learn that either, just basic human decency and Google.
But like anyways. In the workshops I read plenty of things I just Did Not Vibe With, but were objectively very, very good art and you could tell how much care the author put into them. Sometimes things just aren't for you and the author didn't poorly execute that concept, actually.
I ran into this a lot in Performance World, too, back when I was trying to get a singing/stage performing career off the ground. There are SO many threads of that part of my life I can relate to this discussion and it would take far too long to explain them all, but there VERY much was a culture of perfectionism. Jealousy and extreme competition were incredibly prevalent, lots of "stay in your box," lots of complaining if people didn't stay in their box. Even when we were learning (or doing community theatre just to stay in practice or build up a resume), the stakes always seemed astronomically high. Someone could do a passable or even genuinely good job; but if it wasn't good in the "right" way, then it was still seen as meaningless.
For courtesy's sake, I'm putting the rest of my thoughts under a cut, because. Well. This got long. As answers by me are wont to do.
There also was a lot of "pick a genre" and "this is the only MEANINGFUL type of music/art/etc." The opera crowd hated that I liked musicals and pop music because those styles were all "stupid" and "frivolous" and "simple" (which isn't. even true, no art form is a monolith, and what those words mean is going to be different for every person, but, you know). Everyone else hated that I sang opera because it was a "pretentious art form" and "boring" and "sexist/racist/etc." (Those first two are incredibly subjective, and plenty of modern opera works exist that seeks to not uphold those forms of prejudice.) There was "if you look like [x], then you can't do [y performance type]." "If your voice sounds like this, then you can't EVER pursue ANY roles outside of this small pool of stuff because you need to know your place; if you don't, people will think you're making Bad Art." And then you, at best, get shamed, and, at worst, can't make a living.
All of this, of course, was a matter of opinion. Most of it, like you said, boiled down to the fact that people were doing things that weren't, actually, bad or untalented or ineffective--they just didn't work for people. They didn't meet some arbitrary, subjective standard that had no real, concrete, actual meaning. But when people with any degree of power start taking their artistic opinions as immovable fact, we end up with...well, we end up with the current theatre climate, and we end up with whatever is happening in fandom communities right now. (Because just as there are some people who, for insisting on a lack of constructive criticism, should not be beta readers, there are some who should not be educators or directors.)
There were a lot of reasons that I eventually stopped performing publicly/on stage. But a big part of it was that I just didn't want to deal with that culture anymore. When I made the decision to walk away, I had gotten to the point where I'd started to hate singing. My primary form of expression, of catharsis, of solace, since I was eight or nine years old. And luckily, withdrawing from a professional pursuit of art has helped me get some of that back. But I see those same issues--that same negativity, that same judgment--starting to pop up in something that isn't even meant to be for money or a career or anything other than personal expression. I see so many people getting discouraged, starting to lose the love they had for that expression. My love of art was almost taken away from me, to the point where for a very long time I couldn't even do it for fun, alone, in the private comfort of my house. And if I can do anything to prevent that from happening to someone else, I sure as hell will.
I'm glad that you were still able to get some good out of that workshop, because that's not always easy to do when the people around you are acting like that. (And kudos to realizing that you didn't want to do this as a major/career, that's not always easy to do either.) And I know I've talked more about professional art, but this is so prevalent in the way people talk about community theatre, too. Being upset that a student production doesn't have Super Stellar Voices/Acting, ragging on amateur singers just for posting a karaoke video on their personal Facebook page, expecting Met-opera-level singing quality or Shakespeare-scholar levels of acting text analysis from a group of volunteers who are spending their precious few after-work hours to put on a musical, just because they want to share that story with people. I've seen lots of comments that it's not meaningful because it's "bad." When. I've done a lot of community theatre. Plenty of it is not bad, actually. If you hate it that much, you don't have to attend a production. (Just like how. if you hate a fic. you can hit the back button.) And even if it is "bad." It's still going to be meaningful to someone. Even in a "bad" production, at least ONE of the actors or crew members will have a good time helping create it. And at least ONE audience member is going to have a good time; whether that be because they simply love theatre, someone they love is involved with the production, or because they don't care about an arbitrary "quality" measurement. And I absolutely think the same thing is true of writing, and of fanfiction especially.
If, for example, someone goes to karaoke and screams "I Dreamed A Dream" from Les Mis extremely off-key and grating, because they're experiencing a shitty situation and just need some catharsis? I don't have the right to rag on them for that, I would be an asshole. If someone posts a cover for fun on YouTube of...I don't know, "Take On Me" and can't hit the high notes, but wants to pay tribute to a song they love, who the fuck would I be to take that away from them? So if someone writes a "silly" or "stupid" or oh-God-forbid "cringe" piece of fanfiction (which. AGAIN. do not have any concrete meaning because those are SUBJECTIVE TERMS) to get some feelings out or to talk about how much they love a fictional character. Well, I think if you call them names over that and try to publicly shame or harass them, then, quite frankly, you are engaging in pointless, cruel, and braincell-less behavior. And you can stay 10,000 feet away from me.
#mc13 lore#oh my god this is so long I'm so sorry#multi t(ASK)ing#amateur art#fanfiction#taking my life in my own hands by putting this in something other than just my ask tag but so be it#there have been a lot of productions I've seen or been in--both professional and not--where I thought the overall vision didn't#translate very well or I didn't enjoy it or I thought that the artistic choices people made didn't successfully do what it seemed like#they were trying to do. but you know what? I've never seen a production. not even of HEATHERS the show (which is my absolute#least favorite thing in the world). where there was not even ONE good moment. there was always someone whose voice I liked. or a line#delivery that I thought was executed well. or a joke I thought was funny or a passage that I thought was raw/emotionally resonant.#and I think you can tell where I'm going with this but: yes this is true of fanfic too.
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I'm feeling the looming threat of the next episode coming and just busting (or expanding) some of my views on the characters or how the digital circus works and how the silly fics I write will lose accuracy points. So, now I have to gaslight myself into the "in a fanfic anything can happen no matter what" or "OOC must happen at some point" to continue writing. Never felt so excited and terrified for a new episode of a series. At least, it will be fun to re-read some really good fanfics (like your acetate ribbun) as they might get a different view.
Tell me about it. It’s the reason I put that whole disclaimer on Acetate in the first place. I know I’ll have a lot of inaccuracies for future readers. (Can’t wait to find out Kinger and Queenie we’re divorced pre-circus purgatory.) Thought it’d be fun to add context for those future readers.
We know so little about the world and characters that I think we all by default have inaccuracy points anyways.
I almost didn’t write the fic when I did because I was worried about it but my bestie told me it’s probably better to do it now than later. Especially since—at the time—we didn’t know when the next episode would come out. So yeah dude totally go for it still!
And if you’re mid writing when something comes out that might change your ideas, that’s ok. Like a save slot use what knowledge and ideas you only had before the new Thing was presented to you. Or you can get a little bit of a different kind of creative exercise in and see if you can puzzle things to make it work together.
As such; while I make no guarantees for this next bit, but I was thinking, depending on how the show goes I might make a little tweak to Acetate. Only if we’re presented with elements that I think would make the story more interesting anyways. Aka stuff that makes me go “oh knowing that would’ve made me write this that would have made this scene more intense!” Or something like that. Also depends on the amount of creative energy I got in me during that time.
Also thank you for calling my fic good. 🥺
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Hello there, for the writer ask 🤗 and/or 🧐 please.
From this writer ask meme.
(Research ask answered here. Also this got long as hell, RIP).
What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?
I have never been "good" at fandom in terms of engagement, follower counts, and other metrics, and personally, that's not why I'm here. So this will be about becoming a better writer, so if that's something you're interested in, this is for you.
To start, I think the myth of talent is particularly pervasive in artistic fields, which both makes beginners feel discouraged and can make consumers, for lack of a better word, feel thoughtlessly entitled to our work. It's talent! It's not work, why are you complaining?
Don't fall for that shit. You can become a decent writer with some hard work and effort. That can be a double-edged sword, and on some days, that won't feel true or possible. I won't say I have the answers to how to make it happen. This isn't WikiHow. There's no YouTube video for this.
The only things I'd stipulate are:
Figure out what works for you. If you're following writing blogs or reading books about writing, you can get new ideas, but you'll soon realize some of them are useless. As you write more, you'll come to understand your preferences and tendencies better, and sometimes you'll be tempted to change them to better fit your idea of a "good" or "serious" writer. 97% of the time, you can't. Everybody has a Hemingway phase but nobody but Hemingway was or is Hemingway. You are the artist you are. Take what you need and travel light.
Read widely and write a lot. Reading is necessary to expand your knowledge of what's possible, and writing requires diligence, like any other skill. Even talent needs to be honed on the whetstone of practice. It's the only way anybody got good at anything. There are no shortcuts. Writers are not born, they are made.
I could stop there, really. But I already typed up this whole thing, so a couple more specific tips:
Develop your taste.
If you've started writing, you've already started on the journey of developing a sense of taste, probably because you've spent a lot of time reading. (If you haven't: start there. And read all sorts of things: short stories, long-form journalism, poetry, novels. The only way to develop taste is to see what's out there).
It may seem counterintuitive, but to develop your own voice, I think it's necessary to look to others. When you're reading something that punches you in the gut, maybe makes you feel a little despair that you'll never be this good, read it again and pay attention to your own reactions. When did you feel the punch? Why did you feel it? Isolate those elements and keep them in mind while writing your own stuff. Expanding the vocabulary of your creative voice can mean sitting down with a book or a story and taking literal notes. Leaving comments can be a good exercise, because it makes you look at a story more closely. Also, I think it's important to let people know when they've touched you. After all, isn't that what we're all after? Plus, people love detailed comments. Go out, be the change, etc.
If that all sounds a little bit too much like English class to you…yeah, kind of. I should have opened with the caveat that while of course fic is a hobby and it's just for fun, it's not that important, that's no reason not to take it seriously. I don't mean you should have to get an MFA to write fanfiction, God fucking forbid. And sometimes you just want to read (or write) fic and relax and not think too hard, and that's fine too, have at it. (You're still writing and reading, as verbs). I'm just saying there's also nothing wrong with dedicating time and attention to it, and sometimes, that's going to be hard.
Good. That means it's working.
2. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Fail. Fail hard, fail often, learn to fail better. They can't all be winners. If you're stuck in a doom spiral, thinking, "this is bad, this is the worst, I don't know how to write—" Okay, fine. Lean in. Make it worse. Make it the worst thing you've ever written. Maybe you just have a little writing indigestion. Just barf some rancid words onto the page. Nobody has to see it. Give yourself the freedom to be as indulgent and terrible as you want; a cringe secret between you and your word processor.
So much of what writers describe as "process" is just getting your inner critic to shut up for long enough to let the writer do the work. Some people write at specific times of day, or they have a specific place they do it. Some people have to pretend nobody will ever see it and don't edit at all. Some people do 87 drafts and wring their brain-hands over single apostrophes. (Freak behavior. Can't relate).*
You'll develop your own way of doing things, and it'll change over time to suit your needs, both external and creative. You'll find your own ways to beat back the shithead little voice that tells you oh, that's too much. Are you sure about that? Wow, bold move. And you'll learn to distinguish it from the genuine subconscious creative voice as it steers you along. But in order to do that, you have to miss a stair once in a while. Crash into the walls. Absolutely eat shit. How else do you learn to avoid that particular step? Go forth and brain yourself on the banister. Have fun out there.
*It is, in fact, freak behavior, and I did this last night.
3. Make what you like. Have fun.
If you haven't called it by now, I am 1000% a pedantic bastard, so it follows that I have a semantic issue with the phrase "write for yourself." It's bandied about so frequently as a kind of indicator of artistic virtue or purity, as though doing something as natural as caring what other people think about work you've posted publicly is some kind of moral failure.
I'm not saying it's wrong. I just refuse to be scolded by a Live, Laugh, Love sign.
Because while there are some things you might banish to the wastes of your hard drive, in the end, fandom is about community. Making art is a public exercise. I'm sure there are people who write and paint and never show anyone, but let's be real. We're here because we love something, we have something to say, and we want to share it with other people. Reaching across the pulses of cyberspace to say, "I, too, would like to see this man get railed this way in particular." The real art is the friends you made along the way, etc.
So I'm in favor of reworking "write for yourself" into something more cognizant of the dynamics at work. For myself, I use the Marie Kondo test (notwithstanding the mistranslation and overuse of this phrase, too): does this spark joy?
Do you get excited when thinking about the project? When you think about upcoming scenes or beats, do they still inspire delight? Even when you're stuck, do you still feel like it's worth working through those things to get to the parts of the story you like?
And this is where the "for yourself" comes in, because I think it's easy to get wrapped up in mandates here. But I have to finish! (Why.) People will be upset if I don't! (Sounds like a them problem). (People love to talk about how fandom is just for fun <3 and then talk shit about abandoned works. Bullshit. Of course, as a reader, you can feel disappointed. But part of being a person is learning to handle your disappointment with grace, so try that before yelling at authors, who are already porcupines of anxiety).
I think the most difficult one to let go of is when people like your story a lot. You're getting a lot of good comments, and in what can be jaggedly lonely world, you feel liked, seen, and appreciated. It's tempting to keep at it, to try keep hitting the dopamine button, even when the writing itself starts to feel shitty and no longer sparks joy.
But returning to taste for a moment: as a reader, can't you tell when the writer is having fun/losing their mind? When they want to be there, doesn't their clear enthusiasm and love for the story shine through, bright enough to reach you, warm you?
Have faith. There will be other stories. You'll have other good ideas. Give it time, work on other stuff and/or replenish your creative well. Maybe you'll rediscover your love for the story, or look back at the draft in a couple months and realize it isn't so bad after all. Part of why I have such a backlog of unpublished work is because sometimes the story, like bread, needs time to prove. And maybe you won't, and that's fine, too. If your readers are reasonable people, they will understand, encourage you to take care of yourself, and patiently await the next one.
If they're not, feel free to send them to me.
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new year's ask game for fic writers:
thanks for the tags @mybrainismelted and @rayrayor !
1) What fic did you have the most fun writing this year and why? Or, if you can’t decide, what was most fun about writing this year for you?
i had the most fun writing what we stay alive for this past year, it was really a passion project of mine that turned into this wonderful labor of love
2) What’s a scene/story that you finished and felt “wow, I really accomplished that, that actually went so well”?
probably loving you with no conditions, i've always really wanted to write a fic with that premise but i put it off for a long time because i was worried i wouldn't do it justice. but in the end, i think people really liked it, and it's one of the fics i'm most proud of tbh
3) What helped provide the most inspiration for stories, if anything? Was it poetry? A song on repeat? A gorgeous gifset? A walk outside? A book you read that made you want to change everything? Whatever it was! Tell all.
unfortunately the thing that inspires me most continues to be running/exercise. i cannot even begin to tell you how many plot bunnies/outlines i wrote in my head during runs last summer when i was training for a race. idk what it is, but when i'm locked in with my headphones on, my mind starts to wander and it gives me some really good ideas (and some wild ones, but those are fun too from a creative standpoint)
4) What is something you want to share about what you’ve written this year? A particular line, a comment that made you feel really good, a scene that was difficult to write — you get to choose! What do you wish someone would ask you about when it comes to what you’ve written?
god, i don't know. i've gotten a lot of really wonderful comments this year, too many to pick just one.
a scene that was difficult to write would probably be all of chapter four of orange juice, that fic overall is hard to write (but i still want to finish it someday)
but i write more fluff than anything so i also wanted to add a scene that was really fun to write, and that was writing mickey high as fuck in i need you (like cake on my birthday)
and to start off 2024…
1) Do you have any writing/creation goals for the year? What are they?
my goal for the year is to write two (2) complete multi-chapter fics. i mostly exist in the oneshot world in the shameless fandom, but i miss plotting big long fics and i really want to try and stick with at least two this year.
2) Is there a fic or idea that you’re really excited to be able to continue to work on in the new year (shout out to my fellow fic writing folks who take forever to finish wips, sometimes it’s nice to be able to continue working on something even if you wish you’d gotten it done! Now you get even MORE time with it!)
i think rock star mickey au is the idea that i most want to see come to life in 2024. i've been plotting it in my head since like july and one day i want to be confident enough to actually write the vision that plays on a loop in my subconscious.
3) What’s something new in your writing you want to try/are going to try? A different writing style? Different fandom? Darker works? Fluffier? Longer or shorter?
god, i mean, i guess i want to try writing more smut? i don't write a lot of it rarely any ever but i want to put a little bit in my big bang fic, and maybe some in some other fic ideas i have too. so yeah. maybe i'll try more of that in 2024 idk don't quote me on it.
4) What’s something you love about your own writing that you will continue to appreciate in the new year?
honestly i really like the way i write dialogue. it sounds very natural to me, idk if anyone else agrees, but when i re-read some of my fics i'm just like yeah exactly he would say that
(and maybe it's bad or wildly out of character but idk. i like it.)
tagging anyone who wants to play <3 happy 2024 my friends!
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I have a question...
do you maybe have tips for writing? cuz I wanna start writing fics SO BAD. but I feel like I'm so bad at it and I don't understand all of the things like blurbs and prompts and all those different things😭
I'd really appreciate it bc ur writing is like the best EVER. 🫶
maybe this stems from me being a creative person in general but the #1 way i get fic ideas is DAYDREAMS i love to daydream and create scenarios and so 90% of my fics are just writing those scenarios out but with reader/y/n inserted instead of it being myself
i also am not the biggest fan of searching for prompts, instead i also get ideas from reading the description of fics or like the first couple paragraphs then jump off and kind of rewrite it/come up with my own ideas for the general thing that i saw posted that i like
i have SO many fics that never got posted from when i first started writing. i think the best thing you can do is make it something for yourself first. you have to enjoy the process of writing before you can enjoy publishing your fics. honestly, its not the best for some people. i think everyone can put in the work to write good fics but not everyone will genuinely enjoy writing.
i for one am very motivated by praise (reblogs/replies are literal crack to me) so i do enjoy publishing my fics but if i never could and only i would read them, i would still write!
another idea is to take a fic you already like but havent read in a while and rewrite what you can remember. obviously this is just an exercise and not something to publish, but just to work on using your words. i have a lot of phrases that i use in multiple fics because it stood out in another authors work or i wrote it once and really liked it
last tip is for a character like rafe especially is to just not worry about canon. that goes to the plot of the fic and the characters personality. my fics are mostly set just in general outer banks world, not specifically during a time from the show because that gets too complicated
let me know if you have any other questions!! id be so happy to talk more because i LOVE writing so so much
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Survey Results: Why Do You Write Fanfiction?
Hi Everyone! Remember taking this survey? 🙈
Since we’re no longer accepting responses, here’s a reminder of the main question/answers, just to refresh your memory:
Sorry it’s taken so long for me to post the results. I have no excuse except that I’ve taken a long time to put them into a spreadsheet and make the graphs look presentable. Anyway, here we go, after the cut!!! Btw the data/sources are all linked, at the bottom. XOXO
*
General: We had 222 responses to the survey, which is awesome! Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to fill it out. Your participation is greatly appreciated. 🥰 Also! I’m pretty good at math, but I’m not always the best with like…proofreading and stuff, so please let me know if I’ve made errors in any of the formulas.
Question 1: Here’s a bar graph that shows the breakdown of the first (main) question (I simplified the answers in the graph but tried to keep the meaning from intact from the way they were originally phrased):
(Sources: Appendix A, Appendix B, both linked at the bottom)
And then here’s another graph that shows the answers as a percent of the total responses, since people could obviously check more than one box. So you can see that there were actually quite a few answers that the respondents checked about half the time or more:
(Sources: Appendix A, Appendix B)
Interestingly, only one response came back with just 1 box checked, and less than 10 came back with 2 checked. On average, about 5-6 boxes were checked per response.
(Sources: Appendix A, Appendix B)
Also, 39 respondents filled in an answer for “other,” which I’ve tried to combine into categories. This is obviously a very subjective exercise: which answers to combine, which ones relate to the categories on the main survey, which ones are genuinely unique enough to stay in the “other” category as opposed to joining in with another.
Ultimately, I thought that those 39 responses broke down into 50 separate answers, because some of them represented either multiple answers (separated by commas) and/or a complex answer that represented multiple categories. (For example, 3 of the categories were “For Fun, Writing Practice, and Community/Friendship” and one of the answers hit all three of those, saying, “fun, practice, and making sure my friends YELL AT ME because I have inflicted Emotions on them.”
Here’s a pie chart showing how those 50 answers looked when divided into categories:
(Source: Appendix B)
Additionally, here are screenshots of all the individual 39 answers. Some of them are very entertaining, so I think they’re worth reading:
***
Question 2:
This was more about people’s motivations by having a finished product (a completed fic), or whether they just liked the process of writing (whether that’s coming up with prompts, headcanons, scenarios, brainstorming, planning, or the writing/creative process itself). The answers were very divided:
(Source: Appendix A, Chart from Google forms directly)
***
Question 3:
This was really just to see how many people responding were people who were regular posters on our blog here (@artificialqueens) and how many were writers from other fandoms. It was an optional question, and 65 of the respondents (or 29% of the total), chose not to answer. Out of the 157 responses we did get, only 30* (or 14% of the total responses) indicated that they write or have written for the Drag Race fandom in some way. (*29 directly, 1 indirectly.) The rest of the responses, 127 in all, or 57% of the total surveys filled out, indicated that they write for fandom(s) other than Drag Race.
The most common “other” answers seemed to be Supernatural, Marvel, and Transformers — I say “seemed to be” because a lot of people used acronyms that I wasn’t familiar with, or just said the name of a ship. (If people would like a more detailed breakdown of this question, then I’ll probably need help parsing the lingo.) Or, if you’re curious, you can actually check out the raw data below by clicking on the link to Appendix A.
Again, thank you so much to everyone who filled out this survey! It was especially cool to see that it spread to far beyond our little blog! To those of you who signal boosted and shared with friends, etc, thank you! I hope you also share the results. Please don’t hesitate to comment, send asks, or let me know if something is amiss or you have more questions. XOXO, V
Appendices:
Appendix A: Data from the Survey itself.
Appendix B: Data I put into my own spreadsheets, since I found the google survey data a bit difficult to manage.
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What are some blood demon art concepts you find interesting but they weren’t explored in the canon?
This was one of the Asks that made me go, "uuuuuuhhhhh..."
The reason for this is that I find myself most creative in response to a problem. For example, in this fic I came up with the Mirror Demon because I wanted a demon that might be fought with the final form of Flower Breath. That's why in a lot of hypotheticals or potential AUs I'm asked about, my first response is to set the perimeters and figure out how to work within those constraints, such as asking what would be in-character. Constraints drive creativity, like how well you can write a haiku within a given set of rules.
What I'm less good at is divergent creativity: coming up with something out of nothing, no limits.
That brings me to how I'd like to answer this Ask: with a breakdown of my brainstorming methods!
A common phenomenon is that children are better at divergent thinking--imagining all the possibilities--than adults, who have had that ability beaten out of them by the emphasis on "rightness" and that some ideas are "stupid." It takes exercising this part of the brain to be able to think in more original ways instead of just "the best" ways. This page breaks it down pretty simply and explains it with the paperclip test/game, and here's more ideas for other exercises and different kinds of goals you could potentially have for creative thinking.
When I am doing a group brainstorming exercise, be it in a classroom or office setting, what I find works best is a leader/moderator at the board who can catch things and write fast and potentially legibly (within reason for how fast they're writing), and the method should be agreed upon in advance--for example, mind-mapping, which uses branches from a main idea to show relationships between ideas. Typically, this means starting with a main idea in the center and branching out into different categories as more ideas come to you. Another methods is writing things in a list format, thinking of as many things as you can in a given category. These are basics found in any cheesy corporate "how to increase creativity" guide, but they are helpful in easing people into how to brainstorm.
The challenge is to set a time frame--short enough that you are forced to think fast, long enough that it gets painful. The time frame is up to you, whether it's setting a timer for one minute or however long it takes for you to write while eating melting gelato. Okay, maybe in a formal setting you'll set a timer to keep everyone on the same page.
While you might have a different ultimate goal in the purpose of your brainstorming, what you're going for here is not quality, but quantity--as many ideas as possible--and that means not throwing any stupid ideas out. If anything, the stupid ideas are where magic starts to happen. It's the shift from "basic stuff anyone could think of off the top of their head" to "oh, I never would had thought of this otherwise." You have to force yourself to think past the initial, obvious-feeling, correct-feeling ideas to access what's more unusual, and that usually means some stupid ideas first. It's like dusting out the cobwebs of this part of your brain you aren't usually accessing. I've also heard this process described as tossing out your first ten ideas, at least in a creative script-writing approach.
Refining your ideas, convergent thinking, comes later. But only after you've gotten some ideas to work with!
The reason a legible mind-map or list works well in a group setting is because this means everyone can observe the ideas after the initial "hurry, hurry, think, think" stage. Everyone can discuss them and decide which ones to throw out, and even draw lines showing more connections and circling whatever ideas you want to come back to.
But do I look like a corporate board room to you? No. I ate gelato today while writing this:
When it's just me using it, I don't care about legibility, and I use a mix of mind-mapping arrows and lists and flow of consciousness. While playing with story ideas I might whole pages of doodles that look like this with fragments of character lines. This gave me a way to observe my own thoughts about Demon Blood Techniques and their unlimited potential, and I found that I kept myself thinking quickly by asking questions and then answering myself.
Also, I got lines like "Skunk demon" and "so now we're the Magic School Bus."
Some of the themes I found interesting were the repeated effects of sound waves (Kyogai, Nakime, Flute Demon), and infinity (the fortress, the ability to regenerate, the ability to replicate, etc.). One of the themes I thought deeper on was how much I love Kyogai's abilities, and not just Kyogai himself. For as much as other Blood Techniques are based on things we've seen in other media (being trapped in good dreams, alternate dimensional spaces, spider threads, body duplicates, illusions, etc)., Kyogai's abilities were very unexpected, but also had a rationale to them. However, instead of the sound waves only changing the orientation and spatial locations of the rooms, he also had big air claws, which otherwise would seem like they have nothing to do with the orientation of a room. In the first place, air claws and redecorating seem they have nothing to do with drums. It's the combination of these factors that make Kyogai's Blood Technique so impressive and refreshing.
Once I made that observation, I made a couple of lists of potential means that a demon might use and ways that a Demon Slayer or prey might be overcome, and then I connected them semi-randomly. I got connections like "temperature" and "memories," like how a demon might raise the temperature of a room little by little and call to a demon slayer's mind memories of their childhood, until they are completely overwhelmed with that last summer they spent in childhood innocence as they are in reality boiling alive, and "color" with "invading body," like if a chameleon-like demon can match the color of a Nichirin blade then it can gain control over the swordsman's hands and forearms, whatever grip created that color.
My favorite, though, was "fingernails" and "suffocation," because it gave me a very vivid mental image of a demon sweeping its hand like it's going to grab a swordsman's face, but draws away just shy of touching them. However, with its long fingernails, it's grabbed the Breath just about to enter a swordsman, and pulls it right out of them.
Horrific, am I right!?!?
So anyway. That's what I got from my divergent thinking experiment today. It's the kind of thing I tell myself I need to do more of when trying to write my own original fiction, but kind of like physical exercise, I think about it more than I actually do it. ^^;
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15 questions
Thanks for tagging me @mr-iskender <3
1. Are you named after anyone? IRL my mum gave me my middle name after a 17th century writer. The name I've been going by online since high school is Tabitha or Tabby after the daughter from Bewitched 😂 I watched a lot of old TV reruns as a kid.
2. When was the last time you cried? Weirdly, I actually can't remember, but probably my last depressive episode. Thankfully they're few and far between at the moment!
3. Do you have kids? I have a two year old and it is indeed super hard to find time to write between work and family! I have gotten very good at writing on my phone so I can do it on the train to and from work and in bed as I'm falling asleep (maybe also at work shhhh). When I was writing the Advent fic I took several days of leave from work while my kid was in daycare to get some solid writing and editing done haha
4. Do you use sarcasm? Oh yeah
5. What is the first thing you notice about people? Depends on the person, but often their voice, unless they have a super obvious distinguishing feature, or really wild fashion.
6. What is your eye color? Greeny-brown depending on the light I think.
7. Scary movies or happy endings? I agree with Alex, these are not mutually exclusive or comparable but I definitely don't watch many scary movies anymore (I seem to only be able to rewatch ones I enjoyed as a teenager for the nostalgia factor), so I'll go with happy endings.
8. Any special talents? I can hula hoop for a really long time, but I don't think I can do tricks anymore. This has come in handy exactly once in my life, and I won a tiny hat for my efforts.
9. Where were you born? At the JR in Oxford which is hilarious considering what fandom I'm in now.
10. What are your hobbies? I am one of those people who starts a million hobbies and then moves on if I'm crap at it or the novelty runs out. But besides writing I do love drawing, embroidery and crochet, I wish I had more time for them!
11. Do you have any pets? A very sweet old dog and a mean cat who doesn't like anyone in the house except me 🤣
12. What sports do you play/have you played? I don't think I've played a single sport since high school, I much prefer solitary exercise!
13. How tall are you? Like 160cm/5'3" I think
14. Favorite subject in school? In year 12 it was human biology, even though I also loved art and lit and went on to do a BFA, I just loved that class so much.
15. Dream job? My dream is to have no job, because I learned at uni that I do not like the pressure of doing anything creative for other people (especially if money is involved) but part time work if I could afford it - in a well-funded library - would be a big improvement!
I never know who to tag for these things, but if you want to do it say I tagged you! (I'm also nosy, I want to read your answers lol)
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hello! i adore your fics and your writing! i was wondering, what books would you consider and absolute must read to hone both our writing and reading (as in, comprehending a book) skills?
Thank you so much!
There's a few books that I could recommend with wildly different reasons. I don't know what type of writing/reading you want to be doing or what your experience is right now. I mainly learned through reading/writing and all of those works adding to my style, so it's not that much non-fiction. Anyway, I'll be naming a few things and say why it helped me! I hope some of these can work for you!
First of all– for poetry, I loved reading any work (my favourite is Averno, but there's lots of her work online) by Louise Gluck and maybe adding onto it with her non-fiction work American Originality. The non-fiction gives you a peak into her mind and her reflection on what makes literature good, but reading her works first lets you know why you should care about her opinion (spoiler, it's because her works are beautiful).
If you'd enjoy looking at what exactly literature can be, how far you can take it (or how much greek classics can be fanfictionized + turned into a poem) you can read Autobiography of Red. I think this is one of the most impressive/creative books I've read.
The same goes for Ali Smith. She's so smart with choosing a unique form/style when writing prose and combining politics, gorgeous, magical stories. I loved her book Spring most (it makes least sense) but Companion Piece or Summer have similair vibes with an easier story.
Then, one of the reasons I got into writing was because of Allen Ginsberg and watching/listening to his readings of Howl. I was young when I watched Kill your Darlings and the documentary Howl but it got me to take my writing serious. It's interesting when learning how to use rythm, politics, lightness, anything. You can watch his readings of Howl on youtube by the way, so you could do that first!
If you'd like an introduction to Russian classics within short stories, I think that A swim in a pond in the rain by George Saunders can be interesting! It's just a few short stories and reflections on them by a Creative Writing teacher.
I also often give my students the exercise to read some stories of Raymond Queneau's Exercise in style, and try to observe one spot and write exactly what they observed it in different styles/perspectives like Queneau does (I tell them to write 3 styles for every spot).
Or, you can look at someone like George Perec, who quite literally wrote a book called An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris (and also the book i love most called 'Species of Spaces') who focusses on writing as much and as detailed as possible about one place. Don't make anything up. Just write every single thing down. It's a nice exercise to do in your own city! All these observations can be used beautifully when writing fiction, or they can help you make the made up observations more realistic. (I don't know if you should read Perec, it can be a challenge if you get started, but you can use his way of observing and researchig).
When talking about perspectives and writing characters that are possibly not understandable to us, I think it could also be interesting to read Han Kang's The Vegetarian.
Or, when thinking about writing magical realism and worldbuilding you can check out Yoko Ogawa's The memory police or Murakami's Hard boiled wonderland and he end of the world or Killing Commendatore.
Then lastly, if you're looking for something that teaches us how to write empty/slow but very meaningful books, you could look into Cold enough for snow by Jessica Au or Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? by Johan Harstad.
There's so much more but this answer is becoming wayyyy too long already! Hopefully some of these recommendations work for you or match what you think is interesting!
Good luck and have fun!! Thanks for the compliment again!
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Hello there Edith! I'm Giona and I want to know why did you create the series, You forgot your Umbrella.
Because this user needs more of your version of Norman Osborn because I, too is getting tired of the Norman smut train because that is everywhere! It's a rarity to see fluff, light sexual content or even angst of Norman and the Green Goblin because most of the time it turns into sex... filthy, filthy sex.
But your version is just -chefs kiss- perfect! I simply adore he feel remorse after No Way Home while still being the Norman we all recognize! Keep it up!
Aw! Thank you so much for your kind words!
My reason for writing this is quite the tale... okay maybe not XD But basically, I've been around on Tumblr for a very long time compared to some. And as soon as Spider-Man No Way Home came out, I silently jumped into that fandom, liking things etc. On occasion as a guilty pleasure, I would read some of the NormanXReader or OttoXReader fics but many I had to skip due to the reasons you listed. I wanted to find cleaner fanfics for my enjoyment but the tag was lacking. And, at the risk of sounding arrogant, the ones that were decent, were not that well written. (No diss to them. It's fanfic. It's not really meant to be book worthy.)
This left me with only one option- Write one myself.
I could be the hero who brought a wholesome, decent, fluffy, yet kinda angsty fic to the tag on the off chance that there were others like me seeking asylum from the smut.
Plus, it would be a great writing exercise.
Course, I have a reputation and had friends/family following my other account as well as links to other social accounts. And while I commend those who can post without shame, I am not one of those. After all, writing fanfics and the like is "cringe".
So I made Edith-Hyde and began writing.
The account is aptly named- for it is the mask I dawn to be able to write without fear of "ruining" my reputation. Surprisingly, what started out almost as an experiment to see if I could do it, quickly became something I quite enjoy. doing. It's almost like healing my inner teenager lol. My Norman Fanfic is not only a gift to the racoons of tumblr who are seeking to read the garbage I write- but also a guilty pleasure of my own. I love writing it just before bed as a way to relax.
At the end of the day, as a creative person, having others enjoy my work really brings me a lot of joy. I love seeing all the positive comments and hearing about how many people really like it. Plus, I love being a little sanctuary for those seeking good vibes and clean writing. I am a Christian and I want to share good decent content with everyone.
Even if that content is a silly NormanXReader fanfic. XD
Sorry for the info dump if that's not what you were looking for. While I've written fanfics, mostly when I was much younger, I've never really posted them. And I have certainly never written a XReader fic before. So it's been a fun adventure. For everyone to think so highly of it, really boosts my ego lol.
And if you were asking why I chose Norman of all characters... it's just because I love him. Him and Otto made that movie for me and are the reason why Spider-Man No Way Home is my all time favorite MCU film. And Norman was the one suffering the most from rampant smut. So he honestly deserved some clean content.
Again, thank you so much for reading my story! You inspire me to keep writing and I am glad that you were able to find my work in your search for clean content.
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nother thing bugging me about current fandom culture, as happens periodically: i think one idea that’s pretty popular in some places atm is the whole ‘this somewhat likeable character has bad qualities and people Need To Address That.’ Like, a frustration that there aren’t enough consumable fanworks that Grapple(tm) with the unpleasant sides of x character. (Obviously, to some degree, this also falls under the umbrella of ‘I don’t know how to explain that you are fundamentally not entitled to access other’s work, for free, that pleases you specifically’). It reminds me of anti talking points to a pretty limited extent (mostly, I think, related to the ‘fandom is not activism’ adage), but the phenomenon I’m thinking of tends to come from fans who like the character in question, and have their own preferred way of engaging with that liking, which intersects with their personal interests. The preferred form of liking, in and of itself, I totally get.
BUT the thing that bothers me about this form of liking being turned into an expectation/entitlement towards others, in particular, is... most fic writers are not like. professionals. or seeking to become professionals. and I think that in terms of writing practice/skills, a key component of Grappling With Negative Aspects Of A Character is... the territory that that takes you into, in my experience, can look a lot like the thought processes that also characterise self-loathing, where the point is to explore a character’s thought processes without necessarily resolving them in any way - whether they’re aware that the things they’re doing are Bad(tm) or not, I think it’s easy to slip into similar patterns of thought yourself. Especially since it is all taking place inside your head. Which, hey, is also where the self-loathing happens.
The lack of resolution being important because, that’s necessary for an ongoing writing project. But the necessary thing for like... a less dire personal experience with a session of self-loathing is that resolution. If you can find any way to decisively leave that headspace for the time being, then mentally you are in a safer place than if you (intentionally in this case, but certainly not intentionally in all cases) let it hang about in your head in a more unresolved manner.
And I think that if you, personally, are literally someone seeking to write to a professional standard - ie, at a high level of skill, if the writing of Flawed Characters(tm) is a skill you personally think it’d be worthwhile to build - at that point, going to that mental place and learning to deal with it in order to extract creative material from it, is the tradeoff you make for practicing that skill. But if you’re sitting there feeling miffed that other people aren’t demonstrating this skill to a level/quantity that scratches your brain good - at that point, you are expecting those other people to go through this kind of thought process, to develop that skill, to put in the heavy effort of making that trade, for your benefit. And that is a big thing to ask. It’s HUGE. You are asking a lot, and that’s not really escapable.
And here’s why I don’t think asking that of randos in fandom is really very justified, even if you think that that skill is an Important one to have, and that would potentially put some benefit into the world if more people had it: at the end of the day, it all relates back to fictional constructs. Like, this argument has been made in different permutations time and again, but once more with feeling I guess - I’m the sort of person who has faith that... someone can exercise judgement about irl people’s behaviour without necessarily needing to model that in the creations they produce. Someone not wanting to Engage with negative character traits/actions in fiction is not gonna automatically treat real people who act poorly, the same way (ie, ignore their bad actions. They might, but - I know I sound like a stuck, stolen record - it’s not a reliable indicator). In part because... making a judgement about someone irl at no point involves putting yourself in their headspace long enough to try and create an artistic reproduction of it. There’s different goals in mind.
Beyond that, in the ‘it’s fictional’ vein, I’m gonna dip a bit into personal experience. It might benefit me as a writer - if I wanted to write the kinds of things where it was relevant - to further develop this skill. There’s also a possibility that learning such would also cause some change to my general worldview.
But right now, I’m not going to focus on learning any of it, because I am very, very freshly learnéd in telling self loathing to get in the bin, and reliably succeding in that telling. I’m a real person, not a fictional construct, and my ability to learn how to sustain something that is useful at keeping me safe, is far more important and will prevent far more real-terms harm to a person, than any one use of a writing skill, filtered through fiction in a niche, amateur folk-art space. I may reach a point in the future where my foundation in this is strong enough, that I can go back to that mental space and know that delving there is sustainable as a creative practice, without risking serious harm that I do not care to experience. I have not reached that point yet. I am not going to put myself in danger of harm in order to practice a skill that will mainly be useful for providing a moment of entertainment for others, rather than keeping me safe in what I am very, very aware is currently a fragile situation for me.
And I’m just one example, but like... that’s an example of the sort of thing that hobbyist writers might be trading on, if they follow the advice that they ‘should’ be writing certain things. The most important thing, to me, is that you’ve got real people doing the actual writing, and imo their wellbeing should be the priority, even if it makes assorted fictional constructs a wee bit less satisfying for people who like to enjoy things in a particular way.
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💥👻
💥 What is one canon thing that you wish you could change?
I want Tasha to have watched Madeline die with unambiguous intent. I want her to walk onto that plane, look at the glass of champagne, listen to Madeline blab about how successful she feels, and for Tasha to go, "Drink it. You're not worthy of the air you breathe" or "At least your son will never have to relearn what a bitch his mum was" or SOME kind of snapback, and then stand by and let it happen.
I want Tasha to come full circle and go, "You know what? I was wrong. Life isn't as black and white as 'Terrible people do terrible things and good people stop them.'"
I want her to walk away in the end fully embracing the lone wolf she's been grappling with for the whole second half of the series. The one that was able to join Keaton, of all people, despite his very personal involvement in what was done to Jane. The one who was able to hide Thornton's survival from Patterson and even work with him; who was able to lie to Reade and the team, disappear and let her family believe she had turned. The one that walks in the grey spaces in between.
I want her at peace with and empowered by her ambiguity.
👻 What is your wildest headcanon?
Maybe Boston's finger is in Valhalla......... xD
In seriousness though, I don't know that any of my headcanons are particularly "wild", they mostly plug various little story holes to make them make sense, and most of those, I've been writing as fics.
I've got one that I've been sitting on for a while... I guess you could call it more of an "alternate headcanon", because I don't really adhere to it, but the wild part is, it's fully canon compliant based on what the screen gave us, so it could be a real headcanon. I have lil picture in mind that I want to put with it, but I haven't managed to draw it to my satisfaction yet D: I'll try to finish it and make a separate post for that early in the new year. Please look forward to it, I guess? 😅 (I would almost consider ficcing it too, but..... I have too many WIPs already, and it would have to be a multi-chapter to make it work. So maybe not lol)
Thank you for the ask!! :D I think that's the clearest I've ever written out the Tasha thing, and the headcanon one I think is gonna hopefully spur me to action on something creative. xD
I'm trying to find my mojo and inspiration to start creating again, and I find these memes are a really good exercise to think critically about my ideas and hopefully get the juices flowing. If anyone else is curious, please check here and consider sending me an ask!
I've also recently done a WIP ask meme, which you can find here if you'd like a peek at what I've been working on before the words left me..... :)
#bonus on tasha: not only does it make all the rest make sense#it also gives her and Jane a very specific kind of kinship#esp after Jane just spent a whole season uncomfortably embracing her Remi side to lead them all home#there's only one other change i would have made but THANK GOD it was banished to deleted scenes so i can pretend it never happened#even if MG basically said he wishes it was canon and regrets cutting it#i'll post about that when rewatch gets to the relevant episode#blindspot#ask meme#writer ask meme#blindspot s5 spoilers
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