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mareenavee · 1 year

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WIP Whenever

Thank you so much for tagging me, @paraparadigm!! I'd tag you again, because grabby hands for GS fragments BUT (: I will refrain and reread what you've already posted!

Here's a piece of my fic, a section of Chapter 22 which I'm currently rewriting to add in new material. It's likely not final, but it's still a fun exchange. (:

It features Nyenna and Teldryn having breakfast at the Netch and talking before some nonsense that's upcoming.

The World on Our Shoulders -> read the rest on AO3

Chapter 22: Deep Down in Darkness

“I wanted to talk to you about that, actually,” she said, fidgeting. He looked concerned for a moment. “It’s…well… I didn’t just run away from my home or my life. I also ran away from my responsibility…”

“You said as much. I’ve been there before, done that myself. What happened?” he asked, waving his spoon around nonchalantly as he spoke. Nyenna was relieved. There was no judgment here. She briefly wondered why she had waited to admit any of this.

“One of my associates needs me to infiltrate a Thalmor party up at their Embassy. It’s to get important information, or so she believes,” she said. She frowned deeply. “I…ehm… I told her to fuck off and do it herself, essentially, and, following a few more unfortunate events, decided to get as far away as I could.” Teldryn cackled loudly, startling her. She scowled.

“That’s very heroic of you,” he drawled, still chuckling. She rolled her eyes at him. “Actually, how can I blame you? There was a lot I had to ignore or shove aside in my time. A lot I had been afraid of. I may or may not have told a few key people to fuck off, too.”

“It’s just… I wasn’t ready. I may still not be. To face one of my worst fears, that is. The Thalmor at the embassy might not have had a hand in what happened to me and my brother. Or maybe they orchestrated the whole thing. There’s no way for me to know,” Nyenna said with a sigh. She sipped her tea. “I couldn’t see a way forward when she told me, just flashes of all the pain they caused me. And I lashed out. And now I need to go back and make amends, if I can, and do the job.”

“At least you had a valid reason,” Teldryn said, still grinning. “I once put off a very important meeting so I could go to the beach and befriend a very drunk mudcrab.”

“For the second time in as many hours, none of what you just said makes any sense to me,” Nyenna said with a laugh. Teldryn leaned back and folded his hands behind his head.

“I’ll have to tell you the story one of these days,” he said.

“Yes, you will. I’d like to hear it,” Nyenna said with a soft smile, which he returned. “Another thing – on the way home to Whiterun, Athis and I ran into a contingent of Justiciars. They knew exactly who I was, somehow, though not the name. Some of the songs got it right, I think. They… They didn’t make it, needless to say.” “There’s going to be a lot of that, I think, all things considered. But I’ve got your back, sera,” Teldryn said, leaning forward to stir his porridge absently once again. “If things had gone just slightly differently for me, I’d have been in their sights as well. I understand.”

Tagging @changelingsandothernonsense @friend-of-giants @elfinismsarts @saltymaplesyrup and if you're up for it, @the-storytellers-seer (: Would love to see what you all are working on!!

#MareenaWrites #The World on Our Shoulders #Skyrim #Elder Scrolls #Teldryn Sero #LDB/Teldryn Sero #skyrim fic #skyrim fanfic #skyrim fanfiction #fic #fanfic #fanfiction #fic writer #fanfic writer #fanfiction writer #ao3

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raidenfanclub · 1 year

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Here's a list of things I've been obsessed with at one point or another/still am obsessed with

inspired by a post made by my bitc*-as*s-sister @deargodhelpmeaaaaaaaaa

this is like in order of when I was obsessed, going from elementary school to today (late high school)

There's so many lmao- the ones showed above are like the most impactful interests I've had- I've liked other things, they just didn't rewrite my goofy brain like all these did

ok explanation time

Pokemon- absolutely loved these games as a kid. I gaslit my older sister into thinking pokemon were real when we were really young. Almost my entire elementary school life was defined by this series and I adore all my pokemon plushies.

FNAF- ok so my sister liked it, so then I liked it. Our neighborhood friend and us had a whole club centered around the characters and we kinned assigned ourselves with all the animatronics. I was Mangle/Foxy btw.

Zelda- Probably one of the most influential games of my entire life. I played through so many of them in the later part of my elementary school years and cherished my toon Link plushie. I literally considered myself ThE gIrL lInK and pretended I was him. Breath of the Wild came out when I was deeply obsessed with the games and also when I was having an extremely awful time in my life. Botw may have unironically saved me. This series is a cornerstone to my identity.

Undertale- My sister liked it, so then I did too. Me, her, and her best friend, kin assigned ourselves characters without knowing what kinning was. I was temmie and muffet btw. I loved this game- then hated it because thats what was considered cool. But nowadays I just love it because its truly an amazing game and I dont care about its fandom reputation anymore.

(ima mention mincraft- even tho its not listed- minecraft was another cornerstone of my happiness and identity)

Hatsune Miku (and just vocaloid in general)- another "my sister liked it, so then I did" i liked the characters and the music. Me and my sister went to an event for the Miku expo one time, and it was so much fun. (it was an event where everybody drew miku and itd be scanned for the "Blue Star" music video, i remember it vividly) was an amazing time. I still like some vocaloid songs and love miku. Some of my school friends say I'm the real hatsune miku because I own a miku cosplay lol.

Splatoon- Everybody in middle school knew me as the girl with the squid bag and zelda jacket. I adored splatoon with the release of splatoon 2. I played it with my friends, I played it on my own, I made big deals out of splatfest (to the point where my parents were like "oh its splatfest? that's ur favorite!!) this game also really pushed me into becoming an artist. I would spend hours trying to recreate the artstyle and for like 2 years, all i ever drew was splatoon art. Another cornerstone series like Zelda.

Persona- oh no another cornerstone of my identity series... I look back at these games very critically and nowadays am not a huge fan of the writing choices. But in middle school, when I first played these games- omg they made me a better person because of how much I wanted to be like the protagonists. I wanted to be a reliable friend like them, so I worked really hard to try and become a better person. Despite the problems in the writing, these games really did help me- also they were my introduction to shin megami tensei) I should also note, THE ART! Playing persona encouraged me to shift my cartoony splatoon style into a more semi-realistic anime style like persona. My art improved monumentally from how much I studied Soejima's illustrations. It really inspired me.

Evangelion- I actually read the manga first. I reread it a bunch because covid started up and I had it checked out from the library. We couldnt return them with covid restrictions so I just reread them a bunch. Then I eventually watched the show and just loved it. I got my sister into it a year after I did, and we made a tradition of watching End of Evangelion once a month. Also a major influence on how I view writing and my artstyle.

Shin Megami Tensei- OK ANOTHER CORNERSTONE BUT these games made me realize the depth video games can have. Even though some of the games are really on the noise with their themes- games like Nocturne and Strange Journey blew me away with their creativity. I have so much to say about this series but I will keep it concise and say that this may be my all time favorite series (though its a close contender with Metal Gear)

JoJo- First off, I adore the art so much. But my friend encouraged me and my sister to watch it, we really enjoyed binging the series- and then I read the rest of the manga (SBR MY BELOVED). But i think why i especially love jojo is the friends I made from it, I joined the Fandom wiki community (and although it had its toxicity) I met one of my best friends there and had so much fun drawing things for my online buddies and chatting. Im not on the wiki anymore, but i still talk to some friends from it- and I still really enjoy the series itself PART 9 IS SO FUN SO FAR!!

Monster Hunter- really mh rise, I havent gotten to playing the other games (YET) but me and my sister play thsi game together, its awesome, I love the monsters, I got really good at drawing dragons because I would constantly draw the creatures from this series. I own the mh world artbook and that thing has got to be the best artbook ever- its my bible.

NieR/Drakengard- the same friend who recommended jojo to me recommended nier to me (he's such a real one, absolute bestie) We were gonna play replicant together but he got grounded so he let me experience it on my own. And I adored replicant, it was so fun to play with zero expectation of what it was. the Nier games may have my favorite sort of aesthetic but also I love its characters and its writing. Of course, when I got into Nier I went and played Drakengard also!!! Me and my sister played all these games together (tho she didnt play replicant with me, she just walked in on the most crucial plot points) But we played Drakengard 3 together, (ultimate sister bonding experience) and even though drakengard 3 IS SO FLAWED, we had a lot of fun. The Final Boss (which took me 3 weeks to beat btw) was so much fun for us (i still refight it sometimes) ... We of course played Drakengard 1, we spent $130 to get it actually, played it all (i suffered thru obtaining ending E) and we though it was awesome. Still havent played Drakengard 2 yet, but one day. I love this series for its writing, characters, aesthetics, and being able to discuss it with my evil sister.

Genshin- i dont wanna talk about it. I played it with friends, made me happy to become closer to ppl by playing it. I like some of the characters. ok bye...

Metal Gear Solid- My sister says I had the ultimate character arc by going from being obsessed with Genshin to being a die-hard Metal Gear Fan. I played all the games in late 2022, and it's probably the most brainrot I have ever experienced for a series- absolutely a cornerstone series. Everything about it is just awesome. I could go on for hours. I HAVE GONE ON FOR HOURS (to my poor friends) I literally made my tumblr just to look at metal gear fanart. The games inspired me to finally get better at drawing realism, and some of my most iconic art has come from my fanart for the games. I love my friends in the fanbase too, its awesome. I think about Metal Gear every single day. Never missed a dose of my metal gear fangirlling pills.

Silent Hill- My sister and I were playing sh2 together, then didnt play it for 6 months, and then I played the entire game without her (sorry maddy) Im still going through the 1st game and have the 3rd one in my backlog- but the atmosphere and psycological horror in these games is everything to me. The creature design and lighting choices have inspired my art, and I think about these games all the time. The latter half of sh2 actually terrified me a bit, and horror games dont really scare me.

Resident Evil- I have no idea how I got into the games but I played re4 over winter break this year, and realllly liked it- I adore Leon and I don't care what anybody else claims, HE IS MY MAN. But after re4 I played re2r and re7, and I just love the gameplay and the characters. Even if the games are really goofy and not really scary (I have balls of steel, re7 didnt scare me, but i loved the tension) But i love the goofiness and how campy they are. Me and my sister played re5 together and made a bunch of silly jokes- making resident evil multiplayer was the best decision ever. I can't wait to play the rest of the series.

Trigun- My most recent obsession (although it coincides with my silent hill and resident evil hyperfixations), I had first watched the show like 3 years ago- REALLLY LIKED IT- but didnt finish the anime. And then never touched it until I saw stampede's first episode. I went a watched the 1998 anime and read the manga. I can't describe how much this series has come to mean to me and it literally won't leave my head. I don't like stampede. I love the animation but I just can't. It's a-ok if your a fan, i genuinely see the appeal but you'll only catch me talking about it if its either about peak quality animation or a 3-hour rant about my problems with the writing. THE ORIGINAL SERIES HOWEVER! means the world to me. I reread volume 10 like 6 times and cried eachtime. My friend explains things to me in "trigun" terminology" as a joke when we have personal conversations. I love trigun so much.

Ok there's def more things I really enjoy, like Nijisanji, Ghost-n-pals, Chainsaw man, Death Stranding, Honkai Impact, Sailor Moon,,, the list goes on. But Everything I wrote essays about are my most physically obvious obsessions

Nijisanji actually deserves its own paragraph but im tired lol.

#really long essay sorry lol #mgs #re #undertale #i dont really know how to tag this so im just gonna not #im kinda cringe guys #raidenfanclub

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mannatea · 1 year

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Hi! For the ask game: 🌈 💞 🪄

🌈is there a fic that you worked *really fucking hard on* that no one would ever know? maybe a scene/theme you struggled with?

Hoo boy. Yeah. Three fics.

Fireside Dreams. The original was written in 2008 and this rewrite done in 2020. The rewrite was extensive and I DO MEAN EXTENSIVE. In 2008 I was well into adulthood already (lol) but I didn't have a great grasp of who I was as a person yet. I don't mean this in any sort of negative way, but Oscar as a character always spoke to me deeply and it wasn't until I rewatched and reread RoV in 2020 that it hit me square in the face why that was. In my rewrite of this story, I managed to convey a lot of themes I was incapable of putting words or solid feelings to back in 2008, and I wrote Oscar as asexual. I never outright stated it in the story or the notes (because I wanted my readers to feel they could kind of choose that specific for themselves) but that was where my mind was when writing it. Also, I very much wanted to hint at The Incident Scene being as complex as I view it, so I was able to do that too, something I could have NEVER put into words in 2008.

If It Takes a Lifetime. I was actually very happy with the original story, also posted in 2008. The original was more or less a cathartic love letter to the fans; it was my definitive proof that the author knew what she was doing by ending the series the way she did. When I reread it to work on, though, I found that the original was a classic example of what a friend criticized my writing for, once ("too emotional"). I reread it in 2020 as my first foray back into writing after some time away, and it was my first RoV rewrite. I found the story felt underdeveloped and a bit uninspired-feeling, and there was a lot of emotion that didn't really feel real or earned (which is something I've trained myself to notice; I did not have this skill in 2008). I also Get the characters in a way I did not in 2008 which helped a lot. In the rewrite I tried to mimic the manga tone more; the French translation (which is all I had until recently lmao) has this sort of...waxing poetic narration and I needed it for this story to work. I also had to retool basically the whole thing due to the PoV moving from omniscient to limited and the aforementioned issues. Rewriting this damn thing was a labor of love if ever there was one. I was so happy with this rewrite that in my notes I said it felt more like a Rose of Versailles fic than any other RoV story I wrote.

A Rose Is a Rose Is a Rose. I probably should not have labeled this a romance; it's more character study + friendship than anything but sometimes I'm stupid. Anyway, this was the first extensive rewrite I did since 2020 and it was pretty much a complete retooling of the original story, which had a fun premise but was way too short to make the idea work properly. This one was another serious labor of love; the story concept was good but the actual structure had to be tossed out, so I had to more or less just write a whole new story while still keeping the parts of the original that worked for me. And while I was at it I made certain it acted as a bridge to Raine's skit with Regal (where they agree that Lloyd surviving is of the utmost importance) as well as an easier segue into her ending, since I felt the game did a poor job of getting us from "she lied about her identity" to "she's so comfortable with it now she's out trying to end discrimination." (Not that the game did a great job with like, any of the character endings save a few, though lol.)

💞what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language

This is tough because it depends on the story.

Short pieces: Characterization > Metaphors Make Sense > Technical Stuff > Plot > Worldbuilding

Longer works: Characterization > Plot > Worldbuilding > Technical Stuff > Metaphors Make Sense

Like obviously if the technical stuff is dogshit people won't read the story at all, but if we're just talking a few nitpicky details, they matter a lot less in a long fic than in a short one. In a short story you're presenting a bite-sized (or like, cupcake-sized) piece for your reader, and the things that matter in the short-term have to be the most important (like, it's a short story...please edit it before posting, it takes a few minutes to look for typos). I think having a technically sound story is important no matter what but sometimes in long stories you do miss a small thing here or there.

I don't think a short story needs much or any real worldbuilding to be great. Obviously these details are nice in short bursts and fun to see, but they can also REALLY bog down a story if you include too many or the intention is to present something short & punchy. For a long story though, you DO need it, and depending on the canon you're writing for, you may need a lot of it to keep your readers engaged, to help your characters feel more grounded in the world, and/or to help the world feel real.

Metaphors making sense is ranked higher in the short story section because this is where they are most often encountered. It's very very noticeable if you make a terrible metaphor and that metaphor is the crux of the whole 2,000 word long story you're writing. In a long fic you don't see a lot of metaphors generally (and I find most of them just make the story a slog to read) so it's not that big of a deal because you probably won't even use them.

Plot ranks high with longer works because it's literally the second biggest reason people are reading the story. For shorter pieces it's quite low because there is always an audience for pwp and WAFF, which oftentimes have little or no plot.

Characterization remains #1 because nothing jolts me out of a story faster than characters feeling unlike themselves. I understand that sometimes people do drastic AUs and that's great, but if a character I love doesn't feel like the character I love anymore, then I'm out; it's just a personal preference for me. That said, in most situations, characterization makes or breaks any story. Plot matters a lot in a long story but the characterization will always matter more. I'd rather read a basic bitch plot with great characterization than a god-tier plot with mediocre characterization. Also, I do not think this can be overstated, but this is fandom and people are here for the characters; they should ALWAYS matter the most in this medium.

🪄what is your post-writing/sharing aftercare? How do you take care of yourself or celebrate yourself when you've finished a fic?

I tried to take a break since I finished writing Break Open the Sky and I've just been bored out of my damn mind, honestly. Started planning the sequel because I can't take it.

Usually when I write something and post it, I just do something else for a while: watch a movie, play a game. I'm an idiot who can't stop working on things to do simple tasks like eat or shower (hyperfocus or die), so usually when I finish something extensive I go look at something that isn't a screen for a while and shower, put in eyedrops, do a load of laundry or vacuum, and get myself something to eat.

Also my biggest writing care tip is CUT YOUR FINGERNAILS. Especially if you're a fast typist like me or if you have arthritis—or there's a history of arthritis in your family (osteo or rheumatoid). Got this advice years ago from @kippielovesyou, I think before a NaNoWriMo; it had never really occurred to me before but now if my hands hurt too quickly I cut my nails and feel like a brand new person again. It's truly wild.

Most touch typists like me use touch so extensively that when our nails get too long we have to use more pressure to feel. To be clear, I'm worse off than most people because I have the aforementioned arthritis + nerve damage in my hands (I have very very little feeling in the tips of my fingers), so I notice the extra pain in my joints very quickly BUT!! It could be a gamechanger for anyone, so I like to pass the knowledge on.

If you DO have the start of carpal tunnel or arthritis or tendonitis PLEASEPLEASE for the love of God don't overdo it. You WILL NOT get your hands back. Please. I'm literally begging. I fucked up my hands and arms in a factory years ago and I am not even 40 and have the hands of a 70 year old woman and permanent restrictions to keep my tendons from rupturing. Don't push through pain; it will not get better. I learned this the hard way and I am passing that knowledge on to you guys. Stretch, drink a lot of water, and give your hands a break when you need it!!!!

#seriously that last point... guys i am very serious #do not hurt yourselves it's not worth it #i have to live with the knowledge that some day i will not be able to use my hands anymore #and it will come much much earlier than it should #my mom is just now getting there at 60 (diagnosed rheumatoid like her own mom...)#anyway i had to throw away so many favored hobbies #because i couldn't take the pain #do NOT put yourself in that position #and ESPECIALLY don't do it on purpose #there is no glory is suffering for your craft #there is only losing it years before you should #long post #sorry i rambled lmfsdhafdsahfdlsfjsa

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lavenderek · 4 years

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i have a thought to express, feel free to scroll past.

i’m gonna discuss rape and sexual abuse in this post. it’s also long because i don’t really have a conclusion, it’s just some thoughts.

so i was looking into that reality show that facilitated shane dawson’s horrible movie “not cool” and i stumbled across a reddit thread posted by someone who was a fan of his as a preteen. the OP alleged that shane’s content contributed to them developing some serious issues including body dysmorphia and the normalization of sexual behavior involving children.

some of the comments were in support and agreement, but a large amount of them were like, “where were your parents? it’s not shane’s job to police what you see online. it’s not his fault you were too young for his content.”

now, shane was well aware from the jump that his fans were mostly kids and teens - he talked about it multiple times - but that’s not what this post is about. this post is about that particular argument, which does not sit well with me.

it reminded me of a couple years ago when i made a very critical post about c*ptive prince.

pause: i want to make it crystal clear that i am not drawing a comparison between people who like cp and shane dawson. i’m not mad anymore, so i am not making this post making a value judgment on cp or fans of it, positive or negative.

specifically, i was really bothered by the way cp content was posted and shared with no mention of or reference to the actual material. people were calling it a queer romance. it was a little-known series by a little-known author, so there were no synopses anywhere online, only the summary you’d see on the back of the book. so people would seek out cp thinking it was a romance and be blindsided by the fact that, spoilers, the story is set in a fantasy world where child rape is a major tenet of society. the scenes are explicit, detailed, and many. it’s not a thing that happens once or twice and is a major plot point, it’s a thing that happens multiple times in every chapter and is just kind of a thing that’s going on. if you’ve ever read twilight, i would compare the presence of rape in cp to the presence of rain in twilight.

like, that’s how often it happened, that’s how it was treated. sometimes with indifference, sometimes with a negative opinion, sometimes it caused problems, bella talks about it every two pages. it is a very rapey series.

and people like, did not want to discuss this. they were like, “the characters decide the rape is bad in the end. and that’s not even what the story is about, it just happens in the story. i don’t know what to tell you.” like... people were not receptive to any kind of conversation about this topic lmfao, it was very touchy. they wanted to acknowledge that rape itself is bad, and then they wanted the subject closed.

now, why is this a problem? i read the books. there were parts i enjoyed, and there were parts i didn’t enjoy. i’m not gonna reread them, but i’m still game to talk about it. ultimately i wanted to be able to talk about books with a friend of mine, and while i was like, “yikes, this is a lot of rape, was not expecting the volume of rape,” it didn’t occur to me this would be a pervasive issue at all until a different friend of mine happened upon it. this other friend was a rape survivor, and i happened to know she would find this content very upsetting. when she said she was thinking of buying the book, i was like, “halt, you know what happens in it, right?”

nope! she didn’t. she saw cute fanart and a ficlet on her dash, somebody told her it was a queer romance. nowhere was there any indicator in summaries online or the posts she was seeing that the book would describe a person being drugged and sexually abused. she was pretty relieved that i’d warned her and shaken that that’s what happens in the books lmao. she would never have guessed. the cp fandom was made up of people who loved the main pairing, and they’d talk about them being in love and draw them being in love, and it felt like everybody was just acting like the rape wasn’t even present in the books lmao.

pause: i didn’t go in the tags. this is not representative of the fandom as a whole. this is just my and my friend’s experience of it as passive internetgoers.

people got uncomfortable and a little defensive if i brought it up. they’d agree to tag for cp, but if you don’t know what cp is about, that isn’t helpful information. like that post that’s like, “waterboarding at guantanamo bay sounds like a lot of fun if you don’t know what either of those things are” lmao. if you don’t know what cp is about, tagging for it just tells you what it’s called. and it very clearly ruined everyone’s fun if i talked about this.

so that’s what i was mad about, i was mad that i felt as though there was no recourse here, and i was mad because i felt like the cp fandom was the emperor’s new clothes. nobody was acting like it even existed and everybody got uncomfortable if i brought it up, like, i legitimately wondered at some point if i had somehow accidentally read a kinky rewrite of it, that the real version did not have rape in it and nobody knew what i was talking about. i felt like i was going crazy and i got shitty in the middle of the night one time, and wrote that post.

i ultimately deleted it, so i do not remember how it was worded; but i do recall that it was a venting post, it was not intended to reach a wider audience. i was not trying to convince anyone in that moment, i was just talking shit. so i can bet that it probably came across as very judgmental and unkind.

i made a bunch of people very angry with that post. somebody got thousands of notes by reblogging with an impassioned smackdown saying basically what those redditors were saying about shane - it’s not their job to police what people see online. it’s not their fault you were unprepared for cp.

i do not think this is a nuanced enough argument because i do not think it acknowledges that not all content is created equal.

i even got an anon ask in good faith saying, well, a huge trigger for me is body horror, and people will draw or reblog stuff with body horror in it, and i can’t hold that against them.

and like, no, you can’t, but body horror is not the same as rape or child sexual abuse. body horror isn’t the same as sex trafficking. right? like those things aren’t comparable in the way that i think the anon was wanting them to be. they were saying that both of these are common triggers that people would want tagged and be unable to move past in media, you know? and i get that, i got what they were saying.

kind of like that cartoonist who wrote a spooky horror comic a while ago and somebody sent them an ask being like, “that was really scary, you usually post fun comics, this was damaging, unfollowed :/” like obviously a stranger’s fear of spooky things is not something he should be expected to take on on his own blog lmao. i am deeply afraid of ghosts, by the way.

but according to rainn.org, 1 in 5 women experience rape in their lifetime. 1 in 5 women are not frightened by literal ghosts in their lifetime. 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 7 boys aren’t body horrored. body horror and ghosts aren’t used on a global scale as tools to control and abuse people and they do not have the same connotations of shame, degradation, and control. the things are not the same.

i don’t have an easy answer. i can’t wave my magic wand and make people not enjoy the rape erotica, nor was that my goal in the first place. i wasn’t clutching my pearls like, “how dare you! do not draw this art! think of the children!” and i don’t know how else i would have solved the problem, aside from having a weird disclaimer under your art of two dudes cuddling that says “warning, these dudes are from a book that’s got several thousand words of explicit rape in it, and i know that, you’re not the only one seeing that,” like that’s a lot and i get it.

i don’t have an easy answer because there isn’t one. i felt like “well, that’s not my problem” was an easy answer.

as i get older, the more responsibility i have as an adult online to maintain boundaries between me and minors, for example. i am not responsible for their internet experience and they can’t get mad at me for cussing or writing about gay werewolves on my blog, but i do have to be mindful of that context if i’m interacting with someone online. that’s where the complexity comes in. you can’t wash your hands of the context of the things you say and do online.

just how to solve these problems, i did not know then and i do not know now. i guess we take it on a case by case basis.

if you’re curious about shane dawson and his horrible movie, by the way, this guy did a few funny videos about the horrible movie and this guy did a not funny but comprehensive breakdown of shane and his career.

and i tried to tint my eyebrows for the first time the other day, i have red hair and my eyebrows are darker than my hair for some reason, so i tried to use an eyebrow tint to lift my brows just like, a shade, so be closer to my hair? but in doing this i discovered that my eyebrows are a mixture of red and brown?

so the red hairs lifted to a sunny orange, and the brown hairs stayed brown. so my eyebrows are fully like, calico right now. boom, orange juice, that’s life

#diary post #long post

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all-of-the-imagines-for-eve · 5 years

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Lonley ~ Embry Call (Part 5)

A/n: I had a few people ask me for a new part to this so I reread the series and oh my gosh yes! I've missed writing this ugh.

Word Count: 2700+

Warnings: Back lash of abuse, mostly fluff though

MASTERLIST

I was not a runner, let me say that now. Despite that, I ran a lot that day. I ran until my feet finally lost purchase in the soft dirt as the rain started to fall lightly, softening it up. I fell and lay there for a long time. I'd turned onto my back and was looking up at the sunlight coming through the trees and the clouds swirling in the sky before I closed my eyes, finally breaking down completely as I just let the rain fall and wet me.

Never in my life had I been a crier. I suffered in silent stillness. It was the only way I could get back at my mom for always wanting me to be lively and happy and perfect. A proper girl was emotional and tender and brittle so to spite her, I didn't cry when I was upset. Even as a child I threw very few fits that even others could recall. It started a whole thing, with my mom telling me no and making life even more miserable just to get me to lash out. I'd refused then as I refused now and eventually she'd given up on me. That's when abuse became more focused and direct, without censors or tricks. That's when it became tearing me down and ripping me up with words and looks and scoffs and eye rolls and mantras to remind me where I stood in the word. When she had changed as well when it came to other people. She’d gotten so good at being fake when we had guests that I felt insane for wondering if she was as terrible as I knew her to be. She broke me then made me wonder if I was just crazy or if she really was to blame. It all didnt matter though. I stuck it out. I stayed strong.

Just as I had then, I didn't cry now. I closed my eyes and let the feelings in my body explode, simply wallowing in them. I didn't do that much either but everyone needs to wallow every once in a while and right now, thinking and feeling a million things in the forrest, laying on the ground as the rain fell, I felt it was a dramatic enough setting to be edgy.

"Paul said I should leave you alone and let you brood." I sighed internally. "But Sam said that if my gut was telling me to go after you I should. So here I am."

Taking a second to collect my thoughts so I didn't say something I'd regret - whether it be rude or just cringey - I swallowed, breathing in deeply and then letting it out slowly. "Embry," I greeted evenly.

He moved closer. "I'm not going to force you to talk or touch you if you don't want. Instead, I'm just going to sit next to you so you're not alone... and so I know you're safe and so I can be here if you need me." He stopped talking and despite myself I felt the comfort of his presence. My body was less heavy, my thoughts were less dark. It felt like the weight I had been carrying my whole life was suddenly lighter and as I sat there, even though I couldn't see him, I knew it was because he was helping me hold it up.

At some point he lay down next to me and I relaxed even more. My face went smooth and my mind went blank, all the remaining emotions slipping away until I was empty. My fingers twitched, tapping briefly against his. He inched his hand closer, ghosting around mine as he debated. I stretched my fingers, touching him more firmly. I imagined his smile as he interlocked his fingers with mine. The emptiness inside of me was already different than I knew emptiness. Before, I felt like the cage that a werewolf had been held in over night- excuse the irony of the comparison. The point is, when I had my silent break downs like this, I was always left with a sort of raw, ruined feeling afterwsrf. As if my emotions had dug their claws into my ribs and muscle and dragged, ripping it up and leaving me with dull aches and a throbbing hollowness that almost made me want to break down all over again, except that I couldn't because I just didn't have the energy in me.

This emptiness though... It was easy. Peaceful. An empty schedule after a long day. Resting in a field that had no one else for miles, leaving you alone with the smell of the woods and flowers and the feeling of sunshine on your skin. This was the feeling of standing in your doorway and looking at your room as you headed off for a long trip, or were just getting back. It was familiar and comfortable, more sweet than bitter even though it did still have that mix. An empty lunchbox after you finished eating.

My eyes opened and I looked over at Embry. He was already looking at me, his gaze open and honest as he stared at me with blazing admiration. With... with an emotion I could almost name but was far too scared to approach. I cleared my throat but unlike I'd gotten used to him doing, he didn't bother to look away once I'd caught him staring. He just hummed, letting me know he was listening.

My insides warmed and softened and I noticed the ends of his hair tickling his forehead and the reflection of the green woods, discolored in his brown eyes. He was so beautiful and it wasn't the first time I was noticing this but I just couldn't comprehend... "Why me?"

His eyebrows scrunched together and he focused more on me. It wasn't an angry or severe expression, his body too relaxed to correctly apply the deep confusion he was feeling. "What do you mean?"

I hadn't meant to say it out loud but now that we were here I didn't find it fair to just stop talking. Not that he'd let me. This was Embry Call- he'd pester endlessly until I told him and eventually I'd give in because who could resist him? So I'd just skip that part. "I..." I sat up, eyebrows knitting as my inner calm was disrupted by my self hate. He recharged me so quickly, I was already feeling emotions again... "You saw it yourself. You can't have not guessed by now. I know what people on the Rez say about my mom, and they're right. She's full of herself and in the clouds and self glorifying and she loathes my dad for somehow convincing her to see the world and not just herself and then leaving her alone in a world that hated her because of how poorly she treated everyone in it. He was the only person she loved more than herself and now she's alone to face the lonely isolation she's made for herself and she hates him for it." I swallowed, feeling Embry's eyes on me. I'd pulled my fingers out of his and now the abandoned hand rubbed soothing patterns on my back. It was so hard to concentrated with him around. "She took all that fear and self hate and regret and anger and channeled it into destroying herself and anyone around her.

"Especially me." My voice broke and I closed my eyes. "I'm pretty and have a life full of possibilities and she couldn't STAND the thought that I would have a happy ending when she'd denied herself one. I- I'm years of programming and poisoning and brainwashing. Years of a- abuse-" My eyes close tighter and Embry sat up too, scooting close. My chest seized. What was going on?! "I- I'm going to be so much work, Em. You'll constantly have to remind me of things and work again and again to help me rewrite myself. I'm going to have BAD days that leave me lashing out at you or pushing you away and then being mad when you leave me alone. I'm going to have feelings I can't describe and thoughts you can't help me get rid of and so. Much. Baggage.

"You could meet someone else. You don't have to love me. Be with me. You're so young and handsome and easy going and funny and down to Earth. You bring such a light and have this life in you- it's amazing. I'm... damaged goods."

There was where I stopped. I expected him to argue with me or to yell at me or sigh and roll his eyes. I expected him to maybe pity me, his face soft and twisted in concern and that expression that let you know someone thought you were sad and just a little pathetic. I expected him to get up and leave me alone in the woods, offering awkward apologies and half efforted explanations before he told me something about how I wasn't ready to be loved and he wasn't equipped to help me heal.

None of that happened. He rubbed my back until he was sure I was done talking and then he very softly relayed, "I love you."

It wasn't too casual or at all forced. It didn't make me anxious or surprised and leave me stuttering, trying to find a way to say it back or get out if the awkward situation if I couldn't find it in me to reply. It felt so right that I opened my eyes and looked at him, trying not to fall into the ease and belief that was begging to he felt. "Do you love me because I'm your imprint?"

He sighed through his nose, thinking seriously about it before he spoke. "Maybe," he relented. "If I hadn't imprinted on you we wouldn't know each other. Bella would have kept crying about how much she missed you but you would have left that day and who would I have been to stop you?" He paused. "Or maybe Bella would finally break like she almost had so many times and just told you every thing. Maybe you'd demanded proof and eventually we would have met and very, very slowly developed a friendship." He paused again. "But you wouldn't have given me a single chance if I asked you out. If you thought I had a choice. And I mean I do have a choice for the most part. But... I don't think I'd chose anyone else. Any other way." He looked at me very seriously. "Because you're not just damaged goods. You're..." He swallowed. "Your smile is small and shy and your laugh is short and bubbly. You put your hand over your mouth when you smile like smiling is a sin and you touch me like you would a stove top- like it hurts you. But you touch me like that because I'm the only person that DOESN'T hurt you and that terrifies you. You're- you're this beautiful flower, all delicate and pretty. Except-" He struggled, trying to come up with an analogy. "Except that you're looking at all the Roses in the flower beds and you think because you're not a rose and you've been picked from the garden that you're less than but Y/n I assure you-" He leaned even closer. "You are just as stunning as any other flower. Girl. Whatever you know what I mean." We both chuckled. "When you get a bouquet you don't care which flowers made it up- they all smell good. You're special because you're mine and I love you."

I actually smiled. "I still think you deserve better." His nose brushed mine as he leaned in even closer and I gasped, only just realizing the little amount of space between us.

Friends didn't confess their love to each other while the rain was falling, making cheesy analogies to express intense feelings. Friends didn't sit close and notice how attractive the other was. Friends didn't talk about the situation and make the comparisons we just had. Friends didn't kiss.

His lips pressed against mine and I jerked forward, kissing him back as if I was an old car sputtering to life. I tried to slow down and focus on how he moved his lip, trying to mimic him and cover up the complete lack of experience I had. He chuckled, leaning back. "Let me lead." It was gentle and amused but his words reminded me of dancing and I tried to think of it that way. He kissed me again and this time I let my eyes close more softly, my body relaxing as I let my instincts half take over, following his lead. My hands moved on their own accord, fingers slipping into the short hair at the back of his neck. I pulled him harder to me and suddenly he was leaning forward. I lay back again as he followed, ending up hovering over me, his exposed torso something I'd gotten used to... except that it was very apparent to me that he was shirtless as my fingers danced along his neck.

He broke away to tap our foreheads together to allow us a second to catch our breath. Then he was back at it, pushing with his nose to go from forehead touching to kissing again.

He was warm. My hands moved from his neck down, tracing over his bare arms and pulling him closer, basking in his warmth as it rained. A raindrop hit my forehead and I gasped at how cold it was. When had it gotten so hot?

Leaning back, I looked up at him. I moved my hands to his face, thumbs tracing every line and dip and curve as I tried to memorize him, in this moment, with me. "Am I dreaming?"

Embry smiled. "Hopefully not. That would mean that I was dreaming too and I've wanted to kiss you too long to wake up and have it not be real." I was already blushing but by the way his eyes focused intently on my face, I knew that my expression had softened and warmed in that mesmerizing way his did when he was thinking about or having a gentle moment. He suddenly stood, offering me his hands. I took them and he pulled me to my feet. The rain was letting up now but we were nearly drenched all the way through. "Tonight I'll grab clothes from your room but for now I'll take you to Emily's and see if she has anything for you. If not I'll give you something." He chuckled. "Maybe she'll at least have pants or shorts or sweats or something. Then you won't have to deal with dude pants that are too big for you."

He pulled me after him and I silently followed him. I shivered again after a while and he pulled me into his side, hid warmth blocking out all of the cold. I almost wanted a piggy back ride but my jeans were wet and it would have been uncomfortable for the both of us more than it would have been soothing like if I had been in dry clothes.

I wasn't totally sure about him yet, but that emotion that had been bubbling in my chest and stomach all day had worked into my blood, rushing to my brain and changing the entire inner function of my body. I wasn't running on blood now- I was running on Embry. His smell and the feel of his lips on mine. The weight of his arm around my shoulder, his laugh, his smile, the way he looked at me like I was the most beautiful girl in the whole world. Like I was precious and special- like he was terrified to lose me because if he did it would destroy him. It didn't matter that I didn't have a single idea where I would be living now or what was coming next. In this moment it was me and Em, laughing and being close together with the memory of our first kisses between us.

And maybe... that feeling I hadn't been able to name just yet. Well maybe I loved him too. What else mattered with such distracting things in my head?

Forever Tag List: @bitchyseawitch @chipster-21 @alexa-playafricabytoto @justanotherdaydreamersoul

Story Tag List: @plantyourtrees--watchthemgrow

#Embry call #twilight #new moon #breaking dawn #eclipse #wolf pack #wolf pack x reader #wolf pack imagines #kiowa gordon #kiowa gordon imagine #kiowa gordon x reader #embry call imagine #embry call x reader #twilight imagines

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eternaldipshit · 5 years

Text

alright i’m fuckin PISSED

i just made this blog yesterday to maybe possibly post a homestuck fic i’m working on but now i’m going to use it to scream into the utter fucking gaping void of the homestuck fandom bc none of my friends are actively in it right now and god dammit i am UPSET

fact: i got a lotta feelings for the striders. they are my shit. i adore them. ok? so that’s an established fact now ok good cool moving on

fact: when game over was released, i quit the homestuck fandom. that shit broke me. even if it wasn’t the “alpha” timeline or w/e it still fucking happened and it upset my delicate fucking sensibilities and hearing carne vale STILL triggers some sort of visceral feeling of panic and straight-up fuckin MISERY in me and i wish i was fucking kidding but i just put it on now to test it and ugh ugh gughgsh

fact: i started rereading homestuck this month from the beginning and reigniting my love for it. game over still fucked me up, but i powered through it and 5 years fuckin late i finished a harrowing emotional rollercoaster that i’d started like 7 years ago and was just... DEEPLY fucking unsatisfied with the ending which is why i started writing aforementioned fic in the first place but that is not relevant rn this is a whole different rant ok

fact: i wrote like 20k words for this fic in the span of like 3 days it was sick as fuck

fact: the epilogues are dumb as fuck and i despise them

and that’s the meat of it really. fuck the epilogues.

i haven’t finished them yet, but i just. ugh. UGH. words escape me. partially bc im a shit wordsmith but also bc *SPOILERS* i just got to dirk’s funeral scene and just fuckin. gave the fuck up.

i never liked the original homestuck ending to begin with, but i never expected that the epilogues would be so fucking... bleak. it’s like reading a shitty fanfic except all the fun is sucked out of it bc technically all the shit you’re reading is canon and that makes it all seem drab and unfunny and just kinda depressing

especially in the i guess ‘doomed’ timeline where dirk kills himself

idk if it hit me hard bc of the flippant treatment of suicide or if it’s just bc i love dirk so much as a character but it just hurt in so many different fucking ways

it doesn’t help that the epilogues paint dirk as a straight up fucking sociopath

and i can see why that would make sense, really. his expanding godhood powers played into his pre-existing sociopathic tendencies in the worst way possible but

it’s just

not what i want to imagine from a fucking epilogue

call me soft and an idealist but i like my happy endings god dammit and fuck FUCK FUCK the epilogues. i want to try to finish them but it’s just. fucking difficult.

i think the suicide was the last straw for me and now that i think about it it’s definitely bc of my own suicidal ideation and this is exactly why i avoided that stupid fucking show about the girl killing herself no matter how many times it was recommended to me bc i consume media to distract myself from my problems not have them blared in my face in neon lights

i also fucking hate how dirk’s character morphed from a manipulative as hell genius who constantly struggled with his own morality to this kind of puppeteer who is flagrantly detached from his peers and seems to hold no real attachment to any of them it’s just

it’s shitty

and i was so excited for it bc i thought it would grant me more insight into dirk’s and dave’s characters, considering the fic i’m writing is strider-centric and it just completely took the wind out of my sails instead bc this is not what i pictured for dirk at all

i mean i’m not a fucking idiot. i know he’s an asshole and an ‘ends justify the means’ guy and definitely manipulative and controlling but this is also the guy that cut off his own head to save all of his friends and tried his best to comfort dave when he was having a breakdown despite his own supposed lack of empathy

and i want so badly to continue my fic like i never read this but i can’t ignore it bc it’s fucking CANON. and i know my biffle would be like ‘fuck canon’ but i can’t fuck canon ok it’s the reason these characters exist in the first place. i might rewrite the whole ending but i wanted to stay as true to canon characterization as poss and now i just. can’t.

the real kicker is that i was willing to look past the reveal that he was the narrator the whole time, controlling the lives of all the characters even if it literally gave me goosebumps bc it put that whole ‘jake keeps thinking about dirk while jane kisses him’ thing into a new disturbingly unromantic light but i ignored that too. i switched to the other path for a bit and i knew from the minute it switched to the scene where dirk’s hands are shaking and he calls jane i KNEW he would kill himself but i convinced myself otherwise and surprise surprise got my ass handed to me on a silver platter for it

but i cannot i CANNOT believe he would do that to dave. i flat-out refuse. i flat-out fucking refuse to believe that dirk could be so cruel as to leave them all behind in such a crass fashion and how DARE he do that to dave how fucking dare he doomed timeline or not that dude’s been through enough shit like come the fuck ON and decapitating himself??? that’s not poetic fucking justice that is just straight up cruel af and i know these are all fictional chars and this whole scenario is fictional but it is SO UPSETTING TO ME bc that is the EXACT thing you think about before a suicide attempt you think about what it would do to your loved ones and i absolutely irrefutably fucking REJECT the idea that dirk is so far-gone in his godhood puppet game that it wouldn’t even cross his fucking mind and it is just so much worse to me that dave is the one who found the body and i know dirk isn’t a ‘good’ guy but ugh UGH it’s like they just threw out his whole fucking conversation with dave where it’s obvious that he tries to be a better person even tho he knows he’s an asshole and it’s just.

fucking upsetting.

i hate hate hate what they’ve done to dirk’s character in this it’s like they took all the struggle and all the growth from the adventure and all the nuances and just boiled it down to make a caricature of the person he used to be, emphasizing the negatives so that the epilogues could have this weird fucking quasi-villain dictating everyone’s lives

why do these epilogues even exist

no one is going to read this but i am just so full of righteous indignation that i needed to get it off my chest. i was so hyped to be back into homestuck again, so excited to see what more it had to offer and this just. ruined all that joy for me. and now i’m afraid i’m just going to fall right back out of it again.

what the fuck is the opposite of a redemption arc bc that is exactly what the fuck happened here.

anyway tl;dr i love returning to a fandom i haven’t touched in 5 years and finding out one of my fav chars just got narratively butchered yeah i’m fine it’s cool

#rant #epilogue spoilers #this was my first post but i privated it and i'm probably gonna private it again but for now #feel my wrath

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ladylilithprime · 6 years

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do all the even numbersssssss

~evil stare~

2) What fandoms do you write for and do you have a particular favourite if you write for more than one?

Ugh.... Animorphs, Marvel, Sailor Moon, Tomorrow People, Firefly, Gundam Wing, Princess Tutu, DC Comics universe, Smallville, Danny Phantom, YURI!!! On Ice, Supernatural, Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Daria, How To Train Your Dragon, Rise of the Guardians, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Power Rangers, Fullmetal Alchemist, Miraculous Ladybug, Phineas and Ferb, Gravitation, Yami no Matsuei, Weiss Kreuz, My Little Pony, FAKE, ElfQuest, Good Omens, Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Transformers, Stargate SG1, Pirates of the Caribbean, Highlander, The Sentinel, Boondock Saints, MacGyver, and a whole wild world of crossovers..... Yeesh. Anyway, I don’t have a particular favorite, though I will go through periods of working exclusively in one fandom or another before switching.

4) What is your favourite genre to write for?

Fanfic genre? Probably Alternate Timeline/For Want Of A Nail fics, where a single change in the timeline causes events to play out differently. I also have a weakness for time-travel fics. ^_^

6) If you had to delete one of your stories and never speak of it again, which would it be and why?

I thought we agreed never to speak of it again?

8) Where do you take your inspiration from?

Everywhere. Literally everywhere. Frequently from just sitting around letting my brain wander.

10) In your fic A Wish Your Heart Makes, why did you decide to end it like that? Did you have an alternative ending in mind?

I’ll be completely honest: the moment I got the prompt, I knew how the story was going to end. If anything, I made it less angsty than originally intended.

12) Who is your favourite character to write for? Why?

Depends on the fandom. In Marvel, regardless of the universe, I love writing for Tony and his flashy misdirection and nicknames hiding a wealth of genius and depth and background that the surface never shows. I have similar reasons for enjoying writing Sam Winchester in Supernatural. However, in Fullmetal Alchemist I love writing for Jean Havoc, a theoretical background character who is still deeply important to the narrative and has all sorts of depths to explore despite his canon dissembling about how “I ain’t the brightest, but I get by”. Basically, I guess I just love characters that have way more going on in their heads than gets shown on screen.

14) How did you come up with the title for Twist The Sinews Of Thy Heart? - You can ask about multiple stories.

It’s actually a line from the poem “Tyger Tyger Burning Bright”. Appropriate choice for a fic that features a “crazy” angel rescuing technically extinct tiger cubs. eh?

16) How did you come up with the idea for Twist The Sinews Of Thy Heart?

My dear enabler @rodiniaorzetalthepenquin asked for “fluffy Sastiel with tiger” for her birthday, and by Chuck I delivered! XD

18) Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?

Technically, yes, but I don’t exactly consider them abandoned. I have WIPs whose bunnies decided to fuck off to Monaco and chill with porn stars go on an extended vacation, and so they got put on the back-burner while I pursued other avenues in other fandoms, but I don’t think I’m capable of abandoning a WIP. I either finish it or straight-up kill it.

20) Are there any stories that you wished you’d ended differently?

There are a couple of fics that I wish I could have drawn out the resolution longer, but my momentum failed me.

22) Do you have a story that you look back on and cringe when you reread it?

Yep! Next?

24) How do you feel about writing smutty scenes?

Eh... I can do it when I need to, but it’s not my preferred thing to write.

26) Which part of your Amethystium fic was the hardest to write?

Definitely part five. I had to write it with just enough ambiguity to keep it from being too obvious exactly what I’d done so I wouldn’t get murdered by my readers.

28) What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fanfiction?

The internet is full of people who all have different motivations for going online to read fan-created content. Some people are going to be friendly, some are going to be weirdly elitist about fandom, and some of those people are going to be assholes who want to tear you down just because they think they can and believe the internet anonymity will protect them from consequences. Don’t let them drive you out of what you love before you’re ready to move on to something new.

30) In contrast to 29 is there a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at?

Not really? Maybe some of my really old Animorphs fics that I wrote when I was twelve upon which I look back and feel like I could have done so much better?

32) Are any of your characters based on real people?

Sure, sometimes. Mostly the blink-and-you-miss-them NPCs. Occasionally some of the bigger OCs are based off of real people, but I try not to tell people that, or of whom the character is a representation. ^_~

34) What’s the harshest criticism you’ve gotten?

Probably the person who kept harping over my “obvious” lack of understanding of genetics, when I’d actually done the research prior to writing the fic and had sources to back up my in-story numbers. The person kept after me until I just deleted the entire fic “pending rewrite” to get rid of the whole damn argument chain, and I’ve just never gotten around to reposting it. Not even sure I still have the original fic file, actually.... Anyway, that was both the harshest and most stupid criticism ever, and for twenty-two years of fic-writing, that’s pretty decent, I think. (I don’t count flames, because those are just haters being mean.

36) Can you give us a spoiler for one of your WIP’s?

...Sam has wings. ^_~

38) If you could collab with any other writer on here, who would it be? (Perhaps this question will inspire some collabs!) If you’re shy, don’t tag the blog, just name it.

Of the people with whom I would like to collaborate and with whom I have not already collaborated, probably @jupiterjames and @theriverscribe

40) Do people know you write fanfiction?

Some of them, if I trust them a whole hell of a lot or we’re mutually blackmailing each other because they write fanfic too. (Looking at you, @jupiterjames )

42) Song fic - What made you decide to use the song “Bailamos” for Harry Potter.

Honestly? The crackfic potential and the chance to write male/male dance choreography. ^^U

44) What is the last line you wrote?

Rarely was Castiel disappointed in the offerings, and even those disappointments were because he didn't care for the flavors, not because of any fault in the quality of the pastries or drinks offered.

46) I really loved your “Phoenix Ascending” fic. If you were ever to do a sequel, what do you think might happen in it?

Well, Michael would take over and stabilize Heaven, Gabriel would get rescued from Assmodickus without Ketch’s help, Lucifer would die sooner, and Jack and Mary would be rescued fairly close to canon with a few obvious differences. Probably. Maybe. If I was writing a sequel. ~shifty look~

48) What’s your favourite trope to write?

Irritatingly, I love writing Slow Burn. I also hate it. Because it’s slow. And long.

50) If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?

Fluff. Angst hurts to write, frankly, and as for smut.... Meh. I'm really not that good at writing it solo; it's a lot easier to do cooperatively when I have someone else's character reactions to react to, but even then the actual deed is not so important for me as the depths of emotions behind it, so... Fluff.

#fic writer questionaire #i have too many fandoms i write more #sweet feckin' jesus this took a while to fill out #dreamhunter-trash #Whispers on the Wind

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beauregardance · 6 years

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Why Rewrite?

I’m rewriting cover my skin (Sun-Kissed Light) due partially to becoming more conscious about what kind of mlm fanfiction I’m writing (as a cis-woman outside of the mlm community) and whether or not it contributes to homophobic fujoshi-esque tropes of torture porn. I’ve elaborated more on it under in this post.

Since I’ve already explained my feelings there, I won’t be talking more about it unless anyone else has questions, which I will gladly answer.

Now more on the logistics!

Confessions:

1. I did not intend for it to be a long fanfic. In fact, I went out seeking 3 chapters. And then 5. And then? Indefinite. Which leads me to my second point.

2. I had no plot.

No really, I didn’t. I had absolutely no idea where I was going with it, and my continuity errors (though I fixed them on rereads) were examples of this meandering. I had no idea who Beatrice was. I was going to cross that bridge when I got to it.

3. Unrelated subplots.

I had no main plot, but I had too much going on the background that I wasn’t committed to exploring, and it’s very visible on a reread now. Examples include:

Piper/Reyna, which, shame on me, wasn’t explored enough or properly!

Bianca di Angelo - which YIKES veered into ableist depictions because I had no idea what kind of illness she had and that’s already a red-flag. To understand better: Koogi from Killing Stalking not having researched BPD, and saying that she characterized Sangwoo as “not normal” and it happened to “fit” with BPD. Mental illnesses does not mean someone is unable to function in society, like I wrote in with Bianca. That shit was not okay, and I was 18 when I wrote that, not 14. I’m owning up to my mistakes now.

Hazel’s mom. What was she doing? Why was she estranged? Why is she absent from the family picture? I remember it was an important part of the story...but how? I had no idea what she did in this fanfiction to be honest. That piece was not fleshed out.

Octavian. He was going to be a subplot of the story that dealt with bullying but I don’t even think I thought more about that than beyond the first introduction.

Drew Tanaka. Who is she? Why? What does it have to do with this? What was I planning with her character? Obviously I knew I wanted to redeem her, but that’s pretty much it.

Percy Jackson. He appeared in like two chapters and disappeared. I don’t think I wanted to do anything with his character except to show that Nico’s interest was switching over, but it still didn’t make a lot of sense.

4. The main characters themselves were not fleshed out.

Yes, they are already existing characters that don’t need to be fleshed out because RR has already done it. But. BUT. That is no excuse to write them blandly without any hints of AU. That’s what an AU is - they’re slightly different depending on their circumstances. That’s why Nico is a Levesque! Yet there’s nothing to be said about aspirations, dream jobs, futures. The only thing we know is that Will is going to an Ivy League school for the life sciences. That’s it. And that’s not enough. I knew Hazel was in college, but where? What is she studying? And Reyna is practically a blank slate. She cares deeply about Nico and is a Big Lesbian, which is great, but she needs more development. Piper - oh Piper. Why is she so casual about Jason having cheated on her? Did she never love him in the first place? Was she in love with Reyna the whole time but was scared due to going to a conservative school? Unfortunately, I knew I had never planned on expanding these questions, and she would always be relegated to the detective girlfriend role with no depth of her own.

5. The School / Geography

No layouts. Nothing. The only thing keeping track of the story for me was labeling the top of each chapter with the week day it took place (e.g. Monday, Tuesday etc) in my document. I had no school layouts - which okay, can be overlooked since school was almost over, but I spent 20k words in that school. Some people write a whole tragedy in 20k. Basically, when you spend that much time, there needs to be some sort of layout. Something to structure it. I had absolutely no structure.

While speaking about the school, why is it so intensely homophobic? I had written it in just for the sake of homophobia but it doesn’t sit right with me. Yes, people can be just homophobic but there’s something wrong about this.

I also had no sense of where this was taking place. The suburbs was my assumption, but it could easily be the city. Anyways, main point is: needs more development.

Now onto the writing aspect:

1. 20k words, and nothing happens.

Literally...nothing happens. I used to make fun of Twilight but....literally nothing happens in it, which is why it was dragging on so long. Part of it has to do with the fact that I didn’t know what I was going towards.

2. The purple prose is everywhere.

The reason why it’s so long and nothing happens is because there is so much purple prose. At the time I thought I was being touchingly poetic. When I reread it last week, it was too much. So many descriptions and feelings that could be cut. So many little details that took away from the scene and distracted the reader. Yes, while it was poetic, it also felt like a try-too-hard poetry, like I was forcing something out that didn’t want to be written.

3. This post.

I think this says everything about writing on abuse. I was talking in the negatives all the time. Nico was in a constant state of emptiness with no let up, no presence of anything replacing his security.

4. It doesn’t interest me anymore.

Mainly because I had no plot to begin with. Something needed to change before I could go back to it. I couldn’t keep writing chapter nine like I wasn’t feeling all of these things.

5. There was so much stalling, not a slow build or a slow burn. Just stalling.

This also had to do with not knowing where the plot was. I was putting off so many things because I didn’t know what to do with them. The main plot, I didn’t know where to go. The sub-plots - they were also a lost cause. I also knew I didn’t want Will and Nico to get together that early. But in the midst of trying to write a slow burn, it doesn’t read like a slow burn. And I think what’s essential about this fanfic is that it needs to be a slow burn. That’s the whole focus of this fanfiction. The fact that it doesn’t read like one makes it, frankly, kind of boring to read.

6. Falling in Love?

Because...it doesn’t feel like it. It’s abrupt, comes out of nowhere, and yes fanfiction can be unrealistic, but I was kind of aiming at some semblance of realism here. The gradual love didn’t feel real enough, which is why on a reread, I couldn’t invest in Will and Nico. That’s also why it didn’t feel like a slow burn. Because I didn’t buy that Nico was falling in love with Will and vice versa.

That’s all she wrote for now.

Now what can I do with all of these notes I have for myself? Well quite simply - change it up - find the plot - retcon, and dig deeper with this story that I’ve only been skimming the surface with. Which is why I’m going to be uploading my old chapters onto my tumblr for archiving while I update with newer chapters. Some subplots are going to be retconned (you can count on the Bianca subplot disappearing because it’s disrespectful af!), replaced, or entirely made anew. So what’s going to change about the new rewrite? Is it going to be basically the same? Well yes...but also no. We’ll see when we get there ;) sketch out the entire plot! But yes, I do have a basic idea of what is going to say, and a hint to what happens in five words is: The Winter’s Tale - William Shakespeare. Take what you may from that!