“They finally made this theme more blatant-" Why does it need to be blatant. What's wrong with subtlety? Concepts can be underused but subtlety is not neglect.

Blaring all your concepts and themes is not good writing. It's so disruptive to a story's flow when the characters look off the screen to be like "See? This is the concept. The idea. The theme."

If you can feel the hand of the author becoming too heavy that's bad.

For example: I see people saying Azula's abuse in ATLA is more blatant in the live action and it's good because "it's being discussed more". It already was discussed at length. The show made it clear she was a victim at every turn, every behavior, every reaction, it came from a place of trauma. It was made clear that she was scared of ending up like Zuko because Zuko was an example of what would happen to her if she failed. When she says she's better than Zuko it wasn't just because she was raised to think hersef superior to him but because Zuko failed and failures get mutilated and exiled, failures are abandoned. In that final Agni Kai the music is morose and somber because this isnt some epic battle its a fucking tragedy, the burning out of "Ozai's brightest light" and Azula finally succumbing to her terror and trauma she was repressing now that her worst fears are realized. How can you see a fourteen year old girl chained to a sewer grate wailing and writhing and breathing fire desperately as unsympathetic? Even Katara and Zuko are horrified as to what has become of her.

The writers weren't looking us in the eye and saying "See? She's a victim too" when they wrote this, they weaved it in. They weaved it into her obsesison with symmetry, her extreme perfectionism, the way she talks about Ozai, the ways she calls herself a monster, her isolation from those with healthy home lives, all the ways she held herself together and ultimately all the cracks and seams that she shattered down when she fell apart. It did not need to be blatant to be clear.

Anyway, if I had a nickel for every time a series had six installments that gradually escalated in ridiculousness, only for the sixth installment to end with a universe reboot and the seventh installment to pick up in a new universe where alternate versions of the original characters now exist in the distant past, I'd have two nickels.

One of those series is JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. The other is Riverdale

Thinking about IDW Optimus again and the fandom's aversion to even acknowledging he exists bc he's a cop or whatever and like. Most of the time people literally just replace him in fic with some white bread knockoff archivist/librarian, not even bothering to keep in IDW OP's personality (which just bolsters my theory that the problem isn't him being a cop the problem is that he's too multifaceted but I digress).

And it's annoying because you could totally write IDW Optimus as not a cop while still keeping his canon personality. You just have to realize that the reason IDW OP became a cop in the first place is because his formative experiences when he was young shaped him to basically have two priorities: 1. To help people and 2. To do it by being on the ground actively doing something about the bad things happening to people.

IDW OP would not be a fucking librarian or archivist because even though those are noble pursuits that can help people and change the world, and Optimus is educated/smart enough for the profession, he wouldn't be satisfied just teaching people or spreading information about activism or social-historical studies or whatever. He's a mech of action: he needs to be doing things right now, in front of him, to people he sees/interacts with in his own eyes, improving society with concrete actions rather than indirect action or abstract inspiration.

So basically the alternate job ideas I can think of for IDW Optimus are something like being a firefighter (or any first responder really) or even whatever the equivalent would be to international charity organizations, those ones that send volunteers across the world to do stuff like build housing/infrastructure or distribute food or whatnot. I mean I can't imagine that the equivalents to these things would be exactly the same in IDW Cybertron, so you'd have to get a little creative with it, but these are just some ideas of jobs that would fit IDW Optimus' personality while still filling the niche of "not a cop" for people who are just that opposed to it.

Though I think the revulsion against coptimus is annoying in general tbh because IDW is already a continuity that rejects the idea of easily defined good/evil people or groups. It feels like people really want Optimus to be a good person in a very sanitized and academically approved way, so he has to be nice and squeaky clean but also like, a perfect leftist who knows theory and holds the most progressive opinions on every single issue....

There is no room for the idea that good people join bad institutions, there's no room for the idea that the reason people think cops are good guys who help people is bc of the government propaganda everything is saturated with. Hell there's even later issues of the Optimus Prime series by John Barber where Optimus like, MULTIPLE FUCKING TIMES, is shown in flashbacks grappling with the fact that he as a cop/Zeta's regime that he works for might not actually be improving society like they say they are, and dealing with the fact that he feels more like a lesser evil compared to the Decepticons (perhaps not "lesser" at all).

It's like there's this idea in fandom of like, fictional media and opinions on media having to strictly adhere to progressive ideals at all times. So people just go "cops bad, this character is a cop, therefore they suck" without being willing to engage with the idea of like. IDW OP is born wanting to fight injustice and protect people -> a good way to protect people is to fight the people who are hurting them and committing crimes -> surely following the law is a reliable moral code to guide him in this -> becomes a cop because he's been indoctrinated into a society (much like our own) where he was told that the state/the law exist to protect the people and being a cop means you get to fight bad guys that hurt people. There's really so many interesting concepts there that could be (and CANONICALLY IS) explored about how good, well-intentioned people can be led to harmful actions simply because they have been fed the idea that the things they're doing are good/helpful/noble. Which is especially important for a character like Optimus, I think, who has a cultural icon status as The Irrefutable and Perfect Good, so it's really important actually to use IDW Optimus as an example of how even the most noble people you know have held problematic beliefs or done bad things at some point in their life. You know, because no one is born perfect and ideologically pure, and in fact society is constructed in exactly a manner to make people drink the kool-aid and believe that the systems designed to hurt them/others are just a normal, if flawed, society.

I mean the writing in IDW literally has Optimus deal directly and indirectly with the harm he's done as a cop and how people don't/didn't trust him because of that. I don't know what the fuck else this fandom wants if the source material literally saying "OP realizes that cops suck and he hurt people and earned their disdain by doing the things he did" doesn't stop them from going EW cop bastard sucks and is the worst Optimus. Like the narrative barely stops short of outright saying ACAB and Optimus himself would agree with this sentiment.

At that point, the collective fandom beef with IDW OP isn't because he's a cop and the narrative didn't do enough to condemn that. The problem is literally just that people don't read and don't care

TLDR: Consider the fact that good people can do bad things sometimes especially when living from birth in a corrupt society that thoroughly disguises its vices/oppressive structures as completely normal parts of existence

its actually so crazy how the writing team was like “lets make grief and loss important themes for alisaie as a character” so in BCOB she learns about making peace with her grandfather’s death to live life on her own terms, for her own sake. she goes out herself to explore eorzea. and then emery dies while shes powerless to do anything about it. and then she almost dies believing that urianger was going to betray her and the scions. and then she watches the same tower her brother was supposed to be in get bombed not knowing if he escaped in time. and then she watches the people she loves be picked off one by one, physically present but spiritually gone, while being powerless to help them. and then she loses contact with alphinaud (again) not knowing if he’s okay. if he’s safe. and then the next time she sees him immediately its his limp body being carried by a stranger. and then she begs the warrior of light to not leave her alone. and then she watches tesleen die powerless to do anything about it. and then she watches the warrior of light nearly succumb to becoming a sin-eater, risking dooming not only the fate of the first, but the source. and then she finds the cold bodies of licinia and her sister, ultimately more victims of their despair than anything else, people who she’d been trying to help. and then s

I am once again asking people to stop posting the RHatO 27 hug out of context

he owns your heart ‎♡‧₊˚

Omg, Dante Basco ships Zutara! My life is complete.

I know people have a right to disregard canon for the sake of the fic or whatever but every time I see "Bad Parents Jack and Maddie Fenton" on the same fic as "Good Parent Bruce Wayne" my brain goes a little bit fuzzy

any advice for newbie fanfic writers or new writers in general? I always have trouble trying to "paint a picture/ describe a scene and happenings lol thanks :D

I feel like I say this every time, to the point that its like a cop-out answer, but, genuinely, you really do just gotta practice.

Its like with any type of art. You won't get better at drawing if you don't just draw. You won't get better at an instrument unless you play the instrument. I didn't really notice my writing getting "better," but looking back at the earlier chapters of Fractures and comparing them to my newer stuff, it's clear that I have.

Past that, I mean one thing I do is I read all of my stuff out loud. I try to see if the words that I've written put the right image in my head. "Painting a picture" is a hard thing to do with writing, and a lot of the time its less about the amount of words that you write and more about the way that you use a smaller amount of space.

Crack open a thesaurus. Don't use bigger, more obscure words just for the sake of using them, but find ones that might work better. At the same time, though, don't be afraid of common words. I use "said" quite a lot, even though a million English teachers will yell about how basic it is. Much of the time, though, the emotion comes from the actions the characters take outside of the dialogue tag.

There are a few things you can choose to focus on when it comes to "painting a picture" that will set an overall mood quite easily. One of the most simple and yet most effective is weather. Describing the sky, the time of day, what the sun looks like. It can add tension, or drama, or can even stand to emphasize the state the characters are in, like when its a nice day but they're going through something hard.

Everyone's going to have a different writing style, too. Sure, you can copy someone else's, but if you're just writing yourself without trying to emulate another author, you're going to have your own style.

Personally, I tend to do a lot of comparisons to describe things. I pinpoint a few details and call back to them throughout a chapter or a story. Oftentimes I like to get a lot deeper into the character's mindset and examine that for a good while before pushing the plot forward. One of my friends, on the other hand, is a lot more straightforward with her writing, sort of trying to tell it as it is. Both describe what needs to be described, just in different ways.

If you're really struggling with trying to figure out how to "paint a picture" in the reader's head, try thinking through the different aspects of the scene. Anything that you can describe. Then, pick what actually needs to be described to understand what is going on. The positions of the characters, the vague setting, things like that. You don't need to go super in depth, because the reader knows, even subconsciously, how to fill in a lot of the detail on their own. You really are just here to "set the scene."

As I said before, though, no matter what advice you take, the only true way to see solid improvement is through actively writing. It doesn't need to be stuff you publish, but I would encourage it, since feedback is an enormous help as well. Either way, though, just keep writing, and reading it back, and then writing again, and you'll see improvement, just as with any type of art.

(Also, and I mean this with my whole heart, for the love of god, Kill Your Darlings.)

(Thank you and goodnight.)

99% of the discourse on this piss on the poor ass webbed site wouldn't exist if y'all knew the difference between discrimination, oppression and lateral aggression

Y'all really need to glaze and nightshade your shit. Who cares if it makes it "ugly" learn how to use those tools. Big companies and social media does not care about us

desperately need people playing bg3 to realize that just bc something awful is in the game doesn't mean the writers actually agree or support it themselves. learn how writing works and stop throwing around weird accusations.

And your ship may be coming in You're weak, but not giving in And you'll fight it, you'll go out fighting all of them

friends. countrymen. you cannot say the rituals are intricate for a het ship. the rituals are not intricate. they don’t need to be. courtly love was 500 years ago bro. the rituals are plain and boring and normalized through our culture. they currently involve bumble and hinge. please don’t make me tap the sign.

some people are way too comfortable comparing timothee chalamet to rats and reptiles. like let’s use our big brain for a second and think about why that’s not okay.

Hey, was Noé from Auvergne? Bc that's where Lestat is from. Mochizuki Jun, señora, I know you watched the IWTV film but did you read the books too? Are you watching the new TV series? Is Louis de Sade name an homage?!?! Just a min.

OK, so yes it's Auveroigne in Altus, which the vampire counterpart to the historical province. In the wiki, in Noé page says:

Averoigne is a fictional counterpart of a historical province in France, detailed in a series of short stories by the American writer Clark Ashton Smith.[1] The province is considered "the most witch-ridden in the entire country. The location is frequently used in Smith's stories as well as his close friends'.

One of the main themes tackled in the stories of Averoigne is vampires. The forests of Averoigne are said to be infested with vampires as well as werewolves.

Which means that Mochijun, who has done her research very well for Case Study of Vanitas, would likely have come across this (which seems to be the kind of stories that also got Anne Rice to choose Auvergne for Lestat???) but given that Mochijun has also said (the translation of that interview is somewhere in my vnc tag) that she watched IWTV and all the multiple references to other vampires and Gothic stories and fairy tales scattered in Vanitas I wouldn't put it pass her to put Auveroigne as a wink.

Also here you have the Wikipedia for Averoigne.

I am obssesed by this btw. The stories and worldbuilding couldn't be more different but Vanitas does occur in France, mainly Paris and has vampires so the association was a bit unavoidable in my mind.

If you have read/watched both case study of vanitas and interview with the vampire I want some crazy talk here.