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estrelio · 3 years

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So uh you don’t have to answer this but for your adhd what’s it like? Or well yeah that and how long have you know you have adhd because I just- I don’t have the opportunity to get tested until I’m 18 and I don’t wanna self diagnose but it’s something that’s bothering me and I’m genuinely curious

ok kinda said a lot so it's under the cut. i broke it up so it wasnt a huge paragraph because i know those are unappealing with the adhd brain lmao

aha... ooo, where to start. i guess i should first of all say that i also havent had the opportunity to get tested...but it all started here? sort of?

i made this account in october and i expressed through some rambles that i felt i might have adhd but didn't want to self diagnose. i've been to therapy & i was diagnosed with depression, anxiety and ptsd a few years ago, but honestly the therapy experience was just Bad for me because of Reasons and i've been wary of going back (and also my parents aren't very supportive of therapy or anything to do with mental health stuff...so.) *

*edit: i should also mention that i'm someone who likes to feel out...labels? i guess? and things of that nature to make sure i'm certain about it (or as certain as possible) before committing to it. this happened for my gender & sexuality as well as the mental illnesses i thought i might have before i was diagnosed. usually this includes years of internal debate and further research and self analysis...so i. yeah i would never want to just say i have adhd just because.

anyways, in the ask i linked + some others, i was told that it was okay to self diagnose adhd if you've been noticing symptoms for a while? (i believe because it's hard for adults to get an accurate diagnosis... anyway? but don't quote me on that) and i had been, i'd been 👀 for like a year prior but hadn't mentioned it much to anyone because i again...didn't wanna self diagnose.

leading up to me talking about it on here though, it's just like. i've had a lot of time to observe myself during covid/quarantine and come to new... realizations? my parents pointed out to me MORE than once that i was constantly stimming (i mean they didn't call it that, but that's what it was--i was never sitting still & they'd tell me to like. relax. whenever we watched a movie. i snap my fingers a lot when my mom's being slow getting groceries, and also tap my foot/jog my leg which is actually something i've always done but never really noticed, constantly picking at the skin around my nails or at my lips, etc etc)

and then i had the shittiest college quarter of my LIFE because i doubled up on units like an IDIOT but it was around november...which. you know how we all were during november, ok. we were a collective mess. and i just couldn't (still can't) concentrate on school like normal. i (haha..used to) care a lot about school, and my parents were like 👀 what is going ON why are you so stressed but it was because i couldnt focus on a SINGLE assignment for more than 1 minute at a time

so naturally i complained about it on here and asked for ways to study with adhd? because i hadnt looked into it before? and i kid you not... all the suggestions worked. all of them. i actually got the shit done without turning it in late and it was!! a miracle

but yeah, that kinda cemented it for me. that, and having friends on here that told me it was perfectly okay to say i have it/noticed me doing stuff like jumping from thought to thought on my instagram stories or stimming or whatever, which felt pretty validating i guess. i mean sometimes i still doubt that i do have it, but i hope to get tested sometime when i feel it's okay to do so

anyways to sum it all up because i know this was a lot

lack of concentration/difficulty staying focused on one task for too long/procrastinating like crazy

finding it hard to sit still (fidgeting, moving, stimming)

forgetfulness (which i forgot to add... uh. {edit: LMAO I FORGOT TO ADD FORGETFULNESS SHAHDJ} one time i forgot to pay my tuition and got fined a late fee for 100$...oops)

not wanting to do things that require a lot of mental effort (like the essay i'm avoiding rn!)

jumping from thought to thought without really completing the first one (like. for example. "okay yesterday i was watching--okay no wait you know how dean's a bottom?? ok so i was thinking. wait wait okay he's a bottom but it makes sense because the episode i was. hh. fuck okay wait. YOU KNOW how cas wears a striped tie. ok. i swear this makes sense just let me get a grip.")

were the main ones off the top of my head, but here are also some resources that may help!

#hope this...helps?#pls dont repost #anonymous #adhd #rambles #not spn #advice #sort of #adhd talk

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incarnateirony · 4 years

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DM questions, a new round.

"i am very curious for the vids on amara right now, because I feel like I did not understand a lot of the underlying text from her plotline."

My Amara heavy vids are Reflection (S14 orig)/Destiny's Reflection(S15 update), End of the Line, and Xanthosis. However they're more how she interplays to the storyline for the mains rather than a breakdown of the mythological significance at large. I'd say check my talk on Absence. Somewhere I do have a cosmogeny post from like S13, where I break down the Qabbalah on this but I can’t seem to find it at the moment and would be a bit extra. Almost overcomplicate things right now since it went into the tree of life and pillars, even if that’s quite predictively mapping out our path right now episode by episode.

I will say: not all mentions of “absence” on my blog are specifically in regards to Amara, but rather, to a collective mindset. The fandom -- frankly, humans in general -- tend to think in dualities. A subtle point in the subtext of this all is that dualities are often more a matter of being and unbeing. Darkness isn’t a thing, it is an absence of light. Death isn’t a thing, it is an absence of life. Evil isn’t a thing, it is an absence of good. It wasn’t by magic that I pre-quoted Cas in well...Absence once I saw the episode title while dealing with Jack being soulless. (x) This is something to learn moving forward-- or uh unlearn. Be absent of former dichotomous coding. This is critical in other things like The Absence of Life which is going to be incredibly crucial to grasp coming up. (x)

Many authors talk about the Absence of Cas as a narrative tool, and while this is very valid, I find it’s almost too targeted. It’s a valid tool to start thinking about empty space: absence of Cas in AUs, the loss of Cas in the alternate future, and more--you’ll find me showing how Amara’s exit itself paralleled Cas and both handled Absence. But this is a very large scale idea that also impacts the sum of our cosmogeny really. You don’t think of it being “Cas” and “negaCas”, it’s just... absence. Something that isn’t there. Now expand that on these ideas.

I once etched this out on paint to try to streamline it when it comes to our Alpha and Omega (11.23), aka our Form and our Void (11.2).

"For the graphic, i just watched a few vids on alchemy and the 'souls' 'occultum' and 'eden' stand for 'soul' 'mind/spirit' and 'body' respectively right? But I am a bit confused about the end of the second paragraph, because from one of your posts I gathered that the souls are collected/destroyed/taken by amara and then "returned" to the empty. But in the graphic you seem to be implying the exact opposite? I think? Anyways it was very helpful to put all the different info into context thanx!”

They're pulled out into Absence, Absence is the lack of Being, Being is the created world. Beyond the created world there is the Empty. In the Empty there is only the Shadow.

And you're kinda close on the soul stuff. I'm at work so pardon if I'm going to be brief, I have a boss in my ear on a conference call but the long and short of it is... soul, mind/grace, body. But body is also the physical world. As above, so below. Everything, and I do mean everything, ties into this. Souls, heaven, how reality is structured -- if you haven’t yet, check my heaven meta as it tries to communicate this but also make sure to read through the rest here. (x)

The soul is the foundation of all things, the mind reflects the soul and identities grown of it from the creative collective, body/earth is the perception of the world and vessel in which we grow.

VISITA TERRAE RECTIFICANDO INVENIES OCCULTUM LAPIDEM

Visit the interior parts of the earth; by rectification thou shalt find the hidden stone.

Or, “loosely translated,” In order to be in the Occultum, the Occultum must be in you.

The alchemists often referred to this as the “Marriage of the Sun and Moon,” which symbolized the two opposing ways of knowing or experiencing the world. After this Marriage of the Mind, the initiate experiences an increase in intuitive insight and the birth of Intelligence of the Heart. This newly found faculty produces a sense of reality superior to either Thought (Mind/Grace), or Feeling (Soul), alone.

The soul lights and powers the mind, the mind perceives the body, the body is vessel of the world and gives meaning and form for the soul for the mind to receive, relive and understand, as opposed to the unformed and seeking Shadow in oblivion wondering if it even exists that just wants to sleep. This is also not so different from the world orbiting around the sun despite previous confusion, if sun = soul, but the moon reflects the sun’s life and is a key catalyst for making life achievable on earth in many ways. Wherein moon = mind. Hmmm what was it that led Cas right to the occultum before it passed in the same order as the last sphere this year?

"Yes! I believe I actually understood everything you just said perfectly fine! (Three hours ago this basically just would have been gibberish to me, for real!) but for real, tysm for explaining, you really have a way to get everything down short and precise, even if i have to read a few things double. Just one more question, you saying they are pulled out into absence, and then the circle gif: does this mean in the grand scheme of things that the circle is finished by the time "a soul goes back to the empty" (very loosely described). Or is the circle a bigger one where it began with "the empty" / "the ink man(was one of 'his' names I think)" waking up -> everything forming out of nothing. And will end at some point with everything returning to nothing. Just to start anew - and therefore cause another unrelated circle? Sorry I this makes absolutely no sence at all "Waking up" referencing the big bang of course - "everything returning to nothing" meaning the collapse of the universe - and the "start of another circle" meaning a second big bang"

There's actually two takes on this! Very good question! Ironically, most gnostic branches believe the ascent does return you to the formless shadow, and it's called a Nihilistic view. Basically you return to the source of the machine as the one. On the other hand, more hermetic structures are called Optimistic, in that the machine is self-created by us to learn and master ourselves through and achieve enlightenment by returning to a *reflection* of the core. In supernatural, this would be the Garden, where the unconscious shadow being built over in creation reaches down as the subconscious serpent and asks who you are-- man returning to the garden.

In fact, Jack’s role in this (including the Luciferian parts I’ll talk below) in being the one TO return to the garden corresponds with phanes and the orphic egg, the (remastered) being that CAUSES that big bounce. (x) Why yes, I AM going to just keep throwing season 14 posts at you because this structure is a few years building at this point.

The Shadow may be the source but a still raw and unformed one, it's the fish before it crawled out of the cosmic water if you will.

Whereas the question of Being or Unbeing, first sourced in ideas like Chuck and Amara, came as thought. Thought and Mind made the world in Being.

So Chuck Had A Dream, and built it, but off the back of a primordial Shadow soup that already existed before him.

So the Thing that wonders why, or even if it exists, does exist as a formative Prima Materia, first material, on which the mind itself was made, but in reaching into the created world also has a new form. There, the crossroads of man and divinity, the Garden, where Jack reclaimed his soul.

Chuck is the first Mind to create by Grace and the Word (Logos, notice the book between Dean and Castiel) and half of the first question. Abraxas: Abrahadabra: I speak, therefore I am.

Chuck would thus be (half of) the Shadow's mind in its first form, but lacks the actual essence that defines the Shadow, and the Soul. Some schools of gnostic thought believe that humans were originally created, their body forms, by the Demiurge (Chuck), but they had no souls. So the Shadow descended as a serpent, sometimes Lucifer sometimes not (I don't think SPN is doing that part--or more, as above, is using Jack, the orphic child, as Phanes), to teach them the difference between good and evil, but that forbidden fruit wasn't an apple or whatever, it was giving them a soul, because the soul is the one true good and foundation of it all.

There is no evil, there is only the absence of good.

But the acquisition of that made them more than Chuck's dream, but able to have their own.

Hope, art, dreams. Those are human things.

Yes, they are.

The soul breeds the mind, the mind perceives the body, the body shapes the experience OF the soul as perceived by the mind, and these things make our heavenly thrones, thought boxes if you will

Supernatural is actually asking the audience to ponder the meaning of life.

What about all of this is real? Is it our circumstances?

No. The where isn't significant as much as what we do with it.

What about all of our Lives is real?

People, families. We are.

This is real.

Why do we exist? What is the meaning of it all?

The meaning is what we make between each other.

Who are we when we are first born? Are we as an infant who we become? Would I be a completely different person if I lived a different chain of circumstances and knew completely different people? How many lives must I live to find my way?

Chuck wants them to believe that the Gold they have made in this world and their interpersonal relationships cannot stay. Perhaps in his world that may be true. But man and his soul and his mind is a mortal beyond the body of this world

If they break Heaven from the chains he put around it then he has no power over man. It's the same reason he sealed Amara away. He knew they were equals and he couldn't stand it.

Man has the same right to the throne that Chuck has. Only his propaganda machine and keeping people in the ecosystem of his boxes is what gives him Authority. But as Fortuna says, don't play his game. Make him play yours.

As Dean said when he threw Michael in the Box.

My mind, my rules.

In that box, Dean was God. Everyone else was just All The Same. Michael couldn't snap his fingers and nuke them all, he didn't have Chuck's given right of being a wavelength of intent across the realm.

"In this place, I'm God!" cried the mayor in Peace of Mind.

Each and every heaven box is a potential world made by man, a timeless place shuffling their greatest memories and ideas, but left empty by the lack of other souls in it. The souls remain the one true thing and he who has the most souls is god.

Man is god, end of story, Chuck's just... an architect.

And every human can be one.

Perhaps my greatest frustration in this fandom is trying to slam out post after post explaining how wall to wall this incredibly deep philosophy is, to try to point out its resounding and powerful message to an entire audience, only to be met by resistance over silly fan warring about wanting or not wanting a ship like. Honestly, I don’t care if someone doesn’t like ~Destiel~ like. Get over it. You can see it as a long series (15.09, 15.13, etc) of platonic bro marriages of the platonic bro mind for their cosmic taxes to get a discount on the loan for their galactic fucking refrigerator at this point, but you are fundamentally doing yourself an entire assed disservice on the very moral bone structure of this show to not be willing to absorb this, much less prepare for how this will usher out our ending.

I don’t care if you ship Dean with Anna or Lisa or some other ancient shit, I don’t CARE if you prefer some Cas ship from 1492, tuck all that away. Please, for the love of everything holy, try to understand these lessons that the writing crew are even using to try to help counsel everyone through the ending of a show that took up much of our lives and, beyond that, learn how to carry these lessons into the real world in a way that just might maybe make you a better person who is able to have a better experience in their life.

#supernatural #spn #meta #my meta #pagan life #amaah #amara #death #darkness #absence #dichotomy #souls #cosmogenesis #vitriol #occultum

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intimate-mirror · 5 years

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@serinemolecule Here’s my promised effortpost. (for bored followers, click J because this is pretty long)

I want to start out by emphasizing that I share most of your stated values. Understanding the nature of problems is really important to me. So is actually understanding, in a non-combative way, those people who I think are doing harm. This is why most of my discussion with people IRL, in voice chats, or in short-form text chats consists of asking empirical questions, asking about argumentative structure (often using analogies), and attempting to restate someone’s general worldview and particular argument in terms they would support.

(There are several people on tumblr who say that e.g. GDPR is a fundamental human rights violation. If you’re part of that group, then that’s a major value I disagree with you about, but I don’t have a strong memory of you taking that stance.)

Descriptively, I also think that dealing with incentives rather than simply attacking the agents who are most near to the harm is more likely to be effective, and makes use of a more accurate worldview. Just attacking one bad guy after another in a game of whack-a-mole might be necessary in the short-term to prevent harm, but in the long run it’s a great deal of wasted resources that can distract from the substance of problems.

Because I agree with your stated principles to such a large degree, in large part I think the beginning paragraphs of your posts on this meta-topic are constructing weak men to combat. People holding the positions you describe certainly discourse en masse on American Twitter, but they barely exist at all even in the broader scope of Tumblr Academic Freedom Club, let alone the specific case of me.

Here’s the core of why I dislike your recent posts about the CCP and about half of your posts defending tech corporations: I strongly agree with you that expressing true facts which are inconvenient for the right (or “right”) side ought not to be taken as support for the Opponent or to be suppressed for fear of giving ground to the Opponent. However, I also believe that the obligation to tell the truth extends not only to the factual truth of the statements, but also to the truth of direct implications of the statements’ framing, as well as to the representativeness of the distribution of the factual claims with respect to a natural in context interpretative distribution. (if this sounds confusing, don’t worry - I’ll explain it later)

My (unconfident) guess is that my first expansion of the demands of honesty is uncontroversial, and that you would agree with it but argue that your posts contain no implications of falsehood. Here I’ll quote a part of your post I find especially egregious in this regard:

For instance, you’ve probably heard about the Uyghur reeducation camps in Xinjiang. They started when conflicts between Uyghur and Mainlanders turned violent. Now that the Uyghur are in camps, the Mainlanders feel a lot safer.

I think I could mostly let this speak for itself, but it’s such a good example I’ll go in detail on it. The first sentence, in context*, carries an implicit claim “The situation isn’t as bad as you’ve heard.” The framing of the second sentence implies that the camps are at least half the fault of the Uyghurs. (Consider the horrifying claim that “The Holocaust started when conflicts between Jews and Germans turned violent.”) The third sentence implies that the camps allow “the Mainlanders”** to relax in safety.

Each of these implications is false, and though outside of the context of the argument you’re making they would be poorly-phrased but basically unobjectionable true statements, the sum total of their bias forms a narrative perfectly matching that of official propaganda.

To illustrate what I mean by the second point, I’ll quote from the sequences (edited for brevity):

There are two sealed boxes up for auction, box A and box B (owned by Mr. A and Ms. B). Exactly one of these boxes contains a diamond. There are many signs indicating whether a box contains a diamond; but no sign known to be perfectly reliable. There is a blue stamp on one box, for example, and I know that diamond boxes which are more likely to show a blue stamp. Or I have a suspicion that no diamond-containing box is ever shiny.

Now suppose there is a clever arguer who says to the owners of box A and box B: “Bid for my services, and I shall argue that the winner’s box contains the diamond, so that the box will sell for more.” So they bid, and Ms. B wins.

The clever arguer organizes their thoughts. First, they write, “So box B has the diamond!” at the bottom of their sheet of paper. Then the clever arguer writes, “Box B shows a blue stamp,” at the top and beneath it, “Box A is shiny,” and then, “Box B is lighter than box A,” and so on, neglecting all signs in favor of box A. Then they come to me and recite from their sheet of paper: “Box B shows a blue stamp, and box A is shiny,” and so on, until they reach: “and therefore, box B contains the diamond.”

I would claim that although the facts the clever arguer presents are correct, and although none of their implications (e.g. that shiny boxes may be worse) are false, their argument is still fundamentally dishonest. Not just because it’s motivated! - everyone can be called a motivated reasoner, after all - but because of the distribution of the presented facts themselves. The clever arguer is presenting themselves as an objective source of information when the distribution of information they’re pulling from is heavily tainted.

In the same way, your recent post in response to @street-peddler, pulls comparisons between the US and China from a distribution which is highly biased in favor of China’s current domestic policy. It starts:

I think the average American, if told to imagine an average Mainlander’s life, imagines like an authoritarian dystopia. They imagine 1984 or something. Or at least more authoritarian than the US.

That’s probably the biggest mistake. First, some hard data:

The US’s incarceration rate is 0.7% (the highest in the world). China’s is 0.1% (below average). Some people say China might be lying about their incarceration rate, but having lived in China, it definitely feels right to me.

I don’t believe the factual claims in the last paragraph and the following paragraphs with more data are wrong. I don’t even think they make wrong implicit claims! Mass incarceration in the US is a really big deal, it really is much worse than in other countries, and danger from the police is afaik really worse in the US than in China. Your footnote correctly points out that overregulation of general industries is much more of a problem in the US than in China. All of these claims are in isolation valuable points, but together they present a picture of authoritarianism which is at best misleading and at worst propaganda. ***

I realize this extreme claim needs backing up. First, I want to point out the original goal of all of this data - the implicit claim in the second paragraph quoted above that the US is more authoritarian than China. To use a relatively objective standard, here’s wikipedia’s definition of authoritarianism, though do check out the article itself for a more complete definition. (my point isn’t based on the word authoritarianism, but on the bait-and-switch your post does when discussing the concept of authoritarianism applied to the US and China)

Authoritarianism is a form of government characterized by strong central power and limited political freedoms. Under an authoritarian regime, individual freedoms are subordinate to the state, and there is no constitutional accountability.

A natural examination of the question of whether the US or China is more authoritarian would therefore look at the centralization of power, at the limitation of political freedoms, at the subordination of individual freedoms to the state, and at constitutional accountability, etc. Of these four topics, only one is arguably addressed by your examples: limitation of individual freedoms. You will notice that as your examples move from incarceration to amount of non-violent crime to the regulation of the food industry, the connection to authoritarianism becomes increasingly feeble to the point of nonexistence.

In fact, you make many points which are valid defenses of the idea that China’s authoritarianism is beneficial for many Chinese mainlanders, which does support your broader claim that China’s policies are good for keeping its population happy. But this is a far cry from a refutation of the idea you criticize at the outset: that China is more authoritarian than the United States.

So you present (true) facts that aren’t relevant to your claim****, and leave out the most important facts for establishing it. I don’t think you’re trying to deceive people, but I do think this method is structurally dishonest.

Now I want to be clear that I think this method is valid in certain circumstances. For example, having lawyers who are expected to argue the points most favorable to their clients is a clever work-around to the difficulties with removing bias. But you don’t present yourself as a lawyer for the CCP, or your arguments as merely the best defense the CCP can make. Instead you present yourself as a relatively neutral, objective, party, who wishes people to have a more accurate picture of events. I won’t assume anything about your goals, I definitely don’t think you’re a psyop or anything ridiculous like that, but your arguments in favor of the CCP are absolutely not neutral or objective.

Final note: I don’t have anything personal against you. (I’m following you and will continue to do so unless I’m blocked) I just think a particular class of your posts are systematically and badly misleading.

* “To the extent that the things you hear on the news are true, they’re not designed to give a whole picture of what life is like in China”

** Note also the implicit assumption that the Uyghur aren’t mainlanders.

*** As a frivolous side note, I agree with you that China is far from the popular imagination of 1984. However, I’m pretty sure people imagine a much greater quantity of suppression happening in 1984 than the book actually presents. The lower class are given a great deal of latitude and can basically lead normal lives - they can marry, can be religious to a degree, can run their lives how they want, basically the picture you pain of China. It’s only the upper classes that need to badly fear government suppression. Even with this change though China isn’t like 1984, but it’s closer by your account than one would otherwise think.

**** Does anyone believe strong regulations on milk quality signify authoritarianism?

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lemon-verbena-writes · 5 years

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Some notes on A/B/O, how I use it, and other thoughts on the genre.

This post is inspired by @pools-of-venetianblue‘s wonderful comment [link] on love like blood, and I quote heavily from it here; she had such well-thought-out commentary, I wanted to include it here. Anything quote-blocked is hers; my responses are formatted normally.

I wanted a chance to discuss how I use A/B/O, and how others use it, and some other aspects of my fics, and this seemed like a good way to share that. I’ve put a read-more cut in about halfway through, because this ended up becoming very long. I think we all know that I’m a bit prone to long, though!

Your writing is stunning - the prose is gorgeous, poetic, and flows so well. You build the tension between Robin and Cormoran perfectly (and how are they both so in-character in such a different universe??? genius). And the angst... god, you are so good at drawing out that emotional pain until it physically hurts - and it made the moment where these two idiots finally give in and talk about their feelings so cathartic and satisfying.

Honestly, I left this bit in because I love flattery :) Also, I wanted to say that I’m so happy the angst was successful in making the feelings reveal both emotional and satisfying! I often find that I can draw out the emotions for ages, then when it comes time to wrap things up, I don’t know quite how to make it happen. So I’m very happy it worked!

In anyone else's hands, this trope could be a giant disaster, reinforcing sexist ideas about the sex and gender stereotypes - but you have handled it really well, showing the characters themselves struggling with the demands of the trope. Robin fighting against her biology, refusing to give in to its demands by asserting her subjectivity and her right to pursue the life that she wants - and her need to know for sure that what she has with Corm is more than biology, that it is her, Robin that he loves, and vice-versa, is absolutely wonderful - and I am living for her acceptance that their hearts, minds, and bodies are all in sync. I really hope she gets to a place where she can integrate/accept being an omega while still not letting it dictate the way she chooses to live her life (and thank god that she's found Cormoran who genuinely loves her brilliance and would never want her to change). And while I feel like Robin's struggle really is the emotional core of the story, Cormoran's angst about feeling like he doesn't live up to what Robin 'deserves' in an alpha, and coming to accept that it's actually about what she wants, and she wants him (at least I think that's where you're going with it??), complements it really well.

Again, you flatter me! The fact that this all came through makes me feel very successful as a writer, because these are complex things to depict in ways that aren’t ham-handed. Also, this is what I love about writing A/B/O: the ways that you can exaggerate the internal feelings with an external mechanism, so that not only do the characters get to have all their canonical feelings and struggles, but there’s an additional layer of biological issues. Robin not only has to deal with being single, she has to deal with having heats; Cormoran’s not only attracted to Robin, but he can smell her, and her emotions, and her need for him, and still he feels the need to deny it. It’s a way to make things both easier and harder! And you may have noticed, I do love to torture my characters, and draw out the emotional pain while giving them physical satisfaction.

All the things @pools-of-venetianblue touches on here are things I wanted to convey in my writing, and I’m glad it worked. There are many, many ways to write A/B/O, as many ways as there are authors. Every author uses it in a different way; in my writing group, there’s one author who writes A/B/O because it gives them a path to male pregnancy (”mpreg”), by making male characters Omegas. Other writers enjoy writing dubious consent, which Heats can provide, while still leaving room for eventual HEA and explicit consent. A/B/O has room for so many tropes, including things many people find upsetting or gross, such as rape/non-consent, gang-rape, animalistic traits beyond knots, and unbalanced power play. But at the same time, it can be a way to write m/m pairings having happy biological families, mpreg, nesting, and tooth-rotting fluff. It’s up to each author the directions that the A/B/O goes.

Like any collection of tropes, A/B/O contains multitudes. The ways I choose to use it are my own, and other authors will use other aspects in other combinations. I choose not to use many of “darker” tropes, like extreme possessiveness or total loss of consent, and I don’t usually dwell in the more visceral aspects of the biology, like the desire to impregnate. (That’s what knots are meant to be for; they hold the semen inside the Omega’s body, in order to have a better chance of impregnation. Some authors use this mechanism heavily; sometimes Heats will guarantee pregnancy, some A/B/O worlds have multiple births as a matter of course, triplets and more. But those don’t appeal to me, so I don’t use them! Others do. It’s all a matter of preference.)

Going back to what @pools-of-venetianblue says at the top of the paragraph: “this trope could be a giant disaster, reinforcing sexist ideas about the sex and gender stereotypes...” I choose to use aspects of A/B/O that suit my preferences, but other people enjoy the sex and gender stereotypes. They’re writing them on purpose, not by accident, and they generally know they’re not good things! (They wouldn’t know to tag them if they didn’t know they were bad things that needed to be warned for, right?) But they want to explore the ideas, and that doesn’t make them bad people or bad writers. The important thing to know about A/B/O, or any fic really, is that it’s not always about being good feminists and smashing barriers, etc. I fully support those things! But fanfic isn’t always about that; sometimes it’s about satisfying the weird parts of your id that wants things you know are bad/wrong/gross, but fascinate you anyway.

There’s nothing wrong with that. It took me a long time to come to the realization that just because I sometimes enjoying writing things like dubious consent (that almost always becomes explicit consent) it doesn’t make me a bad person. In real life, dubious consent is bad! But this is fanfic, and I can explore the interesting-but-bad things in a safe context. I would never want to be in a dubcon situation in real life, but I can enjoy writing about it and exploring the character’s feelings and reactions in fic, where it’s not real.

But at the same time the A/B/O thing isn't just a trope to subvert, it's also vital to the power of the fic, in that it takes their connection and compatibility and makes it material and visceral, letting you really amp up the desperation and euphoria in a way that wouldn't feel realistic in the canon universe - but which totally makes sense here. Oh, and it also lets you write really, really good smut. How is it so good? They have sex for like three chapters straight, but it's not repetitive at all?? How am I totally on board with this knotting thing, even though in any other context I find the idea super gross?? You're a smut genius.

Can I say again that I am SO VERY GLAD my absolutely gratuitous smut isn’t repetitive? I worry about it so much, but I just enjoy writing it so much that I do it anyway. Thank you for assuaging my fears on that count!

I do enjoy building the A/B/O into the fabric of the world! It’s one of those tropes which can be used to create an entirely different society, or can be integrated to our modern-day world, and either can work. I really enjoy fitting it in to our world; how would it work? What would be different? What would be the same?

I use A/B/O to, as @pools-of-venetianblue says here, “take their connection and compatibility and makes it material and visceral.” Their connection is the same, just more. Harder to deny, harder to resist, and ultimately inevitable. (Dear JK Rowling, it had better be inevitable! Who could write these characters and not see their relationship as inevitable? I digress.)

My preferred tropes out of the collection that make up A/B/O are the ones that deeper and make physical the bonds that characters already have.

So, to sum up, I have loved every single moment of this fic (and Comma as well!), and each new chapter absolutely makes my day. I probably still wouldn't ever read an A/B/O fic by any other author - but I absolutely will read anything and everything that you write in this fandom, no matter what genre or trope - this is that good. Thank you for writing this, I can't wait to see what you do next.

Again, the flattery, please know I love it and it’s working.

P.S. How exactly does mating work? What are the effects? I'm really curious - I tried google but it wasn't particularly helpful. Do we get to find out in the next chapter? (PLEASE SAY YES)

Alright, mating. Again, something that different authors do differently. I’m not going to spoil either of my fics here, but I’m going to explain it, because sometimes people find it upsetting or gross and I don’t want to spring it on anyone.

Generally, mating involves the Alpha biting the Omega hard enough to draw blood. There’s usually a gland for this; some universes, the scent gland, others have a specific mating gland for this exact purpose. (I have a mating gland in mine, because I prefer the mechanics of the mating and scent glands to be separate.) So in order to Mate someone, the Alpha bites the mating or scent gland hard enough to break the skin, leaving a scar which signifies the Bond to anyone who can see it. (The scent glands being scarred as a way to denoted who is Mated can sometimes be like wedding rings, an obvious indicator that someone is off the market.)

In my universe, I haven’t discussed Beta biology much, but Betas are essentially us, no knots, no glands. They can’t sense as much of the information available through scent-glands, and wouldn’t be able to sense whether someone was in Heat/Rut without help. Betas cannot Mate anyone, because they don’t have the biological tools or imperative to.

Cormoran leaves Robin lots of love-marks partially because of the Mating instinct; he is in Rut, and with an Omega he wants to Mate, so he bites down and uses his mouth, because his instincts tell him to. He doesn’t go for Robin’s mating gland because I don’t take away all of their higher brainpowers in bed, but he wants to, and instincts are hard to deny. (I also tie in the possessiveness here; it’s not all-consuming, but he’s... territorial about his Robin. That’s canon, though!)

I hope the mechanics of mating doesn’t upset anyone, but there it is.

Thank you to @pools-of-venetianblue for the wonderful comment and flattery, and for permission to re-use your words here, and to anyone who’s enjoyed my work and is curious enough to have read this entire thing. It’s terrifyingly long, but realistically, what do I write these days that isn’t? I hope this has been useful and illuminating for anyone who isn’t familiar with A/B/O, and everyone should feel free to ask me other questions you might have.

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marsreadsthings-blog · 5 years

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“Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens

Did you miss me? Did all 2 of my followers think I was dead, kidnapped, or on hiatus? I wasn’t, I was just slowly plugging away at this novel whilst keeping up with my studies, fitness stuff, creative outlets, blah blah blah. Life, right? I’m not here to bore you, I’m here to review and rate this book.

Preface: It has come to my understanding that many high schoolers were as well as are currently made to read this for curriculum. I am happy that I did not have to, because reading it for pleasure instead of homework made my reading a lot more thorough and appreciated than it would have been otherwise, since everybody knows that you tend to dislike the books you are “forced” to read. (Though this isn’t the case for me. While others drooled and squinted sleepy, drowsy eyes over “The Old Man and the Sea”, I quite enjoyed it. Same goes for Pride and Prejudice. I chose to write a research paper on that book so, I must have liked it to some degree.. pst, the review is on here somewhere, in fact it may have been the last one I posted! Don’t quote me on that, just go read it if you haven't!)

So, let us jump right in.

Charles Dickens is an impeccable storyteller. This novel and to my knowledge, most of his written work came out in monthly installments. This was the equivalent to the movies for people in the 1800s. Absolutely marvelous this man is at crafting characters, their motives and a story that is enriching for the reader and enjoyable. I love how it spreads across many years, so you feel like you are watching Pip grow up and go through his childhood, his teenage phase and so on. If you don’t fancy longer novels, I wouldn’t say to stray away from this one on account of it being very well written, but I’m also not not saying that... how’s that for an algebra problem? Anyway, I’ll recount an interaction I had with a peer while we were, no joke, peer reviewing each other’s papers. We’ll call her Mary.

Mary: Ooo, whatcha readin’? I love to read. My mom’s like, an English teacher and shoved books into my face since I popped out the womb.

Me: That is... weird imagery to disclose to me, Mary. It’s Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

And then, her face morphed into a look of horror, like she was remembering some car accident of long ago where her younger bother flew out of the windshield.

Okay okay, take it back a few notches. It was not that bad. At the very least, she did look sorry for me. Like my cat had just contracted feline aids, or something.

Mary: Oh, yeah. I had to read that in Highschool.

Me: It’s taking a very long time for me to get through, it feels like.

(A required interruption: It DID take me a very long time. Four months of a long time, which is virtually unacceptable under normal conditions, but my life is pretty busy during the college months. Apologies, resume.)

Mary: Charles Dickens tends to be very verbose. Didn’t you know he got paid by the word?

Mary, Mary, Mary. This statement was clearly a joke, a sort of bibliophile jest that I was supposed to laugh at and immediately understand as such.

I thought she was, under no doubt, serious. Not only did I think she was serious, no. I thought what she said was a fact.

I’m embarrassed to admit this. Being paid by the word is not a conceivable way of paying a writer because there is no doubt they would start to value quantity over quality in a lucrative driven state. But you don’t understand. When I was immersed in the loquacious qualities of our Dear Dickens, I took this to be a perfectly viable truth. Dickens writes a lot, and very long winded sentences that I sometimes had to reread and decode since the intelligent part of my brain was left behind 2 paragraphs ago. It did not seem impossible that he was paid by the word to me. In the back of the mind I did think, well, maybe people just say that since he can be a bit.. wordy. Maybe it’s just a saying. At least initially, I did think it was the truth. And that will haunt me to the grave.

About our dear Pip, I liked him in the beginning as much as I could like a child character. He was a down-trodden, his elders not really giving him much credit. His sister raised him under the circumstances that children are not to be shown affection or congratulation for their progress, which led to Pip seeking solace where he could find it with Joe. Don’t even get me started on Joe. Joe is by far the most likable character in this whole novel, save for Magwitch towards the end. He was the only character that I consistently liked, and I use the word “consistent” because there were times when Pip fell upon his Great Expectations that I really did not care for him. I thought he was far too entitled with no merit, and I found it annoying that he chased after Estella when she seemed to me to be such an obvious lost cause. Dickens no doubt meant for this reaction to be spurred, because when Pip falls out of his Great Expectations and has to once again become more humble, he is very apologetic and admits his faults to Joe and Biddy. This redeemed him, and I suppose you can't expect a 21 year old guy to not get a little.. immature, with his money, when he just has so much of it.

Here’s what my personal opinion of the character’s are.

Joe Gargery: A very gentle man who prizes character, pride in ones work no matter what it is, and kindness above brains. In turn, he is very lovely and kind, extremely likable. The way he looks out for Little Pip and older, ill Pip warms the coldest of hearts no doubt. @Estella.

Georgiana: Mean?? Sort of likable, in an odd way though? Her argument with Orlick made me laugh so hard. And I couldn’t help but feel awful for her and the accident. She may have been mean to Pip when he was younger, but I think that has to due with how young boys were treated in the 1800s. She always boasted of “bringing him up by hand,” so I think she thought it was sort of her responsibility to not make him into a loser.

Orlick: Annoying and the worst, thinks he’s really cool but deserves to be in prison like the GARBAGE he is. Also, why does he call Pip a wolf so much in that one scene? He’s trying to equate him to a beast so he can make it easier to hurt him, I know but. He’s just loitering trash, he really gets my frogs a leapin.’

Herbert: Bad at fighting but good at friendship :D

Pip: I do like Pip, and I feel like he’s a good one. Sometimes he’s a bit unsure of himself and his place in the World, but I think that’s due to his coming into such a large sum of money unexpectedly. In the middle of the book, he did annoy me, because he made his problems seem awful. “Oh Estella, why won’t you look at me, oh god, this pain, I can’t possibly bare it in my nice pressed suit from Drummle’s, how can I go ON like this, also Biddy, I try to make myself like you but it just won’t work! Any advice?” Pip.. Shut up.

Ms. Havisham: I love her and everything about her character. She was the eccentric oddity of the bunch. The clock that was set at the same time that Compeyson left her, the old wedding dress, her walks with Pip around the room, the fire scene.. I see her as an interesting character because in trying to prevent her misfortune concerning love from reoccurring with a girl of her own, she made Estella’s heart pretty much non-existent. But I think she wanting revenge, she wanted to feel the satisfaction of seeing a Man love hard and get his heart broken.. but when she got just that, she realized very quickly what she had done. I really like her character.

Magwitch: In the beginning, obviously I found him sort of humorous and very prison-escapee in the animal like sort of way, desperate and mean. When he comes to Pip and reveals all of the Great Expectation stuff, the twist was enough for me to like him right there, but I really loved Magwitch at the end. He got such an unfair treatment out of life, and all he wanted was to make someone better than him, to set him up with these “great expectations” to lead him into success. I think he thought of Pip like a son, and likely felt bad for how he treated him when he was 7 years old. I think he wanted to make a wrong right, and I actually surprised myself when I shed tears at his death scene. It was so beautifully written, and you could feel that fragility of himself and the circumstances surrounding his demise and the connection between Pip and him. I was so glad that Pip came to be with him everyday. He deserved that much.

Estella: Did not like her, but it’s *technically* not her fault, I guess? I mean, she is a very hard character to really like. She’s not funny, she’s entitled and far too proud, has no emotion, yes, all of that, but that can be credited to Ms. Havisham and how she brought her up. So, I think she served her purpose well in the context of the novel, I just am not particularly fond of her. I liked the first ending, though, the one where Pip and her grab hands.

This is the last line, and it’s awesome.

“I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw the shadow of no parting from her.”

Isn’t that just kickass? The connection from when he first left the forge and the mists were rising to the present time was very enjoyable.

Wemmick: I picture him as a sneaky, short guy with a top hat and a mustache and a monocle. Wait, a monocle? Surely not. Oh gosh, do I picture Wemmick as the monopoly man? He’s great. I love his double life, the idea of this strict businessman who never lets his “personal affairs” known to anybody but Pip and Aged P is a great concept. His house sounds lovely and interesting as well, and I hope his marriage went very well for him. Everything he did for Pip and all of the information he gave him led the novel along nicely, so we have him to thank for that.

Mr. Jaggers: I always picture him as the tap-dancing lawyer from Chicago. Like, he’d be the one to flip out and have a mini tantrum in a trial about the “erroneous facts” being spread. I liked his character, he held himself to a certain standard and never let anyone see past that wall really. Maybe it would have been interesting to see the flip side of that, like what he did at home and such. Also, did he rape Estella’s mother? I don’t mean, like, got her pregnant with Estella, clearly that was Abel, but like.. he says he tamed her “the old way” and that just sounded fishy to me. That aside, he was aight.

Aged P: An angel. His happiness with Wemmick and how the simple things bring him pleasure would just bring me the most relief. Aw, he loves being nodded at and acknowledgment, aw, how cuuute.

Drummle: Death by horse?? Oh no

Pumblechook: Needs to sit down, chill out and shut up pretty much every time he makes an appearance.

And with that, I think it’s time to try to wrap up this very lengthy review. I would give this novel 5/5. There is a reason it is taught in schools, it is great for discussion and the story is almost delectable. I very much enjoyed it, and yes, it is a long book, however; if you can muster up the (in today’s world) seemingly impossible strength to read it, I think it’s a classic that definitely deserves to be remembered and talked about.

I leave you with a quote from Pip that really just touched me to the core.

“Windy donkey as he was, it really amazed me that he could have the face to talk thus to mine.”

#great expectations #charles dickens #book review #bookworm #library #books #books and libraries #pip #estella #book blog

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xshinormx · 6 years

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Any tips on actually plan a fanfic? I've always wrote my fics without planning beforehand but it isn't working very well for me (as I end up with big plot holes and fanfics that have no plot whatsoever), which makes me really sad because I end up wasting hours of work on something I will never post online. Thank you for your time and have a nice day/night! 🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈

I’m just gonna startthis off with a little disclaimer saying that everyone needs to do a differentamount of planning, and different lengths of fics are gonna require differentamounts of planning. Every author and every fic are unique. Me personally, Iair on the side of laziness, aka minimal detail when I do actually sit down andforce myself to plan something (which I never do for one-shots, onlyintentionally multi-chapter fics and my actual book). Luckily, you sound likeme, so hopefully this’ll work for you too.

Second, before I explainmy strategy, heed this quote from Leonard Snart: Make the plan. Execute the plan. Expect the plan to go off the rails.Throw away the plan.

(Ok, don’t actuallythrow away the plan. It’s the first three sentences that are important.)

If I’ve learned anything since I started writing back when I was 12, it’s that fictional charactersmay be figments of your imagination, but they have minds of their own. Thatjoke you think is absolute genius? Yeah, they ain’t gonna say it. Where didthis piece of backstory come from? Not your head, that’s for sure. Thisplotline that was supposed to be resolved within a chapter? Nope, it’s fivechapters and counting now.

Basically, they’regonna tell you what they’re gonna do. They’re like unruly children who’ll dowhatever they damn well please. Don’t bedeterred by this, and definitely do not force your will on them. If you’vegotta force it, odds are the writing will come out unnatural and clunky andyour readers will notice and you’ll hate it. You’re gonna be sad that yourgenius moment didn’t make it in, but believe me, your characters know best – it’stheir lives, after all. And sometimes, those spur of the moment ideas are farbetter than anything you could’ve come up with ahead of time.

(If you’re really attached to the idea they’rerejecting, write it in a separate doc to do something with later. Keep it foryourself. Maybe post it as a deleted scene once you’re done with the fic. Or,there was one time I started a one-shot, couldn’t figure out where to go with it, abandoned it, and it later ended up as a flashback scene in a different fic that did get posted.You never know.)

Essentially, just bewarned that no matter how much planning you do, things are gonna change. Thoseplot holes you mentioned, they’re going to create themselves, because that’sthe nature of the beast. Forge ahead anyway – fixing those is what editing isfor.

Now that I’ve spent six(6) paragraphs explaining why planning is gonna get derailed, here’s how Iplan:

First, write downkey details. Making up a new place or alien species? Give it a name (GIVE IT ANAME BEFORE YOU START WRITING ITS SCENES FOR THE LOVE OF ALL YOU HOLD DEAR, NOTDOING SO COULD TRIP YOU UP FOR HOURS) and describe it briefly (nothing fancy,you can get fancy once you’re actually writing, planning is just to get thebasics down). Same goes for any OCs you may be incorporating, be they villains orside characters or whatever – name them and give them a basic appearance andpersonality/motivation. Basically anything that needs a name, come up with itsbasics before you start writing.

A couple examplesfrom my fic Operation: Memory:

Ascorix- Criminalplanet, crowded slums, overpopulated and heavily polluted, tall narrow greybuildings, little to no plant/wild animal life

Kutral- Moarian,tall and wiry, long wavy sky blue hair, navy blue skin, unnaturally brightgreen eyes, expert art thief and murderer, superspeed (top speed 100mph);motivated by money for fancy expensive things

And while we’re onthe subject, here are some sites I use to name things, I’d be lost without them:

http://www.behindthename.com/ (forhuman peoples, and I think it can even give your person some background detailsnow!)

http://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/alien-names.php#.WvjToUxFy3A(alien peoples/species)

http://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/planet_names.php#.WvjTskxFy3A(planets/alien species - take the planet name and change the ending to -an or -er or something, like Andorians live on Andoria, Asgardians live on Asgard, etc.)

Now for the scenes(not entire chapters, just individual scenes). Just write down shortdescriptions of what you want to happen. Keep it specific enough that you canremember what you meant weeks or months later, but vague enough that you’re nottrapped and the idea isn’t completely ruined if and when an earlier scene veersoff-course. For example:

Team (minus Mantis?) goes hunting on Ascorix,split in half to cover more ground, Loki gets nervous and guilty cause itreminds him of Sakaar (“Sometimes I wonder…” “You’re a hero, Loki” “…Maybe”), trio(quad?) kidnapped

Vague enough to beflexible, specific enough for me to remember where I’m going (the level ofdetail you’ll need depends on your own preferences). And yes, you are mostcertainly allowed to not know exactly what’s gonna happen – your characterswill fill in the gaps for you. As weird as it sounds, trust the figments ofyour imagination.

If you’re like me,you’re gonna want to mark down where you think each chapter will end, and byall means, do so. But keep in mind that some scenes could go on far longer thanyou think (in my fic Hidden Heartbeat, Nidavellir was supposed to be onechapter and it turned itself into three), while others might struggle to reacheven half the length you wanted. Sometimes a good cliffhanger pops up mid-sceneand you’ll decide to end the chapter there to torture your readers (I am guiltyof this). You won’t really know until you get there.

And that sums up theofficial planning that happens before the writing begins.

Unofficially, nomatter where you are in the fic: If and when you have a random idea, WRITE IT DOWN. On a napkin, in yourphone, in your planning doc, at work/school, at 3 in the morning, it doesn’tmatter. I don’t care how good you think your memory is, just run on the ideathat YOU WILL FORGET IF YOU DON’T WRITEIT DOWN IMMEDIATELY.

And if and when yourplan switches tracks, WRITE DOWN THECHANGES BUT KEEP THE OLD SCENES SOMEWHERE. They could still inspiresomething, they could still happen but just later than you intended, the main ideasthe original scenes were supposed to convey could still be perfectly relevant,and if you’re in the middle of the story, you could eventually wind up back onthe original track. Keep every bit of your plan. Leave deleting for the actualstory.

To sum up:

Outline key details,names, and scene ideas.

Keep it flexible,but know where you’re going. Odds are details will change, but your overarchingplot will stay relatively intact.

Make a plan, butlisten to your characters if they wanna go off on a tangent. Best-case scenario,that tangent is the best part of your fic. Worst comes to worst, you can cutthe tangent from the final draft.

And, last but notleast, delete nothing, absolutely n o t hi n g, from your outline. Move it down the page, move it to a differentdoc, whatever, but keep it for futurereference.

(Whoo, that gotlong. I hope at least part of it was helpful, and good luck in your writing!)

#writing tips #planning tips #planning #fic planning

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mildlymaddy · 6 years

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Yearly (Belated) Review

Alright, there it is. My answers to the Yearly Review meme. Honestly I found this SO HARD. Not only was it hard to find positive things to say about my writing, but also I don’t remember anything of what I wrote last year? It’s hard to answer these questions if you don’t even remember any detail about your own fics.

It’s really weird because I take so much pride in my actual job, like I know I’m good at it, I know exactly what I’m good at, I could answer all the questions in the world about it. I also think that I’m a really good beta reader, like I’ve never found anybody else like me? Someone who will actually nag at you and go deep and force you to rework stuff and get even better. All of this, I can easily see and appreciate. But my personal writing? UGH. Nothing to keep, throw it all away please.

Writing this was really painful for me, when it seems to have been so much fun for everyone else (as it should be, because y’all are so fucking talented and I’m glad you realize it)... but you know what, soldiering through actually helped me take a step back and force myself to see what was good about my writing. I’m incredibly grateful for it.

1. List of works published this year:

This one at least is easy, you can find the list here.

Except that I forgot my original ficlet I wrote, a soft lesbian summer haze story inspired by some Danielle Campbell photos! It’s there and I think only two people in the world have read it but I really like it.

2. Work you are most proud of (and why):

Hahahahahahahahaha…. hahahaha… haaaa.

Sorry.

Um.

I guess, maybe, the Lilo Brits verse? Because it’s like, one of the more “serious”, angsty things I’ve written (and La helped me make it good).

I guess it’s pretty clear I have a real big problem about thinking “happy” fic is meaningless, which is kind of a downer considering it’s almost all I write (and probably what I’m best at).

Oh, okay, I’ve just re-read that ghost!Liam lirry fic and it’s surprisingly nice. I guess I like the way it’s a total crackfic and yet it’s very tender and bittersweet. I can grant myself that. :)

And now that I’ve found back that Danielle fic I linked to above, I can honestly say that I’m super proud of it. I’m proud of how soft it is, and how tentative, and I just… I really like how poetic it is? The words came out exactly as I wanted them to. I really love it.

3. Work you are least proud of (and why):

Most of them? Like, they’re okay, but most could have been infinitely better if I’d just forgotten about them for a bit and come back to them with fresh eyes, instead of posting them straight away. There’s stuff that people loved that I’m re-reading today and I literally cringe thinking of how much better they could/should have been.

4. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

I couldn’t say. Like, it’s not just that I’m super harsh on my writing, but how am I supposed to remember everything I wrote?? The way you guys all managed to answer this one is what baffled me the most, because I legitimately cannot do it. I’d have to re-read everything I posted (and even then I probably wouldn’t like anything enough to think it’s worth quoting here).

But one thing I can say is that I have a huge soft spot for my Lilo fairy verse. It’s not the most amazing thing in the land but I think Louis as a fairy works really, really well, and it’s just silly and happy and I’m glad I wrote it. :)

5. Share or describe a favorite review you received:

This one is surprisingly hard to answer! I mean, obviously, @catateme9 is the most supporting reader and friend anyone could wish for, by far. The way you boost authors you like is heartwarming, and shows that you don’t need to actually put out material to be a vital part of the fandom. <3

I’m also just really grateful when people yell at me in their reblog tags, which happens often, it’s probably the most satisfactory feedback anyone can get.

I’m sorry, I feel bad for not being able to recall a really good one, I just… any kind of feedback makes my day. I cherish each and every comment/tag/message I get about my fics, so it’s just impossible to pick one.

6. A time when writing was really, really hard:

Honestly ask me for a time when writing was easy, it’ll be easier to pinpoint. Writing is torture, all the fucking time. But some of the random ficlets I wrote in bed were wonderful gifts, sudden unexpected inspiration that I managed to see through in one sitting.

But writing has been especially hard for the past couple months, I have to say. I used to constantly daydream about my plots and now there’s only static in my brain.

7. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you:

I guess all the het fic I wrote. I’ve always written exclusively slash, even back in my HP days (the only Hermione/Ron fic I can remember writing was PG, I couldn’t stomach the idea of writing a sex scene). I think because for a long time I wanted to get as far away from heterosexuality as I could. I guess me writing all those elounor, or elounorexha, or louelle fics shows my own real life path towards accepting I’m bi and that there’s nothing wrong with “het” sex.

8. How did you grow as a writer this year:

I don’t think I grew at all. Queen of stagnation, that’s me. 😞

9. How do you hope to grow next year:

I… don’t know? Maybe just… learn to give myself more credit? Be as kind to myself as I am to other writers? Oh and also if I could stop comparing myself to all of you and feeling terrible because I’ll never be half as talented, that’d be nice.

10. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

@ferryboatpeak will never not be wonderful. She uses both the carrot and the stick to keep me on track (or tries to, at least), and she’s also sent me some DELIGHTFUL things to beta, for which I’m always so grateful because honestly, reading her stuff and then seeing her turn my suggestions into gold is a fucking privilege.

To be fair, I have a lot of incredibly talented writers as friends. You’re all inspirations in some way, but I’ll mention 3 writers that have really stood out for me this year (please don’t get offended if you’re not in the list you KNOW how much I admire and love all of you, omg, so much!!)

@queerlyalex the sheer range of what you write, and the softness with which you tackle tricky subjects, is absolutely incredible. Your fics aren’t only perfectly written, they’re also so enlightening, and eye-opening, and as someone who was very very clueless before I joined Tumblr, they’ve been a wonderful, soft way of truly realizing there is so much more than what I’ve experienced, and getting my head around some stuff. I feel so incredibly grateful to be your friend.

@polaroidgirlfriend, I’m sorry I haven’t yet read your fionrry, but I still think about your university Narry fic all the time. I’m still floored by how perfect and honest it was, you have a way of… of getting at hidden, unspoken human emotions that is so gentle and yet so uncompromising, it’s a testament to your beautiful soul.

@1000-directions, your love for the boys’ girlfriends (and friends, like Bebe) is the most heartwarming thing ever, and I’m so happy you’re constantly putting out these empowering, woman-positive slices of life out into the fandom world. We need more people like you here. I also love what you said about learning to write for yourself and not caring about how niche something is, that is something I could dearly do with.

I think it’s telling that the three people I’ve picked out have that one thing in common, your way of gently dissecting relationships to get to the heart of them, unflinchingly uncovering the good and the bad bits. You somehow all manage to depict love as a bloody beating heart, both beautiful and terrible, soft and ragged, full of hope and despair, and I just… love this so much about you. There’s a line in one of my fics (that sounds so pretentious omg) which goes “so she’ll stop cutting his heart open as softly as if it was a peach”, and that just really sums it up. I only wrote that one sentence, but y’all actually do it in every one of your fics, and I’m just... in total awe of you. ♥♥♥

11. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

Pretty much everything I write is about me. I get sick? I’ll write some sickfic. I’m super tired? Louis can’t seem to get any sleep. Little gestures I love end up in my stories. Things I crave end up in my stories. Often I’m embarrassed about just how much my stories are a reflection of myself, to be honest. I’m an open book.

12. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

I’ll share wisdom from my actual job : do not cling to your ideas. It doesn’t matter how cute/sexy/well written that paragraph is, or how brilliant that idea is, if it doesn’t fit with the rest of the story or if it’s blocking you up, GET RID OF IT. Seriously. Being able to just delete chunks of your own writing when you realize it’s not serving your story will save you a lot of pain and time.

13. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

Any of my WIPs, god, please. I started so many things and they fell through the wayside and I feel so guilty and gutted about it.

The most important thing of all would be finishing Take These Chances, because I still get comments on it from time to time and I’ve dropped it just before Louis and Liam finally realized they were in love and it’s just… it’s terrible. I want to finish it, I just don’t know how to make myself do it.

But I also have that summer heat nouis fic, puppy/kitten lilo, the lilourry mermaid thing, lilo new year’s kiss, another lilo fic about kisses in which liam must kiss louis every hour to make up for waking him up early, the nouis watching Stranger Things, a new installment of caldell highschool au, that hendes fic, a steamy Elouelle ficlet, the follow-up to the sleep-deprived Louis fic… all of these are half-written or more, they just need a little more work, but I can’t. seem. to do it!

If anyone’s got idea on how to motivate me through this, I’m ready to hear them.

14. Tag three writers whose answers you’d like to read.

I don’t need to tag anyone, you’ve all done it already (and they were a joy to read). ^_^

#about me #year in review #memes #on writing #this was so hard but ultimately rewarding #i'm glad i pushed through #even though it's ridiculous just how HARD it was #when y'all made it look so easy #squad #talented people #queerlyalex #ferryboatpeak #polaroidgirlfriend #catateme9 #1000-directions #my post

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