#maybe I will write a proper critique later but this is all I can think rn

[allcheers-allfears]

Wild Blue Yonder!

uh. 10/10 no notes. I need to watch this on a loop forever and ever

#maybe I will write a proper critique later but this is all I can think rn #like ‘filler’ episodes like this are My Shit #love when two idiots talk about their feelings #and cosmic horrors are also there #wild blue yonder #doctor who #doctor who spoilers #eleven’s ~analysis~

[monstrousdanger]

I think as a past teacher the one thing that bothers me is that no one is taught how to give proper feedback outside of the education field. Whether it's at work or online, I see so many people providing "helpful critiques" that sound or read too much like bullying. I know people are going to fight me on this or claim that I'm a soft-bellied lizard, but just hear me out.

Before launching an assault on someone's work, consider what they are already doing well. Have they improved in tasking or time management? Did they write a line in their work that tugged at your heartstrings? Do they provide excellent customer service or work well in teams? Acknowledge it. Tell them what they are doing right BEFORE you tell them what they are doing wrong.

After the good, comes the tougher pill for people to swallow. When you are giving somebody a tip, use a tone of voice that makes them feel less like an imbecile. Nobody likes being told they are doing something wrong - don't make them feel worse adding even an ounce of the annoyance you may feel in the moment. Instead, keep a neutral tone and choose words and phrases that are directed towards the person's behavior, NOT their personality, ambitions, attitude, or past. Similarly, Don't make inferences based on the behavior. If someone is moving slowly at their job, our first thought is usually "they're lazy." Maybe they are, or maybe they weren't appropriately trained to complete the task they were given. Either way, the point is YOU DON'T KNOW. You are not telepathic (unless you are, which creepy) and the moment you take on that role, your goose is well and truly cooked, so stick to reporting the tangible facts. Consider using a phrase like "I noticed x, perhaps consider trying x."

When you are giving a critique, pick ONE thing that you would like to see the person change. We are all human and therefore inherently flawed, which is weirdly exciting because we get the opportunity to learn from our mistakes. That can be a tough mindset to take though if you just got back an essay covered in correctional red ink when you spent weeks writing it. As a teacher, I found myself at the helm of a red pen marking up my students' writing until there was no whitespace left to cover, and guess what? For a large percentage of my students, their writing never changed, but their attitude did. They were far less motivated to take chances and get creative knowing they were probably going to get everything wrong. So I switched up my tactic. Instead of impulsively marking up every mistake I could find on the page, I would pick a consistent trap that they would fall into and have them working on fixing that first. If they forgot to capitalize letters or include periods in their sentences, we would start there. That's an easy, specific goal they can place on a sticky note and reference when they read over their writing later. Find that one thing that could help improve someone's work and start by clearly explaining what it is that needs to change, showing what you want to see, and then following up with any further corrections to mastering this new skill.

Lastly, talk to the person and create a plan. If you are reviewing someone's art online, consider reaching out in a comment or DM to provide the person with poignant exemplars or resources that can further their journey. Personally, I am a visual person, so I always appreciate when someone provides me with a checklist, written reminder, or resource that I can reference later. Consider providing similar materials that will help remind them of their goal in a format that works best with their learning style. At work, sit down and create a step-by-step process with your employee on how to keep growing, allowing for their input. They most likely know what they need to do for themselves to make the corrections, and if they don't you can be there to provide them with some ideas. At the end of the day, advice may given freely but not received willingly. It is therefore up to the individual to take your word or not, because it's their life.

Above all, stop and consider how their behavior has made you feel. If their behavior has impacted you negatively, consider breathing, walking away, or journaling before engaging in the conversation to avoid saying something more harmful during the feedback process. This is not a soap opera, keep the drama between whatever fictional characters you moon over at night.

There is of course, the other extreme where someone provides ONLY the good stuff, but holds back on any valuable insights that could help that person grow. As a musician working in the industry since I was seventeen years old, I have had my fair share of verbal abuse and other objects (including a smashed violin) hurled my way. That is to say I can take a little jab at my work from the local internet goblins, because it never hurts as much as what goes unsaid. Humans are not islands, we can only grow and prosper so much on our own before we need to reach out and ask for some help. If someone asks your honest advice, give it to them with professional courtesy. If the tip is unsolicited but needs to be stated, go ahead and say it, but please, for the love of cheese and crackers, do not be a self-righteous ass about it. At the end of your own words is another living, breathing human being with very real doubts, fears, and emotions that you need to keep in mind. Feedback and criticism is meant to be helpful, pushing people and industries further, but can easily be wielded maliciously.

#rant #text post #feedback #essay #mine #critique #criticism

[stardew-saloon]

Could I please request headcanons about Elliot and Leah's friendship? I just think they're neat

I love Elliott n Leah so much!! It’s so sad that their friendship seems to be one of those things that’s like,, rarely talked about. Maybe I’m just on the wrong side of tumblr lmao.

Anyways, this is my second time writing this (curse me for accidentally deleting the first draft) so hopefully it’s still good enough !

Elliott and Leah’s Friendship!

I don’t know if it’s been said if Leah or Elliott moved in first, but I think Leah did! She had been living in the valley for a few weeks before Elliott dropped in. They’re both fairly antisocial, so it took a while before they interacted for the first time.

Elliott introduced himself to Leah at the bar. Things are a little rocky at first, but once Elliott mentions that he’s a writer, Leah is much more interested and says that she likes to do art, whether it’s woodworking or other forms.

They talk for hours after that. Gus has to kindly ask them to leave because they’re talking for so long. They decide to go on a walk the next day so they can talk more. Elliott admits to feeling lonely since he’s cooped up in the cabin all day, and Leah says she wishes she had more friends, especially after such a bad breakup.

So the next day, they go on a walk together. And the day after that. And many more days after that. Weeks of warming up to each other leads to Leah inviting Elliott inside her house to see her sculptures. It’s something very personal, so she makes Elliott promise not to judge her too harshly.

Praises are sung for WEEKS after he sees the sculptures. It’s a work of art! He makes sure to let her know that. Eventually, he shows some of his writings too, which Leah adores. She likes to read his old drafts of books he doesn’t want to write anymore and even has a few tucked into her bookshelf for later.

There’s rumors around the town that they’re dating (Let’s be honest, they probably started it themselves) but they’re quick to clarify that they’re just friends. They just happen to be very close!

Leah found Elliott in a time of need, so of course she’s very attached to him now. He hadn’t realized how lonely he was until he and Leah started talking regularly and he saw how boring his life was before that.

If the farmer was romancing Leah, Elliott is so insanely protective of her. He’s like an older brother, always trying to make sure their intentions aren’t bad.

On the flip side, if the farmer romances Elliott, Leah is very friendly with you and tries to get closer. She figures she’s going to see a lot of you, so you might as well get along!

Leah and Elliott are very sweet with each other. They can tell when something is off with the other from a single glance. Usually, they know exactly what to do to cheer each other up. The bond they have is magical, I swear.

Leah picks up reading more (she even dabbles in poetry a little bit) so she can critique Elliott’s work like he asks. Usually, she’ll just tell him it’s amazing, but he wants a little more than that. She gets really into the romance and mystery books that he enjoys and finds out that she’s totally a bookworm!

Similarly, Elliott tries to pick up woodworking. Heavy emphasis on tries. After hitting his hand with a hammer multiple times, he has to ask Leah how the hell anyone does that for the fun of it. She laughs it off, trying to show him proper techniques.

It doesn’t work, but she knows that he’s trying. In the end, that’s all that matters.

#sdv #stardew valley #stardew valley headcanon #sdv hcs #sdv headcanon #sdv headcanons #elliott stardew valley #leah stardew valley #sdv elliott #sdv leah #Elliott/Leah if you squint

[modern-inheritance]

I don’t really know where I’m going with this but do you have any Oromis/Morzan headcanons? Before or during the fall, or Oromis’ feelings towards Morzan afterwards?

I have a few! More than a few apparently, I'm just finishing this up and uh...yeah that got longer than I thought!

I’m going to do my best to leave Glaedr and Morzan’s dragon out of these because while they’re large parts of each other's lives and even maybe personalities considering how deeply bonded Riders and their dragons can be, I want to be sure I’m keeping the characters separate. Kinda like how you shouldn’t constantly group identical twins together as a single entity, ya know?

Alright let's start off with Morzan. Time for some backstory!

Modern Inheritance!Morzan

Morzan was born into a family of low level nobles. By the time Morzan was about six or seven though, the family had fallen out of favor and was struggling to keep up appearances, spending money they didn’t necessarily have on lavish items and acting increasingly narcissistic in a desperate attempt to hold onto the standing and power they once had.

Morzan probably started showing antisocial behavior around this time, mainly impulsive petty theft, inserting himself in dangerous situations, and manipulation through charm with adults and intimidation and violence with other children. Due to his family’s last shreds of political strength and their long time in the area, most of these incidents were swept under the rug or outright ignored by his family. This generally left a very angry, disgusted-with-others, burgeoning narcissistic young Morzan to his own devices.

When Morzan was chosen by his dragon, his parents were quietly glad that he wouldn’t be their responsibility anymore. They didn’t disclose any of his troubling behaviors and Morzan was quick to understand that he would need to tamp the more obvious ones down and manipulate others into hiding his transgressions.

Despite all this, Morzan and his dragon do deeply care for each other. Due to Morzan’s mind linking with the hatchling, there was a sort of evening out of his behaviors as some were ‘shared’ do the hatchling and some of the hatchling’s personality was ‘shared’ with Morzan. This is what helped Morzan fly under the radar for so much longer until his eventual betrayal.

On a lighter note, Morzan shot up like a weed when he hit puberty, once growing nearly five inches (~12.7 cm) over the span of a year. It took a year or so for his muscles to visibly bulk up, so he was this tall gangly teenager for a while. His clothes constantly needed altering.

Initially Morzan doesn’t really know what to think of Oromis and Glaedr. His family was always distracted from giving him the attention and nurturing he needed, and suddenly he has not only this baby dragon who he can share his frustrations and emotions with but also parental figures.

Eventually he warmed up to them, but more in the sense that he became attached to their attention and the praise he got when he did well in magic and other lessons. He didn’t showboat as much, but would push himself to get more compliments, praise and attention from Oromis. Oromis saw this more as Morzan taking his training seriously. There were a few instances of Morzan and his dragon being pointed out as instigators of some scuffles or small acts of possible, unproven acts of sabotage harming or tripping up other Riders-in-training, but these were generally believed to be accidents or bad luck.

Morzan’s bullying and belittling of Brom was the result of Morzan feeling like his unfettered access to Oromis and Glaedr’s attention was being threatened. He knew he couldn’t get away with physically injuring Brom and Saphira I, so his physical actions never really went past ‘accidental’ full force hits in sparring and roughhousing. If Brom got praise or compliments from Oromis, Morzan would seethe quietly, eventually exploding in rage at some later point after it built up. Again, Oromis merely thought this was just adolescent growing pains.

Wooo! That is getting LONG, eh? I’ve got more, but for now I’m going to move on to Oromis and his feelings around Morzan’s betrayal and link you to whatever extra stuff I add later. I’m really unsure about the timeline of when Morzan betrayed the Riders and when it was known that he had, so I’m mostly going to skip that chunk. Let's go!

Modern Inheritance!Oromis

Even without 100% knowing/being sure of Morzan’s betrayal, I think there was a whirlwind of confusion and general chaos when Galbatorix murdered Shurikan’s original Rider. Who was a child. A Rider had murdered a child Rider and while everyone knew Galbatorix was unstable I don’t think anyone would have expected that. Oromis was swept up in all this and didn’t have time to really ask where Morzan was. I mean, Morzan was a grown man at that point and well beyond Oromis’s control.

Morzan’s involvement was probably confirmed without a doubt at the initial attack on Ilirea, and Oromis and Glaedr didn’t have time to process this until after their brief capture.

Oromis felt some really strong guilt. That’s putting it bluntly.  Let’s expand it, shall we?

First off, I think Oromis felt some guilt over not being able to help in the sort of final big battle at Ilirea. He was previously quite powerful since he was on the council that refused Galbatorix a new dragon (that’s a whole other topic to look at later on btw), and despite his age and wisdom I think it’s safe to assume that any sudden event causing massive life changes can be pretty shocking. Oromis felt powerless and after the deaths that occured in Galbatorix’s initial attack with the Forsworn on the Riders, I think he knew that there would be more. And all he and Glaedr could do was hide in Ellesméra and tend to their wounds and new maladies.

As they healed I’m pretty sure Oromis spent a lot of time thinking ‘how could I have stopped this?’ Hindsight is...well, whatever-elves-have/20, and Oromis would have put all the signs together that were telling him that there was something off about Morzan from the start. He probably thought subconsciously that he was fixing Morzan and didn’t want to acknowledge just how dangerous that little 10 year old boy and scrawny hatchling he had met all those years ago had become as he grew. There was also a lot of guilt post-Ilirea’s final fall around not protecting Brom from Morzan enough, and feeling like a lot of Brom’s pain was Oromis’s own fault because of this.

Oh man, Oromis also has heaps of survivors guilt about the Riders that, while he does work through it and focuses on extending his life to train the next Rider, never really fades completely. He understands that he could not fight in his condition, but there’s always the nagging ‘what if’ questions that can rear up unexpectedly.

Once he learns of Murtagh and Thorn and their forced fealty to Galbatorix, I think Oromis’s guilt probably pushed him over to definitely join the fight at Gil’ead. It’s likely that he feels that if he had separated Brom and Morzan, had taken the signs of Morzan’s growing antisocial disorder seriously and gotten him proper help, and hadn’t been so blind during the Golden Age, then in some strange way he may have prevented everything from happening. Morzan wouldn’t have let Galbatorix into Ilirea, Shruikan wouldn’t have been stolen, the Forsworn wouldn’t have been influenced by Galbatorix and Morzan (who used his manipulative charm to sway some), and it all comes to, in the end, Murtagh and Thorn, both relatively innocent in this and dragged in only due to parentage and some situations which they have no control over, would have never been forced through torture and cruelty to join Galbatorix and fight people they once saw as friends and family.

Overall I think Oromis, while having processed/processing and come to terms with the Riders Fall and the hand he inadvertently had in it due to his connection to and, in some ways, his failures surrounding Morzan, he still carries this deep feeling of guilt. He doesn’t let it simply sit there though, as he pushes himself to be able to train the next generation, but it’s always there.

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH okay that’s what I’ve got for now. Holy shit that’s a lot of bulletpoints, huh? 

I spent some time researching antisocial behavior and Antisocial Personality Disorder, but per usual I want to state that I am by no means an expert, and the behaviors and traits portrayed here are not the only results, symptoms, or scenarios that can occur when someone has antisocial behavior or ASPD. Mental health is a difficult subject to write about, especially when I have no personal or second hand experience with the specifics, and I’m always open to educating myself on these topics. I am doing my best to learn so that I don’t stereotype or offend. If there are comments/concerns/critique please please don’t ever feel bad about messaging me privately, via the comments, via reblog, or through the ask box point out what I got wrong or if you simply want to share your experiences or concerns. 

I’ll probably have more Morzan specific backstory and ideas later on, but for now I need to make some dinner and get to work on the other ask. Cheers!

Thank you again to @siriusly-misunderstood-creatures​ for the ask! I always appreciate asks and comments, they make my brain work!!

#modern inheritance #modern inheritance cycle #inheritance cycle #the cyclists #eragon #brom #morzan #oromis #modern inheritance ask #modern inheritance asks #modern inheritance lore #glaedr #morzan's dragon

[smp-live]

Was scrolling through c!Wilbur crit blogs again and it got me thinking about why exactly I argue in favour of him so much so here’s a random ramble (that got long) about it:

Most c!Wilbur critics (at least, in the tag, not directly post-lore stream. The ones that do actual analysis on him) are like... really reasonable about it, actually, lmao. Like it’s mostly just calling him a bad person because of power hunger/manipulation/being a bad dad/whatever else. (Not talking about antis. I mean people who are really critical of him, but recognize that he’s a well-crafted character with nuance.)

Which I agree with! I consider myself an apologist, my writing and analysis leans really sympathetic, and I still agree that he’s a shitty rat bastard that I would run far away from irl. Even at the beginning of the story, he’s very morally grey, sometimes using underhanded persuasion tactics, doing ehh things like stealing, and it only gets worse from there.

But on the other hand, he’s... not that bad. Like I saw one person say about c!Dream, “My reaction to most critique of him is... so what?” and that’s how I feel about c!Wilbur, I suppose. Yeah, he tried to rig an election - but it was a last-ditch effort at not going full dictator, he didn’t follow through, and later on he - in part - decided to blow it up because they couldn’t get it back while being democratic. And yeah, he manipulated people - all in all, it wasn’t really really bad things, mostly to paint himself in a better light because of his insecurities, and people sometimes fall into manipulative language without even outwardly realizing that it’s a shitty thing to do. Of course, that shows a bigger underlying problem in their mindset and the way they interpret relationships and possession, but then that’s a different discussion - and definitely one that applies to c!Wilbur.

(Not saying he doesn’t ever intentionally manipulate people. I think that a. sometimes it might be accidental, (”If you wanna be President you’re gonna have to get on my good side,” mans was Not thinking straight,) and b. other times he falls into old habits/coping mechanisms that happen to be manipulation, (Tommy at Las Nevadas.) Other than the election and maybe some times in the early founding of L’Manberg, I can’t think of any moments where I’m like, “Yeah, he is Purposefully Manipulating here.” And even then, it just doesn’t strike me as a terrible thing. People manipulate, it’s a thing they do. That’s it. A morally grey action.)

And I think the majority of the reason I make more posts painting him in a positive light and don’t really discuss my critique of him is because it feels like the fandom has an overwhelming bias of hatred/crit, even if a lot of that isn’t, y’know, proper analysis of his character. I instinctively want to balance it out for this character I love/relate to, because a lot of what I see straight-up ignores the lighter side of his moral-greyness.

Like, a while back, I posted a couple clips from late-election arc, of Wilbur talking about how he feels about Fundy siding with Quackity and against him. And the way I initially saw it while watching was, “Okay. He feels betrayed by his son who disagrees with his politics - and thus, him as a person, because your politics are a reflection of your identity, especially in Wilbur’s mind - and it’s perfectly understandable that he’d want to vent about that in private to a close friend. On the other hand, he should be able to recognize that Fundy’s allowed to be his own person and shouldn’t be babied. Fundy is in the right, here, but Wilbur’s feelings shouldn’t be dismissed.”

But then 90% of the tags were just straight-up hate for c!Wilbur, going as far as to say that he should die again. (And this was after we found out how bad the afterlife was for him.) That fucking floored me. I just couldn’t understand how they took this nuanced character aching for ‘the son he knew’ back (hm. very similar to c!Phil, actually) and turned it into ‘wow. This suicidal man sucks and should maybe die.’ I was so close to making a post defending him before realizing - I was letting fandom bias against a character push me further onto the sympathetic side.

And that’s such a fuckin’ weird thing to have happen, because you’d think that exposure to negativity about a character would make you feel more negative about them? But without fail, every time I scroll through the crit tag, or read a critical post about c!Wilbur/L’Manberg, I maybe lean a bit more towards that side for a few hours before swinging back hard onto the apologist side. Because a lot of the critique, to me, is really just, “so what?” after I let it stew a bit.

Then there’s the whole mental health issue. Obviously it doesn’t excuse the shit he did - I know people who have been in the middle of breakdowns and the stuff they say still fucking hurts, even if they didn’t truly mean it. But recognizing that he needs help? That for pretty much all his time on-screen, he was depressed and paranoid, which obviously affects the way he acts? That’s obvious. And were he in the position to get professional help - which he deserves - everything would be much better off. That’s the root of my apologism, I think: He deserves to get better. He’s not inherently evil, or bad, just a fucked up little man who’s ruined his own life and needs help. I want to see him, specifically him, get better.

Narratively, his punishment has been extreme and disproportionate. Every mistake, every choice - good or bad - has led to suffering, on his part. Start a fun little rebellion, maybe to gain some power? War and betrayal. Declare an election to consolidate said power? Lose, and get exiled. Blow up a nation? Die, and even in the afterlife, he can't catch a break. Purely as a sympathetic human, it feels like he deserves to rest. Deserves to heal.

But even medicated and less anxious, or going to therapy for his neuroticism and depression, or whatever, he still would be quite morally grey. A lot of his manipulation, his power hunger, comes from this neuroticism; from needing to feel safe and needed, (just like Quackity.) Not all of it, though. He’d still have his unhealthy ideals about relationships and possession, for example. Less prominent, sure, but still there. Some people, I feel, discount how tied up with his mental illness it is, while others don’t really recognize that it’s also a personality problem. Like, changing those beliefs is changing part of who he fundamentally is, as a person.

Actually, I think the c!Wilbur apologist community, in general, tends to scapegoat his mental illness a little too much? Not in that we explain his actions with it or ask people not to villainize it, (although sometimes I feel that what we call villainizing mental illness is a bit excessive, but it’s not my place to talk about that as someone who doesn’t really relate to Pogtopia!Wilbur,) but in that we use it in discussions a lot. Which is fair, because it permeates every single aspect of his character, but even without it he’d have toxic traits? Like his possessiveness is not purely a byproduct of his mental illness, imo. Nor is his treatment of Fundy. It’s amplified by it, surely, but that little seed of it is there in the first place. Just as c!Dream’s abuse needs to be addressed as a central part of his character, c!Wilbur’s possessiveness does too - and also outside of the context of their mental health, because they’re both brought on by an internal personality flaw, some fucked-up belief, if that makes sense.

As I said before: c!Wilbur is a mess of a human being that I would hate if I actually met. (irl I would’ve been a SWAG supporter, based on policies, but since this is fiction, I was POG.) But because he’s a character, that flies out the window, and I can love him - not even just as a character, in the sense that I appreciate he’s well-crafted, but in terms of personality and all that shit, while recognizing he’s a kinda crappy guy. Because he’s a character. That’s the fun of it.

#Enderspeak #idk just musing and working out thoughts that got long but I actually kinda like #I think I'm gonna try to not let that bias sway me as much anymore. write more crit posts even if they're made with love in my heart <3 #I might have to stick a disclaimer on them though because each time I get a pure hate comment part of my soul shrivels #You can also tell I've been reading a lot of books/treatises written by old white guys recently because I feel like my opinion #on everything is needed and wanted lol #Also on the villainization thing: if someone who does feel okay talking about it could write a response with their thoughts #that'd be neat #Because I. don't know how to phrase what I'm thinking in a way that feels right & not like I'm butting in somewhere I don't belong #But I'm not saying it's a bad/wrong thing. Sometimes I just see a post of someone complaining and I'm like #''Is it really?'' but I don't really have a personal frame of reference to know so #take my words with a grain of salt - I will defer to those who know better #Actually take this whole post with a grain of salt I might hate it in a few hours #Update from a few hours later: well I don't disagree with what I said but it's a bit more extreme than I'd put it now so

[mittensmorgul]

(re: trad authors vs fanfic authors and the “nine levels of removal") Yes. This. Story time! I went to a book event for a well known, critically acclaimed, best selling author once about 20 years ago. He'd never done a proper "book tour" before and as a fan I was excited. Myself and other fans from a Yahoo Group (RIP) met up at the event and gave Mr Popular Author a fan art book we'd put together. He later wrote that he’d had to go off to a corner of the bookstore to hide and cry for a few minutes because he'd always thought he was writing into a void. Then BOOM, there we were, a big group of us, right in front of him, loving his work and giving him feedback (and gifts!) He’d never so much as read a review of any of his books before. The sudden realization that actual humans had read (and liked!) his work was apparently very emotional for him. Fanfic authors don’t have the luxury of that distance. And I don’t envy them for it. The feedback they get is immediate and devastating. Trad authors often won’t even get told how many copies their book has sold for the first six months after publication. Fanfic authors see every single view and kudos and comment in real time.

Yep. This.

I mean, it’s shifted a bit in the last 20 years. A lot of traditionally published authors have websites, or twitter, or other social media. Before I ever came to fandom, I was trying to go the traditional publishing route, too. Heck, a decade later I’m still on author twitter (most of my twitter is authors/publishers/agents/editors because those are the people I befriended when I first started seriously writing). But there is a sense of removall still there between authors and readers. And twitter followers and interactions don’t always equate to readers.

I mean, look at any author’s twitter, and a lot of it is just... like anyone else’s twitter.

Authors can also go look at their reviews on Amazon or Goodreads or wherever else online, and see their book’s daily ranking in sales if they really want to, but trust me on this, everyone involved in the publication of their books has probably told them not to do this. It’s not helpful in any way, unless they’ve shot to the top of the bestseller lists. Learning their new release ranks 32502905 in their genre... isn’t worth bothering, you know? And there’s nothing to do by obsessing over it.

When your agent is sending you all the good reviews, all the positive feedback, and encouraging you to finish the draft of your next book or your next round of edits, you don’t HAVE to think about responding to every comment anyone makes on your work. You’re encouraged NOT to respond. Because those reviews are NOT FOR YOU. They’re for other readers, to help them decide whether or not to make a financial investment in your already published book.

Fanfic comments ARE NOT THAT. Fanfic comments are written directly TO the author. Sure, other readers might see them, and I’ve had conversations start in comments on my fic before so I know it happens. But when a reader writes a comment on a fic, it’s generally to thank the author for the story, for having entertained them for a while.

Not all fanfic authors reply to comments, but I think the vast majority of us TRY to at the very least. Thanking the reader for reading, expressing the happiness we feel that our work has brought someone else a bit of joy (or angst, or whatever feeling we’ve inspired with our words). Or else answering questions the commenter has asked, or otherwise expressing gratitude.

It’s a DIRECT CONVERSATION, the likes of which most people will never have with a traditionally published author. The absolute ridiculousness that anyone expects the works we publish on AO3, for free, can be compared in any way to a traditionally published novel is beyond belief. The conceit that works we write-- again, for free, in our spare time, out of love for doing it-- should be as polished and free of any sort of errors as works that have spent more than a year and often more than two years going through multiple rounds of editing, proofreading, line editing, typesetting, etc. where MANY PEOPLE have scoured it for errors and yet still a few slip by here and there... I mean, HOW can anyone hold writers working on our own, in our spare time, for zero pay, purely for our own enjoyment to the same level of exactitude that we hold commercial novels? It’s laughable.

And honestly, it reaches a point where we’d rather just post the thing and move on to the next thing. I have gone back and done minor edits to some of my older works. If I’m rereading and notice a typo, I’ll fix it, for example. I once switched a character and wrote it as a different character because I felt bad about how the original character was portrayed. But for the vast majority of them I have zero intent of going back and making major edits on anything I’ve written, because I have moved on. I’m writing something else now, and maybe that will be more polished for having written the previous things with the wonky sentence structure or the awkward choice of words.

Mostly I write because I want to tell the stories that are stuck in my head. I need to get them out or they wedge in there like a big old log jam. Enough words build up that if I don’t start lining them up and pushing them out, the pressure builds up and bursts out in really inconvenient and messy ways. I’m personally not writing fanfic as “practice.” Or because I hope to some day be “good enough” to publish original works for money. I came to fandom to write fanfic so I wouldn’t have to deal with the rest of the publishing industry lol. I don’t need encouragement or approval or advice on how to improve. I just need an outlet. And if other people enjoy anything I write, that’s just a bonus to me.

(I had a publishing contract in my hands, stared at it for three days and then cried as I tore it up... I didn’t want to put myself through the publishing mill... I was already burnt out just getting to that point, and couldn’t imagine it becoming my life for years to come. It wasn’t worth it to me, and then I found fandom and AO3 and fanfic, and got all the benefit from writing with none of the angst of commercial publishing. This is where I WANT to be, this is not a stepping stone or training ground for someday becoming a “real author.” Sure, it is for some folks, but for a lot of us, this is just what makes us happy.)

Can you imagine going to a craft show where everyone has spent their time making beautiful handmade things and walking directly up to each artist and critiquing their work? Going up to a knitter and complaining that you saw a nicer hat in Macy’s the other day and pointing out everything about her hat that you don’t like? Or going to a jewelry designer and saying you prefer gold to silver, and demanding to know why they chose to inlay green stones when clearly they should’ve used blue ones?

Same vibe on critiquing fanfic in the comments. Or at the author in general. It’s just rude.

#writing is hard #fandom problems #and granted i don't tend to get negative comments or critical comments #so this dosn't really apply to my wonderful readers <3 #but just in general... I know other authors who have stopped writing entirely #after being deluged with negativity or 'helpful advice' that is in no way actually helpful #Anonymous

[shrinkthisviolet]

The Problem with KATAOW S3

(Yep, I’m finally doing it)

Okay so, let me just say that the season overall? Phenomenal. Clearly planned out, not one of those “oh no we need to make another season” seasons, the enemy is defeated in a satisfying way, the characters’ arcs are concluded–

Wait. Hold that thought. Because my problem with this season concerns one person. Or, I guess, one mandrill, since he isn’t a person at all.

That’s right, I’m talking about Hugo/Scarlemagne.

So I didn’t even realize something was off when I first started the season, until I read this fic (it’s an alternate S3, and I absolutely recommend it). The comments gave me pause, because they said that they felt Scarlemagne was acting too passive in S3. I’d just gotten done seeing him and Kipo talking with his “brotherly advice,” so I didn’t understand that.

However, the more I watched, the more I realize that the comments were right. Scarlemagne was a background character, and normally, this wouldn’t be a problem (it’s Kipo’s show, not his), except...this is his redemption season. And they kinda try to one-and-done it in one episode, which I feel does a great disservice to him and the show overall.

His relationship with Kipo is also...gone for some reason?? They bring it up in the 9th and last episodes, but other than telling us “oh hey remember that they’re siblings?” it’s nowhere. As if it doesn’t exist. Which is sad because that could’ve been the key to his redemption.

Kipo only redeems him to form HMUFA (she also wants to do it for their relationship, but that’s not really made clear), but what if she just wanted her brother back? What if HMUFA was important, but not as much as having a family again? Remember, this is the girl who went toe-to-toe with him in last season’s finale and called him out and pushed him until she threatened the safety of her loved ones.

She doesn’t back down, and she initiates change. In a way, regarding her brother, Kipo herself was also made passive, which is a shame–that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of her character.

Scarlemagne’s moral ambiguity is also pretty much gone. Now, in regard to the pheromone thing, that could just be him being tired of arguing about it, which tracks. But the fact that he gives in to Wolf’s reasoning instead of KILLING THE PERSON WHO TORE HIS FAMILY APART AND TORTURED HIM AND IS TRYING TO KILL HIS SISTER? Yeah, no. I don’t care how redeemed Scarlemagne is, he would never give in to an argument like that.

Also Wolf would never make that argument in a situation like this. I get that she’s less hardened and more like Kipo now, but...she calls Kipo her sister. Her pack. Wolf was raised a wolf, at the core of it, and even I, as an older sister, would throw moral compasses out the window to protect my siblings. THAT’S JUST HOW FAMILY IS (in my experience)!

He and Kipo don’t really have any arguments. He doesn’t try to get her to see his perspective, his advice (“make them fear you”) doesn’t come back to haunt her later (especially when she...basically does that twice? Anyone remember that? The writers don’t)...what’s the point of a morally gray villain if they’re not clinging to their reasoning?? Sure, maybe Scarlemagne realizes his dictator impulse was wrong, but he could’ve said something like, “I made a place for myself in a world that was trying to hurt me. All I wanted was to unite the mutes and guide them. I wanted a family again.”

And Kipo could say something like, “That’s not a family. Families don’t mind control each other to keep them in line.”

Scarlemagne: “Ah right, I forgot. They just leave their created children for dead and shame them for ever wanting to use their powers against corrupt people. My mistake.”

Like?? Obviously he went about it the wrong way, but...he thinks his intentions were good (as morally gray villains do), and he was hurt, and let’s face it, Lio’s moral absolutism (critiqued very well in this post) pretty much ruined everything (also that dumb decision to wait around?? Tf??). Scarlemagne doesn’t have to change Kipo’s mind, but...maybe some indication that he’s still in that cage for a reason? That maybe Kipo’s tried to help him before, but he won’t renounce his intentions (only the dictator part)?

Like...COME ON, writers! You can’t even say that moral ambiguity was too much for a kids’ show, because this show has it in SPADES (Lio is forced to reckon with and apologize for his mistakes, as he should, and ATLA/LOK was practically the blueprint for moral ambiguity in kids’ shows).

So I think I’ve covered everything? But I have one last complaint: Hugo’s death.

IT MAKES NO SENSE

I kinda knew it was coming because I spoiled myself 😂 (that’s all I knew though, the rest was a surprise), so I was expecting Mute Emilia to eat him or something as he was flying. That wouldn’t have been great, but it would’ve been better than CRASHING INTO THE SIDE OF A WALL OR SOMETHING

Like...are you KIDDING me?? I know mandrills aren’t super strong, but this is BOGUS in a show where falls like that never hurt anyone (yes, I’m aware that everyone who falls like that is a Mute, but they’ve fallen like that as humans, too. Idk. Plenty of other media has their heroes get up and be fine after falls like that).

Also...he was just starting his redemption!! It could’ve been something awesome!! But they threw it away, and for what?? A moment for Hugo to forgive Lio (Song didn’t really do anything imo, but she was kinda complicit, and I find it weird that she didn’t even apologize?), sacrifice himself in a stupid way, and then just...die??

Nope. I don’t accept it. I refuse. We weren’t shown a gravesite, so I choose to believe Hugo appeared right behind Kipo at the end, all “quit telling people I’m dead!” “Sometimes, I can still hear his voice!” (Screw canon, this is canon now. KATAOW screwed itself over when it didn’t even have the decency to give Hugo a proper death).

Oh also, Scarlemagne passively accepting Wolf as Kipo’s sister is soooo unrealistic I can’t overstate it! I’m just gonna refer you back to the fic series linked above, which handles this so much better. There’s no way Scarlemagne would take a surrogate sister label lying down, that he wouldn’t have an identity crisis (if Kipo can adopt siblings at random, can she disown siblings too?), that he wouldn’t shame Wolf for it, that she wouldn’t have an identity crisis...

Oh also, Kipo herself has problems, as outlined in this post (which includes my reblog of it where I also state my problems with her). I love Kipo as a hero, but...S3 could’ve done more for her.

Maybe I’ll write a fix-it for this season one day. Who knows. But I wanted to get all this off my chest 😂 feel free to debate in the notes and reblogs!

#kipo and the age of wonderbeasts #kataow s3 spoilers #MAJOR S3 SPOILERS #no seriously PLEASE watch the season before reading this it’s actually really good #kipo oak #hugo oak #scarlemagne #wolf #lio oak #song oak #benson #dave

[ifbrd]

Not Sugar-Coated, ToBecky Critique from a ToBecky Shipper

Let’s talk about Tobecky and it’s toxicity! And for once, let’s not hold back! I think what I’m gonna do for this post is focus on the dynamic they have in the show, mostly criticizing my own misogyny but calling out the fandom in general as well, as I’ve seen other’s do these same things. Later I will reblog it on the Word Up blog and continue my thoughts on the ship and how it affected Word Up.

The first thing I will say is that I am a Tobecky shipper, ever since Tobey’s first shorts when it was revealed he had a crush on WordGirl. I started watching this show as a kid, I would have been 9 or 10 when it started airing on PBS. If I were to get into this show today, however, I don’t think I would be shipping tobecky, because as an adult I can recognize its toxicity which I didn’t have the proper knowledge or understanding to do back in the day. And I think the real reason I still ship today is purely nostalgic. Though I won’t deny that their dynamic is interesting and that likely affects my shipping brain too.

As a kid, I think I shipped it because, well it seemed inevitable. It seemed like the only endgame option. How many romcoms start with a girl liking one boy, only to realize later she should be with a different guy, usually an underdog the audience is supposed to root for. How many romance stories start with the two not liking each other, ranging anywhere from minor annoyances for each other to full-blown enemies, only to later understand it was all a guise to hide their true feelings. It seemed obvious that Becky/WordGirl would end up with not Scoops, whom she had a crush on, but instead Tobey, the underdog she always was fighting or arguing with. Factor in Tobey’s crush, my very underdeveloped ability to think critically, and the fact that the writers in early seasons seemed to really take the time to focus on the potential chemistry between these two (their interactions in “Department Store Tobey” and both of them having a good time together in “Have You Seen the Remote?” etc) and it seemed there was only one boy for Becky to logically end up with.

The first time I can recall really questioning this ship, I mean really questioning it, was sometime in probably my sophomore or freshman year? Maybe my junior year? I recall my health teacher teaching us about healthy vs unhealthy relationships. In this unit, I realized several of my favorite ships across various fandoms were unhealthy but that’s a whole other topic. At one point I remember him giving his two cents about the phrase “opposites attract” when being applied to romance. He said this can be true, but only if the two are “opposites” in personality, and not “opposites” in values. If a couple’s values, their morals, don’t align, they probably aren’t going to make it. And in all honesty, I think Tobey and Becky have the worst possible combination for this.

They have very similar personalities, and while this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it can make it easier for them to encourage their negative traits instead of helping them overcome them. The traits they both share like pridefulness, attention-seeking, and being a bit obsessive, have the potential to be the traits they bring out in each other. The best counter-argument for this is the fact that Becky is willing to and would call Tobey out for everything wrong or ridiculous he does, and try to help him. But that doesn’t matter if Tobey is not willing to listen to her when she calls him out, or accept her help when she offers it and he needs it. And it’s especially worthless if he’s not willing to help her back.

Meanwhile, the biggest weakness for this ship is their opposite values. Their morals couldn’t be more apart from each other. Get these two together for long periods of time and a morality war would easily ensue. And then combined with if their similar personalities do end up bringing the worst in each other, then any relationship they could have would be disastrous.

The worst issues with their pairing all go back to Tobey. I love Tobey as a character, don’t get me wrong, but we need to be honest, and please excuse the language--Tobey is a piece of shit! He is disrespectful to everyone around him, except his mother, and that’s only because he’s scared of her He thinks he’s better than everyone else and has no issues expressing that opinion, even going as far as to try to define words for WordGirl. He goes as far as to belittle her in “Tobey or Consequences” criticizing her word choice. He has been shown on multiple occasions to lose his mind when he doesn’t get exactly what he wants and will do anything to get it, without regard for others’ property, feelings or safety. He’s manipulative as seen in “Tobey Goes Good” and “Have You Seen the Remote.” He’s unwilling to take responsibility for his actions, as demonstrated when he attacks the candy factory for making candy because he got a cavity, instead of realizing that he should have taken better care of his teeth.

And worst of all, despite what he and the audience often believe, he clearly doesn’t give a single shit about WordGirl. If he cared about her he would have acknowledged her disinterest, if he cared about her, he wouldn’t have tried to force Becky into admitting she’s WordGirl in “By Jove, You’ve Wrecked My Robot.” If he cared about her, he wouldn’t have pretended to be good or trick her into spending time with him or forced her to read poems about him. In the Halloween special he thought Violet was WordGirl just because she was wearing a WordGirl costume, failing to acknowledge that Violet is blonde and white and WordGirl is clearly not.

The episode “WordBot” makes it very clear what kind of relationship Tobey wants from WordGirl--and it’s not a relationship. It’s a dynamic where she simply showers him with never-ending adoration and does whatever he wants. Tobey cares about one person and one person only and it’s not WordGirl, it’s himself.

And I’m not even counting “Go Gadget Go” in any of this! That episode put him in such a bad light that most fans pretend it doesn’t exist because his behavior is so inexcusable. And yet even without that episode, we have plenty of toxicity coming from Tobey’s end.

I once saw someone say they hate the tobecky ship because the argument for it often is that Becky will be willing to put up with Tobey when they’re older. First of all, if that’s your argument in tobecky’s favor you need to go take a good hard look at yourself. Becky putting up with Tobey’s messed up behavior is essentially hoping she ends up in a horrible, toxic, unhealthy, relationship that would be borderline abusive if she didn’t stand against him. Secondly, while I don’t deny the existence of this argument, (I once read a fanfic where the two were married but still a hero and villain who battled regularly) I disagree with the idea that this argument is most often used to justify the ship. Instead, the most common argument to justify it is the idea that Tobey has it in him to change. This is certainly a better argument, as Tobey changing is really the only hope for this ship.

But I think it’s really easy for us, myself included, to struggle with the line between finding evidence that Tobey could change vs excusing his actions; the line between finding an explanation for his behavior vs finding an excuse for him. It’s a very easy line to accidentally cross without realizing it. And it really says something when, as discussed in another post, we are not giving other villains like Victoria--who have more of an “excuse” --the same treatment. It’s incredibly misogynistic.

I’m not going to try to argue that Tobey doesn’t have the capability to be good, of course, he does. We can see this in the cute note he leaves in Becky’s backpack in “Trustworthy Tobey” and in the very last moments in the Thanksgiving special, and of course in our favorite example, “It’s Your Party and I’ll Cry if I Want to.” I’m also not saying that Tobey’s actions and psychology aren’t the product of the environment and circumstances he faces daily. Of course having no father figure present, a single mother who is always working, and no friends is going to affect a child. What I want to question is when is Tobey responsible for his own life, choices, and actions? Maybe not now at age 10-11, but what about when he’s 13? 16? 18? 21? 40? Where do we draw that line? I also don’t want to discourage looking for the good in people and characters and thinking critically about how their past and psychology is affecting their actions. I want to encourage that in all characters, not just the boy who happens to have a crush.

And while it’s nice to speculate that Tobey will follow a better path in the future, not so much for tobecky as much as for the betterment of Tobey himself, we need to realize that it’s just speculation. We have no canon proof of where his story goes post-WordGirl. He has his moments of hope but overall this kid has a terrible track record. When it comes to others, Tobey makes terrible choices. And that’s exactly what “going good” will be--a choice--his choice.

I also want to take a moment to talk about something @fromtheplanethexagon said in this amazing post you should totally read because it’s great. They commented on how very few people when writing tobecky fanfics takes the time to explore her perspective of their feelings for each other. Where her feelings originate and why she would like him. This is something I am absolutely guilty of and will be paying attention to in the future. After reading that passage from their post I thought for a while why Becky would like Tobey, and I honestly struggled with it a bit, which shouldn’t be happening if I’m trying to write a healthy tobecky story. That’s all I’ll say on this for now because beyond this I would use Word Up as an example, so I’ll save that for later.

The older I get the more I realized how toxic this ship is. Heck, who knows what I’ll realize about it in the future when I’m even more mature. In the past I’ve tried to convince myself it’s okay I ship it because I never shipped Tobey with WordGirl, I shipped him with Becky. I know they are the same person, but Tobey doesn’t know that, and the dynamics between him and each of her egos are very different. The dynamic between Tobey and WordGirl reminds me of Gideon and Mabel from Gravity Falls. Meanwhile the one between Tobey and Becky reminds me more of the one between Jimmy and Cindy from The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron. That’s better right? Even if just a little bit? Well no, not really, because we all know darn well if Tobey fell for Becky instead of WordGirl he would treat Becky exactly the same as he treats WordGirl. He would ultimately have the same “WordBot esc” expectations. If anything he might try to treat her worse. With WordGirl there is a clear power balance, and while it’s still technically there with Becky, Tobey doesn’t know it’s still there and might try to use that to his advantage.

And to conclude I’d like to add to @fromtheplanethexagon above-mentioned post (here’s the link again, seriously, read it!). Regarding their final thoughts that it’s fine to explore the ship, and it’s fine to explore the unhealthy parts of the ship. But we need to be careful to not glorify the toxicity of the potential pairing.

#wordgirl #becky botsford #tobey mccallister #tobecky #misogyny #toxic ships #shipping #pbs kids #okay that link to the victoria ask post...i'd only look at it on mobile #i linked it to my blog and i guess my blog layout doesn't like that post the order is completely mixed up??? #guess i have to find a new desktop blog theme because that can't be happening #it's very confusing

[dgcatanisiri]

Not my usual ranting, but I need to just... clear my head a little.

I swear, the amount of times that I see people on my Twitter feed - so, y’know, people whose media opinions I generally like and respect - go HARD for TLJ, when I’ve been over aplenty why I absolutely do not like this movie... Like, not just is it this overwhelming feeling of frustration about how I don’t feel like I can say anything on the subject without having to defend my opinion, AND have to make the effort to long-form explain, while making it clear that no, I’m not one of those racist sexist assholes who can’t take deviation from the white male norm, but that I just DON’T. LIKE. THIS. MOVIE...

I swear, at times I start feeling gaslit about it - “maybe I am wrong, and it’s actually good?” And... No. I REMEMBER I was bothered by elements in the writing IN THE ACTUAL THEATER.

Like, I clearly remember being uncomfortable with the way that Finn was being treated in the first ten minutes, waking up from his coma in a STORAGE CLOSET, running around in a leaky bacta suit, getting tazed by Rose... I did NOT feel comfortable watching his pain and confusion be played as a joke.

And the TIMELINE of this movie bothered the hell out of while I was WATCHING - Rey’s taking days, if not weeks, to train with Luke, yet is having real time Force communication with Kylo, who is chasing the characters who are on a strict sixteen hour deadline for their fuel, WHILE Finn and Rose can casually jaunt off to Canto Bight mid-flight? And yet she STILL manages to arrive in the nick of time all the same?

Hyperspace travel is NOT instant! It was never instant, and the original trilogy made that pretty clear, saying nothing of the prequels. But here in this movie, it becomes a fast travel system like a video game.

To say nothing of that moldy raisin bread appearing and taking away what SHOULD have been a father-son interaction between Luke and Anakin...

And I was always Team Poe - he handled Holdo with grace and respect, he approaches her one on one with his concerns, gets dismissed. He makes a scene, is still told nothing. He offers a chance for an explanation before the mutiny, and she STILL doesn’t explain why he’s wrong. This is a leader who is inspiring no trust, why should ANYONE follow her? Especially when she’s an admiral wearing a COCKTAIL DRESS during an EXISTENTIAL CRISIS?!

And that’s just the stuff that I actively picked up on in the theater proper - it’s only “fridge logic” if you’re going over it later on and think ‘wait... that doesn’t quite add up.’ When you notice it in the moment of viewing, it’s an active plot hole. I could add in the fridge logic elements for me, but... Those were the things noticeable IN THE MOMENT. I’m not even getting to the things that came to me as I thought things over afterwards - Finn’s story demotion, the over-focus on Kylo making HIM into the movie’s real main character, Rey’s reduction to Kylo’s sexy lamp reward, her lack of reaction to the “your parents were nobody” thing...

Yeah, every time I think about the movie, every time I go over the details, yeah, I’m right to find these flaws. Because, again, they stood out enough to me in the theater to be burned into my brain as “what the fuck is going on?” A movie making you do that in the moment of watching has some SERIOUS flaws.

But the amount of people who praise it... Like, a lot of them actually ARE making some kind of living in film analysis and critique, and yet... They don’t see this? They think this was the best movie of the franchise? That it’s worth being the benchmark?

I don’t get it. And I know I never will. But it’s all the more frustrating, because... There is, so far as I presently understand things, an expected Rian Johnson trilogy in this franchise. And while I’d love for that to end up getting people to SEE the flaws set in, go back over it and realize ‘...wait a second, this is an issue here, and you can actually see it back in TLJ... Oh. Ohhhh...’ and have the feeling of justification that I was right all along...

Honestly, all I expect is that people will end up being all the more insufferable, and pulling the “this is what the Sequels should have been” card.

And it’s so... Honestly, frustrating doesn’t even BEGIN to cover it, because I actively feel the push of “no one’s going to listen to you if you try to explain this, they’re just going to lump you in with the worst of the worst, mute/block you, and move on, rather than LISTEN.” And I do understand that idea, I really do, it’s not like I particularly want to debate on Twitter either, even if I’m not talking about something that actively requires you to go over the per Tweet character limit to express. But there are times it’s so prevalent on my Twitter feed, it starts to feel oppressive and insanity-inducing because it happens enough to feel like I’m being poked and prodded and dared to start something.

#dg gets pissed #dg rants #dg gets personal

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

Writer Tag Game

thank you to @irresistible-revolution and @lady-tortilla-chip for tagging me!! i finally found time to do this 😭💛

How many works do you have on AO3?

only 51, because i got my AO3 account a couple years after i’d started posting on FFN, Quotev, and Wattpad and decided to move only the “good” fics over lmao

What’s your total AO3 word count?

605459 (there’s like 200k worth of additional words on FFN from middle school era fics lmaooo)

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. certainty (collection of catradora oneshots i wrote after the s5 finale; has absolutely no right to be my most kudos-ed fic, lmao, but apparently i was writing the right ship at the right time 😂)

2. There’s a Fine, Fine Line (mcu flash thompson introspection)

3. No Ordinary Exchange (rayllum college!au)

4. Hair Dye (a collection of iron dad and spider son oneshots i wrote mostly in early high school,, i don’t disown them, but i also don’t like much of how they were written anymore lmao it’s been 5-6 years 😂)

5. how’s your lip? (a short sambucky oneshot i wrote while tfatws was airing)

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

YES. i want to show my appreciation!! comments are expressions of love and i wish to return that affection!!

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

hmm... honestly, i haven’t written anything with a majorly angsty ending. ashes, ashes, it all burns down is pretty angsty bc it’s mid-canon maiko set when zuko leaves the fire nation in book 3. you do what you can (until it’s not enough) is angsty in a similar way bc it ends with liz leaving (i.e. the end of sm: hoco)

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

like 99% of my fics have happy endings 😂 If I’m What You Choose is probably Extra happy because it’s so cheesy with how flash and peter get together (which, to be fair, was my exact intention)

Do you write crossovers? If so, What is the craziest one you’ve ever written?

i am pretty sure i have only written two (2) proper crossovers, one of which was a winx club x teen titans crossover from middle school that is terrible and uh. i will never finish 😂

just before the semester started, however, i finished writing (by hand) an incredibly self-indulgent crossover between monk and medium! i plan to type it up and start posting it in december 🤞 it’s not necessarily a crazy crossover, to be fair, since they’re both crime shows and they actually aired around the same time. still, the concepts and tones of the shows are pretty different, so it was fun balancing that as i wrote!

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

yeah, a few times? the rude comment i remember most clearly was this person on Wattpad who left like,, an essay of a comment “critiquing” my rayllum fic and rating it on a scale of 1 to 10 and im like. bro. you really think i approached this self-indulgent college!au the way i write analyses for school?? the back button is right there. it’s right there. you didn’t have to read all of it 😂

i will say that i am incredibly fortunate that all hate i’ve gotten (again: not much) has been from high school or later; i never got any rude comments when i first started in middle school - which is, of course, when my writing sucked the most lmao - and i think that’s a major factor of why i’ve continued writing for so long. if people had said anything really cruel to me then, i think i would’ve taken it to heart more, yk?

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

nah, not my thing! something funny, tho, is that right now im really into medium (as i’ve talked about before) and like. i honestly don’t read smut, either. (i am boring like that.) but i am shocked at the lack of smut fics for allison and joe. like, they are a couple that fucks. i just can’t believe there’s no content about it 😂

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge (let me know if y’all see my stuff floating around lmao)

Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope! maybe when im fluent (enough) i’ll translate my fics into la french ✨

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no, because i am Horrendously unreliable and anyone co-writing with me would immediately hate the experience 😂

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

please. as if i could pick! right now im in my peraltiago feels because of the b99 finale 😭💛 and ofc also joe and allison, i have so many ideas for angst fics about them lmao

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

uhhhhh i mean i very strongly believe in never say never, lmao. my maizutaraang fic is on an indefinite hiatus, tho 😩

What are your writing strengths?

people usually tell me they enjoy my dialogue!

What are your writing weaknesses?

action. description. all that jazz. fr, i am considering becoming a screenwriter because it’s majority dialogue 😂

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I SAY DO IT. ALSO I’VE DONE IT. where you belong is a so-called sambucky fic that’s actually just me pushing my “wilson family speaks la french agenda” 😌✨

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

*to the tune of the puffy amiyumi theme song* t-e-e-n t-i-t-a-n-s! teen titans, let’s go!

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

my “favorite” fic is more often than not the most recent one i’ve written because it’s the one with my most current writing style, therefore i hate it the least, lmao. as such, my unpublished monk x medium crossover is probably my favorite fic rn 😂

honorable mentions go to the why’d you have to go and make things so complicated? series, broken pieces still belong, and all i know is gone (but i am not alone) for being personal, fandom-defining experiences for me 💛

tagging: literally anyone who wants to do this, i’ve been away from tumblr lately and will continue to be away bc of school so if you are interested, consider yourself tagged!! 💕

#amy gets tagged #i have missed u tumblr friends 💛 #i exist in a perpetual state of 'so much to do and so little time'

[jacscorner]

My PROPER Thoughts on Masters of the Universe: Revelations!

Well, I finally saw the show proper. And, well, honestly, for what it was, it wasn't that bad. In all honesty, I think it was fairly decent.

If that's enough for you to try it for yourself, then go right ahead and watch it. But there are a few story beats I wanna talk about, because some of the choices they made still just...baffle me.

Spoilers under the cut. The show, like, literally just came out, so proceed with caution.

Just for the record, if I was to grade this show, it'd be a C+, if not just a B. I feel I need more time to digest what I watched, and MAYBE see if there's ever a part two to this mini-series.

That...probably sounds harsh since this show LOOKS so good. The animation, voice acting, and music is phenomenal! But I'd argue in this day of age, that should be expected. Especially from Netflix and Mattel, both of which are pretty big.

And, honestly, I like a lot of shows that aren't NEARLY as good as He-Man in these departments. It's not all about how good something looks at sounds, it's about how it all comes together.

Like I said before the cut, on its own, the show is actually pretty good for the most part. But first, we need to talk about the marketing again. Cause remember, a lot of the marketing is centered around He-Man.

And I don't just mean the trailers. This is the 'Fist Wave' of toys. Look who's here, and notice who's missing. He-Man, Skeletor, Battle Cat, and Evil-Lyn. Yeah, that makes sense. And Skele...Skelelord, I think is what that's called, that only appears at the last possible minute of the series.

Oh, and Moss Man.

...And that's it.

Like, seriously, what? Where's Man-At-Arms? Where's Teela? Actually, no, flip that, where the hell IS Teela?! She's the main character and she doesn't get a toy?! How are you gonna kill He-Man twice in this show, but not have 1 Teela toy?! Teela's one of the main characters of the series, and she doesn't get a toy, but Moss Man does?!

This is so...oddly sexist. It's like they didn't believe Teela could carry the show themselves, so they REALLY lay it on thick with the He-Man nostalgia. It's really no wonder so many people are upset with this bait and switch. Like I said before, it's one thing to withhold information to not spoil your own series. It's another to just lie to people's faces.

And now that we're done with the behind the scenes drama, let's look at the show itself.

So, yeah, as the rumors foretold, it's a show about Teela. Except this isn't really 'Teela'. It's a warped woman forced into the mold of "strong, female character" by people who don't know what the hell that means.

So, yeah, didn't like Teela's portrayal in this show. Her design in episode one, despite my mixed feelings, looks phenomenal. Especially with her hair down. But my problem with her is that she's so self-centered. He-Man dies and she just finds out that Adam was He-Man the entire time, and her first reaction is to not let anyone explain and make it about herself.

The King is grieving, the Queen is sobbing, Man-At-Arms, Orko, and Cringer are distraught, but Teela's initial reaction is to go off. I'd argue it's pretty fair for her to be angry that he kept this secret, but she storms out and is just perpetually blaming Adam.

This is a secret he wanted to tell her and his parents, something you'd know if you watched the original show, but it wasn't just his to tell. It was his burden, but it was a secret that the Sorceress insisted on keeping secret. Her being angry about it isn't the problem, it's that she only thinks about how it effects her. She's just so condescending and this is the hero we're supposed to be rooting for.

And in typical writing for 'Strong, Female Characters', they need to pull down male characters to prop up their female counterparts. And, well, they're kind of bad at it...

Like, they really hammer home a lot of hate for Adam and He-man. He-Man is basically made into a punching bag for the other characters. If Flea-Man isn't the butt of jokes, then he's always getting pushed to the side.

Meanwhile, Man-At-Arms also gets this treatment a bit, but is then written in to quickly pull Teela and co.'s asses out of the fire. It's not quite 'man hate' as it is 'He-Man hate'. And, look, if you wanted to write a story for Masters of the Universe and focus it on Teela, then there were definitely ways to do that and just say He-Man is elsewhere. You shouldn't have to, or want to, tear down old heroes to prop up new ones.

And...I think that's about all my problems with the series. At least, the two problems that really killed my enjoyment of the show. Over all, it's pretty decent. It's not what I was hungry for, at least after episode 1, but for what it is, it's pretty good as a dark and edgy continuation of Masters of The Universe. There's a lot of other stuff I could say, but nothing that really feels worth a critique.

Just a lot of weird choices that someone should've maybe taken a second look at, maybe? Just a lot of disrespect to the old fans, and, I'd dare say disrespect to the new fans they're trying to reel in. It's pandering, plain and simple, but I'd dare say it's good pandering, hence why I don't think this is totally unwatchable.

Also, if they don't fully commit to Teela and Andra being a thing and keep dancing around it until an 11th hour kiss, THEN I'll have something to rant about. Seriously, if they're gay, then have 'em show it. Don't give me this noncommittal body language that you can peddle back on later and say "oh, they're just good friends". I want this is fucking stone. This is already better than Catradora, do NOT blow this!

#JAC Analysis #Masters of The Universe #He-Man #Teela

[luminous-studiess]

Hi. :) You said that you're trying to consciously make studying enjoyable and productive. Do you think you can tell us what you're doing exactly? Thank you. ❤️ Hope your day is fantastic and productive.

OHHH thank you for asking this, i’ve been wanting to share this for a while. i think @studyimpression asked this too a while back, and i wasn’t able to answer. long post ahead!  HOW I MAKE STUDYING ENJOYABLE AND PRODUCTIVE: SECOND HALF OF 2020/QUARANTINE EDITION i’ve mentioned this briefly here, and i still stand by a lot of these tips, mostly because this is my general baseline for what i consider ‘enjoyable’ and ‘comfortable’. but i do think i can expand on these especially in terms of productivity. what i’ve discovered, and what has helped me get things done is knowing that studying is not an inherently comfortable or easy thing to do. and knowing this already makes you manage your expectations about what you need to do, and how much hard work needs to be put in. however, there are things you can do to make the workload manageable and the process less difficult.  1. TRY TO MAKE YOUR STUDY HOURS/SPACE AS COMFORTABLE AS POSSIBLE: A “HAPPY/PRODUCTIVE” ROUTINE this does not mean that you need your own, personal workspace (although that would be a bonus) or anything particularly fancy. things are not productivity, and as long as you have the proper learning resources, you have it in you to succeed.  however, i do think it really helped me to start to associate studying with some level of peace and focus by setting a routine which made me start to associate getting productive with a little peace and pleasure. as i’ve mentioned in my other posts, my favorite thing to do lately is to get up early, do a quick freshening up, and to pretend my dining room is a small cafe by making myself an iced coffee and turning on some jazz music. it’s nothing expensive or overly fancy (in fact that whole kilogram of coffee is like... less than 10 dollars), but it allows me to pretend that i’m in a starbucks, and it feels unbelievably peaceful while i start studying. that helps me get going at a very early hour, and this routine makes me excited to get up and start working. personally i think it’s a very good way of treating yourself while being incredibly disciplined. after doing this lately, i feel as if i’ve been more responsible and accountable, but i also feel peaceful and not overworked!   however, this also means: 2. KNOWING WHAT HOURS YOU ARE MOST PRODUCTIVE AT + SETTING A DEFINITE AMOUNT OF WORK HOURS PER DAY i don’t have classes yet, so i have a little freedom to decide when i’ll start working. however, i do have an urgent deadline to finish before classes, so i’m forced to do a lot of work during very unstructured days. that’s why it helped to (a) EVALUATE WHAT TIMES OF THE DAY I FEEL MOST FOCUSED and (b) to track the number of hours i work. so on point (a): studying is not comfortable. it’s actually very tiring. and it helps to see when your body feels the most energy to be able to focus for several hours at a time, doing intensive tasks. i recommend that you try different times in the day to finish something you need to do with complete focus (more on that later), and see at what time your body naturally responds/feels focused. well... this doesn’t apply if you have online classes, and are forced to sit at set times, but this helps for the times when you have to do independent work/homework/revision.

from personal experience, i work best from 7 am to about 10 am. then my body tends to go into a slump until late afternoon and before 12 am. it’s different for everyone, and you really have to listen to your body. (b): it’s inevitable that you have to dedicate many hours to get good results. i really recommend setting a minimum number of hours per day as a quota/the bare minimum. you don’t have to do them all in one go! maybe you might do the pomodoro method and spread these hours out, but it helps to have a baseline for what you consider productive. (mine is four minimum). use a timer or a productivity app like forest. count your hours. set goals within those hours (like assignments that need to get finished), then take a break after. you’ll feel so proud of yourself, i promise. 3. FOCUS AND DISCIPLINE: FOCUS IS A MUSCLE YOU HAVE TO EXERCISE AND STRENGTHEN this is not naturally enjoyable, but it makes you productive, and is a skill that needs practice. i also have a poor attention span, so this is something i had to work on! i thought i was naturally lazy, but this all changed when a friend told me “hey. focus is a muscle. it needs to be worked out regularly”. so slowly, i realized that i had to put a lot of work and effort into focusing on one task at a time, and ignoring all distractions. again, this wasn’t easy; i had to use apps like forest to lock myself out of my ipad so i wouldnt goof around on social media/games. but once i started to get used to being disciplined about getting work done every day, and finishing certain tasks, it became even easier to focus on what needed to be done. it really isn’t perfect yet, but i do find that concentrating on one task keeps me in a “focus” mode, and helps me to get things done much more easily and even calmly.  however, if there are days you can’t focus. acknowledge that. rest first, then go back to work. 4. MAKING CHECKLISTS OF EVERYTHING/PLANNING i would consider myself a very carefree person and used to hate planning. but once i started writing everything down, scheduling on calendars, and making lists, i became less afraid of what i needed to do, because i could visualize what was due, and how much time it takes to break down huge tasks into smaller, more manageable deadlines. i would recommend using a notebook or a program (like Notion! it has a free premium plan for students.) to map out all the things you need to do. it also helps to break down tasks into subtasks, so that even if you do a little, you can still check it off and feel less overwhelmed. put your deadlines on google calendar immediately, and set aside a little time at the start of your workday to see and write down what needs to get done, and what you WANT to get done.  this also helps in lessening the time i became anxious about making decisions re: what i needed to do! forming processes which made my studying easier made me much less scared of starting 5. EVALUATE YOUR DAY: BEING MINDFUL, BE PROUD OF WHAT YOU’VE ACCOMPLISHED as i get ready for bed, i like to run by my lists and check what i’ve finished, what i haven’t gotten done, what needs to get done. i also ask myself what i did well that day, and what didn’t go so well. this isn’t harsh self-critique! it just helps to know how i can make my next study day more efficient AND enjoyable (sometimes i just end up looking for nice playlists for studying....) 6. DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL THINGS!!!! it’s easy to worry about doing things wrong, especially now, when so much of our learning is self-guided. But as long as you’re doing the work, being disciplined and accountable, but also gentle with yourself, then you don’t need to worry about the tiniest details. DO YOUR BEST, AND MOVE ON. <3 7. FINALLY: NEVER ASSUME THE WORK IS EASY, AND NEVER ASSUME THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE.  we tend to underestimate or overestimate what needs to get done, and that gets in the way of being productive. we become scared or lazy or overwhelmed, and it makes it hard to move! know that learning is very very difficult, but putting in the work and accomplishing something is beautiful, and that it is a PROCESS. and always know that you are capable of great things if you have the discipline and the grit. i hope that helps. don’t forget to take many breaks and do the things you love. intense work is meaningless without equally intense rest. please take care, and stay safe!!! -- sam <3 

#asks #iamathornydeviltoo #studyblr #study asks #study tips #studyspo #study motivation #productivity #college student #studyign #studying #tbhstudying #sorcierestudies #studyplants #obsidianstudy #stillstudies #studypetals #studylustre #morningkouffee #uni #college #heypat #heyreva #eintsein #einstetic #studygram #heysareena

[elfindreams]

SOME THOUGHTS NOW THAT I’VE FINISHED ADWD:

• good god I can’t imagine having been a fan of this series all along and having to wait ten-plus years for TWoW, which STILL hasn’t been released... WHAT HAPPENS TO BRIENNE IS SHE OKAY I NEED TO KNOW

•I have a weird and terrible premonition that the prologue chapter of TWoW, if/when it ever comes out, will be from the POV of Rickon or perhaps Shaggydog.

•I haven’t kept proper count or anything but there have to be at least five different characters (all male, incidentally) who are described within the narration as grotesquely fat and repulsive and smelly. Like, constantly. In excruciating detail. After the second or third instance of this, I began to have this uncomfortable sense that there are some kind of sublimated body image issues and self-hatred at play here, because GRRM himself doesn’t exactly have a slender body shape... is this guy okay, emotionally speaking? I’m not even saying that in a jokey way, like, seriously, is he? ._.

• On a separate but not-irrelevant note. This man just LOVES himself some titties, huh. Absolutely adores them. (Relatable)

• I have a reasonably high tolerance for disturbing shit within fiction provided that it’s handled well, and I’m the last person to insist that authors need to show their characters brushing their teeth before crossing the street lest their grown-ass target audience absorb negative moral values, but the Victarion chapters in ADWD crossed the line for me. Yes he’s an intentionally awful person yes you’re not supposed to feel comfortable yes it will surely all make sense once TWoW comes out blah blah blah blah blah but, like... what’s the point of Victarion? I mean, really? His chapters are unpleasant to read, they contribute very little to the plot so far, and on a thematic level, the only thing that really comes across is “LOOK HOW AWFUL AND MISOGYNISTIC THIS GUY AND HIS CULTURE IS!!! WOW, ~TOXIC MASCULINITY~ SURE IS BAD!”, which is just as simplistic and didactic as only writing nice characters who perfectly fit our world’s moral sensibilities. And that’s especially strange because Jaime and Sam’s respective subplots are both about men who are super emotionally fucked-up (in completely opposite ways) because they were raised to think that the best and only way to be a man is to be a Cool Tough Badass Whomst Fights Real Good™, and both are done really well. So on that level, the Victarion chapters are treading on well-worn ground, and also faceplanting.

• It belatedly occurs to me that Ygritte was described as “pug-nosed”, which implies that pugs exist in Westeros...

• I was more sad about the presumed deaths of Pretty Pig and Crunch than about Jon Snow, tbh.

• *kicks rock* I wish Ser Barristan was my grandpa...

• I remember seeing Discourse on my dash circa 2014-2015 regarding Dany’s subplot in Astapor/Yunkai/Meereen as a white savior fantasy, and it’s certainly not for me to say whether that part of the show is Good, Actually, because I am super white and also haven’t watched the show. But if anything, the book version seems like a critique of that type of story: Dany shows up in these places that are completely foreign to her, swiftly and forcibly fixes their major societal ills using her superior firepower without knowing anything about the underlying factors which contribute to their existence... and then she is shocked when everything goes horribly wrong like 20 minutes later. (i.e. she ends slavery but the rich and powerful former slaveowners are still rich and powerful and still ✨control the means of production✨ so most of the formerly enslaved people end up right back where they started, it’s just that they’re now “free” but being paid starvation wages and barely surviving instead of being literally enslaved. Which she maybe could’ve avoided had she spent time learning about how the city’s economy worked and would need to be changed, and/or sat down with people and directly asked them what they wanted and needed, what would be useful to them in starting new lives for themselves, etc.)

• (I feel like I’ve already mentioned the above bullet point in a previous post but I am dumb of ass and pure of heart and also don’t feel like going back through to check)

• Satin lives!!! YES!!!

• oh right uhhhh yeah R.I.P. Quentyn, you died as you lived: doing your best but unfortunately also being kind of below-average

• Regardless of whether Young Griff/Aegon is actually Aegon, Varys’ master plan seems... bizarrely short-sighted and risky? Like, he spends 20 years intentionally destabilizing the realm plotting to put this perfectly-molded prince on the throne, but what happens if his perfect prince gets randomly thrown from his horse or gets an infected cut and dies? Even if he ends up on the throne, how can it be guaranteed that his own children are equally perfect future rulers? Is that why he and Ilyrio helped Viserys and Dany survive, so they could serve as backup in case anything happened to Aegon? But if so, then why didn’t they keep those two closer at hand, and try to educate them in a similar fashion, and keep them safe? And if his whole motive is peace and prosperity for the realm, then what was wrong with the existing state of affairs by the end of ADWD, with Cersei stripped of political power, a good-natured and pliable child king on the throne, and Kevan serving as the regent and doing a legitimately good job? Instead of the whole convoluted Aegon plot, he could’ve just... I dunno, found a way to maintain a position with court and pulled some strings to make sure Tommen was properly taught how to be a good king.

• oh yeah right R.I.P. Kevan, too

#text post #asoiaf shitposting #long post

[terramythos]

TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 29 of 26

Title: The House in the Cerulean Sea (2020)

Author: TJ Klune

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Comedy, Romance, Found Family, LGBT Protagonist, Third-Person 

Rating: 10/10

Date Began: 10/13/2020

Date Finished: 10/18/2020

Linus Baker, a forty-year-old caseworker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth (DICOMY), lives a solitary and mundane life. But when he’s summoned by Extremely Upper Management and given a top-secret case, everything changes. Linus is sent to the classified Marsyas Island and tasked with investigating an orphanage housing six dangerous magical children-- including the Antichrist. He is to live among the residents for one month, record his observations, and report back to the organization. No more, no less. 

The master of the house, Arthur Parnassus, is a mysterious and enigmatic man. But Linus soon learns that Arthur will do anything to protect his wards. As Linus grows closer to Arthur and the children, a secret from the past and prejudice of the present threaten to destroy the orphanage and their way of life. Linus must decide if he can abandon the world he knows in order to help the ones that need it the most. 

"Fire and ash!” Lucy bellowed as he paced back and forth. “Death and destruction! I, the harbinger of calamity will bring pestilence and plague to the people of this world. The blood of the innocents will sustain me, and you will all fall to your knees in benediction as I am your god.” 

He bowed. 

The children and Mr. Parnassus clapped politely. Theodore chirped and spun in a circle. 

Linus gaped. 

“That was a lovely story, Lucy,” Mr. Parnassus said. “I especially liked your use of metaphors. Keep in mind that pestilence and plague are technically the same thing, so it did get a little repetitious at the end, but other than that, quite impressive. Well done.” 

Minor spoilers and content warning(s) under the cut. 

Content warnings for the book: Semi-detailed discussions of child abuse and trauma. Internalized fatphobia (challenged). Structural discrimination, and hatred/prejudice associated with that, some of it internalized. 

I'm going to have a hard time reviewing this book, because it was so goddamn good I don’t think I’ll do it justice in a few short paragraphs. So here’s the fast version: The House in the Cerulean Sea was a fucking delight to read from the first page. It’s full of genuine humor, magic, and charm, while being just this side of heart-wrenching. Though geared toward adults, it’s the first novel I’ve read in a long time that captures that childlike enthusiasm I used to have when reading a good fantasy book. It takes place in a world with magic (obviously), but it’s 98% character-driven. Both the main plot and the (queer!) romantic subplot are woven together so well that neither feel tacked on or lacking. The found family hit me in the emotions again and again and again. I read books out loud, and I spent the last third of this book struggling because I kept fucking crying and having to take regular breaks before continuing. And then I went through the whole book to find a good quote for this review and ended up fucking crying again. So yeah. 

Ok. Got that off my chest. Usually in these reviews I talk about what I liked and then what didn't work for me or confused me. The good news (?) is I have zero complaints or critiques on this one. So you just get to hear me gushing about it for a while.  

Since this is a character-driven book that’s where I’ll start. Linus Baker, the protagonist, is great. Let me just say I love speculative fiction books starring older characters. At forty, Linus isn’t old, but it feels like the majority of spec fic stars people under thirty. Linus is also a conspicuously ordinary guy; prim and proper to a fault, no magic, oblivious in many ways (including to his own loneliness), but with a hidden sense of justice and protectiveness for people that comes out more and more. His development over the course of the novel and how much he grows to love and care for the other characters is just so good. The writing draws attention to this through repeated phrases and jokes one doesn’t expect to make a comeback (more on that later). Seeing him come out of his shell and stand up for what’s right is cathartic as hell. As a side note, it’s also nice to have a fat protagonist who struggles with his self-image but gets warm affirmation and support from his family and love interest. 

Arthur Parnassus, the deuteragonist and said love interest, is more of an enigma. A lot of his motivation and behavior makes sense once you get his Tragic Backstory (TM), and I think this will be a fun book to reread based on that. I picked up on some of it before the reveal, but not everything. But without spoiling it, I do love seeing an older (mid-forties) father figure who would do literally anything to make sure the children on the island have the care and love they need. Seeing his patient love and acceptance of them tugs my heartstrings. Maybe I’m a bit of a sap. Linus and Arthur’s obvious mutual crush on each other is also really cute, okay. There’s something about older queer people finding love that makes me smile. 

And the children are great too, of course. I really liked each of them and thought they were all unique and interesting. My favorites are probably Lucy the six-year-old Antichrist, Sal the were-Pomeranian (his arc just really hit home for me), and Talia the gnome. They all have such distinct and fun personalities, and seeing them interact is great and often hilarious. I’m not very paternal, but I love seeing children with sad/abusive pasts blossom into their best selves with love, guidance, and support. It’s uh, a little personal. I’d be remiss not to mention Zoe, the resident island sprite, who brings a whole lot of personality and rounds off the group. 

When I say the story is character-driven, I mean it. While a fantasy novel, there’s not any significant violence or action in the story (except for maybe one scene if you squint). The House in the Cerulean Sea is carried by its characters, interactions, and worldbuilding. The humor and inherent charm helps too -- and manages to do so without ever feeling trite. I can’t help but admire that. I was never bored; I honestly enjoyed every page because I liked the characters so much. Not to say there isn’t an overarching conflict with the whole DICOMY thing, but most of the focus is Linus struggling and coming to terms with his discoveries-- about the others and himself, and how he can make a difference on a grand scale. To me that kind of stuff is captivating. And boy does seeing someone find the place they belong get me. As I said, found family is a big thing in this book. 

Aside from that, the writing is just super; it literally had me laughing from the first page. I can’t believe the fucking lemur joke came back at the end, too. But on that subject, I love that this book utilizes recurring jokes and phrases to show Linus’ character development. In particular, “see something, say something” and “don’t you wish you were here?” have VERY specific meanings to Linus at the beginning of the story, and over time transform into the polar opposite. I’m  holding myself back because I don’t want to spoil shit, but if you read it you’ll see what I mean. There’s also a lot of meaningful callbacks to certain dialogue earlier in the story and I eat that kind of stuff up. But even small details, like the early quip about Linus forgetting his umbrella, come back to deliver an emotional gutpunch near the end. So thanks for that, Mr. Klune. 

The book really takes a turn in the second half of the story, which is a tad darker. Avoiding the Actual Spoilers, this is where prejudice and hatred of the outside world become a bigger part of the story. We learn what’s really at stake, and that this wonderful found family in the first half is threatened by a world that hates and fears them. Boy does that shit get emotional REAL quick. Yes the allegory is obvious. No, that’s not a bad thing. Ultimately, The House in the Cerulean Sea becomes a story about love, hope, and change; and boy does that shit strike my gay little heart right where it hurts. 

If you’re looking for a (literal) magical pick-me-up (ignore my comment about crying a whole lot) with INTENSE found family vibes and a side helping of queer mlm romance, dear God read The House in the Cerulean Sea. I don’t think I did it justice in this review; just trust me, it’s real good. My only complaint is that it ends; I want more, damn it! 

#taylor reads #2020 reading challenge #BONUS ROUND #10/10 #i added content warnings right under the cut. idk if i will do that consistently but why not #anyway this book wrecked me

[11-02humssclassblog]

✍️ Hassan, Jul-Jasmin E.

To be honest, this semester was a very challenging path that i will take on, especially we are in the midst of pandemic so we have to adjust and keep moving forward. Learning with this kind of situation must be very hard for us specially when we are only new to our subjects or courses. At first i find it so hard to cope up with my fellow classmates and teachers because for me, University of Makati has a high expectation to the students it gives me anxiety because i was so afraid to be left behind from my classmates, knowing that they were just in the same school in highschool while me on the other hand was different from them. It makes me feel like im alone and nobody wants me in my class.

But later on i manage to keep up with them i make friends and it gives me motivation to have a confidence when performing in class. I realize that they we’re adjusting too i just have to be brave and let my confidence go higher and make friends to them.

And of course i was very thankful that i have teachers whose very nice and very approachable. I highly appreciated them because they are also giving their best just to make us learn from them and one of it was Teacher Kat. Teacher kat is a very amazing teacher at all time i have learned a lot about his teaching especially in reading and writing because all i wanted is to enhance my reading and writing skills and also to learn the ways or the proper use of this.

The lesson that i enjoy the most was the Book and Article Critique and Resume and Cover letter. First is Book and Article Critique i enjoy this because i am that person whose addicted to books i usually read books and it’s happy to know how the author write it or how was it being made. It is important to critique a book because It allows one to build a criticism of a work: an awareness of the subject area of the work or related works. An understanding of the intent of the work, intended audience, claim creation, evidence structure or artistic style. A knowledge of the work's strengths and limitations. Whenever i do a book review it gives me the feeling of potential reader because a book review is a guide for potential readers because a book review or article review is a critical analysis of the material that describes, summarizes, and critiques the ideas presented. The purpose of a book or article review assignment is to broaden your knowledge base and understanding of a topic.

This lesson taught me about the essence of a book review and how to conduct pr create a book review. I also learned that in a book review you will learn not just the book itself but alao the author and the thinking or perspective of the author in the story. It gives me the idea of having book review is privelege for the author as wl as to reader. As the book is evaluate, the author may see errors he or she doesn’t know. It is time for him/her to continue improving their skill or if none appreciating their hardwork after finoshinh a good plot story. It also help other readers like me on having ideas of the book before reading it.

Next is Resume and Cover letter i enjoy learning this kind of topic or lesson because it gives me idea on how to make this in the future especially when i am going to apply for a job and they needed my personal information so by learning in this lesson it gives me idea on how to create a resume that will be needed for the company that i will applying on for the future. I learned that a resume is a written document created by a job applicant to outline his or her qualifications for a position. A resume is typically followed by a personalized cover letter in which the candidate shows an interest in a particular position or business and draws attention to the details of the resume that are most important. I learned that resume is not just you wanted to create it has a format and that format should be followed so that it would be easy to them to analyze it. It's more than just a document: it details your history, your talents, and your education so that a prospective employer can see how your individual experiences can contribute to the success of an organization quickly and easily. And also the cover letter when i was writing my cover letter i was so excited it feels like i am actually applying to cebu pacific airlines and i have this feeling of so much excitement in my heart because it was my dream, my dream job i wanted to be a pilot someday and having knowledge about this will help me in future because i will be able to apply this to me.

And yes, we become a better readers and writers by doing a lot of reading and writing but it is more essential if we study the proper ways to use it the proper ways in reading a text, article, books and etc. We should always know the proper ways how to write an article and book and we should not forget that by learning reading and writing it can help us in the future or maybe someday we can be a better person as well as better writer and reader. It was so amazing to learn all the topic here in reading and writing with the help of Teacher kat and her teaching skills i able to understand the topic and the lessons we had. Patience and interest in learning this would be helpful for us and make us a better writer and reader. In this course there are things that will help me enhance my ability in reading and writing it gives me more knowledge about it that i can use especially i’m a fan of reading and writing.

I am happy and grateful to learn this course because Teacher kat delivers it well and she is more approachable than the other subject teacher like even though she is busy she still manage to reply whenever we need her guidelines or when there are thing that we’re confused of. She was also a jolly person. She always teach us with a smile on her face showing that she was really dedicated on teaching us some lessons. I was very happy to be taught by you teacher kat i hope to meet you soon and to thank you in person. You’re beautiful inside and out maam! Continue inspiring students and giving so much knowledge to them.

I am ending this blog of mine with my favorite quote. Since then it was my favorite quote whenever there are things that i have to do or it was hard to do i always thought the idea of “strive for progress not perfection” because When you focus too much on perfection, you start worrying at every step. Your focus shifts to the possible criticism and failure. You become the roadblock of your own progress; but you strive for progress you start to succeed faster. And “Perfectionism is not the quest for the best. It is the pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do, will ever be good enough that we should try harder.” -Julia Cameron and of course a picture of me smiling because i am deeply happy to become part of your class Teacher kat and i am so happy to learn anything from you! Kudos to your sacrifices and efforts on teaching us Teacher Kat! Hope to meet you soon stay pretty!

[thewebcomicsreview]

So I've been following this one guy who gives really good writing advice, but lately he's been: telling people it's OK to skip the Intermission in Homestuck; defending bad writing as a "structural issue" (those poor writers, it's not their fault they've structured their story / writing process in a bad way); priding himself on making a half-assed "unfinished-on-purpose" comic review. This person was my main source of writing advice, so I don't know where to turn to. Any recommendations?

The only other webcomic review guys I’m aware of are the Bad Webcomics Wiki, but if you think I’m too nice on writers, they might be up your speed anyway and oh my god they just posted a review of a SpiderForest comic. Guess it’s time for

The Webcomic Review Reviews Webcomic Reviews

So, this is a review of a SpiderForest comic called “The Guide to a Healthy Relationship” which is a comic about LGBT people, and it’s being reviewed by the Bad Webcomics Wiki, so obviously there’s going to be a whole bunch of slurs, so consider that a content warning and I’m putting the rest of this behind a ReadMore

This is going to be slightly disjointed because the BWW review is disjointed, but I’ll do my best

We’re already in some factual trouble right on line one, since TGtaHR is a traditional webcomic and not a long-scroll mobile-friendly webtoon, nor is it hosted on webtoons.com. Is this nitpicky? Maybe a little, but we’re off to a poor start here. 

This comic is just under 200 pages.

I feel like if you’re going to write a big thing attacking a webcomic’s story, you should try to have some kind of understanding of what that story is. I know what the story of Sinfest is, and Sinfest is a confusing nightmare.

Okay, so maybe the reason you think this story is bad is because it’s 2deep4u. 

So, in the space of about twenty pages, we learn that Apollo had a friend named Julian who killed himself, and then we cut ahead to Julian drinking on the job, going to a party, taking drunks, and waking up naked in the bathtub covered in beer bottles, and the living room is full of too-hot-for-tumblr passed-out drunks. The Bad Webcomics Wiki calls this “Softcore porn that is never brought up again”, because the Bad Webcomics Wiki is written by high school dropouts for an audience they presume has never read the comic proper. 

This debauchery is never brought up again because it’s not relevant to the plot, it’s relevant to the character. Apollo is fucked up because his friend killed himself when he was a teenager, and he deals with being fucked up by retreating into sex, drugs, and rock and roll. That’s what’s being established here. Also being established if you’re paying attention: Apollo has scars on his chest. 

In chapter 1, Apollo goes to a party, the entirety of which is dedicated to him walking around naked, and we get a bunch of obviously sexual shots of his dick, clearly catering to the author's gay fetish. His boss goes to his place to check on him, and it is revealed he is a hoarder. This never comes up again.  

1. In this scene, there are two panels where you can see Apollo’s penis, one panel where you can see someone’s vomit-covered dick, and two panels where you can see a woman’s breasts. None of these panels of flacid dicks or sagging boobs are sexual, though. The dicks are unpowered, it doesn’t make a bit of difference guys, the balls are inert. 

2. What the fuck is a “gay fetish” and how it different from just “being gay”.

3. I don’t know the author, even though we’re both in SpiderForest, so I don’t know where Dani The Carutor lies in the whole gender spectrum thingamabob, but I will note that “Dani” is usually short for Danielle. So maybe it’s not a safe assumption that the author is a man? I dunno. That’s just me, guessing people’s genders by screen name is hard, so I try not to lest I embarrass myself.

4.So, when you say Apollo is a “hoarder”, you link to a page showing his room is disgusting and covered in garbage

Is your takeaway from these panels....that Apollo is some kind of fanatic garbage collector? That his room is full of garbage because he actively works at having as much garbage as possible because he wants it? 

There are a couple pages explaining Apollo's purple special snowflake eyes with some snowflake "disability".

Apollo has Ocular Albinism, which is a real condition that really exists, and really does give you purple eyes. It also gives you major vision problems, which are the context in which it gets brought up, because Apollo needs help crossing the road because he can’t see well enough in the light. So I don’t know what the scare quotes around “disability” are for. He can’t see. You could, if you were so inclined, connect this plot point with the way the chapter titles are named after mental conditions, and start to formulate some coherent critique with the seemingly cavalier way this comic uses disability, but that would require thought. It might even require research into difficult topics, because you’d ideally not want to make a fool of yourself talking about things you didn’t understand well enough to talk competently about. 

Chapter 2 is the most pointless, as it is basically there to confirm what we already know so the author can insert a cringy buzzword (see image below)

Okay, so a couple of things

1. In what fucking universe is “tranny” an SJW buzzword? What the fuck are you even talking about? 

2. Having the protagonist of your comic say someone is “smart, for a tranny” is like the least SJW thing you could possibly do.

3. Perhaps “Apollo is asking someone for help but casually insults her causing her to leave” is some kind of “character” moment? The author of this review is so /pol/-poisoned that they have no ability to understand “context” or “characterization” or basically any thing that exists. 

4.Your list of the comic’s characters includes this bon mot: 

So what the fuck? That’s so stupid I’d think it was an intentionally hypocritical joke if I had any reason to believe you were capable of it.

Chapter 3 is dedicated to revealing the boyfriend shit

I should point out that Apollo and Julian being boyfriends is something the BWW invented, the comic itself clearly states they were “best friends”, not boy friends. Couple of dudes being prudes. 

Apollo believes that Julian faked his own death, which fucked up Apollo for years, and now that they’ve met each other Julian keeps ghosting him. Apollo’s motives for chasing Julian around are extremely clear. 

That’s a scene transition, bay-bee! 

Apollo finally gets ahold of Julian. Julian blows him off and Apollo gives up. There’s then a clear scene transition to Apollo, at a restaurant, talking about what we just saw. This is a perfectly clear scene transition, with a transitory panel and everything to indicate that this is the next day. It’s certainly more clear than Apollo waking up in jail in chapter 2 which you skipped over. Are you actually reading this comic at all? 

You are such a fucking moron, holy shit. 

Julian got beat up for being trans. It’s unclear if he’s actually trans or just a feminine-looking cis dude, but regardless it was bad enough to traumatize him and this all happened when he knew Apollo, who calls Julian his “best friend”, and says things like

There’s literally two dots here, and you’re unable to connect them. Galia even has the same hairstyle as Julian to make it visually obvious This Is What The Reference and you still missed it. 

Julian and Apollo walk around the woods in their underwear for no reason whatsoever. Julian takes some drugs or something, and passes out?

Hm. Why does Julian go outside at night? I wonder if that’s explained in the comic?

Oh, I see. He went outside to smoke. But why did Apollo go outside at night?

Oh, he was looking out the window and saw Julian mysteriously go off into the woods. I guess that’s explained, too. I guess you just missed those pages

Julian takes some drugs or something, and passes out?

Huh, I wonder why Julian was asleep

Oh, he has Insomnia, so he took something called Halcion. I wonder what that is.

Oh, it’s a prescription insomnia medication. And you shouldn’t take alcohol with it, wow Julian is dealing with a super pushy alcoholic I should file that information away for later, like how knowing Wellbutrin’s side effects in teenagers were critical to understand Drop Out. Luckily webcomics are comics, on the web, and I can look this up! 

He is then woken up by the fatty side character punching him. Somehow, Julian destroyed the kitchen, even though he was passed out - this is never explained, and makes no fucking sense

Sigh.

So, here are some hints as to what happened.

1. 

Julian has bruises all over his body, which you have consistently failed to notice.

2. 

Daniel, Julian’s friendly boyfriend, has like no negative reaction whatsoever to Brandon, some random dude, punching Julian in the fucking face

He even takes Brandon’s side and basically implants the idea that Julian did it into Julian’s head, and that last panel is rather threatening. 

Julian took insomnia medicine, and fell asleep, and then got wrongfully blamed for destroying the kitchen by Daniel, who know’s that Julian was passed out and couldn’t have done it. Who actually did destroy the kitchen is a mystery, but Daniel is the most likely culprit. 

it transitions into this trippy bullshit with blood, and body horror, and Julian's hair is suddenly short

It’s short because it’s a flashback to when he was a teenager, and he had short hair when he was a teenager so that literate people are able to understand this without getting confuzzled. 

Apollo turning into Daniel in this trippy dream sequence is also pretty relevant! 

Also, we have random nudity and sexualization of this sick person.

No, we have reveals that he’s in worse physical shape than we thought.

By the way, in your character list, you describe Daniel as

Daniel (Side Character): He may as well be a wall. This guy has no personality whatsoever. No quirks, no interests, no purpose outside of causing superficial melodrama.

If you’ve made it all the way to this point and not picked up on Daniel being an abusive boyfriend and the primary antagonist of the story, you may be beyond hope.

The rest of the chapter is Julian being angsty, and SO ILL while everyone talks about how weird he is

Again, that’s very clearly and obviously not actually what’s happening in the story.

What’s happening isn’t “Julian is sick lol”, it’s “Daniel is working to turn everyone against Julian”. That’s why he destroyed the kitchen and blamed Julian for it; to ensure that the other boys all thought Julian was a nutjob and thus keep them from reaching out to Julian and providing Julian with a guide to a healthy relationship instead of the abusive one he’s currently in. Your inability to read even slightly between the lines isn’t just distressing in terms of your inability to think critically about stories, it’s maybe worrisome re your ability to think about the real world, too. How are you this dense? It’s like watching Star Wars and not picking up that the empire and the rebellion don’t like each other. No wonder you’re confused! 

Chapter 5 is still in the works. It jumps the shark right away with Apollo getting drunk and sleeping with Julian's boyfriend. The author makes Apollo the guilty party and not the boyfriend

The comic is fairly clear that Daniel is the bad guy

This webtoon is so convoluted there is no saving it at this point. Each chapter is titled after some mental illness such as 'Monophobia', 'Anxiety', 'Psychosis'. You think they would have some thematic meaning with each chapter being about one of those things. Nope, they're just titled like that to show how EDGY this webtoon is! You can taste the cringe. Julian's mental shit has no rhyme or reason - he will act sick when the plot calls for it, and if it has anything to do with the chapter's title, it is also crazy inaccurate.

The author of this review somehow managed to read the entirety of The Guide to a Healthy Relationship without picking up that Daniel was an abuser. The comic thus seems convoluted to him because he thinks all the things happening are random events without rhyme or reason because he has completely failed to notice the whole plot, which is not subtle. Just....fucking staggering incompetence, as a critic.

Guess you’re stuck with me, anon.

#Anonymous #The Guide to a Healthy Relationship #bad webcomics wiki #The webcomic review reviews webcomic reviews