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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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YYH Recaps: Episode 1, Surprised to be Dead

Hello, all you hypothetical readers! It's a beautiful spring day and I have a free afternoon ahead of me, so what better time to start another massive project while I guilty stuff my other WIPs deep into the depths of my hard drive? Yeah. Iffy life choices aside, someone mentioned a few weeks back that they'd love for me to recap a show I have more positive things to say about than negative (RIP RWBY) and ever since Netflix announced that their live-action adaptation of Yu Yu Hakusho is in the works, I've been itching for a re-watch of the anime. With the RWBY hiatus underway, it seemed like the perfect time to fulfill both desires.

Before we begin though, I'd like to touch on a few things that are going to influence this project.

First, YYH is near and dear to my heart. Written by Yoshihiro Togashi in the early 1990s and later adapted for an American audience by Funimation, I had the pleasure of experiencing this story five different ways: as a serialized tale in Shonen Jump, a binge read when I had the money to buy the manga, tiny snippets of the anime on Adult Swim late at night — don't tell my parents ;) — as an after-school treat on Toonami, and then years later as a re-watch when I introduced it to a friend (who, in turn, blessed me by having us watch Fullmetal Alchemist next). I used to keep a Hiei bookmark in everything I was reading, the spirit gun made it into our witch-wolf-space adventures on the playground (middle school was wild), and there was a long period of my life where I tried very hard to teach myself to stand with my hands behind my back, precisely as Genkai does. Spoiler alert: I failed. So to say I love the series is... a little bit of an understatement. I bring this up simply as a way of demonstrating that there's more than a bit of nostalgia attached to YYH for me and that will inevitably cloud my reading of it. How can it not? So that's just something to keep in mind as I work through a series that, like any having hit its 30th birthday, has its outdated, flawed, and other questionable aspects.

Second, but very much connected to the first point, is that these are pretty casual recaps. I summarize and extrapolate, focusing primarily on plot and dialogue (but with the occasional cinematography aspect tossed in). I'm not conducting research on the cultural history here — something that will come up at least once in this episode — I'm not arguing an overarching thesis, and I've never been someone who focuses on the author/production/trivia of a series. I'm here for the story as the story is presented to the viewer. If you've read my RWBY Recaps, this will function precisely the same way, with the only difference being I'm engaging with a finished text as opposed to an ongoing one, so there’s a lot less, “Maybe ___ will happen” theorizing going on.

Third, I obviously recommend that you watch the show yourself (you can find it on YouTube!), but you don't have to know the series to follow along. As these massive paragraphs attest, I tend to be both detailed and verbose, so we'll be covering every major plot point — and most of the smaller ones too.

Finally, I'm working from the dub. I know, I know, the horror. But it's what I grew up on and, honestly, I think it's superior to the sub. YYH's dubbing is in a class all its own and to this day there are very few shows that compare to it. Trust me, it's a good call.

That's enough of the boring chit-chat though. Let's get started!

Our very first episode "Surprised to be Dead" opens on a crowded street. We see lots of traffic, people going about their business, and a pedestrian crossing sign that, crucially, turns red. This is our normality and, like in every genre story, you need to break that normality at some point so that the protagonists can go on their fantastical/supernatural/science fiction journey. YYH eases us into things by first breaking the normality of an everyday afternoon: there's a screech of tires, quick shots of a man pushing a child out of the way of an oncoming car, and then his back is hitting the windshield. We begin this story with a horrible — but otherwise mundane — car crash.

Now, these flashes alone have a fair bit to unpack. Despite later getting a brief shot of the man's scared face right before he's hit, the moment's focus is really on the child. He's the one foregrounded in the initial, slow-mo shot. He's the one who appears in color while the man is kept in shadow. This isn't just a hit, it's a rescue. The camera is also careful to follow the soccer ball this kid was playing with (more on that later in the episode), with it flying through the air as the man is hit and bouncing to a stop in the street, acting as the dramatic finish. It's childhood! It's innocence! It's play on a sunny afternoon! And it's all gone wrong.

This moment is chaotic and even a bit confusing. Not in the sense of what's happening — that is quite obviously a guy being hit by a car — but who the victims are, how precisely this came about, or even why we're meant to care about this beyond a generic capacity to feel for other human (fictional) beings... that's all removed. And it works. As the crash takes place, the camera pans across the stunned crowd and we, the viewer, become a part of that crowd. They don't know what precisely is going on either. We're all just horrified onlookers as a sudden tragedy takes place. We're all watching the same show.

So everyone realizes this guy has been hit. People are staring in shock and someone calls for an ambulance. We see the driver fall to his knees in the street, distraught, shakily saying, "I didn't mean to..." It's a very serious and emotional scene that —

— is immediately tempered by this guy waking up, complete with a cute 'pop!' sound effect when he opens his eyes.

This is YYH's brand, this Very Serious Circumstances skillfully interwoven with casual indifference/comedy. It's admittedly far from a unique brand, but it's an excellent choice given that this is the same attitude that will drive 99% of our protagonist's interaction with the world.

Speaking of said protagonist, our guy wakes up, opens his eyes, and realizes that he's floating. There's a great, disorientating shot from his perspective where everything is upside down, causing him to nearly fall out of the air. Well would you look at that, he's as confused as we are. It's our audience surrogate!

A narrator says, "And so it all begins. This boy's name is Yusuke, he's fourteen years old, and he's supposed to be the hero of this story. But oddly enough, he's dead."

Game of Thrones might have made it popular, but YYH did it better.

(Yeah, yeah, I know one death kick-starts the journey and the other is a shocking twist. Just let me have this.)

Now, it's a weird introduction, right? At least at the end. The announcement that change has occurred, a name, an age... that all checks out. But "supposed to be the hero"? What the hell is that “supposed to” mean? Our narrator gives us the easy, surface answer: "But oddly enough, he's dead." We're capitalizing here on the audience's expectation that death ends a character's journey and though they may have been a hero previously, they can no longer be one moving forward. That function within the story has passed. So it's this intriguing question of, "What kind of hero do you have when that hero is dead from the start?" but as we'll see soon, there's an additional meaning here of, "How can Yusuke be the hero?" As this premiere sets up, Yusuke doesn't act like the hero is “supposed to” act.

Until he saved this kid.

But right now he's just confused: "Okay, this is weird. Stupid weird."

Two EMTs arrive on the scene and are hilariously useless. You know how in any medical drama a doctor will stop CPR after a couple of seconds because obviously you're not going to spend half the episode on realism? Well, that's this only a thousand times worse. One guy just looks at the kid and announces he's fine except for some bumps and bruises. Meanwhile, the kid is sobbing.

"Well, at least one of them is," replies the other EMT, because I guess he can tell Yusuke is beyond hope without taking a pulse or anything? "I hate cleanup," he complains as they load his body onto a stretcher because that's? An empathetic response to have??

Honestly this scene is wild.

Yusuke is understandably upset that he's, you know, dead and all. He starts hounding the EMTs who, unable to hear him, just go about their business of taking the kid and his body to the hospital. "You think you can just do whatever you want because you have that stupid uniform on? You can't just write me off. Listen to me!" and Yusuke tries to punch one of the EMTs in the head, resulting in him floating right through.

What a great way to introduce your protagonist's personality. We see here that when things go wrong Yusuke's default emotion is anger and it starts creeping in even before he thinks the others are ignoring him: "Stupid weird." He has problems with authority — "You think you can just do whatever you want because you have that stupid uniform on?" — is used to others listening when he gets angry — "You can't just write me off!" — and is poised to use violence at the slightest provocation. Yusuke is a guy who, right now at least, is ready to punch first and ask questions later.

As Yusuke floats back up into the air and the ambulance drives away, he finally cools down enough to try and think his way out of this. "It's not like this is the first time you've been in a jam,” he thinks. Yusuke recalls that yeah, something was different about today...

...he actually went to school.

Catch me laughing that this idiot boy equates the weirdness of him dying with going to school. Good lord.

Anyway, this jumpstarts our flashback. We open on a generic, anime middle school (that always feels like a high school to me) where the principal is calling for Yusuke through the loud speaker. Oooo someone’s in trouble! We follow a young girl up to the rooftop and she gets a classic hair-blowing-in-the-wind moment to establish that she's our love interest. Meet Keiko Yukimura.

Keiko finds Yusuke hanging out and immediately starts lecturing him for trying to chew gum and refusing to wear the boys' uniform. "Oh, give me a break, Keiko. I look better in green." Note that it's here we learn her name and it's an easy, casual way to introduce it. I bring this up because Yusuke's introduction via our narrator is very much... not that. It's an on your nose statement about his name, age, and importance to the story, and if you're just starting the show in 2021, it might come across as a rather armature move. Like something out of a kid's show, perhaps. Yet here we see that this was a deliberate choice, considering that YYH is capable of introducing character information naturally when it wants to.

This moment also tells us that Yusuke cares a great deal about his image. More on that in a bit. Because Keiko isn't finished her list of grievances yet, going on to say that his attendance record has hurt their entire class, hurt her as class representative, and if he keeps going down this path he won't even graduate middle school. "Sometimes I think you don't care about anyone but yourself and then you don't even do that right!"

They're legit complaints. Too bad Yusuke is busy looking up Keiko's skirt.

Yeeeeah. Sadly, this is common for anime, particularly a 90s anime like YYH. Even presumably more progressive series like My Hero Academia feature characters like Mineta, whose entire personality is being a pervert, and the creation of abilities that "require" kids/young women to be scantily clad. See: Yaoyorozu. YYH is no different in this regard, with various forms of sexual harassment functioning as a shorthand for how much Yusuke secretly likes Keiko. "Boys will be boys," right? Obviously not.

Like so many others series, the creators get away with it because they’re framing it as a bad thing. It's totally fine because look, Keiko slaps him! This is teaching the viewer how wrong this behavior is. Never mind that this is clearly an established habit between them, that Yusuke laughs off Keiko's discomfort, and that the whole scene is meant to be funny for the viewer. That's the real purpose here; it’s not a PSA on harassment.

That, and to establish the long-suffering love Keiko has for Yusuke in turn, largely stemming from a life-long friendship. "Dumb boy! He hasn't grown up a bit since he was four years old." We see that Keiko's early interactions with Yusuke have given her insight that others lack. As she heads down from the roof she runs into two girls hiding around the corner, too scared to come out lest "the great Urameshi" set his sights on them. Isn't Keiko terrified of what he might do to her? "Or worse, what others might say of it?" Like any classic high school middle school setting, one's reputation is king. Yusuke cares about how others see him — maintaining that tough boy attitude — and the girls care more about what the rest of the school might think of Keiko's interactions with him than the presumed harm Yusuke could do to her. They heard he can summon 2,000 men with just a whistle and that he "kills for fun!" But that means nothing in the face of people talking about you. Despite being one of the most popular girls in school, Keiko is the outsider here via her disinterest in what other people think.

The animation changes here, giving us a good look at how the girls picture Yusuke: tough, scowling, surrounded by shadows, and backed by an entire army.

In contrast, we've already seen what Yusuke is really like.

Keiko laughs the image off too. Yusuke is more like a "lamb" than a killer and besides, he couldn't order around two people, let alone two hundred. "He doesn't have many friends."

"That's not what I heard," says one of the girls.

"Yeah," goes the other. "I think we would know."

Again, rumors rule here, with whispers in the hall considered more reliable than someone who interacts with Yusuke on a daily basis. Keiko doesn’t have a hope of changing their minds.

Oh, as a side note, I love that they gave Keiko Miyazaki-esque hair. It's very emotive.

Yusuke escapes outside where the principal is still calling for him to report to his office. He overhears a conversation around the corner and we cut to two boys, one of which is showing a wallet off to the other. He explains that some bully tried to rough him up, but he said he was Urameshi's cousin and the bully took off, dropping his wallet in the process. The guy's friend is impressed, but what is he going to do if Yusuke ever finds out he lied? Not to worry, he says, that "blockhead" would probably think it's true even if he did somehow hear.

Yusuke, obviously, does hear about this and he, also obviously, does not believe this guy is his cousin. He looms ominously and they scurry up against a wall, terrified and offering him the wallet as an apology.

"You think I want your money?" Yusuke yells.

YYH is, in many respects, a rather simple story, but I appreciate the hints of complexity in these otherwise straightforward interactions. It's not that this guy used Yusuke's name to steal a wallet, he used it as a form of protection against another bully — a far more sympathetic motivation. It's not that Yusuke's fearsome reputation has resulted in any genuine respect because once people think they're safe they reveal how little they think of his intelligence — he's a "blockhead." And Yusuke, though intimidating and violent, is not your average, schoolyard bully. He doesn't care about money, only the insult and the damage this guy using his name might have done to his reputation. There's a little more nuance here than you might otherwise expect.

Also, note how dark the boys' standard uniforms are and how much they blend into the rest of the world. Yusuke, as our protagonist, stands out in his bright clothing. He was right, he does look better in green!

So he's ready to clobber this kid when one of the teachers arrive: Mr. Iwamoto.

Iwamoto demands to know what's going on, but the boys are too terrified to rat Yusuke out. Noticing the wallet on the ground, he assumes that Yusuke was after their money, something that greatly offends him: "Whatever!" Iwamoto goes on to say that, "No good weeds like you should have been plucked a long time ago," making it clear that he considers Yusuke a hopeless case. The positive aspects that Keiko sees, as well as the complexity the viewer sees — to say nothing of his introduction of saving a kid — aren’t considered here.

Notably, Iwamoto exists in part to show us what Yusuke could become. Not a teacher (he's obviously not attending school enough for that!), but a cynical man who is cruel for cruelty's sake. Yusuke is already barreling down that path, ignoring Keiko's advice, terrorizing other students, trying to punch EMTs, etc. If his life (or afterlife...) hadn't changed through that accident, this is the kind of person Yusuke might have grown up to be, and we can see that clearly in the visual parallels between them. Dark haired men dressed in green who scowl with ease and toss out cutting insults. Yusuke is staring his future in the face.

For now he walks off with a final shot, "You shouldn't talk. It makes you sound stupid." This time Yusuke makes it to the school's entrance and tries to enjoy his second attempt at chewing gum, but someone hits him in the back of the head.

"Okay, somebody's DEAD — ah. Sorry, old man."

"That's Mr. Takenaka to you."

Our principal has finally left the office and hunted down Yusuke for himself! Putting this interaction immediately after the one with Iwamoto allows the viewer to compare them. Yusuke might be irreverent towards his principal, but it's clear there's still some kind of respect between them. Yusuke only starts threatening because he doesn’t realize who hit him and once he does realize it's Takenaka, he immediately apologizes. That "old man" comes across as a teasing insult and Yusuke allows himself to be briefly dragged back towards school, rather than throwing a now classic punch. In turn, Takenaka cares enough about Yusuke to try and keep him on the straight and narrow. He utilizes Yusuke's preferred language — violence — but in a casual way, nonthreatening way: slight hit to the back of his head, noogie, pulling him along by the ear.

It's the sort of physicality we're used to seeing in media between a parent and child who are outwardly antagonistic, but actually share a deep bond. Takenaka is also careful to frame their return to his office as a "discussion," not a punishment, and offers Yusuke tea along with the conversation. Whereas Iwamoto considers Yusuke to be a "weed" that should have been plucked from their school long ago, Takenaka is determined to help Yusuke bloom.

If we're continuing the flower metaphor :D

Yusuke isn't in the mood to play along though. He gets away by using a fake ear, startling Takenaka when it unexpectedly pulls free. Yusuke escapes the school grounds and Takenaka, suffering a back twinge from his fall, can't chase after him. Poor guy. I understand that pain lol.

Yusuke heads home where we're introduced to his mother, Atsuko. Most notable in her first shot is the soft lighting that highlights her looks. We're not told how old she is here, but I believe she's around 28 — and she looks it, if not younger. Given that Yusuke is 14, that means Atsuko was a mom at his age. This is a quick and subtle way to tell us about Yusuke's home life. There are more overt details in this scene — it's at least lunchtime and Atsuko hasn't left her bed yet, she demands that Yusuke make her coffee instead of greeting him, it's all meant to imply (before we actually see) that she's an alcoholic — but her age is another way to highlight the broken household here. There's no partner in sight and she clearly had Yusuke as a teenager. He hasn't had a strong parental figure to take care of him. If anything, Yusuke is taking care of Atsuko here.

"Oh great, mother of the year!" basically sums things up.

Atsuko wants to know why Yusuke isn't in school and he says that everyone is pissing him off today, particularly with their preaching. "Dear, if you hate preaching so much you should live on your own... but you can't do that, can you?" Alongside a rough upbringing, Yusuke is suffering from the common problem of being trapped in a dead-end life. He hates his school, his town, and coming home to find his mom hungover. Yusuke has no prospects and, outside of one principal, no one who is actively working to help him find some. Even the little things he hates, like being preached to, are unavoidable because if you want to live on your own, that requires money. Good luck pulling that off as a middle schooler whose only skill is street fighting!

Yusuke walks off in a huff, literally shouting in a street about what a bad day he's having (and hilariously scaring off pedestrians in the process). His shout brings trouble though. A couple guys appear to ambush him, their boss close behind. The music increases the tension, Yusuke's expression is serious, and we even get a Dutch angle thrown into the mix.

For any who don't know, the Dutch angle is a popular film technique to establish that something is wrong. There's tension in the scene, something uneasy is at play, and the world is now literally off center. It's perhaps most famously used in Do The Right Thing to establish the friction between an Italian-American pizzeria and the predominantly African American neighborhood it's based in.

But it's also used a great deal in horror as a way to say: yup, shit just got real. Scary real.

This Dutch angle introduces a character you may not appreciate at first, but absolutely should: Kazuma Kuwabara.

He's initially the comic relief and that's clear in his introduction. Within seconds we move from that intimidating arrival to, well, seeing him. To be clear, I've got nothing against redheads with big chins, but compared to Yusuke's design, Kuwabara is meant to be the funny looking one. His threat level plummets the moment we get a look at his face, especially in a series that will occasionally use looks as a (supposed) measure of intelligence.

Also, Kuwabara is dressed in light blue so, like Yusuke, we know he's important!

Any assumptions that his appearance isn’t meant to imply a goofy, embarrassing personality are put to rest when Kuwabara starts rambling about how they last time they fought Yusuke just got a cheap shot in and he'll definitely win this time. Yeah, he won't. Yusuke is thrilled by this diversion though and we get a shot of him looking almost as creepy as Keiko's friends think he is. Whatever else might be said about Yusuke, he is absolutely a monster in a fight.

Which we see here. If anyone picked up the series without knowing this was a fighting anime, they'll realize it now. Yusuke's choreography is stylized to show off his skill: he disappears with a 'whoosh' and dark lines to suggest inhuman speed,

attacking Kuwabara with a knee to the face, utilizes flying kicks, lands perfect, precision punches, and ends it all with the toe-tip landing we've come to expect of all powerful fighters. Kuwabara never even got a hit in.

Happy as a clam now, Yusuke wanders off whistling and Kuwabara's friends are left to pick up the pieces. AKA, his likely broken bones. I love that they're legit friends though and not just nameless goons for the sake of giving Kuwabara a small gang (though their names won't come up until later). "That makes 0 wins an 156 loses!" one of them cries, trying to get Kuwabara to stop ending up in the hospital, probably. We establish that Kuwabara is The Most Dramatic Ever when he pulls his broken body into a seated position, shouting, "No! I almost had him that time!"

Then he passes out.

Kuwabara, honey, you obviously did not almost have him, but god bless you for the outlook. The most optimistic thing on this Earth is a well-loved Golden Retriever, but Kuwabara comes in at a very close second.

With his dream to one day beat Yusuke in combat established, we cut to Yusuke wandering the street where the episode opened. "Okay, I'm remembering" he says in a voiceover. "After that I met the kid."

The soccer ball reappears as it rolls to a stop at Yusuke's feet. He grabs it and immediately starts yelling at the kid. Horrible protagonist, right? Well, Yusuke is trying to instill in him the danger of using this street as a playground, a worry the viewer already knows is 100% justified. “Listen, kid, that’s dangerous! There are cars going by that will splatter you into the pavement!” It's one of those quick moments where we get to enjoy Yusuke's duality: he's someone who is nearly making a toddler cry, but for rather understandable reasons. He's got the right idea, but needs to go about it in a more mature manner.

Which is precisely what he attempts to do. Sort of. Yusuke changes gears, though whether it's a more "mature" route is certainly up for debate lol. He tries entertaining the kid instead, raising and lowering the soccer ball to reveal goofy faces.

When these fail to impress, Yusuke goes full out by stuffing the ball into his pants, pushing his nose up with a pair of chopsticks he got from god knows where, and generally just putting on a display.

So Yusuke cares very deeply about his reputation... but only when it comes to those who are an established part of his life. Keiko, Mr. Takenaka, and the other kids at school all need to maintain a particular image of Yusuke, one that he's carefully cultivated. But random pedestrians on the street? Who cares about them? Let them talk.

This shows us that Yusuke does indeed have priorities over his own, selfish goals. Namely, the happiness of some kid is more important to him than looking "cool" for a bunch of strangers. Lots of characters with Yusuke's surface attitude would sneer at the idea of degrading themselves for — their words — some brat. But Yusuke, as we constantly see, actually does have that heart of gold. “Well, if all else fails I can still make kids happy.”

Although... I'm not sure what to make of his display itself. I have the distinct sense that there's something prejudiced here that I'm not able to fully articulate, what with the chopsticks, slanted eyes, bald head, and the like, though to be entirely frank I don't have enough knowledge of Japan's history to say precisely what it might be. Or, really, whether it exists at all. Just something to chew on.

What I am sure about though is the importance of having the child label Yusuke as monster — "Yeah, monster! — but in a delighted manner. Yusuke is indeed some kind a monster, someone who disappoints adults and terrifies his classmates, a demon fighter on the streets too, but here that identity is reworked into something positive.

Having successful secured a laugh, Yusuke tells the kid — calmly this time — to go play elsewhere. The toddler stares up at him with the blank expression only kids can manage.

Well, kids and whatever headspace I'm in after writing these metas.

To absolutely no one's surprise except Yusuke's, the kid does not go elsewhere. Instead, he continues kicking the ball down the street, causing Yusuke to exclaim, “Dammit, what’s the use? The kid can get smashed by a car for all I care!” Liar, liar.

The picture becomes desaturated as the kid kicks the ball and it flies into the street, time slowing down to show it landing precisely in the middle of the road. Yusuke again yells for him to stay put, but when has a toddler ever listened? He begins to walk into the road as our driver arrives, speeding, swerving, and paying more attention to the girl at his side than what's in front of him.

This time, we see the accident from the front with both Yusuke and the kid presented equally.

There's a cut to black and when we return we're in the present, Yusuke floating above the policemen now investigating the scene. “So that’s it? I’m roadkill?” As Yusuke realizes he's dead, specifically that he's a ghost, a voice goes,

"Bingo! Bingo! You win the prize!"

A woman has appeared who is quite obviously othered by the standards of the episode so far. Unlike the greens, blues, and browns of the series' modern clothes, she's dressed in hot pink kimono with blue hair to match. She's also, you know, floating on an oar.

“I didn’t expect you to figure it out so quickly," she says, referring to Yusuke's revelation that he's dead. Apparently, those who meet unexpected and/or violent ends tend to take some time coming to terms with their demise. It's a nice acknowledgment of Yusuke's intelligence in an interaction that's otherwise... not great for his self-esteem.

Meaning, this woman is about to drag him lol.

She introduces herself as Botan, pilot of the River Styx and guider of souls to the afterlife. You might also know her as the Grim Reaper.

(Hey, RWBY fans: I originally wrote that as Grimm Reaper 🤦‍♀️)

It's an claim Yusuke takes issue with because 1. Botan is too pretty to be the Grim Reaper and 2. If she was really some god of death she'd be taking this much more seriously, not laughing and saying, "Bingo!" For the audience this does two things. First, it acknowledges our own expectations and validates them. Yusuke's world isn't so far removed from our own that he takes Botan's looks and personality at face value, he also expected a skeleton with a scythe. So don't worry, all the weird stuff in this series is weird to our protagonist too. They'll be explanations. Or, even if there’s not, you’re not wrong for being surprised.

Second, it sets up the very common theme in YYH of undermining those common assumptions again and again and again. We've already seen it with Yusuke, wherein characters who look and act a certain way are, supposedly, destined to be that person and nothing more. Yusuke is meant to be just a "weed," a dumb, violent, angry loser who goes nowhere in life... but we already know he's more than that. Botan is supposed to be scary and serious, but she says nah, I want to be cute and bubbly instead. No character in YYH embodies who they're "supposed" to be when you look past those surface characterizations. They play the part of archetypes — and do keep certain parts of their expected personalities — but they're also far more well-rounded than that. Which yeah, is something most people expect from any story nowadays, but YYH is particularly adept at making you think you're watching Simple Show A only to turn around and surprise you with More Complex Show B.

It's great, trust me.

So Yusuke is pissed that Botan isn't adhering to those expectations, in the same way that he works hard to validate others expectations of him. He doesn't know how to deal with someone challenging his world view yet. Rather than angering Botan though, she just nods and says that this response makes sense for him. “Rather than being scared, or surprised, you yell a lot and tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about." Taking out a notebook, she quickly summarizes everything we learned in the flashback — minus Yusuke's complexities: he's fourteen, in middle school, is ill-tempered, violent, hates authority, and is a horrible student.

Typically, Yusuke responds by getting angry and trying to snatch the booklet out of her hands, only for Botan to pull it out of his reach, laughing. The tables have turned! Rather than being surrounded by people who cower at Yusuke's imposed authority, he now finds himself faced with someone who laughs at his transparent attempts to take control of the situation.

Calming down, Yusuke wants to know if the kid he saved is really alright and Botan offers to let him see for himself. That offer produces Yusuke's first, genuine smile.

They fly to the hospital where a doctor is in the process of giving the kid a clean bill of health, his mother crying with relief.

That's enough for Yusuke. “Alright, Botan, I’ve got no regrets, so you can take me to hell or wherever it is I’m going.”

That tells you all you need to know about Yusuke's self-worth, despite his bad boy attitude. His life is a dead-end as far as he can see and most of those around him haven't done anything to dissuade him of that idea. He says he doesn't care if the kid lives or dies, but then instinctively saves him. Post his death, Yusuke doesn't have anything he considers a regret, or anything he'd like to do before he leaves, like saying goodbye to a loved one. Oh, he's also pretty sure he's going to hell and has resigned himself to that without a fight.

Uplifting!

Botan just laughs though, saying that she's actually here to offer Yusuke an "ordeal" that could bring him back to life. See, he wasn't supposed to die today — let alone die saving a kid — and frankly they don't know what to do with him. It's another neat summary of what we've already learned: Yusuke is a far more complicated case than the afterlife assumed and now, when push comes to shove, deciding whether he belongs in heaven or hell is... muddled.

There's a fantastic story there about the problems with an afterlife that reduces a person's entire life to a few surface characteristics recorded in a book, refusing to acknowledge the context of their situation, or their capacity for change. “Run someone with your credentials a thousand times and they never would have saved a kid like that." Except, of course, Yusuke did save him, so those "credentials" are suspect, to say the least. However, YYH is not a story that explores these issues. Instead, I recommend you watch this!

Rather than being upset at the afterlife's low opinion of him (because let's be real, Yusuke shares it), he latches onto a little detail Botan let slip. If he wasn't supposed to die today... then was the kid?

Mmm... no. Actually, without the chaos of Yusuke jumping into the road, the driver would have swerved at the last second and the kid would have not only lived, but actually come out with one less scrape.

So Yusuke is obviously upset by this news! I would be too!! Holy shit, hang onto the "it's the thought that counts" message with everything you've got.

Also, don't think too much about the fact that the afterlife apparently knows exactly what will happen to people, down to how many cuts they accumulate in an accident. Also, don't think too much about where the afterlife foreseeing the crash begins and the unexpectedness of Yusuke interfering ends. That way lies madness. This will never come up again, so just let it go.

Sorry, 2013 me hijacked the post for a second.

As said, Yusuke is understandably upset by this revelation and as he fumes I'm reminded that this series likes to pull some amazing expressions.

Botan reiterates that it's all fine because Yusuke can come back to life. Weren't you listening? He should feel honored, in fact, considering that an offer like this only arrives every 100 years or so. Well, that explains why all of humanity isn't grappling with people coming back to life on the daily. One person every generation isn't going to cause much of a stir.

However, instead of jumping at the chance Yusuke announces that Botan is just like the teachers at school: she doesn't know what she's talking about. “You said yourself my life was kind of pathetic, right?” he says, going on to explain that everyone will be happier now that he's dead. His school won't have to deal with his behavior, Keiko won't have to nag him, and his mom will be able to party whenever she wants. It's a win-win for everyone involved.

Hmm, this feels familiar.

Don't worry, Yusuke doesn't need to experience a whole alternate reality to get the message.

“I’m sorry you feel that way at such an early age," Botan says and she is sorry, because despite her teasing nature that's a legitimately horrifying thing to believe. Yusuke won't budge though and after a little back-and-forth Botan leaves, telling Yusuke he should think it over while visiting his wake. She'll come back once he decides what to do.

“Do you have worms in your ears, lady? I did decide!” but Botan is long gone.

We cut to that night where Yusuke has indeed decided to attend his own wake. Maybe because of Botan's advice, maybe because he's just morbidly curious. We’re not given insight into the decision.

Atsuko is a mess, to put it mildly, not dressed for the occasion and sitting slumped against the way, staring vacantly as the guests offer their condolences. Yusuke is surprised by the fact that his entire class is here, but quickly writes them off when he sees two of the boys laughing. I'm on the fence about this detail, which I'll unpack in just a second.

First though, Yusuke sees Keiko exiting the house, inconsolable in her grief. She collapses on the ground with her two friends trying to offer comfort, despite the fact that they had nothing good to say about Yusuke himself. Good on them.

Before he can think too long on this though, Yusuke is distracted by Kuwabara's arrival. Unlike Keiko's crying, he expresses his grief through yelling. Specifically, yelling at Yusuke. For dying. For daring to "run away." His own friends are physically holding him back as he charges into the wake, screaming, “Who am I gonna fight now, huh? Who am I gonna fight?" It's not really about the fighting, of course. At least, not the fighting alone. "You’re supposed to be here for me," Kuwabara finishes, the punch he's thrown at Yusuke's photo going limp and catching his first tear.

You know, for all the goofy expressions, this show really is gorgeous. Just wait until we get to the fight animations.

Kuwabara's reaction is why I hesitate to write off the classmates like Yusuke has. Granted, we have no reason to believe that they care for him as Kuwabara does — they're nameless background characters defined only by their terror of "the great Urameshi" — but it's still a split second taken out of context. We don't know what they were laughing at, or if laughing is a part of their grief. God knows I personally laugh at the most inappropriate moments. If you tell me someone has just died there is a very good chance I will laugh awkwardly as I try to process that. It’s just a reflex. All of which I bring up not because these side characters are important, but because Yusuke's perception of his own worth is. The point of each of these moments is to show that those around him have always cared for him, even if Yusuke didn't notice. It's nice to think that extends to his classmates too. The variety likewise exists to show us how people grieve differently, with Kuwabara's friends not understanding that this is how he's working through the trauma: “This place is for mourning!” He is mourning, even if his way of mourning isn't as socially acceptable as Keiko's. So if screaming and throwing punches is valid, crying is valid, staring stoically in a drunk stupor is valid... why not laughter too?

Not likely, perhaps, but possible.

As an additional possibility to chew on, watching this premier again, it struck me how more emotional Kuwabara's scene is compared to Keiko's. Don't get me wrong, crying and calling Yusuke’s name gets the point across, but it's two seconds of generic grief compared to a much longer scene rife with intensity. When Kuwabara arrives the music swells and everyone is forced to pay attention to him. His grief is loud, violent, and given symbolism with his fist and the photo. There's more effort put into his reaction, frankly, so it wouldn't surprise me if fans started shipping them after this. That grief combined with an "enemies to lovers" possibility is a pretty potent mix. To be clear, Yusuke/Keiko is the (oh so obvious) canonical endgame and in the fandom Yusuke/Kuwabara can't compare to another slash ship that will turn up later, but this is a good example of how writers can craft some Very Gay Scenes without realizing it. When you have the girl crying prettily for a second and the guy absolutely losing his mind over Yusuke's death, questioning his purpose now, his support network, and then collapsing in grief... don't be surprised if your audience goes, "Oh hey, maybe they'd be a good couple instead."

But I digress.

The only people who are unquestioningly happy about Yusuke's passing are Mr. Iwamoto and his co-conspirator, Mr. Akashi. You know Akashi is another bad guy because he has bucked teeth and "ugliness" is an easy way to code for evilness. YYH is not immune to those mistakes :/

These two are really something else though, standing in the middle of a wake and claiming it's “too bad that car wasn’t big enough for them too," referring to Kuwabara and his friends. Wow! What stellar members of the academic community. Iwamoto goes on to say that Yusuke dying at least accomplished something good. Not, mind you, saving the life of a child, but rather looking good for their school's reputation. Akashi agrees, but says it's likely Yusuke only accidentally saved him while trying to steal the kid's lunch money. Remember, that accusation of theft is the one thing Yusuke has said outright that he does not do.

He's pissed listening to all this — wouldn't you be? — but knows by now he can't do anything about it. In another fantastic shot, Yusuke hovers his hand over Iwamoto's shoulder, desperate to grab him, when Takenaka's arrives there instead.

“What do you suppose is more disgraceful? That boy showing his misery, or your insensitive and idiotic words!”

HELL YEAH. You tell 'em, Mr. Takenaka.

Yusuke gets his third shock of the night at this passionate defense. Takenaka leaves the teachers to go pay his respects, but admits to Yusuke's picture that he just can't speak well of him. He was surprised to hear that Yusuke gave up his life for another and it's a fact that he acted selfishly. Though he doesn't say it in as many words, Takenaka explains that he's not grieving because Yusuke was a good person, but because it's so clear to him that he might have been. “Why didn’t you stay? You could have made something great out of yourself.”

Normally, "Why didn't you stay?" is just something for the living to grapple with, as the dead obviously don't have any say in what happens to them. But Yusuke does. It's here that the lighting grows soft again and Yusuke considers Takenaka's words. Keiko and Kuwabara grieve for who he was, but Takenaka grieves for who Yusuke could have been — someone that might still exist if Yusuke decides to undergo this ordeal.

Atsuko adds fuel to the emotional fire, breaking down and hiding her face in her knees.

Finally, the kid Yusuke saved arrives with his mother. Because yes, Yusuke saved him in every way that matters, considering no one else knows — or will know — that he'd have lived anyway. I like that the show doesn't allow that knowledge to undermine the emotion of their arrival, or what Yusuke’s act meant to them.

The mom tells her son to pay his respects and the kid thanks Yusuke for saving him, and for "making faces." He clearly doesn't get what's going on here. This is confirmed as the two leave and he asks his mom if he can play with Yusuke again tomorrow. “I know some people sounded angry at him, but he’s really nice!"

They're probably just crying because they want to play with him too, he thinks, which just makes his mom join in. Everyone is crying in this club tonight.

Those words are the cincher for Yusuke and with a brief montage of all the grief he's witnessed, he makes his decision.

We cut to later that night where Yusuke floats above the city, admiring the moon. Botan reappears and he asks, “Have you ever not known about something that seemed obvious to everyone else?” Yes, everyone has experienced that at one point or another. She asks if he's made his decision and Yusuke agrees to try and come back to life.

Emotional revelations out of the way, we're allowed another tone shift as Botan yells with joy, speeding off and causing Yusuke to grab hold of the end of her oar, lest he be left behind. Cranky as always, he demands to know where they're going. "To the spirit world, of course!" They're off to see someone who can explain the ordeal and give Yusuke the tool needed to complete it. Just hang on and enjoy the ride.

Thus ends our very first episode! Ah, the nostalgia. This is part one of a four arc series, with the anime cutting out a lot of the filler stories found at the start of the manga — a smart decision, I think. They primarily do the work of teaching Yusuke what he learned at the wake, so if you can accomplish that as quickly as the adaptation did, all the better. Especially since Yusuke needs to grow a great deal beyond the basic understanding that people might, sort of care for him, and that work will occur primarily through a job he's going to take on. The series isn't really about his death and it's not about an attempt to come back either — it's about what happens once you get that second chance. So this is the setup, but it's important setup all the same.

No need to skip ahead though. I've blathered enough for one recap. I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you when the writing gods next bless me with energy! 💜

#YYH #Yu Yu Hakusho #YYH recaps #mymetas

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pinkfadespirit · 3 years

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wip whenever

I was tagged by @faux-fires last night for WIP Wednesday and by @barbex for a first line meme. So I’m sort of combining the two. Thank you both for the tags!

I’ve been working on the first chapter of the Handers secret relationship au I mentioned last week. I’d been looking for a new project and a few people expressed an interest in the idea so I figured I might as well give it a go. I’m excited about starting something new. The last new fic I posted I actually started writing a year ago so it’s nice to get started on what feels like a fresh idea.

Rather than just sharing the first line, I’ve decided to go with the first few paragraphs as they look right now. I’m going to go back and edit them later and hopefully come up with a better opening line than the one I’ve got so far.

This will continue under a cut because it’s a bit long.

...

Anders had spent as much of the journey to Kirkwall as he could manage on deck, not wanting to be trapped in that dank, cramped ship’s hold any longer than he absolutely had to be. Whichever noble family had solicited his services as a healer had certainly paid for the trip over here but it was just like the Circle to skimp on expenses where they could. Even the templars they’d sent with him were having a rough time of it. At least, they hadn’t denied any of Anders' requests for fresh air and seemed as eager to be out in the open as he was. Though one did keep eyeing him up as though he might leap over the side and try to swim for it at any moment. Anders had made some desperate escape attempts in his time but never quite leap-out-into-the-middle-of-the-Waking-Sea desperate. He did have some preservation instinct after all. That was sort of the point actually. If he was going to jump off the side of a boat, he’d at least do it somewhere he stood a chance of swimming to shore.

As the ship drew closer to Kirkwall, Anders watched one wave after another crash against those looming black cliffs and dashed that possibility off his list. It seemed he was going to Kirkwall whether he liked it or not. Which was about the standard for mages and any changes they went through over the course of their lives. So no surprise there.

Looming as tall as the cliffs themselves were the twins: identical golden statues set on either side of a wide channel cut into the rock, which lead to the city. Anders had learnt the name from a sailor he’d spent the last few days attempting to flirt with (not that he’d got very far with that; Anders supposed he couldn’t blame the sailor for finding the templars that followed him everywhere he went slightly off-putting.) While his attempt at providing a bit of entertainment on the way to Kirkwall might not have been as successful as planned, Anders did come away knowing more than he ever wanted to about those cliffs. He needed only to look up as they sailed between them to see, carved into the rock, the evidence of a time when mages were free to go about their lives, enslaving mundane folk, sacrificing the innocent, making bargains with demons and all that. You know, mage things. And now, a couple of hundred years later, most mages would consider themselves lucky to be in Anders’ position.

Useful, that is.

Anders was under no illusions that he was being sent out here because he was trusted. He could only guess that the First-Enchanter was at his wit’s end with him. Or maybe he just thought that stint in solitary had done its job after all. It had been a year since they let him out and he hadn’t tried to run again since. Maybe they thought he'd given up, that they'd finally broken him. Anders didn’t think that was it. He’d just been so tired after it. And there’d never been a good opportunity to get away. So now they were taking a risk but based upon past experience, it mustn’t have been a very big one. Anders was known for his escapes from the circle but he was also known for all the times he’d been found and dragged back to the place. They’d decided a long time ago that he was more or less harmless. Anders was a healer—not only that, he was a rare spirit healer—which meant the Circle could hire him out to rich nobles with sick family members and make a lot of money doing so. If they could get him to behave and not run the first chance he got, that was. But that was where the templars came in.

Tagging: @laniardraws @ser-thirst-a-lot @fandomn00blr @dalish-rogue @johaeryslavellan @protect-him @saeterdaeg and @goth-surana - only if you feel like it, of course, but if you’ve been working on anything then I’d love to see it!

#wip wednesday #wip whenever

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procrastynol · 3 years

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I wasn’t tagged, but I’ll take the invitation from @theghostcaptain and just hop on the train to answer some questions about my writing. So, I guess thanks are in order? 😉❤️

AO3: @Procrastynol

Fandoms

Currently I’m trapped in the MDZS hell (focusing on songxiao, but pretty much everything else is also go, wangxian, 3zun, anything) with a side of SVSSS and FF7 (mainly tsengru and/or turks centric). I’m still working my way through the huge load of danmei, so maybe things like TGCF, 2HA or SPL will soon join the list.

Other things I can’t seem to let go of include FF15, Mass Effect, Dragon Age and a hint of Marvel and Star Wars. If you want to go really far back, you can add LotR and Hobbit to the pile.

Where You Post

You can find all of my fics on AO3 @Procrastynol

I rarely use tumblr anymore, mostly for keeping all the links to my fics organised in one place - and to read meta that will shred my poor heart. My main social media is Twitter, so if you want to yell at me, please go over there and feel free to do so.

Most Popular Multichap

None (so far). But I have something brewing for my songxiao gang, so I’ll just be a little tease and tell you to stay tuned for more until Summer 2021. 😉

Favourite Story You’ve Written So Far

Untethered (MDZS, songxiao, character study xxc)

That is my November/December/Christmas-procrastination baby, which started out as a midnight word vomit I wrote in a desperate attempt to find sleep. It only grew from there, and it has become my first deep dive into the character of Xiao Xingchen and the canon setting of MDZS. To this day, it just blows me away how well this story is received despite its length and the rather limited songxiao bubble. I’m really proud of what I did here, and it has been a while since I could say that about anything I have written.

Fic You Were Nervous to Post

Frostbloom Flowers (MDZS, modern songxiao, flowershop AU)

This was my absolute first fic for the fandom, and my second fic in total after the unexpected “success” of Conflict of Interest. I was so scared to get the characters or the setting wrong, even more so since this was a prompt fill for the songxiao Secret Santa event. It has done surprisingly well, so well actually, that I have turned this into a series that I will continue this February.

How You Choose Your Titles

They either come to me or the don’t. Really, there is almost nothing in between. Sometimes a poem, a line, a lyric, an image, SOMETHING sparks my imagination and the title is the first thing I have.

If it is the other way around, the idea usually revolves around a certain dialogue, scene, setting, etc. that I want to explore and I really struggle finding a title for it once the fic is finished. There are rare instances where a title comes to me simply while working on a fic, but mostly it’s hit or miss. If it is the latter, I usually sit in my room and decide to name stories after the first thing my eyes land on 5 minutes before posting them. 😅

Do You Outline

90% of times I do. Especially larger works or multichaps need an outline. I sometimes try to write non-chronologically, and I have a really hard time doing it, so the outline becomes my LIFELINE. It allows me to skip over parts I find hard and just put the famous [get there] in certain spaces, knowing I can come back later to flesh them out because the outline guides through this process.

For oneshots, I sometimes freestyle, but even then I usually write down a few lines for the scenes/dialogues I really want to include and put them in the corresponding order, so I have a goal to work towards to and don’t start meandering around.

I hate doing them, though, even though I largely depend on outlines.

Complete

All of my fics are complete at the moment, but I have two on-going series that I’m feeding with new entries in irregular intervals.

In Progress

I have some WIPS, but none of them are in the process of being published right now. But there are a few things I’m working on, so follow me to the next paragraph if you want more details on that. 😁

Coming Soon / Not Yet Started

Curiosity killed the Cat [WT] - which is a MDZS multichapter fic I have started working on last December. I really wanted to try writing a case fic for once, something more than just drama and romance (although drama and romance will still be very much part of this). Plotting a murder mystery is really new to me and sometimes exhausting, but so far I’m having a lot of fun doing it. I don’t want to spoil the details, but it will definitely focus on pre-canon songxiao and a mysterious haunting/murder they encounter during their travels.

Another thing would be the continuation of the Egret Flower series. Currently I’m finalising the second part, writing on part three and four has already begun. Part two will feature songxiao going on the date that has been teased in the first part, Frostbloom Flowers, and part three is currently giving me a hard time because I decided to include some wangxian - we’ll see how it goes.

I’m also trying to feed the Shinra fandom a bit, since it got me back into writing literally days before I got swept away by MDZS and danmei hell. But tsengru still holds a place in my heart, has done so for years, and so Conflict of Interest has now also been turned into a series, It’s me or the Dog, and the second part for this series is also outlined already and just waiting for me to flesh it out.

Upcoming Work You’re Most Excited About

Curiosity killed the Cat [WT], definitely. I have only ever finished one other multichap in my life, and I plan to complete this one before I start posting it, to feed my lovely songxiaoists in regular intervals (and to make sure this entire case fic works and does not go up in smoke halfway down). But since this involves so many new things for me at the same time, I’m equally excited and anxious to finish it and start posting it.

Tagging

Since I’m pretty much inactive on this platform I find it a bit hard to tag someone. I think @wangji-string might have something to offer, at least if they haven’t participated already (although if you don’t feel like doing this, please feel free to ignore me). I’ll just leave it open to the rest of you whoever read this and may find it interesting - if you want to do this, please, feel free to do it! 😉

#my writing #procrastynol speaks

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meikuree · 3 years

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if i can be sentimental here for a minute, i’m feeling pretty emotional about finally putting up the fic i linked in my previous post, for a couple of reasons. the process of slowly editing it and plucking up the courage to do so over the past couple weeks is one that’s been intertwined with some of my lowest points in my writing enterprise, and the fact that i finally felt like i was in a decent enough place to share it publicly is a bit of an event to me. It’s also one that’s coincided with me finally reaching a relatively stable place with self-confidence, and I want to talk a bit about how I got to that place.

musings put under a readmore because they’re rather long.

some background: for various reasons, that particular fic was meant to be one of those wips I would never publish, and simply abandon to private obscurity. i wrote it three months ago at a time when i was feeling very self-conscious and Very Bad about my usual/natural writing style (which features lots of long sentences dense with not-always-straightforward implication, a tendency to opt for an introspective, stream-of-consciousness style, and liberal/indulgent use of descriptors and metaphors). my insecurity wasn’t the fault of any specific person/event-- it was something that stemmed from my perception that my writing differed (too) highly from fandom conventions i had observed surrounding style, tone, and content, and some personal weirdness around that. but the end result, regardless, was that when i finished the first draft of that fic i quickly looked back and came to the kneejerk verdict that it was terrible, unfixable, unworthy, etc. etc.

nobody had told me it was terrible; i was simply on a self-critical bender, and did the work of convincing myself that it was so. but it was a blow because it was a piece i’d spent a good bit of time writing, and poured lots of emotional/mental energy into, and to sit there and feel as if it was abysmal and thus had to be abandoned didn’t do any favours for my writing esteem. that was also the time i stopped writing, aside from one other piece, because i believed there was something fundamentally lacking about my writing.

about a month ago i revisited the abandoned wip with fresh eyes, having forgotten most of what i’d written. and — to my complete surprise— i found that it wasn’t at all as bad. it was decent, even, and there were some lyrical turns of phrases/paragraphs i was proud of, and i enjoyed reading it. I basically wept as i read it, because suddenly I wasn’t sure why I’d convinced myself it was irredeemably bad, all those months ago, or why I’d been so harsh to myself.

(around the same time, my partner also told me something that stuck with me— “your writing is good. full stop”— which was a revelation because I’d always thought of my writing more along the lines of “it’ll only hit that mark labeled Good if you do XYZ”. my self-opinion on my writing was essentially contingent upon many arbitrary and constantly changing conditions, which was exhausting. so that was liberating. i realised that if I could just be slightly more confident and go in knowing I was good at some things, already, it would make my writing process a lot more enjoyable and smooth because I’d waste less energy fretting about whether I was hitting those arbitrary standards of Goodness.)

I was convinced my writing was Inherently Bad based on a few arbitrary conclusions (my style differs from what i usually see in X fandom space; therefore it is automatically bad), when more objectively my style was a mix of good and bad. i.e. i do some things well, and some things not as well. which is ultimately natural and common, and nothing to be ashamed of. put very simply, the issue was also that i was giving one too many fucks about mainstream validation. the issue wasn’t necessarily that I wasn’t getting any feedback/response either—I’d gotten a good amount of positive feedback in the past. it was something more endemic, and had to do with how I was so convinced internally of my writing’s low worth that there wasn’t much that external praise could do until I addressed it at the root.

i tried to approach this piece differently, with these issues in mind. I focused on polishing it until I was reasonably happy with it, not until it’d hit some mythic and unattainable standard of perfection. I realized I didn’t care how much quantified reception I got any more (bookmarks, kudos, etc.) because I was simply more excited about Getting It Out There and finally finishing something. I also knew that while it wouldn't necessarily be universally Extremely Amazing, it was decent, and that was good enough for me— and besides, as I was trying to internalize from what my partner had been emphasizing to me, my writing was good regardless of all those external factors (!!). it also felt much, much better to get heartfelt, in-depth feedback from a tiny group of fellow fans whose opinions I valued than to have mainstream approval. my fics (and this one fic I just published) will never be the sort that get 100+ kudos, because I write primarily for f/f rarepairs, but I did send that fic to a few very kind people who offered to read it and their feedback was infinitely more heartening and uplifting than a static kudo.

that leaves me where I am now in terms of my relationship with the fanfic economy and writing. these days, I’m mostly channeling Fiona Apple levels of “I no longer give a shit about reviews”, because attaching myself too firmly to the headwinds of ao3 approval briefly destroyed me. I give significantly less of a damn about mass reception now— even if, or especially because my tastes seem to differ from the fandom’s in terms of writing style and content. i’m more intent on having fun and doing whatever i want. if you’re someone who wants to aim for mass appeal and quantifiable metrics, that’s totally fine— none of this is meant to be a slight against how you approach writing. I simply think it’s a losing game if you’re in as insecure a place as I was previously, and that it was tremendously unhealthy for me.

I’m also moving these days towards cultivating greater community/communality in my fandom endeavours. it takes work and active participation but makes for a far more rewarding fandom experience, I’ve found. what’s more crucial to me-- over asynchronous, one-way and ultimately slightly superficial validation in the form of kudos/likes-- is reciprocity and communal conversation with other fans. and i’m very lucky that in the past few weeks, i’ve gotten a lot closer to a bunch of like-minded fans, with whom i can exchange detailed feedback and enter into meaning conversations about canon/our favourite characters. I write these days less to appeal to some imaginary, amorphous public and more for the enjoyment of friends/other kindred acquaintances whose minds i respect and admire far more. if you only ever receive one-way echoes, that’s extremely lonely-- but if you get to hear that echo turn back, get to hear some other input building upon what you said and not simply replicating it, that becomes something generative. and life-giving.

TLDR: the real fandom was the friendships, community and stable self-worth we forged along the way, not the superficial metrics of glancing validation.

TLDR 2: i’m learning that there are many acceptable valences between the extremes of “this writing fucking sucks” and “this is my magnum opus which i’ve sweat a blood transfusion for”, that are okay for one’s writing to occupy.

#meikuree talks #personal

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itscookieoverlordtoyou · 4 years

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40 Questions — Meme for Fic Writers

Don’t you sometimes see those ask games and wish you could just fkg do them all? On this sunny Saturday, we make our dreams reality lolol

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

Short fic, I usually get a small scene I want written so I write around it, plus I love short stories with interesting punchline.

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

Probably, I don’t know them all ^^’

3. Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?

Writing about stuff that disgust me I guess.

4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

Like 5-6? I want to write about a restaurant but set in a world where people have powers I think the combo could be very funny. The main character has the power of insight, the plonge is a giant pool where you swim around cleaning. Backstories of characters with shitty and amazing powers and how they ended up here. Rival to lover character that has the power to see into the future.

5. Share one of your strengths.

Dialogues, subversion, and humor; classmates often said I have a touch to spin a sad story into something positive/happier.

6. Share one of your weaknesses?

I get tired when I describe something for longer than 4 sentences.

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

“In what kind of trouble have we walked right into?”, I ask my companions as they’re idly fixing their attire. Together, we’ve face many perils and this mission ranks among one of the most dangerous. Yet, the others had been…how should I say it…professional! Rescuing kidnapped princesses, vanquishing terrifying monsters, quests to restore mythical artifacts, save nations from insidious plots. Oddly enough, “Does this dress make me look fat?”, is not the answer I’m looking for.

Ribbon in my hair is the first time I wrote about my knights, I first dreamt about them when I as 18, my boyfriend at the time called my idea stupid and my world building pointless so I only started writing about them when I was 21. Now I write about them a little bit every year :)

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

“Do you really want your last words to be complaints?”

“I die as I lived.”

“Will we become a fruit tree?”

“I don’t think so, it’s never been the case for my ancestors.”

“I’d love it if we could turn into a banana tree.”

“I’m not from the southern regions, plus I like apples more.”

“Just imagine, our fruits could have been banana flambée”

This death scene was a big finale to a story I wrote for a class in Uni, a story of war between clan of forest and volcano people, of the supposedly brutal death of a Goddess, of a mysterious apple tree whose fruit give vision of the past. I should revisit it.

9. Which fic as been the hardest to write?

My analysis on D’Artagnan and the figure of the hero. Granted it’s an essay for school but I deeply loved it. I was too afraid to write or ask for help from the professor in charge of me (which made our relationship tense ^^’) but when I did, it was beautiful and I was very proud got 89% :D

10. Which fic has been the easiest to write?

A play called Adelaide where an old couple reads their old fairytale book about a Prince on a quest to save a Princess. They bicker about the other misreading the story but we finally get to the part where the Prince tosses the princess apart to get a better view of the dragon of which he falls instantly in love. The book is actually their wedding album.

11. Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?

It’s one of my passions, but it’s not something I think I could live on so I delegated it to my hobby.

12. Is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?

The wedding scene in Shrek 2, my mind was blown when I saw it in theaters and when I need inspiration to write, I rewatch it.

13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?

Presentation is important. If trying to read you gives people headaches, they’ll stop. Choose a nice big font, space with paragraphs, be mindful of your spelling and missing words. Read out loud because some things written are bad said.

14. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

I must’ve been lucky in this regard, I don’t think I’ve ever received advice that made me go NO, but I did have to listen/read stuff that made me gag.

15. If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?

I would love to the Adelaide acted out, some adjustments would be required because I’m no expert in play writing but I think I’d be great.

16. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?

Luyenor’a and Taram, names are placeholders as of now but they’re two of my knight, being the “only pairing I’m allow to write about forever” means I’d get more knight shenanigans done.

17. Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

I’m doing bullets point of what I want to happen and write stuff without much order. Some days I have no inspirations for what goes in the beginning but have loads for a later point. I surf the wave when it presents itself.

18. Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines?

Word on my computer, a notebook in my bag, the note app in my phone.

19. Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse?

I have little trinkets all around my computer to invite inspiration.

20. Describe your perfect writing conditions.

Freshly woken up, having eaten, drinking something sugary and sometimes apple cider because the alcohol help lower my inhibition.

21. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

I read out loud at least once the whole thing, helps with missing words but dude I reread my stuff on ao3 and always find mistakes still ^^’

22. Choose a passage from one of your earlier fics and edit it into your current writing style. (Person sending the ask is free to make suggestions).

I’m not going to put here because it’s in French and I don’t want to translate now but I wrote Vision of a world, mine when I was 16 and damn was I already depressed then?

23. If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?

The Princess and the Soldier, some gay fairytale I think my first one, I’m sure I can do better bow

I also have one about a janitor and it’s a murder mystery I could redo

24. Have you ever deleted one of your published fics?

Once by accident, I was so angry I never rewrote it.

25. What do you look for in a beta?

I don’t really use beta (beta reader right?) but I guess I’ve had like 3-4 when I was in Uni and had to read people’s wip and they read mine. They’d talk about what they liked, links they noticed, things that seemed weak or to change

26. Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you?

I usually just point out the stuff I like

27. How do you feel about collaborations?

For a class in college, we had to act out a play we wrote collectively. Ten sketches written in pairs/alone. I made sure I was alone so I wouldn’t be saddled with someone else to write my sketch

28. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

I don’t follow fic writers; I just am in a mood for a ship and read what’s available. I do like my friend @alumort ‘s fics tho ^^

29. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

There was a Phineas and Ferb fic focused on Perry I really loved. Their world building was something I’d never seen and they abandoned the story, so I did fanfic of a fic. Never dared to post it anywhere I mean it was their world to begin with.

30. Do you accept prompts?

Of course, when inspiration is given I accept

31. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

I don’t care about canon but I do love using it when there are little trivia to enrich the character.

32. How do you feel about smut?

Love to read it sometimes, would love to write it. Some I’m like………….youveneverhadsexhaveyou…………………

33. How do you feel about crack?

Love it!!!!!!!! I’m too self-conscious to write it tho. Oh maybe that could be a never before written trope I could try?

34. What are your thoughts on non-con and dub-con?

Rape I can’t, dub-con where underlying requited feelings exist but anxiety™ don’t let the characters express them but they’re drunk so it surfaces is okay

35. Would you ever kill off a canon character?

Hell yeah! I do when/if the death makes sense (I am still pissed at Kishi for Neji)

36. Which is your favorite site to post fic?

Ao3 is where I post,I used devianart when I had one

37. Talk about your current wips.

Marry Me for the Love of Cake: God I’m so sorry to the few people who followed it, I said I’d pick it up before the end of 2019 and well……I have the ending in bullet points

Yours, with Love: I hope I’ll finish it…I have most of the ending in bullet points

I guess I’m into rom com at the moment lolol

38. Talk about a review that made your day.

I made my best friend read All this for a Roll Cake, and she laughed so much at my work, I took a picture I look at from time to time to remain humble.

39. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

Thankfully I’ve never received a rude review. My professor once told me it seemed kinda unnatural how unlucky my protagonist was vs. how lucky his love interest was (All this for a Roll Cake) but that was the whole point of the story so I just ignored her.

40. Write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one).

Writing this I realised I lost my final version of All this for a Roll Cake T^T so I guess I’d rewrite the ending I have of the before the last version I still have.

Well this was fun ^^ got to revisit my works and remember many beloved pieces of fiction I wrote, I look forward to my next projects

#have fun reading lolol #will writing this inspire me to continue my wip?#who knows

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thetriggeredhappy · 4 years

Note

👀 hmmmmmm?

ok, the WIP itself is going under a cut because it’s pretty long, but the explanation will stay up here above it.

so the premise was that i wanted more practice with experimental storytelling because, i’ll be honest, i was in a weird place mentally and that’s one way i work shit out. so i did the thing everyone else who writes for the TF2 motherfuckers does and i messed with the understood conventions of Respawn. the idea was that Respawn does three things: first of all, it brings people back from the dead and to a previous save state of them, a singular state at a specific age for all of them. this means that none of them age, because every time they die, that counter just restarts. second, it erases basically all memory from before they died--it resets them to a state before they’d made those memory pathways. then the team often catches up whoever died on what all happened, and they believe it at face value. however, if the whole team dies, they’re basically entirely reset. and thirdly, the system has tweaked them in a very specific way; none of them are very prone to asking questions, and none of them are very prone to going anywhere off-base.

the idea was, there would be a singular repeating opening to every single chapter--or maybe three respawns per chapter or so, depending on length--and every time, one or two words would be tweaked just a little bit in a weird game of telephone. there would be slight deviations in one direction or another, elaborating in different ways, with two constants: seven days after Scout last died he would realize he was in love with Sniper, and that never, ever, ever would they interact or witness a human being besides the ones on the team. this is because scout’s save state is that he’s trapped shortly before he realizes he’s in love, and because the team has no concept of time outside of their base, and unbeknownst to them, the world outside of their little sphere has ended, and they’ve been fighting in the gravel pits for hundreds of years. the announcer is just pre-recorded messages, the other team is also caught in the same system, the bases are entirely self-sufficient, and none of them know that the rest of the world has died.

i realized 1. i could run with this concept literally forever, and this would be like 100k words, and i do not have the time or energy to ever run with it for that long i would Literally Die, 2. i could probably adapt the concept in some ways to be applicable to original work that i could then potentially make money off of because i do think the idea’s pretty good, and then eventually 3. Oh Wait I Sort Of Wrote This Already, I Did A Whole Play On Time Travel, Like A Groundhog Day Thing, I Can’t Do This Again I’ll Die

but since i’m almost positive i’ll never finish it, here’s the work i already have featuring the editing notes as well. the working title was “Loops!AU”. literally absolutely feel free to run with this idea

1. His name is Mickey Lawrence Mundy, and he’s thirty-one years old, and he’s been a smoker for fifteen of those years. He’s tall by American standards and short by Australian, and his parents hate his chosen career path and fashion choices, and his favorite holiday is Halloween because it’s in the fall, his favorite season.

Not a single one of those details would ever be important, out here in the desert far from everywhere, fighting and killing.

The missions start and stop abruptly with little warning, sometimes heralded by the sound of a little motorcycle carrying a girl who’s worth a hundred times her weight in danger, but generally not. He always goes with, even when he’s not so terribly needed, because he’s told to and he gets paid if he does. He hasn’t checked his back account balance in almost two years. He knows it’s probably giving some poor Swiss intern a stress ulcer just looking at it. Rarely does something memorable happen, at most one of his teammates getting taken out and needing to be retrieved, but usually not much of anything at all. They’re important though, apparently. That’s how he’s getting so much money.

His teammates are as remarkable as they are unremarkable—so oddly human despite being absolute freakshows, much like himself. He’d argue with the Spy, avoid the Medic, try and keep the Pyro in his line of sight, and tended to get pestered by the Scout since he was the only person who wouldn’t actively chase him off.

But that last one has been acting strange lately. It’s been a few days since the last mission, which generally makes him pretty antsy, but this is a different sort. He’s been staring at Sniper a lot, eyes sharp from underneath the shade of the brim of his hat, like a wild cat hiding in the brush.

Dangerous, is the word he’s looking for.

2. His name is Mickey "Mick” Mundy, and he’s thirty-one years old, and he’s been bitten by more exotic animals than most people have even seen with the scars to prove it. He’s tall by American standards and short by Australian, and his parents don’t pick up the phone for him anymore for some reason, and his favorite season is the fall because it’s got his favorite holiday stuck smack dab in the middle.

Not a single one of those details would ever be important, out here in the desert far from everywhere, fighting and killing.

The missions start and stop abruptly with little warning, sometimes heralded by the sound of a little motorcycle carrying a girl who’s worth a hundred times her weight in danger, but generally not. He always goes with, even when he’s not so terribly needed, because he’s told to and he gets paid if he does. He hasn’t checked his back account balance in quite some time. He knows it’s probably giving some poor Swiss intern a stress ulcer just looking at it. Rarely does something memorable happen, at most one of his teammates getting taken out and needing to be retrieved from Respawn, but usually not much of anything at all. The missions are important though, apparently. That’s how he’s getting so much money.

Dangerous, is the word he’s looking for.

[[every time Sniper dies and gets reset, change tiny little details about the paragraph above, like a game of telephone, deleting more and more information along the way. have sniper remember details about scout that he shouldn’t know, or circumvent earlier problems without thinking about it—ex. scout has an allergic reaction to something sniper cooks and later sniper cooks a different meal even though previous conversation is borderline identical. have one or two times where scout and sniper get in an argument because one of them died but the other didnt and they don’t remember each other correctly]]

[[final chapter scene, scout shows up frazzled, some conversation, deviating an awful lot from previous scripts]]

“Remember Woodstock?” Scout asked, tilting his head. “Remember when that was a thing that happened, and it was a big fuckin’ deal, all sorts of magazines talkin’ about it, it was on TV and everything?”

“Yeah,” Sniper agreed, nodding.

“But do you remember what year that was?”

“Well,” Sniper said, “I,” Sniper said, “I, well, obviously it was fairly recent.”

“Uh-huh,” Scout said, and it wasn’t encouraging.

“Had to be, what, three or four years ago?”

“Weird, because, uh, because the Doc—I asked him about it, right?—he said it had to have been a few months ago. And Spy said it had to have been almost a decade ago. And Mumbles didn’t know what I was talkin’ about.”

There was silence for a few long seconds.

“Because—because the thing is—“ Scout scrubbed at his hair underneath his hat. “—I, I had that written down. I wrote that down, I, I scratched it a good quarter-inch into solid wood planks. Y’know those planks, on the underside of a bedframe? Right where a mattress goes? I uh, I was cleaning under my bed for once, and I’d apparently scratched it under there. Just—just four words. ‘Ask Spy About Woodstock’. That’s it. And—and he started talkin’ about it like it had to have happened, like, before I would’ve even known what that was, when I was a kid or somethin’. And I’m just wondering—I—“ Scout was finally starting to really stumble, and his gaze kept drifting, snapping back, disorientation settling into the furrow between his eyebrows like rain on cracked desert earth. “I’m just wondering how the hell I don’t remember doin’ that.”

He swallowed hard, and it took several seconds to sink in, the weight of his words. “You…” Sniper started to say, and couldn’t find the last part of the thought.

“Me?” Scout prompted, almost desperately, and how long had Sniper been standing there, jaw gaping?

“Snipes?” Scout prompted from through what sounded like a glass of water, snapping his fingers in front of Sniper’s nose a few times, jolting him back to—

“Snipes!” Scout said far too loudly, and Sniper flinched, and resurfaced with a thought.

“Why,” Sniper asked, “did you write it down somewhere so hidden? Who were you worried would find it before you?”

“And did I write it down somewhere else, and it *did* get found, and that’s why it’s so hard to think about?” Scout finished.

Silence for a few seconds.

“Did… you write anything else?” Sniper asked, voice thin.

“That’s the thing,” Scout said, voice thin from a slightly different direction. “Because, see, I did write somethin’ else, but I didn’t need to find that writing to have known somethin’ was up. Because—“

There was silence for a few seconds, a few more.

“Do I… know you from somewhere?” Scout asked.

He wasn’t even looking at Sniper, but his eyes were a shade of—

“Because it feels like just… the way you talk, the, the way *we* talk—“

It was dimly lit in the camper, but his hair shone in the light of the sunrise—the sunset—the—bonfire—sunset?—sun—rise?

“It just feels… familiar.”

He was soft—he was tense—he was soft—had he ever even touched Scout before?—he looked tense—he looked soft.

“It feels like I’ve met you somewhere before.”

He looked tense.

“Is it you?”

“What?” Sniper asked.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” His voice trembled. “It’s all your fault. You’re the one doing this. Why—why the hell else would I have scratched in your name?”

“What?” Sniper asked.

“But—but it can’t be you,” Scout started, talking himself back again. “It can’t be you because it’s—it’s not just ‘Sniper’ scratched down there. When did you tell me? Why did you tell me? Why’d I hide it?”

“What?” Sniper asked.

Scout looked at him, gaze hard enough, fragile enough, glass, sheets of ice, that he fought to find more words.

“What are you talking about? Is it… what did you find?”

Scout looked at him, gaze soft enough, firm enough, decades-old-mattress, rotting springs, that he didn’t dare say anything else.

“I’m gonna ask you a few questions here,” Scout said, voice wobbly.

Sniper nodded.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

Sniper thought. “I ate a sandwich at the base before I walked over here,” he supplied.

“Before that.”

“Took a shower and all that, fresh off Respawn.”

“Before that.”

“Well, woke up in the Respawn room.”

“Before that.”

“Well, I… I died,” Sniper shrugged.

“How’d you die?”

Sniper was

Sniper

Sniper was

“How’d you die?” Scout asked again, almost exactly the same way.

“Well, I…” Sniper started to say. “…I don’t remember. Probably shot in the head. That happens a lot, I get shot in the head.”

“Let me ask another question,” Scout said. “I come bug you a lot, don’t I?”

“Yeah,” Sniper agreed.

“When’s the longest time I’ve hung out over here?”

“Well, that had to have been…” Sniper started to say. “Well, obviously it’s the time when we…” Sniper started to say.

“When we…?” Scout prompted.

“I…” Sniper said.

“I’ll ask something else,” Scout said, paced one way, then changed his mind and stepped back again. “We get sent to the other bases sometimes. Remember that?”

“Right. Right!” Sniper said, clinging to the scrap of clarity. “We go to a different base every few months until it gets destroyed.”

“And those places have names,” Scout supplied.

“Yes!”

“What were some of them?”

Sniper looked at him. “Well, there was… and… there was a cold one, with… or a…”

Scout looked at him.

“There—with the, with the buildings, and the…”

Scout looked at him.

Sniper looked around his immediate surroundings for clues. He spotted a picture tacked to his wall, blurry and faded and indistinct and damaged, and took a breath, and words wouldn’t come out of his mouth.

“You call your family often?” Scout supplied.

“I do.”

“When did you last call?”

Sniper’s head felt like the picture tacked to his wall.

“Just one more question.”

Sniper looked up at Scout.

“What’s your name?” Scout asked.

“M-Michael—“

No, that wasn’t right.

“Mitch, Mitchel—Mitch—“

No.

“Rich—?”

No, it was,

“Mike—“

No.

Scout’s face was a one-way mirror. “It’s not any of those,” he said, as if Sniper didn’t know. “It’s somethin’ else.”

He was right.

“Your name’s Mickey,” he said, “Lawrence,” he said, “Mundy,” he said, “and I think we might be some of the only people alive on the planet.”

“And I think,” Scout said, “that we’re stuck here, repeating things over and over.”

“And I think,” Scout said, “that we’ve both been the same age as when we were hired for a long, long time, and we keep getting set back to that age.”

“And I think,” Scout said, “that you stuck me at this age on purpose.”

“Why,” Sniper asked, “would I… what, what’s special about it? Why would I pick this age for you? If I—what makes you think that I’m doing it, and that I would?”

“Because I think that every time I wake up after being shot in the head, a few days later, I realize I’m in love with you.”

“What makes you think that?” Sniper asked next.

“Because I realized it again when I saw your name, and it felt like déjà vu. And I’m lookin’ at your shoulders, and I remember exactly what they feel like when I wrap my arms up around them, and how your stubble feels, and what your laugh feels like when I’ve got a hand against your chest, even though I can’t remember ever having touched you in my goddamn life.”

Silence. Sniper felt his breath catching in his chest.

“That’s not possible,” Sniper said, and felt his mind shifting away into denial. “You’re delusional. I’m—there’s just something wrong with our heads.”

“Of course it’s impossible. *None* of this is possible,” Scout said, voice scorched. “It’s not possible to remember feeling things that I’ve never felt before. Just like it’s not possible to be brought back to life, after being shot in the head.”

and that's the end of what i have written for this. so there you go

#shut up me #everybody talks #tf2 #team fortress 2 #speeding bullet #sniperscout

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ladylynse · 5 years

Note

I don't know why, but I often feel like I'm not writing enough and it stresses me out

Hey, Anon. You’re not alone, and your brain is lying to you when it says you should be writing more, at least if it’s fanfic and not something you’re being paid to do. I know that doesn’t help much, but it’s the truth. Everyone writes at a different pace, and how fast you write will change depending on what’s going on in your life, not just how excited you are for your own story or how well you know where it’s going.

I also look back at the fics I haven’t updated in half a year, the collab I haven’t touched in years months, the sequels that never came to fruition, the ideas I want to write but still sit unwritten or languish partly finished, even the three sentence fic requests that sometimes sit in my inbox for days or weeks, and feel like I’m not writing enough. Like I’m disappointing other people. Because I’m not fast enough, or that if it is fast-ish, because it’s not good enough, or because it just doesn’t meet their expectations (or I don’t think it’ll meet people’s expectations). And sometimes I let that get to me, and I just get worse. It gets harder to write, the words just aren’t there or don’t fit, or the scene doesn’t work or the characters are too OOC or the plot idea sounds much worse than it first did, and I typically remember every bad review I’ve ever gotten and start to think they’re right–even when the good reviews outweigh the bad.

Don’t get me wrong. Positive feedback is a wonderful thing. But as much as having other people express excitement/joy/tears/anticipation over whatever you’ve written or are writing helps immensely, that won’t give you more time to write, or make you mentally refreshed enough to be able to plan/think/write coherent sentences (let alone edit them), or give you the energy to even contemplate writing if you’re exhausted.

And–especially if you are talking fanfic–every person who just demands an update and doesn’t say anything else about your work seems to add to the burden. And that burden makes it harder to even start when you do have time and technically could be writing. Because there are expectations, and now there’s also guilt, and when you’re forcing yourself to write, you hate every word put down, and you call yourself a bad writer. A bad person, maybe, if you’re prone to extrapolation and your brain has a tendency to believe the lies you tell yourself when they serve to wear you down.

But you’re not a bad person, and you’re not a bad writer.

You just need a break.

If you’re trying to write because you think you have to, not because you want to, then you need to stop for a while. You need to allow yourself time to recharge. Because if you’re not having fun, if it’s too much like work and you’re just failing each self-imposed deadline and beating yourself up over it, you’re only making things harder for yourself. And if you ever hit a point where you feel like you’re just churning out fic after fic or chapter after chapter and you’re burning out and no one (or very few) seems to appreciate it, instead just demanding more? You need to take a step back. You’re not a machine. You shouldn’t treat yourself like one or let other people treat you like one.

Writing fanfics should be a hobby, something you enjoy. It shouldn’t be something that causes you stress, and when it is, you need to take it out of your life for a bit. That probably sounds counter-intuitive when the stress is over not writing enough, but in reality you’re probably stretching yourself too thin and placing unrealistic expectations on yourself, and you need to take a step back in order to see that.

If you don’t have any idea how much of a break you need but you suspect it’s not a short one, throw up a note in your profile and/or in the summary of your WIPs to let people know you’re going on hiatus for a bit. The vast majority of people will understand, and you owe nothing to the few who don’t. (You owe nothing to anyone, really, because you’re doing this for free, but a note is nice for the rest of the people so they don’t wonder if something terrible happened to you.) You aren’t a lesser person or a lesser writer for taking a break you need. It’s more important that you take care of yourself first. And it helps, or at least it’s helped me in the past.

And when you do get back to writing? If you get back to writing? Try to fight the temptation to compare yourself to others, especially in terms of update speed. Some people write their entire fic before they post it. Some people plan their entire fic before they write it. Other people happen to have a lot of time on their hands. Others don’t have a lot of time but choose to spend most of what they do have writing. Everyone’s different. You need to figure out what works for you. If you find you work better with a set update schedule because you’re better when you have a deadline, great. But if you’re late, try not to feel too guilty. Life happens–even if it’s in terms of a wonderful distraction from writing as opposed to being super busy with important stuff. If you’re better off writing a few chapters before you ever post one, and you always try to keep ahead of yourself as you’re writing so you have a buffer for posting when you don’t have time/don’t feel like writing, that works, too. If it’s completely sporadic, everywhere from multiple updates in a week to months of radio silence? That doesn’t make you a terrible writer. Anyone who likes your story enough will wait for you. (A couple of stories I’d reviewed and followed back in 2012 were updated and completed last November after six years of no activity from the writer whatsoever. It was wonderful. I hadn’t thought they’d ever get finished, and I’d been resigned to that fact but happy to get as much of the story as I did, so I was absolutely delighted when they were finished and made a point of telling the author as much.)

And me, personally? I’m a lot slower than I used to be. I used to be able to churn out about a 4 K chapter a week. Now I can’t, and I feel bad about that. (I feel very bad when I think about those months-between-updates fics.) But my life circumstances have changed–I really don’t have as much time as I used to and sometimes I find it a lot harder to write than I used to (emotionally, I mean)–and I’ve changed as a writer. I try to give myself credit for the fact that I keep going, but sometimes that still doesn’t feel like enough. And that’s when I need to remind myself that I’m not who I used to be, and I’m not that person whose fic I’m following who faithfully updates every Saturday, and that I’m doing this because I love writing, not because I owe people updates.

You’re you, Anon, not anyone else, in your own unique circumstances, and you don’t owe people updates, either. And you certainly don’t deserve to be causing yourself additional stress over not being able to write enough. There is no enough, no magic word threshold that you should be reaching in a certain period of time (not when you’re doing this for free, anyway). Enough is as much as you feel you can do, however much that is and however much that changes from week to week, month to month, and year to year. Enough is as much as makes you happy or makes you feel that you’ve achieved something. (Sometimes, I’m prouder of a single sentence (or, let’s face it, half a sentence) than three paragraphs or three pages, even if they all took the same amount of time.) Enough is not stress and guilt and desperation and self-hatred; enough is enjoyment.

#ladylynse #asks #writing #that...was a longer response than I thought it would be when I started #Anonymous #long post #at least if the read more doesn’t show up

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kusunogatari · 4 years

Text

[ ObiRyū October | Day Twenty-Seven: Lucky ] [ @abyssaldespair ] [ Uchiha Obito, Suigin Ryū ] [ Verse: Like Magic ] [ Previous || Next ]

Though Ryū wouldn’t call herself a star student by any stretch - at least not in most of her subjects - she does well enough, and excels in a few. Herbology, potions, and other classes that relate to her long-chosen profession of healing are ones she has studied diligently...and her hard work pays off. By her sixth year, she performs in her core classes to nearly the top rank, still managing to keep up with her homework as she also volunteers in the hospital wing.

And in addition, spends time with her boyfriend, one Obito Uchiha.

The pair have pretty much been dating since the year previous, when Ryū actually took the first step and asked him to the Yule Ball. Though they didn’t actually sit and make it official until sometime after, it was pretty much implied from that moment on. And Ryū couldn’t be happier, having been quite fond of Obito since...well, about the time she met him. Obito, however, had had eyes for Rin...who liked Kakashi...it was an entire mess that’s only recently begun being sorted. Between being different houses, the odd web of relationships, and other factors during their years at school, their group friendship has been through its share of metamorphoses. But things seem to be finding equilibrium.

Sitting at a table in the Hufflepuff common room, Ryū is currently writing an essay for her potion’s class regarding several high-value concoctions they’ve yet to attempt making. Her current paragraph is on Liquid Luck, eyes flickering between her Advanced Potion Making book, and her parchment.

“Oi, Suigin!”

Looking up, she sees a seventh year coming in, an amused look on his face. “...yes?”

“You’ve got company.”

Blinking, she then sees Obito following the other Puff in, peering around a bit sheepishly. He’s been in here a few times now, despite the typical school policy of each dorm being off-limits to those of other houses. But Hufflepuff is by far the most welcoming, and though most students were a bit put-off by the bulky Slytherin, it soon became clear he was far softer on the inside than he appears. He’s practically been adopted by them.

Perking up, Ryū gives a smile, gesturing for him to join her. “Not swamped with coursework?” she asks as he sits beside her.

“Er, well...actually...have you started that assignment in potions? About the high-tier ones?”

“Oh! Yeah...I’m working on that right now, actually...need some help?”

“...maybe? Some of it’s just going a little over my head.”

“That’s okay. Here, we’ll get you caught up to where I’m at, and then we’ll go on from there together, okay?”

A wide grin blooms across his face. “Yeah! You’re the best, you know that?”

“Happy to help,” is Ryū’s reply, nonetheless going a bit pink at the praise. Once Obito sets up his supplies, she goes over the first few potions, their ingredients, effects, and risks when brewing. All the while, Obito scribbles diligently until they reach the last potion, Liquid Luck.

Looking over the text as Ryū starts, Obito seems struck by something, and gives her a grin until she pauses in question.

“I think someone smuggled some felix felicis into my pumpkin juice…”

Brow furrowing, Ryū asks, “...what?”

“Because if I’m here with you, it must be my lucky day,” he then finishes, laughing as Ryū rolls her eyes with a groan. She even goes so far as to pick up her book and gently slap his shoulder with it.

“Did you really just make a potion pun? Not only that, but a potion pun that’s also a pick-up line?”

“You didn’t think it was funny? I thought it was funny!”

Sighing, Ryū has to fight against a smile. “...you’re ridiculous.”

“But you love me anyway, right?”

The word begets a small pause, the pink in her cheeks darkening. “...of course I do. You and your silly pun. But we really should get this done, eh?”

“...right.”

Together they wrap up the last segment of their papers, Obito looking ecstatic at having finished so quickly. “How do you do that?”

“I dunno, I just...do. It’s a subject I need to become a Healer, so...I’ve put a lot of work into it, I guess.”

“Oh…”

“What about you? Got any idea what you want to do after next year?”

There’s a pause, and then Obito shrugs. “Thought about being an Auror. I dunno if I’ll qualify, though. Might try for a hit wizard position, instead. Gotta have five Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.Ls, which I’ve got.”

Ryū gives a thoughtful hum. “...I can see you doing that, yeah. Either one, I bet you’ll be good at it! I’ll even help you study, if you want to get to an Auror’s level.”

“...really?”

“Of course! If that’s what you want to do, then I’ll do what I can to help you get there. And working for the Ministry is sure to be good!”

“Guess so. You gonna work at St. Mungo’s?”

“I suppose...or maybe someplace a little quieter. I’ll just have to see how things go.”

“But...you’ll stay near London, right?”

Ryū glances up at his tone, sounding a bit...pleading? “...I really have no idea. It’ll depend a bit on whether or not I end up at St. Mungo’s, I guess.” Her head tilts in question. “...why?”

“Well, y’know...since I’ll be around if I get the job I want…” Obito trails off, and Ryū brightens in understanding.

“Well either way, I doubt I’ll go too far. And I can always Apparate.”

“...I guess so.”

“...what’s wrong?”

He looks pensive for a moment, as though considering admitting to something. “...nevermind.”

“Obito...you know you can talk to me. Are you...worried about something?”

Slowly, his cheeks flush a rosy pink. “...I guess I just...I…” He rubs at the back of his head quickly, looking nervous. “I thought we’d...y’know...end up sort of...close together.”

“You mean, both in London?”

The pink gets darker. “Y...yeah...or maybe...closer.”

Closer than the same town? What does that…?

...oh. “You mean, as in...living together?”

“I-I mean, maybe not right away. Maybe it’d be a little...weird that early on. Maybe after a while. I just...y’know…”

Blinking, Ryū then softens. “Well...I guess we shouldn’t rule that possibility out...right?” It’s her turn to blush. “Sure, maybe it’s a little early to think that far ahead, but...I wouldn’t be against it…”

He looks up, eyes wide. “...really?”

Ryū just gives a shy nod.

“...oh! Okay then,” he agrees, looking far more at ease with that off his chest. “I mean, a lot can change between now and then, so…”

“That’s true.”

“And I mean...we’re still young…”

“...mhm.”

“So...I just didn’t want to...y’know...assume.”

Not bothering to stop a smile, Ryū offers, “It’s always good to be cautious. But I, for one, don’t see that much changing...right?”

Obito glances to her, still pink. “...y-yeah...I hope not.”

Beaming, Ryū leans against him with a happy sigh. “...well, we’ll just take the days as they come, hm?”

“...right.”

With their coursework done, however, the pair seem to unspokenly agree that maybe they’d rather spend a little time out of the dormitory. It’s rather crowded, after all. So Ryū offers to walk him back to the Slytherin dorm, which Obito accepts, the pair heading out into the hallway and walking hand in hand.

“...you really think I could become an Auror?”

“I know you can become an Auror. You just have to set your mind to it, that’s all. You’re a skilled wizard, Obito! It’s just a matter of hard work. Get through that, and you’ll pass the N.E.W.Ts you need.”

“...yeah...you’re right!”

“Of course I am.”

That earns a snort. “Cheeky, aren’t you?”

“I can be,” she replies with a small grin. “But at least I don’t make puns.”

“Hey, that was a good pun.”

“No such thing as a good pun.”

Obito gives her a pout. “You’re so mean…”

“There isn’t a mean bone in my body. I’ve checked.”

“Well, I can be mean...would you like one?”

Looking to him, it takes a moment for the joke to sink in, at which point Ryū blushes a bright red. “E-excuse me?!”

That gets him to break out into a full laugh, ignoring her swats to his shoulder. “I’m only joking.”

“Y-you better be!” Still quite flushed, Ryū squeaks as Obito drags her...into yet another broom closet. “O-Obito!”

“You know as well as I do these are the only private places in this bloody castle…”

Whimpering as Obito’s hands find her waist, Ryū glances aside, cheeks rosy and expression flustered. “Honestly…”

He just chuckles, nuzzling against her jaw. “How am I not supposed to tease you when you get so adorably worked up when I do?”

She doesn’t have a counter, just failing to bite back another whine at his attentions.

“I’m not about to do anything you don’t want me to do.”

“...I-I know.” A bit shyly, Ryū loops arms around his neck, hiding in the crook. “...I guess sometimes I just don’t know what I want…”

“Hn...I feel the same. But I know one thing I want.”

“...oh?”

Grinning, he pulls them apart and gives her a kiss, feeling her stiffen just a hair. “...that, at least, I’m good with.”

She just tucks back into his throat with a muffled sound of embarrassment, making him laugh.

“...I really am lucky…” he then muses softly, feeling her tension lesson. “I have a sweet little Hufflepuff all to myself…”

Still hiding, Ryū replies, “...and I’ve got a sweet big Slytherin.”

“I’m not sweet. I’m scary!”

“No you’re not.”

“Yes I am. Have you seen the first years scatter when they see me?”

Ryū giggles against his shoulder, making him grin. “You’re also an honorary Hufflepuff, which means you are sweet.”

“Hn…”

“At least you’re sweet to me.”

“...and that makes you very special.”

She backs up enough to meet his eyes, a happy softness to her face. “...guess that means I’m pretty lucky, too…”

MOAR HP VERSE. Mostly because Meg wanted it, tho I'm certainly not opposed lol - and Obito got to make a felix felicis pun which was glorious. I'll just have to save my backup idea for another time ;3 Anywho, there...isn't much else to say? These two are adorkable and I love them. And this verse. I'm gonna be both relieved and sad when October is over. Relieved cuz omg double drabble duty for two months this year has been Rough™, but sad cuz...less excuse to write these two. Not that I'm going to stop anytime soon (and I have PLENTY of WIPs), ahaha~ But yes! That's all for now~ Thanks for reading!

#obiryū october #abyssaldespair #uchiha obito #suigin ryū #like magic [ au ]

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authorkimberlygrey · 5 years

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Hi! I LOVE your blog, seriously my fav writer blog. How and when, and even where do you write? How do you find the energy to write? I’ve been working on a few WIPs for a few years, and lately I’m wondering if I should just throw all my outlines out the window and just completely revamp my writing practices, because I’ve felt so constructed by the outlines, lately. Much love, adore your stuff 💙

I’m your fave?😭😭 awwwwww ❤❤❤❤❤❤ that makes me so happy! I’m glad you like my blog and I hope you continue to like it.

On to your questions tho:

First off, feeling constricted by outlines is a Big Mood, my friend, I used to go into super detail on my outlines, I’m talking I planned out individual scenes and blocked out interactions. Which was a pain when, inevitably, I’d have a Great Idea in the middle of a scene that would make the entire outline pointless.

I can’t stick to an outline, so I just don’t. I make an outline, sure, but the minute it stops working for me? I just chuck it and make a new one. Yeah, I make a lot of outlines, and sometimes having such a thin outline can get me into trouble because I don’t know what I’m getting into (but that’s easily solved by yet another outline.)

I do some drawing so it helps me to think of outlines as sketches, its a structure for me to put more detail onto, but its not anything final or permanent.

An outline is there to help you, as soon as it's not doing that, toss it and make an outline that is helping.

As for your other questions, and tips on revamping your writing process, check under the readmore because I ramble lol

For those of you in a hurry:

Be kind to yourself, positive reinforcement will always work worlds better than negative. Give yourself rewards for your victories, no matter how small they are. Make writing a habit! I write at 7 every night, it helps to have a schedule, it trains your brain. Go with the flow, but don’t let yourself go over a waterfall. Take breaks if that’s what you need, but make sure its a break not an abandonment.Find the root of the problem, don’t attack the symptoms. Find what works for you, don’t worry about what everyone else is doing. You can look for examples that will help you, but don’t compare yourself to others. It never makes you happy.

I tend to think of myself as a pretty laid back writer. I don’t usually sit down at the computer and pound out 4k words a day usually my total word count when I save and exit is 500 words. Sometimes its less. Yesterday I went to bed with 200 words, it wasn’t a lot of progress, but it was progress.

The secret, for me at least, is finding the balance between being kind to yourself, but also not letting yourself slack off.

For me, that means I have to actually try at writing for 30 minutes a night. If I sit at the computer for 30 minutes and come up with half a sentence, that’s fine, that means I need to figure out what the problem is and get through it tomorrow.

I see a lot of writers beating themselves up for not hitting big numbers every night, even I can fall into that a little bit. We want progress, its natural, and when we don’t make progress then it can be frustrating and it's easy to fall into the temptation of putting yourself down over it.

Resist that. If you sit down and get frustrated and beat yourself up over writing, you’re not going to want to do it. You’re going to dread sitting down to write every night and as a result, you’re going to procrastinate it more and now you’re writing even less.

Instead, be patient with yourself. Sit down and figure out why you’re not writing. Are you distracted? Are you not sure what needs to happen in this scene? Are you afraid of it being bad?

If you’re distracted by stuff going on around you, find a quieter place to write, or get some headphones. Even if you don’t play music.

If you’re distracted by the internet *cough* tumblr *cough* I recommend Forest, its a chrome extension and app that grows a little tree as you focus and you can use it to plant *real* trees as well, so bonus!

If you’re not sure where the scene is going, outline it! When I’m stuck I go down a list: What Needs to happen, what do I want to happen, and how do I get those things to work together?

If you’re afraid that your writing is going to be bad, you have to be a bit sterner with yourself, but that doesn’t equal being mean. Sit down and accept imperfection, sometimes I sit down and I tell myself that I’m not walking away from the computer until I get at least one sentence down, even if it means that I stay up all night. I am yet to stay up all night at the computer. Sometimes one sentence is all that I get, sometimes that one sentence leads to another, and another, and eventually I’ve got a paragraph, or a page.

And if you’re interested in how I do my writing

I hate working at a desk so I have a comfy chair in the living room that I sit in. Sometimes if its too distracting there I’ll go to my room and chill on my bed to write. Like I said above, 30 minutes a night at 7pm every night unless I’m giving myself a break. I recently discovered the wonders of scrivener and have transferred over to that (Ywriter is a good free alternative btw!) OneNote and Microsoft word made too much of a habit of toying with my emotions ((and sacrificing my outline to the Dwellers of the Void)) so I’ve mostly quit writing there. I do save there though because I’m paranoid about losing stuff.

My elaborate backup system is as follows:

Every night after I finish writing I save on the computer and onto my USB. (note that I save every night as a new, dated file all in one folder.)

After every chapter, I save onto another document on my computer and onto Google docs. I used to send chapters out by email as well for an additional back up but I’ll admit that I’ve gotten lazy about that.

and when a draft is complete its saved in every location and onto another back up USB.

I’ll admit, I’m paranoid about losing stuff. but on the other hand, I also very rarely lose stuff so who’s the real winner here?

Anyway! Thank you for the question anon! I hope you enjoyed my giant rambling answer and I hope your writing goes well going forward! feel free to message me any time if you’ve got more questions or even if you just want to talk, I’m always up for more friends ❤❤❤

#speaking into the void #ask #writing advice #writing help #writing rambles #this is why I do powerpoints #if you just let me loose on a blank page I ramble

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runaway-train-works · 5 years

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ANNUAL WRITING SELF-EVALUATION 2018

I wasn’t officially tagged by anyone but I decided to do it anyways because I’m starting the year right with #selflove2019.

ALL FICS MUST HAVE POSTED ON AO3 IN 2018

1. Number of stories (including drabbles) posted to AO3: 7 (but 4 belong to the same AU so 4 separate stories I guess?)

2. Word count posted for the year: 144,725

3. List of works published this year (in order of posting):

I Won't Give Up So Come And Get Me

I’ve Been Hoping You’d Be Somewhere Better Than This (Ad Au)

You Sent This Hurricane Now It Won’t Go Away (Ad Au)

I Put My Dreams Into You They’ll Grow (Ad Au)

Baby I Need You In A Serious Way (Ad Au)

And Touch Me Like You Never

Better Not Pout, I’m Telling You Why

4. Fandoms I wrote for: One Direction

5. Pairings: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson,

6. Story with the most:

Kudos: I Won’t Give Up So Come And Get Me (581)

Bookmarks: I’ve Been Hoping You’d Be Somewhere Better Than This (291)

Comments: Better Not Pout, I’m Telling You Why (45 threads)

9. Work I’m most proud of (and why):

Definitely I Won’t Give Up So Come And Get Me. It’s my first ever fic, and my first attempt at writing anything really (I studied maths in uni and I’ve worked as a manager in hospitality for years, writing is not my thing) so I can’t tell you how scared I was posting it, I was pushing myself way out of my comfort zone by trying something new to me. I must have refreshed the stats/hits screen a billion times but then I got my first kudos and my first comment and I was like, ‘if that's all I get, then I can sleep tonight,’ because at least one person thought it was alright.

10. Work I’m least proud of (and why):

My Santa fic. I was rushing to meet the holiday fic fest deadline and I reckon if I had had another week with it, it could have been better, more polished and the writing slicker, I was just so focused on getting the plot down, some of it is a bit scrappy.

11. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

Ohhhh I really don't know. I guess I like the banter from the Ad Au fics, and the lead up to H & L having sex for the first time is probably my favourite, because I don’t think you see scenes like that a lot in smutty fics and I thought it was funny (maybe just me?).

And don’t ask me why, but I really like the line from And Touch Me Like You Never, ‘Harry wants to tell him that there isn’t for him, that there is only one fish and that’s Louis and that he would swim a fucking ocean for him if Louis asked him to. I think to me it just represents their whole relationship in the fic.

12. Share or describe a favorite review you received:

Any comments make me happy, but the readers that give you their reasons for liking a fic are the best. My absolute favourite reader/commenter is QuelquesEtoiles (not sure on their Tumblr? I’m shit at knowing who people are if their names aren't the same on both) because their comments are hilarious and I actually go and re-read them when I’m feeling shit because they make me smile that much, especially the play-by-play on ATMLYN.

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

I’ve mentioned this before, but I started a fic based on a lumberjack prompt and then the really good lumberjack one came out and it had very similar themes to what I was attempting to write so I just gave up, that was shitty for me but I'm over it now. Also struggled with the Santa fic because my default setting is to make Louis a sassy little shit that’s only nice to Harry so that was difficult for me haha.

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

Niall in ATMLYN. It wasn't a conscious decision at first to make him Harry’s sounding board, but I think it ended up pacing the story well and would have been too messy to include the other boys.

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

I didn't grow. I was a brand new baby, and I’m going into 2019 as a toddler; I can say a few things and run around like I think I know what I’m doing but I’m still bound to run into stuff and cry a few times while I’m at it.

16. How do you hope to grow next year:

I have an idea for a pretty big ABO high school fic which will be kinda slow burn and I might post as a WIP on ao3. Slow burn will be a challenge for me because I want H & L to get together from like the second paragraph most of the time and a WIP will be too, as it will take a lot more planning out and developing the story as people are reading and giving feedback which I think will be an interesting process for me.

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

I don't really know that many people in the fandom but everyone that has contacted me has been super lovely. Ana (@finck-you-freeky) has been absolutely amazing. We have similar tastes in fics that we read/like and I get her to read all my fics before I post them now because her opinion and notes are invaluable to me. She is also is very supportive when I’m having a bad day and hate every word I have written. I love speaking to people about fics though that aren't my own so it’s good to chat to her about other ones we have read or writers we enjoy.

Also, random shout out, but @blouisparadise have been super nice to me since I started writing, they often include me in their monthly recs and their post for IWGUSCAGM was actually how I found Tumblr in the first place because I found it through google (I’m not a huge social media user), so just want to say thank you to them for the support!

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

Uh, the inspiration for IWGUSCAGM is very, very loosely based on my flatmate in uni, but her story isn't as charming so I won’t divulge.

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

Writing for a fandom is a weird thing. You think to yourself about your own works ‘this is so shit, no-one will read this, why am I bothering?’ but at the exact same time you’re like ‘why is no-one reading this? this is brilliant and better than anything anyone else has ever written,’ and I guess I need to try and remember that thats normal for everyone. If you’re writing because you enjoy it, then that will come through in your work and eventually praise will come, even if its not from a lot of people. I’d rather have just one person absolutely love my fic than a hundred people thinks it’s just OK, and I need to remember that when I see fic lists and reblogs that don’t include my name. Having said that, if you had asked me this a week ago I would have said no, I have no wisdom to share, but after several lovely people have included me in their ‘best fics of 2018′ I would say that not worrying about not being ‘shouted about’ is something I’m going to start doing more of (hopefully). I seriously thought no-one knew who I was or cared about anything I wrote because I don't get a lot of acknowledgement on Tumblr, particularly from the big blogs and fic reccers. It made me sad and I just didn’t know what to do about it, but as it turns out, some people were reading my stuff and enjoying it, and you don’t necessarily have to have a hundred reblogs and notifications of your posts for that to happen.

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

Along with the ABO one, I’ve got a couple of short fic fest ones that are ready to post (thats not til february), I’m writing a sort of birthday one which I’ll post on H’s actual birthday. Also have an idea for a boxer harry one which is basically just pwp. Have two musical fic fest ones I’m excited about and that are a bit different. Also might try a different pairing, maybe a Ziam or a past Zarry? So yeah, lots to work on. Will see what happens.

21. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read.

I feel like most people have done this now, but if you haven’t do it!

#2018 review #my fics #writing stuff #fic writing #runaway_train

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goforwardgreenwriter-blog · 6 years

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The Worm Reads: The Assassin’s Blade, Ch 1-2

Book: The Assassin’s Blade

Author: Sarah J. Mass

I chose to do this book because I’ve barely seen anyone critical of T0G talk about this book. I remember relatively liking it when I first read it, but I also liked Q0S on my first reading, so well. You all know how well that turned out. So let’s dive back into hell!

First, I wanna point out the cover of this novel uses the exact same model as T0G for Celery but throws a shitty purple cloak over her.

That’s totally not lazy at all! And it totally doesn’t add to my suspicion that The Ass’s Blade was rushed out to make a quick buck, nope nope! Also I only wish I could have a thigh gape that big, holy smokes Celery, eat some carbs.

This prequel book is made up of several short novellas before the events of the first book. The first one is Celery and the Pirate Lord.

Seated in the council room of the Assassins’ Keep, Celaena Sardothien leaned back in her chair. “It’s past four in the morning,” she said, adjusting the folds of her crimson silk dressing gown and crossing her bare legs beneath the wooden table. “This had better be important.”

Oh god, we’re back when Alien was Celery.... Well, tbh, they’re one in the same, Alien just splooges about herself more often. Who knows, maybe this book will change that.

“Perhaps if you hadn’t been reading all night, you wouldn’t be so exhausted,” snapped the young man seated across from her.

Love how Celery is a supposed badass uhmayzing assassin, but she stays up all night reading as opposed to... training? Getting some rest for missions? Anything that might not hinder you in your job?

[Celaena] ignored him and studied the four other people assembled in the underground chamber. All male, all far older than she, and all refusing to meet her stare.

Jesus Christ, it begins already. Of course they’re all older than her. Normally this wouldn’t bother me all that much but it’s SJM, so I’m immediately suspicious. Also Sam is in the room and he’s just barely a year older than her, how is that “far older than her”???

When Arobynn summoned you, you didn’t keep him waiting. Thankfully, her sleepwear was as exquisite as her daytime wardrobe—and cost nearly as much. Still, being sixteen in a room with men made her keep an eye on the neckline of her robe. Her beauty was a weapon—one she kept honed—but it could also be a vulnerability.

Just... this entire paragraph. I wish SJM would stop playing into the notion all men are dangerous rabid beasts who can’t control themselves and just wanna rape every woman they lay eyes on. It doesn’t even make sense here, Celery knows all of them and aside from creeper Arobynn, none of them have ever sexually harassed her so why is she suspicious? And gotta that lowkey sexism implying that all beautiful women are delicate flowers who can’t look after themselves.

“Gregori’s been caught,” Arobynn finally said. Well, that would explain one person missing from this meeting. “His mission was a trap. He’s now being held in the royal dungeons.” Celaena sighed through her nose. This was why she’d been awakened? She tapped a slippered foot on the marble floor. “Then kill him,” she said.

Man, Celery is... actually acting like an assassin? I mean, when you’re an assassin, the mission takes top priority. I wonder how long that’ll last, though.

She’d never liked Gregori, anyway. When she was ten, she’d fed his horse a bag of candy and he’d thrown a dagger at her head for it.

I mean yeah, that’s really sadistic. She’s a literal child and he tried to murder her? Granted SJM destroys what little sympathy I have by then explaining Celery caught the dagger and threw it back, giving him a scar on his cheek. Even when she was a literal child, she was the best assassin evah. Gag me.

“Kill Gregori?” demanded Sam, the young man seated at Arobynn’s left—a place that usually went to Ben, Arobynn’s second-in-command. Celaena knew very well what Sam Cortland thought of her.

Sam is the only other young character in the room so yeah, obviously he’s gonna be her love interest for this book. Henceforth, they do nothing but bicker for the first 70% of the novel.

The location of the Assassins’ Keep was a well-guarded secret, one she’d been trained to keep until her last breath. But even if she didn’t, no one was likely to believe that an elegant manor house on a very respectable street in Rifthold was home to some of the greatest assassins in the world. What better place to hide than in the middle of the capital city?

So you’re saying literally no one questions who owns this huge fancy elegant place? That the king never goes, “Huh, someone who has wealth to rival mine has a huge ass manor right in the middle of the Capital” and he never checks it out? Nobody questions it? Okay.... if you say so......

The firelight cast the smooth, elegant panes of Sam’s face into light and shadow—a face, she’d been told, that could have earned him a fortune if he’d followed in his mother ’s footsteps.

Considering that his mother is a courtesan...... gross. Stop sexualising your characters so much, please.

Turns out, Ben was also killed. Oh no, not the guy we literally never met before! Celery is pissy that they didn’t retrieve his body.

“If we’d grabbed his body,” Sam said, refusing to back down from her glare, “it would have led them right to the Keep.” “You’re assassins,” she growled at him. “You’re supposed to be able to retrieve a body without being seen.”

I mean, you should be able to retrieve a body given that you’re assassins, but eh, who am I kidding, I care little for the conflict of Retrieving Ben’s Body.

Since Arobynn is apparently the only mature guy in the room, he tells them to stop acting like children.

Sam kept his gaze on the floor as he strode to the far side of the council room. Crossing his arms, he leaned against the stone wall. She could still reach him - one flick of her wrist, and his throat would spout blood.

Holy shit, Celery, that’s murder!!! Like Sam just disagreed with you, that doesn’t warrant you imagining yourself slitting his throat!!! How the fuck are they gonna end up in love I have no idea.

Celery throws a pity party for herself and stomps off to retrieve Ben’s body. Sadly, she does not perish while doing so, and Chapter 2 begins.

Two months, three days, and about eight hours later, the clock on the mantel chimed noon. Captain Rolfe, Lord of the Pirates, was late.

Given that the actual Pirate Lord story begins here, the first chapter was, you guessed it, utterly pointless and could’ve been cut altogether.

Celaena, concealed behind a far-too-stuffy black cloak, tunic, and ebony mask, rose from her seat before the Pirate Lord’s desk. How dare he make her wait!

How dare the entire world not bend over backwards to accommodate Celery and her agenda! Fuck you.

“With every minute he makes us wait,” Celaena said to Sam, the mask making her words low and soft, “I’m adding an extra ten gold pieces to his debt.” Sam, who didn’t wear a mask over his handsome features, crossed his arms and scowled.

???? So why is she wearing a mask??? Does she have a pimple she’s embarrassed of??? Why???

Neither of them had been particularly happy when Arobynn announced that Sam would be sent to the Dead Islands with Celaena. Especially when Ben’s body—which Celaena had retrieved—had barely been in the ground for two months.

So how did she, a skinny sixteen year old, possibly carry a thirty year old man’s body and do it discreetly enough when the place was supposedly swarming with royal guards? How convenient that the first chapter ended so SJM didn’t have to explain this.

She raised her brows, but realized he couldn’t see. The mask and clothes were a necessary precaution, one that made it far easier to protect her identity. In fact, all of Arobynn’s assassins had been sworn to secrecy about who she was—under the threat of endless torture and eventual death.

Wait a minute, what the fuck? What the fuck... why...

Okay, I’m gonna do lay down for a bit, scream out my frustrations, the like. I’ll be back in a bit.

Alright.

What the fuck?? So you’re telling me she’s a famous assassin who uses her real name?? That her face is so recognizable she has to wear a mask??

THAT’S NOT HOW ASSASSINS WORK!!! The whole point of being an assassin is that nobody knows your real identity, you’re supposed to hide your name so you don’t get caught!!!! If you’re a famous assassin, you’re probably known by like, a cool nickname that isn’t your fucking name!! This makes no goddamn sense!! My assassin rebel leader from my dinosaur WIP is facepalming at what a dumbass Celery is.

All that the world knew about Celaena Sardothien, Adarlan’s Assassin, was that she was female. And she wanted to keep it that way. How else would she be able to stroll the broad avenues of Rifthold or infiltrate grand parties by posing as foreign nobility?

So is her face a giveaway or not?? She can’t show Rolfe her face, but she can stroll down the street and go to parties without concealing her face? This is beyond fucking stupid.

Rolfe shows up, and Sam demonstrates that he’s the only character with a brain in this novel.

Sam stood, bowing his head slightly. “Sam Cortland,” he said by way of greeting.

Meanwhile, Celery just fires sarcastic and ‘witty” quips one after another.

Rolfe’s eyes gleamed with the challenge. “You’re in my city, and on my island.” Only a handbreadth separated them. “You’re not in any position to give me orders.”

Slay her Rolfe!!! I stanned Rolfe in E0S, I’m gonna stan him here, because he is as sick of Celery’s bullshit as I am.

With two deft flicks of his wrist, Rolfe sliced open both envelopes with a letter-knife she somehow hadn’t spotted. How had she missed it? A fool’s mistake.

Lmfao, what a noob. Maybe if Celery wasn’t busy stuffing her nose up her own ass, she’d notice important shit like that.

Rolfe reads the letter which details Arobynn asking Rolfe for some slaves, and at least Celery has the decency to be disgusted by that. Strange that she was the capacity to care about someone other than herself, but I’ll at least give her points for that.

[Rolfe] pointed toward the door. “I have two rooms prepared for you.” “We only need one,” she interrupted. Rolfe’s eyebrows rose suggestively.

I mean, gross to sexualise your characters even more, but Celery does realize saying they only need one room does sort of imply she and Sam are a thing, right? Like she gets so pissy that Rolfe interprets it that way, but like, it does lowkey sound like they’re an item therefore she doesn’t mind sharing a bed with him? Whatever, who cares.

Celery wants to punch Rolfe in the dick but doesn’t and the chapter ends. So begins another tidal wave of absolute bullshit.....

#the worm talks #the worm reads: tab #anti sjm #anti tog #anti tab #back into hell we go

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thebarsondaily · 6 years

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Author of the Month (2018)

tumblr || twitter || ffn || AO3

Ships/Fandoms:

SVU: Barba & Benson

Harry Potter: Draco & Hermione, Harry & Pansy

Favorite Completed Fic - A Barson Thanksgiving - Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - Barba & Benson or 12 Days of Barson Christmas - Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - Barba & Benson

Favorite W.I.P. - Spring Brings New Life - Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - Barba & Benson

What inspired you to begin writing fanfiction? I’ve been writing fanfiction since I saw The Empire Strikes Back and Han Solo was frozen in carbonite and I was beside myself. So I wrote my own fix-it, even though I had no idea that’s what it was. I was 12. Then I didn’t write any more again until I was in high school and fell in love with “Remington Steele”, “Scarecrow & Mrs. King” and “Moonlighting”. I had pages of 3-ring binder paper filled with post-episode or scene extensions or fix-its. I even wrote an original “Remington Steele” fic on my IBM Selectric typewriter. I used this yellow-orange scrap paper that my mom brought home from her Army Reserve office.

When I went to college and those shows were cancelled, I got away from it. Probably because I got to write for a living as a reporter. Then, this past summer, I discovered the world of fan fiction online. I don’t even remember how I stumbled on AO3, but I fell in love when I discovered a world of people who were writing about all my favorite tv and movie characters! After I started reading, new plot bunnies of my own started hopping around in my head.

My first Barson fic was born after I saw a rerun of “Sanctuary” last summer and essentially wanted a fix-it after the last scene when Barba asks Olivia if she’s disenchanted with him and then Dodds comes in, ruining the moment. As you can see in a recent chapter of SBNL I’m not a big fan of Deputy Chief Dodds.

Do you use a story outline or just let the story go wherever it takes you? I may have an outline in my head, but I’ve never written one down. I tend to just let the story go where it takes me. I usually start out with an end game and I work to get there, or a prompt from something I read or saw and start from there. Lately, I’ve been writing future chapters as I’m inspired, even though I’ll later have to go back and link them into the plot.

What helps get you through writer's block? Reading or writing something different. I write for two different fandoms, so switching between them helps. I try and take my mind completely off of what has me stuck.

Do you use music or anything else to help motivate you while you are writing? Please elaborate if you do. I like to listen to music, but I don’t know if it motivates me. I usually don’t need any other motivation than the thoughts in my head.

Do you have any advice for aspiring fanfiction authors? Just write. Like that old Nike ad: Just do it. If you have an idea that you feel strongly about, chances are someone else does as well and will want to read it. But also, self edit. Proofread. Proofread again. Read it out loud to yourself. Picture the scene in your head to see if it makes sense. If you aren’t confident in your spelling, grammar, structure skills, ask someone to beta for you. Nothing turns me off faster as a reader than a wonderful plot that I can’t get past the first few paragraphs of because it has bad grammar or structure. I can overlook spelling errors and typos even. But not bad grammar and poor structure. And check your verb tenses! Pick one and stick with it. Don’t switch back and forth.

Does writing energize or exhaust you? I would say it energizes me while I’m doing it. But if it’s late at night when I’m done and put it away I’m exhausted.

If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be? Don’t throw any of it away! At some point I threw away all of my old, handwritten stuff from high school and now it makes me so sad! The only one I even can remember the littlest bit is the original “Remington Steele” one. I had just watched the Shogun miniseries on television so I sent them to Japan!

What was the hardest scene you've ever had to write? It was for a WIP in my other fandom and it was a love scene. I always have a hard time writing those to begin with, whether it’s rated PG or NC-17, but in this case, I didn’t want it to read like a how-to manual and needed to focus more on feelings and emotions than actual actions. It took me quite a while and several re-writes to get it the way I wanted it. But in the end it turned out perfectly.

Do reviews help or hinder your writing process? Reviews always help! I love to hear what people say about my chapters! So far I’ve only had positive feedback. I had one where the reader wasn’t particularly happy with a chapter and I felt SO guilty because I felt like I let her down that I actually contact her via IM and apologized. She told me that she still loved the story and in the end what mattered most was that it was my story and I had to write for myself. And I LOVE when I get a new reader who tells me they’re hooked!

Is there a quote that inspires you? If so, what is it? I don’t know if it inspires me, but it sums up my feelings about writing: “Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.” -- Isaac Asimov

What is your favorite fanfiction trope to write? Honestly, I’ve never written a trope. Not that I don’t enjoy reading them, but writing them has never appealed to me, although I have a bed sharing one started for Noah Benson and Jesse Rollins. It hasn’t gotten very far though.

Do you have any fanfiction recommendations? Please limit the recs to Barson fanfic only. I’ve read so so many wonderful ones, this is a VERY hard question to answer.

One of the very first ones I read was by @TribalVipe called “A Hand on Your Face in the Dark” and it kept me coming back for more by her. Another finished work by hers that I love is “Don’t Look Behind You” because it includes all three SVU couples I ship. She has a new WIP, “Paraíso Perdido“ that I’m eagerly waiting for an update.

Since the episode-that-shall-not-be-named, one of my favorite completed fix-its is “The Rediscovered Country” by @theoofoof.

I’ve not read anything by @adrianna-m-scovill that I wouldn’t recommend and I very much enjoy @khughes30’s Musical Notes one shots.

p.s. I think A Hand on Your Face in the Dark is actually written by rosehips. ~untapdtreasure

#& Author of the Month #Barson #author of the month (2018)#Olivia Benson #Rafael Barba

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melissagt · 6 years

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7 Lines

I was tagged by @kunoichi-ume! Thank you! You’ve reminded me that I -need-to get back to writing!

The rules are as follows. Go to page 7 (paragraph 7, if not that long) of your WIP then go to the 7th line, share 7 lines and tag 7 more writers to continue the challenge.

Well, I don’t have 7 pages or 7 paragraphs...so you get...7 sentences...well, maybe a couple more than 7 because I don’t want to stop you in the middle of a paragrah, lol.

From Not Afraid Anymore Ch 28 - Stay

Ten minutes. She’d left him alone for ten minutes.

“That bloody well figures,” Nox laughed, sharing a private little huff for herself. Was she disappointed at finding the man who had carried her off kicking and screaming (in a good way), and who, consequently, she wanted to shag in the worst of ways, passed out like a sleeping baby? Perhaps. She’d barely been able to pry herself away from Nik long enough to get into the refresher for a quick run through the sonic. And after all of the rather handsy foreplay leading up to that very moment, it did leave things feeling a tad bit…anti-climactic, so to speak.

What was it they said about best laid plans?

Well, the pirate was out, along with his plans, it seemed. He leaned against the headboard in an almost upright position, or what used to be upright, head lolling slightly off to one side, his chest rising and falling in long, rhythmic breaths. It was the only time his guard ever truly came down. Their home. He hadn’t even made it out of his undershorts.

It was adorable…and it wasn’t the first, nor would it be the last time such a thing happened. She could hardly fault him. The stress of their everyday lives, everything, it all piled and piled until it became overwhelming. Hyperspace for them was a blissful release. An in-between. The one place, neither forward nor back, where there was nothing to be done. Everything else was put on hold. And they had almost two days to Alderaan. Two days of sleep…sex…food…two days of rest.

I’ll skip the tag since it looks like I’m on the tail end of this one...but if anybody was missed, consider yourself tagged!

#7 lines meme #that I broke the rules on #oh well #lol #I really need to start writing again #Lelu Kallig #Andronikos Revel

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officialthiamlibrary · 6 years

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Welcome to another profile on Behind the Screens, giving you personal insight on who your favorite creators are and what they do when they aren’t wowing you with their creative ability.

Hiya! I’m popping out of my writing cave to share with you the greatness of another artist, Glitter-cake20, also known as Sammy. You’ve probably seen her awe-inspiring manips, gifs, incorrect quotes, and stories floating around your dashboard. In our talk, she shares her #1 guilty pleasure ship, creates her optimal Teen Wolf Puppy Pack spin-off, and lets us in her creative process.

Sammy! Why don’t we start off simple? Tell us about yourself. The catch: the word count is either to or less than the number of letters in your two favorite Teen Wolf episode names. (ex. Raving + Galvanize = 19)

Memory Found + Smoke and Mirrors = 25

I’m really lazy. I like reading. I’m great at killing zombies on Xbox. I have blood in my coffee stream. I have resting bitch face.

Ooh, what makes these two your favorite?

Memory Found because i feel like that is really where Theo learned to be selfless. He fought with Liam knowing he could get killed or taken, and then later he literally sacrificed himself for a pack that wanted him dead.

Smoke and Mirrors - the entire Mexico trip was great but the part that really stood out in Smoke and Mirrors was when Berserker Scott had Liam pinned to the wall and Liam said “Scott listen! You’re not a monster, you’re a werewolf like me” which parallels to earlier in Season 4 when Scott had said that same thing to Liam. It was just beautiful because it showed how Liam had accepted himself as a werewolf. Also, Derek evolving was just wow!

And how did you come to the Thiam fandom? What about them drew you in?

You know, I had just created a twitter account and I was just following few accounts for Teen Wolf, kind of just bopping along with all the other popular ships, and then someone made a post about “OMG what was THAT” and I opened the video and it was Theo and Liam making glorious eye contact, and I was never the same again.

What drew me in the most was that Theo was so vulnerable when Liam brought him back. He was once such a badass and now he was suddenly latched on to Liam - just made my heart melt. And Liam is my boy, but he made me so angry when he was mean to Theo! Like no boo, that’s not how Scott raised you!

Lately, there’s been exclamations from our pack about Thiam bleeding into their real lives (like, seeing their relationship in every movie/song or experiencing story plots in real life, etc.), have you felt this sensation recently? If so, in what ways?

Yes! I was sitting at a coffee shop writing the other day, and this adorable couple walked in. My brain immediately went “That’s Theo and that’s Liam” And I’m like, what is actually wrong with me? And literally every epic movie quote is now about Thiam, I’ve actually done a bunch of edits about that, which I will share for the Thiam Movie Fest.

Omg! That totally happens to me all the time, everywhere!! Since you see Thiam in anything, would you say they’re your #1 guilty pleasure ship? If not, what are your guilty pleasure ships, couples where you don’t care who knew or who disagreed, you ship them regardless?

Oh gosh I’ve had many. Stalia was one. I really liked the dynamic, in the same breath I was also pining for Stydia. I loved Jethan when that teaser came out. Briam, although I don’t think anyone would disagree. Brett and Mason! And even when Scott and Allison broke up I was like, no but Scallison. I literally ship anything.

If you could build the ultimate paintball/laser tag team from any five characters on Teen Wolf, who’d be on your team and why? Twist: now, choose one Teen Wolf villain who’d be your secret weapon, provided they don’t double-cross you first, mwhahaha.

Mmm okay…(this actually makes me excited!) So for paintball, first of all I’d choose Corey for his ability to disappear and strike from a position unknown to our opponents. Then I would pick Theo, he’s proven to be quite strategic and cunning in mapping out a plan! Peter, because he just no objection to kicking ass, any time any place. Kira, because she can divert the paintballs with her sword (and yes in my mind they would allow her to take the sword onto the field, shh). Braeden, because she’s just a total badass and I just love her. And for my secret weapon I would choose Jackson so he can paralyze the opposing team with his Kanima venom!! Ha!

Jackson would be a total knockout secret weapon. The game would be over in seconds lol! Let’s jump into your works. Like @da-smiley99, our artist last week, you also create a little bit of it all: drabbles, gifs, manips, and incorrect quotes. For you, which would you say is your favorite art form? How do you balance creating them all?

I really love doing the incorrect quotes, they are fun and I enjoy looking for gifs to match!

Whatever inspiration hits first is what I will do, most of the time its manips/aesthetics that I do for other writer’s work. I love appreciating and promoting what people have created because I know the effort that goes into it. There are still so many works I would like to do an edit for!

If your creative process for these pieces was a person, describe him or her to us. What do they do? Wear? Listen to? How do they handle conflict?

She’s running around in a pink fur coat, stilettos, champagne in hand, chocolates stuffed in her cheek yelling “OH MY GOD!” at everything. I imagine her in a clothing store, the clothes being ideas, and she’s just grabbing everything pilling it onto her arm in a heap, eventually losing her balance and falling over. So when the shop assistant (my family) is like “Mam, you need to calm the hell down” she just runs to the next store, her champagne spilling as she wobbles down the sidewalk in the way-too-high stilettos. She probably listens to Taylor Swift in her pink drop top.

And what’s hers (and your) writing Kryptonite? How do you two battle it?

With regards to writing -I come up with the most amazing and original idea for a story and I manage to write one mind blowing paragraph and then I’m stuck. That’s why I take so long to create a story, it just takes me forever to get inspired again. I have a few WIP’s and I don’t know what to do with them!

Creating comes pretty easy and I haven’t had many hiccups while editing. I just suck at making video edits and I honestly wish I was better at it because I have so many ideas! I usually fight writer's block with generous amounts of wine.

If you did become that video-making mastermind, which one of those ideas would you explore first?

I always wanted to do an AU vid of Thiam just living life you know. Id also like to do a “trailer” for these amazing fics that’s been written, kind of like what was done for Airplanes!

I sense a perfect opportunity to practice your videographer skills, mentally, of course! Say you were the Jeff Davis of the Puppy Pack Teen Wolf Spin-Off. Describe your very first and last scene of the pilot episode? How would you put your personal touches on those two scenes?

Personal Touches: A-class lighting because we suffered enough with the ever loving darkness of Teen Wolf. I’d like to see the characters develop more of a personal style, Liam would probably wear more ‘jock’ outfits as he plays varsity lacrosse now. I’d love to put Theo in shorts for a change, maybe an early morning kitchen scene where he is wearing boxer shorts…okay I’m getting distracted.

Eeek! Okay so, the Opening scene would be Theo, Liam and Alec running from hunters, Theo has Liam by the arm, he pushes Liam and Alec into his truck and ducks in behind them. They speed off. Then he starts yelling at Liam “Are you crazy, Li?! I’m getting real tired of saving you!” (que fandom freaking because he is calling him “Li” now) and then at Alec “And you! What the hell did we tell you about sneaking out with Liam!?” Liam and Alec are just out of breath trying not to laugh at Theo. Theo calls Mason to confirm that they are fine.

Closing scene: Liam flops down on the couch in the McCall house, next to Theo (because that’s where he is staying now) “So, uh, thanks for coming to get us today”. “You’re an idiot” but Theo smiles. “How did you find me anyway?” Liam is twiddling his thumbs, “Tracked your scent” Theo gets up abruptly and leaves. Yup it’s going to be a slow burn!

Oooh, and which TW characters would you bring back as cameos or minor characters?

Frikken Danny! I feel like the guy deserved better. So definitely Danny. I’d make him the supernatural privy teacher at the high school. Brett would also come back -as a ghost haunting Liam, especially when Li gets angry then Brett would just be in the corner jabbing insults at him and the pack would look at him like he’s crazy when he yells at the wall to shut up. Scott would make regular appearances. Deaton, Argent and Melissa would be regulars, and I think a guest appearance by Jackson because for some reason they are going to need a vile of his Kanima venom. Kira’s going to come looking for her sword at one point. And Isaac shows up with Scott a few times.

I agree with you about Danny; we needed more of him! We should petition to get you in the writer’s room because I need your ideas to happen!!

How about gifs/manips specifically? Where does your inspiration for those stem from?

I would think of a scene that I really would have loved to happen and then I try to match it as best I can using existing material. Sometimes i would just be scrolling through gifs and I’d be like “oh wait! This with this is perfect!”

Ooh, up for a quick demonstration? Let’s pick one of your favorite fanfiction scenes lately. Which images/thought processes would stick out to you? Any specific gifs come to mind?

So let’s take Airplanes 28 for example. The scene where Liam is weighing up all his options about how to deal with his feelings and Theo asks what his problem is. I would use the scene from S6 in the locker room where Liam is punching the locker, it had a few different shots of Liam being frustrated. For Theo’s part I’d use the scene form 6x16 where he actually says ‘what is wrong with you”. Then I just use the app to edit and merge them and voila.

That’s pretty neat. I didn’t even know you could use apps to mash gifs together! If someone wanted to get started with creating manips/gifs, what advice/steps would you give them?

If you’re doing it from your phone, like me, you have to firstly find the right gif app preferably one that does video to gif and vice versa. There are a few that work really well, so hit me up if you want more detail! I’m also still learning so if anyone has any suggestions let me know.

We’ve chatted about your art for Thiam. Do you also create outside of the Thiam fandom? Original Fiction/Artwork? Other Fandoms?

I used to write and draw when I was younger, the Thiam fandom actually got me back into all of that! I don’t have any of my earlier writing works anymore but I still have drawings.

Aww, can you remember what you liked to write back then?

It was all fictional stories, mostly horrors! I loved writing scary stories, short or long and I would sometimes freak myself out a bit, especially late at night. I remember the one was about a guy whose car ‘broke down’ on a deserted road and he went looking for help at an old farmhouse and couldn't figure out why the people were so weird towards him, so after a few days he left, walking back down the road and he came across his car completely wrecked, his dead body hanging halfway out the door...he was a ghost haha.

Looking ahead, what’s one piece you’re working on that you’re dying for the pack to see?

Yes! This is a snipped of the AU I’m doing for the Movie fest:

-“That’s him,” Corey said nodding in Theo’s direction “that’s the Judo champ”,

By the time Liam realised he had been staring it was too late, Theo’s head was tilted to the side, an amused grin spread across his face as he looked down slowly at this abdomen and then back up at Liam. There was no reason for Liam to deny that Theo Raeken was gorgeous, that he looked like a demigod in the golden light of the street lamps, but this was not the time for these kinds of thoughts. ‘Get it together Liam’, he shook his head as if to rid his mind of Judo Boy.-

I will also attempt some manips for this piece!

Ooh, intriguing. How dare you stop there! I guess we’ll just have to wait until next week, smh. One final anecdote before we wrap up?

Characters often find themselves in situations they aren’t sure they can get themselves out of. When was the last time you found yourself in situation like that and what did you do?

The PA of our department at work tried to sell me sex toys from this ridiculously expensive catalogue and tried to make me have a sex toy party for my birthday because she would get a free gift and commission for it. First I said, but my friends and family ain’t about that life, and she’s like “No I’ll just invite all my friends it's fine” (to my birthday?? Okay bih). So then I said I’ll think about it hoping she’d forget. She didn’t. Eventually I told her that I’m not doing anything for my birthday but thanks.

Oh no, she didn’t! It was your birthday smh. You’re stronger than me! Not only would she convince me to throw the party, I’d have bought at least two things from that freaking catalogue haha! Well, we’re coming to an end, but first, what’s next for you? Both in life and in the creation world?

Career wise I’d like to do a few courses, and really start going into the direction of what I really love, which is anything creative, instead of just doing a 9-5 to pay bills, you know? So I’m going to look for a way to bring these two worlds together so that I can always do what I love. Fandom wise, I really want to do more writing, explore different characters and ships!

And, we’ll be over here, looking forward to more of your writing! Finally, Is there anything else you’d like to say? The floor is all yours. Dance away!

I hardly get to writing my own ideas so I’m reluctant to say that I'll take prompts for fics and frankly I take so long to write that it will be disappointing, however, if someone has a scenario/idea for an incorrect quote, manip or aesthetic requests, I’m all for it! I would love to do it! Other than that i just want to thank this entire fandom, you guys are keeping this ship sailing and its beautiful! Keep doing what you’re doing!

Aww, thank YOU for writing, creating, and giving us a lens into your world! I’ll be looking forward to the day you gift us with all the Thiam videos haha. From there, we give you Glitter-cake20.

As always, you can keep the conversation going; respond to any of her thoughts, ask more questions, send a prompt, or simply swing by for a chat with Sammy anytime. To dive into her works, check out her Tumblr. You can also find her on instagram!

Tumblr: Glitter-cake20

Ask Box: glitter-cake20

Instagram: @spraybitch_chrisberry

That’s all for now, so stay warm, amused, and tuned for next week’s Movie AU edition with @underthegallowws.

Over and Out <3

Get involved in the Behind the Screen series! Have a Thiam Creator you fan over, from any platform (AO3, Tumblr, Wattpad, Instagram, FFN, etc). Please send us their names. Bonus points if you include any questions you’re dying to ask them. Likewise, if you as the creator, would like to be a part of the Behind the Screens series, give us a shout too! We’d love to get to know you, as well.

#thiam #teen wolf #glitter-cake20 #officialthiamlibrary #behind the screens

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