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hausofneptune · 4 months

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"spicy" takes / unpopular opinions

[astro notes no. 002]

IF IT DON’T APPLY LET IT FLY. everybody’s chart is different, if you have any aspects or placements mentioned in this post that don’t resonate with you, that means the energy didn’t manifest the way that i described due to other influences in your chart (or you being delusional, idk, you decide). also, when i speak on certain signs i'm referring to their archetype and the innate energy they express. just be mindful that there's a variety of ways these energies can manifest from person to person.

disclaimers | masterlist | ask

y’all stay talking about how hard scorpios have it but y’all don’t talk about the struggles capricorns face. especially capricorn moons?? have y’all ever encountered a capricorn moon that wasn’t in therapy or didn’t desperately need it??? they be facing the most insane level of emotional distress and then turn around and pick up more shifts and start studying harder like that shit finna help lmfao

the discourse surrounding 8H synastry is... odd to me. i feel like some people (specifically the tumblr/tiktok girlies) are romanticizing trauma bonding. y’all can talk about how good the sex is all y’all want, but unless you and the person involved have a good amount of self-awareness and are spiritually evolved enough (especially if y'all have your own 8H placements in your own charts), i feel like you’re just setting yourself up to be in a “toxic” relationship with somebody. it could just be my aqua venus talking, but the whole “baring your soul” to someone and developing a possessive/jealous bond with them don't sound fun to me. i would rather perish.

everyone talks about how dramatic your saturn return is but why does no one bring up how traumatic your 12H profection years are? being 23 was literally one of the most unhinged experiences i’ve ever had

i be tryna advocate for geminis because i know they’re just lil creative mercurial sponges and wanna have enough knowledge to see everything from every side… but why do some of them act like that? and you know what i mean. especially the more “unevolved” gemini placements, they be doing the most insane level of mental acrobatics and be contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian

i have to say this as an 8H moon, i understand what y’all mean when y’all say 8H, scorpio, and plutonian placements usually face a lot of vitriol from others for no reason, but honestly, some of y’all be using that as a justification for being paranoid and manipulative. operating from a place of pain, assuming that everybody is out to get you, and being hyper-vigilant of people’s intentions isn’t the type of behavior anyone should be trying to normalize. let that hurt go pookie <3

i feel like this has been spoken about before but i’ll never understand why water signs are constantly stereotyped as the emotional crybabies of the zodiac but fire signs aren’t? water signs can definitely be sensitive and existential but prominent fire placements will literally lose their mind over the smallest shit and then be cool 10 minutes later… yes i’m looking at you aries

speaking of aries, can we address the way that they’re literally the toddlers of the zodiac and very much so behave like it? idk as a pisces i have a soft spot for them, i love their childlike, carefree spirit, and the way they be throwing tantrums for fun tickles me

this note doesn’t pertain particularly to signs/placements but astrology in general. i am begging y’all (specifically the people who are newer/beginners to astrology) to use traditional studies as a starting point and to stop taking notes from these tiktoks and tumblr posts. there are astrologers on these platforms who have done the work and studied (love y'all), but there are a plethora who haven’t. i saw a post the other day where somebody said squares/oppositions don’t indicate conflict in a chart and i felt like i was losing my damn mind. i definitely recommend the astrology podcast as a starting point for beginners, chris brennan is amazing and i still find myself re-listening to a lot of his content

i talked to one of my mutuals the other day about this, but astrology is such an amazing tool, and y’all should use it for so much more than self-validation. y’all do not need to have a certain venus placement to be considered pretty. y'all do not need certain mercury or uranus placements to be considered intelligent/creative. y’all do not have to rely on [insert random asteroid here] to know what your future spouse is gonna look like, when/where y’all are gonna meet, how they’re gonna perceive you, etc. etc. etc. i understand the hype around shit like that is due to social conditioning/constructs, but there are so many more important, relevant things you can learn about yourself through astrology that don’t revolve around "aesthetics"

the girls are gonna hate me for this one, but i don’t understand the hype around lilith. and i say this as someone with a tight sextile between my sun and BML. there’s three versions of it, two of which don’t even technically exist, and then there’s a mean/true version that affects the accuracy. if anyone has more knowledge than me on the subject feel free to give me your input, because i feel like the insane amount of attention lilith gets has to do more with the whole “dark feminine archetype” trend that the tiktok/tumblr girlies love and less to do with its relevance from an astrology/astronomical lens (i feel this way about most asteroids honestly, but we’ll wake up that tea another time)

i don’t wanna get dragged so imma end this here, as always let me know if y’all have any aspects/placements mentioned and tell me how they manifest in your life/personality! and if you have any insight feel free to let me know as well. and don’t be messy. you will be blocked expeditiously. <3

click here to read part two!

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copperbadge · 6 months

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Told my therapist about NaClYoHo, and she likes the idea a lot. But she had a really important question that I couldn't answer: What happens at the end of November for people who want or need to continue?

Hey, I told mine too! She thought it was a smart way to systematize something that even people without ADHD struggle with. I did write a little about this in the manifesto but not in a systemic way, and perhaps I should add some kind of "What Happens After November?" onto the end, so thank you for asking this question!

No system works for every person, and often if a system does work, only part of it works. So when I went to write the manifesto, I wanted to make it as modular as possible. There's a reason that while NaClYoHo is a community, it's a very loose one, without a messageboard or discord or anything that would more intentionally bring people together. This is meant to be a framework on which you build your own home, not an apartment building.

So honestly, what happens at the end of November is up to you.

(I'm assuming for the rest of this post that you've been participating, but if you haven't, that's okay -- most of this should still apply, it's just less about "continuing momentum" and more about "committing to an idea".)

I talk a little in the manifesto about how doing this can help to systematize it -- having spent 30 days putting on a podcast and cleaning can teach you that it's easier than you think, and can put you in the habit. So if you feel it's good for you, keep doing what you're doing. Even posting about it, if you want. Maybe find a buddy you can talk to about it, or give it five minutes in therapy every week.

That said, doing this Every Day For A Month can also be tiring. I find it stressful! I manage the stress, but right now I look forward to giving myself permission not to see something dirty or broken and feel compelled to clean or fix it. Part of doing this in November, for me, is that the rest of the year I can say "Well, that's a November problem" and let it go. So you can, instead of keeping on, start keeping notes about what needs to be done, and either wait until next November, or designate a time period every few months to take care of it. Or have one day a week that's the Salty Pirate day, where you do dishes, or vacuum, or fold laundry or whatever.

NaClYoHo is going to taper gently for me -- it ends tomorrow, but some stuff is going to linger, like the craft projects I need to finish or the furniture I need to assemble that hasn't arrived yet. You can also do that -- keep cleaning as long as you have energy and, once you're feeling tired, stop for a bit.

Now, bearing in mind that I'm just a guy on the internet, it seems like your therapist is engaged with your process, so I would recommend bringing it back to her. She seems like the ideal person to help you make a plan for after November -- you can examine your options, maybe come up with some I haven't named, and discuss how each of them might impact you. And if you're checking in with her about it going forward, she can help you gauge how you're doing with it. At some point it might just be so habitual you don't need to worry about it as a process anymore -- or at some point you might need to set yourself a boundary.

It can be a little intimidating to put yourself so fully in control of something, but the only way you make this work for you is to make it your own. Whether that means continuing on with your whole chest, or shrinking it down for the rest of the year, or stopping -- you get to decide.

Good luck. :) And give your therapist a high five for me.

#naclyoho #national clean your home month

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stone-stars · 3 months

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Illuminate me on music!, I'm not good at it but I like hearing people talking things I don't know. So idk, start anywhere I wanna learn. Gimme music faces from emily's work

lol there's SO many places i could start. first, let me say that i get so in the weeds with this. you don't need to be me. however, murph and emily are really deliberate with their music placement so even if you don't go super deep, you can start to notice patterns, especially with the super frequently used songs.

when it comes to frequent songs, alli operationslipperypuppet also did a very helpful "hey how concerned should you be" breakdown of some common songs, which i'll link here. i would say if you want to start paying attention, some easy ones to check out and start listening for are the purge, unknown tome, kingshammer, valiant ol' cobb, mee maw's burden, a fate refused, the campaign themes, twinkling lights of galaderon, and a friend for life. all of these are available on spotify, with the exception of kingshammer, and have very consistent uses. (the bahumia theme isn't by emily, but is on spotify). if you want to hear kingshammer, a good use of it is around 50 minutes into c1e80, during hardwon's flashback (ad free, so you might have to go later for ads)

another thing to note is certain songs get very specific meanings when applied to given characters. mee maw's burden and unknown tome are used incredibly consistently throughout bev sr's hell arc. twinkling lights of galaderon and a bastard no more/hardwon takes the wheel (both names have been used) are used throughout hardwon's.

emily also tends to write a lot of location-based music. a lot of cities have their own themes and their own instrumentation. a great example of this is the tsunaire interlude from c3, which has a very unique sound. also for example, the crick tends to have a lot of similar instrumentation. if you listen through the crick album on spotify, you can start to hear it. there's a lot of strings/piano, drums, and a lot of notes are drawn out in a very specific way.

it's very consistent. there are also like 200+ songs written for this podcast at this point, and so knowing every one of them is insane. but if you start to be like "i've heard this song before, where did i hear it" chances are it's in a moment that connects thematically. i can go into a lot more detail about any of this, this kinda became a "hey here's how to start tracking naddpod music" post more than anything and not really about the themes/uses of songs, but! yeah!

some fun little bonus notes of songs that are only used a few times but that i am insane about the repetition of:

a song called "torn apart" is used when moonshine opens the rift to the feywild during the tarrasque fight, and also when the world is breaking apart after the thiala fight and the boobs heal it

"i just want to know you're taken care of" is the song that is played when moonshine tells paw paw to write up her will. it's also played when lydia tells her that she deserves to be heard by her friends and she should tell them about her plans in hell. it's also used in c3 when callie tells foster that she's sorry for not giving him love.

"a memory" is introduced in episode 100 as thiala shows everyone the failed past adventurers and the "wheel of sorrow". it has recently been used in c3 for both references to the boobs and to melora's adventuring party (melora/telaine/aryox)

there is a specific royalty free (i think) choral song that plays when gemma appears at the party, when gemma dies, when jaina almost kills hardwon, and then later when hardwon dies at scarlet montgomery's hands. do with this what you will.

this isn't about a reuse but the song that plays in ep 70 when moonshine and lucanus are talking is called "a miracle child" and i need more people to know that.

i am insane about "a glittering reunion" (from melora and telaine's in 97) on so many levels. telaine is the piano. melora is the strings. i need to lay down.

#naddmusic tag #hanbles #naddplog #going insane about music on this friday #ask #i hope this is. at all helpful lol

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anonymous-dentist · 3 months

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I've gotta actually feel bad for the helpful members of the wiki team because they all know that their wiki is god awful for any kind of accurate information. It got to the point in December where they'd stream working on the wiki to prove that it's a totally legitimate service but like. Also it's objectively terrible! Any website trying to gather and consolidate information should focus on, you know, having accurate information before trying to make it big via connections with the Quackity Studio Team and with ccs.

Like, did you know that the wiki supposedly has a podcast going with ccs to talk about Lore And Stuff? With a whole One Single Episode? And then there's them reaching out to streamer mods to ask about boundaries to put on the wiki that's a whole Problem in itself, and the wiki team repeatedly sending weird unfunny donos to Fit and "jokingly" heckling him and Tubbo and Phil and whatever cc they feel that they can "banter" with despite not knowing these people whatsoever and despite the ccs really just not giving a shit about the wiki anymore. Like, I don't think a single cc outside of the one dude that did the podcast with the wiki team has mentioned the wiki in any substantial way since November when Cellbit called the wiki and its members out for messing with both his and Richarlyson's pages- without citation or reason- to add the family dynamic.

But then the team has its connections within the Quackity Studios team itself, and that's how it gets some of its information about the server itself. And that's admirable in its own way, I guess, but the way certain members of the wiki team act really just makes it seem like they're trying to nepotism their way(s) into making it big and/or make it onto the Q Studios team itself.

And the thing is? There are people on the team who at least seem to genuinely want to make the wiki a useful tool again. They know that they have problems, but things are rarely ever fixed because whether or not it's fixed depends heavily on which admin is online when you @ them on Twitter or dm them. In my own experience, I've been ghosted for over 12 hours before a different admin got online and answered me, and then a third different admin got back to me after that. The first time I dmed them, two different admins dmed me, and their responses were entirely different. One was helpful, the other just kinda brushed off my concerns entirely.

Going through the wiki's twitter account, you can see exactly where the wiki's priorities lie, because the majority of the account is non-stop retweeting of (very good!!) fanart of the English-speaking ccs, primarily Philza and the "Death Family", as they call Phil and Missa and Tallulah and Chayanne and Wilbur. Sometimes it's Fit instead. Very rarely will you find any retweeted art of the Brazilian or Hispanic ccs outside of the occasional Guapoduo/Spiderbit fanart, and there's very rarely French fanart retweeted. I've never seen fanart of the Hispanic ccs retweeted. I don't think I've seen fanart of a single female cc retweeted ever from any language. When art of the Death Family is retweeted, it rarely contains Missa; it's mostly all just Phil fanart, which just really shows the bias going on because you know which wiki admin is behind all this. They're the same one who donates to Fit every day and tries bantering with the ccs and tried applying to Purgatory and... yeah.

Oh, and the wiki's One Certain Admin will just come out and tweet that something is canon without it being canon. Take their tweet from what I think was the second day of Purgatory, aka when Baghera and Cellbit jokingly called Phil "dad" out of character, and when that One Certain Admin tweeted (this is paraphrased, btw), "So the found family is canon now! Let's put it on the wiki!"

And when the wiki's account will retweet other things that aren't canon, like calling the Prison Ghost "the Ghost of q!Cellbit" on the first day of prison without waiting for confirmation.

And it's HORRIBLE because I know that there are "good" wiki admins on the team! They can be very helpful! They're so willing to work with Tumblr and our complaints that they listened to me when I recommended they make a Tumblr account so we can have open communication with them rather than have everything depend on the Twitter community, and they're working on the account and putting a little team together for it as of last week when we last corresponded.

It's just that. The wiki sucks. It's a mess of disinformation and headcanons with no citations and no protections against disinformation. They could lock down certain pages until things are cleared up. They could appoint only certain people to be able to work on character pages to ensure fact-checking and citing.

They could do anything, but they won't because information isn't the wiki's priority anymore. It's starting to become clear that the point of the wiki is to be the wiki with no actual work put into being the wiki. And it's sad, because the wiki used to be actually useful for so long. But, at some point, it stopped being reliable, and you can see the public starting to realize it starting in November when the wiki account started trying to do literal damage control streams to show that the wiki is reliable, and then there's now when ccs who used to reference the wiki all the time rarely do so because they know that it isn't an actual source of information anymore.

Imagine that.

#as someone who does academic research for fun #who almost has a degree in historical research. who is probably going into law.#the lack of actual citations on that website HURTS

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threebooksoneplot · 8 months

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Question for G :)) how was your fanauthor workshop experience? I don't know if I should apply it sounds interesting but at the same time almost no reviews or whatsoever. Thank you!

well I ended up doing it a second time, so I'd say it was pretty damn good! I think the reason there are "no reviews" is mostly due to tumblr's format not really lending itself to that? @fanauthorworkshop isn't marketing itself as a product so much as a pedagogical (educational) extension of the existing fandom gift economy—an exchange where you both learn stuff and share/teach stuff!

this answer is mildly off-podcast-topic and it's gonna get super long and wordy, so it's under a cut lol you're welcome

my Fanauthor Workshop experience

personally, I found the FAW perfect for me. I was at the point in my fic writing where I was getting some lovely comments and glowing praise, but also wishing the world in general took fanfiction more seriously, as a craft to be practiced and discussed, something with both intrinsic and literary merit. @bettsfic's first episode as a guest on Fansplaining really resonated with me and kind of spoke to that desire (it's a must-listen for anyone on the fence about applying to the FAW!!)

but I had never studied creative writing at a university level, and barely knew what a crit letter was. I found the FAW was the perfect way to learn that sort of thing in a low-stress environment! I didn't struggle with feelings of burdensome obligation the way I had with schoolwork; rather I was excited to read everyone else's writing and see what it had to teach me. I also loved having an appropriate venue to air all my writing opinions, lol. I found I was so motivated that I managed to attend every FAW session even though it conflicted with family vacations two years in a row. I wrote crit letters from the lobby of a restaurant in a national park because it was the only place with wifi. I even Zoomed into one session from a random public library in Durango, where I managed to alarm everyone else in the irl vicinity with my enthusiastic discussion of fictional cannibalism (shoutout to the story we workshopped that day, it SLAPPED.)

personally, I approached the FAW with the very specific goal of Having Fun first and letting the writing stuff come second (ie, not putting too much pressure on myself when it came to choosing and polishing my own workshop pieces, and not worrying too much about how they were received.) I still ended up getting some AMAZING critiques and responses to my two (very different) pieces—I was deeply impressed by everyone's insights, how much they were able to pick up on, and how willing they were to meet me at my level. the other pieces we workshopped ranged all over the place in technical ability, from "giohvnsksbnf this writing is so good I'm gonna fucking eat glass" to "this person is clearly just starting out as a writer, but even if their prose has some technical mistakes, their story has Good Bones and their critiques and discussion observations have been spot on."

my big secondary goal was to Make Friends and there I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. I now have SO many cool FAW mutuals, a few of which I have hung out with IRL and the rest of which I totally WOULD hang out with IRL if given the opportunity. they're all uniquely creative and clever people who I probably wouldn't have met otherwise, so that's kind of the biggest Win for me. it's so cool knowing I have all these people I could DM out of the blue and be like "hey, would you mind looking over this short story/beta-ing this fic chapter?" and end up with some great insights. there's also an FAW Discord where anyone can kind of bring fandom- and writing-related questions to the floor, as well as share recs and self-promote projects (or in my case, recruit podcast guests who I know have been pre-screened for both their chill lack of pearl-clutching and their basic fiction-analyzing skills, lol.)

I would recommend the Fanauthor Workshop if:

you're a self-taught writer who's done most of your learning in the fanfiction space and you're curious about how writing is actually taught in academic settings

alternatively, you're a writer from an academic background who chafes at some of the more restrictive rules in traditional workshops/you're tired of the irl Guy in Your MFA -types who refuse to or can't engage with your work on its level

you're ok with doing some "homework" (writing two crit letters per week) on the honor system

you're down to read original work in a wide variety of genres/read fic from fandoms you're not in (maybe even fandoms/pairings/characters you don't personally like)

you like what you read in @oficmag

you wish fanfiction was taken more seriously as a craft

your favorite trad-published writers all seem to be workshop alumni (eg: I swear half of my favorite writers are Clarion grads)

you have work you'd like to publish and/or submit someday but you're not sure if it's ready/not sure where to start

you follow writing advice blogs or send them asks

you wish people would leave "concrit" (constructive criticism) on your fics

you wish people would leave concrit on your fics but you're worried they might be too mean or not "get" your work

you wish people would analyze your work and give critique without letting their personal value judgments get in the way (and you're ready to do the same in turn)

you worry your work is too niche, kinky, queer, romance-focused, or "weird" for a traditional workshop (note: but it doesn't have to be any of these things. people also workshopped gen and the equivalent of coffee shop AUs!)

you'd like to hear perspectives that don't come from cishet dudes

you enjoy Class Participation and discussions (or maybe you're no longer a student and miss that kind of thing!)

you think @bettsfic seems like a good teacher (spoiler: she REALLY is)

you like the idea of a creative writing class with no grades or possibility of "failure"

you'd like to meet people you probably wouldn't meet in any other setting, and make some cool friends from other fandoms

if even a couple of these bullet points sound like you, you'd probably get a lot out of the FAW!! I hope the next session of FAW-ers have a blast. I'll be lurkin the Discord rooting for y'all

#asks #fanauthor workshop #anonymous

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canmom · 1 day

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what's the book for? part 0

youtube

I watched this three hour video! It is primarily a critique of the story games/Forge mode in TTRPG design, seeing it as the fruit of a condescending behaviourism, which to youtuber Vi Huntsman is painfully reminiscent of the 'Applied Behaviour Analysis' abusive treaments that are often applied to autistic children! Oof! Quite a charge...

...though it only gets there after the first hour or so! There's a segment where they do a stage production of an abridged version of a segment in Sunless Skies!

So... despite 'three hour video essay titled Art, Agency, Alienation' being kind of a punchline in itself, despite occasionally the kind of indulgence you tend to only see in got-way-too-big video essay channels, this video is actually pretty legit. I used to be quite the story game partisan and this is perhaps the best critique I've seen of it!

I think the thrust of Vi Huntsman's critique has merit, but it ends up feeling... honestly broader than I think they meant it - many dimensions seem to apply to almost any printed TTRPG. I also found their conclusion, which calls for more adventures and similar to support the 'folk art' of RPGs, extremely underwhelming - more a statement of taste than an answer to the blistering criticisms of the previous three hours.

So here's my own attempt at an answer. Or at least to lay out the premises we'd need to reach an answer, I'm not there yet!

tl;dw

Let me try and break it down into a tl;dw version. (I'll brush past the lead-in which talks about The Stanley Parable and Severance, used to frame the discussion.)

First up, ABA is an abusive practice inspired by radical behaviourism. In ABA, a behaviour analyst decides how a child should behave, and applies crude reward/punishment structures to get the child to do as they want, without trying to understand the underlying reasons. For example, an analyst may try to stop a child covering their ears when flushing the toilet, even though this is painful for the child. This analogy runs through the video. It is clearly quite personal for Huntsman, who I'm fairly sure is autistic themselves, and apparently worked at some point in attempting to apply the 'treatments' cooked up by the behavioural analysts.

Now, there is a perspective in game design that believes that the designer's responsibility is to create structures of rewards and perhaps punishments to push a player towards a specific intended experience - i.e. 'incentives'. In this light, game design is envisioned almost as a kind of spooky mind control to create behaviour in players, though the methods imagined to do so are in fact very crude.

The other element Huntsman introduces is the notion of 'Suitsian games', after the philosopher Bernard Suits, which are self-contained rules structures creating interesting obstacles to reach some kind of arbitrary goal (for example: capture king, place ball in hoop), where the interesting aspect is the new 'agency' created by the limitations of the rules. Huntsman argues that TTRPGs are not Suitsian games, and it's a big mistake to act as if they are.

They present some examples of a disdainful attitude among designers that players are like children whose behaviour is determined only by the game itself, despite all evidence to the contrary. A particularly damning example is a podcast episode in which a game designer who is also an ABA behavioural analyst attempts to explain how games should more deliberately apply direct incentives in their design.

This attitude, Huntsman argues, results in games (here books you can buy instructing you what to do) which attempt to meticulously shape play (the actual thing that happens at the table) to push it towards a very specific intended experience, often by rigidly defining processes for nearly every stage of the game, similar to a board game. This undercuts the open-endedness of TTRPGs, the major strength of the medium.

The roots of the pernicious ideology, in Huntsman's view, go back to the Forge forums, a cultish forum about game design run by a terribly arrogant man called Ron Edwards, known for Sorcerer and Trollbabe. Many of the major game designers active in the indie scene today come from the Forge, and they tend to somewhat nepotistically promote each other, including writing a very self-back-patting textbook.

In a section termed 'the can of worms', Huntsman suggests that elements like the 'agendas' and 'principles' and 'GM moves' amount to designers taking undue credit for player creativity, with designers claiming that fairly boilerplate GM advice framed as rules is what makes the game work, with the corollary if the game doesn't work you weren't following the GM rules properly and thus weren't really playing the game.

Some of these games tell you off for interesting ways you might hack or vary their rules, insisting that they be interpreted strictly and narrowly to get the 'intended' experience

This is all about selling a product - the idea that you need this specific book in order to create a certain kind of experience, when in reality the book does very little to actually contribute to the 'folk art' of playing an RPG together.

The main example used to illustrate all this is Root: The RPG, a TTRPG adaptation of the extremely popular asymmetric board game about forest animals having a civil war. The TTRPG is printed by a company called Magpie Games which specialises in PbtA designs, probably best known for Masks. They tend to do very well on Kickstarter, but their games - often IP tie-ins - are not especially memorable. Vi Huntsman praises the original board game, but has little positive to say about the TTRPG spinoff.

From what I saw in the video, Root is definitely a strong example of a shallow PbtA game which borrows the surface-level forms of Apocalypse World (moves, agendas, etc.) to create something bland and unengaging. It commits many design sins - far too many uninteresting moves, a dearth of evocative prompts to get you into the idea of the game, locking certain reasonable actions to specific playbooks, repetitive prose, a lack of conceptual clarity, dogmatic insistence that its rules must be followed to the letter... Clearly we can all skip this game.

But...

the role played by a roleplaying book

What's more interesting to me is the broader critique.

The video does not directly address Root's obvious parent Apocalypse World in much depth. Huntsman notes that most of Root's ideas are cribbed from there and that Magpie Games have been less and less likely to acknowledge Vincent and Meguey as time goes on; the pair are also included in the Pepe Silvia wall used to illustrate the reach of the Forge. However, they do not really address whether their criticisms apply to Apocalypse World.

To my eye, Apocalypse World is still a lot better than almost all of its many, many imitators. Part of that is the strength of its prose - and that is actually very important, for reasons I'll get into. So I think it would be better to look at the best of this tradition, rather than its worst.

But before we can get into that, the real question for me is this. What is the relationship between the paper object in your hands or PDF on your computer, and that mystical thing that happens when you and your friends gather around a table and tell a story together for four or five hours?

Begin series.

#roleplaying games #story games #ttrpg #tabletop roleplaying #Youtube

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johannestevans · 1 year

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Writing individual character voices is one of those skills where the best way to learn is by listening, but the problem with advice that amounts to “Just listen!” is knowing precisely what you’re listening for.

Dialogue in fiction, regardless of the medium, can be difficult in itself to craft — in writing a dialogue between characters, you want to write speech that reads as natural to how real people talk to one another, but also does what you need it to within the text, whether that’s to drive the plot forward, to show tension or conflict between characters, to be a vehicle for humour, tragedy, and so on.

But the thing about dialogue in any extended narrative is that it’s exchanged between those who are, hopefully, developed characters in their own right, and therefore will have their own unique, distinctive voices.

Crafting these voices and ensuring that they are strong and individual to the characters they belong to is a complex process that has a lot of moving parts. When we’re listening to dialogue in a radio show or a podcast, or when we’re listening to dialogue from a TV show or movie, many of us can differentiate between the current speakers based on aspects like the depth of the character’s voices, the way they use tone, their accents.

I say “many of us” because this isn’t always the case — many people who are D/deaf or Hard of Hearing may not be able to differentiate between speakers based on these more subtle cues alone, and not everyone has an ear for the more subtle distinctions between certain accents.

For me personally, the litmus test for good, strong character voice is this: if you put only your dialogue on a page, and include no dialogue tags to tell the reader who is speaking, will your reader still be able to tell who is saying what?

Before I get on with the rest of this guide, I just want to note that what I’m not going to do is include a list of ways to write dialogue and imply that some are correct and some are wrong — I have my personal preferences and pet peeves, but I believe that just listing the “right” ways to write dialogue would be just as useless as saying, “Just listen!”

My priority here is listening to character dialogue in order to craft our own, but specifically, it’s about how to listen and what to listen for.

This guide is going to be separated into 5 sections, each with a variety of questions to ask yourself about the character in front of you, what their voice sounds like, and why it sounds that way, with examples and comparisons.

The guide as a whole is pretty intensive, so feel free to give it a scan, see what bits you’re most interested in going over, and then come back to it later. This guide is written with analysis in mind, so you might want to come to it when you have a spare hour to really dig into it, as a lot of it is posed in forms of questions to ask yourself, which might be overwhelming if you just want to read through the guide casually.

What I’m going to focus on instead is a list of core questions you can ask yourself while analysing character voice that you can then turn around and apply to your own work. It’s by no means an exhaustive list of every question you could or should ask yourself when listening to dialogue or writing it, but my hope is to cover a wide range here to give you enough angles to work with.

Last disclaimer is that I’m a white, English-speaking guy for whom English is my first language — we all have personal biases in terms of how we process language use and conversation, but as a white first language English-speaker, my biases are more likely to be accepted as truth or default without further examination.

Part of the reason crafting strong voice is so important is because of the ways language use and accent particularly can be policed and targeted for prejudicial reasons, and one of the things it’s important to be cognizant of as writers from any background, but particularly as white EFL (English First Language) writers, is harmful stereotypes and stigma associated with certain accents, dialects, and vocal tics. It’s not just bad, lazy writing — it’s alienating to readers who may be from those backgrounds or have those tics, and can uphold harmful misrepresentations that bear no similarity to real life.

So, the five sections are:

how a voice sounds I (tone, pitch, texture, volume)

where a voice comes from (accent and dialect, as influenced by the character’s background, age, class, time period, etc)

what a voice says (choices made in speech, including character expressions, language use, direct versus indirect communication, personality)

how a voice sounds II (speech patterns, filler words, verbal stims, tics, repetitions)

what a voice means (values communicated in speech, additional information that can be inferred from speech analysis that isn’t just from accent and slang)

These sections are loosely grouped and all of them will and do have crossover, each of them impacting the other, but splitting into sections just makes things easier to digest than a big wall of text.

#dialogue #writing dialogue #writing advice #writing #it would have been wonderful if i could have uploaded this directly to tumblr but tumblr absolutely refused #idk if it's bc there were too many links maybe?

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drdemonprince · 1 year

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While we are on the subject of eating disorders, I will once again send praise at the book Saving Our Own Lives by Shira Hassan, as it’s the first book I’ve ever read to apply a harm reduction framework to eating disordered behaviors.

Nearly every available piece of writing or scholarship on the subject of eating disorders assumes that a goal of recovery should be imposed on every sufferer whether they like it or not, and takes an abstinence based approach. this frankly does not make any sense, given that such a large number of behaviors and choices humans engage in on a daily basis can be wrapped up in an eating or excessive exercise disorder and ripping them all out of your life at once to attain a state of abstinent ‘recovery’ is impossible.

this is even more true when you take into account the fact that for many people, eating disordered behaviors serve many purposes. the book really helped firm up my own slow but steady realization that walking long distances each day, which i used to do as a form of excessive exercise was also a great autistic stim. it also provided me a satisfying way to zone out and drench my mind in podcasts when i was miserably lonely and consumed with compulsive negative thoughts.

my almost religious adherence to a daily walking schedule was eating disordered, of that i have no doubt. but it also gave a structure to my day and got me out of the house. in addition, my tireless exercise habits & eating restrictions were one of the few areas in my life where i have always felt comfortable expressing my boundaries.i might not have felt comfortable telling people not to touch me or not to speak to me in a certain way, but i always had the courage to tell someone i wasn’t going to eat something that i didn’t want to or that i needed to leave a function early so i’d have time for my exercise.

i also now realize that i have a very obsessive, ruminative mind, and fixating on numbers like miles walked was actually a better outlet than some of the other places my mind often went back then. eating disorders are one of the most dangerous and deadly mental health diagnoses around, so i dont say this lightly. it was still a less damaging outlet than some of the others i was flirting with at the time. my long ponderous hours of over exercise i found a lot of space and quiet to just simply think my little thoughts to myself, and a lot of that went some good places ultimately.

in an abstinence-only view of eating disorders that posits a person must only and always strive for “full recovery,” acknowledging the positive role an ED played in my life is not allowed. and that kind of binary thinking simply isn’t helpful, because my needs for physical stimulation, and time alone, and a means for expressing my boundaries were always gonna be there, and needed an outlet, and would find one of some kind no matter what.

over the years that i was not well, my eating disorder behaviors shifted, becoming less physically destructive while still scratching the psychological itch and not being “great” in a black and white sense. was walking long distances every day great for my health from a recovery or abstinence pov? no. but it was a lot better than what i did before. i had much more dangerous ED behaviors before that. instead of feeling ashamed of myself for having “backslid” in my recovery and still resorting to such methods, 2014-2015 me ought to have just been proud of myself for finding a way to meet my needs that wasn’t as destructive as the ones that had come before, and actually had a few side benefits.

i have not seen many people at all talking about EDs from a harm reduction pov and i think that it is desperately needed. online, all we see is a lot of well intentioned encouragement to make a ‘recovery’ that comes with many prescriptions for how a person ought to be living and what they ought to want. if you are still active in your eating disorder and not committed to recovery, then, the toxicity of the pro-ana and pro-mia spaces is the only place left to turn to, and that makes matters so much worse.

i wish we could develop the online, eating disorder equivalent of needle exchange spaces for people who use intravenous drugs and have no plan to quit. spaces where people can discuss strategies for mitigating the harm of their ED without being admonished for not valuing recovery yet, or ever. so much trauma is done in the name of forcing people to get ‘better’ when they don’t want to.

liberatory harm reduction is all about embracing an individual where they are at and not imposing an external value system or set of goals upon them, trusting that they are the only and ultimate authority on what they do with their body. and this does not just apply to drug use or sex, it applies to what we typically call eating disordered behaviors too. people with eating disorders often have a fractured sense of selfhood and autonomy, and institutionalizing them against their will or forcing them to eat certain things or to not exercise just further reinforces those issues for them much of the time.

im very happy to be recovered from an ED now, but for many years i did not want to be recovered, and the recovery-fits-all approach to the disorder meant i lied to every medical professional i ever saw and all of my family and friends. i wonder what an explicitly harm reduction rooted approach to living with an ED would have looked like for me.

#eating disorder tw

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 6 months

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Well that was a hell of a Taskmaster episode, wasn’t it? Episode 8 might have been my favourite so far of season 16. Brilliant performances across the board, I thought. I haven’t written liveblogs for most of this season because I’ve been watching it on these rich people’s giant wall-sized projector, like a private movie theatre, which is cool as fuck but means I have my computer across the room and hooked up to the thing, rather than on my lap where I can type. But I have to say a few things about this one after the fact.

So, first of all, remember how I made a post a few days ago about how it seems like comedians can’t focus much on anyone else when they’re asked to talk about a group of people that includes Sam Campbell? I find it funny that this episode confirmed that this rule applies even to his fellow Taskmaster season 16 contestants, as three of the four of them picked his name when asked to yell one.

I mean, I find it funny now, as we know the points worked out evenly. At the time, I was yelling at the giant screen like it was a major sports game, saying, “No! Come on, stop it! Pick someone else! Okay, Sam, I think everyone else is out to get you so you really need to be the first to find it. No! No, don’t leave the room it’s in! Come on, man! Look around you!” Because his victory in the season seems pretty assured at this point, but the sort of thing that could fuck it up would be some task where he not only doesn’t win, but ends up down by five points.

Luckily it didn’t matter, because he was so popular that he got picked to lose five points but also to gain five points. Because of course he did! Because of course if you ask a bunch of comedians in England in 2023 to name what comedian comes to mind when they think of someone who might be doing too well and will therefore be a threat to them, they’re going to say “Sam Campbell” and then try to think about other people.

Guys, I think the industry might be looking at him. Like some sort of one-eyed pigeon. But he’s just glad people are talking about him.

Anyway, the rest of the episode. What a good episode. The prize task, as Ed Gamble pointed out on the podcast, was pretty much just “bring in a thing”. But it gave everyone a chance to shine. Julian’s jacket has to be one of the Taskmaster prizes that I’d most like to own. A top quality Lucy story, one so absurd and so well delivered that it overcome the way I have been slightly put off by learning she genuinely believes all this stuff and it’s not just a schtick, and I didn’t even care, because this one was so funny. Every word made the story funnier. And Sam made me choke on my water from laughter when he revealed that his prize has nothing to do with his story, he just wanted to tell a story. I’d argue that he should have been given more points based on the fact that cobalt is objectively pretty and does look impressive after a drum roll, but then, I am biased by the way I back him like a sports team.

Then we have the secret task, which… I wasn’t sure what I wanted, whether I wanted this to pay off in some big way, or whether I thought it would be funnier to build it up and have it turn out to be nothing at all. I have to admit that this seemed slightly less interesting than either of those options – just make it a regular task. But I think that was made up for by Sam Campbell’s reaction to learning this. As Ed also pointed out on the podcast, all the way along, when Alex has brought up the secret task, most people have sort of rolled their eyes and ignored it. Except Sam, who’s looked interested and distracted and like he knows they’re playing some sort of trick on him and desperately wants to figure out what it is.

And after all that time and all that wondering, Alex just drops on him that it was only a normal task all along. And they’re about to just get on with things, with no mention of the fact that this task has been foreshadowed for ages, but then Sam stops them and says wait, wait… has this task been available to find all along? Like… was the secret task scavenger hunt ever even real? And Alex says it’s just been on his mind. And the look of disappointment on Sam’s face is funny enough to be worth more than whatever other payoffs I was hoping for.

Okay, this brings me to another point, which is that Ed Gamble on the podcast has been constantly saying that he’s surprised by how well Sam is doing, because he knew Sam Campbell had the creativity and talent, but thought he might just go out and mess around and not care about winning. So he’s impressed that Sam seems so competitive. But I don’t think Sam is really competitive, the way someone like Mae Martin was. He’s not arguing points in the studio or anything like that.

I think Sam Campbell has the same type of competitiveness that Hugh Dennis had, which is a weird comparison because that’s probably the only thing in the world that Sam Campbell has in common with Hugh Dennis. Hugh Dennis didn’t use to care about the points specifically, he was never bothered if he got robbed in the judging, but he did work really hard to do as well as possible in every task. Which might be slightly less fun than full-on Mae Martin (or, for that matter, Ed Gamble)-style competitiveness, but it’s still pretty good (as I’ve said before, I’m not too bothered by the lack of Gamblian argumentative competitiveness in season 16, as all rumours point to it coming back next season).

Part of why I called Sam Campbell as the winner is you can see in his comedy an ability to do the lateral thinking while keeping track of a bunch of other things at once, the videos and the props and everything else that’s going on. Most people who’ve done Taskmaster talk about how they fuck things up because it’s hard to remember all the rules and all the resources when you’re under pressure, and just do one thing at a time but will forget something else and then everything’s fallen down. Sam Campbell keeps not doing that, which is so cool to watch. Right from the first task, lying down after putting a can on the tower to avoid making any further mistakes. And you see it in all these little things. Like in that one live task where they were all cooperating by putting balls on each other’s hats for them, a move that Ed Gamble or Mae Martin simply wouldn’t have done at all. Sam does it, but when he has a ball ready and sees that Lucy already has two balls in her hat so putting one more there will win her the task, he turns away from her and puts one in Susan’s hat instead. Whimsical cooperation but still with an eye on accomplishing the set task. I love watching that kind of thing on Taskmaster. I love watching him plan things and do stuff deliberately while everyone else just panics under a time crunch.

And all that makes it extra funny when it just blows up in his face completely. Like when he did so well in the fish-mouse task, thought quickly and creatively enough to draw extra mice for extra credit, only to learn that it wasn’t a real task. Or when he’s the only contestant who’s able to keep the hunt for the secret in his mind at the same time as everything else, only to be told there wasn’t a special secret at all, it was just a task that everyone would do. And I have chosen to blame this disappointment for his uncharacteristically poor performance in the task, not looking in a fairly obvious place.

Oh, sorry, am I focusing on Sam Campbell too much? Look, at this point I’m developing enough of a SamCam obsession so people are lucky if I can have a conversation with them where I don’t mention Sam Campbell even if the topic isn’t Taskmaster. I’m certainly getting stuck on him when I am discussing Taskmaster. But it’s okay, because that’s something I have in common with all British comedians.

Though having said that, I do need to mention how funny Lucy Beaumont playing the horn was. And obviously Team Sue running around like preteen best friends at summer camp. And the JLS dynamics, with Julian wearily giving out advice about something he doesn’t care about, while Lucy is off in her own world. Great way to showcase all those dynamics, a task like this where they’re all in the same place but working separately.

And then we have the task that was stolen from Taskmaster NZ, which is a bit weird because they make a bunch of jokes that suggest it wasn’t stolen from Taskmaster NZ. Like Greg saying a “fortune trail” is something Alex made up, when it was clearly made up by Sam Smith (the guy who writes the tasks from TM NZ, not – you know, the other one of those). I was surprised they used an adapted task like this one, one that has a secret way to make it much easier, so if any of the contestants had seen Taskmaster NZ season 3, they could instantly crack this task. Of course, it turns out that famous comedians and actors have a busier schedule than I do, so none of them had time to sit around watching every episode to TM NZ season 3 as it came out. More’s the pity, they all missed out on Josh Thomson, whose frantic, intense hyper-competitiveness have made him one of my favourite contestants from any Taskmaster season. And his total meltdown in the fourtune trail task was one of my favourite parts of the season.

I wasn’t surprised that none of the season 16 contestants had seen it, though I was slightly surprised that apparently Ed Gamble hasn’t seen it, as he made no mention on the podcast of it being originally an NZ task. I see why they brought it over, and I liked it – I’ve enjoyed almost every NZ task that’s been used on Taskmaster. And while nothing in this task quite matched the beauty of the original task with Josh’s breakdown, this was still quite good. The way several of them found the lucky penny but none thought to use it. The way they were all so sure of themselves all the way along. Julian somehow winning just by not caring at all. Again, obviously, I was yelling at the screen when I realized Sam had pocketed the lucky penny instead of using it for coin tosses.

And then… look, I wanted to try to tone down the Campbell focus in this post, but how can I do that when the last filmed task was the sleeping one? Yeah the others were funny, but who’s going to come away from that focusing on anything besides the bribing of a small child?

Actually, to be fair, I think the star of that task was Flossy. I don’t know where they got her, but she was perfect. Her face might have made me laugh more than anything else in that episode. Especially her dismissiveness of Lucy and her incredulity about Sam’s promise.

Obviously we’ll get answers, right? I’d hoped we’d get an extended version of that scene, but they just released new outtakes yesterday and none of them included an explanation of whether Sam paid the eight-year-old child. Ed Gamble did, however, promise on the podcast that he will look into it and deliver us an answer. Also, obviously Sam will be back on the podcast, since each season’s winner is the guest for that season’s finale episode. So Ed can ask Sam about it then.

The other stuff was funny too. Julian actually doing an okay job of seeming to sleepwalk, until for some reason he then walked back into bed. Lucy being ludicrously awful at it. Susan’s genuinely good acting, I think she’d have fooled me. Sue building contraptions like, as they said on the podcast, someone out of Home Alone or Ferris Buller. All of it was funny. But obviously Sam stole the show again. Credit should go to the editors on that one too, I loved the way they showed it. A Kumar-with-the-basketball-style backtrack and reveal.

What a fucking great idea. I will no longer consider any Taskmaster contestant sufficiently committed to the bit if they go a whole season without bribing a single small child.

And then they ended on a game of charades, which was also funny. Just a top quality episode. I’m sad that we’re getting into the last couple of episodes already, this season has been so much fun. Maybe the oddest group they’ve had, in there doesn’t seem to be a single person in the “straight man” role.

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tbb-appreciation-week · 1 year

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TAGS ARE YOUR BEST FRIENDS

Hello there!

In the pursuit of giving the participants tools for tagging their works correctly, thus allowing everyone else to curate their experience, I’ve put a non-comprehensive list of tags together that should be used if they apply to your work, during the event (and afterward, if you want).

There are gazillion other things that could be tagged too, but let’s be honest, it’s impossible to tag warnings for every single squick or trigger of every person in the world. So, I collected a list of the most common ones below. Like I said, this barely scratches the surface. It’s just a small guide for themes and things that you should warn about. If there’s anything else you think it needs tagging in your work, do it, please!

As the title says, tags are the best friends of both writers and readers. Use them to warn and/or block the content you write/read. Not only that! They also serve to finding the content you want to consume! You got the power. Use it!

I classify the tags into broad themes or issues, and then give some examples of specific tags within each theme. Those are just a few examples, not a complete list. Use your judgment to add others if your work requires them.

#️⃣ Explicit Language - For stories with excessive use of curse words

Curse words, foul language, profanity, etc.

#️⃣ Sexual Content - For fics where sexual content is explored and described in detail.

NSFW, Smut, kinks (specify which ones), mild/explicit depiction of sex, etc.

#️⃣ Underage: This is NOT for hand holding and sweet pecks on the cheek. It's for detailed depictions of sexual activity by characters under the age of eighteen.

#️⃣ Mental Health Issues: If your work depicts or implies/mentions the characters' mental/emotional struggles.

Paranoia-Inducing, Intrusive Thoughts, Medication, PTSD, Eating Disorder, suicide ideation, self harm, trauma, etc.

#️⃣ Violence: For stories that contain all kinds of violence.

Graphic Depiction of Violence, (implied/referenced, psychological) torture, gore, (mention of) weapons, (gun, domestic, canon-typical) violence, murder, etc.

#️⃣ Whump: For works that rely heavily on the hurt, and might or might not have comfort, especially when it's physical. Almost always, it goes hand in hand with violence and/or abuse.

Whump, injuries, blood, CPR, darkfic, sick fic, brainwashing, kidnapping, broken bones, etc.

#️⃣ Abuse: For works that mention, imply, and/or depict acts of abuse.

Domestic, physical, psychological, gaslighting, emotional, verbal.

#️⃣ Substances use: For when there's use or abuse of legal or illegal substances.

Mention of drugs/alcohol, recreational drug use, drug/alcohol addition, overdose, etc.

#️⃣ Death: For when the dead of a character is part of your work.

Mention of death, Main character death, side/background character death, Child Death, (implied, notes of) Suicide, Graphic Death, Animal Death, etc.

#️⃣ Type of relationship: Let your readers know what kind of relationship is explored in your work.

Platonic, romantic, x reader, clone shipping, father-daughter relationship, sibling rivalry, friendship, etc.

And the list goes on and on and on…

Now that you have some idea of what to warn about, let me remind you how you should tag your work. Be sure to @ this blog and add the following hashtags:

#tbbaw2023

#the character of the day (hunter, tbb crosshair, oc, etc.)

#day 1, #day 2, #day 3, etc… (the corresponding day)

#medium (gifset, fic, podcast, fanart, etc.)

#trigger warnings, if applies. (see list above)

#prompt(s) used

#nsfw (only for NSFW content)

#any other relevant tags go here

More recommendations:

Please, don’t, I repeat, DO NOT put “tw” if front or at the end of your warning tag. Why, you ask? Because using just the word or phrase is much simpler for readers to block the thing. It’s because of the way the blocking feature works on Tumblr that blocks only the exact wording and not all the tags containing X or Y or Z word (it sucks, I know. I agree!). Let’s use PTSD as an example. I’ve seen #ptsd, #tw ptsd, #ptsd tw, #tw; ptsd, #tw:ptsd and more. So, you see the problem, right? Instead of just PTSD as a tag, people need to block every iteration of the tag that other people come up with, and that happens with every other single tag. Let keep it simple. That will be easier for everyone.

Tumblr veterans know this, but you should neither censor your tags, replacing letters with numbers or symbols. That takes out the very function of the tag, which is mainly to allow people to avoid topics they don’t like for whatever reason. Nothing of su¡cid3 or unalive, please! This is not TikTok or Insta; here on Tumblr, we tag using the actual words like human beings that we are.

Use Keep Reading break and/or Community labels to hide NSFW, violence, substance use and/or dark themes, and tag it properly.

For any piece where the creator pairs the reader with a canon character, please use the tag #x reader alone, without canon characters or modifier for the reader. If you want to include also the specific tag of the character x reader, you can add it. That’s fine. An alternative is specifying what kind of reader is in the post text. Because since the combinations of canon characters and several types of reader is virtually endless, it’s easier for anyone who don’t enjoy reading fics in second-person POV to filter out these fics if writers use a wide-spectrum, nonspecific tag for it. It’s the same problem as with the warning tags.

Likewise, writers who do a piece pairing clones romantically, please tag your work as #clone shipping, so people can block the tag if those works aren't their cup of tea for whatever reason.

Gifmakers, if applies, please tag your gifsets #flashing gif to warn photosensitive folks about it.

Use #dead dove do not eat for when you go hardcore, very dark, and/or graphic in the themes of your work and also have tagged everything you're presenting in it, to indicate simply that this fic is clearly labelled and fully warned for, so if you open it, you know what you are getting. If you heed the tags, then there will be no surprises.

I understand why some writers are wary of tagging some things, fearing spoiling the story among other reasons, but it's better sinning of over tagging than missing a delicate issue that could disturb a large portion of your audience.

But if you're still insisting of not tagging some things, please use Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings if you add your work to the collection on Ao3. As it says on the site's warning help (x): "Use this if you don't want to warn for anything. You may also choose this option if you don't know what you should warn for; if you don't like warning for certain topics or warnings in general; if you want to avoid some spoilers, but not others; etc.". It's a wordy way to say to your readers: "Read at your own risk because there could be unpleasant surprises".

Also, you can add the tag TBBAW2023 while posting on the Ao3 Collection, if you want. This is optional, not mandatory.

And last, but not least, readers, please curate your own experience. Be sure to block the tags AND post content for the things you find disturbing or could trigger you. Take control of what you interact with.

Two more suggestions, even if they're not exactly tagging related: The first one, let’s make art more accessible to disabled folks, so it’d be nice that fan artists (including artists, gifmakers and graphic manipulators) included image descriptions to their works. You can add those both on the web and the app. Just click on the 3 dots that appear in the bottom right corner once you have uploaded your image/gif, then click on Update image description (on the web) or Add Alt text (on the app), and write your description. Also, there's the option to put it directly in the body of your post.

The second one is also using Keep Reading break to shorten the length of your post if it's too long. It's annoying having to scroll down what feels like forever when you're not interested in said post. Also, you can add the tag #long post, if you want.

This turned out to be longer than I expected, so I'll leave it here. If you got suggestions or questions, please contact me through the ask box or chat, either in this blog or on @nimata-beroya.

And remember: tags, tags, TAGS!!!

#tbbaw2023 #tbb appreciation week 2023 #warning tags list #tags post #tbb #the bad batch

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timewarpagain · 2 years

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I am so sick of people trying to lecture others about being involved/interested in this whole mess. "PaRaSoCiaL ReLaTiOnSHiP" this "Entitlement™️" that, "yeah lol I like the Try Guys but I Don't Get why people care so much about-".

First of all, stop feigning ignorance as if the concept of gossip or community is foreign to you, you just come off as a try hard. I highly doubt you've gone your entire life without engaging in some sort of gossip or news that you heard about but didn't directly involve you. Like yeah we get it you're socially enlightened and Not Like Other Fans.

And you're right to an extent that fans aren't "entitled" to know every detail about a person's personal life. But considering the implications of the rumor (before it had been revealed to be true), the people involved, the fallout, and the very messy way the attempted coverup had been handled by the creative team, it's natural that people would be curious about what's going on. Like, you might have a point if this was some rando on the street or some lesser-known celebrity, or even one of the other Try Guys, but that doesn't really apply here. Ned's whole persona/Brand was built around him being a wholesome man in a group of guys who break down toxic masculinity and don't care about any preconceived notions about what it means to be a guy. Ned unabashedly loving and doting on his wife and child[ren] was a huge part of this. So many times in the media you get men who really seem like they don't care for their wives: the "Ball and Chain", "marriage is terrible", "Wife is a Nag", etc. crap, not to mention the amount of men who think that doing the bare minimum of parenting deserves praise or referring to taking care of their own kids as "babysitting".... but Ned wasn't like that. He outwardly cherished Ariel and their kids and never missed an opportunity to talk about them.

Ned cheating broke that sort of trust that he built with the viewers, destroyed the Wholesome Family Man image he projected, screwed over the Guys and their company, and most importantly hurt Ariel and their kids. And you could make the argument that we shouldn't be surprised by this because we didn't know everything about Ned's home life, and that private relationship issues should stay private, and to an extent I agree. However, that doesn't really work here because of multiple reasons.

If you remember the Paula Deen scandal, it's very similar to what happened here (and before you start screeching at me I'm not saying racism and cheating are the same thing). Paula Deen's image was that of a friendly and warm Southern grandmother, but when it was revealed that she'd used racial slurs in the past, it damaged that image and Food Network had to let her go. Ned's persona of being a devoted husband and caring family man is pretty much destroyed, and retroactively sours all the previous videos with or about Ariel and his kids. Second, he made no attempt to try and hide that he was cheating. He was out in public at a Harry Styles concert for fuck's sake. Did he really think no one would recognize him?

You can bitch and complain about "entitled fans" and "HE DOESN'T OWE YOU ANYTHING" or whatever, but that doesn't apply here. They've marketed their family, marriage, and children into videos, podcasts, books, and shows. You can’t make a career based on people’s investment in your relationship and then beg for privacy when you fuck it up. And considering that they also have a Patreon, I think the viewers have a right to know who they're giving their money to so they can make an informed decision about where it goes.

To add onto that, not only did he cheat on Ariel, but he cheated with an EMPLOYEE that he was the supervisor of, which is a legal and ethical nightmare. And his actions affect nearly everyone: Ariel and the kids, Alex's fiance, the company that now has to do some insane damage control and rebranding, lost his job, and destroyed his friendship with Keith, Zack, and Eugene.

Over a fling.

#The Try Guys #Ned Fulmer #Ariel Fulmer

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the-rewatch-rewind · 1 year

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Just one look and I can hear a bell ring. One more look and I forget everything.

Script below the break

Hello and welcome back to The Rewatch Rewind! My name is Jane, and this is the podcast where I count down my top 40 most rewatched movies. Today I will be talking about number 26 on my list: Universal Pictures, Littlestar Productions, Playtone, and Relativity Media’s 2008 musical Mamma Mia!, directed by Phyllida Lloyd, written by Catherine Johnson adapted from the stage musical book also by Catherine Johnson, and starring Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård, and Colin Firth.

Shortly before getting married, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), who was raised by single mom Donna (Meryl Streep), discovers that she has three possible fathers: Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Bill (Stellan Skarsgård), and Harry (Colin Firth). She decides to invite them all to her wedding, assuming that she’ll know her father on sight and her life will feel complete. Dysfunction, hilarity, and ABBA songs ensue.

Okay so I’m going to apply what my sister Rosemary said about Newsies to Mamma Mia!: this movie is objectively not good. The plot doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, most of the songs don’t really help tell the story in a particularly meaningful way, and the singing is not great. This is the kind of movie musical I was criticizing in the Chicago episode for casting stars who aren’t really singers and just letting them sing badly. Not that everyone in Mamma Mia! is a terrible singer; they’re just…not all great. I can’t say that every singer in Chicago is better than every singer in Mamma Mia! because then Christine Baranski would have to be better than herself. Anyway, while I recognize that this is not a good movie, it does make me feel good. Watching it gives me a rush of dopamine, and I think I was practically addicted to it for a while. Part of that is because it came out at exactly the right time for me.

I wouldn’t say that I was a particularly big ABBA fan prior to seeing this movie, but I did enjoy some of their songs. The main thing I remember about my senior prom – which, incidentally, was in May of 2008 – is that for most of the evening I didn’t recognize any of the music. I’m sure they were popular songs of the day, since a lot of my peers were singing along, but as discussed in previous episodes, I spent most of high school listening to Julie Andrews, so I was very out of touch. But toward the end of the evening, when most kids had left for afterparties or whatever, they started playing older songs for the chaperones, and I remember being so thrilled when Dancing Queen came on – finally, I song I knew!

A few months later, when I saw Mamma Mia! in theaters, even though I didn’t recognize a lot of the songs, I still felt a similar thrill at the uplifting tone of the music. And I really needed it. In addition to the whole “I just graduated from high school and I have no clue what I’m doing with my life and the world is dark and scary” thoughts that were dominating my consciousness, that specific weekend was particularly stressful. Rosemary and I were at this youth church retreat focused on service and social justice, which overall was interesting, except only one other youth from our church came with us, and he wasn’t even there the whole time, and our youth leader had a lot of other responsibilities and couldn’t spend a lot of time with us either, so I was mostly just hanging out with my sister and the assistant youth leader, trying to figure out what we were supposed to be doing. It was fine, but it felt a little bit like nobody wanted to hang out with us. But then at one point we had an afternoon of free time between retreat activities, and the leader who had barely been around decided we should go see a movie, but then she had trouble finding the theater. So we walked in a few minutes after Mamma Mia! had started. My sister had seen it before, but I had not. I was kind of frustrated with the whole dysfunctional youth group situation going into it, but it only took a few minutes of the movie to make me feel like I would never be frustrated again.

I saw it at least twice in theaters, and later got it on DVD and could not stop rewatching it. I managed to see it six times in 2008 and five times in 2009. And then, just like with Frozen a few years later, I hit the 11 views in a little over a year threshold and needed to take a break. Also like Frozen, there were a lot of people bashing it online, but at least with Mamma Mia! I didn’t care quite as much. With Frozen I deeply related to the characters and felt personally attacked by the criticism. Mamma Mia! hate irritated me, but if other people couldn’t handle its happiness and fun, that was their loss. Anyway, after 2009 I kept listening to the soundtrack, but I didn’t rewatch Mamma Mia! again until 2016, when I saw it once. Then I watched it twice in 2018, and once in each year after that. My love for this movie was revitalized in 2018 because that was when I saw the stage show for the first time, and then a few months later the sequel/prequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again came out. It’s weird because the story had already made very little sense, and then that movie directly contradicted so many things from the first one that the whole thing became even more utterly incomprehensible, and yet, somehow, that doesn’t really bother me too much. The plot is not the point; I’m here for the mood.

Watching this movie really feels like going on vacation. It was mostly filmed on location on a gorgeous Greek island, and the bright sunshine and sparkling sea mixed with upbeat ABBA jams really melt all worldly cares away. Which is a little odd because the characters go through a lot of stressful drama. But to the audience, the stakes never feel very high. Donna is stressed after seeing her three former lovers, but mostly because she doesn’t want Sophie to find out about them, when we know that Sophie was the one who invited them. Sophie is stressed because she doesn’t immediately recognize her father, and maybe some audience members do want to know which one it is, but ultimately it doesn’t matter, and she just needs to learn that.

It may seem a little strange that an aromantic asexual like me would love a movie so full of relentlessly alloromantic and allosexual characters, but I really enjoy that, even though most of them do predictably end up paired off romantically by the end, there’s a lot of focus on trios of friends. Sophie has her two bridesmaids, and Donna has her two best friends – arguably the best characters in the movie, played by the always fabulous Christine Baranski and Julie Walters. And then there are the three fathers, who don’t know each other at the beginning but develop a nice bromance by the end, when they agree to share the honor of being Sophie’s dad. These three friendship trios, along with the mother-daughter relationship between Donna and Sophie, seem stronger and more important than most of the romantic pairs, and as I’ve said before, that’s really what I want out of most movies. I’m never suggesting that romance should be eliminated entirely; I’m merely sick of romantic partnerships constantly being portrayed as the number one most important relationship in everyone’s lives. So I enjoy that Mamma Mia! focuses so much on non-romantic relationships, even in the midst of its romances.

I also appreciate the ways that the story challenges the traditional family structure of one man married to one woman, raising their biological children together. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; obviously, that works for a lot of people, and that’s great for them. But that’s not going to work for everyone, and there isn’t anything wrong with that either, but there’s a major stigma against wanting, or ending up with, any other kind of family structure, which goes hand-in-hand with the stigma against women having sex outside of marriage. When Donna got pregnant with Sophie, her mother disowned her – at least according to the first movie, when her mother is described as a deceased pious Catholic; not according to Here We Go Again, when her mother is a living eccentric entertainer played by Cher, who conveniently had a passionate love affair with a man named Fernando, but that’s not important. Sophie doesn’t seem to have been neglected or love starved in any way as a result of being raised by a single mom, and yet she is obsessed with finding her father simply so he can give her away at her wedding. And like, I personally have a problem with a tradition wherein one man essentially transfers ownership of a woman to a different man, but I can kind of see how, if the bride has a particularly close relationship with her father, this could be a meaningful moment. But in Sophie’s case, it makes no sense. What meaning is there in walking down the aisle with a man you met for the first time the day before? Once she thinks about it for two seconds, Sophie realizes that it makes way more sense for Donna – the person who raised her – to give her away, but prior to that she has been so steeped in amatonormativity that she not only thinks she needs to get married at 20, but also resents her mom for not settling down with a partner before she was born. Not because she really needed her dad to be in the picture, but because she thinks she was supposed to need that. When she finally realizes that she’s fine with not knowing who her biological father is, Sophie also realizes that she doesn’t want to get married yet. On the one hand, since she’s already at the altar at this point, and she’s planning on traveling with her fiancé (played by Dominic Cooper), it kind of seems like they could have gotten married and then done that, fighting the idea that married couples have to be boring and settled. But on the other hand, the main reason she wanted to rush into marriage was so she could meet her father and have him give her away at her wedding, which is a really bad reason to get married, so from that perspective it makes sense to postpone it. Now, would I like this movie better if Donna also didn’t get married? Absolutely, especially because she marries the rudest and most entitled of the possible dads. But if that’s what makes her happy, I’m fine with it.

It's worth mentioning that this is my 15th episode and it’s the first time I’m talking about a movie that was directed solely by a woman – Frozen was co-directed by a man and a woman – and that it was also written by a woman. I know I said that this isn’t a good movie, but Hollywood is so saturated with mediocre films made by mediocre men that it’s rather refreshing to see a big-budget blockbuster made by women that, if it’s a bit of a mess, at least is a fun mess. For once, the female characters are complex and relatively well developed, and the men mainly serve as eye candy for the straight women in the audience. Also, given the observations I made in past episodes about how much younger Cary Grant’s leading ladies were compared to him later in his career, it’s nice to see a movie with great roles for actresses over 40. Meryl Streep was pushing 60 when this movie came out, which made her about 15-20 years older than the character she was playing, but I mean, it’s Meryl Streep – she could play any character of any age convincingly. Dancing Queen is a song I used to associate with youth – the lyrics literally say “young and sweet, only 17” – but its context in this film turns it into a song about feeling young at heart regardless of numerical age, and empowering women to step away from their responsibilities and dance down to the water and jump in, for some reason. Like much of the movie, that scene doesn’t make a ton of sense, but I absolutely love it. I mean, yes, the fighting amatonormativity aspects are great and all, but let’s be honest, that has very little to do with why I love this movie. The real reason I love Mamma Mia! is because it falls into probably my favorite category of movie, which I like to call Everybody Making This Was Having Way Too Much Fun.

And nothing more perfectly demonstrates that than the end credits. I know that saying that my favorite part of the movie is the end credits sounds like I’m implying that it’s because I’m glad the movie is over, but seriously, the end credits of Mamma Mia! are EVERYTHING. They start with Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski, and Julie Walters in amazingly ridiculous 1970s costumes singing and dancing to a reprise of Dancing Queen, which is delightful in and of itself. Then after the song ends, Meryl asks the audience, “Do you want another one?” a few times, and then they start performing Waterloo. When they get to the chorus, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård, and Colin Firth join them wearing similar costumes, as do Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper a bit later, and the whole experience truly defies description in the best possible way. If you haven’t seen this movie, please, I am begging you, look up the end credits on YouTube, I promise you will not be disappointed. Colin Firth’s commitment alone is worth watching. In fact, Colin Firth’s performance is consistently one of my favorite parts of the movie. The way the clearly deliberate Harry tries to convince people that he’s spontaneous is hilarious and perfectly done. While I would prefer to see LGBTQ+ characters played by LGBTQ+ actors, I feel like Colin Firth does a relatively good job of playing gay in Mamma Mia! without being too disrespectful about it. And then he rocks his ridiculous outfit at the end and puts his entire being into that dance as if he has been waiting his whole life for an opportunity to do something like this. When asked in an interview, “If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?”, Colin Firth famously answered, “I personally thought you were very good in Mamma Mia!” Obviously I can’t speak for God, but I personally think that “very good” is an understatement.

I could talk about how Pierce Brosnan was miscast, but I think that’s been discussed enough, so all I’ll say is he tried. His character’s bad communication skills irritate me far more than the actor’s bad singing. Seriously, this entire situation could have been avoided if back in the day Sam had told Donna that he was going home to break up with his fiancée and then coming back to her, but no, he for some reason thought she would be waiting for him when all she knew was that he was engaged to someone else. And then in present day, he just lets her think he’s still married, and stands there silently while she sings the entirety of The Winner Takes It All, bringing the plot, such as it was, to a grinding halt, when it would have taken him like two seconds to say, “I’m divorced and I’m still in love with you.” He doesn’t tell her he's divorced until after he proposes! It’s like, dude, you can’t keep waiting until the most dramatic moment possible to tell people things! No wonder your first marriage fell apart! Even though I know that the story is nonsense, I can’t help overanalyzing it anyway, because as much as I don’t feel like I should, I really do absolutely love everything about this movie.

And the feeling that I should be ashamed of something I’m not actually ashamed of was particularly pertinent around the time this movie came out, because graduates of my high school are kind of expected to head straight to a prestigious 4-year university, and I was just going to a community college. I knew it was the right decision for me at the time, but other people made me feel like I should feel bad about it. I have this distinct memory, probably from late 2008 or early 2009, of standing in the aisle of a crowded bus heading to community college and listening to Meryl Streep singing the Mamma Mia! title song and just feeling so happy and at peace. There was nowhere I would have rather been at that moment than on that bus listening to that song. I felt okay with following my own path at my own pace, and I felt okay with loving a movie other people said was garbage. Sometimes I still struggle to maintain that mindset, but rewatching Mamma Mia! is one of the things that helps remind me.

Thank you for listening to me discuss another of my most rewatched movies, especially if you’re someone who does not enjoy Mamma Mia! I do sincerely hope that each and every person listening has at least one movie that they know isn’t good but still love anyway. It’s a very different feeling from loving a movie that is almost universally praised by critics and audiences alike, although they’re both great feelings. In fact, the movie I’ll be talking about next week falls into the latter category, so stay tuned for my thoughts on a much more highly acclaimed film, which is the shortest of five that I watched 19 times in the 20 years I was tracking. As always, I will leave you with a quote from that next movie: “Forgive me for not leaping for joy. Bad back, you know.”

#mamma mia!#meryl streep #amanda seyfried #colin firth #the rewatch rewind

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ladyphoenixfyre · 1 year

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I consider myself to be OT7.

I’ve been quietly supporting each member as they release their solo endeavors, whether that be an album, a single, a collab, or (what some may consider) an EP.

I watched the MVs, listened to the entire JITB album, and nearly screamed myself hoarse watching Hobipallooza from my room.

I did the same for The Astronaut, even if I could only watch the CP concert the next day from a stream because I was so exhausted from work I fell asleep waiting for it. I loved watching Jin on Youngji’s No Prepare show, cackling and shrieking with laughter through it.

Same thing for Indigo, with Joon’s little concerts. Watched his interview with Pharrell, and other shows he made appearances in (I need to find an upload with English subs for the Dictionary of Useless Knowledge) and listened to the podcast from Art Basel. His appearance on the Pisick Show was fun and funny.

Loved Tae’s version of It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, it’s on a playlist with all the other holiday songs that was playing during the season. I have to find subbed free versions of Jinny’s Kitchen because the little clips and gifs I saw Twitter just intrigued me more.

Same again for Left and Right, Bad Decisions (seriously, ARMY? Meeting up with Benny after a wild scavenger hunt-type thing? Lol), Sexxy Nukim, Crush, Vibe (thank you for the introduction to Taeyang!), On the Street, Smoke Sprite.

And again for FACE, staying up to watch Mimi’s music show appearances, and other show appearances (Radio SBS, PIXID, that fun one that I can’t remember the name of where he kept tossing that one guy into the pool after he figured out what action triggered the seat catapult thing).

And I will do so again for D-3.

And whatever else is released by all 7 members as soloists.

All that being said, my ultimate bias is Jimin, with the other 6 members taking turns being bias wreckers.

I identify more with his dance background than I do Hobi’s.

Hobi is a phenomenal dancer, his fluidity is something else and has made me wonder if the man has bones. Yes, I know he does, but you get where I’m going.

But it’s Jimin’s classical training that got my interest because of my own training.

I’m not a dancer, by the way. I took ballet and those few years I danced were my favorite because of all I experienced in that time frame.

Back to Jimin.

His dance background is what started me really looking into him. His duality (cutie pie one moment, Kitty Gang the next) and professionalism got me next. Then his personality just sealed the deal. His empathy to/for everyone around him, his sincere appreciation of and for ARMY, his politeness and humility around those not just his senior but to his juniors, too.

A lot of the time I want to squish him, wrap him up in a nice soft blanket, and put him in my pocket, away from the haters, antis, toxic solos, and everything bad in the world.

But he is grown ass adult, regardless of the fact that many want to treat him like a child. Yes, I’ll include myself in that group.

He makes adult decisions every day, personally, privately, and also professionally. Especially professionally.

We, as fans and people who don’t personally know him, have no say in ANY of his decisions. Voice your opinion all you want, it will not have any bearing or weight on his decision-making process. The only time someone else would have that impact is if he directly asks someone for their opinion and he decides it has weight.

That applies to ALL the members.

Know your place as a fan. We support the members individually and as a group by streaming the music and MVs they release, purchase albums and singles if our wallets allow, vote when we are able, and trend appropriate, official hashtags.

We have no say on their personal and professional lives. We have no right to their personal time and should leave them alone if they are out and about trying to be incognito.

We are so blessed and lucky that they share as much as they do.

I saw that someone had recently created a Twitter account for posting information about their flights. THAT is crossing a line. THAT is putting the members’ safety at jeopardy. THAT is not how ARMY should be.

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coochiequeens · 2 years

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Ladies, let’s encourage each other to build our savings.

By the age of 25, Tori Dunlap had saved $100,000 and used the money to start a company, called Her First $100K. Three years later, the personal finance educator boasts more than 2 million TikTok followers, a No. 1-rated podcast, and a book scheduled for release later this year: “Financial Feminist: Overcome the Patriarchy’s Bullsh*t to Master Your Money and Build a Life You Love.”

Dunlap says she’s now financially independent — a goal that she believes all women should achieve. While Dunlap’s purpose is to help women pay off debt, save money and invest wisely, her advice also applies to men.

A strong financial foundation is essential, Dunlap says, to provide the freedom to leave toxic work environments and other unhealthy situations. “I want every woman to feel financially confident,” she adds. “It’s so important to get a financial education. The goal is to use money as a tool to build a better life for you, your family, and your community.”

1. Money is an uncomfortable topic for many women: The first step is to get more women to talk about money. “According to statistics, men are more likely to talk about money than women,” Dunlap says. “Women will talk about sex, death and religion more than they do about money, and I’m working to change that.”

2. Create an emergency fund: One of the most important financial goals is to create an emergency fund. “You need at least three months of living expenses in a high-yield savings account,” Dunlap advises. “Start putting money aside that will supplement your income in case of an emergency.”

3. Pay yourself first: A top priority, Dunlap says, is to pay yourself first. “Treat your future self like another bill,” she says. “Then you’ll be able to save that money and put it on autopilot without having to think about it. I sometimes joke that many people give Netflix more money each month than they are giving themselves. I’m not saying to cancel Netflix, but you deserve to give yourself at least the amount of money you pay for movies.”

4. Set up an automatic transfer: Dunlap is a big believer in automatic transfers. “Regardless of how much debt you have, set up an automatic transfer from your checking account to your 401k, IRA (Individual Retirement Account), or savings account every week or month, or set up a direct deposit from your paycheck. Also, autopay your bills as much as you can. You want to automate your financial life as much as possible to make it easy to save money.”

5. Count on index funds: Like many financial experts, Dunlap recommends creating a long-term investment strategy. “The beautiful part about thinking of investing as a long-term commitment is that the strategy doesn’t change so it’s way less work because you’re not managing it all of the time.”

“I’m not thinking of next week or next year but 10-, 20- or 30 years from now,” she says. “There are going to be peaks and valleys. The most important part is to manage your emotions. For me, investing should not be sexy. That is why I will invest in index funds until I die.” Her personal favorite is Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF VTI, -0.19%.

During a bear market or recession, Dunlap doesn’t change her index-buying strategy. “I stay the course,” she says. “During a down market, index funds are on sale. I’m also thinking strategically about building a bigger emergency fund. If you don’t have an emergency fund or one that will supplement you, then increase your income by negotiating for a raise, or getting a secondary source of income even if it’s a couple of hours a week.”

In the media, for example, financial advice for men, Dunlap says, is geared towards investing, wealth building, negotiating salaries and buying real estate. In contrast, financial articles for women, she says, “are about deprivation, such as ‘You are not rich because you don’t work hard enough, you are a frivolous spender, or you buy too many lattes or avocado toast.’ This is not true!”

Dunlap is determined to change that stereotype. “I want women to grow their wealth as opposed to shrinking smaller. I need them to make strategic decisions about their money rather than minimizing spending. All of the advice on deprivation don’t work (one of the reasons most diets don’t work). The goal is to find that balance between spending and saving.”

Dunlap says many women don’t realize that investing is a two-step process. Step one is to deposit money into a retirement-oriented investment account such as an IRA or 401k. Step two is to choose an investment, such as a stock- or index fund. Says Dunlap: “Too many women miss step two and the money sits in financial purgatory, not earning interest. This may be obvious to financial reporters but so many women I meet never purchased an investment. No one taught them how to do it.”

Dunlap also advocates “value-based spending” — figuring out what you truly value and spending the majority of your discretionary income on those things. “I tell people that you don’t have to stop spending money,” she says. “Just stop spending money on things you don’t care about.”

Michael Sincere (michaelsincere.com) is the author of “Understanding Options” and “Understanding Stocks.” His latest book, “How to Profit in the Stock Market” (McGraw-Hill, 2022) is aimed at sophisticated traders and investors.

More: Hear from Carl Icahn at the Best New Ideas in Money Festival on Sept. 21 and Sept. 22 in New York. The legendary trader will reveal his view on this year’s wild market ride.

#Women and money #tori dunlap #Financial feminist

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esta-elavaris · 1 year

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Do you have any advice for someone trying out writing for the first time? No matter if it’s fanfiction or an original work is there something you would suggest or a mantra you try to go by? Or maybe advice you would have told your younger self?

I started stupidly young (like I decided when I was nine that I wanted to be an author) so I can't specifically remember what worked for me when I started, but I still have a few things that I think/hope will be helpful! There was a period around 2017-2019 where I wrote an abysmally small amount because of shitty mental health and then I revamped/reclaimed my writing habit at the very beginning of 2020 and there are a few things that were helpful there.

This book is very, very good (The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, if the link doesn't work) to the point where I literally buy it as a gift constantly for creative folk in my life. It's a very quick read, I reread it often, and it frames procrastination and that sort of self-conscious anxiety that makes writing difficult at times in a really new and clever way. The author has done a few podcast appearances if the book isn't something you can access.

Another person who I've found really inspiring/motivational is David Goggins - his stuff is more overtly tailored towards physical exercise and that sort of realm, but what he says can absolutely be applied to creativity, too, but he's a bit more of a divisive figure - some people love him and his brand of encouragement, others despise it. He has a couple of very good books, a tonne of podcast appearances, and he posts smaller clips on IG. Personally, I adore it, he's one of my favourite humans.

At the heart it's all about not letting the shit your mind tells you impact what you actually do, and a massive part of writing (at least for my anxious self) is ignoring that voice in the back of your mind screaming that every sentence/paragraph/chapter is hot shit and you should just quit. So I don't really have specific mantras, just stuff by those guys as well as a few different songs that hype me up.

In terms of specific advice, the game changer for me was deciding to write every single day as a rule. It's the best thing I ever did for my writing. The original plan was to only do it for the entire year of 2020 to get back into good habits, but then that year ended and I haven't stopped yet, with no plans to do so - I'm literally on my 1200th+ consecutive day right now. It's tough for the first few months, especially when you're getting used to consciously making time for it (I've literally written on my phone at bus stops, or when everybody else has gone to bed at a sleepover/party, the works to maintain the streak), but eventually it becomes second nature. Not every day can be good and groundbreaking, but you have to get through the mediocre days to earn the great ones and writing as much as possible sort of streamlines that process. Creativity is like a muscle in that regard, the more you use it and the more you show up, the more it'll show up for you.

Kind of linked to that last point, I'd also recommend working on a couple of different things at once. That way if you're stuck on one project, you can switch to the other - and by the time you get stuck on the other one, you'll probably be ready to go back to the first one. It's a good way to keep writing and keep yourself in the habit of writing even if you're taking a break from one specific thing. I could never just work on one thing 24/7 because I'd end up getting painfully bored and it would show in the project.

ALSO final bit of technical advice - the pomodoro technique is great for this sort of thing. There are plenty of YouTube videos that do the timing for you if you search for stuff like "study with me pomodoro" etc. and it frames things in a much more doable light. It breaks down your time into 25 minute chunks of work, and then rests in-between, so working on a project no longer feels like "man I need to write a whole chapter", it's just "I need to write for 25 minutes".

Finally, books in general are your best friend. Not just for inspiration, but because they can really help with insecurity. If I think I use too many dashes as punctuation, I pick up a few books and go hunting for them and see I don't use a stupidly higher amount than some of my favourite authors. If you look at books as a writer, you can find paragraphs that exist just to get the characters from point A to point B without containing any groundbreaking bits of literary prose. The sort of stuff you don't usually notice if you're just reading as a reader.

You can even find passages you don't personally like but that don't ultimately detract from the book being good (or if it does in your opinion, you can probably then find droves of people online who ADORE the book and think it's perfect, which is a good reminder of how subjective this whole thing is - I love reading negative reviews of my favourite books for that reason, it's a good reminder that there's no pleasing EVERYBODY so there's no point in trying) just to counteract any perfectionist tendencies.

Essentially, write as much as possible, read as much as possible, and have fun doing it. The only thing I'd really tell my younger self is to keep going for it, and to never quit.

This is a whole ass essay now, sorry about that -- if there's anything specifically that I didn't talk about, feel free to lmk. And thank you for asking! I'm majorly flattered that you'd want my advice on the topic 💜 good luck!

#asks #dissertation!Lucy strikes again

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