cowboyharem

[cowboyharem]

On Writing Romance

⊹ If their personalities don’t change the way they love, I don’t care. Show me the emotionally constipated gremlin trying to say “I love you” through soup or blood sacrifices.

⊹ Miscommunication tropes are only tolerable if it’s because both characters are awkward disaster goblins who panic and start lying for no reason.

⊹ Romance should amplify character arcs, not replace them. If they abandon their goals the moment someone is cute at them, that’s not love, that’s weak writing.

⊹ Let them fall in love slowly. Through shared snacks, petty arguments, silent glances, sarcastic encouragement, bandaging each other’s wounds. Love is built. Not summoned.

⊹ Consent is hot. Clear boundaries are hot. Flirting where both parties know what they’re doing and still get flustered is the hottest.

⊹I don’t want “he was dark and brooding.” I want “he was emotionally unavailable and bad at feelings but showed up anyway and said 'I’m trying.'”

⊹ If you're writing a friends-to-lovers arc, the moment they realize is not when they see each other in a pretty outfit. It’s when they see them being genuinely kind. Or brave. Or stupidly loyal.

⊹ Physical affection is great, but emotional pattern recognition is better. I want “I noticed you chew your sleeve when you’re scared” kind of intimacy.

⊹ Let one character love the other first and let them suffer. Let them burn quietly in the corner while the other obliviously sharpens their sword.

⊹ If they don’t have a little bit of “I hate how much I love you,” what are we even doing here?

⊹ Sometimes the romance arc is learning to love yourself first. Or breaking a pattern. Or finally understanding you’re worthy of love at all.

⊹ The best romance scenes are never just about the romance. They’re about trust, choice, timing, and all the things they’re afraid to say.

[cowboyharem]

"Maybe I should go down there and...take a good look."

[cowboyharem]

the monster under the bed is scary to YOU. i’m having sex with it though.

[cowboyharem]

Tim gutterson talks like he has dip in his mouth

[cowboyharem]

[cowboyharem]

My silly little tattoo

[cowboyharem]

cowboy walton🤭🤭

[cowboyharem]

Ready to see her Grandma

[cowboyharem]

the most annoying stage of burnout is when i want to write, and i have the urge to write, and somewhere in my skull are the words that want to be written, but they have to get through the cursed minotaur maze first and nobody remembered to bring string

[cowboyharem]

When I was a teenager and I struggled to be liked, I was regularly told, "Just be yourself."

At the time, I couldn't figure out why that advice wasn't helpful. But now that I'm in my 30s, I'm just starting to learn what being myself even means, and it's not even close to what was expected of me as a teenager. "Just be yourself" didn't make sense to me because I was never allowed to be myself.

I was expected to submit to authority despite hierarchies being absolute bullshit to me. I was expected to write apology letters to my teachers whenever I got in trouble even though I wasn't sorry at all. I was expected to not only obey them and stay off their radar, but to go out of my way to get on their good side.

I was expected to converse on command. Wanting to be left alone was considered rude.

I was told to "talk to people" despite not knowing what to say and despite my social battery being drained at the time.

I was expected to never talk about my special interest (math) because other people don't like it. I was also expected to talk about it on command whenever someone needed my help (even though I do math in unique ways that most people wouldn't understand, and even though my math skills didn't come with an ability to explain it). I was also labeled as "smart" and expected to be smart in all subjects just because I'm good at math.

I was told to not care if people dislike me. I was also told to stop doing things that would cause people to think I'm weird and dislike me.

I was expected to hold onto thoughts on command, despite that being impossible because countless thoughts run through my head all the time.

I was expected to constantly control every tone, facial expression, and word I said in order to prevent people from making assumptions.

I was often told "just be yourself" when I was going out of my way to guess at how to get attention. But being openly weird and being noticed for it very much IS being myself. I just didn't know how to do it the correct way at the time.

There were times when I went out of my way to shrink myself and be a people pleaser hoping to be liked or to avoid being punished. This was labeled as "nice" and it became an expectation. People saw that "nice" version of me as "being myself". When I felt like being nice didn't work and I decided to try being an asshole, I was told to "be myself", even though the "myself" they wanted me to be wasn't myself at all.

The people who told me to be myself are the people who prohibited me the most from being myself. It now makes perfect sense why "just be yourself" was bullshit.

But there is still some truth to the advice to be yourself. You'll occasionally have to deviate from being yourself. You may have to make yourself invisible to bullies in order to protect yourself (such as an LGBT person being in the closet, or an autistic person masking). You may have to take guesses at how to get noticed. If you're invited to an activity that isn't your cup of tea, you may have to give it a try in order to prevent isolating yourself. If someone is kind of an asshole but tolerable, you may have to be nice to them in order to keep open the opportunity of meeting a nicer person through them. But you have to ask yourself whether deviating from being yourself is actually helpful in that scenario. Would the bullies actually leave you alone, or would they still bully you anyway? Would you be able to change yourself long enough for it to work, or would you just get burned out and still fail?

Most importantly, if you have a decent choice between being yourself and being someone you're not, be yourself. If you have a choice between complete loneliness or someone you have to change for, you may have to change temporarily. But if you have a choice between people who accept you and people who you have to change for, choose the people who accept you. When you're first trying to connect with people, you'll often have to sacrifice parts of yourself in order to be more adaptable and increase the number of social interactions you have. Or you may have to try new things in order to figure out what being yourself even means. But after you've interacted with enough people, you should pay attention to which connections required the least effort to deviate from yourself, and prioritize those connections.

[cowboyharem]

my best tip for anyone trying to get back into reading is to remember that you can read books to avoid other responsibilities in ur life and it can become a vice if you play your cards right

[cowboyharem]

Im driving up to my home state and I didnt sleep at all cause im too excited

[cowboyharem]

[cowboyharem]

i want to be wanted but not just physically or sexually, i want to be wanted because i'm ME, i want to be seen and known and understood, i want to be studied and have someone remember little things about me like my hobbies or my fave foods or drinks or how i like my coffee, i want to be chosen, i want commitment to knowing me, i want someone to care about me enough to remember me when im not there

[cowboyharem]

Somehow he still seems to enjoy basking in the sunlight and the quiet busyness of the birds and butterflies. They say necromancy is a dark art, but whoever reanimated the beast of the black swamp knew what they were doing.

[cowboyharem]

Being an adult in this recession and being like wow I am totally "splurging" on 3 new sets of cotton underwear and 3 pairs of socks like whoaaaaa hold your horses duke of the land where's all this money gonna come from

[cowboyharem]

"Invincible" season 5 on the way!