rarefying

[rarefying]

#wish I was any good at insect glaive #but I just end up flying around the screen at random #awesome art and weapon though #arcane

Handsome Caitlyn week day 5: parallel universe

wanted to draw an action piece with Noxian Cait (moveset based on Monster Hunter's insect glaive)

[rarefying]

Love Karlach so much 🥰🥰🥰🥰. So hard to choose between her and Gale for my favorite BG3 companion…

Happy Pride Month to my pansexual babygirl Karlach! She's got a heart full of love for everyone.

[rarefying]

Sometimes when I’m imagining scenes they appear realistic in my mind. This is spot on for Shego. Love it 🥰

Realized I hadn’t done any realistic renders this year yet so I set out to kickstart my venture with Shego, and after ten and a half hours, I’ve completed her 💚🖤

[rarefying]

Another Miss Go deleted scene! I wrote some in a chapter of my ongoing fanfic. It’s awesome to see somebody make an animatic of one.

Shego's 'Thai satay'

I've been procrastinating this animatic for way too long. My goal is to fully animate this, eventually. :) I basically HC this as what happens during Miss Go staying over at Kim's parents' house. Being home alone it's easier to just call for a pizza, but maybe let Shego cook? I mean, it sounds like she knows what she's talking about, ...right? Too bad that Kim doesn't know that her guest is a terrible cook who usually relies on Drakken's home made meals, orders take out or goes to a restaurant. The original MAD TV skit is called 'Cooking for one' which, funnily enough, also features a 'Steve'.

[rarefying]

Double-checking something simple doesn’t mean you’re inexperienced. I had to make sure a comparison I wrote recently was both a metaphor AND an analogy. I was pretty sure it was, but I looked it up anyway to refresh myself on definitions. Yes, definitions we learn in elementary school. So what? That’s a good thing. It’s not like it’s gonna make me worse at writing. Considering the bulk of my skill comes from raw consumption of stories, it’s important for me to check that I’m applying terms correctly.

I also learned I’d been using a hyphen with a space rather than an em dash. Maybe because I’d typed rather than written stories all my life, and the difference was never pointed out to me. If I had been using an en dash with a space, that’s still correct in British English. But no, I was opting for a hyphen. I sure felt foolish, but at least I know now. And guess what? Now I’m deliberately using “en with space” and em dashes. I use an “en with space” when I want the flow of the passage to be less disruptive to the reader’s train of thought. Em dashes can be more jarring and take one out of the moment, which can also be used deliberately to place extra emphasis on a point. Maybe it’s better that I didn’t learn the difference until now. I don’t have to stick with either the US or British English versions. I can bend them both as tools for the prose.

Mind you, all this is coming from someone who got the max score of 5 on their AP English Language exam. Someone who only missed two questions on the English and Reading sections of their ACT. You can be good at something and still be missing basic things.

Don’t be afraid to be wrong. It doesn’t mean you suck. Use it to your advantage.

[rarefying]

I control the narrative, I whisper to myself like a lunatic while the characters in the story I'm writing are not following my orders.

[rarefying]

I have to have a separate document for each chapter to block out the noise! It’s also just so much nicer for scrolling, formatting, etc. I have one document for planning, but I will usually write further specifics at the top of each chapter document when I start writing it.

hello writers.

[rarefying]

Exactly. The new one has a much larger impact. Why wouldn’t I use it? 😉

[rarefying]

Literally this. Someday, I hope someone will write me a fanfiction that is better than my own original story, so that I can learn from it for the next book. Fanfiction didn’t start my interest in writing, but it did keep me writing.

Guys hear me out on this.

I’m a writer, and even though this is not my main blog, if I ever become a published author, I am not going to be discouraging fanfiction.

FANFICTION STARTED MY INTEREST IN WRITING.

FANFICTION AUTHORS SPEND A LOT OF TIME POURING THEIR BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS INTO THE FANFIC. THEY DON’T RECEIVE ENOUGH RECOGNITION!!

Thank you for listening to my first rant. (Of probably many others)

[rarefying]

Honestly I’m just too intense about writing in general. Sorry if I scare anyone off, but at least I am aware of it 💀. Tries to be normal- uh oh I wrote a seven paragraph tangent in this comment…better shorten it…

how i’m going to interact with the first reader of my novel when i finally get the chance to unload all of my ideas and theories.

[rarefying]

my characters: please just give us a break. time to rest. warm food, please.

me: yes of course my darlings (holding a plot twist that will change their lives for the worse)

my characters: are you holding a plot twist that will change our lives for the worse?

me: what? pffft...no...

[rarefying]

I love shipping and definitely would want readers of my original writing to make ships from my characters. That said, I feel like I can add something to this decade-old post. Some more “pitfalls” that make a ship. More general and don’t apply only to friends:

-Don’t have characters call each other by cutesy, flattering, or intimate nicknames, especially if they don’t refer to others the same way. It’s even “worse” if the nicknames are contrary to what their dynamic is supposed to be.

-Don’t have a character’s partner be jealous of them spending time with the other character. Doubly so if the partner is a reasonable, non-obsessive character. This very much implies there is a good reason the partner is jealous.

-Actions don’t have to be flirtatious to imply romantic interest. If a character is being more thoughtful, attentive, or possessive towards another character than anyone else, you’re in ship city.

-Avoid the extra mile. Imagine two enemies. One wears shoes the other wants and can’t afford, but in a different color. The next time the shoeless enemy sees the other, their adversary is now wearing the shoes in the desired color, just to be extra aggravating. It’s mean, but it shows they care a whole lot more than they’re letting on. People will ship if the characters are going out of the way for each other. Which leads me to…

-Avoid excessive special treatment. This could look like the example above. It could also look like refusing to do something until that one character asks you. It could also look like putting up party decorations to one’s character’s tastes, even if they’re for the whole group. The more you make the characters special to each other, the more likely they are to be shipped.

Friends, not love interests

There’s some saying that no matter what, when you put two people in a room together, people will want them to fall in love. Tumblr is proof that they don’t even need to be in the same room. So no matter what you do, if you’re writing two people as friends and not romantic interests (especially if one is male, the other is female), there will still be readers who want them together.

That said, here’s what you can do to minimize that chance.

Go easy on the flirting, which may include teasing. Friends can tease each other, but be aware of what the subject matter is. Steer away from teasing that one likes the other. Likewise, be aware of their friends’ dialogues. Don’t have a mutual friend say “when are you two finally going to date?!” and they object “it’s not like that!” because that sounds suspiciously like foreshadowing.

Keep physical contact innocent. They can hug and hold hands, because some friendships are like that. But not all friendships. Don’t have hugs linger, don’t have fingers brush against each other. And maybe it’s not physical, but don’t have soulful eye-to-eyes. Word choice like that has a sensual connotation, so be aware of what affect your diction will have.

When one describes the other, keep it tame. Don’t talk about his handsome face or the way his lips curl when he smiles. Language like that is reserved for romantic relationships. They can find their friend attractive, but you’re more likely to describe your friend as “dorky” than “dreamy.” So watch your word choice.

If one of them is your main character, then don’t have them think in that direction. Don’t have them explore the possibility—maybe don’t even mention it. I mean, you can. Maybe you could give a background like “I thought it was a crush, but after a few weeks I realized he was just my best friend” or something. But if you don’t mention the possibility, a reader should be less likely to consider it.

If it’s applicable:

Express interest elsewhere. Maybe one of them has another love interest, even if it’s just a crush. Then it shows they are capable of having romantic feelings, they just don’t have any directed towards their friend.

Make them romantically or sexually incompatible. Self-explanatory. Still, even if you choose this it’s important to consider all the above tactics as well, because you will always have readers who think one will “fix” the other or something stupid if your connotation and word choice is making it seem like they have a not-just-friends chemistry.

To summarize, watch your word choice. The descriptions you use will shape how a reader interprets the characters’ feelings towards each other. Connotation can work wonders, so be aware of the tone you’re writing out between them!

—E

[rarefying]

Me after seeing the reaction to my latest fic chapter.

[rarefying]

Fanfic writing is such a trip because right after posting a chapter you think you made something awesome, then days or weeks or months later you read back and it’s like- why didn’t I shorten this sentence? Why did I make the characters react like that? This could be better; that doesn’t make sense. Then you write the next chapter and the cycle repeats.

#fanfic #writing

[rarefying]

From the perspective of someone who has happily read 300k+ word fics- it’s really the desire to be fully engrossed in the world and characters. You want to spend more time there. Reading short fics is like popcorn- delicious, but you’re still hungry afterwards unless you eat a lot of it. Speaking personally, I need that agonizingly heart-pounding slowburn in my life, and I can’t get that from shorter entries!

#readingpreferences #fanficreading #slowburnlovers

I'm not gonna lie the people who say they don't read a oneshot less than 30k or sometimes more scare me. Because what do you mean you don't want something short and sweet? What do you mean you want to read something that is considered a novella to some published authors?

Like seriously 10k is a lot for me and these people are reading 40k oneshots on the daily.

Needless to say I'll stick with my 1500 to 6000 word oneshots you guys can read the novels

[rarefying]

Awesome that The Moon on a Rainy Night is getting an anime. Very well deserved. I’ve just noticed some of my favorite Yuri I felt were super underrated have gotten a lot of attention recently- I Love Amy, Her Tale of Shim Chong, and The Summer You Were There. Really happy to see all three of these works getting the recognition they deserve. But I still think my #1 favorite (Goodbye, My Rose Garden) needs more attention! But honestly the five stories I mentioned are imo the best of the best when it comes to Yuri and it’s hard to rank them.

List of Yuri Anime recently announced for 2025

The Moon on a Rainy Night

This Monster Wants to Eat Me

There's No Freaking Way I'll be Your Lover! Unless…

The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All

My Wish is to Fall In Love Until You Die

A Workplace Where You Can't Help But Smile (subtext)

Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games (subtext)

Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Walpurgisnacht Rising (movie)

bonus: Even Though we're Adults (J-drama adaption)

[rarefying]

No, this isn’t a problem. You would just end up with Batman instead of Superman. Batman is still a beloved franchise because the villains are so compelling. Batman himself is a good character, but the Rogues’ Gallery stealing the spotlight makes the storylines even better.

the worst part of writing is when you realize you accidentally gave a side character a better arc than the main character.