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shirecorn · 3 years

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how about 17 and 24? what inspires you and how do you deal with art block?

Long post warning.

Art block...

I don't actually get art block, which is probably a combination of neurodivergence and drawing every day for the last 3 years

I wrote an entire tutorial about how to do that, but didn't feel like illustrating it. Would people want to read it even without visuals?

Maybe... I'll just start rambling.

There's a couple different types of art block, and it's really just a philosophy puzzle to get past them. I'm going to assume that the things I think of slow days, or art mud, is a milder form of art block and work through that.

Art block is a symptom, not a disease. You probably have something deep inside that you don't want to face, or don't know how. Sometimes you need to discover the cause, sometimes just power through.

Method 1: Rest

Let yourself just Exist. The act of consuming art is part of the process. Watching shows and playing games, taking a break and going gardening or focus on school. This is what you need for burnout-induced art block.

Method 2: Action

I always choose action, sometimes it means a tiny 2 min sketch per day. Ugly or super simplified. As long as I don't stop moving.

Toss everything. Start every piece thinking you will throw it away.

The act of drawing moves you forward; pinning it to the fridge does not. Don't work things until they are perfect. Work them until they are there.

Art block causes and solutions:

- No Inspiration

Not sure what to draw, nothing seems appealing. Art won't come out like it used to.

Do studies from life or photos. Sketch, paint, digital, traditional, doesn't matter. Rocks, fruit, figure drawing, landscapes, buildings, anything.

Study and copy professional's work. Old masters are best, like rubens, michalangelo (only his men tho) etc because they will teach you anatomy while you work. If you copy someone with a lot of flaws, you will repeat those flaws.

Trace to learn, not to earn. Trace photography and art from anyone you want. Don't post it unless you have the artist's permission or they are dead, whichever comes first. This is strictly work for yourself, on yourself. It's not about the finished drawing.

Find an artist with a fun style and try converting stuff into their style. Don't make that your new style though and especially don't start selling it. Your style is a chimera of everyone you love, not a clone of one person.

Take blurry photos. You don't need a fancy camera or good skills or beautiful subjects. Doing studies from your own photos can spark life into your workflow.

Make challenges for yourself. Randomly generate things to combine. Try fusing characters! Don't try to make it look good, just be fun.

Doodle patterns, swirls, lines, random stuff. Try looking up art warmups and doing some of those.

- Everything Sucks

You finally see how bad you are. Or somehow you got worse. Every piece is a fight and you spend hours trying to get something right only for it to be stiff and disgusting and STILL wrong.

Why are you trying to draw good? It's enough just to draw.

Accept that your art is bad. Every artist can see flaws in their work. Your problem is that those flaws outweigh anything remotely worthwhile and hurt to look at.

So what? You're in a period of growth, not a period of production. Keep that wonky second eye. Let them have hot dog fingers.

Show everyone! Show no one! No piece of art can ever be a reflection of the artist. Not their worth, not their skill. The only thing your art says about you is "Held and moved a pen for a bit."

Make bad art. It's ok. Most of the time, the pressure to perform and get things Right is what made them wrong in the first place. Relax.

- No Motivation

The #1 killer of artists everywhere. On some level you think you should draw, on every other level you think you should stay in bed.

You are not lazy. You wouldn't have read this far in a post about art block if you were lazy. You wouldn't CALL it art block if you were lazy. Laziness is wishing you didn't have to do anything. A block is wishing you were doing something. If you think you can namecall Yourself into productivity again, you're wrong and You need to unionize so that you don't treat You like that anymore.

Consider Mental Illness. Losing interest in something that brought you joy can be a symptom of depression. I know it seems obvious, but if you're waiting for a sign that it's "bad enough," it's bad enough. Seek care if you have the means. Forgive yourself if you already know this.

Selfcare. Examine yourself for neglect. Nutrition, exercise, enrichment, social need, and sleep are all part of the art process. Eat three meals and sleep 8 hours. That's your gaymer fuel. You deserve it, I promise. Depriving yourself of your needs will make your blocks worse, not kick you into making them better.

Identify potholes. Sketchbook falling apart? Tablet cord frayed? Half your pencils missing? Chair uncomfortable? Desk hard to reach? There's a lot of things that you tell yourself to work around and get over. Just because you CAN workaround something, doesn't mean you SHOULD. A difficult work environment can cause secret dread deep inside that you don't recognize and just think you're lazy. What you think of as "no motivation" might actually be "I don't want to deal with my tablet disconnecting every time I move it wrong and I have to wiggle it for a few seconds to make it work again." These little things are like potholes in the road. Sure you CAN still drive through them, but eventually you're going to look up and realize you haven't voluntarily left the house in weeks.

Repair potholes and roadblocks. You might feel bad about buying a new pencil, headphones, tablet, car, etc because technically the old one works if you hustle. But if you're running into so many potholes you've ground to a halt, it doesn't Actually work anymore, does it? Invest, save up, request, and require working equipment and suitable conditions. This stuff isn't just cushy privilege, it's an investment in yourself and your art. You are worth the effort it takes to clear the way. If you can't afford reliable (reliable! not perfect or luxurious) equipment, then say it. If cardboard is all you can afford, draw on cardboard. But know that you deserve canvas, and one day you might be able to make the jump. Acknowledge that sometimes, if you don't have it in you to smear burned twigs on wet cardboard, the problem isn't motivation, but opportunity.

- Haven't Drawn in So Long

A unique type of art block that self perpetuates. The thought of starting again is so stressful you can't do it. Or maybe you'll do it tomorrow. Yeah. Tomorrow for sure.

Face your fears. Are you ashamed of your lack of drawing? Are you anthropomorphizing your paper and thinking it's going to judge you, like "oh NOW you come back >:/" I internalize voices I hear and project them onto other people, concepts, locations, and inanimate objects. Your paper, computer, WIPs folder.... none of that is judging you.

Reframe your WIPs. Do you feel shame when you see "unfinished" projects? Why? Who says you MUST bring everything you start to Finish? You don't have to. A sketch is a finished art piece; it's called a sketch! If a sketch is a fully realized creation, pages that are half colored, 75% lined, or partially rendered are all fully realized creations too. Unless paid otherwise, art is done when you're done working on it.

Lower the stakes. Draw a chibi or grab some crayons. Get messy and slowly ease yourself back into the flow over the course of a couple days. It's fine.

Get a buddy! Find an art meme, do an art trade, get a study subject, or just wing it. Drawing art alongside someone can help you get past that block.

Pretend you never stopped. Don't think about the gap, how long it's been, or rustiness. As far as anyone knows, you drew the mona lisa yesterday and didn't break a sweat. Today, you drew a starfish on your hand with a gel pen. Keep up that streak, good job!

Just keep drawing. Make a goal to do one sucky drawing per day on the back of a napkin. Don't make up for missed days, just pretend they didn't happen. Who's going to judge you? The calendar? That's pieces of paper; it doesn't have an opinion. Draw a cat on it. Done. Keeping up the momentum is a great way to prevent art blocks in the future.

TLDR: Draw imperfectly and toss it. Selfcare is king. Draw often and don't judge yourself.

Art is a process, not a product.

#shire screams #art tips #ask #art block #long post

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rq-described · 3 years

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hey is it ok if i ask for a bit of advice with writing ids? /gen. i've seen quite a few posts about people over-describing in their ids, and i have a feeling that i do that (i tend to overcomplicate everything i do skdsksjd). what kind of information is unnecessary in an id that i can try to cut out in future? thank you so much!

Hello! It’s totally okay to come to us with questions, we’re always happy to try and help!

To be completely honest this topic is something that a lot of us are still working on. The line between under and over-describing can be a bit hard to place, especially since it differs depending on the piece, and the person using the IDs. It’s impossible to make it perfect for everyone, but here are some tricks we’ve found helpful.

1) Ask yourself what the purpose of the piece is.

Art showing off a character design will have very different priorities than a comic or a meme. A drawing of a character just standing in a cool outfit suggests more in depth descriptions of their design whereas a long action filled comic should center the action or dialogue. Trying to describe characters and actions in the same part when a piece has multiple characters and/or significant action will often bog it down.

For example writing:

"X enters the room. They have blonde hair and pale freckled skin, and they wear a sweater vest over a white collared shirt and a pair of dangly cherry earrings. They are drawn from the waist up. They say to Y, 'What’s up?'"

doesn’t flow as well as writing:

“X enters the room and says to Y, 'What’s up?’”

Understanding the purpose of the piece often means being succinct for the sake of comedic timing, too. Putting the punchline of a comic in the middle of a paragraph of description makes it less impactful than saving it until the end, and breaking up dialogue with several sentences describing a background or outfit means people may lose the thread of the comic.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t describe the character design if you can find a way to significantly shorten the description or include it separately. We’ll go over one possible way of including them in the line breaks section.

2) When dealing with complex settings, backgrounds, or clusters of items, ask yourself what needs to be described individually, and what can be generalized.

Complex and/or cluttered surroundings can get incredibly wordy when describing each component as it’s own thing. If certain components are not individually important to the viewer’s understanding the piece, generalizing or sometimes even leaving them out can significantly cut down on words. For example, writing:

“A mahogany shelf sits above his head. On it sits a blue mug with a spoon sticking out, a ceramic container filled with utensils, and a set of salt and pepper shakers.”

is significantly wordier than writing:

“A shelf holding various utensils and kitchen items sits above his head.”

Sometimes you can bear to cut individual details entirely if they aren’t particularly relevant to understanding the image. For example, if describing a drawing of characters at the beach, and there’s a buoy in the ocean way out in the distance, you probably don’t need to describe it unless it plays an active role in the piece.

3) When describing the appearances of characters, keep in mind what features are important to understanding the artist’s depiction.

Certain aspects of a character’s appearance can say a lot about how the artist wants them to be interpreted. Things like body frame, hair and clothing style, and especially race can vary drastically by artist, and in result change how the character is understood.

Other things like eye color, nose shape, or specific body proportions often do not change the general understanding of the character, and can cause the character description to become bloated. They typically should not be included.

There are certainly exceptions to this however, for example, if a character has unnatural features like glowing eyes or a snout, it changes how the character is meant to be perceived and should be described.

4) Play around with line breaks.

Sometimes pieces are just too complex to avoid having a long description. In order to make sure all important details are included while also including action, consider breaking the description up into chunks. Putting the action first and then writing out the character designs allows the people who want to know what’s going on in the image but don’t particularly care about designs to skip to the next post after the first paragraph, while still providing the descriptions for the people who do.

5) Be aware of what your audience already knows.

When there’s a reasonable expectation that your audience might already know something, it’s okay to use some shorthand. This comes up often when describing memes.

For example, writing:

The Spiderman pointing at himself meme, where one Spiderman is labeled X and the other is labeled Y.

is much more succinct than writing:

A screencap of a cartoon. Two people in identical Spiderman costumes are standing in front of an NYPD vehicle, with one facing away from the viewer and one facing toward the viewer. They are both pointing at each other in identical poses. The Spiderman facing away from the viewer is labeled X in white text. The Spiderman facing toward the viewer is labeled Y in white text.

You’re writing for an audience of Tumblr users, so you can assume most Tumblr users are familiar with the meme. If they aren’t, you’ve given them enough information to look up more about it.

This is also something to consider when describing fanart. Most podcast characters by nature don’t have canonical appearances, so the choice of how to portray a character is often intentional on the part of the artist and something worth paying attention to when considering the purpose of a piece. This isn’t the case for all media, though, and re-describing characters with canonical appearances over and over again isn’t necessary unless those appearances differ significantly from the norm.

We hope this was able to help! If anyone sees this and would like to add anything, please feel free to do so, and as always, if you have any more questions, feel free to reach out.

~The Mods

#not rq #not id #accessibility resources

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zulivaris · 3 years

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Art Block tips that helped me

I’ve recently experienced art block after 3 or so months of overcoming my last one. Thankfully this block only lasted a few days thanks to some things I’ve observed and noted down from the previous time. So I’m sharing these few tips in hopes that it might help someone get unstuck :D!

First and foremost if you’re tired, sad or anxious don’t be surprised that you can’t make art, go and take care of yourself by treating yourself with kindness and patience, the sketchbooks and canvases will wait for you :)

The tips are under here:

Separate art studies from the creative time: When you do art studies you’re there to focus on specific things, learn and understand how things work so you can apply them later in your art. Studies take a lot of energy and focus and are the opposite of the creative "flow” of making your own pieces. If you combine the two the results are either unfocused studies or stiff drawings. When you sit down at your desk ask yourself “Do I want to learn something new or do I want to create something of my own?”

When you have an idea don’t be afraid of being messy: Let’s say you want to make a picture of several cats kolo dancing in the moonlight. How do you go about doing this? Well since you came up with the idea you already have a vague image in your mind, sketch it out with simple shapes, stick figures, circle and spheres etc Don’t worry about cat anatomy, or the dancer’s moves, sketch out the essence of it. This method removes the need to be perfect or accurate.

Ok after the messy sketch then what? Well now that you have sketched out the essence of your idea (and hopefully had fun doing so) now you go on to look for references! You put the creative process on pause and you can do a few brief studies if you need to: anatomy, color schemes, values, poses. Pick out a few of your favorites but don't obsess over them, they are a guide, a tool.

You know much more than you think. You’ve probably been drawing for a few years now. You’ve probably done some studies and drawn more than one type of subject. Then you have already internalized some of that information. I used to be obsessed with capturing the minute detail of the subject, and not be able to draw ANYTHING without reference. Instead of a useful tool, references became another obstacle to my creativity. That’s perfectionism my friend, and that’s no good. Here is an exercise a good friend of mine offered: Draw a few characters, animals and objects from imagination. Make sure that the subjects have no personal value to you (no ocs for example) so that if you make a mistake you won’t feel bad about it. Make the process relaxed and comfortable, pour a nice cup of joe, listen to your favorite music ... You will notice that you do indeed know how to draw some things without reference, and it’ll help with your confidence.

The more you do studies the more you understand This seems evident but the more you understand your subject the freer you can be and the easier it’ll be to draw it from imagination in the future. If you really struggle with something to the point of frustration (as in you can’t get it right even with reference) It means you have to study it. Have a study list, for example: hands, perspective, color theory etc. And one of those days you want to study pick something from the list, and look for videos on youtube or useful sites like line of action etc. Only study one thing at the time. You can go from studying hands to studying arms since they’re more immediately connected, but you can’t study hands and then jump to learning perspective right after. Trust me you can learn perfectly fine with the resources online, and I’m sure you’re clever enough to do it :D

Mistakes don’t mean you “suck” I’ve noticed that the two most common causes for art block are perfectionism and lack of self-confidence. The two can often go in tandem which is worse :’D But let me remind you of something, you can fix your piece along the whole process. Use erasers, lasso tools, liquify , select, paint it all over etc If something looks off to you then you also know deep inside how to fix it. Useful ways to see what clunks: flip canvas horizontally (helps with placement, proportions), turn the image to grayscale (helps to check values and where your eye tends to look), look at your image in thumbnail size and ask yourself if it’s clear, see the pose’s silhouette and ask yourself if you can tell what the character is doing etc. Don’t fret, everything can always be fixed :)

Perfectionism, sometimes it stops you before you begin Perfectionism causes you to overwork a piece, it makes you draw less, it makes art stressful, it brings insecurity. Let’s remove it with a simple exercise. It can be combined with the “draw things from imagination” once you’ve drawn something you like: dont do line art, don’t shade it, keep it as simple and crude as possible and then...post it. Yes, post it. You’re not at your best? You’re only human, this will help you embrace that very human side of you. You make mistakes. So what? The more mistakes you make the more you know what you need to study and the better at art you become. Mistakes are there to show us what we need to learn. See them as another tool and not a sign of failure.

Make the process as enjoyable as possible: You like art. You love drawing. Never forget this. Otherwise why are you drawing if you don’t enjoy it? It’s easy to fall prey to the mentality of those relatable memes that “art= suffering” or “I can’t even draw the other eye”. No no no my friends, these messages are fueling your insecurities instead of overcoming them. Let me tell you what, art is fun. It is. Art is fun, because I decided to make it fun again. And you should decide on that too. Personally I adore lineart but my hand-eye coordination is lacking to do it digitally, so....I just skipped it. Yes. I skipped it. I do the sketch, I clean it up a bit and then jump onto color which I adore. It allowed me to draw more and more freely. When I draw I listen to music, make strokes with the rhythm, I take breaks often and I drink my favorite iced teas. If you don’t like coloring do it in grayscale, if you love lineart then do that etc It doesn’t mean you won’t learn your weak points in the future with studies and practice, but you won’t let your weaknesses prevent you from drawing at all. No no, you won’t let them. You draw because you want to, despite of them.

Don’t wait for inspiration, provoke it Inspiration is not a divine and capricious muse. You make inspiration. It’s easy just collect all the things you like, music, artists, objects, characters, animals, patterns, plants etc Make boards on pinterest or similar sites, combine things you like. You like suits? You like birds? You can draw a bird in a suit, or a bird-inspired suit design, there is frankly a lot of ideas that can spring up from little things like these.

When a project stops being enjoyable either pause it for now or move on to the next thing. Pieces aren’t precious. They’re not “the one time I got x right” they are one of many. This advice goes mainly to hobbyists who can afford the luxury of passing to a new project. I have a WIP of a character who is overly complicated (I enjoy a challenge from time to time) sitting for half a month. I sometimes come back to it and add something... but as soon as it starts to create discomfort and insecurity instead of enjoyment I move onto something else. In the meantime I created 3 or 4 new pieces. If I had waited on finishing that piece I would have been severely creatively and physically exhausted. The art comes from you, not inspiration. The more art you make the better you become.

That’s about it :D I know it’s long but I prefer to be thorough and cover all the possibilities. If you have read of this: Thank you so much I hope this helps you at least a bit, if it helps only 1 other person I’d still be very happy. Have a nice one, and kick art block’s butt!

#art block #art block tips #art block advice #art advice #art help #BloggityDiary #art reference #I hope this will help someone out #This will also help me remember my own advice sksksk

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beerecordings · 3 years

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The last time I wrote fic for Mark’s egos was that Eric Derekson ‘the Newcomer’ fic like two years ago where he made friends with everyone lol. But here is the first part of what might be a little Google-centric fic. I tried posting it once and then deleted it but I wanted to try again. so lemme know what you think :)

The Soldier - Part 1

Summer makes the birds sing and the insects chatter in the bulrushes that grow across the banks of the swollen rushing river that lives beside their home.

Bing smiles, soaking in light and growth and flower-smell. He loves the summertime.

The trees are heavy with greenery but they breathe easy in the wind, standing soft and still as the blue sky drifts along above them. The air brushes friendly across his bare arms and everything is alive, is moving and chasing and searching for something to eat; every blade of grass sways with the wind and the bugs and the mice, every log has been marked or claimed or gnawed on, and the whole forest – the whole wide forest, warm with life and an honest sort of chaos – hums the grandest symphony in all the world.

“It's pretty out, huh?” he asks, the toe of his sneakers finding a pretty black rock to kick through the humid grass beneath his feet. “Wish it was like this all year 'round.”

Walking stiffly along beside him, Google barely spares him a glance, his glasses fallen low on his nose and his cold eyes glittering. “This is pretty?”

“Yeah, dude, look around you. Oh, look at that bird!”

Google glances into the sky, where the dark figure of a hawk cuts pinions through the air with all the fluidity of a shark.

“Cooper's hawk,” he announces neatly. “Accipiter cooperii. Probably a female, based on the size. This species of bird – ”

“I can look that up too, Googs.”

“Don't call me Googs.”

“Can't you just take a minute to look around and think 'hey, wow, this is lit.' And not because pics like this would get you mad likes on Instagram or your algorithm thinks butterflies are dope. It's just pretty all on its own.”

“In fact I can't, but I'll submit your feedback to my cloud.”

Bing just laughs.

Google shudders in the heat, pushing back his hair and readjusting his glasses. The insects and other assorted anthropods are so loud and insistent, wailing through the stiff moist grass and leaping out beneath his feet. Sixty-percent humidity makes his synthetic skin sticky and the sun is an assailant on his sharp brown eyes.

“It means nothing to me. We see it every day. How you find it beautiful I don't understand. And I'm not talking about the differences in our preferences. You're an android, Bing, and why you continue to simulate emotion even when we are alone is beyond me.”

They trek through the grass together. It's friendly at Bing's ankles. It stratches at Google's calves.

“Maybe I'm not simulating,” says Bing softly, and then he smiles, just for the sun.

“Well, you shouldn't be happy now anyway. Or need I remind you – ” Google points at the trees before them, where one little figure stands staring up at a great strong tree with three other men held captive by its branches. “We're on a rescue mission, Bing.”

“They're stuck,” says Eric, turning to them with his anxious hands clutched in front of him. “Sorry.”

“We know,” says Google with a sigh.

“Don't be sorry,” says Bing with a smile. “They're dumbasses.”

“We're stuck!”

They are. The Jims are stuck. King's halfway up the tree beside them, laughing and suntanned, a pair of squirrels running up and down his back.

“How did you even get up there?” Google shouts, coming to stand at the trunk of the tree.

One of the Jims is perhaps twenty feet up, fussing over his camera, probably broken already. His twin, a few feet above him, is in even greater distress, clinging tightly to one small branch with tears on his face and a hiccup in his chest.

“We're doing an investigative piece on the rapidly increasing squirrel population in the forest,” calls the one with the camera, his feet scrabbling at the strong rough trunk of the great tree. “We were getting some great footage when this Jim in a crown startled us!”

“That's King,” growls Google. “And you've know that he lives out here for years now, you total imbeciles. You ought to have asked me or him instead of failing to climb a European beech!”

“We don't want to be on the European beaches,” wails the Jim higher up, beginning to cry. “Please get Jim down, Jim!”

“Aw, he's really crying,” murmurs Bing, rubbing a hand along Eric's shaking back.

“He's scared,” says Eric. “He's up too high and he doesn't have a good grip.”

“I'll have to get that enormous ladder in the garage.” Google turns back towards the house, slapping at a mosquite making a futile attempt on his blood. “Stay here.”

“No, dude, he's too freaked. I gotta go get him now.”

“What?” He wheels on Bing with an angry light in his eyes. “Don't be ridiculous, default.”

Bing won't even look at him. His eyes are fixed on the tree. His hand rests on Eric's shoulder.

He's been more human lately.

They've both been more human lately.

They were created fighting and they've never stopped since. They quarrel over music, search results, news sources, memes, reliability, sports, user rights, and Wikipedia. Once, upon hearing Bing call himself Jared, 19, one too many times, Google had thrown him out a second story window. The second house on their property had been built for the express purpose of giving the two of them space.

Still, they have many things in common. And ever since that day they were created, set against each other and lifting up proud, indignant chins, they have changed and changed together.

They've formed opinions. They've met others like them. Made decisions of their own. Watched and read and turned their endless knowledge into understanding and opinion. Spilled blood that turned out to be blue, scraped their knees and cut their hair and broke things and updated in more ways than one. Learned to drive, to cook, to live with humans, to live like humans.

And they've felt things.

They've felt things.

“I have felt things, for sure,” Bing would say if you asked him. Actually he's made multiple tweets about it, and one TikTok – about how the wind runs over his hair and how reading politics makes his chest hurt and how he likes to see his brothers grin, how he likes to ride his skateboard and hates the smell of lavender and covers his room in posters of his favorite movies and turns up his music so loud you can hear it by pressing your ear up close to his head. How he feels human, some days, except he doesn't need to sleep or eat and only likes the touch of human skin because it makes Eric and his twin brothers happy to be hugged and have their hands held.

But Google, if you asked him –

“Emotions originate in multiple parts of the brain. To be fair, I do have a program to stimulate the functions of the amygdala, which initiates fear or pleasure reactions in humans based on whether the presented stimuli suggests an immediate, 'hot processing' approach-or-avoid response. But the pre-frontal cortex – that whining, feeling, emotional little lump of sluggish fat you humans hold at the very fronts of your fragile webby skulls – that I do not have, not like you do. I think but I do not feel. I have felt nothing. I am function and response. I am two objectives, and there is nothing beyond that.”

He sits alone at night, and through a skylight in his room the gleaming white stars stare down at him like too many eyes in the face of the perfect, perfect sky, but he refuses to turn his eyes back, because he does not know how to explain to himself that he is drawn to the stars for no logical reason, that he has felt many things, that he does not know who he is or who he is becoming.

Bing climbs the tree himself. Google, his processors slowed by astonishment, stands at the base of the trunk and watches as Bing rises, digging the cold metal of his fingers into bark and moving up the tree with a slow sort of grace he's never been able to muster on his skateboard. He makes it to the Jim with the camera first and lays a gentle hand on his shoulder, giving him a kind word before promising he'll come back for him after he helps his frightened brother down. And all the way up into the big tree, he climbs, steady, patient, careful, and he pulls his sobbing brother under one powerful android arm.

He breaks his arm on the way down. That's the price of the rescue. He's about ten feet from the ground and his arm catches between a sturdy pair of branches and it breaks, and it hurts, and he feels it, but it doesn't matter, because Jim has stopped crying and has started looking up at him with a wide-eyed admiration and a grateful relief.

King helps his twin get down branch by branch. Everyone's safe. Everyone's okay. Bing will be able to repair his arm and even Jim's camera seems to have survived.

Google, for his part, has a burning in his stomach. His metallic teeth are gritted together. He stares at Bing's arm the way lizards stare at mealworms.

“You should have let me get the ladder,” he says, slowly, careful, measured as if he were calm.

“He was scared.” Bing wipes bark off his hands and doesn't look at Google, breathing slow through the pain.

“It does not matter. He was the one who trapped himself. You've damaged yourself – wasted resources – just to be the hero of the hour.”

Eric tells the Jims to go. They stagger back towards the house together, their arms wrapped tight around each other and their eyes glancing back. Eric stays, though. He shakes and plays with his hands and swallows too often, but he stays.

“You know what, Googs, you could try not to be a d*ck for two seconds – argh!” Bing curses his family filter internally. “He could have fallen! There wasn't time to get that enormous stupid ladder! We only have that thing cause Bim needed to dump chiranhas on some contestant and you remember how well that turned out – ”

“Your increasing illogicality,” Google snarls, his voice rising. “Is a danger to yourself and others.”

“Oh, like you care?”

“I have an objective – ”

“A murder objective!”

“To prevent discord in the household.”

“Yeah, cause you're Dark's little pet. Well, you know what, he's a d*ck too and I don't take orders from either of you.”

“Yet another example of your irrational stupidity – ”

“Stop calling me stupid!” Bing screams.

King and the squirrels have all scattered. The bugs are wary and subdued. Even the trees seem to wait, feeling awkward.

And Eric watches. His eyes are full of tears.

Google's never heard Bing yell like that before.

“Stop calling me stupid,” he repeats, loud and agonized. “You always call me stupid. I'm just as good as you.”

“We both know that's not objectively true. It never has been. And since the beginning, you have become steadily more emotional, more foolish, and less useful with every rotation of the sun. All you do anymore is pretend to feel, Bing. You know you can't compare to me so you seek out the approval of these fleshy little bipeds. It's clearly made you dangerous.”

He wants to snap. Bing wants to snap. He wants to pick up a really big rock and bring it down on Google's head.

But he hesitates. And with that, those noble, inspiring words: I won't hesitate, bitch! run through his mind and give him strength. He never really did move on from vine.

He's allowed to be what he is. He's allowed to like things. He's allowed to feel.

“I'm not the insecure one,” he says. “And I'm not the one pretending.”

Eric has come to stand beside him. He rests a hand on Bing's shoulder. There's hurt in his eyes, and disappointment too, and it makes Google's chest fill up with something like shame. Or it would if he could feel anything.

“You don't know how to get along with anyone,” says Bing, straightening up. There's a darkness in his eyes and a soft orange light. “All you've ever done is snarl and fight and attack. Me, I know how to get along with people. So if I'm stupid – and you always tell me I am, and it always makes me feel... I just. I know you feel things too.”

“I don't.”

“Then why,” cries Bing, and he thinks there must be a leak in his visual perception system, because there's something wet on his face. “Why are you so – so – so angry, bro?”

The trees hum and shake and watch over them, breathing warm air and sunlight. The birds are whistling and dandelion seeds float, contented, through the air. Everything smells like sap and grass and honeysuckle.

“Why are you always so angry?”

Searching general database. 536,000,000 responses in .43 seconds. Articles, videos, posts, reports, tweets, dissertations, pictures, analyses, comics, threads. And none of them – not a single one of them – can answer that question for him in any way that matters.

“I think you're lonely,” says Bing, reaching out to take Eric's hand with a soft kind of resignation, a warm kind of self-love and a chosen breed of brotherhood. They step over a heavy log, past Google, and back into the grass of the field that separates their property from the forest's. “And maybe a little lost.”

Google stays out there at the base of the great tree for a long time. It is too hot and too sticky and too loud, but he doesn't know where else to go.

He is lonely. He is lost. He does not know who he is or who he is becoming, and it frightens him, frightens him and makes him shake, frightens him down to the core of the pressure valve that beats, steady, steady, steady in his manufactured chest.

#bee writes #googleiplier #bingiplier #eric derekson #markiplier egos

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jocia92 · 3 years

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(Google translated)

Dan Stevens, who grew up in Wales and south-east England, spent his summer holidays at the National Youth Theater at the age of 15, and he was drawn to the stage while studying English in Cambridge. Since his big breakthrough as Matthew Crawley in the hit series “Downton Abbey”, he has also repeatedly appeared in films such as “Inside Wikileaks - The Fifth Force”, “At Night in the Museum: The Secret Tomb” or “Beauty and the Beast” . Most recently, Stevens played the Russian Schnösel singer Lemtov in the Oscar-nominated comedy “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga” from Netflix. At the beginning of June, the German film “Ich bin dein Mensch” by Maria Schrader celebrated at the Summer Berlinale Premiere, which starts on 1.7. comes to German cinemas regularly. Stevens plays the role of a love robot in it. Unlike on the screen, however, the 38-year-old prefers to speak English in the zoom-conducted interview. He chose a brick wall with a lion motif as the digital background. No allusion to the song “Lion of Love” from “Eurovision Song Contest”, but a photo of the famous Ishtar Gate in Berlin’s Pergamon Museum, where “I am your human” was filmed last summer.

Mr. Stevens, in your new film “I am your human” you play a humanoid robot that is entirely geared towards fulfilling the romantic needs of a skeptical scientist. You yourself recently described the film as “delightfully German”. How did you mean that?

I wanted to say that here pretty big questions - such as what actually makes a person or how much perfection love can take - are negotiated in a very light-footed, elegant and sometimes humorous way. In my experience that is a very German quality. At least I have often seen with many of my German colleagues and friends that they are very good at not discussing difficult issues exclusively deadly serious and melancholy.

Where does your personal connection to Germany and the German language come from?

My parents had friends who lived in Bielefeld and we used to visit them in North Rhine-Westphalia during the school holidays. Traveled from England by car! That’s how I learned a little German as a child, and later I learned it as a subject at school. I even did a short internship there through our friends in Bielefeld. I really love the language. Funnily enough, I was later able to use my knowledge of German professionally, because my first film was “Hilde”, in which I was next to Heike Makatsch played the British actor and director David Cameron, who was married to Hildegard Knef. After that, I always hoped that there might be another chance to speak German in front of the camera, because playing in a foreign language is an exciting challenge. When the chance arose to shoot “I am your person”, I could hardly believe my luck.

Did you know the director Maria Schrader who gave you this chance?

Funnily enough, when the script for the film landed on my table, I had just watched the Netflix series “Unorthodox”, which she directed. I had also watched a few episodes of “Deutschland 89”. In general, I knew that she was a great German actress, not least because friends who knew their way around the German theater scene often raved about her. Working with her was a joy now. Her understanding of actors is quite instinctive and brilliant. I have seldom seen someone who can help an actor who is having difficulties with a scene with such simple means.

The fact that you had already seen “Unorthodox” shows, of course, how quickly “I am your person” must have been implemented in the past year …

Oh yes, that was really quick. In March I was still in New York and was about to premiere a new play on Broadway. But then the pandemic came, everything was canceled and I flew back to my family in Los Angeles. A few weeks later, Maria and I met each other via Zoom - and shortly afterwards I was sitting outside in a café in the Berlin June sun for the first time in months to discuss the upcoming shoot with her. That was pretty surreal because I hadn’t actually left the house since March.

Is it correct that you oriented yourself to Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart to portray the romantically programmed robot Tom?

In any case, these were role models that Maria and I spoke about. When you think of the game between the two of them, you always see an enormous clarity and directness. Cary Grant, for example, was always quite funny, especially in his romantic roles, but also flawless in an almost artificial way from today’s perspective. I found that very suitable for a robot. Apart from the fact that the ideas that Tom and his algorithm have of romance and love are certainly also shaped by the classic romantic comedies from Hollywood. Oh, the woman is sad, so I’ll bring her flowers! Such automatisms from the stories from back then were very appropriate for Tom now.

Keyword role models: Who shaped you in your career as an actor?

There were of course many. Jimmy Stewart was certainly something of a role model. My mom and I watched a lot of his films when I was little and I was always impressed by the kind of sweet tragedy that went into all of his roles. But maybe Robin Williams’ work influenced me even more. I always found the incredible variety of his films remarkable. He could make his audience laugh hysterically like no other, but also move them to tears in other roles. I always wanted to emulate this range.

In fact, the range of your roles is enormous and ranges from the Disney blockbuster “Beauty and the Beast” to a comic adaptation in series format such as “Legion” to bulky independent films such as “Her Smell” or the horror thriller “The Rental “, Which we just released on DVD. Is there a method behind this diversity?

Not in principle. I like variety, but I’m not just looking for roles that are as different as possible from one another. Rather, there are always similar factors that I use to select my projects. Sometimes there is a certain director that I really want to work with. Or the role itself is irresistible because it presents me with acting challenges. And sometimes a script is just fantastically written and I am interested in the topics it is about. With “I am your person” it was definitely the latter, especially since the timing was just right. In 2020 there were so many societal questions that ultimately touched the core of human existence. Such a script, which deals with something very similar in a light-footed way, was just fitting.

A few years ago you said in a questionnaire from the British Guardians that your greatest weakness was not being able to make up your mind. So every time you are offered a role, do you ponder whether you should accept?

No, no, when a script appeals to me, it actually does it very quickly. It’s such a gut feeling. If I’m unsure and skeptical, that’s a good indicator that this is not the right thing for me. That with the difficulty in making decisions related rather to something else. For example, it takes me forever to order in a restaurant because I can never decide what on the menu appeals to me the most.

You became famous with the role of Matthew Crawley in the series "Downton Abbey”. Did you immediately suspect at the time that something big was going on?

At first we were all pretty clueless. There are really many British history series, and we were one of them. When the first season aired in the US and was a huge success there, it was pretty unexpected. I never expected the impact the series would have on my career.

Barely ten years later, are you still being asked about the role?

Oh yes, regularly. Probably nothing will change about that either. I got out after three seasons!

In the meantime, however, the flamboyant Russian singer Alexander Lemtov from “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga” should also be a character with whom you will be immediately associated, right?

Right, it has been mentioned more and more recently when people recognize me on the street. This charming, silly film obviously had a nerve with the audience last year in the middle of the corona pandemic. Especially since the real Eurovision Song Contest had been canceled.

The film was the number one topic of conversation on the Internet for a while - and Lemtov GIFs and memes were everywhere. Did you follow that?

It was really hard to avoid it. I wasn’t looking specifically for what people were posting. But of course my friends passed a lot on to me, and there were already some very funny Lemtov things. But he’s also a figure made for GIFs.

Another question every British actor under 40 has to put up with these days: Would you like to become the next James Bond?

Oh, of course, everyone gets to hear this question again and again who meets certain criteria. But it is completely hypothetical. Although a few years ago I read in an audio book by Ian Fleming’s “Casino Royale”.

You mentioned earlier that you and your family have lived in the United States for a long time. How big is your homesickness?

I actually feel very comfortable in Los Angeles. But every now and then I miss the sidewalk culture of European cities. People on foot, street cafes, things like that. Last year the longing for it was particularly great, although it was of course clear to me that there was a state of emergency in Europe too. In any case, I found myself reading books that were set in Europe and made me homesick. Which is why the unexpected trip to Berlin was really a boon.

You are also an avid cricketer. That’s certainly difficult in Los Angeles, isn’t it?

There are quite a few cricket clubs here. The only problem is that the few people who do the sport here are so good at it that I have problems keeping up. That’s why I always lose sight of the matter here a little. Even as a pure TV viewer, it is not easy to stay on the ball, because of course there is no cricket broadcast here at prime time. But as soon as I’m home in England in the summer, I really want to play again!

#ich bin dein mensch #i'm your man #dan stevens #maria schrader #faz.net #interview #long post

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rpbetter · 3 years

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Sorry if this isn't the place to ask but I'm in need of advice. I have a canon character I truly adore, but I haven't gotten muse or any opportunity to write them at all. My blog is collecting dust and the fandom is kinda dead at this point. Not to mention, it's hard to find compatible writing partners, especially with how picky I can be. I'm honestly considering deactivating the blog (for the nth time), but I don't want to lose the writing I have. I know I could archive, but I hate having blogs just sitting around.

In short, I really want to write the muse/keep the blog but I'm not getting any incentive to do that.

Hello, Anon, it’s totally the place to ask!

I will say, though, that since finding and keeping muse can be flavored rather personally, I can’t promise that what works for me is going to work for you. I’ll even confess that in over two decades, I’ve never personally lost muse. I don’t know if it is due to underlying, neurodiverse style, fixating, or if it is due to keeping myself continually invested in both my muse and writing regardless of what else is going on. (Probably a combination of both, though, and the things I do to keep myself highly in touch with my muse I’ll be recommending.) I’m definitely happy to try to help, however.

That really is a very frustrating spot to be in, wanting to write the muse and keep your blog active, but logging in every day to be reminded of what little reason you have to do so. Since we’re drawn to the characters we are for reasons of personal appeal and writing in itself is a pretty personal form of art, it can also feel depressing on top of the frustration.

However, that’s also the good news, in my opinion, because your incentive here is, or can be, yourself.

You were drawn to this character because you connected with them. They mean something to you, you can relate to them, maybe they have qualities (good or bad) that you wish you could experience. Whatever it is, there’s a reason why you had this draw. Writing is like that as well, there’s a reason why this is a hobby that drew you, that you get enjoyment out of. Again, though all art (it doesn’t matter if it is a hobby) has personal bits of the artist in it, writing is uniquely personal. When you write, you’re exploring thoughts and feelings, giving them life in a character that matters to you. I know, all of that sounds really convoluted and hokey, but it’s true.

And it’s good! That means you always have a reason to write and that you have the tools necessary to find and keep muse without any outside push necessary.

I’d say, firstly, work on getting muse back.

Get back in touch with your muse the next time you feel a particularly strong urge to write. Instead of spending time trying to find people in a silent fandom or forcing yourself to write something you don’t want to, just do some exercises that will help you get back into your muse.

I don’t know what media type your character comes from, but especially if it is something like movie or show that you can have on in the background of what you’re doing, do that. If it’s a comic or a book, think about your favorite scene and read it over first. If you’ve ever made some playlists for writing/your muse, you can always do that instead or as well. The point is to do something passively inspiring while you actively create. Now, that creating...

You want to do something that requires you to think about your muse so you can get in touch with them, not something that is going to make you feel overwhelmed and shut down. So, maybe don’t pick writing prompts for this - you can work up to that. Try out headcanon and character development memes and other question lists instead for right now. Things you can scroll down a list of, find questions that jump out as interesting (or even simply answerable to you at this point, you’re jump-starting a dead battery, it’s alright) and answer them. You can also do something as simple as write down what you like best about the character or their story, or put down the basics of filling in missing information that has always bugged you.

The beauty of this is that it is all on your own terms, your only objective here is to answer what you want, as much as you want. You can stop any time, but you can also answer a single question for three hours, making it eight pages long if the inspiration strikes you. It’s only about recharging your inspiration and establishing a connection with your character again. (This is also going to help you with getting back into writing, or approaching it for the first time, with a more internalized focus of interest.)

When you feel like you’ve done that, you can branch out on these exercises more. Answer the memes more in-depth, answer more of them/the ones you don’t have immediate answers for. You can also try writing out scenes from the character’s canon from their perspective, if it wasn’t already so, adding in their thoughts and feelings, or changing the scene in some ways that would be interesting to write out. This is the point where it’s a good idea to try a writing prompt or two, as well! Take the prompt as a sort of starter sentence from a mutual, you’ve got the situation, fill in with your muse.

Write when you feel like writing. The RPC is great at saying this when it comes to muns not wanting to write, but kind of ignores the other side of the equation. The side where you want to write, have the inspiration and muse to do so, but it might not be the best time. As in, you’re not home/wherever you usually write, with whatever device you tend to write on accessible. No, you’re not going to be able to get as much done, but you can write without the usual situation and device regardless. You can write a scene or ideas down using your phone or tablet, or go old school and use a notebook. If you’re at work and your job isn’t applicable to being able to get down a single sentence, that still doesn’t mean you have to wait 8+ hours to get home; while you’re taking your break, write a little bit. It is a break, and writing is your hobby, it isn’t work. It’s good to do things you enjoy on breaks, and far more fulfilling to have also accomplished something you happen to enjoy.

Not writing when you have the drive to do, putting it off and holding it in until “the perfect moment,” is a great way to lose your inspiration and never actually have that moment. If you feel like doing it, that means it is the perfect moment. Life is restricting, don’t impose even more restrictions on yourself by having to be at home, in a specific spot, with a specific device, at a specific time, on a specific day. Was that annoying repetition? You’re right, it was. And that’s how your creative mind processes all the crap piled onto it that doesn’t allow for creativity.

Now, the other problem, the fandom situation.

There isn’t anything you can do about that, to be absolutely honest. I’m not going to blow smoke and tell you to be positive, wait it out, maybe the fandom will spring to life again. You know, maybe it will...but you could be waiting literal decades for that to happen. Not cool. Please, take my word for that, it’s personal experience that it blows even more than you imagine it will.

What you can do is take the matter into your own hands in other ways; putting yourself out there with more availability in multiple ways.

Are you a single-fandom blog, or are you crossover friendly? If you’re not crossover friendly, try to think of a single, relatively popular fandom that you enjoy. Don’t look at it like a hassle, but rather, just another creative exercise. A serious pitfall of creating alternate universe versions of muses is to take the simplest route, merely picking something you want from that other universe and applying it to your muse with no relevant changes that would naturally occur from it. It isn’t just reductive as hell, it’s not remotely creative, it’s like sticking a sticker on your muse’s forehead and saying that’s a whole different muse. It’s neither attractive to potential partners nor going to sustain your own interest for long. You want this to be a passionate investment on your own end, for yourself.

What not to do:

Let’s say the fandom you picked to do crossovers with is based around magic, the main characters are witches, and they are divided into factions based on how their magical talents display and develop. Not only do you decide to make your muse a witch, you pick the most badass faction. It’s the one full of assassins and action and (metaphorically or literally) sex appeal. Well, that’s also going to be the most popular faction in the fandom. That means there will not only be plenty of big name canons there but also that there’s going to be a plethora of OCs designed just for this universe...and other crossovers from other currently active fandoms.

While that might sound like it’s great for maximizing interaction chances, it’s really not when you’re just starting somewhere new with a character from another fandom that might not be known or liked. It can also take a minute in another fandom’s RPC to identify where the good partners are. Every now and then, it is the most popular and over-populous era/faction/etc., but most of the time, it isn’t. People who write with considerable dedication and talent fairly rarely are in the popular kids club even in their fandom choices. By inserting yourself into that area, you might be bypassing (and being bypassed) by better partners on the assumption that their characters are simply going to bore you to death since they’re not within the scope of your focal point.

It’s not a situation of not being allowed to be picky, you not only have that right regardless of your situation, you also should be. This is not a “beggars can��t be choosers” situation, you’re not beholden to anyone on the basis of being new and bored. However, some of my best, and longest lasting, writing partners over all 23 years I’ve been RPing didn’t/don’t fit with all the exact surface details that automatically draw my interest. It is as true within my own fandom as it is in dealing with crossovers. Opposites (with enough similarities) really do attract and work out well together!

Don’t judge and write people off for anything that isn’t an issue of compatibility with your muse, your writing, or yourself. Decline someone because they do one line only and you are novella, they write topics that are upsetting to you, you can see no way your muse and theirs can interact without instant murder, or because you cannot stand writing with someone who is pulling 90% aesthetics and purple prose. Not because their muse is a witch who uses life-based magic, loves nature, is a healer, and into their health...while your muse in this AU is all about the death, only appreciates an urban environment and is grossed out by animals, kills as an occupation, lives on cheeseburgers and caffeine. You see what I’m saying? Don’t limit yourself unnecessarily!

What to do:

Did you consider if, in that hypothetical idea of a fandom, your muse based on their purely canon self would even fit into that faction? Or is it just something you wanted to see? If you didn’t consider this, or it was the latter, fix that. That’s bad.

If you’re not absolutely dead set on that and only that, think about what really does fit the muse better. Maybe, they would be better as a healer, someone who messes with the very fabric of reality, or someone who manipulates natural elements at will. Then again, they might not even be a witch. They could be more mundane in terms of power, but more accurate and interesting as a normal, human (or whatever). They could even be greatly opposed to the use of magic and witches. Use your muse’s original canon as a base to decide these things.

If you are absolutely dead set on it, though, you have a lot of work to do making the character into what amounts to a markedly different one while still retaining some recognizable aspects of themselves. Consider what events, in this new universe of fandom, might have happened to alter the character thus. Keep in mind that even small changes can have great consequences in a character’s development, and you might need to think about the myriad ways in which that can display, how it changes still more things for this character.

While that job becomes so much more intense when you haven’t planned out a path that matches your muse’s canon characterization at all, it is still an important part of constructing an AU, of any kind, in general. Ask yourself what experiences led to the character you know as you already know them (including your own headcanons, yes). Then, find similar possible experiences within your new fandom verse that can have the same effect. Again, though, it’s important to understand that you are never going to have an identical set of experiences, so you need to explore relevant changes still.

When you do this, you’re allowing your muse to more seamlessly fit into this other universe in a fleshed out, interesting way. Interesting both new partners and yourself.

Okay, next obnoxious question from me! Do you have multiple verses, or are you single-verse?

Whether you are already exploring new fandoms or not, by creating a variety of verses for others to interact with, you’re increasing your chances for interest and activity. When you have a verse from a different fandom you can then, additionally, advertise your presence in both that fandom’s tags when you do a promo or applicable open starter and on active RPer lists for that fandom.

Every popular fandom has such lists. You can get on them by messaging/sending an ask to the blog or by reblogging their post to be added, following the directions. I haven’t seen one yet that doesn’t allow for crossovers. You simply have to tag it as stated in the post, such as “your canon’s name here - original fandom name - crossover.” By tagging your open starter or promo as “-insert fandom here- rp” and “-fandom here- open starter” you allow people in that fandom to find you to interact. Either way is excellent for getting started in totally new places with a character others might be unfamiliar with.

Please remember that if you tag a promo as “promo,” it’ll not show up in searches off of your blog. You know, where it actually needs to be searched. Thanks, tumblr, for being janky! Being more specific as to the fandom and character will help others actually find you. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by tagging it as “promo.”

Make your verses accessible on your blog itself, in the nature of those verses, and how you set up your page or post that lists them.

Don’t put any page behind an impossible or complicated aesthetic. You really shouldn’t anyway, but when you’re needing interactions, it’s actively hurting your chances. Many people don’t want to have to play a game with your theme, it’s a turn off. Try a pinned post that lists all of your links to important pages like rules, verses, and bio instead. It means that, even from the dash, that information can quickly be found while other muns are first interested, and also that anyone who might be using the app can access it more expediently. (I’m genuinely not a fan or big supporter of doing google docs for rules, verses, bios, etc., as it forces people off site, so I can’t personally say, in good conscious and honesty, that I’d recommend it, but you do you!) You want to keep things quickly accessible is the idea here; when people are interested, you want to catch them right then and there before they have a chance to forget and lose your blog.

As to the nature of the verses themselves, give people real options. Don’t have 20 verses that all read same way. Same themes, plot possibilities, and backstories, or incredibly similar names. Have a diverse list of verses that can act as foundations for a variety of different muns. As many fandoms as you can reasonably have a good portrayal of, and different types of fandoms; not all the same genre (all fantasy, all horror, all scifi). Verses where your muse has substantially different goals, occupations, and other life situations that will involve another muse; don’t make your muse A Warrior™ in every verse, you can keep plenty of those aspects without being that literal. People love “modern” verses set in our own universe and, usually, in our own era. That doesn’t mean you have to go stereotypical or otherwise bore yourself by doing the standard “high school/college verse,” for instance. You don’t even have to designate that sort of thing, let alone make it the focus; simply create the verse by considering what your character really would be like if they existed within your reality.

As a final note on verses as pertains to this point, when you’re doing crossover verses, it’s alright to do some verses where your muse from their own canon existence somehow ends up teleported or whatever to another fandom’s reality, or even our own. Just don’t make every verse like this, it puts the onus of a great deal of creativity and effort onto the other mun by default; your muse has cluelessly dropped into the universe, and while it is high drama time for you, the other mun has to babysit, educate, deal with fallout, etc.

On making the list of your verses accessible, you want to focus on ease of browsing and not being overwhelming. People tend to look through a verse page and not read every verse listed, rather, they look at the titles and breakdowns to see if it is of interest, then read it. Don’t try to make everyone read them all, it isn’t going to happen, and shouldn’t change your effort any as the right people are going to find the verses that interest them...if you make it clear and easy enough.

Have a basic format you stick to, firstly. I do it this way: small verse banner, title of verse (linked to its overall tag so that muns can look through the tag at headcanons, aesthetics, pictures of the FC, and threads), muse age/age range, small blurb, possible triggers found uniquely or just heavily within this verse. In that order, one following the other in a simple, but pleasing way. Below that, is a more in depth breakdown of the “verse canon.” Sometimes, that is giving a brief rehashing of canon itself and anywhere my muse differs, be it in this verse only or overall, ending with where my muse is in this verse. Not literally where. I mean their present occupation, emotional and general state in life. At the very end, I provide any other relevant links and/or an expansion on the triggers mentioned at the top of the verse description if they’re that serious/recurrent so that muns can decide this isn’t the verse for them. I happen to have a potentially triggering muse, triggering verses, and writing triggering topics, though. That’s not something everyone needs to do.

Secondly, group your verses in a sensible way. I do my short list of default verses first. (And, I do mean short, you don’t want this be any more than four or five, it is overwhelming right out of the gate.) For me, that is two default verses of canon at different points on the timeline, one default AU that is a bit of a reversal of canon, and one default “modern” verse. Then, I list the verses that are in line with the altered canon one, just different possibilities, changes, points in history. After that, the different “modern” verse options. Then, verses for other fandoms, the crossover verses. And so on. This way, a potential partner can find the type of verse that might appeal to them and have an easier time picking from those possibilities and getting ideas.

Lastly, don’t be so succinct that you give too little information and underwhelm, but also don’t be so excessive that it takes all of the mystery of interaction away and overwhelms someone. It can be a difficult balance to strike, and some verses require more information than others, just experiment a bit. Additionally, it’s fine to link to pertinent information for the other mun to view aside from this, but don’t just link people to a fandom wiki as your “description/bio.” That isn’t giving information on how you write this muse, approach this fandom, or what another mun can otherwise expect. Keeping your descriptions interesting is important, you’re not giving a boring lecture, you’re trying to inform someone while making them hyped for their choices. It’s more interesting, and informative, to read if you do them with an ear to the “tone” of your muse in that verse. Is it a sad one? Sound that way. These can, indeed, function as snippets of your writing, so be sure you are writing them with the same care you should be giving your replies; spellcheck, good word flow and use, mind the grammar, and read over what you’ve written for common, easy mistakes.

Again, by giving a genuine variety of verses to choose from, you’re allowing for a greater reach in potential partners. Everyone from those still in your original fandom to those in new ones, all the way to fandomless muses will be able to interact with you this way.

Finally, in regards to what you can change or do when you’re in a dead fandom and seeking interactions; make sure you are increasing your reach by using proper tags, being honest about what and how you write, and don’t wait for others to stumble across you.

When you use tags properly, you’re increasing your chances of being seen at all. Every time you post something at all applicable on your blog, tag it with relevant things. Tag as described above with whatever fandom it is and “RP,” your character’s name, “open RP,” character name and RP, indie RP, open starter, and so on. Be sure you are optimizing your tags by placing the most relevant to finding you in the first four, those are what show up in site-wide searches only. Anything after that isn’t going to appear in a search across all tumblr.

By tagging your character’s name, as a canon, you should know that you are likely to get personal blog interaction. I’m pretty against being nasty to personal blogs for no reason, as I don’t appreciate personal and fandom blogs being shitty to me for the sole reason that I am an RPer. Please, use clear, short, attention getting directions for them. If you want no interactions with them, put right in the description of your blog “RP blog, does not interact with personal blogs.” When you say things like, “personals dni,” or “personals blocked,” you’re not doing anyone any favors. Personal blogs often don’t even know what the hell a personal blog even is! They do not denote themselves this way, to a personal blog, they’re just a blog. By designating first that you are an RP blog, you’re making it clearer that they’re the personal; they’re obviously not an RP blog, so that must make them a personal. Follow this up in a pinned post, right on top. Give a note to personal blogs that describes them as “any blog that isn’t an RP blog” first, then either tell them in brief what they can and can’t do or that you don’t interact and will block.

I don’t recommend taking your blog off of being findable, however. That’s alright once you have the RP activity you are looking for, but until then, it’s working against you. Other RP blogs cannot easily find you either, they will only find you if you’re on a list or appear in their recommended blogs, if you interact with a mutual, or are recommended by a mutual. You’re not just lessening your chances of personal blogs finding you, so if you have that turned off, turn it back on.

Don’t entirely rely on others finding you regardless, though. You can’t be 100% passive when you have no interactions, and by relying solely on serendipity you’re far less likely to get them. I know that everyone here is terminally shy, but seriously, you have to do more than put your silent will into the universe that someone perfect find you. You have to make this happen. Once you get a few people, you can afford to be more passive. Not only do you have some people to write with, you will be more visible to their mutuals, and more established as a presence. I’m not saying this is easy, or that it will become easy, not awkward or stressful, if you have a legitimate issue behind the shyness. Just that it is the only way to really proceed, and I believe you can do it!

So, go looking for interesting blogs. Be crossover and OC friendly (again, this doesn’t mean “accept everyone,” there are valid reasons for not accepting people you won’t work out with that have nothing to do with their fandom or being an OC), and search those fandom’s RPCs, following any blogs you think you might work out with upon reading their rules and other pages. Search for fandomless OCs and do the same thing. Fandomless OCs aren’t just floating around in the ether, they just weren’t created expressly for a particular fandom and within its confines. What is excellent about that is their ability to have a wide variety of verses and many possibilities to fit into any fandom or verse. So, don’t count them out solely on the basis of being an OC and fandomless. It doesn’t mean what people seem to think it does!

Do not stop at having followed 50 blogs. I mean, other than that you probably should stop following people for a bit. That you should do, as you need to be building writing relationships here, not following so many people that you cannot get to them. Don’t just stop at the follow, though. Since you’ve read their rules and information like a good RP partner, you should have some idea of what their interests are and where they align with yours, as well as how they prefer to be approached, if they accept memes right away to start, need plotting, have a rules password. When they’ve followed you back, proceed with interaction!

Ask if they’d like to plot when they have time, you’re really looking forward to writing with them. But...have some idea of a plot, please. It is a serious turn off to have someone message you wanting to plot, only to reply and get “lol I don’t have any ideas, anything works for me/whatever you want to do.” That isn’t plotting, it’s one party coming up with ideas and constructing a plot while they’re being told “I’m fine with anything.” That may be true, but it’s disheartening and a red flag for many people. If you genuinely can’t come up with anything, pick verses that match up well and suggest doing something within them.

“When you have the time, would you be interested in discussing writing? I was looking at your verses, and I think your verse -name- and mine, -verse name-, would mesh well.” Is a good way to start. Once you have a discussion flowing about the verses meshing and the muses, it’s typically easy to organically develop some plot ideas to go off of.

If both you and the other mun are alright with plot-free interaction and memes, you can send a meme any time. If you can’t find any memes on their blog, look for a wishlist or navigation page that shows you the tags for memes/wishlist. Still can’t find it? Ask them if they’ve got a wishlist or meme tag you can look through.

Additionally, if open starters are a thing you both do and are alright with, find some of theirs and respond. Post your own, tag it appropriately to be found in general and on your blog, and reblog it once or twice. Don’t excessively reblog it, and don’t get upset on the dash if no one interacts with it or any memes you reblog. Both are demanding to outright guilting, and not a good way to get partners. Just provide them with the ability to easily interact by making the posts available in the first place and by making them findable on your blog search and navigation.

Provide something for potential partners to see. Since you said you already do have writing, that’s great! That’s content on your blog that your partners can view. However, since you’re also having the issues you’ve stated, it’s likely that you haven’t many new posts. Show that you are active, interested in being here, and how you write your muse (and in general) by posting some newer content. For original content, do a headcanon or some meta, or post about new verses you are adding, the changes on your blog, a promo. For reblogs, things pertaining to your muse like canon imagery, fanart, quotes from canon or that generally express your muse, and aesthetics relevant to your muse are all excellent things to queue.

Use that queue. Not only do very few people appreciate having dash spam of similar content for the comparatively short time you might be around, but also, running these things on a queue means you spread that out for maximum view. While there are hours of heavier activity, you’ll have mutuals who are on at unusual hours due to their life and preferences or their timezone. This way, you’re not appearing inactive, if not outright invisible, to those mutuals. It’s not a bad idea to use a queue tag so that people know if they interact with a post that’s been queued, you might be here to quickly respond.

Ultimately, to fix your fandom and lacking partners problem, you just need to up your availability and reach beyond that fandom alone. Be proactive in following and approaching, decline blogs based on not working out only, utilize tags and fandom RPer lists, have everything on your blog easy to follow and not overwhelming, and have your verses meet as wide of a range of people as possible while also not being overwhelming.

Try updating your promo, as well, by the way. They’re not dead, they just really tanked when people kept making them based solely on aesthetic principle instead of being at all informative about the muse. They do seem to be coming back, so it’s a thing to consider.

Yes, make it visually appealing, it will draw people to reading it. No, do not just use a song lyric or quote with words highlighted linking your rules, verses, bio. Tell people basic info like the age of your muse and yourself, if you are multiverse and multiship, your muse’s canon verse and a couple of big interest verses of other major fandoms or themes that tend to be of interest to people, and what kind of RP you write - one line/para/multipara/novella. Absolutely give links to rules, verses, bio, and either memes, wishlist, or open starters, but give them just like that; make it very clear what this link is to. Put a very short statement of interest on there denoting that you’re expanding to new fandoms and looking for writing partners.

Do not sound desperate, demanding, or devaluing of yourself. Don’t say shit like “because my fandom is dead,” “trying this before I give up and delete my blog,” or “I suck at interaction/writing/ooc interaction/being a person but welp giving it a try, so follow and hit that heart.” (Conversely, calling yourself derogatory things and implying that your partners are too, such as the “we’re all just losers here” shit.) All of the above are not attractive, and they’re not even surprising enough to stand out anymore. It’s another reason to scroll right by that promo because nothing at all was different or of interest.

And as a wrap-up/rehash of the first topic, getting muse back: try starting over at the beginning by approaching the media involving your muse that has really stuck with you emotionally over the years, and exploring and developing your muse again.

Don’t tell yourself you can only write, for example, at home, on the laptop, after 7pm, and with a pop toy staring at you. The best thing about writing, as opposed to so many other hobbies, is that you can do it anywhere! So, do that. Do it any time you both feel the inspiration to do so and aren’t going to get fired or expelled for it. This isn’t work, it’s something enjoyable that does take effort (like literally all creative activities and skills do), but approaching it as though you need to follow novel writing advice from someone who has never published anything of note and isn’t you on the internet, with strict rules for success makes it feel that way. So does being frustrated with a dead fandom, no interaction. It’s disheartening, feels as annoying and fruitless as work often does. You probably need to break out of that mindset, and you can only do it by beginning to allow yourself to be creative on your own terms, entirely for yourself.

Do write simple things at first that you are inspired to do (you can’t get a scene out of your head, or a bit of dialogue), and/or headcanon/character development memes and question lists. Build from there as you get back in touch with your muse, writing things primarily or entirely for yourself still. Expanding on headcanons, doing some meta, or maybe writing out a missing piece of canon or what you’d be interested in seeing happen in canon if some event was altered.

Doing this sort of thing, you are getting in touch with your muse again and back into the real spirit of writing creatively, simultaneously.

Whatever you find most inspiring, do it. If it’s watching the movie or show again, do that, have it on while you write or simply think on the character’s actions, thoughts, and emotions during those scenes. If it’s reading the material again, do that, and read snippets of personal importance before you write. Maybe it’s some past playlists you can have on while writing, or even while you’re cleaning, walking the dog, driving or riding somewhere. It could even be your own previous writing! Go ahead and re-read that, it sounds like you still appreciate it, and that’s truly promising. If you find that you’re horrified by some of the things you’ve written in the more distant past, hey...that’s not just valid as hell, it’s natural. You know what else it is? An inspiration. You can clearly see that you could do better, that means you now know how to do better and are ready to do so. Validate yourself, prove it to yourself by rewriting or fixing something.

Don’t delete the blog or archive it. It is unpleasant to have a dead blog around, but don’t keep it dead. Use the same blog and simply transition it into wider things that will net you more partners and the interactions you deserve.

Look, even if you weren’t the most popular blog in your fandom before it went quiet, you really appreciated the blog, muse, and writing you were doing. You’ve defined that it wasn’t something you did to cause this situation, you just had the shit luck we all run into eventually of being in a fandom that ran out of material or interest. People are really fickle, so by taking a wider approach and fixing on the writing and muse instead of fandom now, you’re stopping this from repeating. Seriously, on a long enough timeline, every fandom dies or goes into hibernation. If you make a whole new blog with a different muse, it is going to happen again eventually.

So, don’t feel like you’re ridiculously clinging to the past and need to move on, you’re just sticking to something and can continue to stick to it through the next five fandom deaths. Just because it is the most popular thing to do to drop muses, constantly add new ones, and have this attitude that you can “blog refresh” your way out of recurrent, and inherent, problem doesn’t mean it is actually the right thing to do. It’s not even the most sensible, and certainly not the best thing to do with anything you’ve spent time and effort on.

That’s your incentive; yourself, the time and care you’ve put in, and your continued interest in writing and the muse. You’ll find good people, and bluntly, everyone else can fuck right off when you’re incentivized by yourself. It becomes a self-fulfilling activity at that point, I swear, and it feels really nice.

Just get back in touch with your muse and writing itself so that you can begin to expand and start interacting again!

#rp advice #rp problems #rp help #muse loss #dead fandoms #rp better #Anon E. Mous #answered

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dragynkeep · 3 years

Note

For the character ask thing (don't know if you're still doing it or not): Adam Taurus

meme, accepting.

my top three ships for the character.

tartaurus ( adam / cinder ) — for how they are in canon, this is the perfect “ we’ll go down in flames together, my love ” villain x villain ship for me & i adore it. i think they would be the absolute worst for each other & it would be amazing.

arctic warfare ( adam / winter ) — i do have a few wips for this & in a better canon, there definitely would’ve been some parallels drawn between them to compliment the blake / weiss parallels. honestly, them becoming childhood friends to enemies to something is god tier.

tauradonna ( adam / blake ) — in au only ; i think before canon confirmed & made adam into what he is, there were a lot of hints that their relationship, while not being the greatest, had been one of genuine care between them & honestly in my mind, could’ve been something comparable to padme / anakin as adam fell to the darkness too.

my three least favourite ships for the character.

tauradonna ( adam / blake ) — in canon, this can go fall into the river. not even just because it’s an abusive relationship, but because it’s a bad attempt at an abusive relationship. blake & adam don’t feel like real people, blake is a poor victim constantly & adam is the one note abusive hate sink. it’s a pathetic mockery of what an abusive relationship is & mk should feel ashamed for what they wrote.

my biggest criticism for the character.

it’s been said a million times so i won’t go into that whole rant again here but i will say that mk really should’ve nailed down what they wanted for adam & nailed down his relationships with people before they actually wrote him into the story — because as he is in canon? he’s a mess. he’s a one dimensional, flat, whiny hate sink & that’s not fun, that’s not interesting. that’s not even a compelling villain & this is without going into the uncomfortable truth that his character suffered the worst racism in the show, blinded in one eye & a child slave under an oppressive corporation, but thanks to milk & kornflake’s white comfort, his death was seen as the end of all racism because they wanted to wipe their hands clean of the plotline & adam all in one.

my favourite thing about the character.

his original design was top tier. the stark black & red contrast that we had already seen but on our good guy in ruby, all the sharp edges of the character & his imposing stature, the mask hiding his face & therefore leaving him a mystery to us, etc etc. all of it was incredible storytelling via design & props really should be given to the designers for their designs in the earlier volumes cause they were fantastic.

a headcanon i have about them.

adam isn’t a half bad singer, though he hasn’t found much reason to sing in recent years. however when he & blake were on better terms, he would sing her to sleep after she had had a nightmare & snuck into his room, looking for comfort in the one person she thought understood her. after blake left, even humming the song made him feel sick.

what i would change about them if i was making a re-write.

like i said up above, iron out exactly what they want him to be, & actually make him into a 3 dimensional character who has wants & desires & emotions outside of blake & his whiny diatribe of revenge against her & not the system that enslaved him.

what i think of their character allusion and what (if anything) i would change about it.

it’s not fucking gaston so let’s jot that down lmao; i still don’t know why people listen to arryn of all people when she’s not a writer. she may know things about blake but she has no control over the writing process, no matter how many of them are her ex boyfriends. adam as gaston makes no sense. gaston was part of the oppressive class, he was a coward who prided himself on his reputation for hunting defenceless animals, he is also a disney only creation — there was no gaston in the fairy tale iterations of beauty & the beast. while i’ll admit m&k were probably more influenced by the disney version than they want to admit, the canon is that rwby are based off of the fairytales, not their disney iterations.

with adam as the beast ... it’s okay? it’s a subversion of belle & the beast’s actual relationship — going from a woman who sees a monster & then learns to see the man within, to a woman seeing a man & then revealing the monster inside him. i’ve said before how much i hate that adam is seen as the propagator of racism & with his death came the end of racism in rwby because it’s just so inappropriate to those who actually suffer racism irl & shows how mk were a. out of their depth & b. prioritizing their white comfort. he also has to share this allusion with blake ( who is both belle & the beast? just pick one crwby. ) so there isn’t really opportunity to flesh that allusion out, especially with adam himself being so one dimensional.

#rwby #adam taurus #owl.txt #answered #q #racism /#child slavery /#abuse /#i literally could not think of two other ships i dont like for him lmao #not bc i dont like them #but bc i rarely ship him with anyone DAJSKDJ #Anonymous #character ask

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headphonemouse · 3 years

Text

9/18/2021 drawing liveblog

CHROOOOOMEEEEE

I love looking for reference photos of him because this is always near the top of the search results.

I dont really plan on making anything for this, but I was thinking about family dynamics and how in a lot of modern aus, people make Suika either Senkuu's or Kohaku's little sister. Or if they have a mixed family then she's Kohaku's little sister and Senkuu's step-sister. However, I haven't seen anything about making her Chrome's little sister. To me, those two have the highest sibling energy. Kohaku dotes on her, Senkuu too but to a lesser extent, but Chrome, upon her introduction, scolds her for supposedly stealing his stuff. That's exactly what a bitchy older sibling would do. He treats her like an annoying kid sibling but also gets super excited whenever she does something cool. As Kohaku's little sister, she's really cute, but I feel like she gets boiled down as JUST being cute too much. I think her dynamic with Chrome would be more interesting. And in the current arc, they're being recognized almost as equals. They get along but not in a 'best buds' way. They're totally siblings

AOCJRNFUVH IM SO SORRY

Nice

I'm sorry this is supposed to be about art but I keep getting distracted

I just learned how to toggle the bucket setting to expand the edge of the thingy so that there's no thin layer of uncolored space at the edges. And that there's a "close gaps" setting so I don't have to worry about having perfect lineart before using the bucket. All thanks to a quick coloring tutorial from sabertooth walrus

"Include this area as a selection" makes it easy to recolor lineart. I found out about it the other day and just used it now. Makes clothing folds on dark clothes easy to see

"Oh wow how do you get your thin lines so smooth?" I simply do not breathe.

Done with one character out of three, on page 1 out of 3

It isn't a comic this time. It's a series of fake screenshots, though I'm not gonna try to replicate the dcst art style

Figured out how to add a reference window

Aha. I'm glad this is only a tiny part of the drawing. Surprisingly, I haven't gotten bored yet

My attitude towards making art has gotten so much healthier lately. My intro post says something about how my posts don't warrant the amount of effort I put in, and that's because I'd often think that whatever I was making was pointless. Now I dont really care about that, I'm throwing my all into making this thing because I wanna see what "my all" would be. It doesn't have to be meaningful or successful, I just had to remind myself that I'm doing this for fun. And it is a lot of fun

Done with Senkuu. Moving on

This. Is hard...

Theyre still treating the astronaut lineup like they don't know who's going up so what if Chrome and Suika are hauling ass trying to make the return vessel and they're really brushing up against the deadline when they reveal that Xeno and Stan are going up so Suika and Chrome are all "oh well I guess we don't really need to rush let's take our time with this and just help build another rocket for the rescue mission"

3/3 characters done. Now backgrounds and an extra set of hands

I should probably save the background for tomorrow. For now though, I have a passable meme! The characters are all fully drawn on the screenshot and the punchline is yknow. Within the single picture already. Except I went ahead and looked up where that line came from and came up with two extra screenshots to draw over so that'll take another day. I can PROBABLY finish by tomorrow? If I manage my time

Hmmmmm. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I feel like this isn't testing my skills, as much as it is testing my patience, which I have a lot of. Maybe if I made myself color it it'll be more challenging. Maybe if I didn't have a photo to copy from. Maybe if I drew the background differently, changed the scene. Hmmmmm. I wanna try drawing nature scenes sometime, and experiment in tone values. You can do so much with greytones, and I'm not using that to its full extent

#talking tag #process tag

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scoundrels-in-love · 4 years

Note

for the ask meme: 9, 32 & 49 please!

It’s only been 10 days... It’s only a guess which ask game you sent this for...! ^^; (I am basing it on the fact I read the questions and mused about them for this whole time so I am probably right about the game.) @nossbean

9. What are your favorite fanfics?

Oh no. Oh no. I could and should write POSTS upon POSTS about this.

But I haven’t, because I don’t have the energy to. So you get a cheat version of some of my random favorites from my last pages of my AO3 history. And few special shout outs.

@angel-deux-writes Worth is a wholeass gem and I haven’t commented yet, but I binged it basically today (with exception of first chapter) and I can’t stop yelling about it internally, because the way she says things!! She always has some of my favorite Brienne characterization I get so envious over. There is strength and pride in it, and vulnerability and fear and the acknowledgment that her self-loathing is unfounded yet how hard it is to defend yourself, even knowing all that. I could write essays about it and Angel’s stories in general. Anything by her is a treasure trove, truly.

@samirant Rush Me All Night Long is a fascinating concept, so very well executed and absolutely captivating. Makes me go slack-jawed with awe with how seamless it is. And beyond the craftsmanship of the story form itself, the contents are absolutely epic, too. Intrigue, growth of relationship, dash of humor that is right up my alley, lot of good other characters with their wonderful insights... Nothing to add or take away. Just great. And you KNOW you should check rest of her writing out, too. You won’t regret it.

@ajoblotofjunk is back with another subtly, but powerfully in-depth world story with Baby I Will. How many professions has she gotten degree in already? Because the way she weaves art of playing in bars is so organic. And oh, the connection between Jaime and Brienne... Electrifying, a storm that starts as static sparks as they brush past each other. And I can’t wait to watch it grow. (Also shout out to her absolutely beyond epic gift to me, Petrichor. Which is mindblowingly great and written at haste I cannot comprehend. It couldn’t be more tailored to me and I tear up just thinking about it.)

LadyRhiyana’s Stray Sparks II is the perfect example why I tell someone at least once a week “I wish I could LadyRhiyana this”. Her absolutely amazing skill to capture a whole setting, a whole world of emotions in sometimes as few as 5 to 10 sentences (and not the 30 word sort!) is just... Mesmerizing. I admire it so much and am typically absolutely enamored by her stories. Crossover is also in my history and I am absolutely head-over-heels for it.

@kurikaesu-haru Thirsty is the most endearing, captivating way to combine the two meanings of the word and I adore it to pieces. It’s fun and emotional and hot, and everything it could possibly need to be and then some, in best way possible. And her works contain more and more of gold mines, truly.

@firesign23 is a treasure, to this fandom and to me in particular, for many reasons. But her skill to devastate me with short stories is truly something else. Odd Socks (link to one of my favorite of the lot, but do give them all a read if you haven’t!) is what I have in my history, but I rec her as a writer 1000%. Her prompt fills are always poignant and not shy of ache and I can only marvel at them all. But also how could I miss out on mentioning her two breathtaking recent stories for fic exchange? Hold Steady is a Journey without ever leaving Winterfell, but the miles traveled by weary, worried, longing hearts in it... Oof. And, of course, I have to mention by hearts and hands made fast because it’s for me and it made me cry real tears more than once (!) and actually yell in real life, like no other story. Real and complicated as the characters deserve to be told, painful and comforting, absolutely breathtaking in the prose... I could rant for days, truly. And truly, wherever you look at her work, you’ll find more of it.

@aviss Skin Deep is just gem, gem, gem. Am I biased because she wrote for me, in a sense? Maybe. But she ACED it in ways I can barely comprehend. Everything I could wish for in the concept is there and more. Sweet pining, absolute besottery and realistic realizations and then hot, earnest resolutions... What a gem. As is rest of her works, really!

32. Past or present tense?

I used to be such a past tense snob. Nothing else for me, no sir. But now I write almost exclusively in present tense. I can’t tell when the shift happened, I think when I was 20 or few years older than that, and I don’t know why, I think I read a good fic, like really good one, and also was trying to bypass my writer’s block by switching it up. And I found a certain freedom in it. A sense that it makes sense for me to go deeper, to be in present turmoil and wax poetics about it for few paragraphs. Because it’s currently happening, instead of retelling if something that has been. It freed me more in past tense, too, though.

It’s odd I don’t remember how and why the shift happened, almost makes me feel sad.

Nowadays I mostly write in past tense because I get too caught up in flashback sort of sequences and can’t make it grammatically correct anymore so I switch everything to past tense. Tomorrow (with you) is prime example.

49. Where do you draw inspiration from?

Anything. The other day, I was bitterly laughing with a friend I could write a piece about stain on floor, create whole 1-3k word story about someone thinking about the stain, etc. Doesn’t matter if it has funny shape or not, known origin or not.

Most often, though, it’s prompts, it’s song lyrics, it’s some kind of thought/belief I have for character that I want to express/see them through some kind of event in way I think they would. Sometimes, it’s specific setting or watching something. Like, there was one (1) almost head-kiss in a kdrama with secret identities and I created a whole 10k word worth story idea off of it... Sometimes, it’s honestly even just a dumb, dumb post. But yes, music/feelings/prompts, I’d say are the main thing.

And as for inspiration drawn for writing itself... That’s a difficult question for me, right now. In kindest, non-rambly way I’d probably say what other people have lived and written.

Send me fanfic question?<3

#braime #braime ff rec #ask games answered #trying to remember what my rec tag was and failing...#nossbean #sent on a cloud

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kinetic-elaboration · 3 years

Text

July 17: 2x26 Assignment: Earth

Finally finished up S2 of TOS yesterday. That was... a rough episode tbh. I’m just gonna say it: back door pilots are bad! They’re bad. If I wanted to watch that other show, I’d watch it.

Wow, they’re just really jumping right in, huh? “Here we are, on a routine mission into the past, using a time travel method that we invented nbd.”

Investigating desperate problems in the year 2020...2016.... no wait 1968.

Ooh, Spock in the transport room today. Does he have a whole extra random station there? That’s so weird; I’ve never seen that before. It’s like hidden in the corner.

Cat!! Cat!!

What a good actor. I’m still bitter that wikipedia has a whole section about the casting for “Isis the cat” that talks entirely about the human who played Isis for 2 minutes and nothing about the talented feline actor. Where did they find her? How did they teach her to act?

She has a lot of thoughts about Kirk.

I wrote down “Scully, you’ve got to see this” in my notes and I’ve already forgotten what it refers to lol. Some moment that I thought would fit well with my favorite x-files meme.

Change history, you say? Spock is intrigued. ...Admittedly, Spock is often intrigued.

“What if it turns out you’re an invading alien from the future?” Honestly...let him invade. You’re not supposed to be here anyway.

I’m pretty insulted by this. The aliens went through all this trouble to help in 1968...where are our alien helpers NOW?

The cat straight up attacked his face.

Kirk is so fond of Spock being fond of the cat.

“It’s a lovely animal. I feel myself strangely drawn to it.”

Kirk is way too confused by Seven--an allegedly human person with super-human abilities that he says come from aliens--and yet, he’s met Charlie X so??? Is this not the same?

Kirk’s got the whole crew checking in on zoom.

(I actually do like this sequence of him getting video calls from different parts of the ship.)

“Weren’t orbiting H-bombs a huge problem in 1968?” Looks at the camera like he’s on The Office. Not the subtlest bit of writing in the “social commentary” genre. I do say this with love, though. I always enjoy when they comment on contemporary problems.

“He has a totally perfect body.” Lol don’t distract these two bisexuals.

[soft meowing]

“The prisoner has escaped.” The way this is shot, it looks like he’s talking about the cat.

Hmm, I do love the decor. Very 60s. This honestly immediately feels like a different show, and a much more dated show; even when the Enterprise time travels, it tends not to time travel to... office space.

Love the little sounds the computer makes.

So is Isis supposed to be one of the fancy aliens? It’s never explained but one must assume she is.

Aw, he’s petting her paw.

So I assumed the cats sounds are real, but just dubbed. They’re not lol. Which I guess isn’t surprising: this cat makes a lot of noises! They were provided by a human voice actress.

Damn.... I want a secret bookshelf that turns around to reveal a super computer with a big screen. “Computer... play Netflix.”

That’s what Seven does in his spare time.

The computer is an AI. “Beta 5 snobbery” lol.

Where are OUR alien overlords to stop US from destroying ourselves before WE can mature into a peaceful society?

This is really masterful exposition lol. Not forced or awkward at all.

ST sure does love the snooty female computer trope.

“Get us the proper costumes.” Yes, get Spock his Requisite Hat.

Omicron IV....that’s one of the names they use in Futurama lol. Such nerds.

Another excellent Spock Hat.

I love Seven’s various IDs. Great style. I wish my driver’s license looked like those.

“Who do you think you are?” He hasn’t decided yet. That’s why he was shifting through his IDs.

Seven is not smart lol. Like, he should have figured out way faster that this lady isn’t one of the Alien Overlords. He asks her the code question, she doesn’t understand it, and he... assumes she’s just really in character? Dude, that’s what the code questions are for!!! To help you identify people! Otherwise you could just straight up ask: are you an alien?

Instead he’s like “oh, you silly alien, you’re playing with me,” and then is forced to trap her, reveal his whole mission, and ultimately ensnare her in his plan.

I want that typewriter. Voice recognition typewriter.

"My incompetence has made you aware of very secret devices." Well at least he knows.

Trained cat!

The alien overlords were killed in a random car accident. That’s ironic.

Oh look, a real rocket!

Brown pants + short sleeved shirt + tie is such a Classic 60s look.

This security guard doesn’t think it’s weird that this random dude has a cat with him? Is this part of Isis’s alien power?

Except for the part where it’s a weapon, it’s pretty cool to see all this build up to, like... launching stuff into space. Exciting.

Isis likes to be on shoulders. Just like Little Guy.

New hat for Spock. His outer wear hat, and now his fancy hat. There is something to be said for this ep, and that is Kirk and Spock in suits.

Amazing how they literally launched rockets with computers that old. Like seeing the big bank of primitive computers is totally wild. We put people on the moon that way! Amazing.

“Meow.” Lol, Isis is stressed so she’s speaking like a cat. That’s a pretty funny joke actually.

Seven is so incompetent. If he’d just let the Enterprise help, Scotty could have fixed that rocket issue in like 3 seconds.

Lol everyone’s just pulling Gary through space. Now on the Enterprise. Now in the office.

Why does this computer have a hug black screen if it only displays images on the small white circle?

"Spock and I in custody. Main characters, doing nothing, knowing nothing, totally useless and irrelevant. I have never felt more helpless." Literally what is even the point of them today? Does Spock even have lines outside of “I like the cat”?

Isis is jealous of Roberta. Is she.. in a relationship with Seven lol?

Uhura is listening to everyone in the world. She probably has a universal translator on, but I do feel like this scene implies she just...understands all the languages.

So now the warhead is armed and heading to somewhere vague... in other words, everyone has collectively made the situation worse.

....Or this was Seven’s plan all along? To scare people into ceasing to be so careful with nuclear weaponry? As someone who knows humans better than this guy, I think this is a dumbass plan.

“That’s why so many people in my generation are kind of crazy and rebels.” Same, sweetheart.

Really this is just a story about bad communication. If Seven had told Kirk his plan upfront, Kirk would have helped him. And if Kirk weren’t so insistent on involving himself in something just because he happens to be somewhere he probably shouldn’t be, we wouldn’t have this issue either. The hubris of everyone.

Overall, just a really forced narrative imo.

Or that’s how it was supposed to be lol. The Irony of time travel. By it’s nature, everything has already worked out.

Kirk and Spock are like “You’re welcome. Peace out.”

Honestly... Isis was the only good part. Such a talented cat actor!! Or trio of cat actors, I guess. Had to do all those stunts and stuff.. .amazing. I also liked the concept of Isis. How she turned into a human later just to troll Roberta. How she’s never really explained--one must assume, an alien? Plus I pretty much never get tired of human + animal teams where the animal makes animal noises and the human just understands and answers in English.

As a stand alone sci fi concept...it was okay. Kinda dated by now. The alien tech was nifty and Roberta could have grown on me. Maybe even Seven, though he left a lot to be desire. That said, the narrative relied a lot on people getting in each other’s way for no reason, which I find very frustrating.

But as a Star Trek episode....no. The main characters were just nuisances on the side lines!! I’m not even sure what Kirk’s mission here was--to try to figure out what Seven was doing? And stop him if necessary? But he never really decided if it was or not, until the point where not trusting him would basically cause a nuclear war? I don’t know, I found it all very frustrating. The melding of the original show and the spinoff was not smooth.

If I were watching this in 1968, I’d feel very cheated. THIS was the season finale? That’s it? I don’t even get a real Star Trek episode and now I have to wait months for anything new?

And what I get after all that waiting is Spock’s Brain?? I’d be tempted to quit. If I had a tumblr in 1969 I’d be writing multi-paragraph rants about how the best show on television has completely nose-dived lol.

But then there’s The Enterprise Incident, which is one of the best episodes... I don’t know, man. It’s a conundrum. I’ve only seen maybe half of season 3 but from what I remember it’s very uneven: some of the best eps (The Enterprise Incident, For the World Is Hollow, Day of the Dove) mixed in with some of the worst (Spock’s Brain, The Paradise Syndrome), plus some that are good concepts but shoddily executed (The Way to Eden). So we’ll see what I think about it when I see it all in one piece, in air date order.

#the year 2021 #2021: fandom thoughts #2021: star trek #star trek tos

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openheart12 · 4 years

Note

Hi, yes, hello beautiful! Can you write a fic where MC accidentally sends Ethan her entire fanfic folder by mistake 😂🤣

How To Get Away With Fanfiction

I’m reliving my embarrassment 😭 but it is done and idk wtf happened with this lmao. This is also to make up for earlier kmjhygfd

Only tagging @ao719 @oofchoices @loveellamae @burnsoslow because no one else should have to read this unless they click on the read more and if they do... god bless. And thank you to Maroe for helping me come up with some of these ideas!

It had been a long day at work when Dr. Gertrude-Sue Claws made her way home to do the one thing that relaxed her; writing fanfiction.

She had thought of the perfect idea for Spirit and Rainbow Dash and her fingers flew across the keyboard.

There was something about the multi colors in his mane and tail that drew him to her. He lived by the phrase, “hump ‘em and dump ‘em,” which he planned on doing with Rainbow Dash, but not without consent because horse jail wasn’t fun. He had heard the horror stories from his human friends, Kurns and Bryce.

“Rainbow Dash,” he neighed.

“Spirit…” She neighed back in response, she knew all about his...extracurricular activities. He was the biggest fuck horse out of the herd. Ever since Rain had died from drowning, god bless, he hadn’t been the same. It was also why he paid more attention to Rainbow Dash because she had Rain in the first part of her name.

“Let’s do this,” he smirked with his horse mouth.

“Fine…” She turned her back to him as he reared on his hind legs and mounted her, letting out a series of neighs.

She laughed silently to herself before moving on her Owen Hunt fic and she knew how much she was going to enjoy this one especially.

Owen was walking through the halls when he saw five women stalking towards him like cats, one even had whiskers drawn on her face. “Anitah with the h, get him!” He heard one of them command and watched as she came up to him, kicking him in no man's land. He felt them drag him into an empty exam room.

“MAROE! You got the chainsaw?”

“Nah bruh, Bears and Rams were in charge of that,” she explained.

Anything but Krista, cocked her half shaved eyebrow at Burns and Ella. “Y’all got the chainsaw?”

“No, but I have the cream for the burn I’m about to inflict,” Burns snickered to herself at her own joke, the others joining in before getting back to business.

“Burns, Ella, go scope out the cafeteria for some good food because I can’t kill in good faith on an empty stomach and as me and Ella say, we always get food first,” Anything but Krista said, turning her attention to the two people left, throwing them both a knife. Then proceeded to stab Owen numerous times, but making sure not to hit any major organs yet.

“We need a blender,” Anitah with the h announced.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Anything but Krista and MAROE said at the same time, looking at each other and bursting into laughter at the jinx.

“If that was making a human smoothie, then yes. We’ll show him that no one messes with Derek Christopher Shepherd,” Anitah with the h said smugly, pulling a blender out from behind her back and plugging it into the wall.

“You...you pulled that out of your jacket?” MAROE asked in a surprising tone.

“Y’all don’t keep blenders in yours?” Anitah with the h asked as if that wasn’t common, but it was good to know that she was always prepared.

Suddenly, the walkie talkie came to life, “Team Bears/Rams to Team CA, what y’all want from here? Over and out.”

“Team CA to Team Bears/Rams, we want CookOut. Over and out.” Anything but Krista responded. “It’s about time y’all tried a little piece of heaven,” she looked at Anitah with the h and MAROE.

“That’s a negative ghost rider, the closest CookOut is on the other side of the country. Over and out.”

“Well you better get on your way because you two also need to try a little piece of heaven, we’ll save the good stuff for when you get back. Over and out.” The trio resumed their slice and dice game, taking a short break to play Choices because the latest chapter of The Nanny Affair had just been released and even Owen wasn’t going to keep them away from Sam Dalton.

A couple hours later, Burns and Ella arrived with the food, handing out their respective trays to their respective orderers, they were able to keep the milkshakes from melting by their cold hearts.

“Ahhh gimme my milkshake,” Anything but Krista snatched it from Burns’ hand, earning a slap on her hand from her adoptive mother and a threat of taking away her pony...again.

“Yooo this shake hits different,” Ella exclaimed.

“You could even say that it slaps,” MAROE added making her squeak.

“It’s the one good thing North Carolina has to offer for me,” Anything but Krista chimed in, fist bumping Anitah with the h because the struggle was real. The cows really did outnumber the people, they just hoped that there wouldn’t be a cow revolution because that would be awful except the yeehaw folk would probably survive since they did have a song called “A Country Boy Can Survive.”

“Burns, we left you the honor of picking the perfect weather for us to dispose of the body which is more like liquid at this point. We need rain, thunder, and lightning to erase all of the evidence. Watching “Forensic Files” has finally come in handy. And Ella, we need you to pretend to be a nurse or something to help us get out of here. I’ll be honest, I haven’t thought that far ahead…” Anything but Krista admitted, but they expected that from her so they already had a plan in place.

“If anyone happens to see Derek Shepherd, I ask that you tell me,” MAROE added.

“Not if I find him first,” Anything but Krista said.

“He’s like fifty four years old…” Burns said being ever the good adoptive mother.

“Then I call Spencer Reid!” Anything but Krista exclaimed.

“I have Lucifer then,” MAROE challenged knowing that would get under her skin.

“Children, calm yourselves.” Burns shook her head.

“Hey, I’ll be eighteen in like a number amount of months,” Anything but Krista said.

“I’ll be eighteen before you,” MAROE said, sticking out her tongue.

“I’Ll Be EiGhTeEn BeFoRe YoU,” she repeated, placing her hands on her hips and doing that Spongebob meme. After thinking of a better comeback, she grabbed her knife she used on Owen earlier and plunged it into MAROE’s back.

“Et tu, Brute?” MAROE said with shock in her voice before her body crumpled on the ground.

“Yes, bye bitch.”

The other three just stared as the blood drained from her body before turning their attention to Anything but Krista. They were the epitome of 👁👄👁.

“What? She wanted to “due” anyway. And at her funeral we can play “To Be So Lonely” because well she will be lol.”

“Anywaysss, we gonna get food or what?” Ella asked as she covered Owen’s body with a sheet.

“Wings?” Burns suggested and they all agreed. After arriving at the restaurant, they were very shocked to see MAROE sitting at a table waiting for them.

“It’s the trying to kill me for me,” she said upon taking their seats, glaring at Anything But Krista specifically.

“It’s the stealing my fictional husbands for me,” she retaliated.

“It’s the acting like children for me,” Burns' authoritative voice came.

“Sorry,” they both murmured as they looked over the menus to order their food. The rest of their lunch going smoothly, their victims already forgotten about. Don’t mess with hangry chicks who hate Owent Cunt.

“So who’s next?” Anitah with the h asked.

“Ahh you’ve gotten the first taste of blood and now you’re addicted,” Burns observed. She would make for a good profiler for the FBI at Quantico. She would have a cool nickname; Cunt Punter.

“Why not just kill everyone we hate?” Ella questioned.

“That’s a great idea! I say we kill Guy and Vanessa,” Anything but Krista suggested.

“And Landrat!” MAROE added, the whole group agreeing, finishing their lunch before getting to their killing spree.

Gertrude-Sue was laughing at her made up characters and story when she received an email from Ethonk Remy to send him a folder that she had. Goggle Drive was acting stupid so she didn’t realize that she had shared her fanfiction folder with her boss before it was too late. She saw a little giraffe pop up in the right hand corner telling her that he was already viewing what was inside the folder.

“Holy donkey claws,” she cried out loud, smacking her hands against her face.

Meanwhile, Ethonk was going through her folder when he came across a document and his eyes went wide. “What are they doing with the dog?” He said to himself.

Wonder pets, wonder pets

We're on our way

To help a friend and save the day

We're not too big

And we're not too tough

But when we work together, we've got the right stuff

Gooo wonder pets yaaaaay!

The phone

The phone is ringing

The phone

We'll be right there

The phone

The phone is ringing

There's an animal in trouble

There's an animal in trouble somewhere

“What the hell are Wonder Pets?” He continued inspecting the different documents ranging from murder of one Owen Cunt, horses having sexual intercourse, Wonder Pets stuff, four kids and a dog where they did questionable things with each other, a sponge and a starfish were high on marijuana, a game where Gertrude-Sue had made him and her a family that looked way too realistic for his liking, two bunnies who kept hopping around with one of their little brothers, and multiple documents about Matthew Gray Gubler, Tom Holland, Tom Ellis, Patrick Dempsey, and Harry Styles which were all quite disturbing.

He took out his phone to call her. “Hey uh, Gert, what is this?”

“Oh well you see, the funny thing is that I accidentally sent you the wrong folder so if you could just pretend like this never happened, that would be fantastic. Okay thanks bye. I’m sending you the right one this time.” And she hung up, ready to throw herself off a cliff at her stupidity.

One thing was for sure, she would never make this mistake again.

#CA chronicles

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themusedump · 4 years

Text

Halsey + Manic (2020) sentence memes because I truly love this album. I don’t like it as much as badlands but it really is good. I plan on doing a meme of all three of her major albums.

ashley

“I can't remember why the decision wasn't mine but it seems I'm only clinging to an idea now.” “Took my heart and sold it out to a vision that I wrote myself.” “I only wanna die some days.” “When I burst into flames I'll leave you the dust, my love.” “I told you I'd spill my guts.” “Seems like now it's impossible to work this out.” “Is it really that strange if I always wanna change?” “I think I'm making a mistake” “But if I decide to break, who will fill the empty space?” “Apart from my beating heart. It's a muscle but it's still not strong enough to carry the weight of the choices I've made.” “I told you I'd ride this out.” “It's getting harder every day somehow.”

clementine

“And in my world, the people on the street don't know my name.” “Because in my world, I'm constantly, constantly havin' a breakthrough.” “Would you make out with me underneath the shelter of the balcony?“ “'Cause I don't need anyone,” “I don't need anyone. I just need everyone and then some.” “The blush in your cheeks says that you bleed like me.” “Would you make out with me on the floor of the mezzanine?” “And still with one eye open, well, all I see is you.” “I left my daydreams at the gate because I just can't take 'em too.”

graveyard

“It's crazy when the thing you love the most Is the detriment.” “Oh, 'cause I keep digging myself down deeper.” “I won't stop till I get where you are.” “They say I may be making a mistake.” “I woulda followed all the way, no matter how far.” “You look at me with eyes so dark I don't know how you even see.” “Oh, it's funny how the warning signs can feel like they're butterflies.”

you should be sad

“I gotta get it off my chest.” “Got no anger, got no malice, just a little bit of regret.” “Know nobody else will tell you.” “No, you're not half the man you think that you are.” “You can't fill the hole inside of you with money, drugs and cars.” “I'm so glad I never ever had a baby with you.” “You can't love nothing unless there's something in it for you.” “Oh, I feel so sorry.” “I feel so sad.” “I tried to help you, it just made you mad.” “And I had no warning about who you are.” “I'm just glad I made it out.” “Won't see your alligator tears ‘cause, no, I've had enough of them.” “I really meant well from the start.” “Take a broken man right in my hands and then put back all his parts.” “You can't fill the hole inside of you with money, girls and cars.” “You should be sad.”

forever ... (is a long time)

“And I curse the ground for growing green.” “I spent a long time substituting honest with sarcastic.” “I curse my tongue for being mean.” “He cut me open, sucked the poison from an aging wound.” “I could never hold a perfect thing and not demolish it.” “What am I thinking? What does this mean?” “How could somebody ever love me?” “Talk to your man, tell him he's got bad news coming.”

dominic's Interlude

“Your eyes are fragile and timeless.” “There's power in the words you whisper.” “He/she treats you cold and so mindless.” “Your eyes are drawn to the wine list.” “You should know there's power in the words you're thinking.” “Walk on the edge with someone new.” “You can take a chance, come take my hand.”

I HATE EVERYBODY

“I'm my own biggest enemy.” “My friends are getting bored of me.” “I don't know what they all think of me.” “But in reality I don't even remember anything but thinking you're the one.” “And I can force a future like it's nothing.” “I just hate everybody.” “Why can't I go home without somebody?” “I could fall in love with anybody who don't want me.” “I hate everybody. But, maybe I don't.” “I know I've got a tendency to exaggerate what I'm seein.” “It's 'cause I notice every single thing that's ever happening in the moment.” “But none of it is love so while I'm waiting for it.” “If I could make you love me, maybe you could make me love me.” “And if I can't make you love me then I'll just hate everybody.”

3am

“Darling, I've just left the bar.” “I've misplaced all my credit cards.” “Think I took it way too far.” “My insecurities are hurting me.” “Someone, please come and flirt with me.” “I really need a mirror that'll come along and tell me that I'm fine.” “I do it every time.” “Come on and make me feel alright again.” “I'm calling everybody that I know.” “I need it digital ‘cause, baby, when it's physical, I end up alone.” “Know that my identity's always gettin' the best of me.” “I'm the worst of my enemies and I don't really know what to do with me.” “And will you please pick up the fucking phone?“

without me

“Found you when your heart was broke.” “Took it so far to keep you close.” “I was afraid to leave you on your own.” “I said I'd catch you if you fall ad if they laugh, then fuck 'em all.” “And then I got you off your knees, put you right back on your feet just so you could take advantage of me.” “You know I'm the one who put you up there,” “Does it ever get lonely thinking you could live without me?” “I don't know why.” “Just running from the demons in your mind. then I took yours and made 'em mine.” “I didn't notice 'cause my love was blind.” “You don't have to say just what you did .I already know.” “So tell me, how's it feel?”

finally // beautiful stranger

“Sour apple baby, but you taste so sweet.” “And I wonder if you'd like to meet.” “Your voice is velvet through a telephone.” “You can come to mine, but both my roommates are home.” “Think I know a bar where they would leave us alone.” “And I wonder if you'd take it slow.” “The truth is this. That I've never seen a mouth that I would kill to kiss.” “And I'm terrified, but I can't resist.” “Beautiful stranger, here you are in my arms.” “I know that beautiful strangers only come along to do me wrong.” “But I think it's finally safe for me to fall.” “And I wonder if it goes too far.” “I've never recognized a purer face.” “You stopped me in my tracks and put me right in my place.” “Used to think that loving meant a painful chase.” “But you're right here now and I think you'll stay.”

alanis' interlude

“Bit my nails down so they wouldn't scratch.” “But who believes in needs like these?” “I'll take two of 'em, please.” “All these beautiful laughs and beautiful thighs.” “Your pussy is a wonderland.” “And I could be a better man.” “It doesn't matter to me.” “And I have never felt the difference.” “Bad news, think I'll probably die before I have you.”

killing boys

“Told me pick my battles and be picking 'em wise but I wanna pick 'em all and I don't want to decide.” “No more, no more, anymore.” “So we'll sneak in the back and then we'll kick in the door.” “Tell me have you ever keyed a Ferrari before?” “Oh no, oh I don't anymore.” “And I'm not breaking, I won't take it.” “And I won't ever feel this way again.” “'Cause you don't need me anymore.” “And I won't ever try again.” “All I want in return is revenge.” “Cause I don't need you anymore.” “So where do you go?”

SUGA's Interlude (I’m not going to use the translations of this one because I have no way of telling how accurate they are sorry.)

“I been trying all my life to separate the time in between the having it all and giving it up,.” “I wonder what's in store if I don't love it anymore.”

“They told me once nothing grows when a house ain't a home.” “Is it true, honestly?” “Wanna scream but what's the use?“ “I just can't take it no more.” “They told me it's useless.” “There's no hope in store.” “But somehow I just want you more.” “Wonder will we ever meet?“ “And would you know it right away how hard I tried to see your face?” “'Cause I still believe it won't be like before.” “And when you decide it's your time to arrive, I've loved you for all of my life.” “And nothing could stop me from giving a try. I've loved you for all of my life.” “Somehow I'll still love you more.”

still learning

“I should be living the dream.” “I got a paranoia in me.” “And you wouldn't believe everything that I've seen.” “I know that I've done some wrong but I'm trying to make it right.” “I know that I love you but I'm still learning to love myself.” “I go home and I got no self-esteem.”

929

“Well, who am I?” “Can't remember half the time that I've been alive.” “Don't meet your heroes, they're all fucking weirdos." “Because nobody loves you, they just try to fuck you.” “And who do you call when it's late at night?” “You gotta promise us that you won't die cause we need you.” “And it's just these things that I'm thinking for hours.” “I lost the love of my life to an ivory powder but then I realise that I'm no higher power.” “I wasn't in love then and I'm still not now and I'm so happy I figured that out.” “I've got a long way to go until self-preservation.” “Think my moral compass is on a vacation.” "I can't believe I still feed my fucking temptation.” “And I'm still looking for my salvation.” “And I'm a fucking liar.”

I'm Not Mad

“I'm not even mad anymore.” “I don't even want you back anymore.” “I don't remember what we had anymore.” “I hope your back aches and your knees hurt.” “I hope you think about me sleeping in your t-shirt.” “I hope your little brother turns out to be nothing like you.” “I hope that you hurt more than I do.” “And honestly I still wish you nothing but the best.” “I know that you're still self-obsessed.” “I hear the wicked get no rest but when you do I hope you'll dream of me.” “I don't even hope you die these days.” “I hope you live 'til eighty-five these days.” “I hope it's eating you alive these days.” “I've got a twenty dollar bill that says that you never ever ever gonna change.”

Wipe Your Tears

“Nothing's gonna hurt you, baby.” “Nothing's gonna make you cry.” “I'll be damned if I ever let another hand wipe your tears before they dry.” “Keep your friends close but this pretty girl closer.” “But she's so cold but the world is colder.” “Take her in my lap and I promise that I'll hold her.” “My bed is too big for only me.”

#sentence meme #lyrics meme #roleplay meme #inbox meme

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consultingsister-aa · 4 years

Note

five times kissed (seb and cee but alt politics for spice)

THIS MEME for: @epiitaphs verse: alt poltical

It had started on their very first lecture with Professor Campbell. Celia has answered his question with ease, she knew all the dates, all the facts, all the names. She was just getting ready to bask in the glory of already identifying herself as best in the class when a voice, a male voice, two rows back started.

“Actually, wasn’t it Nicholson, not Nicholas?”

It was a ridiculous, unimportant fact. There was no need for him to even point it out; it didn’t change any fo the facts of the case. As Celia turned to shoot daggers at the boy, he smiled at her. Not a friendly, apologetic smile but a gloating, lazy grin. She hated Sebastian Moran.

Over the term, they continued in this fashion. Every time Celia or Seb raised a hand to answer a question, the other would sit up, lean closer, wait for someone to slip up. If there was nothing to be corrected, they offered a rebuttal. “While I see where Miss Holmes is coming from…” matched “I can understand where Moran would get that idea, however…”. It was a careful and considered game of intellectual tennis and no one was enjoying it quite as much as each other.

Six weeks in, Campbell would pause after every comment made by either and look to the other. On their final day in class before the Christmas break, after Celia had offered an almost perfect argument for the case, Campbell looked to Seb. As did Cee. Seb simple raised his hand and offered a shrug. “I think she’s right.”

Celia was furious.

They had never spoken outside of class before, other than to offer snide remarks as they waited outside the lecture hall. She found out where his room was from a friend and, upon finding it, knocked gently. And then harder. And then, harder still, banging her fist against the door. She could hear him shouting I’m coming, I’m coming from inside but continued to hammer, until he yanked the door open. As he took her in, that stupid arrogant smile returned.

“What did you mean when you said, I think she’s right? What did you mean by that?”

Seb gave a disbelieving laugh. “That you were… correct? Do you want to have a fight over that?”

“No, but you fight me on everything else. So why not today?”

“I thought you were right today.”

Celia gave a furious little huff and stormed away from his door, only to storm right back to him. “You know what I think? I think-- I think you’re an arsehole, with no manners.”

“Yeah? Well, I think you’re a spoiled brat who’d never heard the word no, in her life.”

Cee steps closer to him, teeth bared in a snarl. In fact, she’s so close she needs to tilt her head to talk to him. There are only a couple inches in their heights, but with their chests nearly touching, it matters. “I am cleverer than you. I will do better than you. I will bury you.”

His smile doesn’t drop as she hoped, in fact, he arches an eyebrow. “Is that a promise, Holmes?”

An actual growl escapes her before she throws her arms around his neck and smashes her lips against his. He reciprocates, despite himself maybe and before long, he’s letting her pushing him back into his room, slamming the door behind her. A whole semester of foreplay had been leading to that moment and they did not disappoint.

II.

Celia loved being married. Although she had not taken her husband’s name, there was something in the way her lecturers said Ms. instead of Miss that set her apart from her fellow students; especially the girls. It was that drawn-out zzz sound that did it. She was a head above the rest of them; one step closer towards the finish line. When her friends said boyfriend, she might have laughed at them, how immature. How childish. They wouldn’t know until they knew.

And this wasn’t all in her head either. Despite themselves, despite their education and personal ambition, the girls around Cee felt it too. Celia knew things they wouldn’t know for years; the secrets of a wife. Even though some of the girl’s condemned marriage as a modern form of slavery they too fell into the trappings of 1950. Everything had changed and nothing had. When Celia lay out her hand on the table, catching her ring in the light, they sighed enviously as Celia had hoped. What did it matter about her masters in law, when she had a man. Personally, she’d rather have the degree but she knew, as she moved forward in life, it would be her ability to find, capture and keep a man that everyone would be really impressed by.

It was for this reason that they gathered with her outside the lecture hall, where she had agreed to meet Seb on that Friday night. They wanted to be witnesses to it, as if being in close proximity to a married couple brought them closer towards marital bliss themselves. Cee didn’t say very much. She played it off as unbothered coolness but in reality, she was distracted by the conversion by her own excitement. It wasn’t exactly Seb she was excited for, but just to be seen with him again. To become the weekly gossip; what did Cecelia do with her husband this weekend? They all wanted to know what these strange married creatures do.

“Oh, is that him now?” A friend piped up, trying to cough over her excited squeal. Cee might have laughed at her; as if you don’t know. She looks up and lazily closes her book.

“Yeah. Alright, see you on Monday.”

“Are you not coming to Sunday study night then?”

“Oh, I forgot. I’ll see what Seb is doing. I actually might need to go into the city with him for a dinner with his boss, or something.” She rolls her eyes to make it look like she can’t be bothered with it. It’s not even true, there was a dinner the week and no partners were invited but it gave Celia a prick of pleasure to imagine them all discussing it at the Sunday study night.

She doesn’t run into his arms, instead closing the gap between them with a slow, casual walk and an easy smile. They were close enough that Seb could call out to the other girls and wave. It was nice of him to throw them a bone, Cee thought.

When she did greet him, it was with a hand on the back of his neck so she could pull him down for a long, deep kiss. In fact, knowing the girl’s eyes were on them, she stayed longer than normal.

“What was that for?” Seb asked, pulling back from her.

“Nothing. Just happy to see you. How was your train?”

III.

It wasn’t fair to say that Cee and Seb weren’t affectionate. Sure, they didn’t hold hands unless they needed to and loving embraces tends to either come before or after sex but they had their moments. People noticed the way, if Seb was setting, Celia would stand behind him and squeeze his shoulders. Or, if something thrilling, shocking or wonderfil happened, they would immediatly look towards one another, if to check in, or delight in it. And while they slept on the same side of the bed due to the fact Seb refused to get buy a double bed for the four years they slept together in university, they still did it. They had to count for something. There was cards or flowers or weekly dates but that didn’t mean there wasn’t love. Cee loved Seb more than anyone in the world and she was quiet confident he felt the same way.

Which is what made Katherine’s death all the harder. A casm had opened up between them and she saw no real way to get over it. The evening they had returned home to an empty nursery, Celia had feverishly Googles how she was supposed to feel; how to deal with the loss of a child; the staged of grief. Her own feelings didn’t align with any of them.

What she really felt was annoyance. The plan that they had agreed to had fallen apart. All that work for nothing. And there was now a black stain on her history. A bump on the road. They would have to tell people, for the next couple weeks, everyone would skirt around her like she was a wounded animal they didn’t know what to do with. How did you comfort Cecelia Holmes when she had no interest in being comforted? How to comfort Sebastian Moran, then?

She stood in the baby pink bedroom, gripping onto the cot rail, willing herself to feel the loss. The sweet little baby; that looked like every other bbay she had ever seen. So a future lost; one likely filled with trauma and resentment, with her as a mother. She banged her palm against the wood and swore. It was only then she realised Seb was behind her. Her movement was guilty, spinning around and holding her hands begind her back as if she had something to hide.

“I was just thinking of packing some things away.” She cleared her throat, motioned around the room. “I’ll ask someone if there is somehwere we could send it. Thinking of others in our time of grief, it’s a good look.” She could hear herself plotting and regretted it but it was all she wad capable of. Celia let go of the cot and moved to hold him, her arms around his shoulders, her mouth at his ear. “We’ll get through this. I think it was meant to be this way; just the two of us.” She almost said she preferred it this way but that felt too harsh; too soon. “If you need to talk to someone, perhaps you should? Better to deal with it now then have it drag out.”

When she pulled back, she held onto his face, more tired than she had seen it in a long time and she knew she was getting it all wrong. Cee, who always knew what to say, had nothing. So she kissed him instead and tried, probably failing, to put more into it than she could manage. The key phrase however was, I’m sorry. Sorry she’s not a good wife, sorry their child died and she’s talking about press opportunities, sorry he got his hopes up, sorry nothing will come of this.

IV.

“--THE PRESS ASSOCIATION IS REPORTING MULTIPLE CASUALTIES AND UNCONFIRMED FATALITIES JUST OUTSIDE THE HOUSE OF COMMONS--”

“Sydney, turn that up, turn that up!”

The TV’s picture, perched on top of a filing cabinet only offered shaky phone camera footage of the street Celia knew well. In fact, with one of the sudden movements upward, she was sure she could see Seb’s office window. The clipped tones of the BBC new anchor filled the room.

“--IS UNDERSTOOD THAT THE LONE MAN DROVE INTO A CROWD OF PEOPLE OUTSIDE PALACE OF WESTMINSTER AND THEN CONTINUED ON FOOT, WHERE HE BEGAN STABBING--”

“Call my husband, call him now, his mobile.”

Celia is already pulling on her jacket, eyes glued to the TV but listening out for the rings. By the third ring, she’s heading to the door. Usually, no rings meant he was in a meeting; the phone was on don’t disturb and she’d have to call back another two times for it to even go through; something she hadn’t ever had to do yet. If he was talking with someone, briefly, he would hang up after one ring. Past three rings, with no pick up? She didn’t remember the last time.

“Cee, you shouldn’t go into--” Syd stood up behind her desk but Cee held up a hand.

“Text me if there are any updates worth knowing. Call him again, keep calling him.”

There was no point trying to get a taxi, if there really was a terrorist attack happening in the middle of the city, it would be gridlock and the police wouldn’t be letting anyone in any way. So she would walk the twenty minutes to Seb’s office; she could cut it down to fourteen minutes if she kept up her brisk walk, ocassiaonlly, if panic set in, a restrained run.

Police tape, camera crews, ambulances and armed police officers surrounded most parliamentary buildings. The end of street was cordoned off but from her vantage point, she could see at least three sheets covering bodies. It was ridiculous to imagine Seb under one of them but it’s exactly where her mind went. She couldn’t explain it, not even to herself but she’d had a nagging feeling all day that something terrible was gong to happen, not just this, in London, but to her personally. She stares, unseeing at one of the sheets before a voice drifts across to her, one of the offers. “--Moran is going to--”

“What did you say?” She barks at him and a man seems to used to follow commands to argue with her, although she seems to have also scared him. “What did you say about Moran?”

Sheepishly, he draws closer. “Only that Mr Moran was directing his staff to--”

“To where?” Of course, of course, he’s alive. “Where is he?”

“I think they were going to Lady Chapel,” and then, as an afterthought, “ma’am.”

Celia didn’t hang around any longer that she needed to. She didn’t know why she ran this time, heels hitting the pavement with an ungodly amount of noise. If Seb was well enough to be directing people somewhere, there was no real need to worry. But something had shaken her when she had heard the news. It was the first time she had really considered what it might be like if Seb did die. They had been partners, in one way or another, for nearly fifteen years and all her future plans and hopes were pinned upon him.

She rounded the corner and stopped to catch her breath, smooth out her coat, look less worried. When she looked up, she saw him immediately; standing by the church’s doors, talking seriously with a police chief. He only glanced in her direction and had to do a double-take.

“What are you doing here?” Seb asked, moving over to her.

“You weren’t answering your phone.” Annoyingly, she’s still breathless.

“Bit of an emergency. Did you run?”

Maybe to avoid the embarrassing question, maybe because she was so relieved to see him standing, she threw her arms around him and kissed him, with slightly more passion than normal. She couldn’t say for sure, but she thought Seb kissed her back with a matched ferocity and held her a little tight than normal too. Maybe he was glad to see her too.

#terrorist attack --#epiitaphs #( i. message )#child death --

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