#I've had a timeline post in my drafts for a while but I really haven't had the spoons and

[ambrosiagourmet]

Feel free to ignore this, but I love reading your analysis and was wondering how you start analyzing things? I try to do it myself but I always feel so unconfident in my interpretations and feel scared about posting about them and them being “wrong.”

Just curious to see how you approach your analysis and meta! Have a lovely day!

Ooh, what a good question! I'm happy to share a little, sure.

Under the cut bc it got long hehe 😅

So my first (and probably the most important) response to this is: it's hard to feel 100% sure that you are totally "correct" about this stuff.

There are always going to be other ways to interpret things. There are things you miss, or perspectives you don't consider. There will always be people who disagree. And even if you are as accurate and totally convincing as humanly possible, there always going to be different types of analysis that you can't cover all at the same time!

I think, especially when it comes to like, doing casual analysis for something you love, it really helps to just follow your passion. It's fine to speak confidently about an interpretation that you find compelling, even if you haven't considered every possible angle of how it could be wrong. It's about what speaks to you, after all.

For instance, the conflict-avoidant Falin post (which is currently the analysis post of mine with the most notes) was largely born from an interpretation of Falin that really resonated with me, based on a couple of points I remembered strongly from reading the story. It's definitely not the only way to look at Falin, and I don't think it's like the universally correct interpretation of her character. But it is the interpretation that got ME interested in talking about her, and in turn, resonated with other people, too!

I have plenty of anxiety about this stuff, so I won't pretend that it's just easy to turn off that "what if I'm wrong, though" part of your brain, but I will say it doesn't hurt to try to start writing. You can always draft a post and come back to it, or delete/private it, or reblog it later to add more context or nuance. You aren't shackled to your opinion forever, much as the internet (and anxiety) can make it feel that way.

As to where to actually start with analysis... for me, it's almost always either a detail, a question, or both.

Here's an example of an Idea In Progress I've been thinking about.

While I was grabbing screenshots from the Nightmare chapter, I noticed that Marcille's hairstyle there is similar to one of the chapter covers I'd also just looked at:

So like, that's interesting to me! Especially since the cover was from the chapter where Marcille makes her deal with the Winged Lion. So then I can start to ask like... what does it mean that there's this similarity? I could tie it in to the way I think the Lion kind of infantilizes her, talk about what influence the Nightmare chapter might have had on Marcilles decision. Alternatively, I could ask, are there any other similar times Marcille wears this hairstyle? Any other hairstyles that are repeated at key times?

Any of which could lead to some fun analysis! Alternatively, it can also just be fun to post about the detail without the analysis. Just be like, "hey, look at this weird thing." Other people might chime in with ideas about it, or maybe it will sparks something for you later! Either way, you'll have an easy reference saved for reference. Even if deeper analysis doesn't come, it's still fun to have pointed out. Details and connections are just. They are just great. And Dunmeshi especially has SO much to dig into.

(Oh, also, quick aside here: ignore anyone who tells you the details don't matter and weren't intentional. It fully does not matter. If drawing a connection helps you realize a new meaning in the story - if it inspires and motivates you - it's worth investigating.)

Anyway, the Adventurer's Bible is also a great place to find details to jump off of. The timelines and little blurbs highlight important events or facts about the characters, and you can then go fishing for other times those things come up or are referenced in the story.

In terms of starting from a question, it can also be fun just to spend a little time with something you don't feel like you totally got. I had a great time doing that with the succubus chapter, for instance. If there's a scene you find yourself kind of skimming over because its not clicking for you... go back and try and examine it! Even if it's just a small thing - an expression you missed or a panel with a funny little joke - it can be just as rewarding to try and pay attention to the parts of the story you don't understand as it is to dig into the parts you do.

~

Really, in a lot of ways, I like to use analysis as an excuse to just spend time with a story I care about. It's a way to savor it! And if you can write up those thoughts and ideas, you can share them with others, which can be even better. A dish doesn't have to be perfectly cooked to delicious, after all. Go, with Senshi's blessing, and make good food.

And of course, as with all things creative, never forget about Two Cakes:

[cypreus-and-willow]

I’ll be doing Camp Digimonth this January. Here are my goals.

This is going to be an ‘all Digimon Survive’ month since my motivation dropped off so suddenly right in the middle of making Survive content last year and I really wanna get back into it.

I’m a do it last minute kinda girl so I’ve divided my time into weeks.

Jan 1-7 

Revise To Rebuild a Broken House timeline 

Post chapter 2

Edit and post Saki’s chapter for An Exercise in Empathy [Update: it's been posted!]

Jan 8-14

Digimon Survive Fashionzine - Sketch initial drafts

Jan 15-21

Fashionzine final drafts

Ink, colour & scan

Jan 22-28

Digimon Survive Week - I’m thinking of doing a mixture of writing and drawing this year. Depending on how well I do with the Fashionzine, I may do all the prompts or just some.

Jan 28-31

Go thru my January goals and finish anything I missed.

*Digimon Survive Fashionzine - is a solo project I've been wanting to do for a while now but haven't had the time. I can't decide whether or not to call it a fashionzine or a musiczine since it has both. I’ve been working on another ‘fashionzine’ alongside this one (and by that I mean I’ve been imagining my faves in different outfits). As I want to focus and develop my drawing skills with ink and paper, I’m making this my goal for two weeks this January.

[zooterscooter]

thank you for asking @expensive-muscle i will be doing that for sure

i had this sitting in my drafts for a while so here we go hehe. it'll be quite a bit so i do apologize in advance

original post with the tags

the guy with the mask will be first :) his name is mars (legally his name is micah, but he doesn't go by it anymore, not a deadname or anything he just doesn't like it. not terribly important but yknow) he's part of a group of four... outlaws... i guess ? the group consists of him, his sister, the other girl in the drawing (who's also the one in the fifth drawing) and one other guy (when you look a bit closer on the 8th drawing, he's the one in the speech bubble they're talking about. their names are cecil, finch and karman, in order of being mentioned

he was unfortunately caught in a warehouse fire a few years back (story wise) and was pretty badly scarred bc of it. he wears the mask so he doesn't have to walk around with his scarred face and blind eye showing. he really only wears it out in public and around strangers because it is quite uncomfortable

i'm still working on a group name for the four of them, and nothings really sticking. but since we're on the topic of them i'll talk about finch a bit :)

she's a hitman, late 20s. she's been employed by a bunch of higher power people in the city where she lives, so she's kinda sorta untouchable by law. she's been taken in a few times but is always bailed out by someone somehow. money can buy anything i suppose

the other two mentioned, karman and cecil, are kind of a team... as someone who has no clue how sports betting works (yet) i don't really know how to explain, but cecil is like... this worlds equivalent of a nascar driver kinda ? kinda not really. anyways. betting is legal in this city, but for karman and cecil it's like an inside job, if that makes any sense at all. i haven't thought about this group as a whole much if i'm being honest, but it'll come in time i hope

moving on !!

onto the "mf in the beanie" :3 her name is lilith and she's a screenwriter. her dad kinda sorta skipped town when she was younger, but she is super close with her mom, and they're so awesome. her mom gets a bit sick at one point, spending a lot of time at various hospitals, but she ultimately turns out fine

lilith wanted to peruse comedy as a career at one point, but she didn't really get as into it as she thought she would, so she just sticks to the behind the scenes by writing :)

the "homosexual friendship" is about her now girlfriend, who was an alchemist at one point a few years ago but i've changed her career a bit and don't know the exact word to describe it 😭 her name is ophelia, very smart, very pretty, younger sister.

i'm going to be honest with you, dear readers. lilith was a danganronpa self insert at one point. she comes from a simpler time. her and her girlfriend, tho said gf wasn't a self insert, just a dangan oc. not anymore tho....

the more i rack my brain for info the more i realize i just. don't have the descriptors for anything that they do. questions welcome and encouraged

now onto the rest of the people in the drawings, i'll attempt keep them short and simple hehe

1st drawing- ophelia/her sisters moms, vada medea (left) and sage (right) both are biological. i took inspo from how the "making babies from bone marrow" stuff that's kinda sorta happening in the science scene. the timeline for all this takes place about a hundred years from now, so i think they'd be figuring out how to do it with little complication. i am not a scientist myself, so i have plenty research to do to get the specifics down

2nd drawing- ophelia's sister, rue, and some 180 year old freak scientist. the freak is the one in the sewer. he had a grand time fucking up a bunch of people and giving them what appear to be lizard scales, and then was told to get the hell out of the city lest he causes more chaos. unfortunately the scales get passed down, but they really have no impact on the lives of the people who have them. rue is nurse who lowkey gets corrupted by the freak (his name is emrys) after her girlfriend passes from a long battle with various medical complications. she takes her grief to the wrong person and starts to lose her mind.

3rd drawing- their names are kaleo (left) and Non (right) not quite sure what their deal is exactly if i'm being honest. kaleo is a boxer, and Non just... exists really. he's alive to be pals with kaleo so far 😭 he's one of the people who had the scales passed down to him, which is silly and fun. kaleo is related to the person in the 6th drawing, which i will get to

4th drawing- zephyr (left) and kairos (right). detective and cop due respectively. sometimes they're tasked with keeping up with finch and her little gang of criminals but they can't really do much.

5th drawing- that's finch. love her

6th drawing- her name is desdemona and she's a spirit freak. she's been alive for hundreds of years or maybe she was just willed into being alive yesterday. she's got a bunch of weird spiritual abilities, like time travel (sounds cheesy) and communicating with the dead. she also eats people sometimes but that's a minor thing don't worry about it. she's the "wrong person" rue went to after her girlfriend died... oopsie. kaleos relative somehow also. the body on the floor is her ""human disguise"" because she can't really walk around town with a skull on her head. said skull isn't hers btw

7th drawing- holt (welding the sandwich) and caspien (watching him weld) they're just a little duo of gays tbh. it would take a while for me to explain it all so lmk if anyone wants to hear about it. holt is a mechanic, early 20s, and caspien is legally dead but he's fine. has wicked nightmares a lot but other than that he's fine. caspien and zephyr are brothers.

8th drawing- finch and mars :)

9th drawing- lilith (explained above) and her pal alaric. alaric is the guy that knows everyone and everything about the city they're in. somehow related to emrys (sewer freak) but neither of them are exactly sure how. emrys shouldn't even be alive but here he is, corrupting the youth

10th drawing- eve and varden :) (varden is @yaffles-world 's oc, shoutout to you) eve is sage's sister, making him ophelia and rues uncle. one of the only guys in the family which is lowkey funny bc he's a trans guy. someone had to attempt to balance the scales i guess. varden is his secret partner he hid from everyone for like 15 years because he was scared of being made fun of for some reason. i dunno. he's my main projection oc and even i don't get it. his full legal first name is evening btw. he's named this because i was like "hey wouldn't this be funny ?" and then it stuck. eve is an astrophysicist (which is why his name is funny to me) and varden is a mechanic :) lots of mechanics in the city

and with that im gonna cut it off or else i'd just keep yapping on in a single post about everything. thanks for taking the time to read this all if you did, please PLEASE ask questions i obviously love talking. asks are encouraged

[pcd-status]

Hey, been reading your reviews for months now! Found you randomly one day and it's been a nice little addition to my life. Finally caught up to your most recent post. Any timeline on the next one? :)

Thank you very much for the kind words. I'm glad to hear that people enjoy my ramblings.

I'm going to take the opportunity to make this a status post, since I never got around to making one at the start of the year.

I've had a draft for episode 33 saved for..... over a month.

and most days over the last month, I've said to myself "I need to get back to that." Instead I played video games or watched TV or worked on personal projects, whatever was holding my attention.

I absolutely insist on finishing Go Go before my fifth anniversary next month. It's probably going to require another format change to do so. Back to basics, a real quick recitation of my likes and dislikes about an episode, kind of like how it started in the beginning, but I'm going to do it, and episode 33 will be out very soon.

On that note..... the future of this project is up in the air. There was a point late last year where I said that I was going to drop it after December 31 regardless of where I was at progress-wise. I did not follow through on that because I keep wanting to see this series through to the end. But the fact remains that it's been 5 years now, and 3 of those years have been stuck on this same show. If I stuck to a daily schedule (which I think I've shown I can't anymore), it would take me exactly the same amount of time to catch up now as it hypthetically did when I started, about 2 and a half years. Less frequent posts means more time. There are, by my count, as of this date, 726 Precure episodes and movies that I haven't covered, and with about 50 new pieces of media a year.... yeah.

I haven't yet made a decision. I do love Precure and there's some seasons I really want to revisit and write about (Fresh, or at least the Eas-Passion arc, Heartcatch, Dokidoki, and Go Princess in particular) while there's some others that I would not mind revisiting but I hold them less fondly in my memory. I don't want to be writing this post again on the 25th anniversary, wringing my hands about how I can't get through Suite Precure.

Anyway. We'll see what happens. For now, look forward to a hopeful uptick in posts as I try to crank out 16 episodes and a movie over the next month.

By the way, Hirogaru Sky! Precure has started, and I love it. It's so refreshing. So that's lifted my spirits some.

[kinetic-elaboration]

January 29: Finishing the Time Loop

I was a very brave person today and I went to work all day and then came home and wrote. And now the Time Loop is DONE. In draft form, but that's the biggest hurdle. Done, done, done.

Today's session took about 1 hour and 45 minutes total, during which time I wrote 2,100 words. The total draft word count is about 64,000 words. I started it on the last day of July, so it took me juuuust about 6 months exactly to write the draft, inclusive of breaks. That is honestly really impressive and I'm very proud of myself. I know pure word count isn't everything and this story (novel!) isn't perfect but I also do genuinely like it. There are so many parts and so many aspects of it that I truly like and (again, mistakes and all), I kind of have a hard time believing I crafted the whole thing--especially on this timeline!!

Really makes you think about all of the other comparable length novels I've let flounder... Which I do feel guilty about... And most of which I do want to continue.

I think a big aspect of this one getting completed at all and especially in this time frame is that I was trying so hard early on to hit a much less realistic deadline. I wanted to write this in 2 months. Obviously that would not be possible; I work a full time job lmfao. But giving that a good old college try meant that by the time I realized I wouldn't meet that deadline, I'd gotten such a big chunk written that I basically had to follow through and finish. And I didn't want yet another floundering WIP that would haunt me for years, so I kept it a high priority.

This fic also has an additional 11,600 words of outline and notes, which, frankly, I should have just posted instead of the story itself lol. Would have been a lot faster. There's nothing revolutionary in the outline but I'll probably post some of the notes when I finish editing and posting the fic, because I think some of that is interesting.

Today's scene was Octavia POV and honestly... I don't think she's too IC to the show but I'm kind of fond of my take on her within this fic. She's obviously the focal point of so much of the story; each of the chapters is a different character observing her from a different angle, and so I was a little worried about capturing her in her voice, in her head, at the conclusion. She's by no means the final objective observer, but I still wanted there to be something surprising and new in her voice, while still remaining consistent with what's been shown throughout. I haven't re-read it properly yet but I feel instinctively that I did what I wanted to do.

Ah! I'm tired. Gotta get to bed soon. No more major writing this week, but I do hope to write more over the weekend!

[coldflasher]

3, 4 + 10 😌

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

Ooh this is fun. There are a lot of tropes I'd never read, but it's funny cos usually I'll be like 'ew I hate that trope. I could make it good though 😌' and then write it because it's good when I do it 😂 egotistical? Maybe. So there are very few things where I'd be like 'absolutely not'.

I'm not really interested in a/b/o. I'll read it occasionally but I've never been interested in writing it. And I also don't like high school/college AUs cos I'm not interested in writing about teenagers, I write waaay too much smut for that lmao. But aside from that I'll try almost anything tbh

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

Hahahaha. Haa. Haha. *rocks hysterically* I don't. Actually know. More than thirty, definitely. Maybe more than fifty? I had a spreadsheet last year but I ended up running out of space on the spreadsheet. If that gives you some idea of the scope of the situation.

In terms of sharing... I recently dug up one I started a few months back where the oculus made Len immortal, and of course we already know Barry is heavily implied to be immortal as well, or at least very long-lived. So I started writing a fic where they end up friends and slowly have to watch the people they love age and die around them and then in the end they gravitate towards one another, and they kind of find each other in that loss and sense of displacement. the only two people in the world who understand that kind of loss, and the only people they know who they won't have to lose. Anyway I opened the doc for that a few days ago, read the last line I wrote and started crying and was like yeah THAT'S going back on the back burner for a while, thanks, Satan

10. Which fic has been the easiest to write?

God, I WISH I could describe a single one of them as easy. That being said, the time traveller's wife fic is going really well so far, I'm like 25k in and I haven't even been getting stuck with it or anything, I reckon I'd be further along if I had more time, but. My novel. Sigh. But one day, my beloved. When this draft of the novel is done. It'll be me, time traveller's wife, the mad outline I made of bits of string and post-it notes to try and keep the timeline straight, and I'm gonna write the shit out of it.

Thank youuu ♥

[loving-bucky-is-easier]

since you said you enjoyed last night's prompts, i thought this might me something you'd enjoy doing. no pressure, babe. you'll be the one choosing one of your fics. could be your personal favorite, the one you're most proud of, you name it. what is your favorite thing about this fic? do you remember what the process writing it was like? did the plot change a lot while you were writing it? would you change anything about it? any deleted ideas you planned on using for this fic that didn't make it to the final draft? what's your favorite dialogue from it? how did you come up with the title?

lyra this is a dangerous game you're playing asking all of these lovely questions bc you know i could talk about this shit forever thank youuuuuu

i'm gonna go with in the right hands

*spoilers for those who haven't read in the right hands*

what is your favorite thing about this fic?

well aside from it being the lovely we-have-to-share-body-heat-to-survive trope with a side of we-better-get-you-out-of-these-wet-clothes (both of which i've read so many of from other writers bc i love them so much--there's some linked in the a/n of this fic), i am nothing if not a slut for religious imagery and internal conflict. i'm really proud of how that turned out in this fic.

i literally just talked about this with @divine-mistake, but i had just read you fracture light again when i started writing this, and her piece is a masterclass on torment over religion as just a casual inclusion? like it's just so gently a part of the fic and contributes so perfectly. but that definitely inspired any of my own religious commentary in this fic.

i tagged her in an ask about that fic when it was first posted, which was before we were friends, and apparently that was a very confusing thing lol. i think she forgets that she's brilliant and people could be inspired by her writing.

do you remember what the process writing it was like?

i had this idea at the same time i came up with deadweight, but it came a little bit later because i was struggling with the non-whump parts 😅

i wrote the entire stream of scenes that were "in the present" first--those came much easier (from the first scene where he's carrying her all the way through, skipping all the flashbacks).

then i came back later and intercut all of the scenes at the compound. the scene where she actually get's frozen was the very last one. it wasn't as difficult as the compound scenes. i just got really hung up on getting it perfect bc its the centerpiece of the two timelines.

did the plot change a lot while you were writing it? would you change anything about it? any deleted ideas you planned on using for this fic that didn't make it to the final draft?

the plot didn't really change much. it's a pretty standard one. i think if i were rewriting it i would try and devote a little more time and patience to their relationship pre-mission. it feels very rushed looking back at it, especially in comparison to the time i spend in the whump and the healing.

i also was still using y/n pretty heavily then, and i try to write around it now.

what's your favorite dialogue from it?

“Raspberries aren’t blue.”

“Well, these ones are.”

“Y/N, that doesn’t even–”

“Bucky, I don’t care what fucking color they are. Try the damn popsicle.”

“Why, so I can turn my entire mouth that color like you?”

“That’s half the fun.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Shut up, you love it.”

how did you come up with the title?

i wrote this prior to all of my song requests, so this is back when i was actually coming up with fic titles and not just stealing song lyrics lol

for any of my original titles, i tried to have multiple meanings/takes for them. so for this fic, it applies to both bucky and reader.

reader is literally freezing to death. she needs his touch, his warmth, his care, etc. "in the right hands" she can survive, but a lesser partner might have failed her. that might be on the nose but that was what i went with haha

for bucky, a huge internal conflict for him is (1) whether he is worthy of touching her bc of the figurative blood on his hands and (2) whether he can even handle touching her, bc every other touch he's experienced has brought pain. the answer to both is a resounding yes. his hands are the right ones to save her, and hers are the right ones to prove to him that not every touch is malignant. they can heal each other in their own ways.

thank you again, lyra! this was so lovely to write and think about.