#and vice versa if i loved something if you still hate tobias for example then thats perfectly valid LOL it makes perfect sense actually

[vaugarde]

one of my bigger fears abt just rambling my head off sometimes on here is that i worry i look pretentious or judgmental or like i have the only valid opinions. particularly w the pokeani stuff bc i feel like thats a dumb hill to die on for a lot of stuff.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

This might be a little too specific, but do you have a particular chapter in the series that you think is the best/most well-written/something along those lines? Like are there any specific chapters that stand out to you as individually fantastic?

Two that come to the top of my mind: the kids' calamari conversation in #27 (p. 29 - 34 in my pdf), and the talk on the swing-set between Jake and his mom at the end of #16 (p. 93 - 95 in my pdf). They're almost opposite in tone — the calamari conversation is silly and chaotic, the swing-set talk is serious and to the point — but they're both examples of Animorphs' masterful dialogue at its best. I also think I speak for a lot of readers, in that both are heavily quoted and excerpted in fan spaces.

The calamari conversation (and much of #27) captures perfectly how real people talk to each other, including how real teenagers talk. Cassie tries to make a joke ("think calamari") of her reveal that giant squids are the right morph, it gets misinterpreted ("«I am not in favor of snails,» Ax said...") and it spirals off into a few different tangents. The kids spend a while trying to remember the name of a show, there's a whole reference to Ax accidentally ingesting a snail, and Jake repeatedly drags people back to talking about the real problem, and eventually they realize that they don't have a way to get a giant squid. That's how real people talk: they wander off topic, they contradict each other, they interrupt themselves, and they repeatedly return to the original point only to get distracted again.

As hilarious as that whole exchange is, there's this inescapable seriousness that the kids are deliberately talking around. They're scared, and fighting off despair, and coming off a battle that they lost with catastrophic injuries all around. The dialogue is silly and fun, but we know about the tension underpinning it. Like The Martian (the book, not its adaptation), it uses peril to enhance its wittiness and vice versa.

Honestly, that's the whole of #27, and I love it. We get moments with Rachel slowly walking home, looking at her neighborhood and wondering how soon it will be destroyed, cross-cut with side conversations about Marco's accidental King Kong crossover. Tobias and Rachel distract themselves from the horror of the deep ocean by chatting about their dating plans. Rachel and Cassie's frantic scramble to save Erek from discovery is undercut with Rachel's buying designer underwear and Cassie's attempt to market Erek as a food processor.

If you look at footage of real disasters — plane mechanical problems, fire evacuations, injury triage — that's how people really talk. Pilots from Flight 232 (which lost all ability to steer in midair) joked about buying beers for Air Traffic controllers while slowly falling from the sky. WWII gunners gave each other stupid nicknames and compared farts while attempting a no-fuel landing. Because when you're scared and helpless and there's nothing you can do but try to remain calm, might as well trash-talk Budweiser or complain about Calvin Klein underwear.

The swing-set talk is still incredibly realistic (IMHO), but it's a really different type of conversation. Jake comes back from the mission where he almost got Rachel and Ax killed with his mistake and where Cassie asked him to kill a controller for the greater good. He's sitting there in the backyard, staring up at the stars, and his mom comes out to join him. She acknowledges he's upset and she says "when I was your age and feeling upset, my mother, your gram, would always just say, 'You don't know what unhappy is, you're just a kid.' Like anything a kid would feel would be less difficult or painful than what an adult would feel...In a lot of ways being a kid is worse than being an adult. You have the same things to deal with: friends, temptations, love and hate, and all that. Only you don't have... experience that you've survived this before" (#16).

It's a great conversation, because it's such excellent parenting. Jean doesn't try to tell Jake she knows how he feels; she just tells him that she can tell it's hard. She doesn't dismiss him, but she tries to offer assurance that he's strong enough to make it through. It's a truth so rarely expressed in children's books, but being a kid is frustrating and awful in a lot of ways — you don't yet know how the world works, and the world is more than happy to treat you like a cute helpless object. I love that #16 takes the time to say it, and I love that it's such a quiet moment of melancholy in an otherwise action-packed book.

Not only that, but it's a moment when we (including Jake) feel tremendous affection for Jean, but also awareness that Jean isn't much help anymore. She doesn't have experience with Jake's current problems, and Jake can't rely on her or even be vulnerable because he can't trust her anymore. It's a sad moment, but it also has moments of humor — Jean ends by suggesting they watch the X-Files, and jokes that she solves problems by thinking "at least it isn't as bad as being a teenager." Like many of the series's best moments, like most of Animorphs, it's so good because it's warm and sad and funny and melancholy all at once.

[mimzy-writing-online]

10/10/10 Tag Game

Thank you to @emdop for tagging me in this. This is their tag game here

How it works, answer ten questions your tagger gave you, make ten new questions and tag ten new people to answer.

1. For any of your OCs: What’s their favorite drink?

Ulric: black coffee or cappuccino for a treat

Anna: Earl Grey tea

Felix: English Breakfast tea

2. What very specific thing do you like to write the most?

The scene when two characters sit down and talk, opening up to each other

3. Favorite Tropes?

Friends to lovers, slow burn friendship, slow burn romance, found family, 

4. Least Favorite Tropes?

Enemies to Lovers with no friend stage, 

5. What is something you’ve always wanted to write?

A Witch’s Memory is something I’ve wanted to write for the longest time, but other projects I think about a lot:

A whimsical magic in a completely different world. A Witch’s Memory is only a different version of our modern world, one where magic is normalized like science and technology. I want to write something in a fantasy world that completely turns everything we know upside down, with climates and natural environments only from our wildest dreams and an era that is only partially recognizable in its fashion and technology, pulling from every era into a wonderful cluster of confusion and fascination.

Soft-fantasy novel set in the 1990′s with 90′s era technology, libraries and librarian aesthetic, dragons, witches, 

Most recently I’ve also been playing with the idea of a steampunk royalty story with a romance plot.

6. Do you make playlists for your WIP ideas?

Yes, and they usually either a “if this book was a movie this would be its soundtrack with this song for this specific scene” or it’s a “this would be this character’s personal playlist of favorite songs”. Anna, Ulric, and Felix have their own playlists.

7. When you’re having trouble writing, how do you inspire yourself?

I also make a pinterest folder for my WIP ideas, and A Witch’s Memory has its own board for its world building as well as a board for Anna, Ulric, and Felix. I look at that when I’m stuck and don’t know how to start or continue a scene.

If I’m drafting, I look back at my outline and work through what I have planned. Sometimes I have to deviate from the outline a little and figure out a way to reconnect back, or alter it altogether. 

If I’m very stuck I go back to other works of fiction that have inspired me in the past, specific for that story. That includes rewatching them, rereading them, listening to soundtracks or looking at fan art.

I get out of the house and spend some time with a friend. My friend (A) and I usually work through a story problem by talking it out. (K) usually distracts me and takes me to random places. Sometimes I call or message (C) because she lives far away and we talk. They all help.

8. Where do your WIP ideas typically come from?

“I really like this story, but I kind of wish it went differently, involved these tropes, had this world building, had these characters, etc.”

Nothing is really original, no matter how far back in fiction you go. Everything is inspired from something else, so for me what I do is find the aspects of fiction I love most and see what I would do with them personally.

Example: witches are cool, but if it takes place in the modern world then it has to be a secret and humans can never know, but if it takes place in a hard-fantasy historical world then everyone knows about magic and has access to it somehow. - - - > And it becomes the whole premise for this world I built

Example: why do werewolves hate being werewolves? And why must they blackout during a full moon and go total beast? And they’re either always alone or there’s this whole alpha pack thing which isn’t technically true of real wolves - - - > and it becomes a thing that werewolves are proud of being werewolves, they easily form bonds and friendships with other people, even non-werewolves, and when the full moon comes around werewolves run in a group as a fun activity, something they enjoy

Example: Amnesia makes for an interesting story, but it’s not very realistic when you know actual medical stuff, and it’s always one-sided so people are always trying to make their loved one remember or trying to “reconnect” in the exact same way they did before - - - > Which lead me to amnesia through magic curse and mutual loss of memory, forgetting the entire friendship, so now they genuinely start from scratch

Example: Long distant pen-pals is a popular trope, especially since the invention of the internet, but every time I see it, it involves people who have met in real life even if it was only for a moment and they never knew it / didn’t give each other enough information to figure it out. - - - > It turns into, they couldn’t possibly have known each other before, they live in different parts of the world, but they want to meet one day, and then by a twist of fate (or meddling) they do meet

9. If your OC was a breakfast food, what would they be?

Felix: unsweetend English Breakfast tea and jam toast: When I say jam toast, I mean his humor is a little dry like toast, but he’s still enjoyable company, sweet if he wants to be. He can also be a little bitter sometimes, the kind of person you need to know a little bit before you develop a taste for it

Anna: Earl Grey tea and honey on an English Muffin: she’s calming company but complex like the flavor of earl grey tea. As for the English Muffin, it’s a joke that she’s English-adjacent, not actually British. She spent her first eight years in America and then lived in the U.K. with Felix’s family for the next eight until their family moved to America. Her accent is slightly changed and she uses some U.K. English vocab instead of American English, so most people think she’s British. English muffins aren’t actually English. They’re an American breakfast food based on crumpets. 

Ulric: A cinnamon roll and cold butter. This is a weird one. I think if you met Ulric and got to know him, he’d be someone you’d want to protect. He’s polite, kind, and shy. Life keeps throwing him lemons (literally throwing, between his emotionally abusive father and suddenly being blind, dealing with new anxiety/depression after going blind, etc) but Ulric’s just trying to do his best. Absolute cinnamon roll. But that’s not a something he’d let you see. Most people don’t know about that part of his life, so he’s like cold butter. He’s friendly but it takes a while for him to warm up and soften those walls to let you in.

Mason (Ulric’s best friend, who I must add): sweetened coffee - very energetic and hyper, a sweetheart of a friend. There’s no coffee-bitterness, by this I mean that it’s easy to enjoy his friendship, you don’t need to develop a taste for it like you do with black coffee. (Mason is also a precious cinnamon roll if you ask me)

10. Explain one of your WIP ideas in the most ridiculous way possible?

I’m going to do this AO3 tagging system style

A Witch’s Memory

Multi, T, Graphic Depictions of Violence

Anna St. Claire & Ulric Matthews, Anna St. Claire & Felix Robbins, Felix Robbins & Ulric Matthews, Felix Robbins/Hayden Watson

Anna St. Claire, Ulric Matthews, Felix Robbins, Mason Shepherd, Elmsley St. Claire, Veronica St. Claire, Hayden Watson, Katarina Matthews, Tobias Matthews, 

Memory Curse, Amnesia, Pen-Pals, Found Family, Adoptive Family, Slow Burn Friendship, Enemies to Friends, Platonic Soulmates, M/M Slow Burn Romance

Disability, Blind Character, Bisexual Character, Three Bi Disasters, Trans Character, Elmsley is trans, Elmsley is a Good Uncle, Tobias Matthew’s Terrible Parenting, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Emotional Abuse

Magic, Witches, Werewolves, Werewolf Ulric, Witch Anna, Witch Felix,

Graphic Violence is only in two scenes, two different characters get punched, and there’s some blood

Tagging: @snowblossim @thephantomofwriting @novel-scribe @the-moving-finger-writes @sapphoopages @owlsofstarlight  @mayvinwrites @belles-library @maggie-wolff-writes @thewritingpirate

Your Ten Questions:

1. What’s your favorite trope to read but not to write? Or vice versa, to write but not read?

2. Some of your favorite aesthetics?

3. Ideal writing environment? (Time, place, sound, drink/snacks)

4. What’s your favorite side character in your WIP?

5. How would your OCs interact with your favorite characters from other works?

6. An embarrassing fact about your OC that they would never tell anyone?

7. What book do you think should be made into a movie?

8. What’s the last mean thing you did to your OCs?

9. Write an Incorrect Quotes post between your OCs

10. I’m stealing from emdop too! Explain one of your WIPs in the most ridiculous way possible?