#and write about their parallels and how they grow and change over the span of their time together

[walking-existential-crisis]

Me realising I have to actually write my whole fic and not just little paragraphs in between with no context: Fuck

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Biggest galaxy brain moment from visiting the Dune dunes is that it gave me a whole new perspective on why the terraforming of Arrakis is treated with such deep ambivalence by the text. Because the terraforming process that's described in great detail in the book? That's exactly what's happening to the Oregon dunes. And they're disappearing.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the open sand you see in this picture stretched all the way to the Pacific Ocean, which is visible here as a faint blue-gray line about halfway up the photo. The sea washed new sand ashore, and the seasonal wind cycles blew it into a constantly-shifting landscape of dunes, tree islands, ghost forests and both permanent and ephemeral lakes and rivers.

As European colonization of the Pacific Northwest grew, the new settlers and the logging and commercial fishing industries they brought with them wanted permanent towns and roads that weren't constantly being swallowed by the moving sand. Starting in the 1930s, European beachgrass and other non-native species were introduced to try to hold the dunes in place.

The invasive species did hold the dunes in place--too well. The deep roots of the beachgrass shaped the sand blowing in off the beach into a permanent dune parallel to the ocean, called the foredune.

As the foredune got taller, it blocked both wind and the movement of sand, which allowed the land behind it to become grassland...

then forest.

Walking through this area, you might never know there was a dune under your feet. You can be close enough to hear the ocean, but there is almost NO wind--the main force that shapes the dunes.

There are (slow, difficult) remediation efforts underway to control the European beachgrass and restore at least some of the area to the natural dune cycle that created the miles and miles of open sand. But the ecological feedback loop created by introducing the beachgrass is stubborn, and without any further intervention, the dunes could be completely covered with forest in as little as a few decades. (I've heard estimates from 50 to 150 years, both of which are a blink of an eye in geological timescales.) The Oregon dunes are at least 100,000 years old, and within the span of just a few human lifetimes the ecosystem could be irrevocably changed.

The dune stabilization project is what Frank Herbert came to Florence to research for a never-written magazine article. Herbert began writing Dune in the mid-1950s, but by the mid-60s when the book was published, his own politics had shifted as he was influenced by the growing environmental movement and by Native activism happening around him in the Pacific Northwest. Like the story of the Oregon dunes, the terraforming of Arrakis is initially promoted as triumph of science and human rationality over nature that will make people's lives easier. But it ends up destroying the native ecosystem and the way of life of the planet's indigenous people, as becomes clear in Dune Messiah when Paul actually implements the terraforming project. (In the book, Dr. Kynes, the main architect of the terraforming project, dies in a spice blow--literally swallowed whole by the planet he tried to control.) It's one of the many political/ideological tensions in the story that's presented but not resolved, and I'm super curious to see how this element of the story is handled in Villeneuve's Dune Messiah.

All photos above taken by me at the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area in September 2024.

[into-the-fraymotif]

just so you know, i have an ever-growing list of fraymotifs that i plan to ask you about you will not be running out of requests anytime soon lol

And This is not really a request, but i was wondering whether or not your opinion on any specific aspect or class has changed or grown in the process of writing/thinking up fraymotifs

Not to one up you or anything, but I have a finite list of 9504 Fraymotifs, get on my level scrub (/j). But fr the only thing I’m running out of is time to complete them to keep the queue up and running lmao

And I really haven’t been doing this for very long, so I will likely develop a more nuanced opinion later down the line, but that’s a tough question! My first instinct was the Maid, but then I got to thinking about it and the Bard has kind of grown on me? That’s not even mentioning how much I love Breath and Blood as aspects.

Idk I’m gonna draft this and let it stew for a bit

Back now, and this is no gap for you guys but I'm leaving this in for like, Fraymotif blog lore or w/e

So I think the Maid is probably my most redeemed Class. For a number of reasons. In cannon the Maid's exact abilities or Class symmetries are left unstated, only giving us examples through Aradia (Time), Jane (Life), and Porrim (Space). And for a while I thought the Class was just kind of... boring? if that makes sense? Like, yeah, okay, you can fix a broken thing, thats kind of what the Sylph does. And I see a lot of people analyze it as the active counterpart to the Sylph, under the verbiage [one who creates and creates through their Aspect], but I feel like that is still too similar to the Sylph, as one who heals their Aspect. It positions the Sylph as basically a downgrade of the Maid.

I interpret the Maid as being the passive (not an active Class) counterpart to the Knight. That's where I get the [one who serves and serves through their Aspect] verbiage, as a parallel to the Knight's protection. And I think that makes more sense and adds more nuance to what we see in the comic. Aradia serves Time, both in ensuring that Time can go one, but also in the sense of like, an actual maid, cleaning up Time and straightening out the clutter. She has the most clear example of Maid business in the comic, but we also see that in Jane. Jane serves Life, in the sense of she is devoted to growth and progress and evolution, so much so that she properly flies off the handle in the epilogues because she is so dedicated to preserving and maintaining and in many ways protecting her species (albeit in a completely crock-pot delusional way) that she tries to "straighten out" the other species she would describe as "clutter". Porrim tho, we don't really know much about how she established herself in her role.

And as I said in another post, their duty of service is not unlike a Knight's duty of protection. Whereas the Knight protects their Aspect from things that would interfere with it, the Maid tidies it up when it gets a little messy and acts on behalf of the Aspect's inherent motives.

To put this into an analogy that I think best describes the relationship between the Knight, the Maid, and the Sylph: The Knight stands guard outside of the castle, sometimes being sent out on crusades and being trained for intense war-torn battlefields, but they keep stuff from getting in to wreck the place. The Maid tends to the gardens and relics and halls of the castle, maintaining proper upkeep of the castle grounds after natural wear and tear, and acting as a second line of defense should anything get past the Knights. The Sylph is a mystic healer from the forest that comes in on commission to fix the castle after several explosions and or plagues besiege the place, often after the fact.

So yeah, the Maid went from boring to oh wow that really fits those characters over the span of a few weeks. More to come, though, this is a nuanced system.

As for Aspects? I really like how all 4 polar Aspects interact with each other within Fraymotifs. That being: Breath/Blood and Time/Space. Time and Space are noted to function on a sort of passivity scale, with Time being more active and Space being more passive, with both Breath and Blood equally in the middle. Breath and Blood though, which are my favorite pair, operate on a more vague abstractness scale. Breath is more ideal and abstract, while Blood is more concrete and material, with Time and Space equally in the middle.

I mentioned in another another post that some Blood Classpects can make their allies' abilities manifest in a way that benefits the team in a more passive way, but I didn't go into much detail. You see, Space is the passive Aspect, not blood. Passivity and activity are things I don't really focus on, but the general conception of them in Classpecting is that passive Classes use their powers for others, while active Classes use their abilities for themselves. This isn't entirely untrue, I suppose, but another equally applicable understanding of it is passive Classes go with the flow, while active Classes move against it. Now, Blood would aim to use their abilities for their allies--those who share bonds--but it absolutely would rather fight against the flow. Breath, in the same vein, would be more inclined to use their abilities for themselves--detached from anyone else--but would be far more in their element by going with the flow. That is why they are equally passive and active. So yes, a Seer of Blood would aim their allies to benefit all those they are connected to (passive quality), but a Knight of Blood is a stubborn knucklehead who absolutely will not budge on an idea (active quality). An Heir of Breath would love to just let go and let the breeze carry them away (passive quality), but a Page of Breath constantly fights for autonomy and individual accomplishment (active quality).

Which is a really long-winded and self-indulgent way of saying its actually the passive-active component that is hard-baked into the Aspects that have grown on me.

[forlix]

HELLAUURRR!!!

You're literally the best writer on tumblr, so I'm here to ask for some advice 🥹

So you know how stories have a timeline and some may cover like two years for example but be only around 2k words. HOW TO DO THATT??!? 😭 I always get stuck in time when I write something. If there is monday then there has to be tuesday and I just can't do a smooth slide to let's say the next week of the story. I really can't figure out how to do smooth time skips. So perhaps you have some tips? 😋💖

Waah my English isn't good so idk if you get what I mean. It's alright if you don't want to answer!! ^^

hiii my love!

firstly, u flatter me hello. best writer on tumblr is complete craziness!!! thank u so much for saying that though, you're very kind :') and i'm honored that you're entrusting this question to me!

secondly, this is all sooooo valid. navigating time is one of my biggest writing challenges among MANY so i'm not really sure i have the solution myself, but i can try to walk you through my process if you think that would help. i'm sorry in advance if it comes across as convoluted as i think it does 😭

instead of chronological, day-to-day accounts, i like to think of my fics as collections of important moments. "important" meaning significant for characterization, relationship progression, worldbuilding, etc. these moments don't usually happen back-to-back, because all change takes time.

if i can reference my own "ace," which i took special care to map out the timing for, about a week passes between every scene for most of the fic. i made it this way because i wanted there to be a lot of implicit development during those weeks; the couple needed to make their transition from acquaintances to lovers in a way that felt natural. but of course the development couldn't all be implicit, so the fic ends up being a collection of important moments that gives the reader just enough information to tag along on their journey. which is why u get scenes like mc taping hyun's hand in the training room, mc running out of the arcade heartbroken, and mc and hyun having a heart-to-heart on the gym floor

you can think of it as planting the seeds in one scene, letting them sprout and blossom "off camera" (aka during the timeskip), and then doing a garden reveal in the following scene. the two scenes are still very much interconnected—they still depict the same people in the same universe in the same storyline—but something about them has changed, and with it the plot has progressed

depending on what kind of story you're writing, consecutive days makes total sense, btw. in "crying lightning," i explicitly point out the timeskips with headers containing new locations and times preceding every scene because it the couple is a stylist/idol pair that travels together often over one year. in "everything has changed," which is probably closest to ur example of 2 years spanning 2k words, two years pass between every scene to place byeol growing up in parallel with felix and mc falling in love. but maybe you're writing, say, a camp counselor au or a zombie apocalypse au, and the characters only have limited time together; the way you'd write about a five-day period would look super different from a six-year period, u get me?

i am SO sorry about how long this got holy fuck i am truly terrible at putting anything about my writing process into words 😭 but TL;DR: 1) think of ur fics as compilations of important moments, 2) ~plant the seeds of change~ in one scene and reveal the end results in the next, and 3) think ab what timeframe/time-related format would work best for ur fic and go from there! your english is perfect btw <3 don't hesitate to lmk if u have any other follow-up comments or questions!

[banishmentplanet]

All of this, a thousand percent. It’s why Zim is the emotional focus on my AU, there’s more “Holy FUCK you’ve been THROUGH IT” to him than Dib. Not to lessen Dib’s own trauma, but you’re absolutely right that more people find it easier to understand, relate to, and talk/write about Dib’s issues than Zim’s.

And below is my rambly reason on why I think that-

Irkens overall are just so fucked over by their system. It’s why I draw so many parallels between the Irken Empire and the Gem Empire of Steven Universe. Both are massive, overpowered militaristic forces with little to no personal freedom or expression allowed. The Irkens to me are just a more volatile version of the Gems.

To focus on Zim specifically, I focus on how that kind of childhood could affect someone growing up. There’s an endless amount of fics of teen to adult Dib being affected by his childhood bullying, but Zim feels largely shoved aside in those fics. He’s been missing for years and comes back, or he’s been evil all along and gets pacified as an adult, etc etc. Any of which are fine plot lines but they have the commonality of Not Addressing The Bug.

So to be the change I wanna see in the world I kept Zim on Earth and FUCKED HIM UP for several years. Someone who grew up in a society that prioritises Usefulness and Loyalty at the expense of personal health is going to have zero self-help or -care skills or knowledge. As OP said, if an Irken isn’t violent and unwaveringly loyal, they’re worthless. Zim is barely seen as Irken in the show, barely given the time of day. The Tallests put in so little effort to mask their disdain and mockery of him, if any at all. If that were to go on and worsen for years after the show events, how much worse would he get? How much more would Zim internalise the belief that he as a person means absolutely Nothing in the face of his failure to appease his leaders, his Empire?

I relate to both boys. But as I saw someone else pointing out in another reblog, Zim is Extremely Autistic/Neurodivergent and I feel a lot closer to his character than Dib’s most of the time because of that. I’m not a loud autistic, but I am a brash one. I’m confident in myself and my feelings, I don’t have shame in expressing ideas and opinions. I set out to accomplish things with determination and dedication. I’m not loud in voice but I’m very loud in presence.

Zim is often faking his confidence but the outcome is outwardly the same- he scares people. He’s weird, he’s off putting, he’s annoying. He’s painted as Bad and Evil and Irredeemable by pretty much every character, even the ones who have zero idea of his mission. For the skoolkids or the general public, he’s a threat or an annoyance for no greater reason than he doesn’t ‘Act Right’.

Zim can definitely be a rude ass bitch, but he’s also 12 years old. He’s never had a role model in kindness, he’s never been shown kindness. Even within the span of the show we see him start to ease up in ways the Empire definitely didn’t teach him (cough cough, him helping the blob creature in ‘Abducted’ despite the action not directly helping him at all). Zim is not beyond improving. He will always be loud and harsh and bitey, but he isn’t evil. He isn’t a terrible horrible irredeemable person incapable of anything more. He’s a child who deserves a chance to exist in an environment that actually gives a damn about him.

Which is a sentiment I greatly relate to. I’m a Zim, in the good and the bad ways, and I do so badly wish more folks would explore his uniquely complex situation and mental state, without just simplifying it to “he’s a bad person because he’s Irken”. He’s worth more than that, just the same way Dib is worth more than the bullying he endures for also being Loud and Different.

If you are someone who wants to see more in depth exploration of Zim’s horrific mental-emotional state, I am on AO3! Here’s my main fic!

Sips black tea. Ive said it before but I feel like people prioritise Dibs mental issues over Zims because Zim can't be softened and made more of a victim like Dib can. Despite the fact that Zim is a child soldier who's experienced what's basically indoctrination, people don't see him like that. They see him as someone who murders and harms innocent people, especially children, and don't recognise that Zim only acts that way because he's been in a military all his life where, if he isn't violent, he is nothing. People seem to "baby"ify Dib and his wrongdoings because he's easier to project onto. Sorry to be so blunt, but I really need to acknowledge that most people who like invader Zim are neurodivergent or don't exactly fit the "norm", just like the show and it's characters itself. But Dib, as a character, is more clear about not being the norm, about being the weird kid with no friends. So people empathize with him more, and transform him into a soft, unnecessarily hated child. Which, well... He is, depending on your interpretation. It isn't his fault that he's hated like that. But that doesn't travel back into Zim being one in the same as Dib, since he isn't as clear about it. He hides it better as a character, not as visibly effected by his ostracization by his peers. It's shown that he's effected by it, but he has outbursts and is loud and "annoying" enough to make it not seem like a big deal to him. And with that, it's much harder for people to project the "UWU soft bean" innocent victim image onto someone like him, despite the fact that he has much more trauma and problems than Dib. TLDR I think that bug is much more fucked up than dib and we need to start giving him forehead kisses and flower crowns too

The executor about to kill me who asked "any last words": what the actual fuck are you talking about man.

[phantomrose96]

The one thing I want to know about ABOT is, how do you manage to keep the story flowing long after you've lost the fixation on it? I've tried to start up many of my own longer fictions and I always stall out. Is it a mindset or something more complicated like, letting the story change as you see it?

Ah, you know, that's a really good question.

Amazingly with ABoT, I haven't lost the fixation.

I'm not sure I could nail that down to a science. I definitely HAVE lost fixations on projects before. The first long-fic I did was an 80,000 word fic I wrote when I was 14. I wrote the first ~60k or so in the span of a few months from a strong fixation, then fell out of it, then sort of begrudgingly brought it to the finish line many-more-months later when I'd mostly lost interest, but wanted to see the story through.

Tourmaline, another ~80,000 word venture, I started and finished in a sprint of about 2 months. I was operating under a certain pressure like "I need to do this fast before everyone else (and I) lose interest."

ABoT was much harder to do that with, because ABoT, currently 320,000 words and growing, could not be written in a manic sprint. There was a period with ABoT where I definitely DID lose interest... When the updates in late 2017 slowed to a trickle, and stopped in 2018, I was dealing with a combination of things stopping me in my tracks. For one, the biggest was dealing with the targeted backlash to ABoT. It's hard to hold ground with a ton of people who've got nothing better to do than try and kick down your sandcastle. But ALSO I was dealing with a sort of combined "fear that if im not fast, people will lose interest" and "I can't keep going because I'm frustrated and I hate these characters now"

Like I absolutely hit a point in time where I'd TRY to write something, and I'd look at like some chunk of Reigen dialogue and be like "fuck you, shut up" just ACTIVELY frustrated with who these characters were. I remember taking up a little BNHA fanfiction project and being worried when I realized how much more excited I was about that, while ABoT felt like a haunting, joyless commitment. I'm convinced if I'd forced myself through that, the characters would have become like... flanderized, heartless imitations trying to grasp on to whatever made them interesting in the first place.

(side note: sometimes I feel that exact vibe from long-running series. Like I go "I see, you're frustrated and hate this now, author. I'm sorry.")

But I did pull out of that. And how exactly that happened is hard to say for sure, maybe a combination of things. I definitely spent pretty much all of 2018-2020 just, quietly sad about the ABoT plotlines I thought I'd never see through. I was still mulling them over in my head, still shaping them and giving love to them. I just thought I could straight up never return. So going "fuck it" and returning to it late 2020, with a lot of warm reception and 0 backlash definitely fueled me.

I also have the benefit of people actively being engaged and supportive. It's super motivating to get like, a long gushing ao3 email, or someone kicking in the doors of the ABoT discord with a long loving rant about their thoughts on what's going on in ABoT. I think they've given me a lot of confidence in tackling something that feels so huge. I eat fanart. Like if I could print it out and just eat it I would.

But if I think more about ABoT itself, I think the structure of the story helps a lot with keeping my engagement. The parallel storylines help keep me from getting bogged down in anyone situation, or vibe, or anything. The A Plot (Reigen and Mob) is frequently tonally opposite from the B Plot (Ritsu and Teru) so most chapters have some balance of content.

I have a whole bag worth of Moments that I've had planned for ages that I'm excited to finally, finally get to. As well as Moments that naturally get cooked up and refined as I'm writing, which leads to a nice mix of old content I'm excited for, and new content I'm innovating on. (Like, the end scene of chapter 40 was planned in October 2021, while the end scene of chapter 41 was planned in July 2017).

Also, I'm writing the characters for me. Sometimes I worry about favoritism showing, and "oh should I balance certain characters more" but actually that doesn't matter if I'm just writing the story I want. I've honed in on characters I'm deeply invested in, and deeply care about.

And the content, and the humor, is for me too. All the jokes in ABoT are there because they're something I found funny. That made me laugh to write. It's validating when I've got people who find them funny too! But even if not, well I laughed! I had fun! I thought of it in the shower and went "that's hilarious" and wrote it down so I won.

And I think another huge thing is like... I've stopped trying to give myself harsh deadlines in an "oh people are gonna lose interest if I don't belt this out!" kind of way. I published NOTHING for 3 years. The people who were gonna lose interest have lost interest already. It happened. It's done. It's in the past. All that matters now is putting out into the world what I have to share that I otherwise would never have made if I let that 3 year hiatus go on forever.

It still takes discipline to sit down and write when I'm like "mehhhhhh what if I just browse askReddit for 3 hours?" But the difference is in like, enacting some discipline, vs. forcing myself to slog through something I've heart-and-soul burnt out on, motivated only by the fear of burning up into irrelevance if I'm not doing a constant monkey-dance for an easily-distractable audience.

Like I take steps back from ABoT when it feels like I'm getting a little burnt out. I do other things. Some chapters are 2 weeks apart. Some are 6 weeks apart. What's most important for me is just adjusting the pace such that I'm working on it in a way that my heart is in.

If I had to REALLY boil it down: I think it's that ABoT is a story I love, with characters I love, with planned scenes that make me excited, whose ending feels so emotionally fulfilling, whose effort feels rewarding (especially in quarantine times), whose plot caters to my interests, whose timeline for completion doesn't feel daunting, and whose readers have been exceedingly kind with their interest, praise, investment, analysis, and love for what I've got going on.

I'm at peace with the demons I dealt with trying to get this story into being. It feels like a nice jog to the finish line now, with some hills and bumps and challenges, but I know I can keep up the jogging pace, so regardless of how far out the end ends up being, I'm confident I can job along to it.

[saessenach]

Hi! For the ask thing, top 5 missmungoe's fics and top 5 One Piece villains?

Love your art!

Hi, nonnie!!

I'm afraid it's been a minute since I've been up to date with One Piece, so both questions will be more or less based around @missmungoe and her incredible, swashbuckling Odyssey-retelling (although let's be real, Odysseus could never) honest-to-god multi-verse Shanties 😊

Top 5 OP Villains

1. Blackbeard (love him, love the parallels to Luffy and Shanks, love his ominous intro and the way he's thematically relevant to a T)

2. Akainu (love to hate him, he is terrible, I hope he gets w r e c k e d, and that whoever takes him down has a marvellous time while at it)

3. That one guy from Film Gold bc he was hella compelling and he had style, but I forget his name. He was extra gaudy and that wins points from me

4. Gold Lion Shiki (I think??? From Strong World, because the last few films have been really good - worldbuilding-wise and narratively speaking, and it's been fun to dip my toes back into the story without having to tackle several hundred chapters)

5. TBH I've only rewatched properly up until Arabasta, so the villains I have Opinions on are Arlong, Croc, Captain Kuro and mayyyybe Rob Lucci and his gang, but I have no idea what's happened with them since, if they've gotten their own arcs like Buggy, or whether we're friends with them or not, so I'll leave it at that.

(An honorary mention to the slavemonger Celestial Dragon from the latest chapter of Mnemosyne, because he was awful, incredibly well-written and made me want to hurl my phone against the wall)

(So now onto the fun part)

Top 5 missmungoe fics

1. Heed the Siren's Call and Sailor's Folly (technically cheating as they are separate stories, yes, but when I reread one, I also immediately reread the other, so imo, it's only fair. Siren was a favourite I first read years ago on ff.net while it was being written, and which I happened across again in 2017 on ao3, and it's never been the same!! When I say it's life-changing literature, I mean it, because how many stories can claim to grow up and change right alongside you? I just have a lot of love for it, and I am this 🤏 close to taking a bookbinding class and having my way with it)

2. Penelope (the amount of times I've read and reread this is truly embarrassing, and that number has more digits than I care to admit - but I am a sucker for weddings which tell tradition to f right off, tiny brides giving voice to their anger at the world and bridegrooms smitten straight out of their ugly ass sandals. This is my comfort read.)

3. Mnemosyne (is the herculean, show-stopping, incredible slow-burn of my dreams and just - wow, it literally takes Oda's worldbuilding and makes it immeasurably richer and better. If for nothing else, then read it for Hancock and her friendship to Makino, for the INTRICACY given to the Amazons, for the way it breathes life into every single place the cast visits, and ties in over-arching themes from canon with details so fucking brilliant, you just sort of stare dumbly at your screen because of course they should be there. There are so many different POVs, and so many intersecting threads that make up this huge-ass tapestry I am continuously in awe of, because it's not just the HEART-ACHE INDUCING marvel of a love story, it's the Red-Hair crew's shenanigans, and the Straw-Hats' incapacity to stay put, it's Rowan's adventure, it's Hancock and her people getting the quality writing they DESERVE, it's the ASL reunion which made me cry, and a found family which spans oceans and realms of existence and everything in-between)

4. Andromeda Unbound (the SWASHBUCKLING UNDERCOVER EXTRAVAGANZA! The one where everyone and their mother separately shows up to crash Shanks' execution, complete with narrow misses, over-the-top banquets, Leverage heist music and so many good reunions. A big, fat and incredibly Extra(tm) middle-finger to propriety and saintly lawful systems, and just, so much fun to read)

5. Time for the ties lol - I still can't believe the Unspeakable 30 year fic and the subsequent AU in which Shanks crashes Makino's wedding are a thing, but I just love that miniseries a lot. Somewhere on this spot are also Moon and Her Maiden (for being ridiculously atmospheric), Bind me to the Tide (uhh, the coolest and also most painful soulmate AU for them, with Makino being very much against her intended, Shanks dealing with period cramps from Hell and just overall being Very Good for my Heart) and, of course Peony and Silver (ROGER. Shakky sweeping Rayleigh off his feet. ROGER. More over-arching themes, as usual. Have I mentioned, perhaps, ROGER? Just to be safe.)

Oh, and an honourable mention for Charybdis as it single-handedly (😌) dragged me out of the biggest art-block I've ever had, and I've rarely cried this much when reading fic.

Hope these answers are satisfying, nonnie!! Thank you for the lovely compliment, and for giving me an opportunity to gush about one of my favourite series ♡

[writingquestionsanswered]

The story I want to write covers a period of time from when a character is born to when they’re approximately 18 years old. The story would be focused heavily on character development and analysis, both relating to the main character as she grows up, her family, and her neighbors. I’ll admit, my desire to write something like this is because I greatly enjoyed East of Eden by Steinbeck. I worry, though, that my writing style isn’t suited for longer narratives like this, as I’m more used to the style of “quick adventures” found in most standalone books (“quick” referring to stories that occur over a short period of time). Basically, do you have any advice for writing (potentially very long) stories that span many in-universe years?

Stand Alone Story Spans 18 Years

I've never written a story that spans years, though I've read several. I think the key to doing it well going to be to divide the character's life up into important eras. Like, maybe early childhood, middle childhood, and teens. Or, there might be other natural eras, like maybe they lived in Cincinnati, Ohio for the first twelve years of their life, then the family moved to Atlanta where they were until they graduated high school. And finally, at 18, they're in New York for college.

Looking for the natural divisions in your character's life will help you find the inherent structure of the story. Stories--especially ones that are character driven--are about how a person changes as a result of the things that happen to them. One way you could approach this story would be to use the early childhood section as introduction and set-up, the middle childhood section to illustrate the origin of their internal conflict, and the teens section to show how they overcome their internal conflict and change. That's just one possibility, of course--and it depends on how you divide your story--but just to give you an idea of how you can use each section to progress through their character arc.

One more thing to keep in mind is that covering a long span of time doesn't mean you have to address every year of their life, or even every semi-important event that happens in their life. You can skip over entire years or even chunks of years. You can still use memory recall (both internal and via dialogue), dreams, and flashbacks to deliver important things you didn't cover earlier. If you can find parallels between any earlier and later events, it might even make sense to do it that way for these events. You can make use of scene transitions to show the passing of time. (See: Guide: How to Skip Time in Your Story.) That's about all I can think of, but I hope it helps! ♥

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[cgmayra]

Here's a fun AU idea. I was thinking instead of tarot card reading Amy has vivid visions of the future. However whenever she gets a good vision dizzy spell when she gets a bad vision terrible sometimes debilitating headaches and she doesn't control what she sees. This makes her a person of interest to Eggman, G.U.N., and other world governments so they constantly try to capture her and use her power for their own gain. If she tries to force a vision it hurts her. Sonic is very protective of Amy

*feels tired today, just re-reading prompts to get ideas -sometimes new- or get excited about who’s next in line*

Thinking in my head, ‘I’m just not feeling well today, but I do have some ideas.’ The very next thought to encourage me, ‘You write your best when you’re tired.’

Me, directly after that thought, ‘...Darn it, you’re right.’ *proceeds to write all and every emotion in vivid detail* (lololol)

I know myself too well.

PROMPTS ARE ON SHUTDOWN. No, you cannot beg nicely for me to take your prompt until they are open again, sorry love, them’s the rules. BI

Slightly gonna alter your request for the benefit of something I think may be a stronger storyline, I hope you still enjoy it, Precious Anon! \(:D)/

Prompt:

There was a rift in the chasm of space time, an unfathomable amount of power was being expelled and pulled, creating real and alternative timelines.

In order for Sonic and the gang to face these anomalies, Silver suggested that someone with the potential of mental abilities and the like should try and connect with the magnetizing force that keeps tugging and shoving on time, rewriting it and creating all these alternative realities continuously. Destroying and recreating decisions and parallel worlds would have a chaotic effect on the universe, but no one seemed to be able to connect to the unseen force, and Eggman didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight either.

Everyone was troubled... there was this silent fear that we’d be rewritten in seconds, that we’d cease to be who we really were in this very moment.

I stood by as my friends talked heatedly about their options, they each had tried but none had succeeded in connecting to that ‘force’.

I always felt I had magical properties to myself, if we could just connect to the dimension where this force started from, we may be able to help on our end.

I fidgeted, knowing Silver and Sonic were butting heads since Silver’s main priority was the future, while Sonic’s was the here and now.

Some found hope in this rewritten time, making Shadow and Eggman actually allies once again... Shadow hoping the past could be changed, and Eggman for his obvious reasons of defeating Sonic and taking over the world.

Both were absent and nowhere to be found.

As they continued to grow more and more harsh in how they spoke with one another, I felt the longing to end the conflict, and looked over to the Master Emerald.

It was the only thing that wasn’t being rewritten, some clue to connecting to the other dimensions...

Everyone had called out to it but nothing was working. I felt something swirl in me like an engine, seeing my beloved Sonic turning so angry and Silver ignoring him sent me into a rage myself, but I kept my lips in a fine line and held my fury back.

‘Friends shouldn’t talk to each other like this, or get in each other’s faces with such heavy glares...’ I knew in my heart that if I joined in, I wouldn’t part the two, but only get caught in their crossfire of differing ideals.

Both were stubborn, and both weren’t looking at the bigger picture.

Without a way to communicate with the alternative timelines, our decisions wouldn’t help us get any further to contacting the other dimension, and not just that... but we wouldn’t progress at all. We’d just be going around in circles...

“You can’t seriously think that sitting around waiting for some magical tether from the other dimensions is going to get us out of this time loop!” Sonic’s voice was full of presence and experience, he was a well-traveled hero, and knew the best options to weigh in moments like these... but Silver continued to fight back.

“If we advance unknowingly and without caution into the stream of time, we could easily be just as trapped in it’s nonsensical clutches as we were before! For some reason, the Master Emerald’s location is the only place in time where the effects of the rewritten world aren’t effected! If we give up this position, no one might be able to tell us what’s going on!” Silver swung an arm out, stepping up and going toe to toe with Sonic, refusing to back down from the argument. “I know you think charging into the time-stream might give us answers, but it’s a risk that holds so many unlimited possibilities that it’s fruitless to venture in! You’d just be trapped and the rest of us possibly waiting all eternity for you to choose the right path to even get out to another dimension!”

That part we knew was sound and right, that unless you pick the right choice every time, the time vortex would just pull you somewhere else. Without knowing the other dimension’s choices, we’d never be able to coordinate this... even Tails said something along the lines of a uniformed pathway that could get them all to the center of this strange force...

Otherwise, we’d be trapped... forever.

“You’re leaving us as sitting ducks to whatever’s happening! It’s going to put us all in danger!” Sonic was beyond listening to reason, however. My darling could never just sit by while we all feared for our lives and the world’s future.

The two stood so close, it looked as though their foreheads would touch, and I could tell Sonic was about to make a stand so great that Silver would be forced to let him go...

I couldn’t stand the thought of losing Sonic in a time-loop forever. In being stuck on Angel Island’s alter for the rest of eternity till someone figured out the correct choices...

I felt my whole being flood with tingles and expectations, with exactly what I was going to do and how my very soul wouldn’t allow me to watch as everyone would lose themselves diving into a puzzle that had no way of being solved without aid.

That was the last straw for me. Seeing Sonic pull himself away from Silver and walk over to the Master Emerald, “I’m done talking. Taking action is the only way we can succeed against this catastrophe.” He spoke so manner-of-factly... he was going to touch the Master Emerald and dive into the vortex... wasn’t he?

“No...” I held my hand out, seeing the Chaos Emeralds all glow as he was fusing with them to create the miracle known as Super Sonic... but I couldn’t- I couldn’t banish Sonic to an eternity of never-ending wandering through an unescapable maze!!!

“Soonniiccc!!!” I charged forward, making him flinch and pause a moment as he turned to look back at me, but by then, I had already reached forward and interfered with the Chaos Emeralds giving him power.

Instead of him turning Super, I felt my hand touch the Master Emerald, and all time seemed to freeze. I gripped the Master Emerald with my arms, widening the span of how far my arms could reach, and shook my head against it. “I can’t let everyone panic and waste away our precious friendships over this... this... whatever it is! Please, Master Emerald! Do I have the potential to set things right!?” I dipped my head down as the power overwhelmed me. Time slowly began again, as I was moving at normal speed, everyone around me started to move as though slowed considerably.

“Is this..?” I looked up to see Sonic’s hand slowly reaching for me, and his surprised expression at stopping him. “Chaos’s... power?”

I was shot back as my eye-sockets glowed a bright green, and through some vision or other, saw what looked like my younger self, also getting driven from the Master Emerald.

The original world... the first universe... Somehow, by the two of us acting and making a decision in unison, or maybe she had made it previously... I wasn’t sure, we were able to finally find a bond and connect in some magical way to where I could see that dimensions choices.

I felt my bare back slam against the graveled dirt of Angel Island and skid aggressively to a halt as it scratched my back and left me feeling weak.

Time returned to normal, I guess? As I heard my friends cry out my name and rush me.

I could numbly feel hands on me, shaking me as my eyes struggled to lift up, and were just waving open slightly.

My head hurt, I was dizzy and couldn’t see anything at first clearly. It was all a blur, before Silver’s and Sonic’s voices rang out the most.

“What happened!?” Sonic’s voice was full of authority, as though ready to take action if something need be done.

“She... I’m not sure, but the Master Emerald fused it’s time capabilities with her. You saw it, right? Her whole body was vibrating so quickly... like....” Silver was interrupted by Tails just then.

“Like she was merged into all the different dimensions... she was moving faster than the time strain!” Tails’s excitement meant only one thing...

“So... she had the potential then, out of all of us, to carry the connection.” Silver’s reserved tone must have meant that he felt validated in what he was so adamantly defending earlier. “Now that she can guide us through the time vortex, we might be able to reverse whatever’s happening, and return time and space to normal again.”

Sonic looked over at Silver, then down towards me as I still felt my breathing was low and drained, I couldn’t speak no matter how much my lips parted to try. It was like I was still adjusting to being in one dimension again, instead of flying through to see my other self’s choices.

“It didn’t need to come to this point...” Sonic spoke gravely, but it seemed to trigger and enrage Silver as he shot his head to look back at him, then stood up, defiantly.

“If you hadn’t acted the way you did, we may not have gotten this path. We have a real way to succeed and get through this now, Sonic! Why are you still so against me!?” He tightened his fists and thrust them forward, showing how much he was holding back his mixed emotions...

He was somewhat humble enough to admit that if Sonic didn’t rebel against him, that I wouldn’t have done what I did... but on the other hand, it still seemed like Sonic was opposed.

“I just meant that it didn’t need to be this way.” Sonic shook his head to Silver, remaining somewhat collected from his earlier clenched jaw demeanor. He put what felt like the warmest touch out of everyone’s onto my arm, and looked back to me, “It didn’t need to be so fueled...”

Somehow... I knew he was speaking to me.

He must have meant he wished it wasn’t so emotional to where I was put in a rough spot, choosing between losing the love of my life or sacrificing myself into the time vortex... I would have jumped, if Sonic jumped too... at least then, we could be trapped together. He wouldn’t have had to be alone in that endless maze...

Well, maybe he wouldn’t have thought those exact wordings of it, but... it did help to think he may have seen it as an act of true love.

I gained strength from his hand resting on my arm, and slowly began to wobble and lean myself up.

Everyone saw my arms gain strength again and push from under me, and immediately swarmed me again to help, perhaps unaware if I was conscious enough to have heard their discussion.

They called out to me, and I nodded, showing I was here and alert, but drained somewhat.

The pounding in my head subsided and I gripped it, “I... I saw her.” I stated, “I saw the original dimension this all happened in... I think I can do it again.”

Sadly, I couldn’t just ‘summon’ the answers. Something had to trigger it, which began another frustration as we all held one another’s hands and jumped into the void.

The first rewritten stories were perplexing. A shadowy figure that swarmed with dark matter looked strangely in the silhouette of Eggman, but instead of targeting Sonic like usual, he kept coming after me.

“U-wah!!” I leaped out of one of his dark matter missiles as everyone was getting scattered from me, as though this figure didn’t want me to receive any help.

“Amy!” Sonic called out, darting from the after-effects of the missiles, for when they landed and exploded, a space of black, glittering galaxy expanded out in a small radius and tried to suck us into another story to lose our progression.

He rolled and finally slid under the shadowy Eggman, confusing him as he pulled up on his Eggmobile and Sonic round-house kicked him away from me.

He reached to grab me, and as I went to reach for him as well, my eyes glowed again the color of the Master Emerald and I saw the other dimensional me.

She was young and looked like my younger years of first meeting Sonic. Sonic was younger too, and reached out in the same way Sonic was doing now. Was this... the corresponding choice?

Could I only see these moments when something unified happened? Were we making the same choices our other selves were or are making right this second?

I couldn’t tell, but I could see that after that Sonic and little me took the other’s hands, she summoned her hammer and spun to whack a younger looking Eggman away and send him flying, then everyone gathered and they took the right route... where it looked like the world was splitting apart and floating rapidly in a spinning and drifting away appearance.

When I came back, my head hurt and I looked to see that while unconscious, my friends were defending me from the shadowy figure of the Eggman lookalike.

“W-we have to take the right path!” I shouted out, my head pounding and debilitating me from summoning my hammer.

I had to though, if I didn’t, time would rewrite and we’d have to start with a new scenario and from scratch. Everyone was depending on me to guide them... I had to fight through the pain!

I struggled to lean up, feeling my body tense like cracking through uncooked spaghetti, but my arms finally cricked into position and I summoned my hammer.

“HAAA!!!” I grabbed Sonic’s hand which, when he noticed I was getting up, hurried to reach out to me again as I felt him pull me forward and swung my hammer into the momentum of his helpful pull.

The Shadowy Eggman went flying, and though Silver thought the left looked more safe from the twisting rapidly pieces of land in the galaxy on the right side, I urged him to trust me.

Sonic and I... we were so amped up in the moment... we didn’t realize that we never let go of one another’s hand...

G.U.N was in this memory or story, whichever it was, and they were after a shadowy figure of Shadow The Hedgehog.

However, Shadow seemed to be targeting me, as though wanting to destroy me.

This continued to baffle Tails and Silver, but Sonic was more protective than I’ve ever seen before, unselfishly throwing himself in the rippling blackness of Shadow’s silhouette, but was defenseless against how much more powerful this Shadow appeared to be.

It was reminding us all of when Shadow first awakened, and Knuckles tag-teamed with Sonic to give me enough time to try and trigger my memory.

I tried to do various things and put myself into situations to see if anything would trigger the correct course’s vision, but nothing was working and I was growing frustrated with myself.

Face it, there was a lot of pressure, and I felt that every minute I wasted was another second Sonic and Knuckles had to suffer under the fake G.U.N shadowy forms and the Shadow look-a-like.

Finally, I hit my head with a rock as a last resort but was quickly pulled away by Tails, “Amy!”

“Stop it, that isn’t helping!” Silver quickly intercepted too, yanking the rock out of my hands.

“I... I don’t know what else to do...” I admitted, feeling I was losing grip of my faith in myself... I may have been able to spare Sonic before, but now..?

Was this completely out of my control?

“Anytime now, fellas!” Knuckles called out as we both turned to see Sonic and Knuckles shoving themselves against Shadow’s dark, rippling body that almost looked like wavy flames under a watery scope. He was taking steps forward, which caused their feet to grind against the earth in an attempt to hold him back.

Then G.U.N appeared behind us, and we were surrounded... When the bullets began to fire, my eyes widened and the light of the Master Emerald grew from my eyes.

My other self was rescued once more by Sonic, but he was hit by those odd galaxy alternating bullets. He fell by her side and twitched, making her get up and cry over him as the bullets expanded holes in his form, and as he looked up at her, the holes overtook him and he turned into a rewritten, shadowy figure that reached for her.

She gasped and was pulled away by another, younger Knuckles with a cowboy hat on, who said something I couldn’t hear as my visions didn’t have sound, and threw her to a smaller Tails, who caught her and flew with her into another portal as the two left the other Knuckles behind with the shadowy images of Sonic, G.U.N, and Shadow...

“NOOO!!!” I came out of the vision and turned to where Sonic was coming at me, already having jumped and about to reach me.

I knew if I didn’t let these events happen, we’d be trapped, but every part of me wanted to jump into Sonic’s arms and push him back, let myself be the one that was swallowed up in the rewritten darkness.

But by then, I knew it wasn’t--and shouldn’t--be called a rewritten reality.

It was erasing reality! There seemed to be a hive-mind I picked up on, the force was controlling my friends and Eggman, G.U.N even! 

Not just that, but I didn’t know if we’d be able to save Sonic. I thought nothing could overcome Sonic... I was so torn, but as I focused on his eyes... so determined to get me out of harm’s way... I couldn’t find it in my heart to move.

He was shot and rolled along the ground with me as he I held him, tears spraying from my eyes in an army of resistance. I clung to him, crying out his name as he flinched and tried to fight against the erasing darkness that would soon overwhelm his being and turn him into a mindless drone to whatever force was trying to take over time and our known reality.

“Noo!!!” I screamed out as Sonic told Knuckles to take me from him, and as he turned to fight Shadow, was fully overcome and went limp. “SOOONNICCC!!!”

Knuckles had ripped me from him and threw me to Tails, instructing him that he’d stay behind to look after Sonic while Tails and Silver got through to the next part or stage of this timeline.

Silver had to grip my head and take my line of sight off of Sonic’s shadowy form as it turned almost like a zombie towards me, tilting it’s head as the drones somehow knew I carried the Master Emerald’s power to connect to the other dimension.

“Amy! Listen to me!” Silver began, but I felt I had died inside. My voice escaped my lungs and there was nothing left in me. I... had become motionless... I didn’t stop Sonic... I... I didn’t deserve him...

What kind of woman, who claimed to love her hero so full-heartedly, would have froze up when the time to save him drew near?

“I don’t deserve him...” My headache couldn’t match the absolute obliteration of my soul and heart from within me. Like those rapidly twirling away pieces of the world we had journeyed through moments before. “I... Sonic...!” I didn’t deserve to call myself Sonic’s destined love... if I couldn’t even protect him when I knew what was about to happen.

“He was too fast, Amy, there’s nothing you could have done.” Tails held me closer to him, seeing my shaking eyes and the pain in trying to speak when I felt my entire ribcage had collapsed and took the compartments of my lungs and lifeforce with it.

“Amy, please, remember, this can all be rewritten.” Silver had placed his two hands to the sides of my face, seeing how broken I was and failing to grasp this reality.

My head twitched up, but I was hollow inside.

“You have to tell us what to do. What did you see? Where do we go?!” He urged, trying to be kind, but... “We can’t save him now! He’ll be alright, you have to trust in your vision! Please, Amy! The more time you spend silent the more time Sonic has to suffer!”

What was the point..? Without Sonic... Without him, I-... I had no meaning to my life anymore. Sonic was everything to me... he was my whole world... a reality without Sonic... in a universe where I couldn’t see him smiling... couldn’t hear his laughter and teasing expression... A world without his warm touch...

My mind went back to when Sonic had placed his hand to my arm, his words... “It didn’t need to come to this point... It didn’t need to be so fueled...”

My eyes blazed with a new purpose. I wasn’t just going to save my dimension. I was going to save my Sonic!

I cried out and struggled to get Silver’s hands off my face, then pointed Tails to the portal that was opening behind us. “There! Go! Now!”

I saw and witnessed first hand the torment the other dimensional, more tender, younger and naïve me struggle to gain the strength to continue forward, till her and her friends found sanctuary at the end.

By this time, I had spent all of what I felt was in me, and fell to my knees as I had fought the dark entity known as World Keeper, who was polluted by the filth of negativity in all the worlds... that hive mind was just swallowing the world in despair, and without ever being hit by it, I felt it more than ever too.

Then it slashed it, and I felt the darkness swallowing me as my color turned black with the light glimmer of inky stars within it’s slick obsidian...

I fell back and couldn’t feel myself hit the ground, I couldn’t feel anything anymore but emptiness...

As it overtook me, I wondered with my last, conscious thoughts if the other dimensional me had saved Sonic... was this the end of our universe? Or just the entrapment of one dimension?

Then...

“Don’t give up!”

S...Sonic?

“You have what it takes, use the power of the Chaos Emeralds!”

S...Shadow?

“I didn’t blast this stupid filth out of the sky only to be controlled into an everlasting misery by it!!!”

Eggman..?

“I’m not staying stuck in this feeling forever! Come on, Amy! You can do this-grraaahh!!!”

Knuckles...

Drifting into the blackness of the void, I suddenly felt four strong hands trying to force me upwards towards the light.

It slowed my decent, until Silver and Tails were able to reach out and grab me, and my last vision surfaced with the dizzy spell.

Rosy... she was also drifting into despair before Robotnik and Sonic reached through their own controlled misery by the World Keeper and used the last of their hope to push her out...

I tried to strain as best as I could through the dizzy, blurry vision and move my hand up towards them.

Her vision and mine suddenly conjoined, and I saw younger Tails flash continuously between Silver and my dimension’s Tails too.

I spoke out to her... “We can still save everyone...” I encouraged, “We... can’t give in... to hopelessness!”

I felt our hearts merge into one, felt our power soar as though we were evolving into a new creature that had it’s life sparked into existence again.

Newly hatched into this feeling of easiness, peace, and strength beyond my understanding... I grabbed Tails and Silver’s hands and swung out, the darkness that was once overcoming me suddenly burst with light and the seven Chaos Emeralds floated around us.

“Ah! She didn’t fuse with them!” Silver blurted out, seeing them swarm both him and Tails too.

“She... was storing them!” Tails exclaimed.

I guess I had become somewhat of their server and carrier... there power was just kept safe in me... through the Master Emerald and my unique connection to the other me.

We fought and as we did, I touched the ground and brought my friends and all the dimensions who had succumb to the negativity out from the inky blanket of darkness and restored their light and hope through the power being expelled from me.

No longer was I a guide.

I was a redeeming light now.

Sonic, Shadow, and Silver all burst into Super form, and together--with all the other worlds we loved so dearly too--we put an end to World Keeper and with me and my other self touching his chest as he was about to fall back into the his own making of the void, he immediately returned to a smaller form of another being.

Sonic suddenly cried out, “Chip!” and darted into the void after him.

I waited... weeks and weeks did I wait for him...

I clung to my chest as though clinging to my heart, refusing to let it break, and keeping it all together again.

I didn’t have visions anymore, but I could feel something... Something like the despair of the void was created from that feeling of loss and loneliness when Chip’s essence left the core of the earth and became free roaming in space...

Tails said he had a theory, that Chip’s body was still with Dark Gaia, but his power had escaped in longing to reunite with Sonic, his friend, again.

Traveling through space and time without a body, it became depressed, and expelled it’s world-bending powers to try and find Sonic... ending up losing itself and taking all worlds and dimensions it was searching through down with it.

A comet of bright golden light shot down through the cosmos, and I eagerly dropped everything to race out my door and pursue it, I knew from the green, red, and white lights that covered the world that Chip’s soul and powers returned to their slumber... and brought back Sonic safely to us as well!

“Sonic..!” My heart could barely contain it’s joy as I raced over the hills to follow his light... before having it sink and my hands fling up to the sides of my face when I saw him hit the water off in the distance of the sea. “No, Sonic!!! You can’t swim!!”

The distance was too far, but I swam anyway, feeling my exhaustion from having traveled miles and miles already on land before seeing him fall into the ocean.

He was covered in a light I assumed was Chip’s planet power, and I held my breath and swam down to him, heard a voice in my mind calling to me...

“Sorry for all the trouble I caused, Amy... Take good care of Sonic from now on. I won’t be lonely without him anymore... I know I may never see him again, especially when I wake up many, many years from now... but even still, the moments I had with him in the void of space and time, and with our time facing Dark Gaia, will always be in my heart... Thank you for letting me see him, one last time...”

The floating ball of light around him slowly brought Sonic up to me, and when I entered it, I took a deep breath and fell limply over his body, floating with him up to the surface.

He opened his eyes and smiled at me, winking without a word but it still gave me so much comfort and peace.

It was as though he was saying everything would be alright now... and Chip’s remaining spatial power set us down on the shoreline... as the waves met us as we took a much deserved rest on the cool sands... the sun rose up and the sounds of helicopters and people were surrounding us, but we remained sleeping soundly next to one another...

Sonic’s warm hand... laying gently over my stomach...

Mine upon his heart.

G.U.N’s windy interruption causing us both to sneeze as Silver appeared and held out both his hands to stop them from investigating, explaining as we drifted off into our dreams~

[zeppelin-and-unicorns]

It's ILI! I know I should have choose only one... but I love things like this (or when it is with emojis) and I just can't hold myself! 21 33 38

21- Tell me about another writer(s) who you admire? What is it about them that you admire?

There are so many authors I admire in this fandom!! Like, so many! I’ll make a small list for you:

leoasc - "Summer Lovin’" has got to be one of the best stories I’ve ever read, their other stories are also incredible. "Things Fall Apart" got me hooked already, I love how they write Hyde, it’s really hard to find authors that write him properly.

TeaTimeAllOverTown - The one-shots with missing moments absolutely crushed me! Especially the s8 one. I cried like a baby, so beautiful, but also so sad! This author also has plenty of other amazing stories that make me smile, I really loved their latest work “I Think I Was Blind Before I’ve Met You”. This author has a way with words, I feel a lot whenever I'm reading one of their stories.

isnotme - Another author who should write a book on how to write Steven Hyde. I just love the way she writes im!! Plus, she's Brazilian too and I am legally required to love her, lol. "Tell Me It's Mine" crushed me, and "Playing Pretend" is so cute, I love the storyline!

poetdameron - She doesn’t write for this fandom anymore, but man, her stories are so amazing. "Heart Like Yours" was probably one of the first stories I’ve ever read and I’ll never forget the emotions I’ve felt while reading it. She writes things beautifully.

c00kiefic - I've read every single one of her stories more times than I'd like to admit. The plot of her stories are incredible, and I just love the way she writes Jackie. "Into The Woods" is by far my favorite story of hers, it's perfectly written, it literally has no flaws. "Stages" is also a beautiful story, and I would kill to see how it ends.

MistyMountainHop - Every single one of her stories is beautiful in their own way. I really love the way she writes Jackie and Hyde’s relationship, she manages to write them perfectly. Their dynamic is out of this world, they're literally soulmates, in every single one of her stories.

SparklingSoul - “We’re Not Broken, Just Bent” is probably my favorite story at the moment, and that’s saying a lot, because I’ve read a ton of J/H stories! The first few chapters are honestly heartbreaking, if you're a big Kelso fan you should not read it, and Hyde still acts like the moron he was on s8, but boy oh boy... All I have to say is that reading Hyde's maturing process was amazing. Seriously, what a journey, he grows up so much, and in a realistic way too! Post s8 stories tend to either change Hyde's personality completely (to make up for all the awful stuff he did on s8) or ignore all the crap he did, but this story doesn't. Hyde changes, a lot, but I really like how she wrote the whole process of it. No one becomes a completely different person in such a short span of time, it's a process and Becca wrote it beautifully. My heart aches whenever I remember the story is almost ending, but I also get excited because I know she's planning on writing more stories and I'm here for it!!

Springsteenicious - I don’t think I’ll ever get over how great “The Queen of All My Dreams” was. Also, the fluff he writes is just *chefs kiss*. There’s nothing I love more than a good, fluffy story, and lemme tell you, all of his stories had put a smile on my face.

Nannygirl - J/H and R/K parallels are everything to me!!! There’s nothing I love more than that, seriously!! I’ve read a few of her stories and they were all very worth it! There are so many things I love about them, but man, the J/H + R/K parallels get me every single time.

QueenBookBuff - I love the way she writes her stories, they’re honestly so poetic, sometimes I envy the way she writes Jackie and Hyde’s inner thoughts and their emotions.

A few honorable mentions: ShanghaiLily, HeatherLea75, tanith75, kezztip, and many more I am probably forgetting right now, but it doesn't mean that they're less important, lol.

33 - What’s the biggest compliment you’ve gotten?

Someone once left a comment on RYLH, saying that I made them laugh a lot and forget all about the crappy day they had. It made me so happy!!

Seriously, every single time someone tells me that my stories are important to them and that it made them happy, I get extremely happy. There's nothing I love more than making people smile, I swear, if I wasn't so anxious and awkward, I would've tried a career in comedy because it's something I am legit passionate about.

I also love when people compliment the way I write dialogues. It's something I legitimately love to write, and it's so hard to make the characters sound natural sometimes. I get legit honored.

38 - If you could collab with any other writer on here, who would it be?

The first that came to my mind was @t7s-jessieverse. I still can't get that TSG + Jessieverse crossover off my mind, and I really want to work on it one day!!

I would also love to collab with @springsteenicious, @those70scomics, @zenmastersandfelso, and honestly, anyone who's interested in collabing with me! I love interacting with you guys! I love hearing your opinions on my stories, and I love sharing my opinion about your stories too! It's the reason why I started the prompt game a while back, I truly love hearing your ideas and you guys really inspire me.

I'm too socially awkward and shy to take the first step, but if you ever have a question, a prompt, or just want to hear my thoughts about one of your ideas, please hit me up on private!

[mrslackles]

Hi I hope your well!

I couldn’t agree more with every single point made in your earlier post about the flaws of GG!!!! 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

The show has much potential but the writers too busy mucking about. Sometimes it feels like S1 was meant to be a limited series, (excluding the last ‘gotta kill the king’ scene in the finale which was obviously meant to be used to continue the story in future seasons). It was so wonderfully put together but the latter part of S2 (& awful finale 🤮) and all of S3 makes it seem like they weren’t expecting and/or prepared for the show to be renewed so they started ...winging it. Sometimes it even feels like they start brainstorming ideas for the show all over again and write so many paralleling storylines form earlier seasons it just feels like we’re going around in circles.

Also, timeline being an absolute joke in this show has hindered the show and the development of the storylines and characters. The whole ‘it all started a year ago’ really got on my nerves but gave me some context on why the show sucks right now. If you’ve been watching the show since it started, it’s been 4 yrs, and we are still seeing our girls struggling and making the same dumb ass amateur mistakes and being overall powerless against Rio and the Feds. I get that the show was meant to be light and portray ordinary women surviving in the world of crime but at some point there needs to be growth and they need to start playing the game and gain a greater upper hand and start making real moves. We’re in S4 and they’re still trying to get through level one??! Lol. They should just quit at this rate.

We’re definitely going around in circles. 

I’ve said this before but I’m sure (and it’s been all but fully confirmed by Krebs) that they have a specific endgame in sight for all three women. Every season they try and get them there, meaning every season they have to reset. Annie getting her life together, growing up and realising she doesn’t need a man has literally been in the works since S01E01 so I cannot describe my amusement at how they’re making it seem like it’s an innovative season 3/4 arc. 

I heard about this “one year” thing, which is insane! The timeline was bad enough when the pregnancy storyline happened (if I remember correctly, Beth says in 3x01 that she hasn’t paid her mortgage in three months, then tries for “weeks” to get pregnant by Dean, plus Rio’s wounds needed time to fully heal), but trying to say the entire show has taken place over the span of a single year is ridiculous. (Also, wow, the ladies’ sense of style has changed dramatically in one year, heh.) Though you’re right, that does put things into a whole new light. 

I can’t agree with you more on the Level 1 thing, especially since for viewers it’s been 4 years. (And it also isn’t as fast-paced as a show like The Vampire Diaries, which was notorious for each episode following on from the same night/next day as the previous episode, making each season equal only 6 months. By comparison, nothing much really happens in Good Girls and you’re telling me each season is only three months??) This dragging quality, btw, is also why so many people ask others not to make judgement calls until the entire storyline/season/nonexistent twist is revealed -- because nothing ever feels complete! There are things/questions from season 1 that still have not been paid off/answered.

Also I’ll never forget an interview with the actors where Mae (I think! It may also have been Christina) said that she asked Jenna when the girls were going to learn and she was told never -- that that’s the whole point. 

I think this show thoroughly misreads the room because by now all of the audience is frustrated. I can’t put it better than you have: “I get that the show was meant to be light and portray ordinary women surviving in the world of crime but at some point there needs to be growth and they need to start playing the game and gain a greater upper hand and start making real moves.” From speaking to many casual viewers to whom I introduced the show and seeing what people say on Reddit, everyone is feeling the exact same way.

The most basic requirement for a TV show is that it is entertaining -- by this point, I think a lot of people are questioning (because of all of the above and more) whether even that is being met.

[strangertheory]

We can't know what we don't know.

The value of skepticism in fandom discourse

I worry that the Stranger Things fandom often allows the development of fan-canons and false absolutes in between seasons that might be destructive to certain fans' long-term enjoyment and appreciation of the series.

We can't know what we don't know.

And if we forget this and begin to construct expectations for what might happen next in the story that are too deeply rooted in our hearts: we are setting ourselves up for disappointment and this is not the fault of the Duffer Brothers or the writing team. This is our fault as individuals and as a community.

Stranger Things has three completed seasons, a fourth season currently in production, and an intended fifth and final season.

We are only a little beyond the halfway point in this larger story.

The halfway point.

A lot can happen in the span of two final seasons.

The writing team probably intends to maintain thematic and narrative intentions across all five seasons. The Duffer Brothers have spoken of having an ending in mind for the story for a long time. (”We’ve known the ending for a while.” - Matt Duffer) But we, the fans, cannot truly know what those plans are until the credits roll on the final episode of the final season.

And yet there is a stubborn certainty that many fans engage in between seasons and that I worry has been growing and spreading worse than usual during season 4′s production delays.

In spite of having only just surpassed the middle point of a story arc that’s being told over the span of five seasons, many fans declare that they "definitely know" that certain relationships between characters won't change. That certain characters will "definitely" survive. That certain rumored future story arcs (based on audition tapes, fan speculation, interviews with the cast) will "definitely happen." That certain characters are "definitely straight" or that certain characters are “definitely gay.”

I believe that there is value in seeking to understand and predict events in a story. Appreciating the way that skilled storytellers use foreshadowing, symbolism, narrative parallels, metaphor, lighting and camera angles, music, and other creative tools when putting together a show like Stranger Things is thrilling. I love debating the relevance of certain details to an author’s larger intentions and long-term vision for their story and characters. I believe that skilled writers should plant clues throughout the earlier moments in a narrative so that plot twists are surprising and yet also also have us slapping our knees declaring “Oh, look! All the signs were there from the beginning! Well played.” Some writers start off without a particular end-goal in mind and allow the characters to lead them there as they develop, however we know that this is not entirely the case for the Duffer Brothers and that they have an ending in mind that they have been building towards.

Authors can also make poor writing decisions that contradict the internal logic and implications of their own universe. Writers and creative teams are not infallible. Productions have constraints and behind-the-scenes pressures, challenges, and limitations that might sometimes result in a less cohesive narrative. I don't believe that's the case with Stranger Things but this can and does happen.

But I always keep in mind that this story is not mine. I am fully capable of being incorrect in my analysis and predictions regarding what might happen next.

My theories and predictions (that Mike has romantic feelings for Will, and that Stranger Things is perhaps intended to be about a dissociated system and internal worlds etc.) are not shared by the majority of the fan community. 

I question the logic of my thoughts constantly because I am prompted to do so any time I share my unusual theories and ideas with other fans. Because my ideas are strange and less popular I am well aware of my need to provide evidence and logic when offering them to other fans for consideration.

If your ideas regarding what is happening in Stranger Things are shared by the majority of fans: how often do you question your expectations?

Do you think that you question them often enough? Are you allowing yourself to become complacent and to assume that because a large majority of your fandom community agrees with your interpretation of certain plot-points and characters that you absolutely must be correct in your understanding of Stranger Things?

I have seen how emotionally attached many fans are to their own preferred understanding of the story. Many fans greet alternative understandings that conflict with their own ideas with a lot of hostility and protest.

I want to warn all fans against closing their imaginations off to the story taking a different route than what they’ve carved into their hearts.

Fans that like less popular ships or that indulge in the discussion of fringe hypotheticals and unique theories are second-guessing and questioning themselves every day and I think for that reason we are better prepared for disappointment than fans that have allowed themselves to believe in characters, ships, and plot-points being “definite” or “canon” or “endgame” simply because the majority of other fans share (and reinforce) those same assumptions.

I worry when I see large fan-made accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr that post a constant stream of content that reinforces very specific fan-canons that are not yet absolute and yet are still favored and embraced as inevitabilities.

Do fans truly believe that nothing might surprise them in the last half of the story? Do fans believe that we know everything about these characters, their relationships with one another, and this sci fi universe by this point in the show? Does this attitude seem reasonable?

The constant consumption of our favorite fan-cams, fanart, and fan-canons creates echo chambers reinforcing our current assumptions about characters, character relationships, and presumed future plotlines. Just because a fan-run Stranger Things account with over a million followers posts about a specific ship constantly and this is what you are seeing on your phone every morning it doesn’t mean that this account knows what is going to happen in the story any more than you do. We need to be wary of allowing ourselves to lose our objectivity and our awareness that this story is in the hands of the Duffer Brothers and the Stranger Things writing team and that nothing that fans expect (or, god forbid, rudely demand) is guaranteed. The twisted idea that creators are in any way obligated to pander to their current fanbase is absurd to me when you consider that this is their creation, and additionally when you consider that the series will exist for future fans long after the majority of current fans abandon it. 

I want the entire Stranger Things fandom to enjoy the journey, to enjoy uncertainty, and to look forward to finding out what happens next. I don’t want fans setting themselves up for disappointment by stubbornly insisting that their interpretation of what is happening in the story is absolutely correct when the story is not over yet.

If the Stranger Things fan community can allow itself to be open to being wrong I think we will all enjoy the story a lot more and continue enjoying the story no matter what. The creators behind Stranger Things are very talented and I believe they are telling a very well-crafted story. I only hope that the fandom will appreciate it and that we haven’t stubbornly built walls around our own desires that will prevent us from enjoying an excellent story if it contradicts our expectations in the next few seasons.

I know that if I look forward to the thrill of discovering something new about my favorite characters in future seasons that I will rarely be disappointed.

I hope we all continue opening new curiosity doors and try to avoid setting our hearts on specific expectations.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

She [6]

Warnings: non-consent sex (series); masturbation

This is dark! Steve and explicit. 18+ only.

Series Synopsis: Steve Rogers’ life is turned upside down by a reporter.

Chapter Summary: Steve starts to plan ahead.

Note: Yesterday was pretty rough personally but I’m working on my writers list at the moment so that should be out next week! As for my own writing, I’m not sure. But thanks to everyone who is reading along

Thanks to everyone for their patience and feedback. :)

I really hope you enjoy. 💋

<3 Let me know what you think with a like or reblog or reply or an ask! Love ya!

Steve

Steve didn’t get home until well past midnight. He’d lost her after the bar and she beat him back to her apartment. She was still awake when he got there. Wide awake. Restless. She sat on the couch and fiddled with her phone, then the remote, then fidgeted again. She was shaken by her little foray into the underbelly of the city.

He was almost amused to think of it. How she must have felt. Was she mortified? Intrigued? Maybe both. Like him. When he realised what she had been searching for, what the woman she’d been talking to was, he was surprised and even more interested.

When she flashed her press pass, he realised why. This was her new story. Had she so quickly forgotten about him? Let him fall in the gutter as she chases down her next prey.

Home, alone at last, he found himself in a fitful sleep. He laid atop his covers and tossed and turned. In the span of a couple days, his life had so completely changed. He was startled to realise he had so easily forgotten about his work. She was the crux of his life now. The very centerpiece of his new existence.

When he finally dozed off, he woke only shortly after. It was still dark and he was uncomfortable as he laid flat on his back. He was hard. Painfully hard. As his pajama bottoms rubbed against his cock, he flinched. He sat up and took a breath. He couldn’t.

He closed his eyes and he saw her. Sitting on the subway, sprawled across her couch, oblivious in the depths of her deep porcelain tub. He fell back and hissed. His hand twitched beside his hip.

“It’s okay to be lonely.” She whispered in his ear. “Natural, even.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and his breath shuddered.

“I’m the only who sees you for what you are.” He felt her breath, as gentle as the breeze. “You showed me that day who you truly are. You’re human, like all of us… imperfect.”

He shook his head and felt the tickled along his pelvis. Felt the elastic of his pants lift and the soft touch of flesh against his arousal. Fingers wrapped around him and began to stroke up and down. Tortuously deliberate. He bared his teeth as the motion carried.

“No…” He murmured. “No… it’s…”

He bit his lip as her hand sped up. As his muscles tensed and all the warmth in his body gathered at that one spot. He felt it mounting within him. The years of pent up resent and wanting. Those things he never let himself feel. His cock hurt so much. She worked him even faster.

He came and cried out in surprise. It turned to a growl as the strokes slowed and he was eased through the waves of sheer pleasure. He was panting as he opened his eyes. He was alone. It was his hand around his cock, his cum cooling along his fingers. He pushed his head into the pillow and groaned.

He was tired, then. Exhausted. But he had to clean himself up and forget about this. Forget about her.

He sat up and held out his wet hand. He stood and used his elbow to flip the switch on his way into the bathroom. He passed the broken sink and went to the tub. He turned the faucet and shoved his hand under the warm water. He stopped the tap and shook the droplets off his hands as he stood.

He turned and looked in the mirror. He was flushed and his irises were pinpoints. He didn’t look like himself. He grabbed the hand towel from the bar that hung on the front of the counter. He dried his hand, his pajamas damp. He shimmied out of them and let them gather on the floor. He shed his shirt and stood naked, his eyes roved the thick muscles of his chest and arms.

“You know what I am,” He said. “You will know what I am.”

🖋️

The basement was the only part of the townhouse that remained unfinished. Steve hadn’t been bothered, he’d intended it for storage and it worked well for that. But now he needed all this shit cleared out and he had a lot to do after that.

He resigned himself to a day by himself. He’d let her be as he started his work. And he knew if he kept on as he was, something might fall out of place. Something within him. He needed to focus on something else, just for a little bit. A day wasn’t very long at all.

The leftover drywall could be used still, the insulation, too. He’d have to grab some of the thick padding he’d seen at the hardware store. Two layers to be safe. That old washroom would have to be restored. The toilet was forgotten; the tank crooked and the lid totally gone. It barely flushed when he pushed on the handle. He’d make do.

After all that, he’d have even more to worry about. A bed would fit there where the boxes were and he could put a hook in the ceiling there along the beam. He wove between the stacks of dusty possessions. It would look bigger once he did away with the clutter. More than enough room.

He went and rented a unit downtown to store all his shit. He barely avoided the press as he pulled out but lost them soon after. He made several trips back and forth. It was afternoon when he started sweeping. He cleaned up the grim basement as best he could. It was almost evening then. 

He sat on the steps and took a breath. He looked up the stairs and back down. He’d need a thicker door, with a lock. That would need to be soundproofed too. Shit, he had to figure out a way to get everything he needed inside without drawing the attention of the cameras.

He glanced around as he stood and dusted off his hands. He left the broom against the wall and went upstairs. He washed his hands and pulled on his hoodie. It was dark. He cut through the back as had become his habit and headed down the little pathway that skirted the row of yards.

It would be easier to drive himself but the press knew his car by sight. He wasn’t that stupid. Besides, a man on the subway, hardly suspicious. She’d already be home or so he hoped. At her stop, he slowed his gait. As he came up on the street, he took a deep gulp of the night air.

He scaled the escape to his usual spot. Her window was dark but for the flicker of her television. She laid in its glare and stretched her arms over the end of the couch as her feet rested on the other. She had fallen asleep. He could tell by the even measure of her breath as he listened through the wall and past the buzz of the small speakers.

His hand slipped beneath the pane and he looked down at it. The window was open just a little to let in the cool breeze. He lifted his head and turned his palm up to grasp the wooden frame. He pushed just a bit and cringed at the grind. He stopped and watched her. She didn’t move.

He continued until the window was open to its limit. He stooped through. He was almost too big for it. He wiggled onto the other side and let himself down onto the floor carefully. He nearly kicked over the shelf just beside the window. He stood and glanced around the apartment. It smelled like roses, the way she had when he’d welcomed her into his house.

He crept closer, pausing after each step to listen. Her snores were soft and beckoned to him. He stopped just behind the back of the couch and looked down at her in the wavering shadows cast by the television. She wore a long tee shirt that read GAP across the chest; a small hole along the neckline and another near her thigh. He could see a hint of her panties just below.

He winced as he felt the blood rush from his head and he felt himself growing hard. He shook and gripped the couch. He wanted to just do it. He could. Easily. A hand over her mouth. She’d be terrified and she would know who it was she had crossed. She would realise what she’d done to him and he would make her know it was all her fault.

She turned onto her side suddenly and he ducked behind the couch. He heard a sniff as her snores quieted and she grumbled. He heard her moving around and the tv flicked off as her shadow stood on the other side of the sofa. He held his breath as her footsteps stumbled away into the bedroom. She didn’t even notice the noise of the city as it blew in through the open window.

He was too afraid to move. Ten minutes before he found his strength. Her snores resumed in the next room and he kept on all fours as he crawled around the couch. He followed her even heartbeat to her room and her arm hung down as she slept on her stomach. The curve of her ass was limned in moonlight through the space between her patched curtains.

He neared the bed and just watched her. Sat on the floor in a trance. So clueless, so weak to him. He got to his feet and waited. She didn’t wake. He smirked and neared. Still, she slept. He grabbed the handle of the night table just beside her bed and slowly forced it open. Pens, old cards, nothing spectacular. Disappointed, he closed it and inched away.

He backed away, stopped by her boxy dresser. He looked down and then back at her. He leaned on the side of the wood and carefully jostled opened the top drawer. A pair of satiny panties he shoved in his pocket without thinking and he felt deeper down. His fingers latched onto something firm and long.

He angled the large dildo out of her dresser and raised a brow. He’d seen these things online thanks to Sam’s dumb jokes. A small arm jutted out and curved parallel to the rest of the toy. There was a small button embedded beneath the silicone. He turned it in his hand and then tucked it into his belt and pulled his hoodie down over the oblong bulge. 

He shut the door and retreated entirely. That would be the first piece of his puzzle. A token to know her by until he could return it to her. The thought made him shiver as he made his way back to the window. He paused and took one last glance. 

He wanted to stay, wanted to go back in her room and wake her with the gentle buzz of the toy. Just between her legs, his hand between her shoulder blades as he held her down. No, don’t look at me. Just feel me. He took a sharp breath and kicked his leg over the window sill.

“Soon,” He whispered. “I promise.”

[lesbianbending-moved]

okay so i haven’t watched LOK yet bc i’ve been so scared to ( i’m obsessed w atla don’t hate me) since it first came out & ppl hate on korra so much & say ur better off just not watching it. but from what i’ve seen on ur account u seem to be a bigger fan of LOK than ATLA... why so? (no disrespect to lok at all i just want to know why before i start watching it bc i’ve heard so many bad things about it) thank you! 🥺♥️ love your account!

hi! thank u sm!! i wouldn’t say i like lok more than atla, i love them both for different reasons!! it just depends on the vibe i’m in (recently i’ve been in a lok vibe can you tell). i think there are parts of atla that lok is much better at portraying and vice versa, but i don’t like comparing the two shows bc they are v v different (which is where a lot of the hate comes from). i’ll b honest, i was v hesitant to watch lok bc atla was the most formative show for me growing up but now i love it so much! i can’t say whether you will like the show bc everyone’s different but i will say if you go into the show hoping for an atla pt. 2 you won’t like it. if you are open to change in the atla universe and want something that feels familiar but also v different you will love it. i agree with the idea that lok is a more ‘grown up’ version of atla, and for that reason i want to (as objectively as i can) give a brief breakdown of the differences b/w both shows:

PLOT:

this is the first HUGE deviation: atla is very character driven where lok is very plot driven. 

each has it’s pros and cons, but bc the plot changes with each season of lok while the show remains plot driven this leads to some characters feeling underdeveloped. this wasn’t necessarily the writers’ faults, they went into each season not knowing if it would be the last, so there isn’t a whole lot of time to have character driven episodes like atla’s ‘tales of ba sing se’ or ‘appa’s lost days’. which leads me to! 

CHARACTERS:

here’s the honest truth - lok has much deeper, complicated, and developed female characters than atla. both in numbers and in growth, lok succeeds at this. 

lok is v woman-centric with many women of all ages who have complicated relationships with themselves, their family, their loved ones, etc. they don’t try to make their women likeable or perfect, they are all allowed to be loud and angry and right and wrong and they’re allowed to make mistakes and grow. they’re people. even if a character doesn’t have entire episodes dedicated to them, they still have arcs that span seasons and make them feel like real people. the women of lok made me realize how much more we could have had from the women of atla (not that they aren’t amazing or well developed, it’s just deeper characterization)

korra has an arc that rivals zuko. i could go into it but i don’t want to give spoilers :^) and even parallels him in an episode in book 4 called ‘korra alone’ (the best lok episode sorry).

for this reason every woman in my life who has seen all of lok has loved it (actually i am the only woman i know who doesn’t have a preference of lok over atla) 

VILLAINS:

the villains in lok are much more complicated than in atla. they all are compelling and make us ask questions about ourselves as the villains hold ideals that we all believe in but take them to extremes. for example:

if a group of people feel they are being persecuted and demand equality, how far is too far? what if a group has genuine grievances but resorts to violent guerilla warfare and terrorism against innocents as that is the only way to gain equality?

what if a new leader arises who wants to take down a monarchy that has only brought pain and suffering to a country? what if this new leader truly loves their country and will do anything to ensure everyone prospers after centuries of the rest of the world allowing them to be degraded by idiotic monarchs? what if this new leader who is wildly popular among the masses becomes a dictator? do you replace the dictator who loves their country and has made true strides in progress for an airhead monarch with no idea of how to rule a country? 

WORLDBUILDING 

this is where lok loses a lot of people who are atla purists (this and the plot driven nature of the show where they are attached to atla being character driven)

lok takes place 70 years after atla and it shows! the world has grown! it has changed! the places that look the same (ba sing se and the earth kingdom villages) are shown to be poorly led and in political disarray. they didn’t evolve in the last 70 years because there was no leadership to move them forward.

the first thing i noticed (outside of the snazzy 20s music) was the bending. i’m gonna be honest, i did not like the bending at first. atla shows bending as a very classical art form, so to see it has changed so much in lok worried me at first. once i began to appreciate the attention to detail as to how a world evolves, i realized that the changes in bending are one of the coolest parts of the show. 

it’s not completely different. it’s just different enough where you can see the logical progression of time that would come through in the real world. it makes sense for lightning bending to become more common! it makes sense for more people to know metalbending as toph teaches a new generation of earth benders who continue to pass it on to others! it makes sense for the styles of bending to have changed in places because it’s a living art!

looking back on it, the bending feels like this: atla bending is like reading a classic like jane austen or shakespeare where lok bending feels like reading a contemporary novel. you can see the resemblance, you can see where the younger generation gets their inspiration, but the language has evolved. it’s so cool. 

i got your other ask and i will answer it separately as i don’t want to make this unbearably long!! i hope this helps!

EDIT: just wanted to add real quick that bc they have the same creators and writers the writing of lok feels v similar to the writing of atla! it has the same charm and depth while also showing growth. so you don’t need to worry about the writing styles/characterizations feeling totally unbalanced. anyways!

EDIT AGAIN: if you don’t mind v minor spoilers i reccomend watching the trailers for book 3 and book 4. they don’t give away much but give a good idea of the tone of the show and might give a better insight as to if it’s for you

[djvpensayosehistorias]

Book Report - Watt by Samuel Beckett

Watt is a novel written by Samuel Beckett written during World War II and published in 1953, the same year his seminal stage play Waiting For Godot premiered in France. The novel follows an eponymous character who stumbles upon a fancy house and, after managing to open a door from the outside, sneaks in, where he subsequently becomes the servant of the man who lives in it. Although this is the incident that kickstarts the plot, it is difficult to recount the story of the novel because it does not narrate the events that the characters go through; rather, it describes the thought process of the protagonist, who usually second guesses everything he sees. The book is divided into four chapters, and the timeline, according to the opening paragraph of the fourth chapter, is: “two, one, four, three.” But as presented in the book, it starts with a group of working class people on a train having a conversation until they spot a vagabond who passes nearby. One of them has dealt with him before, but he doesn’t know his name nor he remembers anything about him other than he has a red nose and that he has owed him five shillings for seven years.

It is made clear from the beginning that the mysterious character is an errant soul, and it can be inferred from the anecdote of the five shillings that he is a vagabond. After the group from the beginning leaves the train, the narrative perspective switches to the character, who is introduced as Watt. It is the nighttime and he is heading somewhere he can spend the night. He orients himself with the moon and walks while performing a ritual of sorts, turning his body around and flinging his arms and legs with each step. Briefly, he enrolls into a ditch, where he is surrounded by dirt and wet vegetation, and then gets out to continue his journey. It is then when he finds the house, a big isolated house in the middle of the quiet night. Unassumingly, he tries to open its doors, until he opens the back door, which tempts him to get inside. There he finds a fireplace burning in an empty room, where he entertains himself playing with the fire’s light and ashes. Suddenly, another man enters the room and explains to Watt that he (introduced as Arsene) is one of the servants of Mr Knott (spelled without punctuation) and that it is his final day as such, given that Watt has just appeared seemingly to take his place. Arsene also explains that he feels as in the twilight of his life, and that he perceives himself as one of many of the previous servants in a long line that goes so far back that their names are no longer remembered. He is defiant and scornful as he suggests that he will go away to wherever he can arrive until his body caves in. He delivers what effectively is an existential monologue that spans thirty-one consecutive pages, and it is by the end of the first chapter that he concedes his position as servant of Mr Knott to Watt.

During the second chapter, the novel introduces the recurring phenomenon of its narrative style, which can be exemplified with this scenario: Mr Knott routinely eats a pot of soup for dinner, and Watt is instructed to give the uneaten portion of the soup - in case that there is any - to a stray dog. Watt does as told, but after a few nights he starts to question how it is that the stray dog eats the remaining soup. He asks if it is the same dog every night, what kind of dog is it, if it is malnourished or decently fed, if it is really a stray or if it could be a passerby’s dog that eats modestly and only comes occasionally, which in that case would mean that there could be several dogs with owners. This goes on for fifteen pages. Watt is set on figuring out how the dish appears to be empty whenever he leaves it outside and later returns to get it. He considers every logical possibility and even comes up with statistics to help himself find a solution. It is later revealed that there were two dogs that ate the soup, Kate and Cis, which belonged to Art and Con Lynch, members of the Lynch family. Twenty pages are dedicated to explaining the genealogy of the Lynch family, who had ties with Mr Knott. They are a clan composed of aging people afflicted by different health problems and conditions. Art and Con are dwarves, and as it is part of Watt’s duties to receive them, he becomes aware of how the food served in the dish of remains disappears.

There are several passages identical to that of the dog and the soup dish, since the book describes the main character’s thoughts, and he is a very thoughtful individual. Everything that he does and sees is exceptional, or so it appears, because he inspects every mundane task or object to its last detail. On some occasions, this conduct seems rational or expected, such as when he hears a bell ring in the middle of the night and he ponders whether this unusual and unprecedented activity could represent a situation of danger. He suspects the other servant, Erskine, even though he’s asleep; then, he breaks into Erskine’s room and finds a bell that is broken and couldn’t have made the noise. It is not revealed what the source of the bell ding was, but Watt fleetingly considers that he, Erskine and Mr Knott might all be a bit crazy. Notwithstanding, he does not believe that he overthinks, and in fact is proud that he can sometimes rationalize quickly.

During his stay at Mr Knott’s house, Watt does not see Mr Knott around. Watt only knows when to take the empty soup pot away because Mr Knott is always done after twenty or thirty minutes. Watt divides the time of his stay in two stages: when he works on the ground floor and when he works on the first floor. It is only when he moves to the first floor that he occasionally gets glimpses of him, like when he is in the yard, between the bushes. He is an elusive character, a non-presence in his own house. He may be seen as a parallel to another Beckett character, Godot, from Waiting for Godot, who is awaited by the play’s main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, but never arrives. They don’t know who Godot is, but they have been told that he would come tomorrow, so they wait for him anyway. Perhaps the most important moment of the novel is when Watt encounters Mr Knott in his yard by coincidence. Mr Knott is standing in silence, bowing slightly. He approaches him but with his sight fixed on the ground, and he only feels his presence, instead of seeing him face to face. As he inspects the worm near his feet, he determines his employer’s height, until he decides to stop guessing and sees him. But Mr Knott, still in silence, has his eyes closed. He does not see him in such detail again.

The third chapter is narrated by a character named Sam, a servant from another mansion, who befriends Watt. Sam and Watt enjoy spending time together, but they eventually grow apart and stop seeing each other. They encounter again, without either of them wanting to, from the opposite sides of a fence that divides their gardens. When they detect each other, Watt accidentally slips and is injured by briars and nettles. Sam tries to jump over the barb wire fence to help him out, but first he spots a hole in the fence and imagines what sort of animal could have carved it. According to him, it could have been a boar, a bull, a cow or a sow, and since there is another hole in another part of the fence parallel to the first one, it could have been two boars, two bulls, and so on. When he finally directs his attention back at Watt, Watt has stood up and approached him from the other side of the fence. They pace together across the fence as in a coordinated dance, and so they decide to start chatting again.  When he tells Sam about his job at Mr Knott’s house, Watt changes his speech patterns and starts to invert the order of his words, the order of the letters within the words and the order of the letters within the words within the sentences, making his language progressively more complicated, and Sam can only understand so much; thus, he is unable to understand what Watt’s job was like during the last stages of his stay with Mr Knott.

Sam then mentions an anecdote retold by Watt’s co-worker, Arthur, about a man named Ernest Louit who was writing a dissertation titled “The Mathematical Intuitions of Visicelts”. This story within a story follows Louit bringing an old farmer from Burren, Ireland, to a Trinity College committee, claiming that he can calculate cube roots in his head. The farmer, called Tisler Nackybal, is Louit’s last hope for academic success and credibility, since he blew his entire research budget and lost his boots, his labour, his health and his dog. The committee puts him to test and he proves to make accurate calculations of cube roots with minimal error. However, when asked to cube root five hundred and nineteen thousand three hundred and thirteen, he does not reply, to which Louit argues that the committee is trying to fool him by calling out a number with no cube root. Nonetheless, they find Mr Nackybal a subject worthy of interest and experimentation, so they ask if he can square and square root. Arthur does not finish the story.

Watt gets to see Mr Knott more often, as he helps him into his nightclothes and day clothes. Being in his room, he examines the possible combinations of Mr Knott’s shoewear, the movements of Mr Knott when he is in his bedroom, and the changes in the furniture’s placement according to the day of the week. Still, Watt does not learn what Mr Knott’s appearance is like, he perceives him with a different stature and body type each day. This proceeds routinely until one night a man appears in Mr Knott’s kitchen. Watt understands that he is there to replace him, and that he will have to leave the house, just how Erskine did when Arthur arrived. Unlike how Arsene did with him, Watt does not take leave of Micks, the future servant.

Watt reaches a railway-station between one or two in the morning but finds it shut. He encounters a man, Mr Case, who allows him to spend the night in the waiting room. Once inside, Watt struggles to fall asleep, as he feels the environment he is in is too alien. The empty room is too spacious and the ceiling is too white. He sits down and stands up. The room becomes darker and then lighter, meaning that the sun rises but he does not yet fall asleep, for his surroundings unnerve him too much. When Mr Nolan comes in the morning to open the station’s doors, Watt finally feels at peace and closes his eyes. A small group of passersby congregate around him, worried that he might not wake up. But he does, which relieves them so much that they become absorbed in unrelated conversations until one of them notices he has gone away. And thus the novel concludes.

The closing pages of the book are an addenda that displays some fragments that were omitted from the main text, such as footnotes, definitions, quotes, sheet music and loose poems, but complement the story nonetheless.

Watt is an unorthodox novel, and like most of Beckett’s works, it is very ironic. There is irony in its use of very far-fetched and intellectual language (floccillation, sigmoidal, cloistered, mensem, intenerating, dianoetic, to put some examples of the book’s vocabulary) to tell a story about a poor vagabond who cannot use it himself. There is irony in its focus on the minutiae of otherwise mundane situations, even though the characters themselves claim they don’t like it; “Details, Mr Graves, details I detest, details I despise, as much as you, a gardener, do.” says Arthur, who tells a story that spans thirty pages. And most importantly, there is irony in its abundance of repetition, even if, by admission of the narrator, Watt’s disdain for battology (the unnecessary repetition of words) is strong.

If I had to point out the central theme of Watt, I would say that it is intuition. The narration comes from the protagonist's thoughts, hence he is seen thinking more than he is seen acting. Perhaps Watt’s name embodies his curiosity (What?), just like Mr Knott’s might indicate that he is not (Not.), since he is a non-presence for Watt. Each situation Watt encounters in his daily activities demands the scrutiny of every alternative possible, or at least every one that he can think of. How Mr Knott can combine his shoes, how the soup remains disappear after being left outside each night, how a hole in a fence could have been punctured. This is a general reflection on possibilities and how they exist in theory, although only one is ultimately accommodated to reality (“If it hadn’t been you, it would have been another.” Arthur says in the Addenda).  

In relation to the contemplation of possibilities, the most outstanding narrative device of the text is repetition. The list of variables fills entire pages to the point it becomes dizzying. Instead of progressing the story, these passages make it stagnate. As demonstrated above, there is a coherent chain of events to be followed, but its importance is second to that of the attention to minuscule details. The thoughts that Watt repeats are those which matter the most to him. It is through this repetition that he tries to make sense of the world. In his philosophical work Difference and Repetition, Gilles Deleuze writes: “If repetition exists, it expresses simultaneously a singularity against the general, a universality against the particular, a remarkable against the ordinary, an instantaneity against the variation, an eternity against permanence. In all aspects, repetition is transgression.” (1968). It is another irony to have a story be purposefully meandering when the expectation set for a novel is to witness a conflict and the path to its resolution. Yet, repetition is a key element of intuition, for intuition rationalizes things simply because they exist and extrapolates meaning from the patterns it observes.

Repetition is not only explored through mere logical algorithms, but also in the process through which Mr Knott’s switches servants. Watt’s realization is that he might have become part of a cycle that no one dares break, probably because it is predetermined. The servants don’t question the arrival of the next servant, rather they accept it and leave.This cycle is comparable to life itself.  

In the end, the novel is is a phenomenological exercise on the nature of intuition, with its display of the thought process, language, with its exploration of metalinguistics, existence, with its thorough examination of its settings and objects from the protagonist’s perspective, and repetition, with its long-winded lists of multiplicities that describe several scenes. It is a work that wonders at the foundations of what can be called “human nature”, intellect and language, and its limitations. Despite being a very simple story, its presentation and themes earn it the label of “existential”, as it describes human life and existence itself.

[burnedbard]

Nephelomancy | Cloud Divination

Read this if you want to know why there are little to no correspondences in this guide

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Nephelomancy has been used for centuries by various cultures to divine the future. You can make your divining very complicated, using a lot different factors, or make it very simple, focusing on two or three factors. Depending on what kind of reading you are doing, the way you read the clouds can vary greatly. 

Even how you go about doing it can vary greatly. Of course, having something to write with/on or speak into (if you rather voice record the session) is extremely helpful. I find that nephelomancy is something that can really be customized to the individual. 

Tips and Tricks

Use your intuition and experiences

What do you associate with storm clouds?

Don’t second guess your initial thoughts

If your impressions change, why are they changing?

Clouds changing too fast, take a picture or video

Some ways to go about it

Taking a picture or short video with your phone/camera

Observing the clouds out of your window

Finding an open space outside to observe the clouds

Using a timer, to observe the sky for a set amount of time

Observing the clouds until you feel you have an answer

Things to take into account

Time of Day

Colour

Shape

Fullness

Direction of Movement 

Types of Clouds

Where they sit in the atmosphere

Things to ask yourself

What kind of clouds am I seeing?

What direction are the clouds moving, if at all?

Do I see a silver lining?

How wispy are the clouds?

How fast are the shapes changing?

How are the shapes interacting with each other?

Types of Clouds

Depending on the type of cloud, they can sit in different levels of the atmosphere, which can also factor into your divining.

Below are a few of the more common types of clouds, but if you really want to get into specifics, there are many different subtypes you can look into. 

Low level clouds

Cumulus

“Fair-weather” clouds. Cumulus clouds often develop in the morning and are gone by evening. They are your standard cloud with little to no precipitation. 

Stratus

The lowest lying cloud type. A layered, fairly uniform flat cloud which is mostly grey or white. These clouds are very fog-like. This type of cloud are associated with dreary, overcast days. Stratus clouds are usually accompanied by little to no rainfall but, if it is thick enough, can produce a light drizzle. If cold enough, these clouds can produce light snowfall.

Stratocumulus

These clouds form when there is weak convection in the atmosphere. Stratocumulus clouds are low, puff, greyish or whitish clouds that occur in patches. Though it looks like it will rain with these clouds, little to no rainfall accompanies these types of clouds. 

Mid-level Clouds

Altocumulus

Altocumulus clouds often form on warm or humid mornings, and frequently signal the formation of thunderstorms. These clouds generally form as white or grey patches in large rounded masses or aligned in parallel bands. 

Nimbostratus

These clouds form as a multi-level, dark grey, amorphous, nearly uniform cloud that usually produces continuous rain, snow, or sleet over a wide area. These clouds commonly form in the middle level of the atmosphere, but can grow into the lower and high levels. 

Altostratus

These are grey or blue-grey clouds that cover the whole sky. They are not as thick as Nimbostratus clouds, so the sun or moon--although fuzzy--can be seen through them. These clouds are accompanied by little to no precipitation, but can form into nimbostratus clouds. Altostratus clouds are often formed out of ice crystals. 

High level Clouds

Cirrocumulus

These are rare, short-lived clouds that are predominately made out of ice crystals. These clouds are small, white patches in the sky often arranged in rows. These clouds can quickly turn into cirrostratus clouds, if all of the remaining supercooled water in the cloud freezes. If these clouds are seen after rain, the weather will improve. 

Cirrostratus

These clouds are made out of ice crystals. They indicated that large amounts of moisture are present in the atmosphere. These clouds are transparent, whitish clouds that veil the entire sky, often forming a halo around the sun or moon. If these clouds are “unbroken” a warm front is approaching and with it rain or snow. If it is broken up, a light rain or snow might follow. 

Cirrus

These clouds occur in fair weather, but form ahead of frontal systems and tropical cyclones. These clouds indicate a deterioration of the current weather conditions. These clouds are made completely out of ice crystals and are characterized by thin, wispy strands. 

All level Cloud

Cumulonimbus

These clouds span all layers. They are massive, dense clouds with a flat, anvil-like top. These clouds produce thunder and lightning and can produce other severe weather, such as tornado and hail. These are your standard thunderstorm clouds.