#author: maria

[namedvesta]

— Rainer Maria Rilke, from Love Poems to God (𝟣𝟫𝟢𝟧)

[bluestranger]

silent hill 2 🤝 murakami novels

jumping down wells and holes while losing your mind/having an existential crisis

[strangeauthor]

I think I did ok

Ignore the hand I tried to erase it lol

[fuckmeyer]

blows my mind there's not even a Chinese coven in The Twilight Saga. no Indian coven. only ONE coven in the Middle East/Africa: EGYPTIAN. no Greek coven, no Iranian coven, no Afghan coven, no Ethiopian coven, no Nigerian coven; FUCK ancient civilizations i guess! no one in South or Central America but the AMAZONS???? for real?????? the POTENTIAL to incorporate LEGENDS and HISTORY and CULTURE — wasted! i CANNOT with this author thinking the only vampire civilizations exist in Europe & America!! fuck off directly into the sun!!!

[fictionadventurer]

But does your man buy an entire hawking establishment just because he saw a painting of a hawking party where one of the women kind of resembled you?

[greenerteacups]

Hi! I am an ardent fan of your writing, and I hope to be as sorted and planned as you some day in my own writing journey.

My question is: you have a keen eye when it comes to planning character personality, dynamics, and such. I've also been wading through your ask replies, and your insights into how you write people and how you make them play off of each other is so wonderful to read. If it's not too personal a q, how did you learn how to write like this? Did you go to school for writing, does it come from years of observing people, do you have reading list recs for "how to write real people and real interactions"?

Thanks! This is a really flattering question. I'll try to answer it honestly, because I wish someone had been brutally honest about this with me when I was a young writer.

I didn't go to school for writing. I started doing it when I was about nine years old. It sucked very badly. I kept writing throughout high school, and it still mostly sucked, but some of it was occasionally interesting. ("Interesting" here does not mean "good," by the way.) I took a break in college, and then came back. I've been writing ever since. Sometimes, I feel good about it. A lot of the time, I don't!

I hate giving this advice, because I remember how it feels to get it, and it's the most uninspiring, boring-ass, dog shit advice you can get, but it's also the only advice that is 100% unequivocally true: you have to write, and specifically, you have to write things that suck.

I do not mean that you should make things that suck on purpose. I mean that you have to sit down and try your absolute hardest to make something good. You have to put in the hours, the elbow grease, the blood, sweat, and tears, and then you have to read it over and accept that it just totally sucks. There is no way around this, and you should be wary of people who tell you there is. There is no trick, no rule, no book you can buy or article you can read, that will make your writing not suck. The best someone else can do is tell you what good writing looks like, and chances are, you knew that anyway — after all, you love to read. You wouldn't be trying to do this if you didn't. And anyone who says they can teach you to write so good it doesn't suck at first is either lying to you, or they have forgotten how they learned to write in the first place.

So the trick is to sit there in the miserable doldrums of Suck, write a ton, and learn to like it. Because this is the phase of your path as an artist when you find what it is you love about writing, and it cannot be the chance to make "good writing." This will be the thing that bears you through and compels you to keep going when your writing is shit, i.e., the very thing that makes you a writer in the first place. So find that, and you've got a good start.

Some people know this, but assume that perseverance as a writer is about trying to get to the point where you don't suck anymore. This is not true, and it is an actively dangerous lie to tell young writers. You are not aiming to feel like your writing doesn't suck. You are aiming to write. You are aiming to have written. Everything else is dust and rust. And of course, you'll find things you like about your pieces, you'll find things you're proud of, you'll learn to love the things you've made. But that little itch of self-criticism, in the back of your brain — the one that cringes when you read a clunky line, or thinks of a better character beat right after it's far too late to change — that's never going away. That's the Writer part of you. Read Kafka, read Dickens, read Tolstoy, you will find diary entries where they lament how absolutely fucking atrocious their writing was, and how angry they are that they can't do better. A good writer hates their sentences because they can always imagine better ones. And the ability to imagine a better sentence is what's going to make you pick up the pen again tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that.

Which is what I mean, and probably what all those other annoying, preachy advice-givers mean, when we say: a good writer is just someone who writes every day. It's that easy, and that hard.

[yearningforunity]

Ruth de Souza (L) famous actress and Carolina Maria de Jesus (R) famous author, in the favela do canindé. São Paulo, Brazil 1961.

[goodluckclove]

Immensely bitter that if you search for Rainer Maria Rilke on this website you mainly get the same handful of quotes and very few actual full poems. Which is a massive shame considering the works of Rilke are some of the most beautiful words every put together and you can't possibly get the entire sense of what he can do based on just a few lines.

Specifically the Stephen Mitchell translation. Think of [You who never arrived], which legitimately makes me tear up every time I read it.

This is a work of unbelievable importance and it changes me a little bit every time I read it. Rilke is so unbelievably good at capturing the type of loneliness that feels otherwise impossible to even perceive. A ghost-like feeling that haunts without actual presence. I can't even say that I wish I could reread him again for the first time because every time I read Rilke I feel the exact same way, just this overwhelming sensation of someone that gets it.

Quotes aren't enough. Read up on Rilke and change your world.

who is this? why is this happening? check out here to learn more!

[sonadowkismesis]

Shadow is aplatonic: an argument.

"Friends? I'm only temporarily working with you to achieve a goal. Don't get the wrong idea."

from Puyo Puyo Quest's 25th Anniversary event

@apl-swag-bracket

What is aplatonicism?

Here is a quick definition to catch you up.

The aplatonic spectrum, otherwise known as the aplatonic umbrella, is a group of platonic orientations that fall under the umbrella term of aplatonic. Those on the aplatonic spectrum may lack platonic attraction or feel it so little that they relate more to aplatonic experiences. The common link between those on the aplatonic spectrum is that they do not feel the "standard" amount of platonic attraction or they don't feel it in the "standard" way, that alloplatonic individuals do.

Here is some more reading you can do on the topic.

Resources about aplatonicism are scarce and anyway, this is meant to focus on character analysis first and foremost, so forgive me if I cut this section short. Anyway, I believe I have given enough context, so let's get into the meat of this post.

Is Shadow aplatonic?

As stated outright in the Sonic Ultimate Character Guide, Shadow is a loner who relies on himself first and foremost.

from Sonic Ultimate Character Guide (2016)

He is extremely individualistic and doesn't compromise for the sake of others. He prefers to act alone rather than as a team, believing the latter to be futile, and will even choose violence over cooperation to get his way.

from "Team Sonic Racing Racers!" Interview (2019), IDW Sonic the Hedgehog (issue #09), Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) and Sonic Rivals 2 (2007) respectively

If he teams up with others with cooperation in mind, it's always in the interest of a higher purpose. He'll actively ditch crowds and avoid gatherings once the action is over.

from IDW Sonic the Hedgehog (issue #11 and #31 respectively)

Most of his interactions with the rest of the cast follow this pattern, however there is some nuance to be considered when looking at his dynamic with a select few characters.

Rouge and E123 Omega are two characters Shadow has often been partnered with. Although the word "allies" would be more appropriate to describe their relationship, they're easily the ones Shadow is closest to out of everyone else. In the case of Omega, Shadow even displays bouts of camaraderie, likely due to the fact they share a similar mindset.

from Sonic Heroes (2003)

from Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood (2008)

from "Team Sonic Racing Racers!" Interview (2019)

Another notable dynamic that stands out is that between Shadow and Sonic. Shadow's attitude towards him could be much the same as with everyone else if it weren't for their rivalry. Although Shadow is always focused on his goals above all else, Sonic's presence brings out a competitive side that distracts him and pushes him to act recklessly.

from "Team Sonic Racing Racers!" Interview (2019)

from Team Sonic Racing (2019)

Shadow doesn't see Sonic as his friend, but considers him an important part of his life despite himself.

and lastly,

from Sonic Channel's Shadow character bio

Conclusion

Shadow doesn't feel the need for companionship and doesn't seek to bond with others if he doesn't have an ulterior motive. He's a loner and a misanthropic, and would rather work alone to achieve his goals in the most efficient way. Because of his standoffish personality, the few close/intense relationships he has are with people who are "like" him in some way, given the impression of an unconventional connection in a very tangible and grounded manner, and not so much driven by feelings of affection or love. Hence why I think Shadow is aplatonic or is on the aplatonic spectrum... I rest my case.

(I would have liked to give more examples, but the 10 image limit makes this very difficult haha)

Here's where you can read the translated version of the TSR Interview (which I referenced a few times) in its entirety.

Here is Shadow's official character bio.

[secretnameofeverydeath]

no but if you want or are a bit bored feel free to tell me about your favourite horror books/authors? (short story collections are also fine, and horrorish/horror elements in a scifi/fantasy/weird fiction novel are cool as well). i've only been reading non-fiction and poetry lately and i would like to get back into fiction (and also i'm going to do an only reading horror thing again in october watch me.)

i love folk horror (bonus points if its watery), weird stuff (cultish, conspiracy vibes), classic haunted house tales and of course everything around the death industry - cremation, graveyards, funeral homes etc. i also prefer to read books not written by men.

[chubbymuffinclub]

mariamaunsbach

Swedish author, Maria Maunsbach

[strangeauthor]

its done.

idk i thought i started off really well and then Maria and Jacari killed me. i am dead. tell me what you think ok

[melikes-reads]

Was anyone going to tell me that Moritz Brenner is a real, actual, canonically queer character, or was I supposed to find out for myself?!

[825414519]

Light blue is headcanon and asterisk (next to the dark blue ones) indicates it being important to his character or as being way less of a stretch. Light light blue is pure projection.

[haveyoureadthispoll]

A wife refuses her husband's entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store's prom dresses. One woman's surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella Especially Heinous, Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naively assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgangers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes. Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction.

[im-not-batman]

How does one finish a wip? How do i stop myself from starting yet another project before i finish the last?

Everytime i think to myself "i'll actually finish this one i swear" meanwhile the brain worms are rubbing their proverbial hands together deviously and waiting for me to get half way through a wip before teasing the next worm.

I am actually asking

Please help me