#because there's no joy in throwing negativity into the tags for people who like the character

[ugly-anarchist]

People are now calling aros homophobic for saying "love loses" and disliking the phrase "love is love"

I don't dislike the phrase "love is love" because I'm aro and I hate the concept of love and I want to trample on queer joy and I don't understand the meaning behind love is love.

I dislike the phrase "love is love" because I don't believe that minorities should have to say "we're just like you!" In order to be accepted. I dislike it because it doesn't apply to all queer people, (including bisexuals, gays, lesbians, etc) but people treat it like it does. I dislike it because it's a product of a sex-negative society that deems queer people to be disgusting sex pests and instead of going "that's fucked up because there's nothing wrong with sex" people go "that's fucked up because we're not like those dirty disgusting predators who want sex without romance (coughalloaroscough)". I dislike it because arophobia is rampant in the queer community and people will throw us under the bus for points and have. (Stonewall UK posted a tweet acknowledging aros during aro week and other queer people called us predators and implied we were cishet invaders) I dislike it because the word love is shoved onto aros and whenever we say "please don't" people just redefine it to force it on us. I dislike it because there are better alternatives. I dislike it because rainbow capitalism has taken it over. I dislike it because it just feels a bit overused and cliche at this point. I dislike it for plenty of reasons, from legitimate to petty. Because I'm a person, not an evil aro who wants to destroy the queer community.

Aros, for a very long time, have had the word love used against us as a tool for our oppression. (Yes, love can be used to oppress people) And a lot of aros are sick of not being represented in queer spaces. The community puts so much emphasis on romantic love in an effort to not be the stereotypical sex obsessed queer but that leaves out aros. And people will be like "it's to uplift gays, bis, and lesbians" but there are aromantic gays, bis, and lesbians! I'm an aromantic bisexual person! I am directly harmed by the whole "we're not dirty sex pests, we can love (romantically) just like you!"

I, and many other aros, dislike the phrase love is love because it leaves us behind in the dirt. We often feel like the dirty side of queerness that no one wants to acknowledge. Saying "queer love is real love" isn't a bad thing, but having that be the one and only thing queer people ever talk about leaves out a portion of the community and we're allowed to talk about it.

"Love is love" doesn't represent me as a bisexual aromantic person. Not everything has to represent or include me but it would be nice if just one thing did. My version of queer joy is not represented by love is love and I just want a fucking alternative that does include it!

[Don't tag as ace/aroace or derail]

[askinkiskarma]

Ok, so I need to get this off my chest because it’s been weighing heavily on my mind. I’ve never properly addressed this because I honestly think it’s not something that deserves the traffic, but my entire feed has been overwhelmed with negativity and it’s genuinely making me want to not be on here anymore.

1. I age up my characters. No, that absolutely does not make me a paedophile. You don’t like it, the door’s right there, the block button’s easily accessible, i tag my fics, you can block tags, there’s so many things you can do.

2. Throwing words with such horrible and serious connotations around as a hyperbole is not quirky and doesn’t make you interesting, it makes you an asshole who diminishes and undermines real world problems to make yourself feel better about literally the most inane of non-problems.

3. If you have time to give a shit about someone you don’t know on the internet who finds joy in some artistic relief, you haVE TOO MUCH TIME!!! I’m curious how many of you actually have any concern or involvement in anything regarding actual paedophilia, that concerns actual kids, actual real life people.

4. If you do indeed believe that someone who ages up a literal fictional tall blue alien is a “paedophile”, you genuinely, genuinely need to go out and touch some grass, BUT what absolutely KILLS me is the absolute unhinged hypocrisy: you want to think you’re better than me, you denounce my work publicly, and then FOLLOW ME and reblog my Jake smut (?!???!?). Like this actually blows my mind. So in your eyes, i am the scum of the earth, i deserve to die and go to jail cause i am “sexualising minors”, but THEN you’re ok with it when you get off to my smut that you do agree with. HOW?! You must be so flexible cause that’s some impressive mental acrobatics. Congrats!!!

5. YOU CANNOT PICK AND CHOOSE WHAT YOU’RE MORALLY SUPERIOR ABOUT!!! Pls get that through your head. If you can forgive “deviant” behaviour when you’re horny and need a Jake fic to get yourself off to, honey baby, you’re just as bad, cause you’re proving you’re willing to bend your morals for your own pleasure and selfish needs. Like PLEASE BE FOR FUCKING REAL!!!

6. This is for my readers and readers of fics in general - if you like what we write, please, please show it. I have seen/talked to several of my mutuals who want to take a step back because of so much negativity that outweighs the support at the moment. If you want to keep being able to enjoy this content, please show your favourite writers some love, especially at this time.

7. And for my mutuals/besties, please, please don’t get discouraged. I know it’s hard, and it sucks, and it’s so disheartening, but i am here to talk and here to stay, and we can get through this together. It would hurt me so badly to see genuinely talented, beautiful, creative, kind people be driven away by some lowlives with nothing better to do than bully people. Stay strong and know I’m always here for you.

This is the first and last time i will be addressing this. I will not be engaging with these people anymore, and i will be using the block button incredibly liberally going forward. Remember you’re responsible for curating your online experience. You don’t like/agree with something, FUCKING BLOCK ME. I BEG YOU.

That’s all. Stay safe and good luck, my loves. I love you. Xoxoxox

[grilledcheeseandguavajelly]

I have been seeing a lot of discourse on certain tags lately about fanfiction and writing fics that are “out of character”. And I don’t like conflict, so I was keeping my nose out. But now I’ve seen some things that I just can’t let go, and as the self-proclaimed fandom mom, I feel like I need to step in and state this loud and clear—

Fandom is for you.

The whole point of fanfic and fanart and cosplay and anything fan related is for you, the fan, to take a work that has already been created and have fun with it. Make it your own. Dive in and explore and do what you will. Fandom is meant to be a creative outlet where you can share ideas and art with other people who have the same interests as you.

THAT BEING SAID: it is never. And I repeat, NEVER okay to gatekeep fandom. And yeah, I fucking hate the word gatekeep. But it’s the only way to describe what I’m seeing happening. And so I’m going to use it again—

It is never okay to gatekeep fandom. It is never okay to gatekeep characters. And to throw negativity at anyone’s work, let alone come straight out and tell them that they’re wrong for shaping a character a certain way— I’m sorry, but where do you get off? I am completely understanding of wanting characters to stay true to the source material. I am completely understanding of having your own opinions about/expectations for a character and wanting them to behave a certain way. But YOU, my dear friend (or rather, we), are not the creator of those characters. Which means that we have no right to tell someone else what they can or cannot do with them.

The whole point of fandom is to let your imagination run wild. And if that means that a typically good character leans more evil in a fic, fine. If they make decisions you don’t agree with, great. If they do things that directly contradict what would have happened in the source material, even better!!

LET. PEOPLE. CREATE.

Let them throw characters into crazy situations and analyze how they react. Let them stretch them out like putty and poke at all of the soft bits inside. Let them shape them into something completely other just to see what happens. Let them be curious. Let them explore. Let them have fun.

Fandom should be fun.

And the second one person starts dictating what is right or wrong for a character or a ship, that’s the second it stops being fun. And that’s when fandoms die.

Don’t gatekeep something that doesn’t belong to you. Because again— It doesn’t belong to you.

You are allowed to have your own opinions. You are allowed to have your own expectations for characters. But who do you think you are, to flat out tell someone (or a group of people) that the way they write someone is wrong? That the way they have imagined something is wrong? That their creativity, their expression, their joy, is wrong? Or, as I’ve seen more recently, when someone gets dejected by the posts you’ve made telling them they’re creating wrong, you have the audacity to tell them “that’s okay, now that you know you did something I don’t like, you can reevaluate your work and try to improve!”

How dare you.

Because once again, I hate to break it to you, but you’re not the creator of these characters. And I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the actual creator is probably just so happy to see the diversity of idea that has sprung from their creation. So who do you think you are, to dictate an entire fandom?

If you don’t like it, move along. Click out of the fic, find something else to read. I understand having frustrations when things don’t go as you’d hoped, when a piece of work that you were excited about crosses those outer lines of your expectations and you feel disappointed. Again. But you know what? That’s your expectation. What about the person halfway across the world who reads the same fic and finds themselves in it? Finds a small piece of comfort that encourages them to hold on for just one more day. What happens when your words completely discourage the creators of your fandom, have them second guessing themselves? What happens when they lose confidence and stop creating completely? What happens when the fandom dies, and suddenly there’s nothing new to explore— to your standards or not?

You are allowed to have your opinions. Of course you are. You are allowed to express them. But you are never. EVER. allowed to tell people that they are wrong for making art that you don’t agree with. For using their imagination in a way that doesn’t fit into your small box of approval.

Let creators find happiness.

Let creators create.

[chuuya-fan-page]

Regarding E’s post about Taylor Swift...

No offense, but who are you to say that? Like, let people have their fun. Who are they hurting by adding Taylor Swift to their soukoku playlists and posting about her songs/lyrics in relation to them? If it annoys you—don’t interact with it. Scroll past, press not interested/dismiss depending on the platform you’re on, filter tags/key words, block people (Blocking was made to allow people to curate their timelines and not see content they don’t want, it doesn’t mean the blocker has some sort of agenda against the person they blocked, like many people love to pretend). All these alternatives are a million times better than being mean about it. As a placeholder for blocking, you can also filter out someone’s username on Tumblr and it’ll hide all their posts from your dash the same way filtering a tag would. There are so many ways to avoid this without posting about it and spreading negativity.

If you disagree with someone in regard to a song fitting a ship (or anything fandom related, really), that’s completely okay. That’s your opinion, and you are entitled to it. What you’re not entitled to is shaming the person for it and telling them what they are and aren’t allowed to do.

Some Taylor songs genuinely fit them very well, in my opinion. Yes, also in my opinion, not all the songs people claim do actually fit them. But in their opinion the songs do, and who am I to tell them they’re wrong? My opinion isn’t in any way superior to theirs. And I’m not about to tell people what to think, or how they can interpret relationships, or what songs they’re allowed/not allowed to have in their relationship playlists. It’s not my place to. It’s not anybody’s place to.

It’s the same way the problem with the Chuuya hate page isn’t that they hate Chuuya, but instead that they’re unnecessarily loud and mean about it. Of course, I’m not trying to say that you’re “the same” or anything, because what the Chuuya hate page is doing is a thousand times worse than this, but this is the beginning of what evolves to be posts like theirs.

Not to mention that this whole mindset of “Stop making everything about X”/“Stop throwing X at everything” is rooted in ableism. What if an autistic person has Taylor as their special interest and they can’t help make everything about her? Heck, what if they have soukoku and Taylor Swift as special interests simultaneously and combining the two brings them unrestrained joy? Why should that bother you?

As an autistic person, I’m really tired of people telling me to stop making everything about my special interests. It’s genuinely out of my control, and I don’t understand why my happiness annoys them so much.

Please don’t take this as hate. The whole reason I sent this is because I like this blog, and I like to believe you’re mature enough to understand what I’m saying and where I’m coming from. Thank you for taking the time to read this <3

Hey I'm sorry that my post was read as being mean, I didn't mean for it to come across as anti-Taylor Swift. I do have my own issues with her but her music is good and I don't have a problem with people thinking a few of her songs fit whoever.

And also I'm not talking about actually explaining why you think a song fits them, that's cool as fuck. Analysis is great I love character analysis, especially if you talk about songs that represent the character and why.

Now respectfully, I think you are reading into a post too much but you did send me a well formatted ask so i'll by paragraph.

Who am I to say that? It's a take, I can have those and I wasn't shaming anyone. I said Taylor Swift makes good music but it doesn't fit everything. Which is true.

Please do not compare me to the Chuuya Hate Page as what she does is entirely different and my saying not everything works with Taylor Swift is so far away from being a bigoted shithead.

I'm not going to say much on the ablism but do know that I am also autistic. I understand where you are coming from but you also have to understand that sometimes special interests can clash. I said what I did because most of the "this Taylor Swift song fits them so well!!" is full of mischaracterization and it pisses me off because bsd is my special interest.

So, I'm not telling anyone specifically to stop doing what makes them happy, I made a very short post where I didn't even say anyone was doing anything bad. I said Taylor Swift doesn't need to be for everything.

Having said all that I do appreciate that you took the time to explain why exactly that post upset you and that's valid, however I am allowed to post whatever takes I want and you don't have to agree with me.

-E

[ca-suffit]

I'm thankful for your call outs, people need to know this kind of thing. I'm not in the fandom tags that oftenly (and usually only read very short text posts and fanart) and before the screenshots blew up in February I didn't even know about these people's beliefs. I was horrified upon reading everything, and suddenly some of the things that I read here and there made a lot more sense.

People need to realize that these racists aren't racist because they like Lestat. Even if it shows in what they say, this is beyond fandom drama. I urge everyone to go read the receipts. I remember one of those ask blogs having liked posts that were against affirmative action, saying that it's the only racism alive in 2024 or something. It's all in the screenshots. We can't just let racists hang around the fandom, it's ridiculous that this even came to be considering the main character of the show and what he's put through on-screen.

[^ this other ask came in after I wrote this response but it's asking the same thing so I'm throwing it in] thank u!! I've lurked and learned for a long time. they've always been like this. the pre show fandom was like this too. it's usually a bunch of middle aged white women who play victim in public and get that extra polite voice out so u won't suspect they're lying. even tho to most ppl that tone is well known and fucking obvious. but anne rice made them think they're all galaxy brain manipulators lol. it's all typical white fandom shit. these ppl have unhealthy connections to these characters and stories and this is the only place they feel like they have control in their lives. being racist but hiding it behind book excuses and white woman tears makes them feel like amy dunne or something idk. it's not all white ppl doing this either but whatever, same motivation. it's all kisses I have my fandom besties and we uplift each other no matter what as long as we all stay in line together and never think for ourselves!! they hate to see real friendships and joy because they don't know what it feels like. they're v v v much like both anne rice AND lestat, which is why they hate to hear negativity about either of them. they only know self worth through manipulation and threats. sad, empty ppl. also yes eventually receipts always come out because they are not smart at all. just like lestat they're looking one way and thinking they're winning while the real shit is going down somewhere else. ur talking about nalyra too with the affirmative action. I posted some about it as it was happening then but I just shared the link earlier too of the bulk of the first posts calling it out, so have it again!!

[latibvles]

Sort of a public PSA? — on commenting.

This is a thought after, once again, having a conversation and while yes, commenting is important, I feel like there’s also something else we should be saying:

If you can’t compliment a writer without bringing down another, don’t say anything.

And I’m talking about this in specific because this is what I see most often. I’m not going to screenshot this because it’s on other people’s works and I am very lucky to not have received comments like that on AO3 (which is currently the only place that I have published work), but I’ll do an imitation of what this looks like:

“Wow, this is a great story. All those OTHER stories just make the main character SO PERFECT and it’s just sooo unrealistic.”

This isn’t the compliment you think this is.

It’s very backhanded and the comment really could’ve stopped at the first sentence. Or, even better, comment about what you liked about the story you just read and not what you disliked about other people’s stories.

And maybe this is just a me thing, but writers are also readers and readers read comments, too. And reading negative generalizations made about what could be your particular ficwriting niche isn’t the greatest feeling.

Throwing in a read more because this got long.

“But Poet!” I hear you say, “I REALLY don’t like [insert thing here] and this is the FIRST time I’ve seen it very well-written!!”

Okay well for starters, I highly doubt that there’s only one (1) author who writes that thing well. Also, you can SAY that you enjoyed it without putting down other people in that particular genre. It’s not about what you do and don’t like, it’s about uplifting writers verses putting them down. “I usually don’t read ______, but I really enjoyed this!” Is such a kinder way to say it — and it doesn’t include insulting others in a fandom space.

Ultimately, the comment section exists so you can compliment and otherwise give feedback to the writer. It really, really isn’t a place to vent about your experiences with “bad” fanfiction. I haven’t gotten these comments on AO3, but I’ve definitely got them on Wattpad and Instagram. Most of the time it was never because of genuine love for my writing — it was just because they wanted to bring down others who were writing similar work.

We talk about commenting and supporting writers a lot but what should that look like? I can’t speak for everyone but this is what it looks like for me.

Keyboard smashing, screaming, all variants of “HOW DARE YOU!!” are well accepted and definitely make me smile. If you’re worried that something comes across wrong I’ve memorized tone tags — feel free to use them! I use them with all my friends and in comments when I want to ensure my intent comes across correctly.

Essay-long comments (and subsequently 20+ tags of rambling) are also accepted. Seriously. They spark joy. It’s very kind. Thank you for quoting the details and throwing them back at my face.

Criticism is okay when it’s asked for. I’ve got like … a definitive group people I’m comfortable with reading my work and giving feedback on it when I’m unsure of my own writing. I’m doing this for fun. I don’t need a bunch of compliment-criticism sandwiches, yanno?

If you’re going to tear down someone else’s work — keep it to yourself. You don’t usually read OFC fics but you really like mine? Cool! Tell me that! But don’t insult all the other lovely OFCs in the process. You usually don’t read childhood friends-to-lovers? I’m so happy that I’ve been able to reel you in. But keep the comparisons to yourself.

I honestly see it more than I see people just going “this sucked” on a piece of writing which also isn’t great, but the former is way more common.

“But Poet!” You say again, “I’m entitled to my opinion aren’t I? I’m allowed to dislike things!!”

Yes, you are! And you can have and share those opinions! Just maybe not on a work that isn’t even yours. A ficwriter does not know you hated all the other work out there to understand that you enjoyed theirs. I am someone with very strong Writing Opinions. And I am either sharing them HERE, on my blog, where it can’t really hurt anybody since it’s not like I’m targeting somebody — or I’m getting on a soapbox to my friends for an hour about it in a group chat. Which I think we should do more often.

Remember “if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say it at all”? Lets bring that back. Stop with the backhanded compliments fellas. It isn’t cute.

[fandombead]

I hate the word filler. Are we not still getting an interesting stand alone story with characters we enjoy? Not all of a story is progressing the main plot. It can become excessive in some cases, but it still can bring joy in its own right. It’s leagues better than getting nothing. And I don’t like seeing that complained about to small creators just trying to give us fun content to hold us over until they can get back to the main story.

Seeing that in their comments and tagging them in it has to be so discouraging. It definitely won’t make it come out any faster. It’s just not a productive part of fandom. You’re allowed to criticize and critique works, I just hope that isn’t all you’re replying with when they try to provide something fun and lighthearted. Yes even if it’s been awhile. I dunno, I’ve just seen creators stop creating all together from the pressure because they’re human too and fandom spaces just really have a way of ruining good things by posting entitled replies. And then even once the “main” story gets updated, there will still be people going “okay next” and “fuckin’ finally, took you long enough.” And like. Would you really talk like that to someone’s face. Do you have nothing encouraging or positive to add about what is here?

I know what it’s like to be so invested in something and it being disappointing to not get it in some time, but posts like these are sometimes the very reason creators struggle and it’s painful to watch happen and everyone just goes with it.

This is NOT a post saying you cannot have con-crit. You can say whatever you want about a work. Just realize you may be having the opposite effect that you are hoping throwing that at the actual creator you’re a fan of. As someone who got utterly creatively crippled for years from a few bad experiences, it sucks to see that happening to people who actually got their idea off the ground and still intend to keep going. Like the creative rut guilt has to me ten times worse already with a massive audience having a very vocal part being disappointed no matter what you do. But I guess the positivity gets easily buried and negativity is spread more?

I dunno it’s like. They don’t owe you anything. They shared something for free with you, their animation or skit or show or story. I see people leave fandoms they loved because of it taking amazing world of love with them and I don’t want that pressure to run down yet another great story. You’re allowed to feel disappointed. People have different levels of patience and that’s not the problem. It’s projecting those feelings at others that don’t deserve that. We need to learn some etiquette and boundaries, or at least think “what if that was me/a friend of mine?” before posting.

Can’t believe I took all that just to reiterate “Golden Rule” please~ aaaaaa

[admirableadmiranda]

Man sangsang, I'm probably about to join you guys in getting hate despite barely blogging because of that post lmao. I don't even mind kinder interpretations of JC. I just hate that they are messing with a very specific flavor of JC that had it's own tag. They act like tagging "canon character" is a regular thing to do when I don't think I've seen it anywhere but here. But because of their inability to understand the word canon has no bearing on the validity of the post, it gives an opportunity to throw the word "nuance" at them as many times as I can since they seem to be unable to pick up on the nuance that a negative view doesn't mean character hate or bashing.

I remember when the creation of this tag happened. People getting harassed is never fun and shouldn't happen. But as someone who kinda enjoys watching drama from the sidelines the name of the tag was a joy to watch in real time. "Go make your own" -> "ok we will" -> "wait not that name". Perfection.

If they are so concerned with their post being 100% for reals correct interpretation, they should make their own tag. I've suggested "true to text Jiang Cheng" since obviously putting those words before the character name would make whatever is in the post true to the text in the same way any post in the canon Jiang Cheng tag proves the post is canon... As in not at all but maybe it'll make them feel better about themselves.

Oof, I hope you don’t! That would really suck if you were to get hate just for expressing your frustrations. I at least was prepared for it and invited it since I did blaze my post about the tag. But you’re not even part of the whole mess, so they had better leave you alone.

Yeah, I don’t think I’ve seen “canon character” as a tag anywhere else, though most fandoms don’t usually have such a… broad divide between a fanon and canon interpretations. I actually don’t mind a softer JC all that much myself as long as he’s tagged so I can decide if I feel like him today or not, and of course WWX isn’t getting all the blame for stuff going on.

Haha, are you at least having fun with the new word of the day? I agree, having a negative view really doesn’t have to be bashing or even disconnected from the character. Otherwise how would we ever be able to enjoy any villains? Some characters are just not made to be positively sympathized with to begin with.

Lol, yeah that was a lot of fun. I do remember those times fondly. They should have been more specific if they didn’t want me and my friends to have free reign of creativity on our tag. And you know what? It worked!

Lol!! If they do that, I would be happy. A single tag for me to filter out, peace and quiet in our time. I doubt it’ll happen, but also they ain’t winning our stalemate no matter how much Xicheng they put in the tag, so I’m sure that eventually it’ll be just another story in the MDZS fanbase to horrify and amuse new people dipping their toes in.

Thanks for stopping by! Your post made me smile this morning, even if it wasn’t a very happy post to begin with. I wish you all the luck in the world!

[bllsbailey]

Elon Musk Trolls the Left With Video of Him and Trump

I think it's safe to say that the Democrats and some of the mainstream media was flipping out over X CEO Elon Musk having a Spaces conversation with former President Donald Trump. The event almost broke the internet it had such a massive historic response of people trying to listen. 

I wrote earlier about Adam Kinzinger being involved in encouraging a #TwitterBlackout because of the event and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) claiming it was "heard by no one" when it was a massive event of historic proportions. Yet they are both back on X now, which shows how little they believe what they push. If they really think Musk shouldn't have had him on then why are they still on X? It's all just about throwing a fit that Musk is daring to give Trump the opportunity to speak.

A Washington Post reporter even asked the White House what they could do about it, implying that there should be censorship of some sort. Musk was even threatened by an EU official Thierry Breton warning him about being in violation of the law in a strongly worded letter, which was truly insane. 

READ MORE: 

Adam Kinzinger, Eric Swalwell Tag Team for Most Ridiculous Response to Musk-Trump Spaces Event

Washington Post Reporter Wants Biden to Stop Trump-Musk Interview Because He Fears 'Misinformation'

The Musk/Trump Conversation on X Shatters Records and Elon Posts Astounding Final Numbers

But both Musk and Trump are sort of in that place in their lives where they spit in the eye of the narrative and the media effort to constrain them. 

Musk laughed at the media effort to put down the event.

"A wall of negative headlines was so predictable. They’re such NPCs. All this does is drive even more people to listen to the conversation themselves and realize how much the legacy media lies to them!" Musk said. 

NPC means "non-player character." It's a gaming term that has come to refer to those who can't think for themselves and blindly follow the narrative as so much of MSM does. 

Musk invited Kamala Harris to do a Spaces too, but no one is holding their breath on that one. I don't think she would ever do it, she could never have such a far ranging discussion for hours without revealing why no one should vote for her. 

But Musk decided to have a little more fun concerning the event and posted this video that's terrific.

People thought it was great. 

A member of the EU Parliament Christine Anderson who obviously didn't like Breton's letter, teased him and threw Musk's dancing post in his face. 

Some like actor Kevin Sorbo joked that they were there, so they know it was "real."

You just know that media is going to call it "misinformation" that Musk posted it. 

But unlike the fake "joy" that the media is trying to hype with Kamala, this captures the real fun when you know you are standing up for the country. 

[abishekmuses]

Creative.

Cole Schafer’s newsletter - it made think a few things. 

This guy’s really good at selling himself. And I don’t mean in that ANY negative sense. He embodies all that is great about the American Hustle. 

Unashamed. That’s the thing. 

And his stuff inspires me to write. 

His brand of creativity somehow gives me the license to create - to write. For the joy of it. It makes it accessible and whatever the opposite of daunting is. 

I’m thinking - there are lot of stories from my life I’d like to share. Just like his story of his camping trip. That painfully awkward crush he had on that freckled Quebecois girl. 

I have stories like that. 

I guess I’m a “creative” after all. 

I never grew up identifying with a tag like that. Wonder how I would have turned out if I had. Would my associations have been different?

I guess we’ll never know. 

But now I know for sure - I’m a creative. I’m that kind of person. 

Ha - I remember even as kid, I was fascinated with the idea of being a physician writer. 

There was so much romance to the notion.

I also remembered today that I was fascinated with the idea of writing beautiful things and then throwing them away. Morbidly fascinated with the idea of somebody picking up those pages  and reading them, wondering who wrote them. 

I want to get more comfortable with this fact - the fact that I love creating verbal structures. I love expressing myself. It doesn’t need to be towards any end - It just needs to be. 

I have a need for aesthetics. Creating beauty is its own reward. And the best part about creating for myself is that I’ll always be able to see the beauty inherent in it - the limitations or the blemishes, if you will, won’t stop me from seeing how beautiful it is. 

I feel like I have so much to say. 

Do I feel ashamed of judgement? Is that it?

I think so. I think we all are, to varying extents. 

This is what I think it is - I think I want to be associated only with the most beautiful things I can create. Not with the mediocre. 

There is some validity to this notion - I mean, brand value and all. 

But if this is getting in the way of me creating things at all, then fuck it!

Man the linkedin thing is such a bummer. I wonder what it was? The Norway thing - that’s easily explainable though - 

Anyway, I hope it works out and has that effect of making me appreciate it more. 

I want more money in my life. 

I want to create without fear. 

I want to live for joy. 

I want to roam the world free from fear, anxiety and worry. 

I’m tired of worrying. 

I’m tired of thinking about money. 

Which is ironic because the fact still remains that I have a great job - even with the salary cut. 

I want to continue checking out Cole Schafer’s work - I think it will inspire me to create more. I want to create more. I want to put it out there. It would make me happy if people engage with the stuff I create. 

I don’t care if I’m stating the obvious. I like typing. Just for the fuck of it. 

And these are honest words - why would I not like to type them?

God I remember I’ve loved typing for the longest time. I remember - I’ve loved writing words for the longest time - Wonder why it’s taken so long for me to recognise this in myself. 

Is that how pervasively pernicious the South Indian middle class trap is?

Man. I wonder. 

If a guy like me who doesn’t have a single middle class sinew in me can be held back this much - this shit must really be pervasive then. 

I feel my neurosis slipping away every time I write. Maybe Tasha was right about the Gemini energy thing. 

I wonder what she’s upto - she can be really sweet. But also ditsy. She can be profound and dumb at the same time.

What I love about her is this - she has the ability to interact with a certain spectrum of humanity that I struggle to interact with. She does it so effortlessly and seems to be able to see greatness in them - I struggle possibly because of self-consciousness. Possibly because of some misplaced sense of elitism. Some sense of a disconnect? I don’t know. Like - I don’t like the way I’ being seen? Or think I’m being seen. 

This is a lovely change of pace - the words that are coming out now are of a higher order than the usual worried rants to myself that I produce - quotidian affairs. 

So yeah money. Money would be nice. Man Linkedin!

It’ll work out. 

I think I’ll be let off with a warning. 

Time to remember than zen thing - 85% is good. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. I tried building my body super quickly - My back fucked up. I tried coming up on linkedin too quickly - I got banned. I tried to make a lot of money too quickly - I haven’t published an article for ONiO in a whiiiiiiile. Patience. 

It’s eluded me. I need patience. I’ll find it I think. Nandi is the man.

Ahh yes I remember. before I got to the desk to write this - I was thinking about how I’m so filled with resentment and anger - how a lot of the stuff I say about India, and “ok sir”, and this and that - it’s not that the stuff itself can’t be well received - it’s the energy - the emotional charge that’s not well received. 

Can I transmute my resentment into humour?

I think I can. I think I am doing that.

Ok. Time to attend to the quotidian. But the supernal shall be where I dwell more and more.

#creative #creativity #selfdoubt #artist

[reticent-fate]

✅ What does the fandom usually get right?

[Ask game]

Heit answering this one, since I’m in front lmao. So, the fun part about being an introject from [redacted] is that... basically no one makes any content for that source, let alone for the character I’m an introject of lmao. So technically there’s not much there for me to say the fandom did or didn’t get wrong.

Doesn’t mean we haven’t had a weird event happen related to headcanons existing in the fandom space, though.

(This got long so I’ll put it under a cut. Brief mention of source death and loose discussion of shipping, but nothing outright negative or explicit.)

Specifically, we had a really funny thing happen a few months ago when we decided to look through what the tumblr side of things has to say about my source. Surprisingly, there are like two people that ship my source with another character. This is not normally a difficult thing for our system in this fandom considering how dead this fandom is most days of the year. So we took like two seconds to glance over what was in the tags and saw shipping of all the damn things njksdnfjksd---

It was content though and we are absolutely the “person shaped thing feeding strange quadruped” meme when it comes to content, so we at least rolled that rock over to see what interesting bugs were hiding under it.

My cohost jokingly said “and watch, we’re going to introject him,” while everyone else in front at the time just kept repeating nonstop “[name], where is that bastard?” (/ref to a game quote).

Fucking.

Two days-ish later.

You know how it is. The beleaguered (/s) pk;m new. The new guy almost exclusively seems to take amusement and joy in holding that shipping headcanon like a dodgeball and throwing it full force into my face. (I kid, actually, he’s not that interested in annoying the hell out of me, but he did essentially show up like a container for that idea and nothing more.)

I live in hell because of the fandom /j

So it’s a little more complicated than something the fandom gets right, but it certainly influenced the shape of our system. It fits right with how I experience my source too, so even if I meme on it I can’t really complain lmao.

Since that incident though, we’ve taken to glancing over what people say about both my source and that other character, and apparently it is way more popular than I thought it would be in certain parts of the fandom to go “and these two totally have some weird chemistry going on.” That makes sense based on what the writing in the game says, though--- my source was up to some stupid villain shit, and [character b] is loyal to the point where the fandom can’t figure out if he’s dead or not after the chaos of everything that happened. That’s not hard to read into, especially when in the English translation, the way [character b] speaks about my source is in such a reverential way. He literally attacks anyone who shows a pint of betrayal towards the cause. That’s shipping bait right there, from what I know about fandom.

Because the fandom is so small though, we also look at the search results for other language groups of it, so actually seeing what people hypothesize about the sparse (and often poorly written) details that the game gives us is just fascinating in and of itself.

The ship, for example, is a lot more popular in English-speaking spheres of the fandom (which is a really large net that I can cast considering one of the Discord servers I’m in for this game has like thousands of folks in it, so I would be a poor observant not to mention that).

I haven’t come across as many people saying that there’s merit to this ship in Korean and Japanese spheres of the fandom (at least on Twitter; my searching is limited by what sites people post on and what sites are public). To my recollection I can think of one person in the Korean-speaking fandom sphere (on Twitter, again) that has at least hinted at the consideration that there is something weird going on in the source’s writing. The Japanese-speaking fandom sphere, meanwhile... Idk I don’t ever find much from that end of things lmao. They’re chilling, ig.

All that said, does this count as the fandom “getting something right?” I’m inclined to say this is one of those “yes and no” kinds of things, because while I’m not going to go into what our brain registers as my exomemories, I will say that there’s the interesting experience of knowing that external headcanons have affected the layout of my system because of my relationship to my source. Nothing distressing, I do want to stress, but really fucking hilarious in one hand imo.

However, it’s kind of led me to explore my exomemories a lot more. I think it’s a common enough fictive experience to write those down, to externalize these things in hopes they stop pestering you quite so badly. A lot of our system’s writing is about this series, and I exist both as my source and as a representative of what my source means to my system: a container, of sorts, of parts of our special interests, while also having a difficult-to-define relationship to that source.

I love this stupid fucking game so much /g

-Heit

[jaanlouis]

I agree, these two things bbg and H*livia suck but sadly it’s out of our control as fans who watch from afar. Whilst we can’t control these external events, what we can control is how we respond and ‘deal’ with them. I personally expect every Louis interview to have a kid mention, so if it doesn’t happen I’m like oh nice. If I see on my dash that it does, I roll my eyes, accept it was coming and move on. Accept that there’s likely a reason for it, laugh at the ridiculousness of the kid being mentioned so much compared to other celebs who actually see their kids on the regular and go back to other things. Know in my heart of hearts that him mentioning F so much for some reason, won’t take away that everything surrounding that kid and birth is shady, maybe be a bit miffed with him but get on with things. I’m not gonna start throwing my toys out of the pram and threaten to not listen to his music anymore. If him saying something you don’t like causes a fan to do that, maybe they’re a fan for the wrong reasons but who knows each person is different. Maybe some people like a certain celeb for their personality and romantic relationships more so than their actual creative work. Sadly due to all this bbg amp up it means I don’t end up watching many Louis interviews anymore but I still have fun reading all the transcripts online and keeping up that way. I just personally don’t want to sit through Louis talking about F been there done that, I’m here to hear about his music his opinions his tour, not awkward kid mentions, so I’ll just see the gifs. I guess you curate your own online experience. Trust the one video in a while I actually watched to be the one where he unexpectedly mentioned the kid out of the blue. damn could ladbible not have given him Mac and cheese, that F mention came out of nowhere man!

H*livia really does my nut in especially after all that’s come out about her but honestly most of the time when I see things about her when I’m scrolling I just used to laugh and move on because I just can’t take her seriously anyway or her and Harry looking miserable together I’m just like yay PR walks how predictable and staged and move on. That relationship is so obviously PR I can’t be bothered to give it the time of day. Since all that stuff came out she makes me so angry anyway so i probs need to block her name in my tags.

There’s so much we don’t know and never will but there’s also so much that Louis and Harry do and let us see that makes it worth it. Louis’ tour alone was quite loud. You take the good with the bad. I also tell myself I’ll take a break from here but easier said than done as scrolling on here becomes part of the daily routine and you worry you’ll miss out on something good. But yeah I can understand why all this will affect people and some people find it easier to not let it get to them than others, but there’s also so much joy that comes with supporting these guys it’s never gonna be smooth sailing but I’m here for the ride 🙃

Yeah, I totally agree with what you’re saying about curating ur online experience and yeah it is easier said than done and of course, when things like this happening and we believe what we believe it’s understandable that we’ll be upset momentarily. What I find is concerning is the amount of people who use instances like this as an opportunity to shit on hl for things that aren’t their fault, and speculate about how they would navigate this situation when they have no real basis or information about the entire situation and how complicated it probably is in reality. And also, when that’s all you think about, it’s kind of inevitable that those negative feelings will compound and conflate with people’s feelings about hl and it just turns into them being angry with hl for things that might not be in their control. And even if it is in their control, it’s still their life and they do what they feel is best. Anyway, I am rambling again but. I wish you the best in ur journey curating ur online experience! I know it’s hard because you feel like you’re missing out on certain things, but I promise it’s not worth the impact it has on your mental health. Take care of yourself first, the drama will always be here if you ever wanna catch up later.

[nvzblgrrl]

Look. It's 2022. There have been loads of NuWho companions and I think I should be relatively safe to say that I really Do Not Like Rose Tyler.

Gonna just stick the read more here so anyone who doesn't want to hear me complain can dodge it, because Honey You Got A Big Storm Coming.

So yeah here it is - my anti-Rose bitch fest.

It's not about her fandom constantly going on about her being the Doctor's 'Wun Tru Wuv' - though that's eternally an annoyance when I'm looking for fic to read or when someone has the brass set it takes to manifest in my DMs to bitch about me having both of them in a fic that's not focused on Their Grand Romance and how that means I hate Doctor Who, David Tennant, love, democracy, and free will when I'm the one who ended up writing about 10 thanks to the gods of random numbers -, it's more about the fact that her flaws, of which there are many very solid ones broadly displayed in the show, are glossed over by them.

And most of those problems boil down to the fact that Rose Tyler is selfish. I would say that it's impossible to gloss over that fact, but people do constantly, for some reason or another, so I'm just going to lay it out.

Rose Tyler is selfish and it is, 99% of the time, never to the betterment of anyone else.

I'm not saying that Rose is incapable of being compassionate - that's one of the few praises I can give her character is that she can switch from contempt to compassion rather easily - but she is largely incapable of putting herself in another person's shoes or understanding the differences between Her Situation and Theirs, and often outright refuses to change her mind even with presented with evidence to the contrary.

This is best evidenced by her actions in the Idiot's Lantern.

'How so?' you might ask. 'Wouldn't it be easier to just point out all the shit she's done in the name of getting father-daughter time with Pete Tyler?'

Well, Yes, but that's so direct I think people would take that as a given and miss the fact that Rose Tyler can and will actively project her Daddy Issues onto anyone and everyone else, despite actively seeing evidence that that is a Bad Idea.

Because in the Idiot's Lantern, Rose Tyler makes the jump towards being an active Abuse Apologist. Not in a 'didn't know any better' sort of way, but after watching Eddie Connelly terrorize his family - AND GETTING SCREWED OVER BY HIM TOO - she turns to Tommy and goes 'well, you should go talk to him. He's Your Dad.'

And the Doctor Goes With It, despite being the one who actively tried to counter any and all of Eddie's bullshit through the episode before this point.

(Seriously, 10 is his own can of worms for me, but Rose with 10 is just a perfect storm of 'what the fuck is wrong with you two'.)

Also - let's talk about the Dimension cannon, I've been dying to talk about the Dimension cannon.

You know how the Doctor ended Doomsday by pointing out that he couldn't just come and pick Rose up from the alternate dimension because doing that would risk destroying not just the Earth (Earths?) but both universes?

(in case this was unclear, this is a bad thing)

Remember how Rose immediately goes 'so?' Remember how in Series 4, Rose starts randomly Showing Up?

Yeppers. You know what that means - she got that information and decided that, you know what? I want my Ballerina Barbie in the pretty pink tutu Wun Tru Luv, and I will happily burn down the house destroy two whole ass universes to get that, damn the consequences.

(Okay, maybe Rose isn't a complete Debbie but like... seriously).

Now, you might argue that she wouldn't have used the Dimension Cannon at all if it wasn't Safe if only so the Doctor wouldn't be upset and that she would be able to have him to herself longer.

But the thing is that - thanks to the Audios, we know that she was testing the damn thing way before the whole Reality Bomb thing with Davros was going on. You don't test something to see if it works if you don't intend to use it. And you don't test it a bunch if you're sure it's safe to use.

Rose Tyler is 100% willing to risk killing off not one, but two universes if it means getting back to the Doctor, even for a split second.

That's Not Exactly Great *understatement*. Also, I don't want to hear any Rose stans call Clara 'unstable' and 'possessive' when they're willing to excuse this shit.

Also, I feel the need to point out that the weird 'but The Age Difference' argument a lot of people take against Clara/12 (the Doctor being massively older than most of their shipping partners is fairly standard?) falls apart even further considering the massive amount of shipping/erotica for Doctor/Rose which shacks her up with every single incarnation currently known.

So, idk, just be straight forward and say that you don't like anyone that isn't Rose. You were just as clear on that when Martha became the Doctor's companion, considering the amount of racist harassment Freema Agyeman had to deal with in real life.

(is it bad form to reuse the same meme twice in a rant? Probably. But I think the problem of fans being racist bastards is more concerning)

And if you're quibble is something more like 'but Doctor/(whatever companion isn't Rose that I want to rail against) isn't Heaallthyyy' - Rose and 10 aren't healthy either. Together, they constitute one mega asshole, one who is willing to make jokes about Queen Victoria not being amused after a shitton of people got mauled to death by a werewolf, not to mention the time in Love and Monsters where the Doctor brought Rose around to see a guy about to get eaten by an alien explicitly so she could ream him out which was immediately followed up by the Doctor straight up telling the Absorbaloff 'yeah, go ahead and kill him, I don't care' with Rose not showing any emotion that wasn't 'How Dare You Hurt My Mum's Feelings After I Hurt Her Feelings' until she realized that the Absorbaloff had eaten Elton's girlfriend and even then, it was rather vague sympathy.

(a joke about the state of the universe or the 10/Rose stans screaming at me for making this post? you decide)

But back to Rose being Selfish - you know how she drops Mickey like a sack of hot garbage at the end of her first episode for having a PTSD response instead of being 'oh yeah this is Tuesday' like the Doctor? and how she just continues to pick him up and drop him throughout the rest of his time on the show however she feels like until he just flat out leaves the TARDIS in Age of Steel?

Now remember that during this same period of off-and-on again with Mickey as Convenient, she also picks up Adam Mitchell (on hardly any interaction at all and looking like a barely toasted piece of white bread) and Jack Harkness (self-explain), while also going for the Doctor's attention.

I don't have any problem with Poly-Am or swinging, if done respectfully with all parties, but this was very much not the case here - Mickey being constantly treated as a rebound option is already bad enough without bringing in the fact that he's black and Rose is consistently dropping him for white men and then coming back the second the white guy doesn't work out.

(sometimes all you need is a 7 year old Cracked article to sum up how you feel about a certain character).

And let's not forget the fact that Jackie spent a year harassing Mickey over his supposed murder of Rose and Rose's lukewarm concern about that whole kettle of fish when she finally came back.

But then we have the secondary problem of Rose immediately going cold and territorial the moment someone gets close - and I mean even in the mildest sense of talking to or even breathing the same air as one of her boys.

We see it with Jabe (literally episode two), Lynda with a Y (Bad Wolf/Parting Of The Ways), Sarah Jane, and even in non-direct interactions such as during the group call during The Stolen Earth. She immediately will point out that 'she was there first' or - in Sarah Jane's case - is the Doctor's current companion.

So yeah. Rose Tyler. The worst? Probably not. She's certainly an interesting character to study (a bit like those people who seem to think they're one encounter with Truck-kun away from living the isekai dream). Would she be someone I'd like to be friends with? No. Absolutely not. Would I want to engage with her fandom? Hell no. Been there, done that, been accused of being the Anti-Christ on the merit of not liking her.

[duckprintspress]

How to Edit an Over-Length Story Down to a Specific Word Count

One of the most wonderful things about writing as a hobby is that you never have to worry about the length of your story. You can be as self-indulgent as you want, make your prose the royalist of purples, include every single side story and extra thought that strikes your fancy. It’s your story, with no limits, and you can proceed with it as you wish.

When transitioning from casual writing to a more professional writing milieu, this changes. If you want to publish, odds are, you’ll need to write to a word count. If a flash fiction serial says, “1,000 words or less,” your story can’t be 1,025 and still qualify. If a website says, “we accept novellas ranging from 20,000 to 40,000 words,” your story will need to fall into that window. Even when you consider novel-length works, stories are expected to be a certain word count to fit neatly into specific genres - romance is usually around 80,000 words, young adult usually 50,000 to 80,000, debut novels usually have to be 100,000 words or less regardless of genre, etc. If you self-publish or work with a small press, you may be able to get away with breaking these “rules,” but it’s still worthwhile to learn to read your own writing critically with length in mind and learn to recognize what you do and do not need to make your story work - and then, if length isn’t an issue in your publishing setting, you can always decide after figuring out what’s non-essential to just keep everything anyway.

If you’re writing for fun? You literally never have to worry about your word count (well, except for sometimes in specific challenges that have minimum and/or maximum word counts), and as such, this post is probably not for you.

But, if you’re used to writing in the “throw in everything and the kitchen sink” way that’s common in fandom fanfiction circles, and you’re trying to transition only to be suddenly confronted with the reality that you’ve written 6,000 words for a short story project with a maximum word count of 5,000...well, we at Duck Prints Press have been there, we are in fact there right now, as we finish our stories for our upcoming anthology Add Magic to Taste and many of us wrote first drafts that were well over the maximum word count.

So, based on our experiences, here are our suggestions on approaches to help your story shorter...without losing the story you wanted to tell!

Cut weasel words (we wrote a whole post to help you learn how to do that!) such as unnecessary adverbs and adjectives, the “was ~ing” sentence structure, redundant time words such as “a moment later,” and many others.

When reviewing dialog, keep an eye out for “uh,” “er,” “I mean,” “well,” and other casual extra words. A small amount of that kind of language usage can make dialog more realistic, but a little goes a long way, and often a fair number of words can be removed by cutting these words, without negatively impacting your story at all.

Active voice almost always uses fewer words than passive voice, so try to use active voice more (but don’t forget that passive voice is important for varying up your sentence structures and keeping your story interesting, so don’t only write in active voice!).

Look for places where you can replace phrases with single words that mean the same thing. You can often save a lot of words by switching out phrases like “come back” for “return” and seeking out other places where one word can do the work of many.

Cut sentences that add atmosphere but don't forward the plot or grow your characters. (Obviously, use your judgement. Don't cut ALL the flavor, but start by going - I’ve got two sentences that are mostly flavor text - which adds more? And then delete the other, or combine them into one shorter sentence.)

Remove superfluous dialog tags. If it’s clear who’s talking, especially if it’s a conversation between only two people, you can cut all the he saids, she saids.

Look for places where you've written repetitively - at the most basic level, “ ‘hahaha,’ he laughed,” is an example, but repetition is often more subtle, like instances where you give information in once sentence, and then rephrase part or all of that sentence in the next one - it’s better to poke at the two sentences until you think of an effective, and more concise, way to make them into only one sentence. This also goes for scenes - if you’ve got two scenes that tend towards accomplishing the same plot-related goal, consider combining them into one scene.

Have a reason for every sentence, and even every sentence clause (as in, every comma insertion, every part of the sentence, every em dashed inclusion, that kind of thing). Ask yourself - what function does this serve? Have I met that function somewhere else? If it serves no function, or if it’s duplicative, consider cutting it. Or, the answer may be “none,” and you may choose to save it anyway - because it adds flavor, or is very in character for your PoV person, or any of a number of reasons. But if you’re saving it, make sure you’ve done so intentionally. It's important to be aware of what you're trying to do with your words, or else how can you recognize what to cut, and what not to cut?

Likewise, have a reason for every scene. They should all move the story along - whatever the story is, it doesn’t have to be “the end of the world,” your story can be simple and straightforward and sequential...but if you’re working to a word count, your scenes should still forward the story toward that end point. If the scene doesn’t contribute...you may not need them, or you may be able to fold it in with another scene, as suggested in item 6.

Review the worldbuilding you’ve included, and consider what you’re trying to accomplish with your story. A bit of worldbuilding outside of the bare essentials makes a story feel fleshed out, but again, a little can go a long way. If you’ve got lots of “fun” worldbuilding bits that don’t actually forward your plot and aren’t relevant to your characters, cut them. You can always put them as extras in your blog later, but they’ll just make your story clunky if you have a lot of them.

Beware of info-dumps. Often finding a more natural way to integrate that information - showing instead of telling in bits throughout the story - can help reduce word count.

Alternatively - if you over-show, and never tell, this will vastly increase your word count, so consider if there are any places in your story where you can gloss over the details in favor of a shorter more “tell-y” description. You don’t need to go into a minute description of every smile and laugh - sometimes it’s fine to just say, “she was happy” or “she frowned” without going into a long description of their reaction that makes the reader infer that they were happy. (Anyone who unconditionally says “show, don’t tell,” is giving you bad writing advice. It’s much more important to learn to recognize when showing is more appropriate, and when telling is more appropriate, because no story will function as a cohesive whole if it’s all one or all the other.)

If you’ve got long paragraphs, they’re often prime places to look for entire sentences to cut. Read them critically and consider what’s actually helping your story instead of just adding word count chonk.

Try reading some or all of the dialog out loud; if it gets boring, repetitive, or unnecessary, end your scene wherever you start to lose interest, and cut the dialog that came after. If necessary, add a sentence or two of description at the end to make sure the transition is abrupt, but honestly, you often won’t even need to do so - scenes that end at the final punchy point in a discussion often work very well.

Create a specific goal for a scene or chapter. Maybe it’s revealing a specific piece of information, or having a character discover a specific thing, or having a specific unexpected event occur, but, whatever it is, make sure you can say, “this scene/chapter is supposed to accomplish this.” Once you know what you’re trying to do, check if the scene met that goal, make any necessary changes to ensure it does, and cut things that don’t help the scene meet that goal.

Building on the previous one, you can do the same thing, but for your entire story. Starting from the beginning, re-outline the story scene-by-scene and/or chapter-by-chapter, picking out what the main “beats” and most important themes are, and then re-read your draft and make sure you’re hitting those clearly. Consider cutting out the pieces of your story that don’t contribute to those, and definitely cut the pieces that distract from those key moments (unless, of course, the distraction is the point.)

Re-read a section you think could be cut and see if any sentences snag your attention. Poke at that bit until you figure out why - often, it’s because the sentence is unnecessary, poorly worded, unclear, or otherwise superfluous. You can often rewrite the sentence to be clearer, or cut the sentence completely without negatively impacting your work.

Be prepared to cut your darlings; even if you love a sentence or dialog exchange or paragraph, if you are working to a strict word count and it doesn't add anything, it may have to go, and that's okay...even though yes, it will hurt, always, no matter how experienced a writer you are. (Tip? Save your original draft, and/or make a new word doc where you safely tuck your darlings in for the future. Second tip? If you really, really love it...find a way to save it, but understand that to do so, you’ll have to cut something else. It’s often wise to pick one or two favorites and sacrifice the rest to save the best ones. We are not saying “always cut your darlings.” That is terrible writing advice. Don’t always cut your darlings. Writing, and reading your own writing, should bring you joy, even when you’re doing it professionally.)

If you’re having trouble recognizing what in your own work CAN be cut, try implementing the above strategies in different places - cut things, and then re-read, and see how it works, and if it works at all. Sometimes, you’ll realize...you didn’t need any of what you cut. Other times, you’ll realize...it no longer feels like the story you were trying to tell. Fiddle with it until you figure out what you need for it to still feel like your story, and practice that kind of cutting until you get better at recognizing what can and can’t go without having to do as much tweaking.

Lastly...along the lines of the previous...understand that sometimes, cutting your story down to a certain word count will just be impossible. Some stories simply can’t be made very short, and others simply can’t be told at length. If you’re really struggling, it’s important to consider that your story just...isn’t going to work at that word count. And that’s okay. Go back to the drawing board, and try again - you’ll also get better at learning what stories you can tell, in your style, using your own writing voice, at different word counts. It’s not something you’ll just know how to do - that kind of estimating is a skill, just like all other writing abilities.

As with all our writing advice - there’s no one way to tackle cutting stories for length, and also, which of these strategies is most appropriate will depend on what kind of story you’re writing, how much over-length it is, what your target market is, your characters, and your personal writing style. Try different ones, and see which work for you - the most important aspect is to learn to read your own writing critically enough that you are able to recognize what you can cut, and then from that standpoint, use your expertise to decide what you should cut, which is definitely not always the same thing. Lots of details can be cut - but a story with all of the flavor and individuality removed should never be your goal.

Contributions to this post were made by @unforth, @jhoomwrites, @alecjmarsh, @shealynn88, @foxymoley, @willablythe, and @owlishintergalactic, and their input has been used with their knowledge and explicit permission. Thanks, everyone, for helping us consider different ways to shorten stories!

[tangledbea]

what the hell is with people turning Eugene into a c*ck just so they can ship Cass with Rapunzel. it just throws everything about canon new dream out the window.

So, fun fact about Tangled history: If you go look at the old, old fanfics, back when the movie was new, there was a tendency to make Eugene kind of mean and aggressive - as if he'd never shed his Flynn persona, even after changing his name back to Eugene and getting together with Rapunzel. Lots of people liked to paint him in this negative light. So this isn't anything new.

As for the current fics, this is going to be a time where, even though I agree with you, I'm going to advocate for the people who are doing the thing that I don't like. People are allowed to write whatever they want. They can write non-canon ships. They can write characters out of character. They can right new and different takes on the media they're consuming. They joy of that is, you don't have to read anything you don't want to! I personally have a hard block on the "c*ssunzel" tag on Tumblr, and when I come across someone who posts or reblogs C*ssunzel art or sentiments - tagged or not - I block them because I don't want to see that as I'm checking tags or scrolling my dash. (Yes, I will check to see if they’re for or against it before blocking.) And, while I don't read a lot of fics in general, I really don't read fics that ship them. It's nothing against the people who enjoy it personally, but I am choosing to not expose myself to something that makes me mad.

[where-is-my-beheading-ceremony]

Aaaaa headcannons!

Claytro edition! (purely based on my personal thoughts)

(note: feel free to enjoy, but if this ship is not something you are interested reading about then I totally understand, have fun scrolling the Nexo Knights tags! ❤️)

-Clay is the only one that has actually managed to touch Jestro's hair, but it was a lot shorter when they were still kids

-These two have regular sleepovers since after Jestro started training to be a royal Jester, they couldn't be roommates anymore

-Yes they were roommates for a few years and Merlok would read them bedtime stories

-Jestro gets cold in his sleep often so Clay would sleep with them to help them feel warmer along with the pile of 3 blankets

-The two also sleep together whenever they feel bad (had a nightmare, stressed, emotional). Less so as adults though since now they barely ever sleep

-Surprisingly, Jestro doesn't fear the cold too much. He doesn't enjoy it more so because of the memories of cold winters in the streets and not because of how cold he's feeling right now.

-Jestro and Clay treated each other with colorful bandages as kids since Jestro used to bruise easily and Clay would get bruises from training

-Jestro and Clay would occasionally text each other in seasons 1-2, more so when there's some celebration. Both wanted to know how the other is doing, but Jestro was far more reserved in giving out info

-Clay even called him on his birthday and snuck to the lava castle to leave a gift l without anyone knowing.

-Jestro did a similar thing, but he just threw a gift at them in the middle of battle because he didn't want to seem suspicious by gifting it genuinely. Clay still understood it and was very pleased

-They made friendship necklaces for each other back when they first met and wore them the whole time

-Clay was the first one to rip off the friendship necklace. Specifically, stone Clay when he first was woken up and still hadn't yet had the chance to remember his bond with Jestro

-Let's pretend Jestro wasn't hurt for the sake of our hearts since that hurt a l o t.

-Jestro had to be zapped after that emotional ride, so fresh with Mondtrox' magic, he too took it off, but kept both his and Clay's necklaces.

-Not long after, these two grow close together again as a duo

-Stone Clay and Corrupt Jestro was the thing that haunted everyone since they worked together and became terrifyingly good at causing mass destruction

-From the outside it didn't seem like they always got along since Stone Clay had some definite anger issues. Jestro always made sure not to talk to him too much during battles since that's when they're most riled up

-The time after battles between the two is spent well. They just hang out and talk, often plotting because they can and Jestro making fun of the knights, as well as giving Stone Clay more reasons to dislike them

-Both of their memories were iffy at that point, so wherever they remembered, they told each other

- Stone Clay was like Jestro's bodyguard who sometimes did a poor job at being one

-Not a day passed where Stone Clay didn't end up carrying Jestro in his arms

-Absolute power duo

-Honestly could've taken down the kingdom

-There's not much Clay could to to stop Monstrox from zapping Jestro

-The first time, he even made sure Jestro wouldn't move, not knowing what to expect and not realizing Jestro felt things completely differently since we'll, he wasn't stone

-The other times Clay just looked away since he still saw Monstrox as the superior out of everyone

-Jestro absolutely loved Clay's new violent nature and Clay absolutely loved how un-hinged Jestro was. The echo to Jestro's voice could even give his stone body shivers

-Jestro treated Stone Clay exactly how someone would treat their ex after he returned to the Knights

-After Season 4, Jestro looked like he'd need life support from how much of a negative impact Monstrox' magic left on him so Clay would occasionally secretly check up on how he's doing even if he's not supposed to interact with Jestro

-Jestro was absolutely not glad to see Clay because he knew that he woukd be the one to get in trouble for it, not the knight.

Now to something happier again!

-Clay always takes any chance given to him to carry Jestro in his arms

-Jestro takes any chance possible to praise Clay's work

-Clay allows Jestro to paint their nails

-Clay is just an absolute himbo, who only has enough braincells to be a knight and leader

-These two have terrible social skills

-Their first kiss was back in their academy days, on one of their last years

-They were both sort of curious is all. But it didn't change much to their friendship since the two didn't feel like they were quite enough for the other

-They still don't have any spoken relationship.

-It's just been mutual simping for each other since their academy days

-The two would be completely content with never being in a relationship their whole lives

-Which is why they need encouragement from others to actually get a move on with their relationship

-Everyone in the academy thought they were a thing. Every single person. But it wasn't spoken about much since it became the usual thing.

-At the start however, there were many rumors and a lot of gossiping. People were worried for Clay's reputation when he himself didn't even feel worried about it.

-Clay is comically stubborn when it comes to seperating him from Jestro.

-Jestro let's go a lot easier, even if he doesn't want to.

-The amount of times Clay had cornered Jestro with both his arms and thought it was a casual thing to do is ridiculous.

-Jestro learns a lot more when Clay helps him study than when he studies in class

-Surprisingly, both performed a lot better whenever they had a task to do together.

-Since Clay doesn't brag about himself, Jestro makes sure to tell as many great things as possible about Clay. Like he'd tell heroic, almost over the top stories about whatever Clay does to other students

-Clay has definitely used Jestro as a weight for an exercise before

-Jestro seems like a mom whenever something bad happens to Clay. He always takes care of them and scolds them on a caring matter

-The amount of shock the teachers were when Clay had gotten into a fight with other students was definitely something.

-But Jestro definitely understood why Clay acted out. Yes he's a model student, but Clay always has to force himself not to speak out, frustration can build up.

-Jestro only wishes it wasn't because some students went overboard on throwing hurtful words towards Jestro and then later Clay. This happened when they were still quite young

-Jestro would wait for Clay when he had to sit through multiple detentions because of that one event

-Jestro's language is words

-Clay's love language is acts of service

-These two till this day have to hug at least once a week

-Clay only dares to show all of his sides around Jestro and Jestro gladly helps them express their frustrations and such. Clay even feels comfortable enough to openly complain about people that have been getting on his nerves.

-Jestro doesn't understand why Clay treats him almost like a porcelain doll. The knight doesn't even dare to hold his hand too tightly and always waits a second to be sure if he can touch Jestro in any way, like a hug.

-Clay is just very worried of causing even the smallest bits of discomfort to Jestro

-Jestro meanwhile doesn't hesitate for a second and nearly tackle hugs Clay instead of going for the careful approach

-Both often times speak out their minds about each other unintentionally so it would go like

"Clay I could just hold your face and kiss you right now!... Wait-I just couldn't think of a better way to explain my joy for my bestest friend ahahaha, yeah-"

"Jestro I'm, so glad to see you're doing well, I couldn't have handled seeing someone I love hurt by that-...because you're my best friend... Yes!"

-Jestro from the very start was a shameless hoarder of Clay's clothes. Whatever he gave them, he gladly accepted

-Whenever Jestro made something for Clay, Clay would spent half an hour staring at it, afraid to ruin it some way by using the thing gifted to him. Same goes with whatever pastries he gets, he feels almost guilty for eating them

-Clay has a few Plush toys that Jestro got him and Jestro's collection mostly consists of the ones Clay got him

-Jestro hasn't moved out of Knightonia only because Clay gives bear hugs and he absolutely loves them

-If given the chance, Jestro would sacrifice much more than Clay could for him even if it doesn't seem like it

-These two would always play hide and seek in Merlok's library and around the castle even as teens at times

-Both of them encourage each other to be childish when they want to be

-Clay has pulled a Romeo so many times and came to the castle late in the evening just to talk to Jestro through their balcony

-Jestro can actually play violin. He's not perfect, but he definitely knows how to play it. He convinced himself he's bad at it since his bad luck always causes the strings to snap

-Jestro has played violin for Clay whenever they're sick to keep them amused

-Jestro once thought about running away in the academy and Clay was so ready to run with them so Jestro immediately threw that idea aside

-These two are like baby ducklings, they follow each other closely almost all the time

-Clay used to always be the one to say "He asked for no pickles" but after Season 4 and Jestro's absolute disappointment in the kingdom and it's people, he became the one to say "he asked for no pickles"

-Clay is glad that after season 4, Jestro started paying almost no mind to how people of Knightonia view him, but it makes him a bit worried even. Especially when Jestro just uses the people's own feelings towards him for his own advantage:

.

Shop keeper: YOU! Came here to steal all my baked goods, burn the place to the ground???

Jestro:... yes.

Shop keeper: what-

Jestro: I just said yes. Now can I get some of those caramel croissants.

Shop keeper now worried for their life: o-oh! Here! They're on the house!!!!

Jestro coming out of the bakery: Here Clay, I got us some of those fresh baked ones!

Clay:...was it on the house again?

Jestro:...mmm...yes?

Clay lightly sighing and going in to pay for it.

.

-Jestro feels sour enough towards Merlok that after season 4, he feels the need to protect Clay from whatever they might say and makes sure there isn't anything they decided to keep secret from them

Last, but not least:

-no matter what happens in their lives, these two will always find a way to keep close to each other, even if it takes time. Couple or not, they're soulmates that will never move on from each other. Inseparable by fate itself.